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faecaptainofdreams · 5 years

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I want attention, here’s some unneeded head canon.

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"There are dozens of texts and stories over the course of millennia that all tell the same tale, and all end the same way. Regardless, people ignore them, or think they somehow will exceed history. But as we so famously know, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it... Once in a while, a brave person, or group of people, makes their way to The End to fight the beast. For every person that succeeds in killing her, handfuls more have died fighting her. But whenever someone succeeds, the dragon reverts into an egg. And people, being selfish and foolish as they are, claim the egg as a trophy, and bring it back to our world. What do people do with the egg? Well, it all depends, really. Some try to seal it away, freeze it or even destroy it in the hopes that she won't hatch again. But it always fails; she is, as far as we know, immortal. Even if the egg is destroyed, it simply respawns, and she incubates all over again. Some who tried to rid of her egg went mad, tormented by the fear of her return. They would break it over and over again, only to eventually be found and mobbed by endermen, and the egg taken back to its origin. Some people tried to preserve it as a trophy. Fine casings and plaques, inviting people to see their achievement, and some even setting it in the middle of their towns or cities as a marker of human strength. But somehow, some way, that egg always manages to hatch. After a few weeks, or months, in some cases, the ender dragon makes her return in the state of an infant, having forgotten everything, disoriented by our world. For...an indeterminate amount of time, anyway. Sometimes when she hatched, people would try to contain her and utilize her as a weapon, or a tool. But she quickly grew, and in her torment, would regain memory of who and what she was, and lay waste to everyone, and everything, in her path before returning to The End. But there were yet others who, despite everything they'd been through, and despite their scorn...fell in love with her. My granddaughter was one of those. My Marci was a fearless young woman, not unlike her father. Brave, determined, willing to prove to the world that she could conquer anything. Her father, my son, Gerard, found The End and faced the dragon. Like hundreds before him, he did not survive. It was a devastation that plagued my family, and our town, for years. And as Marci grew and I was left to raise her, her heart became filled with vengeance. By age fifteen she was training every day, going out into the world and facing monsters and beasts, trying to tame the wild. It was quite worrisome, I had never fully healed from losing Gerard, and now my little Marci was aiming to follow in his footsteps. When my son had first shown interest in fighting the dragon, I began studying the scriptures and listening to every tale I could find about her. They all ended in death and destruction, save for the rare times when endermen managed to take her egg back without a fuss. Frustrating to those who had taken the egg indeed, but after what I've lived to see... I dearly wish the endermen had taken it back... On her 23rd birthday, Marci found her father's hidden portal to The End. It had been dismantled when he never returned, but she knew exactly how to put it back together. I remember sitting by that portal for hours, fearing I had just lost my granddaughter the same way I lost my boy. But to my shock, and the shock of our people, Marci returned that night, bloody and bruised, but with that confounded egg under her arm. More than anything, I was just happy to see her! But when I saw the egg, I knew we were all doomed. Marci had gone to that realm to kill the ender dragon and find the remains of her father, but those were long gone. At the very least, she got her first wish, and when she brought the egg back she proudly displayed it as a trophy in the town square. I told her of people's misfortunes in the past, pleading with her to leave it somewhere for the endermen to find and retrieve. But she was confident, and like all those fools of the past, she went out of her way to make the egg visible to all who passed it while trying to contain it. She consulted with elite trolls (villagers) for spells of containment and preservation, sort of wanting to lock the egg in a stasis, if you will. So after trading rubies and emeralds she'd found in her expeditions for their magics, they performed multiple spells on the egg. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. Rains and storms came and went, and life moved on. Most people felt at ease about the egg's presence, confident that the spells would hold. But i had long packed my belongings, which perplexed Marci. She always tried to reassure me, but I told her I knew there would come a day when that egg defied the odds, and when it did, I would not stick around. She thought me to be paranoid, but we got along. And to her dismay, it did come to pass. The egg, despite its spells, despite her efforts and all the prayers...it hatched. The ender dragon was reborn, a baby once more. She escaped containment, and I'll never forget the look on Marci's face when she realized this. And again, I begged her to take the beast out and leave her in the night for endermen to find, but she did not. I think she considered it, given her stony silence, but in the end, seeing it hatch and watching precious new life come of it captivated her. Her heart had been so hard for so long, but in watching the ender dragon's rebirth, she became spellbound, softened. It healed her. She collected the tiny dragon and had the audacity to bring it back to our house. Needless to say, I was horrified. The baby was indeed, cute, but I knew better, and I knew to run far. "But granna, she's innocent now," Marci would say. I told her if she did not turn that beast loose, I would leave town. She didn't believe me, until I was headed out the door with my suitcase. She said it would be all right, she would take care of us, that things would not be as they had been for others. But that's what everyone said! I...I couldn't stay. I couldn't watch her and my beloved town die the same way so many others had, and the thought of losing Marci tore me apart. But if she were to not listen to me, there was nothing more I could do. Leaving broke my heart. I knew of a town a couple miles off, and we'd visited it before, so I went there. Which is, well...where I'm telling you this story now. Found a small, modest little home, unpacked and made it mine. It was so empty and quiet without Marci's radiant energy and boundlessness hopping about. I missed her... After a few weeks I visited, hoping maybe she had come to her senses and let the dragon go. But she was still there, and had already begun to grow. Marci named her Athena. A most beautiful name, really. And yes, the dragon was friendly. She followed Marci everywhere, saw her as a mother, and worst of all, the people of our town had grown to love her, too. Marci asked if I would come home after seeing Athena, but I was not swayed. I came back here. Weeks turned to years, and there were many visits; I missed my Marci too much to just leave her high and dry. The dragon grew larger, stayed tame. She spoke, too, just like us. She seemed a lot like us. People pitched in to help give her plenty of food, and Marci had help building onto the house to make extra room for Athena. She grew into a full adult by age ten, but never got bigger than, say, if you were to put several horses together. Still quite large, and large enough that Marci had a VERY big addition put on the house to be Athena's bedroom. The dragon was always grateful, always calm. And all the time Marci said, "Will you come home now?" Even after a decade of peace, the answer was still "no." Marci did, however, request that I try to interact with Athena. I never touched her except for one time. I petted her face, and looked her in the eye. I looked into the eyes of the creature that took my son's life, and would soon take the rest of my family. She smiled at me, talked to me. Her voice was hypnotic, her energy was easygoing. She helped people, played with children and animals, even allowed people to ride her around. There were times where I actually almost reconsidered; it was hard not to be captivated by the dragon. She was...fascinating, and mysterious, to say the least. The people of our town worked hard to keep endermen out. As you can imagine, they tended to huddle around the town during the night, and Athena was encouraged to stay indoors. She was smart, and asked why the endermen "looked like her," and why they stared at her. Marci told her that the endermen were "copying" her, and that if she got too close, they would take her away. It was honestly a rotten thing to do, but she was in too deep now. Sometimes love causes us to be possessive, and Marci really thought she could keep the dragon as a pet. Athena believed her, and hid from the endermen, but there was always a curiosity. Ten years turned to twelve, and then fourteen, and then seventeen. Eventually, Marci settled down with a wonderful young man who moved in with her, but oh, she was so generous... After so long, she still left my bedroom empty in case I ever wanted to come home. Her bedroom became their bedroom, and they had two kids. My great granddaughter, Emalynn, and my great grandson, Leo. Such beautiful children, it pained me to stay away from them, but as I said, I made many visits. Marci's husband, Darek, was so good to her. Quite passive by comparison, hmhm! Marci wore the pants, I'd say, but they were like eagles. They shared everything; if he fell, she fell. When she stood tall, he stood with her. It was a love like I hadn't seen since my son had met Marci's mother. Good spouses run in the family, I suppose! But the better things got and the bigger that family grew, the more it hurt my soul. I prayed so much every night that the day would never come, but I knew it was far out of my control. It was simply nature. Emalynn was five, and Leo was only two. It had been 22 years since Marci brought Athena home. I, like many in this town that night, was awoken out of my sleep by the sound of screams and explosions a few miles off. We went outside, and i could see the faint glow of bright violet light in the distance. It had begun... I took my horse and rode to the outskirts of town as fast as I could, but didn't get too close -- I would've died, too. It was like a nightmare from which there was no awakening. The dragon had grown as big as a tower, her eyes glowed in the dark, and endermen surrounded the town, screeching. Half of it had been burned to the ground, consumed by an ethereal purple fire. People, animals, crops, everything turned to ash. I recall seeing two sheep run by, burning. The screams of people, the cries of animals and the sound of crumbling houses and buildings haunt me to this day. And then...I heard Marci... I heard her scream that she loved Athena, she begged her, pleading, "why?" in the hardest screams I'd ever heard from her. The beast said, "I am Eradir, and I love only The End." I didn't see Marci, but when she stopped screaming, I knew what had been done. Once the dragon's rampage was complete, and my beloved town and all its lives had been destroyed, she turned the hot rubble into a portal, and returned to her realm. The endermen teleported away, probably following her. When the dragon was gone, all that remained was void block matter. Dozens of others from this town gathered to take in the destruction, but it was all over. Everything and everyone I loved, was gone. There is a memorial dedicated to Marci and her family here in town. Friends made it for me, because they knew what I had lost. I have many kind, loving friends. I leave flowers by that plaque every time I think to do so. It's been 31 years since that happened. Whenever it comes up, people ask me, "Do you hate the dragon? Are you angry at her?" And, well...at first, it feels like I'm angry, but how could I be? What she turned back into, when she did, it's simply what she is. People have tried to control and destroy her for millennia, and those who come to love her still contain her through lies and possessiveness. Mankind just wants everything to be a certain way; we want to keep nature in a glass jar and admire it safely, bend it to our will, but that's not what nature was meant for. We are a part of it, and we must respect it. Nature cannot be changed. The ender dragon can not be changed, and there's no reason to change her, or to fight her. Marci tried to turn her into something she simply was not, and when Eradir remembered what she was and that the person who killed her had turned her into a person, more or less, she was outraged, and hurt. Killing her doesn't make the endermen go away, and the only point it proves is that people simply do not learn, nor heed history. I miss my family so much, but at the very least, I know where they all are, and that they'll never hurt again. No, I'm not angry at Eradir. I forgave her a long time ago. The endermen do not bother me. Honestly, they leave me alone, because that's all they want; to be left alone. My story, her legacy, and the death of my town can be read in further details in a book. I do not keep most of the profit, just so you know; the reason I wrote that book was to educate others. Though I'm sure the same tragedies will go on as time moves forward, at least I can say I tried. And here you stand before me, having considered slaying the ender dragon yourself. Now, I ask you... Have you learned from history...?" ---"Granna" Bertha --------------------------------------------------------

#Minecraft #ender dragon #endermen #enderman

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queenmorgawse · 5 years

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i am in the birds that sing (i am in each lovely thing)

THIS FIC HAS SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 123-124 OF TGCF. as a disclaimer, though, i'm only caught up with suika's translation, so i don't know how these two actually end up. pls don't spoil me!! content warnings : suicidal thoughts / ....suicide equivalent? think what mo xuanyu pulled in mdzs canon. nothing graphic, but it's not lightly implied either. please take care! here's some soundtrack, if reading with music is your thing. read on ao3 + end notes.

He Xuan,

This is a graceless beginning to a graceless letter, isn’t it? Of course, it hardly matters. I wish for you to never read this at all, so you can remain as happy as you can be. I don’t even know if this will survive my endeavor. If it has, and if you’re reading it, I urge you to fold it again and burn it. It will bring you no joy.

Why write the letter at all, then? The truth is, I am awfully lonely, these days, and this is hardly something I can simply tell my neighbour when I invite her over for tea. She’s a sweet young woman. I hope she fares well after this. I’ll have to ask her to leave the pinwheels where they are, and see that they don’t get blown away.

I keep getting lost in thoughts, but again, it doesn’t matter. All I have to waste is paper and time, and though I’ve spent much of one already, I shall not run out of the other before I am done.

I suppose I just want to clear my head and go...wherever I am going serenely, without dragging a heavy heart behind. I am also selfish in that special way humans are, and want to cling to the possibility, as infinitesimal as it is, that someone somewhere will know of me.

To the core of the problem, then ⎯ or, actually, the core of the solution.

I have a little divinity left in me, you see. Oh, not much ; figuratively, barely enough to fill a teacup. It will not keep me immortal, or give me my spiritual devices back. Ultimately, it will not save me, so I thought I might devote it to something that will be worth it.

I’ve been doing an awful ton of research. My brother attempted the impossible and, against all odds, succeeded. I made my best attempt at doing the same. There are many spells forbidden and forgotten to find, if one works with single-minded purpose.

I unearthed the one I wanted, after a while.

Shi Wudu’s sixth birthday goes by without a hitch. So does the year that follows it, and the next, and the next. He never presses his ear against his mother’s door, waiting with baited breath for a newborn’s first wail. There is no longer a nursery and no new cradle in the Shi family’s mansion.

When he leaves, stubbornly holding his head high as whispers and gossip surround him, what remains of his belongings tucked in the bag hanging at his shoulder, he leaves alone.

I thought of looking for a way to bring your family and fiancée back to life, at first. Then I realized that if they did, they would still be mortal, and your happiness would be fleeting. It was a great shame to lose them once ; it would have been a tragedy to watch them die again. I discarded that idea soon after I came up with it.

A group of children wades through the shallow current of the stream that runs like a silver ribbon around the town of Fu Gu. The boys rolled up their pants to their knees, the girls hiked up their skirts as high as they dared. They kick and splash water at each other, and the air rings with startled yelps and breathless laughter.

One of the girls latches onto the shoulders of the boy next to her and bears down with all her weight, dragging them both into the river. She bolts to her feet as fast as she can, expecting him to catch her and pull her back again, giggles and wrings water out of her soaked mess of a dress. Instead, he stares at her like he’s never seen her before, like she caught the sun shining high above them and set it into her smile.

Not for the first time, she is mesmerizing. For the first time, he is charmed.

When I found what I was looking for, it took me one year to translate it, then another to check it over again and practice. Aren’t arrays that must be drawn perfectly in a single line so very annoying? I had to make sure it worked.

These are bold words from me, though. Even as I sit here, writing this, I do not know whether it will succeed. All I know is that I won’t be able to live with myself if I do not try.

Red robes rustle as the couple kneel and bow their heads before the family shrine.

There is no gold to line the bride’s veil, and the clothes themselves have been handed down three generations. But the joy ⎯ the joy they radiate changes everything. In that aspect, an emperor couldn’t dream of a lovelier wedding.

As is tradition, the bride and groom bow thrice : once to the heaven and the earth, once to the aging couples looking on with tears in their eyes, and once to each other. They rise to the sound of cheers, their hands still clasped in each other’s. The wedding party wishes them good luck, prosperity, healthy children, their words running together like songs.

Blessings come raining down on them, and the road ahead is endless.

Here is how it works : the only person who needs to disappear is me. The rest is all consequences, like ripples in a pond. Without me in the middle, there is no stone to be thrown, and the surface remains peaceful. There will be no newborn baby for a hungry spirit to latch on. My brother will never go to the lengths he did for someone who never existed to begin with.

You will have the life you should have had from the beginning, without knowing you ever suffered.

In a beautiful two-storied house, a young woman slumps against the bed frame, her face flushed, breathless but somehow glowing. The midwife hands her a small, wailing bundle. She takes it into her arms with infinite gentleness, cradling it to her chest.

The door opens. A young man in dark robes half runs, half flies into the room, a little girl on his heels. The child climbs onto the bed, babbling at her mother the entire time, while her husband leans over her, his gaze softening.

Three dark heads bend together, cooing at the newborn. The baby opens its eyes and chirps at them, small and soft. The mother starts to cry, while the girl whoops and claps until her father shushes her.

A few minutes later, another woman bursts into the room. Gege! she calls, then gasps. Oh, she’s so cute!

He Chunhua, they call the infant, for the spring flowers blooming outside the mother’s window.

It is a simple and elegant solution. The best I could come up with, anyway.

Don’t think I rushed headlong into this. I could have, as I rushed into many other messes ⎯ but I thought this time, neither ge nor you would be here to catch me if I fell, and so I proceeded as carefully as I knew how.

I made a list of everyone my disappearance might affect. Of course, my brother and yourself were the first. I used to be upset at this, but now, I am glad the other heavenly officials were never as fond of me as they claimed to be. Fewer ripples in the pond to mind.

I thought of all the prayers I answered over the years, the little demands and the big. But I trust that you, the version of He Xuan I never knew, are a good person, and that you will attend to your worshipers as I have to mine. Hopefully, you will also help His Highness in his time of need.

I suppose that with all this covered, there is not much more for me to say.

Three children tug each other by the hand. One is, to tell the truth, a teenager already ; the second doesn’t appear older than eleven or twelve, and the third is only a small boy, eight years old at most. The eldest leads them up the temple’s steps and into the semi-darkness.

There, the shadows are broken by thousands of candles lit by a steady stream of worshipers. Even now, as the dusky sky stretches into night, many still pray at the god’s feet. They ask for kind winds on their journeys, for good fortune for their businesses, for beneficial matches for their children. A hundred prayers rise into the sky, with the smoke of a hundred merits. All over the land, there are such temples, with such people sending the Lord Wind Master their wishes and hoping for his blessing.

The eldest sister lights an incense stick for each of her younger siblings. Together, they kneel among the other devotees.

Unlike the others, their prayers do not ask for anything. They tell the god about their mother, and how hard she’s been working lately. They talk about their grandmother, whose health has been improving a little with the death of winter, and about their grandfather, whose extraordinary resilience still has him running the family’s shop despite his old age. They talk about themselves, too ; how their education goes, the friends they’ve made, the life ahead of them.

It always ends the same way. Father, I hope you are doing well. We miss you very much.

They will come back next week.

If you’ve read up until here, you have thoroughly disregarded the advice I’ve given in the first lines, and I must scold you for it. I understand, though. There are few things more tempting than the truth, once it has shown even a glimpse of itself. I hope this doesn’t upset you too much. You were in so much pain that first time ; even after all that has happened, I do not want to add to it, even in a lifetime where you will not remember.

Well, now you know. If this letter exists at all, that is. The person who wrote it was never here, so it is unlikely, but I cling to the childish hope that it will make it through somehow.

I don’t know what will happen to me. The ritual says very little, only that it goes against the rules of the world. I don’t know whether I will be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation again, or if it is forever barred to me.

What I said that day is true. I wanted to die then, and even now, I cannot bring myself to mind the idea. What changed since I left the island is that I decided I would rather not die in vain. If the letter survived, then at least one person in the world will remember my name. I’m quite happy with that.

I hope it doesn't hurt. I hope it feels just like falling asleep.

I want to say more, I really do. But, He Xuan, if you have read this to the end, I don’t want to burden you with anything you might feel towards the shadow of a ghost, be it hatred, or guilt, or (dare I hope) gratefulness.

Once again, I am sorry. The wrongs of this lifetime will never appear in yours, but I will remember them all the same. I cannot bring myself to forgive that version of you for what you did, no more than I can forgive myself for what I took part in.

It is all right, though. There will soon be a blank slate, a world in which neither of these things happened, and we are happy ⎯ or at least, at peace.

Just know that even though you might think I have done much for a stranger’s sake, you were the furthest thing from a stranger to me.

With hope once again,

Shi Qingxuan

In the middle of a convoluted array stands a forgotten god. Blood drips down their fingertips as they bend down to complete the circle with a swift, decisive stroke.

The dawn explodes into shards of light.

When the dust settles, the field is almost empty. A gentle spring breeze blows across neat rows of pinwheels.

All is quiet, and all is new.

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven officials blessing #shi qing xuan #shuangxuan #tgcf spoilers #kim's fics #tgcf fic

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sistertzipster-blog · 5 years

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Hello my fellow Tumblr, if you are in the mood to have read a taste of my upcoming novel Once She Called Me Darling I have posted both the synopsis and random excerpt from this tale of tragedy, love and magic!

Any feedback negative and positive are welcome! Thank you

Synopsis:

Many stories begin their tale with a dialogue, an introduction of an event or scene, or a voice that narrates the story in one’s mind waiting for it to unfold into the unknown. My story has been written many times over, it has been produced onto the stage such as Broadway and even journeyed to Hollywood and has been re recreated many times with slightly different twists and subplots.....however despite peoples attempts to portray me in the magical, whimsical, mischievous sense, no one has ever asked ''who is he, how did he become the person he evolved to be?''

Most people are quite content to believe that I was born selfish and disturbed; others simply don't care enough to even entertain the question. They are perfectly happy with that I was a born monster.....someone who his parents abandoned as an infant and left me somewhere. If that were the case I wouldn't be writing any of this....if it were true I wouldn't have gone the great lengths to find myself a home, a haven, the only place I belonged and at great sacrifice.

Some of you probably have guessed my name, and maybe some are left wondering who this very person is dictating their tale onto these pages.....

My name was William Pennington; born in England 1665 the son of a wealthy barrister....we will start when he is at the nice age of sixteen in his childhood home, Cambridge 1681....

Excerpt from Chapter One:

I woke up to find myself yet again on the mysterious island. Titom was always there to welcome me...''Ah William it is always a pleasure to see you return'' said Titom in greeting. ''Yes'' I exclaimed happy to see my old friend. ''You know, today is my birthday, and I have invited all the creatures here to celebrate with me, would you like to join?'' asked Titom. I nodded excitedly. ''How do creatures such as yourselves celebrate birthdays?'' I asked my curiosity and excitement brimming....''Oh! It is great fun, we play music, build a bonfire, dance around it and eat as many berries as possible! I think you will like it...'' replied Titom. ''I am honored to attend when should I come by?'' I asked. ''We will begin at sunset, you can come with Grigorn, he knows where to meet everyone'' with that said Titom walked away. I felt my blood rushing through my body, I was not only thrilled to be invited to an island event but the atmosphere of the island accelerated me once more and as tradition would have it I ran through the jungle; I even swung through vines, climbed trees and jumped from branch to branch....when I went to the pond to drink some water I had found the goblet sitting there, I assumed I absently left it there and it was sitting by the edge of the pond waiting for me....I picked it up and filled it with the water. I then realized that I should bring some sort of a gift. Although I didn't know if it was custom here to bring gifts I decided to think of one anyway. I tried to imagine something that he might appreciate from England, however nothing seemed to fit.....I decided to walk around the jungle, perhaps it would clear my head and I would come up with an idea.....it was a bit colder today than it was the last time I was here....so I gathered some sticks for a small fire. Even though in England I had never made a fire or camped in the wood I somehow understood survival skills only on this island....when I had gathered enough wood I was about to dump it where I wanted the fire to be....I then noticed something about the sticks I picked.....they were perfect, smooth, and a deep shade of chestnut.....my mind suddenly felt a rush of an impulse a drive that I could not explain.....I placed the sticks down and ran back to the beach.....I collected a few of the most beautiful rocks I could find and tore off a few vines. I went back to my spot and was glad to find that the sticks were still there. I sat down and realized that I needed a small knife and lo and behold a knife appeared in my hands. It was an exquisite carving knife, the hand seemed to be made of some bone and ivory with blue, black and purple designs.....I then began my project. I cut the sticks so that the ends were even, I then placed the sticks I selected all beside each other and cut them to size but each one was taller than the other....I then took each stick and made them hollow.....I set my knife down and began crushing the rocks, this did take some time but eventually the powder was a beautiful shade of green.....I shaved the outer layer of the vine and cut it to the length of the sticks sitting beside one another, when I was satisfied by its size I dipped the vine into the powder and covered it and shook off the remainder dust.....I didn't think it would work but somehow the powder stuck to the vines perfectly and the color was mesmerizing.....I wrapped the vine around sticks and then shaved another part of the vine to create a string like material and tied the green belt around the sticks. They weren't sticking together as I hoped and tried to think of a way to make everything glue together. From the corner of my eye I felt something dripping onto my head. I put my hand on my head and felt something incredibly sticky. I looked up and saw that it was coming from the tree I was sitting under. I thought fast, I grabbed my knife and poked a small hole from the tree and a gush of tree sap flowed out. I didn't need much of it....I then picked up a leaf and used it as a brush that I dipped into the sap and was able to stick all the wooden pipes together plus the vine belt....I was happy with my creation. I then wanted to see if I indeed made a real instrument. I held whatever it was in my hand and began to blow into the pipes. Nothing came out except for air.....I tried again and indeed nothing.....I was disappointed but it still was a nice decorative piece. The earth began to tremble beneath me, I wasn't sure what to do....was this an earthquake? I then heard loud hoof beats and slowly turned to find the centaurs stampeding. I was still holding my instrument in my hands and was cognizant not to drop it as I jumped out of the way. The centaurs must have recognized me for they stopped abruptly. ''You can come out William'' shouted Rumus, the centaur who was close to my age...at least in centaur years. I clambered out and greeted all of them. ''Hi Rumus, how are you?'' I asked, Rumus was one of the friendlier centaurs. He had long brown hair that glistened in the sunlight and his eyes changed colour depending on his mood, that was common amongst the centaurs. ''What brings you to our island?'' asked Rumus. ''I don't know, I just like to visit often I guess'' I replied. It was hard to describe that I was just dreaming and how Rumus wasn't actually real....how would you describe that to a centaur? ''You must be here because it's Titoms birthday!'' remarked Rumus. ''Yes, I even made him a gift'' I said proudly holding up my wooden instrument. Rumus peered at it, and smiled. ''I don't know what it is, but it certainly is quite lovely, I think Titom would like it very much'' exclaimed Rumus. ''Are you attending his celebration?'' I asked. ''Yes, of course, all the creatures celebrate each other even if we don't know them personally'' commented Rumus.....''Would you like to ride on my back today William?'' asked Rumus. I nodded and hopped on. ''So that your extraordinary gift does not break I have a string, made out of centaur mane, how about you tie it around my neck'' offered Rumus. I nodded and placed my gift onto the string, it was very thick but felt silky nonetheless. Once it was secured Rumus immediately took off along with his herd! It was no different than riding a horse, however Rumus seemed to float rather than the bumpiness of a horses gallop. We ran through meadows, streams, and climbed mountains....centaurs ran up mountains with ease as if it were a mote rather than a mountain. This was a unique quality of the centaur, they can gallop up mountains without breaking a sweat, the best though was yet to come....Once we reached the peek of the mountain all the centaurs stood close to its edge. Unlike horses centaurs could jump with grace and with little effort from mountain top to mountain top! The leader always starts and lunged himself and the rest followed. I held onto Rumus terrified yet didn't want to back down. ''Are you ready?'' asked Rumus. ''Yes I squeaked'' Rumus smirked. ''Do not worry human, just hold on tight and if you do fall just simply believe and you can fly yourself to safety.....now lets go!'' Rumus jumped and time seemed to run in slow motion....my stomach flopped and my grip on Rumus's neck tightened.....I was amazed and petrified of the view, I was at eye level with the clouds that were pink and yellow....the mountain tops were far below me yet I could see the exotic flowers waving in the breeze and the rocky terrain. I suddenly felt a diving sensation when Rumus soared downward toward land. I screamed in horror and the most amazing feeling that always felt new even though this wasn't the first time doing this with Rumus. I marvelled at how centaurs could be hundreds of meters in the air and still land on their feet....I fell off of Rumus and laid down on the grass. ''I can always catch up with my herd later, lets take a break!'' said Rumus. We laid on the grass together and gazed up at the sky. ''Do humans have a world like this?'' asked Rumus. ''Not at all, my land is much more boring, we do have creatures there but there is no magical aspect'' I replied. ''Sounds extremely dull'' Rumus remarked. ''Yes, it can be at times, but there we have other yet simpler amusements'' I said. Rumus and I both dozed off, I woke to the hoof of Rumus...''Wake up William.....it is time!'' I then remembered Titoms birthday and quickly made haste. I jumped onto Titoms back and the two of us journeyed to the center of the island. When we arrived I clambered down from Rumus and observed the scene.... I noticed Grigorn and his flock sitting on the grass relaxed, there was the rest of Rumus's herd mingling with the Pegasus. I also recognized the unicorns, griffins, chimeras, jackal-opes and the mermaids, who have the ability to come on land and their fins turn into legs! It was marvelous seeing all the island creatures together in one place. Titom was being assisted by a few jackal-opes with setting up the bonfire. I walked over to him. ''Happy birthday Titom!'' I said. He turned and beamed at me and came over to me. ''William it certainly is an honor to have you at my festivities....come, help me with the bonfire'' Titom suggested. I helped with the bonfire and when it was ready to light a dragon appeared, his name was Kelisius as I recall from my visits beforehand.....he lit the bonfire and the flames danced in the darkness. Other fauns appeared too holding small drums and what seemed to be fiddles, which is when I remembered my gift. I found Rumus and lifted the pipes from the centaur hair that was holding it. I then approached Titom....''Titom, in my land it is tradition to hand a friend a gift for their birthday, thus I made you this'' I then presented it to him. Titom seemed quite amused. ''It is certainly a creative and decorative piece.....it seems like its an instrument?'' Titom asked. ''Yes, yes it...well was....I tried making music from it by blowing into the pipes, but I couldn't perhaps you can'' I said. Titom smiled and began blowing into the pipes.....the music that came forth from the instrument was extraordinary, I had never heard music such as that. Just then the other fauns began tapping their drums and Titom played the pipes merrily. All the beasts began dancing around the bonfire and singing along to the melodies. The tunes were light and full of joy and mystery. Kelisius even did wonderful tricks and visuals with his fire, scenes of fauns dancing jigs, and beautiful dragons dancing an ancient dance from thousands of years ago.....the intriguing mystical images remained in my mind in times to come.

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ericleo108 · 6 years

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Reconstructing Racism

The following is how we have to reconstruct racism to be mutually beneficial in the new millennium. It’s important to know sociologically that race doesn’t exist, it’s socially constructed. The difference in the skin comes because black people have more melanin. Hating someone for black skin is just as arbitrary as hating someone for their eye color. A good example of this is Jane Elliot’s Color Blind Experiment. If you hate another “race” you just show your ignorance.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink,” he takes the test about black and white faces and he tests positive for bias against blacks, but he’s not white, Malcolm is Hawaiian. The experiment in the book “Blink” shows everyone is inherently a little racist against black people. The question is, what are we to do about it?

Institutionalized Racism

Black people do have it worse off. The cards are not stacked in their favor. There is the percentage of black people in the population, 11%, and the disproportionate population in prison 50%. Black people have to deal with DWB, driving while black. Then we have the real problem of institutionalized racism where blacks are less likely to get a loan. They are likely to experience job discrimination, housing discrimination, or racial profiling in their lifetime. Everyone knows about the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence against blacks. Due to America never giving proper reparations and institutionalized racism, blacks are still disproportionately poor. Affirmative action helps to correct this but it’s still not good enough.

The statistics to make it to adulthood are so bad that a high percentage of blacks don’t make it past 25. 25 is a magic number in criminal justice. If you don’t have a criminal record by 25 you’re likely never to have one. Same goes with surviving. This has everything to do with the Kanye West’s lyric “We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25, jokes on you we still alive.”

Institutionalized Racism

I can understand why black people get so offended by the word nigga if it was used against them negatively as a derogatory slur especially due to modern socio economic conditions. What I don’t get is why they perpetuate a self-detrimental economic ideology when economics is the real problem with racism. If you have a million dollars as a black man and I call you nigger it’s way less effective than if your impoverished.

Kanye West talks about how “four hundred years later, we buying our own chains” in Saint Pablo. I often wonder what he means by this because it seems like behavioral poverty. Ask anybody who is rich and most will say its due to financial discipline. Meanwhile all these black rappers wear chains and flash cash when they should be emulating the opposite to their community. Read The “Love Myself” Treatise to see how Kanye also mess up with “Black Skinhead.”

🍇

Whose fault is that? And is this a self inflicted, self deprecating affliction of control? Basically, is the the double meaning of of the word “nigga” black people thinking they control so little in a white man's world that what they can control is how white people address them or rather how they can't address them? I just wanna know if the black community honestly thinks it's worth it because that's what you're clinging to. I honestly don't think the word nigga is about race but (rather understandably) control or power in an otherwise white centric world.

In this respect, racism is a mental cage with an ingroup morality where whites are not invited into black people’s world. This creates contempt and resentment that results in different “races” like whites and blacks fighting amongst each other. This harboring of discontent is deliberate and purposeful by wealthier interests in America to keep us from focusing on classism which is the real problem in America and why institutionalized racism exists.

Are You In The Ingroup?

If black people could they should just stop saying nigga all together, but that's never gonna happen. The NCAA buried it a long time ago. The good part is that the meaning of words change. Like many other words nigga no longer has the same meaning. Punk used to mean burnt corn and linked is a list of words that changed from positive to negative and vice versa.

I think the fact that white people can’t or shouldn’t say the word nigga is more racist then the use of the word now. It creates an ingroup morality that excludes people based on “race.” The word nigga is positive for blacks but negative to whites. Only white people can't say nigga but it’s also nationalistic because white looking rapper Fat Joe can say it.

Black people are highly intelligent, just watch “Hidden Figures.” But my favorite is when black people don't think they can't be racist. There just like everyone else that makes arbitrary distinctions and “black people” not only differentiate skin tone but also a difference between nigga and nigger. Nigga is more friendly where nigger is more vindictive. The historical relevance to nigger is prominent in black people's minds as a racial slur where nigga is traditionally used for endearment.

The Solution

The solution I have found to fixing the ingroup/outgroup morality of the word nigga is for white people to say it to each other as a term of endearment. White people need to say nigga among their white ingroup/white friends as if the word meant “friend.” Just imagine, I started referring to all my white friends as “my nigga” to the point my black friends want me to call the “my nigga” but I won’t because their black. That’s what I’m talking about, then black people would see how white people feel and if they were truly friends everyone would start calling everyone nigga to be inclusive.

To put it another way, this could be done by white people relentlessly calling their white friends nigga. This achieves two things. It avoids or rejects referring to black people (solely) as niggas so they won't be offended if they're sensitive to the word. Second, it can be used as a tool for empathy, forcing black people to feel excluded from a word that is essentially theirs and makes them desire to involve white people so they don't feel excluded like white people do. This would dissolve the in group morality and make the word inclusionary instead of being exclusionary.

Acceptance

If you like how the word nigga divides black and white people by all means hate me for what I'm trying to do here. But if you wanna help bridge the divide understand what I'm saying and help to transform how everybody sees this word then I would seriously consider a societal effort to change the meaning of the word nigga.

This could be encouraged by black people calling white friends nigga and white people accepting it as a term of endearment. This would also dissolve or disembody the word nigga as a negative racial slur if it came to be known as friend. Black and white people would no longer use it in a derogatory sense because it would counteract the intent if it was used pejoratively. I think white people are just too afraid to do it. Good white people wouldn't want to offend their black brothers and sisters and look racist while black people are still too proud, stubborn, and attached to the control that word brings to encourage the change.

The Native Americans

With all that said, the most marginalized group in America has got to be the native Americans. We took their land, genocided their people, and took their culture and unlike African Americans they “can't go back home” to their continent. And I never heard any black person talk about how bad the Native Americans have it.

To be clear and fair, many black people are into self-preservation not racism and don't care about the marginalized, outcast, disenfranchised, or even minorities. This is why Martin Luther King was so influential and focused on civil rights for all based on the individuals content of their character. Pretty soon everyone alive will not have lived through the civil rights era.

Dark Racism

Dark Racism is essentially treating others with respect and dignity using traditional racial slurs with an ultimate goal of repurposing the word from a negative to a positive connotation. It’d be like having your black friend over for his birthday, you got him an awesome gift, so you tell him “happy birthday nigger” when he goes to thank you. It’d be like your black friend got out of debt so you said “congratulation nigga.” It flips the meaning on its head.

It’d be like your friend winning the strategy game and saying “You won because you’re a nigger,” meaning smart. It’d be like giving a black person the best interest rate you’ve ever given anybody as a salesman and saying “that’s because your a nigger.” Again, giving a positive connotation and, I know, we have a long way to go to fix institutional racism before we could say things like that as a culture. Again black people use the word nigga as a term of endearment while white people automatically say it negatively. We need to correct the linguistics so it’s always positive and it doesn’t even have a negative connotation.

#Dark Racism #The Dark Racist #Eric Leo

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errolcandelaria · 6 years

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2018

Another year has passed. That’s another three hundred sixty-five and one fourth days, eight thousand six hundred seventy hours, five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes, and thirty-one million plus seconds. That was a lot of numbers. I don’t know about you, but this year has been a ride!! I really went out of my comfort zone, I have met amazing people, made more friends, experienced a few firsts, released a pint of tears and at last, made a decision that I think would change my life forever.

Let me break it down. January was good. I started the year with cough and colds, alone in my room taking videos of myself and the fireworks that can be clearly seen right on my window pane. This was also the month ~ I think~ when I made up my mind that I really want to pursue medicine. This was the month when I fell in love with all the hospital works. That I had envisioned all the times that I’ve been in a hospital, trying to remember the smell of alcohol drenched cotton balls; the hallways, the rush in the emergency room, everything. I never knew I loved those things until last 2016, when I started watching this surgical TV show that I am now obsessed with.

February was okay. Like the usual, I hated my birthday. It’s eerie that I feel like there really is something in my birthday that I don’t quite feel like it’s worth celebrating for. I am not worthy of their time, money and efforts. There were also lots of questions that roamed my mind. To whether tell my parents about my plans or not; is medicine really for me; will they support me with my decision; and WILL I SURVIVE IF EVER I GOT INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL. There were days that I am adamant about my decision, that I tell myself ~ Of course I can do it!! And there were also weeks where I get discouraged, and the fear of making bad decisions really gripped my body tight.

March, hmm. I couldn’t quite remember the events that had happened this month. But I am pretty sure this was the month that I went full on crazy about someone in our college. I really want to know that person’s name, but I had to go incognito because everything will be messed up if that person knew.

April. CSSP NIGHT!!! LIT LIT LIT LIT!!! This was one of the happiest night of my life. Played bingo for the first time, got to see my crush perform on stage for the first time, AND ACTUALLY KNOWING THY NAME!!! Added on facebook, then got accepted the next day. O diba. I don’t remember that much events in this month. I am pretty sure I was still in the phase of constant dilemma about the decision I made for my future.

May. The semester is almost over!! But say no more, I still had an internship over the summer.

June. INTERNSHIP WOOOOH!! Lit lit lit rin. Pero hindi capital letters kasi muntik na ko magkaroon ng mental breakdown. Why? Internship. I never had a hardtime naman looking for a company to train to unlike some of my classmates pero the ~pressure? That’s what held me back talaga. I think? Culture shock siguro is the best term to describe what I felt. Ano ba. I was just a normal student tapos I get to be an intern in a huge BPO company tapos I had to talk to potential employees pa. IN PURE ENGLISH!! Syempre na shookt ako. Tapos I got assigned in a station right next to our boss pa!! Imagine the pressure. But she was really nice. She’s funny, approachable and all. Pero still nu, I couldn’t help but get intimidated by her presence. I lost track din on how many times I got scolded for doing the call outs wrong. I got the feeling that my supervisor has this impulse deep down to strangle me with the cord of the telephone I use. But in all, I still got to finish it. I finished it without even noticing I was almost done. Days passed by like hours. Literal. 10 hours a day ba naman ang oras na nababawas sa 240 hours ko eh. But seriously, I didn’t even notice that I was almost done with it. I met amazing people there, I got to talk with real people looking for jobs, interact with people older and far superior than me, which was my greatest fear!! Talk about getting out of your comfort zone huh.

July. This was the month when I finished my internship. Actually, it wasn’t easy coming back to your old shit. I missed waking up way early to catch the 6:30 am UV so I would arrive at work at exactly 7:45. Separation anxiety? No. I just miss the ambiance. The faces of the people that I get to interact with daily, the cold work room that would chill you right to your bones, and yung pag kain ko ng Richeese every after lunch. WOOH!

August. Back to bizz. FIRST SEM. 4TH YEAR. I’M OFFICIALLY A GRADUATING STUDENT!!! What’s with the enthusiasm? Boy doesn’t even know what’s about to come at him. If there’s this saying na life throws you lemons, and you would just make lemonades out of it, oh boy. Life threw me pineapples, sea urchins, a school bus and a nuclear bomb. Which I don’t know how to deal with, cause HOW DO YOU EVEN COOK A SEA URCHIN? August was one of the months of this year that made me cry. Not even because of a heartbreak, nor a typical teenager shortcoming, but because of the terrorizing spirit that lies within the subject that is research I. Starting from the day that our professor had assigned us to do an individual research proposal, all of us knew that it will be the beginning of the tormenting last first semester in our college lives.

September. Wake me up when September ends. Cause there was no relevant thing that I could remember happened this month. Again, I am pretty sure that I was still rehearsing the words that I would tell my parents about my plans after graduation. Still uncertain on what’s gonna come next.

October. We were assigned to our respective thesis groups. This was also the month that we submitted the first draft of our real thesis proposal. Mind you, we almost got rejected. Title lang tiningnan nung prof naming bes. This was when the inside joke ‘bibili na naming ng condensed milk si prof para di na sya ma-bother sa proposal naming evaporada’. Beh. This was my busiest month this year. Revisions here and there, almost everyday we were in school since we refused to have another overnight cause we accomplish nothing when we are in an air-conditioned room. The impetus of the warm and cozy bed was really inviting and irresistible. So ayun, we were in the school almost everyday.

November. Thesis proposal defense!!! Holy shit. We had an overnight to rehearse everything we have to say the day before the defense. I was so nervous, but my group mates were just chilling. Literally. Kasi nga ang lamig sa kwarto. I don’t know but I have this thing that I always overcomplicate things. Things that can be handled by a five-year old child I tend to make it seem like the apocalypse is about to happen. I have always had an anxiety in speaking in front of the class, so imagine my nervousness about this one cause I have to present a proposal in front of three intimidating research gods. And then the day of the defense came, WE PASSED!! I couldn’t forget the awkward shriek I did when the assigned panel to our group delivered the good (?) news to us, in his timid, kinda shy low voice. All the stress, the fear, the anxiety I have that day flew away as he uttered the words “Eheh, uhm. Pumasa kayo…. Pero with major revisions”. Boy I didn’t even hear everything the panel said after those words. Buti na lang our mentor recorded everything, cause if not, mangangapa kami and mamatay sa kakaalala kung ano ano yung mga suggestions na binigay nila.

December. Ahhh. The final month of the year!! Was there something relevant that happened this month? YES!!! LIT LIT LIT LIT ULIT!! Our section had THE most extreme, wildest, and craziest after-defense slash victory party slash walwal party ever!!! What a wonderful way to welcome the last month of twenty seventeen! I also met a new friend, a twitter friend from our college. Haha. Ooh. I also decided to tell my parents about my plans. Imagine my fear, anxiety, fear of rejection, lahat na pota!! Aaaaand. It didn’t go well. They did not approve. But anyway, I still want to prove myself that I got what it takes to be a good physician, so I have decided that even though I am not certain that I will go to med school right after graduation, I would still review for the NMAT and take it this coming March or April. Diba. Because, sabi nga sa bible, for the Lord has plans for all of us. Plans that will prosper us and not to harm us, plans that will give us hope and future. Honestly those are the words that give me hope. That I could still be something I want to be despite the fear, the people that hold me back, and the discouragement I get from my own environment. I can do it naman diba?

I think the word that encapsulates the events that took place this year is uncertainty. For me at least. It is what I feared the most. Afraid of what will happen next. Maybe it is the utmost reason why I missed a lot of chances to – prove myself, to show off what I got in my jacket pocket, what I can offer, and to improve the things here I am good at.

I have had a lot of shortcomings this year. The tears that I let out were way fewer than last year, but the tears from this year came from a deeper source. Maybe because I already decided what I want to do until I die, but the people around tell me otherwise. I felt like my dream was invalidated. Trashed. Thrown away. Just because the dream is a 24-karat gold and I only have a couple of gravel and sand. And it cuts even deeper and the wounds won’t heal in an instant.

I’m a fond believer of that famous saying that’s about crossing a bridge when you arrived there, but what if there are even no roads, or pathways or pavements that will lead you to that bridge? You haven’t even reached the bridge yet, but you have already been stopped because the enforcers told you the roads are closed. I could handle everything life throws at me. I made a ridiculous stewed sea urchin, I put the pineapples on my pizza, I defused the nuclear bomb and used it as a decoration in my room, kasi nga I cross the bridge when I get there. I deal with what’s in front of me. Pero how could you deal with something, if along the way, the people around you have already poked a hole in your tires? That even though they believe in you, unconsciously they are telling you that ~no, you won’t do it cause we won’t allow you. It will just fuel your fear kasi you will never know what’s on the other side. You cannot cross the bridge because you won’t even get there. The fear of uncertainty will eat you alive, chew you and spit you out to where you started. And I don’t want to be that person who grieves, and regrets his life decisions after a couple of years because he patterned it out from what the people around him pressured him to do. I want to dictate my future, but there are just inevitable circumstances that make it hard to do so, and it makes me real sad. I thought this year will be different. I had high hopes with it, but it just let me down. They let me down.

But I will still continue striving. This time, I will have enough courage, and bravery to stand up for the choices I make. I will never let any opportunity slip through my hands like water. I will face this year in my warrior suit, equipped with the disappointments, discouragements, fears, heartbreaks, anxieties, regrets, and problems the past year had thrown at me, that I have successfully overcome.

I can already feel that this year will be tiring, productive, troublesome, hard, insane, bountiful, delightful, pleasing, satisfying, wild, I can list a couple more adjectives but in all, I will sum it up with just a word stressful. But hey, being stressed means that you are actually doing something. I expect a lot of disappointments and heartbreaks to come this year, but deep down, a spark of hope still shines. I have the right to be a pessimist, cause hello, 2017??? But it does not mean I will be for the rest of the year.

I’m on my *crossed fingers* final year in college, so that means I will be graduating this year. That alone is one hell of an event to look forward to. Alongside that, my medical journey will also be put on trial this year 🤣. My fate to becoming a medical doctor will be decided hopefully before I graduate from college. But again in crossed fingers, I really hope that whoever is to decide, I want the decision to be in my favor cause not only it will trace my future, it will also reveal how tough, matured, brave and steadfast I have become. These are just two of what I think be the highlights of this year. Here’s to a handful more of new experiences!! Cheers. 🥂

May 2018 be my year.

Seriously. Cause 2018 is Year of the Dog, and I’m a big big huge enormous fan of dogs. so can this year be my year?

#2018 #adios2017

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lanadelreyfiles-blog · 7 years

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Lana Del Rey: "I grow up with my records." Interview by Joseph Ghosn for Grazia. ENCOUNTER — On her new album, ‘Lust For Life,’ she sings nostalgia and politics, Los Angeles and the intimate. Meeting with Lana Del Rey, a star who lives as an anonymous between the valleys of LA, and chronicles America of yesterday as of today, with a singular sense of observation. The interview is in the heights of Beverly Crest, on the edge of Beverly Hills. The place is unlike any other: a house built in the early 1960s by architect John Lautner, who lived there for a while before reselling it. From one transaction to the next, it now belongs to one of the most amazing figures in Los Angeles, James Goldstein, who is said to be one of the most supportive fans of the NBA (he would attend about a hundred games per season...), while being a regular figure of fashion weeks. Everywhere in the house, photos of the owner with the stars of the time, all seem to pose for a party that would have started in the 70s and would never have stopped since. Around, works of art, objects of fortune or virtue: African masks in the living room, a sculpture by Xavier Veilhan at the corner of an outside corridor, fish that are worth, we are told, “5,000 euros minimum room” in a Japanese pond, an installation of James Turrell in the quasi wild garden and which descends to hillside, far.

A girl like the others Next to the house, a tennis court overlooks an additional, recent building, which houses a nightclub, where Rihanna, celebrated her birthday earlier this year. It’s understandable: the view of Los Angeles is impregnable, cinematographic as possible. It’s there, after placing in the detours of the garden, at the foot of the concrete pool, against the modernist walls of the library, that Lana Del Rey takes us to speak. In the middle of this house haunted by the celebrities and pop history of recent America, Lana is virtually unknown; anonymous. And her way of being doesn’t displease this: she is a girl like the others when she arrives in denim, a small suede jacket, a white T-shirt, and moccasins on the foot. Previously, during the photo shoot, a boy from his entourage made us listen to a few songs from her album: they are not finished yet, and they’re on a small iPod. He scrolls through several versions of the same songs, unfinished mixes, versions in progress. We have the right to listen to only some, but a glance at the list gives us the privilege to see a part of the singer’s process: versions that accumulate only to disappear gradually, and lead to something successful. In 5 years, Lana Del Rey has done a little more than grow In five short years, Lana did a little more than grow. She found a way, a guideline, which is related to California, how to be and live here, in the hills of LA Between the canyons and beaches, she reminisces of Hollywood—of the 40s and 50s. Her still vivid recollections of the singers and singers who lived there; Between the producers’ pools, the round towers of the Capitol label tower (in the form of superimposed discs), the infinitely resonant valleys, where the voices of the more or less well-known folk musicians still seem to be in the wake of Joni Mitchell and his record ‘Ladies From the Canyon,’ have tried to make a name for themselves—a career here. Lana speaks instinctively of these girls. A few years ago, she quoted her tutelary figures, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but she now adds some heroines, starting with Joni Mitchell. From all this, she speaks to us, sitting on the edge of an Indian armchair, in a club that overlooks Los Angeles and all the fantasies that accompany this city. Lana speaks with all that inhabits her: her hesitations, her undulating thought, her way of questioning you maliciously, her eyes shaking, her assurances firm as soon as there’s a question of defending her writing, her music, her place as an anonymous star, who survives better than others in the middle of an era that hardly tolerates more than one season with delicate singers. — When did you start working on this new album? Lana Del Rey: The very day I finished the previous one, ‘Honeymoon.’ It was supposed to be in August, two years ago. I was happy to have recorded a rock record, with ‘Ultraviolence,’ then another more blues-style, sad, record with ‘Honeymoon.’ I felt I had to get closer to the 60s and 70s—pop sensibility. I thought of the Shangri-Las, their harmonies, their playful spirit. Then, arriving at three-quarters of the recording, I also felt a desire to tackle something more folk. I had in mind the album ‘Court and Spark’ by Joni Mitchell. Finally, I had an intense phase where I only listened to The Beatles, and that’s why I Invited Sean Lennon (the only son of Yoko Ono and John Lennon) to sing with me. I think that made the album sound more mature, to me. — Have you change perspective? LDR: Absolutely. I grow up with my records, I feel an internal shift and I try to chronicle it. Today, I was listening to one of my songs, ‘Beautiful People Beautiful Problems,’ and some words like "Blood” or “Planet” struck me: I had never used them before. I feel like I see things with more distance too, but I’m not detaching myself completely. I’m happy with that. — You quote Joni Mitchell. What do you borrow from her? LDR: The way she tells stories. The way to express one’s interiority and the dialogues that it has. I like the fact that she considered herself a painter who could not help becoming a musician. I also love the Laurel Canyon area. With my friends, Jonathan Wilson and Father John Misty, we formed a true musical community, similar to the one that existed around Joni and her friends. — ‘Honeymoon’ was a cathartic record. A cover of ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ concluded it. It was an end point. After that, was there a new start? LDR: I liked the idea of making a Nina Simone cover, and especially of that song. I often hoped not to be misunderstood, while not knowing what to do to avoid it. This past year, I have understood that people judge me for the wrong reasons. They misjudge me a lot, in fact. It took me seven years to figure out what my part was in that. There were frustrating moments, of course, especially after the first album. Then it didn’t matter much to me. — Do you feel alone? Have you ever felt the need to be guided? LDR: Yes, but I didn’t even know what it was to be guided. But in the last two years, in Los Angeles, after meeting different people, and good musicians, I felt something like camaraderie. Suddenly I had more people around me, people to call, to ask me what I had done and to ask how they had spent their week too… I don’t put myself in the spotlight as much. Half the songs have something light, and are less about reflection, less about myself. I have not addressed a specific audience very much before. But this past year, I wanted to change my point of view, to address others—a younger generation. This has to happen as we get older. — Do you observe others more? LDR: I feel more anchored in reality. I go out, I mix more with others, after having been too intellectual—too existential… That said, among my friends, I am the calmest. I don’t have to try to make myself heard extravagantly. — ‘Tomorrow Never Came’ reminds us of The Beatles. We hear you talk about Sean Lennon. How did he come to you? LDR: I had a chorus that I sang to my producer, and he added a few chords. I was talking about T. Rex, I was looking for something more relaxed, but also more lively. It led me to a melody close to The Beatles. I asked someone to find me the number of Sean Lennon because I wanted to have his voice with mine. We spoke on FaceTime, and we clicked. It was very encouraging. — The song seems to refer to something hard, but a soft rhythm is behind it... LDR: Yes indeed. But with that, I can’t really say what... That’s why I did not want to sing it alone. Aesthetically, I used this title because I thought it evoked thoughts of a universe totally consumed by the sixties, without modern mediation. It mattered a lot to me because it fits me perfectly, and I wanted to express it like this, without detours. — A song on the record, ‘God Bless America - And All The Beautiful Women In It,’ talks about America. It’s political, and a reaction to the election of Donald Trump. How do times and politics influence you? LDR: The song speaks of America and its women. In the studio, where I go every day, I have daily conversations about the state of the country with my producer and sound engineers... All this has influenced my music. I didn’t feel I had to say anything, but it would have been strange if I didn’t express myself. That was my feeling. There was also the issue of going out more, and listening and talking to other people. One of the questions asked by my friends was whether I was gonna move to Paris! It was the theme of all of our brunches right after the election. I also felt all of the women’s fear. I feel freer on this album, less in a role of tormented love. On the other records, I felt torn. Now I have taken a stand—chosen simpler ways and no longer put myself in difficult situations. I decided to have more friends—more fun. — What provoked this decision? LDR: All of my previous bad experiences came back to me. And I’ve had enough. I decided to change, and there was nothing in the past year that I was not certain about. This is new to me. I had a change in my personal life, which dictated a musical change. And it was for the best; it was in the right artistic direction. Being in a relationship is energizing at first, but when the end comes, there are only negative energies that remain… And I never want to have to bear that anymore. If I had seen the warning signs, I would have fled immediately. I have made the same mistakes too many times, even with friends and professional relationships: Henceforth “I will never leave anybody”. I’m surreptitiously taking control of what I am. I will run away if I feel that a relationship can degenerate like this. That being said, sometimes we have to get things done. You have to know how to finish a record—to finish a love story. — Did you have to fight for your integrity? LDR: To make the right decisions, yes, but never to be who I am. That was done from the beginning. When I wrote ‘Video Games,’ I had to be strong and assertive. I was singing very directly. Now I feel different. At the time, that was what made me happy, because I knew nothing else. But that is not enough. — Do you still have tutelary figures? LDR: I had the chance to read Bob Dylan—to understand his process and his way of doing things. I don’t know why he obsesses me so much… He’s my hero. Keep in mind I don’t put myself at his level. Just like Kurt Cobain, despite his sad end: his way of catching melodies that seem to come out of the air that surrounds you… It was the pinnacle of cool.

#Lana Del Rey #Interview #Grazia #Grazia Magazine #Magazine #2017 #August 2017

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ronaldmrashid · 5 years

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Increase The Value Of Your Professional Network By Befriending These Five Archetypes

For 10 years I acted as a mentor to incoming analysts or associates at one of the two investment banks I worked for.

Being a mentor was rewarding and a way to help younger folks navigate the often terrifying waters of a cutthroat work environment.

One of the main pieces of advice I gave was this: You should spend as much time selling yourself internally as you do externally. 50/50.

What I noticed during my career was that those who zoomed up the corporate ladder always seemed to have the strongest networks, regardless of whether or not they were the best producer.

The majority of people hate to network. They believe hard work is enough to get ahead. Unfortunately, from a career and financial perspective, networking is vital if you want to outperform.

There is no true meritocracy.

The Rise And Fall Of A Network

At its core, a network’s fundamental reason for being is for survival purposes. When you have a group of people fighting for you, it’s much easier to avoid getting eaten by lions.

When I started Financial Samurai in 2009, nobody gave me the time of day even after a year of operation. A lack of recognition is why so many blogs or online businesses shut down within a year, despite the low operating costs.

Therefore, I started my own blogging network to help me and other nascent bloggers grow. We promoted each other’s sites over social media, allowed for each other to guest post, helped each other with technical issues, and shared advertising contacts.

At its peak, the network grew to 120 bloggers strong. To pay for my time and the operating expenses of running the network, the network took a 10% cut of all the advertising campaigns mostly I and sometimes other members created. It was a promising business model based on honesty.

The network was going great until one member decided to take the advertising contacts we had accumulated and started her own business creating blog campaigns. Then another member started doing the same.

Because of greed and selfishness, instead of having one strong network, we now had rival factions. Contract prices fell and chaos ensued. No longer was the network mainly about supporting the growth of each other’s sites.

The network created money monsters. I guess I can’t blame the two members who took my idea and created their own mirror image business because they only made about $36,000 a year from their day jobs. To them, they only saw dollar signs dancing around their heads.

Their intense focus on money and lack of loyalty disappointed me greatly. Consequently, I changed gears and decided to spend less time networking and more time writing on Financial Samurai. In retrospect, I’m thankful with how things turned out because running the network began feeling like I was working a day job again.

In case you’re wondering, neither of the two bloggers who took my idea is still around today. They are back to the grind. When you focus on making money first and providing value second, you tend to lose more often than you win.

What people may not know is that I still do an occassional “side hustle” of putting together blog campaigns for financial clients just like in the good old days. I just do so privately to keep things simple. Never stop side hustling! The opportunities are endless.

As for my network’s original intention of helping other bloggers grow, I’ve established The Financial Samurai Underdog Tour where anybody with an underdog story can sign up and tap my platform for exposure. The FS Forum is my new way to keep the camaraderie alive for personal finance enthusiasts.

Build These Five Relationships

It’s always good to network up and down. Those who’ve been around longer have more connections. Those with more connections tend to have more money and power and so forth.

Having 1,000 LinkedIn connections who won’t give you the time of day isn’t very helpful. Neither is having 10,000 Facebook friends who won’t show up to your birthday party.

Once you’ve built a network that won’t let you drown, it’s time to focus on building a network that will help you thrive.

Below are five types of people you should bring into your professional network. They will make you richer and happier.

1) The Life Giver

By far the strongest person to have in your professional network is someone who can give you or your children a job. In order to wield such power, the person must either be a C-level executive, a celebrity, or be the majority shareholder of a business.

Given growing anti-nepotism rules, more companies public and private, are not allowed to hire relatives. But that doesn’t forbid people in power to refer their friends and their friend’s children and push them through the system.

The most powerful Life Giver is the person or family who owns a large privately owned business. They can hire and promote whomever they choose at whatever salary they like. The most powerful family with a private business that comes to mind is the Mars family. They are the makers of M&M candies and are worth over $60 billion. True Stealth Wealth.

Then there are much smaller private companies owned by an individual or partnership that is quite powerful as well. For example, if you own a private online business that generates $1 million in revenue and $500,000 in operating profits, you could easily hire a handful of relatives for $50,000 – $100,000 each.

Your goal is to get to know at least one Life Giver. Once you do, the worst case scenario is that you’ll always be taken care of.

2) The Golden Retriever

It’s sometimes hard to meet C-level executives, celebrities, or private business owners. They tend to wall themselves off because so many people are always asking them for something.

The next best thing is to build a relationship with a Golden Retriever.

A Golden Retriever is someone who makes him or herself extremely useful to a Life Giver. Due to their usefulness, they have joined the inner circle and become one of the Life Giver’s most trusted confidants.

A Golden Retriever could be the executive assistant to the CEO who control’s her schedule. A Golden Retriever could also be the sidekick, like Turtle or Johnny Drama in Entourage who invite whomever they want to Vincent Chase’s parties and movie premiers. The most powerful Golden Retriever is the Life Giver’s spouse.

A Golden Retriever will help you get in the door, but he or she can’t make the final decision. Only the Life Giver can. It will be up to you to impress sufficiently the Life Giver in order to get the job, land the funding, or get invited to fabulous boondoggles.

Your goal is to get to know at least two Golden Retrievers. Once you do, you’ll always have opportunities to grow.

3) The Educator

If you have children, there’s nothing more important than your children. Parents often view education as the key investment they can make. As a result, some parents go to great lengths to ensure their children gain entrance into the best schools.

Although money can buy admission, you need a lot of money to legally buy your children’s way into the best private grade schools and private universities. Legal bribery is in the millions, not in the hundreds of thousands.

The best way to improve your child’s chance of getting into a great school without running the risk of a fine and jail time is to know Educators. Educators are the teachers, coaches, athletic directors, admission officers, school heads, and board members of schools.

If you can procure a letter of recommendation or a good word from an Educator, you drastically improve your child’s odds of getting into a particular school, especially at the lower school levels. Every recommendation counts.

Unlike public grade schools which must accept everyone, private schools can pick and choose the families they would like to join their fraternity. The more the very people who run the school can provide a good recommendation, the better your child’s chances.

Ever since I became an assistant tennis coach at a particular high school, I’ve noticed several people at my tennis club are much nicer to me. They know that even if I, as a lowly assistant coach, can’t help them get their child in, they must at least be pleasant to me out of fear I might say something bad about their family. Getting blackballed is a real thing.

Whether you have children or not, your goal is to know at least three Educators. Once you do, you’ll at the very least diversify your network so that it’s not all just rich and powerful people.

4) The Healer

Health is greater than wealth. Therefore, it behooves you to get to know as many health professionals as possible who you can ask for help.

Imagine if you had friends who are cardiologists, radiologists, optometrists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, orthopedic surgeons, podiatrists, earn, nose & throat doctors, nutritionists, physical therapists, gynecologists, nurses, pediatricians, and physical trainers. You could ask them anything and everything.

After getting an MRI on my knee 10 years ago, my radiologist friend whom I’ve known since 9th grade told me to send over the file so he could give me his opinion. His evaluation provided me tremendous peace of mind to not pursue arthroscopic surgery to fix a meniscus tear.

With the soaring cost of healthcare and the dwindling time we get with healthcare providers, it’s good to know as many Healers as possible.

Your mission is to get to know at least four Healers who specialize in different areas of health. Ideally, you are able to befriend a general practitioner, a physical therapist, and a psychiatrist.

5) The Unfiltered Genius

Life is easier if you are extremely smart. You can process information more quickly and make better decisions. Smart people also have the ability to better foresee opportunity where most cannot, which can make them extraordinarily wealthy. Unfortunately, not all of us are intellectually gifted, including myself.

The next best thing to being a genius is to befriend someone who is an Unfiltered Genius. The Unfiltered Genius is your sounding board for all of your life’s big decisions: joining a new company, getting married, buying a house, starting a business, negotiating a severance, and more. He or she will tell it like it is without being afraid of hurting your feelings.

We all have blind spots that lead us to walk off cliffs. The Unfiltered Genius will analyze every issue thoroughly and help you make better decisions in your life.

Everyone needs to know at least a couple Unfiltered Geniuses. If you don’t have one as your friend, it is worth it to hire one. If you can’t afford to hire one, then seek to read, watch, or listen to Unfiltered Geniuses over the internet who are experts in their field.

The easiest way to avoid saying, “If I knew then what I know now,” is to speak to an Unfiltered Genius who has been there before. At the very least, seek advice from your parents.

Not All Relationships Are Created Equal

Quality matters over quantity when it comes to building a valuable personal and professional network. The rich and powerful are getting more rich and powerful. At the same time, technology is enabling us to become more independent.

Go through your existing relationships and see if you can categorize each relationship into one of the five archetypes above. Then, systemically cull the relationships who aren’t real, never reach out, provide no value, or who only take and never give.

You need to proactively cultivate these five archetypes over time. Asking for help out of the blue is a great way to strain a relationship. Always focus on giving first.

If you are unable to befriend one of these five archetypes, then it’s up to you to become one. Once you do, you’ll find yourself naturally getting included into more powerful networks over time.

Are You Delusional? Let’s Talk Dunning-Krueger

Be Smart Enough To Act Dumb Enough To Get Ahead

Readers, do you have all five archetypes as part of your network? Which archetype are you? What are some ways in which you proactively cultivate your network?

The post Increase The Value Of Your Professional Network By Befriending These Five Archetypes appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/increase-the-value-of-your-professional-network-by-befriending-these-five-archetypes/

#Financial Samurai

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hyperventilatinghermit · 5 years

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2019 TBR List

This list has been a little while coming, and it still isn’t finished because my school has decided that they won’t return until mid-January, so I can’t finish it yet. Which is frustrating, but we’ll continue on! So this year I’ve decided to pick 24 books to read. The only rule to choosing the books is that I want to read them, unlike the past years where I tried to force myself to read certain books. So, if I don’t fall into my monthly reading slump, I should be good!

Orbiting Jupiter, Gary D. Schmidt When Jack meets his new foster brother, he already knows three things about him: Joseph almost killed a teacher. He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain. He has a daughter. Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her. What Jack doesn’t know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl. Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help. But the past can’t be shaken off. Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen. The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.

The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzi Lee Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

Nevernight, Jay Kristoff Destined to destroy empires, Mia Covere is only ten years old when she is given her first lesson in death. Six years later, the child raised in shadows takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made on the day that she lost everything. But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies, and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and demons at the heart of a murder cult. The Red Church is no Hogwarts, but Mia is no ordinary student. The shadows love her. And they drink her fear.

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds AND THEN THERE WERE SHOTS Everybody ran, ducked, hid, tucked themselves tight. Pressed our lips to the pavement and prayed the boom, followed by the buzz of a bullet, didn't meet us. After Will's brother is shot in a gang crime, he knows the next steps. Don't cry. Don't snitch. Get revenge. So he gets in the lift with Shawn's gun, determined to follow The Rules. Only when the lift door opens, Buck walks in, Will's friend who died years ago. And Dani, who was shot years before that. As more people from his past arrive, Will has to ask himself if he really knows what he's doing.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank Green The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship--like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor--April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world--everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow, Jessica Townsend Morrigan Crow may have defeated her deadly curse, passed the dangerous trials and joined the mystical Wundrous Society, but her journey into Nevermoor and all its secrets has only just begun. And she is fast learning that not all magic is used for good. Morrigan Crow has been invited to join the prestigious Wundrous Society, a place that promised her friendship, protection and belonging for life. She's hoping for an education full of wunder, imagination and discovery - but all the Society want to teach her is how evil Wundersmiths are. And someone is blackmailing Morrigan's unit, turning her last few loyal friends against her. Has Morrigan escaped from being the cursed child of Wintersea only to become the most hated figure in Nevermoor? Worst of all, people have started to go missing. The fantastical city of Nevermoor, once a place of magic and safety, is now riddled with fear and suspicion...

For Every One, Jason Reynolds (There isn’t really a blurb for this one, it’s more just telling giving you inspiration to read it... I think? Moving on.)

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee -- whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not -- stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden -- a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives. But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand. After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure. Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

The List, Patricia Forde In the city of Ark, speech is constrained to five hundred sanctioned words. Speak outside the approved lexicon and face banishment. The exceptions are the Wordsmith and his apprentice Letta, the keepers and archivists of all language in their post-apocalyptic, neo-medieval world. On the death of her master, Letta is suddenly promoted to Wordsmith, charged with collecting and saving words. But when she uncovers a sinister plan to suppress language and rob Ark’s citizens of their power of speech, she realizes that it’s up to her to save not only words, but culture itself.

Girl in the Blue Coat, Monica Hesse Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion. On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person - a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

My Lady Jane, Cynthia Hand/Brodi Ashton/Jodi Meadows Edward (long live the king) is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d much rather be planning for his first kiss than considering who will inherit his crown… Jane (reads too many books) is Edward’s cousin, and far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately for Jane, Edward has arranged to marry her off to secure the line of succession. And there’s something a little odd about her intended… Gifford (call him G) is a horse. That is, he’s an Eðian (eth-y-un, for the uninitiated). Every day at dawn he becomes a noble chestnut steed—but then he wakes at dusk with a mouthful of hay. It’s all very undignified. The plot thickens as Edward, Jane, and G are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, our heroes will have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it’s off with their heads?

The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah France, 1939 In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another. Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real--and deadly--consequences.

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Onyx and Ivory, Mindee Arnett (I’m not going to put this blurb because it’s its own little novel in of itself. Basically its a story about kings and assassins, it sounds pretty cool.)

The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.” Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.

Caraval, Stephanie Garber Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over. But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner. Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her ... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. Then one of the other contestants turns up dead ... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Strange the Dreamer, Laini Taylor The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

So this is it! My current TBR for 2019! My goal is to read as many of these as I possibly can, and not to beat myself up for it if I don’t get around to it. Do you have any of these books on your TBR?

#tbr #tbr 2019 #book list #to read

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moonandstarsabove · 7 years

Text

ch.1 - it’s the 4th of july!

ao3, the walking dead, darylxoc, multi-chapter

this story contains:

multicultural POC lgbt+ characters awareness of mental illness realistic family dynamics slow build romance important and valid platonic relationships mythology themes

the cast consists of:

Kat Graham Amandla Stenberg Jaden Smith Lana Parrilla Idris Elba

oOo

Everything inside Diana screamed at her to run. They had to run, there was no other way they would survive. They had to escape. The others were behind them, and they were relentless, fueled by the endless hunger that characterized them. She could hear them; their throaty screeches and feet thumping the ground like war drums.

They were slow, whereas she and her family were not, but they also never tired or ran out of breath, and that gave them the advantage.

Diana was falling behind. Her parents, brother, and sister were only backs in the distance, disappearing behind thick trees with every stride.

No matter how fast she ran or how much her legs pumped to propel her forward, the distance didn't diminish – she was running in place as if waist deep in quicksand.

She opened her mouth to call out to them and water poured in, origin unknown, torrents rushing into her mouth and nose, down her throat, and sloshing heavily in her lungs.

She was drowning.

The pressure in her chest became unbearable like she was about to burst open like an overripe fruit. Panic held her heart in a beastly grip and she felt like death. Surely that had to be how death felt like.

Her eyes rolled backward as tears of fear swelled in them, and then the tears were indistinguishable from the water drowning her. Oxygen deprived, Diana clawed weakly at her throat, desperate for relief, and felt her short fingernails tear through the skin and flesh, reaching the rings of her trachea.

This was impossible, she should be feeling pain.

Nothing made any sense.

How and why was this happening? Who was chasing them? Why were they running?

Before she could form another thought, she was tackled from behind, her legs finally giving under her, and she slipped into the sweet bliss of oblivion.

oOo

Diana woke up with a gasp and took hungry gulps of air, her hands shot to her throat, yanking at the collar of her shirt to loosen it; it felt more restraining than it ever should have.

Once she regained her breath and reassured herself of her surroundings and safety, she stared at the top of the tent with cinnamon brown eyes wide open. She was safe, she was safe.

"Merda, that was fucking scary,” she whispered, trembling and feeling weightless as she rode down the adrenaline high from the nightmare. It wasn’t uncommon for one to dream of their worst fears; drowning being one of Diana’s.

She wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand and kicked herself out of her sleeping bag, appreciating the air against her flushed skin.

Sleepy mumblings to her right had her turning to face Alice, her younger sister; she found the girl glaring at her. The early morning sunlight filtering through the cloth walls of the tent made the teen's half-closed hazel-green eyes shine like gems.

"Da fuck you on ‘bout s’early in d’mornin’?" she asked in a nearly unintelligible mumble, thick eyebrows furrowed profusely; an expression familiar to her face. "Imma fight you and your mom."

"My mom’s your mom, smartass." Diana grinned, but her smile turned grim. "I- uh, had a weird-ass dream, wanna hear about it?"

Maybe talking about it would make it better. Maybe Alice would laugh about it and call her a ‘fucking idiot’ like she usually did and leave her feeling pretty silly for being scared about something so stupid. - Diana rubbed over her throat, feeling the skin intact, but the pulse still unsettled. - It would be preferable to the lingering physical and mental discomfort the dream had left in her.

To her disappointment, Alice groaned and aggressively turned herself around and away from Diana.

"Come ooon, I always listen to you when you tell me about yours," Diana whined, hoping it didn't sound desperate and shook her sister's shoulder. In response, she got a kick to the shin, softened to a thump by the sleeping bag, and the familiar flip of Alice's middle finger over the girl’s shoulder.

“Lemme sleep! I was dreamin’ ‘bout Lance and you ruin’d it!”

Fine, whatever; nightmares were just dreams, and dreams were not real, no matter how realistic they felt. She was sure she’d forget about it soon, as it was with dreams. By the end of the day, she would know no more of water-filled lungs nor blood-slickened hands.

Diana swatted Alice's finger away and turned to her other side, to her and Alice’s little brother, the youngest of the three but also the tallest: an astounding 6ft of lean and sinewy teenage boy.

Unlike Alice's curly afro, Felix had taken to style his hair in locs, which he usually bound at the crown of his head; they were loose now, spilling around his head like a spiky halo.

He was curled into a tight ball inside his bag. The movement behind his eyelids told her he was already awake so she teasingly pulled on one of his locs to bring his attention to her and in retribution received a nondescript punch to the stomach, which she scoffed and smirked at.

"Ay, what is up with you two and violence? I’m like a punching bag over here."

"It’s ‘cause you’re so annoying. Don't touch the hair," Felix mumbled before curling up tighter into himself and continuing to pretend to sleep, "and shut up," he added and covered his head until only his nose was visible.

Diana shook her head at his antics, far too used to it to feel insulted.

She leaned over him on her elbow and whispered to where his covered ear would be, "Happy birthday, you big grumpy wumpy baby."

He shuffled inside his sleeping bag in response, shoving her away. A muffled reply of ‘piss off’ soon followed.

oOo

It was an understatement to say Diana was disappointed with the day’s begin.

Rummaging around in her bag for any device that showed the time (her smartphone had run out of juice two weeks ago), she found a wristwatch she never got around to wear and widened her eyes at the pointers showing 5:30-ish.

Okay, she’d been used to waking up around this time for school, but she was on vacation now, and she’d missed out on perfectly good sleeping time because of a pointless nightmare that was nothing more than vague recollections. She called bullshit.

She tried going back to sleep, she really did... But the damned sunlight always painted her eyelids red, no matter where she turned and how she positioned herself. And then there were the birds singing their chipper morning songs, waking up the entire forest.

She needed perfect darkness and silence to fall asleep, and it just wasn’t happening. She envied her siblings, who had fallen back asleep so quickly, undisturbed by anything around them.

When she completely gave up, the wristwatch read 6:55, and she thought that was a good time as any to finally get up.

Quietly, as to not wake Alice and Felix back up, Diana traded her sleeping shirt and shorts for the clothes from the day before – a tank top under a red plaid shirt and knee-length jean shorts, which showcased the stubs of her leg hair slowly growing back, luckily almost unnoticed against her brown skin. She tamed the waves of her dark hair into a messy ponytail and grimaced at the wet baby hairs at the back of her neck; the aftermath of humid summer weather and an agitated night in an enclosed tent.

She stepped into her running shoes and zipped open the tent-flap. The air that rushed in was less stale in comparison and Diana inhaled deeply before sighing, loving the dry earthy scent.

She let the flap open so her siblings could also profit from it, put her hands on her hips, and turned her face up to the tree canopy with closed eyes.

A refreshing breeze rustled the foliage above, Diana heard birdcalls and summer insects starting their daily buzz from all directions. The air smelled of dirt and leaves and yesterday’s fire, the embers of which had glowed deep into the night.

She might miss having Wi-Fi and general modern commodities, but this closeness to nature was something she'd never experienced before and it was...new, and good, very good. If not a little tiring, especially when you've been at it for fourteen long days.

She took another deep breath and got to her morning routine. Their toilet paper was long gone, so they had a little plastic bag with usable leaves as substitute pinned down with a rock next to their ‘toilet tree’ – her dad had to teach them the difference between which greens were good to go and which would cause them to wiggle in their seat for days.

The water they had was strictly for drinking and cooking, so she wiped her hands and face with a secret reserve of wet wipes she kept for herself in her messenger bag; so she was a bit selfish, fight her.

Diana sat down at the fire pit of the isolated little camping site and brought out of her bag a book titled "The Passage", which she had bought at the airport on the day they’d arrived; her first purchase on American soil.

She had initially been attracted to the iridescent beauty of the cover, but now, sitting on the carved sitting log and rapturously reading her way through the final hundred pages, she found it was actually quite good; not that she had very high standards regarding books, to begin with.

The whole purpose of the trip had been to come visit Aunt Cátia and her family, who lived in Atlanta, Georgia.

Cátia was her mother's little sister and Diana’s Godmother. She'd gone to live in the States five years prior, about the same time Diana and her siblings had joined their parents in Switzerland.

They'd only seen each other through Skype since, when at all until Cátia had finally had enough of it and had bought her sister and her family plane tickets to come see her. The only problem had been with the other person that had also been invited.

Diana was startled out of her thoughts and her reading when she heard loud, very loud yawning and turned in her seat to see her dad stepping out of his and mom's tent. The golden morning light reflected on his dark skin, giving him a glowing sheen.

He walked to her wordlessly, offered her a nod, which she returned, and pretended to punch her on the side.

Diana ‘oofed’ playfully and grinned up at him as he absentmindedly hugged her to his side and scratched her under the chin, calling her a ‘good girl’.

She pushed him away with a laugh.

"Morning," she added, putting away her book and feeling a bit victorious that she'd been up sooner than her early bird of a father, even if it had been unwanted.

"‘Good mornings’ are for the morning," Samuel responded – his usual response, every morning without fail – and squeezed her shoulder to tone down on her smugness.

She laughed and wiggled away and patted the space next to her on the sitting log.

"Come, sit with me and wait for breakfast," she joked and did nothing to hide her grin.

Samuel crossed his arms, making his biceps swell, and raised an amused eyebrow, with the contrast of his hazel-green eyes staring down at her. "Oh, you’re waiting for breakfast? Get off your damn ass, you're gonna help me. I always gotta fucking do everything in this family, none o’ you lift a finger to do a single damn thing. Dad’s always there to cook and clean and drive you places." The cussing was so familiar to his way of speech that it went unnoticed.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Pai is the best and we are the worst children in the whole wide world.”

A warning look from him had her up on her feet and doing as instructed. She knew she could play around with her dad, he was like a child himself sometimes, but she didn't want to accidentally trigger one of his notorious bad moods. Whenever that happened, the most ridiculous of arguments would break out between him and his three children, stubborn clashing against bullheaded, and it always ended with one or both parties’ day ruined.

So, bantering back and forth, they lit the fire in the fire pit and prepared scrambled eggs with chopped up sausages for breakfast. How they had managed to have fresh eggs this long was a mystery to her, one she didn’t dare question.

Diana was walking back from their rented jeep with their breakfast refreshments, when Irene stepped out of her tent, still bleary eyed and yawning behind her hand, but already dressed for the day in a get-up similar to Diana's. This camping thing had certainly changed her mother’s sleeping habits, since the woman usually slept in underpants and nothing else, as she didn’t like the restricting feeling of pajamas. It often made for uncomfortable sightings back home since Sam shared those habits.

Diana approached the shorter woman from behind and hugged her while planting a sloppy kiss on her freckled cheek.

Irene smiled and turned in her daughter's arms to return the affection. Then she took the half-full bottle of orange juice Diana had gotten from the cooler and they both went to sit at the fire pit.

Irene took her designated spot next to Sam and proceeded to kiss her husband thoroughly, despite just having had slept in the same tent.

Diana averted her eyes and cleared her throat. "For real, at the breakfast table?" She was glad her parents got along so well, but sometimes she had to put up with some indecencies no child should ever witness from their parents; they were very open about their affections.

Irene swatted her hand in dismissal, "Yeah, you'll see if you won't do the same when you find o amor da tua vida.”

"Ugh, but I won’t be like you and not at the table," Diana mumbled and scratched at a mosquito bite on her calf. She couldn’t imagine herself being gooey heart-eyes over someone like her parents were, it didn’t fit her.

"Shut the hell up and eat your damn food," Samuel said and thrust a plastic plate and fork at her, the smell of the meat making her salivate. She took the food gladly and scooped a forkful into her awaiting mouth.

“I miss my breakfast cereal,” she commented to herself, chewing half-heartedly.

Irene chatted loudly about old gossip Diana didn't care to listen to – she’d already heard it all the day before -, and Sam listened silently along while eating.

Diana took a swig of juice straight from the bottle and just observed them.

She always thought of her mom and dad as a perfect balance of each other, not only their hot-cool personality but their appearance as well.

Irene was short and petite, of Colombian and Brazilian descent, with dark brown eyes and shoulder length dark hair. A woman her age, well into her forties, would be expected to have some amounts of wrinkles, but by the miracles of her Latina skin, which was oily to boost – a trait which all three of her children had inherited, yay –, Irene's wrinkles only manifested around her eyes when she smiled.

Samuel was of Cape Verdean descent. He was admittedly not very tall, scraping 5’8”, slightly shorter than Diana, with broad shoulders and beefy arms. His black and gray coiled curls were always cropped close to the scalp, his hazel-green eyes were constantly stuck in an intimidating glare that was basically his trademark, which accentuated the crease between his brows and the crow’s feet around his eyes.

Diana shoved the last bite into her mouth just as her mother asked her if the kids were still asleep. With puffed cheeks, Diana could only nod. She made a noise of realization in the back of her throat and gestured by her head with her hands, attempting to reference Felix by miming his hair.

"For Christ's sake, mija, swallow your food and then talk. I swear to God, you only have the body of a twenty-one-year-old, your brain still hasn't caught up." Irene shook her head and rolled her eyes when Diana smiled like it had been a compliment. She had always been childish, there would be no changing that, she took after her dad in that sense.

Diana made a show of thoroughly chewing her food, swallowed it and dramatically took a swig of juice. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and addressed her parents again, "What I meant was, you got Felix's present?"

"Nah, your mother made us look through all kinds of shit for hours, jumping from store to store until my back almost broke and we didn't fucking buy him anything," Samuel remarked sarcastically.

“Then you shouldn’t’ve jumped,” Diana cracked, to which Samuel began to reply with an amused half-smile growing on his lips but just huffed and shook his head in defeat.

Diana had been there when they’d gone shopping on the day they left her Godmother’s, to stock up on food and other necessities for their camping trip, but she didn't know if they bought him anything then or if they wanted to wait until they were back home to get him a birthday present.

Sam returned from the jeep, carrying baseball gear in his hands that Diana knew for sure would be a success with her brother, and he handed the items to her for a closer look.

There was a set of three baseballs, a sturdy leather glove, and a dull metallic bat with a purple bow wrapped around the handle.

Diana nodded in approval; yeah, Felix would go crazy over it. Baseball wasn't very popular in Switzerland, so you could rarely find good gear, if at all, and the boy had wanted to try the sport for ages.

It was a pity that their trip's sole purpose had been family time only – which had partially not gone according to plan –, and not sightseeing or other activities.

Next time.

Right then, chatter like bickering and movement from her and the kids’ tent caught her attention and in a feat of rushed panic, Diana threw the objects at her dad, relieved when he caught them before something fell into the grill or pan over the fire.

Alice stepped out of the tent and greeted them with the mockery of a formal bow, "Good morning mother, father, and less importantly, sister. I present to you, the birthday boy."

For whatever reason, she began singing ‘We Are the Champions’ in a pitch too low for her angelic voice while making dramatic hand motions towards the tent.

Felix jumped out with a big flourish and waved and blew kisses at his surroundings, as if there were a huge crowd awaiting him, then dropped to his knees while victoriously pumping his fists in the air in exaggerated slow motion.

Alice sang a few more lines and stopped while Felix continued celebrating, clearly enjoying his moment and no longer grumpy. The older girl walked up behind him, slapped him upside the head and called him a bobo. Same old, same old with those two.

Felix, in high spirits, ignored her and started doing his ‘Estrondo’ moves, a ridiculous ‘dance’ invented and performed by the main characters of a Portuguese amateur short film by the same name, that Felix thought to be the peak of Portuguese comedy.

His knees were bent in a half crouch, arms as if he was hugging the air under him and he moved them to and from his body while dancing around in semicircles. All in all, it was the goofiest thing ever, and Irene and Sam hated it, because ‘it made him look half-witted’.

That had never stopped him.

When he was done and straightened himself up, mom and dad skipped the reprimand and enveloped him in a tight hug. He was almost tall enough that his chin hit Samuel's forehead; it was a comical sight, to be honest.

Seeing her sister to the side, Diana opened her arms in invitation, but Alice just sneered and shoved her arms aside while sitting on the same log but as far away from her sister as she physically could.

Diana beamed at her and patted her cheek, which almost got her her hand gnawed off; Alice did not like to be touched, and affection – verbal or physical – unless she initiated it, made her very uncomfortable.

After being released, Felix sat down on the free space between his two elder sisters and both teens accepted breakfast from their dad.

"Can't wait to see what you got me," Felix said around a mouthful of meat and egg.

“What makes you think we got you anything?”

“‘Cause you’re not terrible parents and you love your son very much and want him to be happy?”

“Nice.” Alice offered her fist for Felix to bump.

“You keep playing that card and I’ll start using it against you,” retorted Irene, “Won’t you vacuum the living room because you’re not a terrible son and love your mother very much and want to see her happy? Huh, like that?”

“Ho-ho, nice.” Alice bumped her fist against Irene’s outstretched one.

“Pick up your jaw and finish eating, and then we’ll talk presents, papito.”

When the birthday boy all but inhaled the last remnant of food on his plate, Sam gave him the things he’d hidden behind his seat.

The fifteen-year-old boy went bananas over it if his excited swearing was any indication. And just because it was his birthday, the only punishment he got for his foul mouth was a smack upside the head, administered by yours truly on behalf of Sam, the hypocrite.

While Felix was showing off his present to a jealous-but-trying-not-to-show-it Alice, a blast sounded in the distance, making everyone freeze and turn like a dog that spotted a squirrel. It reverberated throughout the forest, making nearby resting birds take immediate flight and screech hellishly.

More loud bursts followed, and everyone started to crank up on the worry until Alice reminded, "It's the 4th of July, bro. Today, the whole country celebrates with you."

#fanfic #twd #read pls

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