#why did he feel the need to post that ??? theres no indication of positive or negative ? i dont remember what he was feeling | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chiveburger · 4 years ago

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I wasn’t planning to write this tonight, or rather... I thought I’ve gotten past the need to write this, but turns out I was wrong. for the last few days I’ve been thinking about how to put everything into words, kind of mulling over it and even though I wasn’t (for a while) plagued with the need to express every little bit of everything onto the internet part of me felt like with time, just maybe, I can keep these words to myself. I guess I can’t.

a week or more ago I went awol for a couple days. not just on tumblr, but on many of my close friends. there’s really no way to put this elegantly, but my aunt passed away. It’s a complicated story but in short, she was a very important part of my childhood and really my life as a whole. some years back the relationship between many of our relatives including my family (other than me) and her went very sour, to the point that she cut off all contact with us. I’m not young, but I’m not very old either so I couldn’t do much to salvage this. adults and I mean adult adults do this thing where they try to separate children from their fights as a means to keep them in this bubble of false security, but as long as you fight... everyone is affected. all the words I want to say are jumbled and I don’t really know where this is all going to end up, nor am I positive what I’m feeling or have felt is a single solitary emotion.

I recently watched the movie “dear ex”. It talks about a woman with her teenage son finding out that her husband has “turned’ gay and decided to move out into his boyfriend’s home. after he dies, he names him as a beneficiary and not his son. If I watched this movie prior to this january I probably wouldn’t have reacted so strongly, but in the movie they reveal that her husband has loved this man his whole life. as a means to start a normal life, he abandons romance and lives a lie until he’s diagnosed with cancer. during his final months, he realizes he wants to be with the person he truly loves and he files for divorce with his wife. his boyfriend takes care of him until his dying moments... the thing is, whenever you’re in mourning you feel like everything you watch, everything you read, everything you see is connected. as if the world is giving you signs, whether it’s to deepen your pain or to provide some sense of comfort.

so that movie, however outlandish and uncorrelated somehow in some ways hit a little too close to home. my aunt passed away from cancer, and during all those years where she stopped communication she never once mentioned she was sick. not even once. I respect privacy, I really do and sometimes when you feel like everything is out of your own control maybe the only thing you have a say in is what you keep a secret. I didn’t know what to feel... was it guilt? for not contacting her enough or even just attempting to rebuild the relationship between her family and our relatives? was it hate? did I hate her for not telling me how sick she was when she knew I loved her? was it sadness? knowing that I never got to see her in the last 7 years I’ve been in school and work, that I’ll never hear her voice? even now, when I’ve confirmed that I’ve found closure I know I haven’t, I might not ever and I still don’t know what I’m feeling.

In that movie, they play out how the husband becomes sick. how painful it was for him, yet how bright his boyfriend always was. he didn’t hesitate to take care of him when he was barely mobile, how he was willing to go to loan sharks to pay for his hospital bills, how at every moment whether it was at home or in the hospital he wanted to be with him, provide for him, loved him till his last moments. my uncle did that. my uncle did that for his wife, and he endured all of that alone and he kept these last couple years a complete secret from us. even when he’s the one who's hurting the most he’s still able to send messages to my mom telling her that he’s okay. so I guess seeing that play out in a movie, even without any knowledge whether or not that’s what my uncle and aunt even went through broke my heart a little. It’s easy to make up your own stories, especially when you’re sad. It’s not very healthy but it happens.

part of me always held onto hope that when I went back to hong kong, I could be the one who rekindled the relationship between my aunt and us. I could bring us together again, and that everything was a misunderstanding that would be resolved with a bit more familial love. being a child stuck in the middle of a feud between adults is really hard, and chances are in another timeline where I did all of this... the result might have been the same. maybe in that timeline I’d feel less guilty, or maybe she reached out to us before the situation was dire. I’m not sure if I would’ve been happier... maybe, I’d come to closure better though.

over the last few days I’ve concluded that I’m going to have questions with no answers. that, when I go back to hong kong I’ll never see my aunt again. that the last memory I have of her was when I was 18 and just starting university. that I’ll never know why she stopped talking to us, whether she truly hated us or she wanted to keep her sickness private. I also know all these feelings I’m feeling are rational and logical. that the close to decade lack of communication created a buffer that made my mourning more streamline. all those emotions of guilt, love, sadness, anger are all normal.

theres a line in the movie “hating something and having no power over things is two different things”. I know that I don’t hate my aunt, I might not have understood her but I don’t hate her. I never will. I truly, undeniably, without a doubt loved her unconditionally and sincerely. no sort of fight or year-long loss of communication will ever make me think otherwise. my feelings towards her have never changed, and I can only hope that she felt the same way towards me. knowing that I can only hope is probably what makes me so sad. all those memories she gave me as a child, as a young teenager and all those moments she complimented me, loved me, treated me with respect and care and cooked for me, laughed with me and took photos with me... I remember them all. I remember them all.

sometimes, I get scared that if I’m bottling up all my feelings I’ll get sick. more mentally than physically. so when I want to cry I cry, privately at least. when I feel sad I don’t try to cover it up with anything but I wonder... by telling myself my feelings are justified and that I’m not in the wrong and repeating all of these words of comfort over and over and over again... am I bottling up my feelings? are they getting buried somewhere deep in my heart and then are they going to erupt someday without me realizing? I don’t really know. there’s something I do know, or I think I know. I know that even if I were to go back to hong kong sooner I might not have done anything for her or our relationship. even if I reached out more, even if I did everything I could to make sure she was okay... it doesn’t mean things could’ve changed. either way, it’s not healthy to get caught up in hypotheticals but when it’s all you can do it’s hard not to.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, or get myself to believe is that being born into your families and having the relatives you have are (sometimes) a blessing. to have met someone you share familial bonds with, who loves you, who thinks of you, who gets reminded of you through different things is a blessing. I’m blessed to have known my aunt. I’m blessed to be able to call her my aunt. I loved her entirely, despite everything that has happened and everything I feel. she married my uncle and gave birth to my cousin, all whom I also love desperately. even if our endings were always destined to be the same I wouldn’t change it. even though our time together wasn’t very long, even though I’m always going to feel a tinge of sadness over the mention of her and constantly have questions unanswered... it’s okay. memories don’t just disappear. feelings don’t just disappear either.

so even now, although it hasn’t been very long since she passed I don’t know how I’m feeling nor would I ever. the tears comes and goes, and I know that’s normal. feeling bad and asking questions with no answers is also normal. I know they’re normal, but maybe now isn’t the time to realize what’s normal and abnormal. maybe, I should just... be sad or at least accept that I’m powerless.

I think I’m okay though, without listing any indicators of normalcy in my everyday life I think I’m okay or least I hope I’m okay. I don’t really know yet. I wanted to say a lot in this post and evidently I did, but it doesn’t really have a conclusion, nor does it really need to. I’m still functional. I’m not swimming in a deep valley of sorrow everyday, unable to eat or sleep and I can talk about this freely to my family and friends. It’s just a little bit hard to say goodbye is all.

#don't reblog #borger diary

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seoafin · 4 years ago

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jjk & tower of god chapter on the same day,,, i spent all of my brainjuice talking abt tog w some friends + working on my wip so this one might be incoherent LMAO but nsjdhfjd this my 2 cents for the chp (1) - 🐱

first of all, the zenins shld just eat shit 🥰 the bar is just nonexistant now 😭😭😭

also maki’s mother said sth that hits way too close to home for me too🥴

the maki & mai, megumi & tsumiki "make a place where they are happy” parallels...mai,, maki wanted a place where u'd be happy!!! 😭😭😭 good points abt any interesting nuances the original jpn might have had though

ALSO MUSCLE MAKI IS HERE

and lmao megumi's "ew no" face ,,, i didn't think he could make a face like that JDJJDJD ,, once again i think his outsider-insider status is interesting but the amount of ppl counting on him/leaning on him bc of strategic position is a lot. ig this is what kamo meant by supporting the 3 families,,,, gojou indeed is playing the long game. megumi in the meantime, very persistent in not getting more involved in clan politics, not using power that is offered to him, or leveraging it - in a way it is good, and it also makes sense with "stress is other ppl" but is interesting from a structural pov. megumi may not rly give a shit abt the rest of the jujutsu world. if the ppl close to him are affected, then he cares. otherwise, forget it.

also im interested in power implications here bcs it sound a little like there’s a slight split b/w leadership and everyday zenins and im curious what it's like if u have no connection to the top of the clan,, and again higher ups being unaffiliated with the 3 clans so they have to appeal to them. curious what other talents the gojou clan have and what they're known for bc clearly it's not just gojou, they still have power without him and still have a stake in the shifting power structure. kamo must be busy too...

MAKIIIIII ,,, honestly my heart hurts a little seeing her getting beat up in recent chapters. but i’m rly happy,, shes FINALLY getting the focus she deserves and i’m confident she will make a recovery and she IS in fact the one leading efforts on the zenin side. im rly hopeful she can take over the clan one day and no longer say she's not good enough

that stomach wound is bad news though so im wondering how she will come back from that,, that she didn't know her own father's abilities says a lot, too. i wonder if she could see the extension of his blade, or if she hasn't been able to see/understand many ppl abilities

im hopeful for next chp now. u can do it maki!!!!

flashing back on these bits, it makes more sense now why megumi wasn't melting down post-shibuya,, seems most information came to him in a sort of timely and calm way? also i rly have to wonder if gojou did not spend a decade plotting in front him bcs he's done it before,,,, like the whole clan head scene in megumi's middle school years....in a way i imagine he wouldve seen that gojou come out of the high school and watch him get more serious as he acquired even more skin in the game

all the time though i wonder abt megumi's tendency toward inertia and nonaction to things that would seemingly give him power and trying to understand it and that IS him being selfish and that IS,, imo the biggest indication of what he actually does or doesn't want. he wants it, he will act and work on it immediately himself. he doesn't like it? act like it doesn't exist. it make me want to shake him around like NO!! megumi pay attention!!! But his reaction to this clan stuff is a contrast to his behavior in recent chapters imo

and more mahjong references,,, between this and yuuji’s pachinko,, i wonder abt the undercurrent of gambling haha. a gamble for the shaman world and who will come out on top? a contrast to the flowy ocean imagery that connects shaman stuff out to the rest of the world

also this ,,,, there's that one jp tweet (i cant find it again😞) that talks about how toji, as the point of distortion, created megumi, who is currently playing a potential convergence/healing/uniting role (if he actually takes it on as a responsibility lol) and connects this back to the medicine buddha,,, whose mudra (hand sign) is used for chimera shadow garden. with the commentary abt ppl with heavenly restriction needing to know what to throw away in order to become strong or tap into their full strength and toji’s commentary at the end of fight with gojou,, i actually always felt that toji died not having been entirely resolved with himself bc he talks abt going against the self that decided to forget abt self-respect, to live without thinking abt himself or others,,, in a way, living selfishly, for himself, by ignoring anything immediate and i think he succeeded for a while bc he didnt even remember megumi's name. he remembers it when he talks to getou abt him being thankful for toji not killing him bc of potential drawbacks

and at the very end he thinks of megumi again and that last act does think of someone else, like a "life before your eyes" moment where toji thinks about how the zenin's treatment of him led him there or how his return to shibuya ends with him remembering how he gave megumi back to the zenin,,, i think atm of his death he was starting to think he did want to care, in a different way, or that he needed a different paradigm. or,, maybe he was just starting to realize how far the zenin thinking had set into him

so we dont rly talk abt that being an enlightenment moment for toji but i kind of think it was. that megumi has the potential to become a pivotal piece as a legacy of distortion is interesting. i dont actually think toji set up everything intentionally bc he didnt know megumi's ability, and i dont think he wouldve thought that far. i think a lot of the heir and inheritance stuff is sth naobito set in after seeing megumi's development under gojou. it's clear now everyone has been keeping eyes on everyone else

at some point there's some interesting discussion to be had abt megumi and privilege - i'm surprised the canon characters dont hate him more for having stuff just fall into his lap, and so i liked that maki pointed this out that he could use this and he shld bc theres a frustration there - and yet at the same time megumi himself seemingly feels very little attachment to the zenin and the shaman world still. he just cares abt his little circle of people, and it's a very intentional choice, based on his good/bad ppl thing

u cant really affect the entire world, but u can assert urself on the environment around u and decide what u do and dont act on. this part of megumi is more teenage boy and kind of toji-like, i think,,, hence the emphasis on action

u express ur effect and existence through action, who u kill or who u save. toji having very little, while so much falls into megumi's lap while he doesn't want it, doesn't want to acknowledge it, likely doesn't want to take part in a system he doesn't like or, having been raised under gojou's wing, resents or finds corrupt or useless, or doesn't even think on bc he thinks its above his pay grade and gojou's there - this is also megumi's moment to solidify his own direction and commit to working in the system or out of it

the "not caring" is a defensive measure in a way too, i think. i dont think megumi is Big Good and wants to save everyone and everything and the world to be good and pure, i tend to think of him as a resigned chaotic neutral, who wishes he could be good orz

ANYWAY i think there's some interesting juxtapositions with the whole toji > megumi thing, that someone who is born without, restricted, births and creates someone full of blessings. its very shaman-like, action then reaction

AND i wish u luck on ur final paper (bless ur eyes to see incels bc i’ll just log off for the day when i saw one (1) of them on the net) AND DONT FORGET TO TAKE A REST,, the self care is much needed me thinks <333 (2) - 🐱

i love u 🥺🥺😭😭😭 you take care of yourself too!!!

also ur right...all this political intrigue im so curious i need to know how the jujutsu world is structured in terms of the higher ups and the clans. like i assumed that the three clan elders WERE to some extent also part of the higher ups???? but now it seems that the higher ups are a separate entity altogether, so like checks and balances i suppose. except both the higher ups and the clans are corrupt so no balance there 😭

the chapter implied the zenins are losing when it comes to the power struggle between the three clans. im interested. i want to see them all rot!!! like i also said though it’s going to be interesting to see the state of the kamo clan though, considering “noritoshi kamo.” like what do you even say to that???? im going to be surprised if it doesn’t affect their standing in the jujutsu world but then again the kamo clan IS one of the big three.

megumi really is a character that was blessed in all regards but like. doesn’t want anything to do with it LOL he really said ‘this is a pain no thanks.’ like gojo like megumi i suppose. i agree with u the whole toji and megumi set up....genius....i also love their juxtaposition. it’s so interesting and another source of irony.

#MAKI THOUGH......MAKIIIIIII #that stomach wound was worrying tbh at first i was like??? what is that panel even. but now.......ughhhhhh #🐱 anon

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musical-nerd18 · 4 years ago

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Shower Thoughts, to Love, and Back Again

!! gift exchange for @sanderssidesgiftxchange posting time! mines for @anxious-cherryblossom who requested “ A fluff oneshot of LAMP, Analogical or Royality! The tooth-rottier the better”

Summery: Logan and Virgil are awake at 1am. Virgil handles this by throwing out some random thoughts and being sappy, it's cute, I'm bad at summaries.

read on AO3 HERE

there is very very minor of talk about death and blood but its like one line of dialogue each ashjadbawkjaa theres also a smidge of angst whoops its cleared up real quick tho

or! its under the read more!

“Hey, Logan?” When there was no response, the emo gently poked the man lying next to him on the shoulder. “Logan.” Still nothing, Virgil poked a little harder. “Logan. Babe.”

Finally, Logan stirred, “Virgil?” He turned to look at the emo, squinting his eyes a bit. “What are you doing up?”

“Logan. Okay, have you ever thought about how at the end of the day, we’re just brains trapped inside a meat suit?”

“...Virgil, I love you, but what the fuck? Where on earth did that come from?”

“I’m tired, Logan, what are you expecting from me.”

“Okay, well, Virgil, could you please tell your meat suit to go to bed, because it’s one in the goddamn morning, and I would like to go back to sleep.”

Virgil looked a bit sheepish, “Ok, so, I get that, but also, like, anxiety says fuck that so…” Logan sighed, sitting up, knowing he’d be unable to sleep until his boyfriend managed to calm himself. “Ever think about how if you live on a farm and take care of chickens for a living, how that makes you a chicken tender?”

“You’ve been spending far too much time with Remus.”

“You’re probably right, but also, like, have you seen his face when you tell him no? He looks like a kicked puppy or some shit, how can you say no to that face looking right at you? How, Logan?”

Logan sighed, gently shaking his head. “It wasn’t intended to be an insult toward either of you, simply just an observation. I’m well aware that you and Remus see each other as brothers, of sorts, and who am I to take that away from either of you?”

“Cool cool cool, also, humans are frozen.”

There was silence. “I’m sorry, dear, what?”

“Well, you have a liquid, ok? So if you take that liquid and change it into a solid, you do that by freezing it, right? So if you have a solid, it’s safe to assume that it’s at or below the freezing point, right? So it’s frozen.”

“Darling, I’m still so confused right now.”

“Humans are solid, and solids are frozen liquids, so humans are frozen.”

“What on Earth is going through your brain right now, Virgil?”

“So many things, Logan. So many things. So many things and almost none of them are good.”

“Almost?”

“You’re doing the cute head tilt thing you always do when you’re confused, it looks kinda like a confused kitten and it’s absolutely adorable and it lives in my head rent-free at all times every day.”

Logan blinked. “Virgil, thoughts and ideas and the like aren’t living, they cannot live anywhere, much less pay re-”

“And another thing! It’s super adorable when you always take things so literally, like, you understand some idioms, but like, when you’re tired you just. You just don’t understand? And that’s super adorable? It’s also a great indicator of when you need to sleep, which is also a great indicator of when we can cuddle that won’t have you leaving after a little? Also, it makes you do the cute head tilt thing and I just, god I love you.”

“I love you too, darling.” The two of them laid together, appreciating the other’s company for a moment. “Wait, Virgil, you said you couldn’t sleep because of your anxiety, but what about?”

“Asking if someone has slept on something is the human equivalent of asking if they turned it on and off again.”

“Wonderfully cursed, darling, but you're avoiding the question. What’s got you so worried?” Virgil cuddled into Logan, burying his face in Logan’s neck, whining quietly. “You’re being very adorable, but you’re still avoiding the question, love.”

Virgil whined slightly louder, before running out of air. He sucked in a large breath and “ItotallymighthaveacrushonPattonandRomanbutlikeIstillloveyouobviouslylikeyou’reamazingIloveyousomu-” he was cut off when Logan gently placed a finger over Virgil’s lips, a small smile on his face.

“One more time, darling. Just a little slower, if you will.”

Virgil took a deep breath, calming himself slightly, still speaking quickly, though Logan could understand. “I totally might have a crush on Patton and Roman but like, I still love you obviously, like you’re amazing I love you so much.”

Virgil watched as Logan fumbled around for a minute, in fear that he had said too much, that this was the final straw, that Logan would– “Ah-ha!”

“Ah-ha?”

“I was wondering where it went! Right, so, back to your confession, Virgil, I believe that the term that I was looking for was,” he shuffled through his newly gathered flashcards before flipping one out towards Virgil, “is ‘same’. Or would it be ‘mood’? One of the two of them at least, from my understanding they would both mean roughly the same thing in this situation.” The two of them made eye contact for a moment before Logan glanced away. “Although, perhaps it would have been a better idea to have simply said that I… am in the same metaphorical boat. I too have a crush on Patton and Roman, as well as still loving you dearly. I am somewhat sure that I informed you of my being polyamorous when we started dating, didn’t I?” Virgil managed a small nod, somewhat confused and overwhelmed. “I thought so. Since I am polyamorous, it would be quite hypocritical of me to break up with you, or something of the sort, so of course I would be completely alright with you having crushes on others, even if I didn’t also share those feelings, and I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“I… I mean, you are, but it’s still kinda cute? Also, I’m really confused? What’s happening?”

“What’s happening? Virgil, dear, I’m simply telling you that it is quite alright to have feelings for the others, as I am in the same metaphorical boat and share those feelings as well. In fact, there’s quite a high possibility that the others do, in fact, reciprocate those feelings. At least, they reciprocate them for you.”

“Wait, wait, wait, ok, ok, we have a couple things to address there, um. Let’s start with my gut reaction to hearing you mention that they may like me somehow, which is just: what the fuck? No. Wrong. No. No way. Uh, next thing: Logan, babe, why on earth wouldn’t they like you? You’re amazing, adorable, funny, witty, smart, wonderful, and more, I’m just tired and can’t english-” grabbing Logan’s shoulders and gently shaking him, Virgil continued, “-but you’re fucking amazing, and if they have any goddamn brain cells, they’d see that, and they’d love you, just like I do.”

Logan stood there, eyes wide, as he watched his boyfriend speak so passionately, being rocked back and forth as Virgil forgot he was still holding his shoulders. Virgil slowly stopped ranting, coming back to the present as he noticed his boyfriends eyes slowly begin to become teary.

“Babe? Oh, Logan, honey, why are you crying? Was it something I said? I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, or anything, oh god did I accidentally strike a nerve?”

Logan smiled, tears slowly falling from his eyes, “You didn’t do anything with an adverse effect, Virgil. In fact, you said what I needed to hear, even if I wasn’t aware that I needed to hear it. You know me, I don’t typically care for sentiments, but it is… nice. To hear those kinds of things, from someone that I ca-. No. Someone that I love. I tend to metaphorically fall into a rut, per say, where I can’t stop thinking about my shortcomings - Virgil, I love you, we don’t need to get into those right at this moment - but I get stuck thinking about them, and internalizing them to the point where they become so much of my personal identity, and hearing someone who I know logically will not lie about that sort of thing inform me that those perceived shortcomings are, in fact, falsehoods helps my brain, to logically understand that they are, and sometimes, that realization comes with a couple tears along the way. You didn’t do anything with any adverse effects, Virgil, I promise you.”

“You’re sure?”

Logan frowned, pulling Virgil into a close hug. “I’m absolutely positive, my dear. Just as I am certain about the existence of the stars above, I am certain that nothing that you have said to me today has had any negative effects, mentally or otherwise. I swear it.”

A little snicker, then, “You sound like Princey when you get sappy.”

“Falsehood. Though we all sound somewhat similar, due to us being parts of Thomas, we also do all sound different. I was not making an effort to impersonate Roman, so I still sounded like myself.”

“Babe, I meant, like, the grand gestures, flowery language, and shit, not your actual voice.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Yeah, anyway! Massive subject change! Nothing’s on fire, fire’s just on things.”

“Ah. Back to this, I see. You’re technically not wrong, I suppose.”

“A ton of people is just like… 10 people.”

“I believe it would be closer to anywhere between 12 and 15, based on average weights, yes.”

“Your stomach thinks all potatoes are mashed.”

“Horribly cursed, yet someone true. Stomachs don’t have brains, and therefore cannot think, but if they could, they likely would believe that.”

“When you brush your teeth, you’re cleaning your skeleton, and it’s the only time you ever do that.”

“A little fun fact for you, Virgil, your teeth? They aren’t actually bones.”

“I’m sorry, they’re not what?”

“Teeth contain collagen, when bones do not. Teeth are more similar, though not identical, to finger or toe nails, or even hair, due to the keratin contained in all of those, though it is in significantly lower levels within teeth.”

“Logan, I think that is, no contest, the worst thing I have ever heard anyone say. Ever. That’s worse then something Remus would say on a bad day. I hate the idea of teeth just… being hair. I hate that. I love you, but jesus Logan, what the actual flying fuck? You’ve sent me into a crisis, Logan, a crisis. About teeth.”

“As Roman would say, Virgil, you are usually experiencing some form of crisis, this is not a new phenomenon.”

“Roman would not say the word phenomenon, and would throw in a nickname, so that was not what he would say, that was the idea in your words.”

“I suppose that is true, yes. Would you like me to provide some more facts? I promise they won’t be teeth related.”

“I… sure? I’m still lowkey reeling, so go for it? I like hearing you talk. It’s nice. Soothing.”

“If you’re being this one, you must really be tired. Hm, let me think. Ah, yes, around 17 milliliters of human blood can function as an egg substitute when baking.”

“Why the absolute fuck is that a fact that humanity knows.”

“I honestly could not tell you. There’s a town in Norway where dying is illegal.”

“That’s a segway, what the fuck? How do you outlaw that?”

“I’d imagine that it is quite a difficult law to enforce. There are more bacteria living in a human's mouth than there are humans on Earth.”

“That’s… a lot of bacteria.”

“Approximately 50 billion would be considered a lot, yes.”

“What the fuck.”

“A quarter of your bones are located in your feet.”

“Okay! That’s enough of that for like… what time is it now?”

“I believe it’s 1:36.”

“Right! That’s enough horrible thoughts for 1:36 in the fucking morning, so it’s bedtime! Come cuddle me again and lets fucking go back to bed, holy shit.”

“Didn’t I mention that we should try that over half an hour ago, my dear?”

“Hey, Logan? Starshine? Love? Yeah, shut the fuck up. I love you, so fucking much, but shut the fuck up, and cuddle me. We’re sleeping, and you’re either turning off your alarm, or setting it for later, you’re cuddling me until I say we’re done, okay? Okay.”

“Alright, love.”

#i write i guess #ts anxiety #ts logan

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tarot4bangtan-blog · 6 years ago

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Introduction

Why I’m starting this blog and what kind of blog it will be:

Hi all! This introduction will hopefully find everyone interested in reading the predictions I post on the blog because I think the context is a huge motivation behind going public with my private tarot readings for BTS.

Right off the bat I have to give a shout out to @btstarot for inspiring me to make this account and I want to be clear about that, because many of my predictions currently (and will likely continue to) echo her own. I respect her so much as a reader and in no way wish to call her out, but I was one of the private readers who recently approached her with questions hoping to confirm some of my own recent readings on the group and her reaction (which she made clear was not just directed at me but at the fact that I was one of many who did something similar) was too publicly refuse to discuss the predictions of other readers. This genuinely surprised me since I was so excited when I discovered her accounts. It seemed like the perfect place to compare and discuss readings with all the other people who periodically look in on the boys with their cards but she was very defensive about whether or not I even read cards since she couldn’t seem to understand why I would have to ask for confirmations on my own readings from another person (a sentiment she repeated publicly on her twitter). I suppose I understand this logic on some level, and while I support her decision to delete all questions from people claiming to be readers, I think there should be a place where all private readers can discuss and confirm their readings on the boys without having to make blogs themselves. Theres no need for a million accounts all predicting the same things, which was exactly why I never considered making one myself as all of my predictions seemed to line up with hers so I thought it was unnecessary to just repeat everything she said.

But perhaps my blog WOULD have something different to offer. Perhaps my goal can simply be to both support her readings with my own as I know she gets a lot of people who argue with what her cards tell her, while making myself open to all people who want to discuss the info they themselves have gotten on BTS from their own predictive tools. I firmly believe that every intuitive person has a different perspective to offer, and perhaps if I can aggregate not just my own readings but those of people who don’t wish to suffer through the drama of running a controversial prediction account I can shed some light on a more fuller picture. Since not all info is appropriate to post, I welcome questions from readers who have seen the crazy things going on inside BTS and BH right now and yes that brings me to the infamous WOMAN.

So first I have to mention @btstarot again because she has said she has done a reading about a mystery woman currently affecting the group but she has given really no details, only promising to post the two readings she has already completed very soon.

I struggled with the timing of making this blog. Should I wait until she posts the big reveal that we’re all waiting for? Or would it be better to post something now, AFTER she claims to have already done her reading, so that we can help confirm the details we are both getting on her. The truth is, this woman is the very reason I approached her account in the first place. I saw her coming into the picture more heavily around this time about a month ago but the details were so insane I barely believed them. So I thought messaging her privately would allow me to confirm what I’d seen with a reader I trusted just because I myself couldn’t trust my own info it was so strange. Well, she made her feelings known by blocking me and I fully respect that. Obviously I should have gone deeper into her history to see she claims not to like to discuss the boys love lives. That was my mistake.

Well, I can understand that but this is different. This woman isn’t just a love interest, she’s a catalyst for a huge change in the company dynamic. She only has a relationship with one member and the details are strange so I’m still sussing them out but I think talking about this relationship is about more than just shipping gossip. It’s a relationship that going to bring the horrible things the entire group has had to endure for years up to the surface and it’s going to expose the horrors hidden between the lines of their slave contracts. What the member has been through to simply ATTEMPT to be in a relationship with her despite the company trying to maintain it’s iron tight control over him is astounding. And the biggest reason I feel comfortable going public with these predictions is that the member himself has internally decided to begin speaking out as best he can. He’s just very limited with how he can currently express himself.

Now, as I said I really debated whether or not I should post my reading on this woman now since @btstarot has one in the works, but after thinking about it I believe this is the best way to see if the readings she has already completed match the info I’ve been getting for weeks. The things is, I literally do not where to start with this girl other than basic info which I’ve narrowed down to this:

1. I believe she is an American citizen and has lived there her whole life. I can’t possibly know her full genetic background but she LOOKS very very very fair colored which indicates probably mostly white if not 100% caucasian. And I do not believe she speaks any language other than English.

2. She is 25-26 years old, but I believe her connection is to one of the younger members.

3. She is the daughter of a prominent farming family from the south. Possibly an agricultural heiress. I do not know why this specific detail keeps coming up other than a clue as to perhaps how she first came in contact with the member. This also explains why I can’t get a good reading on her career other than future business aspirations.

Beyond these details are many strange pieces of info I would love to discuss with others who read cards or make predictions and perhaps together we can suss out a picture of who this woman really is and how her relationship with this member will bring a positive change to the boys’ current situation. So while I anxiously await the readings from the @btstarot I will open up this blog for any and all questions about this woman and what the cards have told me about the events of this weekend which caused a disturbance just before the show in Seoul. I am not here to contradict anyones predictions or theories mind you, I just want a place where I can connect with others with different opinions and perspectives and together (along with the strides @btstarot has already taken, and hats off to her) I believe we can bring to light a side of the industry that is currently suffocating a grown adult’s right to make his own decisions. If my readings turn out to be confirmed by others then I will publicly aggregate the findings here, and my heart will go out to the members negatively affected by the chaos that possibly occurred on the 20th and was just barely covered up by the company in time before there could be a scandal.

#btsprediction #btstarot

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Why Is There Republicans And Democrats

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-is-there-republicans-and-democrats/

Why Is There Republicans And Democrats

How Things Got This Bad

Why Democrats and Republicans have different priorities on COVID relief

6) The Republican turn against democracy begins with race

Support for authoritarian ideas in America is closely tied to the countrys long-running racial conflicts.

This chart, from a September 2020 paper by Vanderbilt professor Larry Bartels, shows a statistical analysis of a survey of Republican voters, analyzing the link between respondents score on a measure of ethnic antagonism and their support for four anti-democratic statements .

The graphic shows a clear finding: The higher a voter scores on the ethnic antagonism scale, the more likely they are tosupport anti-democratic ideas. This held true even when Bartels used regression analyses to compare racial attitudes to other predictors, like support for Trump. The strongest predictor by far of these antidemocratic attitudes is ethnic antagonism, he writes.

For students of American history, this shouldnt be a surprise.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act cemented Democrats as the party of racial equality, causing racially resentful Democrats in the South and elsewhere to defect to the Republican Party. This sorting process, which took place over the next few decades, is .

7) Partisanship causes Republicans to justify anti-democratic behavior

This chart is a little hard to parse, but it illustrates a crucial finding from one of the best recent papers on anti-democratic sentiment in America: how decades of rising partisanship made an anti-democratic GOP possible.

Taking The Perspective Of Others Proved To Be Really Hard

The divide in the United States is wide, and one indication of that is how difficult our question proved for many thoughtful citizens. A 77-year-old Republican woman from Pennsylvania was typical of the voters who struggled with this question, telling us, This is really hard for me to even try to think like a devilcrat!, I am sorry but I in all honesty cannot answer this question. I cannot even wrap my mind around any reason they would be good for this country.

Similarly, a 53-year-old Republican from Virginia said, I honestly cannot even pretend to be a Democrat and try to come up with anything positive at all, but, I guess they would vote Democrat because they are illegal immigrants and they are promised many benefits to voting for that party. Also, just to follow what others are doing. And third would be just because they hate Trump so much. The picture she paints of the typical Democratic voter being an immigrant, who goes along with their party or simply hates Trump will seem like a strange caricature to most Democratic voters. But her answer seems to lack the animus of many.

Democrats struggled just as much as Republicans. A 33-year-old woman from California told said, i really am going to have a hard time doing this but then offered that Republicans are morally right as in values, going to protect us from terrorest and immigrants, going to create jobs.

Reality Check 3: The Democrats Legislative Fix Will Never Happenand Doesnt Even Touch The Real Threats

Its understandable why Democrats have ascribed a life-or-death quality to S. 1, the For the People bill that would impose a wide range of requirements on state voting procedures. The dozensor hundredsof provisions enacted by Republican state legislatures and governors represent a determination to ensure that the GOP thumb will be on the scale at every step of the voting process. The proposed law would roll that back on a national level by imposing a raft of requirements on statesno excuse absentee voting, more days and hours to votebut would also include public financing of campaigns, independent redistricting commissions and compulsory release of presidential candidates’ tax returns.

There are all sorts of Constitutional questions posed by these ideas. But theres a more fundamental issue here: The Constitutional clause on which the Democrats are relyingArticle I, Section 4, Clause 1gives Congress significant power over Congressional elections, but none over elections for state offices or the choosing of Presidential electors.

Vaccine Advocacy From Hannity And Mcconnell Gets The Media Off Republicans’ Backs But Won’t Shift Public Sentiment

Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell and Tucker Carlson

Amid a rising media furor over the steady stream of vaccine disparagement from GOP politicians and Fox News talking heads, a number of prominent Republicans spoke up in favor of vaccines early this week.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible” and asked that people “ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.” House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, got the vaccine after months of delay and then publicly said, “there shouldn’t be any hesitancy over whether or not it’s safe and effective.” And Fox News host Sean Hannity, in a widely shared video, declared, it “absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.” This was treated in the press as an unequivocal endorsement, even though the use of the word “many” was clearly meant to let the Fox News viewers feel like he’s talking about other people getting vaccinated.

Is this an exciting pivot among the GOP elites? Are they abandoning the sociopathic strategy of sabotaging President Joe Biden’s anti-pandemic plan by encouraging their own followers to get sick? Are the millions of Republicans who keep telling pollsters they will never get that Democrat shot going to change their minds now?

Ha ha ha, no.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

Matthew Gertz July 20, 2021

Jefferson And Jeffersonian Principles

Jeffersonian democracy was not a one-man operation. It was a large political party with many local and state leaders and various factions, and they did not always agree with Jefferson or with each other.

Jefferson was accused of inconsistencies by his opponents. The “Old Republicans” said that he abandoned the Principles of 1798. He believed the national security concerns were so urgent that it was necessary to purchase Louisiana without waiting for a Constitutional amendment. He enlarged federal power through the intrusively-enforced . He idealized the “yeoman farmer” despite being himself a gentleman plantation owner. The disparities between Jefferson’s philosophy and practice have been noted by numerous historians. Staaloff proposed that it was due to his being a proto-; claimed that it was a manifestation of pure hypocrisy, or “pliability of principle”; and Bailyn asserts it simply represented a contradiction with Jefferson, that he was “simultaneously a radical utopian idealist and a hardheaded, adroit, at times cunning politician”. However, Jenkinson argued that Jefferson’s personal failings ought not to influence present day thinkers to disregard Jeffersonian ideals.

, a European nobleman who opposed democracy, argues that “Jeffersonian democracy” is a misnomer because Jefferson was not a democrat, but in fact believed in rule by an elite: “Jefferson actually was an Agrarian Romantic who dreamt of a republic governed by an elite of character and intellect”.

Reality Check #4: The Electoral College And The Senate Are Profoundly Undemocraticand Were Stuck With Them

Because the Constitution set up a state-by-state system for picking presidents, the massive Democratic majorities we now see in California and New York often mislead us about the partys national electoral prospects. In 2016, Hillary Clintons 3-million-vote plurality came entirely from California. In 2020, Bidens 7-million-vote edge came entirely from California and New York. These are largely what election experts call wasted votesDemocratic votes that dont, ultimately, help the Democrat to win. That imbalance explains why Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and came within a handful of votes in three states from doing the same last November, despite his decisive popular-vote losses.

The response from aggrieved Democrats? Abolish the Electoral College! In practice, theyd need to get two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to ditch the process that gives Republicans their only plausible chance these days to win the White House. Shortly after the 2016 election, Gallup found that Republican support for abolishing the electoral college had dropped to 19 percent. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a state-by-state scheme to effectively abolish the Electoral College without changing the Constitution, hasnt seen support from a single red or purple state.

History Of The Democratic And Republican Parties

The Democratic Party traces its origins to the anti-federalist factions around the time of Americas independence from British rule. These factions were organized into the Democrat Republican party by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792.

The Republican party is the younger of the two parties. Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party rose to prominence with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president. The party presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction and was harried by internal factions and scandals towards the end of the 19th century.

Since the division of the Republican Party in the election of 1912, the Democratic party has consistently positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party in economic as well as social matters. The economically left-leaning activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced American liberalism, has shaped much of the party’s economic agenda since 1932. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition usually controlled the national government until 1964.

The Republican Party today supports a pro-business platform, with foundations in economic libertarianism, and fiscal and social conservatism.

Adams And The Revolution Of 1800

Shortly after Adams took office, he dispatched a group of envoys to seek peaceful relations with France, which had begun attacking American shipping after the ratification of the Jay Treaty. The failure of talks, and the French demand for bribes in what became known as the XYZ Affair, outraged the American public and led to the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war between France and the United States. The Federalist-controlled Congress passed measures to expand the army and navy and also pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien and Sedition Acts restricted speech that was critical of the government, while also implementing stricter naturalization requirements. Numerous journalists and other individuals aligned with the Democratic-Republicans were prosecuted under the Sedition Act, sparking a backlash against the Federalists. Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which held that state legislatures could determine the constitutionality of federal laws.

Why Democrats and Republicans Are Claiming A Midterm Win

Voxs German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administrations burst of policymaking. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday.

They go further than merely believing the 2020 election was stolen, a nearly unanimous view among the bunch. Over 90 percent oppose making it easier for people to vote; roughly 70 percent would support a hypothetical third term for Trump .

The MAGA movement, Blum and Parker write, is a clear and present danger to American democracy.

2) Republicans are embracing violence

The ultimate expression of anti-democratic politics is resorting to violence. More than twice as many Republicans as Democrats nearly two in five Republicans said in a January poll that force could be justified against their opponents.

It would be easy to dismiss this kind of finding as meaningless were it not for the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill and the survey was conducted about three weeks after the attack. Republicans recently saw what political violence in the United States looked like, and a large fraction of the party faithful seemed comfortable with more of it.

These attitudes are linked to the party elites rhetoric: The more party leaders like Trump attack the democratic political system as rigged against them, the more Republicans will believe it and conclude that extreme measures are justifiable. A separate study found that Republicans who believe Democrats cheated in the election were far likelier to endorse post-election violence.

Early Life And Career

John Quincy Adams entered the world at the same time that his maternal great-grandfather, John Quincy, for many years a prominent member of the Massachusettslegislature, was leaving ithence his name. He grew up as a child of the American Revolution. He watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from Penns Hill and heard the cannons roar across the Back Bay in Boston. His patriot father, John Adams, at that time a delegate to the Continental Congress, and his patriot mother, Abigail Smith Adams, had a strong molding influence on his education after the war had deprived Braintree of its only schoolmaster. In 1778 and again in 1780 the boy accompanied his father to Europe. He studied at a private school in Paris in 177879 and at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, in 1780. Thus, at an early age he acquired an excellent knowledge of the French language and a smattering of Dutch. In 1780, also, he began to keep regularly the diary that forms so conspicuous a record of his doings and those of his contemporaries through the next 60 years of American history. Self-appreciative, like most of the Adams clan, he once declared that, if his diary had been even richer, it might have become “next to the Holy Scriptures, the most precious and valuable book ever written by human hands.”

Democratic View On Healthcare

Democrats have always been in favor of governmental involvement in the wellbeing of Americans, especially the most vulnerable among us. Healthcare reform has been a primary focus for the party since the middle of the Twentieth Century. Medicare, Medicaid, Childrens Health Insurance Program , and the ACA are all major reforms the Democrats fought for and got passed into law. During this election season, healthcare is arguably the hottest topic of debate, and Democrats are pushing for further expansion across the board. The key phrase to remember is quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared

There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.

When Was The Republican And Democratic Parties Formed

The Democratic Party was founded by Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren on January 8, 1828, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He was the United States seventh president but the first democratic President.

The Democratic Partys shocking emergence can be linked to the countrys anti-federalist factions. It was during that time the United States of America gained independence from British colonial masters.

The anti-federalist factions, which democrats originated from, were also grouped into the Democrat-Republican party. This was done in 1792 by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other federalists influential opponents.

On the other hand, the Republican Party is pretty much younger than the Democratic Party. It was formed in 1854 by anti-slavery modernizers and activists.

The republicans were against the expansion of slavery in Western territories. They fought hard to protect African Americans rights after the civil war.

The Republican Party is often known as GOP. The meaning is Grand Old Party. The first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln. From Lincolns emergence, Republican Party started gaining ground in America.

The Legal Fight Over Voting Rights During The Pandemic Is Getting Hotter

Or as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, told NPR, there are no “fair” maps in the discussion about how to draw voting districts because what Democrats call “fair” maps are those, he believes, that favor them.

No, say voting rights groups and many Democrats the only “fair” way to conduct an election is to admit as many voters as possible. Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, who has charged authorities in her home state with suppressing turnout, named her public interest group Fair Fight Action.

Access vs. security

The pandemic has added another layer of complexity with the new emphasis it has put on voting by mail. President Trump says he opposes expanding voting by mail, and his allies, including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, call the process rife with opportunities for fraud.

Even so, Trump and McEnany both voted by mail this year in Florida, and Republican officials across the country have encouraged voting by mail.

Democrats, who have made election security and voting access a big part of their political brand for several years, argue that the pandemic might discourage people from going to old-fashioned polling sites.

Democrats Or Republicans: Who Has The Higher Income

In the end, many people assume Republicans are richer based on these figures. Although, this is only a look at the richest families and politicians in America though. In everyday American households, it seems that Democrats have a higher mean salary. Its true that many of the wealthiest families in the country are contributing to Republican campaigns. On the contrary, families registered as , statistically speaking.

These findings still have some loopholes in them, of course. For instance, the data was collected over the last 40 years or so. Moreover, it is only based on the most recently collected information. As you know, demographics are constantly changing. These figures may have been affected as well. There is also a margin of error with every type of data collection like this. So, what do you think? Who is richer? Democrats or Republicans?

Where Do Trump And Biden Stand On Key Issues

Reuters: Brian Snyder/AP: Julio Cortez

The key issues grappling the country can be broken down into five main categories: coronavirus, health care, foreign policy, immigration and criminal justice.

This year, a big focus of the election has been the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a deciding factor in how people vote, as the country’s contentious healthcare system struggles to cope.

The average healthcare costs for COVID-19 treatment is up to $US30,000 , an Americas Health Insurance Plans 2020 study has found.

Presidential Election Of 1808

This mayor joining the GOP says theres no Democratic Party anymore’

Speculation regarding Madison’s potential succession of Jefferson commenced early in Jefferson’s first term. Madison’s status in the party was damaged by his association with the embargo, which was unpopular throughout the country and especially in the Northeast. With the Federalists collapsing as a national party after 1800, the chief opposition to Madison’s candidacy came from other members of the Democratic-Republican Party. Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman , a leader of a faction of the party known as the . Randolph recruited James Monroe, who had felt betrayed by the administration’s rejection of the proposed with Britain, to challenge Madison for leadership of the party. Many Northerners, meanwhile, hoped that Vice President could unseat Madison as Jefferson’s successor. Despite this opposition, Madison won his party’s presidential nomination at the January 1808 . The Federalist Party mustered little strength outside New England, and Madison easily defeated Federalist candidate . At a height of only five feet, four inches , and never weighing more than 100 pounds , Madison became the most diminutive president.

What Is Thomas Jefferson Remembered For

Thomas Jefferson is remembered for being the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. The fact that he owned over 600 enslaved people during his life while forcefully advocating for human freedom and equality made Jefferson one of Americas most problematic and paradoxical heroes.

Thomas Jefferson, , draftsman of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and the nations first secretary of state and second vice president and, as the third president , the statesman responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. An early advocate of total separation of church and state, he also was the founder and architect of the University of Virginia and the most eloquent American proponent of individual freedom as the core meaning of the American Revolution.

What Republican And Democrats Believe

Lets start with this example. There are one or more reasons why you chose that person to be your friend. It could be because of how he or she talks, sense of humor, intelligence, educational background, ideology, or other factors.

The bottom line is you made the individual your friend because of one or more factors you discovered in that person that pleases you. This explains why most people would prefer joining republicans than Democrats and vice versa.

Republicans and Democrats have diverse ideologies and beliefs. These beliefs or ideology is part of what draws people to join either political party.

Lets start with Republicans. What do Republicans believe in?

Republicans boast libertarian and centrist factions. But they primarily believe in social conservative policies. They abide by laws that help conserve their traditional values. These include opposition to abortion, marijuana use, and same-sex marriage.

So the Republican Partys platform is generally centered on American conservatism. It comprises establishment conservatives, Freedom Caucus, or Tea Party members, described as right-wing, populist, and far-right.

The Republican Partys position has changed over time. They now transcend beyond traditional values, which often includes Christian background. The Republicans evolved position now includes fiscal conservatism and foreign policy.

Heres a quick summary of what the Republican Party believes in:

Heres a quick look at what Democrats believe in:

Was The Donkey Originally A Jackass

Thomas Nast was an American cartoonist who joined the staff of Harpers Weekly in 1862. Nasts cartoons were very popular and his depiction of Santa Claus is still the most widely used version of the holiday icon we see today. During his career, Nast also drew many political cartoons that harshly criticized the policies of both parties.

Nast first used a donkey to represent the Democratic party as a whole in the 1870 cartoon A Live Jack-Ass Kicking a Lion in which Nast criticized the dominantly Democratic Southern newspaper industry as the Copperhead Press. While he did popularize the donkey, Nast wasnt the first person to use it in reference to the Democrats.

Over 40 years earlier during the presidential campaign of 1828, opponents of Democrat Andrew Jackson referred to him as a jackass. Jackson actually embraced the insult and used donkeys on several campaign posters. Nevertheless, cartoonist Anthony Imbert would use a Jackson-headed donkey to mock Jackson an 1833 political cartoon.

However, the donkey never really caught on after the end of Jacksons presidency, and Thomas Nast apparently had no knowledge that it ever was used to represent the Democrats.

Election Of 1796 And Vice Presidency

In the presidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to Federalist John Adams by 7168 and was thus elected vice president. As presiding officer of the Senate, he assumed a more passive role than his predecessor John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an “honorable and easy” role. Jefferson had previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him unusually well qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure as . Jefferson would cast only three in the Senate.

During the Adams presidency, the Federalists rebuilt the military, levied new taxes, and enacted the . Jefferson believed that these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional. To rally opposition, he and James Madison anonymously wrote the , declaring that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states. The resolutions followed the “” approach of Madison, in which states may shield their citizens from federal laws that they deem unconstitutional. Jefferson advocated , allowing states to invalidate federal laws altogether. Jefferson warned that, “unless arrested at the threshold”, the Alien and Sedition Acts would “necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood”.

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sideblogintervention · 4 years ago

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gons arm

ok this is preparation for when u finish or not claire and i can finally release the full extent of my stupidity upon u. one of my favorite things about caa is how it recontextualizes the entire show up to that point. up until gons explosion in caa, most of hxh is played straight as a shounen and doesnt engage in a particularly pointed way with its genre. beyond maybe like. kurapikas revenge quest being much more focused on the tragedy and self destructiveness of his revenge quest than maybe would be expected of a shounen. but caa takes the typical shonen protag traits in gon that it previously praised him for and turns them into tragic flaws. and the build up is SO PLANNED!!! LIKE the very fact that gons signature recklessness, confidence, and desire to be responsible for the well being of those he cares about is tied in nearly every arc to the motif of losing his arm i think shows that this was the endgame for gon, that part of the story of hxh is that of caution and critique of the very shounen typical traits of “bravery” . ok so like

hunter exam: gon breaks his arm while fighting hanzo. he is rewarded for his disregard for his own personal safety, with other characters admiring him for it and it winning him the battle and his hunter licenseship. during the killua rescue, gon is again rewarded for his determination and feelings of responsibility for killuas safety, which wins him the respect of the zoldyck butlers and inspires killua to leave his family.

heavens arena: i almost forgot heavens arena LMAO its such a minor arc but. gon does break his arm again while ~testing his limits~ and it is followed by the first hint of rebuke from the story via wing! but its quickly glossed over and used to further emphasize gon’s uniqueness. i see this as just more buildup until the fall in caa

yorknew: i dont remember if gon breaks his arm in this arc actually LOL but it solidifies gon and killuas dynamic of gon being reckless and vengeful on the behalf of his friends and killua bailing gon out from the consequences of his actions. theres a really revealing piece of dialogue also, when theyre captured by nobunaga and killua outlines a plan where he sacrifices himself for gon to survive, to which gon tells him that gon is the only one allowed to talk about sacrificing himself for his friends, not killua. (AND WHAT HAPPENS IN CAA. LOL)

greed island: in the fight against genthru, gon’s recklessness starts to tip over into portrayed as a NEGATIVE trait. still not completely, as it does get spun as indicative of his determination to push himself and he suffers no lasting consequences for it, but the tone of the fight is markedly different from that in hunter exam. in the hunter exam, his defiance in a needlessly life threatening situation is almost unequivocally portrayed as positive, despite other characters noting that it is extreme and worrisome. the genthru fight is marked by darker music, imagery, and a more serious appraisal from genthru as dangerously reckless. gon suffers much more severely for his disregard for personal safety too, losing an entire hand and severe injuries to many of his other extremities, vs the more temporary loss of a broken arm. his reaction is severe, and he only recovers through the miraculous use of the game card. other ppl have said this, but greed island was boring as hell LMAO but did a good job setting the scene for caa. its the beginning of the slope downwards for gon, and killua’s penchant for putting gon on a pedestal and understanding self sacrifice (see: fucking up his hands in the volleyball game) as a way to measure his closeness to gon is elaborated on in greater detail.

caa: it all comes to head ! god there’s a really good flowchart of key quotes from the manga and the anime that someone put together for gons thought process during caa, but it all boils down to: gon’s need to be responsible for his friends’ well being means he feels wholly responsible for kite’s death. gon has a penchant for self destruction in the pursuit of what he desires (self improvement, finding ging, protecting his friends). when discussing why meruem might have caused intense damage to himself (RIPPING OFF HIS ARM......I HAVE MORE THOUGHTS ON THE MERUEM GON PARALLELS BUT THATS FOR LATER), gon admits that he would inflict great amounts of damage to himself if he were unable to forgive himself for something. and thats the gon pitou fight. revenge, but also repentance. gons dialogue during the fight (apologizing to kite, telling kite that he finished the job like kite taught him to, telling kite theyre almost even now when gon loses his arm) makes it very clear that gon is lashing out in betrayal, yes, but also in an effort to redeem himself for being unable to save kite. gon loses his arm fully and nearly loses his life, if killua hadnt been there to save him. i have som thoughts on what caa says about maturity and how that fits in with empathy, connection to others, and power, but ill. ill post that separately lol.

#long post

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chris-tea-n · 7 years ago

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Voltron meta: Keith’s biracial identity

im aiming for quality content but... im lazy so ill just post what i have tweeted lmao (also because i want to set more time aside for more yaoi-centric content) anyway here goes nothing

warning: this is not quality content because im basing this analysis off statements made in the context of singapore and theyre just statements ive collected through my teenage, so take whatever claims ive made with a pinch of salt and healthy skepticism. (also this is unedited, unvetted, unbeta-ed, please dont judge me by this lazy piece ;_;) anyway here goes nothing:

analysis im referencing (long post): http://scrawlers.tumblr.com/post/159924044164/i-hate-when-people-down-play-keiths-piloting

ok i know i said that as a joke but im starting to think that his bom sword really symbolises his mental maturity. he carried it around all the time like a phallus and (quoting the analysis) he doesnt think of it as a weapon ie an obj of aggression so its like a phallus before maturity (since men are developed physical strength for aggression while boys arent) therefore keith using it in bom missions later on to kill signifies his adulthood. the fact that he used his mental phallus in bom mission after leaving voltron can mean that either 1. (from the analysis) he accepts himself ie his galra side or 2. he adopts his galra side as his full identity and i will be explaining biracial identity in a moment. first all he doesnt have anyone on earth (save for shiro) so there are no one from his human side that he relate to.

but in bom, hes surrounded by galra and could take part in his galran identity knowing that he will be accepted (eg 'you fight like a galra') whereas it is unclear in voltron (cue hunk's racist jokes) to both keith and the audience. overall hes more comfortable in bom in regards to his identity (especially since he was thrusted into the position of leadership that he didnt want) however it is not an indication that keith is adopting his galra identity exclusively for the rest of his life.

1. he could have chosen to be with bom because being galra is still a novelty for him because he had only accepted this identity not long ago.

2. he grew up as a human, he was told hes human in his formative years, so it is possible that he return to human culture.

another thing about biracial identity in reality and in media portrayal (*examples are exclusively adolescents) is that biracial individual often ends up choosing 'a side' ie racial identity. eg in the wolf children, both siblings ended up picking a side. and irl i have spoken to a few biracial teens and have seen their attitudes towards certain identifications (which are really interesting)

i once spoke to a danish-japanese girl who said that she identify more with her japanese side because she is more reserved and collective than her sister who is more individualistic and western. stereotypes/concepts of a certain race shape how biracial teens see themselves and affect how they identify themselves.

all the malay-chinese that i have met identify strongly with their malay side and speaks malay (and dont enjoy mandarin chinese at all lmao one even refuses to be addressed by their chinese name) it could be due to how SEAsian parents tend to be more 'caring' while their chinese parents appears to be relatively stern and distant. extended family members tend to be more intimate in seasian families vs chinese families. this trend is also observed in malay-indian teens. (they also spoke malay>tamil/hindi) so familial relations affect racial identifications.

all in all, biracial identity is really fun to explore (esp in sg given its diversity and race-mixing) and theres really a lack of fictional narrative depicting biracial people so what voltron did was exceptionally progressive to address a modern, unspoken problem of biracial adolescent struggling with their racial identity during puberty (the years where people 'find themselves') his coming of age ie mental phallus growing in length could mean that he had chosen his galra side as his adult identity because he identifies with it more than being human. he even mentions in his vlog that he thinks the reason why he doesnt relate to 'human' is because hes part galra.

biracial kids (especially eurasians) have faced familial ostracisation due to racism, and thus they feel somehow 'left out' of the community. they wont be able to understand one of their races as well as a result. what strikes me (and heres the criticism of vld's portrayal) is that keith 'feels galra' despite not knowing galra at all before voltron. it is more likely that hed 'feel' more human because his surrogate brother shiro impart on him human culture and values. he didnt 'choose' galra as his side but he ended up in bom ie a galra-dominated community by 'fate' or instinctively. it sounds illogical as he had no prior positive exp with the galrans (in fact he was told that they are all evil) but given how some people choose a side based on personality/stereotype, it is likely that he will be galra for his entire life because he feels that his trait is more bom than voltron eg for the greater good, 'cold' as remarked by humans in voltron etc

it is also possible that he would return to shiro and his human identity after the war against the galra empire because he wouldnt need to be fighting constantly and he has no purpose to serve. it might seem as though 'yeah you just adopt certain traits for certain occasions' but biracial teens hear stereotypes all the time and it sticks

so yeah tldr if a biracial teen has a side with more intimate familial rsp, theyd end up identifying with it more; if both are as intimate, theyd end up choosing by their personality trait. for keith, it is much more interesting as he is an orphan w a surrogate brother.

#vld #voltron #Keith #Keith kogane #biracial identity #meta #analysis #Keith voltron

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markhycks · 8 years ago

Text

markhyuck au where

mark is a real estate agent trying to sell a house that has been unoccupied for years but donghyuck (the ghost who haunts it) won’t let him. warning: very long post / aged up!markhyuck

—- i wrote this bc i had to get this out of my system - yall can keep scrolling if u dont like markhyuck !! ALSO i have z e r o clue how the real estate industry works so this is probably super inaccurate

ok so:

no one wants to buy this property bc its apparently haunted by a ghost

mark thinks thats just stupid

hes just trying his very best n rly wants a promotion !!

so his boss (obviously taeil bc we love a moon taeil managing a real estate business) offers to give a raise n promotion to anyone that can sell the house bc the last dude that tried to got so close but the couple pulled out last min after hearing abt the rumours

mark thinks he is aBSOLUTELY FULLY CAPABLE of selling this house so he tells his boss he wants to give it a shot

taeils like r u sure you’ve only been working here for 6 months

n mark lee’s all hell yea i got this thats why rumours around the world are saying mark is abs-

so boss man’s like aight ill leave this task to you

everyone else in the office is all :000000

sicheng the cute intern is all ARE YOU SURE ABT THIS MARK in his broken chinese n he’s all cute and worried and its the first time the others have heard him speak this much

jaehyun his bff in the office is like good luck man bc he once tried selling it too but whimped out after encountering so called ghost

so anyways mark has to go inspect the property the next day

he gets given the keys yadda yadda

when he turns up to the house (which, mind you, is a very nice house located on the outskirts of town by a little lake) and opens the door he hears a loud “WHO GOES THERE”

and mARK FREAKS TF OUT

like he legit jumps n he’s pretty sure he almost peed himself n hes sso oso scared but then he remembers his mission and that he’s not going to turn out like the rest and he w I L L sell this house

so he loosens his tie with a d e t er m i n e d face and enters the home

“whos there!! show yourself!”

he thinks he sounds pretty fierce but it actually came out a quiet squeak

anyways it’s silent for a bit and mark’s like super wary as he closes the door behind him

“LEAVE THIS HOUSE IMMEDIATELY!!!” and suddenly theres a picture frame thrown at the wall

mark panics again and he’s so close to running out but he stays determined!!! bc!! fully capable mark!!

“no i have to sell this house and i won’t leave until i do so!!”

and it just goes silent again until the voice speaks up again

“who are you”

“i, um. mark?”

“you sound unsure”

“well. i mean, would you kill me for being a little nervous? jheesh”

he looks around. where is the voice even coming from? it projects through the entire house like its on speaker

mark’s not sure where he got this sudden confidence from but he feels a lot less scared than before so he just loosens his tie and walks around the house with his clipboard, doing his lil inspection

the ghost? spirit? whatever it is doesn’t say anything and mark just shrugs and carries on with his business and before he knows it an hour has already passed

“hey spirit” he calls out

and it’s like silent for ages

so he just shrugs and he’s about to leave when

“you can’t sell this house. it’s mine”

and mark just stops at the door and he can’t help but feel a lil sad at the spirit’s sad tone bc it probably has like so many memories in the house and it probably hasn’t crossed over or whatever (he’s not sure how the whole supernatural thing works but he’s watched ghost whisperer before)

the last thing mark says before he leaves is “i’ll be back tomorrow and you better be gone”

he thinks he hears the spirit scoff but maybe its just his ears

honestly mark has a hard time believing all of this and he goes to bed that night wondering h o w he’s going to deal with this situation

anyway mark turns up the next day and this time the spirit doesn’t seem as hostile

that being said it continues to threaten mark and starts moving objects around

but honestly mark (and his newfound confidence) only rolls his eyes as makes a list of the repairs that need to be done (bc deep down he doesnt believe any of this is actually happening)

so they fall into a routine

mark keeps coming back and the spirit keeps threatening him

sometimes it tries to sabotage his work by moving things around

mark’s gotten so used to it that he literally just sighs like “give it back”

the spirit actually listens to him and does

eventually they start talking more

mark’s found out the spirit’s name is donghyuck but that’s all the information he knows

he thinks it’d be inappropriate to ask stuff like “oh so how did u die” so they just end up having the most random conversations

“make sure you paint the hallway walls blue. the mustard yellow is so outdated”

“you’ll leave and let me sell the house if i paint them blue?”

“i never said that”

and mark ends up spending more time at the house than necessary

so one day jaehyun pulls him aside at work n he’s all “dude??? are u ok? you’re hardly in the office these days”

and mark’s like “yeah man u know its just the repairs for the house they’re taking ages”

jaehyun is suspicious but shrugs it off and tells him to be careful

taeil asks how the task is going and mark suddenly gets all nervous for no reason bc HOW IS THE TASK GOING??? he doesnt even know 

he just gives another casual response n says the house should be ready soon for him to start bringing in clients

taeil just pats his back and wishes him good luck

when mark finishes work that evening he literally feels so down bc he literally had one j o b but here he is being all chummy with a ghost that haunts this house and its all just so messed up in his head

he doesnt know what makes him do it but that evening he ends up going to the house

“someone’s working the night shift”

mark just blinks in confusion at the words because what the heck. he’s meant to be here for work and this isn’t work so w h y is he here at 7pm on a friday???

instead he just takes a seat on the floor by the wall in the empty living area and sighs like a sad puppy

“what’s the matter?” donghyuck asks and his voice sounds genuinely concerned??? if anything it scares mark a bit

“who - no. what are you?” he finally asks

and then there’s silence

it’s literally like that for almost an hour before mark asks again

“are you like some kind of ghost? spirit? do you need help crossing over? i just. i really need you to leave and you’re not making my job any easier and i’m so confused and half of me doesn’t even believe any of this is real”

silence

it almost convinces mark that he really is going mad because there’s no such thing as ghosts and he’s just talking to an empty house

until a quiet voice says

“i’m neither of those”

mark feels so, so confused and he just ruffles his hair in frustration

“then what are you?”

“what’s your favorite color?”

he’s taken aback by the question

nonetheless, he responds with a quiet “green”

“green is disgusting. red is better”

“red is literally the color of the devil i’m guessing thats what you are”

he’s expecting an angry remark but instead he’s met with soft laughter and all mark can do is smile in return

he ends up spending the night at the house talking to donghyuck all night

it’s a saturday the next day and mark is so co n f u s e d when he wakes up to the smell of pancakes?

he follows the smell and finds a plate of pancakes sitting at the table with a note “i’m assuming you never ate dinner last night. eat up - D”

mark thinks he’s living in a dream bc did a ghost just?? COOK for him??

reality at this point has become so warped in his mind that he doesn’t care anymore and he starts eating

he hears laughter

“calm down youre eating as if its your last day on earth”

he sticks up a middle finger at no one in particular, hoping donghyuck will see it from wherever he is, and he’s only met with more laughter

when he’s finished eating and rinses his plate (which he has no idea where it came from) he’s thinking about what donghyuck said to him last night about not being a ghost

“donghyuck”

“mark”

for a brief moment he’s startled. it’s the first time donghyuck’s said his name and he’s not sure how he feels about it. if anything, the tips of his ears growing red must indicate a positive sign

“what ar- i mean. how do yo- no. what do you look like?”

silence

he runs a hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh before leaving the house again

he doesn’t return for another week

when mark comes back, he’s with a client

mr johnny seo and his boyfriend chittaphon seem extremely keen in the property and want to move in despite hearing rumors about a ghost

mark doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing

johnny and chittaphon are into that buzzfeed unsolved kind of shit and run their own vlog series on youtube and theyre just e c s t a t i c that they might be moving into a haunted house

mark thinks theyre weird as shit but he wants that promo

donghyuck probably doesn’t mind sharing anyway

when he thinks back to donghyuck he feels a pang in his chest and dare he say it, he misses them?

anyways

mark takes the couple back to the house and he feels weird

he can’t pinpoint what’s wrong but he just feels strange inside his chest

there are two things he’s learnt about johnny and chittapon:

one, they cant keep their hands off each other

and two, they can’t stop filming every waking moment of their lives

so when they’re following him to the house with their giant ass camera and chittaphon’s giggles, mark can only roll his eyes as he inserts the key

but the door won’t open

mark’s confused - he hadn’t come back to change the locks so why won’t the key fit?

he feels slightly flustered in the presence of the couple and their camera and he laughs nervously

they must feel pretty bad for him because they laugh nervously too

mark tries again but to no avail and sighs in frustration when it hits him: donghyuck - this was clearly his doing

mark clears his throat awkwardly before turning back to the couple “i’m sor-”

“LEAVE AT ONCE”

johnny and chittaphon jump back, eyes wider than saucers while mark has to c o n t a i n himself from rolling his eyes at donghyuck’s ~scary voice~

he half expects the couple to run away but instead johnny only begins to roll the camera once again and there’s a look of nervous excitement on chittaphon’s face

mark turns to the door once again and hisses “donghyuck open the door”

he hopes the couple haven’t heard him but judging by the looks on their faces, they have

“LEAVE MY HOME AT ONCE BEFORE I CURSE YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES”

and mark can only snort

johnny looks absolutely f a s c i nat e d by this point and mark groans internally before beginning to knock on the door

“donghyuck not cool just open the damn d o o r before i break it down”

there’s silence and mark takes it as his cue to try unlocking the door with his set of keys again

it works and he allows the couple to enter

donghyuck attempts to scare the trio a few times during mark’s tour of the house by moving things around - causing johnny to drop his camera at one point and chittaphon to curse at him for bringing it because its probably broken now

anyway the tour goes t e rr i b ly

mark is pissed

he’s not sure what johnny and chittaphon are feeling

when he sees the couple off he just shuts the door angrily and donghyuck just g i g g le s

“what the fuck man did u have to do that?”

“i told you to leave”

“and i told you to leave. what is even your problem???”

at this point mark’s just yelling and donghyuck doesnt seem to care tbh

there are a few more clients he tries to bring that week and the week after

they all go awfully thanks to donghyuck and by the end of the fourth week mark is on the verge of giving up

donghyuck on the other hand seems to be having way too much fun

“can you just like, stop?” mark sighs

he’s very very tired at this point and he’s considering giving the keys back to taeil and telling him he can’t do it

he’s picks up his blazer that he’d taken off earlier and is about to leave when he hears a

“where are you going?”

mark just releases the loudest snort before turning to the empty walls of the house and raising a brow at nothing in particular

“are you kidding me? i’m done. congrats donghyuck you get to keep your damn house”

donghyuck doesn’t say anything

- when mark shakes his head and turns to open the front door

it won’t open

“very funny, donghyuck. open it so i can leave”

he’s met with silence a g a i n so he pulls the keys out of his pocket

“wait!”

he whips his head around in confusion bc its the first time he’s heard donghyuck speak in such a desperate tone

he feels his ears growing red again

“uh.. yes?”

there’s a couple seconds of silence before donghyuck speaks in a quiet voice

“you asked me what i was right?”

mark just scoffs bc why is he even having this conversation at this point

he decides to answer anyway

“like every day but sure”

“go to the loft”

mark spends a few seconds contemplating whether he really should or not

he follows his gut instinct and makes his way to the loft

he’s only actually been up to the loft once just because it takes forever to get up there

when he climbs up the ladder and looks around at the empty space he shrugs

“well?”

“go up to the bookshelf on the far left”

mark feels like a child being directed right now but he follows the instructions anyway

he feels slightly nervous and a part of him wants to escape

its congested up here and he can feel the back of his neck grow sweaty like he’s been waiting for this moment for ages!!!

a part of him wants to run out of the house as quick as possible he’s not even sure what hes expecting

“now um.. move that red book on the end”

mark’s hand is s h a k i ng at this point and he slowly does what hes been told

suddenly????? the bookshelf starts moving

and then it hits mark

its a fake bookshelf thats actually meant to be a revolving door

mark is literally about to collapse bc he doesnt know whats waiting for him on the other side

when the door finally reaches the other side all he can do is stare

he feels like he’s in a different world, standing in the loft which resembles an open space apartment, with a tiny window and a mini kitchen on the side, a door which leads to what he assumes is a bathroom and a small bed

but that’s not what catches mark’s attention

standing in front of him is the most b e a u t i f u l boy he’s ever seen in his entire life

he doesn’t look much younger than mark himself, slightly shorter with dark red hair, golden skin and the biggest chocolate brown eyes he’s seen on a person

mark doesn’t know how to react

his mouth goes dry and the boy looks so frightened standing there in his own vicinity that mark’s afraid he’ll disappear if he touches him

“donghyuck?”

clearing his throat in an all too familiar voice, the boy speaks

“that would be me”

mark passes out

when he wakes up a while later, he’s on an unfamiliar bed and he looks around with narrowed eyes - realising that it wasn’t a dream and donghyuck is in fact a human living in a loft

mark looks around at the place and his jaw drops when he sees the wall opposite the bed is fULL of screens capturing cctv like images of almost every corner of the house

there are about three computer screens at the desk and mark is baffled

it looks like the bedroom of a teenage hacker

“oh good you’re up. i thought you were dead” donghyuck says, walking over to him from the kitchen with a plate of food

mark sits up slowly, his head is aching and hearing donghyuck’s voice like this, so clear, so close to him, so soft - he thinks he’ll pass out again

he feels himself growing warm when donghyuck takes a seat beside him on the bed, putting the plate on his lap before getting up

before he can, mark grabs his wrist “wait”

“you probably have a lot of questions” donghyuck speaks over him

“well, yeah”

“eat up we’ve got all night” donghyuck says

mark hasn’t even made eye contact with the other boy yet because he can’t bring himself to

donghyuck is intimidatingly beautiful

“i- what time is it?”

“9. you were out for hours”

“it’s been a long day” mark shrugs, taking a bite of the surprisingly good food donghyuck managed to cook up

so it turns out donghyuck’s family were the owners of the house but he’d been left an orphan as a teenager

in order to avoid being taken into social care, he made his own living space up in the loft so no one would find him - once he’d turned 18 they stopped looking for him and using his intelligent brain, he’d conjured up all the right devices to make it seem like the home was haunted by the ghosts of his family members

mark is baffled by the end of the explanation

“but the things moving around the house..”

“ever heard of remote controlled toys and simple physics?”

mark nods slowly and donghyuck just shrugs casually

later on donghyuck shows mark how he’d managed to keep up this strange lifestyle of his

he also finds out that donghyuck is not much younger than himself like he’d predicted - there are only a few months separating them

mark ends up spending the weekend at donghyuck’s place

when it’s sunday night and mark’s getting ready to leave, donghyuck actually walks him up the front door

it feels weird to say the least - hearing donghyuck’s voice like this and not projecting through the speakers he had hidden behind the walls

he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but donghyuck’s voice is sweeter than honey and he feels like melting every time the younger speaks to him in a quieter tone

“hey donghyuck” he says, once he reaches the door and turns to the younger

“hm?”

“you ever thought about just.. buying the house?”

donghyuck lets out a laugh

mark finds it condescending

“do you think i have the money to do that?”

“well since you’ve managed to maintain it so well - yeah” it turns out donghyuck does weird internet jobs from home where he gets paid a shit ton of cash through his online services - mark thinks its illegal but doesn’t want to say anything

donghyuck shoots him an amused smile and shakes his head

just as mark pulls the handle of the door, there’s a warm hand on his and all he can do is gulp as he meets donghyuck’s nervous eyes

“you won’t still try to sell it.. right?”

mark remembers his outburst a few days ago and he sends the younger a sympathetic smile, shaking his head slowly “i won’t”

“thanks” and then donghyuck’s hand is gone

mark lowkey feels sad at the loss of warmth but it returns when donghyuck asks him in the most v u l ne r a b l e voice

“will you be back?”

“i don’t know”

mark tries to ignore the heartbroken expression on donghyuck’s face while he’s driving home that night

the next morning at work mark feels miserable

mainly because it’s a monday but also bc of donghyuck

he’s just so conflicted and he doesnt know what to do

when he’s on his break and passes by taeil’s office, he hears taeil talking to one of his co-workers nakamoto yuta, a guy who transferred to the company a few months before mark joined

they’re talking about the house and most importantly they’re talking about mark

“boss just give me the house i’ll do it - i’ve already got a couple people i know who would be willing it purchase it despite the current situation”

“yuta you very well know this is mark’s-”

“boss it’s been over a month now and he’s scared off all his clients. please?”

there’s a pause before he hears a “alright. i’ll talk to mark tomorrow”

mark just p a n i c s because all he can think about is donghyuck

that night mark drives back to donghyuck’s place and the door is already open for him

“you came back” donghyuck sounds breathless - like he just ran down from the loft

- mark sees sparkles in his eyes and his stomach does a backflip

“i came back” he repeats, the smile on his face growing

when he’s later sat down on donghyuck’s bed, eating the leftovers from the dinner donghyuck’s just made, mark explains his work situation to him

the younger boy nods, trying desperately not to let the sadness show on his face but fails

“hey” mark says, bringing a hand to the younger’s cheek

it’s weird but neither of them say anything

donghyuck thinks mark has the softest!! hands

“i won’t let them sell it” he says in the s o f t e s t voice and donghyuck wants to melt

instead he just scoffs and shrugs mark’s hand away

“if anything, i won’t let them sell it” he says and mark laughs

deep down they both know it’s not selling the house that’s the issue at hand; it’s mark not having an excuse to keep coming back

the atmosphere is weird and tense when mark leaves that evening

donghyuck walks him down to the door again and mark has the urge to hold has hand and tell him it’ll b ok

just as mark’s about to get into his car donghyuck calls for him

when mark turns around donghyuck is suddenly !! in his arms!! and wow! soft and warm donghyuck!!

about a hundred alarm bells go off in mark’s head and his heart is POUNDING but all he does is bring his arms around the younger boy and tighten the hug

when mark arrives at his own place he thinks that donghyuck doesn’t just sound like honey, but smells sweet like it too

he decides honey is his favorite smell

the next day at work mark isn’t surprised when yuta greets him enthusiastically in the morning

he also isn’t surprised when both he and yuta are called into taeil’s office

mark has to act fast - he can’t let yuta take this from him

he’s been up all night thinking about this, thinking about donghyuck

so when taeil’s about to speak up, mark cuts him off:

“boss i want to purchase the property for myself”

both taeil and yuta’s jaws drop and he’s pretty sure he hears jaehyun gasp from outside the door - the office wasn’t exactly a large place

“you want to do what”

“yes. i’ve thought this through and yeah. as a customer, i want to buy it. i’ve already spent so much time at it it practically already feels like home” donghyuck feels like home

“i’ve already thought about selling my place for a while now anyway - and i don’t think anyone else would be more willing to buy this house more than i am”

taeil and yuta stay silent

eventually taeil agrees but hands over the property to yuta to sell to mark

when they all come to a deal or whatever mark is dragged aside by jaehyun

“is this why you spent so long there? you wanted it for yourself?” poor bb he is so confused

mark just smiles and nods “yeah, guess i did”

mark doesn’t return to the house for another few days - he’s gotta tell his parents about his abrupt decision to sell his place and purchase a new one

since he lives in a different town from his parents, they offer to come with his younger brother jisung to help with the move out - he tells them its ok and that he has lots of helping hands here and he’ll call them over when he’s settled in

mark heads to the house towards the end of the week, the contract behind his back as he unlocks the door with his keys

“hey spirit - come out wherever you are!” he calls out playfully

to his surprise donghyuck’s already on his way down - trying not to smile at the sight of the man in front of him

“mark lee”

“donghyuck” he says, unable to contain his excitement as he holds up the paper in front of the younger

donghyuck squints at it, confused for a moment before his eyes widen

“YOU DID WHAT?????////”

“i bought this house!”

donghyuck doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry

“what the hell you just bought my house?!”

mark’s slightly confused bc he thought donghyuck would be happy

donghyuck looks like he’s abt to burst into tears and mark the awkward turtle starts panicking again

“i - i thought it would be better than a random person buying it??”

“nO because a random person would never buy this house for as long as im alive and now yOU just came out of nowhere and TOOK POSSESSION OF IT??!?!?”

donghyuck’s a lil mad bc he feels like the house is all he’s got and now its gone and he’s mad at himself for letting his guard down in front of mark and getting so attached to mark and falling for mark and he doesn’t even realise he’s saying this all aloud until mark stares at him with wide eyes

“you what?”

silence

“you do realise not saying anything won’t work anymore since i can actually see you now, right?”

silence

“donghyuck”

there’s a quiet mumble “sowhatifilikeyou”

mark feels like he’s about to comBUST

donghyuck’s face is literally the color of a tomato and he just shrinks and he’s so cute mark wants to kiss him

so he does

donghyuck’s lips taste like the warmth of the summer, the confused and nervousness of their feelings, but most importantly they taste sweet - just like honey, just like donghyuck

when mark parts from the kiss first, donghyuck’s fingers curl softly into the material of his shirt, he presses his forehead against the younger’s

“i’m sorry i did this all without telling you - i just. i did what i felt was right. this feels right, donghyuck. being with you feels right.” mark’s just so nERVOUS and half of what he says comes out so shaky until donghyuck responds quietly

“i want to be with you”

mark wants to pass out

this time however, he doesn’t

anyways~~

time skip a couple of weeks

donghyuck moves out from the loft and they settle into the house properly

after much insistence donghyuck removes the cameras from around the house except for the exterior and they turn one of the spare bedrooms into a little study for donghyuck where he can do his “illegal business”

mark suggests him getting out a bit more and donghyuck reluctantly agrees

mark takes donghyuck out on dates to the movie theatre and out for breakfast

donghyuck is so nervous in public and is practically glued to mark’s side the whole time it’s adorable

they’re both living so d om e s t i ca l ly its sickening

at mark’s housewarming he tells his family and friends that he met donghyuck through tinder

jaehyun doesn’t believe him bc donghyuck’s voice sounds so familiar but he doesn’t know where from - he chooses to drop it though bc the couple in front of him look so happy so he goes to bother sicheng

“hey loser” donghyuck walks out from his study room one sunday afternoon when mark’s on the couch watching tv

“yeah??” mark lowers the volume

“cough up your rent for the month - we gotta pay the water bill cause your fatass won’t stop showering every two minutes”

mark almost chokes on his spit

“me?”

donghyuck nods, flopping down to take a seat beside him

“idk if you’ve noticed but im the owner of this house if anything you should be coughing up rent”

donghyuck snorts “owner in name. we all know who this house rly belongs to”

mark gives him the stink eye “listen you little shi-mph”

before he can begin his string of insults donghyuck’s already climbed onto his lap and his lips are on mark’s

and they live happily ever after !!!!

#markhyuck #mark #haechan #donghyuck #nct #nct dream #nct 127 #fluff #au #markhyuck au #otp cries #taeil the boss #jaehyun and winwin the cutest co-workers #johnten #but only minor #headcanon

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drakorn · 7 years ago

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Tanz der Vampire St. Gallen - Act 2 Spoiler Review

I am back with Act 2 of the St. Gallen production! Oh wow, to be honest, I never actually expected the previous one to be THAT long. But oh well, let us see how this one works out. Act 1 actually has even more changes than Act 2 and I actually happen to like quite a lot of them. But then there are some, where I just have to facepalm and think to myself: WHY? But what am I saying? Let’s get into details. As in the previous post, this review is full of spoilers, so for everyone who would like to see the St. Gallen production totally without any knowledge, you can turn away right here! Everybody else...let’s go :D

Totale Finsternis: The second act starts in the most neogothic, Twilighty way possible. Remember that dark overview of the castle in the original production? Well, get ready for shaky cameras in a forest, crosses, lightning strikes, RED EYES, UUUUUHUUUUUU! Another unintentionally funny moment for me XD Then we FINALLY get rid of the screen and make way for the stage. And boy, IS THIS A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE. And I don’t mean this in a bad way. I actually found that a lot of this Totale Finsternis posed some interesting creative decisions, some of which I actually support. So, first thing, the stage: There are two areas: A gallery-esque thing with one big painting that sings the “Sei bereit...” chorus. This is where Sarah is. Krolock on the other hand is high above her in a second area. This area has a gazillion load of candles. Krolock sits at a piano and actually plays the tune of Totale Finsternis while singing to Sarah. Thomas Borchert really gets to show off his piano skills in this scene XD The entire first part of Totale Finsternis comes from him playing it in-character. He is also dressed in a red coat that looks similar to Krolock’s movie costume. And Krolock looking older in this version really does remind a bit of Ferdy Mayne in this scene. There is also a small staircase through which Sarah gets to Krolock. He rises up from his piano and is about to bite her. This is a place where I would really have welcomed a script change again. Because in this version, Krolock sounds like he almost doesn’t want to bite her, but then he talks about all of the lust and how he needs to be patient and all. So yeah, Totale Finsternis was actually really not that bad :D

Carpe Noctem: This is where the leather costumes actually make more sense because the vampires do actually seem more dangerous like that. It actually starts with the bed being somewhere in the background, with the first Nightmare Solo crawling out of the floor. The bed later gets moved and dragged around the entire stage. What I DO like about this version is that Alfred is much more the focus here. He is always there, trying to save Sarah, who at some point I think even goes away from the stage for a few moments. This Carpe Noctem genuinely feels like a nightmare of modern day vampires. Unfortunately, this is the case for the Nightmare Solos. While the first one sounds fantastic, the second one...I really don’t like that singing style. But overall, it was a good Carpe Noctem rendition.

Ein perfekter Tag: Nothing really changed that much here, at least nothing that’s worth mentioning. It’s the same scene just with modern clothes and a younger professor.

Für Sarah: Due to the show’s direction with Sarah, this song kinda has a bittersweet feel to it. In this version, it is REALLY obvious that Sarah is not interested in Alfred at all, but Alfred doesn’t see this. Therefore, he is basically singing for a lost cause. He clearly loves her. She is annoyed with him.

Die Gruft: Alright, people, brace yourselves, for here comes the biggest change that this version brought with it! First of all, Abronsius gets HEADLAMPS, making him and Alfred look like cave explorers. For a brief period, this is also the only source of light on stage. Then they finally find the crypt, which looks a bit underwhelming here, to be honest. The gigantic stone sarcophaguses are replaced with smaller coffins. However, this is nothing compared what happens next. First of all, Abronsius gets stuck in such a position that he ACTUALLY CAN’T SEE the coffins this time. Wonderfully solved here. But then comes the thing: Alfred advances to the coffins, prepares to open them...except Krolock and Herbert are not in them. How do we know this? Because father, son, and Koukol are standing on the other side of the stage, watching how Alfred makes a fool of himself. Krolock was prepared for this situation. But then the question arises...what IS inside the coffins? Because Alfred clearly sees something in them! OR COULD IT BE....that Alfred was lying to the professor in this version? He could have wanted to impress Abronsius first by stating that the empty coffins are actually full. But when Abronsius ordered him to impale them, he obviously couldn’t do it and therefore lied about not being able to do it. Or DID he mean “I can’t do it because they’re not here” and Abronsius misunderstood this as cowardice? Or I don’t know, maybe Krolock put some puppets in there or dressed up some corpses and Alfred was too dull to realise that. Then comes another change: Chagal and Magda crawl out of a trapdoor on the stage, they are not actually in a coffin this time around. I find that a bit odd, but ok, if they want to go with it, sure...

Bücher: This is some interesting staging here. The library and the bathroom are located on the stage at the same time. The library is on the upper level while the bathroom is on the lower level. They are connected by a staircase. The library is a big projection this time around with only a few books physically being there, which I think is a bit of a shame. Then Alfred advances downstairs to talk to Sarah, who is sitting in a bathtub with a pink towel on her head. She is clearly completely in the Count’s grasp here, as she barely acknowledges Alfred being there. The red dress is standing behind some sort of glass vitrine.

Noch mehr Bücher: Alfred heads back up the stairs to find Abronsius, who has been reading and walking around with books this whole time. As I said, I really like the staging of library and bathroom being on at the same time as it makes for some interesting discoveries, as we see in the next bit.

Wenn Liebe in dir ist: This is where some more great changes happen XD First of all, if one looks closely, it can be seen how Herbert advances to the bath while Sarah is still in theres, she quickly gets out and exits, he gets in and he is also wearing the same pink towel on his head XD Then he starts singing, and Alfred advances down, after singing his little part. Herbert rises up from the bathtub and he is actually naked here, as the audience can clearly see his backside. Alfred is so incredibly embarrassed that he turns away, looks for a bathrobe and hands it over to Herbert so that he can dress. Now imagine this: Herbert wearing a bathrobe and a pink towel on his head dancing with Alfred. The mirror was thankfully also incorporated here. The little break in the chase scene doesn’t happen: Herbert bites the book, Alfred attempts to run, Herbert grabs him and PUSHES HIM INTO THE BATHTUB. Then he quickly jumps on Alfred, so both of them are in the bathtub now. It can’t get any more ridiculous than that XD Abronsius appears and beats Herbert away. Alfred, feeling extremely exposed and attacked, quickly gets out and they swiftly escape. I think this was a great way of changing the scene, I fully approve of this.

Sie irren, Professor: This one is also quite interesting. Alfred and Abronsius stand on a small balcony stage right and overlook and empty stage. Then Krolock appears on another balcony stage left and starts to taunt them. Except...this time he doesn’t disappear. He stays there for the second part and visibly taunts Alfred. It’s interesting to note that while he says “Alfred’s soul is already mine” he imitates Alfred’s failed attempt of impaling him in the crypt before. Then he walks away, leaving Alfred and Abronsius alone.

Ewigkeit: Alright...this is it...this is where the bad things start to happen. First of all, there are no graves, the stage is empty. The vampires just casually walk up on it and start singing their number. Ok, positives first: Herbert and Magda are both in this scene, singing along with the other vampires. Then we have Alfred and Abronsius actually watching this scene from their position. And ok, given that the vampires are much more active in this show, it makes sense that they are not crawling out of graves here. But here comes the big negative. @kahorifutunaka , you were a witness to this and I understand how you must have felt as a History student. Basically, a part of the advertisement for this show was the following: Act 1 would have the vampires dress up as modern people. Act 2 would have them dress up according to the time period they were bitten in. That’s all fine and dandy EXCEPT THE COSTUMES ARE NOT HISTORICAL AT ALL. Ok, 2 or 3 were, but THAT’S IT. NONE of the other costumes made any sense! It looked like they came straight from a carnival store! Surely the vampires must know how their time period looked like? Come on, guys! Get it right! You had ONE JOB. It’s not THAT hard to look up historically correct costumes, but you totally missed that here! Also...this song loses a big part of his meaning due to the modern setting. In the original version, they were hiding in the dark, lurking in the shadows, waiting to take over the world. Kunze’s intention was to show at the end that the vampires HAVE taken over the world in modern times and even wanted to portray them as tax collectors, politicians and corrupt businessmen, the real bloodsuckers of today. But this song indicates that they still haven’t got there. This is where script changes would have been more than welcome again. They could have sung about how humans were falling for them all the time and how they ARE the rulers of this world. But nope, instead, we got a carnival trope running around an empty stage. Also, they don’t exit through the audience here but through the orchestra pit.

Die unstillbare Gier: I have mentioned the atrocious ball costumes, yeah? Well, here comes Krolock. Oh boy...what have they done to him here? XD He is wearing a long red cape with a ridiculously gigantic collar. Then he still wears all read and huge brown boots. This costume looks like it has been smashed together from many different time periods. It looks like “Dracula meets the three musketeers” in the worst way possible! Jesus Christ, whoever designed that costume, please, I would really want an explanation for this. But then...even though it was an empty stage and Krolock looked like he just escaped a circus, this was one of the best acted Giers I have ever seen. Krolock is not as stoic as in the original production. Here he is howling and screaming in despair. But at the end, it gets ruined a bit because again, unchanged lyrics: The original version is set before the year 2000. It made sense for Krolock to speak his dark prophecy about the next millenium. Here however it makes it look like he is talking about the year 3000. I mean, how hard can it be to change a few words. In fact, here: “Prophezeit war’s euch schon lange, doch wiederhol’ ich’s heut und hier: Nun, da endlich das neue Jahrtausend beginnt, ist der einzige Gott, dem jeder dient, die unstillbare Gier!” I’m not claiming this to be a perfect rewrite, but it makes more sense than what they did. There is also another thing I would like to add: Alfred and Abronsius watch this scene as well, which I really think is a smart decision. That way they can see all of the vampiric sides.

Tanzsaal: This is also quite an interesting one. First of all, Alfred’s “They have feelings, just like us!” and Abronsius’ “Feelings? Nonsense. Duty calls!” exchange is picked up in this one again, THANK THE LORD FOR THAT. Finally, someone uses this part again! Bravo, St. Gallen! Then another thing happens: Koukol seems to openly invite Alfred and Abronsius to join the ball. He even gives them their costumes so they don’t knock out anyone here. Herbert even advances to them to sheepishly greet Alfred with a cat-like “raawwr” gesture. Then Krolock comes in through the doors (no staircase this time), and the vampires start dancing something that looks like a rendition of Thriller in front of him. Also, Magda is in the ballroom scene in this version, so that’s a plus too :D Sarah appears on an upper level of the stage and Krolock goes up to greet her. He bites her under the moonlight, but there is something else that I found quite interesting: They actually incorporated some classic vampire lore here. I know, it was picked up by the modern vampire shows but who cares? It was a classic vampire thing: After Krolock bites Sarah, he scratches his arm and lets Sarah drink his own blood. According to lore, this is what turns someone into a vampire. So props for that! Then we have the menuett, which I think has the same choreography as the original version, so nice to see that something from there made its way here. Then we get another surprise: Remember the human dwellers of the castle? Well, Krolock has them all lined up for dinner here. Jesus, they really should have changed the script because he still talks about “two mortals” being there for them. But nevertheless, when Krolock says “Suck them dry!” here, the vampires actually advance on and suck out all of the humans, except Alfred and Abronsius of course. Alfred doesn’t have a candelabra here. No, he takes a giant board off the wall and prepares to ram it into Krolock’s head. At this moment he looked like he wanted to say “DIE MOTHERF****!!!” Anyway, he and Abronsius use the diversion that is caused by the vampires sucking out the other humans, by forming not one, but TWO crosses, by placing two boards on two of the pillars of the ballroom, actively making the castle itself a crucifix. Now, THIS is where the Stage version, where the castle crumbles down like the One Ring had just been destroyed there, would have made more sense. And again, SCRIPT CHANGE PLEASE: Krolock still shouts “Koukol! Get rid of that thing!” even though there’s two things here now. Alfred, Abronsius and Sarah make their escape.

Draußen ist Freiheit Reprise: Alfred and Sarah sit on a staircase, while Abronsius goes to the completely opposite side of the stage to make his notes, where he actually can’t see them. I find this a bit more likely. What happens is pretty much unchanged: Sarah bites Alfred while Abronsius takes notes. But then, Sarah let’s Alfred take her blood, effectively turning him into a vampire! That was great!

Der Tanz der Vampire: And this is another scene that just loses a bit of its meaning in this version. Abronsius still sings about how he will protect the world and get the Nobel Prize, which still makes sense. But then Alfred and Sarah run away and the final song starts. Now...it doesn’t feel right here. In the original production, this was a massive time skip that indicated how vampires have triumphed over the last century and taken over the world. Here they still gloat about it but it just doesn’t have the same effect. And given that this version is already in the modern world, this feels like an afterparty after a slight inconvenience in the ballroom. And again, please, consider script changes, for the vampires should have conquered the world by now and not just be about to do it. A nice little extra was that at the end, Abronsius, Alfred and Sarah, and Krolock also appear on the upper level of the stage: Abronsius alone on a balcony, Alfred and Sarah together on the other one, and Krolock in the middle in front of the door he walked in before singing the Gier. All in all, pretty enjoyable.

So yeah, here we are. This was my spoiler talk for the St. Gallen production. Now...what can I say? It had GREAT moments like Wenn Liebe in dir ist and Totale Finsternis, it had pretty enjoyable moments like Der Tanz der Vampire and Draußen ist Freiheit, and it had downright terrible moments like all of the script mess-ups that the new version brought to the table and the ballroom costumes. It feels like wasted potential to me. A modern take on Tanz could have been SO MUCH better. Why have it in an asylum? You could have had it in a castle that was surrounded by a modern city where Krolock was running the city and the vampires were collecting “blood money” from the people. This would have been a reflection of the true bloodsuckers and would also be accurate to Kunze’s vision of today’s world ruled by bloodsuckers.

Is it good? Yeah, it’s ok, definitely an interesting take. Does everything work? OH BY FAR NOT. Would I recommend it? Actually...yes, I would. Because think about it: I might not have liked it so much but the statistics speak for a huge success of this version. Think about the possibilities: This could mean that we get to see other directors attempt their own takes on Tanz der Vampire, more non-replica productions and perhaps everyone will have their own preferred version by then, and wouldn’t that be amazing? So, the St. Gallen version, along with the Finnish and the Czech versions have started something that could evolve into so much more! And I hope we get to see more Tanz productions in the coming years. Ulrich Wiggers had a risky task, and I think he did pretty well as a director!

I will do another post where I talk about the cast in more detail, but until then...thank you for sticking around :D I had great fun writing this and I hope you had enjoyment in reading this :)

#Tanz der Vampire #St. Gallen #Musical #Spoilers!#Review!#That was long #Again so long XD

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personalcoachingcenter · 6 years ago

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Why There's No Such Thing as Hypnotherapy

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-hypnotherapy/

Why There's No Such Thing as Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis is so ubiquitous it’s easy to miss

“I don’t believe in hypnosis!”

Robert looked satisfied and smug, as though he’d just rested his case by dropping it squarely on my toes. Clearly, he wasn’t one to be bamboozled with superstitious nonsense.

The house party had been in full swing and Robert, seeing a giant pair of ears (aka me) started making one way conversation. During a narrow crack of silence I’d made the mistake of telling him I “did hypnosis” to which he’d proudly thrown in his trump card: “I don’t believe in hypnosis”.

I could have pointed him to our free eBook on the research into hypnosis, but I had a sneaking suspicion my efforts would be fruitless. Instead, I asked him whether he believed in the unconscious mind. Beaming, he proclaimed, “No! I believe in common sense and logic.”

I was tempted to ask…

Did he consciously control his heartbeat?

Did he consciously plan each night’s dreams?

Did he consciously mobilise his immune system when he was unwell?

Did he consciously decide to blink when an insect neared his face?

And how, I wondered, would he explain why ex-servicemen and women experience horrendous flashbacks to wartime trauma, or why shy people blush when the social spotlight shines their way? Would he have tried to argue that these are conscious decisions?

I wanted to take the bait. I wanted to wipe the smugness from his face. I wanted to say that not just a little, but most of our behaviour is driven by unconscious processes.

Every second, our five senses take in an estimated eleven million pieces of information. We know this because scientists (yes, scientists!) have painstakingly counted the receptor cells on each sense organ and the nerves that connect them to the brain.

Yet we can only consciously process about forty bits of information a second. What this means is that large parts of our experience are unavoidably unconscious.

So did I regale him thus?

Well, no. That particular axe was ground blunt early in my career. I left the bait hanging and instead asked him to talk about what he did for a living. I listened (well, sort of) for what felt like the longest ten minutes of my life to a detailed description of his accountancy practice. Even as his mouth moved, his words seemed to fall away, and my thoughts drifted…

An unintentional and ironic induction

As Robert droned, I entered a kind of trance. I forgot to pay attention to him as my focus wandered inward. If he’d been paying attention I’m sure he would have noticed my cataleptic glassy-eyed expression – but he was probably too absorbed in his own story!

Boredom is a kind of hypnotic technique. Indeed, it was occasionally used by the great Dr Milton Erickson, especially for ‘straight-line thinkers’. When we deem that there is little for us ‘on the outside’, our attention strays inward.

This kind of disassociation and abstraction is key to the hypnosis we experience on an everyday basis. And it happens so often, and feels so familiar, that most people wouldn’t even recognise it as hypnotic.

Wishing and hoping and dreaming… and counselling

When you dream at night you disassociate from your bed to the point where you forget all about it. You are completely absorbed by whatever hypnotic scenario your brain conjures for you, as your imagination goes into overdrive. We don’t think of this as deep hypnosis, but that’s exactly what it is.

Hypnosis is a state of abstraction in which the conscious mind becomes less dominant and the powerful unconscious mind is more directly accessed. The unconscious mind is responsible for emotional reactions, immune functionality, physical healing, and the creation and maintenance of high-performance states such as ‘flow’.

As soon as a person becomes even slightly abstracted, as soon as their attention is split, they enter an hypnotic state. And, though you may not be aware of it, it probably happens to you every day!

Wandering and wondering

Have you ever been wandering around the mall and found that some piece of music triggered a memory? This is a kind of everyday post-hypnotic suggestion. You become less focused on the shops and more focused on a memory that had, until the music triggered it, been buried deep in your unconscious.

When this happens, your attention is split. This splitting occurs naturally. Hypnotherapists are trained to spot it happening and use this kind of natural trance as a gateway to deeper hypnotic experiences, if that’s indicated.

The same thing is happening when you dream at night or enter a deep hypnotic trance during a formal induction: your attention becomes split. And you become naturally more open to suggestion.

On learning and being suggestible

During hypnosis you become more open to learning, more suggestible. Unless a counsellor has their client totally focused on the present time and place, the client is probably abstracted to some extent: their attention is split. All you have to do is ask someone to focus on the past or imagine the future and you are inviting them to split their focus from the here and now. You are inviting them into trance.

Just as storytellers hypnotise their audience, people can also take themselves into a trance state when they tell their own stories. Especially if it’s about something highly emotional.

Emotions narrow and fixate our consciousness and are therefore inherently hypnotic. This naturally occurring trance is such an important concept in psychotherapy, yet so many practising therapists don’t understand it.

Everyday trances in everyday therapy

When someone in therapy is asked to focus their attention, of course part of them still knows they are in the counsellor’s office. But if they’ve been asked to talk or think about a painful event such as a recent divorce or a childhood humiliation, part of them may also be experiencing that pain in a very real sense. Their attention is split, and a kind of trance has been established.

To maximise the benefit of the inevitable trance states that occur during any kind of therapy, the therapist needs to know how suggestible their client becomes during these trance states.

But perhaps even more importantly, the therapist needs to know how to make sure these trance states don’t end up causing more pain.

During trance we develop unconscious associations that act like naturally occurring post-hypnotic triggers. Unless the therapist understands this basic psychological principle and knows how to use it, therapy may cause problems for their client.

Post-hypnotic response happening all the time

Hypnosis is a natural process, and it happens naturally – not just when it is induced by a hypnotherapist or stage hypnotist. Life is hypnotic.

I worked with a woman who would feel nauseous every time she went to the hospital where she had received (nausea-inducing) chemotherapy. She would feel like vomiting the minute she stepped through the front door, even though she was now perfectly well.

Association isn’t conscious, but it is powerful. Another woman told me how she had felt after receiving a year of ‘therapy’ from a therapist who had encouraged her to repeatedly focus on the pain in her life:

“After a while just sitting in his room made me feel tearful, before we even started talking. It’s like the chair, his face, even the time of day I went to see him would automatically trigger me feeling anxious and upset.”

Did that therapist understand the power of naturally occurring post-hypnotic association? Hardly. I bet he would have sworn he wasn’t doing hypnosis with his client.

There’s no such thing as hypnotherapy… or is there?

In a sense, you could argue that there is no such thing as hypnotherapy, since all therapy contains hypnosis. Or alternatively, that all therapy is hypnotherapy. But there’s good hypnosis and then there’s bad hypnosis.

It’s only when you as a therapist know how to use naturally occurring hypnotic states that the hypnotic self, this central part of what it means to be human, is no longer accidentally activated but purposefully utilised for therapeutic gain.

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Personally, I’m not quite ready to make the term hypnotherapy obsolete! But I’m careful about how I use it.

When I talk about hypnotherapy, I’m not just talking about hypnosis. I’m talking about the purposeful recognition and use of hypnotic states to achieve benefits for the client.

This is something all therapists and communicators need to understand. This is also why going to see a well-trained hypnotherapist may be the best therapy you can have.

Suddenly, my thoughts snapped back to the present.

The diminishing power of CBT

Perhaps sensing my abstraction, Robert broke into my thoughts. At last, he seemed to be trying to appeal to something he thought I might be interested in.

“I read today that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has become less effective than before. That it’s about half as effective for treating depression as it used to be.”(1)

Shaking myself from my reverie, I agreed. That did seem to be the consensus.

Depression has a lot to do with expectation, which is almost always negative for depressed people. Hope is so important in overcoming depression, which is one reason depression is so responsive to placebo.(2)

In fact, a large part of the efficacy of antidepressant medications seems to be related to the positive expectation that taking them engenders. Hypnotherapy is all about knowingly creating positive expectation.

Robert seemed mildly interested, but it didn’t last. As the conversation drifted back to spreadsheets and tax returns, I sunk once more into the depths of my own musings…

CBT and hypnosis

Early on, the success of CBT seemed to rest partly on its reputation and the hype that surrounded it. But as time went on, the novelty wore off and so did the placebo effect. In this context, the benefit of the placebo is about the focus it creates – a hypnotically engendered state of unconscious expectation.

Expectation plays such a critical role in human experience, from misery to happiness. That’s why therapeutic presuppositions are part and parcel of modern hypnotic training: because they help shape positive expectation.

So if expectation is such a large part of CBT’s efficacy, why aren’t all CBT practitioners trained to use and engender that expectation, just as hypnotherapists are? It all comes down to the widespread lack of understanding when it comes to hypnosis and hypnotherapy.

Hypnotherapy is often described as a complementary therapy, but I have to question that description. Hypnosis happens naturally in all therapies and, in the cases of CBT and antidepressant medication, may actually be the main active ingredient.

Hypnosis vs hypnotherapy

Far from being ‘complementary’, hypnotherapy is central to the experience of human change and development.

A hypnotherapist is simply a psychotherapist who understands and uses this central aspect of human psychologyTweet

A hypnotherapist is simply a psychotherapist who understands and uses this central aspect of human psychology. And in so doing, they open up the possibility of treating physical pain, nightmares, PTSD, depression, panic, anger, and even addiction – because these conditions are all at least partly hypnotic in nature.

They all focus the mind narrowly and produce unconsciously conditioned responses.

Hypnosis is not a therapy in itself; it’s a natural state of mind that can be harnessed by well trained or naturally gifted practitioners to produce powerful healing effects.

In short (though I don’t think I bothered trying to tell this to Robert!):

Hypnosis is natural, and happens all the time, especially within any therapeutic context in which the focus is internalised and the room is defocused or ‘forgotten’.

For any therapy to work, even if the therapy itself works at the level of conscious processes, the therapeutic gain needs to be made unconscious. Only then can the person assimilate these changes naturally in their day-to-day life.

Hypnosis isn’t therapy any more than water is swimming. And as Dr Michael Yapko argues, hypnosis does not in itself cure anything. It is what happens during hypnosis that has the potential to be helpful. Identifying and utilizing clients’ natural hypnotic abilities enables the therapist to match the therapy to their needs.

As hypnotherapists we are working with an important and often overlooked part of the human being. Hypnosis doesn’t have to be obvious. It doesn’t even have to be intentional! But it needs to be understood, and it needs to be harnessed for benefit.

I let my consciousness come back to the room and found Robert still contentedly chatting away. Though I bore no malice, it was time to interrupt.

“I don’t believe in accountancy!” I said bluntly.

As he backed away from me he looked stunned… almost hypnotised.

To learn hypnotic techniques you can blend into your therapy, counselling or coaching approaches, take a look at our online Uncommon Hypnotherapy course.

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vitalmindandbody · 7 years ago

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If not my surname or my husband’s, could we announce our child after a New Zealand volcano?

Franki Cookney and her husband didnt much like one another surnames, so now theyre having a baby theyve are determined to pick a new one

When my husband, Rob, and I married last year, the question of what to do about our surnames barely participated our debates. We are both scribes, so our figures are on every piece of work we do. That we would save our own seemed a passed. There was just one niggling disbelieve. What would happen if we had children?

I had always had considered that we would just fasten both our identifies on the birth certification, but I knew this didnt quite solve the problem. Whose figure would go first? And which appoint would end up being used?

We could use a double-barrel call, but didnt seem our surnames, Cookney and Davies, gave themselves to hyphenation. Whichever tell you choose, research results is clunky and we were reluctant to saddle a child with it.

We could have just opted whichever call clanged best with our newborn first name. But in that scenario, one parent discontinues up not sharing a surname with their child and neither of us craved that. Plus, Id heard too many tales of mothers being stopped at airfield insurance because the names on their passports didnt accord that of their children.

The conventional option of taking my husbands surname was never on the table. Quite apart from the feminist principle of not was intended to relinquish my identity for his, I wasnt keen on the reputation. Rob supported this and was by no means offended. The misfortune was, he wasnt a fan of my epithet either. Its just a little bit unwieldy, he said. Its almost Cockney but not quite. Youre constantly having to spell it out. We looked at our mothers maiden names and our grandparents names but ever aimed up back in the same situate, feeling that it wasnt equal, that picking one slope of their own families over another wasnt fair.

We hit on the idea of taking a new reputation about a year ago when before our marry we went to write our wills. As we chitchatted to one of the attorneys, it transpired that he and his wife had done precisely this. Theres a fair fragment of admin, but its good, it toils, he said , nodding decisively. Abruptly, it didnt seem so preposterous. This wasnt some foolish uprising or bohemian pretentiousness, this was something solicitors did!

We mooted it with friends, who were largely unfazed. What mention will you go for? was the thing they were most curious about. Good topic. Could we compound the letters of our mentions and make something new, we pondered. Listings were manufactured: Gouges, Cave, Devine, Kinsey, Dacovnicks Cookies? Nothing of them quite hit the mark.

As our bridal drew nearer, we employed the figure recreation on a back burner. But when I became pregnant 3 months later, we were forced to look at developments in the situation afresh and decided to change tacking. How about a lieu? I indicated. Somewhere weve inspected that we adored. A backpacking stint before we got married had left us with slew make their own choices but most sounded fairly bizarre when attached to got a couple of everyday Brits. Rob and Franki Tongariro owned any particular vigor, but identifying yourself after a New Zealand volcano would be ridiculous. And Zhangjiajie might create recollections of spectacular Chinese mountains, but imagine having to sorcery it every time you booked a fuzz appointment or called your internet provider. For a while Salento and Chaltn were on the register, after places available in Colombia and Argentina. But we werent convinced we could pull off the certainly Latino-sounding former and suspected the latter would lead to a lifetime of chastising people who pronounced it Charlton.

Then Rob said, What about Stone Town? The beautiful old-time township of Zanzibar City is where he had asked me to marry him. It instant appeared right. Stone was straightforward but important. It voiced good with both our first name and after a few weeks of trying it on with other calls would work well with almost anything we chose for our child. It was perfect: a solid call( with a potential for puns that was not failed on us) that felt like a constructive solution to our question. We would obstruct our original surnames for wield and accept this new family name for our personal lives.

By law, all you need to do to change your refer is, well, change it. Simply borrowing and using your brand-new reputation is enough. Revising your reports and records, nonetheless, requires a document of proof such as a wedding certificate or, in such cases, a deed canvas. “Were not receiving” official practice of acquiring a deed ballot. You can write one yourself exploiting free templates from the internet, but scarcity of lucidity about the relevant procedures answers in some institutions demanding an original certificate despite the fact that no such concept subsists. You can either fight it out or you can do which is something we did and offer 15 -2 0 for a company such as the Deed Poll Office to draw up the letter on your behalf and etch and stomp it on watermarked paper. Rendered the roster of bodies and organisations you have to notify and the potential polemics over what constitutes an original credential, this seemed a reasonable compromise.

Perhaps “its been” naive, but we didnt expect to meet with fight. Uncertainty, perhaps. Intrigue, for certain. When it is necessary to getting married, we had trenched virtually every habit exiting, forbidding the wedlock itself, and no one had questioned us. Surely this too would be seen as a modern update on an outdated custom-built. But when we announced our decision to our families, the reaction was mixed.

Franki and Rob. Picture: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian

While they understood our quandary, the common forbear was that the child would lose the connection to its family history. Try as I might, I cant understand this. To me, family history extends far deeper than ones call. Its in the way we live, our values, the gumption and shared experience passed down through generations. It is part of the storytelling our parents did and its in the floors we, very, “re going to tell” and the beliefs we will share.

Our springs are not in our identifies, they are in our centres. My grandmother, whose surname was Jones, is important to me not because of her identify but because of her enjoy. My great-grandmother, a midwife I never even fulfilled, let alone shared a appoint with, forms a part of my feel of identity. Why? Because of the room my loving mother talks about her, because of the pictures she has decorated in my head of that life, that household, that time.

Interestingly, the mention itself has also testified a sticking point, with a few people commenting that its tolerating. Youre doing this really unusual thing but youve picked a really ordinary epithet, said one colleague, as though by doing something different “weve been” obliged to go the whole hog and call ourselves Rob and Franki Thundercats.

In fact, the accessibility of the epithet was something we thought would help us sell the idea. It turns out “were in” naive there, more. My father, a former primary school teacher, insisted that someone called Stone would be tantalized. Another relative describing him as a dead weight of a name.

In my experience, teenagers will come up with names no matter what. I wasted much of my school years known as Franki Cookie while my given name was regularly elongated to Frankenstein, Frankincense or Frankfurter.

Never tell people your epithet picks in advance, admonished one acquaintance( too late ). Its as if telling parties in advance is inviting a exchange or consultation!

While my familys affections clearly matter to me, I believe she might be right. Eventually, this is our decision, based on our demands, and I hope they will come to see it as a practical and positive step , not an reckless one.

Its almost impossible to get everyone on board, attorney another friend, who changed her surname by deed ballot in 2004. The suggestion upset my grandma but my pa, her son, understood. When I marriage my husband, he took my name. Im still not sure his brother was 100% behind us, but when we had our first son, he was the first to be born into our empire. Im so excited that we are the first in our tree!

This is exactly how I appear. I adoration the idea that our babe will be born into this new, specially opted and carefully thought-out last name. And if one day he or she decides to change it either to something new or to one of our old family names we will fully support that.

Even when you change names, ancestry can still be traced and, if nothing else, I like to think we will be seemed back on as the ones who tried something new; who instead of establishing do with an disappointing place, supposed creatively about how to solve it. Thats their own families legacy Im glad with.