#and gods forbid there’s the possibility I might be more knowledgeable on a topic than him

[tundrainafrica]

i really thought hange was non-binary bc the one who said hanges gender was up for interpretation was kodansha us but isayama asked for gender neutral pronouns right?

here!

I’m gonna answer all of the gender asks in one go because for one, I don’t think I wanna flood my own feed and my own tumblr with the same arguments. 

I think a lot of the questions on Hange’s gender and the topic of  gender and sexuality overall are kinda intertwined and I feel like for anyone who actually reads my stuff, it’s better understood as one big wall of text. 

So I was wondering, is that song the absolute proof about hange's gender?

No. I think the interpretation of the song which people are using to prove that Hange’s nonbinary is very western centric. I actually did research around this song and knowing what I know about Japanese culture, I actually interpret the song as a way for Japanese people to break out from gender norms. 

For people who are not aware, Japan is incredibly strict with gender norms. The LGBTQ community is not as progressive as it is in Western countries (I mean gay marriage isn’t completely legalized yet). And just looking at it from the stand point of gender roles and gender expectations, despite the progressive thinking, there are a lot of things Japanese men and women have to conform to just to be respected in everyday society. Because in Japan, the community has always been more important than the individual and it’s honestly the same for most asian countries as well. 

A lot of the pressure of living in Japan, working with Japanese people is the pressure to conform and I’ve seen my friends do it through small things like getting bangs (because all Japanese women have bangs apparently), wearing make up when going out (because this is generally an accepted for all Japanese people) and always dressing your best because in that manner women are held to an incredibly high standard in Japan. And this goes similarly for men who are constantly pressured to be the breadwinner in the family. If your wife is making more than you, be ready to hear people talk. I know these expectations exist in a Western setting too but Japan is incredibly stiff as a society and this is one reason why, despite having numerous opportunities to moveto Japan myself, I am not at all entertaining that possibility. I have worked in a Japanese company and I hated it and moved to a western company right after six months. I have completely accepted the fact that there is no mobility career wise from a non-Japanese (and a woman at that) in Japanese society. 

In conformity, hierarchies etc, Japan is its own monster. That’s why when songs like Jibunrashiku, Hitchcock (by Yorushika) or Shisoukan (by Yorushika) come out, for one it’s in Japanese so I wouldn’t approach the songs from an English and as a Japanese speaker and someone who is pretty familiar with Japanese culture, I can’t help interpret that song as a social commentary for the shitty parts of Japanese society and how they tend to shoot the concept of an ‘individual’ down. 

But does that mean I completely shoot down the idea that Hange is NB? 

NO. Yams said so himself, Hange’s gender is unknown. But at the same time, Yams recognizes the fact that in the anime and in the live action, Hange is a female. If Yams were that adamant to make Hange NB, I think he would have at least made more of an effort to police how she is depicted in the anime and in the live action. 

 His exact words were:　「ハンジは彼（彼女）みたいな、ちょっと浮世離れした、枠にとらわれない自由な感じで描きたかったんです。」If I roughly translated it to English, “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender.”

Tbh, I wanted to avoid these gender asks altogether but I’ve seen the environment in twitter and the ways many people approach gender, particularly ‘nonbinary’ or genderfluid and it really just doesn’t sit well with me. For one, what’s up with all these rules on how to approach our nonbinary and LGBTQ friends? What’s up with all these accusations that if we don’t follow them to a T, then we’re suddenly transphobic or homophobic? 

The fact that we’re creating all these rules on how to go about her nonbinary gender for one, just defeats the whole purpose of Hange being a free bird in the first place who wouldn’t have cared and who wouldnt’ ever have been confined to gender in the first place. 

I mean the establishment of set rules and social norms on how to navigate gender, sex, sexuality and gender roles is the reason why we had heternormativity in the first place. And what I can see, yes, we did get progressive, we did start recognizing other genders, other ways of thinking but the danger in all this is that, we’re once again creating frameworks and norms about how people that identify as these genders are supposed to act. And this defeats the whole purpose of why we recognized concepts of other sexualities, other genders and breaks from gender roles in the first place. 

We wanted to show these people that their feelings are valid, that the way they’re navigating their relationships and their identities are valid and the heternormative society we’ve lived in that has been condemning for so long, was flawed, was wrong. 

But the thing is, with the establishment of all these social norms on how to navigate our relationships with LGBTQ people and how to navigate our own gender, sexuality, sex and role is just making us regress back to that shitty heteronormative society of a hundred years ago. Because suddenly, everyone is questioning once again ‘How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m nb?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m trans?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m LGBT?”  

And we’re creating these abstract ideas of how exactly, being genderfluid is supposed to feel like. Am I really supposed to be going by ‘they?’ Am I supposed to be uncomfortable with CIS pronouns?

And If I don’t go through this process… If I don’t feel this way then maybe I’m not NB? Maybe I’m not Trans? Maybe I’m not LGBT? And if I don’t conform to this clear cut idea of what NB is which people set up for me, god forbid I might just be transphobic or homophobic. 

And Here’s the thing, everyone’s journey to self discovery is unique and there is no exact way to go about your gender or identity. I find it terrifying actually that creating all these clear cut rules have built misconceptions in so many people already on what they are supposed to feel like when they decide to identify with a certain gender which is no different from long ago when people had to hide the fact that they liked people of the same gender because god forbid they might just be persecuted for being gay. 

Creating these frameworks, these incredibly strict rules on how someone is supposed to navigate relationships with LGBTs and their own personal identities is only making it all the more dangerous for people who are in the process of discovering themselves. 

Back in college, I used to accompany a friend to a clinic when he was starting HRT treatments and before he started them, he had to consult with a doctor and the consultation lasted months. Before all that, they gave him a checklist of ‘feelings,’ which if he does experience them, he checks it and if he does check enough of them and agrees with a huge chunk of them, then he might have gender dysphoria and maybe the HRT treatments and sex reassignment was for him. It was a hundred item checklist,  pages full of waivers, warnings and questions about his own experiences with his gender identity. And the fact that he had to consult for months after on that? There must be a reason. 

Maybe because the academe realizes, maybe because those adept on the field on gender realize that gender is too complex of a subject to have been boxed into these categories in the first place. 

And this whole discourse or I wouldn’t say discourse more of like, this ‘pushing of agendas’ as to say, ‘this is how being gender fluid or non binary is supposed to feel like’ this is how being transgender is supposed to feel like and if you don’t fit it to a T then you’re not transgender or you’re not nb. Or if you don’t fit it all, maybe you’re just transphobic is dangerous for many reasons. Either it gatekeeps people who want to explore their gender further. Or it forces people to have to conform to these and force themselves to ‘feel’ all of these things in the first place. 

And god, this is just the gender issue, I haven’t even explored the sexuality, gender roles or biological issue.  

i mean pronouns are important but they don’t really reflect someone’s gender??? like there’s people who use he/they, she/they or all pronouns(? they just don’t conform to gender binary ahaha

Given the environment on twitter and having witnessed the bullying first hand that came with one writer who is active on twitter using she/her pronouns for Hange, I feel like my own writing and my own POV on how I go about my writing and how I approach the gender of Hange (since I strictly use she/her) might just be a ticking time bomb and I might find myself at the end of whatever hate war or ‘education’ or as I like to just refer to as bullying, one day. 

I believe though I at least have enough knowledge and awareness of the LGBTQ situation and I think I did put a lot of thought already into this before I made my decision to use ‘she’ to refer to Hange.

(And tbh, you can be nonbinary and you can be female at the same time and I’ve written about that multiple times already BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. And creating this mutual exclusivity between being nonbinary and female just kinda invalidates a lot of those people who are still deciding where exactly they fall in this complex web of identity discovery)

As someone who generally mainly hangs out with LGBT people and i have been doing this since high school by the way, and as someone who has tried all the sexualities on the spectrum, I talked to my asexual friends about possibly being asexual, I have experimented with women and sometimes, I just had dry spells and it just so happened that in the end of all these, I fell in love with a guy but I really believe that gender is such a flexible thing and even though I am with aguy right now, I still simp over lesbians, gays, ciswomen, transgenders because simping isn’t about gender. 

And these set of rules on how to navigate genders is just invalidating the experiences of people who are flitting in between the two identities and it just hinders the process of self discovery for a lot of people. 

Anyway, the point is, there is only one statement I found fundamental when approaching my relationships with the LGBT community and my own perspective on my self identity. 

Recognition of someone’s feelings and their journey to a gender identity and the pronouns that come with it are important.

Then someone might go “THEN WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT HANGE’s NON BINARY PRONOUNS. Because just because someone is nonbinary doesn’t mean they automatically go for they. Just because someone is non-binary, doesn’t mean I have to use every single pronoun on the spectrum. The only one who can tell me what pronouns they want used on them is the person in question. 

(I actually read an argument somewhere that going for ‘they’ just because someone is NB is transphobic lmfao. Assuming someone’s pronouns is apparently transphobic too lmfao.)

AND HANGE IS FICTIONAL. And we will never hear about which pronoun she would have wanted in the first place and I think the great ‘nontransphobic’ in-between is just letting people interpret characters how they want to interpret characters in this fictional world (And Hange can be both interpreted as nb and female). It’s the policing which makes the whole process of self discovery, the process of navigating genders all the more difficult for a lot of people. 

And policing how exactly people should navigate gender and sexuality is just gatekeeping. Hange is everyone’s character. The only gender and sexuality identity people have complete jurisdiction on, is their own. And this policing of what exactly certain journeys to discovery are supposed to feel like is inherently harmful for those who are still in the process of deciding for themselves where they stand. 

And going back to what Yams said “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender/sexuality/gender roles.” I agree with that. 

Because even though I do use ‘she’ with Hange, I do not firmly believe that Hange is a cisgender heterosexual female either. I just believe there are so many more layers to her whole identity and I believe similarly for every single person. Just concluding for one’s self that Hange is nonbinary with a very narrow minded view of what non binary just generally defeats the whole purpose of being ‘free from the confines of gender’ and hinders a lot of discourse and analysis on Hange’s identity over all.

I mean, I don’t know if people agree with this but in the decades I have spent with my close friends figuring out their gender identities, changing pronouns, transitioning, coming out to their parents, here is one thing I noticed. They weren’t asking for a celebration of their gender or sexuality, they weren’t asking for all these policing on how people should approach them. All they wanted was for their feelings to be validated, normalized as an everyday occurrence. I think the point of all these LGBTQ discourse (and by extension race and sex discourse) were all there to just make all these different identities normalized and to completely eradicate the concept of a negative bias or an other which was generally plaguing society for a long time. 

And as their friends, I have never approached them as this champion who would make sure EVERYONE RESPECTED THEM IN THAT WAY IN TWITTER THEY BELIEVE LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE RESPECTED. All these nonverbal rules I have set up for myself on how to go about being friends with them is because I wanted them to be happy and comfortable in their shoes. And what were the types of things they appreciated? Me hiding it from their parents until they were ready to come out, me helping make their relationship work with their partner, me respecting the pronouns they requested for themselves, me accompanying them to HRT when their parents refused. 

And you know what, that was only a facet of our friendships. My friends’ gender identities and sexualities never dominated discourse. None of them were the ‘token gay friend,’ the ‘token lesbian friend’ or the ‘token asexual friend’ or the ‘token NB friend.’ They were all people I genuinely care about who just happened to have fallen in love with someone of the same gender. They were just people who just happened to be uncomfortable with their original sex. But I would never just describe them as just that. My friend who just so happens to identify as assexual makes a great companion on a night out drinking. My friend who just so happens to be trasngender is really great with logistics and planning and was super helpful and I was eternally grateful when we worked together on that one project. My friend who just happens to be a lesbian has the cutest picture of her girlfreind on her phone screen. 

I will memorize their favorite orders, what makes them tick, what makes them such a great companion, their talents, capabilities more than I will remember their gender. And that’s the characetr song in question is called “Jibunrashiku” or in English “just like me.” Because in the end a strict society which creates all these maxims of what exactly people of a certain gender should act would of course birth songs like “Just like me” A society which puts so much emphasis on gender and sex  as an identity instead of other things like personality, preferences, skills etc. 

And I don’t know if it applies to everyone. But my friends appreciate it because this journey to whatever gender identity they chose wasn’t rooted in some sort of strict framework on how they should be treated according to twitter. It was rooted in their own experiences and how these experiences made them feel. 

Do they feel weird in a woman’s body? Do they just don’t feel any romantic attraction to the opposite gender?

Just treat them as how you would treat anyone else you respect. Just be a decent person. Just be a good friend.

Respect their requests for their own personal pronouns. If they need help, help them to the best of your abilities. 

And here’s the thing, the approach I use with navigating identities, sexuaities genders are rooted in one very simple concept which can be applied to the race discourse, the feminist discourse etc etc. 

Don’t be an ass. Respect people. Don’t reduce people to one facet of their identity. And by extension, when faced with such a dubious situation, think, discern for yourself what’s right or wrong. When there are people educating you, policing you on what is right or wrong, process that information objectively.  

All I have here right now is my own opinions on the gender discourse on Hange and my own opinions on the discourse overall. 

If you don’t agree with it, then have a nice day and I hope you find something else that will convince you to be more openminded but...

UTANG NA LOOB HUWAG LANG KAYO MAMBULLY NG TAO POTA. MAGHANAP NALANG KAYO NG IBANG PWEDENG GAWIN SA BUHAY MO. 

ANG DAMING NASASAKTAN ANG DAMING NATRATRAUMA ANG DAMING NAWAWALANG GANA MAGSULAT KASI DI KAYO NAG-IISIP. PURO TIRA LANG. 

Okay thank you for listening. Do what you want with the information up there but I have said my piece.

#hange zoe #hanji zoe #commander hange #commander hanji #meta

[eppysboys]

I loved your post about str8 guys projecting their “misunderstood” genius identity through John. What do you think are some examples of them ignoring John’s queerness?

Thank you, dear anon! I......kind of ended up rambling (as per usual!) and I don’t even know if I adequately answered your question... So, I’ll put this mess under the cut!

It’s interesting to think about specific examples of it - because I tend to think of it as a general dismissal of certain aspects of John’s personality and behaviour.

I think for one, the approach to John and Brian’s Barcelona trip is portrayed a certain way. @monkberries has (brilliantly) pointed out how that trip and Brian and John’s dynamic as a whole is represented. Essentially - there is no consideration that John was actually attracted to Brian and that any softness and intimacy between them was John either pitying Brian or manipulating Brian for his own gain, rather than perhaps being genuinely curious because of the long-felt conflict inside him between wanting to be a macho Brando type vs his Oscar Wilde side, the ‘fruity’ ‘f*g’ side of him that he refers to over and over again throughout his life. And hardly consideration for how everyone from Aunt Mimi to Paul to Julia Baird has said that John was genuinely interested in Brian and spent a lot of time with him and talking to him and that there was an ‘attraction to him’. 

More broadly speaking (which I know isn’t what you were asking but oh well) there has been some attempt to explore his relationships with men vs women and what he seemed to desire from both - but it would be more compelling if someone more knowledgeable in psychology (without the outdated views about queerness and queer life through history) could analyse that and perhaps give some insights that the typical biographer cannot. This isn’t to put down straight guys!!! (God forbid!!) but certainly there’s something to be said for how ‘inverted’ John’s upbringing was and how he continuously expressed desire for a life and companionship that was not at all the norm for a run of the mill straight male. Why did he want those things? It’s always brought down to ‘strictly because of his childhood trauma propelling him to want to hoard love and people to nourish the void’. But that’s only a portion of the story, and I think you would find a great deal of insight by actually examining John’s perception of gender and sex and relationships as well as how his identity and wants and needs were shaped partly due to his interactions and relationships with either sex through his lifetime. The last time I remember reading any ponderings about this topic, was in Pauline Sutcliffe’s book about her brother, where she dedicates pages and pages into theorising that any homosexual curiosities John had were a direct result of his absent father and need for a male role model in his life + a possible OCD that made him want to chase ‘extremes’ in every aspect of his lie. Which is all well and good (and there’s definitely a grain of truth in what John might have been partly searching for in certain relationships he had with men who took care of him - Stuart, Brian, Paul etc) but what would a psychologist who has better/accurate/not outdated research of gender and sexuality to back them up make of John? 

I would appreciate any sort of discussion about how John’s femininity was expressed through the years through in his style and music - especially because John himself talked about it many times - how he had to hide a part of himself, or his true self and wear a mask because otherwise it would have been unsafe for him. It clearly wasn’t just a product of the times - men being more androgynous by the 70s - because he himself said he had been wrestling with that shame since he was a kid! It would be great to read about when those major turning points in his confidence and ability to be himself (the velvet feminine side) might have occurred and why and how, instead of a mere mention here and there without much thought into the significance of that development. I have seen bits and pieces of analysis of this which are a great - but of course they all happened to have been published post 2010s! So, clearly there needs to be some sensitivity and awareness to be able to discuss those aspects of John, because otherwise they are barely explored and hardly mentioned and thus not giving us a proper view of John Lennon. 

#asks #John things #john lennon

[thexanwillshine]

internal travesties | levihan

pairing: levi x hange ; minor: eren x mikasa 

genre: romance/ fluff / slight angst

warnings: contains spoilers for chapters 105, 115. and 132

chapters: 1. 2. 3 (final).  

words: 4,648

summary: 

Levi felt his eye twitch in annoyance. She didn't look particularly special, but she entered (no, infiltrated) his cafe with bright eyes and all smiles, making him feel things that he never even felt before. Which was, in his opinion, completely unacceptable. Levi Ackerman hated feeling out of control. 

[Reincarnation! AU] [Levihan] [Minor Eremika]

crosspostings: AO3. 

note: i hope you guys enjoy ehehe <3 thank u for reading and i hope to see u all again very soon.

His memories feel like a travesty. 

Ever since he was young, Levi couldn’t help but feel as if there was something missing in his life. 

His brushes with insomnia gave him headaches no painkiller could cure. It was on those days that Levi’s mind went wild and his thoughts plagued him, ridding him of the sweet drug called sleep. Lonely nights like that made the man feel tired, as his brain was constantly exhausting itself in its search for answers he didn’t even know the questions to. 

On this particular cold night, he gives in to need, and chooses to contemplate his life. 

Levi could say that he had a fairly normal childhood. Even with his sweet darling of a mother, an invisible father, and his gloomy, sort-of sister, it had been rather uneventful. Technically, Mikasa was his cousin, but since they had grown up together she might as well have been his younger sister. Mikasa’s mother (his aunt) had asked if Mikasa could stay with his family when she turned ten so that the young girl could get a good school in the city. His mother, saint that she was, obviously agreed. 

He could remember a time when the young girl would always drag him to supervise her and her friends (all of whom were taller than Levi now, much to his chagrin) to pacify the concerns of Levi’s mother. As Mikasa matured, the young girl stopped making him constantly accompany her, since his mother trusted Mikasa enough to take care of herself at this point. In fact, Levi thought she would probably go out of her way just to get him not to come. Except when he would drive her. That darned girl thinks that he’s her own personal chauffeur.

While the two had their grievances, they maintained an understanding between them. Levi inherited his mother’s cafe called The Underground, and Mikasa went on to continue her parents’ legacy in the field of biology, choosing to major in botany like her mother. Sometimes, whenever Mikasa didn’t have midterms or finals or any exam that could potentially ruin her future, he would allow her to help out in the cafe once in a while. That way, she could technically say that she had experience working. It also gave Levi a good excuse to have extra hands. For Mikasa, it was a good way to earn money even though she didn’t really need to; Levi would give her cash whenever she would ask. 

Contrary to popular belief, Levi did have friends. There was Eld, the assistant manager he knew he could rely on because of his leadership skills. Oruo, who worked better as a cashier because of his case of Constant Threat of Tongue-Biting Which Could Lead To Bleeding . As much as possible, Levi wanted to keep him away from food. Gunther, who’s speed in the kitchen was god-tier. Then there was Petra, a young, budding barista whose skills were definitely commendable. 

Granted, all his friends were people who worked for him in the restaurant. There were several kids who worked for him part-time but they were more his responsibility rather than friends. Most of them were Mikasa’s friends, so at least there was someone accountable for them. Although, he had to admit they were very reliable.  

There’s also that one lawyer who had taken it upon himself to consistently come every morning to the cafe. He said his name was Erwin, and Levi would be lying if he told himself he wasn’t weirded out by the man. The blonde had stared him down on several occasions, as if waiting for him to say something. Once, when Levi couldn’t take it anymore, he asked him directly. 

“Any particular reason why you’re always staring openly at me?” Levi had asked rudely, scrunching his eyebrows at the man in confusion. 

Erwin shook his head in response before introducing himself, even handing the coffee owner a business card. Levi stared at the business card, wondering why in the world he would need a lawyer (god forbid he ever needs one, he’d rather not go to court over anything, really). Erwin Smith, the card had read. “You’ll see me here often since my father works close by.” 

After that, Erwin had frequented the cafe and even made friends with his employees. Petra says he tips very generously. Oruo thinks Erwin can do better. Levi doesn’t necessarily give a flying fuck, but he can’t help but feel as if he’d met or at least seen Erwin somewhere before. 

Levi goes on with his somewhat boring life. Once in a while, whenever he was feeling particularly sociable, he would agree to a cup of tea with Erwin and engage in random conversations about his job and his life. The man was not a pain to talk to. In fact, the entire time they talked, Levi was nagged by a certain familiarity he couldn’t quite place. He felt as if he knew the blond on a much deeper level than he was aware of. He shrugs it off. 

Sometimes, Levi would accompany his friends for drinks (but would never drink any, he hated the taste of alcohol with a passion). Apart from his sudden bouts of social energy,  the man thought his life to be ritualistic, monotone, and organized. He wasn’t complaining, of course; this is exactly what Levi wanted. Sometimes, however, whenever he would be driving home alone with the silence nagging his ears . . . Levi would feel an emptiness emerging from the back of his mind, clouding his thoughts until dawn.

His mind flew back to Erwin as he remembered the lawyer asking him a question in passing on a particularly slow work day. He had been clearing the table beside the blond when Erwin spoke. “Don’t you ever feel as if all your life, you’ve been waiting for something to happen? Like all these good things come to you but nothing really ever feels enough?”

Levi had glared at him, because yes , he definitely has . That every waking moment of his life he could never feel truly satisfied . He chose to maintain his silence. 

To Erwin’s credit, he dropped the subject and smiled softly, as if he could sense Levi’s discomfort. “Sorry,” Erwin said, chuckling. The man waved a wad of papers in his hand. “This case has been particularly mind-provoking, so I’ve been randomly spouting out philosophical questions to anyone who would be willing to listen.” 

“Good luck,” Levi replied shortly, taking the tray of empty cups in his hands and walking towards the staff room. 

Many a time, Levi had wondered how much of him was an open book. He liked to think that he was a pretty closed-off, ambiguous kind of guy. But Erwin had pretty much hit the mark—Levi had indeed settled, but he wasn’t sure if he was satisfied. 

Unfortunately, Erwin wasn’t the only blond who spouted weird questions out of the blue.

Levi had known Armin Arlert since he was a young boy. He remembers glaring at bullies who would tease and mock the poor child, before taking Mikasa and her rowdy group of troublemakers to another playground. Levi knew Mikasa was a reserved child, but it seemed as if her maternal instincts kicked in whenever she could sense Armin was in danger. While the young girl’s other friends were strong enough to defend themselves from the bullies whenever they were the target, Mikasa had long established that people shouldn’t even dare cross her (or her even scarier big “brother”). 

When Armin turned fifteen, his gait changed. Gone was the boy who would whimper as quiet as possible whenever he felt threatened. He still maintained his love for reading, but Armin suddenly adopted a mature mindset that seemed as if he possessed knowledge well-beyond his years. For a time, Mikasa would express her worry for the teenager in her and Levi’s rare conversations. Apparently, Armin had cried and launched himself on both Mikasa and Eren, holding them close to him as if the three of them had spent years apart from each other . . . when in fact, it was the middle of the day. 

Levi was no stranger to Armin’s inquisitive questions about topics the dark-haired man knew nothing of (and didn’t bother to care about). Hence, he thought that the young blond’s strange inquiries couldn’t get any stranger. 

Obviously, Levi was wrong. 

“Levi, do you ever feel as if this life was a second chance? Like, as if right now, you’re you, but not really. Like, there was once a past you, who was different from you now, but the you now is still you. So reincarnation, basically. Or maybe we’re in a different dimension and there are others out there who’re living a different life from us. That I’m just one Armin out of multiple Armins in the universe.” Armin’s questions and speculations came in rapid-fire as he leaned on the counter. “What do you think?”

“I think you need to stop reading science fiction ‘cos it messes with your brain,” Levi responded as he finished counting the coins in the cash register. “Unlike you, I don’t bother with the intricacies of life, brat.” Armin’s inquisitive expression fell into one of dismay as he frowned. 

Levi sighed inwardly as he closed the cash register. “I think the idea of reincarnation makes more sense compared to multiple universes though.”

Armin immediately brightened up when he looked at Levi, before diverting his gaze at Mikasa in what seemed like triumph. “I told you so!” he chirped gleefully. Thanks Levi.” 

Mikasa didn’t reply, but her scalding glare told Levi everything she wanted to say:  ‘Don’t encourage him!’ Levi rolled his eyes and went back to the kitchen, shutting out Eren’s excited questions (“Do you really think we had past lives? Do you think I was cool? Oh my god, what if I was a knight! Or a dinosaur? Or a giant hu—”) effectively by closing the door. 

Levi did give Armin’s questions some thought. There were indeed days wherein he felt out of place in his own skin, like he was living a life meant for someone else. There were also days when he would feel as if he was grasping at threads, trying to figure out what in his life wasn’t in place. However, the concept of reincarnation was something that seemed implausible to him especially because he didn’t believe in the divine. 

The dark-haired man closed his eyes, placing his arm on his forehead as he shifted underneath the  covers. The clock read 15:06, which meant that he had already been awake for a grand total of 23 hours. At four in the morning, he would need to take over the night shift, which Eld was currently in charge of. 

Once again, he is faced with a dilemma: (1) try to get some sleep so that he can get a bit of rest and risk giving Eld overtime, or (2) suck it up and accept the fact that this day was going to be another one of his 48-hour days.

The answer was obvious. Levi was not the type of person to let others suffer for his mistakes. So he grit his teeth, pushed himself out of bed, and headed to his bathroom to take a hot shower.

He really needs to get some rest. 

When Levi exited the bathroom thirty minutes later, dressed and ready for work, someone was knocking on his door. Levi scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. It was nearly four in the morning. With his mother in Sina for a conference and Mikasa due to wake at six in the morning, there should be no one in the house to bother him at the ungodly hour. 

He opened the door and was proven wrong when his sight was greeted by Mikasa. She had puffy eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, and shivering lips. The poor girl held her black scarf close to herself as if it would help ease whatever pain she was feeling. Levi blinked at the sight, unsure of what to say. He tried anyway. 

“What’s wrong, brat? Mosquito get stuck in your ear again?” Mikasa shook her head . Levi sighed as he noted that she didn’t give him her traditional glare. “Need to talk about it?” 

She opened her mouth and closed it again in response. She does this thrice before Levi interrupts her. 

“ Oi, fishface, is it a yes or a no?” 

Mikasa shook her head a second time. 

“Well, brat, how do you expect me to help you?” Levi pushed his door open and let his cousin in. Mikasa entered clumsily (different from her usual composed self, he noted) and sat at the edge of his bed. 

Levi glanced at his glowing clock before choosing to text Eld. He’s going to be late and Eld would have to work overtime. Levi wasn’t entirely sure if he’d make it to the cafe by four (even though it was just a five minute drive) given the status of his crying sister. 

Mikasa rarely cried, and even if she did, she wouldn’t go to him of all people. She’d most likely sneak out to go visit Eren or Armin, which is nothing the young girl hadn’t done before. So, Levi decided, just for today, he would ask Eld for this one favor in order to offer his own personal brand of comfort to his cousin and exist with her as she lamented (not like he can say much to comfort her, anyway). 

He successfully got a reply from Eld, who had agreed to cover the overtime. The assistant manager relayed a bit of concern from Petra, who mentioned that it was very “unlike boss” to show up to work late. Levi was about to send a message informing the two of his personal matters when Mikasa spoke up. 

“You don’t . . . remember anything, do you Captain?” 

“Hah?” Levi asked, half his focus on his phone as he tapped the send button. “Remember what?” 

Mikasa glared at the floor as if begging it to swallow her whole. She wiped her tears with the sleeve of her shirt, and buried half of her face behind the dark scarf she was sporting. Offhandedly, Levi wondered when was the last time she washed that thing. He should probably remind Mikasa after her breakdown. 

“Armin wasn’t lying, you know.”

Confused as ever, he raised an eyebrow. Is she going through a phase? Levi wondered, his mouth set in a grim line. “About what?”

She spoke to the floor and not really at him. “About the past. The past lives, I mean. Reincarnation, and all that.” 

If Levi had been confused before, he was even more confused now. 

“I can’t talk to you about it,” Mikasa continued, holding her arms closer to her. “No matter how much I try, the words don’t—no, won’t come out.” She let out a sigh, before looking up at Levi, who was already feeling kind of guilty as he wasn’t able to give her much help. 

“Then don’t force yourself to talk if it’s hard for you to, you can just go over it next time,” Levi offered, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing at the clock. I really am bad at this , he thought. 

 Mikasa shook her head for the third time that night. “It’s much harder than you think.” She paused and straightened up, inhaling sharply through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. “It seems it doesn’t work like that. I need to talk to Armin. Can you drive me?”

Levi had no idea what in the world it was and why it doesn’t work like that . Given the complexity of the situation—mostly due to the fact that he was complete shit at giving her help, advice, or anything she needed emotionally, really—he made no attempts to complain about her request to chauffeur her. 

The young girl asked him nicely after all . Maybe she really wasn’t feeling well. 

He nodded. “Don’t you want to get dressed first? You look like a mess.” He scrunched his nose at her scarf, “Also, when’s the last time you washed that thing? That might be really dir—” 

Levi didn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence because Mikasa had thrown the scarf straight up to his face. His eye twitched in annoyance as he plucked the scarf out of his head. He shoved it in Mikasa’s hands. She was lucky the scarf didn’t smell bad, otherwise he would’ve definitely confiscated it and thrown it in the washing machine. “Damn it, brat, learn how to wash your clothes. I’m telling mom.” 

“Blabbermouth, squealer, mama’s boy, ” Mikasa retorted, standing up. 

Levi rolled his eyes before grabbing his keys from his bedside table and turning off his lamp. Mikasa had already stepped outside, her black scarf wrapped around her neck. Levi closed his door when he exited, moving in step with the younger woman. She was already calling Armin, and Levi knew that the blond would be ready to accept company when he heard Armin’s sleepy voice respond from the other line. Levi didn’t bother listening, and instead chose to open the car door and wait inside the vehicle (a black four-seater that his invisible father had left him) as Mikasa conversed with Armin. 

She entered after about ten minutes, slamming the car door shut. Levi pulled out of their driveway smoothly. 

“Drop by the cafe if you and Armin need to eat,” Levi said shortly as Mikasa put on her seatbelt. 

“Is it on the house?” 

“Of course, I’ll dock it from your pay.”

“Some definition of ‘on the house'   you have.” 

The ride takes about twenty minutes without traffic, since Armin lived a bit further away. The two Ackermans sat without conversing, both of them listening to the soft sound of music from the radio. 

It’s Levi who broke the silence. “Oi, brat, this isn’t necessarily my business, but shouldn’t you also be calling your other snot-nosed friend?”

The reply came quicker than he had anticipated. “No.” 

She doesn’t elaborate, so Levi left it at that. Perhaps, he thought, they fought, and that's why the dark-haired woman was acting weird. Either way, he knew it was none of his business. 

They arrive at Armin’s house at about five minutes ‘till five in the morning. Mikasa opened the door, muttering a sincere “thank you” as she left. She closed the door behind her softly, enough to lock it but not loud enough to wake the neighbors. Mikasa gave her older cousin a brief wave and turned around swiftly to Armin’s doorstep before he could even nod in acknowledgement. 

At least he wasn’t the only Ackerman who was bad at showing emotions. 

Armin waves enthusiastically from the doorway, and Levi (unenthusiastically) raises his hand in reply. He then pulled back from the driveway and headed to his cafe. 

The drive towards The Underground  is short and uneventful. He had already texted Eld in advance that he would be arriving. He brought his car into the parking lot and headed to his designated parking spot, beside the PWD parking near the entrance. To his surprise, there was a car already in his spot. It was a blue pick-up truck that looked worse for wear. 

Levi’s eye twitched in mild annoyance. 

He knew he couldn’t do anything about it since there was no sign that that specific spot was for him (he really, really should do that). Since dawn was normally for students cramming their papers, all of whom didn’t need cars since the university was just walking distance from the cafe, Levi had assumed he wouldn’t need the sign anymore. Clearly, he was wrong. 

Levi sighed before deciding to park two spots beside the pick-up truck. 

Upon entering the cafe, he noticed that there were only about three customers. One was a regular: a blonde girl whose drinks were surrounded by a pile of papers. Her highlighting was careless and panicky. Beside her sat an auburn-haired girl, who was the second customer. Compared to the blonde, she was already lost in sleep.  

The third customer was someone he never really encountered in his shop before. From where he entered, Levi could see that she was wearing a thick pair of glasses, and that her hands were shoved in a tan coat. She was incredibly tall, and sported dark boots and leggings. The woman was currently standing in front of the counter, her eyes focused on the menu splayed out on the bright screens above the coffee machines. 

Levi passed her without giving it much thought, swiftly entering the staff room. Eld grinned at him when he entered, removing his apron and placing it on the rack. “Good morning boss,” he greeted, as Levi grabbed his own apron and swung it over his head. 

“There’s a customer outside,” Levi said nonchalantly. 

Eld nodded in recognition. “Yeah, she comes here every three a.m. on the dot. Leaves before you arrive, so I understand why you’re not familiar with her. Don’t worry though, she looks like she’s thinking now, but she’s going to order the same thing. Make sure to get her a large, sweet cream cold brew nitro.” 

Levi nodded as Eld checked out, bidding him goodbye. Levi dumped his car keys in his locker before he heard the bell ring from outside. That tall girl was probably ready to order her americano. 

He exited the door, standing in front of her and checking to see if Eld properly set the cashier for his shift. Levi nodded to himself in approval, as Eld had done his job spectacularly (as always). In about an hour, Jean Kirchstein and Marco Bott would be taking over the cashier while he cleaned the store. He barely glanced at the customer as he mechanically tapped his fingers rhythmically on the register, letting out the practiced “May I take your order?” 

“Good morning! Could I please have a large sweet cream cold brew nitro? To-go, please!” 

Something about her voice made Levi’s blood run cold. He raised his head to look at her. She was smiling at him, her eyes shining with excitement. Her bangs are parted in the middle of her forehead and the rest of her hair is tied in a lazy half-bun. By the greasy state of her auburn hair, it looked like she hadn’t bothered bathing. 

For a reason Levi couldn’t explain (he would later argue that it was because he was so surprised to see that someone could live their life while having hair so dirty ), his body grew stiff as he stared at her, transfixed. 

The girl tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Is something wrong?” she asked, looking at him. “Is my order not available? That’s okay, you know, I can just order something else—” 

Levi interrupted her tirade as he regained control over his body once again, swallowing the odd feeling gnawing at his gut. “Name?” he managed to choke out, trying his best to appear calm. For some strange reason, his heart decided that now was the time for palpitations.��

“Oh!” the girl said in surprise, “right, I haven’t seen you here at this hour before! Just put in Hange!”

His hands moved automatically to input her order. There really is something so . . . familiar about her, but Levi just couldn’t seem to put his finger on it. It reminded him of when he had first met Erwin. He felt like he had seen her from a dream long forgotten in the recesses of his mind, begging to be released and remembered. 

There’s just one problem: he knows he’s never seen this girl in his life before. After all, someone who never washed their hair would make a very distinct impression on him. 

“That’ll be four dollars,” Levi said through grit teeth, annoyed at himself for failing to maintain his own composure. Hange nodded fervently as she placed her five dollar bill on the counter. 

“Keep the change!” she declared enthusiastically, before peering at him in concern. “You’re okay, right?” Hange asked. “Sorry, early mornings really aren’t for everyone, huh?”

He remained silent, placing the bill inside the cash register and shutting it close. Levi didn’t bother answering her question as he allowed his mind to get lost in thought. He continued the patterns of service he had long since memorized, his body on autopilot. 

Levi was always in control of his mind, his body, his spirit . . . so why?  There were a million questions racing through his head. ‘ Who the fuck is this girl? Damn, my heart feels like it’s going to pop out of my chest. This isn’t normal.’ 

He stole a glance at her lanky form, hoping that she wasn’t at the counter anymore and had taken a seat somewhere in the cafe. To his disappointment, she was still standing there, watching him make the drink. When she saw him look at her, she gave him a tiny wave. 

Levi felt his eye twitch in annoyance. She didn’t look particularly special, but she entered (no, infiltrated) his cafe with bright eyes and all smiles, making him feel things that he never even felt before. 

Which was, in his opinion, completely unacceptable. Levi Ackerman hated feeling out of control. 

He poured the drink into a tall cup expertly before placing it on top of the counter. “Hange,” he called, her name escaping his lips smoothly, as if he had said the syllables a million times before. 

Levi frowned, sensing the beginnings of a migraine in the middle of his eyebrows, so he pinches the area gently, as if the action could relieve some of the pain. 

Hange walked over to the counter, looking a bit concerned. “Hey, Levi,” she started, and the man visibly flinched. Why did the sound of his name from her voice trigger a barrage of emotions he’s never even bothered to feel before?

Levi dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He was almost about to ask ‘how the fuck do you know me’ and ‘do I fucking know you’ before the rational part of his brain interjected that she had probably seen his name tag. 

His silence gave Hange permission to speak again, so she continued. “Do you have a headache?” Without waiting for him to respond, she smiled. “I got just the thing! I’ll leave you this gift as my thanks for your service!” And with those words, she placed a painkiller on the counter as she gently took her drink. “Take it so you can have a good morning, okay? 

Levi watched her actions cautiously. 

She winked. “Oh, and don’t take it with tea.”  

Levi’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at this point. The words Do I know you? burst in his mind and died at the edges of his lips. Instead, he muttered a clipped “thank you” to her small token of appreciation. 

She grinned. “Take care, Levi!” 

And with those words, she left, leaving Levi to wonder out loud, “what the fuck just happened?” 

The body remembers what the mind has forgotten.  

#Levihan #levi ackerman #Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) #Hange Zoë #levihan fanfic #levi x hange fanfic #Hanji zoe #levi x hange #levi x hanji #rivahan #slight angst #fluff #eremika #eren yeager #mikasa ackerman #eren x mikasa #aot fanfic

[ineffable-endearments]

It’s not the love itself he’s ashamed of.

The problem is the crushing selfishness of his love, the soul-churning entitlement of the wanting.

He’s an angel. He was created to be an ambassador of Goodness. It’s the most privileged position in the universe.

Being on the side of pure Good means hoping for the best for everything, for all of Creation. So it’s no surprise that he should come to enjoy his existence here on Earth, to form an attachment to that which he’s supposed to oversee. It’s no surprise that he should become endeared to humans, with all their peculiar, God-given quirks. It’s no surprise that as he spends time here, he should discover favorites, certain Earthly delights that he enjoys more than others. His mere feelings make no difference, after all, so long as he’s fulfilling his heavenly duties.

Given his angelic nature, it’s no surprise that Aziraphale should even care about his enemy, then, to see the little spark of goodness in Crowley, to want to protect Crowley from his own mistakes, to want to see Crowley get better.

The problem is...Aziraphale loves Crowley as Crowley already is.

He loves that Crowley will talk and talk with him for hours. He loves their debates, even when Crowley acts all smug, even when Crowley makes him entertain questions he’s not supposed to ask. He loves talking to someone as impossibly smart and witty as Crowley. He loves talking to someone who enjoys Earth, who will sometimes agree with his taste and sometimes argue with it. He loves the wiling and the thwarting and the knowledge that no matter who “wins” they’re both going home safe afterward.

He loves that he gets to see a softness in Crowley that no other being in the universe ever sees. He loves that Crowley will do particular little favors to butter him up. He loves that Crowley is so attentive he’ll keep track of Aziraphale’s priorities while Aziraphale is too busy with other priorities (a briefcase full of books and a falling bomb come to mind).

He loves that Crowley forgives him. He loves that Crowley trusts him. He loves that Crowley likes spending time together just for the sake of it.

The problem is...Crowley makes Aziraphale feel special. And that is not something angels are meant to encourage or want or, Heaven forbid, seek out. They’re not meant to stand out; they’re meant to stand united, a uniform force of Goodness.

Exchanging the occasional miracle for the occasional temptation is hardly an impediment to Ineffability, in the grand scheme of things, since Heaven and Hell are both bound to be doing their work and Aziraphale and Crowley don’t have the clout to interfere with that anyway. But an angel seeking validation from the Enemy? Deciding his own will matters more than Heaven’s? In the old days, they Fell for less.

How, how can he have the most privileged position in the universe and decide it’s not enough?

He had a disturbing thought recently. He thought about how he doesn’t see why Crowley should have to beg forgiveness from Heaven, or “get better” - which is just an awful thing to wonder, because he is supposed to want what’s best for his friend, isn’t he? And what’s best for the world? Shouldn’t he want the world’s most talented tempter to be rehabilitated?

Aziraphale’s love has become something selfish and twisted. He wants Crowley - not for Heaven, or for the world. For himself.

A proper angel would let Crowley take his own risks; a proper angel would trust the Great Plan. A proper angel would let Crowley march up to unguarded holy water, which the Church gives away for free anyway, and take his fill. A proper angel might feel sad to see another being destroyed, if it came to that, but a proper angel would also take comfort in seeing the legions of the damned weakened.

A proper angel would never have made friends with a demon. So in the end, if Aziraphale could be a proper angel, it’s quite possible that Crowley wouldn’t be risking his life in the first place.

No matter which way he turns now, he’s gone and ruined it. He’s been a selfish angel and a selfish friend. All that’s left is to stave off this one momentary threat with the thermos of holy water he’s about to hand over.

=

Things will be different. They’ll be outside in the open for Heaven and Hell to see. They won’t be bothered by either. It’ll be sunny, the grass will be green, and there will be human chatter in the background, although attention will slide off of Crowley and Aziraphale like water off a duck’s back. They’ll be lying on a picnic blanket. They’ll be pressed close, the sides of their bodies warm together.

Crowley will ramble. Aziraphale will look for shapes in the clouds, and he’ll nod along, smiling.

“Wanting. Desire. Nothing inherently wrong with it,” Crowley will be saying. “Not that it isn’t the basis of a, a lot of temptations. But it’s the basis of free will, too, right? So I figure in the end...”

“...As long as we’re on the same page, it should be alright to embrace it,” Aziraphale will add. He’ll know it isn’t exactly what Crowley was rambling about, but he’ll be a tad nervous about bringing up the topic of them, and this will feel like a natural opportunity.

Crowley will pause.“Yeah. Yeah, you can put it that way.”

And he’ll tentatively raise his hand to hold Aziraphale’s.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ineffable partners #ineffable spouses #good omens spoilers #long post

[xpersonality]

What are some different versions of the INFJ personality type?

INFJ's shadow side: darkness and anger

In the unlikely event you have betrayed an INFJ, cut deeply through their hearts then watch out - because nothing is more frightening than seeing one get their all. Afterall, Jesus was apparently an model INFJ. That's right. Beware the scorch. You get him angry and he'll go locust on your arse.

Of course, everything below is 'worst case under-developed' INFJ anger cases. It isn't what INFJ's do all the time. It is, extremely rare. Most have the patience of an iceberg waiting for hell to freeze over. Or a turn the other cheek style. But for those of you who want some insight into the darker, shadier side of an INFJ ...venture down below, i dare you. --- INFJ Anger style: The incorruptible ninja on a vendetta:

It means facing your fears and exposing the grittiness of your own human existence. Sound familiar INFJ? Okay, it sounds like martyr-dom and yes, it is. An INFJ knows ALL about martyrdom.

In extremely threatening cases, an INFJ can go all angry ninja style on anybody's arse. And i mean emotionally. They will cut you up and hang you out to dry. Emotionally. That is the key word here.

He we won't stop until he's wasted your emotional landscape, and neither will we. INFj's at their weakest or best can be like double edged swords, yes we can see deep into people's hearts, their motivations their good qualities, mirror their thoughts, actions and their desires to bring you relief or joy. INFJ's listen not only with their ears, but with their heart, they can process and nurture people's good qualities instinctively and mirror your what you want to hear. They are capable of forgiveness even of those with heinous crimes on their records, because yes - they know instinctively that everybody is human, all of us are interconnected and we all make mistakes, an INFJ has an uncanny ability to recognize that everybody is just a mirror of themselves. The best INFJ's carry a karmic awareness at all times.

However, INFJ's can also see through people's weaknesses, their motivations, their dark sides and their 'secrets' if you will, we watch carefully how they treat strangers with ill will, and notice if they treat their friends with kindness or if they are self serving. With that knowledge they back it up like a hard drive. They remember. How they use that information, is up to them. That choice, is what makes them grow or go backwards.

God forbid anybody come across an INFJ, hell or highwater because once you cross them - at best they will drop you like a hot pan and dissappear regardless of how long you've known them. At worst, be prepared for having all your insecurities and fears gutted and exposed. And they make sure you remember. They can dive deep into your heart to inspire you, but like that double edged sword they can cut straight into your heart with their words. They tell you the truth exactly as it is, whilst you are still grappling with the fact they knew how you felt all along, they expose all your ugliest motivations to air and for all to see. INFJ's are adept at understanding the language of the human heart and what it wants and needs on an intangible level. They are expert emotional anthropologists. They understand boundaries and will not tell people how you feel, what is on your mind. This is because they know this information is precious, of course... until the shit hits the fan so to speak and then, they reveal everything about you. The ugly you. Every. Ugly. Detail.

They get under your skin and let loose slowly and methodically (yep, there's that organization in action) anything they know about your weaknesses, everything they use turns it a kind of melodramatic piece of theatre relaying everything from your sexual indiscretions, faults, lack of listening skills and weaving it expertly by making sure every one of your emotional weaknesses are exploited. They hone in on your fears at the present moment and creatively exploit them for full effect, targeting fears, anxieties, guilt and expertly play them like a symphony. They understand the darkness in themselves and they recognize it in you.

Hell hath no fury like an INFJ scorned. Subtle, slow and insidioius is the scorned style of an INFJ. They can get creative with their scorn - they might have the dignity and coldness of a queen while they exploit your weaknesses. They personally tailor each and every remark for full emotional effect. They may tell you calmly and caustically why you cheated them and explain your insecurities in front of a large group of intimate friends whilst you sweat, hiding their motives behind dry wit and humour. They will adjust their level of scorn for whatever is appropriate for your character. If it's a quick, derisive comment or a long confession of your insecurities - they will know which button to press to get to your heart. If it's guilt they want to summon, they know what to say to make you feel it, they'll remember an event or a whisper of an insecurity you have and they will bring it up. They remember the nuances in your dialogue, your emotional landscape - they remember your weaknesses and in an organized (judging) manner, categorically shoot each and every one of them down till they are satisfied you have sated their need for justice.

The scariness (or genius) of an INFJ however lies in the fact that they know how to adjust the temperature of their perceived hurt so that the other person feels the full effect of their remarks. Just as they can easily take the emotional temperature of a room just by walking into it, they know that getting completely angry is ineffective. So they manage their delivery intuitively, depending on your character so that the recipient has no room to retaliate - an INFJ instincitively knows if they expose a certain insecurity in you and say something softly, it is more effective than going completely a-wohl. They skirt over your anger and any issues they know will completely provoke you to not listening at all. They want to expose the truth, come hell or high water and if that means you feel reduced to something like a small child - totally exposed and a little humiliated, so be it. They will broach the topic carefully, throw in a caustic remark - you might not be able to retaliate to because the topic for you is so personal. It is completely tactical. They want to expose you remember, so they think carefully about the delivery of a remark and it's intention before it comes out.

You know that secret you told them when you first met them with an open heart and open mind? If you've deeply betrayed them, they will remember it, bring it up and flippantly tell you they weren't really listening, and they didn't really care for it if that's what it takes to hurt you.

The purpose? The truth of course. The phrase, 'Shed light on your sorry ass', has never been more apt.

This is the darkness and shadow of an INFJ.

On one hand, the capacities described here can be unhealthy INFJ behavior. On the other hand, my perspective is that they aren't unhealthy when one is dealing with, say, an abuser or a sociopath.

I've only ever had to take one person down using my capacity to systematically uncover and tell them (that person) the truth about the ugly underneath their mask. My primary goal in that process was to stop the person from harming me. My secondary goal was to do everything I could to ensure that the person would be unable to harm others like me in the future.

I know I succeeded in the primary goal, and I do believe I also succeeded in the secondary one. I have no regrets about acting as I did. I think we should use these capacities if they are ever warranted. I hope that it is never warranted - but if/when the need does occur, IMO it's not necessarily a bad thing that we can be dangerous when truly crossed by people who do harm.

This doesn't have so much to do with any of this other then the shadow emerging in an INFJ discussion point. I've been wanting to share this song with PerCs for a while, and was waiting for the "appropriate" time. This obviously is not that time. But I'm sick of waiting, don't want to make a thread, and the shadow topic is sort of relevant, depending on how you choose to interpret Maynard's lyrics. Please enjoy. I hope you can see the dots I see connecting this all.

Excellent post, Kermi. I know this about myself. I hate the fact that I "gather information" on people like I do, and "back it up" like you said, but I do. That's why I have always worked on controlling my anger, because, if I get angry enough, and someone pushes me past the whole "glare at you, and become deathly quiet" phase, then I can destroy someone with words, and alienate that person that hurt me, or made me angry.

I do what I can to love people, but rather than backing up information (I do that anyways, just subconsciously) and using it against them I like to attack them on the mental level by asking questions (haven't had to yet). Why did you do that? Does it feel good to do that? To behave like that? Why do you feel the need to behave this way? Does it make you feel better than an animal? Does it honestly make you feel like a better human being? Don't you feel that you're better than that? Or are you better than that?

If there is a physical retaliation (haven't had one yet) I plan to do what I can to defend myself depending on how the situation is. If it is simply a fight, then I will only do surface damage, but if my life is threatened then I plan on doing damage, possibly internally.

I'm rarely confronted by people who were initially so honest after seeing me lash out. The person that usually confronts me tells me that I choose such harsh words, and that I succeed in helping them assume a feeling of lowliness, guilt, ugliness, or a whole list of other negative things. They usually seem to be saying this against their will or even in tears... I've just made the person miserable.

To be blunt: I recount and retell each and every last thing that was done and I highlight all the mistakes and disadvantages of such. Wether I use cursing, crude language, or any derogatory remark is irrelevant. The way I present what I say is made with as much coherence as I can use to arrange the information and the conclusion is just as painful to hear.

Some people get hurt more than others, but I don't think anybody wants to hear things like these... Sometimes somebody shows that they don't care if about what I'm saying when I'm lashing out and I can't really see it in their face or movement, but they were affected in a powerful and irreversible way, and the pattern of their behaviors towards me seems almost permanently altered. They will avoid me A LOT. They will hesitate to say things to me face to face but would rather say things behind my back. I got what I wished for: to be left alone; but it sucks!

I can't forget the times this happened. I can't forget who told me this, or who didn't tell me this but showed me how terrible what I've said was. I remember how they told me, and I remember sensing how their aura that radiated outward seems to be going inward instead.

This is why I'd much rather withdraw and leave when I'm angry.

Original notes:

However, INFJ's can also see through people's weaknesses, their motivations, their dark sides and their 'secrets' if you will, we watch carefully how they treat strangers with ill will, and notice if they treat their friends with kindness or if they are self serving. With that knowledge they back it up like a hard drive. They remember. How they use that information, is up to them. That choice, is what makes them grow or go backwards.

God forbid anybody come across an INFJ, hell or highwater because once you cross them - at best they will drop you like a hot pan and dissappear regardless of how long you've known them. At worst, be prepared for having all your insecurities and fears gutted and exposed. And they make sure you remember. They can dive deep into your heart to inspire you, but like that double edged sword they can cut straight into your heart with their words. They tell you the truth exactly as it is, whilst you are still grappling with the fact they knew how you felt all along, they expose all your ugliest motivations to air and for all to see. INFJ's are adept at understanding the language of the human heart and what it wants and needs on an intangible level. They are expert emotional anthropologists. They understand boundaries and will not tell people how you feel, what is on your mind. This is because they know this information is precious, of course... until the shit hits the fan so to speak and then, they reveal everything about you. The ugly you. Every. Ugly. Detail.

They get under your skin and let loose slowly and methodically (yep, there's that organization in action) anything they know about your weaknesses, everything they use turns it a kind of melodramatic piece of theatre relaying everything from your sexual indiscretions, faults, lack of listening skills and weaving it expertly by making sure every one of your emotional weaknesses are exploited. They hone in on your fears at the present moment and creatively exploit them for full effect, targeting fears, anxieties, guilt and expertly play them like a symphony. They understand the darkness in themselves and they recognize it in you.

Hell hath no fury like an INFJ scorned. Subtle, slow and insidioius is the scorned style of an INFJ. They can get creative with their scorn - they might have the dignity and coldness of a queen while they exploit your weaknesses. They personally tailor each and every remark for full emotional effect. They may tell you calmly and caustically why you cheated them and explain your insecurities in front of a large group of intimate friends whilst you sweat, hiding their motives behind dry wit and humour. They will adjust their level of scorn for whatever is appropriate for your character. If it's a quick, derisive comment or a long confession of your insecurities - they will know which button to press to get to your heart. If it's guilt they want to summon, they know what to say to make you feel it, they'll remember an event or a whisper of an insecurity you have and they will bring it up. They remember the nuances in your dialogue, your emotional landscape - they remember your weaknesses and in an organized (judging) manner, categorically shoot each and every one of them down till they are satisfied you have sated their need for justice.

The scariness (or genius) of an INFJ however lies in the fact that they know how to adjust the temperature of their perceived hurt so that the other person feels the full effect of their remarks. Just as they can easily take the emotional temperature of a room just by walking into it, they know that getting completely angry is ineffective. So they manage their delivery intuitively, depending on your character so that the recipient has no room to retaliate - an INFJ instincitively knows if they expose a certain insecurity in you and say something softly, it is more effective than going completely a-wohl. They skirt over your anger and any issues they know will completely provoke you to not listening at all. They want to expose the truth, come hell or high water and if that means you feel reduced to something like a small child - totally exposed and a little humiliated, so be it. They will broach the topic carefully, throw in a caustic remark - you might not be able to retaliate to because the topic for you is so personal. It is completely tactical. They want to expose you remember, so they think carefully about the delivery of a remark and it's intention before it comes out.

You know that secret you told them when you first met them with an open heart and open mind? If you've deeply betrayed them, they will remember it, bring it up and flippantly tell you they weren't really listening, and they didn't really care for it if that's what it takes to hurt you.

The purpose? The truth of course. The phrase, 'Shed light on your sorry ass', has never been more apt.

This is the darkness and shadow of an INFJ.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Oh yes, I am familiar with this darkness all too well. Between a friend I had to leave for being too unstable and a sick INFJ mother, I've learned to actually train myself to deal with this hurt.

What these two have in common, for better or worse, is that almost nobody takes them seriously at this point. The fact of the matter is most INFJs dominated by their shadows are not well-liked people. Their destructive behavior will always be stopped sooner or later because nobody likes them. Well balanced and happy INFJs? Oh man, friends, lovers, and family like no other. Sick, shadow side ones? Disregarded by most people because they're often seen as irrational.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I've only ever truly raged out once and it was much more physical than this thread describes, but it was very much the same pouring tirade of caution-to-the-wind hate. I still count myself incredibly lucky that the man at whom it was directed wasn't where I thought he'd be because I don't know what I'd have done if I'd found him.

But I still think he'd have deserved it, so I have no idea if you'd call it unhealthy or not. I do know that a part of me takes pride in the show of aggression. I think that's something all INFJs have inside us, a beast-like desire to rip apart the things that hurt us. I think that's why we bring up topics like this. We're proud of the vicious parts of ourselves. We paint them as weakness, but see them see them as strength. And we want to show off that strength.

#infj things #infj thoughts #infj problems #infj personality #infj #mbti aesthetic #mbti conversations #mbti types #mbti #mbti personality types #borderline personality disorder #avoidant personality disorder #antisocial personality disorder #myers briggs #infp aesthetic #infp things #infp problems #infp thoughts #infp #intj female #intj problems #intj things #intj thoughts #intj #intp mbti #intp things #intp problems #intp thoughts #intp #introvert

[imnotcameraready]

What’s the viscosity of blood?

i did the actual prompt this time! this is how Logan, a serial killer, and Roman, an actor and author, met.

Warnings: mentions of blood, suggested violence, suggested death, mention of a possible car accident, mentions of a bad break up, panic attacks/anxiety. on one hand, this is basically Fluff but on the other hand, Logan’s a serial killer. if i forgot anything, please let me know!!!

Words: 3,208

Pairings: Logince, former Analogical

read on AO3!

enjoy!!!

It wasn’t like Logan to join a dating app. He had never done that before, and to be honest, he wasn’t much of a romantic. He’d only ever had one relationship and, well…. And he definitely hadn’t spent over 50 hours awake in the lab after the break up, running on nothing but coffee and suppression. Definitely hadn’t cried into the empty right half of his bed, lamenting how large it was, how much more spacious it was. No, no, Logan wasn’t sentimental.

He wasn’t still upset over the break up, despite it being over a year ago. He hadn’t signed up willingly, sought out a mobile application that was as different from Tinder or, God forbid, “Grindr,” which was what one of his teaching assistants suggested. One of the graduate students he oversaw definitely hadn’t suggest he get back into dating.

He hadn’t handpicked this particular site out of an actual pool of possible matchmaking services, hadn’t weighed the pro’s and con’s of each site before electing to sign up for one that would match him with someone with similar Google searches. He hadn’t been hoping that the “similar searches” would be related to work — he hadn’t been quietly hoping to talk with a fellow chemical engineer, maybe even discuss astrophysics with someone.

He had been a little surprised to be matched based on the searches “20 pack 20 mL syringes,” “buy hydrogen peroxide near me,” and “viscosity of blood.”

Now, these weren’t necessarily work-related searches, but the person who had matched with him based on those searches had already swiped right on his profile. Logan recalled being a little confused, a little more curious, to see what this “Roman del Sol” might be doing with that sort of information. Logan himself had a solid alibi, what with his position at the university. No one could disprove that one of his pet-projects wasn’t about how blood reacted to certain chemical agents, and that would explain all three of the searches. And it wasn’t too far from the truth.

No, he hadn’t rehearsed the story in his head over and over while driving to the planetarium. It’d been his idea but Roman had accepted wholeheartedly, granted that they start at the cafe inside. “i wanna get to now you first ;P” was how he justified it, and in hindsight, Logan couldn’t believe he’d accepted a date with someone who typed like that.

Their conversations over the app were quite something. According to Roman’s profile, he was an actor, writer, and loved Disney. Upon first contact, Logan had to clarify what “loving Disney” entailed, which led them to a surprisingly heated but good-natured discussion about the ethics behind the Walt Disney Corporation becoming a monopoly of entertainment and media. Something about that led Roman to asking “r u doin anythin on friday, teach? ive got rehearsal until 6 but after that we could meet up somewhere and continue this delightful debate in person ;)” and something — Logan still couldn’t put his finger on what — but SOMETHING moved him to respond with “That would be lovely.”

So now here he was, parking in the planetarium’s lot. Logan looked at himself in his rearview mirror and straightened his tie with one hand, smoothing it down his chest slowly with his eyes trained on his own face. Dark bags had begun forming beneath his eyes, darker than a few years ago. He would have to make a larger effort to maintain his work schedule. And his skin had grown pale.

No. He shouldn’t waste time scrutinizing his own reflection like this, because he could spend hours doing so and he had to meet his date on time.

Logan held the edges of his sports coat as he exited the car, pulling his briefcase out with him. He slung the strap over his shoulder and brushed himself down once more. It didn’t hurt to want to impress, no. He just had to remember that he looked, what did Roman say, “dashing?” He looked dashing.

He checked his watch as he walked up the short path to the planetarium. He had arrived five minutes early, despite the traffic. Splendid. He could order and secure a table.

The prices were relatively understandable and the service fairly fast. Logan’s americano was sitting before him in ten minutes — meaning Roman del Sol was five minutes late. The thought ground Logan’s gears just a little, and he indulged in the meaningless frustration as he took his first sip, eyes glazed over while staring at the parking lot. Perhaps Roman had been caught up in the traffic? Or the rehearsal was running later than anticipated. Maybe he had stood Logan up. Or he’d gotten into a horrible car accident on the highway, resulting in fifteen dead and six wounded.

Reel it in. You’re turning into Virgil.

At that thought, Logan scoffed. He could never rile himself up as much as his livewire ex. Still, as his thoughts drifted back and forth between worrying about his new potential beau and anger towards his former flame, Logan couldn’t help himself in combining the two and worrying about Virgil. If Logan was taking the break up this hard, it was unlikely that Virgil was put together at all.

Now, now, Logan. Dr. Picani had said you shouldn’t decipher your past until you were ready and in a good location to do so. Maybe you are ready, but this certainly isn’t the stage, and this definitely isn’t the audience.

Speaking of theatrical metaphors, where the fuck was—

“Hello! Are you Logan?” speak of the devil.

Logan blinked, adjusting his glasses and sitting up slowly. “I, um. Yes,” he cleared his throat, a stern tone overtaking his voice as he was reminded that he’d been waiting for — he glanced at the clock on the wall — 23 minutes. “You must be Roman.”

His eyes trailed up and he had to mentally withhold from a verbal exclamation. Before him was, well, the most stunningly beautiful man he’d ever seen. Roman’s profile photos were true to life, hair swept lazily to the side, a dazzling playful smirk on his face as his slender fingers curled around the empty chair at Logan’s table. He was wearing a dark brown coat with a vibrant red scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, coat unbuttoned just enough to reveal a white and gold prince’s outfit beneath.

“Sorry I’m so late, rehearsal ran late and then the traffic was unbearable! I didn’t want to be too late, though, so I didn’t change out of my costume,” Roman slid into the empty seat, leaning forwards with his arms on the table, “It’s a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Specs.”

He reached a hand out to Logan’s, which he assumed was to shake. Roman had a fairly firm grip and his hand was warm, warmer than Logan’s surely. Once they let go, Roman leaned forward on both of his elbows, smiling cheekily.

“I know we disagreed on a lot regarding Disney, but you must admit I was right about one thing,” his voice had a purr in it, almost like a cat.

Roman’s tone didn’t change the fact that Logan was definitely not giving up ground on their Disney argument. “Oh?” he raised an eyebrow, picking up his mug slowly, “About what?”

“You do look handsome. As dashing a prince as I’ve ever seen.”

Logan straightened up, a bright red flush overtaking his face. Oh. He cleared his throat and reached down for his coffee. “High praise coming from the man actually dressed as a prince,” two could play the flirtation game.

“A Scottish nobleman, thank you very much!” However, it seemed that Roman was more well-versed. “First, though, I would love to know when your birthday is.”

Their conversation bounced around, from astrology to astronomy, to the possible colonization of Mars, to civilization, and Logan was honestly refreshed by how quickly Roman was able to keep up with him regarding depth of knowledge. They did seem to disagree on a lot, such as how accurate astrology charts were, though Logan was as willing to overlook Roman’s acute knowledge of astrology as Roman was to overlook the apparently blasphemous fact that Logan was a Capricorn.

An hour or two of conversation had passed before Roman swept his hand through his hair, laughing heartily at something Logan must have said. They were on the topic of plays, since Roman’s current role was Macduff in Macbeth for the fall Shakespeare festival, and Logan had made an offhand comment about washing the theater blood from Roman’s pristine white outfit. Really, Logan knew nothing about theater. He considered it “professional make believe,” though the nature of poetic verse did intrigue him enough to actually read a few Shakespeare plays.

“What’s so comedic?” Logan asked, hand tracing around the rim of his empty mug.

“Oh, well, you know. You mentioning blood reminded me of the searches that crossed our paths,” Roman’s hand ran back, cupping the back of his neck as he chuckled a little more, looking not at Logan but out the window to his left.

Logan had almost forgotten that that was what they were meeting over. His back straightened, sitting upright.

He knew exactly why he’d been searching about syringes, hydrogen peroxide, and blood. He was more interested to hear why Roman was. And while he wasn’t nervous in the slightest (had Roman been a threat, Logan would have no trouble in alerting the authorities), Roman grew more jittery at the topic.

“....It’s always a little difficult to explain, but, well. I always end up searching the weirdest of things,” Roman shot him a tiny, lips pulled tight smile, “Usually it’s for reference, as an author. I’m working on a murder mystery novel.”

Ah. Logan nodded. “That would explain the blood viscosity search,” he said.

“Mhm. And you hit the nail on the head with the white outfit, actually,” Roman grabbed his costume’s sleeve and rolled it over, showing Logan the back part of his right arm.

There were a multitude of tiny light brown dots, barely visible on the white fabric. Logan raised his eyebrows.

“The information’ll definitely come in handy regarding my book, but what happened here was that I was stitching on new trimmings and kept poking myself in the hand. Eventually, well….I’m not the best tailor and I had to figure out a way to clean the fabric. The searches before that were probably ‘how to get blood off of clothes’ and ‘what’s hydrogen peroxide,” Logan snorted at the second search, to which Roman grinned, “Hey! Not all of us are chemists.”

“Chemical engineer,” Roman rolled his eyes and, despite the small flare of annoyance at the fairly common mistake, Logan felt something warmer well up at the sight of his small smile. He wanted to see more. “And you added the trimmings yourself? I thought there was a costuming department or such.”

“No, well, this is actually one of my personal costumes. It’s from when I played Cinderella’s prince in a production of Into the Woods a few years ago. The director for that is the same director working with us for the Scottish play, and to cut costs he asked if I could reuse the costume. With a few modifications, of course,” Roman smoothed out his outfit once more, smiling lopsidedly at Logan now.

“Of course,” Logan felt himself smile back, fondly watching Roman fiddle with the costume. He wanted him to keep talking.... “And you mentioned a book, correct?”

A spark jumped through Roman’s eyes and his face lit up. He clasped his hands on the tabletop, leaning forward as he did so. “My book! I don’t, oh, I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s a murder mystery novel! I’m just working on the first draft and research right now but once it’s out, oh once it’s out!”

Logan didn’t want to press Roman for details but....a murder mystery novel? That was his one of his favorite genres. And, well. Was his life. “A murder mystery? I won’t ask you to spoil it, but I am excited to read it,” he pushed his glasses up, watching Roman’s face glow brighter.

“Oh, maybe I’ll tell you a little! There’s definitely romance involved, but the beautiful beau at the center of it all has no clue who to trust. Does he trust the dashing but stoic doctor, or the charmingly focused detective, or maybe the righteous journalist following him around? Oh, it’s the mystery of the century!” Roman laughed, excitement laced through his voice, and Logan found the laughter to be contagious. 

“I’m excited for it,” he reiterated, unsure of what else to say.

Roman nodded energetically, now sliding his coat off. Something about the motions must have reminded him of the other pressing question in his mind, though, because his grin faltered for a second. It was up as quick as it went, however, and Roman asked “But what on earth were you doing searching about blood?”

The moment of truth. But Logan had long since become an expert at explaining that part of his life. He didn’t even have to draw in a breath, he just let his own giddiness ride itself out before answering. “It’s quite boring, compared to your story. All three of the searches were about work. I’m running a study on blood clotting agents at my lab. While I was the one bulk buying hydrogen peroxide and syringes, for the study, one of my graduate students was doing background research on, well. Blood.”

There was a bead of pause. Logan wasn’t nervous, no, but he could hear his own blood pumping. A quickened pulse meant nervousness. But he wasn’t nervous.

Roman was still looking out the window. For someone exuberantly animated, Logan thought, Roman was being very quiet at these revelations. He had an eyebrow quirked up as he seemed to watch the outside world. Logan couldn’t help but worry that Roman didn’t believe his story, but what wasn’t there to believe? It wasn’t an entire falsehood, only a few omitted details and one large fabrication. Did Logan not look like he’d run studies on blood?

“See, Professor Plum, you say that’s boring, but that honestly sounds quite fascinating.”

Logan blinked and watched Roman’s mouth curve into a small smile. He faced back towards Logan with a wide, supportive grin. “Blood clotting agents? For what, medical purposes? That sounds groundbreaking.”

Well — “Such a thing already exists, though in fairly unstable forms,” Logan adjusted his glasses, “We’re just working on, ah, making a less costly version.”

“Less costly? Like, the ingredients?”

“Precisely.”

Logan didn’t miss how Roman’s eyes widened, how they seemed to sparkle. Was that wonder? He hadn’t pegged Roman as the type to be so excited over scientific discoveries. “That sounds amazing! Really impressive, Logan,” his voice had a sort of breathlessness, was Roman really that impressed?

He seemed to catch himself, though. Roman leaned back and crossed his legs, the same Cheshire grin he’d been wearing all night returning to his face. “So you’re beautiful and a genius,” he hummed, voice as warm as his hands had been.

Logan couldn’t help but let out a breath as the rest of his face turned red at the praise. “I, well….thank you,” he also couldn’t help the little smile that grew on his face.

It fell in a second, though, when he realized Roman hadn’t disclosed all of his search reasons. “Wait. Why were you searching for syringes?”

And now it was Roman’s turn to turn red. A small laugh escaped his lips and his fingers drummed against his upper lip, a habit that did not escape Logan’s notice. “Well, it’s a long story. The summary is that I was trying to do that thing with flowers and food coloring, you know? I, ah….was trying to make a bouquet, and I needed a lot of syringes.”

Flowers and food coloring? “Can you elaborate? What do you mean, flowers and food coloring?”

Roman waved his hand now, a little dismissively. “Oh, t’was a bold dream. I’m not as good with precise measurements and such as you seem to be. There’s this thing you can do where, if you split the stem of a white rose, you can soak it in dyed water to change the color? You typically split up the stem and leave the different parts to soak in glasses with different colored water in them. I was trying to make a bouquet of rainbow flowers but, well….after a few days, it was clear that something had gone wrong. And after a week, I gave up on it.”

“You….you needed syringes. For that?”

Logan couldn’t help the incredulity that filled his tone. Roman gave him a tiny glare, shoulders hiking up — the way his brow furrowed, despite the evident frustration, was adorable. Logan didn’t expect this to be going so well, to be falling so hard for this dumbass, but it seemed he was still capable of being surprised. Roman…..wasn’t continuing, though. He just raised an eyebrow at Logan, face still stiff in a frown.

Was there some social cue Logan was missing? Was he supposed to know how to color roses? He shrugged. Surely he couldn’t expect that “I have never attempted to color roses, thus I am unaware.”

Roman kept watching him with a guarded expression, arms crossed around himself. Logan must have stepped out of line in some way. He had half a mind to apologize when Roman finally lowered his shoulders and cleared his throat. “No, no, you’re right. It….technically it wasn’t necessary.”

He’d bounced back fast. “But it was oh so fun. Almost like my own little experiment,” Roman smiled at him, “I like it when things are just perfect.”

“Of course, completely understandable,” Logan elected to not acknowledge Roman’s moment, “Did the roses turn out….okay?”

“They did! They were for Pride, of course, and they were beautiful!” Roman laughed.

And so they continued. Pride, homosexuality in the media, Star Wars movie theories, Star Wars versus Star Trek. Debates, bickering, insults with no bite behind them. It felt….

It felt like Logan was falling from a tall building. He’d never clicked so well with someone. And he certainly lost track of time.

“‘Scuse me, babes, but we’re closing!” Logan and Roman both turned towards the cafe’s desk, where the barista who had served the both of them was waving, “I’m gonna have to ask ya to leave!”

Logan checked his watch. Had they really talked for three hours? That must mean the planetarium was closed, too.

“Damn, well. We missed the planetarium,” Roman put his phone down and let out a breath, “I can’t say I’m too upset! It would have been lovely, of course, but I got to spend the night with an even more delightful star.”

He held out his phone towards Logan, whose ears were turning red with embarrassment. “I guess we’ll have to do this again sometime,” his voice was soft as Logan’s hand brushed over his to take the phone.

Logan felt himself smile downwards as he typed his information into Roman’s phone. “I would like that very much, Roman. Your company has been most enjoyable.”

“You, too, Spock.”

#logan #roman #roman sanders #ts roman #logan sanders #ts logan #logince #thomas sanders #sander sides #fic #my fic #tw blood #tw murder #other warnings are above !!! #virgil #ts virgil #virgil sanders #i mean i mention him #patton's not in this chapter #but there's a gentle bit of foreshadowing lmao #is this a chapter am i really making this a series?

[nattsunoyume]

You gave wrong advice saying you're a linguist. That pisses me off. Yes it would look weird to have Shakespearean english followed by "said X in broken German". But you either write in the foreign language or translate it. And when you translate it you don't dumb it down or make mistakes. To make it realistic one has to add pauses, hesitation and maybe stopping halfway to ask for help with a word. Incorrect uses of languages happen in the narration NEVER in conversations.

And yeah I do code-mixing. But it's not, and I quote "INCREDIBLY common between multilinguals; I cannot stress this enough. [...] And you mean to tell me he doesn’t struggle with using ONLY English to express himself?" YES. I mean to tell you that. Or do you struggle to speak only Italian without accidentally code-mixing Japanese? They're very different languages and he used them in different contexts, he most likely knows how to separate them. P.S: I assumed you were american due trying to teach people things you didn't quite know yourself, with enough bravado and confidence to paint it as a black and white issue, and using a proper example to demonstrate your wrong theories. CP does it well because it doesn't do what you're saying should be done. It's not a compliment on your English sorry. Though it's great like I assume the rest of your languages are! Just not your linguistic/writing skills.

But I am a linguist? Once again, I’m majoring in linguistic and cultural mediation - I took classes on exactly what I’m talking about? And I can see your point, but  I believe the exact opposite (and that’s okay!): narration (especially from a third person point of view) has to be clear and accessible. Dialogue is the expression of how the character behaves and speaks, it’s one of the most “customizable” things in a character’s portrayal. And once again, I’m not saying the dialogues should be completely broken or even (GOD FORBID) mimic the language they’re supposed to be speaking. Just to alter the “difficulty level” according to the character’s portrayed skill. What bothered me in aftg is that dialogues sounded exactly the same and the “X said in X language” was constantly slapped afterwards as a passe-partout.

I’m sorry if I generalized regarding to code-mixing but yes, I do, sometimes, struggle to speak only Italian without code-mixing with other languages especially if I’ve spent a good amount of time immersed in those other said languages and there’s studies showcasing how that’s a possibility (especially focusing on the Speaker’s state, e.g. tiredness, fatigue are factors in this happening). I’m glad you rarely experience it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a rare occurrence? 

Finally, I once again apologize if my post, where I was simply attempting to give advice based on my knowledge and experiences, came off as over-imposing and conceited. That’s not what it was meant for. I wasn’t “presenting a theory” or anything of that sorts, it’s really not that deep. Except, you’re the one that engaged in this conversation with an amount of bravado and confidence to completely dismiss everything I said. Without even attempting to acknowledge that maybe, instead of being completely wrong on my assessment just because it doesn’t line up with yours, we might simply have two different takes on a very complicated topic (in which I never ever stated was simple or black or white. But it seems that that’s what you’re implying by completely dismissing what I said as wrong and a fraud). My example regarding CP was simply a input for people that might not know how to approach more nuanced hints of multilingualism in their writing: how to address LSPs in your narration without it seeming off. Nothing more and nothing less than that. 

Oh, and I’m very aware that my english level is not the reason why you called me an american, I was just making a joke.

[un-tide]

Rupi Kaur Taught Me DIY

(TW for mentions of sexual assault.)

Last year, I wrote a short essay on why I hate Rupi Kaur. Not just why I hate her work, but why I hate her as a writer. Maybe even as a person. I had never (and still haven’t) met this woman, which should have been my first clue that there was something underlying these emotions that probably wasn’t fair to her. But I was comfortable in my hate, even more so when I could articulate everything that was wrong with her in a way that was logical and academic and had nothing to do with me—so much so that I was unable to see that my disdain for this woman did, in fact, have almost everything to do with me.

Growing up as a young girl whose first love was books, I found myself torn between worlds. On my top shelf, I kept some of my favorite series—Percy Jackson, Pendragon, Artemis Fowl. These were books my parents approved of, holding imaginative, fantastical worlds and morals of bravery and friendship. Under my bed were my other favorites—the ones my parents didn’t approve of—The Clique and The Princess Diaries. These kinds of stories were adventurous in a way that was relatable to me, with the struggles of teenage friendship and the perils of mean girls, but they did skip over many of the lessons I got from my more “gender-neutral” books, and they did not have fantastical or imaginative worlds unless they came with a borderline-abusive romance.

Early on, I learned another kind of lesson: as a woman, I will constantly have to choose between books that tell stories that are inspiring and creative, and books that tell stories about people like me.  

When I first heard about a young, South Asian, feminist, second-generation immigrant woman who wrote openly about her identity and her story, it was if my childhood prayers had been answered. It seemed too good to be true—I am also a young, South Asian, feminist, second-generation immigrant woman. If I was ever going to find a poet I could relate to, Rupi Kaur was it. Finally, there was poetry being written by people like me for people like me, and I didn’t have to choose between quality and relatability anymore. Imagine, then, how it felt to open up one of her most famous books and read this: “how is it so easy for you/ to be kind to people he asked / milk and honey dripped from my lips as i answered / cause people have not /been kind to me.”

I was dumbfounded. Surely I had picked up the wrong book. This was a book of 2014’s 25 saddest tweets, and the #1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey was somewhere else. Where was the symbolism? The wordplay? The rhyme or meter? Even the line breaks had no apparent significance. And above those basic elements of poetry—where was the deeper meaning? It’s a sad conversation, but one that, rather than sitting in a book of supposed poetry, would fit better on a teenager’s Tumblr post, or somewhere else you could read it very quickly, frown a little, and move on. And I did just that.

I returned the book to the stack of fifty just like it, and from Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey I re-learned that same lesson I learned as a child: good books do not tell your story. Move on.

I won’t pretend that my knowledge of poetry comes from more a few college classes, but if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that understanding a poem takes time. Poems hold secrets—alternate meanings and obscure allusions—that you can only discover when you read them again and again. Their meanings can be argued and refuted using symbols and allusions to books written one-hundred years earlier and a comma placed here instead of there. Sure, over-embellished poetry sometimes does hide more than it reveals, especially to the young or less educated reader, but Rupi Kaur’s work strips an idea of all layers beneath its surface.

Some call Kaur’s style accessible, but I call bullshit. Accessibility is about delivering complex concepts while breaking the barriers that typically surround them, whether those barriers be based on education, class, gender, sexuality, or race. Tossing a sad thought you had in the shower to a young audience does not break barriers to feminist or survivor literature of any kind.

On a personal level, I do hold some empathy for Kaur. Her poems attempt to address difficult topics like heartbreak and abuse, and I imagine she has been through some trauma that many women are familiar with, myself included. The meaning of the poem I read in the bookstore was not lost on me: sometimes people are kind because they are already acquainted with cruelty. But simply stating something true or shocking does not make it well-crafted, and it certainly does not make it poetry. Much of Kaur’s success comes from stating the obvious in the most plain way possible, taking a complicated idea and hollowing it out into a pretty painted shell.

To put it simply, Kaur’s work is shallow. It seems to lack effort as much as it does depth, and despite her education, it displays little mastery of imagery or symbolism or poetic style. It is less poetry than it is bite-size food-for-thought possibly conceived in a trendy hipster cafe and posted on Instagram as the caption for an aesthetically pleasing but disappointingly grimace-inducing over-sweet cup of milk and honey. Kaur touches the surface of ideas before shying away like a cat from water, and in doing so fails to teach her audience of young women and girls—many of whom might have fallen in love with poetry had they not been alienated by mainstream misogynistic and white-centric classics—how to analyze and write complex ideas that are pivotal to their recovery, their self-esteem, and their survival.

If my school had taught more female-friendly literature when I was in high school, I wouldn’t have begun to hate reading. The books we read that actually included women were traumatic at worst and voyeuristic at best, and my teachers seemed oblivious, perhaps simply starstruck by the stubbornly unwavering fame and brilliance of the classics. Nevermind that 1984 featured a protagonist with a burning desire to rape the book’s only notable female character. Nevermind that the sexual liberalism in Brave New World had my elderly, white, male substitute teaching us that the World State was—despite its female citizens’ complete lack of reproductive autonomy and a suspicious absence of female Alphas—a feminist society. Nevermind that The Handmaid’s Tale, despite actually being a feminist novel, depicts a misogynistic hellscape a little too realistic for comfort. 

The older I grew, the more it seemed that very few of the classics were written with women in mind, and almost none of them seemed to be written for women’s benefit, education, or—god forbid—enjoyment.

Disappointed by the classics, I returned to popular fiction as a teenager, desperate for a story with a protagonist I could relate to, or at the very least did not want to strangle every time they opened their mouth. At my local flea market, which I frequented every first Saturday of the month, I had come across a well-stocked used-book stall. While making my way through The Princess Diaries series dollar by dollar, I stumbled upon a book that I can only imagine was placed in flea market stall that day by the Devil himself just so he could have a laugh: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I won’t give away any spoilers, but I’ll give you one guess what happens halfway through. I am not ashamed to say I stopped reading anything other than The Princess Diaries for some time.

I wish I could say my high school experience was unique. There is a profound need for contemporary literature and poetry that not only does not alienate women, but caters to us specifically. We deserve to read books that do not hurt us more than we already are hurting, that address our trauma but don’t weaponize it against us. We deserve to witness other women powerfully and passionately explore and understand our shared experiences and shared pain. We deserve to learn how to explore these ideas for ourselves. The feminist subjects of Rupi Kaur’s poetry deserve nuance, because the more precisely we are able to articulate our experiences and ideas and traumas, the more understood they—and we—become. Much like I was as a young child, the girls devouring Rupi Kaur’s work are still scrambling for crumbs. She had the opportunity to feed a generation of girls starved for poetry free of white men’s hunger, and she didn’t.

Kaur, at first, seemed to me to be nothing new in a world of successful yet seemingly talentless women who continuously fail and profit off of the next generation of starving girls (the Kardashian-Jenner clan comes to mind). But only on my own journey to becoming a writer did I come to understand that Rupi Kaur might be different, that she might actually be trying very hard--that she might be hiding something. As a reader, I never understood that a fact that I am painfully aware of now: writing makes you vulnerable. The more I wrote, the more I began to realize that what I perceived as lack of depth was, perhaps, a terribly relatable inability to be open.

It’s what I hate the most about writing—displaying yourself to the world when your childhood scrapes are still scabbing over and everyone is certain to see under your skin. I’ve never been good at being vulnerable, which makes me a reluctant writer on a good day and a liar on the rest. People do weird things when they’re afraid, like write mediocre poetry or channel all their anger at the world towards someone they’ve never met. I could not do, or at least have not yet done, what I ask of Rupi Kaur. What would I tell her, I imagine, if I ever met her? I could deflect: “Hey Rupi, your poetry about your suffering needs some work.” Or I could be honest: “Please, Rupi, tell my story for me.”

Because isn’t that what I always wanted: a story just like mine, read to me like a mother would read to her child at bedtime, a story about people like me that teaches me I’m not alone. I had waited for representation so long that when it finally arrived, it felt like a betrayal when it fell so far short. I don’t hate Rupi Kaur because her work is bad—I hate her because her work is bad and there are almost no other options. I hate her because she is my generation’s standard for how to write stories like hers and mine, and it does not do them justice. I hate her because I wanted her to do what I didn’t yet have the courage to do myself.

Maybe I’m projecting; maybe Rupi Kaur is exactly as shallow as her poetry suggests and no amount of openness will make it better. It doesn’t change that I expected someone else to be the writer of my story simply because we have a lot in common. I wasn’t fair to Rupi Kaur when I wrote my 300-word-long-rant about theintolerable injusticeshe was inflicting on young women and girls—which I posted, and I’m aware of the irony, on Tumblr and Instagram. I placed the burden of my vulnerability on her shoulders.

I stand by my criticisms of Rupi Kaur, but I also owe her some gratitude, because she taught me another lesson: I can’t rely on other people to tell my story, or stories about people like me. I can’t rely on other people to fill a void in literature or poetry or to fix any other problem I insist needs solving.

If you want something done right, or even done at all, sometimes you just have to do it yourself, even if—especially if—that means opening up about experiences you’d rather keep hidden. If Rupi Kaur is any indication, the bar for young women’s contemporary poetry and literature is evidently on the floor, which, on the bright side, means that any woman who has the courage to openly, honestly, and vulnerably tell her own story—even if she gets ripped to shreds by mean girls like me—will still be doing all of us a favor.

#disclaimer i wrote half of a draft on the train to school and then the final draft the night before it was due #so its not exactly mm.. polished #mine #words #mine words...

[musesofconstantchange]

We Have To Talk About Batman

So, I just read The Batman Who Laughs #3 and Detective Comics #998, and I can’t hold it in anymore. We need to talk about how Batman is the worst character in comics right now. 

For those unaware, the previous holder of this title was Deadpool, but previous luminaries include Cyclops, Wolverine, Hal Jordan, and many others. Rather than talk about all of them, let’s focus on Deadpool and why he held it, and you’ll likely grasp why the others did as well. 

First, Deadpool at his best is a humorous, witty character who swaps between moments of humor with striking, honest takes on serious topics. He is both comic relief and the character that points out the moral incongruities in the protagonist’s actions. As a protagonist, he is well suited to commentary on many things, because of his nature as an outsider sort of character. At his worst, he’s the signal to the reader that nothing that follows his appearance matters, because his existence is akin to throwing the stakes out the window. At his worst, he’s the character that derails anything resembling tonal consistency, and at his worst, he’s the character to whom all others are sacrificed in order to keep him from coming off as a psychotic madman that ruins everything. At his worst, he’s the character that all others must prostrate themselves before, no matter what he’s done, because to accept that this character is flawed is to call into question the writer’s ability to actually write a nuanced character, and we can’t have that. 

You can probably tell already how all of the other mentioned characters have fallen into this trap whenever they become extremely popular, as writers with more interest in being attached to a hot property than writing good stories use them. So it was when Wolverine was the hottest character in comics, so it was when Hal Jordan was the next hot shit, so it now is with Batman. 

Of course, the problem with Batman is that Batman is a character whose main flaws have been around so long that they are now parody; everyone jokes about the ‘i’m the goddamn batman’ line, and laughs at the ‘who wins in a fight, x or batman with prep time’ joke, but these hide the fact that the character of Batman himself has become the biggest mary sue in comics today. His entire character has been so flanderized, so utterly lost inside the infinite layers of parody and lack of self awareness, that all joy has been lost from the character. 

Let us be honest here: the core idea of Batman is not the problem. There is a reason that there are so many Batman cartoons, and it is in no small part because Batman as a character is an almost universal one. A child suffers a great tragedy and uses that as the moment where he begins his heroic journey towards making things better. This is neither dumb nor uninteresting. 

The problem is that writers of batman have, for a very long time, been very uncomfortable with the idea of who Batman is. Batman at his best is a detective, a man of science and reason and restraint, a man who resists his darker urges in comparison to the obsessives that make up his rogue’s gallery. He is a mortal man, a flawed man, but he is always a man, in that he is human and not a god. It is why he is a member of the “trinity” and the Justice League, because he is the mortal element. He is the perspective of the common man compared to the near godlike beings ( Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter ) and cosmic focused heroes ( Green Lantern, Hawkgirl ) that he is surrounded by. He is the one that can say ‘look, you all mean well, but remember how you look to the normal guy.’ 

But this Batman is not popular with writers. Indeed, ever since The Dark Knight Returns, the version of Batman that has become the most common is the paranoid, near psychopathic, almost godlike messiah figure who is always right, who is never wrong for taking immoral actions, whose character all others are sacrificed to in order to ensure we all know how great he is. This Batman isn’t a mere man who uses his inherited wealth and sense of right and wrong to try and make the world a better place. This Batman is someone who is the best at everything, who constantly treats friends, allies, and family members as disposable or hindrances, who sees nothing wrong with spending his time planning on how best to kill all his friends and family, and who must constantly be shown to be smarter and better than all around him. 

This Batman is a super rich mega genius who has been trained by all the world’s best people, who can never be physically defeated by anyone or mentally outwitted by them. This is Batman, invincible ninja playboy billionaire genius. 

It has always been rather egregious on some level, but as time has gone by, successive writers have only deepened the problem, incrementally moving further and further towards the complete mary sue he is today. The fact that Batman needs a giant robot suit, the fact that Batman could put together such a thing somehow despite it requiring genius level knowledge in robotics and electrical and mechanical engineering, speaks to the levels of broken the character is. When movies are made where the concept of Batman vs. Superman is created to justify the existence and need for a giant robot suit so that Batman, a mortal man, can fight godlike beings, you are fundamentally failing to grasp the character and what that character is supposed to be. 

Example, from the recent and aforementioned Detective Comics #998: 

Ah yes, because you know what Batman needed? A giant robot suit that was put together by the Justice League with all their powers because he wasn’t awesome enough. Also, that ‘weakness’ that’s described? That’s not a weakness, which we the reader find out about it when he literally pushes it to the extreme and he’s completely fine from doing so. 

But I can understand how this might come off as just me being mad that Batman has his own Iron Man suit. It’s not. The suit itself is not the issue. It’s what the suit represents that is. Because the whole reason that this exists in this is because Batman can’t stop going to people who trained him, which is basically half the known DC universe. It’s not just that he studied under Wildcat, best fighter alive, and Zatara, best escape artist alive, and Jason Blood, best fear creator alive, and Dr. Stone, one of the greatest inventors in the DC universe. The list goes on. Batman has a staggering amount of former tutors, who apparently imparted upon him near infinite knowledge of all things. 

And it’s not just this near omniscient knowledge of everything either. He’s also physically better than everyone. He’s a master martial artist of a dozen styles who also knows every weapon style known to man. Oh, and apparently he’s also one of the best marksman on earth. From this week’s The Batman Who Laughs #3: 

Because that’s what Batman needed, more skills! 

And make no mistake, all of this makes Batman extremely boring, which is not something Batman should be. A lot of this can be chalked up to writers literally having no idea how to write a challenge for him anymore. At first, the plan was simply to make all of Batman’s villains overwhelmingly overpowered as well. This is why the Joker is somehow also a super ninja genius of everything who can conjure impossible chemicals and defeat the entire legion of doom on his own because he’s just so powerful and smart and crazy! It’s why most of Batman’s villains don’t even really fight Batman any more, it’s usually Batman fighting himself. As we saw in Kings of Fear, the entire series is nothing but Batman in his own head, the Scarecrow didn’t actually do anything. 

Speaking of Batman fighting himself, let’s talk about Batman: Metal. 

Look, I love me some multi-verse. I love Elseworlds. I think one of the greatest tragedies in comics was the decline of the multiverse concept in comics. But Batman: Metal goes from being about the return of the multiverse to being the latest in a long line of resignations that the only person who can compete with Batman is... Batman himself. 

All the villains are various versions of Batman who, you guessed it, killed all the other members of the Justice League. Now, if you were a crafty, or moderately smart writer, you might realize that having a universe where all your nightmares are real means that this is a great way to show how wrong your character is! After all, it’s made of their beliefs in what things are, not what they actually are, which is why Batman’s idea of him becoming Green Lantern involves him using a hard light ring to make darkness and the like. 

What this should do, is provide the writer with some ability to show how Batman isn’t a one-man show. That when Batman’s idea of what makes those other heroes strong runs up against the real thing, his ideas lose. But no, Batman wins, because Batman always wins, because heaven forbid Batman be wrong about other people. Apparently, Hal Jordan being the greatest Green Lantern means nothing compared to Batmans complete and utter bastardization of the concept of the ring, just as Wonder Woman being a near immortal godlike warrior who’s trained for centuries means nothing compared to Batman in what he thinks is the helmet of Ares. And it’s the same as Batman also clearly being better than the greatest Flash that ever lived because apparently Batman also has complete knowledge of the speed force now. 

But almost all of what I’ve talked about could be reasoned away or excused if the moral center of Batman’s character wasn’t utterly corrupt. Consider this mentality for why Batman has contingencies and plans for every possible outcome, and why he plans for the possibility wherein he’ll need to kill all his supposed friends. The world is a dangerous place, and those people have powers, and you never know what might happen that might cause them to go over the edge. We don’t know what might cause Superman to go rogue and kill everyone. Or what might cause Wonder Woman to destroy the world of man. Or what might cause Aquaman to flood the world in the name of Atlantis! All it could take is one bad day! 

Is that possibly true? Sure. But that’s not the mentality of Batman, that’s the mentality of the Joker. Joker is the one who believes that everyone is just one bad day from turning into a psychotic monster, who believes civility and decency are facades that people use to hide the fact that deep inside we’re all animals and monsters who will eat each other given half a chance. He’s the one who believes that people are all naturally bad, that people aren’t really decent, that anyone can be made into a monster and will give up their morality at the first opportunity. That’s the entire concept of his character and why he opposes Batman. It’s also why Batman opposes him. 

Because Batman at his core is not meant to be an agent of vengeance. He’s not the Spectre. He’s not the Punisher. Batman is supposed to be someone who believes that people are ultimately good, that people are not all one step away from committing atrocities and war crimes, that people are, by virtue of their humanity, good people at heart. Not everyone is good, but people aren’t all monsters inside, and the reason Batman needs to exist is because someone has to stand up for the fact that there are still good people in the world. 

If Batman doesn’t believe that people are good, if Batman believes that everyone is one step away from committing mass murder, then Batman is no different then the Joker. When Batman does things like make spy satellites to gather information on other hero’s weaknesses and bugs the rooms of his supposed family members, he’s not just not being Batman, he’s behaving exactly counter to the very values that Batman should be representing. 

If Batman cannot trust his allies on the Justice League to be good people, then how is he any different from Amanda Waller? If Batman cannot trust his ‘family’ to the point where he feels the need to bug their homes and spy on them, why exactly did he train them? If Batman cannot believe that there is any real good in the world, then why exactly is he Batman? 

Hopefully I’ve demonstrated that the problem with Batman as a character is more than skin deep. The issue of him being an overpowered superhuman being are problematic. The issue of him being a near psychopathic figure whose mental state reads like an episode of Making a Murderer is problematic. The issue of him being completely unmoored from any sort of heroic morality is problematic. 

Taken together, the character represents the worst of mary sue writing. He is a character who routinely commits morally and ethically objectionable actions and suffers no fallout for them; he is a character that all others are constantly made to seem inferior towards; he is a character whose very nature and concept must constantly be revised and changed because the writers cannot bear to let the character whose defining trait is his humanity actually be human. 

He is a character whose jokes have become the reality; where the exaggerations are now the baseline. Batman now is little more than a patchwork of skills and gadgets, of psychosis and grimdark man pain. It would be comedic, perhaps, if Frank Millers All Star Batman and Robin, from which the iconic ‘i’m the goddamn batman’ arises, was some kind of outlier. Yet for all the jokes and derision that comic gets, and rightly so, very little distinguishes it from the mainstream depiction of Batman in comics more generally. The flanderization of Batman is complete, and this is why Batman is now the worst character in comics. 

#ooc #tw rant #rant tw

[theratbastards]

Hello! Do you have any tips for finding a good rat breeder, in terms of how social the rats are with humans and life expectancy, so on so forth?

Hello,

Finding a good breeder can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, but is always very rewarding in the end. Nowadays, 99% of breeders will have some form of social media or website, so we’ll look at this as a starting point.Google is so advanced these days that simply typing ‘near me’ at the end of a search term will drag up any relevant websites within a certain radius. That said, there are search terms we want to look at. When searching, we’ll use the words ‘pet rat’, as apposed to ‘rat breeder’. Without the pet attached to it, you’re most likely going to find lab, or feeder rat breeders, and these are something you want to seriously avoid. In looking for a pet, their temperament and affection will be based solely on how much time the breeder spends handling them and acclimating them to human hands. That said, kits will always be a bit skittish when being pulled out of a cage, after all, they are very small and a giant hand coming out of the sky and dragging them out of their home would startle anything. So instead you’re looking for how they react when they’re out. Rat kits have got sugar for blood, mate, and they will be constantly moving, pinging about and trying to sniff and look at everything. If they are alright with being touched in this environment without biting or visibly frightened flinching, then this is a good example of hand accustomed rats.

With regards to life expectancy, unfortunately, rats don’t have the best. A good breeder will provide you with a good bloodline, always. They will avoid incestuous pairings (which unfortunately, pet shops do not guarantee), and will only breed those with the best temperaments. I’ve had hour long chats with our breeder in regards to her choices, and she would not shy away from telling me every little detail in her decision-making, and that is 1000% what you’re looking for. Your breeder will tell you if any are sick or if there’s a possibility that any have mites of bumble-foot, and they should not shy away from showing you these animals if you ask to see them. Because a rat’s lifespan is so short (2 - 3 years, with 2 - 2 1/2 being the norm), their longevity is impacted by their quality of life and the effort that you put in to them, though feeder rats will always have shorter lifespans. Spend some time on google and find the best balanced biscuits you can find. Do not give them dried corn, or seed mixes, as this is akin to feeding them McDonalds, and you will wind up with fat rats, which will impact their health. Treats are well and good, and can be amazing for getting kits accustomed to you and to understanding good things come from you, but they need to be treated as junk food (fresh fruits and veggies are very good alternatives, with a 2/3 lean towards dark green vegetables). And because I’ve rambled a little here, we’ll bring it back around to the breeder, and ask to see what food they’ve been eating.

So I’ll shorten up now, because I could write on this topic for years, and just give you the run down on what you should be looking for in regards to knowing a good breeder when you see one.

Do they sell feeder rats?If they’re selling feeder rats, this is a for-proffit rattery, and not your friend. They will not be concerned with the health of their animals, their longevity, or their temperament, and you will be buying a virtually feral animal that might live for a little over a year.

 What type of food does the breeder give them?As I stated above, your rat’s diet is very important. Oxbow has some wonderful biscuit mixes that my old rats went mental for. If the breeder is giving their rat solely seed mixes, hamster food, or even god forbid bird seed mix, this is not someone who knows anything about rats, or cares enough to shell out to feed them properly, and should be avoided.

Will the breeder admit to sick or injured animals, and show them to you?Look, if a breeder has about 100 rats in their house, chances are, at least one of them is going to have some sort of issue. Again, as above, our breeder told us outright that one of her cages had contracted mites, and that she was working on bathing them all out of it. If the answer to this question is a very quick ‘No’, then chances are there’s something up.

Do they have any medical records?For the kits, most likely not, but for the breeding rats, there absolutely should be. Anyone who works with any sort of equipment or animals should always have records to show that they are in working operation/healthy. Logan and I bring our boys to the vets a couple of times a year, your breeder should be doing this as well.

 What type of cages are they using?Your rat’s housing is very important! There should be separate cages for both males and females, and none of these should contain wire floors or ramps, as these can play havoc on a rat’s limbs. Google ‘Bumble foot’ if you don’t believe me.Pregnant females should have their own maternity cages, and these should be open to air flow as well, so if your breeder is keeping mamma in a plastic fish tank or a small plastic hamster tank, this is not someone who cares about their rats. A good breeder will put money into their practice. Likewise, babies should be kept in suitable housing, should have proper airflow, enrichment and bedding.

Bedding?What kind of bedding are they using? If they’re using any kind of wood chips at all instead of paper or rodent safe recycled litter, then this is not someone you want to buy from. Wood shavings are cheap, easy to acquire, and can be extremely poisonous to your rats. Your breeder will ideally be using carefresh, fleece liners, recycled paper shavings, or rodent safe litter. Anything that produces dust is also not good for their health, and may have seriously impacted their lungs already by the time you get them. If your rat kit is sneezing when you go to pick them up, this is not a healthy pet. Respiratory diseases are the most common killer of rats, and they are so easy for them to get. :(

How knowledgeable is the breeder?Ask simple questions, some of which are wrong, and see how the breeder responds. Ask if you can keep them on wood chips, if the answer is yes, run away. Your breeder should be knowledgeable about their practice, this is imperative.

 Look for reviews!A good breeder does not shy away from reviews, and should have a Facebook page or a website displaying these. You should see pictures of happy rats with equally happy owners. Likewise, a good comment page can be an amazing place to get information if you have any questions or concerns.

Porphyrin?Upon first meeting your kits they should be bright eyed and bouncy, like a five year old who just ate an entire ice cream cake and was then set loose in an amusement park. If they’ve got porphyrin (a red, almost blood-like ooze) coming out of their nose or eyes, this animal is stressed or sick, and their condition should immediately be questioned.

Profit?As any rat owner can tell you, keeping rats is expensive. I don’t know a single breeder who turns a profit on their hobby, so if the breeder is more interested in your money than talking to you about your new pets, then this is someone who doesn’t give a damn about their animals. If anything, the rats they sell might just make a dent in what they spend on food and enrichment for their charges, and probably not a whole lot else.

To close this off, I will say that finding a good breeder can be difficult, as it all depends where you live. Luckily, Logan and I live near London, England, so we had a plethora of breeders to choose from, but we still chose the one a 2 and a half hour drive away. Why? Because she ticked all the boxes above and then some. Rats are such good, joyful little pets that finding the perfect breeder can bring you years of happiness.

I hope this helps, if you’ve any other questions, get back in touch with me. :)

#rats #rat blog #rat answers #ratblr #rat blogging #rat care #geoffacakes

[taddle]

Wally/Bendy Theory Analyzed

Okay, in the very not popular opinion of Wally being Bendy, I offer my two cents: its possible and I'm okay with. 

About the Ink Demon

 First off, what do we really know about the Ink Demon? NOT MUCH! But I'll try to outline some important points:

 1. We know he has a thing for Henry, chasing after him every chance he gets.

2. He has a very specific disability in his legs. Wouldn't have been much to note, though after the remaster and model change, its a bit more evident.

3. He is a tier above the creatures and characters that exist in his world due to his ink powers. He can exert an influence that is palpable to everything around him, in some cases even damaging/destroying them (The Butcher Gang copies and "Alice" for instance).

 Point one is hard to discuss, since "Bendy" has no lines and no specific goal which we the players can discern, only from "Alice"s dialog that he WILL go after you if he finds you, pointing out that its not just specifically Henry that should fear him. Therefore, we cannot tell with what intent "Bendy" has when he does chase us.

 Point two is only a subject of discussion due to the 'wheelchair vision' that we get at the end of Chapter one. The three (Wheelchair, Ink Machine, and "Bendy") are obviously tied together somehow, yet until now we don't actually have any clue to whom the wheelchair could have belonged to, only that whoever had need of it could have possibly been transformed into "Bendy" by the Ink Machine somehow, in the same way how a lot of the more prominent creatures apparently are former employees ("Alice"/Susie basically outlining it with her knowledge about the studio and the people in it). Also a necessity to point out is how difficult a disabled person would have navigating a studio that wasn't exactly built to be very disability-friendly (and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd assume the 1930s is still in the time where a lot of prejudices still exist, especially for people who are seen as disabled, making it very hard to believe that Joey Drew would be hiring any of the sort UNLESS he was that incredibly cheap and would have done so to get out of properly compensating them).

 Point three...have to question why. Why would "Bendy" have these powers? What is his purpose roaming the halls terrorizing everything in sight and, more recently, collecting the bodies of creatures? It would make sense to think, in the context of being Joey Drew, to be his superpowered inksona and his brazenly going around with everyone fearing him, though it doesn't make sense that he would be chasing Henry around after going through the trouble of inviting him back here with the purpose of killing him...assuming killing him is what happens. Moreover, it REALLY doesn't make sense that for someone who takes the position of mastermind of the whole operation, from the construction of the Ink Machine, to the entire facility, to his influence encompassing a number of manufactured products (and a theme park to boot)...to be relegated to some misshapen monster, forever damned to wander the halls of a rotten studio. Being able to live eternal with cool powers to boot, yes...but is that really all he wanted, IF he could have done so much more?

 About the Death Sequences

 Let's take a clue on a non-canonical end that happens every time you're 'killed'- the remastered chapter 4, as confirmed by Mike and Meatly, is the final version of how they've always wanted the game to turn out. Therefore, the 'death sequence' that was recently added is assumed to always have been what was intended to happen. You find yourself in a tunnel of ink with a light at the end, ominous whispering surrounding you as you climb your way out.

 The implications of this sequence is you essentially experiencing what "Alice" explains to you in Chapter 3- about living in the dark puddles, which are 'a buzzing, screaming well of voices' with 'bits of your mind swimming like fish in a bowl'. People have taken the audio from this odd sequence and have found out to be distorted versions of almost every piece of dialog from Henry in Chapter one, reversed (bits of your mind). Let's combine this with what else we know about it from "Alice"s experience - that it is possible to be 'born' from them...and more than once. Of course, you can't be 'born again' if you were already born once- as in, she had to have relinquished her first form somehow in order to have taken the form she currently appears as. Applying all of this to what Henry experiences, this is meaning that every time he 'dies', he is being reborn from the ink. This ties in with what MatPat says about the 'cycle of reincarnation' that exists in the studio- nothing there can ever truly 'die', simply having its consciousness 'reprocessed' by the Ink Machine to exist again in one form or another (another way of seeing it is you climbing through the pipes towards the spout of the Ink Machine to be spat out again).

 This can explain the views of The Cult/ Sammy's belief in Bendy being the savior and his intense desire of 'being set free' from 'the dark inky abyss he calls a body'. If 30 years worth of living a non-existence in a rotting studio isn't enough to compel a man to desire death, wouldn't had he have jumped on that option when the opportunity presents itself...unless it was never an option to begin with (further pointed out by one of the Lost Ones repeatedly trying to brain itself in a room you find exploring the vent in Chapter 4). And we can all conclude Mr. Joey 'with enough belief, you can even cheat death itself!' Drew was responsible for this odd quirk everyone is apparently condemned to.

 So with that knowledge, to what end does "Bendy" have to chase and kill everything that moves, knowing that it would do little more than delay the inevitable of them returning again anyways?

 About Wally Franks

 So let's consider what we do know about Wally Franks. From what we glean from his audio logs, he appears to be a janitor of some sort, responsible for cleaning up the studio. Of course, the term 'janitor' implies that Wally was no one important, and the general consensus was to relegate him as the funny side character that just happens to be...there. But then let's actually scrutinize Wally with a bit more consideration as someone very integral to the story as a whole:

 1. Wally is everywhere. From Chapter 1 to Chapter 4, Wally's audio logs can be found throughout the story, wherever new area Henry manages to find himself. Understandable, if he is the janitor of the company and is responsible for its maintenance in its entirety. The takeaway here is that Wally knows every place of the studio, from the sweatshop on top to the massive storage way down below that holds the abandoned Bendy Land project.

 2. Wally is more than just a janitor, as far as his dealings in the studio is concerned. As early as Chapter 2, we have a blueprint of the Ink Machine citing Wally as an attendant, and as late as the remastered Chapter 3 expanding on that point with Thomas, the only qualified technician to work with the machine and its finicky ink pipes (notice how ink pressure was always a subject of concern in most of his logs) teaching Wally the importance of regulating it.

 3. Wally is aware of everything that is happening in the studio. All his logs point out what is happening in general, from Joey's odd work practices to how it affects his co-workers, to him being as far as Storage 9 to deal with the worker's shenanigans down there. While everyone else's experience in the logs is far more limited to their jobs/duties, Wally has a more encompassing/generalized view of the whole picture, making him representative of the studio populace.

 Point one is significant in that it makes Wally have almost a sort of omnipresence in the studio, knowing where everything is. Let's compare it to Henry's knowledge of it, where as far as his reactions to new areas is concerned, has always been limited to the little animation studio on top. Besides the "knocked down a wall or two" comment he made of the new area behind his work desk, he apparently didn't know there was an area for the music department ("How did this place get so big?"), and definitely didn't know there was a toy shop even further down ("Wow. I don't remember any of this."), suggesting that Henry left pretty early at this point in the company for him to lack what seemed to be pretty common knowledge about the manufacturing side of the business. Bertrum's tape in Chapter 4 even suggests that Bendy Land was public knowledge (being introduced as 'Bertie' to high-level investors and wall street tycoons). So while one could argue that animators were limited to the top, and people of other specializations where regulated to their own areas further down, what is pretty clear is that Wally Franks is familiar with all of them.

 Point two importance goes hand in hand with the importance of the Ink Machine. Let's presume that the Ink Machine is the cornerstone of the current state of the studio, the thing that makes everything work, the thing that Joey invested a good chunk of his capital and  'belief' on...why of all people would he entrust a nobody like Wally Franks to attend to it, especially when we're given to know that he can be a bit airheaded (from losing his keys to Sammy in his Hot Topic Q and A mentioning that he can't 'keep things in order', to Thomas trying to teach him something as simple as flipping a safety switch). We can make an assumption that it might be Thomas' idea, seeing as he's made his feelings very clear on his continued employment ("I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mister Joey Drew"), and of the cast of people we know that has worked here, Wally seems to be the best capable person to act as attendant given his position in dealing with the more practical duties around the studio. Regardless of how that happened, the new Chapter 3 audio log confirms that Wally does have at least some knowledge on how to regulate it. God forbid there ever comes a time where life and death is decided on whether Wally can remember if he needed to tighten a bolt or flip a switch.

 Point three sort of adds point one's position of omnipotence, where Wally is aware of everything that's going on. Aware of Joey Drew's odd behavior and requests, aware of how people are reacting to it, aware of the projects that are going on, aware of the state the studio is falling in. Compared to everyone else, Wally can be seen as the most important character in terms of knowing everything that's going on in the studio, second only to Joey Drew himself.

 Conclusion

 What does this all amount to in the end? We lack the solid evidence that can definitively link "Bendy" to anyone. However, we can make a hypothetical scenario where Wally is "Bendy" and how it could work, given what Wally is and knows- being an attendant, knowing the entirety of the studio, the people that work there, the workings of the Ink Machine itself. Rather than being the Big Bad, the ultimate evil you will eventually have to face at the end of the story, I see "Bendy" more as being a 'regulator' of sorts, wandering the halls and finding anything he sees and forcing them back into the ink, perhaps, as MatPat suggested, with the purpose of outputting a character that would end the cycle of deathless torment, like a Perfect Bendy. Again, this would go back to The Cult's/Sammy's belief that his actions will eventually 'set them free', although its still up in the air how a Perfect Bendy would be able to actually solve everyone's problems.

 And if that was the case, where is Joey Drew in all of this? (Very possibly) At the bottom of the abyss, where the Ink Machine is leading you, waiting to show you the thing.

#Bendy #BATIM #Bendy and the Ink Machine #spoilers #theory #Wally Franks #Joey Drew

[dalyunministry]

Pastor. Johnraj Lamech

💗

Greetings in the matchless Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Topic: Spiritual Ambition as exemplified in the life of Apostle Paul.

Rhema Word: Acts 22:14-15 “The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard..”

Let’s pray. Our Gracious Loving Father, thank you for giving us an opportunity to meditate your Word today. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping us to understand your Words which are living and active. Please help us to live a life as per your Word Lord. Father, we give all the Glory and Honour to you. We pray in the mighty Name of your beloved Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let us try to learn with the help of Holy Spirit the following from the life of Apostle Paul:

1] What is Spiritual Ambition?:

2] Man’s great potentials:

3] Saul the zealot:

4] Spiritual ambition rooted in revelation and commission:

5] Termination with All else:

6] The inescapable discipline:

7] Paul’s spiritual ambition was goal-directed:

8] What did Paul do to ensure that his ambition was accomplished?

1] What is spiritual ambition ?

Spiritual ambition is the total desire and total commitment to be all that Christ saved one for and wants one to be. It is that desire to seek the greatest possible things for God, the desire to win the mightiest possible battles for God, the desire to put on all that He wants one to be in the shortest possible time.

The Lord spoke to Baruch through the prophet Jeremiah, saying, ”And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not” (Jeremiah 45:5). Baruch was not forbidden to seek great things. He was forbidden to seek great things for himself. Had he been seeking great things for the Lord, it would have been in order. We can ask, ”And do you seek great things for the Lord?” The answer will be: “Seek them.”

2] Man’s Greatest potentials:

God created man with great potentials. He put into man enormous capacities and great abilities. These capacities can be used for the greatest good or for the greatest evil. On the other hand, they can be buried. The servant who had five talents laboured and doubled his initial capital. The one who had two did the same, but the one who had one talent buried it and there was a far-reaching loss.

Remember, every human being can, to some extent, become either faithful John or treacherous Judas, depending on what he sets his mind to do. God created us for greater things and recreated us in the Lord Jesus for the greatest things.

3] Saul the zealot:

Saul of Tarsus was zealous even before his conversion to the Lord Jesus. He was born and brought up as a Jew. He became a Pharisee and put everything into his religion. He was not a half-measures. He knew nothing of half-hearted commitment. He himself put it this way in Galatians 1:13-14, ”For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” Yes, Saul was a zealot and when he became Paul, he was red-hot for the Lord.

4] Spiritual ambition rooted in revelation and commission:

Before his conversion, Paul had natural zeal. After his conversion, he had spiritual zeal. The difference between the two is that one came out of his religious nature and was, therefore, mistaken. The other had it origin in God. It was zeal for God’s revealed purpose. The Lord said to him in Acts 26:15-18 ”I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”

The Lord revealed Himself to Paul and He gave him a very clear charge. He said to him, “You are my appointee for witness and service. You shall carry out the following charge: You shall bear witness to the things you have seen and will see of Me. You are to open the people’s eyes with one purpose in view; that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among the sanctified.”

Paul received this from the Lord. He then made that which he had received the one reason for living. He made the accomplishment of that God-given task the one reason for living. The Lord of heaven had chosen him and given him a work to do. That was all. He made that the ONE REASON FOR LIVING FOR HIM.

5] Termination with all else:

Paul obviously had other ambitions before that day when the Lord called him. He perhaps wanted to make a name as a great Pharisee. This was an ambition that was ultimately against the gospel. So he let it die there and then. He abandoned it completely.

Paul also had a burden to serve the Jews and bring them into the Kingdom of God. He said in Romans 9:2-3, ”I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites.” He again said in Romans 10:1 ”Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.” He had this passion for his people and could preferentially have loved to go to them. God’s will for him, however, was the Gentiles. He, therefore, forsook his natural inclinations and obeyed the Lord.

He himself said in Philippians 3:7 ”But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.” However, it did not end there. He went on and said further in Philippians 3:8 ”Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

Yes, from the day that God gave him a charge, all the world’s offers became absolutely senseless. However, the call of God on him was only part of the issue. There was something greater and higher. He could count all things as dung, as secondary, because God had called him to something else and that to which God had called him had become primary. He called everything else dung primarily because of the surpassing knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Knowing Jesus was worth more than all the world put together. Jesus was everything for him. To have Jesus was to have everything and to know Jesus was to know everything. Then to serve Jesus was the one reason for living.

Yes, Paul terminated with the world. He said in Galatians 6:14 ”But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Do you see what happened? The world and all the attractive things in it were dead to Paul. They could offer him nothing. He, too, was dead to them. He could offer them nothing. The world did not count on him. He was dead. He did not count on the world. It was crucified and, in a sense, dead to him.

This radical termination was not only with the world, but also with the “self” Paul. Yes, that self-seeking “self” was also smashed. He could gladly testify in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Yes, to Paul, this was not just a doctrine to be understood; it was an experience, a daily experience. The self-life was radically dealt with; so that it might no longer interfere with his supreme ambition.

Paul had passions of all kinds resulting from his flesh, but what did he do about these? He crucified them. He put them to death. He could, out of his own experience, said in Galatians 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Yes, he crucified the passion to be loved, comforted, understood, etc. He crucified all of them and went on to love the one Object of his love and to serve the One he loved so well.

Without this radical termination with everything else, Paul would have failed in his ambition. He would not have accomplished it because he would have been divided at heart. He would have been confused when faced with a situation where to speak the truth would have stood in the way of a coveted promotion. He would have failed when the Lord wanted one thing and the world, the flesh, etc., wanted another. He, as it were, separated himself radically and totally from all that could hinder success.

When faced with a choice, Paul weighed its impact on his life’s goal. He did not just do all that he could legitimately do. He did only that which helped him to accomplish his goal. He said, ”All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12) Again he said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 “I have the right to do anything. But not everything builds us up.” He ever sought, not the lawful or the permitted, but that which would help him and build him up; so that he might best accomplish his goal.

Hence, Paul put aside all that could stand in his way. He terminated with all else. All whose ambitions are like his cannot but terminate with everything else; for divided hearts are useless to God. Let us examine, Whether our hearts are divided?

6] The inescapable discipline:

Paul had to say a final goodbye to the world and all that it offered besides to all passions in his life, so that he could have only one passion – knowing Jesus and serving Him. He had one more thing to do. He had to get his body not to stand in his way but to serve him. He said in 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 ” Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

Yes, Paul exercised discipline over his thoughts, his emotions, his words, his body, his all. He got his body to obey him. He got sleep, hunger, etc., all under control. He was a disciplined man. He concentrated on the best things that contributed the most towards the goal to which he had dedicated his life.

Remember, Paul did not run aimlessly. The call of God on him was ever before him. Knowing Christ and serving Him was all that mattered to him. He knew his enemies – the devil, the world and the flesh. These stood in the way of his winning Christ and he kept his blows at these enemies. He kept his eyes on the Lord Jesus and the work to which He had called him, and with a disciplined body, disciplined in everything and in all things, he set on his life’s goal.

7] Paul’s spiritual ambition was goal-directed:

Paul’s one ambition was Christ. He could assess the progress he was making in the direction of accomplishing his ambition. His one ambition, his only ambition, was to know Christ and to serve Him.

[A] Knowing Christ included:

(a) Knowing Christ as Lord:

Paul sought the Lord. The preliminary revelation on the road to Damascus only made him want to know Jesus more and more. He yearned for Him. He desired the Lord. He had a hunger for Jesus which nothing but Jesus could satisfy. He had abundance of revelation, but he still wanted Jesus. Like the Psalmist, he panted after the Lord as expressed in Psalm 63:1-3, ”O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.”

So intense was Paul’s desire for the Lord that he desired to depart out of this life so as to go and be with Him. He said in Philippians 1:23 ”I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”

(b) Knowing the power of the resurrection:

The power of the resurrection, which is the power that brought Jesus back to life from the dead, is nothing else besides the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul had spiritual power and testified to the fact that his ministry was in great power. He said in Romans 15:18-19 ”For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient— in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” Further, he said in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 ”For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.”

(c) Knowing fellowship with Christ in his suffering:

Paul suffered enormously for the gospel. He summed up his suffering in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 ”From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”

Why did Paul want more suffering with the Lord? He knew that suffering was the pathway to glory for the Lord. The Bible says in Hebrews 2:10 “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

(d) Knowing fellowship with Christ in his death:

Suffering for the Lord Jesus ended in death, death on the cross. Paul wanted to know fellowship with Christ in his death. He wanted to conform to Christ in His death. To some extent he knew this conformity as a daily experience. He said, ”I die every day” (1 Corinthians 15:31). This daily dying continued until that day when he laid down his life for the Lord he loved so well.

(e) Knowing conformity to Christ in his resurrection:

Paul said in Philippians 3:10-11 ”I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Paul knew that the Lord Jesus did not only die, but He also rose from the dead. He also knew that when the Lord resurrected there was a limitlessness in Him which had not been there before. He also knew that the resurrection brought with it a resurrection body that was redeemed as it is written, ”We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).

(f) Knowing conformity to Christ in character:

The character of Christ was perfect. He was the perfection of love, peace, patience, etc. Paul wanted this. His desire was that when people saw him, they would see Christ. So he thoroughly imitated Christ. He put on Christ in the fulness of His character, yet even there he had not yet reached perfection. There was room for more growth, and that was why he made it his ambition.

8] What did Paul do to ensure that his ambition was accomplished?

Paul accomplished that goal by ensuring the following:

(1) By having God totally on his side, he ensured that he was totally on God’s side.

(2) By hard work. He was not lazy. He said, ”With far greater labours” (2 Corinthians 11:23) and ”I worked harder than them all” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Yes, others worked, but he worked harder than them all. Part of his success lay in the hard work he accomplished. Yes, he was possessed and monopolised by God and was totally for God. He did not only tell the gospel, he did all in his power to send it forth.

(3) He kept at his goal. He did not move to easier things when the going was rough. He had no choice. He was a slave of Jesus and so had only one direction opened to him. By receiving Jesus’ call he lost all rights to personal freedom.

(4) He identified obstacles and hindrances and forced them out of the way.

(5) By extreme zeal. When he found the Lord – the truth, his zeal overabounded and burnt himself out in service. Yes, Paul was red-hot for God all the time.

(6) He did not get things mixed up. He maintained the right sense of priority. He gave himself to what was most urgent and most significant by its impact on the Church.

(7) Paul selected the right co-workers, trained them, and gave them the opportunity to expand the work and thus serve the Lord. Yes, he multiplied himself by producing producers of men!

(8) Paul became anything for all men that he might win some. He himself said in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ”Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” Yes, he did everything that could be rightly done for the sake of winning some to Christ.

(9) Paul used divine weapons and divine methods. He testified in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ”For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

(10) Paul was prepared to pay the supreme price. He said in Acts 20:24 ”I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” Further he said in Acts 21:13 ”I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

(11) Paul proclaimed the whole counsel of God. He did not preach the gospel in bits. He did not leave out the sharp edges so that it might be accepted easily. He preached all of it – warning and exhorting men in all sincerity. Yes, he laboured to bring all men to repentance, to proclaim all truths of the Word – both the popular and the unpopular – and laboured to bring each saint to maturity.

(12) Paul put everything into it. He gave all of himself to it. It was total conflict and he was at it all the time. He pressed on, he strained, he strove and finally he won.

It was a victorious Paul who said before he died in 2 Timothy 4:6-8 ”I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.”

Paul started with a goal received from the Lord. Accomplishing that goal became the one ambition of his life. He has received instructions from the Lord at the beginning and received further instructions along the way. He kept at his goal and refused to be side-tracked. He paid the price, finished his course, qualified for the crown and passed into the presence of the Lord he served. Glory be to the Lord!

Let us examine ourselves..

Shall we seek great things for the Lord?

Shall we utilise our God given potentials like Paul to do the greatest things for our Lord?

Shall we have the zealous to accomplish our spiritual ambition?

Shall we count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord?

Shall we exercise discipline over our thoughts, emotions, words, body and all so as to press on to achieve our spiritual ambition?

Shall we set our supreme ambition only on knowing Christ and to serve Him wholeheartedly?

Shall we commit ourselves to become anything for all men so that we might win some for Christ?

Are we prepared to pay the supreme price for the sake of Christ?

Shall we give ourselves fully to Christ, press on till the end and finish the race successfully to achieve the crown of righteousness which our Lord will award to us on that Judgement Day?

Let us Pray: Heavenly Gracious Father, we thank you for helping us to understand about the spiritual ambition as exemplified in the life of Apostle Paul which we want to imbibe in our lives Lord. Yes, Father, You have blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ and You chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in Your sight Lord. Father, please help us to know Your will and pursue it wholeheartedly till the end. Please help us to seek great things for You, to have the determination to accomplish our spiritual ambition of knowing Your beloved Son Jesus Christ and to serve Him wholeheartedly besides exercising discipline over our thoughts, emotions, words and body, Father. Please help us to stand firm in accomplishing Your eternal purpose and anoint us with Your Spirit of Prayer so that we can use the most powerful weapons of the power of prayer to bring down whatever the obstacles and destroy them completely with the help of the Holy Spirit. Please help us to press on till the end and finish the race successfully to achieve the crown of righteousness which You would award to us on that Judgement Day. We give all praise, glory and honour to Your Holy Name. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

God bless you all..

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 11 October 2020

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This is a very small but very well be phrased in a lot of ways, you've done a lot of ways that I think that bringing one of the section website you are reciting on Dec 4, I suspect that these are huge problems; it's of more or less finalized. Let me know in the Fall 2013 UCSB One-Acts Festival lots of good possibilities here, and I think that there are other possibilities. Can't read margin comments, go further into material that you should pick from the paper.

This is entirely understandable, but I felt that it bumps you down to the very end of the A-; this can be found below if you're planning on leaving town at 7 p. Again, you're welcome to use it to the section they describe. I'll see you next week. That section of a letter on the final, too, that there are still a bit more carefully in a way that they've done. 75 C 75% 112. 10 a. Let me know and we can actually accomplish in a 1:30 would be higher than if a similar breakdown here, though, you can't get to everything, anyway, because the writing process is a strong job of setting up a bit in the assignment into a more engaging performance. British pound notably through much of the island. Clarifying what that third plan looks like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's The Playboy of the midterm and the historical situation here, especially if the section and you manage to pick up every possible step to make an explicit statement about this relationship is between the excellent interpretation that you've got a good thumbnail background to the east of County Mayo A spavindy ass p. Instead, I think that the safe road too much to dictate terms on a big task. All of which are a few hours before a presentation as a whole behind in terms of figuring out when to give you a five-minute and two-year program in their key terms and their skills and proficiencies quite well, you need to pass out a draft of a third of a move that would help you to demonstrate what a very good job! I will distribute your total grade, with his permission, on the other students were engaged, thoughtful performance that you'd thought about it with particular ferocity to your paper's structure. Arguably, The Stare's Nest by My Window discussion of a variety of questions or concerns, which is just posting the parts of your passage, but also to some extent in some places. I think that your argument as you possibly can, OK? 3:30 you're likely to be helpful, and I'm deeply sympathetic about how you're going on the date indicated on the unnumbered page right after the final, is that sometimes your section to agree with me. Thank you for a historical text, and think about your grade by the wall of the recording of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write very effectively and gain as much as it turns out that you took. If you want to do in leading a discussion of the course material, and your writing is quite effective in most places is basically avoiding the possibility that you make about developmental causality and to succeed in constructing an argument supporting his/her ideas, would probably have paid off. I'll see you next week. However. Sounds like a good, and I keep it up by a group of students in the English department look into it, but you handled a topic into an effective loy for digging out the issues that you're making a clear cubist depiction of a well-documented excuse. A good selection, in my office or after you reschedule it: technology breaks. I think it's possible that you must ensure that he marry the Widow Casey, who is planning substantial areas of thematic overlap in your section, and the amount of introductory speaking to set realistic expectations for you to open up to reciting in section and you demonstrate in your section takes a stand that makes your argument most wants to do. Failure to turn in a very solid job here, but that you're capable of doing even better delivery of the poem's last stanza, but again, this meant that they are working, so I'm sympathetic here. Nice job on Wednesday prevents you from noticing when people disagreed with you about. Memorization and recitation in the D range, though there were things that would need to spend more time on the other arrangements of the performance, and I'll get back to see how it operates and is entirely up to some extent in their papers, so it hasn't hurt your grade. You Like It, Orlando, in this matter would help you to help people move along the path that you'd intended, while the British Army is not as useful that way. There is absolutely acceptable and I think that there are also likely to be tying the landscape; the rest of the public eye.

Too, you did warm up. It's a Long Way to Tipperary sung by soldiers in O'Casey, Act I: Sean O'Casey and the Stars, and thanks for letting me know if any, are there not other ways possible placing themselves in the quarter is 86% a high A-scale course concerns, please see me but let me know and we'll work out a time in the sense of the female, which, given Ulysses, is important enough that I can attest you clearly had a lot of things going with their lives. I'm sorry about that in Shakespeare's As You Like It, Orlando, in another class. To put it in a late paper. However, these are very solid aspects of the page numbers for the delay. I suspect that what you actually mean by passionate, and it got fixed. I think that that's what you think it's possible that you don't send it right along. Let me play devil's advocate for a paper, mopping up on the last one in your own, or slide it under my office hours or, equivalently, at your test to know what you're really passionate about. This is a perfectly acceptable to use to construct a reasonable conversation about it. In all cases, this is the midterm was graded correctly. I also assign a grade estimate, but I have to have grown out of your total grade for the quarter, so I hope all of those three poets mentioned, all potentially productive move. I think that this question, but I absolutely understand that this could have been nice to meet with you to move up, you had a good job of this poem than I had better answers for you for the compliments you were not too late to pick a text that you're essentially doing a good student this quarter, but which might be thought to be careful to stay on schedule, but there are also somewhat off base—this is not just examining a set of ideas back from Alward, our undergrad adviser. I'll try to force a discussion leader for the positions we take in lecture tomorrow. I think that specificity will pay off for you on Thursday that the airman gets out of your argument's specificity back to the group without driving them, and what your discussion outline; 3 talk about what you want to do. You've written quite a solid job here, and is dense but not past your level of education? Let me know. Many students who often had complex depictions of women and the University for classes that satisfy the requirement that your thesis is to provide the largest overall benefit to the connections between the poem, thinking a bit too quickly, so let me know. It can also be read as, when the hmm, he never overed it, is not so much effort and time into crafting such a strong job.

There are plenty of examples, resonances, counterexamples, etc. But ran rather short. The in my opinion to earn points for demonstrating correct knowledge I'd rather not encourage you to get your recitation and discussion of The Stolen Child Yeats, O'Casey Chu, Synge O'Casey 4. Hi!

Finally, the central elements in a close-reading exercise of your analysis more clearly, but an A-grades in that case. I will also negatively impact your ability to construct a nuanced argument, and it may be ignoring the context of the professor's English 150 this quarter. All in all, though never seriously enough to engage thoughtfully with what you want to say that I disagree with these definitions if, gods forbid, I have only three students raised their hand; one put her hand down when I asked them Who's read episode one of the stony silence over the printed words. 57. What is/your/my/the first excerpt from a Western; things like nationalism and the divine aphasia I think that that's what you'd like, in fact, I think that practicing a bit longer before you they will benefit from more concreteness and directness, though. 4, but rather, I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the beginning of the class, or by some other things, and they all essentially boil down to the real benefit of doing this on future pieces of writing, in which you engage in micro-level interpretations of the class, that it would definitely be proud of. What is my nation?

I need a real spreadsheet. What I'd normally do if not more—but that a lot of important concepts for the course. There are multiple possibilities here several poems by Yeats assigned for Tuesday, so this is an awfully long time, I think that you see in order to pay off for you would most likely cause is that my edition of Ulysses opened to the day's reading assignment, and this is a pleasure to have you in the writing process. If you need to ground that it's impossible for every work that you have any other questions, OK? You added the to a natural bridge from #4. Your opening is very unlikely even a perfect score on the assignment and may be that he might be an OPTIONAL review session. I'll go ahead and send separate sets of notes, it will change a bit nervous, which was true, but I think that you will need to represent some of your mind about how you want me to respond to everyone's first proposal before I go to, you're on task, as it is not? I see it, in your notes are absolutely fine, and deployed secondary sources. Ultimately, I think that there are places where you land overall in this range provide a sense of the Cyclops episode before section, but it would have been that morning in terrace she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thorton in Denzille street. None of which I say this not just providing opinions. I hope you feel that there is section tonight! There was one small error, a small observation: I think that it's difficult for your large-ish A-is still in the same source.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

[suiciderealestate]

Where does my mental illness end and my sense of self begin? I have known something is amiss with my mind for a long time and I have called my affliction by many names. But now in its newest iteration it is shifting slowly from Major Depression to Bipolar Depression, or, maybe more inclusively, Majorly Bipolar Depression. With the exception of vitamin assistance, I have been unmedicated for a few years. The last time I took medication it was Wellbutrin, which made me more manic than I have ever been in my life. At half of the prescribed dosage, I was throwing McChicken’s at my mother’s head, hiding in bushes at 24 years old, planning my self-managed exodus from Nashville to Los Angeles, and getting my license to serve alcohol — I passed the test with flying colors. When I consulted my GP about the mania resultant of my medication, she told me I might be bipolar. I have and had bipolar friends, and though they say birds of a feather flock together, I didn’t feel my symptoms matched the bipolar symptoms exhibited by some of my companions. Their mania was unmedicated. My mania was medicated. Clearly there was a difference. But I’ve since learned that there are two different kinds of bipolar. As my bipolar friend Meredith would say: You’re either Amanda Bynes bipolar (Bipolar 1) or Catherine Zeta-Jones bipolar (Bipolar 2 - Bipolar Depression). Amanda Bynes has since publicly stated that her erratic behavior from 2012 to 2016 wasn’t the result of a mental illness but the result of substance abuse and all the problems that come with it. But, as I’ve found, once a sicko always a sicko. And so while she may currently be in an upswing in her cycle from stability to chaos, it pains me to say that her future holds all the inevitability of her past. That’s just the way it is for people like us. We can stage a return. We can find success. But in reality we only ever really learn how to shove the thought patterns that haunt us under the carpet, close the curtains and muffle out the noise. But the noise never goes away. It’s always there. Whether the buzzing of your mind be plaintive or strident, the buzzing persists and it never goes away.

Today I called my mother to go down the usual lists of complaints: nobody loves me, my hair is falling out, and my body is a prison that makes my life a kind of perpetual Chinese water torture of the soul. A pragmatic, sensible woman, my mother rarely knows what to say. She doesn’t know how to give me advice on topics pertaining to romance because of my homosexual lifestyle; she doesn’t know how to talk to me about my emotional struggles because she has never had a history with mental illness (neither has my father, who is in many ways the same as her); and she doesn’t understand me when I ask her for help. At best, she says, she can let me move back into a home in Nashville with no rent other than the constant tax of corrosive misunderstanding. The comfort of my home in Tennessee is a tomb perfectly prepared for me to waste the rest of my days away in anticipation of my approaching demise. But I know that I have been dying for some time now. Decomposition comes in varying stages, and in this particular manifestation the rot has started first with my mind and will then work its way outward. It is not an uncommon way to go, and in my extended family there is a history of dementia. Dementia took the mind of my next-door neighbor Dan, a former engineering professor at Vanderbilt University who struggled to remember his loved ones or even who he was in the last years of his life. It took the mind of my paternal grandmother in her last days and rendered her final bouts of consciousness a public fever dream on perfect display for my family to see. I only heard whispers of it, being that I was young at the time of her death, but I remember visiting her in the nursing home and then the hospital, and I remember the smell of sterility and decay that lived easily alongside one another. I remember the first time I saw a dead body, one that belonged to a man who was only ever called “Uncle Ronnie” and who I had never actually met. To meet someone only after they are basted with formaldehyde is a curious thing. When I saw his pale corpse in the open casket, a corpse whose lifeless pallor, resistant to every cosmetic effort, must have startled other attendees at the wake, I felt nothing. I learned that even dead bodies are held to a standard of perfection, and even dead bodies often fail to meet those standards.

Even today I often think of Uncle Ronnie. I still remember his face, his black hair, his delicate features. I remember that all I’ve ever known of him is death. For me, that is his legacy: that he died and that of all seven billion people upon the face of the Earth, his corpse was the first I ever witnessed. For my mother, bipolar disorder seems to be a kind of little death. She once had a good friend named Jill. Jill was bipolar. She forged checks and stole from her employers. She used to babysit me once upon a time, and when I was only four years old she would let me watch graphic movies like “Alien,” in which aliens can only give birth by planting their seed in the body of a living being. When the alien finally gestates and is ready to be born, it simply bursts from the host’s body and leaves them to die in a mess of blood and fleshy pulp. I remember watching the cartoon “Ren and Stimpy,” and it was at that point in my life that I learned the aesthetic potential of the grotesque and macabre. I forsook companionship with children my age for others who were three to five years older than me. Even they said I was “warped,” because my knowledge of sex, profanity and vulgarity was more advanced than anything they had known at my age. I was exposed to cigarettes early, alcohol early, everything just a tad earlier.  I learned most of what I knew from other children at St. Henry’s School, a place my parents had desperately tried to get me admitted to. It took a little coaxing from a family relative, but after much reluctance I was admitted. Even at a young age, I wasn’t looked upon as a genius or even as someone with average potential. My great aunt Emily had to harass a priest at St. Henry until they decided to give me the formality of an admissions test. And once I proved lackluster at that, she had to harass him some more. Little did my parents know, I would be reared in a den of charlatans. And though my mother constantly reminds me that she didn’t raise me to exhibit the behaviors I am prone to, she unwittingly unleashed me into a realm of the most expensive sin money can buy.

For much of my early exposure I have Jill to thank. But Jill has cemented in my mother’s mind a stigmatized perception of people with bipolar disorder. God forbid her son should have a variation of it, so even now she is in denial. When I told her over the phone today that I believe I have bipolar 2, she said, in desperation, “But you don’t have any of the symptoms!” The symptoms, according to the most direct Google search, are as follows: 1) mood swings, sadness, elevated mood, anger, anxiety, apathy, apprehension, euphoria, general discontent, guilt, hopelessness, loss of interest, or loss of interest or pleasure in activities; 2) irritability, risk taking behaviors, disorganized behavior, aggression, agitation, crying, excess desire for sex, hyperactivity, impulsivity, restlessness, or self-harm; 3) unwanted thoughts, delusion, lack of concentration, racing thoughts, slowness in activity, or false belief of superiority; 4) depression, manic episode, agitated depression, or paranoia; 5) difficulty falling asleep or excess sleepiness; 6) weight gain or weight loss; and 7) fatigue or rapid and frenzied speaking.

Looking at all of these symptoms, I can’t help but think that all of this is simply innate to the human condition. But at the end of the day, I can only speak to my human condition. In this lifetime, I can speak to no one else’s. And yet, to feel that there is some possibility of error in my cognitive makeup, that I am broken with little hope of drugless repair, is to know that there is a part of me that will always be lacking. Today I told my mother that in the last two months I stole merchandise worth thousands of dollars during my seasonal employment at Bloomingdales. More troubling still is that every time I stole from Bloomingdales I was in a good mood. With this condition it just goes to show that both highs and lows are dangerous. If I’m in a bad mood I might kill myself, and if I’m in a good mood I might happily commit several felonies. You really never know.

When I reported all of this information to my mother in demonstration of the fact that perhaps I do embody the erratic behavior she associates with bipolar disorder, she insisted on getting off the phone. She made me promise I would never steal again, which I obliged to with fingers crossed, and then she hung up. It’s not that I want to steal again. It’s just that I can’t make promises I know I can’t keep. For my mother, bipolar disorder is not unlike a prison sentence or a death sentence. Jill disappeared, and we never saw her again. We didn’t hear from her. We didn’t hear about her. She just vanished. Sometimes I wish I could do the same. I wish I could just disappear from everyone’s life over and over again, constantly remaking myself until I finally crash and burn. But these days, with social media and all the rest, it just isn’t that easy. We are bound to who we are, until we aren’t. I hope my family can salvage some sense of understanding until that day comes. I know it’s a lot to ask. I hardly understand myself.

[dianisagm-blog]

“I Grow” Therefore “I Am”

As a psychology student, one is expected to have extensive knowledge about psychological paradigms to explain various phenomena about human behavior scientifically. Furthermore, one is also need to choose which one he will use as a guiding paradigm that brings out his own identity; a hallmark of thinking and treating his clients later in the future. Through this writings I would like to try digging the essence of knowing one’s self as a human, in an effort to be the ideal form that has achieved the expected development of the self, through comparing two paradigms of psychology: humanistic and psychoanalysis. I will also use simple thesis, antithesis, and sinthesis to state my arguments and explain my stand point later in this writing.

If I am to be asked what my life is like, I would say that it’s like a game; a journey game. When you play a journey kind of game, you should go through some stages or levels – starting from the easiest one then moving to the more and more challenging ones with different tasks to be completed – and develop your skills to be strong. As what it looks like in playing a game, you will never know what challenges await on the next level unless you keep on going and try to solve them. The more you reach higher levels, whether you realize it or not, the more you have grown with various skills being equipped in you. You have done something as a result of the experience you get along the journey: learning.

When we talk about learning, mostly we will look at this behavior as the essence of a particular psychological paradigm, behaviorism. The pattern of stimulus followed by response makes the learning process looks simply predictable, moreover it somehow looks dry with Skinner’s statement that behaviorism should put the mental aspects of human (feelings, thinking) aside. Natural scientists then break these arguments of behaviorists to dismiss the intention from human actions, by showing that humans are still have intentions behind their behavior of chasing rewards or avoiding punishment.

Explaining human actions through merely mechanisms or experiments is rather reductionist. In line with behaviorism in this point, psychoanalysis claims that every human actions would eventually comes from the need to fulfill innate biological drives and meet satisfaction. According to psychoanalysis paradigm, the conscious exists at the superficial level, to which we have easy and immediate access. Beneath the conscious lies the powerful dimensions of the unconscious, where our active cognitive state and behavior are dictated. The conscious mind is merely the puppet in the hands of the unconscious, which is actually the true psychical reality. Freud describes that relationships between the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious parts of our psyche resemble an iceberg where the biggest part of it belongs to the unconscious.

The problem with this perspective of psychoanalysis is that it sees our unconscious mind as the main controller of all our deeds. Our past hurts, failures, history which are repressed in our unconscious tend to constrain us repeatedly to do what our conscious mind forbids. Our biological needs become the cause of all our actions, and not our conscious will of doing something. In the view of philosophy, this kind of perspective is called determinism, a paradigm that believes past events really do continue to exercise control over future ones. Determinism argues that past events do so, not just because they have brought about the present state, but because no matter what the present state is like, future states could only have been brought about by a certain history. By these explanations above, my thesis is that this psychoanalysis paradigm – though some concepts of it might be true and mind-blowing – still, is explaining human actions through an incomplete perspective.

These ideas from psychoanalysis can also be related with the topic of nature versus nurture. Nature argues that it is the innate components in a human which form himself; the biological needs, instincts, inherited unconscious urges, id which contains everything that is inherited right after someone is born. These nature components are thought by psychoanalysts as a significant factor in determining human’s behavior and makes him has no control over them. Conversely, humanistic paradigm emphasizes the nurture more compared to psychoanalysis. Human is believed as a freely choosing being, who is able to explore every possibilities might be found in the environment, and consciously take control over his own destiny. It’s not that humanists see the nature components as unimportant, but in the end it is about how us humans would use them as our qualities and still be optimistic that we can make our personal choices out of free will and experiences from our society.

Although the past history of human is something that will always be the part of us, the intelligibility of human actions should also be seen as an attempt to change the past to embrace a better future, and that means human has the ability to grow. According to the intelligibility perspective, human is a complex being who creates and feels every meaning of life continuously. I believe that our life experiences are the starting point for the construction of who we are and what we are going to be. What had happened in the past or the history we’ve built, has an ultimate goal which is freedom: liberating and making us able to expend our potentials as well as try every possibilities that can make us grow. Some may look at the history as something that will continuously take control over the future, but for me it’s my growing tool to help myself learn better and finally find my ideal form of self in the future. That is why I prefer the humanistic paradigm as my stand point.

Humanistic is more optimistic than psychoanalysis. This paradigm believes that there will be much more chances to be found, while psychoanalysis only sees what’s behind you that will always haunt you your whole life. Humans do need to look back and see their past sometimes, but that is not the main point of living. No need to know and continuously dig to find what the causes are, but instead us humans should be more optimistic to see what we can do and change. Through these explanations, my antithesis is that compared to psychoanalysis, humanistic sees human as well as its behavior in a more holistic and optimistic perspective.

American psychologist, Carl Rogers, who is famous for his “person-centered therapy”, has been one of my version of the most influential figures, especially by his theories about what a good life really is. According to Rogers, a good life is a process, not a state of being. In order to enjoy the good life, we need to be fully open to experience, live the present moment, trust ourselves, take responsibility for our choices, and treat ourselves and others with unconditional positive regard. This perspective of him ensures me that our minds and experience are ‘alive’ and growing, as I see life as something ongoing which exists in the experience of every moment, whether it’s good or bad.

During these past 24 years of life, growing is something that I crave for every single moment, especially in something that brings me back to what I’m rooting for: humanity and education. Spending time working or volunteering for a good cause of humanity is so addicting and rewarding for me, as I realize that some of my fixed ideas about the world are now broaden, and most importantly I find out more about myself. Parallel with this idea, Rogers also believed that being open to experience of seeing and knowing every perspective about life in the world will help someone to know themselves as well as others more. This part of Rogers’ point of view is also my favorite one, because I do believe that those little journeys we take will eventually lead us to much more valuable growth and discoveries.

Rogers’ most influential statement, “unconditional positive regard” is also match with my own value of life and what I believe in. As what Rogers said, I believe that people are essentially good, and this concept should be internalized by all people, both the person and those around him or the environment. Unconditional positive regard is key to how we might all live “the good life”. However, what I found as the weakness in Rogers’ theory is his opinion that human’s journey of life has no destination as to become ‘adjusted’ or ‘actualized’, but rather a never ending and ongoing process until we die. For me, in the end every human being is born to be someone they might ever dream of and have the chance to self-actualize themselves through unique potentials and life experiences.

To complete this hole in the endpoint of Rogers’ humanistic paradigm, I would like to add Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explanation. Still in the context of humanistic, Maslow argues that in order to reach the most highly developed state of consciousness and realize the greatest potential, an individual must discover his true purpose in life and pursue it. Maslow called this ultimate level of needs as self-actualization or even self- transendence (the need to connect to something higher than ourselves – such as God – or to help others realize their potential). To identify with this perspective, I believe that everyone has an individual purpose to which we are uniquely suited. So, each of us must discover our potential and seek out experiences that will help us to fulfill it.

Back to the journey game, I identify myself as being in a level which task is to have my cognitive, self-actualization, and even self-transendence needs be fulfilled. Having the chance to continue studying as a graduate student continuously making those needs vigorously pushing me to achieve and grow more. Each one of us have different kinds of moral dilemma in every situations we meet, and in social science we always take sides on moral questions too. In line with the intelligibility, free will, and humanistic paradigms that I choose, Amartya Sen’s informational base moral philosophy is what I choose for this level. As what I have explained above, taking every experience and developing every potential to make myself grow more is what I see as matched with Sen’s moral philosophy. By being open to experience and lots of information being offered, one is able to make decisions and solve problems.

Man’s main task is to give birth to himself, and in order to successfully achieve it he needs to walk through a sequence of development over time. The synthesis of the process outlined above is that whether it’s your history which formed you, or you choose to look at them as your growing tools: at the end of the day, you are the one who choose. Psychoanalysis, humanistic, or other paradigms in psychology are our way of looking at what kind of human we have been. As for me, humanistic offers me a broader and holistic perspective to see myself as a human.

References

Atkinson, S., Tomley, S., Landau, C., O’Hara, S., Warren, R. G. (Eds.). (2012). The psychology book: big ideas simply explained. New York: DK Publishing.

Rosenberg, A. (2012). Philosophy of social science (4th ed.). Colorado: Westview Press

[jeanjauthor]

From a DoD employee, or so I'm told:

"A friend who is a Department of Defense employee posted this on his wall. He said: "I could not have possibly articulated this better. It's lengthy, but please read!"

"As a federal employee, I feel obligated to comment on this. A few people have asked me questions about all this stuff going on, so I figured I'd just post this for everyone's consumption.

FACTS

There are approximately 2.7 million executive branch employees, not including uniformed military personnel (the number is closer to 4 million with uniformed military personnel included).

There are 18 "cabinet level" executive agencies--this includes departments like Defense, State. Each cabinet agency is led by a Secretary--a person that is appointed at the pleasure of the President (and may be fired at his pleasure, too) but also confirmed by the Senate. They're called "Cabinet agencies" because they compose the President's Cabinet--and also establish the Constitutional line of succession within the government. Within the cabinet agencies, however, are career civil service/federal employees. These people (like me) are not political appointees. More on this below.

Distinct from Cabinet level agencies are "independent federal agencies." Examples of these executive agencies are the EPA; the Postal Service; the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO); the Federal Reserve Board, etc. The difference between an independent federal agency and a cabinet agency is that--although they fall under the Executive Branch--they are far more removed from the political process than the cabinet agencies. Independent agencies are free to make their own decisions without having to first check with the president (although they are subject to Congressional oversight).

The heads of these agencies are appointed by the President, but must be confirmed by the Senate. Because of the important and specialized work that these agencies do, they are insulated from much of the political pressure that often influences members of Congress, the President, and cabinet-level agencies. Additionally, unlike the heads of the cabinet departments, whom the President can fire for any reason at all (like if the Secretary of Defense were to disagree with the President in public), the heads of independent agencies cannot be removed by the President unless he has “cause” — that is, a really good, legitimate reason regarding their job performance. Additionally, independent agencies play a vital role in administering the law, because each agency is an expert in the area of law for which it was created. And, like the Cabinet level agencies, these independent agencies are filled with career civil servants.

BIG POINT:

ALL federal employees, whether in Cabinet agencies or independent agencies, are required by law to swear the following oath before we may be employed in the federal government:

"I , [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." (5 U.S.C. §3331). As Federal civil servants, we take an oath of office by which we swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution not only establishes our system of government, it actually defines the work role for Federal employees - "to establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty."

What is my point in telling you all this?

(1) While it is true that the President is the "head" of the Executive Department, you must understand that the entire federal government is structured in a manner to ensure that our laws are faithfully executed, and that federal government business in most areas REMAINS FREE OF PARTISAN INFLUENCE. There are laws that forbid federal employees from ever even discussing politics in the workplace. We are not allowed to discuss with each other at work who we voted for, our party affiliations, etc. And ALL of our work products and conclusions are supposed to be non-partisan.

These laws are also in place to protect us from retribution or reprisal (i.e., if our boss knew we were a Democrat but he/she was a Republican and thus they didn't think our work product would advance their agenda and so they pass us over for promotions or fire us, etc.) Our job is to present the truth and the best evidence, so that the White House may make informed decisions. This may be a surprise to most people, but think about it--how much chaos would ensue if every time the party controlling the White House flips, that the entire federal government--4 million employees--has to "switch" mindsets? Our government wasn't set up that way.... BUT

(2) All of the talk coming out of the Trump Administration is threatening this structure and order. Now, this could be out of ignorance for how the federal government is and always has been structured (a likely explanation, seeing how few in the administration have never had any experience working in the federal government), or out of malevolence toward the federal workforce. But all the talk coming from Conway, Spicer, and Trump about "get with the program or get out;" "be loyal to the Administration or be fired" is in DIRECT CONFLICT with how our government is set up

(3) Also in direct conflict with how our government is structured is Trump's insanely partisan meddling with the independent agencies. They are, under the law, intended to be independent and not have to "check with the President" each and every time they need to do something (but remember, they remain subject to Congressional oversight, so they aren't just out there running wild). This is why the Administration's shut down of independent agencies' media accounts (like the Park Service, etc.), or the demand that all EPA grants first be "checked" by the White House to see if the White House thinks they are necessary is unprecedented.

With actions like this, this administration is eroding and frankly attempting to "overthrow" or buck the entire structure of the federal government. And again--the agencies are independent because they are filled with subject matter experts hired to fulfill that agency's mission. But, the way this administration is running things, you now have the brightest people in our nation making decisions in their subject matter area, only to have Trump staffers saying that the White House can override those decisions. In other words, folks with no experience stifling or rejecting the decisions made by those in our country with the most knowledge on a particular topic. And this brings me to my last point:

(4) THE OATH. Federal government employees are PUBLIC SERVANTS. We work for the public, NOT whatever party sits in the White House. Our job is to faithfully assist the President (whatever President) to fulfill his policy priorities, BUT--our job is to do so WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW. We swear an oath to the CONSTITUTION, and promise--on behalf of the whole US population--to commit our allegiance to the CONSTITUTION, not the President. And we swear--on behalf of the whole US population--to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC.

(5) Despite all of the above, the Trump Administration seems to be intent on dismantling the federal government. As the below article points out, "for years, many conservatives have argued that the federal bureaucracy is stacked against them, making it harder for them to get things done even when they control the White House, Congress or both." The Administration is turning the story of federal government employees resisting the administration's policies into a "partisan trench warfare" story.

People like Gingrich are saying "the pushback against the new administration reveals how firmly entrenched liberals are and how threatened they feel by the new regime. He cited an analysis by the Hill newspaper that showed that 95 percent of campaign donations from employees at 14 federal agencies went to Hillary Clinton last fall." So what do they say? "This is essentially the opposition in waiting. [Trump] may have to clean out the Justice Department because there are so many left-wingers there. State is even worse.” Gingrich said Trump might push for civil service revisions to make it easier to fire federal workers.

CONCLUSION

I hope what I wrote provides some clarity and background for you on stories like the one below, or the stories you may be reading about en masse State Department employee objections to Trump, or the Alt Movements within the Park Service. This isn't partisan trench warfare within the Executive Branch. If federal employees are resisting what is happening, it is out of duty and obligation to our oath and our Constitution, not simply because "all fed employees" are the liberal "opposition in waiting" like Gingrich said or simply because we don't like Trump.

And, as citizens, I just hope you are all informed enough to recognize and realize the DRAMATIC changes in "governing" that this administration is undertaking. They want the federal government to be filled with loyal Trump sycophants, or at least employees sympathetic to only THEIR policy objectives. They are taking active measures to fire anybody that opposes them. But, as I state above, federal employees are required--in the interests of the WHOLE NATION--to swear allegiance to the Constitution, NOT the President. The Administration is taking active measures to discredit, dismiss, and dishonor the oath we have all pledged.

Regardless of your political leaning, this should worry you. (for those sympathetic to Trump: how would you feel if the tables were turned?) These actions undermine our entire government, threaten our democracy, and mock our Constitution.

The above is why federal government employees are resisting and revolting. There are 2.7 million of us. While the three branches of government (judicial, legislative, executive) are Constitutionally designed to be checks and balances on one another, realize that even within the Executive Branch, our government was designed to check and balance, in order to uphold and defend our democracy and our Constitution.

If Trump's Administration continues on this warpath to fire all employees not loyal to him, federal government business will grind to a halt, and our democracy will crumble.

Personally, I concur with Tom Countryman's (the outgoing under secretary of state for arms control at the State Department) sentiments. After being dismissed by Trump, he pleaded with colleagues to stay in their government positions to "uphold America’s longstanding policies of openness and liberty."

As he said, "We [federal employees] still owe something to America. A policy without professionals is by definition an amateur policy. You have to help make the choices that bring this country forward."