#seems obvious in hindsight but i just didnt realize | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

collieii · 1 year

Text

one line in trimax that's always stuck with me is from chapter 65, right after wolfwood's death. when vash is sticking the punisher by his grave and he says "it was part of his life". that phrasing is so interesting to me. the neutrality of it is one thing that gets me, i think. it was part of his life. for better or worse, whatever it was, the punisher was wolfwood's.

It's pretty easy to think that the punisher might represent violence, the eye of michael, the role of assassin that was forced onto wolfwood, the loss of childhood. but it's not really presented that way, not overtly anyways. we never see wolfwood shun the punisher, he's not conflicted by his use of it. he never considers abandoning it for some other weapon. it's his weapon. he doesn't discard it when he eventually decides to take a more vash-like approach and actually let people live. he pretty easily accepts it as his own, a tool he can use. (to be fair, at least part of that is probably because the punisher is a very good gun.)

the punisher can still represent the harsher aspects of wolfwood's character, the violence he's committed, that he's capable of. that's an important part of his life! and the idea of it as representative of his violent adolescence, childhood that was stripped away, goes along with this - it's literally a cross to bear. but besides showing his past as a burden, i think of the punisher as being a cross of responsibility. when you have a gun you have power, agency - you have a responsibility to make a choice. that's what wolfwood tells vash in chapter 4.

the ability to take a life, the burden of it, is literally his cross to bear. that ability - and that responsibility - was given to him by the eom, literally in terms of the gun, and in terms of his skills. but the eye doesn't think twice about killing people. for them it's not really a choice, a responsibility, it's just a given. but wolfwood can't accept that. he's constantly considering the choices he makes.

so the punisher isn't only a symbol of the eye of michael, of the path that he was forced onto. it's also a way of expressing autonomy. the eye gave wolfwood the gun, but he decides how to use it and what it means. for much of the story wolfwood struggles to decide what to do, he's a very conflicted character. but eventually he resolves to use it against chapel, against knives, to help vash, and protect the orphanage. the gun gives him agency.

so the punisher was part of his life. it was the tool that he used to commit acts of violence, acts that he was forced into, but also the tool he used to break free.

it's heavy for vash, too. he's not exempt from that idea, the idea of responsibility. as wolfwood said much earlier in the story, vash has always been able to sidestep the question of "what do i choose?", because he's only ever given himself one option - everybody lives. and he's always succeeded. but as wolfwood says, "the day will come when you'll have to choose". one day, it's not going to work.

and of course the story progresses, the stakes ramp up, and vash learns more, goes through more, and is pushed to his limits. i think by this point, by wolfwood's death, and maybe because of it, vash has realized that he might have to make that difficult choice in the near future. that's one reason why he wants to "do him proud". he has a lot of reasons to say this of course - to not let wolfwood's sacrifice go to waste, for example. but if we're thinking of the cross as responsibility, then vash is saying he doesn't want to forget the lessons he learned because of wolfwood. wolfwood has always grappled with responsibility, with what the right thing to do is. and the right thing is often not easy. vash hopes that when the times comes for him to make a choice, he'll make a good one, one that does right by wolfwood's memory.

#trigun #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #trigun meta #trigun analysis #i have another post in my drafts abt wolfwood and autonomy so theres some stuff im not getting into but stay tuned #i hope this makes sense...the whole it was part of his life thing...it gets me for some reason #this is just me trying to articulate why #hopefully what im saying isnt too obvious and is actually insightful #this whole post was inspired by one of my art history classes #we were talking abt some of betye saars works and my prof mentioned the idea of weapons as symbolic of power and agency #so ofc i had to apply that to trigun #at that point i was only thinking of the punisher as 'eom = bad' but that just didnt feel right #so then guns...agency...it all came together #seems obvious in hindsight but i just didnt realize #too hung up on guns as violence and violence is bad #but obviously it's more than that #.lieii #.lieii txt #nicholas d. wolfwood #i just realized how long this post is uh sorry guys #i may have repeated myself too much with this one hopefully it's still legible #take a shot everytime i use the word agency or choice in this post #trimax spoilers

428 notes · View notes

dolldefaced · 7 months

Text

did superman stop batman from killing the joker in aditf?

wellllllllll. it's complicated?

in aditf joker gains diplomatic immunity by becoming the representative of iran to the un (yeah. it's uh. bad)

so the premise is that batman can't even arrest the joker at this point, because of the diplomatic immunity. no one talks about murdering the joker and superman's arguement is 'yo this will fuck international relations. be chill'

here's where batman mentions the joker killed jason, superman is still concerned about the country, and batman saying he'll do what he has to. still no real indication clark thinks bruce is going to commit murder imo but 'thirst for vengeance' could be a sign? it's not like he can legally arrest joker atm either though

at the hotel room, bruce does sincerely consider killing the joker and argues with himself about it.

batman gives the joker a visit and tells him to turn himself in. obv he does not do this and brags about killing jason. batman finally has confirmation on this. batman leaves, joker goes to shoot him, he's gone.

yeah. sigh.

anyway. bruce seems to have settled on 'kill the joker' from these thought bubbles.

joker ofc says fuck it and releases a bunch of gas. superman breaks his gun, sucks up all the gas, and flies away to release it. batman follows the joker.

batman follows joker to a helicopter, they fight and one of the guys gets super freaked out

he shoots batman, then shoots the pilot in the head, causing the helicopter to crash

so batman has to jump out or die. he's not torn up about leaving the joker to die (esp since it seems like he still did want to kill him in the moment)

superman returns! from belching up the gas in the atmosphere ig. he saves batman, who knows if they don't find a body joker is probably alived. he's unhappy.

so i think if you just read aditf, it really doesn't look like superman tried to stop batman from killing the joker. hell i don't think he even realized bruce was willing to at that point. he just didnt want bruce interfering so politically nothing went south.

it seems more like bruce did want to kill the joker, but was stopped by some dude shooting erratically.

so where does 'superman stops batman from killing the joker' come from? fanon?

no. another comic!

in batman and superman: world's finest #7

this is post aditf, bruce has been on the rampage, superman was in space (killing some dudes ig? i don't really read superman. sorry). superman goes to see our hero in distress.

um. what.

tbf i can see the 'just there for revenge' because of the political stuff but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 'anything you had to, to make sure i didn't harm the joker'

uhhhhhh. where????????

superman takes bruce on a tour. they talk about robin and batgirl. then go back to the topic at hand:

this is interesting. bc clark is right, 'farewell old foe' does not imply you wanted to save him at all, esp with all the previous thoughts of murder. but perhaps in hindsight bruce feels differently.

anyway.

i think you can sorta connect the two, but it's obvious there were years between these and different writers. i suspect no one wants to bring up the iran thing again, rightfully so, but it does leave out just why clark stopped bruce to begin with- so we're left with this.

#bruce wayne #clark kent #the joker #jason todd #by proxy lmfao. but w.o him where would this post be???#dc #a death in the family #aditf #batman and superman world's finest #meta

22 notes · View notes

whilomm · 10 months

Text

the more i learn about the history of safety regulations the more i know We Need Regulations because you cannot imagine just how many corners companies will cut on safety even for the cheapest fucking things if it means theyll save a few dollars. the number of times i have gotten to the end of a video or report or whatever and it concludes by saying that the cost of the repair was maybe $100 or even in some cases literally a few fucking dollars per million dollar machine is maddening.

yes, sometimes "regulations are written in blood" because something that maybe seems obvious in hindsight just never occured to them as a problem, sometimes its a complicated issue that nobody could have known until it happened and blah blah blah, but no sometimes its literally just. oh, they realized it was a potential issue, but it would have cost $100 per aircraft or they woulda had to spend an extra 10 minutes on maintence every year to implement a fix so they just didnt bother. sometimes companies will not do the most basic, common sense, CHEAP fixes until they are FORCED to.

#buzzy

7 notes · View notes

beesmygod · 2 years

Text

ugh

despite being such a gossip and drama hound myself, i do not relish being the subject of it. you might think its because being the subject of scrutiny and attention is stressful. it’s actually because the people who keep lining up to try to shots at me wind up being the dumbest people alive who knock themselves out somehow. i think its important to get in front of “a narrative”, especially in this case, where every player is a lying liar who lies ahahaha. this one is way funnier than morbi actually. up until now, i was tactfully setting aside what happened out of uh. whatever kindness was left in my heart, i guess. more fool me!

im not going out of my way to crop ppl out of this if you look bad its your own damn fault. no one made you type this shit but you. dont post shit you can’t cash.

you might have been confused by the exchange between anon and this guy yesterday when i reblogged it to set the record straight on morbi. i was, until very recently, an infrequent contributor to his webcomics discord. earlier this year, i tried to reach out into more communities so i could get to know more artists and keep up with what’s hot (what a stupid fucking idea that was, in hindsight). a few days ago, some weirdly supportive of kiwifarms tweets from a comic artist who was ruined by them were posted for discussion. everyone pretty much just noted that it was weird with one person asking what kf even was. everyone else explained so i added this stupid shit

note: this is at 5:24 am. because at 7pm that night, one of the people in the discord goes completely full fucking tilt out of literally nowhere. i have screencapped the entire conversation up until that point as proof that i 1. literally did not say anything else the entire day and 2. proof that the conversation was completely normal up until that point.

inexplicably, people in the server put on kids gloves and start trying to come to a middle ground with this dipshit like hmm yes maybe we are a little kiwifarms could you explain more so we can understand you. when i noticed an hour later i saw red.

for someone who was “not helping”, the attention-seeking hysteric suddenly evaporated into thin air. i dont think anyone has actually shamed them for their behavior before. the conversation was shut down rather than resolved because i raised the temperature. daniel invited me to speak to him more privately in his dm if i had any more concerns bc i was pissed it was being swept under the rug. so i did.

here is the conversation in full. im posting it bc it makes him look like a clown and because later, he characterizes this as “chasing him” into his dms. what i didnt realize until today is that he says that the person going nuts is a moderator’s sibling, which explains why they’re permitted to take huge shits on people with no repercussions.

having committed the worst crime you can do in a nerd group (be mean) i was subjected to a post-mortem about the event (?) which culminated with this unbelievable irony cap

after my 10 mins were up, i said “i am not a good cultural fit or share the same moral priorities as this server and i will show myself out” and left. i vented on my twitter with blistering posts basically saying “well they’re all young. its annoying and seems bad but what can i do but leave”. and left it there.

it seems insanely obvious to me, so obvious that i struggled to even have to explain it to people whose entire brain appeared to have leaked out of their skull, that allowing someone in your discord for artists accuse random artists of wanting to reboot the mass shooting and violent transphobia website is literally the worst possible behavior you could permit. i wasnt expecting the mods to leap into action and do something, as they seemed to desperately think. i wanted to not belong to a community that would tolerate or entertain this.

anyway, yesterday morbi happened. i reblogged that post and daniel, after being told he wasnt a problem, decided he absolutely had to be one right now. he followed me on twitter and began posting ominously about a “write-up” of what happened between morbi and i because “some people” (this could literally only be the discord chat, and the reason he didnt want to post it there so they could snicker at it to themselves was because he thought this would humiliate or scare me) were curious.

maybe you’ve noticed a little flaw in the logic both morbi and dan have when it comes to “doxing”: for two people who are very concerned about privacy they’re out here retweeting the very information they’re decrying as invasive and then dan goes and fucking googles her and posts on a public platform more information about her than i cared to know. i cant stop thinking about how these morons were completely convinced they were doing something noble and righteous here by standing up for someone that maybe might be a black woman (hence: racism) based entirely on like a pintrest account

the cloying, transparent attempts to seduce me into messaging him first to soothe his battered ego are so desperate and pathetic that they make you hurt from the sidelines. you can see me gently try to explain why they look like a complete lunatic clutching their pearls over unmasking anonymous hate before i give up. there was so much obviously wrong about what they were doing that i was in disbelief that they were telling me that they were doing it.

1. taking a “both sides” approach doesn’t work when one person is a serial sexual harasser and the other posted an email address attached to a near cry-typing comment.

2. the attempt to use black women as a cudgel to defeat his posting enemy.

3. whatever this. attempt at banter is. idk man.

all of this didn’t work, so he tried showing me a piece of what he was writing that was the most deliberately inflammatory in the hopes that this morsel would finally compel me to bite and come begging for a re-write to save my webcomic career.

i wasn’t posting in a way that was drawing attention to this, it was a nosy (positive) friend who noticed this happening and went “holy shit what the fuck are you doing” which caused him to backpedal furiously

i was planning on letting him post it and just letting it speak for itself. i cannot think of a more ruinous thing to do to yourself than to ally with a sexual harasser and post openly and transparently about how extremely mad you are about how a girl made you feel. what could have possibly gone wrong.

in the end, daniel signed off with this post, signaling a more positive future for himself and his comic since his plan to annoy someone with a reputation for being a huge bitch multiple times by trying to downplay the severity of his and his friend’s actions, somehow blew up in his face

ah wait hold on. im getting word that he posted this after deleting a different post. this one

if there were any doubt what this were all about, daniel went and tweeted it out (literally) because subtext is difficult. my demand for a public apology for being accused baselessly of a career ending lie in order to stop this behavior from ever happening again has been recontextualized in his head as mean old bea picking on him and forcing him to do terrible things like “moderate” as a moderator.

over the past week ive been subject to racists, sex pests and 0/10 trolls but the spineless, moral coward is the most egregiously memorable of the lot. despite the amount of leeway i gave him for his repeated weak-willed behavior, he always found a new way to own himself without external prompting. despite me walking away and being satisfied with that, he came back for more. there are some people you cannot help, there are some people i don’t want to help because they cannot stop putting their hands on hot stoves. and then there are people who are begging for it.

somehow, it will be my fault that he feels bad and embarrassed about his behavior because i have catalogued it after being pushed around enough and it will not be seen as a direct result of his repeated failure of conscience.

anyway lol, lmao

#long post

51 notes · View notes

blookmallow · 3 years

Text

i dont remember if i mentioned it before but i decided to join the thieves guild after all

---

i forgot all about this cool grave in the riften graveyard that looked Significant and i never figured out why BUT TURNS OUT IT’S THE THIEVES GUILD SECRET ENTRANCE. WHICH IS COOL AS SHIT. and also seems extremely obvious in hindsight. even if most people in skyrim don’t know shadowmarks and don’t recognize the thieves guild symbol, The Single Most Conspicuous Grave in the whole graveyard, which doesn’t appear to actually contain any real grave, and the whole thing like. slides open very loudly when you activate it. how does no one see us going in and out from here. isn’t anyone curious what this grave is for. has no one pressed the button out of curiosity and gotten in here by accident

i know i as the player can’t interact with it until i know about it but in-universe it should still work even if you don’t know what it is

the what

Who Are You

apparently i saved this guy from the thalmor at some point lmao i have no idea when that happened

there’s some papers very conspicuously hidden under an end table next to one of the beds in the guild hq and i cannot figure out any way to interact with them, its driving me out of my mind it HAS to mean something but i can’t see it

what. im the dark brotherhood why havent i been informed of this

i still dont think the guild realizes im the leader of the dark brotherhood lmfao i dont exactly have an option to like. tell them. i mean, delvin knows, but

sapphire is glover’s daughter???

i love being in the thieves guild im learning all kinds of things about people

i should have made the connection sooner that... glover mallory. delvin mallory. of course they’re brothers. but i didnt notice and didn’t know the shadowmarks yet, so

i dont remember what i was doing here. this might’ve been honeyglow estate or whatever its called? i dont know. i was infiltrating a place to steal something and this guy was just like. hiding in his room in the corner. he didn’t see me bc im a stealth master at this point so i dunno what he would have done if he had seen me but like. you okay there man

SPIDER CONTROL ROD????

look at it... a baby....

i actually ended up doing this section like 8 times reloading a save bc A) ive been playing the thieves guild missions as like “kill as few people as possible/try to not be seen at all” as a personal challenge and because they keep saying “we dont kill people thats not how we work” so im tryin to follow the thieves code here but i kept fucking it up and anyway i could NOT figure out how to use the spider without getting it murdered in like 3 seconds. i wanted to take the spider control rod and have a spider friend but it seems like the only thing you can do is make it run to its death immediately so i ultimately ended up just leaving it there :’<

maybe one day i will go back for it just to own the Spider Control Rod if nothing else. i dont even remember what i was doing in here in the first place i know i was stealing Something Important

i still feel bad about betraying calcelmo hes my friend but like, i dont think he knows i was the one who broke in here

would love to know why theres so much blood here in his secret dwarf research lab or whatever this was, but

who threw an entire coin purse in this fountain. do you not know how tossing coins in fountains works

#lucy plays skyrim #scooby dooby queue

4 notes · View notes

chikkou · 3 years

Note

someone probably asked this already but would u feel like writting on your thoughts on dingalings opinions/statements about buddy? i never got to around to play the lisa games after the first one but im getting the context both from the stuff uve written on it and my gf who played the game and she seems like the best character in the game imo

well im glad u asked.... (does a gay little walk over to the keyboard)

ok so as was mentioned by the last lisa anon i got, buddy is austins least favorite character. i cant recall if he ever specified why exactly in public, but i have seen an interview that he did shortly after the painful came out, so i think i have a LITTLE more context for his thought process (and please remember this is all conjecture, i literally dont know this man LMAO)

so first, for some background: buddy was adopted by brad when he found her abandoned as a baby, but her birth father is dr. yado, the man who created olathe (with buzzo!). she bears a notably striking resemblance to lisa, especially as she gets older - in fact, i think thats part of why brad chose to keep her. for reference, heres lisa, and heres buddy. obviously these are sprites and not indicative of their exact appearance, but this should make it pretty obvious what i mean. note that, even though brad knows how unsafe it is for buddy to “look like a girl,” he still keeps her hair long like lisas was. buzzo noted the similarity between them in the joyful as well. brad also treats her in a similar (but NOT the exact same) manner that marty did to lisa, but i will get into that in another ask i got LMAO

now, as to why austin doesnt like her. so, this may be reading into things a little too much, but i know for a fact that brad is austins favorite character, AND that austin based brads character and experiences on that of his own father, whom he had a sort of mixed relationship with by his own admission (and i believe his dad was also named “bradley” skjfsds). i dont know any details about this at all, but to my understanding, austins dad also wrestled with addiction, and had a bit of a “rough” personality like brad. austin mentioned in that interview dealing with resentment toward his father for a long time, but that he eventually realized that his father was doing the best that he could in spite of his own upbringing, and even though it didnt excuse the shitty stuff hed done, it made austin somewhat more understanding of the difficult position he was in. so, if brad is austins dad.... well, its not that far of a leap to speculate who buddy likely represents. and it colors a lot of the way he depicts her actions.

the painful, for all its amazing content, sort of dropped the ball on showing why buddy hated brad so much. the only things we know about buddy and brads relationship in that game come from the intro or directly from buddy, and since she never goes into detail (which is fair in-context since brad clearly knows the intricacies of their relationship LMAO), it makes it seem like the worst thing brad has done is forced buddy to stay inside and occasionally passed out from substance abuse. however, as we learn in the joyful, that is not true at all. brad insulted buddy (called her an idiot for asking about brads estranged son), forced her to kill at least two innocent men because, and i quote, “my daughter will not be weak,” and tried to isolate her from the only other people in her life (her uncles, rick, sticky, and cheeks) after they DARED to tell her a small tidbit about brads past. brad may not have been anywhere near as abusive as marty, but if i described all of these things together and asked a random person if they considered them abusive behaviors for a parent, i think id be likely to get an affirmative response.

now, this is not to say that austin doesnt make it a point to show brad mistreating buddy in the painful proper - in the marty scene, brad literally punts buddy across a room because she begs him not to kill him, and then when she throws herself between marty and brad to get him to stop, brad doesnt hesitate to beat the fuck out of her until she has to withdraw. remember too that buddy is not an adult, by any stretch of the imagination - austin confirmed on twitter that she is nowhere near 18. i personally put her age in the 10-12 range, but ive seen people go as high as 14 or 15. in either case, though, this is a fucking CHILD, and beating her like he did is no different than what marty used to do to both him and lisa.

even in spite of this stuff, though, fans are so much more willing to forgive brads behavior than buddys. there are a few reasons for this, but in a more meta-sense, theres a pretty clear reason why buddy is less sympathetic - because we spend WAY less time with her. in the painful, buddy is not on screen until maybe 5-10 hours into gameplay, and we dont even get any real time with her until the games second half. the joyful, in addition to that, is an EXTREMELY short game; the painful is about 20-30 hours, but the joyful runs about 5 hours max. it was a kickstarter stretch goal, and i honestly wish austin hadnt made it a stretch goal and had spent more time working on it, because while it does some really interesting stuff story-wise, it is severely lacking the run time to make buddys story as compelling as brads.

primarily, though, i believe its because brad gets freudian excuses that at least EXPLAIN his behavior and also show just how many demons he has been fighting. while buddy has just as good of a reason to be the way she is, we never really get to SEE this stuff point blank like we did with brad. we witness him being hurt and mistreated as a kid, and more still as an adult in flashbacks. we get almost nothing from buddy, even though it is obvious that she is suffering in a very unique way.

so, circling back to your question - why is buddy austins least favorite? i think, quite simply, he seems to identify with her character in the context of buddys relationship with brad, and that actually makes him like her LESS because he has the benefit of hindsight and experience-based wisdom to empathize much more with the brads character and experiences than buddys. so even though brad and buddy are the same in many ways, where he can see brads actions as understandable (if a bit extreme), he cant see buddys in quite the same way. it would be fine if he just felt that way privately, but unfortunately it leaks into the games themselves and leads to many fans not being able to see her perspective and empathize with her, either. and it really does suck bc buddy is definitely one of the most interesting video game protags ive ever seen LMAO

tl;dr austin probably dislikes buddy because brad is based on his own father, and the relationship between brad and buddy is very likely based on his own relationship with his father. there also wasnt enough time in buddys game for her to become more sympathetic, so if ur not really paying attention, it seems like shes just being a bratty teenager instead of, u know. a victim of abuse on a massive scale. so yeah

#long post #lisa the joyful #lisa the painful #anya's replies #amigarobot #i cant even apologize for this honestly im just having too much fun talking abt lisa LMAO #abuse #lisa

16 notes · View notes

ardentwench · 5 years

Text

Is anyone gonna write something about Kat being the one to accidently out a secret barisi relationship?

Like she just put the clues together and had assumed it was common knowledge, she had studied up on the cases and everything so maybe she had seen pics and read papers and heard stories about barisi’s history and mentorship, the pining and flirty looks and all. Possibly saw them outside of work together before. She’s so proactive in preparing for joining the squad she really did her research on everyone with what was public record and doesn’t realize the relationship wasn’t supposed to be part of that. Maybe in S21 E5 when her and Carisi go see the perp together a stressed Carisi gets a call from Barba he tries to keep quiet but she saw the ID or recognized Barbas voice and heard bits of conversation and noticed how Carisi’s appearance lost some tension during the call. Or something similar. This could make a great 5 & 1 fic in many different ways.

How she feels about carisi and/or barba could color the plot. She hasnt warmed up to Carisi yet and we don’t know her opinion on Barba’s whole controversy so whether she respects the fact Carisi is an “out” ada (so she assumes) or she’s low key disgusted he’s with someone like Barba who she dislikes from what she’s heard or read, could influence how it is she accidentally outs them. I myself like to imagine she either does it sort of casually and doesn’t realize the ramification of her comment or if they throw a new canon love interest at Carisi it could be Kat getting offended on Barba’s behalf that Carisi seems interested, whether she likes Barba or not, because cheating is wrong and dispicable and Carisi should be better than that. And she blows up at Carisi in front of the squad over it and is confused when everyone else is confused because they didnt even know he’d been in contact with Barba since Barba left. And when like Rollins tries to speak for a stunned Carisi that Kat is mistaken Kat gets offended theyre calling her a liar and basically calls them bad cops/friends for not knowing what was going on in their ada and ex detective’s life when she did and lays out some facts that in hindsight are pretty obvious. She’s apologize for inadvertanly outing him and there’d be a some drama over keeping secrets, especially with Rollins.

Idk there’s a lot of potential here for ways this could go and I’d absolutely love to see anyone write something inspired by it because I know I’m not gonna ever sit down and properly write it.

#barisi #idk I was just hit with inspiration thats’s going nowhere #plot bunny for free #pls adopt it lol #im not gonna wrote anything hut thought I’d share the idea anyway

33 notes · View notes

alicezan-ncgred · 5 years

Text

Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative.

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this.

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too.

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin.

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better.

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression.

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that.

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD, Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind.

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue.

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt.

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly.

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling.

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode.

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell.

#Long post #tw: suicide #TW: Depression #Trigger Warning #TW #OCD #Anxiety #Chronic Depression #Bipolar Disorder #Bipolar #Mental Health #My mental health

7 notes · View notes

thesinglesurgeon · 6 years

Text

Retrospective advice to incoming M1s

Its that time of year when my med school’s facebook page is aflutter with incoming med students looking for roommates and tips on the best local dentist and dry cleaners. Some of them write quirky blurbs (”I’m looking for a roommate, my only annoying habit is that I sing really loud in the shower!”) that are cute but a little annoying, mostly because it reveals how oblivious they are to what’s coming their way. I’m glad they are giggling and excited, I was too. But hindsight is always 20/20 and here is some advice I wish someone told me (honestly, they probably did tell me and I just wasn’t listening):

Drop your ego at that door. Yeah, you need normal healthy self confidence to function in life, but stop imagining your amazing performance in undergrad matters, or will translate to success in medical school. This was the toughest pill for me to swallow. I had a 4.0 in a really competitive neuroscience program in undergrad. I was convinced I could handle med school. It’s true, we can all handle med school, but it takes some adapting and willingness to ditch your old ways and try new things ASAP. After 2 blocks of unnecessary struggling, I ditched my old habits (reading textbooks cover to cover and making handwritten outlines) and moved onto new ways (using OneNote for electronic notekeeping, making a shit ton of index cards, and studying the hard stuff first).

Be flexible, then stop. This is weird advice, but it’s important. You need to try new study techniques the first few weeks. Do you need to attend class or watch lectures at home? Do you need to print the powerpoints or are you good with electronic copies? Are you able to sit still and read though material, or do you need to quiz yourself instead? Try out everything, find what works, then stop! Once I realized index cards were my jam and studying home alone was better than at school, I was fine. But there are moments when people brag about their awesome strategy, or you think that the next block you’ll use a different study strategy because of some rumor you heard about the test. Once you find your flow, stick with it, and don’t cave into study FOMO and unnecessarily change what’s working.

Take what your classmates say with a grain of salt. In my class, everyone is nice and awesome. But people seem to naturally drop their opinions when not asked to, or say one phrase that rocks your world and makes you feel dumb and unprepared. I remember when someone asked me to explain a biochem diagram to them that we just learned yesterday. I didnt really understand it either, but instead of saying: “I don’t know about that yet either” and moving on, I felt like a total moron that I hadn’t studied that diagram yet, that someone else is ahead of me, that I didnt get the concepts yet, etc. Just chill. Don’t really listen to anyone talking to you about study advice or material. Make it the background noise.

Study everyday. This is obvious (or it should be). But I had some serious denial, and mega resentment, that I had to seriously study everyday. Just walk into medical school expecting to study each day, don’t assign resentment to it, and realize that once you get better, you can take days off. Once you’re a fourth year (like I am now!), you get each weekend off and life is good. This is temporary, so buckle down and study everyday and don’t get mad about it.

School is the most important thing. And teachers know this. Don’t get immersed in a million extracurriculars like in undergrad (you’re not expected to), you NEED to know this material so you can be a doctor. How cool is that? You have to know this so you can help people one day. That attitude helped me realize that studying isn’t just a mind-numbing task, but the gateway to a dream job, and it symbolizes my competency to be a physician. So take school really seriously, someone’s life might depend on it one day.

You can’t help others unless you can help yourself. So exercise, watch a great TV show once in a while, eat chocolate, learn to cook tasty dinners. Like the airplane safety videos say: secure your own oxygen mask before helping others. When I was a kid, I thought that was so mean to put on your own mask first and ignore the little kids or fragile old people around you. But my mom patiently explained that without your own mask on, you’ll be useless if you also pass out. So put on your own mask first, then go around and help others.

This goes by so fast. I remember each long night in my little cubicle in med school. I remember carrying giant binders in a heavy backpack, and getting up at 5am to get to the anatomy lab before class to practice. I remember being envious of fourth years, truly thinking it would never be me out there in the hospital, wearing scrubs and actually making sense. But it happens, and it happens so fast. So don’t fret, the first two years aren’t awesome, but they go by quick =)

#m1 #medblr #advice #medschool

95 notes · View notes

minblush · 7 years

Note

(interpretation anon) im back cause i just saw ur post about their lack of involvement and before i was trying to be fair and wait for info but im with you on this hold me back girl im boutta beat bang shihyuks ass. thank you for giving jin more lines seriously but also the fuck is this. and it might seem in hindsight but i was thinking the outro felt the closest to genuine and now it makes sense. i am made an exception to my no groups rule because of their involvement in their music. FIX. THIS.

Anonymous said:(interpretation anon) and complete sidenote but while im goin off i gotta say i take issue w the praise of serendipity cause it doesnt sound like the other songs when its the 2nd most vapid song on there. the first being dimple which is the only song i actually hate. i gotta say tho pied piper is a bop.

yeah outro was basically yoongi’s song ;; ah well… gotta get them on that hot 100 so we’re past that and can get music that is more them again hh… and tbh i love jimin and his voice and was really proud of him, but that song and dna are my least fav on the album, i do like dimple actually but the lyrics are kinda off putting to me so i wouldn’t put it among my favs, i love pied piper so much ♥-♥ the lyrics especially

Anonymous said:I realized after I sent that that “Go” wasnt touched by any of them but youre right I didnt notice that Yoongi didnt touch the lyrics for Mic Drop and they are last in basically every song (I didnt know the order had any importance) but on hyyh 2 there is no song where they all chipped in. -

Anonymous said:- I can understand why its a little disappointing but we have to remember that they had a world tour, that they havent even finished yet, on top of other things. We always talk about them taking care of themselves and not to take on too much, maybe taking a step back from this album was their way of doing that, thats just a possibility though. But thank you for responding to me!

yeah sorry about that i made a mistake, i meant hyyh pt1, that one has a song where everyone chipped in. and yeah i do remember that, i also remember that they are always busy and are always touring and that didn’t stop them before, they always work hard, really hard and make a lot of music, tae even showed us the music he made that was rejected, jimin also made melodies that were rejected etc, so it’s not that they’re taking a step back themselves and working less or smth tbh, i believe this is really the company’s decision because they are the ones that have the last word with what gets released and they obviously favoured foreign producers and what they deemed charts friendly over the members’ contribution, like i have no beef with the members, i love them and they work so hard adkjskd that’s why i want their music to be released and not constantly rejected in favour of public friendliness, though i understand it’s one of their goals too… still… idk it’s hard to express for me, if they’re happy with the product i’m glad and happy too, i hope it’s a huge success, but it’s just obvious now why there is a certain disconnection with the music this time

#ask #anon

9 notes · View notes

mixedfeelingsproject · 7 years

Text

Lucie

Where are you from? Paris, France

How would you describe your race/ethnicity? I would say i'm mixed white and asian, or eurasian.

Do you identify with one particular aspect of your ethnicity more than another? Have you ever felt pressure to choose between parts of your identity? Being born in France, with a French father, a french nationality and a french mother tongue made me consider my asian heritage first way less important. But many people tried to reduce my chinese heritage (even my father didnt realise how important it was for me) so i guess theses comments "well you're not really chinese tho" plus my own doubt made me consider it then way more fragile and someting to "defend" against my french identity, which i don't want to become too important and diminuate my chinese identity, as if i was a bath and i wanted to have as much hot water than cold water, but one water is running faster than one and i have struggle to keep a balance. This is a feeling i had a really long time, now i understand how not-relevant is it, i am not a bath and culture is infinite, i now accept that i am in fact more french than chinese, but because my chinese identity is "smaller" doesn't mean she's less important.

Did your parents encounter any difficulties from being in an interracial relationship? The concept of races is, i suppose, less strong in France than in US, and i don't even think that my parents or their friends considered them as "interracial couple" but mostly two people with very different cultures. So the issue was (using "was" because my parents are divorced now) mostly understanding the difference in culture and education. For example, my father couldn't really understand about the importance of religion for my mother (buddhism and traditionnal chinese religion) because as many French peoples, he was raised very anticlerical. But mostly they were both very open to each other so it was not the biggest struggle in their relationship.

How has your mixed background impacted your sense of identity and belonging? When i was very young, my ethnicity was in nothing relevant but the older i get, the more important it became. I really feel the need to put words on what i am, as about my gender or my sexual orientation, and if i am more than my gender, orientation, ethnicity, these things are defining me, at least in a small part, and not being sure of it really made me doubt of myself. I joined a french facebook group of asian engaged people, hoping to find some answers but it was very political about races when my struggles are more about countries and cultures. I often felt a bit left alone with all my questions about having a mixed background, i could have a real talk about this only with my mother.

Have you been asked questions like "What are you?" or "Where are you from?" by strangers? If so, how do you typically respond? All the children at school always came to me asking "are you chinese ?" (when i was 5) or more politely "and so, where do you come from ?" (when i was 13), and then i responded that i had chinese origins, or that my mother was chinese, but that i was french. When i became a teenager, i was so pissed of about everyone focusing on my ethnicity so i just responded "I'm French" or I'm 'Bretonne' " (my father is from Brittany wich is a French region with a very strong cultural identity). Then my high school was in the chinese district of Paris, there were a lot of french-asian people so i introduced myself as french and chinese, or "my mother is chinese and my father is french"

Have you experienced people making comments about you based on your appearance? People were sometimes surprised when i referenced to my chinese origins but compared to the comments i received about my style (went through a punk phase with blue hair and heavy make-up, now i have a buzzcut cut and piercings), i don't feel that my ethnicity have been an important subject for comments based on my look.

Have you ever been mistaken for another ethnicity? Many people wanted to classified my as only asian, or mostly white, or not a real chinese, but now that i now myself better and be proud of all my origins, i always insist i am french AND chinese and really both.

Have you ever felt the need to change your behavior due to how you believe others will perceive you? In what way? I don't really think so. Maybe i at some moments i tried to insist about how much i was chinese because i am don't want people to "forget it" (i know how absurd it seems now i am writing this), always this thing about being scared that my chinese heritage disapear.

What positive benefits have you experienced by being mixed? I surprisingly don't really know. The struggle has always been about to know who i was, that i didn't ask myself about the benefits of being me (i am not sure if this make sense). I think sharing different cultures give me a kind of 'hindsight' on each. I understand how things that seems so important in France might be not in China, or the opposite (we could talk about France or China's differences about relationships with love and passion and sexuality, family, religion, indivuduality, politics, belonging, arts, etc), so that make me understant that many things we thougt are necessary for all humans to live happily are actually inherent in being from one culture. In all modesty, i would say it made me more open to difference, more benevolent, and wiser.

Have you changed the way you identify yourself over the years? When i was a child, i looked i myself in the mirror and couldn't understand wy children at school call me chinese: for me, i was only a bit chinese because my mother was but i thought my face was the same as every french children. Then i accepted i had obvious chinese origins, but it didn't seem very important to me. It was just my face, and the family dinner but i always lived in France so i was French, mostly. Since 1 or 2 years, i really embrace my chinese culture, understood better how my mother ethnicity and culture impacted the education she gave me. Im buddhist, i learn chinese and feel closer to the chinese culture. Now i try to understand the Britain culture of my father, wich, compared to my chinese heritage, always seemed minor because Britanny is part of France, because people laught at me saying that i'm britain too. But i realized my father was really attached to his region and i will try to understand in which ways i am attached to it too. I am still processing all this, i still have a lot of question but i feel more confident thant in the past so i guess all of this can only get clearer.

Are you proud to be mixed? Yes

Do you have any other stories you would like to share from your own experiences? I will use this space to apologize about my english. This is only my second language and it was a complicate subject to write about, i hope than despite of many mistakes i'm sure, it is still understandable.

#mixed #french #chinese #bretonne #identity #hapa

1 note · View note

dysphoric-dumbass13 · 5 years

Text

Ok a little storytime (and a huge shoutout to someone who inspires me)

So I'm going to start this out with a little backstory for you guys.

When I was younger, I played a pretty big role in raising my little brother, and during this time I was raising myself (this was between the ages of 3 and 10 for me, 2 and 9 for him). It was extremely difficult to do. I ended up growing up (emotionally) incredibly fast, to accommodate. Because of this I was constantly told that I was crazy mature, and it was obvious I was. I dressed like a 30 year old woman daily when I was 5, and until I was 12.

Because of this period in my life, I required a lit of support from other people. My mom worked a lot to help provide for us and my dad was either at work, sleeping, playing video games, or at school (for part of the time), so that option was out. I relied on my grandparents a lot and made really stable, reliable friendships whenever I could.

Of course I developed an issue where every best friend I had would unexpectedly leave and it would hurt really, really bad, but that's beside the point.

I realized I needed a strong role model and support while I was at home. I was always incredibly interested in music, in fact I don't know how I could've lived without it.

I was introduced to Taylor Swift when I was 5. I listened to one song and I was inspired. She was strong and a great musician and I latched on to that.

I had an obsession for 7 years, which in hindsight is a little more than a little excessive.

I still look up to her. Shes strong and she helped me through times when it seemed like nobody else was there, and she helped me when my emotions were just too much to bear, putting some of them into words so I could relate. I loved her, and I still do. Not as obsessively of course, but I love everything she was to me.

Now I'm 14. I start high school in 6 days and I didnt even really think about it until yesterday. I knew I wanted to go back and restart my life with what I know now, and be able to enjoy being a kid while I could instead of rushing growing up.

The entire thought hit me like a train. I'm going into HIGH SCHOOL. I cant act like a little kid anymore and get away with it. I cant pretend I'm not about to move away from everything I know and change everything. I cant pretend I'm not close to being an actual adult and making those decisions. I cant exactly act 4 when I'm trying to look at colleges and future career options. I cant act 4 when I'm doing SATs. I have to be the........... basically thw adult I've been scared of becoming for the last 2 years.

I'm going to a different school than everyone I know and it feels like leaving and I dont know that I can deal with the emotional portion of that again.

So I was sitting on my bed having a panic attack last night, and so I decided it would be a good idea to try and get all of the stuff I need to do in in the next 5 days. So I turned on some Taylor Swift, hoping it would remind me of childhood and being a kid.

The first song that plays is Never Grow Up.

It used to be one of my favorite songs, and the one I understood the least. Why wouldn't you want to grow up? Well I get it now.

I listened to the whole song. It hit everything I was feeling. And I started crying.

I started crying because I didnt feel the same about the song as I did when I was little.

I cried because Taylor's voice was just so soothing and those tears needed to come out one way or another.

I cried because I love that song so much and I didnt want to let go of it.

But most of all...

I cried because I felt it. The whole song. I felt every word in my soul, I felt it so fully that I almost didnt feel anything else.

So I cried. And cried. Because I miss it. And I'm scared. And I wish I wasnt growing up. And I still see Taylor so highly. And I wish I could be little again.

@taylorswift you are truly an inspiration. You are so strong and beautiful and I love it. You have been a huge support in my life for so long. I dont know what to even say. Thank you doesnt even begin to cover it, but it is a start. So thank you. So much.

I may not be so visible about loving your work and I might not have listened to like any of the new stuff, but I love what your music has done for me, and what I'm sure it must've done for someone else out there.

0 notes

abigailswager · 7 years

Text

Diversification can Kill your Returns

New Post has been published on https://cryptocurrenciestrading.com/%ef%bb%bfdiversification-can-kill-your-returns/

Diversification can Kill your Returns

Diversification Can Cripple Your Returns

Summary

A method never talked about. Over trading now is an enemy. This method teaches control. You seldom ever hear this approach being discussed in the media.

Why doesn’t the media talk about a concentrated portfolio approach,

The answer seems obvious.

A portfolio made up of only a handful of equities doesn’t promote trading. Brokerage firms are one of the largest advertisers within financial news networks. These are the folks that make trading for a living look so easy. The want you to trade trade trade! So it seems obvious why they wouldn’t promote such a strategy that doesn’t involve churn. Finance websites need clicks and advertising dollars to stay alive. The cost per click for terms related to stocks, brokers, and trading are very expensive. Terms such as “best online stock broker” are some of the most expensive searches on Google costing anywhere from $3.00 to $50.00 per click. So they have an interest in promoting active trading. So it should be no surprise this strategy gets no respect and even ridiculed by the media,

The strategy I am speaking of has worked for many including our members. The only regret is not giving it a name long ago. We gave it a tagline called the “12 Trades per Year Portfolio”. In hindsight maybe it should have been called 7 trades per year or 9 trades per year. You get the drift that we are having a hard time making it to 12 trades.

What this is not.

I am speaking of the elimination of over-trading. Over-Trading is an easy mistake to make. We have all been guilty. Boredom sometimes make us put on a trade we shouldn’t. A financial guru talking about option activity in a stock is off the chart and a buyout could be in the works can cause a trade that shouldn’t have been. The thing is you can fix this starting now. Just don’t do it. Simple as that. Stop it and stop it now. If you do nothing else and stop this bad habit now you will see an immediate payoff. This isn’t rocket science, it is basic self-control. Don’t enter a trade without the full confidence risk reward on your side. Even then you will have your losers so don’t compound it any longer by making too many trades.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously stated that diversification”is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.” He is basically saying diversification is for the average.

How to carry out this strategy.

Stay in touch with the news flow. Keep yourself informed and wait. You are waiting for an event. What event, We don’t know what we are waiting on but we know one is coming sooner or later. While you are waiting, exercise your throwing arm by making notes about stocks you think will rise or fall. For instance, if the news of the week is “Gold is going to rise”, make a note of what you think will happen in the next week, month or year. Make notes of stocks and sectors you think are overvalued and undervalued. Try to find upcoming trends and what the media might be talking about in the next 3-6 months like we did with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). We were writing about it in March when it was trading at $32.00. This will start getting your throwing arm ready. Like in sports you are training. The more you do this the stronger you become. Without proper training, you are doomed to fail. Also, surround yourself with like-minded thinkers. Seek them out. You will eventually become a product of the people who surround you. Do this and when the “event” presents itself you will have the confidence to act. You will not be afraid to go into a position with size.

The “market” is a big crybaby.

I hate it when pundits treat the market like a person.

The “market” wants this or that. The “market” wants rates to stay the same or wants a rate hike. Are you kidding me, These statements are coming from educated people! I want you to take notice how many times you hear someone in the financial media make a statement about the “market” as if it is a person. They speak of it as though the market is an all-knowing being. You listen to them enough and you would think the “market” is a 5-year-old child crying over candy! The “market” is made up of people. Guess what, People are driven by 2 main emotions.Fear and greed. Once you realize that fear and greed are the main drivers of this whole game, only then can you begin to see mispriced stocks due to these emotions. Once you get some time exercising under your belt you may then start the actual process of implementing this strategy. This is where the rubber meets the road.

Proponents of efficient market hypothesis say that any new information relevant to a company’s value is quickly priced by the market.

This is the biggest load of bull dung ever sold to the investing public. If this is true how did I and a handful of friends make a small fortune by buying HealthSouth at .19-.40 cents and sell it not long afterwards for $6.00, Talking about a prime example of fear and greed! This was a classic case. Even though I did make the highest percentage return of my career on this play, I look back and think of how I should have bet bigger. I still get an occasional phone call from people who I shared the HealthSouth trade with say “I wished I had followed you” or “I would have made a fortune had I listened”. That’s the thing with investing, trading, speculating or whatever name you choose, you can almost always look back and see where you could have done better. The same holds true with life in general. Don’t let those once in a lifetime events leave you on the sideline.

Warning:This method can be boring.

This is where it can get very boring. We wait. We wait and we wait more. We start thinking this should be called “No Trades per Year” because it is boring. We think the opportunity will never come. We wait more. But sooner or later it comes.

A few recent examples.

Sometimes it comes slow and gentle like the Oil trade alert on February 12, 2016. This play felt like it was in slow motion. Almost every talking head was saying $20.00 Oil was coming. To listen to the media that week the oil producers were going to start paying us to fill our vehicles because it cost too much for them to store it, and stupid low prices are here forever and there was nothing anyone could do. I will never forget thinking of the old simplistic saying “Be buying when they crying and be selling when they yelling”. It just seemed so obvious. So United States Oil Fund LP (NYSEARCA:USO) was the vehicle that was chosen to trade at $7.81. USO traded near $12.00 towards the end of May. It felt so easy.

The United Rentals (NYSE:URI) buy in January at $46.60 didn’t feel as obvious as the oil play when thinking about it in hindsight. United Rentals wasn’t a media stock darling and seldom gets a mention. The alert went out while the conference call was taking place. The stock closed at $55.84 the day before and was down more than $10.00 on the earnings miss. This felt like a big overreaction. We knew there was no danger of a bankruptcy or any real liquidity issues. It was the classic case of a stock getting punished over a quarter to quarter miss. United Rentals traded at $49.46 only two sessions later and hit $51.08 five days afterward. Those that did sell around those price levels have nothing to be ashamed as it retreated to $43.34 on February 11. But those that stayed with URI are looking like a stock picking Rainman as $82.12 was the closing number on August 23. But guess what, We closed the position for the member alerts portfolio on April 27 at a price of $68.07 causing the portfolio to miss out on the next $14.00 of profit. Do you see how you can always look back and see how you could have done better, You can’t get too caught up in what you missed but you can learn from the event. A ride with just 1000 shares turned $43,000 into $68,000. A percentage that is seldom achieved in a ultra-diversified portfolio.

Holy Grail,

This is not the Holy Grail. Is this method bullet proof, No. Is the risk higher, Depends on which academic pundit answers. I can say I like the chances of picking 5 stocks over a 12-24 month period than say picking 20-50 stocks. I like the odds better as I can control my risk even more by only entering stocks I feel confident. The risk level is up to the individual. You must have a mental disaster plan in place. In a highly focused portfolio, one should always have a proper escape plan. This can be accomplished with stops and/or by taking insurance on your play via options. Most common method is adding puts equal to the amount of shares you own. This gives you a known risk amount. Others may choose not buy insurance if the confidence level is high. It boils down to risk tolerance and personal preference.

This method isn’t for everyone. A person could choose to do this with only a small portion of their portfolio. But once you realize the “market” isn’t an all-knowing entity and “Fear and Greed” plays a huge role in the “markets”, you then become a better investor.

#Coin Talk

0 notes