#yell at me if you disagree i might delete/change my mind I don’t know but it b u g s me so much and has for years

[applesandbannas747]

actually i think I am going to be a dick about this even though it's possible I'm being unreasonable. I think it's shitty to post art from behind Jo's paywall unless it's art you commissioned. Otherwise, you are denying her income from posting and/or posting something someone else bought, which sucks a little

[fandom-necromancer]

Ghosts of the past

This was prompted by an awesome anon! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed1700 (Warnings: implied past abuse, manipulation, mentioned forced drug intake, drug abuse)

[Part2]

‘I don’t feel too good about this…’ ‘Me neither, but I can’t think of any other way, unfortunately…’ Nines swallowed, looking Connor in the eyes. It was hard to look into these eyes when he normally was the one telling Nines to forget about the mission for a while. Whenever Nines sunk a little too far into his comfort zone of code and orders, Connor was there to remind him he didn’t had to follow it. He was allowed to indulge in his emotions and listen to his wants. Now that their roles had changed it really made him think about how compromised he really was with this particular case.

‘Nines, we need that confession. You know that.’ ‘I know Connor!’, the android yelled with frustration. ‘I know, but I’m not sacrificing Gavin’s mental state, health or career, just because some criminal decides to play with us!’ Connor sighed. ‘Do you think I want that? Nines, he matters to me as much as to you, I’d rather die myself than see him hurt. I’m just saying we should ask him and not decide for him just because that makes us more comfortable.’ Nines sighed, nodding. ‘His sense of duty will make him say yes.’ ‘Maybe, but it will be his decision. He’s a grown man and we will be there for him should anything happen. Come on.’

Gavin immediately shit was about to go down as both androids exited the interrogation room heading his direction. Both their LED’s were yellow bordering to red and knowing just who sat behind that door, Gavin knew exactly what must have happened. Still, he tried to look optimistic: ‘And? What did you find out?’ Nines looked aside, arms crossed over his chest, while Connor put up a fake grin that should be calming. So they both were disagreeing about their way of action. Gavin wouldn’t dare saying he knew what was going on in their heads most of the time, but he could read their emotional state like nobody else. ‘Not much’, Connor answered him. ‘He refuses to speak with anyone but you.’

Gavin swallowed and lowered his head. ‘Well phck’, he cursed, accepting his fate. ‘Guess I’ll go talk to the asshole then.’ ‘You don’t have to’, Nines immediately stated, taking a step forwards when Gavin stood up. ‘You don’t have to talk to him.’ ‘Nines, I have to if we want to get a confession, right?’ ‘He didn’t say anything about confessing’, Connor corrected. ‘Just that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone but you.’ ‘Yeah, well, that’s basically the same thing, isn’t it?’, Gavin huffed determined. ‘It’s been years, I think I can talk to the asshole if it means I won’t see him for a long time, because he’s locked up. I’ll manage.’ ‘We’re right in the next room observing’, Nines tried to reassure him, knowing arguments wouldn’t help. ‘Then I’ll try to give you two a show, huh?’, Gavin joked and took the lead towards the interrogation room.

He heard the others following him and tried to keep his composure for as long as they saw him. He knew they worried about him. Hell, Gavin worried about himself. It had been a long time since he had last seen David Smith and he wouldn’t have complained if more years had been added to that. And his confidence in his ability to keep calm and professional around him was fragile at best. But they needed that confession and Gavin would get it. No matter the cost.

He took a deep breath before opening the door and entering the room. He didn’t spare the man sitting across the table any mind, sat down and slammed the file on the table in front of him. ‘Your name is David Smith, is that correct?’ He stared strictly on the papers in front of him. ‘Yes.’ Oh that phcking voice. That goddamn soft voice that reminded him of all the times this stupid phck had him wrapped around his finger. If he could, he would have thrown up already, but as it was, he kept up his neutral façade. ‘State your age and occupation.’ ‘Thirty-nine. Freelancing salesman.’ Gavin could hear the asshole’s sly grin in his words and narrowed his eyes. ‘Come on, Gav. Why so stuck-up? Not happy about seeing your man?’ ‘You will address me as Detective Reed, Mr. Smith’, Gavin commented sharply. ‘And I’d appreciate you staying on topic. Does “freelancing salesman” include the producing and selling of illegal substances by any chance? We found copious amounts of drugs, mostly Red Ice and cocaine in your flat. Additionally, there have been accounts of eyewitnesses depicting you handing over those substances to others. The evidence clearly speaks against you, but a confession might increase your chance at a decreased sentence.’

‘You’re still as beautiful as I remember you.’ Gavin felt himself shudder but ignored the goose bumps in his back. ‘Mr. Smith, I doubt you understand the situation you are in.’ ‘Hmm… all professional, aren’t we, Gav? I remember I could get you to be pretty unprofessional in a matter of seconds.’ Gavin couldn’t help but look up. It had been a mistake, as the man’s grin widened, and those eyes captured him once again. ‘Ah… So you remember too.’

Gavin sighed and closed the file. ‘Why the phck did you refuse to speak with my partners? David, we’re over and done with. The years with you were some of my worst and there is no way I will ever want that back.’ The man smirked at him. ‘So they are your partners? I thought so, they’re your type. Tall and strong enough to put you in your place…’ Gavin ground his teeth and stared at David with eyes that could kill. ‘Are you selling drugs again? Who are your suppliers? Who do you keep around to test your phcking new creations on?’ ‘Come on, babe, you were more than just that for me.’ ‘I asked you a question asshole. You said you’d talk to me. I’ve yet to hear a single word that’s worth the air.’

David leaned back and grinned. ‘Oh, please Gavin. You pretend to be so high and mighty. You can’t put me behind bars. In fact, I know I will be walking free in a matter of hours.’ ‘And why should that be?’, Gavin asked. ‘Charlotte 2.0.’

Gavin’s eyes widened and he had to hide his hands beneath the table because they were shaking too much. In one quick motion, he took the file and left the room. Only to sink against the closed door as his knees gave in. Not much later Nines and Connor came running to his side. ‘Gavin! Are you alright? What the hell happened in there?’, Connor asked, obviously scanning his vitals. ‘Who… What is Charlotte 2.0?’, Nines asked. Gavin concentrated on breathing first, speaking second. ‘We have to let him go’, he whispered desperately. ‘We have to.’ ‘What? Why?’

Gavin stood up and walked away from the door. ‘Charlotte was an android. Non-deviant. His fail-safe. Remember how I never wanted to tell you how I got out of that relationship? I killed her. Killed her and ran, moved and stopped talking to anyone I knew. Deleted all accounts and made new ones.’ ‘You did what?’, Nines asked. ‘Yeah, she was just a machine, okay? It was the only way out. I… David is anything if not prepared. Charlotte had the single task to gather as much information as she could. That means he can notify any gang, any lab, drug den or dealer in the city they have been compromised. With a single word from him, she can make every current operation in narcotics null and void with everyone alarmed.’ ‘Then why did you kill her?’, Connor asked. ‘Because she also keeps tabs open on everyone dear to the people he wants to keep in line. I’m not an idiot, I realised what I had fallen into a week after we first met. But I could only run years later because she was dead and couldn’t hold my family and friends at gunpoint in secret.’

Connor and Nines stared at each other. ‘So we need to find the android he uses this time.’ Gavin shook his head. ‘I doubt he will be dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. I’d guess Charlotte 2.0 is a program ready to unleash all the gathered information if something goes wrong.’ ‘Then what do we do? Search his apartment again?’ ‘Would be a good start.’

Less then twenty minutes later, Gavin, Nines and Connor sat in a car driving towards David’s apartment. ‘You did good in there’, RK900 suddenly broke the silence. ‘I worried for you.’ ‘We both did’, Connor added. ‘But it’s good you decided to go.’ ‘I just want to end this shit’, Gavin sighed. ‘I don’t want to think back to it, and I’ll sleep the hell of a lot easier knowing the asshole is behind bars.’ ‘Couldn’t put it better’, Connor nodded. ‘You want to come with us?’ They had parked the car and Gavin looked up to the apartment complex he knew far too well. ‘Yeah, I’ll come. Don’t like it a bit, but I might be of help.’

They exited the car and made their way up using the shitty rumbling elevator Gavin despised. Not only that you had to fear the damn thing giving in any moment, the memories of how he had been slammed against a wall, barely conscious with the bastard’s lips all over his body… No, he refused to think of that. He refused to think of anything but him being here to put an end to it all. He felt two reassuring hands on his shoulders as the door opened and gladly let them exit first, following the two androids towards the apartment Gavin had never wanted to see ever again.

In the end it didn’t look too different to what he had gotten to know: the flat was messy, clothes thrown around, empty mugs and take out containers stood on the kitchen counters and table. The dead plant that had been Gavin’s company throughout many drying-outs from some experimental drug high, still stood on the windowsill rotting and gathering dust. ‘Would you rather wait outside?’, Connor asked, but Gavin shook his head. ‘No. Thank you, but we need to find Charlotte 2.0. I’ll help.’ They systematically went through every corner and every drawer. Gavin found a few disposable phones he couldn’t activate; Connor was long sitting on the couch interfacing with a laptop while Nines was somewhere in the bathroom.

Gavin was waiting for the next phone to charge enough so he could try to get to any contacts or other data on it. He tried to concentrate on his task, but waiting hadn’t exactly sat right with him for most, so he ended up lost in memories he hoped to rather forget. Two years of his life just gone and wasted. Who knew how many years of his life the drugs had taken from him? The lies he had told. The things he had done to keep David safe. No, to keep those dear to him safe. He looked up at Connor. Did David know of his relationship with Connor and Nines? Did he know how happy he was with them, how much he loved and needed them? Was Charlotte programmed to cause them harm too? He didn’t want to imagine what would happen would they not find whatever failsafe David had thought up this time. If they had to let David go. Phck, no, they had to find it. They-

‘Nines!’ Connor had stood up and placed the laptop on the kitchen counter next to Gavin. ‘I found something, but you are better at this.’ RK900 hurried out of the bathroom and joined their side. ‘Better at what?’ ‘At breaching the security measures. I think I found this Charlotte 2.0, but I can’t access it. It’s protected with a password and I can’t get past it. The system looks everything like an android mind to me. Or at least the security is similar. I can’t get in.’ ‘Okay, let me try.’ Nines reached for the laptop to interface and Gavin watched how his LED spun faster and faster as his brows furrowed. It only was a matter of seconds, but that alone should have told Gavin something was wrong. When the android stepped back desperately looking at the computer-screen asking for a password. ‘I can’t get in either. We need the password.’

‘How many tries do we have?’, Gavin asked. ‘Three’, Connor supplied. ‘We can’t just trial and error the solution.’ Gavin stared at the keyboard, then turned around to look at the apartment. ‘Try Gavin Reed.’ ‘What?’, Nines asked. ‘Darling, we can’t just try it out.’ ‘Listen’, Gavin sighed. ‘I wasn’t the only one David tried his drugs on. But it… It was personal with me. In some twisted way, he really loved me. Why else pull such a damn stunt? He could have just moved to a different place and continued on with his business. But he stayed, he kept dealing right under our noses after I left. The asshole wanted to be found. And we don’t exactly have much time. Try my name, if it doesn’t work, we still have two tries left.’

Nines stared at him unmoving, but Connor took the chance and typed in “Gavin Reed” Then he hit enter. The screen cleared to give access to code Gavin didn’t understand. But from the way Nines and Connor interfaced with the device immediately he took it had worked. ‘It’s deactivated’, Nines stated, stepping back. He looked at Gavin, who had pulled his arms around his middle and looked to the ground. ‘Thank you, Gavin. Let’s get this Laptop to the police and then go home.’ ‘Forget this all’, Connor said, when he pushed the laptop shut. ‘Sounds good’, Gavin sighed tiredly and closed his eyes as both androids pulled him in a deep hug. ‘Sounds phcking perfect.’

[>next part]

[theotherackerman]

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.

NOTES: Flashback: Mikasa:age 9, December 25thCurrent time: Sunday December 27th- Wednesday December 30th

CHAPTER ONE: the holidays linger like bad perfume

Mikasa had been nine years old.

It was snowy to the point that they could not see. A visit to her cousin’s as his days were becoming numbered. He wished to see them one more time before he died. One last Christmas together. Her mother and father couldn’t deny Kenny that.

She didn’t remember much of what happened.

The screams.

The bright lights.

The crunch of the metal.

Her father was gone instantly, her mother barely alive. She was reaching towards Mikasa, the sleeve of her mother’s shirt scrunched up so Mikasa could see her mother’s tattoo.

Bright lights were coming again.

She wanted to run but she couldn’t get free.

Her seatbelt was stuck.

“Mikasa, run!” She heard her mother scream.

Click.

She was free. She ran as fast as her legs to take her.

BAM!

A large truck hit the car a second time.

It wasn’t long until the police showed up.

The hospital was sterile, cold.

A piece of glass had embedded into her cheek. So the doctor used tweezers to remove it. He had already wrapped her arm up in a cast.

“There we go. Now you might have a scar from it but you’ll be okay. Don’t pick at the scab on your face. You’re very lucky, Miss Ackerman,” Grisha Jaeger said as he ruffled her hair. She simply looked up with him with tears in her eyes. She hadn’t stopped crying since she got here.

“I don’t care what your protocol is. I got a phone call saying my cousin is here. I’ve already talked to both the sheriff and child services. I’m her next of kin and I’m taking her!” The curtain was thrown back to reveal a very angry Levi Ackerman. “Oh, sorry Doctor Jaeger. Maybe you can tell your nurses that I am her cousin. I forgot my wallet...Kenny got the call.”

Grisha looked at the blonde nurse standing next to Levi and nodded.

“Well just because he has the same last name doesn’t mean they’re related,” the woman retorted.

“Are you fucking stupid? This is a small town, lady. How many Ackermans do you think we have running around here? Look, her father was my mother’s brother as I’ve told you twenty times now!”

Mikasa jumped down from the hospital bed and made her way over to Levi. She grabbed on his sleeve and pulled. When he looked down at her, his expression softened.

“Can we go home?” She asked as she started to cry.

Levi simply scooped Mikasa up and pushed past the nurse.

“Bill me. Make sure you put Captain Levi Ackerman on it. I don’t want that mister shit on there. I served for too many years for that.”

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

Levi had been the one to teach her how to play the piano. He kept a grand baby piano in the sunroom. Kenny had bought it saying it made the place look classy. Mikasa couldn’t disagree.

It was in a desperate need of tuning. Every note seemed to be off. She wondered if Levi even played anymore.

“You know if you told me you were coming, I would have had it tuned,” Levi said as he leaned in the doorway.

“I have my keyboard if I need it. I guess since I found out mom used to play this piano, every time I come home, I want to play it. I didn’t tell you I was coming home because I didn’t know if I was. Besides, I didn’t want you to tell anyone.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Just go punch him in the jaw and move on.”

“You didn’t hear the things he said! It’s not that simple this time. It’s not just us getting mad at one another. He said he always hated me. He sat there and tore me down, Levi. I was getting ready to propose and he said I was just a people pleaser. That he only dated me because he wanted to know what it would be like to fu...where are you going?”

“Think I’ll go pay Eren a little visit.”

Mikasa exited the sun room and went to the living room. A very angry Levi was about to exit the h ouse.

“Levi, no. Let it go. Armin already punched him when he said it. Then I yelled at Armin I didn’t need him to defend me and then that was it.”

“And now she makes shit coffee!” Ymir called from the kitchen. Mikasa wasn’t sure when the other girl had woken up.

“She hates my coffee,” Mikasa replied simply as she looked down at the floor. This had been only the second time she had talked to what happened. The first had been hours after it had happened, in Mikasa’s bedroom  with her bandmates and best friends.

Ymir came into the living room with a mug full of coffee. “You need to add more coffee to it before you brew it. Historia also punched him in the face if that makes you feel better, Captain. I offered to take out his kneecaps but Mika here said no.” Ymir wrapped an arm around Mikasa’s s houlders.

“I would have bailed you out.”

“See! I told you!” Ymir squeezed Mikasa’s shoulders.

Mikasa wasn’t sure why that had made her cry or even when the tears in her eyes had started to build up. The anger on Levi’s face only grew.

Mikasa had been there when Levi had night terrors caused from his PTSD. He had been a soldier, a Captain even. Then a wrong explosion had made him lose his closest friends, not to mention the burns he had sustained on his torso. Mikasa would go into his room as a small child when she would hear the screaming and wake him up, only to ask what was wrong. It brought Levi back every time. With therapy, they slowly started to get better. That wasn’t the only change that helped him. His high school friends started to show up more often after Mikasa had come into his life.

One of those people was Hange Zoe, Levi’s partner. Mikasa adored them.

“When is Hange coming?” Mikasa asked to change the subject.

“They got stuck at Moblit’s house. Storms are real bad up north. Should be here before New Year’s though. Are you sticking around that long?”

Mikasa nodded.

“I’ll be here too. Because you know...no family. Orphaned. Just like you two. Well expect you two have each other.”

Levi just rolled his eyes as he walked away. “I’m going to salt the driveway before the storms hit. Ymir, don’t put your feet on my coffee table!”

Ymir removed her arm from around Mikasa and made her way back towards the kitchen. “Check your email. Historia sent out another bit of music. It looks like it’ll be keyboard heavy. Needs lyrics. Maybe you can take your angst and turn into something.”

Mikasa rolled her eyes. It wasn’t a bad idea actually. She had tried last night but she had failed.

Historia’s music always brought the best of her lyrics out.

“I’ll give it a listen.”

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

Three days.

Mikasa wrote lyrics in the sun room with her keyboard for three days. Ymir regularly brought her food and too strong coffee. Levi would throw bottles of water at her which she would catch with one hand.

"Now I'm in..hell...seeing you pass...no. That sounds stupid," Mikasa muttered to herself as she marked out the lyrics in her notebook.

She returned to playing the music again.

It was three days of that.

By the end of it, Levi had grown numb to the sound of Mikasa's piano playing the same song over and over.

At least it wasn't that song she had written when her and Eren had broken up. He wasn't sure with what he knew now that he could listen to that song the same way.

“Go shower. You smell.” He nudged her with his foot. She had fallen asleep on the floor in the sunroom.

“It’s done,” she yawned as she stretched.

“Good. Go shower. Hange will be here in an hour.”

Mikasa simply nodded.

After a shower and a change of clothes, Mikasa came downstairs and into the kitchen to see Ymir, Levi, Hange, and someone she didn’t expect to see at all.

“Armin?” Her voice cracked.

She didn’t know how to feel.

“Mikasa! I’m sorry. I didn’t know you and Armin were still not speaking or what had happened. I didn’t want him spending Christmas alone and you know his grandfather worked with me at the university. Brilliant History professor. Then when he passed, I offered to take Armin with me to visit my friend Molbit,” Hange said they stood up.

“It’s okay, Hange,” Mikasa replied as she sat down at the table across from Armin.

“She shouldn’t be mad at Armin anyway. He was just trying to help,” Ymir muttered before taking a drink of coffee. “What? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Maybe we leave these two alone for a minute,” Hange suggested.

Mikasa looked at Levi who simply raised an eyebrow.

Mikasa nodded.

Hange and Levi left the table.

“I’ll be right in the hallway, listening the whole time,” Ymir said before strolling away from the table with her coffee.

An awkward silence washed over the two of them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call when your grandpa….” Mikasa started but Armin just waved his hand.

“It’s okay. I needed to be alone then. Just need to process everything. I heard you won the battle of the bands. Congratulations.”

“Annie?”

“Annie told me, yeah. She said she didn’t think you’d care if she told me. Just not to tell Eren. I haven’t talked to him since that day. Have you?”

Mikasa shook her head.

“He deleted all his social media too. Last I heard he was reconnecting with Zeke. Sorry, I shouldn’t bring this up,” Armin remarked before looking down.

“It’s okay, Armin. Really. I know Ymir is right. I don’t care that you and Annie are together….”

“Well, we’re not. I don’t know if she even feels that way about me anymore.”

“The hickey on her neck on her snapchat story says different.”

Armin turned bright red and a laugh came from the hallway right outside the kitchen.

“Maybe it was someone else,” he muttered.

“The hickey you’re trying to hide with the hood of your jacket...and there’s lipstick on it. It’s the shade of lipstick always wear.  You should probably wash it,” she smiled.

“Ah, really? I thought I got it out. It’s stained then.” He pulled on the jacket trying to adjust where he could see the stain.

Mikasa laughed again. “I missed you, Armin.”

He stopped pulling at the jacket and returned her smile.

“I missed you too. I thought about messaging you but I thought if you saw me, it would remind you what happened. I just didn’t want to cause you anymore pain. We can just be M.A. now,” Armin said as he reached his hand out across the table.

E.M.A. was a stupid nickname that the three of them had come up with when they were kids. It stuck and followed them through high school since they were so inseparable.

“I’m okay with that,” she replied as she took his hand.

“Oh great, another orphaned brat is going to be at my house all the time again. I’m going to start charging you all rent. Ow! Hange, did you just swat me with a newspaper?”

“Technically, it’s the ads you got in the mail today.”

“Can you two save that for the bedroom? I’m trying to listen in on the conversation happening in the next room.”

Mikasa laughed.

Armin smiled at her.  “How have you been?”

“Busy. Wrote thirty six songs...well now thirty seven. I just finished one this morning. Historia is stuck at the Reiss house until New Year’s Eve.”

Armin nodded.

They all knew how Rod Reiss was when it came to what he called a united front. The family needed to show no weakness or the local gossip columns would have another field day. It was part of the reason that Historia used another name for all of their music.

“That’s great, I’m glad to hear it.”

Mikasa smiled again. She knew that he truly was happy for her.

“Now they’re just making small talk. This is boring,” Ymir’s voice rang out again.

“I’m sorry that our conversation isn’t entertaining,” Mikasa replied as she rolled her eyes.

“You should be,” Ymir said as she came into the kitchen and took the seat next to Mikasa. “So you and Annie, huh? Took you two longer to get together than….you know…” she waved her hand.

“I..uhh…” Armin started to turn red again.

Levi walked into the kitchen with Hange.

“Stop tormenting Armin, Ymir,” Levi sighed as he returned to his spot.

“What? Can I not point out the obvious? Those two are made for each other. If they ever have kids, they’ll be geniuses. And from the marks they left on one another, looks like they’ve had plenty of practice.”

Armin proceeded to turn another shade of red.

“Concealer helps,” Hange offered their advice to Armin. “Also ice cubes or put them places people don’t normally see.”

“Can we not talk about them having sex at my kitchen table? I like to live in a world where they’re all still twelve,” Levi sighed as he pinched his nose.

“Even after that time you walked in on Mikasa and he who shall not be named?” Ymir smirked.

“Ymir!” Mikasa exclaimed.

“What? I was there too.”

“Oh really? What about when I walked in on you an.....”

“So you get that driveway salted? Does it need more?” Ymir changed the subject.

“It’s fine,” Levi replied as he rolled his eyes.

“Hey, Ymir. Are you still any good at video games? I’m stuck on a level and I’m trying to get to gold in pvp,” Armin helped change the subject.

“You’re looking at someone who has the most achievements out of our friends. Of course, I am. Mikasa, is the console still upstairs?” Ymir asked.

Mikasa nodded.

“Great, after breakfast, I’ll get you where you need to be,” Ymir beamed. “Speaking of which, what are we having?”

“Whatever you cook,” Levi replied.

“I’ll cook. Eggs and bacon sound good?” Hange asked as they stood up.

“They’re not children, Hange. They can make their own breakfast.”

“But they are our children, Levi,” Hange smiled as they walked over to the stove.

Levi just sighed again.

[ill-skillsgard]

The Gloaming Hour - Alex Hogh Andersen

Title: The Gloaming Hour

Characters: Alex Hogh Andersen x ambiguous fem

Warning: No real warnings. Just angst and feelings!

Note:  In honour of @flowers-in-your-hayr​​ birthday, I wrote a little imagine inspired by one of her wonderful moodboards! Thank you @maggiescarborough​​ for organizing this fun event and asking me to take part <3

The concept of this piece isn’t based on the moodboard directly, rather an idea that popped into my head from the collection of images. Hope you like it! Kisses!

+

Excitement drained from Alex's face ounce by ounce, leaving his jovial smile deflated, his bright eyes a lifeless blue. As the curator flipped through his collection of portraits, scrutiny notched a wrinkle between his eyebrows that deepened with each turn of the page. Though a facetious mustache hid the curator's top lip, Alex recognized a grimace and the discontent infiltrating the air between them.

The older man closed the portfolio and sighed. He took off his glasses, polished the lenses on the lapel of his jacket and replaced them on his nose to better assess Alex's mood.

"Alexander..."

"Please, just Alex," the photographer insisted.

"Alex. It... It just—it breaks my heart to see your passion shrivelling."

Struck as though the curator had set his work on fire before him on the desk, Alex took a half-step back to prepare for harsher evaluations. "Shrivelling? I'd have to disagree."

"This isn't up to par with what you've brought to me in recent times. There's no trace of emotion. At least, nothing genuine. They're good photos, Alex, but they're stock photos at best. Destined for a watermark."

Alex gestured at the portfolio. "They're not the worst. I made do with what I had. There's only so many angles of Copenhagen I can give you before it looks postcard-ish. I took these at the height of the panic, while the entire world held its breath waiting for answers. I feel I reflect this in my work. Did you see the one of the little girl on the swing?"

The curator pushed the folder across the desk, a final swing of the axe. "I can't put these in the show, Alex. It's not my reputation I'm worried about, it's yours. I don't want to be the rope that ties your young career to the stake. My patrons wouldn't piss on these if they were on fire. Now, your winter series... If you brought me something like that, then I'd sing a different tune. Those were raw. Unfettered by trivial surface emotions. These are rather college-level, just-got-my-hands-on-my-first-DSLR quality. We've seen much better from you."

"What about the photo of the old woman?" Alex gave one last push.

"I'm looking for a coherent series. Something that tells an ongoing story. One diamond in a bed of zirconias just won't cut it, Alex," said the curator. "But we like you here. I want you to be part of the show."

Alex nodded in agreement. "So do I."

"You have five days to put together something that will wow me. I need to be awe-struck. Do you think inspiration will strike in that amount of time?" 

"If I knew when inspiration planned a visit, I'd do nothing but schedule my time around it, trust me," Alex said.

"Five days, Alex, you have less than a week to put something stirring on my desk. I believe in you. Now, I must ask that we get a move on. I have another appointment."

Alex took his portfolio, tucked it under his arm, nodded at the curator and left the gallery. It wasn't until he stepped onto the street the numbness in his face gave way to the severe weight of rejection. He remembered walking into the studio but fifteen minutes prior, brimming with confidence, but that zeal had melted, leaving Alex dispirited and ready to give up his dreams. How could he capture a full series in a few short days? No great work of art had ever been executed in such a minimal amount of time. Alex sighed, lit a cigarette, and walked in no particular direction.

His camera hung around his neck as it nearly always did, but it only served to remind him of his shortcomings. When he passed over a canal of rushing water, Alex thought of ridding himself of the padded noose and chucking the device into the river below. Yet he clutched the camera's zoom lens, running his fingertips over the rubber grip for comfort.

Sequestered in grey daydreams, Alex's feet took him to the walking trails before his head caught up. He left the din of the city behind, and when he snapped from his ruminations, budding birch trees and new foliage surrounded him. Alex had walked the trails many times before, but that day a golden hue drenched the atmosphere and had him appreciating the landscape with eyes afresh. He wandered this way and that, losing himself in the thicket on purpose as he watched for rare birds above. 

He came to the river's bend where an arcing walking bridge connected one side to the other. A woman was standing on the apex, looking out over the water with her back turned to Alex. She paid no attention to anything but the rapids below as the gentle wind carried pieces of her hair, abandoning the strands to float about her pate like a strange halo. From afar, Alex studied the slopes of her profile, but without his glasses, he couldn't make out the subtleties that made her eye-catching. The woman didn't notice him step onto the walking bridge.

The closer Alex came to the woman, the stronger his urge to photograph her became. He uncapped the camera lens, turned on the device and adjusted the settings to compliment the evening glow. From a distance, Alex relied on the power of the lens to bring her closer. He snapped some photos, then approached another four steps, fixed his frame, and captured a few more.

Alex cycled through the newest photos and noticed something about the woman's face he hadn't before: she was crying. Below her left cheek, a small stream glimmered, the setting sun illuminating a teardrop hanging off her jaw. This discovery made Alex's heart sink. He went a little closer, snapped another picture with his proximity taken into consideration, then studied the image. Her sadness tainted the entire frame, a beacon of black and grey on a gilded backdrop.

The woman turned just as Alex clicked the shutter again, and her melancholy transformed into indignation. She swiped at her incriminating tears in hopes the stranger wouldn't see them, but it was far too late. Alex already had evidence of her mournful spell.

"Excuse me! Just what do you think you're doing taking photos of me?" The woman yelled, approaching swiftly. "Did I give you permission to take my picture?"

The photographer took a step back, abandoning his camera near his chest to display open palms. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to bother. You just looked so... I'm sorry. I'll delete them, I promise."

Redness swallowed the whites of her eyes. Now that she was within slapping distance of Alex's face, it was clear the woman had been suffering there on the bridge for a long while. Though all traces of her dreary expression fled, he got the sense something terrible had happened to her, and he had taken advantage of her private moment for his benefit.

"Why would you do that? Take pictures of people without them knowing?" She demanded to know.

"I'm a photographer. I swear, I'm not some creepy guy that goes around taking photos of women."

"Pfft," she hissed. "I bet you have loads of disgusting pictures on that thing because you're a man, and all men are absolutely disgusting!"

Taken aback by her accosting, Alex realized her hurt ran deep and fresh. Her tears dried up, leaving behind nothing but scorn and red, puffy cheeks. Whatever internal wound she bore still bled, and he apologized again in hopes the woman might forgive him.

"Honestly, I'm just a photographer. Not a weirdo. Here, I'll even show you what I have on my camera roll. It's nothing but portraits and pictures of trees, I swear on my life. I was just walking and saw you on the bridge, and you looked... Um."

Her anger lessened, curiosity taking its place at least in her eyes. "I looked what? What did I look like?"

Alex chewed his bottom lip and toed a plank of the walking bridge. She met his silence with another step forward.

"You looked so sad... And beautiful," whispered Alex.

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head as a sarcastic laugh punched the air. "You're so full of shit."

"I'm not lying!" Alex defended himself. "Look for yourself."

The photographer turned his camera around, but the woman stepped back. Alex sighed, waited for her to build up enough trust to approach him, and let her come to his side when she was sure he wouldn't lunge. She looked at the display and the photo he'd captured of her hanging her head, one lone teardrop on her face alight with the diminishing aura of day. 

"Well... It's not terrible, I guess," she said.

"I'll still delete them," assured Alex

The woman shook her head. "You're a real photographer? Like a real, professional one?"

Alex fetched a business card from his pocket and passed it to her. She scanned the piece of cardstock and then his face.

"I've had my work displayed in art galleries if that helps."

"I guess it does."

A silence leavened the tension between them. The warbling water below clashed with bird calls above, and the sun slipped away, leaving them in deepening twilight. After five long minutes of quietude, the woman finally sighed.

"You don't have to delete them. They're good. You're obviously talented, and who am I to stifle your art?"

Surprised by her revelation, Alex chuckled nervously. "You sure? I don't have a problem getting rid of them."

"No," she shook her head. "You somehow made the shittiest day of my life look... Beautiful."

There was something about the woman's change of mind that told of understanding and kindness. Alex suddenly wanted to comfort her further. He slipped his camera behind him and spread his arms open. She flinched at this but realized what he meant to do.

"Would you like a hug? You look like you could use a good hug," offered Alex.

She bit the inside of her cheek as a bubble of a sob fought to escape her throat. Nodding while her eyes brimmed with another crop of tears, she stepped into his embrace and crushed her face into the collar of his denim coat. Surprised by the strength in which she clung to his torso, Alex matched it and held the girl tight until her tears dried up once more. 

[go-diane-winchester]

If you don't like Misha, this post might make you smirk.

I did this post yesterday and then deleted it because the OP made me feel sorry for her.  Luckily for me, someone reblogged it and my momentary stupidity is now remedied.  This whole scenario makes me smirk. 

Yesterday's post:

Doll face found @dean-supernatural-akf ranting in the main tags, including the Jensen tag, which is why she forwarded this biased drivel to me.  Thanks sweetie.  I scrolled though OPs blog, trying to figure this person out, because she ships wincest and destiel, apparently.  And she hates the haters.  It is convenient and dismissive to label those who don’t agree with you, don’t you think?  Label them rather than proving them wrong conclusively, because that would be difficult and you might lose the argument because of a lack of intelligence.  So call them names and be done with it.  Her rant is in italics, and my rebuttal in bold.

Rude and Missunderstood.

I CAN LIKE MISHA COLLINS AS AN HUMAN AND ACTOR WITHOUT BEING ONE OF HIS MINIONS.

Shocking right?

Here have a seat and lean back.

Very recently i got heavily missunderstood, and i’m making this post so it won’t happen again.

I asked someone if their blog is real . Because it was so full of hate against this actor named Misha Collins.

This guy right here, and I bet when you are one of the anti misha people then you even share the same look on your face right now, congrats.

Listen… I love JENSEN and i love JARED. And yes i love MISHA too.

But i don’t follow him around like a dog, i don’t kiss the ground where hes walking on.

AND i also don’t do this with J2.

Why is it that when there is an entire blog dedicated to hate for Jensen or Jared, there is no bleeding heart rant like this about that blogger?  But if you write a blog about all the mean things Misha and his fans do, you are a “horrible human being” with “toxicity and hate in your heart”.  No, I would prefer to call it discernment.  I wont like someone just because “it SPNFamily darn it, haters don’t belong”.  So if Misha gives me consistent reasons to hate him, I am still not allowed to hate him because I will be ejected from SPNFamily?  What is this?  A communist fanbase?  Nobody is allowed to have their own opinions?  Everybody must think the same way and feel the same fairytale happy feelings?  Which dandelion world did you pop up from?

I fight for all of them, i fight against the hate that all of those three get and Misha gets more hate then J2 and thats a fact.

Misha gets more hate?  Really?  You mean like death threats?  Like people tweeting him directly that they wish he was dead?  That kind of hate?  Please, show me where the hate is.  Bring me your receipts.  I want to see all the hate that Misha gets. 

And it’s so fucking unfair, i have seen blogs and people that wish that he would die, a man with two children and wife.

This is so sick and it’s so not okay.

Prove it.  Screenshot and show me where all these horrible people are.  I will put it in a post.  I always do.  The death threats and death wishes for J2 have been screenshotted and are on my blog.  So I have proof for my claims.  Bring the proof for your claims.  Its called making mature statements.  Quantifying your claims.  So please, set me straight.  Show me all the nastiness poor Misha gets.  I would like to see it. 

About the Misha minions, MISHA ISNT THE ONLY ONE WITH MINIONS.

Shocking again, right ?

From under which rock did you emerge?  Misha named his fans minions.  Very disrespectful.  No other actor has ’‘minions’’.  Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t like his fans referring to themselves as Cumberb*tches.  I respect him for that.  Misha did the opposite.   Shocking, right?

The people who only love J2 hate on Misha. And the people who love all of them hate back against the anti Misha people.

That is an incredibly simplistic way of putting it.  And it gives me the impression that this rant was written by someone who is young and idealistic in their notion of how the world works.  How come you don’t talk about the people who like Jensen and Misha and therefore hate Jared?  You cant.  You cant because that would be problematic to the narrative you are vomiting right now.  Those cockles perverts are the ones that tweet him, telling him that that they cant wait for him to die.  Receipts on my blog. 

The way you support J2 is the same way that Misha’s people support him.

Actually no, J2 fans don’t get angry when Misha is interviewed for Elle magazine, yelling “where’s J2”.  They don’t ask “Whose line is it,anyway?” why they excluded J2.  They don’t threaten to burn Misha alive in his house for being anti-destiel and/or making a joke about Jensen.  That happened with Jensen.  I have the receipts.  The same group were discussing kidnapping Jared’s kids.  That group was made up of 3500 people.  So many haters slipped up your radar?  Well, now you know. 

Minions and bitchy people are EVERYWHERE.

It is such a useless fight, don’t like someone?

THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT.

Yeah, take a page out of your own book.  If you don’t like the “haters”, as you dismissively call them, then don’t put this incorrect, unsubstantiated, unquantifiable rant in the main tags.  In fact, keep your uninformed opinion to yourself. 

What you do when you hate someone so badly and make a whole tumblr Blog about it then you are not better as those highschool bullies.

Dealing with the entire subject of hate, in the most abstract manner, without any analysis into your darling actor’s bad behavior and without taking into account the nasty behavior of his fandom, shows that high school is all you know.  Hopefully, one day you will grow up and think on broader terms. 

Cyberbullying is a serious subject, and thats exactly what you do with Hate Blogs and Hate tweets and Hate comments.

Keep using the word “hate”.  It will abrogate all the legitimate anger that the J2 fans have against Misha and his hellerminions.  Hellers are the biggest cyberbullies in fandom.  They sent hate directly to J2.  Some of the things they write will shock a person who has a real disdain to hate, not a daffodil like you who thinks Misha is infallible and doesn’t deserve an anti tag.  One said that she couldn’t wait for Jared to die.  And she tweeted that directly to Jared, along with a praying emoji.  Oh, you don’t know about that?  Well, then I guess you are not an authority on who is SPNFamily and who is not, now are you? 

You want to be a bully ? You love spreading hate ?

THEN JUST FUCKING BLOCK ME AND DON’T REPLY TO THIS.

Don’t reply to this?  Then why put it in the main tags, as well as inappropriate tags, and still hope that nobody disagree with you.  Aren’t we childish? 

What happened after the post was put up:

She DM's me and says that she has since changed her mind because she did another post about the hate that J2 get, and if I could please remove my post, because she was suffering panic attacks over it.  I said I would, but she is going to remove the above misleading post and provide me with proof that Misha gets death threats.  Caught between a rock and a hard place, she said that she came across the death threats on two blogs, that had blocked her for some mysterious reason, which is why she couldn't screenshot the evidence.  I found what those reasons were, when I went to those blogs: 

@castiel-needs-2-go

@destiew-must-go

I searched through their blogs, and found nothing.  No death threats.  They just point out the truth about Misha.  That is it.  She accused them for nothing.  Of course, that didn't occur to me until today, because I still felt concerned for her because the poor kid was suffering panic attacks.  So I deleted the post.  Today I find this message from her:

''So i asked like 10 different people Misha stans and Misha haters about those things you said he did. Nobody has ever heard of it, no one. You are telling your lies man, i aint stopping ya. But you are a horrible person if you need to attack a 19 year old on the Internet and 'Call me out' just because it gives you a kick. And just because you disagreed. My post will stay deleted because it wasnt up to Date anymore, but it wont be my last one. People like you need to be stopped, people like you are the reason why this fandom sucks so hard. Bye Bye. You are the sick one here .''

The weird thing is she attached this gif:

I don't know whether she thought it was going to hurt my feelings or something but, it actually helps to show her true identity.  She is not a wincest fan.  She is a Sam-hating heller in disguise.  Who would have thunk it? 

[sinfulavenue]

Episode 45, Outside the Walls of the Orvud District, Review

(Manga spoilers)

So before episode 46 airs later today, I thought I’d quickly review last week’s episode. When I first watched it I felt really quite bitter about the removal of one of my favourite moments and I was ready to write a really salty review. However after watching it a second time I realised there was so much I loved about the episode so I toned the saltiness down.

However there will still be a fair bit of ranting in the middle of this review so bear with me 😂 I’ve been very patient with this season, letting the story play out before jumping to any harsh conclusions but we’re getting near the end of the Uprising arc now so I think it’s fair to raise a few criticisms.

This review should be pretty simple to structure as I can easily split this episode into three sections.

1. The beginning part that was excellent!

2. The middle part that disappointed me.

3. And the ending which I have mixed feelings about.

So I guess I’ll do this in chronological order and start with the beginning part that was excellent.

Eren finally gets hard!

I refuse to apologise for that subtitle.😂

So this is the part of the episode that I did love. Like last week I was amazed by the superb animation and Yuki Kaji’s emotional performance as Eren. What also made me emotional is the joy of Historia’s growth. She has gone from being the ‘good girl’ who wished she’d never been born, to a girl who is in charge of her own destiny and stands up for others.

Also what a great moment it was when Mikasa swooped in and caught Historia before she got hurt and thank God she went straight for Historia and didnt run in yelling Erenereneren! (based on how Wit portrayed her at the end of the kidnap scene that really wouldn’t have been surprising!)

So yaay! Finally some God damn self control! Mikasa stayed with Historia, trusting that Levi, Jean and Connie would get Eren out and they did. Oh my God I laughed hard at Jean calling Eren a ‘topless wimp.’ 🤣 Although I still think I prefer the manga’s version ‘shirtless wonder.’

What followed was very powerful. The cave is crumbling and death looks certain unless Eren does something but he and breaks down again under the pressure, believing himself worthless.

I think my favourite part of this whole episode was the throwback to another difficult decision he had to make.

Back in season 1 I remember what a crucial moment this was when Eren learned to trust. Even Levi looked shocked by his decision not to transform, showing how much of a turning point this was for Eren’s character.

Back then, Levi was the only one who empathised with Eren’s moral dilemma and this time around it was no different. While the others were getting a impatient with his hysterics in the cave, Levi acknowledged the impossible situation he was faced with and urged him to make a choice.

And he made the right one! I loved the animation of Eren crystalising. What a mesmerising scene, I’m glad they animated the full process.

I also thought this part looked cool.

After Eren’s friends broke him free I’m sure the praise from Levi, someone he looks up to, meant a lot to him.

Hmm but what exactly does Levi find ‘pretty impressive’ here? 😏the crystalised titan or Eren’s abs?

Also Sasha laying on the ground and thanking Eren was hilarious and this little Eremin moment was beyond adorable! ❤️

All in all the first half of the episode was excellent, definitely of the same high quality of last week’s episode.

The rest of the episode however I have a few small issues with ...

The Journey to the Orvud District

Brace yourselves! This is the salty part! For weeks I’ve been balanced and fair in my reviews so I think I’m entitled to a bit of a rant!

So in case you hadn’t noticed this season (haha) a lot of the manga material has been cut. Many times I have been disappointed when I realised a certain scene hadn’t made it into the anime but I tried not to dwell on it and let it spoil my enjoyment of this season. However (and maybe I’m being biased because this was a personal favourite moment of mine) this time there was just one deleted scene too many and I need to vent!

If you haven’t figured out by now which scene I’m talking about it’s this one.

Yes it’s the part where Eren yells at Rod Reiss, calling him a midget only to remember that Levi, (a man who stands at just five foot three) is right behind him and damn you can feel the burn from that side eye! 😂

Now I know what some of you might be thinking. Oh my God, get over it, who cares? It’s not like it’s important to the plot or anything!

And ok, yes you are right. No, it is not essential to the plot but you know something it was funny, it was cute and it humanises the characters i.e. Eren doesn’t always think before he opens his big mouth and Levi, while he’s never said anything about it, might actually be self conscious about his height.

What made the loss of this moment even sorer was the fact that another cute moment was cut immediately after. I’m talking about the moment where Hanji, despite being injured, leaps up like a complete goof and yells “Heya Erwin.”

Once again, not essential to the plot but it showed us how well the veterans know one another. Erwin immediately recognised that Hanji wasn’t badly hurt as she was acting like her usual crazy self! So many subtle character details can be picked up from such fleeting interactions ... but I guess Wit just don’t care. All they care about is concluding the Uprising arc in as few episodes as possible!!! 😤😤😤

Honestly it feels like all the heart and soul was sucked out of this scene. I have to ask, was this one of the changes Isayma insisted on? Did he want this scene to be so dry and devoid of character? I get that Snk is not a comedy but it doesn’t always have to be doom and gloom. Sometimes I like to see the characters slip up and do stupid idiotic things that make me laugh. It makes them more human and relatable.

This made me realise something about season 3 as a whole. Sometimes I feel like this season is doing the bare minimum. All boxes are being ticked, all the essential plot points are being covered ... but nothing more. The result = emotional detachment!

So I’m sorry Wit but I’m very disappointed in you for taking these small but meaningful moments away from us.

Rant over!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk!

As for the Rod Reiss CGI chicken/worm titan, I personally don’t see anything wrong with it. It looked weird and gross in the manga and it also looks weird and gross in the anime 😂.

“Become the Queen”

Now here is the part I have mixed feelings about.

On one hand I am glad we got this scene at last because at least now we know we’ll get to see Historia punch Levi at the end.

But on the other hand the scene was quite awkwardly shoehorned back into the plot with half the impact it originally had.

Now see here’s the thing. I’m glad that in this version they didn’t have Levi attack Historia as it wouldn’t make sense this late in the plot and it would just undo all the character development she’s just had, but on the other hand the ending of the Uprising arc won’t be half as satisfying because Levi hasn’t done anything to deserve a punch.

In this version it feels like just a childish dare played on for laughs, without the enjoyment of seeing Levi getting a taste of his own medicine.

Although I have to say (other people might disagree) but I actually like that it was Mikasa who suggested the idea. It never ever crossed my mind that it would be her yet somehow it makes perfect sense! Payback for kicking the shit out of Eren in court maybe? 😏 Nah, I’m joking, I know Mikasa has moved on from that and she just suggested punching him to relieve the tension. Since joining his squad it’s clear Mikasa has come to respect Levi but at the same time she knows he’s far from perfect so I reckon she’d secretly quite like to see him on the receiving end of a punch. That’s just my take on it. I’m perfectly happy with the punch being Mikasa’s idea.

Despite the “become the queen” scene being pretty underwhelming compared to the manga, hopefully we’ll still get to see Levi’s beautiful smile.

Additional Thoughts

So I was wrong about potential flashbacks to the rest of Eren’s titan experiments at the cabin. I guess they are well and truly gone and I will say that without them, Eren finally gaining the hardening ability wasn’t as satisfying.

I realise that every week my opinion of the season seems to change. I’ve gone from praising it last week to complaining about it this week but I’m just being honest about how I feel in the moment. I just judge each episode as it airs and sometimes all it takes is one episode to make me completely revaluate my opinion of the whole season. It really is that unpredictable.

Ok so I was a little salty this week but hopefully today’s episode is one of those episodes that is so amazing that I forget how bitter I was feeling the previous week 🙂.

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 6]

Five badges down, three to go!

Hail the victorious living:

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Ptera (Archeops)

Palm (Breloom)

Batman (Escavalier)

Gelding (Tornadus)

Fido (Entei)

Clay invited our ten-year-old self off to see a cave in the middle of the wilderness, so that’s first on the agenda today.

Or is it?

Yeah, fight time.

Bianca has learned the way of the Hyper Potion. I would mind this less if she used it on something that didn’t know Hypnosis. And Defense Curl. And Lucky Chant.

Bianca’s Musharna is much like Bianca’s Patrat. It has murder in its heart.

STOP FEEDING IT HYPER POTIONS BIANCA. JUST LET IT DIE.

Sigh. Well. It’s BRNed now. So Fido doesn’t have to be awake for the rest of this fight. Aw, but it wakes up anyway, because Fido loves me.

All of my fucking yes.

I’m going to let Gelding tackle the Pansear, because I don’t think he can get too hurt from it. I’d very much like to not be wrong about that, and ta-da, all is well.

The final Watchdog is before us.

How fitting that Gelding knows the move Revenge.

Confuse Ray is nothing before it.

.

Confuse Ray, Super Fang, and Hypnosis.

Hey so Batman’s in now and I don’t like this at all.

Lemonade for Batman. And now a Hyper Potion.

Super Fang can’t be its only attack.

HA, BATMAN WOKE UP!

She fought through the Confuse Ray and killed the bloodthirsty Watchdog!

Hell. I hate those things.

Bianca gives us Fly, so yay. When’s Surf coming around?

This route is great for Palm, so I’m going to give in, let him lead the party, and throw the Exp. Share on anything that can’t do jack against the current set of wilds. I guess it’s nice that everyone’s getting a turn up front.

Time to open up our new area. Hopefully it’ll be full of things Batman can grind against. ...Gosh, that’s a sentence.

LOOK AT THE COOL CAVE.

Also N is there.

Fight time?

Oh hey, I forgot you things existed!

I guess they’re people. I probably should not call them things. Hey N, why do you get a ninja squad with your knight motif? What kind of Mary Sue nonsense is leaking out of your green hair and if you give me your hat will I stop commenting on it?

Also, fight time is apparently not until the end of this cave. If then.

Which means now is the time for finding pokemon.

...Not you. No repeats.

Chargestone Cave’s true power is bringing all of the characters with names together. Hi Professor Juniper. Are you going to give me free stuff again? You are!

It’s a Lucky Egg!

That is an incredibly useful item to have. Thank you, Professor. I am so glad you do something besides telling people where they can ride their bikes.

Actually I don’t know if she does that. I haven’t tried to ride my bike anywhere I can’t. I’m too used to being yelled at over that.

‘Ello, score. I don’t know how I feel about how many of these things I recognize from elsewhere, and let me tell you about how much I wish this Yanmega did not have SonicBoom, but Yanmega’s cool.

The trick is not going on autopilot. This thing can murder any number of my team.

(Yes, I forgot the Quick Ball again.)

Net Ball?

...Nope.

This has the feel of not going well. Frogger, you have the most HP, go soak up some hits.

If I have to knock it out just to avoid a wipe I’m going to be sad.

I need to buy some stuff at the next town. I have eight Great Balls left. They aren’t even earning a shake. Hey, wait, that one did. Yay?

Yay!

Dang, name. Name.

I don’t think enough people are reading these to judge me if I name it Fluttershy. That’s his name now. See you another time, Fluttershy. Hopefully never. I like the current squad.

The game’s now decided it’s Summer.

This matters because now the random Deerling we come across will be adorable and green and I can never have one.

I’m gonna give Gelding the Lucky Egg and toss him out in front.

There’s Chansey in here. This one knows Minimize. Another move I don’t care for, but yay for Revenge killing it in one hit. Plus, you know, actually hitting it. This cave is going to be gold for exp.

A wild trainer appeared!

I can’t remember if Archen has a Rock typing. This thing is conceivably very dangerous. Not while it uses Agility, but... Yeah, okay, Acrobatics brought Gelding down to 25, Fido, operating under the theory that it doesn’t have a Rock move, go murder it.

Murder achieved. Good dog.

Frogger’s going to be in front for a bit while I see about healing.

Frogger does not do enough damage to harm the Chansey with Softboiled.

Batman, get in there and try to fix something.

Future plans include never letting Gelding take damage. This is all a massive inconvenience of switching and walking around and switching and yay exp.

I think the next time I can buy stuff I just need to make a concentrated effort to pick up some Potions. Walking back to whatever Center equivalent is nearest to save items is very time-consuming. I should give up and buy all the health I will never need.

Look at my super special awesome ninja escort. Because I might fall off the bridge if I’m left to my own devices or something, idk.

Gelding wants to learn Agility. I do not want him to learn Agility. Guess which one of us has an opinion that matters.

Now a Maractus has appeared. Is this cave just the land of repeats?

One level below, Shiftry, Chatot, and Xatu wander the halls. So only the first level is the land of repeats.

These guys both just gave me a Nugget for no reason. Score.

Oh great, a few steps away is someone who heals stuff. That is so much better than free Nuggets. Naturally the healing’s only there because Team Plasma and plot stuff needs to happen elsewhere in the cave, but we can’t have everything.

Another pokemon I love is Scraggy. Team Plasma likes using it. How dare they. Same with the Sandile set.

This gen has so many good pokemon what even.

Like, yes, Watchdog.

But everything else.

Heyo, Batman’s learned Iron Head. Ptera’s going to get the Exp. Share now. I think the leveling is going to be a little absurd for a while, but I want it to be absurd with everything on the same page. We do not play favorites on this team.

Because the favorite is dead.

Gelding’s turning out to be surprisingly useful just because his moveset has so much variety. He has a Fighting, Psychic, Flying, and Dark move, and a focus on both Attack stats. It just walks on things. Floats.

Hahaha except for Watchdogs with Hypnosis. Why does that not ever miss. Hypnosis, Super Fang, and terror. These are the tools of the devil.

!!!!!!!!

!

I can’t catch it, but ! ! !

I’ve never seen any of these in any of the games! This is truly the cave of wonders!

Also our new way of dealing with Watchdog is sending out Palm and having Palm Mach Punch it into oblivion. Because we shall not suffer a Watchdog to live.

Another level down, and there’s Grimer, Electrike...

I need a legendary bingo card and I need it yesterday. The heck. The actual heck.

...

Am. I playing with a shiny clause?

...

Okay, here’s how shinies will be dealt with: I am allowed to catch them outside the realms of the standard challenge. They will not receive nicknames, so will not be used. But I can try to catch them.

“Them” meaning this Grimer, because I don’t think shiny odds are affected by the Randomizer. This is just some cool natural luck.

...Luck that I think I am going to use my one Quick Ball on. I haven’t yet figured out which move is least likely to kill this critter, but all of my pokemon have ten levels on it, and are fully evolved. If I can dodge hurting it, I should.

Hella!

I don’t usually dig the green shinies, but it is super appropriate for Grimer, and I am very happy to have it.

This floor has Zubat. My heart has a feeling. You have not been missed, you fucking bat, but no Pokemon run would be complete without you. It just wouldn’t be the same.

You know, I think I might have gone down the wrong stairs for plot progression. There were just normal trainers and items down there, and there are stairs that go up to the right of those stairs.

...I’m gonna heal before I address that.

Up the stairs, and we’re back to Entei.

As well as plot.

I was about to ask if there’s any other gen that cares as much about its color names, but then I remembered that yes, pretty much all of them are linked well to some kind of something.

I keep disagreeing with N. I can’t remember/do not know if that changes anything in the slightest, it’s just what’s going on.

Hey so I forget. How does N rationalize his use of pokemon for battles? Was that in one of the dialogue bubbles I didn’t read? Or just much earlier in the game? I don’t particularly care, I’m just curious.

Then there’s Professor Juniper and all the other adults who listen to this kid and go all, “Oh sweetie, we all go through the phase of thinking we’re the only ones with good thoughts. Lots of love, keep having fun!”

I’m paraphrasing.

Look, Flying Gym place.

If there is some other way of thinking of it, I do not have it on my memory record. Oh, Move Deleter’s in the house next to the Center. That would be maybe useful if I still had a legendary that knew Cut.

I don’t, if you recall.

Hey, we meet Professor Juniper’s dad. He updates our pokedex, so maybe we won’t end up with question marks where most of our team’s numbers should be.

Flying Gym Leader’s name is Skyla. Pretty sure she is one of the Gym Leaders I am continually searching out femslash fic for. Results make me sad, but then again, it’s been a while. Maybe that’s what I’ll do after beating her.

“Hey kid, wanna see a graveyard?”

Aha.

That is much more depressing in a Nuzlocke run.

This is a really tiny city. There’s the airport, a few buildings, and then BAM, back to nature. After being immediately outside a cave. This town just popped into place because the airport showed up, didn’t it?

But more importantly...

It’s a new route!

What will we get?

I’m walking around the grass because I can’t remember if there are other kinds of grass in this route and I want the illusion of choice in my completely random options. This has led to fighting a triple battle with a trainer who has a Watchdog.

At least it can only make one thing fall asleep per turn. It doesn’t bother trying, because this monster knows Hyper Fang, which is maybe even more stressful when its only chance at attacking is a critical hit, but the important thing is that it’s over now and another Watchdog is dead.

We faint the pokemon we attack. My team can be killed, but not their opponents.

Watchdogs still die.

#Canon

Hello, I accidentally took a step into the grass, and here we have our new friend!

...How not to kill it. I think the usual route is just Biting it with something, but everything except Fido and Batman has ten levels on it, and Fido and Batman are Fido and Batman.

Grass/Water, right? Hm.

Frogger, let’s see if Mud Shot can keep the little guy alive.

Heyo! Not even to the orange. Good boy, Frogger.

And oh geez, I have been very negligent in buying stuff. Poke Balls are still in good shape, but none of the other Balls are.

Oh, nice. That was pretty much painless. He needs a name, though.

You remind me of a ninja turtle.

Leotello. Bam. I hope I don’t need you, because I know I didn’t choose the Water Stone to have, and I can’t recall if I’ve picked one up.

I really need to switch Gelding out of the first slot. Fido needs some leveling, and Gelding really does not anymore. He’s 40 in a field of high 30s. ...Okay, the actual field is high 20s, but the field known as my team is high 30s, and that’s what I care about.

Anyway, Fido. Witness the power of the Lucky Egg.

...After I go and buy some stuff before I forget.

(That didn’t happen, I fought the next trainer instead.)

I FORGOT ABOUT AXEW.

Aw, you adorable dinosaur creature you. I am so sorry I’m gonna murder you, yes I am. Such a perfect, flawless critter. Best Dragon line is best, no question. Haxorus even has an amazing shiny form. -pats Axew on its perfect head-

Okay, purchases. Potions. Balls. Need them.

Have them.

Okay, yeah. Journey free to continue.

Male Nidoran is a thing in this route. So is Girafarig. So are trainers.

?

Mother?

Why are you caring about your ten-year-old at this point in the story?

...Huh. And that’s literally all she calls to do. Neat.

There’s darker grass over the ways. Let’s see what I could have had if I had been slightly more smart about where I put my feet.

Hullo, it is a Staraptor.

That is such a damn badass bird.

Like, look at it.

Look at its soulless eyes.

Terrifying.

V cool.

Purrloin is also in the darker grass. And more Buizel. Back in the normal grass there is Ariados. I always had some degree of affection for that thing. No idea why. Never once used it, and I don’t like spiders. I guess it doesn’t have the right number of legs, so that makes it okay? Huh, there’s also a Durant.

...Did I enter a different area? I didn’t see anything to indicate that. There’s a Girafarig back again. Maybe it was just a percentage thing.

Ha. Yeah.

I don’t wanna go in.

A place I obviously should have come to long before.

I’m just going to run upstairs and dance around the graves until I find my next pokemon and trigger whatever’s necessary to let me battle the Gym Leader. Armed with the comforting knowledge that if any of my team dies, they will have a good, immediate resting spot.

I know I’m like the millionth person to point this out, but really. There are really trainer fights in a graveyard? Wherefore art thou respectless maggots.

Oh my gosh! You! You are a favorite thing! Hello!

...How the heck do I not kill you?

I think. I’m going to give Gelding a shot. Air Cutter isn’t too

.

..

...

No?

Gelding no. No no no no no no no.

Damn it. No.

To finish the thought above, Trapinch is Ground, so I was willing to chance Gelding’s high Attack against Air Cutter being kind of wimpy, and the type resistance killing STAB, and there was a risk regardless because of the levels and stats, but I thought Flying vs Ground wasn’t such a terrible thing to bet on, given the options, and.

Hell, now I’m sad.

Less meaningful things hanging out in the graveyard are Anorith Anorith and Anorith. Is it one species per level or am I just unlucky and growing sadder?

I picked up a Revive off the ground in a pokemon grave site.

That’s a yes on sadder.

Hey, so I’ve been seeing a lot of Swoobat lately that I haven’t screencapped, and that reminded me of something: I never went back to that cave, and I think there was more to it. It has one of the legendaries from this gen in its depths, I think, and I guess there isn’t much for me to do in it, but it’s weird to think there’s a place I didn’t really explore.

...Meanwhile.

Where is my bingo chart.

I don’t even know this thing’s typing. I think it’s from this gen, but it’s one of those that I maybe got from a GameStop event and never really looked at or used, and even that is foggy. My assumption would be Psychic just based on me shrugging and assigning Psychic to any legendary I’m not sure on.

Green could mean Grass, though. Wait, no it couldn’t. I used Flamethrower and it lived.

Fido’s setting a record for number of times it can hurt itself in confusion. Being put to SLP is practically a blessing, and I seriously need to switch before we see some legendary on legendary death action in the wrong direction.

Yeah, definitely Psychic. Batman is super effective against it.

So that was needlessly scary, and then on our way down the stairs to see the friendly nurse (this gen is so kind about healing stations and I love it), we run into a Dragonair.

I don’t think I could play a randomized version without Nuzlocke rules or something similar. I would go nuts training every single thing I loved to be a viable option. I’d be a hundred hours in and have four badges.

Plot?

To soothe the souls of our fallen friends.

Huh. This is kind of an empty detour. Skyla’s only up here to heal a pokemon off-screen, and then we ring a very pretty bell that gives me feelings that wouldn’t happen without the death clauses. It’s nice enough, but I could have sworn something a little more monumental went on. No?

Am I thinking of another memorial site? I think I might be... I think Golett is somewhere later in the map?

Maybe that’s what I’m thinking of.

I won’t complain about the free exp, this just felt like a bit of a non sequitor delay. Usually places like this turn out to be optional.

What are you doing on top of this tower. You are lunch for Palm and I appreciate that, but this is the opposite of your natural environment.

Palpitoad’s up here too. Palm is a lucky mushroom kangaroo this eve. His Attack stat will always make me sad, but his existence makes me happy.

The floor below the top has Muk in addition to the legendary song thing. So that’s neat. Actually wait, Frogger’s the only one not 40. Maybe I’ll let him beat up on the Muk.

Oh. He was closer than I thought. Anorith works too, I guess.

Every time I see a Trapinch I am going to feel just so sad.

So sad.

I don’t even know what I would have named her. But we would have been amazing together.

For now, though, it is Gym time.

It might not have aesthetic, but Skyla’s Gym is all about firing yourself through cannons repeatedly to find new opponents. Yes.

Ptera is going to be in the first spot. With Crunch in the place of Rock Throw (why did I do that again?), he only has Ancient Power for STAB + Super Effective, but he’s still overpowered as heck, and has a partial Rock typing, so he should be okay against other birds. I think most of my team can probably handle anything she throws out, though there will, of course, be the odd “wait it learns that?” moment. Hopefully nothing too catastrophic, but I do expect it.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane.

It’s a me.

Without the necessary syllables to make that reference fly home.

So, the cannon fodder seems to have early 30s for their squads. Ptera’s not having a problem with that, despite me using Acrobatics even though he has a Lucky Egg on him. Items and Acrobatics do not play well together. I’ll try to remember that before Skyla. It hasn’t mattered so far, but if it does matter, it’ll be against her.

Oki doki. Lucky Egg off, Ptera prepped. I was lazy and used a Potion for 12hp to top Ptera off instead of going back to the Center. It isn’t like I’ll have much use for standard Potions. It’s practically free healing.

Now then.

Let’s gooooo.

I can’t remember if I’ve commented on it yet, but the sprite for our protagonist just looks so serious this gen. It isn’t quite so noticeable when he’s on his own, but put him next to someone like Skyla and he brings Red to mind.

He is a little happier in the video chat things.

Maybe he just takes Gym fights seriously.

What a weirdo.

First up is a level 33 Swoobat, looking adorable. Yay for Crunch, and it is gone. Following that is a level 35 Swanna. I’m going to use Ancient Power and cross my fingers for that one. I was about to be happy with Crunch over Rock throw, but I really miss having a physical Rock attack.

One and done, last one up is a level 33 Unfezant. Ancient Power again?

Yes!

Another painless victory, another badge! Sweetness!

Skyla lets us go with a warning about seeing Team Plasma in the next city, but that is a thing for another day. Now is the time for basking in the glory of success and Pokemon Centers.

[earlgreytea68]

Maybe it's bc I'm from a country whose gov wiretapped innocent people they saw as their enemies but I can't believe people PAY MONEY to get spied on so they what? Don't have to press a button?! I'm not angry or anything just absolutely baffled at how many people ACTIVELY choose this dystopian nightmare shit. Things are bad enough already so I just wonder how both those things (anger about fb&owning alexa) fit together. Not attacking you, just genuinely wondering about the thought process (1/2)

Valid question! Here’s my thought process:

First, the Facebook thing is actually less about the collection and sale of my data than...a really, really long tortured relationship with Facebook that needs to end now. Not that I agree with the collection and sale of my data! Because I don’t! But you should know my long history, because I think it explains my thought process. 

I registered for Facebook early, when you still had to have an edu email address. I thought I had it locked down, private, friends-only. Then, a few years later, my boss walks into my office and closes my door and gives me a talking-to about “inappropriate Facebook posts.” To be clear, I was never a person, like, posting topless photos on Facebook or something, nor was I complaining about my boss really. It was more like, “Ugh, I have to work all weekend, sorry I can’t go to this party!” And she was like, “THAT IS PRIVILEGED INFORMATION THAT YOU WORKED ALL WEEKEND.” And I was like, ...how are you even seeing my Facebook, you’re not my friend? So (a) I was spooked, because when your boss yells at you because of Facebook, it’s terrifying, and (b) I was completely bewildered that she could even see my Facebook. Upon investigation, it turned out that at the time (and this was a decade ago), if you put down where you work, EVERYONE who also put that place down could see your Facebook, even if they weren’t your friend and your Facebook was friends-only. (I think Facebook has changed that policy now.)

So, terrified, I deleted my Facebook. But this was back when not having a Facebook caused this whole public outcry thing and my friends freaked out and so I gave in and re-started a Facebook, posting very little because I was terrified. But I still used it. Until I got depressed and started therapy. My therapist told me to keep a stress journal, where I wrote down whenever I felt a spike of stress, and going on Facebook consistently showed up in the journal as a source of stress. So, upon my therapist’s suggestion, I stopped going on Facebook. I still kept it instead of deleting it because I didn’t want people to freak out the way they did the first time, but I stopped using it. 

Fast-forward many years, and in January of this year, I tried to open a Facebook for the psuedonym I use for novels. Facebook immediately flagged me as suspicious and asked me to prove I was me by uploading a photo. And I was kind of like, ....Why do you need my photo? What’s that going to prove? All I can assume is that, of course, they have a database of what we all look like. How they know I’m not just grabbing  a random photo of the person I’m trying to impersonate off the internet is another question entirely. But I was like, Fine, whatever, I don’t feel like fighting with you, Facebook, so I gave up on having a pseudonym page. 

And then I started thinking: Why did I still have a Facebook? I never go on Facebook. All the stuff had happened with the election, so it wasn’t like people would freak out anymore if I deleted it, they’d totally get it. And I kind of no longer wanted to give Facebook bragging rights about how many users it has by counting me when I don’t actually use it. And Zuckerberg’s attitude seemed to be that if you didn’t like Facebook, you shouldn’t use Facebook. I COMPLETELY disagree with this sentiment on his part because I think it completely ignores how many people can’t opt out of Facebook at this point, but luckily, I can opt out of Facebook. 

...Or so I thought. 

Except that I requested deletion of my Facebook, and they confirmed deletion and said I was scheduled for deletion within two weeks, and then...just never deleted my Facebook. Which I only know because they keep sending me emails about me being tagged and people sending me messages (even though I also keep requesting to be unsubscribed from those emails). (And also my friends still on Facebook confirm for me that I’m still on there.) I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get in touch with Facebook but...you can’t. It’s impossible. Try not being on Facebook and finding ANY contact information for Facebook other than a paper mailing address. If you find the contact info, please let me know!!! They have zero available email addresses, they don’t respond to their Twitter, and the phone number that circulates online is a dangerous scam stealing your social security numbers (which Facebook knows and warns you about but still doesn’t provide you with any way to contact them). 

So my anger with Facebook isn’t just about gathering and selling my data, it’s the culmination of years of mistrust and knowing it’s not healthy for me in general and then BEING DENIED MY RIGHT TO DELETE IT AND BEING RENDERED COMPLETELY POWERLESS. Like, the longer this has gone on, and the longer I have realized that there is literally nothing I can do to get Facebook to delete my account, the angrier and angrier I have gotten. 

So. That’s Facebook. As for the Alexa, well. You’re right. It sits in my house and is probably recording everything that happens in the house. Which is...basically nothing. I’m only home a few waking hours a day because I work full-time. I travel most weekends, so I’m not there on the weekends. I live alone, so I don’t talk much in my house. I have people over maybe two or three times a year, and then I can unplug the Alexa and stick it out in the garage and I feel relatively okay about that???? I might be kidding myself there, but, if worse comes to worst, I can throw the Alexa out entirely, and I think I’m okay. So I feel mostly in control of Alexa and its eavesdropping on me. 

I worry more about the fact that I’m supporting Amazon in the first place, since I disagree with most of Amazon’s policies. I feel really guilty about that and do want to extract myself from the Amazon dependency I developed. My only shopping option in my town was Wal-Mart, and at the time when I moved there a few years ago I thought it was better to support Amazon than Wal-Mart. Now I’m not so sure about that (although I guess the lesson I’ve been learning is that there is no company I really want to give my money to). 

I also worry more about the fact that I have a smartphone than an Alexa. I was very, very late to adopt a smartphone--years and years after everyone else had them--because I was very wary of them. I’m used to them now, but I don’t like how much information the smartphone has on me. I’ve given up a little bit, because I just...did. But the information the Alexa has is tiny compared to how much my phone has. And we all know that we have our suspicions that the phones are listening to us the whole time. And I *do* talk on the phone. I don’t talk much in my house, but my phone is the device I use to talk on (I talk a lot while walking around the neighborhood, waiting between classes at work, etc.). So the phone is getting every conversation I have, not the Alexa. 

All that said: I don’t know that I can completely disconnect now. I shouldn’t have a smartphone, or a Twitter, or a Tumblr, but I decided that at a certain point what I’m really going to strive to do is be conscious about this technology and work to shape it in better ways. Is this naive and idealistic of me? Yes. Undoubtedly. I have nothing I can say to defend myself on that point. I absolutely should just unplug...but that’s difficult to do, and I do feel like (as the EU is trying here) there are ways to make this technology less dangerous. 

Anyway. That’s my thought process. I think we all make the decisions we feel fit what we’ve considered. I don’t care much for Facebook, so it’s easy for me to disconnect (well, it would be if Facebook would let me, which is part of my major Facebook problem). I find Alexa useful and because I don’t do much around it and it’s connected to less stuff than my cell phone to begin with, it doesn’t bother me as much, and I feel like I can change my mind and get rid of it fairly easily. Of course, I could be wrong about that. I always thought I could delete my Facebook at any time, too.  

Everyone might get done reading this and think, Wow, EGT is an absurd human being who makes zero sense. That is a completely true statement. 

[moomoof]

Stop it.

I was friends with this person for almost 2 years and it the last few months it turned into a toxic relationship.

We used to do hangouts and talk about issues we cared about on his channel but i found myself not being comfortable with some of the topics

 but if i ever voiced i didn’t want to do the show he would keep pushing the issue and i was weak to put a stop to it.

 That’s not to say i didn’t enjoy the shows cause i did buti  didn’t want ot do them all the time .

The problems started with our view points really 

I personally feel like he hid his real views out of fear of being abandoned or maybe he just posed as a liberal to ge friends who knows this is all speculation on my part after thoughts . 

This post is just to let out all my angst and frustration. 

I didn’t handle the last encounter withh im well i should’ve just said what i wanted and left i hoped he would understand but what scared me was his reactions again i wanted out of his show at least for a little bit 

i would suggest he find other ppl he would pick up on the hints ...

i was going though a rough patch with my health and i had no energy what’s so ever i didn’t want to disappoint him so 

..i told him straight up i couldn’t do it  to get our mutual friend and o  it with him he seemed annoyed at least in text

 i didn’t speak with him directly then i saw the show live with our friend and ..

his reaction to my illness was annoyance he was like she’s off ill or

 whatever the hell hshe has with the biggest eye rool i ever seen

 ...and then even if i told him multiple times

 i was ill i did'nt want to talk he tried to force me by calling my hangout

...and he was rude to our friend cause i suspect he was jealous of our friend or annoyed

 that our friend was trying out his own show i don’t think my friend picked up on this  

He lied about how his old friends broke up with him 

 Of course i believed him ....well actually no for a while now i wasn't believing him cause he lied or omitted things i found them out on my own. 

That's the heart of the issue it was a slow crawl but i woke up and wasn't going to be used by him.

Like i was saying i was sick he didn't care i told him i can really do this show cause i have things to do or i honestly didn't want to i told him that once but... a disturbing patterned emerged with him. No matter what i said or did he would act like i didn't say it and want his way. In the long run i got anxious around him any time i had an opinion he will shoot it down i couldn't express myself on my twitter feed without him screaming at me and somehow making me feel dumb.

I told him on many occasions i was emotionally abused and physically abused nothing. He of course said he was there for me to chat but i don't like talking about that stuff to ppl. But i suspect it was an empty gesture put there to pretend to be a good friend but in the end he wanted just a person to speak to cause he had issues but also he would use those issues against you. one year ago he said something awful or something like that and i disagreed true i got heated he screamed when that didn't work then he play oop i'm anxious card that then played with others and me for ever more.

He had to be right all the time. He had that stupid internet idea that if you don't have evidence of what you are speaking then you are wrong! or shut up even tho i never really went to his feed after a while cause i was tired of arguing. 

He enjoyed arguing.

Then the big event that woke me up. 

We were arguing about jill stien or third party voters actually i was talking about it on my feed and he shoved his opinion in my face....

yelled at me then i tried to be funny and say get with the program! with the clapping emojis 

He flipped a switch and said i was stupid by saying oh you think i'm dumb? really? ok then your writing skills are mediocre at best or worse actually. (yes i am aware my writing is terrible) but a personal attack like that for no reason hit me hard. 

He just...went to that , that's what he thought about me ...i suposedly let go but it churned for days i have very low selfesteem it took me years to get out of a dark head space. He knocked me down. He hates everything i am cause i do agree with him. That was my head space the next few days i wrote warnings but didn't name him. 3 changes and then i block you don't care you are my friend if you hurt me and put me in a dark space i am cutting you off. He got weirder with me hostile almost after then we butted heads and we airred things but i somehow had an inkling it wasn't safe to talk in the dms i talked in public ...it was weird i suggested we should take a break i wanted it so badly....he said no... and i caved and went back to the same shit different day. Then the last draw happened 

I hate susan sarandon's white feminism i fucking hate it i hate her i hate that she cares three fucks about what she created 

He has this weird white knighty behavior that he will attack you for talking shit about his favorite ppl. 

He also probably felt personally attacked he thinks i somehow am talking about him all time. 

We got heated i was already tired of his shit i started to withdraw from our supposed friendship. Then he did it...he attacked my identiy aka my puerto rican ness and added hillary to it he later deleted it. So he can claim he didn't know what he did to cause my silence but more on that later. He knew that after Maria the hurricane i lost family i wasn't connected to the for weeks i had to worry aobut their well being for months without being able to do nothing ...i was a wreck for months he knew i told him, it was on his show too ( he since deleted all of them GOOD!) I did not deserve this more over i had a very hard anniversary coming up as well not to mention it was september ( still is) i lost my cousin and everythign that i knew as my world this month and it was Maria's anniversary. He just threw it in my fave he used my pain to win a stupid internet argument.  I decided to ignore him for a week or so until i can figure out what to do with him, talk to him again, stop talking to him so often but still be friends or completely run away in fear.

I could not speak to him it hurt it really hurt he used my pain against me i could not trust him....and the silent treatment happened. 

The next day he acted like nothing happened and asked me if i was ready to talk about gay muppets like nothing happened ( the whole bert and ernie incident) that scared me ....he acted like everything was ok ...it wasn't it could be clear for anyone that it wasn't...

i muted his feed and muted him but twitter doesn't understand that maybe ppl want not to get notification from a follower or person you are following for a bit...

He kept liking my stuff in the hopes i would be happy? this is speculation on my part...

He commented on my posts to see if i would bite. 

 i ignored him hoping he would get it i muted hangouts cause i feared he might call 

i had growing fear my heart would race thinking he was there replying liking and dming me...

This might sound dumb but ...it isn't it is harassment...

His former friends mentioned this he would use his second account to spy on them months after the fact they blocked and left him behind..that should've warned me.

He would mention them a lot. Like i said earlier i believed them but i didnt let on to him that i suspected something happened...at first i thought well they should've told him why and then block him and during the a conversation he did something and they didn't likee it's normal ...let it go ..in my head... i nodged him to write it out and let it go in a nicer way.

 But he was controlling i saw it when he hated when friends posted somethign he would scream about it...

They mentioned that they felt free from his smug behavior that he would not value their opionions and then later one of his ex friends said it wasn't the change the channel movement but the how he held certain views on gamer gate..when i voiced my own he screamed at me cause he felt like he knew better and how dare you think otherwise!

He would go into these rage fits over this topic, if you didn't agree with him , eye roll 

condescenion and disdain. This was the topic which lied about and the ppl he lied about or omitted it cause if he didn't he could push his narrative which was that gamer gate was a good movement ...by ignoring all the misogyny and abusive behavior cause he hated ppl on the attacked side. He hated that todd in the shadows blocked him for saying awful things about his friend. He kept on and on about that...like it was a bad thing...

He believed a group of rapey men that wanted a transgender woman to die and claimed she raped her sister... i will not go further into this. 

I put my feelings on that forward he would probably be annoyed in his head about it..whatever. 

He hated lindsay ellis cause she liked the tweet that told him off for harassing todd and his friend..

Sorry to his ex friends for my words about them cause i believed him for the most part and i did care about him i wanted ot make him feel better. 

i was wrong i fed a monster.

I wanted a week of peace away from him ...didn't happen he kept on and kept on ...he even got our mutual friend involved and lied .... he lied he said to him oh she's angry at me cause i don't know i did something wrong i am worried about her ...she's sad about stuff and the world is a bad place blah blah making me sound like the problem...

remember our mutual friend can't really pick up on these things 

He asked i just told him not to be dragged into this cause i was pissed off 

then i said it was nothing i was fine. and i moved on and ignored him some more...

He kept going ...

Then finally he did th final final thing and made up my mind for me.

He tried to guilt trip me into being his friend again or even to talk to him it scared me ...i blocked him completely on everything

he said you are hurting...me 

me?! i hurt him what? he hurt me he didn't care and he dares to accuse me of something i never did so he can look like victim yet again! 

That pissed the shit outta me i got tired of his toxic domineering personality 

He wanted to control you by making you feel bad about challeging him on his views about having my own views for breathing for not wanting to do the thing he wanted on the day he wanted ...

him not caring about my illness really hurt me... he hurt me and i still have the anxeity and have it in my head his words ....i want it gone...so i wrote this to stop it! 

He was not worth it...he's a bad person toxic it's not your fault...

I reached out to one of his ex friends i needed reasurance ...i needed to know i wasn't crazy and seeing something that wasn't there ....now its over i want never to ever see him or talk to him again. 

I recount times were he said awful things like ugh when my face showed up on the hangouts ...like my face is ugly...

i took pictures he would say geez or something like that ignored it..

he laughed at my lack of furniture or equipment..to do audio work...

He even got super hostile with me when our mutual was with us...cause i didn't agree with him ...

I wrote a memorial for my cousin and he sullied it by commenting on it moments after he hurt me like a psycho...

Now i know why he kept trying to bring up his friends cause i interacted with mutuals he wanted to know if they told me about him...and for weeks i struggled to find out by asking them but i never did...

He is disturbed i am stupid for allowing it to continue to this point i don't know how far he would've taken it but my psyche could not take it anymore...

He even made fun of my drinking 

it was a terrible idea to engage with him but i honestly thought he was a someone else like a person i watched turned out he wasn't he was using an account to get ppl to like him then he change later i guess...

Maybe i'm wrong maybe he isn't all bad just immature but i don't care he scares me and hurt me...sorry for this post but i need it out of me 

[definitelynotplanetfall]

so about that orientation/preference brouhaha

Having slept nonzero hours and having mulled this over a bit

I don’t exactly have a horse in this race as a filthy Fake Pseudo Ace That Doesn’t Even Have The Decency To Be Aro Or Gay Or Even Completely Ace I Mean Stolen Valor Much. It’s literally impossible to criminalize not having sex. Utterly unenforceable. I get that I’m not being targeted here and my opinion doesn’t really matter except as a barometer for “is planetfall a good person” (which I am not, and could have told you without any of the fuss). I have no specific love for the phrase “sexual preference,” I don’t think I have ever even used it, but also it’s such a nothing distinction. I do not care that Important Organizations declared it offensive years ago, because the reasoning they used to do so is silly, and of the people I’ve seen saying it definitely is not offensive what on earth are you on about, a bunch of them are LGBTQ.

And again, to address the issue that spawned this specific instance of this discourse, given Barrett’s record and the way homophobes do seem to insist on saying preference, it probably is a signal she intends to use her power in bigoted ways.

But like.

First of all, it is incredibly foot-shooty to say the evidence of her prejudice is the fact that she said “sexual preference” and not “sexual orientation,” which requires a fair bit of contextual understanding to see what the problem is and looks like pedantic hair-splitting without that knowledge, when shit like this exists.

Second - I’m sort of Von Wokensteining here, and to my understanding this entire argument started from one tweet or something similar, and it’d be misleading to assert “this one tweeter is the avatar for progressivism!“

EDIT: That’s not correct, it was a senator at her hearing rather than a rando providing commentary. I should have confirmed this myself and only learned it a few days later. This shows how accusations are taken out of context and passed around demanding judgment. I definitely could have spent more time reading about this incident, because I am a shitty excuse for a person with unlimited time. Every random Joe Blow does not have that luxury.

In my defense I was not paying attention to the hearing because I just assumed she would be maximally bad on all issues, considering who appointed her, and that was not a swamp I really wanted to wade through.

However.

People rushing to defend the assertion that “sexual preference” is self-evidently offensive gives at the very least an impression of a unified ideological coalition.

And, I said this in the last post but it bears repeating, the left lost the right to use “born this way” rhetoric the moment it became a semi-common talking point that you need to challenge your attractions if you aren’t attracted to an adequate cross-section of your area’s ethnic makeup or whatever. To intentionally try to change your attractions. To choose your attractions, if I may be so bold.

The charge against “sexual preference” is that it implies that orientation is a choice, which is supposedly hopelessly reactionary. Even ignoring for a moment that it does not in fact imply this, you do not get to tell people it is indefensible to IMPLY things that your side SAYS OUTRIGHT.

Also, quite frankly, I consider myself to have been made more ace during my lifetime by certain prevalent messages (and other hyper-targeted ones), and like, if the argument is actually that non-innate sexualities are illegitimate, does that mean that there can be no moral objection to someone raping me because the sky wizard said so?

[edit: screaming redacted]

It literally does not matter whether who you’re attracted to is a choice or inborn or whatever because that is not the moral dimension, the moral dimension is “does it hurt anyone?” which it fucking doesn’t why is this so difficult

I don’t give a shit about the rhetoric. The rhetoric sucks. The rhetoric is wrong.

Third, I’m extremely suspicious of any sort of euphemism-treadmill type anything, but one thing that’s especially suspect is when someone says “X term is offensive to Y demographic” against the wishes of that demographic. Like, my circles are not the widest, but I have mostly seen LGBTQ people being upset at being spoken for against their own wishes, sometimes with people chiming in and helpfully saying “no, see, you should be offended! This article says you are offended so stop pretending not to be!”

I am not trying to make a false equivalency of the relative badness levels but please, try to appreciate the poetic irony in unironically deploying “The Dedicated Truth Decreer said the innocuous-on-its-face thing was bad” in this of all possible situations.

It’s the “listen to X (I am not X, and X that disagree with me are not real X so don’t listen to them)” thing. The entire authority of that sort of article rests on the authors speaking for groups, so when members of that group say “this is bullshit pedantry and not offensive, and in fact your declaring it offensive on my behalf makes me feel less safe in places purportedly organized for my benefit” does in fact undermine the authority of those declarations.

Fourth, this is not as strong of an argument and really super tangential, but I’m personally sick of people just... giving things up because bad people claim them. I don’t extend this infinitely, so for instance Hindus trying to reclaim the swastika are probably right on the level of “it is wrong that this important symbol from our culture has been made synonymous with the greatest evil in living memory, and this change should be reverted,” but it’s so culturally ingrained that I don’t know if it is possible to fix at this point.

However, I remember when a bunch of Nazis were like “we own Pepe the frog now” and the response to this was like, “Yeah! Let them grab whatever culture they want, it is tainted by their even saying they want it! Also all Pepe memes made before this point are retroactively fascist!” and just...

That’s fucking transparently stupid. That specific thing has abated and you can find lefty Pepe memes now, nature is healing etc etc, but the “anime = fascist” thing hasn’t and it’s so so mind-numbing that you would just cede entire genres of art and start asserting that anyone who enjoys them is automatically irredeemable without considering what effect this might have on how unhinged you look or your ability to say your ideal world is better than theirs. I remember arguing with someone about this circa 2016 and I said something to the effect of “well what if instead of next they claim jazz” and they said it would suck that nobody could listen to jazz anymore. (iirc, this person was white which makes it extra hilarious/depressing, but the forum thread where it happened seems to be deleted so assume I made this up from whole cloth)

The reason I bring this up is part of the reason people say “it implies orientation is a choice” is because that’s what homophobes say it means (in contradiction to the literal words, naturally) and why they insist on using it. It’s less of a concrete thing, but the two feel isomorphic.

Lastly... OK so in my other post I used sort of a cringy programming metaphor, because I was half asleep so the only part of my brain still functioning was “comprehension of programming problems” amirite fellas. I don’t like definition debates in general but it seems like a lot of the people insisting “preference = choice” are using different definitions, so this is mostly just to show how that is not the only obvious interpretation.

A sexual orientation is a description of what gender(s) someone wants to have sex with.

A preference is a description of what someone wants.

Therefore a sexual orientation is a type of preference.

Note that nothing there says anything about origin or mutabiliy. Just that if you ask someone what their orientation is, you will get information about what they do and don’t want.

I need to stress that based on the context that sparked off this debacle I can understand why someone’s interpretation of the phrase might be “orientation is a choice” - even though I think it’s wrong to assume that’s what is meant by the phrase inherently, it’s a reasonable reaction to pattern-match talking points.

But the other thing is that it’s probably wrong to perma-delete the phrase because it isn’t gibberish.

What I mean by that is I get frustrated whenever someone is talking about an expenditure of energy and time related to feelings, and someone else comes along and screeches “THAT’S NOT WHAT EMOTIONAL LABOR MEANS”

and yes, that is not what the jargon phrase “emotional labor” means

but the person you’re yelling at was in fact describing labor that is emotional, and due to the way English works, you are allowed to delete the “that is” and move the adjective before the noun. Some would even recommend this in the name of concision. (And as I’ve said before, “emotion work” as a substitute phrase is...linguistically unpleasant to say the least.)

Saying that you can’t say “sexual preference” is sort of in the same boat. People will want to talk about preferences that are sexual, because there are more variables than just orientation, but those things still matter and should get a category name and look the entire argument falls apart if you don’t make bizarre assumptions about the connotations of the word “preference” and there are only so many ways I can state that fact.

IN SHITTY CONCLUSION

The fact that I wrote out a giant post defending a phrase I don’t otherwise care about reveals some sort of deep moral failing.

[concretelygay]

I’m Not Sure I Understand Protests

So there was a Back the Blue, Pro Trump Rally in my town. I was encouraged to show support of the counter protest. I couldn’t make myself stand outside just feet away from folks not wearing masks, so I decided to make two signs and drive around the block a few times. It was silly and pathetic compared to the real protestors but it will all I could muster. 

During the drive, I went around 5 times, I was terrified. A person on the speaker shouted my license plate number and said I support terrorist and pedofiles, and not to get in my Lyft. (Aside-I drove Lyft for 3 months 2 years ago and I leave the stickers on mostly to rebel against my parents because they didn’t want me driving Lyft). So I was feeling scared and then I was feeling so sad. Because the worst part of watching these people jeer at my neighbors and friends. Was that the Trump supporters were humans. I just wanted to talk to them and I didn’t know how. I wanted them to be in masks so I could walk over and say hi. I want them to put away the loud speaker so I could have one one one conversation. I wanted to join their group and get to know them. But that felt unacceptable to think or feel. So I drove and drove for about 20 mins I drove slowly around the block. And it felt like nothing.  I think I have done more good for this world walking down the block than I did on that drive. It honestly felt pointless on both sides. What were they trying to do? What were we trying to do? I don’t get the point and I want to so badly. How does screaming at each other from across the street do anything? I don’t understand. I want to know why they like Trump so much. I want to know it from their perspective. They were people that if I saw out of this context I would feel more comfortable with than the people on counter protest side. They looked like people who would attend my churches I’ve attended. They looked like my neighbors. They looked like my friends. I don’t understand what we anyone on those blocks wanted. I read one post that said the goal was to make them feel unwelcome. I guess I didn’t want them there like that. But I don’t want them to go away, I want them to change. I want them to see what their leader is doing and dislike it. Or at least I want them to think critically about their leader. 

Look I know you aren’t supposed to have sympathy for people who are so openly against things like Black Lives Matter, Masks, basic Human rights. But I can’t not look at a person and see that they are a person. To see that they feel things like I do and not want to add to their pain. Now I know the counter argument is do I put that much effort into the pain of Black people, Indigenous people, or People of Color. No, I haven’t. I am just starting to put more effort into learning how to be in community with those communities. But who is supposed to put effort into the Trump supporters. I present masculine, I have a beard, I’m white, I have deep voice, I am educated, I come from wealth, I am Christian, at this point I’m even in a straight passing relationship, I will never have to worry about a visual or an audio of me negatively affecting me. So why shouldn’t I spend time with these people. Why shouldn’t I get to know them and try to change their mind?  I don’t have the right answers. I know I’m wrong about protests. I know that protests are not pointless. I know that there are a lot of reasons to take to the streets that I can’t understand. I know that there are things I am doing in this very writing that will negatively impact the world and hurt the healing of others. But I am writing this for me. I need to work through this. I’m not going to tag, this on social media other than here, but I am going to post it publically. I am not going to hide my faults. Because I think that contributes to the issues. I am not perfect. I do not get this world we are living in. 

I want to be in community with Trump supporters and those who think I support terrorist because I had sign that says “Trump politics makes people unsafe”. I know that for many that makes me a part of the problem and probably truly makes me a part of the problem. I also want to DEFUND THE POLICE. I also do not believe that Trump should get to do some of things he has been doing (sending military to cities, bolster Columbus Day for political gain, inspire White Supremacists without at least claiming it wasn’t intentional, inciting hate). I also think there should be term limits, a universal wage, universal health care, universal mental health care, universal access to food, climate change regulation, a massive focus on how to empower the generations of Black people that are still suffering from slavery, a focus on creating jobs while still automating as much as possible, a shift away from capitalism, a shift away from the protestant church, gay/trans/lesbian/bi/and other sexual minorities should be able to raise children in all states, and that the American military is largely out of control.

But I know that me feeling sympathetic and like I want to reach out to the Trump supporters in my town is probably on the wrong side of history. I hope I figure out how to let go of the blocks that are so stuck in me that sees people and wants to reach out a hand no matter what they are doing. And I think this is even more so with white people. I think I want them not to disagree with me. I want them not to scare people. I want them not to make me look bad. I want them not be afraid and angry. I want them to see things the way I see them. I don’t want their views to be my views. I don’t want their president. I want to heal with them. I want them to stop doing what they are doing. I want I want I want.  I need to do better. Many people need to do better. Gosh I wish we were fighting about straws. I need to not worry about others. I need to heal myself. Why am I so upset over this rally? Why am I so ashamed? Is that telling me to do more next time? Is that telling me not to go? Is that telling me that I’m doing something wrong? That I am wrong? I know why I am sad. I am sad because I believe that many of the ideas that have been running this country since its inception are immoral and hurt people. From it’s bad to be a sensitive unique snowflake to people who are in pain should say their pain in a super calm way or their pain is invalid and not worthy of my help to police or bust mentality. All of these things make be sad. I don’t enjoy living in a society that supports these things. But I like my home. And I like people who believe these ideas. But it’s my belief that they might not have explored these different ideas. That statement is too prideful. Let’s reverse it. I don’t know why someone would support those ideas that I don’t like. I’ve tried to explore the reasons and I don’t agree. I don’t know why we can’t see it similarly or the same or even talk about it. How can nice people, kind hearted people not help me understand their perspective? Why? Why does it feel like they don’t want to listen to mine.

So I decided fuck it I’m gonna try to find the person who was yelling at me. So I went to Pioneer Valley Massachusetts For Trump 2020 and posted this:

Local Amherst person here. I drove past your demonstration a few times. I think this will probably get deleted because we don't share the same views, but as I was driving I really wished there was a way we could actually talk to one another instead of being so against and separate. Maybe I should have gotten out the car, but my partner asked me not to because of COVID. If the person saying he wants to have a debate into a mega phone actually does tell him to message me. I hope one day I can learn more about you all and your individual lives. Because at this moment I think I am missing something important. Though I don't support you cause I do want to understand more people as people. Hope one day that will come fruition. Best, "The Lyft driver who supports terrorists" (I think that's who I was)

So overall. I don’t get how standing on either side of the street does anything. How waving a flag and yelling and showing signs does anything. I don’t get any of it. I want to do the work to understand but I don’t know where to start. I guess I will google about protests and get back to you.

[singhamelia]

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[xdawndragonx]

Reincarnation Chapter 2 - Memories.

And she read the comments with pride.

With a click, the pop-up menu opened, showing the two comments that Gabi had been afraid of seeing. Her tongue began to push upward, touching the roof of her mouth to create pressure. 

And blue eyes widened with pleasant surprise.

The comments that she was so afraid of seeing were actually from people that supported her as a creator. Two people.

“Woah, dude. That’s kinda low of you don’t you think? I mean, judging a person because they were in a certain fandom is a bit cruel. It doesn’t have anything to do with the stuff she’s creating right now. You don’t have to hate this person’s work because you disagree with their choice of fandom.” - RinKagamine

“I’d like to add to RinKagamine’s comment. If you don’t like the creator that has put effort into this piece of work, you should really just ignore it. If you persist in trying to spread this hate speech it not only has no point but no gain as well. HyperBlossomNr1 is a real person and you better start treating them like one. You probably wouldn’t like it if someone pointed out a fandom you were once in that is considered ‘cringy’. I know that the creator is a very kind person, and that’s probably why they haven’t deleted this comment yet.” - Captain Salty

Gabi had to hide a squeal that was almost squeaked out of her voice box. People liked her! There were people out there that would back her up. She blinked and rubbed her shiny oculars quickly before looking back at where to comments resided.

Nope, it wasn’t fake.

What’s more, is that it was him. “Captain Salty”. He helped her out again. Just thinking about that made a strange sensation coil around in her stomach and a flush of warmth peak slightly in her skin.

Gabi shook it off. It was distracting her.

“Huh- It turns out I was worried for nothing. Hehe...” The blue-eyed girl mumbled to herself, meekly smiling as she closed her eyes. She took a moment to just stay in that position, forgetting about the world around herself. It was nice, taking a break from thinking.

“Wait... Now that I think about it, didn’t I change my Channel name to “Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki? Hnnn... The idiot must still be using that name out of habit on Youtube...” She muttered, puffing up her right cheek as she did so.

When she opened her eyes again, Gabi’s gaze coincidently flew to the electronic clock that the computer presented on its bright screen. 

Her mood was shattered by what was displayed.

“OhcrapohcrapOHCRAP-” She hissed, her voice on the verge of the state of yelling you get when you’re freaked out. “That’s the time already?! Nonono, I’M GONNA FAIL AT THIS RATE.”

Warmed hands forcefully shut the computer that provided her with happiness and Gabi clambered over to her discarded notes and textbook.

At least she was a little bit happier than before.

Salty was quietly re-reading the messages that he and Gabi had sent to each other over Skype. The pixeled screen returned his reflection. It made him happier every time he read them, he didn’t know why though. Why did the comments just have a sort of magnetic pull to them? 

That was irrelevant right now. 

He gently shook his head and read them again, and that was when he began to notice a pattern about them. 

It seemed like Gabi was troubled by something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.

It was the late-ish afternoon for Salty and that meant it was pretty late for Gabi herself. Nearing midnight or so.

Stretching out his body (stiff from being in one position for so long), Austin got up from leaning on his shabby, dorm-room bed and began to walk over to the door. Maybe today he might have a walk around outside? It was a crisp, autumn day today and the sun was just about peaking through trees outside, nearing it set on the horizon.

Might as well considering he hadn’t had a walk for a long time.

Room-temperatured hands grasped a winter’s overcoat of medium thickness and fastened the piece of clothing onto his chest before helping his heels into a pair of shoes that rested quietly near the door.

Creeeeek.

The door opened; a breath of a breeze whistled from the force of the action and briefly ruffled Austin’s tuffs of hair. He considered his hair to be strange, mainly because of its ability to seemingly transform from blond, to streaks of said tint, light brown and brown. It just depended on the sun, type of day and lighting. The blue-eyed boy paid not too much attention to it nevertheless. He began to walk as he thought.

From being lost in thought to inhaling sharp air, Salty suddenly spiked in his attention to what was happening around him.  

People? Not too many to his surprise, most likely because of the fact not many would go out just for the sake of going out at this time of day. The sun was a good natural warmer and allowed Austin to freely walk about without feeling like he was placed in a gigantic freezer.

What caught his cerulean eyes the most, however, were the beautiful tints and splashes of colour that had happened to the trees surrounding the paved path he walked on.

Red. Brown. Gold. Yellow. Orange.

He couldn’t help but notice they were the colours of fire. 

A village. Cheers, happy cheers.

“Encore! Encore! We’ll play out this occasion ‘til the end of today!”

“Sir... You sly fool~”

“Now now Lil’ missy, you’re not gon’ go cheeky today, are you? It’s our annual sacrificial day to the *”£$£%^$ of fire! We’ll feast on many delights today!”

“I know sir~,” A feminine giggle, “we’ll pass around the beer and merry our way with the boys!”

A resounding cheer of appreciative noises with a chorus of “Yes!”s, “We will!”s and “Aye!”s, all of high volume echoed in the small village. The light was frenzied and spread everywhere by torches fueled by tinder and fire. Bright smiles, the padded footing of scampering animals, children laughing. The smell of burning.

“More bread everyone?”

“Aye, sir!”

“More Salt?”

“คץ%£$%”

“Yes, yes. Thank you dear hu&^%$”

Cobolt eyes snapped open from panic and Salty’s breathing became ridged and hitched.

He looked around himself in confusion and he realised he was sitting down on an outdoor bench, close to the flaming trees that he personally appreciated. Austin tilted his head to point at the sky. 

Flowing teal was now tinted with amber. Occasionally, a faint cloud would hover in the sky. A sign that he’d better make his way back soon.

Slowly easing himself to get up, Salty began to think again. This “vision” that kept on repeating, kept on reoccurring, why did it happen?

Step, step.

Was it perhaps his ideas just running wild? He did know that they had only started recently. Maybe reminiscent pieces of past incompleted dreams? It would always start in the same place and end in, again, the same place. Always starting flashing images of a village and ending with a muffled, blurry female voice being thankful of something.

Step, step.

But why did he remember them so vividly if they were only silly fantasies? Maybe there was a chance they weren’t. It just didn’t seem like something he’d have the imagination to picture the images.

Step. Creek.

The door opened and Austin soon found himself back at the dorm. The door was welcoming, a flick of familiarity for him to help him remember he was where he was.

Climb. Climb.

He walked up the stairs to his designated floor. 

At least his mind was a little bit more active now.

An elegant girl strolled through an American high school's corridors, with spectacles that framed her face. She walked quietly and with no intention of talking as she passed. It was after school hours after all, and she was only still at the institution of learning, only because of club activities and revision catch up.

She sighed. How boring.

She slipped her hand into her inner pocket and pulled out her most treasured electronic item.

Her phone.

In doing so, she felt herself smile a little. Even in the midst of madness and frustration her little magic device could just calm her down like a spell. She flicked the screen on and plugged in her invigorating, precious earphones. 

Thank god that there was free wi-fi for the students in the school.

Once the earphones were properly secured, she tapped on the “YouTube” application via touchscreen.

As the vivid and bright white and red of the app began to appear, she searched for a bench to sit down on. To thoroughly enjoy the music that she knew was going to brace her ears.

With several tapping, swiping and scrolling noises the girl landed on a channel she admired and recently found.

Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki, formally known as HyperBlossomNr1.

She tapped on a video named “ Hold Release Rakshasa and Carcasses - Kaai Yuki” and closed her eyes and began to listen.

That’s right, she was a hidden Vocaloid fan. And she lived partly on the stuff.

It was funny looking back at some of Gabi′s old works before looking at the creator’s new works because of how much progress they made from when they were new. It inspired her. 

She admired the creator so much that she would most definitely defend them, even if it cost her dignity. 

Going over to her subscriptions page, the bespectacled girl reloaded the page with a dragged-out down motion with her finger and watched the circling circle go round and round.

School wi-fi was slow. Huh.

Then, a new video popped up in her feed, made by that creator she admired so much. One plainly named “Quick Announcement” and she internally squealed. Of course, she tapped on it eagerly.

As the video was loading, she took the time to read the description of the video and she felt her jaw slowly loosen and fall. Right there, it read, 

“ For those of you who can't be bothered to watch the video, here's the quick version: 

1) The video will take a while, so don't rush me. That makes me less motivated to work; 

2) I'll try to make polls every week or two weeks so you guys could help me decide which cover to do next; 

3) There'll be a live stream this Saturday where I'll be doing a live Q&A as well as tuning. Thanks for supporting me, everyone~!”

She squeaked in delight, not caring that the video was beginning to play after being loaded, and began to scroll down to the comments section below, beginning to type her enthusiasm for what was coming with quick hands. It was like she had forgotten that she was still at school.

With soft taps and one last long press, she sent her response and watched her channel name finally appear. 

“καgαmίηε rίη” 

Feeling satisfied with what had just transpired, “καgαmίηε rίη“ took a lean backward and looked upward to see the roof and upper wall of her school. A wall that just so happened to hang a clock. Such a convenient place...

As coloured, conscious eyes looked at the clock, she let out a very audible screech.

“NONONONOI’MLATE-”

And with that, the girl ran off, worriedly pacing and on the verge of running home.

“hey, you here?” - Captain Salty

“yeah, I’m here and currently screeching” - Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“screeching? why?” - Captain Salty

“I did somthing dumb” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“*something” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“pfft, y’know you can edit messages on skype, right?” - Captain Salty

“wHAT? HOW?” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“you using mobile or computer?” - Captain Salty

“computer. mobile probably sucks.” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“oh- so all you have to do is right-click the message and a pop-up menu should come up with an “edit” option with a pencil sign next to it.” - Captain Salty

“ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“If you click it, the words you typed should be displayed on the writing bar thingie, and all you have to do is overwrite your mistake and enter it again.” - Captain Salty

“OHHHHHHHH THANK YOU-” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“pfft, no problem sweetheart.”

“I am not a sweetheart.”

“yeah right.”

“shut up. I’m going back to screeching after this.” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“wait actually i never got to ask this but why are you screeching?” - Captain Salty

“I told you already, I did something stupid.”

“I wasn’t talking about thhhaaaatttt.”

“fine. I’ll tell you. I’m doing a livestream later on Saturday and i’m mentally screeching because how of dumb i was to think of doing hat and URRGGGH” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“hey, calm down, I’m sure the stream will be just fine. You're controlling it after all.”

“YEAHBUTWHATIFTHEYHATEMYVOICEORIFIMESSUPLIVEORIFIDON’TSTARTONTHERIGHTTIMEIPROMISEDEVERYONE?!” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“Gabi calm down. It will be fine, I promise. And if it isn’t i’ll eat a book” - Captain Salty

“I know you’ll enjoy it in the end.” - Captain Salty

“Hnn.... thanks...”

“d’awww, anything for you gabi.”

“sHUSH YOU PIECE OF FRREAKING SALT” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“fine sweetheart~″

“yoU FRICKEN, oh crap i think i left the stove on sheit” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“Aww, you have to leave so soon?” - Captain Salty

“yes.” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

“oh. see you later then-” - Captain Salty

“pft, see you later.”

“oh wait! I wanted to ask you something-”

“Oh cool, shoot ahead but quickly because I think I smell something burning.” -  Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

At this moment, Austin pondered on whether to tell Gabi about the extreme visions he had been experiencing. It might lighten the burden it was having on his mind. But in doing so... He might transfer his own weight to her, Gabi, and he definitely didn’t want that. It was one of the last things he wanted to happen to her. So, he begrudgingly wrote;

“Nevermind- you need to check on that stove asap seriously, i’ll talk to you later- yeah?” - Captain Salty

“oh- okay! see you later Salty” - Gabi-Chan-Akatsuki

And even though Salty knew that Gabi had probably ditched her phone by now and had probably gone and checked-out her scorching stove, he still felt obliged to write;

“See you later Princess-” 

Continued in Chapter 3.

(I’m evil I know ;w;)

@gabi4chan-akatsuki here you gooooooo~

Next

Back

[prat-central]

It has been a VERY long time since I have been irritated by something I read about Merlin, I tend to stay far away from that fandom, not always as I still like the show and the characters, but I stay away from the fandom for this alone. And since I an feeling irritated already, this made it worse. So, now....excuse me while I just explain why this is wrong. 

Merlin isn’t considered a Villain because he’s the star of the show, it’s about him, it’s not called That’s So Morgana, it’s called MERLIN. And I can understand your favorite character being Morgana. Mine’s Arthur, who does in fact get shit on quite a bit, it’s kind of a double edged sword liking him. And that by no ones means I don’t like Morgana either, I in fact love Morgana, I love her story and how tragic and sad it is and no matter what I am about to say that doesn’t mean I think Morgana is the villain. I actually don’t think she is the villain, I feel like it started off as her WANTING to do the right thing, but something went wrong down the line somewhere.This whole thing this person wrote right here makes me believe they hadn’t got passed season 3 of Merlin. Like, Have you seen season 5? I don’t think so. 

Of course they are not as innocent, and let me tell you something, it really bothered me the use of Gwen in this, (and I hate Gwen, I hate her, so making me defend her is kind of making me want to puke a little here,)  because until she marries Arthur and becomes the queen she is entirely powerless. All she is is a servant, she was literally sentenced to death twice in the show, what the hell do you want her to do? And once she’s queen she is not the sole or even MAIN ruler, that’s Arthur until he dies. (SPOILER ALERT? This shit is like 4/5 years old, suck it up btw.) She can’t just pop in there and change the laws. Now, Arthur did have more say, and I feel like this is one of the things I have always yelled at everyone about. This is like racism. Now, shut up before you get bent out of shape about this, IT IS! Arthur was raised his whole life to think something is bad about magic users, it was put into his brain that they are bad and they will hurt him/people he loves. So, I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s not something he can forget either (and after what happened with Morgana,)  he keeps those laws in place as a way to protect his people, he is a very good king in my mind, he is very trusting, (to a fault,) and very WILLING to accept people. He shows TONS of signs of WANTING to understand/accept people with magic, but he keeps getting betrayed. Arthur was betrayed by Morgana, let us all remember that, he had nothing to do with any of it, and even if he SHOULD HAVE stopped the innocent people from getting murdered, he still was not to blame for their deaths, he had nothing to do with rejecting Morgana like the person said, he had nothing to do with how Merlin or Uther treated her. Yes, they didn’t get along, but that’s because Morgana was strong-willed and Arthur is...well, himself, a clotpole. He still loved her though, and what she did, how she took over Camelot in season 3, that hurt Arthur very much, he felt betrayed by her, but still....he would never, ever hurt her. And he NEVER did hurt her. He loved her. In the end, what I am saying is, these rules were not set in place by Arthur or Gwen and no matter how they might have stood up to/fought, they weren’t going to be able to change the outcome of these peoples deaths. It was NOT in their means, and as for when they were both in power, they were not shown how magic could be used for good, though, I do implore you to look up deleted scenes, because there is a whole cut scene where Arthur tells Gwen he is thinking of lifting the ban on magic. So, these thoughts ARE in their heads. 

I really am confused as to how Arthur (and Gwen apparently,) created a massive war, do you know who ACTUALLY created the war between the Saxons and Camelot? Morgana, she started the war because she wanted Arthur’s throne, because she THOUGHT IT BELONGED TO HER because Uther wronged her. That is why the war started. Simple as that, Arthur did NOT start the war, but he had no other choice but to fight in it. And it wasn’t as if he (or Gwen,) just sent these men in to die, Arthur (AND GWEN CAME TOO,) were right there with them the whole time. 

What do you mean her best friend? That’s about all I see wrong with this, her best friend, Merlin? Nah, he was NOT her best friend, he was barely her friend at all, how much time did they actually spend together? No, Gwen was her best friend...I think it is a little much to say they were best friends. 

I feel like it started off that way, in the beginning Morgana was extremely out spoken about not wanting to hurt anyone, magic users/not magic users, ANYONE, she was a good person. But then she met Morgause and things started to change, I feel VERY strongly like Morgause did something to her, I don’t feel like that was a very good relationship for Morgana at all. Because at some point Morgana became very cold and dark, she wasn’t like she used to be, something happened in that year, that I don’t believe just learning “magic” (because she still couldn’t really do it,) did to her. It was Morgause. Think I’m wrong? Rewatch it, she changed.

 Morgana became dark, cold, she wasn’t attempting to make a free world for everyone to be quel, she killed knights/magic users/everyone just to get what she wanted and didn’t care. SHE DIDN’T CARE! (This could be due to being trapped for two years in a hole-thing, and I sympathize with that,) but she BECAME Uther, Arthur was always the one pegged to be just like Uther, he had his traits, yes, but he wasn’t....Morgana was ALWAYS very much like Uther if you think about it, and to win, to get her way, she became him. IT WAS EVEN SAID IN THE SHOW. She didn’t care about the rights of her people anymore, she didn’t give a shit who she hurt or who was right or wrong, she wanted what she thought was hers, she wanted the throne and the glory of it. 

I would like to point out, as I close this rant, that this person who wrote this went from saying Merlin was the villain at the beginning to quickly switching  arguments and saying why Arthur and Gwen are the real villains here. Which, I think I have already proven to be false. Let me explain by Merlin would be the real villain here, shall I? Merlin is incredibly selfish, all he cares about is Arthur, he doesn’t care about his own people, he is so focused on what the Great Dragon says, and his NEED to protect Arthur, that he can and will do LITERALLY anything, that is incredibly scary, and a lot more harmful than half the stuff Morgana wanted to do. He’s a man with no boundaries and the one thing he cares most about to lose, it’s deadly how horrifying that is. At no point did I say I was disagreeing about how Merlin could be seen as a villain. BUT! As I also said I didn’t see Morgana as a villain either. I don’t see Merlin as a villain, I see him as a very scared person who loves someone a little too much, but wouldn’t you do the same things for the person you love? Morgana and Merlin are very similar if you think about it. They’re BOTH doing what they think is right for their own cause, and they BOTH are increasingly selfish in their quest to achieve it AND IN THE END NEITHER OF THEM DO!!!! Arthur dies and Morgana never rules Camelot. (And also dies.) 

And lastly, I will add in who I believe are the real villains of this show. The Great Dragon for putting so many dumbass things in Merlin’s head, Morguase for putting so many DUMBASS things in Morgana’s head and Uther...for basically being himself. THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS, rewatch the show, and don’t damn certain characters because you think your favorite is being treated wrongly. Guess what? It makes for better story telling. 

[overton2015]

2:06 AM

I have begun to realize just how stressed and down right exhausted i have become. Im sad. I don’t take care of myself like i should. I would even say i do the bare minimum just to keep me going. I know i need help, but how can you ask for help when you don’t even know whats going on.

In 2015 i learned how to truly start loving myself. “Everything was beautiful and nothing could hurt.” During this fragile time i met a boy. We began dating about 7-8 months after we met. He was spiritually and emotionally beautiful. We found life in each other. I never thought i would have to worry about my future after that, cause it was him. I thought this to be my only other true love besides my first. We were naively happy. We supported each other and loved each other for who were, and what we were becoming. We met each others friends and families, and feel even more in love with the idea that these were the people we would surround ourselves with. After about 4-5 months of me practically living with him we started talking about moving in together.( My plans before him were to move to Chattanooga,TN and attend Chatt State Comm. College.) We talked it over for a couple weeks, and we both decided Chattanooga was the place for us. To save money he gave up his room in an apartment he shared with 2 of his friends, and we moved in with my mom to save money. This is where things began to get a little less easy for us. As you would imagine once we became distracted with more and more worldly things, we began to loose that spirituality i loved so much. I didn't pay much attention to this, because we weren't having any problems we couldn't fix, and i mean c’mon i loved him. But what i didn't notice, and what should have been my upmost importance was not loosing myself in our problems and our relationship.

He began making remarks like, “oh, who are you wearing that makeup for?,” “why are you getting all dressed up?,” or even “Who do you keep changing your hair for?” ( I have had many different fashion shades in my hair) I did it all to keep his interest and for his validation. One of my biggest insecurities is my body, as it is for most people. When i didn't get the validation i thought i needed i began criticizing myself so much, i almost began to hate myself. Soon things started getting sen worse. He alienated me from my friends, and would give me excuses like they are good people, and they are going to get me into trouble with dumb things. So to appease the arguing i began seeing my friends less and less, and started looking to him for my identity. I was no longer my own person. I didn't have a taste in music, and i would look to his advice for what to wear, yet somehow, this was still not enough.

Even better, i was upfront about a few things before we started dating:

1. I am still friends with all of my exes, because i don't believe that somebody who meant so much to your life should be excluded just because you don't see a forever together.

2. DO NOT CURSE TOWARDS ME IN ANY KIND OF NEGATIVE MANNER. you might as well have layed hands on me

Now, as you can expect he called me a bitch for the first time in a fight. I laid down the law and said if he did it again i would leave him . He did it again. I didn't leave him, but he apologized and cried, so he meant it right? Wrong. He kept doing it and even though i would fight with him about not doing that i didn't stop him. So at this point I'm to busy stressing about money, work, school, amongst other things to notice just how hallow of a shell of a person i had become.

I was taking abuse up and down, left and right, but i loved him? He could always be the way he was and we could always still be just as happy as we were before. I just need to get my act together, i would tell myself.

My mom bought us an i pad, after, she realized wes was always using my laptop for games and i was falling behind on my online courses. Well, as you can probably foresee he took advantage of this thoughtful gift to use it against me.

I was texting a good friend of mine from hs, mind you we had our own set of problems but she was none the less my friend. As everybody at the time did, she told me i should leave him. She didn't go into detail about what he was doing wrong or anything he had done to hurt me. She said she just wants to see me happy and she didn't think i was. I didn't agree with her, but i didn't disagree with her either. We didn't spend much time on this topic, but wes saw it by going through my messages coming in on the i pad. While i couldn't get to my phone this particular saturday, because we work by ourselves, he took it upon himself to message her as if being me. However, he always made the fatal flaw of never sounding like me in his messages. I think he was more obsessed with saying what he had to, rather than actually putting it in my own words. So she caught on pretty quickly that it wasn't me, and it wasn't long before i noticed there messages sent to her that weren't mine. I immediately called wes to tell him how wrong he was for doing that, and he turned it right around on me. He was saying things like, “How could you let your friends talk about me this way,” and i started explaining that no matter what anybody says it all comes down to how i feel about the other person. I even tried to comfort him by saying that it happens with most of my ex’s, but nothing calmed him. It got much, much worse. It went from him texting jamie as me, to him just texting her, to @ing each other on twitter. I was consistantly going back and forth between trying to focus on the store and trying to tame my personal life. They were taking turns showing each other their cows without real scratching. Empty threats and just hurtful words back and forth about each other and anybody they can involve. Since this made its way to social media, a few of my other friends found themselves getting involved for a brief moment as well. Neither side was really looking for a resolution. They were all just looking for entertainment. Nobody did what they did for me, or to help me. When everything stopped, I asked everybody to take down what they had posted because I didn't agree with anybody's actions. Everybody agreed, and did so except wesley and Jamie. They were the only ones to give me grief about deleting their post. At this point i had given up. I only fought with wesley to take down his posts and i just couldn't handle the extra stress from jamie. It was all too much.

I was always the one apologizing, even when it wasn't my fault. He has a mystical way of manipulating the situations we put ourselves in. Im just a nagging bitch, who can't keep my legs closed i guess. Even if consciously i didn't believe what he was saying about me i still absorbed that hate, but i held it internally against myself.

It wasn't just emotional, psychological, and mental abuse. It got physical a few times. Ive been thrown against a wall, dragged in a house over concrete steps, scratching up the entire backs of my calves ( i told my friends and co-workers i was drunk and slipped on the very same stairs). I have had my arm crushed in a cast iron door, and to be honest this is the first time I'm telling anybody, and there is nobody to listen.

We were sitting his animals at his parents one weekend while they were out of town. I don't even remember the fight, but i remember running away from him. I remember anytime he got close to me i couldn't breathe and i just needed to not be in his house or near him. He continued to follow me around the very house he also would let me out of. He took my keys so it didn't do me any good to try and leave his house anyway. At this point I'm physically suffocating, crying so hard i can't see where I'm running. I find a way to lock myself in the bathroom. Alone with me in this bathroom was a pocket knife he would keep with him. I contemplated cutting. Holding the knife on my thigh and gently rubbing it on the skin i was ready to tear to pieces. I paused to look out the window at the sky and saw him. taking pictures of me. yelling, “You’re fucking crazy, you psycho bitch.” He even went as far to send the picture to my phone and save them in my album, just so i could look at them.

Don’t get me wrong i tried to leave a few times but it always ended the same way. He was going to hurt himself or our dog, he had possession of after being kicked out of my moms house. Of course he made many threats, towards me and others, that never held any truth, but there is always that one time he could. So out of fear that he would hurt himself or our dog, i stayed.

this went on for a year.

Finally, i worked up the courage to leave him. It did not go well. We were in the car and i was driving. I was talking to him about on the way to his house where i planned to drop him off and go home. That didn't happen like that. He started playing with the wheel and trying to throw us off the road. I ended up parking in a church parking lot where he proceeded to get out of the car. Now i know with the way he was i should have just left, but he made sure to grab my phone before exiting. He then began going through it, because there could be no there logical reason for me to leave him unless for another person. Atleast, thats how he saw it. He even went as far, after i got out to retrieve my phone, to take the keys out of the ignition. I was tired of running after him so i sat in the car and locked the doors. Well he walked a ways away, but came back. He told me he had thrown my keys in the grass of the front lawn of this church. This wasn't even true. When he refused to look for the keys i got out to do it myself. He then jumped in and started the car acting as if he would leave me there. I got in the car and he drove us to his parents. All along the way he just kept saying I'm not leaving him and we aren't over. Once at his parents i told him i was leaving, which caused yet another scene. This actually promoted his parents to come outside. HIs mom was trying to beth him to let me leave and when he wouldn't listen to her she went and got his father. During this time he got in his car and parked at the end of the driveway so i couldn't leave. His father came to my window and said he would call the cops and i just needed to drive through the yard. I didn't want him to be in such a position with his parents. I even started giving in a little saying i would take him somewhere else, seeing as he didn't want to stay at his parents. I ended up being able to leave that night and go home around 2 AM. This all started at about 6 in the evening.

From this moment out this began to get overwhelming. He showed up at my house and even walked through the door that leads straight to my room. I didm answer when he knocked originally. He was basically squatting on my front porch till i talked to him. He was telling me once again all the things he was going to do to change and make up for all the bad stuff. So to appease his need for communication i gave in and said we could keep contact through texting, but only as i wished. Of course i didn't text back a whole lot and kept my distance as much as possible. Being the manipulator he was, he knew what to say to get me to respond, and i did. When he began being hostile again about my lack of communication i blocked him on all platforms of communication. He didn't give up.

He found a way to contact me. *67. He would call me repeatedly one after the other until i picked up or one of our phones died. I checked my phone one morning and found he had accumulated 380 missed calls in what i thought was 36 hours. He later corrected me to tell me it was 24 not 36.

Of course he knew where i worked and he used that to his advantage. Knowing only one person works on weekend days, he would call from *67 to my work line, knowing i had to pick up each call, and i would repeatedly hang up. it  was easily over 100 phone calls to the work phone alone. Customers were beginning to notice.

After all of this i finally took the advice my friends had been giving me for months. I filed for an order of protection.

wrote this a few days ago

[the-caffeinated-introvert-blog]

Right, Wrong, and Facebook

The other day I logged into Facebook and saw one of those articles...you know the one. The click-bait with a title so incendiary that there's a magnetic pull between your finger and the screen of your smartphone.

I read through it, and just as I expected, it made me angry. I sat there, hands shaking, stewing over what I had just read. As though I was surprised that I could read something on the internet that would bother me. My eyes slowly drooped down the rest of the page and saw the worst button that exists on the internet...

"View Comments."

I knew right away. I felt it in my bones. My brain screamed down to the nerve endings in my fingers, "DON'T CLICK THAT LINK."

Nothing good comes from comments on articles like that. It's a pool filled with professional trolls, the wildly ignorant, and the woefully undereducated shouting profanity-riddled opinions at one another. A world rife with personal attacks disguised as arguments, underscoring an opinion that the troll cannot truly explain as it was ripped straight from the mouth of their favorite talking head.

So, obviously, I viewed the comments.

As though it were planned, I stopped at one so awful that I think I might have passed out for a second or two. Then I got to work.

I began writing a rebuttal so poignant -- I mean it was downright beautiful -- that surely this interweb-dwelling ne'er-do-well would break into tears, post an apology, and we'd become best friends. I would be heralded as the voice of a new generation. A more understanding, tolerant, and educated world would begin, and people would finally get along on the internet. All because I had the gumption to tell this gentleman that he was wrong, without cussing even once.

About three-quarters of the way through what would be my magnum opus, the rational part of my brain awoke again to catch me in the middle of the intellectual equivalent of yelling at the wind to stop being so blow-y. I stopped.

Did I really think this would change his mind?

This man's opinion, though the words might be stolen from someone else, has been bred through years of misinformation, prejudice, and hate. A malicious mixture of the worst that nature has to offer, and the darkest thoughts that his upbringing could nurture. And here I sit, in pajama pants, trying to change the mind of a person so disconnected from his own feelings that he finds that vile treatment of another human being acceptable.

So I deleted everything. Which was really sort of depressing at the time. I mean, come on. It was beautiful. The kind of prose that would make Fitzgerald jealous. Probably. But in the end, certainly for the best.

That experience caused me to reflect on myself, and my own opinions. How they were formed, how I represent them, and who I become when I disagree with someone else. I mean, certainly I'm better than that guy, right? Maybe. But maybe not.

Of course, I don't speak to other human beings the same way he does, but his thought process and mine seem to start from the same place. A brain that seeks to prove everyone else wrong first, rather than seeking to understand them. His just manifests in an uglier way.

When you look at discourse today, you see a lot of that. Point, counterpoint. And maybe that's how it's always been. Solomon said there's nothing new under the sun, so I'll believe him. But certainly, it is more obvious today. With Facebook, I can immediately tell a complete stranger that they are ignorant (the must-have for any Facebook Debators vocabulary), right in front of the rest of the world.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone ask a question in a discussion. A question that is genuinely meant to better understand someone else's opinion.

So I decided that, as best I could, I was going to walk into nearly every disagreement with this thought on the forefront of my mind --"I could be wrong."

Now, I don't mean to say that everytime someone disagrees with me I'm going to change my mind. Further, there are certainly some things in my life, namely my faith, that are not reversible. But other than that exception, I have to accept the reality that I'm just a 26-year-old man with a below-average amount of life experience, so I could definitely be wrong about a lot of things.

I realize this isn't necessarily a groundbreaking idea. I'm not going to win a Nobel prize for realizing that humans aren't omniscient. And maybe most of you don't struggle with wanting to be right the way that I do. Good on you if that's truly the case.

But I've grown so tired of arguing just to argue. I believe that we are all creations of the same God. All beautifully and wonderfully made, with our own purpose set in His mind. We've all had different experiences, and seen them through different eyes. We have all formed our own inferences, that will, in turn, determine how we react in any given scenario. So how can I tell you, without any honest investigation, that you are wrong? Further, if I treat you with disrespect, am I not also showing disrespect to The One would put you here?

I come from the same sinful nature that we all do, so it seems reasonable that I could end up in the midst of a number of logical fallacies and inconsistencies. Chances are good that I will immediately and fundamentally misunderstand any point you make because I don't think the same way that you do. And those differences were intentional. So why do I try so hard to ignore them?

What am I trying to say here...I'm not really sure. I think this is all just pouring out of an overwhelming sense of frustration and fatigue. As with the comment that initiated this whole story, I don't believe this will truly change anything.

I guess, if this serves any purpose at all, it's to breed hope within myself. Hope that one day, I could read something on the internet or see something on the TV and not immediately feel the need to tell that person off. That I could listen first, and speak second. That I could put some action behind the phrase, "I care about people." That I can stop mistaking variation as villainy. The fact is, you and I can disagree and not be enemies. I'd love it if one day my reflex would be to ask instead of to argue.

And that I'd finally stop forcing myself into fits of Facebook Rage.