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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years

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Hiiii, so I decided to continue my combing through the books for random specific Everlark related content series. This one is Katniss and Peeta taking care of each other. This is Part One and only includes stuff from the first book because it was getting too long. 😭😅. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy.

I gently unzip his jacket, unbutton his shirt and ease them off him. His undershirt is so plastered into his wounds I have to cut it away with my knife and drench him again to work it loose. He’s badly bruised with a long burn across his chest and four tracker jacker stings, if you count the one under his ear. But I feel a bit better. This much I can fix. I decide to take care of his upper body first, to alleviate some pain, before I tackle whatever damage Cato did to his leg.

Since treating his wounds seems pointless when he’s lying in what’s become a mud puddle, I manage to prop him up against a boulder. He sits there, uncomplaining, while I wash away all the traces of dirt from his hair and skin. His flesh is very pale in the sunlight and he no longer looks strong and stocky. I have to dig the stingers out of his tracker jacker lumps, which causes him to wince, but the minute I apply the leaves he sighs in relief. While he dries in the sun, I wash his filthy shirt and jacket and spread them over boulders. Then I apply the burn cream to his chest. This is when I notice how hot his skin is becoming. The layer of mud and the bottles of water have disguised the fact that he’s burning with fever. I dig through the first-aid kit I got from the boy from District 1 and find pills that reduce your temperature.

“Swallow these,” I tell him, and he obediently takes the medicine. “You must be hungry.”

“Not really. It’s funny, I haven’t been hungry for days,” says Peeta. In fact, when I offer him groosling, he wrinkles his nose at it and turns away. That’s when I know how sick he is.

“Peeta, we need to get some food in you,” I insist.

“It’ll just come right back up,” he says. The best I can do is to get him to eat a few bits of dried apple. “Thanks. I’m much better, really. Can I sleep now, Katniss?” he asks.

“Soon,” I promise. “I need to look at your leg first.” Trying to be as gentle as I can, I remove his boots, his socks, and then very slowly inch his pants off of him.

I scoot my square of plastic under him so I can wash down the rest of him. With each bottle I pour over him, the worse the wound looks. The rest of his lower body has fared pretty well, just one tracker jacker sting and a few small burns that I treat quickly. But the gash on his leg . . . what on earth can I do for that?

I know the tracker jacker leaves draw out infection, so I start with those. Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg.

“What next, Dr. Everdeen?” he asks.

“Maybe I’ll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?” I say. I do and the whole thing seems a lot more manageable, covered in clean white cotton.

I help him dress, leaving his feet bare so we can walk in the water, and pull him upright. His face drains of color the moment he puts weight on his leg. “Come on. You can do this.”

But he can’t. Not for long anyway. We make it about fifty yards downstream, with him propped up by my shoulder, and I can tell he’s going to black out. I sit him on the bank, push his head between his knees, and pat his back awkwardly as I survey the area.

When Peeta’s able to stand, I half-guide, half-carry him up to the cave. Really, I’d like to look around for a better place, but this one will have to do because my ally is shot. Paper white, panting, and, even though it’s only just cooling off, he’s shivering.

I cover the floor of the cave with a layer of pine needles, unroll my sleeping bag, and tuck him into it. I get a couple of pills and some water into him when he’s not noticing, but he refuses to eat even the fruit. Then he just lies there, his eyes trained on my face as I build a sort of blind out of vines to conceal the mouth of the cave.

I check his forehead and find it burning and dry. I don’t know what to do. Leave him in the bag and hope the excessive heat breaks the fever? Take him out and hope the night air cools him off? I end up just dampening a strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead.

I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing the bandage.

Peeta sits beside me, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. “Go to sleep,” he says softly. His hand brushes the loose strands of my hair off my forehead. Unlike the staged kisses and caresses so far, this gesture seems natural and comforting. I don’t want him to stop and he doesn’t. He’s still stroking my hair when I fall asleep.

I give him more fever pills and stand over him while he drinks first one, then a second quart of water. Then I tend to his minor wounds, the burns, the stings, which are showing improvement.

Peeta’s stretched out on top of the sleeping bag in the shade of the rocks. Although he brightens a bit when I come in, it’s clear he feels miserable. I put cool cloths on his head, but they warm up almost as soon as they touch his skin.

I sit back on my heels and look at him with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction. A stray berry stains his chin and I wipe it away. “Who can’t lie, Peeta?” I say, even though he can’t hear me.

I gingerly lift my hand to my head and find it bandaged. This simple gesture leaves me weak and dizzy. Peeta holds a bottle to my lips and I drink thirstily.

He doesn’t seem angry about my tricking him, drugging him, and running off to the feast. Maybe I’m just too beat-up and I’ll hear about it later when I’m stronger. But for the moment, he’s all gentleness.

“You need to eat. I’ll go hunting soon,” I say.

“Not too soon, all right?” he says. “You just let me take care of you for a while.”

Peeta feeds me bites of groosling and raisins and makes me drink plenty of water. He rubs some warmth back into my feet and wraps them in his jacket before tucking the sleeping bag back up around my chin.

Rain drips through several holes in the ceiling, but Peeta has built a sort of canopy over my head and upper body by wedging the square of plastic into the rocks above me.

“I think your wound is bleeding again. Come on, lie down, it’s bedtime anyway,” he says.

My socks are dry enough to wear now. I make Peeta put his jacket back on. The damp cold seems to cut right down to my bones, so he must be half frozen. I insist on taking the first watch, too, although neither of us think it’s likely anyone will come in this weather. But he won’t agree unless I’m in the bag, too, and I’m shivering so hard that it’s pointless to object. In stark contrast to two nights ago, when I felt Peeta was a million miles away, I’m struck by his immediacy now. As we settle in, he pulls my head down to use his arm as a pillow; the other rests protectively over me even when he goes to sleep. No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else’s arms have made me feel this safe.

I set a good dinner out, but halfway through Peeta begins to nod off. After days of inactivity, the hunt has taken its toll. I order him into the sleeping bag and set aside the rest of his food for when he wakes. He drops off immediately. I pull the sleeping bag up to his chin and kiss his forehead, not for the audience, but for me. Because I’m so grateful that he’s still here, not dead by the stream as I’d thought.

Although I’m shaking in the biting wind, I rip off my jacket, remove my shirt, and zip back into the jacket as swiftly as possible. That brief exposure sets my teeth chattering beyond control.

Peeta’s face is gray in the pale moonlight. I make him lie down before I probe his wound. Warm, slippery blood runs over my fingers. A bandage will not be enough. I’ve seen my mother tie a tourniquet a handful of times and try to replicate it. I cut free a sleeve from my shirt, wrap it twice around his leg just under his knee, and tie a half knot. I don’t have a stick, so I take my remaining arrow and insert it in the knot, twisting it as tightly as I dare. It’s risky business — Peeta may end up losing his leg — but when I weigh this against him losing his life, what alternative do I have? I bandage the wound in the rest of my shirt and lie down with him.

“Are you cold?” he asks. He unzips his jacket and I press against him as he fastens it around me. It’s a bit warmer, sharing our body heat inside my double layer of jackets, but the night is young. The temperature will continue to drop. Even now I can feel the Cornucopia, which burned so when I first climbed it, slowly turning to ice.

“Cato may win this thing yet,” I whisper to Peeta.

“Don’t you believe it,” he says, pulling up my hood, but he’s shaking harder than I am.

Somehow, we make it back to the lake. I scoop up a handful of the cold water for Peeta and bring a second to my lips.

The hovercraft materializes overhead and two ladders drop, only there’s no way I’m letting go of Peeta. I keep one arm around him as I help him up, and we each place a foot on the first rung of the ladder.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “Because I used that tourniquet.”

“Yes, it’s your fault I’m alive,” says Peeta.

“He’s right,” says Caesar. “He’d have bled to death for sure without it.”

I guess this is true, but I can’t help feeling upset about it to the extent that I’m afraid I might cry and then I remember everyone in the country is watching me so I just bury my face in Peeta’s shirt. It takes them a couple of minutes to coax me back out because it’s better in the shirt, where no one can see me, and when I do come out, Caesar backs off questioning me so I can recover.

#everlark #thg #hunger games #Peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #honestly they’re so cute both little caretakers #also love that Katniss is just constantly like let me feed you more medicine and food #and Peeta is concerned with wrapping her up and keeping her warm #hmmm wonder if that has any individual character significance for each other them #each of them I meant #sorry long post y’all #I tried to cut it down I did I just didn’t wanna miss anything which i doubtlessly did anyway #also this whole thing is making me wonder where is their toilet???? where are they peeing all this water they’re making each other drink????#bookcomb ♥️🔎

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norcumii · 3 years

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for the ask meme: Rex/Obi or pairing/characters of choice - Werewolf/vampire AU / Sick/injured / Stranded Due to Inclement Weather / Huddling for warmth

For this trope mashup meme.

This was CLEARLY influenced by seananmcguire's Newsflesh series, which was the last zombie related media I interacted with, and I regret NOTHING.

(Meanwhile, much worldbuilding was done by Dogmatix, who I was foolish enough to let near the plunnies again ^_^)

*****

The problem with zombies, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but muse, was that they stopped thinking. Oh, there was some low-level intelligence left in there, but it was mostly focused on consuming the living. Not tactics, for the most part, not unless the bastards were very fresh or in large enough groups, but that also meant that when some brilliant asshole declared “oh, the zombies wouldn’t/couldn’t ever do that,” no one consulted the zombies.

Thus, an early morning patrol in an area that “never saw more than one or two zombies” turned into a clusterfuck retreat. Though ‘patrol’ was rather a gross overstatement for just the two of them taking an idle walk because some days, Rex was too jittery for sleep and too damn self-sacrificing to admit that he missed early morning runs.

There was always enough fog coming in from the river that they should have been fine.

There also shouldn’t have been an entire pack of at least a dozen, dozen and a half zombies in the area. Where the fuckers had even come from was an unpleasant mystery.

“Rex?” Obi-Wan murmured into the man’s ear. “Are you with me?” he asked as if he couldn’t make out the glacially slow beat of his heart.

Rex groaned, head lolling to nestle further in the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck. He mumbled something that was probably a curse, which left Obi-Wan in the unenviable position of having to close his eyes and take his own steadying breath. Yes, on the one hand he did have an unfairly attractive boyfriend draped across his lap, straddling his hips and feeling like he was several seconds away from some serious necking.

On the other, they were also treed a good thirty feet above a pack of damned zombies, which had already tried seriously munching on Rex, and ‘necking’ could have serious consequences when one of them was an actual vampire.

Speaking of. Obi-Wan shifted in the cautious little jig in an attempt to nudge Rex more to the left. If he could just free up his arm enough, then he could move around while not tossing them off the tree stand or dislodging the thick emergency poncho that was the only thing keeping Rex from turning into a charred crisp. It was not sized for two, but there hadn’t been time to be more careful and drape it over just Rex instead of just plonking it down over the two of them.

“If you refuse to leave base again without your entire damned armor because of this, I’m going to be very put out,” Obi-Wan informed him, getting another incoherent unhappy noise. The armor was good at keeping the soldiers bite free – not that they needed to worry about the zombification business, but it still hurt them and fed the damn undead. It was also effective at keeping the soldiers touch starved and isolated in ways Obi-Wan had difficulty standing.

Another careful shift, and he could just barely dig out one of the small, squishy packs he kept in his jacket for emergencies.

Since his luck was shit, as soon as he pulled it free, the bastard caught on a loose thread, and with his claws he didn’t dare grab too hard for it, and down it tumbled. One of the zombies lunged, snapping at it, and blood exploded all across the remains of the bastard’s face.

Not being too intelligent, the rest of the pack turned on it immediately. Obi-Wan tried to tune out the disgusting carnage, being much more careful on his second attempt. He didn’t have many packets to spare. This one, he managed to juggle up in front of Rex’s face, jostling it a little. “Here. Drink,” he ordered, hoping that would be sufficient. He hated trying to insert the little sippy straws – Anakin had loved juice pouches back as a child, and they’d had similar fiendish straws. Anakin had learned how to insert the little bastards without a problem, but he always asked Obi-Wan to do it for him – because Obi-Wan had never quite managed to master the process, and Anakin was a damned brat.

Bad enough when it was juice.

One way or another, Rex was conscious enough to shift and bite down on the plastic packet. It was always a wonder to watch the soldiers’ regenerative powers at work. As the level of mostly artificial plasma lowered, color drained back into Rex’s face, the nasty burns along truly unfair cheekbones fading as muscle and skin reknit. He could smell the distressing blood-and-raw-meat stench fading, and only then did he start to relax.

When things had started to go to hell around the globe, the powers that be had huddled together around their failing infrastructure and went looking for fantastical solutions to unnatural problems. Obi-Wan could only imagine the levels of exhaustion and terror that had led someone to the conclusion that vampires might be immune to the infections that spread the zombie virus. The sheer potential of that going horribly wrong was at least one movie franchise long, if not several, yet somehow they’d dedicated enough science to make artificial vampires. Oh, technically it wasn’t vampirism, but ‘drank blood, super fast and strong, sunburn to death within minutes, resting vitals dropping down far enough to pass as dead’ was close enough for everyone but petty bureaucrats and pedantic assholes.

Even at the time, Obi-Wan had cynically noted how that meant both a short leash, and a strong vested interest in keeping as many people from going zombie as possible. He’d also noted the infuriating demographics of those who were selected for and survived the process of becoming vampires.

He tried not to think on that much nowadays, because the heightened blood pressure and carnage bothered Rex.

The packet slurped dry in a way that always raised Obi-Wan’s hackles, then Rex blinked up at him a few times in confusion. “You’re fuzzy,” Rex accused.

“That’s called a beard, dear,” Obi-Wan drawled in his most obnoxious tone, pretending he didn’t also have fur sprouting most places, nor the partial muzzle of a transformation enough to give him speed and jumping ability enough to get to one of the safe perches they’d set up weeks ago.

The Powers That Be might have created vampires, but they had also somehow missed the small but stubborn population of entirely naturally occurring werewolves (and affiliated were-creatures) around the world. Some, like Obi-Wan and his pack, were doing their damndest to both keep a low profile and help the poor bastards trying to protect the last of humanity.

Some, like Obi-Wan, might have become unwisely open to certain non-lycanthropes due to unfortunate feelings – not that Obi-Wan was ever about to complain about that.

Either his sarcastic tone or the guttural noises of thwarted zombies sank in, because Rex stiffened and glared down. “Fuck!” he hissed, thighs clenching in a way that Obi-Wan both very much did and very much did not appreciate. His eyes damn well crossed at the wiggle that followed – he could only guess that Rex was going for a weapon that he didn’t have.

“Stop that!” he snarled, letting the wolf out a little more. He needed the muscle and mass to keep Rex in place, longer paws digging into the tree trunk for a slightly more secure hold that was notgroping his idiot boyfriend.

His idiot boyfriend leveled a flat, unimpressed look at him. “Really?” Rex grumped. His eyes flicked down, then back up. “Right now?”

“So sorry, but some of us don’t need to ingest extra blood to get it up, and under less fraught circumstances this might be my idea of a good time.” He tried for a drawl, but it was much more strained than he meant. Oh well, it wasn’t like Rex didn’t know he could be ridiculous. And it really wasn’t intentional.

“Less fraught meaning less zombies?”

“And less daylight.” Obi-Wan didn’t mean for his tone to turn sharp, either, but it did even as he very carefully wrapped his arms tighter around Rex. He made certain not to disturb the poncho, but he, at least, wanted the reassurance. He still wasn’t over the terror of having to go mostly wolf to grab Rex from the pack he was trying to slow down, nor the horror of slinging him over a shoulder to go pelting through the trees. Madcap desperation to find a tree stand before a foggy dawn was not his idea of fun. “Your life is worth a hell of a lot more than an inconvenient hard on.”

Rex huffed a laugh, leaning in to rest his cheek against Obi-Wan’s. “Stop being charming.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to happen approximately never. So sorry.”

For a moment, it was just them – two idiots cuddled together, healthy and alive on a genuinely beautiful, bright Spring morning.

Then a terrible gurgling noise broke the moment, and Rex glanced down at the pack still mingling around the tree, groaning their displeasure at not remembering how to climb. “Was that a zombie?” he asked, as if he damn well didn’t know the truth.

“Shapeshifting burns calories,” Obi-Wan reminded him primly. “As does marathon sprints lugging around idiots like potato sacks.”

“That explains the bruises on my stomach,” he muttered, shifting about to rummage in one of Obi-Wan’s pockets. “Jerky?”

“Please.” All in all, now that matters were calmer, Obi-Wan almost hoped that a rescue would take its sweet time. This was almost nice – all things considered.

~end

#meme #trope mashup #My writing #star wars #Rex/Obi #vampire #werewolf #zombie #i now can't stop seeing this puppy!Anakin addicted to capri sun #i might have been that jerk in the cafeteria who could get into those 9 times out of 10 without incident #I had useful skills back in the day #still taking prompts if folks are curious

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comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny · 3 years

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I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

#just google it #better represent real life #if you tell a fic reader to ngl you're being pretty ableist and don't really have a good idea of how search engines work #also when people DO try to make culturally accurate fics often times at least one or two people will pop in and say 'actually that's wrong'#not to mention sometimes they might not even be right to begin with...#and okay once or twice it is what it is #but seriously if this keeps happening over and over most people are just going to stop writing or caring #fanfiction #fanfiction is literally free #fanfiction is free labor #adding layers upon layers of research and knowledge needed- on top of how difficult it can be to portray human emotion #it's not going to it's just going to make once starry eyed writers loss their ability to enjoy their work #and guess what #some ACTUALLY racist (or homophobic or transphobic or misogynistic) writer is going to swoop in not giving two fucks #and they're going to go on and get their work published because they don't care about accuracy

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092219archive · 4 years

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i’ve been watching ffxiv cutscenes for the main story (pushing thru heavensward right now) and i’ve been thinking of stuff for my wol lately so i guess now’s a good time to introduce them a bit :-)

here’s a link to the og meme: Self Insert Development Meme

1. Does your insert have a name that’s different from yours? Does the name reflect their character in any way, or is it just because it sounds nice? How did you come up with it?

wol’s currently nameless... i can’t use with the usual “eren” as per the naming conventions of each ffxiv race (i will use wol!eren to indicate, well, My WoL). maybe if i wanted them to be a hyur i’d be able to, but i’ve been hopping back and forth between aura (raen) or viera (veena)...

edit (8/4): i keep forgetting to update this lmfao,, but my wol’s name is momo and they’re an aura (raen)!

2. Does your insert have a very strong relationship with a f/o, maybe more than one? Tell us a little about the dynamic they have! This can be a bond that’s romantic, familial, or platonic, anything - even an enemy would count as a strong relationship!

there’s only maybe one person who’s aware of the character(s) that i’m maybe. MAYBE. maybe. looking at (eros Do Not Interact). no names as i refuse to acknowledge/perceive them in any manner.

but, the relationship’s still in the works,, i’m thinking it’s a lot of it’s gonna have to focus on positions of power/hierarchies... maybe a bit of slowburn... for spice.

i feel like any rom relationship i could build might. be slow burn. oops!

3. Who in their canon are they closest to? Who would they drop everything to come help, if anyone? Who’s the person they’re least close to? Who would they most likely not get along with, if anyone?

in terms of story, i think wol!eren’s really close to alphinaud; i get familial vibes from him (and actual wol spends a very large chunk of time with him as well)... but personally, i’m thinking estinien. yea he’s a bit of an asshat but he’s cool (but ig that makes wol!eren a bit of an asshat too)

when it comes to who wol!eren’s not close with... honestly, anyone that abuses their position of power for selfish and harmful reasons at the expense of people go on the hit list. but even then, if the character’s one of the main characters/shown often then it’s like... i’d have to think about it a little more. happens a lot

4. Does your insert have a backstory? Tell us about it! How does their backstory, if any, define who they are? How does it reflect their relationships now? Their hopes and dreams?

hmm much like my other s/is, wol!eren delves on their past often despite their preaching of looking forward. a hypocrite they are!! (/s) a lot of my self ships also delve on like. “same hat” so... honestly they’re just kinda going with the flow and walking wherever they feel is an easy path. they’re a pretty passive person despite the role they’ve been given.

5. Does your insert have any magical talents or otherwise special abilities? Are they passive, like the ability to befriend animals, or dangerous power that the villains want? Or if they're evil - any powers the heroes want to stop?

as per the narrative, they were chosen by hydaelyn and have the echo. however, they’re also extremely perceptive. they can typically tell whether someone has good intentions or not. the issue is that it’s always a feeling and they usually don’t have anything to prove their claims. as a result, they rarely say anything about it. it's not really a “power” but it can certainly be helpful.

6. Do they fight? What’s their weapon of choice? Do they stay on the sidelines? What would it take for them to get off the sidelines? Revenge? Saving a loved one? What’s the motivation for them to fight, or to stay OUT of a fight?

i plan on wol!eren being a summoner! or maybe not exactly a summoner, but something to do with magic being used offensively. they hate getting their hands dirty so they’ll just blow you up instead.

they mainly fight because it’s their duty/obligation to fight, but had they not been in the position they were, they’d have sooner leave combat and live off the grid. nobody really knows this because they never voice it -- it also wouldn’t be good for a warrior of light to say “yea i hate my job and i don’t really care about some of you”, you know?

(7/18) edit: with the help of my ffxiv mutuals, i’ve decided to make wol!eren a black mage :) it’s definitely fitting for their character.

7. What kind of clothing style do they like? What would they never be caught dead wearing? What’s likely in their closet right now?

REALLY DARK CLOTHING. if they show any skin when they don’t have to, they’ll Perish. i intend for them to wear the void ark clothing for magic users but much like everything else, that’s subject to change. clothing that’s aesthetically pleasing and easy on the eyes is good.

8. How do they fit into their canon world? What’s their role to play, if any? Do they have a big destiny? Or do they more live as a side character that’s helpful for the protagonists/antagonists?

literally the protagonist but very much desires to be a side character. because they like playing a supporting role more than the main role, they live in “anonymity.” kinda. it’s just hard when the group you’re apart of and gods?? know literally just about everything you’ve been doing.

9. Their favorite foods? Colors? Activities? What do they enjoy in life? How do they express their joy for things they like?

they will. eat just about anything they’re given, even if the food’s not super great (like a raccoon.....). they don’t really have any particular favorites and if they do, it’s likely to be meat or basic, easy-to-make dishes.

just anything that’s dark/muted. color colors (blues, purples, etc.) are their favorite.

they very much enjoy doing absolutely nothing, especially now that they’re so busy with working. if they’re free from work even if it’s just for a few seconds, you will find them sleeping. Lazy

if they like something, they’d never say it out right. extremely private and closed off person, so unless you’re really close with them, you’d never know if they truly liked something.

10. Their least favorites? What don’t they enjoy in life? How do they deal with being presented with things they don’t like?

literally just anything that inconveniences them. they want things to run smoothly so they don’t have to deal with anything they don’t have to. when something arises that stops them from fulfilling their duties, they’re get irritated. they also just, not the biggest fan of people and socializing.

11. How easy is it to make your insert angry? Sad? How easy is it to twist their emotions into negative things? By contrast, how easy are they to cheer up? What can brighten a bad day?

they’re easily prone to negative emotions, but it’s not “major/serious” since they’re mostly out of touch with their emotions anyhow. if it gets really bad, they kinda “shut down.”

one way to get under their skin is confront them about personal matters, but you can cheer them up if you have a good sense of humor! alphinaud’s helped with that, albeit unintentionally more often than not.

12. Is your insert a loner, or do they prefer crowds? Do they warm up easily, or do they tend to take longer to befriend others? What kinda people do they get along with? Who are they likely to be uncomfortable with?

i think i did mention earlier that wol!eren really doesn’t like crowds. it takes them a very long time to genuinely consider someone as a friend. sometimes they might not even acknowledge someone even if said person tries their hardest to befriend them. and there’s not really a type of person who they’re really “uncomfortable” with (spoilers they’re always uncomfortable with everything asjfhsd), but i guess if i had to answer, it’s just anybody with potentially harmful intentions?

they have. Trust Issues™, if you will.

13. What are your insert’s goals? Their hopes and dreams for the past/future/present! Do they intend to achieve no matter what? Could anything stop them, big or small?

in the past, they wanted to live a comfortable life as a recluse where they can do things without the eyes of others watching... and they still do, but now they’re too accustomed by the presence of people to truly achieve that. after their duties as a wol (if they’re ever completed honestly), they’d probably pull a cloud final fantasy and start a delivery service or something like that LOL

14. Does your insert have any family relations? How do they get along? How do they disagree? Is it a biological family? Adopted? Or is it found family? How did this family come together, if it was one of the last two?

sssomething like that? so far i’m thinking they come from a family of arooound 5. 2 siblings + parents. they have a younger sibling who’s a miqo bard mercenary and an older elezen (?) astrologian currently working somewhere in ishgard. debating on who their parents are but all of them were kinda... “picked up” and put into a family.

the “parental figures” were desperate to have a family but they had little knowledge of how to care for children. needless to say, the environment was not one to flourish in.

miqo brd is kinda like robin hood where he steals from the upper class to give to the poor because he refuses to allow people who’re in need suffer due to a lack of resources. on the other hand, the ast is the elezen who wants nothing but peace. the downside is that he’s very aggressive with his ideals and follows people like the archbishop, thordan.

edit (7/18): wol!eren wasn’t tied to their family biologically, but due to their questionable actions and words, they cut ties with their family and started traveling alone. it was extremely difficult but because they didn’t stay in confines of their own home, they were able to meet the scions and the not.

alphinaud and alisaie are like their siblings. they share a surprisingly a deep, unspoken familial bond with the three because of all the adventures they went on together. wol!eren’s been caught acting like an older sibling to the two.

15. Does your insert have any enemies? What’s that dynamic like? Why are they enemies? Did they ever get along in the past? Is patching up differences out of the question for the future?

much like the actual in-game wol, i’d imagine that anybody that wants to stop the wol in their tracks are considered “enemies.” i haven’t gotten that far into ffxiv to really name characters though,, tba.....

16. Free question space! Ask whatever you want to know!

if ur into ffxiv and u’ve gotten this far down... thank u :) and talk to me abt ur wols or ur ffxiv faves in my inbox maybe?? 👀

#eren chats #long post #<that is not a joke this got really long #info subject to CHANGE but i wanted to throw what i've been brainstorming here #i'm gonna go continue heavensward now #gonna start 3.1 :~)

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marxsgrandson · 5 years

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“You’re not Russian, you’re just American with some Russian blood”- my Israeli PS professor (who is neither Russian nor American nor knows anything about me)

Long post ahead: read it if you’d like but mostly just hoping there’s someone else who can relate to the feelings I’m about to express. So here goes:

Had an unbelievably shitty day today.

I’m in this one political science class. It always ends up somehow ruining my mood. It’s the one with the shitty German men who confronted me in a group after class accusing me of being uncritical towards the Soviet Union, being an antisemite (lol these aryan guys were calling me an antisemite. Like they’re confirmed non-Jewish) and being a dumbass for not idk sucking Gorbachev’s dick personally would be the next leap there. Idk if I posted that here, but it’s necessary context.

Anyways today we were talking about Russia’s motive in x place and just jumping around to every unrelated topic about something about Russia because our class always gets sidetracked and never finishes the lesson we were supposed to do. And of course the Europeans were being pieces of shit.

And the prof said something like “I wish we had Russians in the class to offer maybe a Russian perspective too... like gosh that would be nice. Do we have any Russians?” And I sort of tentatively raised my hand half way because I’m half Russian and when she was looking around the room and didn’t see me, I said “I’m half Russian and this is actually something I heard and talked a lot about growing up, I could take a try at it”

“You’re not Russian, you’re just American with a little Russian blood” she said, dismissing me entirely as the class laughed like it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. I now realize what it means when people say they feel stung. I was paralyzed by those words and I don’t really know why. What makes it hurt more is that starting two seconds later she called on a series of five German douchebags to try and explain Russia’s motives and says “huh that’s an interesting idea” after each of them say something painfully obviously wrong. And I felt frozen.

If given the chance to unfreeze myself, I wish I said what I was feeling but didn’t have words for: “Hey. That’s not true. Russian was the language I said my first words in. It’s the language of my childhood and my soul. It connected me to something I felt distant from during the school day. I taught myself to read this language as soon as my mom taught me the alphabet as a little kid. I went to Russian school on the weekends when I was young. I worked hard to keep up this language even though I went through shit from my peers for it. I was the only speaker of this language I knew that was my age after the age of 10. The only other time I’d hear it was when my mom criticized me, wanted to manipulate me (because I told her she sounded sweeter in Russian so she used that to her advantage in making my life hell) bc my brother stopped speaking at a young age.

The only reason I have this connection is because I’ve never worked harder for anything else in my life. I took years of Russian lit courses (in Russian) at the local uni when I was in high school. Until then I’d only done math and reading (just for fun not for school) in Russian. Having learning and sight disabilities and being expected to keep up with both college and high school class and workloads was overwhelming at times. Like I was 14, this wasn’t an “easy A” as my friends joked, it was a college level literature course. But I loved it like nothing else. It was an oasis of peace during my adolesence just getting to hear my dearest language spoken by both native speakers and those who adopted it just because of their love for it. It was the first time I realized that this aspect of me isn’t shameful. Plus, the college kids treated me like I was such a hotshot because I grew up speaking the language and I was like a tiny 14 year old in a russia Olympic jacket and a bowl cut so that made my life. Just getting to be around places where for once, I understood everything that was being said in the exact emotion it was intended, having my cultural touchstones be the norm and that I got to interact with instantly more people in this language was really special.

Maybe what pissed me off so much is not only that I think it’s wrong, but that I think she’s right. My experience is different from a Russian experience, which is why I never claimed to be Russian even when I was the most Russian person in that classroom. My experience of being Russian (Jewish) (Italian)American is as much a story of love and connection as it is of shame and disconnection. It is the story of pain feeling inadequate to everyone, always. When I was six, kids were already refusing to play with me because their parents told them I was a spy or an enemy (which wtf who parents their kid like that) just because I talked about visiting my family in the summer (which is a normal thing to do) and gd forbid they live in RUSSIA. The bullshit hasn’t stopped since. My entire childhood, my mom was vigilant about who I was allowed to tell about being Russian because of it. I thought Russian a really important language to people here. I thought they cared about us. I thought someone else who didn’t have to care about us, fucking cared about us Russian Jews. How can a fellow Jew, an academic, not understand the inherent pluralism of Jewish and Russian experiences when she’s lived in this country surrounded by Russian Jews her whole life?

And I get it. I’m not technically Russian. I don’t have a Russian passport. I didn’t grow up in Russia and that still means there’s always someone more qualified to answer certain questions. But I didn’t think it was going to be some goyische fucking German. Cuz at least I saw saturated with these types of discussions about Russian politics, not being allowed to voice my opinion bc these are Russian jewish middle aged and older people lol kids don’t have valid opinions to them, but listening intently since infancy. I watched Russian news and tv shows (we didn’t have money for both English and Russian language tv so my mom chose the Russian tv channels) on the rare occasion I sat in front of the tv. I hung around Russian speakers more than English speakers (of my parent’s age and older) for most of my childhood until this year. And it’s not just the language, it’s the culture too. It’s the fact that no one around me shared these cultural touchstones growing up. and I didn’t share their American ones even though I grew up in the US.

But trips to Russia didn’t make me feel understood in the ways I craved it would. My family always commented on how amazingly I spoke Russian «просто без акцента!» (without an accent) *insert kisses from relatives you don’t even know who they are but they know everything about you* so I was always kind of aware that I couldn’t seamlessly fit in there either. Especially when in my mom’s small town, children who played with me had literally never seen someone with my color of skin and told me I looked “dirty” which catalyzed my whole washing my hands till my arms got dry and peeled and being frightened that I wasn’t getting “cleaner” and then getting diagnosed with my second subset of OCD at the age of seven. I had so many fond memories of my mom’s hometown. So much nostalgia. But I also have memories which pain me, like the many times I was chased out of stores or once in a doctor’s office because the person assumed I was Roma because of my appearance (like I said, small town). Things got even worse when the school I went to summer camp/summer classes in my mom’s hometown found out I was JEWISH. Oof. My mom convinced me that I was betraying my culture and my ancestors and alienating myself from my grandmother when I came out to her at 11, when I cut my hair after three years of her daily verbal harassment in my mother tongue (she knew it hurts more like that). She said if I wanted to continue “on this path” I would lose all connection to Russia.... “and you don’t want that, do you?” Suffice it to say, I got the message pretty young that I don’t belong in Russia either.

My whole life I’ve been translating half of my world to the other half of my world. And within each of these worlds I must translate my contexts many fold times more. (My Babushka still doesn’t know why I’m putting “poison” in my body for what she sees as a character flaw because she just doesn’t have the context for what ADHD is and the way I was taught to translate it in Russian is «дефицит внимание» or “deficit of attention/carefulness” which as far as she’s concerned is just an American invention for what could really be solved if I just sat more still.) And this has made my world so much richer to be lucky enough to have two native languages in which I learned how to express myself and gave me two whole realms through which to intimately understand the world and all of its nuances. You gain a family when you speak a language. It’s unlike anything else! It was even more special that I got to add Arabic at 12 and now Hebrew. I’m so lucky. But an inherent downside of being taught world views that conflict with each other in some very fundamental ways is really hard when you’re autistic and have ADHD because you have to juggle not just one set of social cues and norms, but two (or more, shout out to the multilinguals from childhood). It’s hard but it’s important and I’m so lucky that this was my birthright. I just wish people would take two seconds to try and understand. Or at least think about if something they said might make someone else feel like this, especially if they’re jewish. Like to ya it’s not a new thing to be torn in many directions. Even here where it’s the dominant culture, I expected her as someone who lives here and is an academic, she’d be better.

#jewish #class #school #study abroad #russian #russian jewish #queer #trans #russian jew #jew #adhd #autism #diaspora tag

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ddaenggtan · 5 years

Note

jungkook

j | write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].

You didn’t pick and I’ve been sitting on this for a while sO y’all get to know how From Eden was supposed to end before I wussed out and decided Nah Romance Y’all! I’m putting it at the end, though, because this is long enough as it is!

u | share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

ryn i know u sent this and i hate you for making me pick anyone at all for anything sO YOU’RE RUDE, BLOCKED AND REPORTED, I’M MAKING YOU ONE OF THEM AND I HOPE IT GETS CHUMMY FOR YA

@fortunexkookie - ryn is easily one of my favorite writers, because everything they write is very real. like. each mc is relatable in their own way, they’re all very human and flawed and realistic, and i really love that. each of their iterations of the members are also very distinct, like their Falling Skies Jungkook is very different from their The Turing Test Jungkook, while still maintaining, I think, the things that make them them. Both Jungkooks are, at heart, very much like I imagine the real Jungkook to be, while still being distinct characters. If you dropped them both into a room, they’d have their own personalities and quirks and traits, but they’d still be JK. And the way Ryn does their world-building is simple and understated but it can’t be denied that it’s some of the most beautiful worldbuilding I’ve seen. And we’re not going to start on the prose part of their writing, because I will legitimately never stop talking about the way Ryn consistently puts in lines that just. Echo. In your brain. Like. It flows and it emotes and it’s perfect for the scenes, but then they just hit you with these specific parts that just stay in your heart for so long that they grow roots. I’m never not going to be in love with Ryn’s writing.

@junqkook - Yara is an ICON. Like. HOW she read something I wrote and thought it was good I still don’t know because I legitimately am floored every single time I read something by her. I’m pretty sure I’ve gone through her masterlist at least twice, and every single story is so unique and creative, even the ones that are inspired are published series, and I’m just. In awe. The characters she creates are always so varied and intriguing, and the worlds are so interesting and fascinating, and I am consistently envious of the way her work flows so smoothly and so naturally. It all has such a natural progression, the dialogue is genuine and real, and I’m just. I’m in awe. Literally in awe, I love it so much, and I can only hope that my shiny garbage can one day be like that.

@gukyi - i don’t think we’re actually mutuals, because I could only wish for someone like Guyi to know I exist, and the only reason I’m keeping the tag is bc she deserves all of the love and praise. If you want good fics, especially if you’re not one for the smut, then you really need to be following Guyi because the worlds she creates in her fics are absolutely astounding. Her entire HP au series is absolutely phenomenal and creative and stands out from every single hp au I’ve EVER read, which is rare because while they all tend to be good, they also all tend to be very similar because there’s only so much you can usually do in a hp au, and I haven’t read a single fic from her that I didn’t love. Victorious? Iconic, the worldbuilding she did to add onto HTTYD was phenomenal, and she blew the childhood friends to enemies to lovers trope out of the park. Her horror fics are some of the only ones I’ve read because they’re just that good. THE WEDDING PLANNERS? Truly iconic. I honestly WISH I could write like Guyi.

n - answered here

g | do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

I’m a dumb bitch, so I have to write my story from start to finish. I tend to ramble in my notes about various scenes I want to include, and maybe some random notes about the relationship or their personalities, but like.

o - answered here

k | what’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

That’s gOTTA be Forever Rain, like. I’m not usually an angst person, so I’m not super good at coming up with angst prompts, but Forever Rain is EASILY the most angsty thing I’ve ever come up with. I’m getting sad just writing it, like.

From Eden Alternate Ending

The aftermath of the fight with Demeter changes everything. Hoseok and Hades don’t see Yoongi before he gets dragged back to Olympus, which shouldn’t be possible in the first place, but Zeus has always tended to side with anyone who wasn’t the Queen of the Dead. No one is even sure Yoongi’s alright until Hermes comes down to tell them about Zeus’ decision, and Hoseok is pretty sure he’s never seen Hades angrier than that night. They haven’t spoken since, not really; he knows that she visits him when she thinks he’s asleep, knows that she runs her hands carefully through the air above his fractured wing even as she has to work to stitch her own body back together out of shadows and the memory of what hope felt like. The guilt shoves from her in waves, until it cloys in his throat and drowns out his own. Hades is focused on her own pain; how she should never have gone to Zeus, never have sought out what Yoongi was so afraid of, never trusted that Hoseok would be able to stay with him when Yoongi could convince anyone of anything. She doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t do anything but the work expected of her; the dead are piling up, slower than during Demeter’s rampage in the mortal world, but without Hoseok there to pass judgement, the Council is forced to, and they take far longer than he ever did, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do because he was hurt because of her.

Hoseok, meanwhile, is on bedrest, forced to spread his wings over several chairs so that they stay put, so the bones don’t break further and they set correctly. He’s a god - one of the oldest gods - but Demeter knew what she was doing when she twisted his wings beneath her and laughed as they cracked. In this story, Hades does not talk to him softly as he heals; she’s too afraid to see the accusation in his eyes, the blame that does not exist. She doesn’t tell him that she thinks its her fault, so he isn’t able to convince her otherwise. He doesn’t shed any tears with her in the darkness, she doesn’t hear his whispered confession that he blames himself because if he’d stayed...if he hadn’t flown off to try to protect his queen then maybe, just maybe, Yoongi would still be there. He’d still be safe. She doesn’t wipe his tears with her thumb, she doesn’t press a gentle kiss to his cheek after asking for his forgiveness, he doesn’t slide his lips across her knuckles and tell her there’s nothing to forgive. Instead there’s only Hoseok, stuck in a room and in pain, wondering if he’s condemned Yoongi to death because he couldn’t follow orders.

In this universe, Hades is too afraid to send warnings to Olympus about what might happen to the dead if Yoongi returns hurt or upset. She doesn’t want to meddle more, doesn’t want to cause more damage to the flower god that she loves so much, doesn’t want to watch him crumple like the blossoms around her pomegranate tree. Can’t bear to think about where the golden drops that decorate the ground there came from, but can’t bear to have it covered, either. It’s a reminder, of just what happens when she gets too close. Of what happens when she lets herself forget that she carries Death on her fingertips and Tragedy in her footprints.

In this universe, when Yoongi returns, he isn’t waiting in her room to tell her that he loves her and Hoseok. He doesn’t hold her, doesn’t show her how much he missed her in those months. In this universe he comes back quiet and solitary. He doesn’t visit Hoseok at the gates anymore. Yoongi can’t bear the reminder of the pain he caused. This time, Yoongi stays in his room. He visits the tree and his flowers, tends to them until the remnants of his blood are visible no more and the only reminder of that night is the taste of pomegranate on his tongue. He doesn’t visit Hades, doesn’t make jokes with Hoseok, and neither of them seek him out, too ashamed or guilty or grief-stricken to be faced with the hope he holds in his very skin. None of them can bear it, so none of them do.

Hades stops wandering the Meadow. She doesn’t visit the gates, either, ignores the whines of Cerberus when he misses her, refuses to pass anywhere near the courtyard where the tree sits, surrounded by a kaleidoscope of color that she’s grown to hate. The smell of pomegranate surrounds her, as it always has, but it turns her stomach now more than ever. She cries more often than before, and no one notices.

Hoseok doesn’t let the Council take over again. There’s a backlog of spirits, that’s the excuse he sticks to, and there’s too much work to be done. He pets Cerberus when the dog whines, letting all three heads lick wounds in him that no one can see, and he pretends that it’s okay. He doesn’t look at the flower crown hanging on the peg nearby, pretends it’s not there and that it’s as faded and withered as the ones behind it. His judgments become harsher, less forgiving than they were, and people stop asking for them. He stands with the dog at his back and the anger on his face and pretends like he’s healed. He doesn’t acknowledge that more broke that night than just his wing. Or that it never really healed.

Yoongi doesn’t speak. He’s silent and steady in the darkness, hands moving on instinct. He misses Cerb, misses the way he would cajole Hoseok into judging more souls, misses the way Hades would smile as she worked on the flowers. But he knows better, now. His mother spent six months reminding just what would happen if he ran again, what would happen if he let himself think he was safe again. He has nothing else to do so he thinks, about what he should’ve done. How he shouldn’t have convinced Hoseok to leave, how he shouldn’t have been in the Meadow, how he shouldn’t have asked about the pomegranates, how he shouldn’t have gotten attached when he knew she wouldn’t let him stay. How he shouldn’t have run. The pile of flower crowns beside him grows with every day, and they mock him with their refusal to wither. They stay, bright and full and hopeful, a light in the dark of his room that refuses to go out. When he leaves to go back to his mother, he doesn’t take them with him.

#answered #ask game #about bette #fic: from eden #ahahahahahaha pain #lots of pain #i hurt #a lot #probably i should turn this into its own little post so its easier for people to see but!#oh well!#this is sad #bUT LOVE THOSE AUTHORS OKAY SEND THEM ALL THE LOVE AND SUPPORT BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT #Anonymous #questions

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mojo562j · 5 years

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My Living Nightmare Caused by Liver Disease

My nightmare started overnight, sometime in the spring of 2013. After 4 straight days of binge drinking, I woke up and immediately noticed my stomach was swollen as an 8-month pregnant woman. I lifted my bed sheets and saw a mixture of blood and pus running down my thighs.

I immediately rushed to the restroom to clean up the mess. Then, I urinated. The color was rusty looking- a mixture of orange and dark brown. I looked in the mirror and noticed that the whites of my eyes and the color of my skin was yellow.

I panicked. I knew I had a major medical problem.

I immediately rushed to the ER. The nurse drew blood, then the technicians performed an MRI and an ultrasound. About an hour later, the doctor sat beside me and regretfully informed me that I had liver cirrhosis. I quickly said, “please doctor, tell me that I can still drink?” He replied “yes, but you won’t live longer than three months” I went into shock. I couldn’t imagine my life without alcohol. Next, he inserted a thin plastic tube into my abdomen and drained about 9 liters of fluid.

Liver cirrhosis is a relentless, nasty, barbaric painful disease with no mercy whatsoever! Compared to others with this disease, my case was more severe. When I arrived home from the ER, I had a massive sharp pain running down my lower back and upper thigh, similar to a sciatic nerve, except the pain was much more intense.

The decades of alcohol and drug abuse suddenly caught up with me.

The doctor that diagnosed me with liver cirrhosis told me that he strongly recommended that I take the next flight back to the US. He informed me that the Philippines is a developing country and doesn’t have medical technology as advanced as the US. He said if I stayed there, I’ll probably die.

So, I bought a ticket for the next flight to the US, then walked to the nearest bar. It was July 18th, 2013, my birthday. It would be the last time I ever drank. I sat alone. I needed to mourn. I was devoid of any emotion. I remember gazing at the people in the bar. Most of them were smiling and laughing. However, for some strange reason, I couldn’t hear them-they were on mute.

I knew this was going to be my last drink ever. I suddenly felt like I lost my closest loved one. I relived the first time I took a sip of beer, at the tender age of five-Budweiser in a can. I remembered all the times I got arrested as a teen (13 times), for alcohol related offenses. I reminisced getting hooked on heavy drugs because of alcohol. I recalled my head getting bashed in the middle of the street by five Blood gang members from South-Central L.A. because of alcohol. I remember attempting suicide because of alcohol. I recalled the countless problems associated with alcohol. And now I am dying because of alcohol. It was at this moment, that I realized I hit rock bottom. The game was over.

So, I stared at the empty beer bottle. I had to say good-bye to something that I desperately clung onto for the past 35 years. I love the taste of alcohol. Until this day, I crave alcohol. I would much rather lock myself in my room and drink a 12 pack then go on a world cruise. You see, alcohol was my best friend, a substitute for a girlfriend, a father whom I’ve always wanted and most important, an escape from reality.

I am 53 years old, single and no kids.

I knew once I stopped drinking, I would feel like I was on national television, naked for the world to see. I would be exposed. There would be nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. How would I adjust to living sober? What would I do every day?

When I returned to the US, my condition worsened. For the next three years, I suffered the following: nausea, vomiting, flu-like symptoms, anemia, insomnia, swollen feet, ankles and calves, Hepatitis C, type 2 diabetes, kidney failure, several infections, two hernias, gallstones, whole body itching, permanent loss of body hair, except scalp and facial hair, a constant metallic taste in my mouth, jaundice, sluggishness, bruises on my arms and legs, craters in my cheek bones and neck, nerve pain in my feet, excruciating abdominal pain, severe weight loss (went from 210 lbs. to 136 lbs.), swollen belly, diarrhea, anxiety, paranoia, massive hallucinations so intense that I fell into three comas, partial brain damage, muscle atrophy, severe leg cramps, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and sharp “stabbing-like” pains all over my body. I never imagined a dreadful disease with so many symptoms and so much pain!

Imagine having all of these symptoms for three years straight. Imagine having only one of these symptoms, such as the flu for 3 years straight. After a few months, I could no longer stand the pain. I wanted out. While in the hospital, three times I asked the doctors to put me under, permanently. They stared at me for a few seconds, turned around and walked away. There was nothing the doctors nor anyone else could do. If a liver is more than 75% damaged, it’s irreversible and irreparable. A liver transplant was my only option.

I recall never feeling warm. I was anemic. Even in the summer, I would wear a tee shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, 2 sweaters, and a jacket. No matter how many clothes I wore, I would still feel like my bones were in the freezer. The chill was relentless and wouldn’t go away.

There were many instances when I didn’t know my name, who I was, where I was, or what year it was. Every time I blacked out, the EMT always asked me what year it was and who is the current president of the US. I usually replied something like “1948. Bill Clinton.”

In late 2013, I had the scare of my life. My muscles were so weak, I couldn’t get out of bed for four days. I had no water during that time. I screamed for help, but to no avail. At the time, I was living alone in the Philippines. My parents hadn’t heard from me. They were worried and called the local Red Cross chapter in Long Beach, CA. A gentleman named Mike contacted the Manila, Philippine branch for assistance.

Suddenly, I heard my front door open. A doctor, nurse, a Red Cross volunteer and my landlord appeared at my bedside. I was briefly examined, then rushed to the ER. The doctor informed me that a human can go without water for about 6 days max. If it wasn’t for the Red Cross’s quick response in coordinating my rescue, I may not be alive today!

During my two-year waiting period for a new liver, the doctors refused to give me morphine. They gave me two reasons why: one, my liver was so scarred, they were afraid I may die since opiates damage the liver. Two, I was an addict. No need for further explanation. I was prescribed only small doses of Tylenol, which did nothing to alleviate my pain.

In December 2013, my kidneys started to fail. I was on dialysis to clean my blood 3x a week for about 18 months. I couldn’t urinate for about 15 months straight. My kidneys failed to extract urine from my body. All the fluids I drank remained in my abdomen. This condition is known as ascites.

Every 5–6 days my stomach would start to balloon. As a result, my abdominal organs would suffocate from the weight of the fluid. I suffered a constant shortness of breath. I would keep my mouth wide open, gasping for air until my jaws ached. I felt like a fish out of water. Worse, I would experience massive abdominal pain. It felt like an elephant stepped on my stomach and wouldn’t get off.

My most painful experience was after my liver and kidney transplant. My surgery took about 17 hours. I ended up with massive amounts of blood clots settling at the tip of my penis. The nurses had to remove them. Every 2 hours around the clock, for the next 14 days they used a motorized pump with a plastic tube the diameter of a drinking straw, shoved it inside my penis and sucked out the blood clots. The pain was excruciating and barbaric.

You have no idea how sensitive the inside of a penis is. Extracting the blood clots felt like ripping off a finger nail and repeatedly stabbing the top of the skin with a sharp knife!

When I was in the hospital, prior to my transplant, my step- father collapsed right in front of the nursing station from a heart attack. I think it was from all the stress. What better place to have a heart attack?

I felt so helpless. My mother is old and there are just the three of us. Shortly after I was diagnosed with cirrhosis, my step-father quit his job and didn’t work for four years, so he could help my mother take care of me. I was a handful. It took around the clock supervision to take care of me. I would constantly scream in the middle of the night from either scorching pain or hallucinations. Since my mother is old, my father didn’t want her to be my sole caregiver.

The scariest events were the hallucinations. These were worse than nightmares. Unlike a nightmare, you’re awake during a hallucination. In your mind, it is real- it doesn’t just feel real.

I suffered what is known as hepatic encephalopathy. This condition occurs when the liver loses its capacity to eliminate toxins from the bloodstream. As a result, massive amounts of toxins flowed through my brain. This causes mass confusion and ultimately hallucinations. At higher toxicity levels, coma and even death may occur.

The feeling is very similar to a bad PCP trip. Every time my toxin level would skyrocket, I had a horrendously bad trip. One older ER doctor told my mother he never seen a patient with such high levels of ammonia. He said that normal ammonia levels are 15–45. My level was 503!

Once when I was at the hospital, I thought the walls were infested with snakes. I could hear the constant hissing sound. I knew I had to get rid of them. I didn’t want them to swarm me. So, I grabbed my walker and strolled down to the cafeteria. Next, I went to the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife and began cutting out the hospital walls! Pieces of drywall were everywhere. People were staring at me as though I had lost my mind! Security rushed me, tackled me and I ended up in restraints- one of 17 times during a three-year period.

Another time, I believed my sitting nurse was an alien trying to kidnap me and take me to another planet. This guy was intimidating. He was about 6′3′’, 270 lbs. I saw a syringe filled with what I believed to be poison in his left hand. I could hear the drops of liquid splattering on the tile floor as he glared at me.

My “captive” had an identical twin brother standing about 5 feet to his left. His twin was also holding a poison-filled syringe. They somehow managed to communicate to each other not through words, but via thoughts! I was horrified. They both had a stern look on their face. They constantly glanced at each other, then glared back at me. I sensed they were discussing which one was going to put me under. It was so bizarre.

I screamed and kicked so violently, security and staff had to restrain me. Without fail, the next day I awoke, strapped down with a rubber ball in my mouth, not knowing what the hell happened.

There was, however, one comedic event while hallucinating. At home, I was in the restroom for a very long time. When I came out, my mother asked me who the heck I was talking to. I paused, then replied “Calvin.” She said “Calvin who?” I replied “Calvin Klein.”

When I was on the toilet, I was staring at my underwear, which were down to my ankles. The name Calvin Klein was embroidered at the top. Apparently, I thought my underwear was the famous designer in the flesh! So, I’m sitting there, having a one-way conversation with my underwear! Don’t ask me what “we” discussed. I have no idea.

Another time, I believed several of my male nurses were posing as DEA agents. They were trying to arrest me. The DEA suspected me of assisting the Columbians with developing strategic drug smuggling routes to the US. The nurses wouldn’t stop staring at me. So, I waited until one of them wasn’t looking, and snuck up behind him. I stripped off my hospital gown, wrapped it around his neck and proceeded to choke him. Someone called security. When they arrived, I threatened them that I would choke the “agent” to death if they approached me.

I felt like an absolute madman. I recall that my eyes widened, and my facial expression looked like Charles Manson when he was pissed off. I remember possessing this enormous amount of strength. I had no idea where it came from. I threw the nurse to the floor like a ragdoll. For some odd reason I remember being extremely angry and paranoid. My toxin levels were through the roof.

Security kept their distance. I recall the presence of doctors, nurses and hospital staff in the background. The doctors were calm, but a couple of the nurses were hysterical. Security was ranting on their walkie talkies. About 5–6 minutes later, a handful of cops stormed through the hospital doors and surrounded me with their weapons pointed at me.

I kept hearing a doctor telling the police not to shoot-that I was hallucinating. A few minutes later, a nurse that took care of me and whom I was closest to started talking to me in a very calm manner. She kept telling me to relax, that everything was going to be ok. She kept telling me that I was under an enormous amount of stress and that I’m just having a bad day.

She kept asking me to slowly loosen my grip and relax. She then told me that my doctors will take care of me-that everything will be ok. At first, I thought she was part of the conspiracy. I was suspicious. However, I kept recalling how she always cared for me. I recalled the numerous times when she went beyond her duties as a nurse and was always there for me in my time of duress. She felt like a second mother.

About 20 minutes later my hallucination started to wear off. Since I trusted my nurse, I loosened my grip on the nurse that I had a stranglehold on. Next, the cops told the nurse to slowly stand and walk away. After that, the police started barking instructions at me. They told me to drop to my knees with my back facing them. Next, they told me to keep my arms raised high in the air. I complied. After that, they slowly approached me and told me to put my hands behind my back. Then, they proceeded to handcuff me.

A nurse arrived with a gurney. A couple of nurses lifted me on the gurney. The police immediately handcuffed both my wrists to the side bars. They wheeled me to the ER. A moment later a nurse injected me with a sedative. I immediately felt very relaxed and drowsy. Once again, I woke up the next day strapped to my bed wondering what the hell happened.

My ammonia levels were so high that I fell into a coma three times. The longest period was 23 days. About the 20th day, my doctors advised my parents to “get things in order.” They didn’t think I would make it. They feared my toxin levels were so high that if I awoke from the coma, I would be a vegetable. So, the hospital called hospice and they spoke with my parents about my living arrangements for my final days.

My mother fumed and told both hospice and my doctors that no matter what, she was not giving up. A while back, I told my mother if I was ever in a situation where I couldn’t make a life or death decision on my own, I didn’t want the doctors to pull the plug-no matter how much pain I was in.

When I awoke from my 23-day coma, I had no idea where I was. I felt as though I was a million miles from earth. Everything was extremely peaceful. I asked my sitting nurse where I was. He informed me I was in the hospital. I had no idea what a hospital was.

After I awoke, I was immediately bumped up the transplant list from #247 to #2. My failed kidneys were a blessing in disguise. My doctor told me that since both organs were failing, I had a much higher chance of dying. As a result, I was moved up the list very fast.

A couple weeks later, I was elevated to #1 on the transplant list. My nurse informed me that any day I should be expecting new organs. Cool. I asked her “how are the organs delivered?” She told me via helicopter. She said there’s a landing pad on the top of the hospital. I recall I would get excited every time I heard a loud noise outside.

Approximately 10 days later, my nurse rushed in my room and cheerfully informed me that the organs are on their way. She told me the doctor will call me soon to discuss the details. I found it odd that a physician would call me on the phone.

About 20 minutes later, the doctor called. He told me that he was at blah blah prison. He said a 41-year-old male just committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell. He informed me the prisoner was an organ donor. The doctor told me that the prison officials gave he and a couple of other physicians with him only 15 minutes to visually inspect the organs. The doctor told me the organs appeared to be fine. He asked me if I wanted them. Since I was very confused at the time, I replied “what would you do if you were in my shoes?” He paused and said, “I would take them.” So, I did.

Later, the doctors told me they had a difficult time deciding whom shall receive the organs. It was between me and the patient next door. They informed me they select the beneficiary that has the greatest probability of surviving the operation. I was told I had about a 50% chance of surviving the surgery. That was higher than the other patient. My doctor said the other patient was weaker than me, hence the reason they chose me.

Prior to my transplant, the strangest thing happened. Thoughts continuously flooded my mind, at least 500 times during a two-year period. They kept telling me to share my story at AA, NA and high schools. Never in my life had I experienced recurring thoughts with no apparent ending. What am I supposed to make of this?

I spent hundreds of hours thinking about this and the only conclusion I could make is that God put these thoughts in my head. What other logical reason could it be? So, I made a covenant with God. I begged Him if He let me live, I would spend the rest of my life helping other addicts get clean.

On August 5, 2015, at 11:00 am, I had a liver and kidney transplant. I must admit, aside from the hallucinations, it was the scariest event I’ve ever endured. I never felt so alone in my life. I never forgot what I was up against: heads I survive, tails I die. My destiny was completely out of my hands. At this point, there was nothing my family, the priest or the doctors could say or do to guarantee me that I would survive.

Well, the surgery was a success. It took 17 hours. I had no complications, except massive chronic back pain that shoots through my body whenever I move.

After the transplant, I often wondered how I lived. Why did I get so lucky? Was God looking over me all this time? Was it His plan? What did I ever do for Him to deserve this? For some strange reason, I feel that I am destined to live. Maybe He’s telling me that it’s just not my time to go. I don’t know. Even three years later, tears stream down my face for no apparent reason. Like now. I’m not quite sure if they are tears of happiness, sadness or the trauma I suffered. Perhaps, it’s a mixture of all three.

On July 18, 2018, I accomplished something I never ever imagined- I celebrated five years of sobriety from alcohol. It’s been an incredibly difficult journey. The old Joe always succumbed to temptation. But I’m not the same person anymore. I’ll be damned if I’ll go through another living nightmare again.

I’ve been in bed for the past eight years. It’s so frustrating because there is nothing I could do about it. My inactivity has caused my muscle atrophy to return. My legs are like jelly again. Also, my lower back scorches with pain whenever I move. As a result, I have to sleep sitting up. The pain is so severe, I’m in bed an average of 23 and a half hours a day. The only time I get out of bed is to visit the doctor. I tried walking a few times, but my knees buckled, and I fell each time.

I’ve seen three doctors so far. They did x-rays, MRI’s, and CAT scans but can’t find the source of my back pain. My insurance company won’t allow me to see a back-pain specialist or get physical therapy because I already seen three physicians. With your help, I plan to see a specialist and get physical therapy soon. Also, not only will I be able to walk again, but you’ll indirectly save other drug addicts’ lives. I know by sharing my story with addicts and high school kids, some of them will be able to realize the extreme psychological and physical trauma that alcohol and drug can cause and turn their lives around.

I always wondered what’s the purpose of life. I spent many years trying to figure it out. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know what mine is.

My Living Nightmare with Liver Disease. Liver cirrhosis is a relentless, barbaric, non-stop, excruciating painful disease with no mercy whatsoever! Witness the real horror as it unfolds prior to my liver and kidney transplant. Please help me walk again by donating now-even if it’s only $5, it would help me tremendously! www.gofundme.com/dreaming-to-walk-again

Please share my story with friends and family so that I may walk again. Thank you so much!

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keyakikun · 6 years

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Akimoto Yasushi's Point Of View QJ Vol. 135 (December 2017)

It is my job to turn the energy the girls bring into words

Overall producer of Keyakizaka46 who creates all the lyric, Akimoto Yasushi. Though in the last year interview said, 'The first impression from all of the members was quiet. So I feel like to give them a song like 「Silent Majority」', but just in one year, his impression of them has changed greatly. The girls' existence is even more exciting than before.

Q: In the last feature We talked after the first performance in NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen has been decided and Futari Sezon is just released. After about one year supporting them, what Akimoto-san, as a Total Producer, understand deeply about the charm of Keyakizaka46?

Aki-P: Keyakizaka is different from the other group, and Keyakizaka is not the group that moves forward while keep worrying, I think. Of course AKB48 and Nogizaka46 also worry and lost along their own way, but AKB48 with their sports day sweat and tears struggle and walk along, also Nogizaka 46 with their girly and gentle teamwork. Meanwhile Keyakizaka is more tattered. Those individuality of 'tattered up' just always like a diffused reflection, becoming a group. Usually after some time passed, the group's color will become one, but it's not easy. In a word, too pure to mix. They respect each other.....so there are no sense of cooperativeness. But, that fresh side is its charm, I think.

Q:initially of course people's eyes went to the center Hirate-san, but i think people will gradually understand other members that could bring their personality.

Aki-P : To produce is, impossible to give direct value 0 or 1. Because just how far they could expand, due to they are a mysterious kids that we couldn't tell, it is interesting.

Q: How can you grasp the members view and personality?

Aki-P : Sometime I play shiritori directly with the members via LINE, sometime I also talk directly with them on location, I also listen to the reports from the managers,「Now they are being instructed like this, now they are worrying things like this」. things that was being told to me when i was in Junior High School, there must be some of them that overlapped, and there are also ones that are not. The difference between man and woman also exists, of course there is also the generation gap. Things that couldn't be understood, interesting. Keyakizaka46 lyrics are, the way I look at them, more like an observation diary.

「a close uncle」 but also 「an interpreter」

Q: In April this year the 4th single 「Fukyuwaon」 was released, and the emphasized lyric was 「I refuse to say yes」「I'll keep resisting to the bitter end」 is this choice of words also the result of watching over the members?

Aki-P : 「Fukyuwaon」, 「Silent Majority」, and also 「Otona wa Shinjitekurenai」 are the same, the emotions of Keyakizaka46. Those girls, also have distrust in adults. I think Adult world, and our (members) world, there has to be clear division. I have to directly teach the girls about how adults are, I have to manage about Sony Music, I tell them (Sony Music) to be an adult for the time being. For example, it is often heard 「I wanna change my hairstyle, I wanna dye my hair but I was told no by Sony Music Records」. I often receive that kind of consultation message via LINE from members. In reverse to that, I reply 「shouldn't that be okay?」. The meaning is I also an「adult」but, how do I say it,「an uncle」that is probably close to them. that pamper his grandchildren like「is that so? really?」.

Q: I get it (laughing)

Aki-P : Perhaps in the adults of Sony Music also think, for an idol to must have a long black hair, is a weird rule. But those girls wanted to live like what they want, because they think like 「boku wa iya da」(lyric spoken in Fukyuwaon), things like confrontation and times of discord also happened. Because of that image, the song 「fukyuwaon」 was born. Of course as you see it, due to when writing it the life sized worldview is finished, it feels like a deformed, a caricature or something, but because the starting point was something that is inside the girls, the completed lyric isn't wrong.

Q: while continue listening this conversation, Akimoto-san isn't an adult that is 'above' the members, but the one 'floating between' instead.

Aki-P : Inside of me there's no idea like 「this group has this kind of color, so this way of doing things is not good」 at all. As for the members, other than things you should never do as a person, I think it's okay to do things freely. But considering the people that directly manage Keyakizaka, instruction and guidance has to be done. That's why the clashing image of Keyakizaka vs adults is able to be born. Each thoughts spoken by the others are often happened. I also wrote some of the lyrics with「this is how the girls are speaking their opinion」style, conversely thing like saying「this is what the adults are trying to say」to the girls in LINE also happened. My job as producer of this group is, to stand and to interpret between members and adults, there's a feeling like that. maybe, Keyakizaka46 is operated by the members themselves. Somehow just like an executive committee of the school festival.

Q: Specifically, is it about live stage?

Aki-P : Speaking about live, right now we're thinking about the part of setlist and performance which are centered around Hirate, could also be said as think about different sides. In short, we're being told by Sony Music「Please don't do this」, not only accepting. The decision about go or no go of a school festival are still comes from adults, but the awareness of「in fact that the one that producing the school festival is us」is strong. That's what made it interesting.

A farewell is, a rebirth.

Q: July this year Keyakizaka's 1st album was released, then held all 6 area tour. What's the image that was to look out in the production of this album?

Aki-P : Keyakizaka46's live is really pretty right? Songs in「Masshiro Album」has to be well written because it's a necessity to have new songs for the live. Because there isn't much song that as exciting and uptempo as「Abunakkashi Keikaku」so far.

Q: How about solo song? like line that was written by Hirate-san「Jibun no Hitsugi, youi shiyou/watashi no owari, kiete shimaou (I'm making preparations, for my own coffin/In my end, I will disappear)」I think its an extreme un-idol-like song.

Aki-P : Hirate often said 「I want to vanish from this place.」 Because she's a pure kid she might be tired from human relations, perhaps because of the pressure of always being the center, or maybe it's a girl narcissism. Anyway because I always look over her, I think that everyday we're saying farewell to our past self. Everyday this kid learns about what despair is, what does it feel to have hope, what does she know, and what she threw away. That's what「changing perspective」is, just like skin that is regrow every time, ourselves also reborn as new everyday. 'saying farewell' is of course like being reborn, maybe that girl wants to deliver a message like that. But that's not only limited to Hirate, it could also be words that is directed onto another members or young kids out there.

Q: The feel of songs by Kanji Keyaki and Hiragana Keyaki are different, is it because they have different feel as a group too?

Aki-P : Because Hiragana Keyaki is more like a little sister, I think it's clear. because they can see from a close distance that the older sisters are really worried and troubled, they are slowly putting distance. That's why comparatively to Kanji, there's a lot hiragana's song which had the indifferent feel. But, after arriving later than their older sisters, Hiragana Keyaki also have the feeling that they have to overtake Kanji Keyaki. Whatever new challenges arise,「Soredemo Aruiteru (we'll still walk through)」, that's why i created that song.

Q: In October 2017 the 5th single,「Kaze ni Fukaretemo」was released, and the first words are「That's the way!」, which is really a contrast with「Fukyuwaon」and had a lighter lyric and tone, what's the reason behind it?

Aki-P : When making single, I will gather my musical reference. Roughly, among countless numbers of song candidate, some are selected then the arrangement for those selection will be decided.「Kaze ni Fukaretemo」was selected in an early phase, then I thought let's go with this, I already thought about the image like「(the costume is) pants and necktie」. Then I entrust it to TAKAHIRO and friends, and the perfect whole perspective also inserted into the shooting of music video. In the first day, the lyric was totally different with the final version. no matter how many timesI listen to the temporary lyric it just felt wrong, Then I rewrote it all over again. The next day it caused an uproar among members and staffs.

Q: About the past lyric (of Kazefu), it's closer to「Fukyuwaon」?

Aki-P : I don't really remember, but probably closer to a love song. from that point「Kaze ga fukumama ni motto jiyuu ni ikiyou (as the wind keeps blowing let's live more freely)」was wrote, and then start shifting (to the current lyric). that decision could only be said as a creator's intuition. As for the timing of the single after「Fukyuwaon」, keeping in mind that the girls have walked such long journey, (I thought) now they might want to sing a song like this.

Q: Does this mean like you can let loose one hand (take it easy) maybe it could affect something in a long term?

Aki-P : Logically if you use your head, it's just possible to be predicted. The most important is, how we can take it completely. For example, we are making a temporary single for the next summer, at first I cannot make it good. Furthermore Keyakizaka46 is especially moving unpredictably. I'm also excited to see how those girls will continue to move from now on, I want to interpret the good things that was born from the journey of those girls. translating the energy that those girls brought, that's my role in this group, I think that's the most important job as a producer.

#keyakizaka46 #keyaki #Akimoto Yasushi #欅坂46 #けやき坂46 #QJ #interview

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natureswraith · 2 years

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* 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻

repost, don’t reblog !

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME. Convict Ashen

TITLE. Gods Blade

NICKNAME. Often referred to as ‘Concon’ by people he won’t admit he’s close to. He also uses the name ‘Slade Ashen’ instead of ‘Convict’ as a CEO and on business paper, but he doesn’t consider it his actual name.

PRONOUNS. He/him

HEIGHT. 5′6

AGE. 19

ZODIAC. Aries

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. English, Any form of ‘animal’, Spanish, Mandarin, French, Russian, a number of sign languages. He goes out of his way to learn a bunch, it’s useful to know more!

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR. White

EYE COLOR. Red

SKIN TONE. Light

BODY TYPE. Heavyweight and muscular, but there’s an amount of fat on his body, so some of his build is the ‘soft squishy’ type of muscles, rather than the ‘cut’ kind.

VOICE. Loud, deep his words are pretty clear if you can understand his poetic jargon.

DOMINANT HAND. He’s dominant in both hands.

SCARS. Oh boy. He has a lot. Dots along the inner and outside of both arms and legs from tubes being inserted into his body, top surgery scars, a cut above his right pectoral, bulging vein-like scars on his wrists and ankles, a line over his spine due to experimentation, the biggest known one is an ‘x’ scar between his eyes that seems to have grown in with a different texture skin. He has a visual ref for this all here.

TATTOOS. None.

BIRTHMARKS. None. He has a tiny, nearly useless tail but that grew in when he was a toddler.

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). The ‘X’ scar on his face, his canines can be pretty prominent.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH. A country known as Metros.

HOMETOWN. A city known as Cradles Point.

SIBLINGS. Four that he’s not currently aware of. He doesn’t know he’s related to anyone.

PARENTS. None that hes aware of biologically. He had a ‘father’ figure named Rance Ashen who’s now deceased. He won’t admit it but his main maid, Miss Crimm acts like a mother figure to him.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION. Yet to get a job in Spirale. Works as a mercenary, and company CEO back in his own world.

CURRENT RESIDENCE. Condo 405

CLOSE FRIENDS. None yet

RELATIONSHIP STATUS. Single.

FINANCIAL STATUS. A lot less than he’s ever had before.

DRIVER’S LICENSE. None.

CRIMINAL RECORD. None. Yet.

VICES. The biggest is his continuous habit of trying to push people away, he can get extremely hostile and aggressive at times. He justifies his rude or harmful behaviors on his ‘purpose’ as a weapon, claiming that weapons arent built to be polite. Or that he wasnt built to be a person. He could also get help for some of his ‘burdens’, such as digestive pains, or sleeping issues, but refuses to both because he believes he doesn’t deserve it, as a ‘punishment’ for being what he is, and as something he needs to carry. He refuses most acts of kindness towards himself, claiming its not meant for him. He also just doesnt treat himself well.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Homosexual.

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch (id rather not do smut with him)

LIBIDO. Low- libido, though he has sexual urges, Convict also has some sexual repulsion.

LOVE LANGUAGE. LOTS OF GIFTS. He will lavish his lover with entire speeches of purple prose and go above and beyond with gifts to ensure they know they’re special. He also enjoys spending time with them- privately. Currently, he thinks he’s unable to be loved properly. And thinks allowing himself to fall in love would only damage his potential partner, he thinks he’s incapable of being loved and cared for, or that if he allowed it, he’d lead someone to ruin.

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. He does think of people as attractive, but he’s more attracted to personality. He’ll quickly fluster to kind, sweet people, even if he thinks he’s undeserving of love. He’s not great at giving affection in a relationship. Someone else has to be the first to initiate things such as dates, kisses, or any physical affection.

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. Blood // water by grandson

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. Weaponcrafting, science things, working out. He doesn’t have much. He dedicates his life to his purpose and nothing more.

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Definitely more left brained, but he’s more creative than anyone will give him credit for.

FEARS. Losing control. Losing his purpose.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. Convicts extremely confident about a number of things.

#meme friday #yoinked from heclingmuzik !))#It looked fun ))

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dimmingnova · 6 years

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Soulmate AU idea: Paint and Canvas.

I NEED SOMEONE ELSES THOUGHTS, please?! I wanted to mesh together several different soulmate ideas and came up with the Paint and Canvas AU. I wanted it to be fluffy as hell but it has the potenial to be dark, too. I just needed a break from a main book I am writing right now and thought I could wright a short story on this. I want to know what y'all think; should I change, add, or take away something? Or let me know if someone else had come up with this idea! I would love to look at their version!

Paint and Canvas deals with the following S/M ideas:

Red String of Fate: as expected, a red string connects two people that are fated to have big impacts on their lives. It can be platonic, romantic, or between protagonist and antagonist. A pair (or more) that share a Red String are considered Fated Ones or Fated Pair. The following S/M ideas play with the RSOF more than the String being what it actully is.

Emotions and Eyesight: There were tons of ideas based off of emotions being felt or the eyesight. I have chosen the color of emotions mixed with eyesight changes based off the emotions. There are 3 catagoroes of people: The Grey, The Paint, and the Canvas. The Grey deals with those whose soulmates have died; there are the cases of one soulmate becoming blind and the other becoming a Grey as a result. A Grey is a person who sees only in greys, black, and white. In contrast, we have the Paint that sees in normal, everyday colors. The Paint can see the String when within a mile of their Fated One. Finally, we have the Canvas that sees only in the color of the emotion that is strongest within the Paint. This strong emotion is like wearing tinted goggles so that eyesight is not a monotone plane of color. The Canvas can only see the String if the Paint is physically touching them anywhere on their skin. This is due to the Canvas not being able to make up the color of the String by themselves. One knows if they become a Grey because they do not have the tinted color. Here is where the angst can happen: a Paint having such a horrible life that they only project black towards a Canvas so the Canvas believes their Fated One has died. Then there is the fluff/humor: A Canvas seeing mostly in different shades of pinks during key times such as mornings, afternoons, and bedtimes as if the Paint was saying "good morning", "welcome home", and "goodnight." These colored emotions can be projected no matter how far apart they are.

Physical Color Changes: I liked the concepts that dealt with color changes on a person's self. They had a whole bunch of S/M ideas (from hair to skin to nails to even blood color changes) but I went with the eyes again. The whole 'eyes-are-the-portal-to-the-soul' cliche. I made it where the color of emotion that is projected onto the Canvas is the color of their eyes. A Paint would have the same color eyes as the Canvas because that emotion is the one that is "coloring the canvas" or "on the paintbrush" at the time. There are cases of heterochromia eyes when a Paint is feeling two strong emotions at the same time, and also a crazy phenomenon where a rainbow of color could happen during times of stress that is either caused by good or bad emotions. As expected, a Grey will only have black, grey, or white eyes. The Grey's eye color comes from within so whichever emotion they are feeling the most at the time will decide their eye color. The general white is 'good' and black is 'bad' applies here. When a Grey is conflicted or too many emotions spills through, their eyes become a shade of grey. Depending on the most likely used color out of black and white, the grey will lean towards that color when a barrage of emotions happen at once. If it was not clear: If a Grey is generally a happy person then when they feel a large dosage of emotions their eyes will change from white to a light grey. This barrage of emotions- again- can be good or bad. If the same Grey as the example experienced the birth of their child they might be overwhelmed with emotion and their eye color turns light grey. It would still turn into light grey if the same Grey test-dummy would see their partner die while giving birth. (Is this too specific? Should I not be limiting the grey hues as much?)

Taking/Receiving Emotions: This is going back to the String and will play a large part in the world building part. The String is a one way circuit. A Paint can not take emotion away from a Canvas nor can a Canvas give emotion to a Paint. That being said, a Paint can not give emotions to a Canvas. They can only send tinted colors over. A Canvas, on the other hand, will be able to do three things with a Paints emotions: take, feel, or feed. Taking an emotion makes that emotion the Canvas' own. It makes the Paint not feel that emotion until the Canvas decide to give it back. A Canvas can only take emotions if they are touching their Fated One. As a Canvas nears their Paint within the mile radius, they will start to feel the emotion that is tinting their vision. The closer they are the stronger the signal between them. Feeding is much like taking an emotion only that the Canvas is not taking the emotion away completely. The Fated Pair(or OT-insert-number-here) feel the same emotion at the same time, and the Paint controls what emotion is being felt. This feeding can only happen when the Paint is touching the skin of the Canvas, allowing the Canvas to see and touch the String. The major difference between taking and feeding is that taking is done completely by force while feeding is done with consent. The consent can be emotionally, verbally, or mentally given. Being forced does not hurt the Paint but a feeling of 'wrongness' might overtake them. Paints would not like being forced because of the idea of never feeling that emotion again until the Canvas gave it back. A Canvas can only give an emotion back if they are holding the String and are feeling that emotion the strongest. A paint risks losing the emotion if the Canvas refuses to grab the String again or if the Canvas has an emotion that outranks the stolen emotion. If you want to skip the example go to the bolded italic words with ashtrics, but if it was not clear, continue on. As the example progresses, if you are not sure of what is being expressed then read what is in (brackets) to get a better understanding (examples within examples...huh i could do this better but eehhh) Example time: Think of an actual canvas, an artist acting as the String, and the color as the paint/emotion. Now, an artist brushes their paintbrush over the canvas but accidentally applied too much paint because the canvas was rougher than what they are use to. (Canvas taking emotions when the Paint did not consent.) Trying to fix the problem, the artist can either panic or think rationally. If they panic, they might try to paint over the mistake with another color and this causes the canvas to smear over, losing the original color until they can calm down enough to carefully fix the problem. (This relates to how a Canvas might have panic over taking an emotion from the Paint which makes the String hard to work with.) If the painter remains calm, they can use their brush to mop up the extra color before it cools or changes and return it to the paint bucket//them circle things (I call it a damn bucket because I'm am uncouth swine). (Here, the artist is a symbol of the level of connection between the Canvas and the Paint. If the connection(string) is not shocked by emotions then the transfer back would happen whenever the Canvas gives it back .) ******Okay, end of the example.******* There are some problems with the concept, though. I don't know if I should make it where the level of emotion stolen will return at the same level or as a weaker version. If at the same level, I would make it were the Canvas needs to feel it at the same level that they received it to be able to give it back. If at a weaker/stronger level then the Canvas can feel the emotion, send it over as however powerful the Canvas is feeling it, and the Painter would lose that ability to feel that emotion at the level that it was stolen. Short Example: If the Canvas takes a high level of panic but returns it at a low level then the Paint can not feel panic higher than that low level. They may feel lower than the low level.

Okay I don't have time right now to go into the whole world building such as the way people view each type, how Paint and Canvas react to one another, or if there are laws in place for certain aspects of the Fated Ones. I want to go more into these points but at a later date. Please, everyone! Help me by giving me your opinions and feedback. Drop some ideas in or give me constructive criticism. Please no bashing! I tried hard on this and thought some of you might like it! I will be posting links later to where I got my ideas incase anyone wanted to look into any of the other S/M AUs I listed.

Thanks for reading!

#soulmate #au #alternate universe #ideas #the red string of fate #canvas and paint #writing idea #writing prompt #beta reader needed #or someone to give feedback #mixing soulmate writing ideas #dimming nova #soulmate writing prompt #these tags need to be more but i can only come up with yhese #thanks for reading #i tried to correct any mispellings bc i suck at that crap thats u i type mostly on word documents. ehhh

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johnnywoub806 · 3 years

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What You Want To Know Before Acquiring A Hand Stabbed Tattoo

Contrary to well-liked perception, there may be much more to tattoos than simply aesthetics. Tattoos maintain religious or metaphorical meanings for the bearer or are just a token for them to remember someone by. With that said, listed here are some causes you should get a hand tattoo. Because hands provide a wide and flat area for tattoos, disrupting the shape will make your ink pop. This design cascades down the middle of the hand in easy shapes to play up that contrast.

Connecticut-based board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara recommends sticking to fragrance-free merchandise to avoid additional irritation to a therapeutic tattoo, as do Palm and Mor.

Among age teams, 9% of those ages 18–24, 32% of those 25–29, 25% of those 30–39 and 12% of those 40–49 have tattoos, as do 8% of those 50–64.

The closer you get to the only of your foot, the more the strains will unfold.

They are not too massive of a commitment as far as tattoos go.

The Japanese word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and may imply tattoos using tebori, the standard Japanese hand technique, a Western-style machine or any methodology of tattooing utilizing insertion of ink.

Men are slightly more likely to have a tattoo than women.

The common tattoo takes round three weeks to heal correctly. This leaves loads of probabilities for things to go awry with how usually hands and fingers are put to use. Outer parts corresponding to exposure to daylight and water pose vital challenges to the healing process. A massive variety of tattoo shops and artists outright refuse to go near palms for a lot of causes. While some cite the stigma associated with tattoos in seen areas , others point out biology as an argument. Nowadays, the main focus of the public eye on these in style tattoos lives on via social media.

Dots Or Pointillism Tattoo

Note that the far jap finish of the seaside has a status for being a go-to spot for nude sunbathers. There’s additionally a waterfall towards the east finish of the seaside and at the west finish, there are a few lagoons that form natural calm swimming holes. The sturdy ocean present right here makes it difficult to swim at Secret Beach most of the time, so stick to those lagoons for swimming and luxuriate in simply stress-free on probably the greatest seashores in the united states For most people, Hawaii immediately comes to mind after they think of the best seashores in the united states Kauai’s Secret Beach, which is officially named Kauapea Beach and often referred to as simply “Secrets,” is the epitome of a pristine Hawaiian seashore. It’s exceptionally massive by means of each size and width and options golden sand, shimmering turquoise water, and plush green rainforests.

Let me know what you think about this article and do you want the knowledge shared by me, what type of tattoos designs are you going to attempt by commenting down. If there's any mistake or any sort of feedback related to this article then remark beneath. Small cute tattoo design — If you are a small cat tattoo lover and your bond with your cat is very robust then this is one of the best tattoo design for you. Beautiful tattoos — Like its name, that is very stunning due to the place of the tattoo. It is a really stunning tattoos for women with meaning. In this strategy of tattooing, your pores and skin is pierced 3000 times per minute.

Many of people who observe his teachings choose this design. And if it’s paired with Om, which is a symbol of the ultimate actuality, then there’s always an enormous reason that you simply decide this design. Roses symbolize love and devotion, and if you’re hopelessly romantic, this design suits you. It’s accentuated with a tribal design that makes it really cool. Flowers come in quite so much of colors, but even when it’s all black, it nonetheless means love.

What does tattoo pain feel like?

Some people describe the pain as a pricking sensation. Others say it feels like bee stings or being scratched. A thin needle is piercing your skin, so you can expect at least a little pricking sensation. As the needle moves closer to the bone, it may feel like a painful vibration.

Tattooing also can lead to keloids — raised areas attributable to an overgrowth of scar tissue. Along with the name tattoos, JT and Lil Uzi Vert are actually enjoying this period of romantic bliss. Last week, JT shared a picture from their photoshoot with Arena HOMME+ on Instagram where she mirrored on her future children with Uzi. That similar photoshoot ended up getting used for the May cowl story of the newest journal from Arena HOMME+.

Idle Hand Tattoo

Hands are among the most popular spots for these illustrations as a result of they are showy. Interested teams and individuals go for types and objects that best illustrate their relationships. Chains around the coronary heart image could suggest the wearer has been heartbroken earlier than and is now more careful. This can be tweaked into a extra female look by means of brilliant colours.

Does the Bible say no tattoos?

The verse in the Bible that most Christians make reference to is Leviticus 19:28, which says,”You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.” So, why is this verse in the Bible?

When it comes to caring for a hand poked tattoo, Thorn suggested daily washing and moisturizing. "The aftercare of a hand poked tattoo is a dream, especially if it’s principally outlined," she said. An artist sprays on airbrush tattoos using a stencil with alcohol-based beauty inks. Like decal tattoos, airbrush momentary tattoos are also simply removed with rubbing alcohol or child oil.

If the needles hit the bones or the nerve ends, then it is going to harm. While if they are light and mild, the pain shall be much less. How you are going to tolerate that pain is dependent upon your pain threshold.

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lovethisskin · 6 years

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In Conversation: Destiny Birdsong

We are beyond excited and honoured to start 2018 talking to acclaimed American poet, essayist and editor; Destiny Birdsong. Destiny has won the Academy of American Poets Prize, Naugatuck River Review’s 2016 Poetry Contest, and Meridian’s 2017 “Borders” Contest in Poetry. She’s had fellowships from Cave Canem and Callaloo among others.

She openly speaks to us about her experience with albinism, her family, writing out her fears and her hopes for young people with albinism

Photo: Hunter Armistead. Makeup: LaRisa Jones

We work in African communities and mostly have an African audience - Your background is different from that of our readers, tell us a bit about your community and how you grew up.

I grew up in the American South—Shreveport, Louisiana, to be exact. It’s not a big city, but it’s also not a small town. I haven’t lived there in many years, but it’s a place I love deeply. There’s something about the miles and miles of flat land, the pine trees, and all the waterways that will forever be a part of my concept of home, even though there are other places that share that moniker for me. Shreveport is an interesting place; it’s not in the part of the state most heavily populated by French-speaking Acadians or French Creoles (whose cultures Louisiana is most famous for), but it is definitely influenced by them in terms of food and other forms of celebration (like Mardi Gras), as well as in how the people around me thought about race and color. I grew up in an African American family where people were a range of colors, and my albinism never made me feel out of place in that regard. There is no general phenotype for us; I was just one color of many. So many of my family members’ nicknames are based on appearance, and particularly color. I have an uncle called “Fat Ear,” another called “Black Boy,” and yet another called “Red Boy.” When I was a baby, my uncles nicknamed me “Honey,” which they thought matched the color of my hair. I spend most of my life away from my family, and something in me starts to heal from the world when I walk into a room and my Uncle Carlos yells: “Honey Bunny!” I love my family for taking one look at me and naming me after something carefully made and harvested, something precious and sweet.

Of course, people outside the safe space of my family still said and did mean things during my childhood, but I was rarely—if ever—made to feel “less black” than others. And, while I was certainly made fun of, I felt physically safe in most of my environments. I do have one distinct memory of being bullied, however, and it was in pre-school. I’ve worn glasses since I was three years old, and this girl who had been hassling me on the playground one day smacked them off. Apparently, that was the last straw: somehow, I got a hold of her finger and bit down to the bone. She was rushed to the emergency room, and I was sent home. I love that story, especially since it’s the one time I got in trouble in school, but didn’t get in trouble at home. My mother knew the girl had been picking on me, and she understood why I retaliated. My mother never condoned violence, but she did give me space to stand up for myself, and she and the rest of my family made me feel like I had the right to do so. I also use this story to remind myself of something that I apparently knew then, but sometimes forget now: I matter, and no one has the right to treat me poorly simply because they feel like they can.

Do you remember when you initially became aware of your hyper-visibility?

There are two distinct moments that come to mind. The first happened when I was perhaps three or four years old, and I overheard my mother tell her best friend that, when she was at the grocery store, shew saw two children who looked like me. I wasn’t there with her, but I remember understanding that, when she said that, she also meant that we didn’t look like everyone else. The other time was a bit later—five or so—when I drew a picture of an imaginary friend named “Samantha.” Samantha had yellow hair and wore glasses, and my mother was touched, but also a little tickled; she showed that picture to everyone she knew. Although she understood better than I did at the time, we both knew who Samantha looked like, and why: I needed to see someone else who looked like me.

How have you navigated your albinism in your writing, what are some issues/aspects related to having the condition, feature most in your work?

This is a tough one, because, like everyone else (I imagine), this condition is one part of my identity, but doesn’t encapsulate the totality of my experience. I write about a number of things: love, sexual trauma, mental and physical health/illness, my family, my belief systems—so, whenever any of those things comes to the page, I let it come. I’m not sure if I ever developed a strategy for navigation. I do think, however, that in recent years, I’ve been more forthcoming about my fears and insecurities in my work, and albinism is certainly a part of that conversation, so I write about it more freely now. But, as I was recently telling a friend, I don’t come to the page with intentions so much as I come with questions, and if I am interrogating something about my experience with albinism and I feel like writing it out, then I write it out.

Oh! Ok, so I do have a caveat. I recently started writing fiction, and I deliberately made my main character a woman living with albinism. My decision was based on a few things. First, my best friend writes urban fiction, and we once had a conversation about how some writers in the genre create heroines who are cookie-cutter tropes: fair-skinned, long-haired, thin—very traditionally beautiful by some cultural standards. As such, these characters easily attract the interest of lovers and they are the darlings of whatever space they inhabit. I can’t speak to the motives of those writers, because I don’t know them or live inside their heads, but my first thoughts were: if these writers create such characters because they believe that a specific kind of beauty is more palatable for readers, and more believable, then that’s unfortunate for us as the audience, but also for the writers themselves (especially if they too don’t fit into that paradigm). There is a certain kind of trauma in never seeing yourself depicted as beautiful anywhere, not even in your own work. So, when I started writing fiction, I made a decision that my narrator would have albinism, and she would be desirable. She’s also really regular-degular (shout-out to Cardi B): she has no superpowers aside from code-switching and humor. I wanted her to be unique, but also just a person—someone you could imagine being friends with and commiserating with and understanding. I rarely see people with albinism depicted as such anywhere. And, of course, since I’m a hopeless romantic, her love interest falls in love with her. Well, eventually—I haven’t written that part yet.

There’s often a struggle between being vulnerable in talking about one’s experience with having albinism, and protecting yourself; how have you balanced being open and willing to educate others, and not feeling too exposed?

I practice one rule in this regard: people can ask me anything, but I reserve the right to refuse to answer. That’s my general rule about most things, and I try to offer that to others whenever I ask them questions about any subject I perceive as sensitive. I think that, as relational beings, we have all, at some point or another, fallen into the trap of assuming that, because we know a person who is privy to a particular experience, then they are conveniently available to provide the narrative of that experience for us. I’m certainly guilty of having done it in the past. However, I’ve learned that I don’t have the right to anyone’s body of knowledge, and they don’t have any right to mine if I don’t want to make it available to them. There are other ways to learn a thing, and to be informed.

There are some people who feel PWA should always self-advocate, what’s your view on this? Should we always carry the responsibility to help educate others?

Absolutely not. For instance, in public spaces, I often get the question: “Are you related to [insert the name of some other person they know who has albinism]?” Sometimes, I want to say “No, because not all of us are related. This is a complex genetic condition that spans ethnicities, countries, and cultures.” However, that is emotional labor, and I reserve the right not to perform it if I don’t want to. Sometimes, I just want to be doing whatever it is I was doing before I was interrupted: shopping for groceries, dining with friends, or taking a walk in a park. To be called to step out of the normalcy of my life to explain something to a person who perceives my body as abnormal, and thus demands that I explain this to them, is intrusive, and I don’t owe them anything. It can also take a toll on my emotional equanimity—especially if they prolong the conversation with follow-up questions, which they often do, and which are almost always deeply personal. I reserve the right to choose when to subject myself to that.

Do you have anyone in your family/community/role models of people with the condition, how did you find this experience?

No, I didn’t, and I was about to say “unfortunately,” but that’s a difficult thing to gauge in hindsight. I also don’t want to detract from the legacy of the people who were there. I was raised in a family of talented, innovative, and fiercely loving black women who have taught me a great deal about how to be a woman; and yet, whenever I hear the following words from Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” I always think of coming into womanhood as a person with albinism: “i had no model…/what did i see to be except myself?” In Clifton’s words, I made a lot of it up. I just did my research and/or figured it out and/or kept trying until I got what I needed. In so many ways, I am still doing that.

What words would you like to share with parents of children with the condition?

I don’t have any children, so it’s hard for me to tell any parent how to raise theirs, but I can say that it was—and still is—important for the people I love to give me space to feel what I can’t always articulate, and what people without the condition cannot always understand. There is something about my being hypervisible for every moment of my life outside my house that is both exhausting and exhilarating. I have a few other conditions—anxiety, depression, etc.—that sometimes make leaving the house an act of defiance. That is difficult, but I’m quite proud of that, and proud of the person I’ve become in spite of it. It’s important for the people around me to acknowledge that struggle, even when it looks effortless. I have a lovely family and wonderful friends who ask “Why are you so hard on yourself? You’re beautiful!” That’s important for me to hear, but it’s equally important for them to understand that everyone doesn’t see what they see; and, sometimes, I’ll be sad or frustrated by reactions that aren’t as complimentary, or as kind. If you are raising someone with albinism, give all of their feelings space, even as you remind them that one person’s opinion shouldn’t determine how you feel about yourself.

To young people with albinism, what are you hoping they take away, not only from your story, but their own experiences?

This one may take a bit of time to unravel, but trust me, I’m going somewhere! So, I spent most of the early part of this summer outdoors, which is rare for me: I’m a bookworm and not much of an athlete, and, of course, I burn easily (not to mention the fact that I often forget to wear sunscreen). But this summer, I spent four days at an outdoor music festival, and then travelled with my sister to the Bahamas. All around me were tan, thin, beautiful people, and I felt so self-conscious about my skin. This is unkind, but I literally felt apologetic that people had to look at it and spend time around it. Anyway, a few months later, I developed a skin condition that is temporary, but also incredibly uncomfortable, and it drastically changed the appearance of my skin. Fortunately, it’s finally resolving itself, but in the meantime, I’m realizing that I haven’t been loving my skin the way it deserves to be loved. It doesn’t do what everyone else’s skin does, but it is healthy, for which I am fortunate, and it’s beautiful, period. No caveats. I wish I had understood this earlier. I wish I hadn’t internalized so much of everyone else’s opinions about it. I wish I had known that one person’s recoil doesn’t mean I am unsightly or damaged or worthless. I feel like it’s never too late to change anything and enrich the quality of one’s life, but I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time thinking otherwise.

From their own experiences, I’d say: live your whole life. Albinism is an anomaly that you can’t change, and that may sometimes bring you grief, but don’t try to normalize the rest of your life as consolation for those around you. If you are quirky, if you have interests that differ from people around you, if you think differently from them, hold on to those things. Cherish them. In childhood, they might make you the butt of someone’s joke, or the object of ridicule, but hang on to them. Those opinions change over time, and in adulthood, those traits could make you an artist, a millionaire, an inventor, a world-changer—we won’t know if those parts of you don’t survive. Also, celebrate your albinism. As part of my faith practice, I believe God specifically made me to be myself. He determined my tastes and my cravings, my talents and challenges, my complex desires, and who and what I would come to love. Albinism was part of that plan. It too has its purpose, even though I’m still figuring out what that is. How wonderful it is to think that, years before I would learn to smile or wash my face, God set the bones in it to look like my mother’s and her mother’s, then covered them with a different skin. Then, He set my eye color to match my father’s, though they move differently. I’m no admixture of anything. I am a body curated from my ancestors, but also completely different from them. I can’t say I’m always happy about it, but I can say that, fragile as it often is, my body has survived. So has yours. Every cell in our bodies is narrative and counternarrative, plot and plot twist. We are also vulnerable, but we are also brave enough to be so. That is something worth celebrating.

Photo: Noelle Théard

#LoveThisSkin

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mafiabosstsuna · 7 years

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admin aldeheid’s prompt 1:

Ricardo in love with an S/O time traveller.

Whew that was harder than I thought. I hope everyone enjoys it though XD.

~ admin Adelheid

Having you transported four hundred years into the past was a mistake. You should not have been there while the Bovino was experimenting on the ten year bazooka paired with the black hole they had asked Chrome to imitate casting from their battles with Daemon Spade ten years ago.

It was a stupid accident. You should not have walked in unprepared but you were too excited. The Bovino claimed to have had in their keeping a diary from Lampo that had information about the Vongola’s first generation from the First Lightning Guardian’s point of view. Naturally, as the Famiglia’s record keeper you cannot allow such an opportunity to pass you by so you immediately intruded on them.

You didn’t know exactly what happened next. All you knew was that when you opened your eyes the first generation had found you on Bovino property and had taken you under their protection after seeing you were nothing but a lost and harmless stranger.

For some reason Giotto had taken a liking to you. Despite Alaude and Daemon’s disapproval he welcomed you to Vongola’s new mansion and treated you as one of the Family. You had thought something good would happen and that time would put you in your correct place after a day or so but you were wrong.

Your heart was almost dying with homesickness by the time you met Ricardo.

The melodic sound of piano music took hold of Ricardo’s feet and led him to one of the salons. He knew that Daemon had gotten Elena a piano recently but he didn’t know she already knew how to play.

Like Giotto, he was born and raised a peasant. Their village was poor, music and art were crude and more than usually related to religion. When they had begun the quest to form Vongola and had their first tastes of the beautiful music and art that rich people were so addicted to they could not help but be drawn to it themselves.

And so here he was gawking as you played a melody on the piano that he had never heard before (insert: Reminiscence from Suikoden 2). He didn’t know how he could understand it but he could hear it. The fear… the pain… the longing… the hope… It was all in every single note that was produced by your fingertips.

And as the last few notes were gently played on the piano’s keyboard he couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the sight of a lone tear falling down your cheek. You made such a heartbreaking picture that he didn’t even know he had taken a step forward towards you.

His step was what made you look up in surprise and met his wine colored eyes…

You remembered your history lessons about him. The man that had made the Vongola what it was for the next eight generations after taking over. Cruel, ruthless… a man without mercy… You had always viewed him as some kind of demon back then but now… why can’t your heart stop beating as you look into his eyes? Why weren’t his eyes emitting the same demonic glow you see in Xanxus on a good day? Instead this man’s eyes were clear and dark. Turbulent but… human.

He listened to you gasp and for a split second he thought he saw a hint of recognition enter your gaze as you jumped to your feet. But it had gone by the time you bowed in respect and your feet moved to leave.

“Wait.”

His soft, gruff command made your feet freeze where they were and turn back towards him in surprise. He couldn’t stop himself from staring at your face and your heart wouldn’t stop beating like a hare escaping from hunting dogs.

You look away in an attempt to hide your face. It was foolish but it was all you could do. It wouldn’t do to accidentally change anything now and alter the future…

“Who are you…?” Ricardo asked wonderingly before noting that he was acting like a bewitched fool. An inappropriate way for a high ranking capo to act. With a move of his hand he took out a gun and glared you down with it. “Talk. Are you some sort of spy?”

“Ricardo, is that you?”

Ricardo didn’t even bother to look at his cousin as Giotto came up beside him. He was much too afraid to pull his eyes away from you. He didn’t know why but he had an awful feeling in his gut that if he closed his eyes for just one moment… you might disappear.

Giotto took one look at the situation before smiling benignly. “Ricardo, I see you’ve met my guest. Hey, this is Ricardo, my cousin. His father married my mother’s sister in case you’re wondering about the difference in coloring. It’s alright, don’t be afraid. He might look scary but he’s actually a pretty decent guy.”

Ricardo withdrew his gun in favor of glaring at his cousin. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Giotto laughed lightly even as he held up his hands trying fend off the imaginary waves of anger from his taller cousin. “Nothing! I just thought it’s easy for people to think you’re a bad guy since you look… well… mean.”

“Giotto.”

“What?”

“Hold still.”

“…Why?”

“So I can shoot that stupid head of yours.”

“See? This is the reason why girls just don’t take to you.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

They stopped at the sound of your laughter. Soft and sweet and genuine. It made Ricardo forget to breathe, his heart was beating way too fast. All he could do was stare at you in wonder.

“You finally laughed.” Giotto commented, smiling in what you could only figure was relief. “I was getting worried. Ricardo, stay for dinner, won’t you?”

Ricardo couldn’t stop himself from being haunted by you from then on. Even as he left the Vongola mansion to tend to his own property his mind would eventually follow the path towards his memories of you. The melody you had played the first time he saw you stuck in his head like a leech and he found himself humming it at odd times whether or not he was alone. He was not even aware that people were starting to look at him strangely because of it.

He normally did not have to go to Giotto’s to get his dinner but he found himself drawn there night after night just to catch glimpses of you. After dinner it had become normal for the Family to ask you to play the piano and he would normally stick to the shadowy corners of the room with Alaude staring at your face as you bent down on the instrument and played it with your magnificent fingers.

He had never thought he would be so fascinated with another person that he would actually find excuses to approach you whenever he was in your immediate vicinity.

Joining you for walks in the garden. Grocery shopping. Even the smallest errands. Despite Giotto’s remarks he was thrilled that you weren’t afraid of him. He enjoyed your presence greatly and so much that he gave you strict instructions to call for him whenever you had to run an errand outside the mansion.

But you knew getting closer to him than this would only spell tragedy for the both of you. What goes up must come down and you did not know how long you would be stranded here in this time for. For all you knew the Decimo was already pressuring the Bovino to find ways to get you back since he was such good friends with your father. So you kept the future Secondo at arm’s length. Even though every beat of your heart wanted to see more of him. Wanted to have him near…

Your obvious rejection upset Ricardo more than he had wanted to admit and one night, as you walked to your room after your nightly performance on the piano, he stepped out and pulled you into the shadows he had been hiding in; kissing you in drunken desperation.

“Ricardo!” you pulled away from his devastating kiss of wine and longing only to have his lips pursue yours again, defying your protests. His arms trapping you in a wanting embrace, never wanting to let go. “Please, stop!”

“Why?” he groaned in despair as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling every bit off essence he could get from your skin. “Why are you pushing me away? Aren’t I good enough?!”

“Please don’t―”

“Can’t you see you’re driving me mad?!” he half yelled, half moaned as he ground himself tighter against you. “No. I don’t care if you’re in love with Giotto. You’re mine. I love my cousin but you’re the one thing I can’t give him!”

“Ricardo, you don’t understand,” you tried to explain. Your heart feeling as though shards of glass were stuck in it. Wanting to hold him close but your reasons won’t let you. “I’m not in love with Giotto but―”

He fished something in his pocket and all of a sudden your eyes widened at the feel of something cold and heavy being slipped onto your left ring finger. You stared in wide eyed shock at the glistening gold band decorated by a large opal and small diamonds now marking your hand. The sight of it made your heart ache even more with despair.

“I can’t take this―”

“Don’t take it off.” Ricardo ordered. His words hard as granite and as resolute as the steel in his eyes. His gaze reflecting a resolve that you had only read about in books. And it was now being centered on you. “I don’t care what you say. You are going to be my wife.”

And he proved that. For days after that he made sure you wore his ring. Whenever he found that you had not done so he would march you right into your room to fetch it and personally put it back onto your finger. It happened so many times that you eventually got tired of it and just wore the ring to make him stop dragging you around. But you never mentioned accepting his proposal. Sadly Ricardo took your silence as permission.

The wedding was already being planned when the mansion was attacked by an enemy Famiglia. Elena was shot right before your eyes and even as you tried to help her a familiar black hole appeared at your back and sucked you out of harm’s way. You returned to your own time in tears; your heart broken in more ways than one. No matter what anyone did no one could stem your sorrow and refused to answer any of their questions. No one even dared ask about the ring on your finger.

When you had enough strength to stop crying and looked into the Vongola record books again you turned back to the entry about the Vongola’s first generation. Nothing had been changed in the records; everything had stayed the same.

The Bovino, in an act of remorse, sent Lampo’s diary over to you. Along with a music box made of lacquer and tortoiseshell with a note attached saying the music box came with the diary. Listlessly you opened the diary first and read the treasures of history that had been your whole life before the incident happened.

What you discovered there made you break out in a fresh slew of tears.

Lampo’s entry had crushed her soul.

“--Ricardo had loved Giotto with all of his heart. I had always believed there was nothing that could have ever destroyed their bond as a family. But after what happened that night… That night when Elena died and Ricardo’s fiancé disappeared… Ricardo was never the same again.

It was as though he had gone mad. He couldn’t stop blaming Giotto for what happened. Giotto himself was not surprised when Ricardo organized the coup and took over the Vongola. That man… That Ricardo… He changed into an angry, bitter man… The only form of sentimentality left to him was a music box he would constantly listen to whenever he was alone. I stole it thinking I should protect it from Tierzo who had hated Ricardo and would destroy all of the Secondo’s things given the chance. This music box... Ricardo had kept listening to it… until the day he died…”

Blinded by tears and with trembling fingers your hand opened the music box that came with the diary… and heard the song you had played the first time he met you…

#khr #ricardo #time travelling s/o #admin adelheid

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argentumlupus1 · 7 years

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I just wanna get this written down so I can pull it up when I need to use it. (This will get kinda political, but it's something that shouldn't have to be said, but apparently does) Being a white male, I have not experienced discrimination on a personal level, but that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that discrimination still exists and that it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Lets start with how both sides of the race relations arguement claim the other side is being racist. However, there is an extreme difference between seeing race and discriminating on race (being a racist). Seeing race is acknowledging that because of having a different race someone's life experience and culture is different than that of someone elses, and that can have large impacts on what they value, how they act, and how they feel. It is also about celebrating that difference, and lifting eachother up through these differences, and valuing what helps define us as individual people. An example of this would be something along the lines of making major POSITIVE icons in our media someone other than just white guys, and when they aren't by not generalising or misrepresenting them. This is why Obama being the first African American president is such a big deal, and Michelle Obama might have been an even bigger deal. It helped show that your skin color can't prevent you from having most powerful individual position in one of the most powerful countries in the world, and Michelle showed us that even if you can make powerful decisions on your own right now, you can help build up something that CAN make powerful decisions, and that you can do that no matter who you are. This by no reason "solved" racism, but it was a step in the right direction, which brings us to the next point. Discrimination based on race is the opposite. Intentional or not, using race to create a generalisation about someone with no information about them is racism, and it needs to be delt with swiftly and harshly. The scary this about racism is that it can become so deeply ingrained, that people can discriminate without realising it. It's how the majority of the prison population in America is composed of minorities, and why they often get much harsher sentences, as well as less more likely to be refused opportunities that others could get. It's someone thinks that three kids in a group on the sidewalk are a gang just because they don't look like them. It's when someone crosses the street so they don't have to pass by someone who they think might mug them, just because they don't look like them. Generalising "positives" are actually bad as well, with one of the most common one being "All Asians are good at math." It's extremely nonsensical and can end up harming people who might assume that they have to be good at something just because people expect them to be good at it. Racism is what makes people assume things about others without actually seeing who they are. It's what causes hate and pain. It's what can lead to suffering and death. And let's make one thing clear before moving on. "Reverse Racism." Does. Not. Exsist. Period. End of discussion. It does not exsist, has never exsisted, and will never exsist, simply because the racism is the effect of a group of people who believe themselves to be better than another based off of their heritage, and then acted upon that belief to make themselves superior, often through fear and intimidation. This kind of belief that "Reverse Racism" exsists is one of the reasons that the call to action by minorities too often goes unheard, with the other reasons being "Well they're just angry at us for [insert one of many atrocities that have occured]," or "We have problems too," or even "they're just complaining to get attention." Minorities always have a reason to be angry about an atrocity, but it's often because of one that's being commited RIGHT NOW, not one that happened before. You don't see people marching about just the Orlando Nightclub Shooting, but you do see them marching because this stuff is STILL happening, and they want that to STOP happening. If there were no mass shootings, or so much gun violence, do you think that people would be marching to end gun violence? I will tell you, no; just look at Australia, who hasn't had a mass shooting since BEFORE the turn of the century, and gun violence has significant decreased, and that's because people actually helped to pass gun control measures. People over there have no fear of someone shooting up where they are because they supported gun control and then worked to pass it. If so many unarmed African Americans weren't getting shot by police, do you thing people would be getting up and marching about it? The answer should be obvious. Next, we cover the "well we have problems too," response. Well, yes, you have problems, but everyone has problems. But not everyone has the SAME problems as you, and not all those problems could end up with you being trapped in poverty, losing your life because you couldn't afford healthcare, or getting shot. Not only this, but the problems that affect a majority have more people who want to act to solve them, while minorities don't have that. We need to work to solve everyone's problem together, not ignore others and try to solve our own. If we just all work together to show that there is a problem and all work together to solve it, it would take a fraction of the time it would take to keep ignoring them. Finally, the "they just want attention" response. Yes. Exactly. They want attention because they need more people to hear them and support their cause. If you had a problem that could only be solved by a thousand people pushing a big rock, and if you didn't solve the problem, you would only be able to eat once a day, that would be only noodles with no sauce, and you would lose your legs, then you can be sure as hell you would be running up and down the streets yelling to get people's attention to help you. People want the attention so they can get help to solve their problems. If there was no problem, there would be no complaining. You don't see people yelling about everything being fine and nothing is wrong. It's important to see race so we can help raise eachother up for our individuality uniqueness, but we can't let it turn to just making generalisations about people. Not seeing race can be just as bad, because it, again, makes a generalisation that then everyone has had the same experiences as you, which they once have not. Race is a powerful thing, but depending on how it's used it can bring us together, or tear us apart. I hope that one day, I can see people who might eventually not see race as something the defines them, but as something that is just a small part of them. Diversity should be what helps to push us forward, and shouldn't be something to hold us back. [I am just stating again that I have not experienced discrimination on a personal level, but I see that it is a serious problem and needs addressing. As such, I am a proud supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, and will be of any movement that seeks to help end discrimination in any and all forms. My opinions are my own.]

#arguement

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colorisbyshe · 7 years

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I have two really good ace friends. One is a nb lesbian and the other is cishet. Both of them want nothing to do with the community anymore. Nb lesbian friend obviously hates all the lesbophobia and while they love that asexual is a word that perfectly fits them, they are completely embarrassed by the community. My cishet friend refuses to associate because she's an actually good ally and refuses to intrude on our spaces. The ace community is inaccessible to them.

This is not an uncommon experience at all.

This is why you have a lot of people who are technically ace/aro or “ace/aro-spec” who are vocally critical of the ace community and of total ace inclusion.

In many, many ways the ace community is a toxic place and the people this toxicity hurts is not just non-ace/aro people (including people who are manipulated into thinking they are ace/aro) but also ace people themselves.

Which is why this attitude of “all exclusionists are aphobes” or “anyone who criticizes the ace community is aphobic, even if they’re ace themselves, there are trans TERFs you know” is so harmful. The ace community shuts down criticism at any cost.

And any person worth a damn can tell you that a community cannot be safe if it cannot take criticism to heart.

We have ace people talking from personal, often traumatic experiences within the ace and aro communities being dismissed with jokes like, “Well, it’s not like we held a gun to your head!!” There are many vulnerable people using up their strength to say, “I went to this community at my weakest point expecting to be helped and came out even weaker, we need to fix this,” and being accused of being hateful.

This goes farther than cishet aces thinking they’re queer or even the blatant hatred for LGBT people and LGBT history. This goes deeper than adults in the community “relating” to teenagers about their relationship to sex and talking to them as if they are peers about porn and masturbation and other intimate, sexual details. This is so intrinsic to the ace community that it surpasses the fearmongering–the lies about widespread conversion therapy and the use of rhetoric implying an ace genocid.

This is the ace community shedding its skin as a safe space and reveal that it’s practically just a cult of identity politics. It’s not about making sure ace people are safe, has maybe never about it if we go back to the essay that started it all and we get shit like–

I’m out and proud to be asexual. My people are a definite minority group who wish to be recognized like all the others. We want a colored ribbon, a national holiday, coupons for fast food. We want the world to know that we are out there.

The ace community is about recognition and acclaim. It’s about chants that cannot be questioned–We’re valid; We’re Here, We’re Queer; [Insert Ace Subset] is Valid; We’re Valid and Queer; Queer queer queer; We are VALID! It’s about convincing every possible they’re ace or aro “spec” because those words can mean anything and anyone can be ace/aro if they lie to themselves long enough. It’s about martyrdom as positivity–Lying about non-existent threats and tagging it ace positivity to bring y’all together, building up an “Us vs Them” narrative.

The Ace Community is not a safe space. And it’s more than right or normal for ace people to feel ashamed by being associated with it. Sick to their stomachs. Embarrassed. Confused about whether or not they are really ace because so much of the identity of ace is conflated with actively homophobic, anti-survivor, biphobic, and sexist beliefs.

So, yeah, I understand your friends. And I think they’re right to feel that way. And for more than the reasons you’ve listed. I could listen at least two dozen things that the ace community refuses to acknowledge because it’s easier to hurt the most vulnerable people within the community than it is to admit they can be wrong.

I resent my time identifying as ace, I resent having to spend essentially an extra 5 to maybe 10 years of parsing through my identity and trauma to figure out who I really am once you peel back the ideas and shame the ace community put into me, and I resent the fact that this community would rather accuse someone of being an aphobe than self reflect.

I know I’m going to slammed for comparing the ace community to a cult but when the shoe fits and is covered with cake stickers and “frick frack” shaming…

It may not be exactly true. But the comparison needs to be put out there. I don’t want people to come out of this post with “Ace = Cult” as a takeaway but rather to use that comparison as a way to step back and think “What is really going on here? Which boxes can I check off and how do we fix this before it spirals?”

Because while the ace community isn’t necessary the way the LGBT community is and there is no social capital tied into the identity of “ace” or “aro” as they currently stand, the ace community can be redeemed and focus on doing good beyond repeating the words Valid And Aphobe and REGs until they’re blue in the face.

The ace community can be saved.

But only after cutting this off before it goes too far.

#ace discourse #ace psdljghsdgl #i'm gonna get flak for tagging this way #but i need ace peopel to see this #and realize things can be much better for them #anonymous #q slur //#the ace community consistently uses silencing tactics on actual aces and aros #int he name of moral purity #or at least a facade of moral purity #an di can't fucking stand it anymore

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