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modifiedyincision · 1 year

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Hi I am going around to everyone who reblogged that post with tags: please use this ask as an excuse to ramble about your ocs I want to hear about them

I had to sit on this one for a while because I just have so. Many. OCs. So I had to think about it! I'm settling on Skylar (and his friends I suppose, but mostly him), even though his story is still a bit nebulous, because I love him. Everything is below the cut to avoid me flooding dashes! It also gets ramble-y. You have been warned.

So Skylar (and his story/world) comes directly from a dream I had three years ago, in which I was Skylar. I really liked the main chunk of it, but as it is a dream, connecting everything coherently has been a hassle. If something sounds a bit off, that's... likely why. Anyway!

Skylar, unhappy with his old life, decides to completely ditch it. He stops by a small town and, desperate for friends, is willing to hang out with pretty much anyone that will give him the time of day.

Three people, a preexisting friend group, start talking to him. There are three others -- Andrew (name change possibly pending. Not sure that I vibe with it), Garrett, and Lillian. It isn't long before he finds himself getting swept up in their demon-cult-rumors, because this group recently found a half-ruined journal detailing a lot of weird ass shit. And, also, there's some unexplainable shit going on down in the hills.

They suggest checking it out.

Skylar buys exactly none of it, but he goes along with it anyway for that sweet, sweet human connection.

Now, the group decides to visit a 'ritual site.' A large, 5'x5' square of flat rock pressed a bit into the earth, with a red rune carved into it, slapped into the center of wild hills and forest.

They do the stupid young adult thing, which is to consult the journal for the ritual, which they then do.

Now, listen, the way the demons and rituals work is a bit convoluted because I'm trying to translate it from nonsense dream systems, and I don't really think this is something that can be skipped over or it all ceases to make any sense.

To make it simple: demons need to be summoned into a 'vessel' (a human) to get to Earth. But one ritual isn't enough, and it only partially binds a demon to the vessel and Earth. Five total rituals need to be completed for the demon to be fully tied to Earth and the vessel. These rituals increase in severity with each one, and each ritual requires a specific site to work. But, even with all rituals finished, the demon still relies heavily on the vessel to keep it in line. And not, like, killing everything.

If a vessel dies with a demon attached, the demon is released into the world. A few things can happen:

If it was the first ritual, little occurs. The demon is intangible and unable to interact meaningfully with the world. It can barely move at all, in fact. Imagine if your arm, just your arm, got teleported into another world. You can't do anything with just an arm out there! And it inconveniences you back home!

If it was the third ritual, this is the point at which the demon can cause real harm, as most of it is on Earth- it can influence creatures (aka possession a little to the left), move objects with some effort, and generally cause chaos. Still cannot be seen, except under extreme circumstances. However, it cannot move far from the general area the vessel died -- maybe a few miles.

And if the vessel died after the fifth ritual has been completed, it would be... very bad. The demon would have no human attachment able to hold it back, and it would just be out there in the world, a physical thing with full capabilities. It would be 100% on Earth. Nightmare scenario.

Never fear, though! It is possible to banish a demon at any time. Just stick it in a body and send it back with DIFFERENT rituals! The vessel will lose demonic influence and will be fine, as will the demon, but both will again be separate.

You can tie a demon partially stuck on earth to a new vessel with the rituals, then do the banishment when you're far enough along and have all its rogue parts in a vessel again.

Okay, that's all. Now. Moving on!

Skylar (this used to be about him...) and the gang do the ritual. Nobody expects much of anything. Problem: Skylar's arm starts burning and shifts into something pitch black and iridescent, not unlike oil.

Everyone is very suddenly aware of Oh Shit, This Is Real.

They all hurry up to get the rest of the rituals done so they can banish the demon (if they can. Honestly, half the journal is fucking ruined, they're winging it, this is not going as planned). They decide to try banishing after the third ritual.

Skylar's mental health deteriorates, because he's experiencing unfamiliar thoughts and emotions (thanks, demon!). Plus the rapid-fire rituals are just taking their toll on him, physically - he's tired, and sore, and cranky, and not at all used to having a demon slowly infesting him. It makes all of the demonic stuff worse, harder to control. He both loves and hates that.

The demon very very badly wants Skylar to go on a deadly revenge tour. Be powerful, it says, be unstoppable, don't you want to make everyone look at you with fear and awe? And Skylar...

He starts to buy into it. Yeah, he SHOULD be powerful and unstoppable and scary. He SHOULD fuck shit up! But also he doesn't want to, that would be bad, he likes it here, he likes his friends. But it would be nice to go after that guy that was mean to him on his first day here, wouldn't it... no, he can't do that!

One day he does the fourth ritual by himself, making the demon stronger and the whole situation worse. They double down on trying to banish the demon, less concerned with the town's wellbeing now than their friend's.

I have a handful of endings for this part of his life in mind, but I haven't settled on any as the 'canon.' It depends on how bitter I feel that day, really.

In the best ending, it follows my original dream.

You see, throughout my dream, I would flash into the present, older, curled up in one big bed with my friends (the ones with me back then!) reminiscing on this like I'm telling a story. They are apologetic, because this experience has left me scarred mentally and physically. But I'm better, happier. The demon is gone, banished. My body hurts sometimes, still, but I met lifelong friends. Skylar's story would follow mine -- the demon is banished before the final ritual, not without consequence, but it gets better. He heals, is content.

The worst ending: Skylar succeeds in the final ritual and can't handle it. The demon has near total control of his body, Skylar's mind too addled and worn down to fight or disagree. His friends don't manage to banish it (in some versions, Skylar kills them outright). Skylar never recovers, in this one.

In the ????? ending, Skylar completes the fifth and final ritual, but his friends manage to banish the demon. There are so many versions of this one in my head, frankly. Ones where Skylar never forgives them, ones where Skylar gets better, ones where he tries to do the rituals again in desperation.

A lot of Skylar info right now, unfortunately, is based around this one story, because that was what I had in the dream as Skylar. The others have more concrete personalities, I feel, simply because I could observe them and wasn't actually them. But they aren't as interesting to talk about, because Skylar is essentially the protag, and has the most information and backstory. Listen, I just don't want to make him a copy-paste version of me :(

#my ocs #oh god thats so much nonsense text i think but its 1am and i wont cringe. i wont cringe i love writing im happy im pleased i will post this #and i wont feel weird about it. manifesting.#skylar #eye teeth #i should write. i should do that. hmmmmmmmmm #yeah i should do that...#look its 1am okay!! its 1am! and im full of things i want to do. and Oh God Its Night types of nerves. you know the ones. The Night Spiral.#is this coherent? who knwos who cares post now

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dirk-has-rabies · 3 years

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Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on) and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes. gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao, or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella) some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do. we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert) this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing. allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it) has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance” SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate) since a lot of people roll their eyes at that and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly. Autigender is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

#autism #actuallyautistic #trans #nonbinary #xenogenders #neopronouns #lgbtq #adhd #nuerodivergent #gender identity

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thesunflowersutra · 3 years

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Happy monday! For the oc questions list: 1, 17, 21, 36, 42 and 50.

Helloo, Lily! Have a great week! <3 I have a few OCs but I'll try to answer for the same three that I am writing the most currently! :D As I was writing this, I felt like it was becoming a long post so I'll answer it under the read more!

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? Heinz Betelgeuse, Ernst Krause and Arthur Eduardo Frahlich.

Heinz: I wanted to create a historian for some reason HAHAAH I wanted him to be german. Most of his roleplay/stories I wrote are in the 20th Century, after WWII or during the 70s, in Germany. However, when I created him, I was planning to set him in the 2000s, so, his surname came as a joke with the Betelgeuse star + the movie Beetlejuice. Ernst: Honestly, I have no idea how I choose his name. He is an OC made for an old Wizarding World RP I used to be admin and he was a head curator for the Ministry of Magic and a teacher. I just felt like Ernst suited him for some reason. Arthur: This one is my baby. His first and second names were chosen for affection only HAHAHA His surname, however, got me into some search about immigration in Rio de Janeiro, since he is a french man who is living in Brazil.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos? Heinz: Oh, he does! He is not very fond of taking pictures of himself but he saved some money to buy a secondhanded camera and loves to take pictures of his wife and landscapes. He usually keeps them in portraits and a small photobook. Ernst: Ernst adores photography but he usually uses it for practical purposes, like taking pictures of the magical objects that he encounters. Arthur: For someone who is dating a professional photographer, he hates pictures of himself because Arthie has a weird mood that if he looks too much at a photo of himself, he will start hating it and getting down to a self-hate lane. However, he loves taking stupid selfies of himself to send to said boyfriend or pictures of their cat/kids.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper? Heinz: He is weirdly patient - even during his academic life, he would rather talk for hours than get into a heated argument with someone else. When he does get angry, however, he tends to isolate himself until the feeling vanishes or he can focus on something else. Ernst: This man has 70% patience. He is a teacher, after all. However, when he gets mad, he is letal. He knows how to push buttons and he probably will go out of his way to annoy someone that he is mad with. Arthur: That depends. Arthur is very patient with his son/boyfriend/pets but not with other people. He has a lot of temper and is a little hot headed but he is genuinely nice and kind. He likes to annoy people and crack dark humor jokes about himself and that gets him into a lot of trouble for not being kind "with himself" as some people would say. That usually annoys him and makes him angry. 36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing? Heinz: He knows how to play the violin and he is a fantastic writer. He is not a very good singer but that doesn't stop him at all. Ernst: He learned the piano with his mother but he doesn't play it very often. His hobbies are wizard chess and some muggle card games. A great singer but no one will ever know. ;) Arthur: His hobbies are annoy people and talk about art for hours and hours and hours. He doesn't play any instruments but he is great with animals. 42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition? Heinz: His main goal is to have a happy and big family and provide them safety. As a historian, he wants to have a successfull career. He would sacrifice himself for his family or a cause if he had to. He is a selfless man. Ernst: He wants to make his family proud. Once I wrote a thing about him and his mother trying to usurp his aunt's job but that ain't the man he is now HAHAAH He would sacrifice himself for his mother and Aerys, definetely. Arthur: Arthur just wants to be happy. He has gone through a lot and he honestly deserves it. He wants to give his kids a good life and make Andrej happy. That's it. He is a french dude, of course he would sacrifice himself for something ;) 50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials? Heinz: He doesn't have a lot of stuff. He would probably pack a picture of his wife, a compass, his writing journal and a book. Ernst: He would pack his wand, some money and a very warm and expensive trench coat. Arthur: This nerd can't live without his phone and headphones. He would probably pack some snacks and a coat for Valentim if he was coming with him.

#answered #thank yoouuuu #i just love talking about them #oc: ernst krause #oc: arthur frahlich #oc: heinz betelgeuse

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one-more-fangirl · 3 years

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History’s story - John Murphy

(gif not mine! credits to owner)

john murphy x oc

summary: murphy and oc meet and talk. it’s really not that great

warnings: mentions of murder and suicide

masterlist

***

Lorelei Cody had always liked stories.

When she still attended school at the Ark, History of Earth was her favorite subject. She especially liked Prehistory and the big Empires, like Egypt and Rome. After history, Earth Literature came as a close second, not for having all those writers and writing styles —that was the part Lori hated—, but for all the stories those writers had created. Fantasy worlds with mythological creatures, adventures to exciting places… Lorelei wanted all that, but her big adventure had to be going down to Earth again. That was what she wanted, she’d be making history.

Unfortunately, all those dreams were crushed when the guards arrested her one day, for being at the library after hours. They thought she was stealing books, and no matter how many times she tried to tell them otherwise, they simply didn’t want to listen to that. “Of course they wanted me arrested,” she had thought one day rolling her eyes, “that means they won’t need to waste as much oxygen. One more teenager on the skybox equals one more person’s half oxygen ration. And once I’m floated, it’ll be a full ration.”

It had been when she still had another 6 months before her 18th birthday that guards had burst into the cell she shared with her friend Harper. Lori had been writing in her journal, one that she had pleaded for to the guards for three months before finally getting it along with three pencils.

She had stories written in it, stories of wonderful places with incredible adventures, all of which happened on Earth. Harper had discovered her cellmate’s knowledge for tales and her imagination, and every day she’d ask Lori to tell her a story. Sometimes what came out of her mouth was the plot of a movie or a book she’d seen or read, and Harper would every so often ask her to change the end; other times Lori would just start talking and see what her brain could think of.

When the guards came in, the girls barely had time to think of what was happening before they were pushed onto the wall and forced to wear some weird wristband. Before they could fully take them away, Lorelei got her journal and pencils, deciding that if she was to die, she’d die with her most precious possession. To her surprise, they didn’t take them to the hall were people were floated. Instead, they were taken with the rest of the prisoners to some kind of ship; no explanation, just being placed into seats. Lorelei really thought they were going to die, and she frantically searched for Harper’s hand next to her, and both girls squeezed the other’s hand.

But they didn’t die, they were sent to the ground, and as soon as those words had left Chancellor Jaha’s mouth, Lori’s had dropped, a big uncontainable grin slowly forming. A month later, the Cody girl still couldn’t believe she was on Earth. They had had fun, they had fought each other, they had had highs and lows. And Lori had written it all. Not everything was her experience as she had to stay in camp for her assigned job, but Harper told her everything that she saw outside the walls.

[...]

Just a few days before, Murphy had gotten back to camp with a virus that made most of the people sick. Fortunately, Lorelei had been one of the few immunes, but that meant she had also been stuck in the dropship helping Clarke and all the other immunes take care of the sick ones. She had been writing the events of the day on her journal the day after everyone was healthy again —she was thinking she’d need a new one soon— when a shadow was placed over her figure. She looked up with furrowed brows to find John Murphy himself looking down at her, looking much better than the day when he arrived. He sat down next to her.

“Whatcha got there?” he signaled with his head.

The girl had to look to her other side to see if someone else was there. There wasn’t.

“Y-You talking to me?” she pointed at herself.

“I mean, unless there’s some other invisible person ‘round here” he said, Lori chuckled.

“Oh, well, it’s just my journal” she shrugged, but the boy didn’t seem satisfied and kept his stare. She rolled her eyes “I’ve been keeping a record of what happens around here. Like a diary, but more objective, with some inputs of my opinion”

“Why?”

“Why are you so interested? You don’t even know me” she eyed him warily. He stayed silent, and Lorelei took that as her que to continue writing.

“You’re the only person in this whole camp that hasn’t looked at me with hatred” he said after a moment “Or fear” he added.

She looked at him, studying his face to searching for any signs that could tell her if he was lying. She didn’t find any.

“We’re making history” she slowly answered, going back to her journal “And history needs to be recorded, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m doing it myself because do you think that when the Ark gets down here and starts to write history of how we went back to the ground they’ll write it as it is?” she chuckled dryly “No, they’ll write it to make it look like they’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened, and what we’ve built will be mentioned in one line. Which wouldn’t be fair, because we’re the reason they know it’s okay to come down”

“You seem to be very pissed at the Ark”

“Yeah well, they haven’t treated me good, so why should I give them a different treatment? I mean, I got arrested for getting trapped in the library by accident”

The conversation went on, and for the rest of the day John Murphy and Lorelei Cody sat there against the metal of the dropship enjoying each other’s presence. Murphy discovered that Lori didn’t hate him because she had simply not cared much.

“If you put everything into everyone’s perspective,” she explained to him “you get different versions of what happened. Clarke’s version of your hanging was that she had been blinded by the rage of her friend being murdered by someone from the camp, and she had wanted to punish the murderer. Evidently, everything got out of hand. Your version, I suppose, is that they hung you unfairly, and when it came to give the same treatment to the real murderer, everyone refused to it. So you also got blinded by the rage and went after a 12-year-old girl. Which also got out of hand” she sighed. She didn’t particularly like that day.

“And what’s your version?”

“I… I think you didn’t deserve to get hung, you deserved a chance to prove yourself innocent, but you had been a dick to most people here —which obviously didn’t get you their love— and that caused the reaction they had. So you were definitely punished unfairly, but that does not give you the right to go ahead and scare a little girl to the point of committing suicide because she believes that that will make everything alright. Look how that turned out, amazingly right?” the last sentence dripped sarcasm, and the blue eyed boy opened his mouth to defend himself, but she didn’t give him the chance “However, that little girl was old enough to understand that killing someone is wrong, no matter what they remind you of. She deserved punishment, but not death. And you got what you had coming” she closed the journal, placing it on the ground next to her.

That time, it was Murphy who stared at her, studying her features. This girl had caught his attention before he was banished, she intrigued him. She just explained how what she wrote was objective, however, she had strong opinions. Why would she choose to hide them instead of voicing them? They could make a difference, if the people listened.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Lorelei, my friends call me Lori. Actually, that’s just Harper and Octavia, but you could call me Lori too, if you want” she gave him a one sided smile. He returned it.

“Hi Lori, I’m John Murphy. Most people call me Murphy” he stuck his hand out.

“Murphy, huh?” she smirked, taking his hand “I’ll call you John then” he chuckled.

They didn’t know it then, but they were in fact making history. Their relationship, in however form it turned out to be, would be one of the protagonists of the history the 100 were making. And Lorelei Cody would make sure it was recorded right. She’d write history’s story. So many more things were to come.

#john murphy #the100 #the 100 murphy #the cw #clarke griffin #octavia blake #harper mcintyre #the ark

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televinita · 4 years

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Little Women (2019): Thoughts

REQUIRED READING: the prequel post about my background going in to this film.

SNAPSHOT VERSION: Though I have some casting qualms, and may adjust my opinions after I reread the book, mostly I think this is everything my heart has needed since the magic of the ‘94 movie was broken for me. My heart is very full.

FULL VERSION: Twice as long as the prequel post (a.k.a. 1800 words), starts below.

I did not expect LW to be the first Unexpected Comeback Fandom of 2020 (or a comeback fandom ever, really), but here I am, having spent every day since I saw this film mooning about this story and looking up different editions and supplemental books in the library catalog, so I'd better process how I feel about it while the memories are relatively fresh.

Most of my thoughts are on casting rather than specific scenes because like I said, I can’t remember the book super well, so I’d like to get my movie memories to fade so that the book can surprise me. Also because I think I will have a more in-depth post about them when I watch the film a 2nd time, whether that’s in theaters or on DVD. But here’s what I’ve got for now.

ON CASTING

In no particular order --

* Emma Watson is very pretty but it is so hard to take her seriously as an actress. She's just Emma Watson, Famous For Being In Harry Potter and Getting Hired For Other Big Name Projects. I feel like she's so consciously acting all the time. She made a not-terrible Meg, I guess? No worse than she made a Belle. But it was roughly as hilarious watching her try to be a mother now as it was watching her try to be a mother in the last Harry Potter movie. To the point that I just kept hearing the "Damn! I'm SO maternal!" song playing as her theme in the background at all times. * I realized 6 days prior to seeing the movie that Florence Pugh is recognizable because she's in Midsommar and honestly, that just ruined everything for me. I didn't even see that film, I just know it's gross and I would hate it and while she is not tainted forever like the 50 Shades actors, she is definitely too tainted for Little Women. Also I could not stop thinking about how I associate Amy with being very dainty and prim and Florence, while perfectly lovely, is not. * Laura Dern was kind of strangely modern and kooky for Marmee, but I love her as an actress and I loved that she was just like "HELLO STRANGE NEIGHBOR BOY, COME BE MY FIFTH CHILD." So I was OK with that. * ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH BOB ODENKIRK. What kind of anachronistic garbage. What crack were you on, because it was obviously not the good stuff. "Did I stumble into an SNL parody??" I wondered more than once. * Meryl Streep as Aunt March was AMAZING. Ten Oscars. * Beth consistently looked younger than Amy, so that was weird. She was okay but kind of childlike, and failed to make Beth my favorite like she is in the book. * JO! Saoirse Ronan is by far my favorite actress in this set, but I didn't think she was right for Jo going in. "Jo's not a redhead!" I said, indignantly stamping my foot, because my childhood-era love for this novel reigns defensively supreme like for no other classic besides Black Beauty. (another 1994 classic they should remake soon, even though I love that version. Just saying.)

But damned if she did not COMPLETELY embody every essence of Jo there is and make Jo my favorite character this time. Truly, nobody except Meryl Streep so thoroughly matched my expectations for their character. Ten Oscars, part II. Or at least the one she is actually nominated for. If Jo loses to ScarJo I will riot. * John was nice. I feel like he was exactly what he was supposed to be, which is to say kind of plain and milquetoast but perfect for Meg. I don't actually remember him existing in the novel, so that was an interesting game of "how important is this guy?" until suddenly Meg was getting married and I realized I did, in fact, have a very dim memory of a wedding from the book. I think I will like their romance more the second time around, though. * Mr. Laurence was VERY EXCELLENT. IDK why I know the actor, even after looking him up, but I liked him in this role a lot. His grandfatherly quasi-adoption of Beth was so sweet. * As for Professor Bhaer...UGH. I hated him on sight and my brain wouldn't even let me recognize who he was for like 3 scenes, I was just like, "who is this random boarding lodger and why are we focusing on that weirdo." I mean, he's objectively handsome? But he did not do it for me. He lacked the gravitas I expect from this character and his thick accent scraped my ears and drove me insane (update from the future: his accent is also driving me insane in the book, where I have peeked in at a few chapters as incentive to reread. whyyyyyyy). * LAURIE: maybe it's been too long since I read the book, but never could I ever have imagined I'd want to use the term "fuckboy" to describe Laurie. It wasn't even Ski Chalet's face so much as it was that in all present-day scenes (post-rejection), he is such an insufferable, melodramatic, pouting trash heap that I didn't want him to marry any of them at that point. (Also YOU STILL DIDN'T MAKE ME UNDERSTAND WHY HE GOES FOR AMY, so good job.**) However, I took especial delight in paying attention to all the cuddly platonic friend cuddling he heaped on Jo growing up, in focus or in the background, and I loved it...kind of a lot? The ship radar made noise. That noise is getting louder by the day, smoothing away his faults. He may have permanently taken up residence in my mind's eye as the new Laurie. ...this is the worst. Make it cease. (**update from the future, I am peeking at the book and it looks like it's a lot easier to understand both in text and when you're inside Laurie's head. He is still clearly sulking his way through Europe, but in a way it's easier to recover from. Also, I don’t have time to unpack this but as I finish the edits on this post I started 5 days ago, I’m starting to think I could not only ship Laurie/Amy, but believe in it from the start.) ACTUAL PLOT AND FILM QUALITY

+ The shifting between past and present was very jarring right off the bat, but after that I think it worked.

+ I loved the attic play rehearsals so much

+ I am so glad Jo’s shorn hair is both fleeting and as hideous as it should look, and not Pixie Cut Chic (Childhood Me wailed at that part reading the book)

+ I remember hardly anything about the book's Part II / Good Wives, so basically everything in their adult lives was news to me. Amy and Aunt March go to Europe? Jo goes to live by herself in New York? Meg marries a relative pauper? Any of this could be true to the book or just made up as an alternate idea to explore, and I would be none the wiser. That made it more fun. (NOBODY SPOIL ME ON WHAT'S TRUE)

+ It did not occur to me until just now that the part where Jo publishes her version of Little Women is not in the book (right?), but that was beautifully done.

+ The house interiors were breathtaking. It's not like I don't regularly watch period pieces, but this time there was just something about seeing an old house, like the ones I am often in for estate sales, decorated the way I always imagine seeing when I enter those homes, that kind of made me tear up. + The outside shots were pretty too + Jo made me cry with her I'm so LONELY! speech, rude. (I went into this movie thinking I was 100% on board to finally read Alcott’s sequels for their Jo/Professor content, and now I'm like 'ah damn it is gonna be the season for the Jo/Laurie AU novel, isn't it.')

+ A strike against Beth and/or the actress playing her: I did not cry about her death (in my defense I was busy crying about Jo's pain).

+ I did NOT remember precisely how Laurie & Amy got married, so even though I knew it happened eventually, I felt that sucker punch to the gut reveal just about as hard as Jo did. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR WIFE.

+ My mom said she’d heard this movie was lauded as being super feminist, which rarely goes well for me, but I thought it felt like really authentic "married women literally were not allowed to control their own income and it sucked" 19th century feminism, and not someone using their 21st century voice to claim this is how people would have REALLY talked if The Patriarchy Of Historical Record hadn't silenced/suppressed it. Nothing rankled me. I’m very confused by the people who think it says Jo is queer and/or didn’t end up with the Professor, but if that’s what you see then I guess it’s a win/win situation for all of us. + LOVED the closing montage. + Basically, at all times that I wasn't annoyed by the casting, I was feeling the same magic I did while reading the book and/or while watching the 1994 movie as a child. I can’t think of any parts I really hated.

IN CONCLUSION

Part of me is honestly kind of sad I didn't reread the book before watching this movie, because even though I usually prefer to go movie first and then get the Expanded Edition that is the book, in this case I wish I'd taken my last chance to properly visualize everything in my head on my own -- since I’ve mostly forgotten the ‘94 film -- before the new movie washed it away forever. This is one of the rare times I would have liked to hope and guess what would be shown vs. cut, and be able to anticipate the thrill of seeing the page come to life.

However, seeing it was the impetus I needed to finally take my childhood copy off the shelf (and thank heavens I have it, because the library request is backed up 3 or 4 deep for every copy), and it took all of 5 minutes to get instantly sucked into chapter 1 and feel such rapturous joy and familiarity that I consciously cut myself off and decided I am going to journal out my feelings after each chapter on this reread. So that’s something!

#the biggest surprise is that maybe Timothee Chalomet is not the worst thing ever #and I frankly do not know what to do with this loss of identity #little women #little women spiral

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lyrical-obsessions · 5 years

Text

Biggest comfort

Haikyuu Reader insert

Semi Eita x Reader

Audience: Female

You were easily his biggest comfort. Your lazy look and taped up fingers made him excited when he saw them in the hall, and your oversized sweater was always filled with snacks and other pleasures that were appreciated. When the winter months came around, you would not hesitate to hold him if he got cold. Sometimes he purposefully forgot a layer or two so that you would hold him longer. You were easy to talk to, and you had interesting things to say. You both had gone to the same high school, but it took college to bring you two together. It made his heart soar with how much he could touch you, but it also pained him to think that you weren’t exclusive to him. He planned to change that very soon… Maybe

If he could ever muster up the courage. He loved talking to you late at night, and he loved talking to you when you both were just barely awake in the morning. Without you, the campus of over 8,000 students would feel empty and bare.

“Eita, you’ve gotten better at dressing yourself.” Your lazy drawl made him want to tackle you in a flurry of kisses.

"What’s that supposed to mean? You wear the same sweater every day!” He teased you back. The way your eyelashes fluttered as you shut your eyes made his heart race.

“Hey, It’s utilitarian. You want chips? Need a band-aid? I got you covered.” You began digging in the pockets of your sweater.

“When's the last time you washed it?” Eita asks as he played with the ends of your barely brushed hair. You huffed as you stuff a plastic baggie of cheesy crackers back into your pockets.

“You were there you dope! Just the other day! You let me wear your jacket!” He didn’t forget. He had been carefully avoiding smothering the scent you left on it. It’s the same jacket you always wore when your oversized backpack of a jacket was getting washed. He made sure of it.

“Ah, right,” Eita says in a teasing tone. “So you coming to volleyball today? I heard the girls’ team is officially taking a break, but the boys’ team is allowing any girl to come practice with us.” You smiled as you extended and retracted your fingers.

“I think I want to. I want to keep in good shape for when practice starts back up again.” You finally seemed satisfied with how stretched out your long fingers were and placed them in your sleeve. “You don’t mind a second setter there, do you?” You question your good friend. He burrowed into your sleeve with his own hand to find yours. He gave it a squeeze as he smiled.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like they’re gonna throw me off the team and throw my jersey on you.” He joked, but you knew very well that was his own morbid humor. While in high school, you had heard about the setter debacle on the boys' team, but you paid more attention to your own setter position on the girls' team. Looking back, you wish you hadn’t. You wished you paid attention to him and comforted him at that time. Looking back, you had the perfect opportunity to meet him and everything. You both were in the same year, same sport, same position, first string, hell, you were even close friends with the manager at the time. You used to set for her, but you kept your eyes focused on your own side. It was your biggest regret.

“Well, we should get a move on then. We’ll be late to class you know… again.”

The lecture was long and tedious. The subtle shifting of arms as you took notes was rhythmic as you followed the string of words being spewed by the professor. Eita eventually became tired, feeling the urge to touch you again. Luck was on his side, however, as you must have been feeling the urge as well. You leaned over on his shoulder as you continued writing. He returned the affection by leaning into you. Your smile was just barely visible out of the corner of his eye, but the still caught the subtle upturn. His heart raced as his mind began to fill with thoughts of you. He struggled to focus.

He’d probably have to ask you for the notes again.

“Do you want to get something to eat before practice? Or do you need to head back to your dorm for things?” You ask Eita as he packs up his bag. He shakes his head as he stuffs the last journal in.

“I have my change of clothes. I’d be happy to get something to eat. I’m surprised though, you usually have something in those pockets of yours.”

“My pockets currently have my medical tape, journal, knee pads... Oh! And a pen in my sleeve with my phone. In my bag I have my shoes, my water bottle, and bandages.” you show him the tiny bag and he sweats. Why couldn’t you just carry a larger backpack? “So I have no room for food today.” He gives you a sigh and smiles.

“Not even a stick of gum, huh?” he teases you again. You smile your lazy smile and begin digging in your sleeve.

“I have one piece of gum, do you want it?” your taped hands held it gingerly. He began to laugh. You would never be dull to him.

As you both arrive at the little restaurant you love dearly, Eita quickly makes it clear to you that he was paying. You tried to protest, saying he paid for the last one too, but he had already begun ordering your usual along with his, completely ignoring your protests. You pout at him, but your cute pout made the move even more worth it for him. You at first begrudgingly ate, but you couldn’t help but let bliss envelop your expression. You truly did love the little restaurant, and you loved spending time with Eita. you sometimes wished though that he would let you treat him.

“Kamasaki says he wants to try something today, and it has me worried.” Eita began a casual conversation about his volleyball team. He didn’t follow any of his old teammates into their respective colleges, so he had to start fresh with a new team. The college team he was currently on relished the fact that he was a gifted setter that thought carefully about his moves. He wasn’t a setter that was just a way to get the ball to the ace. You listen in carefully and nod.

“When aren’t you worried about something he wants to try? I’m sure you aren’t the only one worried though.” you felt the urge to touch him again, even if it was a slight one.

“Yeah, Yaku’s been on him recently about being reckless and rash. Says he thought he didn’t have to deal with that kind of immaturity once he got into college.” you laugh as you place a hand on the table you shared. He debated covering your hand with his.

“Well, at least he’s the only big problem you guys have.” Eita sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose

“And man is he a problem.” You place a hand on your chin as you watch him think about all the trouble the middle blocker has given him. You had heard that just recently he tried to instigate a fight with Ushijima at a match. The wing spiker was not amused. “Middle blockers are always giving me trouble.”

“Well, back in high school, Kawanishi just hated everything and everyone, Tendou was… you know,”

“Trouble, weird, unreadable, crazy?” He joked. “And now I have one of the pieces of the Iron wall trying to start shit with anything and everything. At least Matsukawa doesn’t give me much trouble.”

“You’ve never noticed? I think he just silently screws with you.” You begin fiddling with your phone in your sleeve. Eita gives you a confused look. “On occasion, he and Hanamaki will swap jerseys.” You then pop another bite of food into your mouth as Eita slowly comes to terms with this new piece of information. “Sorry, I thought you knew. I would have told you sooner if I knew.”

“No, You have nothing to apologize for. I’ll let Yaku know…” He lets out an exasperated sigh. He was tired before practice even began. At least you’d be there, his biggest comfort. He felt your fingers brush up against his knees, and he gladly laces his fingers between yours. He gave your hand a squeeze and gave you a smile.

You were ready to go. Your knee pads fit snugly over your leggings, and a t-shirt with a cute logo covered your torso. You had your signature sweater tied around your waist. If you needed, then you would throw it to the side. You and a few other girls thanked the boys’ team for allowing you to practice with them today.

You and Eita began discussing ideas and techniques as your teams began to go about their practice. Your ace, however, wanted your full attention.

“(Name)-chan! Toss for me! Toss for me!” she called for you as she made tossing motions with her hands. You sighed and tighten the sweater around your waist.

“Okay, just give me a sec.” Eita nods at you to let you know you were fine to toss to your ace. She was older, and she was just as volleyball crazed as your old ace. She begins bouncing as she watches you slowly approach. You did so on purpose, as you noticed her spikes were more powerful when charged up like this. She was like a terrier watching a squirrel before bursting out into the yard.

Eita loved watching you toss. Your form was elegant and crisp, a stark difference from your normal slouched posture. Once you tossed one to your ace, she demanded another. Eita and you both knew you weren’t getting away from her for a while. Eita gave you a quick smile and wave before turning his attention to his own team. Matsukawa and Hanamaki jump him quickly, however, and each grabs an arm. He jumps out of surprise and tries to escape his unknown fate. The more the setter struggles, the further he is dragged out of your sights.

“What the- What the hell are you guys doing?” He protests against his teammates as they drag him towards Yaku. The libero seemed to have a grave expression on his face as he had his fingers laced together in front of his chin. He was sitting on the ground as he waited for the two to drag the setter near him

“We brought him,” Hanamaki states as he stares at Yaku with a blank face.

“Yaku! What the hell?!” Eita begins to yell at the libero. You were too preoccupied with the endless ball of energy ace that was demanding toss after toss to notice the poor object of your affections being held captive by the two former Aoba Josai players.

“Semi… I had them drag you over here with me because we’ve all had enough. Even Kamasaki and Nakashima’s had enough. Just ask her out already.” Yaku let his hands fall into his lap out of exasperation. Eita furrowed his brow and gave him a confused stare. Aforementioned blond middle blocker suddenly notices the meeting and rushes over to be apart of the carnage. Yaku had enough of your obvious pining for one another like you were on a B rate soap opera, and he had enough of you both claiming it was a ‘really close friendship.’

“(L/Name)-san, ask out (L/Name).” Matsukawa prods Eita.

“If you don’t do it tonight, we’re going to tell her for you tomorrow during her first lecture.” Eita choked as Kamasaki slid in with a sadistic grin on his face. Yaku immediately placed his hand over Kamasaki’s mouth, however, to keep him from shouting.

“Or we can just tell her right now, your pick,” Yaku says in a calm tone, obviously he was the ringleader in the operation. “I can get Nakashima to tell her in less than 2 seconds.” Eita begins to sweat as he looks over at where you stood. A boy with a brown buzzcut was now assisting you and your ace with her spikes. He gave a quick glance over to his setter, smiles, then returns his attention back to your tossing.

“Why are you ganging up on me!?” he barks at them, and they all sigh.

“This is for your own good Semi.” Yaku places a hand on his shoulder and gives him a valiant look “We’re doing this for you. We’re supporting you.”

“It really doesn’t feel all that supportive as much as it feels forced!” Eita retorts. Yaku sighs again and looks at Kamasaki and removes his hand from his mouth.

“Give Nakashima the signal.” Just as the tall blond was about to lift his hand, Eita panics

“WAIT! I’ll do it! I’ll do it tonight! Just let me do it! Just don’t out me!” Eita’s heart could have burst through his ribcage and flopped on the floor at how panicked he was. His eyes widen as he bites his lower lip. How was he going to tell you?

After you both finished up, you threw your sweater back on and changed out of your volleyball shoes. You were still slightly warm, so you rolled up your sleeves a little bit. The cool air of the night chilled your warmed skin slightly. Eita seemed uncomfortable no matter what he did.

As you both took to the sidewalks and headed back to the dorms, you started idly chatting with him like you always would. This is how it always was, ever since you could talk to him like this.

“Man, the terrier was ruthless today. It didn’t help that Nakashima fed into that energy too.” Eita nodded at you nervously.

“U-Uh-huh.” he choked out. You quickly took notice. Eita was more nervous than usual. You had seen this nervousness before. You saw it when you first began to make friends with him. You saw it again when you began getting touchy with him.

“Eita?” you stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to face him. “Something up?” you began to slowly roll down your sleeves. You began to feel nervous as well. The cool chill of anxiety envelops you. His eyes scanned every inch of you, and his hands lifted up slightly to catch your taped up fingers. Sometimes you loved your sensitivity to his moods, you got to feel his slight giddiness when he got a toss just right or the subtle bliss of enjoying his favorite foods, but then there were times like now where you could feel his nervousness and anxiety. You could feel the pressure of something.

His eyes close for a brief second before refocusing back on you with an anxious look. He laces his fingers once again with yours

“Could you spend the night? Please?” his face became gentle as his hands gripped yours. “I have something important I want to talk with you about.” You looked at him with a slightly parted mouth and wide eyes. You could tell whatever it was, it was urgent. You could feel your heart beating it’s way up your chest. You bit your lip as you swallowed in an attempt to control it once again. You nod at him and agree to spend the night with him.

“Sorry it’s such short notice, (Name),” He tells you as he sits outside his bathroom, waiting for you to be done changing into clothes he’s lent you.

“It’s fine, If it’s going to happen again though, I should leave some clothes here or something.” His dorm room was a single person suite that you constantly complained about him being lucky getting, seeing as you yourself were in a four-person suite. He would always tell you that he deserved it after being Tendou’s roommate for 3 years.

“Yeah…” He replied quietly. You picked up on his tone and opened the bathroom door.

“Eita, what did you want to talk to me about? Is everything okay?” You panicked slightly. What if he didn’t want to be around you anymore? What if he didn’t want you touching him anymore? What if he secretly hated you? Your mind raced irrationally, and your usually calm disposition faded fast.

Upon seeing your panicked face, he jumps up and wraps his arms around you, softly stroking your back. You gladly grab at his back to soothe yourself. Why did he want you here?

“(Name), I’m sorry if I worried you.” He begins. “I just need you to know something, okay? No matter what, I want you with me.” He felt his face turn red as he reluctantly backed out of your embrace. He then led you to his bedside and had you sit with him. It was now or never. “I asked you to be here with me tonight because… You’ve been the biggest comforts I’ve had here since I started. You were there for me, and I think I can’t go a day now without touching you at least once, going one day without speaking to you is unthinkable for me, and I sure as hell don’t even want to think about a day without seeing you.” He gripped your hand tighter.

“Eita?” You stare up at his blush. Some of your hair had fallen into your face, only slightly hiding your own flushed face. You could slowly feel yourself leaning closer to him.

“I want us to be exclusive with one another, I love you.” He could barely look you in the eye as he confessed his feelings for you. As those three words left his mouth, a breath was snatched from your lungs as an invisible wind blew past. You became restless as he stared at you, and you finally threw your arms around him and kissed him passionately. He would quickly return and deepen the kiss as he weaved his fingers through your hair with one hand and gripped the small of your back with the other.

As your kiss became more heated, you both fell onto his bed, allowing him to go even further with his kiss.

A phone buzzed from beneath the bed as it lay on an oversized sweater. The sweater muffled the sound of Eita receiving a message from Yaku

10:38 From Yaku: Semi, did you do it?

10:42 From Yaku: Semi?

10:45 From Yaku: Wait wait Semi, you aren’t…

10:49 From Yaku: HOLY SHIT SEMI

From Semi: I’m not. Leave me alone. I’m busy.

From Yaku: THAT “I’M BUSY” DOESN’T HELP YOUR CASE

From Yaku: THIS IS KAMASAKI HOLY HELL SEMI GET IT

From Semi: Watch the back of your head the next time I serve.

With an aggravated glare, he tosses his phone away and continues to embrace you in his bed, placing a soft kiss on the crown of your head. You cuddled him closer under the soft sheets and took a deep breath to fully take in his scent. Your fingertips ran up and down the middle of his chest.

“I love you, Eita” you finally respond properly to his confession, and he smiled. He gripped you tighter and buries his face into the top of your head.

“I love you too (Name)”

You were easily his biggest comfort. Your big (E/C) eyes and your heavenly voice would forever have him wrapped around your finger. Your kiss was something he had only dreamed of before, but now he knew that it was his most favorite thing in the world. He was excited that you were now exclusively his, and his alone. He couldn’t wait for all the things to come with you two. You and that oversized sweater of yours.

#Haikyuu reader insert #Semi eita x reader #x reader #Haikyuu x reader

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calling-gull · 6 years

Text

Hope

(From an RP in Discord) ( @tirasiansails @atc-wra (And I don’t know if Nallaen has a tumblr XD)

A conversation of sensitive topics had gone on weeks before, and Daniel was excited with the idea that it just might be possible.

A long stretch of silence passed from the arcanist until late one evening, a letter would find its way to Captain Conaroy. The method of delivery, a medium sized, dour looking Raven fluttered to the window of the man's residence, pecking insistently at whatever window or method of entry there was to Daniel's quarters until it's presence was acknowledged and it's missive delivered. Upon delivery, the black corvid would tarry, almost ensuring that the man read the letter right then and there before taking wing again and disappearing into the Stormwind streets.

The letter itself was a small, rolled piece of parchment that read thus: "Captain Conaroy, I believe suitable enough progress has been made for me to reveal the fruits of my labor. Please join me in a small warehouse at the end of the docks. #185. Knock Thrice. -N" A 30 minute walk away, in the above mentioned warehouse, a disheveled looking warlock mumbles to himself as he scratches out a series of runes onto the stone floor in charcoal, often looking over to a journal of notes seated some ways away to his right. His clothes are stained with soot, some sort of weird ichor, and Light knows what else. Apparently, Nallaen had been through the ringer on this one. Not far from him on a table, sat a mess of supplies, an empty pot that once held a steaming pool of Koda Bean Brew and a half consumed bottle of bourbon.

Daniel rolled over with a groan at the sound of the incessant tapping on his window. Brushing hair out of his face, and rubbing the sand from his eyes, he manages to open one of them to see what's causing the ruckus. "Huh. That's new." Opening the window, he looked the bird over, a bit taken aback when he saw the small paper rolled and tied to one leg. Interesting. he'd seen plenty of pigeons carrying missives, but a raven? Tentatively, but with calm ease, he reached for, and retrieved the note, reading it immediately. If someone had sent him a message with this unconventional courier, then it must be important. Ah, his meeting with that one. Good, he was eager to see what the man had devised.

It didn't take him long to throw on some clothes, grab up a few things, and head out with a skip in his step, and a whistle on his lips. The walk wasn't onerous, and he enjoyed it. Arriving at the warehouse, he did knock the three times, and waited. In his hand, a string-bag of various fruits for Nallaen. He knew how the magicky folk got when they were working on something, and thought the man could probably use something to help refresh and restore energy.

The door creaks open just enough for someone to peek out of it to see who was there for a moment before opening fully and greeting Daniel with a full look at Nallaen Ravenstone. It was a quite a different look from when he last saw him, and his suspicions were in fact correct. To say that the warlock was a fucking mess was, in fact, a kindness. His hair, normally pulled back into a that tight ponytail, was completely untied and hung messily down to his shoulders, adding more depth to an already gaunt face. "Good. You made it." Nall says, stepping back to let Daniel in before hastily shutting the door behind him and locking it. "This way." Leading Daniel back to the workspace, Nallaen picks up a piece of charcoal that he had set down on the table (along with the bottle of bourbon) and turns to face the captain. "How much do you know about magical theory?" He asks, pulling the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and spitting it out before taking a pull from the bourbon.

Daniel followed the man with a shake of the head. Yep. One of those obsessed types. He'd seemed that way when they'd met, even as stoic as he'd been. It was just a feeling you got once in a while. "Not a damn bit of it." He reaches out with the bag of fruit, "Here, eat somethin' while ya talk." That's it, Danny, be eloquent. "Tell me what you've discovered. Somethin' new?"

Nallaen eyes the bag of fruit suspiciously, seemingly weighing the decision between eating and paranoia. Obviously, Daniel really wasn't ever really going to profit off of Nallaen's death but that didn't mean the warlock was going to worry about it. Reluctantly, Nallaen takes the bag of fruit and mumbles a 'Thanks' before tossing it onto his workspace and digging out a piece of it, taking a bite and swallowing before speaking again, wiping away some juice from his chin with a dirty sleeve. "Without getting too deep into the specifics, what you originally asked for is an incredibly complex task for a number of various reasons, the least of all being the fact that these will probably be used in active combat." Nall takes another bite, speaking through a mouthful of mulch. "Nowuh. When you're moving somthink through a poortal, it's kinda lyke a dour." Swallow. "Problem is we don't need a door. We need a hook."

"Like fishin'. Ya need somethin' ta grab, an' pull through the other side? Somethin' like that?" He watched the Warlock munch the fruit with satisfaction. Sabine would be a little miffed at him if he let this man die of neglect while working on this project. He hummed and had a beard-strokey moment before nodding. "Alright. Makes sense." He gestured for the man to continue, and eagerly awaited the rest. It didn't show, however. Only the calm, quiet demeanor was shown. For now.

"Precisely. Just like fishing." Nallaen replies taking another bite and leaning back against his work station. "What are some things you need to consider when casting that hook? Speed? Distance? Wind? Other hooks, aye? " He asks. "To continue with that analogy, these are things to consider when moving items or people through temporal space. Not to mention the fact that we are on a giant moving target itself. Once you start factoring variable, the magic required becomes mindbogglingly intricate. However..." Nallaen turns and picks up a small stone before moving towards Daniel and pressing it into his hands. "A week’s worth of sleepless nights have produced what I believe to be a viable solution to our little fishing problem." The stone itself is a small, round orb hewn from obsidian, perfectly smooth save for various etchings that have carved into it's surface. On those etchings, a faint, glimmering substance can be seen when it catches the light at just the right angle. "You're going to help me test it."

Danny holds up the stone, inspecting it with interest for a few moments. He'd been growing ever more intent on the explanation as it went on, and felt a small surge of excitement, though it never showed. "How'm I gonna help ya test it? And are ya gonna tell Sabine what's happened if ya send me ta the other side'v the world? Or worse, if ya turn me inside out?"

Nallaen shakes his head. "I mean, yes, if for some reason my calculations are off, there are any infinite number of possible outcomes that could occur, including wearing your organs on the outside, but if you consider that as one out come out of well...infinite...the odds are extremely low." Nallaen replies, taking another bite from his fruit. "My tests thus far have been successful on inanimate objects, no harm done." Nallaen says, very slowly sliding a bit to the right to block a pile of charred looking rocks from sight. "I need a living breathing thing the size of what we will be moving to know that I am successful. This is for all the marbles, Daniel."

Danny sighs, and shakes his head. "We needa find another livin' thing ta try it on first. Then I gotta let Sabine know. If I were ta vanish again without a word..." He shrugs, shaking his head. "I can't do it to the gal again." He paces back and forth for a moment or two, and then stops. "Let me find a bunny or somethin'. Somethin' living that we can say came out alright in the end." He knew, though, she'd likely explode at him and demand he not put himself in danger. After all, he had airships to build. and, maybe, a life with her like they'd wanted so long ago.

"I need something of similar size and shape, my friend. A bunny isn't going to do the trick." Nallaen replies, taking another bite from his piece of fruit, which has been an apple this entire time. "Listen, I wouldn't even be asking if this wasn't ready for this phase of testing. If this works, the only question becomes range extension and then mass production."

A frown crosses Daniel's lips, and he says, "Hold up a moment. I do need ta let her know. After all, she is in charge after the Duchess and admiral, and I report ta them." He touches the comm in his pocket, and thinks of Sabine. "Gal, are ya there?"

Nallaen sighs and waves a hand, indicating is his acquiescence for permission. As he waits he finishes what’s left of the apple and tosses the core aside, moving to his desk and sitting down with a soft grunt, picking up his bourbon bottle again and tipping it back.

There was a heavy grogginess to her voice, laced with a near whine on complaint as she mumbled sleepily," It's latteee and I just got to sleep for fucksake. This better be important."

"Sorry, gal, but I gotta do somethin', and the outcome's uncertain. I didn't want ta do it without tellin' ya. Here with mister Ravenstone. He thinks he's got a solution ta the problem'v brinelings an' others takin' folk off our ships."

There was a long moment of deathly silence as her sleep hazed mind took its sweet time absorbing this information. When she finally spoke again there was a hint of venom in her voice. 'Whatever it is you are doing, you best come back to in the same shape you left me. Otherwise, inform Mr. Ravenstone I will make him wish he were dead."

Hiding a chuckle, Daniel resoponds. "I'll tell 'im, love. Don't worry. I've faith in the man. I'm not leavin' ya again. Not for anythin'." He turns back to Nallaen, and repeats Sabine's threat word for word. "Alright, man. I'm at yer disposal. Jus' try not ta dispose of me, eh?"

Nallaen rolls his eyes and mumbles something about granting wishes and then he stands, moving over to Daniel and patting him on the shoulder. "Trust me, Captain. If that was my intent this is not the way I would do it. If you would be so kind as to move to end of the warehouse and stand on the 'x' I've marked there. Once you've done that, simply crush the stone in your hand."

Without a word, Daniel nods, and does just that. With the ground-eating pace that came naturally to him, he moved to the X, and stood there. With a bit of a prayer to keep him in one piece, he crushes the stone in one large hand.

Nallaen's obsidian stone, while seeming quiet solid is actually crushed quiet easily in Daniel's hand and the moment it turns to dust, there's a brilliant purple glow from the clenched fist. From there, there is a massive surge of energy and the captain is enveloped by a cloud of that brilliant purple glow. Next thing he knows, Daniel suddenly feels himself lurched forward as if suddenly the whole of Azeroth took off, the strange sensation of being pulled apart molecule by molecule and then hastily recombobulated all at once but yet taking an eternity. Needless to say, it wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation. A few moments later, the strange dilation of time and space would suddenly come to a harsh halt, Daniel being dumped right above the strange circle Nallaen had been drawing on the ground before the captain had arrived, the runes glowing bright and hot as he's unceremoniously spat out of the ether and back onto the floor.

"Okay. Might be just a tad off coordinate wise, but none worse for the wear I think." Nallaen says, striding back over to the man and holding out the bottle of booze for him.

The sensation was not the least pleasant thing he'd ever felt, but it came close to the top. Inside the 'portal', his body tried to react to the feeling, but couldn't, as he was held still. Probably a good thing when one was being ripped from one place, and spat out at another. As he was deposited in the circle, he staggered a bit, catching himself on something soft. When he looked, he realized it was Nallaen's arm. Oops. He took the bottle, and then handed it back, several gulps later. "Well. I seem ta be in one piece..."

"And there are certainly worse fates." Nallaen replies, taking the bottle back and moving to his workspace, scribbling something down on his notes as he takes another pull from it. Nothing like drunken rune work.

"So the only things to do now is re-write the runes to account for larger distances and then figure out a way how we're going to -pay- for all of this to be made."

"We'll figure a way. If this can save even a few who're dragged off ship. or cast overboard in a storm, then it'll be worth it." He offers his hand with a rarely-seen grin. "Well done, sir. No matter the success of this in the future, well done."

Nallaen takes his hand and gives it a squeeze and three pumps. The appropriate amount for any handshake, yes. "Aye, you're right. Can't put a price on life I suppose." He says with a small, and somewhat relieved sigh. The warlock plucks out another piece of fruit, a peace this time and bites into it, his first real sustenance in a few hours. "That's all I had for you, Captain. Unless you had some questions of your own."

"Na, not yet, though I'm sure the Duchess an Harbormistress will. Enjoy the fruit. Send ta me again if ya need anythin'. And uh..." he gestures to the fruit bag. "Want me ta send up summor food?"

Nallaen shakes his head, sending his tangle of grey hair swishing from side to side. "No, this should fine, thanks." He says, flipping open his notebook again and marking something down. "If you do inform them of the progress, please make them aware that they will have a demonstration sometime later in the week. After a few days worth of sleep."

"Aye. I'll do that. Enjoy yer sleep." With those few words, Daniel simply turns and walks out, planning on crawling back into bed with Sabine and sleep some more.

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copperbadge · 7 years

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Book Review: The Curious Case Of Sidd Fitch

On April 1, 1985, a piece by George Plimpton was published in Sports Illustrated, called "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch". It presented a new rookie pitcher for the Mets: Sidd Finch, an aspirant Buddhist monk and French horn aficionado, who could throw a pitch around 160mph. If you're not familiar with baseball, a 90mph pitch is a good ticket to the majors, and the fastest pitch on record is around 105mph. The article was a joke, of course -- April Fool's -- but the reaction especially among Mets fans was electric. Within sports journalism it's widely considered to be one of the best hoaxes of all time.

Plimpton eventually expanded the article into a novel in 1987, and I finally got around to digging it up and reading it -- it's what I've been reading on the train to the last few Railcats games of the season. The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, as a novel, is in a way a time capsule; it captures a very weird era for the country and a pre-player's strike, pre-Moneyball era for baseball. But it's not really a book about baseball, despite Plimpton being primarily a sports journalist. It's easily accessible if you don't know a ton about the game, primarily because neither does Sidd Finch.

Rather, the book struck me as drawing heavily on what I think of as the "parable novel", a genre popular in the seventies -- part religious/philosophical treatise and part self-help book disguised as a fictional narrative (the most famous is probably Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach).

The novel's narrator and fictional author is Robert Temple, a former journalist living in Florida and suffering from a decade-long writer's block; he literally can't write anything, including shopping lists and notes to self. (I'll come back to this.) By a chance of fate he learns that the Mets have a rookie player named Sidd Fitch who can throw a 160mph fastball with uncanny accuracy, but who is still uncertain he actually wants to sign with the club. After getting thrown out of his boarding house for bringing a girl over, Sidd and his girlfriend Debbie Sue end up living with Temple at the request of the Mets, who hope Temple can convince him to sign with the team while he attends spring training in Florida.

It's a really compelling read with enjoyable characters, and there's some good tension set up in the question of whether Sidd will sign with the Mets, and whether it would be good for both Sidd and the sport as a whole for him to do so. And I appreciated that the one full pro game Sidd pitches isn't the climax of the book -- this is not a book about sport but a book that uses sport to meditate on other matters.

It does have its issues, however. Temple, the narrator, draws the reader in because we understand that he was a writer and no longer is, but we don't know why -- we know he's suffered some terrible psychological blow, just not exactly what:

If he had taken the time to check it out, he would have discovered that I was not capable of writing a paragraph, much less a line of copy. I was a completely defused member of the communications industry.

[....]

I took my sister by the elbow afterward and I said, “Well, that’s my problem, isn’t it? I’m not really alive. I’m perhaps a quarter alive.”

“You’re coming along,” she said.

I think it would have been best for that information to come out slowly in drips here and there, perhaps eventually being told more fully when Temple explains to Sidd or Debbie Sue why he can't write. Instead we get an early-on chapter about it -- basically a brief autobiography where he goes to Vietnam to cover the war as a journalist, has a breakdown, and retires to Florida where he fills empty days with pointless tasks as a way of keeping himself alive. It's...not the most interesting chapter. And then he can’t really explain it to the others because we’ve already sat through it once.

This complicated history is also a problem with Sidd, our young pitcher -- Sidd is struggling with both his faith and what his purpose in life should be, and that’s immediately something people can identify with. The issue is that Plimpton, the actual author, built on the biography he created for Sidd in the Sports Illustrated article, which was a joke and thus comedically complicated. Sidd is an orphan from England adopted by an English anthropologist who then died in a plane crash when Sidd was a teenager, and he found Buddhism while looking for his father in the Himalayas. Sidd also, randomly, is very good at the French horn. This is a complex backstory for a baseball player and it's not entirely well-told within the boundaries of the book, though it's also a pretty ripping adventure story as Sidd runs away from boarding school to look for his dad and eventually ends up an aspirant monk who uses Buddhists lung-gom teachings to train himself to throw a 160mph baseball.

We never really get to the heart of why Sidd walked up to a Mets talent scout one day and decided to get himself recruited; there are hints here and there, and it does lead to a masterful set of discussions about why baseball is a game for mystics:

“Why baseball?” Frank Cashen asked. “Why didn’t he go back to England and play cricket?”

Dr. Burns put his fingertips together. “Baseball is the perfect game for the mystic mind. Cricket is unsatisfactory because it has time strictures. The clock is involved. Play is called. The players stop for tea. No! No! No!” Burns sounded quite petulant. “On the other hand, baseball is so open to infinity. No clocks. No one pressing the buttons on stopwatches. The foul lines stretch to infinity. In theory, the game of baseball can go on indefinitely.”

[...]

“I got very interested in the idea of causing a commotion at Point B when standing a long distance away at Point A. To throw an object that connects those two points is a very heady thing to be able to do...especially if you can do it time and time again with accuracy. It is something archers and hunters know all about -- the trigonometric closing of lines.”

[...]

I suddenly had a clear image of what Sidd was doing to the game. It was what the listeners were suggesting -- he was changing the properties and the essence of the ball itself. It struck me how often the ball is inspected during a game, as if anyone who touches it has to make sure the ball has not changed its properties. If the ball disappears over the fence, another, like a youngster’s dream pinball game, emerges from a black sack at the umpire’s side. He looks at it and gives it to the catcher, who rubs it briefly, and after a glance fires it out to the pitcher; he looks at the ball and rubs it with both hands, his glove dangling from its wrist strap, and then, as he stares down at the catcher for the signal, his fingers maneuver over its surface feeling for the comfort of some response -- yes, this time it will do exactly as he wishes! [...] Football players do not have this kind of kinship with their ball. Most of the players don’t even touch the thing during the course of a game. It sits stolidly on the grass. The center comes up over the ball from the huddle and barely giving it a glance turns it under his hands; his eyes are staring across the line of scrimmage at the unpleasant visage of the nose guard opposite. A defensive tackle is so uncomfortable with the ball that if he chances to pick it up on the practice-field he tends to throw it end over end to get rid of it. [...] Tennis balls are not kept on the mantlepiece. Too many of them around. Who cares?

But there's never that moment where Sidd says, this is why I came to America to play baseball. Especially since he knows so little about it going in. I suppose Plimpton had to make him a foreigner so he wouldn't know much about the sport, but honestly, you can grow up in America and not know much about baseball, especially at the pro level. Though I do enjoy some of the eccentricities of the game that Plimpton chose to focus on:

“They have shown me the heavy ring that one slides on the bat to make it seem lighter. I had thought originally that the heavy ring was a talisman to bless the wood. No! One has only oneself to rely on within the confines of the batting box.”

There's also some pretty lowered stakes in this book because everyone, even Sidd, is wealthy. Temple can afford to do nothing all day for a decade while still seeing an expensive private therapist about his writer's block (and eventually supporting Sidd and Debbie Sue when they move in) because his family is rich and supportive. Sidd, an innocent who travels with very little, still has access to his father's fortune and has a mansion waiting for him in England. Debbie Sue, the free-spirited beach bum that Sidd falls in love with, comes from a wealthy family and was attending an ivy league school before she left it all behind to windsurf full-time in Florida. Even the most desperate people in the book, namely the coaching staff of the Mets, are only desperate to get Sidd to play. Nobody's life or livelihood is riding on anything in the book, which to me makes it slightly less effective as a philosophical treatise because everyone starts from a place of wealth and comfort. On the other hand, it does allow the reader to engage fully with the psychological side of things, and there’s something to be said for not having to worry about where Sidd’s next meal is coming from:

Rather haltingly, Sidd asked me if I would come to New York and see him through August and September...perhaps share an apartment. He didn’t feel he was going to feel at ease in the city. Over the phone he made one of his brilliant vocal imitations -- the sound of a taxi horn, a police siren, and the sigh of a bus pulling away from its passenger stop.

“There are no mantras,” he said, “to take care of this sort of thing.”

All that said, it is a really fun book. Everyone in it is charming and funny, Sidd's bewilderment over the rituals of pro baseball is touching, and there's an interesting hint of threesome-ness (probably unintentional) to the bond between Sidd, Debbie Sue, and Temple. As a baseball fan I appreciated the thought Plimpton put into how and where the characters and the sport interacted, and you can tell he has a genuine love of the game. He also appears to have done his research about Buddhism -- it's not just a stand in for woo-woo esotericism, the way it was a bit in the original article. There is some of that, but there is also a lot of genuine discussion of Buddhism which seems, in my admittedly very limited experience, to be correct.

Sidd smiled...very much as Dennis Brain probably had on the stage of the Jubilee Hall. “There’s a saying of Buddha,” he said. “Be earnest in cessation although there is nothing to cease; practice the cessation although there is nothing to practice.”

So yeah, do recommend The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch if you’re interested in baseball or just in a pretty good story about a baseball player.

#book review #textpost #baseball

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gunneroybq735-blog · 5 years

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Debt Collectors - A Management Strategy

Let me ask you one question:.

Why do you wish to get out of debt?

You're here on this blog for a factor. To discover if my difficulty and struggles will help you make peace with your debt and get you out of the red and back in the saddle with your finances.

However you need to ask yourself one concern - why? More properly, what is the driving force behind you wishing to get out of debt? Is it since it's "the important things to do" or "no one likes financial obligation anyway"? If it is then you'll find yourself stopping working at attaining this objective.

So what is a good "driving force"?

Let me side-step for a minute and expand on why you'll stop working with a flat factor like the above to drive you.

No one can attain anything with a generic, half-assed reason to do it. The Romans' reason for developing such a dominating empire wasn't due to the fact that "there's land there, so why not?" or "well we have actually killed everybody here, might also develop things".

They desired to be the very best. To manage the world - the most effective force on the world (or what they knew of it). Success drove them. Or at least, the love of succeeding. This is an effective, emotional reason that they did what they did.

Yes, they ultimately failed in a catastrophically abysmal method - but that's not the point (actually, it isn't!). I'm discussing their driving force - what emotions they put behind their objectives.

So, returning to the topic at hand: what about you?

What is driving you to get out of financial obligation?

Possibly it's a fear of not being able to support either yourself or your family if "the worst" takes place - or perhaps it's the worry of being embarrassed when you admit you can't manage a present that your girlfriend has actually been dying to get ever considering that she saw it. Possibly your fianc wants a PS3 so bad, but can't validate buying it as it's his birthday quickly. But you can't buy it either - you have a head full of financial obligation to clear. What a bum birthday he'll have when he gets another card with a 20 gift coupon inside it from you.

So here's the offer. Putting a psychological factor behind your goals will set milebrook financial consolidation program your spirit on fire. Our feelings are the important things that get us through each day. They are the chemicals in our brain and blood that form our lives. They make us fall in love, hate the face off of somebody, feel jealous, hungry, frightened, lonely ... you get the concept.

Realise what your connected feelings are with leaving financial obligation, and you'll have the ability to accomplish your goal( s) easily. Sure, it'll still be a difficult obstacle depending upon just how much red you remain in (or whatever your goal is), but whenever you struck a wall or fail on your face thanks to a monetary mistake or surprise attack by your credit card business you'll press through, determined to be successful. Simply consider your family's Christmas with absolutely no money worries. Think about the PS3 for God of War 3's sake.

This entire topic happened when I watched a video post on a wonderful blog site I visit frequently which enlivens this "emotion idea" by provoking the reasons above about psychological accessory. And it holds true. For someone you really liked, would you do anything you can for them? Or if you do not like Human beings, how about your canine, feline or collection of strange and terrific (however generally weird) bugs? You 'd do anything for them due to the fact that you have attached an emotion to their being. You are connected to that other object/organism by a series of chemical reactions in your thought factory.

Now, I'm not a stating you are to fall in love with debt - you 'd require a various blog for that. I'm speaking about being enthusiastic about your financial obligation. Believe of the important things you can do without it looming over your head and do not just accept the state of mind of "I have actually got absolutely nothing else to do, might too attempt and leave financial obligation". It's weak. You'll fail.

Okay, so why do I want to leave financial obligation? Well, that's apparent for all of us. So we don't have loan concerns any longer. However what's my driving force? What has motivated me to start this blog site and journal my thoughts, sensations and actions to millions of individuals?

My driving force is that I am terrified. I fear that I will not be able to support myself or my girlfriend in the near or long run if I keep this debt up. I'm scared I will not be able to provide her (or me) the life we desire. I do not wish http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_relief to feel embarrassed because I can't take her on holiday on her birthday, or to surprise her with a romantic gesture just since I really can't manage it.

Finances deny! Finances reject!

I do not want that. Worry is my driving force. Worry is among the most powerful emotions you can feel and I bet it's most of yours, too. Others might be humiliation, aggravation or anger (at yourself for letting you enter into debt in the first location). Eventually the bulk of your emotions will be negatively powered - these tend to provide the "push" factor; a "do or pass away" demand.

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I'm hoping that by admitting and blogging about my feelings on here that it'll motivate you people to open and truly think of what your driving force is (or might be) to leave financial obligation, or to even accomplish another goal as this little technique is universal in that regard.

#debt consolidation. Debt relief #debt

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allieinarden · 7 years

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An anonymous asker wanted me to comment on a certain analysis of Dipper and Mabel’s relationship, encountered elsewhere on the Internet, which interpreted their bond as a destructive and unhealthy one. Anon shared the original analysis with me in full, but was kind enough to provide me with a point-by-point summation of the poster’s arguments, each of which I will address herein.

A) Mabel may learn lessons, but she easily forgets them later on and doesn’t actually tangibly change as a person and doesn’t actually learn anything as her behaviour is still roughly the same.

Mabel’s a more static character than her brother, I grant you that. Dipper’s the protagonist, and as such the character whose growth is the series focus; he’s an avatar of creator Alex Hirsch himself, so there’s a lot of gentle self-deprecation in the way he’s written. But I tend to think that, in terms of story, it makes sense for Mabel to maintain a certain childishness, because that part of her comes to a head during the Weirdmageddon arc, when she has to choose between eternal childhood and the hard reality of growing older.

Dipper himself doesn’t change much during the series; he learns various smaller lessons to the effect of “just let things happen and don’t try to rush them,” but, until the finale, fails to fully imbibe the larger lesson about growing up. The events of Weirdmageddon give us Dipper at his best; he sheds the pervasive need to be seen as an adult that has characterized him from the beginning and in so doing appears at his most mature. He becomes a realist. He stops getting in his own way. At the same time, Mabel relinquishes her selfishness, the world which revolves around her, and her unwillingness to move forward, even granting Dipper the freedom to stay with Ford if he so chooses. They each grow in a far more definite way than they did over the course of the series proper, in which their character flaws were excellent plot fodder. (It’s also worth noting that in the show, as in real life, maturation is a process; we tend to revert to type, and it’s rare that one definitive “lesson” alters our tendencies. We have to learn again and again.)

B) The review ... points out that Dipper has been told the entire summer and probably his entire life that his sister is better than him, meaning his relationship with this sister, no matter how stable it might seem superficially, is actually unstable and based on one of the siblings having a lower-sense of self-worth than the other, at least subconsciously.

I don’t see any evidence that he’s received this kind of treatment, then or now. Stan is tougher on Dipper than on Mabel because he thinks the nervous, noodle-armed Dipper could use the toughening up in a way that his more energetic twin doesn’t. Wendy tells Dipper in “Sock Opera” that he should roll with Mabel’s weirdness because it makes life worth living–but note that it’s Mabel who learns a lesson in “Sock Opera,” in a deliberate reversal of various Season 1 episodes (“Time-Traveler’s Pig,” “The Deep End”) in which Dipper takes the fall. The episode starts with that message rather than ending on it because this time it’s going to be subverted; Mabel is the one who will need to compromise.

Dipper’s under no illusions that his sister is perfect; he complains about her plenty, her behavior often gets on his nerves (as his does on hers) and he asserts himself whenever it’s necessary. But he loves her–loves her, in fact, in the fullest agape sense.

The fact he values his sister’s life over his own can be used as evidence to support this, as this dovetails right into him thinking he is inferior to her, and is an unhealthy thing for him. And his motivation isn’t that he wants to save as many of his friends as possible, but rather that we wants to live long enough to find Mabel, further supporting the theory. Basically, he is his sister’s “emotional slave” as said in the analysis I quoted above.

Dipper’s willingness to put his life on the line for his sister is no evidence of an unhealthy relationship or of an inferiority complex; it’s a testament to his love for her that shows his character in its noblest light. His feeling is one that anyone with a beloved family member, be it brother, sister, parent, or child, is likely to relate to. It’s not an indication that he devalues his own life, but rather that he values her life more. There’s nothing passive or suicidal in Dipper: he has dreams, ambitions, goals for his future (if anything, his flaw is to dwell in the future too much and forget to be twelve). Like Ford before him, he harbors a hope that the things that make him different are signs of a higher destiny, one he would like to get to as quickly as possible. It’s because he values his future highly that the risk he takes for Mabel carries the weight it does. (By contrast, Mabel fears the future so much that she’s willing to throw her life away and idle indefinitely in the prison bubble; for her the heroic action is not a decision to risk her life but a decision to embrace it.)

In fact, however, Dipper does want to save as many of his friends as possible; when Weirdmageddon hits, his first move is to follow Ford into an incredibly dangerous attempt to take out Bill Cipher, cutting off the apocalypse at its source. When that falls through, it’s completely natural that he should try his hardest to find Mabel; she’s his sister, she’s been missing since the whole thing started, he has reason to fear that she might not even be alive. Worse still, the last conversation they had was a fight. With Ford down for the count, his only other “surviving” relative in Gravity Falls at this point is Stan, an adult well-capable of caring for himself.

What’s more, the revelation that Bill has locked Mabel in his prison bubble comes with the idea that rescuing Mabel is in fact the best thing Dipper can do for Gravity Falls; after observing the twins in action all summer, Wendy sees their teamwork as a sufficiently potent force to topple even Bill. She throws in her lot with Dipper because she cares about Mabel, yes, but also because she firmly believes that reuniting the twins is the key to undoing the apocalypse.

C) This right here has to do with the ask you answered last time. The person above who wrote the analysis points out that, even though both Dipper and Mabel have desires that are equally selfish and mean everything to them, Dipper still has to sacrifice more of his desires than Mabel has to as a whole. He also points out how it seems that Mabel might be a bit spoiled, as she can afford to forget the lessons she has learned while Dipper cannot do that, putting her in a privileged position.

As a beautifully-written response to my original post points out, Dipper’s and Mabel’s sacrifices add up evenly. But I think it’s also worth pointing out that Dipper, while experiencing temporary pain, doesn’t lose much from his sacrifices on the whole; where it counts (when, for instance, the journal is on the line), Mabel takes the hit. Several of Dipper’s wants over the course of Season 1 had to do with his crush on Wendy, a doomed affair regardless of what he did. In “The Time-Traveler’s Pig,” for instance, he went back in time and took away Robbie’s opportunity to ask Wendy out, childishly attempting to spare himself the pain of seeing them together. Not only would this hardly have prevented Robbie from asking her out in the future, it left the root difficulty unaltered–namely that, given the chance to go out with a boy her own age, Wendy would do it. Dipper blames circumstances and timing because it’s less painful than acknowledging that Wendy wants to date someone else. (That Wendy has her freedom is a lesson Dipper is slow to learn; he grasps it in “Boyz Crazy,” around the time Mabel is learning a similar lesson about the clueless boy band she’s hiding in the Shack.) It’s an impulsive, band-aid solution and one that can hardly help Dipper in the long run, whereas Mabel will be deeply affected by the loss of her pig, a complication Dipper caused himself when his denial made him meddle with the timeline. His sacrifice on this occasion is simply a decision to let things unfold as they did to begin with. He watches the girl he likes go out with another person and suffers some pain because of it; that’s part of growing up.

Mabel is a little spoiled, but there’s no evidence that she can “afford” to forget what she’s learned in a way that Dipper can’t; she suffers for her flaws as he does, particularly when her need for control lands her in the prison bubble.

D) Mabel seems to depend on the positivity of others to make her feel she is doing the right thing, instead of learning it objectively and maturely like other characters.

That’s a character flaw, and it’s addressed head-on in “The Last Mabelcorn”–Mabel is overly-reliant on outside affirmation and reassurance. She has a very real anxious streak and wants (as seen in “The Love God”) to make the people around her happy; she’d do well to learn that it’s impossible to please everyone, but so would a lot of preteens.

E) Mabel is responsible for opening the portal in the end which causes Weirdmageddon. People should have confronted her about this, at least mildly and without anger, but nobody did. And Dipper should have been angry with Mabel about this, but he somehow wasn’t. The theory says this is because Dipper had an emotional attachment to Mabel that was destructive & unhealthy for both of them, which is why he didn’t confront her and continued caring for her more than himself.

In fact, Dipper never found out (onscreen, at least) about Mabel’s encounter with Blendin Blandin and the subsequent opening of the portal. But even if he had, I don’t tend to think that he would have been angry, nor that he should have been.

Mabel didn’t knowingly cause the apocalypse. In an incredibly vulnerable moment, when she was at her absolute lowest, she was tricked by Bill Cipher, who had taken hold of someone she trusted. She was completely unaware of the significance of the rift–she had never seen it before, and Ford had forbidden Dipper from telling her anything about it. She had not been warned about Bill’s endgame and was unconscious of any impending apocalypse save the immediate vision of her world crumbling before her eyes. As far as she could see, she was trading a worthless item of Dipper’s for something she desperately wanted: security. What’s familiar about this? It’s exactly the situation Dipper found himself in during “Sock Opera.” He was so desperate to fight time, so frightened of losing everything, so powerless against the clock (“Tick-tock, kid!”) that when Bill seemed to be asking him for one of Mabel’s sock puppets in exchange for what he wanted, he took the bait, inadvertently handing over something far more valuable. No one confronted Dipper about this because no one needed to; the events of the episode were lesson enough.

Should Mabel have been smarter about the whole thing? Perhaps. But keep in mind that Dipper, in a similar situation, knew he was talking to Bill. He made the deal in the full knowledge that he was shaking the hand of a fundamentally untrustworthy creature. Mabel believed that she was speaking to a friend. I don’t see any reason why Dipper should have been angry at Mabel for being tricked by a force which had not only tricked him also, but which had even played their great-uncle Ford, a highly intelligent adult and the person he admires most, for a sucker--particularly considering that Mabel acted out of a desperate fear of losing him.

The reviewer also points out how it would have been much better if Dipper and Mabel had developed by “finding their own hobbies, clubs, and friend groups while still living together and staying just close enough to remain best loving friends but not be dependent on each other to be mentally and emotionally stable” instead of the way their relationship existed in the show.

According to Alex Hirsch, the twins are in fact more independent under ordinary circumstances, when they’re at home; the unfamiliarity of a new situation pulls them closer together. But even in Gravity Falls, the two are consistently depicted as living distinct and individual lives, with their own separate hobbies and groups of friends. Mabel finds “her people” in young eccentrics Candy and Grenda, while Dipper gravitates toward the more advanced high-school social dynamic of Wendy and her crew. Mabel loves boy bands, stuffed animals and the 80s; Dipper’s steeped in paranormal research, mystery novels and fantasy RPGs. Their lives and interests intersect and conflict, but never overwhelm each other; in the end there’s room for Dipper’s ballpoint pens and Mabel’s crayons under the same pointed attic roof.

Dipper and Mabel won’t live with each other forever. They’ll grow up like any brother and sister, go to college, have lives of their own, get jobs, spouses, kids. But that’s exactly why the time they have is so important. They’re not ready to be adults yet. They still have a lot of growing up to do, and it’s right and natural for them to be able to rely on each other, to draw strength from each other, to support each other through this particularly turbulent phase of their lives, just as they’ve always done.

#Gravity Falls #Dipper Pines #Mabel Pines #Mystery Twins #meta #analysis #anonymous asks #animation #television #Alex Hirsch #Weirdmageddon #Sock Opera #The Time-Traveler's Pig #Boyz Crazy #The Love God #The Last Mabelcorn #Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future #long post #like really long

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airoasis · 6 years

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Entrepreneurial motivation: 6 important elements to move into action

I’m sitting here, cup of tea in hand, at the end of the first week back from school holidays. Usually at this time of year it takes a while to get moving. However, using my usual entrepreneurial motivation factors, techniques and tools, I’d already launched myself into planning events with fellow local entrepreneurs, assisting corporate clients with unique projects and invitations going out for a mastermind for women who have been in business 3-5 years before the week started.

Things feel good!

How are you feeling about what you’ll be achieving this year? This week on Facebook and Youtube I talked about planning and goals, but at some point you have to take ACTION. Otherwise, we end up with virtual shelves full of half started ideas, a wall calendar brimming with tasks that never get done and clients never truly understanding how it is we can help them.

I have a few strategies I use to help me move beyond PLANNING and step into ACTION. I want to share those with you today in the hope it will help YOU have your best year, because for many of us 2016 just wasn’t what we hoped it would be when we stepped into January 11 months ago.

Before we dive into the actionable activities you can do to help with motivation, find out what style of motivation suits you best to allow you to remain motivated year-round in this quick, fun quiz:

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Your 6 Entrepreneurial Motivation Factors

And now, here are some action items to ensure what you do this year is purposeful and meaningful, not simply another time wasting task.

Let’s begin:

Turn Your Big Picture Vision Into An Actionable Plan

Don’t just make big, grand quarterly and yearly visions and plans. We can spend a lot of time doing those things. The key is to get down to the day to day tasks.

I didn’t realise that having the ability to zoom out and look at the big picture vision and then zoom into the step by step actionable tasks to allow something to come to fruition was unique - but apparently I’m one of those rare people that can do both when it comes to creating digital campaigns, product launches and soulful sales funnels.

So if you lean more towards one than the other, be sure to align yourself with someone who can balance out that big picture vision or that detailed plan.

Surround Yourself With Positive Influences

The turning point for my business was when I joined a mastermind. Suddenly I was accountable to this small group of women. I stopped making stupid excuses for not doing things, because this supportive group of women would call me out. They knew. Heck, they admitted to having the exact same issues.

But that first year in a mastermind, what I achieved was phenomenal. It was my biggest income year and a real lightbulb moment that all the courses in the world won't get me to where I want to go. I already know enough. What I needed was support, accountability and some gentle guidance.

I'm not into the butt-kicking style of coaching. It's not my style as a coach and not how I tend to respond as a client either. Finding out what your style is and then aligning yourself with the right people can go a long way to helping you reach your goals in a way that lifts you up, rather than tears you down.

You Know Enough Already

I love this quote I saw on Facebook earlier in the week: I can spend money on learning, or I can spend it on doing. I plan on the latter.

We often each follow a similar path when we come into business. Firstly, we try and do it alone. Then we move into “Bright Shiny Object Syndrome” where we feel we need to buy every course under the sun because we believe we don’t know enough.

Next, we invest in a coach or mastermind that allows us to move forward with accountability and support and so we can stop second guessing ourselves. Lastly, we reach a point in our businesses where we now know how it all works but also understand that there are certain areas that aren’t our zone of genius so we outsource them to others to do.

Where do you sit right now? The big concern is when we sit in the Bright Shiny Object phase for too long. It’s expensive and only 2% of people ever finish online courses. If I’d saved up all the money I spend on digital programs and instead invested that into a mastermind earlier, I would be a lot further along in my business.

Automate The Things You Don't Love Doing

Much of our time each day is wasted procrastinating over the things we don’t want to do. The reality is, there is so much in our everyday activities we actually don’t need to be doing every day.

Like posting to Facebook, attracting traffic to our website, gaining leads for our email marketing system, converting subscribers into clients….These might be tasks you think you have to do manually every day, but there are ways to schedule and/or automate these things so you can take them OFF your daily to do list and focus on the things that truly light you up. I’m guessing marketing isn’t one of the things you got into business for (unless, of course, you’re a marketer like me and love the stuff).

Make a list of all the tasks you do in a given week, and define which tasks you're doing daily that could have better systems around them to give you back more time. Even something as simple as bulk creating and then scheduling your social media in one afternoon can save a lot of time. The time it takes to get the energy to do a new task is where we lose time. If we do a given task in one sitting, we can achieve much more.

Tap Into Mindset Tools

I used to think mindset work, meditation, ho’oponopono, EFT, crystals… all that stuff… it was just woo woo to me. But, in understanding the different ways I often hold myself back, I now know the importance of mindset work to overcome those blocks and fears.

You only need to pick one activity. Sometimes it’s as simple as reading the right book to get you motivated, to stop that little negative voice in your head and have you ready to take action. Or it’s listening to the right meditation to quieten your mind and allow you to easily move into a difficult task with calm and quiet.

A friend and I were talking about the power of the mind this week. Back in my journalism days, I had no issues whatsoever walking up to the biggest celebrity at the time and then asking them all sorts of questions (sometimes personal). Because there was nothing personal in doing it. It was just a job I did.

A fellow journalist always used to tell me it wasn't her chasing after the police sirens or walking up to interview the angry politician. It was someone else. Because in "real life", she was too shy for that. Yet there she was, every day, right in the thick of the day's breaking news.

Yet, as soon as we own our own business, we take things personally. Where we could pick up the phone and call the head of a global organisation when we were working for that multinational company, as business owners we now struggle to get the courage to email the so-called internet guru of the moment or pick up the phone to a nearby business you just know you could help.

We need to find the tools and techniques to become braver in business. To help us switch from taking our businesses personally so we can do business as we would do for someone else. In the book I wrote, , Fairbrother Constructions CEO said: "I wouldn't have taken half the risks I did if it were my own business".

Do you take everything that happens in your business personally? How do you shift out of fear and leap into brave action?

Ensure You're Regularly Celebrating

This can feel weird to many of us, because we’re just not used to celebrating our successes. Take, for example, the fact that earlier in the month I discovered I’ve been featured on one of my idol’s, entrepreneur Melanie Duncan’s, website. And, until this blog post, I haven’t bothered to share that with anyone. Sure, I did a little dance in my office - by myself. But I didn’t shout it from the rooftops, like I really should.

Part of it stems from a post I put up on Facebook last week about people who always show their highlights reels. The majority of us then end up comparing that to our own low lights - and it makes us feel like we’re not good enough.

I don’t want to be one of those people that tries to tell others my life is perfect. Because it’s not. But a note (more to myself than you) is that you need to have balance. You need to share the vulnerable Facebook posts amid some celebration posts too.

The act of celebrating can spur us on to greater heights or pull us out of a funk when we feel stuck.

Motivating Entrepreneurial Stories

Whether it’s a blog, a book or podcast, I’d highly encourage you to follow a few entrepreneurs who are where you want to be and who also embody the style of entrepreneur you want to become. For me, it's those who take a holistic approach to business and life. It's not solely about the dollars, but about making an impact on others' lives and doing something that's fulfilling and on purpose.

Be wary of entrepreneurs who sell you programs guaranteeing a certain figure by a certain period of time. Everyone's business is different. But listen to those who are doing things in a style that resonates with you, who you can learn the good and bad lessons from, and who you may just get the opportunity to meet or work with too.

When I'm struggling to get started, I find reading the stories of others inspiring. It makes me realise what's possible and that it's not always a smooth road.

Know Your Why

When it all boils down, if you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it can be super difficult to stay motivated. If you haven’t already done some work on your why, then I highly encourage you to do so. This was a difficult one for me when I first started in business, because the truth is that I fell into a business. Someone gave me a nudge and the next thing, here I was. I never set out to start a business.

Now, I’m clear about wanting to not only create a certain type of lifestyle business for myself and my family, but also to help others create more systemised businesses to achieve more ease and leverage in their own businesses and lives.

I have huge empathy for women who are knee-deep in overwhelm and feeling burnt out from their business. Because that always flows onto other areas of their life.

What about you? What's your style and how do you go about staying on purpose, even when you get the wobblies or bright shiny object syndrome creeps in?

I've put together a short quiz to determine the best method to keep you motivated, moving forward and on purpose so you can achieve your goals this year. Of course, a combination is always good, but this will hone in on a core strategy you can use… starting today!

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at-least-ill-die-a-lionturtle · 7 years

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All of the questions. 💖

** Links are in bold **

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? It depends on the cereal. Raisin Bran gets 50/50 milk-to-cereal ratio, while something like Fruity Pebbles gets a 30/70 milk-to-cereal ratio

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? I CHERISH IT WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? Whatever happens to be the closest, flat object

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? I like my coffee as such: 50% coffee, 30% half&half, 20% sugar. Im going to assume this means hot tea, which Ive only had green. But I like my green tea with three sugars.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? Very. I have bad gaps on all my front teeth

6: do you keep plants? No, but I really want to :3

7: do you name your plants? I will give them lovely names. Like Hamish, and Ludacris

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? Music

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? I DO, I do it all the time

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? Mostly side and stomach. I roll around a lot

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? Hey Karen, have you sent those faxes?

12: what’s your favorite planet? Mars

13: what’s something that made you smile today? A few things. My girlfriend, Rob Schneider, Achievement Hunter

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? Like this, I’d imagine15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! On Venus a day is longer than a year. The length of time it takes to complete one whole orbit around the Sun is 224.7 Earth days. However it takes 243 Earth days to rotate on its axis just once.

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? Uhm… Lasagna? I need more time to think about this lol

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? Ive dyed it blue before, it started off kinda dark and ended like a bubblegum blue. Next time I wanna dye it like this but darker

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. The time during marching band when we did our invitationals. Me and a buddy were in charge of the water station, and the valve on one of the jug-thingies wasnt working right. I told my buddy, “Hey, it wont work right unless you flick it first.” And the band director of the band walking buy, he was like 70 years old, kinda sounded like Old Man Jenkins from Spongebob. He said, in a tone that he knew EXACTLY what kinda joke he was making, “It works when I flick it!” And we were literally rofl

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? I keep a dream log, but I havnt updated it in years. Its not very often that I remember enough of my dreams to actually write them down. But I’ll go ahead and make posts with the two that Ive kept, here and here

20: what’s your favorite eye color? Greens and blues

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. Ive got this Halo 3 messenger bag thats like a Desert Storm color. One end of the strap has come off, a lot of the ends are frayed, and one of the zippers no longer works.

22: are you a morning person? Ive always been a morning person, and I also used to be a night owl. But now I struggle to stay up past 10pm

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? Watch Youtube and play video games

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? Yeah (:

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? My own home lmao

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? My stupid fucking work boots lol Only pair of shoes I own

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? Trident Layers Strawberry Citrus

28: sunrise or sunset? Primarily sunrise, but also sunset

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? When @pizzaboxx attacks the patriarchy

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? Yes, quite a few times actually. I almost tumbled down a mountain in a Jeep Wrangler when I was 7

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. I think okay about socks. I like wearing weird socks, I have a pair of Captain America ones with little wings. I do sleep with socks. I mostly do yeah lol Im pretty much always wearing socks unless swimming or showering is involved

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. Partook in some hooliganism at a Walmart, which included, but was not limited to, prank calling 9-11.

33: what’s your fave pastry? Bear claw and/or apple fritter

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? Ive had an Orca named Oscar since I was like 10

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Nah, not really

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? Faunts

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? It kinda goes back and forth

38: tell us about your pet peeves! God damn, thats a list for another day lol

39: what color do you wear the most? Black and other dark colors. But Ive picked up a small array of light colored clothes over the last few years

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? I own an Amulet of Stendarr. It increases your Block skill by 10%. Stendarr is the Tamriellic god of Justice and Mercy. He is the patron of cleric-type folks, as his devout followers, the Vigilant of Stendarr, travel the lands rooting out demons and undead such as vampires.

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? Hm… I dont really know. My memory is shite and I havnt read a book in full in SO long

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! Not really, never have really been to an actual coffee shop. FUCKIN LOVE WAWA THO

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? Alex

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? I dont know if Ive ever truly felt like that. But Ive been close a few times.

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Not a lot, but on occasion.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. I’m always on time with my jokes. I guess you could say I’m pretty pun-ctual.

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? Fucking anything with cabbage. Oh, and candy corn. Fight me.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? I used to be really afraid of the dark, but not really anymore.

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? I LOVE cds! And I’ll start getting records when I get a record player. The last cds I bought was a Weezer collection. It had Blue, Pinkerton, Green, Make Believe, and Red.

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? Nothing that I can think of, really.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? MY buddy Sam; You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? None really. But Im sure something good will come around.

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? No, no, yes, and yes. I really like Beetlejuice, and I LOVE Pulp Fiction.

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? poop

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? Im not really sure

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? The passion for something they love

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? I ALWAYS dramatically re-enact the lyrics. HOW CAN YOU NOT?!

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? Dont know about wine mom, but my friend Caitlyn is DEF the vodka aunt lmao

59: what’s your favorite myth? The American Dream

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? I do, but I dont go out of my way to read it

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? I honestly cant think of anything right now, for either situation

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? I drink juice literally whenever possible, preferably apple juice.

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? Leave them to be

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? Midnight blue

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? YES. My group of friends from back home, and my baby sister

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? Made of blue Morning Glory’s and pink Hibiscus

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? SO GOOD. I always feel in a better mood.68: what’s winter like where you live? One week of frigid temps and occasionally Fall like temps but mostly in mid to high 70′s69: what are your favorite board games? Battleship, Scrabble, hmmm. Thats all I can think of at the moment70: have you ever used a ouija board? Never71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? Sweet iced tea. Im also trying out some Scottish Heather tea right now and its quite delightful72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? YES. I am so forgetful lmao73: what are some of your worst habits? Forgetfulness is the root of most, if not all, of my bad habits. So Imma go with that.74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. Loud, but also quiet at times. Very laid back, but adventurous. Trust-worthy and reliable. Never afraid of a good dick joke.75: tell us about your pets! OKAY! First dogs, then cats. Otis is a momma’s boy and loves socks. Charlie is energetic but loves being lazy on the bed AND BORFS LOUD AT SQUIRRELS and will steal your food without a second thought. Sheep is blind and likes the bathroom. Izzy is hella stressed and barks at EVERYTHING. Bojack is a grandpa with literal Alzheimers and sleeps A LOT. Lady chews on EVERYTHING and often throws up stuff like string and leaves and loves to be held. Gizmo likes to jump up against your leg and rip apart your flesh with his little raptor claws. Dobby gets hurt and cold easy but plays SUPER rough and is a MAJOR GROANER when sleepy and stuff. NOW CATS. Oscar is smol and cuddly and gets cold, but he PEES EVERYWHERE. NOTHING IS SACRED. Bones is also smol and very shy, doesnt like the other cats and REALLY LOVES Charlie. Frizzo is sweet most times but growls at everything and is an ASSHOLE to Bones and Carter. Carter stays away and hidden, she doesnt like the other animals. Will boop you when she wants attention. Lucy is our angry son, he is a super asshole to all the cats except Bones because thats his girlfriend, and is especially mean to Frizzo and Carter. He has an old man face when he’s tired.76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? Going to bed lol Super tired, but I need to finish my tea.77: pink or yellow lemonade? Yellow78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? I dont hate them, but I dont like them either79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? Alex has done plenty of cute things for me, because everything she does is cute :380: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? Fucking fake wood panels. We did not :P81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. I dont know too much about any of my friends eyes???82: are/were you good in school? NOPE lol83: what’s some of your favorite album art? Really like the album artwork of Deep Blue by Parkway Drive84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I AM! I have a few specific ones planned, but also a bunch of inspiration here!85: do you read comics? what are your faves? I do not, but I really want to! I want to get into Spider-Man, The Flash, Ms. and Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy, and anything Teen Titans related.86: do you like concept albums? which ones? I think this is a concept album?87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? Good Will Hunting, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Her88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Expressionism and Impressionism89: are you close to your parents? LOL NOPE90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. FUCKING LOVE SAVANNAH. Its the perfect blend of historic and modern. Right on the beach/river. Lots of cool things going on. Also downtown is BEAUTIFUL.91: where do you plan on traveling this year? No idea lol92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? DROWN IT.93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? Varied lengths, and its really hard to tame my hair. Even with gel and shit. So I just let it do its own thing mostly.94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? An old friend from Runescape95: what are your plans for this weekend? Not a got damn thing!96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? I used to procrastinate them a lot, but Ive gotten better at it97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? It changes almost every time I take it, but I think its ISFP? Taurus. Gryffindor but I relate to Hufflepuff as well98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? Like over a year ago, I went with my buddy Sam and it was a pretty good time.99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. Jesus Doesnt Mosh - The Ambulance Review, Engine 45 - The Ghost Inside, Broken Mirrors - Mercy Screams, Rise Against, like just in general; [This Is More; We’re What Separates the Heart from the Heartless; Amber; Some Kind of Hope; Sufferer/La Poderosa; Diamond; Ring Loud (Last Hope); D(I AM)OND; Built Upon the Sand; The Suspend] songs in brackets are by Stick to Your Guns. Im total trash, sorry not sorry.100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? Easy, I would definitely go back five years into the past. It would be awesome to have my current knowledge so I could better prepare myself for my life today.

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acekatherineplumber · 3 years

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1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? More cereal than milk. Otherwise it gets soggy. I don’t really eat cereal anymore though now that I don’t consume dairy.

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? No. I That’s why I love masks

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? Mostly receipts

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? Tea is black unless it’s mint tea and then it needs sugar, or if I’m sick, and then I put honey in my tea

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? Somewhat. My wisdom teeth pushed my bottom teeth all out of line.

6: do you keep plants? No. I kill them all

7: do you name your plants? I would if I kept plants

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? I like to draw

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? Yes

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? Stomach or side

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? Our bratty cats

12: what’s your favorite planet? Venus is pretty cool. Neptune too!

13: what’s something that made you smile today? Going to the bookstore

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? Lots of teaching supplies and cats everywhere

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! Mercury is shrinking!

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? I don’t have a particular favorite, I just like pasta with pesto

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? I don’t want to dye my hair

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. The time I got my suitcase full of books pulled because on the scanners it looked like cocaine

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? I don’t

20: what’s your favorite eye color? Blue

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. I don’t get attached to bags

22: are you a morning person? NO

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? Bookstore and French equivalent of Target’

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? My best friends

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? I’ve been in a mall after hours but I didn’t break in

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? I wear the same type of black boots but I’m constantly replacing them.

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? Mint

28: sunrise or sunset? Sunset

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? Obsessing over their cats

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? Of course

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. I love weird and fun socks. I wear socks to bed in winter but not any other time

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. I don’t think we’ve ever done anything at 3am

33: what’s your fave pastry? a Paris Brest. They’re gr9

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? I have a hedgehog named Hedgie. He’s next to me right now!

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? I do, but I don’t really have much. I’m currently in a place that I’m going to have to leave and move back across the ocean in a few months. I can’t acquire too much stuff

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? I’m not hugely into bands

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? Clean. I get stressed if it isn’t clean

38: tell us about your pet peeves! Having to do dishes, not having my own space, and having to wake up early

39: what color do you wear the most? Blue

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? I have a gold bracelet from a play I was in where I played Albert Einstein’s girlfriend

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? I’ve read so many good things lately, but my last 5 star read was A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! Not particularly.

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? I don’t remember

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? Yesterday while reading in the garden

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? I do. They’re usually correct

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. Need an ark? I Noah guy.

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? Cottage cheese. It’s gross.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Spiders. I’m still afraid of spiders, but I’m more afraid of stairs

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? It’s been a while

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? Copies of Les Mis

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? I associate the Sailor Moon theme song with my friend Tina

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? I haven’t been paying attention to mainstream memes so far. I am however in a meme group for my job and it’s hilarious.

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? Everything but Beetlejuice, and I didn’t really like any of them. The Heathers musical is great though

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? One of my colleagues who was having a bad morning

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? Made myself sick on purpose

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? Not being at all shyabout their interests

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? It makes me want to scream along and reenact the lyrics

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? I’m the wine mom, given that I’m the oldest and the mom of the group. Vodka aunt would be a mix of my friends Tina and Carolyn

59: what’s your favorite myth? Achilles and Patroclus or anything having to do with Circe

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? Sometimes. I like exotic things like passionfruit and mango juice

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? I have too many books to keep them super organized. They’re double-stacked on my shelves

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? Dark blue

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? Allmy friends. With covid and being on another continent, it’s a little hard

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? Itises and sunflowers

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? I like to spend them inside with tea, books, and candles

68: what’s winter like where you live? Mostly rainy. It doesn’t snow a lot in Normandy

69: what are your favorite board games? There’s a game that my mom and I like to play where you go on a road trip across the U.S.

70: have you ever used a ouija board? Yes, before I knew not to mess with those things

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? I love so many kinds

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?73: what are some of your worst habits? Being too hard on myself and peeling off my fingernails in strips

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. My friend have brown curly hair, glasses, and is amazing at piano and at alays knowing what to say

75: tell us about your pets! I have three cats, all girls. One is a torbie (bratty), the second is a dilute calico (stupid), and the last one is black (evil).

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? Lesson-planning for work. I’ll do it tomorrow.

77: pink or yellow lemonade? I don’t really care. I like raspberry lemonade though

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? I don’t hate them, but I won’tgo see the minion movies themselves. Despicable Me was great, and the second one was okay, but everything should have stopped after that.

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? Watched Les Mis with me in a language they didn’t understand

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?They’re green and blue and were that way when I moved in.

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. Think a vat of Hershey’s chocolate swirling around and around and going into a hole in the center, a hole that seems empty but there is something there, something sparkling

82: are/were you good in school? I was an excellent student. I graduated college summa cum laude

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? I don’t really pay attention to album art

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I have two and I’m thing about more, but I’m not sure what I want

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? Not really

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? I’m not really into them

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? The Princess Bride, Tangled, Legally Blonde, and Hunchback of Notre Dame

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Impressionism

89: are you close to your parents? Our relationship is lukewarm

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. Currently, pandemic-ridden

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? I’m planning to go home in May when my visa expires

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? I don’t eat cheese by itself, but I drown my pasta in pesto

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? Low bun

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My best friend’s sister

95: what are your plans for this weekend? Lesson-planning and going to the bookstore

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? I hate updating my computer

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? INFJ, Leo, Ravenclaw

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? I don’t remember. I enjoy walks, but I’m not really into hiking

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. It depends on my mood

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? 5 years in the past, pre-pandemic

#story of my life

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sorryforthephilosophy · 5 years

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Fix All of Capitalism with One Weird Trick - Part 2

Before I reveal how to fix capitalism, I need to describe one concept, Externalities. This is a term economists use for, basically, saving money by making someone else pay a cost. For instance, if you change your workforce from a bunch of full-time employees to a larger group of part-time employees, and no you no longer pay healthcare costs, then you’re saving money. The employees, who now need to pay for their own healthcare, are paying more. You pay less, someone else pays more, that’s an externality. Or, if you have a choice of two manufacturing process, a more expensive one that pollutes little, and a cheaper one that costs a lot, and you choose the latter, you’re saving money. However, people who get health problems because of the pollution, people whose property values go down because they live in a polluted area, fishers who get less fish because the lake is polluted, etc. are paying that extra cost. The cost they pay is an Externality.

Now, on to the way to fix capitalism: by finding every product that is created that has a predictable, measurable cost to society, and making the manufacturer pay for that cost.

For example: cigarettes are known to cause lung cancer. Calculate the cost of lung cancer treatment, lost productivity and lost wages by people fighting lung cancer, the care of lung cancer widow(er)s and orphans, and charge that to the people manufacturing cigarettes.

Motor vehicles and coal-burning power plants put carbon into the atmosphere, which causes both immediate health problems, and will cause serious infrastructure problems and necessitate the relocation of major populations when global warming seriously kicks in. The cost to deal with those problems should be included in every motor vehicle and every watt of non-clean electricity.

I think the costs should be incurred at the manufacturing, and not the sales end. Don’t tax the people who sell cars, for instance, tax the people who make them. That way the taxes are included at the beginning of the retail chain, and there’s less loopholes to try to get out of them. If something is manufactured in another country that doesn’t have these laws, tax those products when they come into the country.

There will be, of course, several objections to such a policy:

The first is that it’s too hard to calculate or predict the costs of the harm done to society by different products. I’d agree that it’s impossible to predict or calculate accurately, but the discipline of social statistics has some really amazing tools and I believe we could make some very well educated guesses. If you look at academic journals, academics are already doing quite a lot of these calculations, basically for free. If you set aside a reasonable budget (a reasonable percentage of the US economy of the US federal budget) to hire social sciences and statisticians (or give grants to academics to do this work), they could create a massive corpus of information about what harms or may harm Americans which will be useful in more than just taxation.

The related argument that science is just guesswork obscured by $5 words, that we don’t really know and can’t really predict anything, is some bullshit that companies (and their lobbyists) pull when they don’t want to be held accountable for their actions. It’s what cigarette companies said when they wanted to deny that cigarettes cause lung cancer. It’s not true, and it wouldn’t be allowed in any other sphere of American policy. We wouldn’t say “well, we can’t really know if Iran is developing WMDs and planning to attack us, so we’re just going to ignore it.” We would act based on our best information, even if that information isn’t perfect.

There are significant unknowns. The vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is happening, but there’s a wide range of guesses as to how fast and how much the climate will change. In these cases, we should choose to err on the side of the more costly guesses. If we think that the carbon emissions put out today may cause something between 5 billion and 100 billion dollars of damage over the coming decades, we’re better off charging too much money now than too little.

The second major objection is that it would give too much unaccountable power to the social scientists, turning them into unelected de-facto legislators. Some scientist who has a bug up their butt about fast food could grossly overestimate the public health and environmental impact, thus killing fast food, and nobody could stop them. On the other hand, if we give legislators the ability to veto a scientist’s report, they could (and would) neuter the usefulness of this program by killing any add-on-costs that lobbyists find unacceptable. I think the only solution here is the mechanism of peer review. A legislator cannot reject a scientist’s finding, but they can point to criticisms from peer reviewers and tell the scientist to redo their methods or calculations to take those criticisms into account. (We don’t want legislators to be able to stall a taxation forever, so we should have some mechanism where a cost is applied even while the final rate is being updated.)

Yes, this would make for a big, messy, time-consuming, costly, contentious system, but I would content that any major solution to any major problem does. If today’s problems had easy solutions, we would have fixed them already. Unless my imaginary opponent has a better idea that doesn’t involve creating a billion-dollar-bureaucracy, then I’d say it’s worth doing.

The third argument is the personal responsibility one. The system would unfairly punish people who are using products poorly, making them responsible for the actions of others. For instance, two people buy motorcycles. One rides it around in a dangerous fashion, the other is a collector who won’t even take it out of its box (they come in boxes, right?). The social science stats average those two uses, makes the dangerous person pay too little and the careful person pay too much. This is true, but keep in mind the problem we’re trying to solve: that businesses foist a cost onto society and make money while everyone else pays that cost. The good and bad motorcycle owner problem is still better and fairer than the alternative.

There’s the related argument that such a system will encourage bad behavior. If you know the government is going to pay all your bills when you get in a motorcycle accident, you’ll feel free to drive around like a daredevil. This may be true for some people. There may be some people right now who aren’t doing dangerous things, not for fear of getting hurt or killed, but for fear of hospital bills. However, any additional harm done by those people is going to be dwarfed by the increases in product safety that manufacturers will make to motorcycles and other products in order to try to reduce the eternality-taxation costs.

The final objection is that the added costs might kill some products that we love, or make needed products too expensive for poor people to afford. If people had to pay for all the death and suffering that handguns cost, for instance, they might not buy handguns. If people had to pay for the health and environmental costs of fast food, poor people might not be able to afford to eat at McDonalds. I’d counter by reminding my theoretical opponent that we, the people of this society, are already paying the costs of these things, in the costs to us of crime, health problems, environmental damage and violence. To make us pay up front, instead of after the fact, is not going to hurt us more than we are being hurt now, it will only hurt the companies that depended on these costs being pushed outside their sphere of responsibility.

This plan works in two ways. First, it supplements the tax base as a means for helping people out who have been hurt by the immoral decisions of others. Second, it removes the economic incentive behind Externalities. Externalities encourage businesses to make irresponsible decisions because they are able to save money while pushing costs onto other people. Adding those costs back in gives them no incentive to do so.

In the end, I don’t think enacting the plan is even the important thing. The important thing is to stop believing that Externalities are just something that it’s normal for companies get away with. Right now, that’s our frame of reference: it’s just something companies do, and even something they should be doing in order to meet their ethical obligation to maximize profits for their investors, and any attempt to tax these Externalities (e.g. a tax on cigarettes) is something we do rarely, only in extreme cases, at the end of an uphill legislative battle. As soon as we, the people of the capitalist world, stop thinking of it as normal for companies to make money by doing things that hurt society, the sooner things will start getting better.

See also part one of Fix All of Capitalism With One Weird Trick: https://sorryforthephilosophy.tumblr.com/post/73353313423/fix-all-of-capitalism-with-one-weird-trick

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holymountain2k1 · 5 years

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Edgar Allan Poe PREMATURE BURIAL

THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of “pleasurable pain” over the accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact- it is the reality- it is the history which excites. As inventions, we should regard them with simple abhorrence. I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august calamities on record; but in these it is the extent, not less than the character of the calamity, which so vividly impresses the fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed- the ultimate woe- is particular, not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass- for this let us thank a merciful God! To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? We know that there are diseases in which occur total cessations of all the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these cessations are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver cord was not for ever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, was the soul? Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that such causes must produce such effects- that the well-known occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now and then, to premature interments- apart from this consideration, we have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that a vast number of such interments have actually taken place. I might refer at once, if necessary to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely-extended excitement. The wife of one of the most respectable citizens-a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress- was seized with a sudden and unaccountable illness, which completely baffled the skill of her physicians. After much suffering she died, or was supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect, that she was not actually dead. She presented all the ordinary appearances of death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lustreless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened, on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition. The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus;- but, alas! how fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded shroud. A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived within two days after her entombment; that her struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps which led down into the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which, it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention by striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through sheer terror; and, in failing, her shroud became entangled in some iron- work which projected interiorly. Thus she remained, and thus she rotted, erect. In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France, attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the story was a Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among her numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or journalist of Paris. His talents and general amiability had recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by whom he seems to have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth decided her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Renelle, a banker and a diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman neglected, and, perhaps, even more positively ill-treated her. Having passed with him some wretched years, she died,- at least her condition so closely resembled death as to deceive every one who saw her. She was buried- not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in the village of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed by the memory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At midnight he unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the hair, when he is arrested by the unclosing of the beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality had not altogether departed, and she was aroused by the caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death. He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful restoratives suggested by no little medical learning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman’s heart was not adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France, in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady’s appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her. They were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur Renelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in her resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the long lapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but legally, the authority of the husband. The “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic- a periodical of high authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well to translate and republish, records in a late number a very distressing event of the character in question. An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled, and many other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he died. The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday. On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as usual, much thronged with visiters, and about noon an intense excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned by some one struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the man’s asseveration; but his evident terror, and the dogged obstinacy with which he persisted in his story, had at length their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant appeared. He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect within his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he had partially uplifted. He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition. After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in the grave. From what he related, it was clear that he must have been conscious of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled with an exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was necessarily admitted. He heard the footsteps of the crowd overhead, and endeavored to make himself heard in turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery, he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his position. This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic paroxysms which, occasionally, it superinduces. The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of London, who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831, and created, at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was made the subject of converse. The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease, his friends were requested to sanction a postmortem examination, but declined to permit it. As often happens, when such refusals are made, the practitioners resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at leisure, in private. Arrangements were easily effected with some of the numerous corps of bodysnatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening chamber of one of the private hospitals. An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen, when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in any respect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary degree of life-likeness in the convulsive action. It grew late. The day was about to dawn; and it was thought expedient, at length, to proceed at once to the dissection. A student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory of his own, and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily brought in contact, when the patient, with a hurried but quite unconvulsive movement, arose from the table, stepped into the middle of the floor, gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds, and then- spoke. What he said was unintelligible, but words were uttered; the syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell heavily to the floor. For some moments all were paralyzed with awe- but the urgency of the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen that Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon exhibition of ether he revived and was rapidly restored to health, and to the society of his friends- from whom, however, all knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld, until a relapse was no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder- their rapturous astonishment- may be conceived. The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, is involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no period was he altogether insensible- that, dully and confusedly, he was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment in which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. “I am alive,” were the uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the locality of the dissectingroom, he had endeavored, in his extremity, to utter. It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these- but I forbear- for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the fact that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very rarely, from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to detect them, we must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance. Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great extent, that skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions. Fearful indeed the suspicion- but more fearful the doom! It may be asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress, as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs- the stifling fumes from the damp earth- the clinging to the death garments- the rigid embrace of the narrow house- the blackness of the absolute Night- the silence like a sea that overwhelms- the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Wormthese things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed- that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead- these considerations, I say, carry into the heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth- we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge- of my own positive and personal experience. For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in default of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent character is sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to be chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only, or even for a shorter period, in a species of exaggerated lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; but the pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces of warmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the cheek; and, upon application of a mirror to the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating action of the lungs. Then again the duration of the trance is for weeks- even for months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any material distinction between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, by the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily, gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal. The fits grow successively more and more distinctive, and endure each for a longer term than the preceding. In this lies the principal security from inhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme character which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb. My own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night- just so tardily- just so wearily- just so cheerily came back the light of the Soul to me. Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all affected by the one prevalent maladyunless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain, at once, thorough possession of my senses, and always remained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity;- the mental faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a condition of absolute abeyance. In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of moral distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked “of worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In the former, the torture of meditation was excessive- in the latter, supreme. When the grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with every horror of thought, I shook- shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When Nature could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I consented to sleep- for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking, I might find myself the tenant of a grave. And when, finally, I sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of phantasms, above which, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing, hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea. From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision. Methought I was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!” within my ear. I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure of him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the period at which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in which I then lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in endeavors to collect my thought, the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking it petulantly, while the gibbering voice said again: “Arise! did I not bid thee arise?” “And who,” I demanded, “art thou?” “I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,” replied the voice, mournfully; “I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder.- My teeth chatter as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night- of the night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee up! Come with me into the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee the graves. Is not this a spectacle of woe?- Behold!” I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not at all; and there was a feeble struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out the depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling from the garments of the buried. And of those who seemed tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position in which they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said to me as I gazed: “Is it not- oh! is it not a pitiful sight?”- but, before I could find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries, saying again: “Is it not- O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?” Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out of the immediate presence of those who were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling into one of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition could be ascertained. I doubted the care, the fidelity of my dearest friends. I dreaded that, in some trance of more than customary duration, they might be prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear that, as I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the most solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under no circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible. And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason- would accept no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate precautions. Among other things, I had the family vault so remodelled as to admit of being readily opened from within. The slightest pressure upon a long lever that extended far into the tomb would cause the iron portal to fly back. There were arrangements also for the free admission of air and light, and convenient receptacles for food and water, within immediate reach of the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin was warmly and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned upon the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs so contrived that the feeblest movement of the body would be sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this, there was suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope of which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in the coffin, and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But, alas? what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even these well-contrived securities sufficed to save from the uttermost agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed! There arrived an epoch- as often before there had arrived- in which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly- with a tortoise gradation- approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day. A torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No care- no hope- no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing in the ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking into non-entity; then a sudden recovery. At length the slight quivering of an eyelid, and immediately thereupon, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which sends the blood in torrents from the temples to the heart. And now the first positive effort to think. And now the first endeavor to remember. And now a partial and evanescent success. And now the memory has so far regained its dominion, that, in some measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to catalepsy. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger- by the one spectral and ever-prevalent idea. For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained without motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I dared not make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate- and yet there was something at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair- such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into beingdespair alone urged me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted them. It was dark- all dark. I knew that the fit was over. I knew that the crisis of my disorder had long passed. I knew that I had now fully recovered the use of my visual faculties- and yet it was dark- all darkthe intense and utter raylessness of the Night that endureth for evermore. I endeavored to shriek-, and my lips and my parched tongue moved convulsively together in the attempt- but no voice issued from the cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every elaborate and struggling inspiration. The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me that they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too, that I lay upon some hard substance, and by something similar my sides were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to stir any of my limbs- but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden substance, which extended above my person at an elevation of not more than six inches from my face. I could no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last. And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope- for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could not help perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so carefully prepared- and then, too, there came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not within the vault. I had fallen into a trance while absent from home-while among strangers- when, or how, I could not rememberand it was they who had buried me as a dog- nailed up in some common coffin- and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some ordinary and nameless grave. As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in this second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous shriek, or yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the subterranean Night. “Hillo! hillo, there!” said a gruff voice, in reply. “What the devil’s the matter now!” said a second. “Get out o’ that!” said a third. “What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a cattymount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber- for I was wide awake when I screamed- but they restored me to the full possession of my memory. This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by a friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some miles down the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we were overtaken by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the stream, and laden with garden mould, afforded us the only available shelter. We made the best of it, and passed the night on board. I slept in one of the only two berths in the vessel- and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need scarcely be described. That which I occupied had no bedding of any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches. The distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same. I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my vision- for it was no dream, and no nightmarearose naturally from the circumstances of my position- from my ordinary bias of thought- and from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a long time after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the load itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of my customary nightcap. The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for the time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully- they were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul acquired tone- acquired temper. I went abroad. I took vigorous exercise. I breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought upon other subjects than Death. I discarded my medical books. “Buchan” I burned. I read no “Night Thoughts”- no fustian about churchyards- no bugaboo tales- such as this. In short, I became a new man, and lived a man’s life. From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had been less the consequence than the cause. There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell- but the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful- but, like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us- they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish. - - THE END

#Premature Burial

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