#Ive been spending so much time reading/watching stuff in the name of 'research' and I knowww I need to get a move on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

panzerkatzee · 6 months

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Good day ya'll!

Its 11:30 and I just completed a small research session on fillipino martial arts and taking extensive notes on how my characters might move in the upcoming combat scenes. Funny enough, I always thought my larp experience would help in writing combat realistically… but oh boy… I WAS SO WRONG… its embarassing.

I am still no real expert, but maybe I can find someone to help with those scenes in particular down the line. For now I did watch some videos and read some instructions online and feel confident to get into the fight scene, I've been hyped for yesterday… but first… warm up time!!

by Electrum Photography

Then and again, he would get a flicker of red eyes, burning brightly with flashes of inert blood magic, his friend no doubt struggling to hold it back, hating crowds as it was. Dan… you are getting an ear full, for dragging her out here, he thought ruefully and picked up his pacing again. A few moments later, she stumbled free from the bodies swaying and squirming with the thrumming beats. "going to try smth new, winky face", had been the last text he received from her before getting on the tube and hot damn… she had. Only her hair was reminiscent of the timid mage, kept straight and falling down onto her shoulders, bangs freshly trimmed to end in a straight line above her brows. To cover her chest Lucille wore only a black pleather bra, the burning church tattooed across he abdomen, was on full display, showing its bell-tower ablaze, right between her breasts. She had paired it off with nothing more than a pair of latex gloves and a matching skirt, making Dan sweat just by looking at it. Clashing with the entire get up, the mad woman had forgone the use of shoes completely.

Not my best work… but after spending so much time on researching, I am a bit anxious to get writing. There is still some catching up with the long-term goal to do… soooo snaps fingers LET'S DO IT!

Okaaay… five hours later… didn't hit the word count… yet. But I am due for a food break, having ordered poké bowl from my fav restaurant.

I really underestimated how far fight scenes were out of my comfortzone… usually I am more for the whole emotional stuff… but as I am writing sci-fi about ppl doing sneaky shit and pissing off powerful other ppl, I don't think I will get away without it…

In the end… I went against the plan I had, and reshuffled my entire story a little bit.. soooo.. that just might turn into something interesting… who knows…

As of now I am at ~1400 words, so very close… aaaand the next scene coming up, will be snugly inside my comfort zone again, hence I am no tooo worried, I won't hit my mark for the day.This wraps up Chapter IV nice and neat~

I do a lot better at starting a chapter than ending it sooo...

But.. to learn from this, I will probably alter the daily warm up challenge a bit… by changing it to stuff I am not quite good at yet..

Maybe a paragraph of a battle scene or dialogue each day? Something like this.

As it stands now, I will wait for my food and write a bit more afterwards…

For now, lets continue with the Playlist, shall we?

Today's song: Faunts - M4 Pt.2

youtube

Why is this on my playlist? Those among you with an excellent taste in Video Games, might already know this one. If not by name, then from the Mass Effect I credits, as it is from the Game's OST. To be honest, it doesn't align at all with what I usually listen to, but then that's mostly everything that leads to the release of dopamine in my brain… so I can't claim any consistency there. Being a huuuuge fan of the Mass Effect Trilogy… and my alien waifu Garrus, connecting a very peaceful time in my life with these games… an age of innocence so to speak.. I have feelings about the song as well…

The lyrics just resonate with me… and I kinda always come back to it, when I have a hard time. Its not cheerful or anything.. but it holds this deepfelt wish for someone to heal… and struggling with mental illness, I just need it.

As my novel draws a lot from my personal experiences and how I see the world, this fits the story's playlist quite well… and its Mass Effect related… sooo doubly perfect~

Sooooo I will go wait for food now and play some Mahjong or whatever :D Have a lovely day~

#writing #creative writing #on writing #national novel writing mont #nanowrimo 2023 #nanowrimo #sci fi novel #science fiction #sci fi #writing challenge #writing journal #writing journey #faunts #mass effect #Youtube

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tigerdrop · 3 years

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hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

#asky #careposting

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obeymeluv · 4 years

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Hi lovely! I’m not sure if your requests are open but I just worked out for the first time since ive gotten super depressed! It might not be that big of a deal but can I get some geadcannons on how the brothers would react to this? (: (their lover working out for the first time in months because of their mental illness)

I respect this so hard and am super proud of you. I have similar struggles so it always makes me happy to see someone able to get back up. Good job :) These headcanons will be short because I’m getting ready for bed and have to get into school mode, but here you go! ♥

Lucifer

It wasn’t uncommon for him to wake you up, or even gently start the day by sitting at your bedside and whispering sweet nothings

He opens the door soundlessly, as always, and is quite surprised to see you in the middle of doing a yoga series. Thankfully, your back is to the door

Pride blossoms in his chest and, for the first time, it doesn’t feel heavy like the burden of his sin

It’s warm and joyful and feels like an old memory of the Celestial Realm, a call back to happier days

His eyes mist over a bit but no one can confirm it

Lucifer is a perfect, beautiful statue that watches for a few poses before slowly inching back towards the doorway to peek around the corner

Pretends like he never saw anything when you go about the rest of your day, but is absolutely glowing when he looks at you.

Lavishes you in his fancy praise, as always. (”You look enchanting, my love. Simply radiant today.”)

Mammon

He’ll deny it to the day he dies, but he craves your company.

Actually, he’s more likely to admit it when you’re in a depressive episode because you’re tender and vulnerable and that’s how he really is when he lets his guard down. That’s when people need the most love, and you’ve put him back together so much that he wants to repay the favor 1,000x fold

Mammon’s very surprised to see you running careful laps up one set of stairs and down the set on the other end of the hallway (that explains why it took him so long to find you).

It’s like speed walking. He watches for a lap and a half to make sure you’re not rushing off anywhere. You know, making sure nothing’s serious

When he realizes you’re exercising in earnest he’s super stoked. Like, #1 hype man.

“That’s my human! Yeah!” Mammon becomes your cheerleader

Drops sly comments about how it’s actually a good glute workout and he’ll give you a massage afterwards

Keeps up with you more than you’d expect (models train hard, okay?) but does get bored. Maintains cheer position

Carries you around the rest of the day when your legs are sore

Levi

Levi had to do a fair bit of research on depression when he realized you weren’t converting to being a fellow otaku shut-in

The two of you still enjoyed cuddle times, and sometimes he could engage you in games, but the health of his beloved was important! Humans couldn’t be without exercise for too long or it would be bad for them

It’s super awkward but he tries to invite you swimming and things. Sometimes you just don’t have the energy. He understands, and is totally down for cuddling you (with partial back rubs) while playing games

Makes sure you eat and definitely splits his rations

Enjoys the small walks from his room to yours, and makes sure you guys drift between them a couple of times a day. That helps humans, right?

Levi realizes fairly quickly that you haven’t been to his room in a while and goes to check on you

You’re hopping in patterns across the floor, slowly making your way to his room.

You look like you’re having fun!

He’s not sure what you’re doing, but you hop, you squat, then you lunge.

You lock eyes with Levi mid-lunge and wobble a bit. He’s a little pink in the face, but because he’s laughing in sheer delight at how spooked you looked.

You end up flopping over and Levi crouches beside you, offering his hand

When he hears you finally had a burst of energy and wanted to work out, to start over again, he’s very proud of you

May or may not have compared you to Henry and shared some of the more harrowing moments the hero went through (also how he’s awesome and came back better than ever!)

Invites you for a swim and you actually accept

After some laps and splashing about, you spend time floating and cuddling

Satan

Depression is sometimes just a thing humans go through, Satan is finding out.

Between Devildom books and human books, he kind of understands

It’s a thing of time, and sometimes other methods help. He personally thinks the lack of sun in the Devildom is the main culprit

Gives you healthy snacks and tracks down vitamins

Tries to get you to walk the gardens but realizes he can’t force it

Sometimes he gets you outside, reading under trees and lanterns

Satan roamed the House of Lamentation, intending to steal you for another outside reading session, and was surprised to find you out there already

He watched from a high window, peeking tentatively from behind the thick curtain, and let the amused smile cut his lips

Suddenly, you disappeared out of sight. Satan waited for what felt like ages until the logic of ‘the fastest way between Point A and B is a straight line’ kicked in. He held his book carefully, unlatched the window, and jumped out

Demons have good joints and sturdier bodies. The drop and landing was nothing for him.

He calls your name and starts walking around.

It’s not until he’s made a full lap and you’re giggling (behind him somehow?) that he realizes you’re just leisurely walking laps around the house

Super embarrassed that he got worried (and that you ended up behind him). Jumps when you touch his shoulders or if you hugged him around the waist

You’re happy and...yourself for the first time in a while and Satan’s heart is so happy. Before you can break the hug, he twines his fingers with yours and just holds your hand to his body

Eventually you break away, kiss his shoulders, and start a game of tag that turns into sky-watching, and laying on his chest as he reads

Asmodeus

He knows how to break hearts but he ALSO knows how to fix him

He’s always trying to get his brothers to hang out and make good memories. Despite what he says and how he acts, he really cares for them from the bottom of his heart

You count, too. You’re like, top tier. Basically family. VIP space. Maybe SPOUSE space (but that’s too fast for a human, right?)

Though rare and private, Asmo has his bad days, too. They can either be fixed, or they can’t. Usually things are just distractions. The heart will heal in its own time.

Asmo went to your room with the latest round of pampering but stopped short of announcing himself. Does he hear...music?

Nudging the door open with his foot, his eyes light up so pink the gradient is disappearing.

You’re dancing and humming, making faces at yourself in the mirror.

His heart clenches with a beautiful pain because you’re so vibrant and lively and he knows it was hard for you to find this again

The pampering is abandoned for an impromptu PRIVATE dance party

Silly and sweet things, waltzing and just being close, hugging as you sway side to side

Lots of forehead kisses and pet names.

Beelzebub

He didn’t think your behavior was out of the ordinary since Belphie slept a lot.

Beel is always motivated by something--food, sports, working out, family stuff--so he’s not familiar with the lack of desire to do anything

When he learns you’re not just catching up on sleep and you might be having a rough time, he asks Lucifer and Satan what to do

They decide you should work out. That releases endorphins in humans and that sounds like what you need!

The attempts don’t go well, but you’ll at least come out of your room and be a resistance weight for him

Beel went into the weight room to do some pre-warm up exercises. He was mentally planning his reps and figuring out what muscle groups were on the schedule when he heard the clinking of weights

His brothers had other ways of working out so that meant only one person could be in the weight room

Beelzebub stamped down the urge to rush in and watch you in all your occupied glory, reminding himself you could drop a weight on yourself (or worse)

His purr gives him away

He’s proud, borderline excited, and just purrs long and loud from the entryway

Jumps into the workout with you, doing light exercises

Beel gets a little playful adjusting your posture, but it’s all sweet hugs and rocking you back and forth

Regardless of what muscle groups were on the schedule for the day, it’s arm day because he’s lifting you up, throwing you a little, and catching you in his arms

Give this happy, snuggly boy some kisses

Belphegor

He can sense your state of mind by the nature of his sin. He sleeps a lot and has a knack for telling when someone’s sleep is anything but restful

Belphegor’s not 100% sure, but he thinks he can tap into your dream space. There’s this little ball of sad-tired-something that lets him know you’re not okay

There’s quiet mini-dates that ease the sting of your sadness, but he knows it’s not enough

When he sleeps, he has dreams about you being happy and hopes he can push them into your mind

Cuddles fix things. He’s down for couple naps.

Belphegor goes in and out of sleep; it’s during one of his periods of waking that he notices you’re not there

Hugging his pillow, he shuffles about the House of Lamentation to find you

He finds you cleaning and organizing the kitchen. Cleaning is a sign of healing, right? Lots of movement?

Belphegor realizes you’re doing more than cleaning. You’re stretching and lifting things like they’re Beel’s weights

It looks time-consuming, and like you’ve been at it for a while

Belphie plonks his head on your shoulder, asking how you’re feeling. He’s got that sleepy Cheshire Cat smile

You’re just as happy as can be, happier than he’s seen you in a while, and you celebrate by stealing a bunch of snacks and making a blanket fort in his room

Hope you liked it :)

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haikyuuscreaming · 4 years

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hi! i love your work so much and i was wondering if you could write a scenario for iwaizumi's little sister dating oiks? sorry if this isn't the kind of ask you're used to lol but thank you for this blog

GUESS WHAT HOES, I AM ALIVE AND VIBING AND IVE BEEN UNINTENTIONALLY SLAVING OVER THIS

sooooo i accidentally wrote a… 9000+ word fic about this? oops lol ok check it out if u wanna read the monstrosity (WARNING THERES SMUT AND LOSS OF VIRGINITY SO LIKE READ AT UR DISCRETION PLS!!) https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552522

please enjoy the much shorter (only 1k words), alternative ending to the above fic! :)

“Nii-chan, I’m going out,” You call out.

“Again?” Iwaizumi Hajime, your older brother, sounds kind of suspicious because this is probably the eighth time you’ve said you were going outside of the house in what, two weeks? He knows you’re antisocial, introverted, and a house hermit, so you don’t blame him that he’s getting suspicious. “With who?”

“My friends,” You reply casually. You’re proud of yourself for mastering nonchalance, despite your guilt for lying to your big brother. “Himari and Lisa. We’re just hanging out at a cafe.”

“You guys spend so much time together lately. How do you have the energy, I swear,” is all Iwaizumi mutters as he retreats to his room. “Get home safe. You have enough money, right? Text me when you get there.”

“Yes, sir~”

You leave the house as quick as you can. You’re wearing a giant hoodie that swallows up most of your frame, but once you’re a good dozen meters away from the house, you take off the hoodie that makes the spring heat sweltering. Underneath your hoodie is a cute outfit you were proud to put together, but you know Iwaizumi isn’t dumb enough to think you’d wear that to a girl meeting. No, you’re not meeting your friends at the cafe.

You’re meeting Oikawa Tooru, your boyfriend of four months.

You never got to really privately hang out with him before, mainly because you didn’t know how you would keep it up with your usually lenient but nonetheless protective brother on you, but just recently you’ve had the idea of holding this facade where you go hang out with your friends, while in reality you’re just spending time with Oikawa. Even your aforementioned friends Himari and Lisa are in on it.

As soon as you get to the cafe, you spot Oikawa immediately, sitting at a table on his phone, his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose.

(You know he’s been wearing his glasses more and more lately because you once said they were cute on him.)

“Tooru~” You sing out, shaking his shoulders with playful glee and he whines a little bit about how you messed up his game, but then kisses your cheek as a greeting. It never fails to make you flush red.

“You’re still wearing your glasses?” You note to him, poking at the bridge between the lenses and enjoying how his eyes kind of cross once your finger pokes. “I thought you said you liked contacts better.”

“I do,” He states in such a matter-of-fact way that you feel a little less confident. “But glasses aren’t so bad.”

“You mean you’re wearing them for me.”

“You’re so mean when it comes to teasing me! No wonder you’re related to Iwa-chan!”

You poke his nose in an attempt to frustrate him further, but he only laughs it off and pinches your cheeks. “Hey, do you wanna go order some stuff? I heard they have good pastries here~ And great milk bread, too!” His chest puffs out like it’s an honor he did the extra research, and you laugh at his charm.

“Yeah. You want your usual?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay. Wait here, I’ll get you milk bread too.”

Oikawa frowns and slides over some money. “You know, you’re gonna make your poor boyfriend feel bad if you pay for everything. I brought money too.”

“Haven’t you been treating me to food for the past, what, seven dates?” You narrow your eyes and push away the money adamantly. “You’re reinforcing gender roles. You’re so sexist!”

“Hey, you know what I mean!!” Oikawa whines to you, holding your hand gently and pushing the money back. “Save the money for more boba or something.”

You decide to relent, but not without a price. “You’re right. Plus, I can just buy more food with your money now that you’re offering.”

His gasp makes you laugh as you stand up. “[Name]-chan!! You’re so mean, you’re gonna make me broke. Again!”

“Hey, I always order something cheap when you treat me!”

“Fair point, fair point~”

You feel your phone ringing in your back pocket as you pat Oikawa’s coiffed locks gently before walking to the rather short order-line, reciting your order in your head. Two pieces of milk bread, chocolate croissants, espresso with extra sugar for the baby over there, and [coffee of choice]. This’ll be fine. You order your treats and once you receive them, you walk back over to your boyfriend.

“I got milk bread~” You sing out lightly, shaking the shiny plastic bags of fluffy bread in front of Oikawa. He grabs them without even bothering to humor you, to which you whine. He laughs, his voice airy and genuinely happy, and kisses you.

The two of you are so engrossed in this happy, warm-hearted kiss that you don’t notice the cafe door swing open and a certain person starts walking towards you.

“Hey, [Name], I was craving coffee so I decided to swing by and- what the fuck.”

You break away from Oikawa so fast that it gives you whiplash, and you’re staring into the eyes of your big brother.

“Nii-chan!”

“What the fuck are you doing with Oikawa??”

“Nothing, nothing, Iwa-chan!”

“Were you two literally sucking face? Oh my god I’m gonna throw up. [Name], what happened to standards? You guys are dating?”

“Nii-chan, I can explain-”

“Iwa-chan, you’re so mean to me!! Of course I surpass [Name]-chan’s standards!”

You’re kind of amused the way your brother growls and drags Oikawa by the ear– and giving you a glare that forces you to follow– and drives you both to your house.

The car ride is awkward and silent, but you enjoy it because it’s funny how your usually lax and calm brother gets so riled up over this. You don’t want to see him mad, but it’s also hilarious to watch your boyfriend get scolded (beat up) by Iwaizumi, no matter how much you love Oikawa.

And as soon as you all arrive at your house, Iwaizumi hisses something into Oikawa’s ear (that you’re sure is somewhat akin to a death threat) and the two of them disappear into Iwaizumi’s room.

“[Name]-chan, please help, Iwa-chan’s gonna beat me up, Iwa-chan this isn’t what it seems-”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“… Have fun, Tooru?”

Ten minutes later, during which you heard Oikawa screaming for mercy and the telltale roar of Iwaizumi’s voice, your boyfriend walks out of the room scratched up but nonetheless happy to cuddle with you.

#oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa tooru #tooru oikawa #tooru oikawa x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu scenarios #hq scenarios #haikyuu

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caws5749 · 4 years

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This took SO LONG thanks @natthisback

1: Name Madison

2: Age 21

3: 3 fears spiders, not becoming a doctor, becoming like my parents

4: 3 things i love marvel movies, my blanket (whoops), and scrunchies

5: 4 turn ons compliment me, be chivalrous, (idk if this means sex turn on too or not but) moaning my n- ANYWHO uh and the last one definitely like showing you want me

6: 4 turn offs someone who only talks about themselves, being like wishy washy, being arrogant/cocky, complaining about the same things

7: my best friend that would be shea @cloversofshea

8: sexual orientation lesbian

9: my best first date okay SO this like isn’t a first date but it was my first like nicer dinner date so I’m gonna count it. It was just this past weekend actually and i just i loved it so much it was amazing

10: how tall am i 5’2

11: what do i miss honestly, feeling like i was good at things

12: what time were i born 11:14am

13: favorite color purple, although it’s slowly been turning to like a baby light pink

14: do i have a crush yes yes i do and i likes her a lot

15: favorite quote “Truth is a matter of circumstance. It’s not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I.”

16: favorite place Chicago or New York City

17: favorite food SALMON

18: do i use sarcasm yes, but i feel like i don’t use it as much as i used to

19: what am i listening to right now Christmas pop playlist on Spotify

20: first thing i notice in new person whether they only talk about themselves

21: shoe size 8 or 8.5

22: eye color blue

23: hair color right now, it’s a brown that goes to blond at my ends

24: favorite style of clothing so if this means like fav style to wear daily, definitely athleisure. If it means in general, i love love love preppy looks? But not super preppy.

25: ever done a prank call? Absolutely, many times

27: meaning behind my url i explain this in my about me page (linked in bio!)

28: favorite movie captain America winter soldier

29: favorite song i don’t really have favorite songs but rn it’s prob December night by Michael buble

30: favorite band i don’t really have fav bands

31: how i feel right now it’s really hot in here, so warm. I feel okay

32: someone i love i love lots of people but ill stick with @cloversofshea

33: my current relationship status I’ve answered this so many times literally just look at the ask game tag

34: my relationship with my parents um yikes

35: favorite holiday Halloween

36: tattoos and piercing i have i have 6 tattoos! “Breathe” on my right inner ankle, a heart on left shoulder, heart w equal sign in it behind right ear, basically an ecg on my left inner ankle, Aquarius symbol on right bicep, and caws 5749 on my left side. And my ears are pierced.

37: tattoos and piercing i want definitely the black widow symbol in the same place Scarlett got her og6 tattoo, an amino acid tattoo that spells out “wah” , definitely more little tattoos! And maybe more ear piercings idk

38: the reason i joined tumblr so, I’ve had a tumblr for many many years. I originally joined bc my best friends at the time had them, and i was like sure! Ive deleted that personal blog since, and started my new personal blog a few years ago. I also have a studyblr that i started i think back in high school, and i just started this blog back in the end of July!

39: do i and my last ex hate each other no, I’d say far from it bc i likes her a lot

40: do i ever get “good morning” or “good night” texts yes from her and i fucking love it, it used to be a bigger thing almost every day and i loved it

41: have i ever kissed the last person i texted lmao no and for those who were wondering it is @cloversofshea

42: when did i last hold hands LMAO WITH @michelinaamour WHEN I WAS STUMBLING HOME DRUNK IN HIGH HEELS

43: how long does it take me to get ready in the morning it depends, anywhere from ten minutes to an hour and a half

44: have you shaved your legs in the past three days no! I am super lucky and have really light colored hairs on my legs and so i dont’ have to shave very often. Also i just want to say that i personally love shaving my legs and it is my choice to do so.. girls, you do not need to shave!!

45: where am i right now so i started answering this in the research lab, but i am currently sitting at one of the dining places on campus finishing it

46: if i were drunk and can’t stand, who’s taking care of me LMAO DEFINITELY @michelinaamour because she’s done it ALREADY FOR ME MULTIPLE TIMES

47: do i like my music loud or at a reasonable level it depends, in car trips, definitely blast it. But just driving around or listening in doors, definitely reasonable level

48: do i live with my mom and dad nope i live with @michelinaamour

49: am i excited for anything yes, I’m excited for lots of things. I get excited easily

50: do i have someone of the opposite sex i can tell everything to no. I used to

51: how often do i wear a fake smile this is a really interesting question. I don’t consider smiles i give to random people like ordering food or something to be fake, so i would say fake smiles are when I’m not okay and trying to hide it. Which happens less often now bc I’m just much happier of a person

52: when was the last time i hugged someone I think it was @michelinaamour two days ago but i think i hugged @cloversofshea that day too so

53: what if the last person i kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me I’d be heartbroken tbh

54: is there anyone i trust even though i should not yes, certain adults in my life

55: what is something i disliked about today my hair won’t do what i want it to :(

56: if i could meet anyone on this earth who would it be probably Chris Evans or Scarlett Johansson

57: what do i think about the most tumblr and everything with that, or probably her or school stuff definitely

58: what’s my strangest talent i don’t think i have any lol

59: do i have any strange phobias yes definitely haha, I’m terrified of stepping on worms

60: do i prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it i think a few years ago i would have said behind, but honestly I think I’d love to be in front of the camera now

61: what was the last lie i told i actually don’t know. Maybe this past weekend as to like the fact that i was going out on a date instead of just going out with a friend

62: do i prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online I’d say talking on the phone bc then they cant’ see me lmao

63: do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Yes and yes

64: do i believe in magic? Yes, or at least, that’s what i tell myself

65: do i believe in luck yes

66: what’s the weather like right now snowy!

67: what was the last book I’ve ever read The Butchering Art, it’s about the history of surgery

68: do i like the smell of gasoline omg yes yes yes yes yes yes

69: do i have any nicknames yes, madz, madi, girl who lives by the kitchen, queen (a new one) and clown (also a new one) thanks @natthisback

70: what was the worst injury I’ve ever had back in freshman year of college, i did something stupid and my foot swelled up like hell and hurt so bad. There were no fractures detected but the swelling stayed for a really long time, as well as the bruising and pain, and it never returned to normal

71: do i spent my money or save it SPEND IT BABY

72: can i touch my nose w my tongue no I’m not that talented

73: is there anything pink in 10 ft from me. Hmm part of my backpack? And my rings are pinkish bc they are rose gold. Oh and my scrunchie is pink, as well as my iPad

74: favorite animal cat

75: what was i doing last night at 12am i was still at work In the emergency room!

76: what do i think satan’s last name is uh honestly Jim lmao (it’s demons Jim! @cloversofshea )

77: what’s a song that always makes me happy when i hear it so good by dove Cameron

78: how can you win my heart suggest we watch a marvel movie, and I’m prob straight up in love. There are other things too but they’re pretty general, like compliment me, show you want me ya know

79: what would i want to be written on my tombstone haha, as a joke, “so realy its very thing. Just to keep everyone guessing.” But idk something funny

80: what is my favorite word i have no idea, maybe like sophisticated or something like that or aesthetic , champagne is a good one too

81: my top 5 blogs on tumblr ooh! Okay so @markiplier @lesbian-deadpool @americasass-romanoff @lesbianmariahilll @shining-rey-of-sunshine but i love so so so so so many more, and i have a lot of top blogs

82: if the whole world were listening to me right now what would i say fuck trump also I’m gay as hell and I’m growing tired of hiding it from people

83: do i have any relatives in jail not that i know of

84: i accidentally eat some radioactive vegatables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super power of my choice! What is that power lmao this question is great. Prob same powers as Wanda

85: what would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on any weird fetis- JUST KIDDING. Do you still think about them?

86: what is my current desktop picture so on my laptop, it’s fall flowers. But since that’s broken af, i use my iPad and that background is one of the apple ones. It’s just a beach idk why but I’ve never changed it

87: had sex WHY IS THIS IN EVERY SINGLE ASK GAME WTF

88: bought condoms nope i am gay as hell bye

89: gotten pregnant nope i am gay as hell bye

90: failed a class nope, definitely come close though

91: kissed a boy yes

92: kissed a girl yes

93: have i ever kissed somebody in th rain honestly, probably at some point, but I’ve never had one of those romantic kisses in the rain. I really really want to though and i think about it a lot

94: had job yeah, I’ve had three true jobs

95: left the house without my wallet probably

96: bullied someone on the internet no bc I’m not a fucking douche

97: had sex in public not yet

98: played on a sports team yeah, played softball and basketball in middle school

99: smoked weed yeah, but i didn’t get high

100: did drugs nope

101: smoked cigarettes nope, i think i asked drunk once if i could smoke, but my friend was like “really?” And i was like uhhhhhh just kidding haha

102: drank alcohol lmao i drink fucking all the time i mean. I literally have drunk writing nights , I’m drinking tonight too

103: am i a vegetarian/vegan i was a vegetarian for a while, and then an aspiring vegan, and then vegetarian, and then pescatarian now!

104: been overweight no

105: been underweight yes

106: been to a wedding yeah, but like not for a long time. I was like 4 and the flower girl. Oh WAIT. Does playing a wedding count? I played cello at a wedding so i was there???

107: been on the computer for 5 hours straight hell yeah, how would i function not doing this with class and relaxing

108: watched tv for 5 hours straight lmao definitely

109: been outside my home country yeah

110: gotten my heart broken yeah

111: been to a professional sports game yeah. I don’t really do sports though , so when i go it’s usually in suites and I’m just there for the food

112: broken a bone nope!

113: cut myself this is...a. Really deep question but bc i want to be able to speak about mental health on here, the answer is yes.

114: been to prom yes! I went to my junior and senior proms!

115: been in airplane too many times

116: fly by helicopter no, I’m not sure if i want to do this or not

117: what concerts have i been to I’ve been to lots. So first off, I’ve been to hundreds of classical concerts (and performed in them). As for pop, Bruno mars twice, maroon five like three times. Selena Gomez. Josh groban. American authors. Definitely others that i don’t remember

118: had a crush on someone of the same sex yes I’m fucking gay

119: learned another language so if this means fluent, no. I took a decent amount of French and am learning Russian right now!

120: wore make up absolutely. When i choose to wear makeup, its because i fuckign love makeup haha. Most days I’m lazy though and like to let my skin breathe and be natural

121: lost my virginity before I was 18 no

122: had oral sex yeah

123: dyed my hair many times

124: voted in a presidential election okay i think so but honestly can’t remember. But I’m pretty sure i did.

125: rode in an ambulance no and i never want to.

126: had a surgery no and i never want to haha. Well i cant say that. Depending on how my life plays out, I might freeze my eggs or something.

127: met someone famous yes, several I think, but probably Henry winkler was the one I remember most.

128: stalked someone on a social network yeah

129: peed outside nope don’t think so and definitely don’t want to

130: been fishing yes I have been ice fishing and regular fishing

131: helped w charity i have!

132: been rejected by a crush I’ve been not liked back but i don’t think I’ve ever made like a move on a crush and been rejected

133: broken a mirror ooh i don’t think i have actually

134: what do i want for birthday nothing bc i dont’ like my bday

#madison speaks #ask game

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gaveherhearttotheliontattoo · 6 years

Text

Title: Wrong Winchester Turned Right (Part V)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader (Female)

Word Count: 1928

Warnings: None that I know of

Prompt: So not really a prompt, I was on Pinterest and I looked up fanfiction prompts and this popped up from a user who I can’t find the account of… Anyways reader jumps on the back of who she thought was her best friend in public but ends up quickly realizing her mistake.

Note: I’m so sorry this took forever and a day to give all you lovely readers but life gets in the way and I had some stuff to get through first. So, after some help from a really good friend I’m pleased to present Part V! I’m not caught up on Season 13 yet so that’s why it’s not keeping up with the show. Hope you enjoy.

(Read Part I Here, Part II Here, Part III Here, Part IV Here)

Your face was on fire, more accurately all of you was on fire. You wanted to step back, distance yourself, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. In fact you found yourself inching closer to him again. He’d commented on the shirt you were wearing, you hadn’t known it was his but somehow that felt right and made it just a little bit better to be wearing. Wearing his shirt and being in his arms was comfortable, almost too comfortable, but you were so distracted being this close to him you didn’t realize the trouble you were in.

Dean let his hands rest on your lower back, just underneath the shirt, holding you against him. It was taking everything he had not to take his shirt off of you, but he didn’t think he was ready for that yet. There was something about you that drove him crazy. He didn’t know what he was feeling, he was concerned by that alone. He was usually so sure of himself, he was cocky and he knew it. He’d always been able to figure his route out with women, he knew what they liked before they told him, but with you he was blinded. Maybe it’s because of how similar the two of you were but he didn’t like that he didn’t know his way with you. He didn’t like that he felt like he was stumbling through the dark trying to understand you, to understand himself.

The heavy steel door opening pulled you away from Dean. He stepped to the side while you opened the hood of Stang back up. You had absolutely nothing in your hands so you walked to the driver’s side and got into the car. Perhaps if you pretended you had just tweaked something Sam wouldn’t get suspicious. You turned the key in the ignition and listened to the whining engine, your heart broke just a little bit more.

“Whoa, that doesn’t sound too good,” Sam said, coming to a stop next to Dean.

You got out of the car and almost slammed the door but remembered it wasn’t the car you frustrated with, not really anyways. “All because we just had to take the Impala. Stang knew I was leaving him behind.” You watched Dean roll his eyes and Sam chuckle.

“Well, I’d love to encourage you finishing this but I’m getting nowhere on this research thing and it’s closing in on midnight. We should all really get some sleep.”

You thought about how you’d only gotten an hour of sleep, all the driving that had been done, and all of the emotions you’d run through; yeah, perhaps sleep was a good idea. You closed the hood and followed the boys into the winding halls. You reached your room and waved goodnight, ignoring the look Dean was giving you.

“Goodnight (Y/N/N),” Sam said.

“Night, Sam, Dean.”

“(Y/N) you got a minute?” Dean asked.

Sam stared between the two of you and shook his head. Something was off with you, he could tell right away, but he didn’t want to get in the middle of it. If past experience was any indication Sam knew not to get involved when it came to you and boys. He gave you a nod and walked off.

“I’m kind of going off of one hour of sleep here, plus we’ve had a really long day, so I’d really like to go to bed.”

Dean watched Sam round the corner and disappear down the hall before stepping closer to you. He lifted a hand and cupped your face. “I just wanted to give you a proper goodnight.” Dean bent down and kissed you.

The kiss was soft, gentle. You melted into him, bracing yourself with your hands against his chest. The heat radiated through his shirt, bringing you closer. He leaned over you and you arched your back, your head brushed the door behind you and for one fleeting moment you considered inviting him in. The minute that thought crept into your brain you pushed it out and him away.

“What?” He whispered.

“I can’t,” you said, shaking your head. “We should get some sleep.”

Dean dropped his lips to yours once more before backing down the hall. “Not something we can keep avoiding.”

You shut yourself in your room and locked your door. You crawled onto your bed and curled up on your side, touching your lips with your finger tips. Was it really possible to feel this strong of a connection with someone this fast?

------

It had been almost two weeks since Sam took out the new vamp and you’d had no leads. The clan was staying quiet, they knew hunters were onto them. If Sam hadn’t taken that vamp out then maybe, just maybe you’d have been able to get somewhere with this clan. However, if it had been almost two weeks since killing the vamp that also meant it had been almost two weeks since Dean had kissed you.

You’d kept yourself scarce. You were finally able to get Stang running so you took him outside to work a lot while Dean stayed in the garage. If Dean was helping Sam study, you ran errands or studied in your room. Any excuse to not have to spend periods of time with Dean. You wanted to desperately but this wasn’t the time for distractions. Of course every once in awhile you worked with the two of them together, as long as Sam was around you felt better, but you were still too nervous to hang out with Dean for too long.

Today happened to be one of those days where you found yourself in the library working with Dean and Sam. You were on a laptop while the boys poured over books.

“This is getting ridiculous!” Sam said, slamming a book shut and pushing back from the table in the library.

You glanced up from the laptop. “Maybe you pissed her off so she’s in hiding.” You went back to scrolling through the search results. You were about to give up as well but you came across a link to a story about seven girls who had gone missing. You opened it and read through. The women had been missing for a couple days now, families were asking for any information, all the same. Nothing that sounded like what you were hunting but it was just odd enough that you spun the laptop around and showed it to the guys.

“So what,” Dean said after reading through the article.

“Seven girls in the past three days, that doesn’t strike you as odd?” When Dean just shrugged you turned to Sam. “Sam, come on.”

“She’s right, let’s grab our bags and head out.”

“What about the case we were already on?”

“It’s been dead for two weeks,” you said, standing up. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go and make sure more women don’t disappear than sit around chasing nothing.” You left the two of them to go pack your bag. It was going to be a long drive, close to eight hours to get to Waterloo, but if it meant you’d actually be doing something you knew it would be worth it.

Sam watched Dean check the trunk of Baby. He’d been quiet since you left to go pack your bag. He dropped his duffel, a little bit rougher than necessary before walking to the driver’s door and yanking it open. Sam set his duffle in the trunk and waited for you. He flinched when Dean pulled his door shut, but quickly relaxed when he saw you walk in looking happier than you had the last couple weeks. He waited for you to drop your stuff in the trunk before he closed it. He opened the passenger door and looked at you waiting.

“No, go ahead, this is a longer drive,” you said, opening the rear passenger door.

You sat down and leaned against the closed door. You rested your head against the window, ignoring Dean. Maybe if you were lucky you would fall asleep.

------

You awoke on a mattress, the moonlight shining through the partially closed shades. You stretched your arms out and twisted until you were laying on your back. A soft snore had you looking next to you and you found Sam on the other bed. You looked towards the floor quickly, searching for Dean, cursing yourself for caring at all. You could barely make out his shadow but there he was, one arm across his chest and another under his head. You saw his fingers drumming and knew he was awake. Glancing at the spot next to you you shook your head and sat up.

“Dean?”

Dean glanced at you, “Oh, hey, (Y/L/N). What are you doing up?”

“I slept most of the car ride, what are you doing up?”

“Just,” Dean adjusted, mumbled, “can’t sleep.”

“Look, if you can promise to keep your hands to yourself I will let you sleep up here.”

“I’ve done a pretty good job of that these past two weeks.”

“Fine. Sleep on the floor.” You laid back down, on your side, facing Sam. You listened to the shuffling on the ground and then you felt the bed dip beside you. Your insides tightened and then fluttered. You turned and faced him, he was laying on his back, arm behind his head and arm crossed over his chest, just like on the floor.

“Roll back over (Y/L/N).”

“I didn’t give you my last name so you could stop using my first name.”

Dean looked at you, grinned. “Right, but it’s just so much fun.”

You dropped on your back and wished you could scoot away from him. The heat was radiating off of him, it was enticing. You felt him shift and then his arm was next to yours, his hand mere inches from yours. You stretched your pinky out, touching his with the same pressure as a feather. Within seconds his hand engulfed yours and you closed your eyes, fighting all of the nerves in you.

“Dean-”

“(Y/N/N),” Dean whispered.

You turned your head and found Dean’s bright green eyes, highlighted by the moonlight, staring at you. “We can’t.”

“We’re not doing anything.”

You moved closer, slightly angling yourself towards him. “What about Sam?”

“What about him?”

“You’re his brother, I’m his best friend, isn’t there some line we’d be crossing?”

“We have to do what’s best for us.”

“And if I don’t know what that is?”

“Well, then I guess we’ll have to figure that out together.” Dean brought his free hand up to cup your face and he brought his lips to yours.

You melted into this kiss, you pulled your hand free and moved on top of Dean. His hands moved to your waist and you cupped your face in his hands. The heat was moving between the two of you, something you don’t remember ever happening with anyone else before. You were in too deep, but this time you just couldn’t pull away. You fell deeper as your tongue met his, then he nipped at your lip and small moan escaped your lips. Your breathing was ragged and you dropped your mouth back on his.

Dean pulled away, pulling you to his chest. He dropped a kiss to the top of your head. “We need to stop before we wake up Sam.”

“Well, Sam isn’t always going to be here.” You kissed his neck and then curled into his chest.

#dean winchester x reader #reader x dean winchester #dean winchester #supernatural #spn #wrong winchester turned right #ignore any spelling or grammar mistakes please

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all-cursed · 3 years

Text

BOBO DEL REY : BIOGRAPHY

[ i. STATS ]

NAME. bobo del rey , also known as robert svane .

AGE. somewhere around 171; number provided via mathematics i did between a combination of the actors’ ages and doc’s mentions of his age/how long he was stuck in the well . the math may or may not be correct and i honestly don’t care enough to try and do it again .

DOB. september 23, exact year unknown .

GENDER. cis male : prefers he/him or they/them pronouns .

PREF. pansexual

SPECIES. human turned revenant .

RESIDENCE. the ghost river triangle .

OCCUPATION. outside his stint as the owner of Shorty’s, his financial endeavours tend to be a little more under the table .

ETHNICITY. swedish, danish, norwegian... most of his blood comes from that general area .

[ ii. INTROSPECTION ]

POSITIVE TRAITS. resolute , patient (how else would someone spend over fifteen years trying to find some lady’s dead children bones) , passionate , dedicated , perceptive , eloquent .

NEUTRAL TRAITS. quick-witted , clever , irreverent , amoral .

NEGATIVE TRAITS. hedonistic , short tempered , unforgiving , apathetic toward most things , self-interested (not quite the word i was looking for but when he sets his mind to a goal/decides that someone is in his inner circle, he’ll do anything to achieve/protect said things even to the detriment of others and this word is the closest i could find) .

DISLIKES. being rushed & law enforcement & comic books & ignorance/ignorant people & being under someone else’s authority & having to repeat himself & hell flashbacks & poker games & cheap alcohol; he’ll drink it but he has a heavy preference toward the pricier stuff & interruptions of any sort & having to switch things up mid-plan & having to rely on others for anything & most sweets & neon colours & thinking about his past & being cornered .

LIKES. expensive liquors & lounging in the sun & birds & organic materials for clothing; so furs, leathers, metals, etc. & accessorising (the amount of rings and bracelets alone that he has squirreled away is insane) & neutral and earth tone colours & having all eyes on him/being able to give off a commanding presence & at the same time he also values his privacy & physical activities and how he feels after doing them & getting in the last word & dawn or dusk walks & burning incense & avant garde jazz & 'experimental’ fashion (look at this man’s outfits in this show and tell me i’m wrong) & cigarettes and bourbon & flirting & the ocean .

HOBBIES. chess & puzzle boxes/rings & origami & wood whittling & walks on the outskirts of town & he journals but it’s less for fun and more to keep track of everything he has going on & learning things .

WEAKNESSES. he has a hard time garnering any sort of sympathy for anyone/anything outside of his inner circles/soft spots & willa earp is one of his weaknesses because of how important she is to him and i will die on this hill & his short temper & his amorality means that his loyalties can and often do shift which leaves him with few he can steadily count on .

STRENGTHS. has a way about him that makes networking and forming connections extremely easy for him & can be very persuasive when need be & once he sets his mind on a plan/task it takes a lot to get him to give up on it & has the ability to play the long game; isn’t impatient for results right away .

HABITS. he’s very expressive with his hands; like, very expressive & will stroke his beard when he’s deep in thought (or pretending to be) & that thing he does where he kind of clacks his teeth together like he’s biting the air?? look he does it multiple times and i still don’t know how to describe it & has a habit of staring at people & leans back or lounges in chairs whenever possible & when nervous/thoughtful he’ll chew at the edges of his fingernails and/or spin the rings on his fingers .

EDUCATION. before he became a revenant, he was fairly well educated; about as well educated as anyone could be back then. he finished school and while he didn’t go to college, he did a lot of book reading before everything with wyatt began to get out of control. the fascination with/desire to learn about the world followed him even when he became a revenant - though often, his research now is done with an intention to learn information that might serve him well in the future.

[ iii. APPEARANCE ]

FACECLAIM. the beautiful michael eklund .

HEIGHT. 6 ‘ 0 ” .

EYES. a keen, watchful cobalt blue at most times - though when in use of his powers, or simply when he chooses to let them appear, his eyes will glow a fiery golden orange ringed with black . dark circles beneath them , long eyelashes, and generally a look that seems like it can pierce your soul .

EYEBROWS. fairly average , again , there isn’t much to say about eyebrows . though small parts of his are white to match the partially white patch in his beard .

HAIR. generally kept short in various mohawk styles ; can be slightly wavy at times depending on the humidity in the air . he keeps it short in such a manner that makes it easy to keep it styled , either smoothed back or shaped into a simple mohawk . there have been phases in his life where his hair grew out messy and long - dark brown streaked with white . if i recall, for a while after his return from Hell it was entirely white - whether from his own doing or from some effect of Hell I’m not sure yet.

SCARS. a few long scars run down his back parallel to the curvature of his spine; they glow when in the presence of peacemaker or when he’s allowing his more demonic features to show . he has a variety of other scars; one faint one that slashes through one eye that is barely noticeable now; several across his abdomen and chest , some from bullets and some from sharper edges than those . he also sports scars from a knife that went through his hand and in certain verses , he has scars from the really nasty impaling he dealt with when fighting with jeremy and doc .

DRESSING STYLE. experimental . he tends to lean toward materials like leather or furs or metals (in the case of his jewelry anyway) . it’s not all he wears but it’s definitely the case with his favourite clothing items (the fur coat, leather pants, etc.) . tends to lean toward neutral or earthy tones and isn’t much for flashy , bright colours . wears lots of accessories as well , primarily rings and bracelets but also pendants on occasion .

LIPS. i really don’t know how to describe lips, i’m sorry , lol .

SKIN. lightly tanned from time spent out in the sun ; he has an average but leanly muscled build , not overly hairy but not quite smooth either . pays careful attention to his facial hair and makes sure to take decent care of it . most of his body is covered in scars , some more noticeable than others , some verse dependent , but every version of him has quite a few regardless .

CHEEKS. average cheekbones , doesn’t blush easily or often .

[ iv. ABILITIES ]

LANGUAGES SPOKEN. english [ fluent ] , latin [ a bit here and there ] , swedish [ a few phrases ] .

THREAT LEVEL. moderate to high .

WEAPONS. he can and does use anything around him as a weapon when needed . he isn’t afraid to get down and dirty - or play unfair . that said , he is fond of simply using his own two hands to inflict the damage he needs to inflict . that or his magic powers .

MAGIC. he has control over anything metal ; that means he can send anything metal coming at him - bullets , knifes, etc. - back at the other person or wherever he so wishes , amongst other things. generally speaking, if you’re on bobo’s bad side , you do not want to enter his presence with anything metallic on your person .

[ v. DETAILS ]

➣➣ little is known about bobo’s younger years as robert svane - his family, etc. - and he sure as fuck isn’t going to tell anyone unless you’re very close . what is known is that he was a fairly quiet student and person in general, and got through school with little to no problems. chances were he had a fairly average childhood .

➣➣ later on down the line, robert svane - as bobo was previously known - met wyatt earp and the two of them became fairly close friends. while he didn’t spend as much time actively in the field as wyatt or doc holliday did, he and wyatt stayed in close touch and spent time together in town often. when wyatt left the area on one mission or another, the two would correspond via letters from wherever robert happened to be at the time.

➣➣ then things began to go downhill. the nonstop snowballing of bad luck culminated in a battle between wyatt earp and the demon sheriff clootie - who took robert to use as a human shield. dedicated to the same cause and beliefs that wyatt held, robert told him to take the shot regardless, even though it would mean the bullet would go through him first. wyatt did. robert ended up in the local church nearby alone after that - perhaps on a search for help for his injuries - and bleeding out.

➣➣ before dying, the demon clootie had cast a curse on the earp family - and on those killed by the earps, which meant that when he died, robert would be damned to hell along with the rest of the victims of peacemaker. one of the demon’s brides, constance, who told him such news, said that doc holliday - who was currently trapped in a well - had the third seal of bulshar’s entombment and that if robert went to the well, he could trick doc into giving him the ring. in the end, doc refused to give up the ring that gave him his own immortality and instead of rescuing him, robert, bitter of wyatt’s loyalty to doc first and foremost, left him in the well. as such, he eventually died (in wynonna’s arms.... yeah there’s a whole other flashback thing i’m not going into here), and was sent to hell.

➣➣ as foretold, he came back as a revenant. the years in hell had worn him down and down until very little of his former virtues remained above surface, all dormant and buried. somewhere along the line, ward earp became the heir. when waverly earp was born - to another father, but with the same mother - bobo came across them and, thinking waverly was the angel who had been with him when he died, kept his word to protect her, following her mother’s wishes and taking her to ward. he ordered ward to take care of waverly, and that if he ever harmed her, he would answer to bobo.

➣➣ bobo kept watch on the earp family for some time afterward, eventually becoming waverly’s ‘imaginary friend’. around this time he decided to strike a deal with ward: bobo would make sure that the earp family remained safe but only if ward crossed the Ghost River Triangle border with him, effectively freeing bobo from the confinements of purgatory. ward agreed, but was accidentally shot during a raid on the homestead by the other revenants. the next heir was set to be willa, who was dragged away by revenants - revenants that bobo stopped in order to protect willa, who he hid away in a treehouse where the others wouldn’t find her. he watched over her as she grew, along with - unfortunately - constance clootie, whom he still needed to work with.

➣➣ unfortunately, clootie eventually erased all of willa’s memories and hid her away from bobo, in essence forcing him to work for her in order to ever see willa again, and, consequently, to be able to escape the Ghost River Triangle. it’s around this timeframe that the events of 1x01 begin to happen.

[ MORE TO COME THROUGHOUT CHARACTERIZATION DEVELOPMENT ]

#temporary biography tag #wearp spoilers #that timeline is ALL over the fucking place and i 'm sorry lmfao i didn't wanna take the time to go through and hunt for #all the specific information #but i'm gona be rewatching from the beginning soon so like. i'll fill in proper details as i come across them

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roxxdafoxx · 4 years

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Why I stopped celebrating the holidays...

for me holidays were always a disappointment the decision to not celebrate the holidays can save you money and your sanity its definitely a “rich mans holiday” my grandmother always made it a point to make sure i felt valued she always got me a gift and a birthday cake My great grandmother an I shared the same birth date and having a birthday with my great grandmother was the best now with the exception of a few cousins and my children now that my entire family is dead and after spending every holiday in the hospital ive had a lot of time spent in isolation to learn and get to know myself and God on a more intimate and deeper level not being with family always being depressed during the holidays made me realize why am i allowing these holidays cause me anxiety get me all upset about being able to afford gifts for everyone especially when u have a big heart and the desire to give to everyone id give to almost everyone in the entire world if i could but feeling that way during holidays never sat right with me it would ruin my mood my self esteem/self worth i would feel i had no value like i was never good enough no matter hat i did or gave would never be good enough i would find myself damn near balled up in a corner crying on a day that was supposed to be happy my birthday being so close to christmas put my birthday in the my mind in the “you dont matter box” lol im sure most can relate if their birthday is during that time when most people are getting ready for the holidays while everyone else gets both a birthday present and a christmas present for christmas babies your lucky if you even get a gift in general trying to throw a party around that time is equally as difficult people are just too busy the holiday its supposed to be about Jesus and his birth and birthday although its not even the day he was born a lot of people aint even really thinking about Jesus at all some celebrate christmas and dont even believe in God its just tradition for them and a reason to celebrate and get gifts and its origins have nothing to do with God!!! The origin of Christmas is completely opposite of what most think theyre celebrating and most are in denial that they continue to celebrate a lie with a dark origin they say halloween is a devils holiday but Christmas is too!! the reason the birth of Jesus is not listed in the bible is because God never planned or commanded us to celebrate his birth because he doesnt have a birthdate he has always existed the bible even calls it foolishness (Jer 10) this is the reason people cant wait for the holiday cram to be over with because theyre busy trying to please everyone except God being selflessly selfish and putting themselves into debt is that really the correct way to show people that you care? When u travel a bit when u go through some things when u see people struggle just to have a roof over their head are homeless or living in a shelter or if you think of people in other countries who are just grateful for a pair of old worn out shoes you realize how vain the holidays really are the bible even calls it “vanity” when you look at all the beautiful decorations all the money spent on trees and lights etc u start to see it for what it really is its all “vanity” please believe im not being judgemental i celebrated this holiday before i somewhat celebrated it even tho i was in the hospital i mean you really cant avoid the celebration because the majority is celebrating and it will trickle its way on down to you in one way or another for instance i no longer celebrate and this is my first year deciding not to the nurses bought me gifts along with a santa claus hat that ive been wearing because i love hats its warm im into costumes and fashion but even fashion can be considered vanity we have put ourselves in a place and position that we forgot where we came from and what our ancestors went through.. I loved planning birthdays and surprises for friends, but when it came to me, the favor was never returned. That's when I realized that planning my own birthday or holidays or others birthdays that it was too much pressure trying to please others. it still makes you feel inadequate and terrible. nobody cares Let's be real Everyone is already in debt. Your birthday just became another errand on their daily to-do list. If you invite a lot of people they dont show up or might not bring anything some folks just really are there for the food and a party could care less about you but its just something to do it could mean you have false friendships/relationships in general and you're just there hoping for gifts even fake friends buy gifts too u just never know .... the dark origins is really what made me give up on holidays valentines day is supposed to be about love but i never felt more unloved than on that day halloween aka “the devils day” you get more gifts of candy from strangers than any other holiday ironically and its like the day where being scared is supposed to be fun the bible clearly states fear is not of God a lot of people like that stuff and like the feeling of being afraid until its a real situation then its not so fun.. i can barely watch horror films i honestly dont know how people come up with these crazy scary movies how do they film them write them and play these characters i mean acting is most def a talent...If you’ve never researched where our Christmas traditions come from, if interested in the truth look into it. I started to share them here, but it would take me FOR.EV.ER. to go through all of the names, dates, traditions, etc. But look into where Dec. 25th came from. the Yule log, the Christmas tree and its ornaments and lights, holly, mistletoe, wreaths, the Christmas ham… look up Winter Solstice and Saturnalia. If you are really interested in knowing where your traditions come from and what they mean… do some studying.Suffice it to say, what we are doing when we partake of the traditions of Christmas is nothing more than imitating the pagan’s worship of the sun god. And i no longer can stand to have any part of spitting in the face of God. (Sorry, I know that sounds harsh, but this is how it makes me feel.)For a long time I tried to rationalize that it was okay to continue enjoying the festivities. After all, we weren’t doing it to worship a sun god, we were honoring the birth of Christ! Right? Well, after much prayer and studying God’s word, one day the Lord revealed this analogy to me.Let’s just say that your spouse has cheated on you. After all, the Lord does call his people an “adulterous bride” after they went chasing pagan gods.Let’s say that your cheating spouse has come back to you, and asked your forgiveness. All has been made right again.Now, let’s say it’s your birthday. And your spouse wants to honor you on this day. (Although, in an appropriate analogy the celebration wouldn’t even be on your actual birthday!its on the other womans/guys birthday)But instead of giving you gifts that you have clearly expressed a desire for, your spouse gives you things that his lover enjoyed! He made his/her favorite foods, wanted to enjoy his/her favorite activities with you, lavished you with things that would have delighted him/her! Now, would this honor you? Would you feel loved and esteemed in this situation? Of course not!!! You’d be Livid!!! Is this not what we do to Christ, when we say that we are honoring Him by means of pagan traditions!? Being me,.. I wanted to find something in Scripture to solidify my convictions. Would God see the intentions of my heart, and understand that I’m just trying to please Him? Or would He be angry as I know I would be in that situation?...YHWH brought me to Exodus 32, the story of the Golden Calf. Remember that one? Moses had gone up onto the mountain to speak with God (and bring down the 10 commandments), but he took so long in coming that the people began to wonder what had happened to him. They asked Aaron to make a golden calf for them to worship, and he did so. But I thought this was fascinating, in verse 5 of that same chapter Scripture says, “And when Aaron saw it (the golden calf), he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.”Do you see what he was doing? The people had fallen back into pagan practices, and were worshiping an idol, yet saying it was to honor God!! The next verse goes on to say,“And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”Wow. Sounds like they were having a very fun celebration, huh?! Did the Lord look at the rejoicing of their hearts and feel honored? Let’s find out…In verses 7-9, YHWH speaks to Moses and tells him what the people are doing. He says that they have “corrupted themselves”, and “turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them”.Then in verse 10, YHWH says, “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them…”.He was SO ANGRY! He was ready to destroy them all! Evidently, He was not pleased at the way they were trying to honor Him… mixing worship with pagan traditions. Mixing the holy with the unholy. water oil Vinegar type mix Just. Like. Christmas.....As I continued to study, I also came to 1 Samuel 15…This is where King Saul went out to destroy the Amalekites. But the Lord specifically told him (through Samuel) that he was to “utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (verse 3)But if you read on, you’ll find in verse 21 that they did not do as the Lord had commanded, and had in fact brought back with them the best of the sheep and oxen instead of killing them. Of course, when Samuel confronts him about it, Saul rationalizes that they did it “to sacrifice unto the LORD”.Here again, man is disobeying the Lord’s commands, yet saying he is doing so to try to please God. What does the Lord say? Verse 22-23, “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to “OBEY” is better than sacrifice”!!!, .For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”God didn’t want the sacrifices. He wanted obedience!!!.Here’s another in Deuteronomy 12:29-31; He is speaking to the Israelites before they go into the promised land,“When Yahweh your Elohim cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, `How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’You shall not worship Yahweh your Elohim in that way; for every abomination to Yahweh which He hates they have done to their gods…”We are specifically told NOT to worship God with the ways of the pagans!! Jesus himself said in Matthew 15:7-9, “Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”I don’t want to worship in vain, forsaking the commandments of God and clinging to the traditions of men. (also in Matt. 15:3)I don’t want to have anything to do with the unholy.Ephesians 5:11, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”In fact, the recurring theme all throughout Scripture is for God’s people to NOT follow the way of the pagans (in other words, go along with what the rest of the unbelieving world does), but to be set apart as holy, and to honor YHWH by obeying His commandments!If we profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, then we cannot ignore the very character of God as repeated to us throughout Scripture. He is a loving God, yes, but He is also a jealous God. He will not share His people with idols.“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Exodus 34:14 But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Christmas traditions don’t really have pagan roots. Let’s just pretend that’s a bunch of baloney.Even still, nowhere in Scripture is it commanded to remember the birth of Christ. In fact, what we are commanded to celebrate are the Biblical Feasts of the Lord (given in Lev. 23), including Passover in remembrance of Christ’s death. Yet, far too many Christians have never even heard of the seven Feasts of the Lord, or they think they are “Jewish” celebrations. Scripture doesn’t call these holy days (not holidays) “Jewish feasts”, but the LORD’s Feasts. And everyone who calls himself a child of Elohim is to keep them. Forever.And so, we have chosen to give the Lord the gifts He has specifically requested, and honor Him through celebrating and remembering the Feasts of the lord.Loved ones, I know that Christmas is a special time of year, and that people get very caught up in its traditions and festivities. But our hearts yearn to honor the Lord… above all else. And this is something that i feel is non-negotiable.So, im saying “No”: to the holiday rush, and fighting over the latest toys for my kids, and inflatable yard decorations, and the lies of a bearded man who claims to have the powers of God (all seeing, all knowing, all present), and the Great Big Toys “R” Us Book, and “Yuletide” carols, and guilt induced credit card spending, and drunken company Christmas parties, and everything else that the world gets so wrapped up in during this time of year.For me, it really only comes down to one thing:“If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15 And I think I’ve laid out pretty clearly what i believe the Lord expects from us. one holiday i like which is the 4th of july because it summer and there’s fireworks in the sky and bbq but what is the true origin of 4th of july? i wish we didn’t have to have wars i wish people could just live and let live without hurting anyone why steal why not just learn from each other share a world without greed would be beautiful but also when u have nothing really left and after you have gotten rid of all the fake people in your life u find no real reason to celebrate if you have no one to celebrate with with my family all passing away the money has been short after being locked up in an institution it puts a damper on things i feel like these holidays are made up just to make the rich get rich yes we all want to have fun and have a good time but id rather celebrate with the right people for the right reason without any ulterior motives that battle against principalities ans spiritual wickedness against rulers of darkness evil spirits in high places the fowl of the air id much rather sell things to people who do celebrate these holidays because at least it can help with bills instead of be a hindrance and burden in my life i’m not judging anyone who celebrates holidays i use to celebrate them too i’m just sharing why i have chosen not to honestly i celebrate everyday i buy gifts throughout the year why celebrate when the government wants us to? so they can capitalize on the citizens have us participate in their hellenistic rituals that we aren’t even made aware of until we do the homework and learn about them for ourselves these traditions were forced on us we weren’t given a choice and to think we were told that by celebrating these days we are honoring God and all along we arent we are honoring other gods celebrating holidays that have origins of other gods and not the true God the bible doesn’t encourage us to entertain these practices why even celebrate anything that has the potential to be a set up for disappointment by not celebrating it eliminates any expectation of having a day that you really only see in the movies on the hallmark channel i’ve also noticed people dread and just cant wait for it to be over like a funeral and its supposed to be a joyful prosperous time its even programmed to be called the most wonderful time of the year i tell ya satan is a sly trickster i chose life and freedom from the imprisonment that i feel when it comes to the holidays so while everyone else is celebrating i decided to be happy and enjoy myself in my own company with God the real comforter snuggled up to him in worship and gratefulness as an introvert id rather spend the days away from all of that i enjoy being an introvert i enjoy being in my own company creating with the creator holding me down and uplifting me and perhaps the holidays have turned me into a “scroogey your highness grinch” because i view things differently now but with that comes the freedom of me not having to do what everyone else is doing setting myself apart from the masses (mass level of destruction lol insider) i’m living my life by my rules by my preferences and spending time with God my best friend God never asked for anything but for us to live right and be holy because he is holy this is something to be celebrated always everyday everyday is our unbirthday one day out of the year is a day we were born on and we shouldn’t feel pressured or disappointed because someone didn’t get us a gift or acknowledge the fact that we are here another year and alive if anything we should spend our birthday alone with God because for sure its facts that you’ll feel value and loved in the arms of God i feel we should do something special for ourselves no one will ever love us like God can no one will ever love us like the self love we give ourselves truth be told people will always fail u people will not always be there for you people die there are no guarantees in life except the existence of God and his everlasting word anything else is temporary everything we see will one day no longer be so i make it a point not to depend on external happiness internal happiness is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves always do you stay true to yourself get rid of old habits that dont benefit your soul and be happy do what makes you happy there’s always room to learn more and to improve in certain areas in your life in all areas a friend once told me and it will forever stick with me and that is we aren’t perfect we are not all knowing we are forever learning and correcting things we are all a work in progress give to others keep yourself in alignment with the word of God by giving to others its like youre giving to God and it will be given back to you within the same measure you gave with so just be a happy cheerful giver give from you’re entire heart good things will happen just dont give and expect something back giving to receive doesn’t work like that...another thing don’t wait for their birthday or a man made holiday to do things for people some might not even live to see another birthday this kinda follows the saying don’t wait till i’m dead to buy me flowers or wait till im gone to finally miss me invite someone to dinner just because why wait until thanksgiving to feast and be thankful around your loved ones thanksgiving a day where we are actually celebrating stealing the land from the people who were already here thats like allowing someone to move in with you you teach them how to grow food and make a living for themselves and then they rob you and kick you out of your own home and force you to pay them to live in the street and first and foremost last but most assuredley not least never allow the holidays to validate you your value doesnt depend on gifts u get or didnt get or the people around you i like small numbers i think God prefers small numbers too because quality is and always will be better than quantity id rather have 1 real friend than a thousand fake friends even if my only friend is myself i remember in elementary school they would give out secret candies on valentines day some student s would recieve like 30 gifts because either they were that much admired and popular or they bought themselves gifts and made it look like someone else did it for them to make themselves appear to be better but i wonder if fake love makes them feel better its kinda like today how they buy followers do me a favor be happy keep the fake stuff to the side seek to be happy internally so nothing or no one can take that from u people and material things are all external things theyre all temporary the things money cant buy the things we cant see are the more permanent things our bodies are also temporary but these souls of ours are gonna be with us a lot longer so make sure you take good care of it and of you real love is internal and eternal and its the best gift we can give to ourselves signed #EternallyYours #EternalLove

#EternallyYours EternalLove InternalLove #God WhyINoLongerCelebrateChristmas WhyINoLongerCelebrateHolidays #Love #WhyINoLongerCelebrateChristmas #WhyINoLongerCelebrateHolidays

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tiefighters · 7 years

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ILM Shares ‘Star Wars Stories’ at Gnomon

ILM’S Paul Giacoppo, Charmaine Chan, and Jay Machado discuss their career paths, making Rogue One, and much more.

From the opening shot until those final moments before the Tantive IV takes off into hyperspace, Rogue One’s visual storytelling takes center-stage in a big way. The credits run long for a reason, and that’s because hundreds of people at Industrial Light & Magic worked tirelessly to bring every major visual to life in a way that felt both “classic” and new at the same time. Last month at Gnomon University in Los Angeles, three of those visionaries brought their work to an audience of eager visual effects students in a special presentation called Star Wars Stories: An Evening with ILM. ILM’s Paul Giacoppo, Charmaine Chan, and Jay Machado brought decades’ worth of experience to their discussion.

Machado was on the modeling team for The Force Awakens’ Millennium Falcon, and created the award-winning Imperial Star Destroyer that we see rise from the shadows in Rogue One. Charmaine Chan spoke of her history at ILM, illustrating how careers grow and change on the company’s campus. Giacoppo is behind some extremely recognizable work that reaches back decades over the history of Lucasfilm and ILM; the crowd was hooked when he showed off his visually memorable “Hulk Smash” shot from Marvel’s Avengers.

But while their extensive careers could take up an entire editorial on their own, the focus of the evening was visual storytelling, and how ILM created Rogue One. Giacoppo outlined the overall objective of what the team wanted fans to see and understand: “The idea behind our work on Rogue One was that it had to have the visual feel of the classic 1977 Star Wars, but have a new vision as well.”

When it came to seeking out inspiration, the team had to look further than the usual standards. They began with concepts by Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnson, and several others that defined the look of Star Wars. These angular, expansive, and recognizable styles still reflect throughout Rogue One, but the team looked at what they could do differently as well, because the story in itself was different from the norm. “[McQuarrie and Johnson’s concepts] were part of what the visual language of Rogue One was,” said Giacoppo. “But it was a different kind of movie. It was a true war movie, about people with a mission to complete. So it’s not exactly a ‘hero’s journey,’ and we had to change what we were doing in order to tell this different kind of story.”

Giacoppo dove into set design, then, showing off digital recreations of classic sets that were created by John Knoll, ILM’s chief creative officer and a staple of Star Wars creativity. Knoll, attempting to explain how characters would move through various scenes, created digital set tours practically overnight in order to explain his vision.

Giacoppo then dove into characters that were created digitally for the film, focusing first and foremost on K-2SO, who he says has been part of the Rogue One story since its original pitch. K-2SO varied greatly from past on-screen droid companions, who were so often cute, or at least a little more friendly-looking. “He’s intimidating, he’s really stealthy, and he’s huge… and he was always an Imperial enforcer droid.

“There was a lot of time spent with the texture artists to get those same materials and weathering we’re used to in Star Wars,” Giacoppo explained, noting the details that showed Kaytoo’s age and length of use.

The team took designing Kaytoo very seriously, spending hours on specific details about how he would emote. The team looked at more eyes than one can count on two hands, then went through tests of how they would move — if at all — and how Kaytoo looked when expressing himself. “There was a big push to have a part of him blink, and to have a part of him move his mouth,” said Giacoppo, noting that such a thing is a rarity among Star Wars droids, who often reflect a much more industrial feel in design than most AI-driven beings within the genre. “But it just didn’t feel like Star Wars. See, he’s all blinking and jittering around… there’s too much going on.” With animation supervisor Hal Hickel’s guidance, the team ultimately went with “this sort of more impassive mask”, said Giacoppo, allowing fans to read and “project” emotions onto Kaytoo as they got to know him.

As a special bonus, Giacoppo showed a tiny clip of K-2SO playing with toys that paired with some very familiar audio from Alan Tudyk’s Wash in Firefly (“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!).

ILM’s Jay Machado, a hard-surface modeler and texture artist, was a welcome and familiar face that evening. As a Gnomon alum himself, Machado’s post-grad years have been more than exciting. For Rogue One, following his Millenium Falcon re-creation, Machado was tasked with creating iconic ship-looks once again. To set the tone for the talk, Machado showed off that iconic opening shot from A New Hope, where the belly of the Star Destroyer sails over the camera in pursuit of Princess Leia’s Tantive IV. “We wanted it to feel like the exact same era,” said Machado. So, his team at ILM went to the root of all builds to recreate and design ships in Rogue One. “For the ships, we went up to the archives, we took lots of photos, we scanned things, stuff like that — all to get the ships to be just right,” Machado told the crowd. “There’s a few people still working at ILM that we were able to talk to, like [long-time ILM VFX artist and supervisor] Dennis Muren, who [shot] much of this originally, and that really helped when it came to making it accurate.

“What I was surprised by is that the original Star Destroyer is only three feet long…a lot of the panel lines are drawn in with pencil. And we wanted to match that so that in a way, you could watch Rogue One and seamlessly start A New Hope.”

As far as new ships went, Machado noted that the tasks were just as difficult, but worth every grueling second. “Working with Doug Chiang and the art department, we had to design [the new ships] in a way that felt familiar so that they would blend in seamlessly with the ships we know and love.” Machado highlighted the U-wing, Krennic’s ship, and the new TIE strikers, stating that they were kind of meant to “compliment” the U-wing, with forward-sweeping panels and a unique, planet-specific use.

What may have been most exciting was the creation of new ships to the canon, like the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels, which featured on screen twice in Rogue One. “It fell to me to actually [build the Ghost] and it was kind of a secret project,” said Machado. “Well, at first it was a secret. Nobody else was supposed to know about it. I was supposed to do this quickly, and I had to design it in between my daily work so that people within the office wouldn’t start getting suspicious,” he joked. There are panels and pieces that might look familiar, too — parts of the Ghost might look similar to the Falcon, and that’s no mistake.

One other major ship from Rebels that ended up in Rogue One came all the way from the Knights of the Old Republic games, originally. Hammerhead cruisers, which Princess Leia worked with Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger to steal for the Rebellion in Star Wars Rebels, played an integral part in Rogue One, and Machado was among those responsible for their finished designs on the big screen.

Charmaine Chan’s presentation focused more on the process of growing her career before and after ILM. As an up-and-coming artist who veered off the trail that her parents originally wanted (worry not — they were ultimately supportive either way), Chan hit the ground running by creating work early and producing it every day. Since joining ILM, Chan has worked on more movies than one can count — a once-over of her IMDB page shows credits for Transformers, Captain America: Civil War, Jurassic World, and more. But her beginnings were in Web development.

According to Chan, she learned HTML, CSS+, and more “so that I could build Spice Girls websites” as a little girl. As that hobby grew, Chan broke into graphic design, then Flash animation. (As someone who started her career building Star Wars and N*SYNC fansites, this writer can relate.) “That’s what really started all of this, because I started watching movies closer and learning what it took to compose a full shot. There’s lightning, texture, and all sorts of details to consider, which I found really interesting…it really helped me move into this form of art.” Chan took those skills to the next level, learning visual effects, making motion graphics (“You know, like, DVD menus!” she joked) and eventually applying for a digital research position at ILM. “That gave me a really great overview of what the VFX process is,” said Chan. “I got to touch the shots at the beginning and the end.” From there, she kept working her way into a position at ILM that has grown and spanned over a decade, leading to her work as a compositor today.

The night was a wonderfully informative look at how the story of Rogue One was brought to to the big screen with stunning, modern, yet familiar visuals. One of the biggest surprises for this writer was learning about the sheer scale of people working on each Star Wars film. Hundreds of names scroll down through the credits after every film, but there’s just something unique and different about putting faces to those names and realizing just how many people it takes to make our favorite galaxy far, far away come to life.

#Gnomon #star wars #ilm #events #news #Charmaine Chan #Jay Machado #Paul Giacoppo #lucasfilm #filmmaking

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thedegenerateasexual · 7 years

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spot the reference: anchor edition

i’m doing this for my own pleasure and no one else's but you'll probably enjoy it anyway because man the callouts i give myself in this post you don’t have to read the rabid dog section it got Long

anyway this is just a list of references either to the show or to other stuff that i put in this fic, because i've been in the UT fandom too long not to enjoy hiding stuff in my work. it doesn't even go into the GIANT list i COULD make of all the neat research tidbits or foreshadowing to That Last Part. one thing at a time. if you haven’t read anchor this post spoils the absolute best part so maybe don’t click the readmore!

PART I

"I can do what's necessary," Argent repeats, voice hushed. They pass under an outcropping of rock, throwing them both into shadow. "I can. I will."

this is a throwback to a line chris says in 4.05 IED, when he and derek are down in the hale vault, discussing what to do about kate. [gifs]

"We'll catch up to her," Chris assures him. "My family has been hunting things faster than us for hundreds of years. It's a marathon, not sprint. She uses up this much energy now, she'll be a little slower later."

Somehow, Derek doesn't find that very comforting.

this is something derek says to chris in 2.12 Master Plan, upon being told of their temporary truce. he knows he fucked up [gifs]

"It's rough terrain. We'll have to take it on foot."

"Not exactly." Chris sucks the last bit of salsa off one thumb and stands. He jerks his head over at a dusty-looking red motorcycle parked just a few feet away. "That's ours. Until we catch Kate, anyway. A little rickety—but it's all-terrain."

so this was partially because research told me a lot of people prefer bikes to travel around mexico, but also because three other protagonists i’m fond of use bikes to great effect. did not know this before deciding on the bike, but apparently JR Bourne is also a bike guy. (you’re welcome!)

PART II

Life is so strange. It's Derek's very first bike ride, and he spends most of it half-asleep, snuggled up next to an Argent.

“life is so strange” is my very favoritest line...from a fanfic i like about some dumbass horndog named barnes

Tonight Argent dreams of Kate, sitting on the bed next to him in Allison's old bedroom. "I want to honor the code," she tells him sadly, "but I can't do this myself." She has the knife positioned over her heart, gripping it with white knuckles. "Chris," she pleads. "Help me." The full moon is coming. "I don't want to die alone."

"i can’t do this myself - chris, help me” is something victoria says to chris in 2.09 Party Guessed. [gifs] the rest of it came from, uh, someone else. (:

One night Derek tells Chris about the auto repair shop he and Laura both worked in while they lived in New York and discovers Chris has a love of classic cars.

"Laura, too," Derek says. "I mean, I like cars all right, I picked up some stuff from her, enough to do most of my own repairs, but she was really the car person. She had this...1960s, I don't remember what year, it was Mustang she was restoring, bit by bit. Champagne gold."

Chris lets out a low whistle. "Now that's a machine. What happened to it?"

"Told the owner she could keep it when I left town," Derek says. "It really was more Laura's thing. She was picky, wouldn't drive anything that she could outrun. That was Laura," he sighs, "drove 25 over every speed limit, smoked like a chimney, and always looking for an excuse to pick a fight. She was almost a worse alpha than I was."

"But great taste in cars," Chris says. "I used to have this black 1967 Impala I liked to work with in my spare time. I've always wanted to restore one from scratch, but after I got married and we started moving around, it was too much trouble to lug around the extra vehicle with us—black cars are so hard to keep clean. I had to take up whittling instead."

the 1967 impala is, of course, from supernatural, and it’s all @marcusanthotius emily’s fault, as evidenced here, and i’m never taking that post down so she has to live with it forever. the mustang is a car my own dad used to love (and if you’re curious, it was a 66). “black cars are hard to keep clean” is something chris said during the infamous windshield-washing scene in 1.03 Pack Mentality. [gifs - none of that particular line, but this is the scene]

PART III

"It triggers the shift," Chris says, rubbing his neck, "by means of raising your pulse." Derek listens to Chris's again—sure enough, his heart is already pounding. "It taps into the rage, the bloodlust. Makes you rabid. It's a kind of endless loop of feedback—the more your pulse raises, the worse the rage, and the more powerful the rage, the more it raises your pulse. Eventually even a werewolf's heart will just give out. The only reason to use it at all is that most werewolves aren't capable of burning it out of themselves when they're in that state of mind. So it's a sure death for the werewolf—but a sure death for anyone else nearby, first."

Whatever Chris learned about the wolfsbane is wrong. Maybe because no one who's been hit with it has ever survived it; they had to make guesses from the outside. And from the outside, Derek knows he looks furious. But he's spent most of his life wrestling with rage, and this isn't just rage.

It's also terror.

so i’ve talked about this before, but i actually didn’t realize i did this until much later that i accidentally ripped off supernatural AGAIN for this: in 4.06 Yellow Fever, which is a BAD EPISODE, fight me, people get infected with a “ghost sickness” that causes you to feel more and more fear until your heart beats so fast it eventually just gives out.

Argent swallows, hard. "The year of the fire," he says unsteadily, struggling with the math, because he can't quite remember when that was. What year was Derek born? How old is he—in his twenties, right? "Two-thousand—five? Six?"

"Fifteen," Derek replies, very very quietly, "is the number you're after. I was fifteen. The fire happened on my sixteenth birthday."

i did this as a shoutout to jesse turner of @cambionverse, who is a lot like derek in general, and also had a very devastating fire happen on an important birthday of his, in part because he too got tricked by a hunter with a pretty face. (chris isn’t a great guesser, by the way - canon keeps changing the date of the fire + derek’s age when it happened, but in this fic, the fire was in 2004.)

Chris exits the bathroom and leans against the doorframe, watching Derek with his arms folded. "Pourquoi est ce que je devrais apprendre l'espagnol," he asks, looking almost fond, "quand tu est là?"

His French isn't bad, actually—Derek would give him a B+ for the effort.

this is a real thing that happened to me in real life when i was watching 1.12 Code Breaker with @machidielontheway coralie, who is a native french speaker and helped me do the french translations for anchor. when chris spoke the original code in its original french, she had to rewind it to listen again, and ultimately said JR’s accent was all right but not great and gave him "a B+ for the effort." chris was originally supposed to be a native speaker of both english and french for this fic, but that was so funny i just had to change it. (coralie and i have a lot of fun when it comes to french.)

Derek dips a little lower and finds a barely-noticeable scar on Argent's hip, a dark spot that's just a little indented. "Hmm." He strokes a thumb over it thoughtfully, presses it into Argent's skin. His other fingers then naturally come to rest on four identical marks further back on Argent's side. "Something with claws."

the second @cambionverse shoutout of the fic, a much tinier one, this is also a line from the first chapter of cambion: "What happened to [Bobby]?" "Something with claws." Ben stays still for a moment, then lifts a hand to the deep gouges on his shoulder.

"You listen to my heartbeat when I say it, Derek. It wasn't about you. New anchor or not, I know you won't hurt me, and I meant it when I said I wasn't afraid of you. But Riley—" Chris looks away, swallowing hard. "Riley terrified me."

riley was named for sam wilson’s tragically fridged-for-character-angst wingman in captain america 2: the winter soldier. yes, really. his last name, roux (which never appears in the fic), sorta-kinda means red, which sorta-kinda works as a reference to his alpha eye color at the time of his death. “riley” and “rabid” also both have five letters, begin with R, and have the same number of syllables, vowels, and consonants. (this is the first time riley’s name appears in this fic despite him being important from the very first scene; only took 35 thousand words...repression, much?)

PART IV

Riley lets out an earth-shaking roar, and lunges. Chris ducks, and Riley's claws leave deep gouges in the concrete wall behind him where his head was only moments before.

"Riley, listen to me—"

in pacific rim, yancy says a near-identical line to his brother right before he dies: “raleigh listen to me—” (hi, cally!)

There's growling from closeby, and glowing red eyes flash in the dark—Chris rolls. There's a table here where they keep weapons, and—yes, his hands close around a shotgun, he stands and whirls—

"Riley, stop! I don't want to hurt you—don't make me hurt you, please—"

this one is a reference to 3.22 De-Void, when chris says to derek “i don’t want to kill you, derek, don’t make me kill you, please” while he’s under the nogitsune’s spell. [gifs, kinda, they’re part of a set]

Chris isn't as upset anymore—not hyperventilating or flashing back—but his tears seem endless, starting anew every time they seem ready to slow. "I'm sorry," he says several times. "I'm sorry, this isn't me, I don't know what's wrong with me—"

in 1.11 Formality, after kate tells allison about werewolves and the sheriff catches her speeding and crying, “this is not me” is what she repeats to herself very harshly to get it under control. repression is kind of a family trait i guess :(

Derek starts towards the cabin, but Chris catches him by the shoulder. "Hang on," he hisses, "what are you gonna do, just run in there with no plan?"

"She is," Derek says, with as much feeling as possible when you're also trying to be totally silent, "right there." He jabs a finger in the cabin's direction. "I'm going to go and kill her. That's been the plan from the beginning."

"Exactly," Chris says, "she's just there. In that nice big dark house full of who-knows-what. I don't know, don't you think that's a little—"

"Don't say 'too easy'," Derek warns. "People say 'too easy,' bad things happen. Trust me, I'd know." Lightning flashes closeby, briefly illuminating the trees. "None of this has been easy."

"So, what," Chris says, "we just take her by surprise, and that's it? You don't think it's dangerous to underestimate her like that?"

"Two on one—" Derek eyes Chris critically. "—well, one and a half—we can't lose. She thinks we're dead, remember? She'll never see us coming."

"I don't like it," Chris says, folding his arms. "It's too easy."

There's a rustle from the undergrowth nearby.

in 1.12 Code Breaker, scott and derek have this same conversation, reversed, after scott frees him from where he was being held prisoner by kate. (that’s how he knows.) it’s worth noting that as soon as derek agrees scott is right, he gets shot twice by allison, accompanied by kate, and he and scott BOTH get blinded by allison’s flashbulb arrow. in 6.10 Riders On The Storm, scott and stiles have a similar conversation when they find the switch to divert the ghost riders’ train, this time with stiles insisting they let it be easy; they decide to go for it and promptly get their asses handed to them by the nazi alpha werewolf. [gifs] (thank you cathy <3)

"Like I said: the more they kill, the crazier they get. The crazier they get, the more they kill. Even if he means well, he won't be able to stop himself from attacking you eventually; it's just his nature. I know it's a hard time for you right now, but you've gotta be prepared, huh? He's helping you right now, but we hunt those—"

"—who hunt us, yes," Argent finishes, trying to keep his annoyance in check.

"You don't know the things about him I do," she hisses, her breath hot on his ear, "you don't know how cold-hearted he can be. Sooner or later he's gonna see you for the animal you are, just like he's seeing it in me. That's his nature. And I guarantee you, Derek—" His hands grab at her wrist, tugging uselessly. "The next thing he'll slip between those pretty pink lips of yours will be his .45."

this warning is given once to chris and once to derek, and it's a reference to a story deaton tells deucalion in 3.08 Visionary, when warning him that he cannot trust gerard:

When the scorpion asked the frog to carry him across the river, the frog said, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion replied, "Why would I do that? Then we'd both drown!" So the frog agreed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog. When the frog asked him why he did it, since now they would both die, the scorpion replied, "It's my nature."

fun fact: this story was also originally the prologue of the fic before i changed it to the first version of the rabid dog story (which wouldn't quite fit anywhere else).

THE RABID DOG STORY

this is technically in part iv, but since it’s too big to quote in its entirety, i’ll just give it its own section, because of course i wound up going on way longer than i meant to (i get excited and explain this to a lot of people, so it's handy to have it typed down in case i wanna explain it again). the story/plot device in general is a sort of "reference" to two things: a 1970s TV show about the korean war called M*A*S*H, and 2.10 Fury.

so the original inspiration for this plot point came from M*A*S*H. the show follows a "mobile army surgical hospital" which is a fancy way of saying it's the medics who treat the wounded. in the finale (spoilers...you've been warned lol), the main character hawkeye has been committed to a mental institution after a nervous breakdown. he tells a story about a party that happened on a bus: how everyone was screaming and yelling and having a great time, how one person "couldn't wait" for the bottle of whiskey. but the more often he tells the story, the more details that change: the person was actually a soldier, and the soldier was actually wounded, because the whole bus was full of wounded (thus the screaming), and the bottle was full of life-saving plasma, not whiskey, and the soldier in question LITERALLY couldn't wait.

hawkeye tells a story about a refugee woman that had a chicken that wouldn't stop clucking, and when they were forced to pull over to hide from the approaching enemy, he told her to make it be quiet so they wouldn't all die. and she did: she smothered it. what he eventually is forced to remember is that it wasn't a chicken, but her baby. (the chicken's feathers are even patterned like a blanket in the flashback!) you can watch a clip of the final version of hawkeye's story here (but be careful, it's a rough one).

the way chris tells his rabid dog story twice in canon, and changes the details once he's around stiles, who knows the truth about werewolves, reminded me a lot of that episode of M*A*S*H. (yes, it COULD be that they're two different stories, but they're so similar! work with me here.) he doesn't bat an eyelash when victoria says gerard shot the dog, yet later insists he but a pullet through his friend's head (after which his friend was still somehow able to crawl towards him...?). it also, of course, changes from a dog to a werewolf. the way he tells one version of the story in each "chapter" of the fic, each time getting a little closer to the truth, was absolutely 100000% inspired by M*A*S*H.

"Riley, stop! I don't want to hurt you—please don't make me hurt you—"

"So you shot him?" Derek asks quietly.

Chris's hands tremble around the shotgun. What if Riley bites him? What if he gets turned too? He has to defend himself, doesn't he? Riley's coming at him again, he has only a second to decide—

"I..." Something dark and terrible shakes loose in Argent's memory. His mouth drops open in horror and his vision blurs. "I didn't!" he cries, eyes wide. "Oh, God—" He drags in a shuddering gasp, covering his mouth with both hands, the truth a vice clenched around his chest. "Oh my God—I didn't shoot him!"

and this realization was definitely influenced by that clip up there. ^ (the idea to rip off M*A*S*H was the only reason this thing got written at all; it was too good a plot twist not to put into real words.)

the WAY chris tells the final version of the story, in part iv, was inspired by 2.10 Fury. sadly i don't have a clip or any gifs handy (i looked...), but the way matt weaves in and out of his story about drowning—the way he begins speaking in present tense, the way he repeats coach lahey's dialogue word-for-word as coach lahey says it in the flashback...

"We—we thought there was a cure," Chris tries to explain, but he's crying and it sounds so foolish and naive to him now. He sounds like a child. "He hasn't hurt anyone, I just thought—"

"You thought?" Gerard roars. "He hasn't hurt anyone? Look at yourself! This is—"

"—why we have a code!" Argent chokes. "This is what it's for!"

Gerard waves his gun at the body on the ground. "Look at him! If he'd honored the code, do you think he would have ended up like this?" Gerard grabs Chris by the chin and forces his head to turn. Chris squeezes his eyes shut, but Gerard backhands him across the face with his other hand. "I said—"

"I said look at him!" Argent drags in a sob.

He's not dead.

"Oh, God," Argent whispers. "He's not dead. Even after all that, he's—"

"—still trying to claw his way towards you, do you see that, Christopher?"

...is what inspired the way i chose to tell it.

AAAAND that’s all, i’m pretty sure i got everything, i’ll end this post on that happy note bc i’ve been working on it for like 3 hours now and that was way longer than i intended for it to be.

#anchor #dargent #dergent #teen wolf #my stuff #kinda #it wound up being so long...i'm sorry i didn't meant to do that #i was only trying to laugh at how much captain america and supernatural were in it #chris argent #derek hale #TW*#misc*#meta*#i can't decide which it is so it can be both. sorry.

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margothuxley · 4 years

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This and That

Hi Everyone,

A new day - after 3 am. I'm up because my knee is bothering me. Just another thing to endure, haha. But thank God I'm able to hobble around the house. I am on pain meds which dent the pain somewhat. I'm trying to distract myself from the pain. I wish I could wish it off but it's here and sometimes it gets worse and other times its very painful. Yesterday was bad because I'd gone out with the family to run errands. I was so pained that getting out of the car was a tremendous effort. I had the pups with me which made things more complicated. The smaller dog was so eager to get out of the car and I had to organise myself so I could at least hang on to his leash and then get my things out of the car with me as well. It was a miracle I got to the door and got things into the house. Fortunately, it got accomplished.

I made spaghetti ala Ameritriciana, which is an homage to those in Ameritricia in Italy who died in that awful earthquake a few years ago. I went online to look up the recipe which consists of pork and spaghetti with sauce that was made from tomatoes. I usually make it with whole canned tomatoes and tomato sauce and paste then with a large dollop of red pepper flakes. So very tasty and it definitely filled up my belly well. I really enjoy making this recipe. I've always liked spaghetti and I know people who are into slimming don't care for it because of the carbs but I'm not good on keto type of diets.

I tried that keto diet and well, did not lose more than seven pounds and I had some issues that made me quit it. I went to a clinic in town that specialised on this sort of diet and when I told the nurse about how I wasn't losing a lot of weight (I was down to about 20 g of carbs by then) she gave me a Rx for metformin. This is a med that diabetics take to control their sugar in the blood. I took a dose and then I suffered a great back pain.

I called the nurse and told her of this and she insisted I go to the ER and have them test me for a heart problem. That day wasn't a good day to go to anywhere as they predicted a blizzard. I wasn't about to get stuck in the ER and so I said no I'll not go. She threatened me implying that this was not a good idea. I said forget it and hung up.

I discontinued metformin and decided to forget the whole keto diet thing. I think it was too much fat and not a healthy thing to forsake carbs. Our bodies need to have carbs and it's because they get used up when we do normal activities and even if we only walked a mile a day it wouldn't be great to be on a low sugar going on in your bloodstream.

I've learned from school (I took Pharmacology in graduate school) that the brain feeds on the glucose it has from the bloodstream so being foggy-minded is not a good sign. I do not have any idea why the back pain happened but it was a transient problem.

I'm on a more stable diet and I take carbs and have a healthy smoothie and eat enough for each meal. So I don't know what my weight is right now. I had a fitbit scale that I used before but my fitbit has bit the dust and I don't wish to spend on another one again. I've already gone through two fitbits. I merely go with how I feel and if I can have some carbs, a bit of a vegetable in the diet, and protein then I'm ok.

I've not written a lot lately but I'm starting a new novel called The Bridge. It's about a young woman who works in a research laboratory in Paris. She's going through depression because of a lost love who left her (not quite sure how) and that was what has been making her sad even though on the outside she's doing ok.

I'm really interested in writing this novel mostly because it's a bit close to my heart and I've had the experience of lost love, and many of you I'm sure had something like that in your lives.

I'm trying to get some free time to write. Now I'm also trying to get up to speed with sending out flyers and newsletters to talk about my work and other things that I find interesting.

I've started a nonprofit company that is aimed at helping the poor families or individuals, mostly brought to their knees financially due to the COVID issue and from other problems like Acts of God (hurricanes), terror attacks and times of war. I'm also hoping that this nonprofit will help the homeless to get free cell phones so that they can keep in touch with places where they could get help on their own, like jobs or paying bills, or finding a place to live more permanently than the usual places that are established to house the homeless.

I'm working on getting the nonprofit a tax status and so that's a big job in itself but it's a challenge and I'm hoping this will come to be achieved.

I've put in my name to see about standing for a Council Seat in my city and see how I could be helping as an advocate for the seniors who are on a fixed income, to see how they could be heard because I think they're not able to get their problems to the right people who could help them. There are other places in town like Area IV which is devoted to helping people in cases, for example, finding someone to come and help the elderly who are sick and in need of some care at home.

I researched Area IV a while ago when I worried over my Dad and how it might be if he were laid low by an illness or whatever and to see how I could possibly find someone who could see to his care while I was working full time. The people in Area IV were very helpful and sent over a thick packet of information. There were several volunteer organisations that were listed and these would come in handy to call if anything drastic were to happen to my Dad.

I hope that you would do your part in finding out how best to care for those who are less fortunate. We are all lucky to have our jobs and our homes, our workplaces and the social stuff we do. I hope that in your readings you can find good ideas about keeping your families healthy and watch out for whatever might be ailing them or even causing then problems.

I know there are times we get impatient with our elderly parents or other relatives because they get a bit testy or impatient themselves for the fact they can't do things on their own. So we must always try to find a good way to talk to them and draw them out of their sad feelings.

I think we all need to take care of our parents while they are still alive. We derive our own selves from them, after all. We need to keep them in our prayers. We also need to take care of our children and keep them safe.

With all that's going on with COVID, we ought to think of better ways to educate them out of the schoolroom. I don't have kids myself but if I did, I'd homeschool them. It's a popular method of educating children. In fact, the UK, France and I think other parts of Europe have homeschooling. There's website or two about homeschooling. One of the people at my church homeschools her kids and they get packages every term or so with new books to teach their kids. It's also a way to bond with your kids and to keep them occupied. It doesn't take a PhD to homeschool your kids and those websites surely have tips on how to homeschool if you're new at it.

I am sure we all want to remember Algebra but it will come to you when the time comes!

I hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy. Life is precious and we must always try to live healthy and well,

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arplis · 4 years

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Arplis - News: How Mike Tyson Prepared Me for Fatherhood

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Clearly, he was talking about parenthood. Well, maybe not when he said it . . . but it applies nonetheless. Trust me.

If you are reading this, then, in all likelihood, you are a parent or expecting to be one at some point in the future and have already had your plan crumble to pieces, or you are delusional and think that you can defy the odds and that your plan will be the one that doesn’t fail. Can’t you hear the sound of naivety when the soon-to-be-dad (or mom) says, “When I have a kid” or “my child will never . . . ”?

I had a plan. Well, I didn’t. Not at first. I’ll explain . . . On a sunny Sunday afternoon, while shopping for a brand-new Jeep, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife, Lacey) turned to me and said, “We need to go home.”

We had been at the dealership for less than an hour when Lace said this. Meanwhile, I had mentally prepared myself to be there for at least the next three hours, negotiating with the salesman while he went back to talk to his boss every fifteen minutes as I threatened to walk out. I explained to her that we couldn’t leave, not just yet, and that this (buying a new car) is a process, which may take a while.

She graciously waited for me to finish my rant on the car buying experience then explained to me that she hadn’t gotten her “monthly visit,” felt ill, and needed to get a pregnancy test. Needless to say, we left the Jeep dealership . . . immediately.

We didn’t need to ask, “How did this happen?” We both knew the night the puck slipped past the goalie (that’s a whole separate column, which involves my Down Syndrome brother, Adam, calling me a “p*ssy” for not drinking).

So, after leaving the dealership, we stopped at Rite Aid and grabbed a pregnancy test. Five minutes later, she was peeing on a stick and, three minutes after that, we were questioning whether we saw a blue line or not. Not ten minutes had passed before I was driving to CVS to get another pregnancy test because the one we had bought at Rite Aid had not given us a clear enough answer (sidebar: There was definitely a blue line there; we just couldn’t face reality) and I was far too embarrassed to go back into the same Rite Aid and get another, different pregnancy test.

I made it home, she peed, and our fate was sealed; the word “PREGNANT” on the stick was not at all ambiguous this time. We were having a baby.

And so, the planning began. Our son was going to be the heir apparent to Tom Brady, starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, when he retires in 2035. No, better, he was going to be President of the United States—probably the youngest one ever after he graduated from Harvard Law School at the age of 18.

Being an avid Jordan enthusiast, I bought him five pairs of baby Jordans that evening while enjoying some wine to celebrate. Lacey, on the other hand, stared at me steely-eyed while she researched doctors, begrudging that she would be unable to enjoy wine and other stuff she loved for the next nine-plus months.

We met with our doctor a few weeks later and he delivered the first blow: “You’re having a girl.” I was speechless. While the thought of having a little girl had crossed my mind, it was not part of the plan . . . Ugh, the plan . . . My plan . . . had gone to shit.

Now, instead of playing one-on-one in the driveway while talking about his numerous girlfriends with the triumphant cock-smith of a son I had envisioned, I would be sitting with my back against my daughter’s bedroom door pleading with her to open it because “boys are dumb” and “Jake is an asshole” while secretly being stressed to the max about assholes like Jake trying to make my daughter a notch in their belt. Even more, I wasn’t prepared for the all the pink, princess dresses, and having my daughter not speak to me for her teenage years, which I was told comes with having a girl.

When I voiced my concerns about not knowing about how to raise a daughter (not that I had any experience raising a boy or any child for that matter), I was walked off the proverbial ledge by our doctor (he had two daughters of his own) and Lacey. They both emphasized that I would figure it out and everything would be just fine. They were much more helpful than my own father who told me, “Maybe she’ll be a lesbian like your sister and there will be nothing to worry about.” That was comforting.

Even after my initial plan went down in a first round K.O., I didn’t stop planning. In the months that followed, Lacey and I planned and plotted . . . every . . . single . . . detail . . .

We decided on our daughter’s name: “Harper Autumn;” we planned the design of her bedroom: All owl everything; and we planned for the night Harper would be born: April 29, 2014. Not living near either of our families, both our families had to book flights to LA around the time Harper was due; we coordinated and planned this, too.

Well, April 29 came and went and all we had to show for it was an all owl everything bedroom for a baby who would later be named “Harper Autumn.” Harper was late. Eight days late, to be exact. And, Lacey had to be induced, which was not part of our plan.

No biggie—a few more jabs to the jaw . . . Then, the left hook.

On May 7, we went to Cedars Sinai Hospital for Lacey to be induced. We were told that Lacey would be given Pitocin, which would induce labor, and that we would have our daughter by noon. Perfect. Well, Lacey took the Pitocin, received an epidural, and was a champ . . . about the whole thirteen-hour process. Yup, thirteen hours.

Sidebar: Women are seriously amazing. No way would I have been able to lie there thirteen hours being poked and prodded all day by a plethora of nurses and doctors.

My part in the labor was relatively easy: I lay down on the couch in the room, did some light studying for school, and later watched the NBA Playoffs (which may or may not have remained on in the background while I filmed the birth of our daughter). I also provided all the emotional support Lacey needed and made numerous cafeteria runs whenever prompted to do so.

Then, the moment came. At 8:11PM Harper arrived. It was amazing. I couldn’t remember a single part of any plan we had made. She was perfect: I no longer cared that my first child wasn’t a boy; I didn’t care that she was eight days late; and I no longer cared about anything that didn’t matter . . . As cliché as it sounds, I just wanted her to be healthy. I counted her fingers and toes: ten of each. We were all set. Life was good.

Where’s this left hook you ask?

After we each got to hold our daughter, do skin-to-skin, and snap some photos, the nurses took Harper to bathe her and run some tests. They encouraged us to get some rest, which Lacey needed more than I did, clearly. I figured I would quickly go home and check on our dogs (we lived less than a mile away from the hospital) while Lacey got some sleep.

About twenty minutes later I got a panicked phone call from Lace: “They haven’t brought her back!” I tried to calm her down and told her everything was fine and that I was headed back. When I got to the hospital about ten minutes later, I was met by Lacey in the hallway, pulling her IV. Mind you, this woman had given birth less than two hours ago and had ZERO business being out of bed.

“SHE’S NOT BACK YET!” she exclaimed as she saw me. “No one is telling me anything.” Shit. I tried not to panic.

We were then brought to the Nursery, where Harper was. But she wasn’t like all the other newborns in there. Harper had tubes everywhere and an astronaut-like helmet on pumping oxygen for her to breathe. Yep, this kid was not breathing right. That was not part of the plan.

We were informed that Harper would have to be admitted to the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) and that only one of us would be allowed to be with her up there overnight. I lost that battle to my wife. This was the left hook.

My parents lost a child (full-term stillbirth) when I was four years old, and I couldn’t shake that thought. Were we going to lose Harper? Would we try to have another child? How would this affect our relationship? None of this was part of the plan.

For the next twenty-three hours, we were surrounded by other families that had their plans interrupted. No one ever says, “Yeah, when we have our first child we plan on spending hours or days in the NICU not making eye contact with the other parents in there because we secretly hope our situation is not as bad as theirs and don’t want to get too familiar.”

I’m not going to lie, that left hook made our knees buckle. We were dazed . . . but we never fell. Instead, we took photos and comforted one another. We said we would figure this all out and get through it. And we did.

Twenty hours after being admitted to the NICU, Harper began breathing regularly. It turned out that being eight days late had made her lazy; she expected Lacey to do everything for her on the outside, too. Too bad that’s not how it works, kiddo. Yeah, my kid was an asshole (I can call her that; she’s my kid). After all, she is her father’s daughter.

They released her from the NICU a few hours later. We spent twenty-three hours in total in the NICU, scared every minute that we were going to lose our daughter or that she would have brain damage from not breathing and that we would have to get her special help . . . none of which was ever part of the plan or ever actually happened.

Harper is three years old now, and the punches haven’t stopped being thrown, but we’re getting better about dodging them. That’s parenthood: Dodging punches.

Am I saying, “F*ck it, don’t plan anything”? No, that’s idiotic. However, as a parent you need to be flexible because, well, shit it going to happen.

Your daughter may hug you as you leave for work and get toothpaste on your suit; your kid may shit up his or her back and all over your brand-new carpet; and you may find yourself getting used to the taste of pee that erupts out of your son’s diaper every time you change him because he gets excited when YOU change him. This is parenthood.

Everyone experiences similar things and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. “Everything went as planned,” said no one, ever, when discussing having and raising kids. So, if your plan gets altered, don’t worry: It happens to us all. Rolling with the punches builds character and makes for a really good story every now and then.

But, remember this . . . if you’re going to make a plan, don’t forget to keep a mouth-guard handy. See, I told you Mike Tyson was talking about parenthood.

Your Friend and My Favorite,

Stephen

_____________

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whatamitochondriac-blog · 7 years

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Facebook August 11, 2017 - This is a difficult update to make. I've been waiting until I had a few remaining pieces of information but I have enough to let you know what is going on.

As you know, I was diagnosed with toxic mold exposure and I am in Tampa at a facility that specializes in treating mold toxicity. The fact that there is a facility that has successfully treated hundreds of thousands of people is something I'm extremely grateful for.

You've seen pictures of the port through which I will get my treatment every day. Most likely beginning on Monday. All of this is good, and it's the positive I am clinging to right now.

The rest of the news is not unscary. I am sharing this without much censorship because I'm feeling afraid and even though I have a lot of love in my life, this is in many ways a solitary process and I want to feel a little less alone as I begin it.

This stuff won't be super easy to hear for those who love me very much - much less easy to say - and I'm sorry if it freaks anyone out... but here it is in all it's glory. These toxins, called mycotoxins (from mold exposure), that I am infected with, are extremely poisonous, because of what they do. This is what I have been learning about in excruciating detail.

1) They compromise the liver's ability to produce the enzymes needed for detoxification required to keep the body healthy. 2) They compromise the body and brain's immune systems. 3.) They destroy the blood brain barrier and gut lining. 4.) The destruction they cause allows parasites and bacteria into the blood, brain and nervous system cells; all of these organisms and toxins produce toxic matter while they simultaneously destroy healthy tissue and organs. I'll let that one sink in for a moment. :(

5) As this is occurring and the body is preoccupied with trying to keep itself running, the nervous system is inevitably exposed to additional environmental toxins (e.g., petrochemicals in the air and water which cause neurodegeneration, cancers, etc). And here is where it gets sad and scary. 6) As a result of all this toxicity and invasive organisms, cell walls are destroyed, premature death of vital cells happens with increasing speed and regularity, and mitochondrial function is totally compromised. (Mitochondria are essential to life, and mitochondrial dysfunction is responsible for many diseases you know the names of. Multiple sclerosis is one example.)

This chain reaction has happened because I am genetically unable to create immunity to mold. So this destructive chain of events has likely been underway a long time. There was standing water in our basement that we used to roller skate around. Many of our basements were musty as were my friends. And I lived in plenty of water damaged buildings and apartments. When Mom's basement flooded I was sitting amongst the mold growing on the walls and on our ruined photo albums for hours at a time for months, including after the mold was remediated (killed) which meant I was just marinating in mycotoxins. Many people have asked me why this is just now happening but it hasn't - it's been slowly creeping up.

Most people who have known me in the past 10 years have known me as a person with health problems. Panic attacks, increasing body pain and weakness, cognitive changes and sensitivity/electrical activity in my brain that no doctor could diagnose - until I found one trained in environmental medicine (which is not taught in medical school, apparently). The past year I have been unwell quite a lot, and in the past couple months have lost a lot of function as a result of this electrical activity in my nervous system.

I learned this week that this electrical activity is caused by biofilm which these many foreign organisms create and live in, inside the fatty tissues of the body - most importantly in the brain. This biofilm becomes an ecosystem, complete with communication from organism to organism, and functions with a lot of electrical activity independent of the brain's function and in response to the brain's function.

This is a photo of my brain - my precious and only brain - which is so electrified that even in a sleeping state it is never turned off. All that red and orange and yellow is activity - activity that should not be there in a resting state (which is the state in which the PET scan is taken - which required quite a lot of drugs to achieve just like sleep does for me, now, every night). The lower portion, from my understanding, is tissue, and anything not black is non-brain matter. So all that blue stuff is parasites and bacteria and mycotoxins and petrochemicals. :( I learned this week that all of this has led to significant organ damage; my liver is in early stages of failure, fatty tissue destruction in my brain/nervous system is occurring at a record rate (worst 5% of the population), and is on track for multiple sclerosis and scarier things I dare not even mention. The visual and hearing changes I am experiencing along with my balance/coordination issues and difficulty walking, etc are on the list of things that we will address in treatment.

Next week I will slowly begin the "kill" infusions to deal with all this foreign matter in my brain/nervous system/liver. I'm scared about it, because the body has to go through a very intense process to deal with this.

Various killing agents are introduced to kill bacteria and parasites, alongside various substances that bind to toxic matter and bring it out of the system. This is delicate business. I have seen much illness, weakness, seizures,etc, in my short time in the clinic.

But I have also seen dozens of people leaving having concluded their treatment ... and they are walking around even though many came in unable to walk at all. I see people talking and laughing who were catatonic when they came in. I said goodbye today to a really nice man who has the same mold genetics as me, who had to retrofit his entire house to make it safe to move back into. But he was able to do it. It took him 3 months to repair his immune system and cellular state/activity. I took a picture of him with his final IV drip and watched him get his port access closed for hopefully the last time. But while this was happening, a girl about 10 feet away was having her 3rd seizure this week (that I have seen), and the man with very bad Parkinson's (who also has bad mold genetics and had extremely high mold tests and astonishingly high levels of industrial toxins) was crying softly for a very long time.

So nobody is pulling any punches - it's clear that I will have good days and bad days. But the people who stick with it get better. There are literally thousands of before and after pictures on the walls of people who, with the help of these doctors, were able to break through the biofilm, kill the foreign organisms in their brains/nervous systems, restore healthy gut and brain barriers, rebuild cell walls and repair mitochondrial function, reverse autoimmunity and leave with functioning immune and detoxification systems. And all along the way what's happening is explained and the research and outcomes supporting the approach is readily available and extensive.

It might be very hard but if these other people can have these outcomes, I have good reason to be hopeful. And it's time. Because its very hard to watch those closest to me suffer while I have been suffering. And because I want to have a positive active, happy life again. I want to have a family, and to spend time with my friends and my relatives who miss me, and whom I miss. All of you, for example.

I am so grateful to those of you who have reached out to the incredibly special people who have been supporting me during this time. I wish I could be taking more care of the people I love right now the way I used to. I feel sad about the modifications my loved ones are having to make to their own lives. I keep telling myself this is all happening to make us all stronger in the end. For now I just feel alternately grateful and also sorrowful for the circumstances.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers - but please try not to worry. I believe in the underlying energetics of things (don't get me started on the energetics of mold) and I know that only positive energy best be pointing in my direction. I will be doing - am doing - all I can on my side to focus on the positive* as well.

*This might seem like a gloomy update but this process is the first time I have ever opened up so candidly about something so personal, so I consider this a positive step.

I am thankful to you for reading this and for all the care, kind thoughts, wishes and prayers I am lucky enough to be receiving. I really love you all, and I look forward to the day we can talk and hang out again soon.

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seekerandthewizard88-blog · 7 years

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Show Up As You Are

On the topic of service:

When I think about what it means to serve people, I get this deep sense of soul satisfaction. Everytime I help someone, I feel a great sense of joy and power fill me up from inside - a sense that my existence matters and is meaningful because I can help change the world for the better... and that is something that lasts forever. When I think about actually giving up my time, that's when the fears come up.... particularly the fear of not having enough... I barely have time for myself, how can I make time to serve the world?! Also, I don't know enough yet to have an impact. I have many reasonable justifications for why it's not a good time. It just seems unattainable to me right now. Or is it? Perhaps I am not widening my definition of service enough. Maybe I will not be the person distributing food at the local shelter or marching in a parade for awareness anytime soon. So what does service really look like for me? Because I feel like it's important, I need to ask myself that question or else parts of me are being left unfulfilled due to a sheer lack of willingness to spend time answering that question...

I woke up this morning and took Ash's advice to listen to an inspirational podcast first thing, which just so happened to be season 1 episode 1 of Magic Lessons, 'Do what ignites your soul.' LG (Elizabeth Gilbert) says if your mother modeled creativity growing up, you become creative. If she modeled martyrdom, you become a martyr. I have seen this firsthand in subverting my creative, collaborative mission with spirit into many tasks that COME CLOSE, but are not the thing...

LG talks about her mother sending her and her sister away when she was working on a project. Both Liz and her sister are now writers. My mother never sent me away while she worked on something just for her. My mother constantly gave her time away. Everything she did she did for others. Watching this, I learned that service meant sacrifice, in this instance, to the point that I often wondered about what ignited my mother's soul. There were beautiful clay pots of intricate designs strewn about the house, and an old kiln lived in the garage where every night, my mother would pull the car in after coming home from work and park just up against it to fit into the space. Kilns I later found out were pretty expensive! One wouldn't buy it just for the hell of it. But she never turned it on, and my dad said it probably was no longer functional. She never sold it either.... and over the years it became a collection table for trinkets and dust. My mother made me her mission work and made no secrets about explicitly telling me this, but I wonder what it would have been like to walk downstairs and watch her in her element, lost in a spinning wheel, her hands glistening with wet clay. It brings tears to my eyes for her and for me.

I want to see my mother in her creative joy. I NEED to see it and know it as much as I want to remind her that it still exists. I want her to teach me her skills because they are also in my veins asking to be shown. I need to know how to access it, especially now. This talent suits her because my mother would be the person who can take an inanimate lump of clay and turn it into something intricate and exquisite with her eye for beauty and her attention to detail. She has always made something from nothing. I caught glimpses of it over the years, and I suspect my mother is one of the most creative people this world has never known. I'm afraid of what it will feel like to ask myself too late - what would that have been like if I put it into the world? If I can figure out how to crack open and pour the contents of my soul art into the universe, maybe I can show her how too.

LG goes on to say that serving others is great, but it should not be our REASON to do a thing. She says ultimately, service is collaborating with inspiration, because that thing that's gnawing at you... it's an idea that's coming out of the cosmos and has chosen YOU and is asking you to work with it...

When I look at the archive of notes in my phone, peppered throughout my endless lists going back to 2014 is the phrase 'start a blog.' I have ALWAYS loved books, writing, words themselves, and creative expression. Somewhere along the line, I simply stopped. I had no time for creativity when I was trying to get ahead in life. It was time to become an adult. I needed to focus on a career and gain the technical skills to execute. I needed to focus on the 'important stuff.' So why did it often feel as if something was missing? Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy to finally be in a place in my life where I have a solid direction! I go to school full time to learn a craft that I believe in and am proud of. I have a wonderful mentor that I shadow who takes the time to explain and show me the ropes. My plate is so full! And I'm happy about that. But still... there's that gnawing. And in quiet moments, in inspirational moments, or in moments of despair, I would find myself writing something down here or there. It would just come out of me. And then I would go back to the grind.

So when Ash asked me to start this blog project, I said yes immediately because I knew that working with someone else would make me more accountable to show up consistently. And it sure has. At that time, I had been spending a lot of hours reading about current research surrounding autoimmune disease, therapies, and even possible CURES (which I was told did not exist). My mind buzzed in clinic, poring over peoples' unique cases, discussing them with my supervisor, connecting all the dots in my head and then going home with more questions and names of researchers to read up on. At first I had all these ideas about how to heal myself, and I was consuming information round the clock barely sleeping. I read about herbs and scientific discoveries about the human microbiome, everything down to endocrinology textbooks to be able to decode some of the more technical scientific research papers... I was determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all and debunk all the misinformation myself! I would share the things that actually WORKED and offer hope to others.... and myself. I made myself a guinea pig. I would start to feel hopeful that I was on the right track, but then I would try to employ some of the techniques I was reading about only to have a resurgence of symptoms, and sometimes I was left feeling even more run down and exhausted. Mostly I just wanted to share breakthroughs and victories with everyone, but I was still dealing with a lot of frustration and confusion over which direction to go.

Yesterday was the first day in the past 2 weeks that I slowed down. I received the suggestion that I was being too hard on myself and even 'militant.' I needed to hear that, and my mind quieted as I simply listened to another human being tell me her perception of how I was going about things. I was making all these BIG changes and giving myself NO ROOM for error. How stressful indeed.....

I began to realize I never even gave myself a chance to simply BEGIN this new journey. New journeys always take time and patience, and I forgot that I cannot skip over parts of my process. Here is the rub now that I've calmed down and closed the books for the time being- Ive been in a space of really coming to terms with my diagnosis, what it means, and where its going from here. Simply deciding to do this blog and putting my truth out into the world had more implications for me than I realized. Most people in my life do not know that I have an autoimmune diagnosis. This is because I never told anyone. Especially not like this. I had been living my life as if the news I received that day simply did not exist. And for a while, I was mostly symptom free and didn't need to deal with it... so I didn't. I put it away in a hall closet and shut the door. I feel like as I'm bringing this out for the world to look at, I am also simultaneously looking at it alongside all of you, for the very first time.

[insert deep sigh here]

Since accepting this out loud, I have been flooded with emotions both pleasant and not so pleasant...

I stumbled upon a podcast yesterday called Invisible Warrior Radio by Adrienne Clements, which is all about living with chronic illness and how that affects your nervous system and stress levels. Addressing the anxiety piece, and RECOGNIZING it, has been super helpful to me. It was extremely validating to hear how anxiety is more a PHYSIOLOGICAL event than an emotional one. This echoes my experience of feeling as if I'm panicking for NO REASON. My nervous system starts firing and then I need to deal with that flood of hormones telling my body there is a threat to my survival that is imminent, which then lingers for some hours after. She addresses the fact that when we have a chronic illness going on, our bodies are AWARE that something is wrong and so we are constantly already in battle mode. This means even small stressors can have a more exaggerated effect on those of us dealing with chronic illness...

One of the things I admittedly do is gauge myself against how others do things. I know better but it seems to be subtle and instinctual. I think I need to forgive myself for beating myself up for wanting to stay home and rest a lot of the time when I'm not working or going to school. I think about all the invitations I get that I end up turning down- invitations that I WANT to say yes to! The truth is, my body is constantly fighting a battle that other people are not. I am tired, and I need more rest than the average person. Especially because my plate is so full these days with everything I am trying to accomplish. I need to avoid bad foods and bad substances because the aftermath of those decisions is magnified for me. Most of all, I need to stop feeling guilty or like I'm not enough as I am... this is who I am, and these are my needs. And I'm allowed to give them to myself. I'm lucky that I still CAN. So Adrienne talks about soothing your BODY when you have anxiety, because of that crucial physiological piece.

Now that I was aware I needed to soothe my body, I was primed to resort to my bag of tricks when dealing with stress. I follow Doreen Virtue on facebook, and oftentimes it reminds me that I have a spiritual realm of friends and guides willing to help me if I just ASK. I have been going it so alone and forgetting to simply ask for help and guidance. She posted about the importance of self care (so fitting), and the accompanying graphic was a portrayal of Archangel Raphael, who is the Archangel of healing. I quickly looked up Archangel Raphael meditations on youtube and clicked the first one that caught my eye and laid down on my bed.

As I listened to the meditation going from chakra to chakra, it made me realize and become aware of the energies I was carrying there. When I got to my heart chakra, and as the voice gave me permission to let go of anything I was holding onto that no longer served me, a deep sense of sadness materialized and I was suddenly overcome with tears. I cried very deeply for about a few minutes, and then I became aware of how much I have been feeling deeply afraid. Afraid that I would never be well again and there really is no cure. Afraid of the terror of these panic attack symptoms... afraid that maybe it isn't anxiety, and something more sinister might be dismissed as anxiety when it's really something more physical, like a heart problem.

Then something magical happened that I cannot explain, except that I could FEEL that I was no longer alone. As I opened myself more to the experience and immersed myself in the energetic space being created, a thought came to me (some people call this clairsentience as I do not ever hear an audible voice) to pick up one of the crystals I have sitting on my nightstand. It was a piece of malachite, which incidentally is a vibrant green, and the color green is associated with Archangel Raphael's healing energy. I placed it on my solar plexus as that was the chakra we were now on, and then instinctively readjusted it over my liver where I sometimes feel pain. I kept feeling like it was somehow working on my blood. I felt compelled to continue working with this stone after the meditation. When I finally got up, I looked up the properties of the stone in a wonderful book called, 'Stone Medicine: A Chinese Medical Guide to Healing With Gems and Minerals' by Leslie J. Franks. Malachite energy works with the liver/gallbladder and stomach/spleen meridians. Also, the stone is used for purifying the blood and purging pathology from the body. The page number for this crystal was 333. 333 in Doreen Virtue's numerology system means that ascended masters are surrounding you and supporting you in this moment. All of my signs had showed up. I noticed that the feeling of constriction in my chest had let up, and I was able to take a full, deep, glorious breath.

(Sidenote here about religion: Doreen Virtue belongs to the Christian faith, and while I practice Nichiren Buddhism, I still think that spirituality is a deeply personal path and can oftentimes include overlap. I do believe in angels because of my own personal experiences, and I think that 'God' is whatever it means to you. Sometimes it is more important to work with the energetics or the theme of what someone is saying without getting too caught up in the dogma and religious aspects of it. If meditating on the healing energy of Mother Earth works better for you than angels, go with that instead!)

Last night before bed I again did that beautiful Archangel Raphael healing meditation which I promised I would share with you, so here it is! Also I want to share with you the Invisible Warrior Radio Podcast I started listening to, and I intend on checking out her blog this afternoon as well. It's important to find people who are going through similar struggles for support. I am the person who isolates when I don't feel well, so I am going to give myself this gift of connection so that I have an outlet; a platform of understanding to land on when I'm feeling weighed down by my burdens. An unforeseen bonus, which I suspect will be one of many, of this blogging journey is that it has also opened up a new world for me to follow others who are putting light out into the world, and for that I am supremely grateful! I never really explored podcasts before yesterday... yay for expansion!

I got the first good night's sleep I've gotten in the past couple weeks last night. I'm now aware that I have been working through some anxiety and probably PTSD surrounding my physical symptoms... waking up in the middle of the night with extreme palpitations and having to call 911 to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance is EXTREMELY STRESSFUL. Especially when it comes seemingly out of nowhere. And I only took two days off to recover from that before beginning my usual grind once again. I was pushing through each day on high alert that this could happen again at anytime. It caused me to feel more high strung, frustrated, and tired in a way that isn't necessarily outwardly visisble because of how I carry myself through the world. (This is why I love Adrienne's concept of an invisible warrior!)

I have also been dealing with feelings of selfishness since I have been spending A LOT of time on myself lately. My mission is so tied to helping others, and when I feel down and blah, I think to myself- don't write anything right now in this state because it's not very inspiring for people to read. Hide yourself until you feel better. Hide your pain. Don't talk about your struggle. If you can't lift other people up, at least don't bring anyone down with your doubts and your fears.

I want to dare to challenge that thought in my life. I think sharing our burdens, especially as women, is one of the bravest choices we can make. It helps us to connect to our authenticity, it brings out the authenticity in others, and ultimately it helps us to feel not so alone. THIS IS REAL LIFE. Own your experience because it is yours, it is valid, and it has a place and a purpose. Things happen to people and we should be able to talk about all of it. Service. How am I serving others today? It could be as simple as showing up fully and saying HERE I AM, and it's ok for you to also show up as you are.

Because I grew up the way I did, I value hard work. I value self sufficiency. Because of this I am often too independent and stubborn. But sometimes we need to take it easy and sometimes we need help. And neither of these things should mean we are failing, weak, or that somehow our value is now less since we didn't do it all on our own. When we feel isolated and alone is exactly when we need to reach out, because that light- that support is THERE.

I think the biggest takeaway from this past week for me is to listen to your own body. IT KNOWS WHAT IT NEEDS. It is so patient with us considering we don't usually listen until it's been asking for quite some time. Everyone is walking a different path. There is no one size fits all solution. We need to validate ourselves because no one else will ever know our journey as intimately as we do. We are the only ones who can give ourselves what we need. Listen to that voice that says we need to cancel plans in order to rest tonight. Listen to that voice saying we need more fruits and vegetables. Take a salt bath with some lavender essential oil if you've been dealing with a lot of stress lately. Love your body for all it does for you. You never need an excuse to care for yourself!

On that note, I am going to make myself a nice warm breakfast of gluten free grains, blueberries and cinnamon. I am not going to freak out that I spent the morning writing and I haven't had my morning celery juice on an empty stomach yet and I have to do that before I eat! No... breathe. My body is saying that we need to eat, because going through my morning stressing about juice is no longer part of my healing journey. Going through my days dizzy and tired because I'm strictly trying to eat only raw vegetables and not getting enough calories is no longer part of my healing journey. I need to feel energized and stress free, and that starts with my attitude and my intention. I can have my juice later this afternoon and all will be OK. I need to learn how to 'dance on the shifting carpet.' Life happens, and we need to be able to adjust and be flexible. Writing this morning was a priority. All we can do is to take things as they come and stay true to ourselves, showing up just as we are.

Thanks guys for all your support and for taking time out of your day to share this experience with me. I appreciate having a platform to share myself so openly as it helps me to grow and become more self aware with each passing day! I feel extremely lucky, I love you all, and I wish you a wonderful, healthy, blessed day!

The Wizard

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arplis · 4 years

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Arplis - News: How Mike Tyson Prepared Me for Fatherhood

I made it home, she peed, and our fate was sealed; the word “PREGNANT” on the stick was not at all ambiguous this time. We were having a baby.

Even after my initial plan went down in a first round K.O., I didn’t stop planning. In the months that followed, Lacey and I planned and plotted . . . every . . . single . . . detail . . .

No biggie—a few more jabs to the jaw . . . Then, the left hook.

Sidebar: Women are seriously amazing. No way would I have been able to lie there thirteen hours being poked and prodded all day by a plethora of nurses and doctors.

Where’s this left hook you ask?

“SHE’S NOT BACK YET!” she exclaimed as she saw me. “No one is telling me anything.” Shit. I tried not to panic.

Harper is three years old now, and the punches haven’t stopped being thrown, but we’re getting better about dodging them. That’s parenthood: Dodging punches.

Am I saying, “F*ck it, don’t plan anything”? No, that’s idiotic. However, as a parent you need to be flexible because, well, shit it going to happen.

But, remember this . . . if you’re going to make a plan, don’t forget to keep a mouth-guard handy. See, I told you Mike Tyson was talking about parenthood.

Your Friend and My Favorite,

Stephen

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Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/how-mike-tyson-prepared-me-for-fatherhood

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