#but being a human is fucking hard and we all need external validation and kind words??

[16ruedelaverrerie]

Rest of messages in thread not included for reasons of mortifying inadequacy on my part! Anon you sent this in on August 22. I just want to type that out loud so that I can nail my shame to my front door like Martin Luther with his 95 Theses, except every thesis is "Nat can't fucking answer a single thing in an even vaguely timely manner". I would say I'm sorry for what I have become, but the truth is that I was ever thus. I'm sorry for what I have always been.

I'm sorry as well that it is so hard to find me across platforms because I have a thousand different usernames! Some of it used to be intentional, but intent or none, it functions as a real pain in the ass and I apologize. I've been trying to address this issue via the sidebar link on this blog and the cross-platform links in the author's notes on AO3, but we could have avoided all this if I had just stuck to a single identifying name. Still, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS TO THE CONTRARY, I'm so glad that you found me! Not least because it has led to you sending this absolute conflict-free lab-grown diamond necklace of messages! Thank you so so so much 😭💕 It's hard for me to explain this in a sensible manner, but my slowness in answering genuinely is in large part because the message means so much to me. I want to save the act of answering for a moment when I can feel articulate enough to do some justice to the kindness you have shown me, but then it's 10PM every night when I finish writing work emails and I am incapable of stringing two words together. Tomorrow, I think, I will try again! And then it's another 10PM and another 10PM and more than two months goes by before I have to accept that I will never feel articulate enough to respond the way that you deserve. That would be true at any other time of day, besides!

But thank you. I hope that you can stick around for the frustratingly glacial pace at which I do anything at all; what I lack in output, I make up for in stubbornness. One day, 88 will be a complete fic, even if I have to break my own bones to do it. (Please don't ask me the perfectly legitimate question of why broken bones would facilitate fic writing. It is a statement about the strength of my resolution, but it is an incomprehensible statement.)

This is such an interesting question! HOW DID I? I'm combing through my (admittedly blurry) autobiographical memories, but I can't seem to find a particular originary point for reading. Saying "I've always been a reader" is so boring, and it implies a certain kind of relationship with literature that I don't think I actually have-- I didn't particularly gravitate towards reading at the expense of other activities, and I read such a hodgepodge mixture of stuff that I can't fathom what it was about the act of reading that I actually enjoyed. And now, well, I read almost exclusively for work, to the degree that the thought of reading for pleasure makes me recoil.

The writing, I do have an originary point for. I was in elementary school, and my class had recently held a small creative writing competition; we were at an age where it was embarrassing to try very hard to achieve anything, so I blew it off, because I had to perform coolness due to it not coming naturally to me. Our homeroom teacher announced the winner, and asked that they read out loud their winning entry for the rest of the class. They did, and I remember thinking very clearly: This is fine, but I could do it better if I tried.

This is a story that is immensely unflattering to me-- or rather, it's a devastatingly accurate portrayal of me. It contains all the seeds of my worst qualities as a writer and a human being: competitiveness in something I consider myself to be proficient at, the need for external validation, baseless arrogance. But when I found myself being so hideously jealous of that kid, it wasn't primarily jealousy over the fact that they had won something; I was jealous that they had this stage time to show people what the world looked like to them. I felt robbed of the chance to connect with people in that way. Of course, no one robbed me of anything -- I chose to pretend that I was too cool for school -- and there was absolutely no reason to think that I would have won the competition and gotten that stage time for myself, even if I had tried as hard as I could. But still, it got me writing. Not because I had anything to say, but because whatever banal cut-rate shit I would end up saying, I just wanted someone else to hear it and tell me that I made sense to them. That's still why I do it, I think.

Seeing as how my twitter is just my tumblr with 100% less overwrought rambling, I can't decide whether you had a worse experience or a better one than binging this blog instead! On the one hand, I can't recommend the overwrought rambling; on the other hand, what's left after the overwrought rambling is excised is still just a lot of mid art determined to insist that dick jokes comprise an entire genre of creative output. IT'S DISMAL EITHER WAY! But it's too late for you! (Thank you.)

Anon!!!!! The very FACT THAT YOU SENT ME A ONE PIECE MESSAGE!!! My past in One Piece fandom is a really deep cut in that it very rarely comes up on this blog, so I'm super pleased that you thought of me!!!!!!!!!! 💖

Tragically, I have still not watched it. I KNOW, PLEASE DON'T THROW ME OUT OF THIS PORTHOLE. I agree wholeheartedly with you-- I'm thrilled that it got new fans into OP, and that it was made with so much visible love! I wouldn't say that I'm someone who is ever looking for live action versions of stuff -- if push came to shove, I'd probably admit that I don't necessarily see the inherent appeal of live action adaptations -- but it makes me truly happy to hear all the enthusiasm and praise for this one!!! Me not watching it yet mostly has to do with the aforementioned "it's 10PM when I finish writing work emails" problem.

As someone who is unfortunately very well-acquainted with what I am into (or so I must presume, by the sheer miracle of you sending me an OP message), it probably comes as no surprise to you that the single most affecting piece of promotional media that I encountered was a teaser clip from the Baratie arc. Anon when I tell you THE BREATH CAUGHT IN MY THROAT. THE BARATIE SHOT LIKE A RESTAURANT SHOW!!!! THE BARATIE!!!!!!!! WHERE MY SON WAS RAISED! HIS FISH-HEADED NURSERY! MY SON! THE DARLING OF THE BARATIE! A KITCHEN PACKED TO THE GILLS WITH SHORT TEMPERS! THE THORN IN THEIR SIDE! THE APPLE OF THEIR EYE! CRADLED TO SLEEP BY THE WATERS THAT TOOK HIM IN! GENTLED TO WARMTH BY A COMMERCIAL GAS RANGE! THE BRINE-SWEET CHILDHOOD HOME OF MY SON!!!!!

One Piece was so early for me that I can't even distinguish what came first, my Sanji bias or my commercial kitchen obsession. What remains crystal clear is that I am predictable in my perversions. I will watch it, anon. Someday hopefully soon.

#askbox #can it be? #could it possibly be? #that i have made a post #that is at least partially about #one piece #miscellany

[chipped-chimera]

Thought I'd do a little bit of a personal update! I'm doing the reorganising thing which is still slow but really motivating - enough that I'm having good energy days where I'm getting more done! I should be able to start work on the new fish tank soon!

More commentary/thoughts/where I'm going creatively below the cut. (It might be a bit heavy, you've been warned - check tags for more info)

EDIT: Fixed Tumblr borking this, now looks like how this WAS SUPPOSED TO oof

So I'm in the process of redoing my entire office just to fit this fish thank (which has now been leak tested so we're good to go), as well as reorganising based on tips I picked up from this book for people with ADHD that I've found massively helpful. Honestly it's been great for helping me just THROW SHIT OUT because while I can have my moments of ruthless detachment and clear inventory my family is very much a 'use/reuse/reappropriate' kind of deal, which while great often gives me hesitation throwing stuff out primarily because of that pressure - especially when I'm stuck living with them. Now I know it's necessary to get everything to a state where it will STAY organised.

It's also let me take inventory of the stupid amount of traditional media art supplies which have been sitting there since high school in near pristine unused condition (we are talking a LOT of very useable acrylic paints here) and get them all organised. After chatting with my psychologist yesterday I've bought more/replacements for things I had to throw out (literally dry as a bone markers) as she literally said she 'very much encouraged' my idea of starting a visual art diary to help process emotions and stuff.

I know over the years my inspiration to do stuff has withered, usually because it's been hammered by bad moods (caused primarily by external forces I could not control on top of my already battered neurology). I know now because of shit in my past that has been largely unresolved, art has never been an outlet for emotions for me because I'm so afraid of taking up space. Despite emotions being a powerful source for art, I rarely draw on them both because I have spent so much time trying not to feel them or hiding them because unfortunately my history is one of a lot of rejection, right down to a very young age where my caregivers should have been way more on the ball. It's helped me acknowledge my way of expressing love and affection is kind of fucked - when I feel close to someone or like them a lot it has the opposite effect where I instinctively want to pull away from them because I'm scared I'm going to 'ruin it', like my life is tainted and by associating with them I'll drag them down somehow. I know it's silly but it's very hard to get past because it's automatic - that was the only way I was guarenteed to get affection, if I was the most borin, biddable, palatable child in existence who caused no problems, even if it meant enduring physical and emotional pain alone. I inherently find it hard to trust people being genuine about liking me as a person because I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop when they realise I'm too much hassle - which unfortunately was the circumstance my relationship ended around so yeah, that did not fucking help. Basically I go from being really comfortable around someone to masking intensely and yeah that is NOT GOOD. I also legit feel the reason I have alexytheimia is because I had to develop a buffer so early in my life just to survive as far as I have.

I'm hoping art journalling will help me process some of those thoughts and feelings and I still want to try and show them, just to show myself they DO have value, they are a valid part of the human experience and they should be allowed to take up space - I do not need to hide them away or cut pieces of myself out to become more 'palateable' to people. So yeah um, I guess there will be some vent art, I don't know if I'll post only to my art blog or here because it's more sketchy shit and I reserve the art blog for finished pieces now ... either way knowing me it's going to be highly metaphorical and symbolic so I don't know how 'triggering' it could be but either way I'll probably tag the absolute shit out of it just to make sure I don't adversely effect someone (yes I am aware of the irony in me saying that as it's basically me trying to 'not ruin' things again but even putting it out there at all is a big enough step - also tags are just basic decency).

So uh ... That's what I've been up to? Also why I've been kind of shit about WIP Wednesday tagging and responding to other tag games (which I am now once again remembering a bunch of that I STILL have sitting in my motifs cause I still wanna do them ; m ;) I think I tend to get something like reverse SAD this time of year, arguably for the same reasons SAD develops - it gets so damn hot that I have the curtains closed in my office (which has the biggest window in the house) all day to keep the heat out. So arguably I have just made 'tiny dark winter' for about two months because I ain't going outside when it's over 30C (aka the temp tomorrow. And the day after THAT. Fuck I hate summer). Just instead of dark and cold it's dark and sweaty - feeling clammy also being a sensory problem for me so all around BAD TIME until the season changes :/

Outside of all that I'm speculating writing a wlw romance in a western setting because I have had on off cowboy rot since forever and I should probably do something with that already. Currently speculative Native American love interest/secondary protagonist with a background that probably touches on maybe the boarding schools and then reconnection with culture. We've had similar stories with our indigenous population in Australia unfortunately (colonialism is a plague) so I can sort of have some understanding but I probably need to hit the books on that one. For any Americans/Canadians reading this if you know some good books, PLEASE send me your references, I really want to make sure I do this right. I reblogged a post a few days ago about how Native Americans are often dehumanised in westerns and they just become part of the landscape, and I really want to push against that. Also do some contrasting against how oppressive western colonial era culture was by comparison to native culture honestly because I feel that would be a really interesting dynamic. Idk when/if stuff with this project will start happening but we'll see.

If you read this far, thanks! It's pretty validating to know people care this much, since it's hard for me to believe people do care a lot of the time because of all the above bullshit. So just so you know, I love you guys 💖 and you get a bonus cat:

Tiny p.s. living with my parents now is very different from when I was a child, I know the people who caused me hurt are long, long gone. They are not the same people anymore - so I am okay! It's still frustrating but more for the reasons of wishing I had my own (bigger) space to live in and put all my stuff and just 'I am a 30 year old extremely supressed lesbian speed running puberty and this environment is not conducive to exploring that' if anything. While I'm out with my Mum I can't like ... talk about that shit lol. So yeah, frustrating but for entirely different reasons. Just clearing that up.

#kerytalk #trigger warnings: #trauma #emotional neglect #depression #honestly it's pretty light on specifics though so hopefully ok #healing

[silentalltheseyearsnomore]

Some kind of update:

Still loving not having therapy

Still very in love

Still very proud of ourselves

Whole life is changing in every way

Our system has changed so much in magical ways.

Everyone in our life has noticed a profound change. And the internal shifts are creating magic externally.

My love wants to marry me

My friendships have got so much stronger

My relationship with S is so easy! The attachment stuff just isn't really there. We are able to connect easily and don't need to reach for her, we reach for ourselves, or sometimes our love. We actually have to keep apologising for being so slow replying to her. Which is so funny after how it was during therapy together 🤣. Saw her the other day and it was just fun and easy. She said she may be able to see me Christmas morning which I didn't even hear for ages as I wasn't even thinking that way, I was talking about everyone else I'm seeing around christmas! Yes I'll spend christmas day alone, but I'm genuinely okay with that. I like my own company. I may meet up with a friend or something and I'll do some video calls. I see people either side and I also need space. But it's so cute she suggested that! I said yes of course just let me know. And that was so simple. I'm fine either way! Wild. Meaningful she would want to. But in a safe way. Which is so important...

As some more has surfaced to do with K. I don't know if I should call it sexual abuse. On top of the other abuse. But fucking fuck her. Fuck her. My trauma responses are showing up in my relationship and I hate her for that. I never thought I'd hate her. I never thought we'd fully walk away. She was my fucking therapist and she damaged me beyond words.

I am so much more solid. More able. More confident. More loving. So many things.

I'm struggling with the basics. Sleep. Food. Drink. I have some unsafe practical situations going on. Our system is learning how to live with all the change. But I'm just also okay. I've got me. I trust me. I trust the people surrounding me. I trust I'm on the right path at last.

There's no one in my life who gives me any negative feelings now! Every single person is loving, validating, fun, gorgeously human. I have no time for anyone else around me, I have walked around from every single person who drains me in any way. I made that choice. I did that. I trusted I could be okay COMPLETELY alone. I do not need to be rescued. And as soon as I surrendered to the grief of that, all the profound love I could ever wish for showed up. Both inside me and from others.

I sometimes worry this isn't real..... but it is. I worked hard. And therapy was making me worse. And I have done more for my system since stopping that shitshow. We reach for each other not a professional. And it's so healing. Maybe I'll go back one day but for now I am so much better without and so proud of myself.

#healing #s #k

[ramrage]

re: Loki is a narcissist

ooh sick, yet another person dragging out this already-tired debate

first of all, I disagree for a slew of reasons, but lettuce look at his sense of grandiosity, as that’s one of the things that can earn you a shiny diagnosis of NPD. According to the DSM-5:

“The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment”

Mull that over for a sec. Loki is royal. He is also a god*. He’s just as self-important as the other royal gods we know of. He’s not pathologically a jerk off (in this particular case), he’s just being the snob he was raised to be. 

I go more in depth on other DSM-5 criteria below the cut if you’re interested.

The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, the following criteria must be met: 

A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by: 

1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):  a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.  -> this seems sort of accurate for Loki, but an unstable sense of identity iirc is a feature of many/most personality disorders.  b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.  -> this in part seems accurate for Loki. he does seem to do things in order to get the approval of others, but only those that he gives a major fuck about. FURTHERMORE, I feel like Loki himself isn’t greatly magnifying the importance of this external validation. Thor also seeks Odin’s approval, and without it, it’s like lacking the approval of Asgard as a whole. I would argue that he is aware of his motivations, though (see: fight scene in Heimdall’s observatory “...When [Odin] awakens, he'll see the wisdom of what I've done.” as well as the classic “I could’ve done it, father. For you. For all of us.” Idk if narcissists have this much self-awareness but I could be wrong.

AND

2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):  a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.  -> Evidence regarding Loki’s ability to empathize is limited. We have seen him in rather exceptional circumstances (ie. scheming, under some kind of mind control, trying to not die/be enslaved). It’s hard to say with certainty that his empathy is healthy/unhealthy  b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others’ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain  -> does not apply to Loki imo

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:

1. Antagonism, characterized by:  a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.  -> This does fit Loki, but I think it could be better explained by being royal and when interacting with humans, of a superior* race. All of this could be said about Thor, surely, and probably Odin, as well.  b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.  -> This does fit Loki. 

C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations. 

-> Impossible to say as we don’t really know what Loki was like as a kid/teen. This should be enough to dismiss any potential diagnosis of NPD

D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.

-> see B. 1.a

E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma)

-> fair enough, but with this, any and all of Loki’s actions in the first Avengers movie should be disregarded as evidence for him having NPD

#loki #meta #im not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or any other mental health professional #i can simply read #TL;DR not enough info for a diagnosis and even if we were assuming shit #(which makes an ass out of u and me) #the diagnosis doesn't fit

[britneyshakespeare]

unpopular opinion but i dont like it when ppl call being an ally to a social justice cause “the bare minimum.” the bare minimum is nothing. “you dont get a cookie” rhetoric is so culturally conservative imo.

#'the world doesnt owe you because you exist' actually it does 💖 #like you shouldnt give a shit about causes in hope that YOU WILL GAIN SOMETHING when the point is to care about others #but being a human is fucking hard and we all need external validation and kind words?? #allies don't need as much acknowledgement as the marginalized do obviously. because issues arent about allies. theyre about marginalization. #but being a GOOD ally actually IS hard? you do have to work for it. you do have to learn about things and seek solutions from the outside. #and the learning is an ongoing process. you don't read for x amount of time and then suddenly know everything. #and most of all it is an inherently humbling position because you are uplifting other people. that's the point. of being a GOOD ally. #AND IT IS A NECESSARY HUMBLING. world's smallest violin is acknowledging your own privilege. but there is also the worry of #'maybe im doing this wrong' 'am i not doing enough?' 'am i overstepping?' 'oh wow how much i used to not know' etc etc #and while learning anything there are pitfalls and common mistakes that shouldn't discourage you but they FEEL awful bc you dont mean them. #there's always a certain blindspot you know you cannot overcome. but you try and try to eliminate the gap between you and others. #but systemically... it'll be there for our whole lifetimes at least. #text post #tales from diana #'the bare minimum' is also what my depression tells me im not doing when i cant get out of bed or shower for days at a time. #eliminate the phrase. #'the bare minimum' is also NOT what good and effective allyship is. it's a job where the work is never done. that's the opposite. #good allyship is doing the most you can do. it's not being colorblind or saying 'i dont care who you fuck aha' vaguely tolerant statements. #dont conflate lazy mainstream liberal language of acceptance with actual activism. ew. #if you dont work to educate yourself and others then you are not an ally. youre just a... person. who might not commit a hate crime. #usually a person who could be easily swayed into bigotry the moment they see a scapegoat when they need to lick their own wounds. #the sentiment of ignorant non-hate is not the same as knowing love. ignorant non-hate can transform into whatever is convenient for it. #and most ppl pretty much start at ignorant non-hate (of groups we arent born into). but you have to move up from it.

[bluemoonpunch]

Aries Season 2021

Aries Season: March 20 - April 19

“Faith, trust, and pixie dust” are major vibes for Aries season. With so much forward-moving energy coming in and not a single planet set for a retrograde until April 27th, it feels like the Universe is opening up entire dimensions to make up for lost time. The set in the very center holds Healing over Manipulation, a card deeply rooted in the 8th House, shadows, lower energy, hard times that serve a purpose. It’s like energetic therapy just opened up to help everyone cope with all of what went down, went up, and went around throughout 2020, but of course, it’s always up to you as an individual to take what is being offered to you.

That’s actually a major key here — taking what is being offered. With the internal guidance presenting messages like, “look at the bigger picture,” “the answers you need are coming,” and “prosperity lies ahead,” there is, for a lot of you, going to be these amplified pushes and pulls towards new states of being. Whether that new state of being lies within an entirely new environment, a new plan of action, a new set of goals, or even just a willful change in mindset, there will be an eagerness to “move with the seasons,” experience your own Spring or your own rebirth alongside Aries. 

The external guidance, which here serves only to support and validate the internal guidance that a lot of you will receive, lends messages like, “watch and wait,” “be loyal to what you love,” and “believe in yourself.”  All of these can really be condensed down into messages of reassurance and promise. Opportunities will show up if that is what you are waiting for. Commitment to your passion will lead you to a full harvest. Recognizing, utilizing, and trusting your own talents and capabilities in relation to what it is that you are trying to do, what you are trying to make happen will serve as the very road that you walk along, the very tools that you build with as you progress.

BUT WAIT!! Why would we all need support and reassurance if it’s just a big wave of fun and motivation? Support and reassurance imply struggle and disbelief, doesn’t it? Kind of? Yes, yes it does. On either side of Healing/Manipulation, there are two sets that present a kind of “mission statement” I suppose, but it’s definitely more lowkey and not so stress-inducing as an actual mission statement. On the left there is Transition being held up by Versatility, an interesting duo that shows a higher effort to literally transition, to literally experience some varying degree of rebirth, and for that, you, on a conscious level, need to be open to versatility. Be open to the changes as they will happen internally and externally, together, and therefore may require a bit of willful alignment and some mindfulness around moments in which you may be acting in resistance to what you, on a higher level or within your soul, actually want. 

When it comes to being versatile to internal plans and actions meeting external situations, it actually seems like that might be a little bit easier than what is being presented in the other set. On the right side, there is Belief being held up by Control. This is all about mind control, controlling your own mind, controlling your thoughts, maintaining a focus, and maintaining belief in yourself, your vision, your plans, and the overall process. These two cards trade support. Belief allows one to be in control while being in control allows one to maintain belief. Once this back and forth rhythm has been achieved, it might be relatively easy to maintain as long as you stay focused on what it is you are setting out to do, but before that, it might require a lot of effort for some of you to not lose momentum due to negative thinking or simply getting side-tracked. 

For that, those messages from the internal and external guidance are very important to hold onto. If you are someone who is trying to get something, anything at all, going within Aries season be aware that there is a lot of energetic support available to you as part of the human collective. If you lose momentum, if you lose faith in yourself, allow yourself to take a break, recharge, rethink, and do what you can to step back up to the plate and continue making your way through the season. If push comes to shove, just try to set a smaller timed goal to get some of what you’re after finished by the end of Aries Season, just so you can keep the stride going and grab onto that accomplishment. 

I would say to let yourself breathe, let yourself ebb and flow with your emotions, but deadass, this just does not seem like a time to fuck around, not a time to waste time, so… yes, be kind to yourself, but also operate like a boss bitch whilst the Sun is in Aries this year.

#collective reading #aries season #oracle reading #tarot reading

[fictionissocialinquiry]

Writing the Middle of Your Story

I have been struggling with my writing recently so I’ve been cruising writer articles for inspiration. The problem? I get an idea or more honestly an idea possesses me and its like new love: You can’t stop thinking about it/writing it. The beginning is exciting - you write a million words a day. You might even get the ending written or at least plotted out.

Then you hit a wall somewhere in the story. For me, its around the 50-60% mark, otherwise known as Act II.

Now I didn’t know this: But this is really common!

This applies to any kind of novel writing - whether its fanfic or original fiction. If you find yourself running out of steam, losing interest in a story, or knowing there’s something wrong but not being able to put your finger on it - this could help!

1. Outline. I know. I KNOW. It sucks. But I swear to Jesus, Allah, and Buddha that this shit will help you! Find a method that works for you (I use the Snowflake Method) and do it either before writing, during writing, or at the end of the writing process. I personally hate outlining at the beginning of a story. I need to write some of it first so I can get a feel for the thing before I start making executive decisions about it. So once I hit my Act II speedbump I know its time to start drawing mind maps and forcing my husband to listen to me cry about characters.

2. Practice imperfection. Your story is going to suck. To you. For reals, guys, we are our own worst critics and so good at looking over the fence at a story we idolise and being dismissive of our own. You likely won’t like your story some days. I nearly didn’t finish Mending Wounds because I thought it was silly and I was silly for writing it. Since finishing it, I’ve had someone tell me it’s their favourite story (yes, I absolutely died from a validation heart attack upon hearing that). It’s okay if your story and writing isn’t perfect - literally no ones is. When the imperfection demons start chanting find a way to laugh at them and write MORE. Write to spite!

3. Get a friend to read over it/parts of it and give you constructive feedback. I cannot tell you how many times this has saved my bacon - as recently as last week! I couldn’t figure out why chapter 6 of Rumour Has It: The Festival of Molten Sun wasn’t working - I knew something was off but I didn’t know what. I sent it to a friend and she straight away pointed out the problem. Bacon. Saviour.

Also: Read this excerpt from a writing article. If I was an organised human being, I would have saved the link so I could credit whoever wrote this. Unfortunately - I suck. This really helped me practically in finding solutions to the Act II Slump.

“The second Act is about a character’s emotional journey and is the hardest part of a story to write. Give your characters all sorts of challenges to overcome during Act 2. Make them struggle towards their goal.

The key to Act Two is conflict. Without it you can’t move the story forward. And conflict doesn’t mean a literal fight. Come up with obstacles (maybe five, maybe a dozen—depends on the story) leading up to your plot point at the end of Act 2.Throughout the second act remember to continually raise the stakes of your character’s emotional journey.

Simultaneously advance both inner and outer conflicts. Have them work together—the character should alternate up and down internally between hope and disappointment as external problems begin to seem solvable then become more insurmountable than ever.

Include reversals of fortune and unexpected turns of events—surprise your reader with both the actions of the main character and the events surrounding him.

Act Two ends with the second plot point, which thrusts the story in another unexpected direction.

Plot Point 2 occurs at the moment the hero appears beaten or lost but something happens to turn the situation around. The hero's goal becomes reachable.

Right before this unexpected story turn, the hero reaches the Black Moment—the point at which all is lost and the goal cannot be achieved. In order to have a "Climax", where the tension is highest, you must have a "Black" moment, where the stakes are highest and danger at its worst.

During this moment, the hero draws upon the new strengths or lessons he's learned in order to take action and bring the story to a conclusion.

Dorothy’s gotta get a broom from the Wicked Witch before she can go home.

Luke’s gotta blow up the Death Star before fulfilling his destiny.

Professor Klump’s gotta save face with the investors of his formula and win back Jada.”

Don’t give up on your story just cause it gets hard, guys! It kills me to think about how many amazing stories don’t get published because we doubt ourselves or just need to sit down with a pen and paper and scribble the word “FUCK” and “WHY” until the solution comes to us.

If anyone is having plot/story issues, my asks/DMs are always open!

#writing #writers #self doubt #fanfic #original fiction #Act II #the fics I mention here also benefited from this process #Emily yells about writing

[aijee]

is this a life update or a novel?

Hi all, long time no post! Nice to meet you new followers, and nice to talk to you again for those who’ve stuck around. Just as a reminder, my blog is as much of a fic blog as it is a journal for me to sort my thoughts.

In that vein, here’s a personal update. CW for mental health/anxiety, physical pain, big life changes. There’s lighter stuff at the end!

It’s been both a long and short summer for me, after deciding to quit work and focus on my mental health. I’m a millennial twenty-something whose mind, like many, is tragically crippled with the capitalistic and individualistic values America has brainwashed me with, so I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with being unemployed and depending on my parents. I’m extremely privileged and humbled to be in a family that still maintains income during unprecedented times. I’ve been trying not to let my internalized struggles turn into this self-imposed shame for partaking in pleasures (I remember second-thinking buying a digital comic book for hours). My parents often say, “We worked hard and struggled because we didn’t want our kids to do the same. Don’t feel guilty for enjoying yourself.” Nowadays, they add that I’ve worked hard during college and my post-college job; in their eyes, I’ve more than “earned” a break, especially after losing my graduation, summers, and trips.

I constantly wonder why I impose so many limitations of myself even more during a pandemic. While being aware of global struggle is important for not becoming out-of-touch, I need to remind myself that people don’t have to earn the right to play or be happy or enjoyment. Obvious lack of nuance aside, it’s crazy to think how much capitalism—largely the idea worth is contingent (work) productivity—has deformed my sense of what’s a basic human right versus what should be earned. I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I struggle with thinking in extremes; it’s either starvation or hedonism, and the latter earns far more societal vitriol. I think my Asian upbringing has made me hyperaware of what others could be thinking of me, regardless of how accurate those projections are. I’d fact, I rarely assumed positive opinions. Outside of external validation, I realized how poor my self-image really was. Tearing myself down before anyone else could rarely, if ever, softened the blow.

For the first time, I’ve begun to think that my life is my own and no one else’s. It sounds logical on paper, but so much harder in practice in real life, I’ve realized. This isn’t a constant or ingrained thought yet, often peaking in between longer and more familiar strings of anxiety. But it feels like an important realization during a time full of sadness and uncertainty, let alone in my lifetime at all.

And then I injured my spine.

It happened towards the end of the summer, when I was starting to feel more put-together internally. I felt so creatively productive (in avenues I don’t care to share online) and even closer to family. I had a ball revisiting old shows. I ate food I hadn’t eaten in years. And this was suddenly interrupted when, while showering, I was wracked with unimaginable, nonstop pain. I nearly passed out alone in the shower and barely managed to crawl to my bedside to call my parents; I was lucky they came home early. I couldn’t stop crying for almost twelve hours. I was terrified at the possibility that I may be paralyzed or my legs would be affected. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but I was bedridden and wracked with nausea. I could barely stomach anything, not even water. I couldn’t sleep. I was never brought to a hospital, either on the fear of COVID transmission. The whole time, it was so, so debilitating on a physical and mental front. My head was a nightmare.

Like a bad habit, some of my worst thoughts centered around productivity. I worried about the work I couldn’t do. I felt shameful about canceling plans with friends. I hated being helpless and not being able to take care of myself, and felt guilty for wasting other people’s time taking care of me. And yet, if I was someone else, even a stranger let alone a friend/loved one, I’d be scratching my head over why that person would think these things. Fuck work and other life plans, getting better is the most important thing because you can’t do any of those compromised activities if you’re not at capacity! Duh. Anxiety can really a number on you sometimes and it’s awful just how irrationality fuels the spiral.

I’m grateful to be back on my feet. I’m trying to hold on tightly to that victory, to this positive point that I have worked towards. It’s going to be a challenge to do my recovery exercises daily for my 2-3 month recovery period when I barely remember to floss. Moreover, I’ll be in the middle of moving and working full-time again in the next month, alongside the ridiculous anxiety over some applications and maybe interviews for a different part of my life. But I’m doing my best to take each day at a time and celebrate the good things when they come, however small. I don’t have to ace a final exam or burn my retinas studying for them to deserve victories because, hey, again, happiness is a right and I need to stop gatekeeping myself from it.

Frankly, the injury is largely why I haven’t posted sooner. I don’t think anyone should ever feel obligated to use social media when they aren't up to it. But I actually wanted to ease back into writing before I was injured, starting with this blog.

Some other positive things:

God, I missed the Avatar (Aang and Korra) series so much. What a damn good franchise, what a damn good magic system and world. IT’S. SO. GOOD, GOD. Revisiting it all and reading the comics while I was sick was the single biggest joy that kept me going. I hope the magic lingers for as long as possible.

Even in my inactivity, I’ve received some really lovely comments on my AO3. I read the emails primarily. It really warms my hear to see them. I revisited old comments recently, too, and they’ve helped keep me going and reminded me that I am capable of putting joy into the world.

I’ve taken a liking to Youtube playlist-videos and Spotify playlists that encompass a very specific story scenario, like “dancing with the villain in a masquerade ball” or “driving around the French countryside”, etc. Japanese 80′s urban pop is SO GOOD.

Smosh has been putting out such great content y’all. I was BIG on old Youtube (Nigahiga, Smosh, Michelle Phan, Jenna Marbles, etc.) and it warms my heart to see their renaissance. Amazingly entertaining and down-to-earth content. I don’t fall squarely into their demographic anymore, but the periphery is still fun.

Food is great. I love food still. I’ve eaten a lot of good food during this break. It almost pains me to go back to living by myself and eating healthier. :’(

I didn’t realize how expensive moving was. But, after living in the same apartment from sophomore uni to post-uni work, I’m moving into a bigger “adult” apartment with appropriately sized appliances instead of the mini student kind. The possibility of treating myself to a king-sized mattress and decorations is also very exciting.

It warms my heart to see people in my vague social circles indulging in home art projects, like paint by numbers and “diamond” painting. As a kid I thought “not real art” was a waste, but by god as an adult do I not give a shit about what “real art” is anymore. If it’s fun, it’s fun. That’s that!

That’s all I can think about for now.

#aijeepost

[ks-caster]

The 100 Season 7 Episode 4 - Post-Liveblog Recap

Okay, so I liveblogged an episode for the first time - and it turned out to be a nice way to stay focused through the commercial breaks. Might continue to do that for the rest of the season.

But TBH I started doing it just so I could bitch about the CLEAR AND BLATANT LACK OF A SCENE WHERE SANCTUM!KRU REALIZE THAT BELLAMY AND ANOMOLY!KRU ARE MISSING. That was an important scene that the whole fandom, more or less, has been waiting for the entire time for various reasons. 

How do the characters react? Who figures out that something’s wrong first? Does Clarke sense Bellamy’s absence because they have a bond? Does Emori go looking for her space sister to comfort her other space sister only to find her missing? 

(Actually, she does. That’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it. Might fic later. Accounts for Emori’s complete absence while her bestie Raven is falling apart.)

Edit: here's the fic!

Anyway, back to the episode - whoever was in charge of editing really really dropped the ball. Missing realization scene, poorly ordered Raven and Clarke scenes. The music during the Dev-and-Hope montage was a nice touch but just too loud enough that I really had trouble telling what they were saying - and the pacing would have felt better with just one show of teenage!Hope before we got 20-year-old her. The cut from Orlando agreeing to train Anomaly!Kru to 5 years later was WAY too abrupt for me to get a feel for the character and relationship development that they were trying to shoehorn in in order to create conflict at the end. I got where they were going with everything, but in a I’m-reading-a-newbie-writer’s-fanfic-because-I-love-the-story-concept-and-want-to-support-them kind of way and not in a I’m-watching-a-show-made-by-experienced-professionals-and-paying-for-the-privilege-in-ad-revenue kind of way. Disappointing.

Jumping around here for a bit: I gotta say I’m loving the makeovers this season! Hair and makeup did a great job on bringing back the old Raven without losing the maturity they gave her, giving Murphy and Emori their Gucci Royalty Vibes without losing the feel of their individual styles, and making Hope look like she can’t find quite the balance between feral forest girl and innocent shut-in who can’t bear to take a life (which is accurate to her character, of course). 

And Echo! So I really, really didn’t like her makeovers in seasons 5 and especially 6, because it felt like they were trying too hard to make her look pretty in a 21st Century kind of way. She looked softer, more vulnerable, which really contradicted her character traits - but I thought that might’ve been on purpose, to show a change in her (that she did indeed allow herself to become softer and more vulnerable for her family). And her post-time-skip (not that one. Or that one. The other one. There’s a lot of those. Bah.) look feels like a return to herself; she’s beautiful but in a no-nonsense, don’t-forget-I-can-cut-your-throat kind of way. (Is this because I just really love the butch look on woman and am myself a butch woman? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.)

Side note: Where the hell did they get clippers on Penance? Those haircuts were entirely too even to have been done with scissors. I’ll buy that Gabriel and Orlando shaved their heads and their perfect round cuts were growout, but Hope and Echo? Electric clippers. Like I said I like the looks, but guys, there’s no way.

I liked that I got a better feel for Hope’s character this episode - she’s trying so hard to be like her mom and Aunty O and all the heroes they told her about when she was a child, but the truth is she’s been in one real battle, she froze, and her best and only friend died. And since her only role models were these incredibly strong people who didn’t give up, back down, hesitate, that wouldn’t be an easy thing for her to get over. (Given that Diyoza was pregnant with her for two entire seasons, I’d really like to have more time developing Hope’s character - or even the same amount of screen time but go easier on the timeskips, lol. She keeps having growth/maturity/life experience spurts so it’s hard to keep up with the development that we’re shown.

So, 5 (7? Wasn’t she 22? There’s still 2 years we missed right?) years after watching her friend die, and 5 (7?) years of blaming herself for freezing, she’s put into the same position, and she stabs some lady in the neck. Kid didn’t steal her coping mechanisms! All joking aside thought, the kid basically relived her trauma in real life - honestly her reaction was 100% valid.

I’m sure I’m supposed to be upset by Echo’s choice to kill the remaining gold-head people. But I think the only reason that’s supposed to bother me is that she promised (ish - she was real explicitly clear that she’d do what was necessary to rescue Bellamy and them were the breaks) Orlando that she wouldn’t. I think I’m supposed to care about the fractured relationship between AnomalyKru and Orlando.

I don’t. I don’t know if it’s the super-fast timeskip (it was weird enough to see the changed dynamics in SpaceKru when I deeply knew all of the characters AND we got time to see the changes play out) or the fact that I didn’t really get to know Orlando in a way that made me super sympathetic to him (I’ll get to that in a minute) or if it’s just that he was smart enough to know he was being played from the start (see Navy SEAL mom didn’t teach you how to swim and Echo again being 100% clear that killing people might still happen) and walked right in anyway. Either way, his betrayal wasn’t enough of a motivator for me as an audience member to be bothered about how things ended between him and AnomalyKru. I kind of shrugged and moved on.

More on Orlando... So The 100 has had several plotlines that center around people doing dangerous, terrible and downright ridiculous things because of their religions; see the kidnapping and conclave of freaking children killing each other to become commander, Gaia’s whole character arc + starting a new religion around Octavia/WonKru betraying that religion to go back to their old one centering on Madi, WHO IS GODDAMN TWELVE, all of Sanctum and season 6, the Sanctum conflict here in season 7, and now this goddamn Bardo Disciple shite.

Now I’m not dishing on real life religion or religious people - I happen to have one of those myself - but the plot of some-people-take-their-religion-way-too-far-drink-the-koolaid-and-hurt-people-around-them has been done and done and done on this show. And now here we have Orlando, who was a high-ranking member of his religion, drank the koolaid, cast out, still a true believer and therefore dangerous because his perspective is fundamentally skewed. I don’t know anything about this religion but that it’s militarized (they can arrest people) and think that sentencing people to 10 years of madness-inducing Geneva Convention violations and then bringing them back to their families two days later is okay. I don’t really want to know anything else, because I’m worried that the show is going to work hard on making this religion scarier than the Sanctum one (needing to one-up themselves with the big bad, of course) which just keeps making the commander religion look humane in comparison. 

Which it wasn’t. But I digress.

So Orlando was kinda’ cool, but getting in too deep with a fundamentalist who was complicit in his own abuse by said religion (and so who knows what he thought was okay to do to other people) and then it ended badly.

Cue shocked Pikachu.

Moving on. Clarke. Baby. After the harrowing experience of the radiation destroying the radio so you couldn’t say goodbye to your mom when you were supposed to go to space, then missing your time window and getting left behind on Earth, and the radio broke them too so you couldn’t even be sure your friends would leave in time until they blasted off, and then calling Bellamy every day when you knew he couldn’t hear you, and ALL OF THE FREAKING LAST SEASON WHERE YOU WERE POSSESSED AND WOULD HAVE GIVEN ANYTHING TO LET YOUR FRIENDS AND DAUGHTER KNOW BOTH THAT THAT WASN’T YOU AND THEN LATER THAT YOU WERE ALIVE and THEN your MOTHER getting possessed and you had to check to see if it was really her and it WASN’T. Clarke. 

After all that terrifying inability to communicate.

You leave Gaia behind to warn everyone of the danger. INSTEAD OF CALLING THEM ON A PIECE OF HANDY TECHNOLOGY OR TAKING A QUICK TRIP BACK YOURSELF. TO TELL YOUR DAUGHTER WHERE YOU WERE GOING. YOU DON’T THINK THAT MAYBE MAKING EXTRA SURE THAT EVERYTHING GETS COMMUNICATED CLEARLY AND IMMEDIATELY MIGHT BE A PRIORITY.

And then Gaia gets kidnapped. Honestly, cool! Not ‘cause I’m rooting for Gaia to be hurt (I don’t care all that much about her tbh) but I LOVE Indra and I want her to have more screen time and development this season - and or the chance to cut people up with her sword - and kidnapping her daughter seems like a great way to facilitate that.

*Looks at list* Oh, right, Jordan. I forgot you were here. Honestly I can’t figure out what the fuck is going on with you, and since I’ve had a whole season of not connecting with you because the story was too busy focusing on external plot... I don’t see that changing any time soon buddy. Sorry.

Oh and that FrEaKiNg PrOmO! 

My garbage boy! My chaos gremlin! My excellent-at-impersonating-a-deity-even-if-it-goes-against-his-programming! What are they doing?! 

I’m torn between NO DON’T HURT HIM and YES HURT HIM BECAUSE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND BRAVERY BWAHAHAHA. At least I know there’ll be Murphy and hopefully Memori content in the next episode. That’s the good shit. It’s the only thing left about this show that still feels “pure,” not that I didn’t know what sort of darkness I was signing up for when I started but just because he and Emori are sort of the last light in the darkness, and it’s nice to get a break periodically.

#The 100 #The 100 season 7 spoilers #the 100 7x04 #saltblogging #kind of #I enjoyed each individual set of scenes in the way that I would enjoy loosely connected oneshots #but all together... #damn #that was a li'l bit of a mess #Bellarke kind of #echo kom spacekru #emori kom spacekru #Orlando the 100 #gabriel santiago #clarke griffin #gaia the 100 #indra the 100 #long post #i wrote this on my laptop #and then looked at it on my phone #and damn

[very-grownup]

THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 3

Episode 11.

Self-governance is an illusion and humanity has replaced the decision-making process with some supercomputers because no one's read "I Have No Mouth and I Mist Scream".

The rest of Episode 11 and Episode 12 behind the cut.

So, there's this episode of Johnny Quest where a spaceship crash lands outside this military base and it leaves behind this black orb that in the night opens and it's a glowing red eye and super long spider legs extend and it shoots a laser out of its eye. The Angel in this episode reminds me of the giant space spider robot in that episode of Johnny Quest but it's like a rhomboid instead of an orb and it is covered in triangles and each triangle has an eye and later the eyes cry orange acid and that's upsetting but I love spider.

There's a power outage in this episode caused by I think the Angel just throwing a breaker and shutting everything down and absolutely no one was prepared for this eventuality. Like, everything is underground mostly and what emergency power there is gets diverted from the life support to the supercomputers which seems like the kind of decision EVIL SUPERCOMPUTERS WOULD MAKE but that's not even the important thing.

Shinji's been told by his teacher to talk to his dad because the kids are doing, like, their future goal planning guidance counselor stuff or whatever and parents need to be involved and the little scene of Shinji calling his father from a payphone is heartbreaking. Just awkward anxious stuttering mostly focused on Shinji's empty hand clenching and unclenching helplessly while his father interrupts him to tell him to spit it out already and tell him why he's broken what seems to be a no contact rule between them and it's so real. So futile. Shinji really tries to tell his father the message he's supposed to pass on only to get the brush-off again, the whole thing impatiently dismissed as unimportant and part of all the responsibilities for Shinji that have been delegated to Misato. Then we get the beginning of what is clearly Shinji's father telling his assistant not to forward Shinji's calls in the future before the power outage and the call disconnects. Shinji tries to talk to about this to Asuka and Rei. The disconnect has just enough uncertainty to it that Asuka is able to go 'sounds like a tech problem stop worrying so much and reading into it you wiener'. Shinji tries to lie to himself that Asuka's right even though this is just the latest bit of abusive negligence from his dad. It's sad, it's just so sad, it makes me so sad and there's no one to tell Shinji straight up that his dad sucks and is neglecting him and it's not cool and there's no excuse, not really.

There's stuff with the kids needing to get to NERV with the power out, Asuka trying to get into a power play with the others that they are completely disinterested in, a clearly anxious and adrift Shinji asking '... it's weird we're being attacked by things we call angels right?'

The kids get to the robots which have been prepared for them. Shinji sees his father working with the grunts to get the robots ready all analogue and hand-cranked or whatever and he's allowed to believe this is because his dad had faith the kids, including Shinji, would get there. Which is such a cruel lie to perpetuate about this man who was ready to drop a nuke on his son in the last episode, but Shinji takes it and actually gets into the robot with spirit because he's so desperate to believe that he's even on his father's radar, let alone important to him.

They have to chop a bunch of tubes with axes so the robots can punch and kick their way to the Angel and get acid-cried on and when the tubes are axed they gush really upsetting fluid and I hate it. But mostly I just keep thinking about Shinji's empty hand clutching at nothing while trying to get his father to hear him. This concludes my report on Episode 11 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Episode 12.

In the year 2000, as we all remember, Antarctica got blown the fuck up by an energy giant appearing. Who survived this incident? Misato and I assume a single penguin. Misato was a child who was there with her father because no one knows what work-life balance is or where it's appropriate to bring children and to save her, her father put her in a metal coffin tube. TRAUMA.

Back in the present (I have now forgotten what year this is supposed to be taking place in), Misato has been promoted to major and Shinji's two friends, the horny boys who try to have an empathy, notice before Shinji and Asuka do (parental figures can never change). It turns out with her promotion and Shinji's shitty dad and that other old dude being away (in Antarctica where everything is blood and northern lights), Misato is the most senior person at NERV and I got a feeling so complicated. Because it's great that professionally Misato is getting recognition and authority, especially in the wake of Kaji existing, but ... Misato is a disaster and NERV is a disaster and being the top disaster dog of a disaster seems ... not great.

There's a bit that is both sweet and sad where Shinji's friends make them throw a little party to celebrate Misato's promotion and they are genuinely trying to do something nice for her even if it's partially propelled by horniness but also ... no peers? Honey. (Ritsuko and Kaji do show up so it's not just Misato and middle schoolers but Kaji is a negative to the adult count, the peer count, and the friend count so it's all null.)

The important thing in this episode is the connection and parallels between Shinji and Misato. Shinji realizes that although they're celebrating her promotion, Misato isn't happy. Misato admits this is kind of the case and Shinji is baffled. The promotion means that outside authority figures have recognized Misato's hard work and are validating it and why wouldn't that make Misato happy? Surely that's why people do things, to get external validation? Because it's why Shinji makes the decisions he makes. Validation and happiness are complicated, naturally, and it's saying that, but also implicit in the exchange is that Shinji has never received external validation. This is his holy grail. Once he has that surely everything will feel different.

When an Angel that looks like an orange boomerang or maybe a bop-it with an huge eyeball in the centre attacks and Misato's in charge, she uses her authority to make some wild and risky calls which boil down to 'throw all the teens in robots at it at once'.

The Angel drops orange globs of itself onto the earth below and each glob is like a little nuke that leaves a smoking crater behind but it's pretty cute, like someone put decarabia from SMT through a funhouse mirror. Not a fan of the orange globs, though.

Ritsuko confronts Misato in the bathroom about making bad decisions for the wrong reasons (as opposed to her usual bad decisions but for the right reason), suggesting that Misato just wants to get revenge on the Angels and destroy them which ... is what I thought NERV was for? It seems very double-standard and bullshit and I don't buy it as being something that makes Misato's decisions any better or worse than they would be otherwise. Ritsuko just seems to be covering her ass because Shinji's dad is away and only he gets to send teens into death.

Misato takes some time to explain to Shinji why she joined NERV and the complicated feelings she has not towards the Angels but to her father, who was a shitty father who was emotionally distant and neglectful and only seems to have managed to be a good dad once before promptly dying. Misato is still trying to figure out the intersection between anger and grief and how to feel about a man who does important work and to who she doubly owes her life but who was a shitty dad in a moment-by-moment sense. The guilt of still being angry, even after his death: Misato is still grappling with this and the echoes of shitty parenting, a cyclical thing that she is simultaneously enabling and attempting to divert by stepping into Shinji's life and it's no surprise something she's still grappling with flies over Shinji's head.

The kids get in the robots to fight the Angel all at once in Misato's reckless plan that works because ALL THE PLANS ARE THROWING TEENS IN ROBOTS AT GIANT MONSTERS. One of the kids tears the membrane off the giant eye and stabs it with a giant robot knife and it's gross. ALSO on defeat the Angel STILL BLOWS UP AND LEAVES A HUGE CRATER, SOMEHOW THIS IS SUCCESS?

Shinji's shitty dad calls in to validate and commend Misato's incredibly reckless decision because of course he doesn't have a problem with plans that might kill teens. He was ready to nuke his son an episode ago! Shinji's shitty dad then speaks to him directly, calls him by name, and basically tells him 'good work' and between this and his talks with Misato, Shinji learns the lesson that if he continues to do this thing he hates beyond all understanding, his father will see him. It's awful because Misato was trying to find words to explain how fleeting to nothingness external validation is when it doesn't align with your own desires and this didn't reach Shinji but also because what his father gives him is lip service. Empty words. Nothing. But they're still the most Shinji seems to have ever gotten from his father and so this nothing is everything. This concludes my report on Episode 12 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Supplemental: with how poorly Misato explains things to Shinji, it feels like she's never spoken about her anger towards her father and her anger about her anger being complicated by his sacrifice and death. She has no real friends she feels safe opening up to.

#neon genesis evangelion report #they're starting to get long

[housebudget81]

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The body, for that reason, features as if it is in malnourishment setting as well as via this, there is a radical decrease in the body fat. While many steroids in the marketplace may bring about bone wastefulness or loss, SARMs will certainly not. They are really discerning in their action therefore not most likely to hurt your various other tissues.You possibly would not wish to damage your body tissues even if you want others to enhance in dimension. That's the reason many individuals that intend to enhance their performance prefer utilizing SARMs since they will only alter the tissues that result in growth in the size of bones and muscles. Ostarine or MK-2866 (CAS #) is a study chemical developed originally by Merck Inc. and also currently possessed by GTx Inc

LGD-4033is a careful androgen receptor modulator, and also a novel non-steroidal oral SARM that binds to Androgen Receptors with high fondness and also selectivity. It remains in a course ofandrogen receptor ligands that is cells careful, created to treat muscular tissue squandering connected with cancer, severe as well as persistent illness and also age-related muscle loss. It is clear to you that every one of the above-described actions require considerable funds, yet also a lot of time and also job. Reduced selling prices are insufficient for suppliers to return the financial investment.

If Shop Uk alcohol swab continues as visible particles, sonication might prove of help as it boosts the price of dissolution.

Crucially it likewise offers the chance to uncover previously hard to reach biosuperiors.

As a whole, attempt to dissolve peptides in sterile pure water or sterilized water down acetic acid (0.1%) remedy to offer a stock service at a greater concentration than that needed for subsequent usage.

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If, after sonication, the 'solution' has actually gelled, has a persistent haziness, or has a scum drifting externally, the peptide has most likely not dissolved however is merely finely suspended.

The worldwide peptide therapeutics market is expected to be worth $24 billion by 2020.

In both techniques, the main goal is to protect as much muscle mass as feasible. MK-2866 will certainly aid shield your gains because it is a moderate SARM and also functions well when there is a calorie shortage.

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Just picture what could take place if you went full-bore and were a perfectionist? The only thing I can not do is contrast this to roids - they perhaps better but fuck understands that from as well as what their variation will certainly do! , however I have a regular order with JW Supps due to the fact that, me being human as well as vulnerable to life, these guys aid me with some initiative in the gym, get where I need to be.

It isan excellent medicine for reducing fat and also stay healthy as an athlete. Its everyday use is normally around 10mg for simple recovery from serious ailments or pains. This kind of pure SARMs prevents testosterone that has a lot more anabolic attributes than testosterone itself. People using this pure SARMs has a tendency to dose twice a day, however it is not suggested for the initial users due to the fact that excess usage might establish side effect. In no question, pure SARMs are splendidly made, and the item has been validated by medical professionals to reduce muscle mass or bone pain, mind problems, aggressiveness, and also even cancers. Do not be surprised that various systems can point out a range of functions that this approach provides. This is because; the significance and also benefits to the body system can not be overemphasized.

As the name suggests, SARMs have the capability to pick the particular receptors they are going to bind to. This is a substantial impact when it pertains to remaining healthy and balanced and feeling your ideal while taking such products. You do not have to accept turmoil and negative thoughts within the mind and body so as to get the advantages you desire. The 2nd significant benefit is they do not featured a long listing of dangerous negative effects. It is motivating when you can obtain benefits for your body as well as your mind with SARMs, as well as not have to be excessively worried regarding the damaging components. Peptides function by making changes to the human endocrine system, which includes the pancreas, ovaries, testes, thyroid as well as various other hormone producing glands. Modifications to this system can have extremely serious results in relation to human development, growth as well as reproductive systems.

This is utilized off-label in cancer individuals, as well as works by enhancing cravings. Steroids are likewise utilized, to develop muscular tissue, yet neither of these therapies promotes reliable development of well operating muscle-- a large obstacle for any treatment. The loss of muscle mass as well as fat can damage an individual to such an extent that the cachexia is the cause of death in several cancer individuals-- up to 20% according to some quotes. It likewise leaves patients less able to eliminate the underlying disease and endure chemotherapy, or various other cancer killing representatives, along with increasingly obstructing day-to-day activities. With PMag the beginning of crazy pumps is fairly fast but no such thing was experienced with LGD. I got approx 5kg mass (fat+ muscle mass) on Pmag as well as have actually not discovered any kind of such body make-up distinction with LGD.

I started taking these and also I might see gains being made after the initial week. I have actually attempted afew sarms currently and also saw the best gains on these for certain. I do not typically create evaluations and this website does not seem to reward when you do, not an issue, however I have found these reviews helpful to for my very own ends so wished to share the love. Gents, go down the representatives, up the weight and keep the rest periods traditional yet sincere.

. MK-2688 belongs to a class of chemicals called SARMs or selective androgen receptor modulators. Compared to testosterone, the sex hormone, the advantage of SARMs such as MK-2688 is that they do not have androgenic task in non-skeletal-muscle cells. MK-2866 is going through medical tests for and might become medically shown and also accepted for avoidance of cachexia, degeneration, and also sarcopenia primarily in the elderly and also ill populace.

Do humans have antimicrobial peptides?

A wide variety of human proteins and peptides also have antimicrobial activity and play important roles in innate immunity. In this review we discuss three important groups of human antimicrobial peptides. In humans, two classes of defensins can be found: α-defensins and β-defensins.

On issues negative effects, it is good to note that SARMs featured side effects much like various other medications. The SARMs negative effects are light and will hardly ever influence your daily activities. To stop on your own from dealing with serious side effects ensure that you take the advised dosage with the correct time frame. Among the most effective all-natural supplements that can be used along with any kind of SARM to increase gains and recovery is Creatine.

It was discovered by Yuichito Kanno, as well as it is one of the very best SARMs since it is very helpful in weight loss and also obtaining muscle mass without dealing with severe negative effects like liver damages or high blood pressure. Minimize body fat-If you aim at shedding body fat, then SARMs will certainly assist you to burn it in various means. These products boost the body to break down the fat cells with the aim of producing energy.

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[uncloseted]

Skins and the Enneagram: Generation 1

Hi guys!  I’ve been wanting to do a series where I talk about each Skins character and their Enneagram type so that we can delve into what personally motivates them and what their emotional journeys are like.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Enneagram is a model of the human personality, similar to the MBTI, which is a typology of nine interconnected personality types that focus on a person’s basic fear, basic desire, and personal motivations.  Let me know what you think of my analysis of the characters and let me know if you like this kind of content!  I’ve been having fun doing them.  

So! Starting with Generation 1, here we go:

Tony: 8w7.  Tony is a classic 8; ambitious, competitive, and motivated by power.  8s are self-assertive and want other people to give them their way immediately, a mode of being we often see Tony express.  He competes for sexual dominance and rarely compares himself to others.  He’s a true leader who wants to make the world (and his friends) conform to his personal vision of how things should be.  He wants to be the most powerful, to have a large impact, to build and accomplish great things.  He’s ruthless when people get in his way and has a large ego.  He fears being harmed or controlled by others, and spends much of his time trying to protect himself from anyone else being in charge.  He has trouble with his temper and with allowing himself to be vulnerable, even among friends, instead opting to be domineering and to control them.  His main motivations are self-reliance, proving his strengths, and to stay in control of his environment and those around him.  He seeks out challenges and enjoys proving that he can get whatever he wants (which we see when he dumps Michelle and then tries to get her back, confident that it doesn’t matter what he does because she’ll always come back to him).  When we first meet Tony, he has complete and total control of his environment and everyone else around him, able to manipulate people to do his bidding.  However, like many 8s find, this comes with consequences; the price of their control is typically losing emotional contact with the people in their lives.  Their friends become dissatisfied with the state of affairs, causing them to distance themselves from their 8 friend, and in return 8s feel misunderstood and distance themselves further until they are completely alone, which we see at the end of series 1.  Tony becomes blocked in his ability to connect with people or to love, and only by being hit by a bus, losing all his power and control, does he finally learn how to connect with people on a real, emotional level again.  Instead of being domineering and controlling, he becomes a true leader, looking after the interests of the people in his life and helping them achieve what they want.

Sid: 9w8. Sid is an unhealthy 9.  Sid is accepting, trusting, and stable, but also too willing to go along with other, more dominant types to keep the peace.  We see this a lot in his relationship with Tony, who frequently steamrolls over what Sid wants or need, and who Sid allows to do so because he’d rather have Tony as his friend than his enemy.  9s frequently have problems with inertia and with stubbornness, which is Sid through and through.  He finds it hard to begin and complete projects, even when his life as he knows it depends on it (for example, we learn in his series 1 episode that he almost never does his homework, and even after he’s threatened by his parents, he still doesn’t complete it).  It sometimes seems that he’s lacking an identity of his own, rather taking on the identities of those around him.  Sid is often tempted to ignore the disturbing aspects of life and to seek peace through “numbing out” instead of facing his problems head-on.  He attempts to find simple, painless solutions to his problems, but that’s not always possible.  He idealizes Tony and goes along with Tony’s wishes, even saying yes to things he doesn’t want to do to avoid conflict, which is a very 9 trait.  Through the series, Sid learns how to confront his problems head on and to chase what he wants.  He finally confronts Tony about his bad behavior, tells Cassie how he feels about her, and eventually yells at Cassie for her bad behavior as well.  He learns to chase after what he wants and to be proactive, finally culminating in going to New York to find Cassie, something he never would have been able to do in series 1.

Cassie: 2w3 Cassie is a strong but unhealthy 2w3.  Her greatest fear is that she is unwanted or unworthy of love, which stems from her parents’ neglect. As a result, she seeks out love elsewhere, from everyone she can.  She’ll make friends with the taxi driver, the security guard, the guy at the fish and chips shop…. it doesn’t matter, as long as they’re willing to validate her.  She can be manipulative and self-serving, making other people feel guilty about the way they treat her.  At her worst, she looks for validation through sexual relationships with random people, and she becomes vindictive.  She excuses and rationalizes ruining other people’s lives because she feels abused and victimized by other people.  At her best, though, she’s unconditionally loving, empathetic, and compassionate.  She cares about other people and their needs, and she’ll do whatever she can to help them out.  Some people would be tempted to say that Cassie is a 4, but I think that’s a mistake.  She knows who she is and has a very strong identity, even though it makes other people think that she’s odd sometimes, and it’s something she can’t get rid of even though I think she’d like to.  There are two other giveaways; twos move towards others and excessive engage them, versus fours who withdraw from others.  And twos tend to be highly aware of other people’s feelings but not so in tune with their own motivations and needs, which is very much Cassie. Michelle: 3w2.  Michelle is driven towards success and accomplishment. She wants to feel like she’s valuable and worthwhile, something that she clearly struggles with (“[universities] won’t have me….I’m just the brainless, pretty girl”).  Because of that, she needs a lot of external validation, which comes from Tony.  She needs attention, to be admired, and to impress other people, which she gets through her looks and sexuality.  She has the potential to do great things in the world, but first she needs to be able to recognize her own value, and that’s really the journey we see her on in the series.  Originally she’s just a plaything for Tony, but at the end of the series she’s someone who commands respect, knows her own value, and won’t let anyone else take that away from her.

Jal: 6w5. 6s are security-oriented and committed.  They are reliable, hardworking, responsible, and trustworthy.  To me, this is very much Jal.  When we meet her, we’re told that she’s committed to her studies and her clarinet, and that she’s the problem solver and rock of the group.  She’s very loyal to the group and to her friends, even when she maybe shouldn’t be, because she’s afraid of being abandoned and losing her social support. Throughout her story, she seeks security and support, which she doesn’t get much of at home.  She thinks that if she just studies harder and plays the clarinet better, she’ll achieve the stability that she’s been searching for, but that’s not the case. Her biggest struggle in the series is that she always says no to things- she doesn’t want to endanger the stability she’s achieved in any way, and so it’s easier to not do anything new.  In her relationship with Chris, we see that she trusts him to be part of that life for her; that she expects him to be stable.  And when he isn’t, that’s a real problem for their relationship.  As she grows throughout the series, she becomes more okay with the unexpected.

Chris: 7w6.  Chris is a classic 7.  He’s extroverted, constantly optimistic, playful, high-spirited, and enthusiastic about pretty much everything.  He approaches life with curiosity, optimism, and adventure, and has a “kid in the candy store” approach to everything, even that which other people would find mundane.  Like many 7s, Chris has a lot of curiosity and an ability to learn quickly, which is how he talks himself into so many different jobs in his series 2 episode. But this also causes problems for him; he has trouble committing to one job (or one person), and his need for in-the-moment stimulation often overcomes his long-term needs.  The Enneagram Institute says that 7s are “Renaissance people” and that fits Chris to a T.  When he’s at the career center, he even asks Josie if describing himself as a “Renaissance man” sounds a bit wanky.  Chris describes his central conflict as this: “It was good. Then things started going wrong. Then someone else escaped. The gravity holding us together was gone. We were floating in space. It's kinda easy when you've got nothing, because... nothing can't be taken away from you.  I was perfectly happy killing myself, but then you asked me to try, and for the first time in my life it felt like someone actually gave a shit and that person was worth trying for.”  He’s constantly on the go because he feels like he doesn’t know how to make choices that are beneficial to himself or others; he’s always chasing the next thing because he’s afraid of being deprived and in pain, the way he was when his family fell apart.  He’s afraid that if he settles down, everything will fall apart again, and so he stays on the go.  What’s interesting is how this interacts with his 6 wing- 6s are constantly seeking stability, and ultimately, stability is what Chris wants.  He wants someone to care, to be worth trying for, who won’t leave him.  It’s also what makes his relationship with Jal so interesting- she’s a 6 and so she’s constantly seeking stability.  Their relationship works because at their core they both really want a stable life with one another.  Their “fuck it/no” pact is also classic Enneagram 6/7.  6s have a heightened sense of responsibility and don’t let themselves “goof off” until all their obligations have been met.  7s are spontaneous and resist having any expectations put on them.  In the end, Chris realizes that there’s a way to channel his love for life in a way that’s compatible with settling down with Jal, and that he doesn’t need to be completely free of expectation in order to be happy.

Maxxie: 4w3.  We don’t get quite as much insight into Maxxie’s life as we do other characters, but I think it’s safe to say that Maxxie is a healthy 4.  4s are looking to understand themselves and their purpose in life, and are idealistic, empathetic, and sincere.  They’re also a very creative type, and they usually express their feelings through art (Maxxie draws, dances, and acts).  However, he can also be moody, self absorbed, and melancholy, as we see in the Russia episode when he and Anwar are fighting. As the series progresses, he learns to trust himself and to be secure in his identity, and eventually pursues his passions.

Anwar: 7w6.  Anwar is a character that’s sort of hard to type because his personality stays relatively stagnant throughout the duration of the show.  When the show starts, he’s immature and fixated on getting laid as much as possible.  He maintains his family’s traditions but at the same time is out partying and going against what his religion dictates.  He’s very much a hypocrite, going against what his religion says when it suits him but uncomfortable with it when other people do the same.  He’s self-indulgent and ultimately, it seems like he’s chasing the next thing so that he doesn’t have to sit down and consider his own personal choices and what he actually wants.  At the end of series 2, we finally see Anwar make some personal progress; he realizes that if he doesn’t stop and think about what he wants, he’ll be left behind.  But we don’t get to see the conclusion of that, which I think is disappointing.

[yvaquietdays]

Deciding to be happy.

Sometimes meditation doesn’t work.  Sometimes being mindful of your downfalls doesn’t work. Sometimes yoga doesn’t work. Sometimes writing doesn’t work. It’s a little hard for me to describe how I’ve been feeling the last month or so. Of course I’m going to try, that’s why I write a blog. *sly face* So I’ve talked about cycles before. Being aware of the small turnovers of life makes the every day manageable; being aware of how our emotions and vibrations fluctuate certainly makes everything seem a little less daunting.

I’ve been conscious that I’m entering a new cycle of my life. I’m not so far away from turning 28, an age I’m told is the beginning of the fourth cycle in life. And whether you buy into the hokey-pokey, it makes sense if you suspend your disbelief for a moment. Apparently you have the first 7 years, the years of your childhood and innocence, of unadulteratingly questioning and experiencing the world you live in. Then the second stage, taking you to 14, where you’re contemplating adulthood and experiencing massive physiological changes and all the outcomes of that. Then to 21, where all the shit hits the fan and explodes outwards all over you and the people in your life. I’ve been dealing with the proverbial shit of this third cycle for a while, experiencing existential fear and anxiety for the first time, sorting through the people in my life, assessing how I relate and love, seeing my familial relationships through new eyes, shaving off the bits of me I don’t like. Essentially, the un-conditioning of myself and becoming a new person. 

The last time my life seem to change, there were signals. Life threw me signs that I was about to turn things upside down for a bit. I emotionally and spiritually gave up on London and I lost two friends to the music industry; its hold over all of us to get as much out of our creative outputs as possible (i.e money). This is important enough to mention because it damaged me a lot. It affected my trust with people and I felt so betrayed and let down. I’ve made my peace with them and with the situation, but I’ve learned from it, because at the time, it was just another knife in the side, and I didn’t want it happening again. From that point though, I headed steadily downhill somewhere close to the bottom, where I was thinking of jacking it in altogether. I considered going into property with my savings and my Dad. I considered opening a home-brew shop with my partner, who really was my anchor when I was close to floating off unmoored. I didn’t though, because my other anchor was my own spirit, the relentless resilience I seem to have inherited, that I’m sure I don’t deserve; my music and my innate and absolute desire to howl at the moon. Nitin played a huge part in getting me through this phase. Had I not worked with him, I might have forgotten how important singing was to me. He was a kind of the lifeboat that kept me chugging along in the rougher waters for a while; I was desperately unhappy but those days of rehearsals, shows, and being involved in the dance piece were all life rings that I could swim to and gradually get closer to solid ground. At this point, I believe I was shedding off the things I didn’t need to prepare myself for this next stage.

And this time, I’ve also lost two friends. I’m not going into any great detail about this, only that I believe it was for the best and ultimately the whole experience told me a lot about the people in my life, who I am, and what I stand for. It had a lot to do with how I’ve allowed people to take advantage of me for too long. This ties into one of my previous blogposts about saying sorry and not wanting to rock the boat. I have been conditioned to be nice and I am actively changing this. I have Jameela Jamil to thank for opening my eyes and forcing me to see that it doesn’t make me difficult or manipulative to call out the truth and stand strongly within it. They ended up deleting me from their life because of it. But I hated the entire situation. It hurt. Needless to say it had a big affect on me. That combined with new opportunities taking a while to come to fruition seemed to trigger my anxiety and low mood for the first real time since I wasn’t well. It brought back a lot of bad feelings about inadequacy, self-doubt and the need for external validation that I’ve worked so bloody hard on eradicating. 

Validation is the key word here. I believe it is what most of us struggle with going into our adult lives. I’ve worked very hard to not rely on other people’s voices to bolster my own self-esteem. I’ve done my soul-work, I only listen to my own. I’ve learned to tell the ignorant slut (pls read past post re this: it’s what I call my anxiety) in my mind to shut up when she’s being unkind. But over the last few weeks and returning from LA, which now seems like a dream, the voice has elbowed its way in and I’ve allowed it to have an affect on me. I’m waiting; waiting like I did before, waiting for good feedback, waiting for someone else to come at me with the next opportunity. Stagnant. Waiting for the world, looking for someone to blame.

So what the fuck am I doing? I mean, really. I have been arranging my own sessions, writing my book and flirting with a second, being open and vulnerable about my talent and about my humanness. I’ve been rocking it.

But recently, the difference was that I was doing my yoga, not practising it. I was forcing myself to set an intention of success, orienting everything around my goals. I meditated just to check it off the list. But you can’t apply mindfulness with brute force, with a shotgun to the head and your arm twisted behind your back. What I was doing went hand in hand with the thought that, “If I don’t, I will fail.” Before I knew it, I was telling myself I wasn’t worth it. I’m not creative. I don’t have any ideas. I don’t have an emotional scale. I feel nothing about anything. Have a baby, do something else. You don’t belong in that world (LA). You don’t know who you are. You’re not passionate enough about your art. You’re not passionate about anything. Why is nobody getting back to you? You’re forgettable. It’s because you’re not assertive enough. They deleted you because you meant nothing to them. They didn’t apologise to you because they don’t value you.

The rabbit hole is deep and it is wide. Once you’re on that slope, it seems pre-destined that you’ll end up at the bottom before you even notice you slipped. But I noticed. I’ve my best mate and flatmate to thank for a conversation that made me realise what I was doing, ‘cos I was feeling pretty low there for a minute.  The truth is that it takes real mental effort and strain to drag yourself up the mud slide back to even ground. When I was feeling pretty bad, I used to dream about doing the same thing over, and over, and over again and never reaching a resolution. I dreamt that I was at the bottom of the muddy bank and I could not get to the top where the grass was still green. So doing yoga and meditating over and over to force wellness doesn’t work. Negativity does not beget negativity. You have to accept your feelings and do the work to counter-argue with yourself in a gentle and loving way. I am worth it. I am creative. I feel everything, that’s why it hurts. I know who I am, more than ever. I’d be a great mum, but if I have a baby now I’ll probably forget about it and leave it in the washing basket. I am passionate. I am open and patient, and I trust that things will work out. I am hardworking. And they deleted you because they didn’t value you. That says more about them than you, you stone cold, lovely, bad ass bitch. 

Bye felicia.

I am entering a new chapter of my life soon, and I feel my world shifting to allow for it. It isn’t waiting if I regain control and organise my life. Just because someone is giving you an opportunity doesn’t mean that the work is done. It means that you’re just getting started, and you have to work, now more than ever.

Last week I wrote a song on the guitar. This has not happened in a long time. I was consuming a lot of emotional TV (Queer Eye, k thnks), and I was inspired to assess my own mental health. I got complacent, and the doubt got in. It never really goes away, and just because I was feeling better there for a hot minute in LA, doesn’t mean that the work is done. It continues. Always. I don’t want to wake up one day and realise I’m missing something vital because I looked to others to tell me what I’m worth. Everyone else wants as much as possible for themselves. If that means cheapening you so that they’re worth more; that is what they will do. Know. Your. Own. Worth. ‘Cos even your friends will undervalue you.

Self doubt waits at the door, constantly. It wants to be let in, but you keep it at bay. You nod to it, but you don’t allow it across the threshold.

After I recorded the song idea into my phone, I sobbed. Hard. I cried my eyes out. And then I was done. I let the tears come out, unbidden, because I needed to feel it. I think I needed to remember the power of that musical release, why I do what I do. Sure, I’m not like other musicians or singers. Maybe I am depressing, but I’m communicating something that is honest and what we all go through. I am me. And that is enough. It doesn’t matter, all that other stuff. It doesn’t. What matters is how I feel about my music. 

I’m getting to my conclusion, I promise. I meditated earlier this week, and the lovely Andy Puddicomb at Headspace told me to see my mind as the sky. Behind all the clouds, there is always a blue horizon. Just like when you’re on a plane and you finally get above the candy cotton clouds, and in your head you do a little Peter Pan style bounce across them. There’s a soft kind of release I get when I see that. Peace and quiet. Space and breath. Everything else; feelings, thoughts, how we dress, what the world might think...they’re the clouds. When I feel low, my mind seems like an overcast horizon that will not break. An endless, grey, unfeeling cloud of bleak whatever. When I feel good, it’s a summers sky with fluffy white clouds rolling through; you know they won’t stay forever. Meditating is grounding, and reminding yourself with nothing more complicated than breathing that your default setting is a vast blue sky. Warm and peaceful. It might even feel like nothing, but that’s ok too. Everything else is temporary. Clouds are impermanent. The sky is always clear.

So this is my point. I set my intention that day to have a good day. 

Enjoy the little details, enjoy my trial shift at the cafe, enjoy the look on southerners faces when I have a bit of craic with them. Enjoy cooking, enjoy the process, enjoy the walk between here and there, the blossoms, the warmth of the sun on my face. Choose happiness. Choose the blue sky. Decide to be positive. It’s not always easy, and maybe it doesn’t always work. After all, life throws us curveballs and it hurts to get whacked in the face, but it’s a damn sight better than choosing to be an arsehole about it. Try it.

Decide to be happy. 

xxx

#mentalhealthawareness #Goodmentalhealth #mental health recovery #mentalhealthblog #mentalhealthblogger #mentalhealth #livingwithanxiety #low mood #mentalhealthwarrior #livingwithmentalhealth

[papatonyinsandiego]

Non-Verbal Communication, Part Two:  Distancing Mechanisms and External Validation

Part One Can Be Found Here...

Pretty Privilege

In the gay Leather/Kink/Fetish community, just as in any other culture or subculture, there are the “👍 WINNERS! 👍” and the ….losers…  

Are we all sick of that?  I sure am.  My experience is that 100% of gay kinky men are done with being judged on externals that we have no control over.

It’s a primate-ape fact of life that desirable features make us more fuckworthy.  They can also be a trap.  I want to talk about it from the other side.  Pretty Privilege DOES exist in our Tribe.  I have made use of it myself.  

Back when I was young, virile and FINALLY getting a lot of approval from men, I attended a lot of five-star, crowded “elite” parties, both clothed and naked.  It felt GREAT to be “New Meat” and highly-desirable.  

If the gloriously beautiful men around me were bitchy and insecure, then I guessed I would try that on for a while.  I got way too good at it.  I am ashamed of my behavior back then.  A lot of the virtuous acts that I have performed since those days are my atonement for how I fell into bad behaviors for a while.

After a while, though, I noticed something odd.  The vast majority of men in my life had no interest in who was inside the pretty exterior.  I realized that I was just a mobile dildo to that crowd.  

In fact, I got picked-on if I stepped out of bounds in some way.  It was like trying to balance on a tightrope of other peoples’ expectations.  Fall off, and you would never get back on.  It was conditional approval.

The clincher for me occurred after a big fuck-party, when I showed up at Sunday brunch in a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops and shorts.  My brunch companions refused to eat with me, unless I changed back into full black leather.  That was the last time that I associated with them, and with that subculture.  I happily stepped into a much, much slower lane.

At age 25, I gave up using my privilege at others’ disadvantage.  I chose a different path of seeking real and useful wisdom.

Assertions And Declarations

I assert that I am more than what you can see.  

There are depths to me that are worth knowing.  

I am an amalgam of many flavors, good and bad.

I am not just a single, obvious musical note.  I am a symphony.  

I assert the same about YOU.  There is majesty, worth, and a valuable contribution to the world inside all of us.  I take that attitude with me wherever I go, treating everyone as my favorite brother or sister.  I am rarely disappointed.

External Validation

Being given approval of any kind is delightful, so we work hard to get more of it.  We can spend thousands of hours every year, pumping up bigger and bigger muscles.  We can have our teeth straightened and whitened, along with hair-removal and spray-tanning, $3,000 leather outfits, and darkening that gray beard.

We may have experiences of all of those attributes and many more.  They can bring on flattering and pleasurable reactions, and allow us to “win” on some level.

No matter what, sooner or later, the crash arrives.  Age, sudden disasters, infirmity and gravity work against our following the same path forever.  That’s when we will be needing the emotional growth that we may have allowed to dwindle while we were otherwise occupied.

To this day, I still go to the gym several times a week, but I ALSO work on my social skills, and provide value to my circle of true friends.  My biggest struggle is with humility.  I’m still trying to figure that one out, and I am open to suggestions.

Distancing Mechanisms

The other side of that same coin has to do with keeping others at arm’s length.  Let’s start with WHY we would want to protect ourselves from others.

We are all born perfect, trusting and uninhibited.  We learn to be otherwise, when we receive wounds along the way:  

• “NO, STUPID!  The OTHER way!”  “People think that I’m stupid?”

• “Don’t talk to me, ugly!  Take those big ears somewhere else!”  “What’s wrong with my ears?”

• I’ll give you something to cry about!”  “It’s bad for me to cry?”

These wounds cause us to make decisions that we hang on to, long after they have become obsolete.  We may use ever-growing musculature to keep others at a distance. Or five layers of leather. Or whatever else helps us to keep possibly stressful interactions at arms’ length.

Those same predicaments can also create new, pleasurable possibilities, but we have to be OPEN to that idea in the first place.  

Cynicism protects our tender hearts, but it can also prevent us from noticing when the Real Breakthrough Opportunity shows up.

One decision that I still struggle with can be expressed as “I’m not going to let you reject me.  I reject you FIRST!”  That’s on a very deep, early level, but I am not being driven by it so much any more, now that I consciously recognize it.  Eventually.  I no longer feel that my foot is nailed to the floor, while I go around and around the same problem, doomed to repeat it.  Therapy helped.

I now laugh about my flaws as a personal foible.  At that point, I clean up my mess:  “Oh, there I go again.  Sorry.  I am glad that I caught myself.  My anger does not belong to you.  I’m not doing that any more.  Let’s start over.”

Attitude Queens with a Capital “A”

So when you see that gorgeous man who seems to have everydamnthing going for him, moving through the crowd with a fixed look on his face that says “Don’t bother me,” spare him some loving sympathy.  He is just as damaged as you are, despite external appearances.  He’s just expressing it in his own way.

He’s lonely too.  He is misunderstood.  He struggles with finding unconditional love and deep friendship, just like anyone.

If I see somebody who is broadcasting on that channel, I get right past his defenses, 99% of the time.  I do it by treating him as a good-hearted man, with value as a possible friend.  Like any human being, he is starved for honest respect and affection.

Our Brains React Differently With Objects of Desire

Recent MRI-scan tests have shown that our mental processes change radically when we meet a politician, a celebrity, or a porn actor.  We put them on a mental pedestal.  Star-Fuckers, World’s Biggest Fans and Celebrity Stalkers can be a real chore for someone who just wants to walk down the street unmolested.

Think of the porn actor who is making some extra money as a go-go dancer on an elevated box at a big dance-party.  He has drunks pawing at him like he was a piece of meat.  They are making his privates very public.  No matter how much he can rationalize this (”It’s all part part of the J-O-B”), he can also get pretty tired of it.  Feigning enthusiasm can be a tedious chore.

That's why I always do one, specific behavior with every go-go dancer:  I bring him some ca$h to stuff into his shorts, but I only do it in the area between his hip and his dick.  I am not going for the gold.  I smile in an honest, happy way, look him in the eye, and tap my cheek with two fingers.  He smooches me on the cheek, and throws his arms around me with honest pleasure.  I take that chance to express some honest compliments about his dancing, and then we disengage affectionately.

I gave him a Warm Fuzzy - A moment of sweet, honest human interaction.  As a result, I am loved and respected by that man, forever afterward.  I looked for the good in him.

The Calendar-Signing Party

I attended an event that turned out to be well-stocked with extremely handsome, muscular men.  They were in town to promote a charity calendar, and I was politely interested in knowing more.

After about an hour, a man came up to me.  He was the husband of the calendar’s creator, and he was curious to know more about me.  He had watched me speak to every one of the calendar models, and had noticed that they all dropped their shields around me in seconds, and were at their ease.  They didn't feel the need to be “on” with me. They all hugged me, as their own idea.  I almost never ask for hugs.  I prefer to earn them.

I get a lot of hugs.

The Bottom Line

The point that I am belaboring is that we can rise above our easy and obvious biases.  We can choose to let go of physical external appearance as a point of reference.  Those are just what we can see.  If we open up our own hearts to the possibility that somebody is a good man, then he may pleasantly surprise us.

I am VERY rarely disappointed.

[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity

https://ift.tt/2GXXppR

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 2.

Most male monsters in fiction are made by women. Or, at least, it’s women who tend to get the disproportionate share of the blame when their creations turn out to be significantly less than civilized (perhaps because, historically, most of them were written by men). The most famous examples of murderer-moulding mothers are probably Norma Bates, Cersei Lannister, Olivia Soprano and, of course, Mrs. McAllister (momma raised a real little trap-setting psycho there). In real life, too, serial killers like Ed Kemper, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Dennis Nilsen were all brutalized or disappointed by their mothers to such an extent that to some people the link between their formative maternal experiences and their misdeeds seems as tight and as strong as a steel cable.

This isn’t the case with Amazon’s The Boys, where it’s bad or inadequate fathers who provide male characters with the bulk of their nefarious neuroses and murderous motivations. Wee Hughie (Jack Quaid) inherited and internalized his father’s cowed outlook on the world to the point where he almost didn’t fight back when Vought tried to brush his girlfriend’s death in an A-Train wreck under the carpet. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) was raised under the fast fists and hot temper of his old-school, tough-guy dad, whose mantra seems to have been kick first and don’t ask questions later, unless the question is: “Do you want me to fucking kick you some more?” “John” a.k.a Homelander (Antony Starr) doesn’t have a father in the conventional sense – as far as we know – but he was treated coldly, cruelly and dispassionately by his scientist ‘dad’, Jonah Vogelbaum (John Doman). So to what extent have failed father figures forged the monsters who sit upon the show’s chessboard? What else is missing from their lives? And what could prove the key to their salvations?

The previously mentioned The Sopranos is a ripe comparison, being that it also deals with familial legacies, internecine struggles, and toxic masculinity. The hallmark HBO show took the bold step of sending its proto-typical alpha-male mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to a shrink to deal with his panic attacks and baseline depression. His sessions with his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Braco), teased out the revelation that the root of his anguish and anxieties was his own mother, the irascible and melodramatic Livia (Nancy Marchand), who in the first season shifted her life-long modus operandi from trying to kill his spirit to literally trying to kill him. It’s not hard to trace a direct line from that callous maternal influence to Tony’s behavior, and its internal and external consequences (especially when you’re dealing with Melfi’s favoured Freudian approach, for which parental trauma is its raison d’etre). But as the series – and Tony’s therapy – progressed it became clear not only that Tony’s life was richer and darker than his mother’s input allowed for, but also that Livia herself wasn’t the two-dimensional, havoc-wreaking demigod of Tony’s fears and imagination. 

She, too, had been a victim of sorts; a slave to poverty and discrimination (on grounds of both race and gender); in thrall to a violent, charismatic criminal, a man who thought nothing of throwing men a beating, chopping off their pinkies or shooting them dead; a man who was out with one of his many mistresses on the night that she miscarried a baby and needed him by her side. Tony, his son, takes these revelations and buries them, as deep as they’ll go, partly because Tony’s world is a man’s world and men get a pass, but mainly to avoid the bright bulb of introspection from falling upon his own, very similar behavior. His mother gets the blame, but who really made Tony? 

The world of The Boys is, to an extent, a man’s one, too, except that the boys here don’t get a pass. Given its title, it’s a surprisingly feminist show for one that is also, on the surface at least, a testosterone-fuelled superhero show (albeit one that takes an anti-superhero stance). The female characters are strong, but not inhumanly, infallibly strong like some of the Marvel heroes they parody. They’re flawed, human, and fascinating. They kick ass, they fuck up, but they’re never one-note or scapegoats. Of course there are bad women and mothers out there in the real world, and we shouldn’t shy away from imagining or creating those kinds of stories, but what we’ve seen on TV and film over the last decade or so is the steady opening up of a multiplicity of perspectives that’s been busy enriching our cultural currency. We should roll with that for a while. There’s a lot of lost ground to catch up on. 

Read more

TV

The Boys Season 2 Succeeds By Allowing Its Female Characters to Shine

By Lacy Baugher

TV

The Boys Season 3: What to Expect

By Lacy Baugher

Perhaps much of the appeal of stories about bad mothers relies on our preconceptions of motherhood and the expectations that have always been laid upon women to be not just good mothers, but perfect ones. A bad mother stands out more than a bad father because for much of human history it’s been almost impossible to be classed as a bad father.        

Let’s take Butcher. Without his own father’s brutality he mightn’t have been capable of becoming the effective, remorseless killing-machine we know and love, but, on the other hand, without his father’s brutality, he mightn’t felt the urge to pursue his vendetta in the first place. He might have been more like an immediately post-A-Train Hughie. But here’s the rub, because, arguably, a world with Homelanders needs Butchers, and plenty of them. There’s a weird and tragic duality at play here. Homelander is who he is largely because of his own failed father, so really the two men are destroying each other, and the world around them, because of their daddy issues.  

Butcher himself is a flawed father figure. He uses a grief-wracked Hughie as a pawn to pursue his own vendetta against The Seven, showing the same sort of callous disregard Homelander might show an underling. But through Butcher’s influence Hughie learns to be (or is forced to become) bold, assertive, even brutal; the sort of son his own father could never have let him be; wouldn’t have known how to kindle. In time, almost despite himself, Butcher comes to care about Hughie, albeit not always in a conventionally paternal way. Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) tells Butcher early on this season that Hughie is his ‘pit canary’; if something bad happens to Hughie, then Butcher will know he’s gone too far. So if Butcher can be said to be the kind of father that Hughie never had, then Hughie, in turn, can be said to be the conscience that Butcher long forsook in favor of bloodshed.  

For better and worse the men in The Boys are made by their fathers, but that only tells half the story. Their fathers, and they themselves, are aided in their osmotic, Franken-Freudian fuck-ups by the sometimes literal, sometimes figurative absence of a mother figure. Hughie’s mother? – MIA; Butcher’s mother? – passive; Homelander’s mother? – accidentally hugged to death by a young Homelander (she was a scientist Homelander had thought of as a mother, not his biological mother). 

The lack of a maternal presence bleeds most noticeably into Hughie’s and Homelander’s lives. Hughie is insecure and desperate for attachment. His romance with Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is sweet, but carries a mild undercurrent of mommy issues. What Hughie really seems to want from Starlight is words of encouragement, validation, co-dependency and a tuck-in at bedtime. Even though their relationship is sexual, there’s something charmingly chaste about it at the same time. 

It would be impossible, though, to trump Homelander’s mommy issues, manifested as they are by a fierce predilection for suckling, and a fondness for warm titty milk. Homelander may be peerlessly physically strong, but of all the show’s characters – and this is perhaps something of an understatement – he’s the most psychologically fragile.

Dr. Vogelbaum laments that the lack of a mother in Homelander’s life made him aggressive and full of hate. Putting aside for a moment this rather idealized notion of women and motherhood, if we assume that in Homelander’s case the observation is correct – and that Homelander is also on some level aware of how he’s been warped by this absence (the roots of his fetish surely can’t have escaped him) – then it’s interesting that he would choose to rob his own son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), of the loving maternal influence of which he himself was deprived. 

By stealing Ryan away from his mother near the end of season two – by fracturing their bond and their reality – he risks making Ryan as miserable as he was as a child; worse, in truth, because Homelander never had a loving mother to miss. While The Boys deals very well with its female characters, it hasn’t yet explored motherhood in any great depth, except to show the consequences to fatherhood when it’s absent. Season 3 may very well add some texture by exploring in flashback form Stormfront’s (Aya Cash) relationship with her now-departed daughter, or by bringing Hughie’s mother into the fold, now that we know she isn’t dead.

While Homelander’s actions vis a vis Ryan are fuelled by his malignant, myopic selfishness, and his screaming God complex, the evolution of his feelings towards the boy hinted at a capacity for redemption. As hellish as the family unit Stormfront manipulates Homelander into creating – Nazi eugenicist mother, psychopathic father, and kidnapped child – the experience of being in that family seems to soften something in him, at least for a short while. He appears receptive to and empathetic towards Ryan’s fears, and even appears not to relish the idea of Stormfront filling his head with racist propaganda. Just for a moment, salvation seems possible.

Ultimately, though, no one can allow Homelander to guide Ryan’s destiny, potential for change notwithstanding. Ryan is too powerful and volatile to risk Homelander stamping his skewed outlook upon his soul. Ironically, the act of saving his mother from Stormfront propels Ryan along the same trajectory as his father – both have now killed their mothers. I wonder if Ryan, like Dexter before him, will be born in blood, the splatter pattern arranging itself into the shape of Homelander’s cape. 

Butcher isn’t Ryan’s father, but his fealty to his dead wife and her cast-iron concept of family helps raise him from the swamp of his primal urges, resulting in him doing the right thing by both her and the boy who is the son of his greatest enemy. Clearly Butcher isn’t his own father either, his selflessness here indicating an encouraging break from the poor way he was parented. 

Perhaps The Boys isn’t trying to communicate anything about solely fatherhood or solely motherhood but rather family itself; its power to make someone belong; its power to save. The family Homelander experienced was predicated on a falsehood, but he liked the feel of it nonetheless, and it threatened to humanise him. Butcher has a family now, too – his friends, The Boys, the people around him who would die for him, and vice versa – and a surrogate son in Hughie. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon), whatever faint promise of romance swirls around them, have found for now a joyous familial bond, like brother and sister. And Mother’s Milk is now back in the bosom of his estranged family, a moment that must rank among the series most touching. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

All Happy families, then? For now. But Homelander might have something to say about that in season three.  

The post The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lYjaoz

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck^2 re: Chapter 7 “Distress Call From the Closet“

So, I assume the action will jump back to Vriska, Vrissy & Tavros. The call is going to be directed to Harry Anderson, though I wonder how he'd be able to help them out of the closet.

Some sleight of hand magic? A distraction outside of the school building?

---

Page 171

Ahahaahahahh.

Vriska's loving the thrill. Tavros is just experiencing his first real brush with death, and apparently is mostly confused by it. :P Meanwhile Vrissy's mostly annoyed and trying not to get further into danger by having her phone ring for all to hear.

So, yeah, and Harry Anderson must now acknowledge everything Vrissy said as true - including the presence of OG Vriska, who he just heard.

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Page 172

Ahahahah, yes, that's what I was thinking too - Vrissy and Vriska must sound exactly alike. It's only their manner of speech that sets them apart.

So Vriska imitating Vrissy here is comedy gold.

And yes, the odds are indeed 50/50 Rose and Kanaya would either very much Approve or Disapprove of what they were just a part of. Granted, once they see Vriska (OG) has resurfaced, they should actually realize who's the instigator of the whole mess.

---

Page 173

Pfffffff. From John's fridge, Gamzee's made the valiant 16 year trip through time to end up dead... in a janitor closet. Also, regarding last page - what the fuck was Gamzee even doing being a troll figurehead while in a relationship with the human tyrant. It made no sense.

Also, poor Tavros. He was just externalizing things until now. He'll have no way but to accept the reality now. Well, not that he REALLY minded Gamzee's death, I think.

---

Page 175

!!!!!! Finally!!!!

Troll Rebel Leaders Karkat and Meenah! Oh gosh I want to see if they're truly in a relationship. Though eesh, that looks like a bleak situation, all those bodies & ruins.

...

"Ordeals"? So the trolls had to withstand ANOTHER set of trials to get off-planet? Ugh.

... Pfff, yes, Karkat's PR is very good, but unfortunately for the man, he still has to actually LIVE as a rebel leader every day.

I'm really interested in how Karkat looks as an adult. The description in the epilogues was already tantilizing. ... I wonder if trolls can grow beards. Karkat would definitely rock a goatee.

---

Page 176

Oh my god they're comedy gold.

Meenah just plays off his asine side so well, hahah. They're even achieved Dave-level excellence at rehashing arguments, it seems.

So Karkat actually would rather be an active leader than a figurehead. Seems he's at least developping SOME idea of how he could lead, good for him! Still, his "symbology", hah, the Cancer sign is another sign of rebellion.

Hah, and they recognize Vriska, but apparently being 23 years removed from her through time has numbed them a bit to the idea of a loose Serket on the field and what she could get up to.

"MEENAH: well we woulda taken credit for it anyway so this saves us the time MEENAH: thanks jane owe u one"

Perfection.

I wonder if they'll send an agent after the trio. Swifer perhaps? :P

---

Page 177

Lol. So it appears the trolls that followed Gamzee's cult blame Jane's government for the event. Well then. Pfff, they even call her the batterwitch.

So it appears both sides are going to use this turn of events to their advantage.

But Karkat had a better plan lined up it seems, was trying to sway public opinion. Alas, maybe it was just never to be. Jane controls the media, after all.

---

Page 178

Oooooooh! What is Karkat's plan.

Is he trying to make John endorse the troll side of things? What an idea, that he might take Jake's place in the grand scheme, and be the one with the biggest sway.

I don't think he suddenly thought of how John used to say things like the timeline didn't matter. Not sure he even was around for those events.

---

Page 179

Oh wow, we're actually going to see John here :D Dear god.

So, Roxy lives by the water, and her house resembles her old one. Her car is pink, but of course.

And Harry Anderson has an ostentatious getaway car all of his own. I wonder what it looks like - something to do with his interests? Would be interesting to see! (In before pogo ride car.)

I don't suppose this scene is the one that played out near the end of the epilogues - Harry Anderson wouldn't really be up for a car ride if his friends are about to show up, right?

---

Page 180

.... Awwwwwww, it IS! That's beautiful. Yeah, actually, between family and friends, it's hard picking. I understand fully Harry Anderson. You go take care now.

Cool that we got an actual link BACK to an epilogue page, though! Didn't think we'd mix mediums like THAT, actually.

Awesome we finally get to see Adult John in the flesh, it's taken 180 pages.

---

Page 181

Ahahahahaha, Harry Anderson's texting during the drive. He's sent his mom out on an errand, so the kids will end up

...

...

WAIT FOR IT.

...

Homestuck. 8)

Home alone.

"the funniest shit he's ever done", pfffff. So weird to have such a different view on John. A valid one, for sure, but such a different one.

---

Page 182

She changed outfits! Now Roxy REALLY looks like Mom.

... Do not mind the sneak(er)s in the bushes.

Roxy probably was okay with going out so Harry Anderson would be content on his return. She knows it'll be an emotional affair.

---

Page 183

... Pffff, poor, poor Tavros. Still, Vrissy actually had a very good reason not to want to meet up at his place, like ever.

... The next command oh my god.

We're definitely in Act 1 - like escapades now.

Of course, the room HAS to examine itself - there's no one in it yet! :O

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Page 184

Uuuuuuuuuhhhh....

That isn't Harry Anderson's room, is it?

Unless he likes to dress up, of course!

I see a lot of movie posters, both troll & human. (Hi, Pokémon!)

Lot's of shoes & hats, some boots. The window looks like the one in Rose's old room, in fact. So, like, is it Roxy's? Or someone else's entirely?

...

Woooow.

I see.

Musical theaters, huh? Ambitious and lofty goals! And hey, at least it overlaps with both of his parents' interests a bit! Well, needling was an interest of Rose (after John gave her the needling sticks), but still, I think Roxy's good at it too.

And of course his friends do not really share his interests, just like old times.

---

Page 185

Sprites for Vrissy and Tavros! Awesome. His hair is really slick.

... Good thinking Tav, yes, Jane would definitely be able to track you through your phone.

---

Page 186

Teenage horseshittery stops for no mortal terror. :D

Filters? In my Homestuck? The odds are higher than you'd think!

PPPPpPffffff, so, I was convinced Vriska was going to steal a hat, but she's actually trying out all the scarfs. Vriska: Accessorize.

---

Page 187

Oooooh boy. Vrissy's getting kind of self conscious now, with Vriska around. The girl needs to figure some things out about her life on the double, or the Serket's going to tear it all apart at the seams.

(Also, of course Vriska will keep the teal scarf/bandana.)

---

Page 188

Awwww yeah, there he is. The young man of the bedroom. Right, he has a scarf too.

Heehee, the idea that Harry Anderson had to confess his deepest truths to keep John from finding out about the shit his friends are in. ... He probably did so because John'd know Harry Anderson would be or get involved, I guess.

It's so great to see both Tavros and Harry Anderson so supportive of Vrissy. And semi-supportive of each other Shows what a healthy troll romantic polyamorous relationship can look like!

---

Page 189

There he is. The man, the myth, the legend. So cool to see him like this.

So, wait, I just realized. What phone is John even receiving Karkat's buzzing on? Since Vriska took his phone. Maybe he truly has taken a page out of Jade's book and has 5 different computing devices on him at all times. Like a sensible person.

But what's even better, is that instead of Karkat chewing him out over his ignorance first, he actually directs John to watch the news. Hilarious that apparently, most of the time, Harry Anderson is the instigator of the messes Tavros and Vrissy find themselves in.

Now to see John's reaction at Gamzee's demise.

---

Page 190

Well, I didn't think GIDDY would describe his reaction, but here we are!

...

Hahahahhah, John realizes Harry Anderson knew. And he thinks the whole thing is HILARIOUS. PFfffffff

Does he think that maybe this is the pivotal moment that could launch this timeline back into relevance? :P

I think it might also be such a wild scene it genuinely serves as a release for a lot of that pent-up darkness in him, through laughter.

The most mirthful thing Gamzee has ever been responsible for, basically.

---

Page 191

Wooow.

John has RESOLVE now.

He's really going to try to take on Jane's regime together with Karkat, isn't he? :D This gonna be good.

John's gotten a second wind after patching things a bit up with Roxy and Harry Anderson. (Still, I'm sad some of the deep, personal stuff Harry Anderson had to share wasn't shown, but oh well.)

Time for him to get his act together! I like it when John goes all out. Even when just described in text, like Meat John vs Lord English, or Candy John vs Jade in Tavros' room.

Next chapter seems like it could focus on Rose and Kanaya, so things'll stay focused on the Candy path a little longer. Me like.

#homestuck #vriska maryam lalonde #vriska serket #tavros english #john egbert #harry anderson egbert #karkat vantas #meenah peixes #reaction #homestuck^2 #liveblogging homestuck #candy earth c