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god-of-dust · 3 years

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after much deliberation, i decided to post what i wrote of chapter 2 and 3 of Trick Me here. this will probably never end up on ao3 because of Reasons, but someone might enjoy reading it and i definitely enjoy the validation. (also, leaving this to rot in my folder seems like a waste.)

this is rated T, no particular warnings apply besides tom’s occasional murderous thoughts.

-----

There’s no sign of Potter. Figures. Tom glares at the suit of armour as if it’s the one meant to carry the blame for this situation.

Disillusionment Charm firmly in place, he leans on the rough stone wall and resigns himself to wait.

“You’re early. Why am I not surprised?”

In a split second, Tom turns in the direction of the voice and points his wand towards... the empty corridor?

Then Potter’s head—only his head—emerges from thin air.

“Jumpy, too. Again, not surprised,” Potter says, smirking. Then he moves, revealing the rest of his body and the rippling fabric of a cloak.

An Invisibility Cloak. No wonder Potter can get wherever he wants without getting caught. “Where did you get that?” Tom asks, envy colouring every word. That kind of Cloak is worth thousands of Galleons, which is more money than Tom has ever possessed in his entire life.

The things Tom could do with one... he’d have no need for permission to slide beyond the wards of the forbidden section of the library. While certainly tame compared to what a collection from a Dark pureblood family would hold, there are also many old books there that Tom has been dying to get his hands on since he’s seen their titles and felt the power they contained.

“Family heirloom,” Potter says with a shrug.

Of course Potter has a family that provides for him, and of course he has the gall to shrug, like it’s absolutely normal to carry around an object this valuable and use it to go to the Quidditch pitch at night. It’s maddening, to witness this utter lack of ambition in someone who has so much at his disposal and wastes it so pitifully.

He reaches out to touch the fabric. It’s soft and perfect, spells woven so beautifully that it appears not to be enchanted at all. He refuses to believe that this Potter is the one who cast them. “What kind of spells does your family use to prevent the magic from fading? How frequently do you have to refresh them?”

Potter only smiles and shakes his head. “You and Hermione would be amazing together if you just stopped being an arse to her.”

Tom glares at him. His thoughts on that particular topic must be crystal clear, because Potter laughs that full-bellied laugh of his. “You haven’t answered my question,” Tom insists.

“Do you want to stand in the corridor all night discussing my cloak? I thought we had Quidditch to play.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Tom says: “Fine.”

“Get under here, then,” Potter beckons, holding a side of the cloak open for Tom to slip under and cover himself.

Sliding in the offered space, Tom instantly becomes very aware of how close they have to stay for them both to be concealed. Wonderful, he thinks, just wonderful. Just what I needed: more contact with him.

He lets Potter lead the way outside; after a bit of fumbling, they find a rhythm that allows them to walk in sync without constantly bumping into each other’s shoulder.

“Thank Merlin you’re shorter than Ron. His feet try to peek out all the time, it’s an absolute nightmare.”

Are his friends all he can talk about? Tom vaguely wonders, before noticing the route they’re taking. “The Quidditch pitch is the other way.”

“We’re not going to the pitch,” Potter replies.

Tom stops in his tracks, making the cloak tangle around Potter’s form; unsurprisingly, it only takes a moment for the miraculous Golden Boy to recover his balance. Tom, voice strained with the effort to keep it under control, hisses: “If you’re trying to trick me, Potter, I swear—”

“I’m not,” Potter interrupts. “The pitch is too open and couples go there to shag all the time, so the chances of someone seeing us are too high. I’m taking you to a place only I and my closest friends know about.”

Again with his friends. “Are you really so arrogant as to believe you’re the only one that knows anything about Hogwarts?”

This time, Potter is the one who stills abruptly. He turns to face Tom, noses almost touching under the cloak, eyes ablaze with an emotion that Tom has never seen on him: genuine, unfiltered anger. “Listen, Riddle. I offered my help, but what I didn’t offer was being target practice for your fucking abrasiveness. You want to learn Quidditch? I can teach you. You want to act like a bastard? Go do that somewhere else, because I’m not afraid to punch you in the face if you insist on constantly accusing me of imaginary crimes.”

“As if I’m not able to defend myself from your punches,” Tom snarls.

Potter’s eyes narrow. “Were you even listening to me?”

There’s nothing stopping Tom from hexing Potter into the next century; nothing, except for the fact that he’d be expelled and then the whole Potter clan would ensure that he’d rot in Azkaban for an indeterminate amount of years. Right now, it seems like a minor price to pay.

He keeps his twitching fingers away from his wand. He needs to hold himself in check if he wants to avoid Potter’s suspicion. After a steadying breath, he says evenly: “I was. My words were... out of line. I apologise.”

Silence stretches while Potter stares at him. Then he turns on his heels, facing away, and they resume their walking.

It takes them a few minutes to reach the boundary of looming trees that students are supposed to never cross. “Is this secret place of yours really inside the Forest?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m reasonably sure that no one else has discovered it. A wrong turn would take them either into an Acromantula nest or in centaur territory,” Potter explains, navigating with sure steps amidst trunks and twigs and weeds and bushes as if he owns the place.

Both options are incredibly dangerous, for many different reasons. Not even the Headmaster has jurisdiction over the creatures in the Forest, and any reckless student who wanders too far is responsible for their own fate. Over the years, Tom has done a little exploring of his own to gather herbs, shed fur and other potion ingredients, but he never went as deep inside as wherever Potter is taking them now. “How did you discover it, then?” Tom asks while memorising the convoluted trail so that he’ll be able to return later. The potions he could brew with even a small vial of Acromantula venom, or some eggs... he has to find out more about those supposedly wrong turns.

“I followed my nose,” Potter says with a mischievous smirk, previous anger washed away like a leaf in a river. “And perhaps I had a bit of help.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, sorry, but I’m not going to divulge my secrets to anyone who asks... besides, you’re smart enough; perhaps with time you’ll figure it out on your own.”

Focus still firmly placed on their surroundings, Tom ignores the compliment. He has no use for Potter’s pretense.

A large clearing suddenly materialises before them, encircled by towering trees whose foliage forms a protective half-dome high over their heads. Ancient magic caresses Tom’s skin, making him shiver with anticipation. There’s a circular area in the center, large enough to hold a dozen people, empty of any grass or stone; Tom is certain that someone has built it that way on purpose. He steps closer, prudent and fascinated in equal measure. “What is this place?” he wonders, eyes wide and searching as he studies the stone while taking in the feeling of rightness and inspiration the space emanates.

“Somewhere where we can have all the privacy we want,” Potter says lightly as he slides off the cloak from their shoulders. To him, this secret spot humming with magic that vibrates in Tom’s blood and bones must be just another day, just another priceless thing dropped on his lap that he wields without a care.

After enchanting a few Lumos spheres to hover around them, Potter extracts a small object from his pocket, lays it on the even ground and enlarges it with a wave of his wand, revealing it to be a trunk. Then he points to a twisted root that peeks out from the soil and transfigures it into three Quidditch hoops, about three meters high.

“I assume you know about Quidditch roles and rules even if you’ve never played, correct?”

“Yes.” Tom’s skimmed through a Quidditch book, if only not to be completely unprepared when it came to playing his part in this charade. He will carry his plan forward and rip the rug from under Potter’s feet, even if it involves studying a few tedious rules of a tedious sport.

“So, you can probably imagine that every role requires different skills, which is why we’ll explore every one of them and gradually build up your stamina and reflexes while you discover what you’re naturally good at.” He scratches at his head contemplatively. “When was the last time you rode a broom?”

“First year flying classes. I was average at the basics and never tried anything more elaborate.” Tom isn’t eager to recall most of those memories because, in truth, it had been humiliating to realise how far behind his peers he was. Unlike them, he’d never had a broom of his own to practice and his confidence had faltered when he needed it the most. The broom’s magic had caught on his hesitation and thus his performance had been lukewarm at best.

“Yeah, I can imagine it wasn’t pleasing for you. Hermione was the same. You really can’t stand it when you don’t excel at something, huh?”

“I doubt anyone enjoys the feeling of being incompetent.”

“Good point,” Potter admits, “but that’s not the attitude you need right now. You always have to start from somewhere and build from there, even if that starting point isn’t as glorious as you’d like.” He squats to open the trunk; it contains a clearly well-loved yet also well-kept set of Quidditch balls.

Tom eyes suspiciously the Bludgers struggling against the chains holding them in place.

“Since we’re starting from the basics, tonight we’re both going to play Chasers, which means that we’ll pass the Quaffle between us and do our best to score through the goals. Of course, there’s more to being a Chaser than this, but it will be enough for now. Before that, though, I want to see you on a broom.”

“I don’t have one. I presumed we’d use one of the school brooms,” Tom says, crossing his arms, mild irritation colouring his tone.

Unbothered, Potter reaches again into his pocket to produce two shrunken brooms. “I brought my Nimbus. It’s very good, especially for a beginner, with quick responses and great stability.”

He holds out his hand and Tom takes the now appropriately sized broom. “...Thank you.”

“Wow, you’re really making an effort into being polite. I appreciate that,” Potter says, apparently pleased. “But now, Riddle, show me how you ride.”

There’s nothing in Potter’s smile and in that particular phrasing that Tom could possibly care for. He straddles the broom and pushes himself to hover in mid-air, one meter from the ground and then one more; feeling how precarious and uncertain his posture is, he does his best to correct it.

“Good. You don’t seem to be struggling much. Are you afraid of heights?”

Tom shoots him a venomous look. “No.”

“That’s one less thing we have to worry about, then.” Potter jumps on his broom and rises too, graceful as a phoenix. Bastard. “Let’s try some loops.”

Tom nods and watches as Potter demonstrates a few simple figures: circle, spiral, figure-eight. They seem easy enough, but when Tom tries to follow Potter’s directions his broom moves in shaky zig-zags instead of the smooth curves he expects it to perform.

“This broom isn’t working,” Tom snarls. He looks at Potter, who’s certainly dying to make fun of him... only to find no trace of sadistic glee on his expression.

Potter circles around him, examining him from head to toe with furrowed brows, almost hawk-like in his focus. “You’re clenching your thighs and hands too hard. The broom reads that as a sign for ‘straight line’ and ‘speed’, and right now that’s not your objective. For curves like these, you have to flow with the movement and lean into the direction you want without overbalancing.” His posture is relaxed, bordering on lazy, as he flies in a large, slow circle for Tom’s sake. “Like this.”

Tom imitates him as best as he can, loosening his grip. “What if I want to achieve a fast curve?”

“Fast curves are more advanced. We’ll try those later.”

Tom tries again with a figure-eight, and he’s surprised when he finds that the broom’s following the path he intended with increasing ease.

“See? Way better,” Potter beams. He looks like he’s genuinely enjoying this.

After a few minutes of loops, Tom’s acquired a mild amount of confidence in his form; at least the feeling that he’ll tip over every time he steers the broom has lessened until it’s nearly gone. Seemingly satisfied, Potter instructs him on how to repeat the same figures with a single-handed grip, then handless, as he explains: “You’ll need your hands free for the Quaffle.”

Even while going through boring drills at this insignificant height, there’s an undeniable thrill to flying, to acquiring control over something as elusive as air. “One day,” he declares, “I’m going to invent broomless flying.” Perhaps a variation of Wingardium Leviosa, combined with a Feather-Light Charm... yes, he’ll do it, and succeed.

“That would be amazing. And honestly, if anyone could do that it would be you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Tom scoffs, close to amused. Does Potter really think that compliments will have any effect on him? Tom’s too acquainted with the subtle art of manipulation to take any of Potter’s amateurish attempts seriously.

Potter rolls his eyes. “It’s not flattery, it’s me making an observation. Every single person in Hogwarts knows that your knowledge and control over magic are impressive.” Smoothly diving forwards, Potter reaches for the trunk and grabs the Quaffle inside it.

“Catch!” he says, and throws the ball at Tom.

Instincts rearing up before he can think, Tom steers sideways to dodge, but he’s too quick, too sudden, the broom refuses to cooperate—fuck, he’s lost his balance, he’s going to slip off and fall on his face like a bloody—

An arm slides around his torso, holding him up. A steady hand over the handle of his broom stops its lurching. Tom is barely breathing, his mind catching up to the fact that he’s not going to become one with the forest soil.

“Shit, Tom, I’m sorry, I thought you were ready, I should have warned you—”

Heart still finding the way back to its regular beat, Tom interrupts Potter’s rambling: “It’s fine. Nothing happened.”

“Well it was a stupid thing to do, and I won’t do it again,” Potter insists, wide eyes painfully green even in the dark.

“Just drop it, will you?” It’s embarrassing enough that he ran away from a Quaffle like it was the Killing Curse; Potter’s self-flagellation is just rubbing more salt on the wound. As if he hasn’t done it on purpose anyway, the fucking prick.

With a sigh, the arm around Tom tightens briefly before Potter releases him. “Do you want to stop? We’ve done a lot already. You’ve been great.”

More useless flattering.

“Let’s try again,” Tom orders. He wants to challenge Potter, confuse him, shock him, give him a lesson that he’ll never forget. The plan to ruin his reputation isn’t enough; the matter has become personal.

Uncertain, Potter nods. This time, when the Quaffle comes towards him Tom catches it, albeit unsteadily. A victorious glint in his eyes, he does his best to throw Potter off-balance by flinging the ball back at him.

The back-and-forth of the Quaffle between them slowly acquires a flow. Potter accepts Tom’s viciousness and in turn pushes Tom’s limits, building his reflexes with progressively more elaborate throws, flying around him in circles like an annoying snidget. Tom fumbles, stumbles, grumbles, but he manages to avoid another fall, and he even scores a few points through the unprotected goals.

By the end of the lesson they’re both sweating—disgusting—and Potter is positively radiating joy.

Tom can’t say the same about himself. His performance’s been nowhere near satisfactory, his dexterity and form nowhere near Potter’s. While he still holds no interest for Quidditch, he also can’t stand the thought that Potter can have this golden opportunity to gloat over him. There’s no way that Tom will accept being considered inferior to anyone.

“So, uh... how was it?” Potter asks once they’ve dismounted, self-consciously running a hand through his hair. It looks like a habit of his.

“You’ve been patient,” Tom concedes. It’s true, at least on the surface: Potter’s been nothing but helpful and tolerant of every mistake, adapting his teaching to Tom’s pace with flawless precision. “I could have done better.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Potter says, “will you stop with the self-deprecation? You’re learning. It’s all part of the process. Believe me, I’ve seen worse.”

Tom hands the Nimbus back to Potter, who’s extinguishing the enchanted lights and reverting the goal posts back to their original shape. “You’ve also seen best, I reckon.”

Potter huffs in annoyance as he takes the broom and stores it away along with the rest of the equipment. “Yes, and it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a competition. The whole point of us being in the middle of the forest instead of the pitch is that you can be away from judgemental eyes, so could you please stop being your own worst critic?”

“We should go.” If Potter considers having standards the same as self-deprecation, then Tom has nothing else to say. “I can find my way back.” He turns to follow the hidden trail that led them here.

“Wait,” Potter says, interrupting Tom as he was about to cast a wordless Disillusionment Charm on himself. “Do you want to do this again? More lessons?”

Does Tom want to? Is the headache of spending time with Potter worth it?

Like a sharp edge, a thorn stuck in his side, Potter’s words echo in his head. This isn’t a competition. But it is, in a way—it’s Tom’s endurance against his desire to chalk up the whole plan as a failure and sweep it under the rug.

And Potter is still an issue—he still needs to go down in flames, and Tom is the one who has to ignite that fire.

He straightens his back. I won’t quit now. “Same time, next Saturday?”

“I’ll be here,” Potter says. It sounds like a promise.

[missing scene with Tom and snake-Harry]

At half past eleven on Saturday, Harry prepares to slip away from the Gryffindor dormitory under his Cloak.

“Ron, hey,” he whispers in the darkness of the dormitory, shaking his friend’s shoulder.

Still more than half-asleep, refusing to open his eyes, Ron mutters, “What?”

“I’m going out, will probably be late again. Don’t wait for me, okay?” He’s a little ashamed of taking advantage of Ron while he’s in this state, knowing that he won’t ask questions.

“Yeah, yeah—g’night, mate,” Ron says, words slurred as the dream world ensnares him again.

Then Harry leaves, sliding through the many corridors of the castle as if he were in his Animagus form, until he crosses the entrance; outside he can run, free, breathing in the cold wind that chills his face and lungs. He feels so light, like the world is full of exciting possibilities, like he’s on the hunt for something marvellous.

Yes, he hates hiding these nighttime escapades from his friends. However, he also loves the secret thrill of this undefined thing he and Tom have, this strange agreement that’s neither friendship nor rivalry, while not being neutral either. He knows, he can see that Tom—and how weird it is, that he already thinks of him as such—still despises him... yet he’s also invested in Harry in a way that goes beyond simple hatred or spite.

He could have used many excuses to get his hands on Harry’s Firebolt and sabotage it. He could have cursed Harry himself, especially with how close they’ve been, and Harry has no doubt that Tom possesses a sizable arsenal of slow-building, undetectable curses that would have sent Harry to his grave with no one the wiser.

But then, how absurd it is that Harry’s still not afraid to know that a part of Tom, a loud and powerful one, would rejoice in his pain and in having caused it?

He’s certain that Tom Riddle’s bite is deadly venomous, and he’s been thirsting for Harry’s blood for a long time. The bane of his existence, indeed.

Yet Harry saw something else during their time together: the fierce competitiveness, the stubbornness, the drive towards excellence, the desire to be greater than anyone... and also the insecurity, the self-loathing, the fear hidden behind harsh perfectionism, the sense of not being enough, of having to push himself harder, of not belonging anywhere, of being unloved and unlovable.

Tom Riddle is human and flawed. And he has bite, yes, but along with the venom comes a blazing fire that he keeps carefully concealed under his detached, polished façade. Harry wants to witness more of that fire, wants to bask in it, wants to revel in the privilege of being the one who can bring it out.

He knows what Tom could do, the potential of his cruelty. However, night after night, he discovers an inescapable curiosity for what Tom will do.

A laughter, full and thrilling, shakes Harry’s body as he skips through the forest, jumping over traitorous roots and avoiding thorn bushes intent on drawing blood.

Tom, of course, has already arrived.

Harry admires the transfigured goal posts, smoother and more symmetrical than how his own half-arsed magic would ever mold them, and thinks, This is going to be fun.

“Eager?” Harry can’t help but tease.

Tom gives him one of his looks. “I don’t like wasting time.”

“Of course. Let’s get to it, then.”

Like last time, Harry offers Tom his Nimbus; they warm up by playing with the Quaffle, letting Tom reacquaint himself with the feeling of flying by revisiting a few of the trickier turns. Tom’s control over the borrowed broomstick is still shaky and hesitant, which he clearly hates with a passion, but he’s also improved considerably in a small amount of time.

This may be the one thing in which Tom Riddle isn’t a natural. However, for some reason he’s actually putting in an effort to learn, which leaves Harry wondering why. Merlin knows Tom’s mind works in mysterious ways, and even after spending a few nights with him as a snake and witnessing his unfiltered rants Harry’s not closer to understanding his convoluted reasoning.

“Tonight I think you could try your hand at playing Keeper.”

Tom, always straight to the point, immediately flies towards the transfigured hoops and circles around them. “On a practical level, how is it different from playing Chaser, anyway? The ball is the same, it’s just a matter of catching it as we’ve already been doing.”

Harry feels an appraising smile rise on his lips. “Interesting question,” he replies, turning the Quaffle in his hands. “I believe the main difference is in the freedom of movement. As a Chaser, you can follow the trajectory and position of the Quaffle and other players in the way that’s most convenient for you, while as a Keeper you have to stay in a confined area, since leaving the goals unguarded equals failure. You need sharper eyes and quicker reflexes, which is why I considered it more advanced.”

“But the smaller area should make it easier, not harder,” Tom says with a small frown.

“Theory is theory, practice is practice. You’ll see by yourself.”

“Let’s begin, then.” He looks impatient, and Harry privately thinks that it’s kind of adorable. Perhaps my love for Quidditch is rubbing off on him. Or perhaps he’s just that competitive.

So Harry begins throwing and Tom begins to understand Harry’s point as the Quaffle slides under his guard and passes easily through the hoops time after time. With sweaty hair plastered to his forehead, eyes aflame and gritted teeth, Tom struggles to prevent Harry’s craftiness from allowing him to score yet another point. He’s only managed to catch five out of twenty-four throws.

“You have to keep in mind that I’m not an actual Chaser myself,” Harry says, immensely enjoying the murderous look on Tom’s face. “This could be way worse.”

Tom stills, holding the ball as if he wants to strangle it. “You do so love to make fun of me,” he snarls. “Idiot Tom Riddle, who’s never learned to play Quidditch, who can’t even catch a bloody Quaffle. Must be so nice to sit on your throne and laugh at my pathetic attempts.”

The aggressiveness in Tom’s tone makes Harry feel all kinds of ruffled, and perhaps he should be keeping his mouth shut, but when has he ever listened to reason? So he says, “I thought you had more spine than this, for someone who sits on his throne and laughs at others all the time.”

“What?” Tom says, eyes narrow and voice sharp as a potioneer’s blade.

“You heard me. Is it fun, being an arsehole to Hermione and who knows how many others? How does it feel when you are the one whose efforts feel inadequate, Tom?”

“It’s Riddle, to you.”

“Well then, Riddle: how does it feel? And mind you, I was teasing you as I would with a friend, but I could also be cruel and cutting like you. I could get on the same level of ‘polite bastard’ you seem to revel in.”

The look Tom gives him is utterly blank, which could be seen as an improvement over being murderous, or could also mean that he’s so much more murderous than usual that he’s already on the phase where he’s choosing how to dispose of Harry’s body.

Harry sighs. This is all pointless. Tom hates him, will always hate him, and they’re just dancing around each other waiting for the perfect opportunity to... what? Tom is most likely waiting for Harry to lower his guard enough for him to strike undetected, but what does Harry want? What’s his excuse for being here?

Perhaps this time his curiosity is better left alone.

“Forget what I just said. I’ve been an arsehole,” Harry says. “We don’t have to do this if you’re so frustrated it makes you miserable.”

“Is this what you think of me? That I go around lording my knowledge over people?” Tom doesn’t sound angry—he just stares at Harry like he’s speaking in a different language.

“From what I’ve seen of you... well, yes,” Harry says, uncertain. He feels like this whole conversation is balancing on a very delicate thread. “It’s not overt, but you do act superior and rub your grades on other people’s faces, with those condescending smirks and such... and I don’t believe that you don’t do that on purpose.”

“I—do that,” Tom admits quietly, almost disturbed by the revelation. Even more interesting, he appears to be honestly considering it. “Perhaps... it’s a bit excessive.”

“We all know you’re the most skilled student in this school anyway. It’s not just about grades—you clearly have a touch, a passion for magic that can’t be found in books and that most of us can’t hope to replicate.”

Tom’s eyes catch Harry’s then, a blazing intensity passing between them that makes Harry feel… funny. “You’re telling the truth. You do think that.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not coming from you.”

Harry frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You—” Tom pauses, raking a hand through his already mussed-up hair. He looks more unbuttoned than Harry’s ever seen him. “I’m not sure.”

“That you wanted to murder me in my sleep, probably,” Harry says unthinkingly. He knows that Tom has never been confused on his opinion of Harry; he’s heard enough dramatics when Tom’s spoken to him as Ezra, long tales on how insufferable Harry is, and how much of an attention-seeker, how brainless and privileged, and so on.

Surprisingly, Tom laughs. It’s brief, blink-and-you’ll miss it, but it’s happened.

Tom Riddle has laughed.

“I might have considered it, yes,” Tom confesses, not even remotely apologetic.

Harry is shocked and more charmed than he’d like to admit. “I don’t know what to do with this sudden honesty.”

Tom shakes his head, and he’s still smiling—not smirking, but smiling—and he looks as unbalanced as Harry feels. “Neither do I.” He locks eyes with Harry, and for a few brief seconds there’s that intensity again; then he breaks the spell to Accio the Quaffle from where he’d dropped it. “Let me try again.”

“Sure,” Harry says, quietly thrilled.

[missing scene with Tom and snake-Harry]

The trunk containing Potter’s Quidditch equipment sits on the forest floor, lid open. Tom studies the set of chained Bludgers and lifts an eyebrow. “Last time you said that in this lesson I was supposed to ‘learn my way around a Beater’s bat’.” The unspoken question of why Potter hasn’t handed him any bat yet hangs in the air.

“Yeah, I said that, but then I realised that Bludgers might not be the best idea right now,” Potter admits, shrugging. “You’re probably already familiar with how they work from a spectator’s point of view, but this is another instance of theory being very different from practice.”

“In short, you believe I’m not able to undertake this particular task,” Tom says. Of course Potter wouldn’t consider him worthy enough for the scary, angry balls, not when Tom still struggles with inconsistent balance and shaky steering at the best of times. Furthermore, Potter’s famed superior abilities allow him to keenly judge the depth of Tom’s incompetency and find him wanting.

Unimpressed by Tom’s logic, Potter rolls his eyes. “Is it necessary for you to be so dramatic?”

“Don’t bother with lying. We both know it’s the truth,” Tom insists. He has no patience for this display of futile denial.

“It’s a distorted version of the truth, so you can beat yourself up for not being perfect enough, or some crap along those lines. Yes, it’s probably not safe for you to engage with Bludgers yet. No, it doesn’t mean that you’re useless of whatever you’re telling yourself.”

“You seem awfully confident in your ability to interpret my thoughts.” Out of ingrained habit, Tom reinforces his Occlumency shields. While it’s unlikely that Potter has the wits and finesse to master the delicate art of Legilimency, he’s also revealed himself to be unpredictable in many occasions. Better safe than sorry.

“Maybe you’re just obvious,” Potter says dismissively, before tapping his wand on the small set of chains that holds the Golden Snitch in place at the center of the trunk. The ball springs free, only for Potter to catch it immediately with practiced ease and a gleam in his eyes that promises nothing good for Tom. “Tonight we’re Seeking.”

“Will the Snitch’s movements be restricted to this clearing, or will we have to follow its path amongst the trees?”

“Only the clearing,” Potter confirms with a small smile.

Tom lets his gaze roam to evaluate the length and breadth of the space. The shiny surface of the ball would be easily discernible against the dark background. “Seems feasible.”

The smile on Potter’s face grows wider. “Let’s begin, then.”

What followed were blurred hours of Tom fumbling his way through sharp turns, desperately trying to keep himself from losing his grip, then losing it anyway at every attempt to catch the blasted ball, then trying to regain his balance, then remembering to loosen his posture, then failing at commanding his limbs to go on a single direction, thus dipping downwards at uncontrollable speed until he would have surely eaten grass if not for Potter’s steadying hand.

Once they finally touch the ground, Tom flings away Potter’s broom, rage painting his world in red. He doesn’t give a single fuck about the bloody stick of wood and the bloody Snitch, he’s bruised all over the place and he’s sick of this, he won’t stand a single second of humiliating himself any further, he’s utterly and completely done. “How do you fucking do this?” Tom roars. “Why would you willingly subject yourself to this torture?”

“Uh, T—Riddle—”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Tom goes on, ignoring him. “Why I even considered to accept this whole ordeal as if it deserves any of my time.”

“Riddle, I told you, this isn’t an obligation,” Potter says. “We can stop, it’s okay.” He’s dismounted too, and he stands there, slowly and cautiously inching towards Tom.

‘It’s okay’—as if Tom needs to be soothed or, worse, coddled. The infantilising undertones make Tom want to tear Potter to shreds. There’s a Cruciatus on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be unleashed, waiting for him to reap Potter’s pain for witnessing Tom making a fool of himself and daring to treat him like a volatile child. I doubt he’ll be so entertained when he’s contorting on the ground, screaming his lungs out, he thinks savagely, extracting his wand from its holster.

As the first syllable of the curse leaves Tom’s mouth, red light charging on the tip of his wand, Potter is fast—he crouches and rolls away from its trajectory, touching down over the stone in the middle of the clearing and drawing up a Shield Charm strong enough that Tom can hear it crackling like lightning. “What the fuck, Riddle?” he snaps, but there’s no surprise or fear on his face, only the sharp focus of a seasoned duellist.

Unfortunately for Potter, a mere Shield Charm isn’t enough to deter Tom; many Dark curses are designed to eat through them like a parchment set aflame. He smiles, all teeth, and Potter seems to sense his intentions, eyes narrowing.

Then the unthinkable happens.

Potter casts non-verbally at the same time Tom’s spell almost strikes home; the jets of their magic meet in midair and twine together in a single stream of pure gold light. Birdsong erupts, filling the space with an otherworldly melody, while luminous threads of magic are birthed from the stream like a spiderweb, surrounding Tom and Harry in a dome until the forest disappears beyond the shimmering brilliance.

What in Salazar’s name is this?

The entirety of Tom’s world is reduced to this moment in time, to Potter’s green eyes reflecting the light. Mesmerised, Tom watches as beads of light appear in the stream of their magic. His wand vibrates and he clutches it harder; the beads gets closer and closer to its tip, and Tom feels the light whispering at him to accept sanctuary in its song, to let it wash away his anger, to cease fighting, to surrender, and his whole body becomes weightless, being gently lifted from the ground by this invisible, absurd, liminal force—

And suddenly it ends.

The light disappears, leaving them to adjust to the night again: the link has been broken. Tom aches for it, deep in his bones. He can already tell how the echoes of that melody will haunt him for many nights to come.

He and Potter stare at each other, feet back on the ground, eyes wide, breathless and at a loss for words.

“What was that?” Tom breathes. “What did you do?”

Potter shakes his head, bewildered. “I have no clue. I just—stopped it.”

“You stopped it?”

“I think so.” Potter crawls towards a point to his side, scanning the grass back and forth until he recovers his wand from where he must have lost it when he interrupted the contact.

“Why?” Tom asks, unable to keep the word inside his still pounding chest. Why would you commit such a blasphemous act?

“Because—whatever it was, I’m not sure either of us was prepared for it.” He’s holding Tom’s gaze, straight on, in a way that reaches deep under his skin.

Unnerved, Tom skims the surface of Potter’s mind and finds a confusing jumble of... something. Too many somethings, all swirling in dizzying patterns. Wonder, doubt, curiosity, wariness, joy—all underlined by the same pure bliss that has enveloped Tom under the dome.

This magic is messing with my senses. “Don’t speak to me ever again. We’re done,” Tom says, with as much vicious strength as he can muster, rising on wobbly legs.

Potter sits in the grass and says nothing, making no move to stop him.

Tom can feel the weight of his gaze all the way to the castle. Once he reaches the dungeons, the Slytherin common room and finally his own bed, he realises how not a single part of his plan has worked out as expected.

His wand, who’s been a faithful companion since he was eleven, has acted in a way that was absolutely mystifying. Still shivering with the residue of that golden magic that doesn’t let go of his limbs, Tom performs a series of spells only to have the proof of what he already expected: the wand responds as usual and nothing is out of the ordinary—not now, not anymore. But if that unreal... thing wasn’t a malfunction, or caused by a curse, then what was it? He’s never heard of anything like it.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Tom’s out of his depth.

He thought he’d ruin Potter’s reputation, only to end up tired, bruised, with his magic acting up unpredictably and his thoughts scrambled beyond recognition. He thought he would teach Potter a lesson, and yet he lost himself in birdsong and light, giving away his power like an utter fool, until Potter was the one to separate them. And isn’t it funny that the reckless Gryffindor poster boy was the one who acted appropriately, while Tom has been too weak, too compromised? Weak, his mind provides.

How could it all have gone so wrong? How could Tom have lost the guidance of his own compass so completely?

For the briefest of moments, he wishes for Ezra’s presence; the snake has no interest in what he calls ‘complicated human affairs’, and his snark would help to keep Tom grounded. And isn’t this another sign of Tom’s weakness, to need another—an animal—to recover his balance?

He rubs his eyes, feeling both keyed-up and drained to the bone. A restless night awaits him.

However, he refuses to surrender to the hold of these thoughts. It’s completely useless to wallow in defeat and waste any more time contemplating this utter failure. Whatever happens next, whatever stunt Potter pulls that could interfere with Tom’s position in Slytherin, he’ll deal with it. Tom is cunning and capable enough to adapt to what fate has in store for him, as he’s always done.

He digs into his potion stash for a vial of Dreamless Sleep.

Potter can rot.

Harry crosses for the millionth time the opening sentence of his Potions essay. His parchment has turned into a blot of ink and he sighs, his wand to vanish the black stain. Then, he stares at the blank scroll, mind empty of coherent thoughts, unable to string together the meaning of a single line in the open book before him.

“I need help,” he finally says to Hermione, almost begging. They’re sitting, along with Ron, in their usual corner of the library. “I know, I know, I should write my own essay, but this isn’t—Hermione?” Harry hesitates, as he sees her casting a sturdy Muffliato around their table, the usual sign that a serious conversation was about to happen. Harry shoots a questioning look at Ron, but for once his friend appears to be on the same page as Hermione, leaving Harry out of the loop.

“Harry,” Hermione begins, with a concerned tone and furrowed eyebrows, “what’s going on? You’ve been distracted and spacing out for days, like you can’t focus on anything. It’s the third time you’ve asked for my help this week—even with difficult assignments, it’s not usually that bad.” She’s studying Harry’s face like she would a particularly complex Arithmancy equation, looking for the familiar tells that will betray his secrets.

Even though he knows perfectly well that she’s right, and that he did in fact intend to have one of those conversations, Harry protests on principle: “It’s Potions, you know how much I struggle with it! These essays are an absolute nightmare!”

“Yeah, mate, but maybe it would help if you read from the Potions book, instead of the Defense one,” Ron suggests, tapping his index finger on Harry’s book.

Harry stares at him, mild horror creeping up on his face, before letting his eyes fall on the book. He closes it and, sure enough, the battered cover doesn’t lie. “Fuck,” he says, defeated. He pushes up his glasses to rub at his face. “No wonder it didn’t make sense.”

Unlike Hermione, Ron doesn’t seem bothered by Harry’s behaviour; he shakes his head in playful disbelief, but he seems more curious than worried, which is relieving.

“So, what is it?” Hermione says.

Here it is, the moment Harry’s been dreading since this whole ordeal with Tom has started: telling the truth to his friends.

Like many other times, he doesn’t have a proper explanation for acting the way he does; in true Marauder fashion, he’d just acted on impulse, following the trail of fun. Unlike those other times, however, an explanation will be needed at some point.

This doesn’t mean that he isn’t also feeling quite defensive about this particular issue. After all, it’s not just about him; this is Tom’s business as much as it’s Harry’s, and Hermione won’t be happy to discover that her rival is involved. Harry still isn’t prepared for the fuss she will undoubtedly kick up.

And of course, predictable as the sunrise, Ron asks: “Is this because of whatever you’ve been doing when you sneak out at night?”

“Why are you being so secretive, Harry?” Hermione questions, leaning forwards and lowering her voice even though the Muffling Charm protects them from eavesdroppers. “Are you doing something that could get you expelled?”

“Hermione, I do things that could get me thrown in Azkaban on the regular.” Like being an unregistered Animagus, for instance.

And isn’t that another guilt-flavoured train of thought? The list of people that will need an explanation does include Tom himself. He’s warming up to Ezra in a way that he would have never allowed if he were aware of who hid behind the snake’s form. Yeah, Harry can’t say he’s looking forward to confessing that particular secret to Tom. After all, how can Harry admit to him that’s listened to his unfiltered rants and musings without Tom murdering him in cold blood? The Slytherin is already mistrustful enough, and lying by omission is one of the most dangerous things Harry could do, especially considering that Tom is a Legilimens.

Hermione waves an impatient hand to dismiss Harry’s point, snapping his attention back to the conversation. “You know what I mean, and you’re deflecting.”

Harry begins to open his mouth, but before he’s figured out what he’s going to say Hermione interrupts him again, voice gone soft: “Did you break up with your partner?”

“My what?” Again, Harry looks at Ron and finds none of the confusion he expects on his face.

“You have been disappearing a lot,” Ron offers with an half-shrug. “It was the most obvious conclusion.”

Harry gapes, stunned by the turn the conversation has taken. “Did you two really think that I have a secret lover? Why in the name of Merlin would I hide that?” If only they knew who my supposed ‘lover’ is. And isn’t that a thought, Tom being anyone’s lover, and Harry’s lover to boot? It’s too absurd, too unthinkable to even consider.

Yes, Harry can admit that Tom is handsome, and that he certainly doesn’t lack admirers; even with his poor eyesight, he’s not that ignorant of the Slytherin’s charms. However, Tom’s usual regal demeanour creates a distance between him and the rest of the world. Like a marble statue, Tom Riddle is meant to be admired while staying unreachable, and Harry can’t imagine him letting his shields down for anyone.

Except he did with me. Harry has been a witness to Tom’s temper, his cruelty, his smile. As obstinate as Tom has been with his will to drag Harry into the mud and his constant misinterpretation of Harry’s motives, he’s also let Harry see unflattering, vulnerable sides of him that many others would kill for.

How did that happen? What does this say about us?

“You’re spacing out again,” Hermione sighs. “But if it’s not a secret lover, then what is this all about?”

“I’ve been seeing someone. Not in that way,” he adds, before they can say anything. “But we kind of, uh, had a disagreement, and our magic reacted strangely and I was wondering if you knew something about it that I don’t.”

At the mention of an intellectual debate Hermione perks up, her posture instantly straightening. Harry tells them an abridged version of what happened in the clearing, glossing over the more incriminating details that could reveal Tom’s identity or the reason behind their fight.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve read about something like this before,” Hermione says, tapping her index finger to her lips. She bends to the side to rummage inside her magically expanded bag where she keeps a ridiculous amount of books—though Harry has to admit that, on occasions like this, having a portable library does come in handy. “I believe it was on a wandlore book I got last year. It’s hard to find any useful information on the subject because wandmaking is passed on through apprenticeship and very few masters have bothered writing down their knowledge, but I lucked on this tome that was gathering dust on a corner at Flourish and Blott’s, I’m fairly sure they didn’t even remember having it—ah, here it is!” she exclaims, showing them an ancient leatherbound volume whose title has faded completely. After a few minutes of leafing through the yellowed pages, she says: “I was right! Priori Incantatem, an extremely rare phenomenon that manifests when two practitioners bearing twin wands—that is, wands with the twin cores—attempt a duel.”

“So my... acquaintance’s wand has a phoenix feather core like mine?”

Hermione studies the book again. “Not just any phoenix feather, apparently. It has to be a feather from the same phoenix as yours, which I guess is why most wands don’t have a twin at all, or never meet their twin.” She lifts her gaze from the page to meet Harry’s eyes with her bright ones. “Harry, who is this person? This could be an amazing opportunity to study something that—”

“I can’t tell you, and they made it very clear that they don’t want me to speak to them ever again,” Harry says. Classes with the Slytherins have been... something. While outwardly nothing had changed between them, as they’d never interacted in the first place, Harry could feel the spiky coldness radiating from Tom as if it were alive and ready for him to try and cross it.

“But mate,” Ron interjects, gesturing vaguely at Harry, “wouldn’t they like to know about this? If my wand started shooting weird golden light during a duel, I’d be freaking out and thinking that my magic isn’t working or something like that.”

“I think they’re perfectly capable of researching this on their own.” Maybe that’s the reason behind their odd connection. Their wands... attract them to each other, or something.

Would Tom even want to know? The truth is... Ron is right. Someone like Tom, who prides himself on knowing everything and always being in control, must have been utterly shaken by his magic going haywire all of a sudden.

Harry’s choice is made.

A week after the last encounter with Potter, Ezra reappears in the dungeons just as Tom’s Prefect rounds come to an end.

Tom wonders at the snake’s ability to be so precise about his routine. Ready to cage his wayward almost-but-not-quite familiar again, this time with no intention of letting go, Tom lifts his wand in lieu of a greeting.

“Put that away, human,” Ezra hisses, and his tone is enough to still Tom’s tongue. He sounds stiff, his muscles tight and struggling against his obvious distress.

Eyes narrowing, Tom asks: “What happened to you?” If someone had dared to hurt his snake...

“Too many questions.”

“That was one question.”

“Pointless details. Follow me,” Ezra commands, before slithering down the dimly lit corridor, wasting no time to check if Tom is going after him.

Tom curses under his breath. Disrespectful, disobedient creature. He casts a silent Disillusionment Charm over himself and trails behind the sinuous shadow; the snake avoids the treacherous staircases, leading Tom behind faded tapestries and secret passages that he’s never encountered before. Spelling away the cobwebs to prevent them from sticking to his skin and hair, Tom finds himself thinking that not even Potter would have discovered these places—then banishes the reminder of Potter’s existence from his head entirely. The bastard doesn’t deserve a single crumb of his attention.

At this point he’s also wondering if Ezra is trying to get him in trouble on purpose. While the snake has never been particularly talkative and often acts oddly even by reptile standards, this mysterious demeanour is unusual and bordering on suspicious.

Ezra halts in front of a familiar, half-open bathroom door, flicking his tongue at the air; then, apparently satisfied, he slides inside.

More and more confused by this bizarre pseudo-adventure, Tom follows.

Once they’re under the greenish, dim light of the Chamber of Secrets, surrounded by snake-decorated pillars that hold up the vast ceiling, Ezra melts into the shadows and disappears from sight. The last shreds of Tom’s patience evaporate. “Ezra, what is going on?” he barely refrains from shouting.

He hears rustling from behind him, and when he turns in the direction of the sound his eyes fall on the pavement. There’s a book in front of him that hadn’t been there before. The cover is clearly old, black and unassuming, but it means very little for Tom. Wary, he extracts his wand. The Chamber is not a place in which one can trust random books appearing out of thin air.

It’s enough to distract him.

“Incarcerous,” a voice says—a treacherous, insufferable voice—and Tom is bound and constricted by ropes of warm magic that bring him to his knees. As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, he watches, powerless, as Potter waltzes in his field of vision and oh-so-casually disarms him.

“You utter bastard,” Tom snarls, like a flesh-eating curse, “release me.” The spell holds strong against his attempts to free himself wandlessly.

With a grin that shows too many teeth, Potter replies airily, “I don’t think I will. We have a lot of things to discuss, you see, and I don’t fancy being hexed.” His gaze turns sharp and he crouches in front of Tom, mockingly. “Besides, you deserve a little taste of your own medicine. Going around caging random snakes? Very rude, Tom.”

“What have you done to my snake?” No ropes will protect Potter from Tom’s ire. His magic is beginning to flare up, warming his skin, ready to set ablaze everything on its path.

Potter feels it, but all he does is sit cross-legged before Tom, unbothered. “Your snake?” he laughs.

“I caught him. He’s mine.”

“Putting me in a glass case and having a few one-sided conversations about how much you hate me is hardly enough to call me yours.”

Tom’s thoughts screech to a halt. The implication behind Potter’s words dawns on him, like curtains closing at the end of a play. It can’t be true, can it? Tom couldn’t have been so foolish—but wasn’t he the one who’s compared Ezra to Potter more than once? Oh, the irony. The cruelty of his misplaced belief that he could be himself with anyone, even an animal.

And then, Potter’s face opens, and his expression morphs into a genuine smile. Something travels down Tom’s spine at the sight. “You’re surprisingly warm, though. And you smell good under that posh cologne,” he says.

“You knew,” Tom says. “You knew all along that I wanted to sabotage you. That I despise you.”

“Yes.”

“You had no right.”

“You put me in a difficult position, Tom. On one hand, I was very aware of the fact that I was taking advantage of you; on the other hand, however... what was I supposed to do? Let you harm me out of the goodness of my heart? I’m not that self-sacrificing.”

#tomarry #tomarrymort #tmrhptmr #fanfic #yay writing #harry potter

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languagelearningcorner · 3 years

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30 Days of Learning Persian

I started my langblr about three years ago as a side blog with no real aim (other than the fantasy of magically becoming fluent in my three targets). I'd kind of been coasting through, having bursts of studious diligence followed by long droughts that withered away all the knowledge I'd previously soaked up. So, during the early stages of the pandemic, I came up with a rigorous study plan for each target. The only problem was, I was getting too much information for too many different things. I also became so overwhelmed with studying so much that I ended up anxiously thinking about studying but not actually studying. Learning three languages at once at the same intensity was not possible for me, especially with everything else going in my life. It was a hard decision because I was (still am) afraid of regression in my other two targets. I also felt like everyone in the langblr community is effortlessly juggling two languages if not three at the same time. I had to let go of some of my pride and accept that I might experience regression in my other two. I made the decision to focus almost exclusively on one language for 6 months so I could really immerse myself, stay consistent and see proportional progress to the amount of time and effort I'm putting in before switching. I chose Persian because I felt it would be the one to suffer the most if I put it on the back burner. I know I’m only 1/6 of the way so far but I wanted to share my thoughts on my first month regarding all skills of language starting from where I feel like I've made the most progress to the least. Before we get into it, though, I want to thank everyone who has been super supportive here on tumblr, both native speakers and language learners (either learning Persian or not), my tutor, and people in my life who know me and know that I love to learn languages. I started these “learning persian” posts for myself as a way to track my progress and hold myself accountable. However, they have turned into much more than just that and I’m really grateful to everyone who I’ve met through these posts. 🥰

Speaking (tot. ~30-40mins)

This has been night and day. Before my 30 days, I had met with my tutor a couple of times and I simply did not speak to her in Persian. I was not ashamed of my accent but I was terrified of my grammar. Not having control, not sounding "intelligent" because I had (have, let's be honest) the sentence structure of a drunk 4 year old was really my biggest block to starting to speak. I think having a tutor really really helped in the long run. Though it took a while, it's been nice to have a model and someone who will just listen and instantly correct and teach. I am still very slow and often wrong but I know I will try and have a better idea of what I'm doing than before.

Writing (tot. ~2hrs)

My writing has always been fairly strong, especially in terms of orthography. Since I've gotten better at expressing myself, I've gotten much better at it in writing as well. I'm much more comfortable writing and writing longer, and comparatively more complex sentences on my own. I can definitely create much more complex thoughts and ideas with writing than when speaking. The only reason I didn't put this category first is that in comparison to before the 30 days I don't think that the difference is as much as with speaking.

Reading (tot. ~10hrs)

Similar to writing, reading's always been an easier task. Over the 30 days, I have certainly felt an increase in fluidity and easier understanding (despite not knowing absolutely all the words). I'm increasingly able to use context clues to determine the meaning of words and overall meaning of the sentence. I used to see texts in Persian and feel my brain sort of glaze over it because I had a hard time registering the letters as words I could read (even though I could!). Now I can occasionally automatically lift certain words and even some simple phrases as I would when glancing at a page in latin script in a language I know.

Listening (tot. ~23hrs)

I think I have a problem because this is probably the skill I spend the most time on but feel like I have made the least progress in. It's incredibly valuable and has definitely contributed to boosting all of my other skills except the skill itself. I struggle to fully grasp what I just heard, even "simple" things. Part of the issue is I do a lot of passive-ish listening. A lot of the material I consume does not have subtitles. A lot of the times, I spend a whole hour back to back just listening and it can be quite draining especially when I'm straining to understand so I tend to lose focus quickly. Sometimes I also feel guilty because I hear an English cognate and can situate myself or I make use of the visuals to understand better. It makes me think that the only reason I could understand was because I “cheated”.

Overall, I know I have made so so much progress as compared to the last year I spent dabbling in Persian here and there. Sure, on paper, my level was a little bit higher; I could complete a lot of grammar exercises and knew how to form basically any tense. But using those concepts spontaneously and correctly when it mattered? Not a chance. I still have a very long way to go and hope to continue to see progress over the next five months. I will definitely be keeping some sort of updates on tumblr, hopefully in a more quantifiable manner and I also hope to transition to making or helping to make more resources.

Thank you and happy studying!

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lilytakeharryandgo · 4 years

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STOP ROMANTICISING SEVERUS SNAPE - A MANIFESTO

“Albus Severus Potter, you were named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a great strategist, the other one was a racist, hateful, bitter, scary bastard. Voldemort must have damaged some brain cells when killing the Horcrux inside of me.”

Now that I have Snape fans raging and screaming for blood, here’s my show of evidence:

If the boring, same argument brought up by Marauders stans is Snape being a Death Eater, I know it’s basic, but it’s basic for a reason: it’s true. Supporting Voldemort doesn’t mean you support his ideas? I’m sorry, what did he support? The Dark Lord’s contouring skills? It is a truth universally acknowledged that joining a group of racists and following them in perpetrating crimes does make you a racist and a criminal.

JK Rowling herself said that Death Eaters are an analogy to Nazis, Marauders stans are not making this up. Are you questioning what JK ROWLING said? Because you know, she is JK ROWLING.

We know it was Snivellus that created the Levicorpus. He must have used it against the Marauders in order for them to learn it. And let’s just remember that “Snape’s worst memory” takes place after the Shrieking Shack’s incident, when dear, lovely Severus tried to unmask Remus so that he could be expelled for being a Werewolf. He went down to the Whomping Willow of his own free will, no one forced him, and he supposedly knew what was happening there: he risked his own life only to get Remus expelled. Yes, it was Sirius who thought it would have been funny to lure him to the Shrieking Shack where Lupin was due for his transformation, and that was wrong. However, why did he do that? Because Snape was constantly spying on them. Was it wrong? Definitely, no one is trying to get Sirius out of this one. Still, James saved Snape in time. Did James do that just because he wanted to protect Remus? Most likely: James gave them all a family and he loved his friends and would have done everything for them, and he did. But also, he wouldn’t have let an “innocent” (if we want to call him that) die. So James saved Snape’s life, which dear Half Blood Price seemed deeply ungrateful for later, and yet, Snape constantly tried to get the Marauders expelled from Hogwarts time and time again while using Dark Magic and creating his own dark spells (see the irony?). Stop saying that the Marauders’ actions pushed him to become a Death Eater. As if “Snape never missed an opportunity to curse James” was a lie. As if Snape wasn’t on his way to being a buddying Death Eater by his 5th year. As if Snape hadn’t came up with a curse that slices your body open by his 6th year. As if the Marauders had nothing to do but ruthlessly bully Snape all day and all night, when they actually are described as the brightest as some of the brightest students of their year despite being engaged in loads of other things like the creation of the Marauders Map, becoming Animagus, dealing with Remus’ monthly transformations (because those demonic guys didn’t leave him alone and didn’t report him to get him expelled as someone else was willing to do), James and Remus being responsible enough to be Head Boy and Prefect. Oh, and training for a war and joining the Order once they graduated. Minor things, right? Things they were busy doing in their personal lives such as surviving, living and being happy? Nah, that never happened, their entire life consisted of bullying innocent, poor service teenagers, that was their goal. Snape experienced one side of the Marauders (and we read that from his own pov, so it’s a little biased too): that is not a deciding factor of whether or not they (and especially James) are good people. He was so fascinated with the Dark Arts, even after Lily’s death and hence his presumed redemption, that Dumbledore did not appoint him as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Snape’s apologetics make it sound like the Marauders made Snape’s life hell every minute of everyday and he was the poor victim who was not capable of standing up to himself against those horrible demonic creatures, but he was the one inventing the Sectumsempra and using it against James, against George. Only a truly tormented person could have invented such a bloody spell.

So now let’s talk about Remus. Remus, a hero who fought against Voldemort and joined an anti-terrorist resistance organisation when he was just 18 years old, who fought alongside Frank and Alice Longbottom in the Order, is about to start his first class with the third years. Neville is there, of course, Remus knows his parents’ fate, how they were tortured into madness, and probably guessed that Neville’s biggest fear would be similar to what he guessed Harry’s would be. He’s probably planning on stepping in before Bellatrix Lestrange shows up, but then it’s not her, it’s Snape. Snape who insults him in front of his class, Snape who tries to shame him. Can you imagine how he must have felt? Yes, they bullied him, but his best friend James grew up, and what did he get in return? Death. Instead, Snape hasn’t gotten over himself a little and most importantly he does not realise that being a teacher also means being responsible for those children. Snape never changes: he is the same petty, angry, bitter child that he had been in school, except now he’s bullying children half his age instead of yelling racial slurs at his classmates. While Snape is one of his students’ greatest fear, Remus starts off the year by letting his pupils confront their biggest fears. Remus truly, deeply cared about his students, and wait… what did Snape do? He got him fired! But even most achingly than that, just imagine… it’s 1993, Remus is coming back after a rough full moon. He’s feeling down, he’s weak, both physically and emotionally, he’s one more time without his friends by his side, one more time alone as he was before the Marauders became Animaguses to be alongside him to support him during the roughest times (horrible people, isn’t it?). So Remus is coming back to his class of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and his best friend’s son is writing an essay on how to kill him. But Snape didn’t stop there, no, he told the whole Wizarding World that a man who had struggled to keep his condition secret all his life was a Werewolf. He had to withdraw from his position as a professor because of that, and straight after that the Ministry issued a law against Werewolves which made it impossible for Remus to have a job. So, to sum it up, not only he exposed him as a Werewolf, he also condemned him to live in poverty and be persecuted for that reason. Also, quoting, when Remus was trying to explain things in PoA he attacked him and said “I’ll drag the Werewolf, perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too.” James and Sirius were the kind of persons, the kind of friends and brothers, who risked their own life every month for one of his best friends. Think about this: they found out about Remus’ situation when they were just boys in their first years of school, and they didn’t leave him, they decided to help him embarking in something much bigger than themselves. Whereas dear lovely 33 year old Necrophilus told everyone about Remus’ secret and basically had him fired. Sounds angelic, why haven’t I thought about doing something like that before? That would most certainly secure me a spot in heaven!

Do we want to talk about an abusive person? Well, Snape was not just abusive as a person, he abused and took advantage of his position as a teacher (and Head of House too, to reward extra points from the other Houses) to bully his own students (even after his presumed “redemption”). He told Neville he would have given his failed potion to his toad, Trevor, so that the fatal effects of the potion would teach him a lesson. He bullied Neville to the point that he was literally his greatest fear - Neville’s parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix, yet Snape was his greatest fear. He also condoned and took part in bullying when Draco cursed Hermione’s teeth to grow. He said he didn’t see any difference, then watched as she ran off crying. From the very start he starts bullying Harry: he perfectly knew he was raised by muggles, he knew how Petunia was and still went on to ask questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer. And after calling Neville and idiot for a mistake that anyone could have made he took points from Gryffindor because Harry didn’t tell him how to do it right - great teaching strategy, let’s nominate him for Most Valuable Teacher. Harry had nothing to do with what went on during Snape’s school years, but he physically resembled James and he was his son, so let’s bully him from the very first second! And honestly, asking an 11 years old Muggle-raised kid the difference between monskshood and wolfsbane in front of everyone on the first day? There is no difference! They are colloquial terms for the same plant. He just wanted the intellectual upper hand over a goddamn little kid. But he didn’t stop there: that resentful git always tried to blame Harry for something even without proof (as most of the time), and he physically abused Harry because he was angry (“Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.”). He knew how important it was for Harry to learn Occlumency and he stopped giving him classes and later ignored when Lupin asked him to start them again even when he knew how poorly Harry’s progressed. And he was cruel: he knew Harry was sad about Sirius’ death, and gave him a detention in which he was going to see his and his father’s names multiple times while copying out old detention records. Yes, Harry’s deeds should have called for expulsion, as McGonagall states, but Snape chose something more painful than that. Not only he punished Harry (don’t get me wrong, he almost killed Draco, he deserved detention if not expulsion), but he chose to inflict him more pain and at the same time tried to ruin the memory of Harry’s father figures. Ordinarily, copying out old detention records wouldn’t be worse than writing lines, but Snape vindictively tailored that detention to inflict pain. In addition to this, he could have been an awesome teacher if he wasn’t a disgusting waste of a human being. He knew from his teen years that the instructions that the textbooks were giving were not as goos as they could be so he improved the potions and recorded his own methods at 16. Harry himself states what an amazing teacher “the Prince” is. If Snape were not such a horrible person, he could have either written the entire textbooks himself, or taught his students his own alternate methods. Instead he spent his time bullying children. He could have been great and become everything a Slytherin should have been

Snape also saw his friends perform Dark Magic on Mary Macdonald and when confronted by Lily, literally didn’t see any problem with it and compared it with the Marauders’ pranks.

He called Lily, his supposed best friend, a Mudblood. Then he tried to get away with it by saying he didn’t mean it and that she (and only she) was different from the other Muggleborns. And Lily tried, she tried to tell him he was not on the right path, she tried, and she got called a racial slur from the person she trusted the most at the time. And, for the extremist Snape apologetics in the back, who even hate Lily (how can they hate on Lily I don’t know, but apparently these people exist too): Lily Evans did not owe anyone anything. She had the right to cut ties with her friends for any reason she pleased, whatever that’s because she was sick of them or because they were hanging out with a group of terrorists wannabe. She did not owe anyone her love, loyalty or energy. She tried to be Snape’s friend despite his other group of friends (“but Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them”), but there’s canon evidence that Snape chose his Death Eaters friends over Lily’s friendship and safety. It was her choice to cut ties with him after what he and his friends had done (and the racial slur of course, truly a touch of class), and it’s not like he was a good friend to begin with: he called all other Muggleborns “Mudblood” and was canon friends with the people who wanted Lily and other Muggleborns killed, and he even still wanted to be a Death Eater while being her friend. Like, wait here while I go out and slaughter your people, Lils! And if Snape stans are still arguing that he was suffering because he got dumped, that’s another no: he did not get dumped, she just didn’t have romantic feelings for him but was trying so hard to be his friend and he was just a whiny baby about it. Is that a crime? No, it isn’t. Is not getting over it and taking it out on countless kids who weren’t even born instead a crime? Yes, it is.

Also, from the get-go we see him drop a tree branch on Petunia. That shows that he didn’t see a problem in hurting the people Lily loved (seen later in a larger proportion, that’s his tag line). Lily loved her sister, but Petunia was an obstacle between her and Snape, hence, Snape hurt her. And no, that was not accidental underage magic, just as Lily performs magic on the flower, Snape uses magic to cause a tree branch to fall on Petunia. Even as a child he had no qualms about hurting someone Lily loved, this really serves to underscore the idea that Snape, with his so called love for Lily, was not invested in her happiness or wellbeing because he didn’t care about the people she loved. As a child he didn’t care about hurting her sister and at 20 he didn’t care about the imminent deaths of her husband and son. If he truly loved and cared for her, he would have wanted to see her happy. Not even considering how crushed she would have been if her husband and only child were dead, and she was left alone and pregnant in the middle of a war.

Okay so now let’s talk about James. Yes, James was a spoiled brat, and Lily hated him for that, then guess what? He matured, he started protecting the weaker ones and joined the Order along with Sirius, Remus and Lily to fight for a better world. He didn’t hold it against her nor did he sulk for days, he grew up and matured because he was a well adjusted human, unlike some. James Potter was many things other than an “arrogant bullying toerag” (hey, also, well done for trying to destroy a 15-year-old orphan’s memory of his heroic father): he was a friend who risked his life every month for Remus’s safety and comfort. A brother who took Sirius in and was “the best friend he ever had.” An adored friend of half-giant Hagrid, in an age when all “half-breeds” were looked upon with suspicion during the war. An all time “favourite student” of Minerva McGonagall, so much that she waited all day at his son’s future home and wept at his death. A savior of his enemies even when they were trying to expose his friends’ secrets. An activist protecting the right of existence for Muggles, Muggleborns and hybrids right out of school. A soldier who faced Voldemort three times and lived to tell about it. A caring father who went into hiding to protect his son. A loving husband who sacrificed his life for his family. A faded trace of magic still trying to guide his son when the man that killed him returned to life. A young man that inspired so much loyalty in his friends that Remus Lupin, who so feared the idea of harming people because of his condition, was 100% willing to abandon those morals to avenge his death, and would have done so, had Harry not reminded him and Sirius that James would not have wanted them to murder anyone for him. A Patronus helping Harry through his darkest moments until the very end. James had a friend facing bigotry and he became an illegal animagus to help make that friend’s life better. Snape had a friend facing bigotry and he joined up with the bigots. No one is trying to pretend that James was an angel, but he got better and better until his last breath. And again, that spoiled brat and the love of his life joined the resistance and were martyrs. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus all died for Harry. Are you trying to blame James and Lily for sacrificing their own lives to save their infant son? What terrible parents they were! Their sacrifice was an act of love and wait… actually ended up saving the Wizarding World. The only thing James and Snape had in common was that they would have both sacrificed James’s life in order to save Lily’s. James was the hero, he was the one who faced Voldemort without his wand (pretty dumb thing but he was a Gryffindor, hence no surprise) in order to give his wife and son more time to flee. When he opened that door on Halloween, he thought he was sacrificing his life so that they could live. He literally died wandless perfectly knowing he wouldn’t survive, but facing death for those he loved, hoping he would be able to stall enough time so they could escape. He was never more dedicated in anything in his short life than he was to the loves of his life: he died for Lily and Harry, and would have happily died for Sirius, Remus and Peter. And this is absolutely canon, of course it is: we might not have some explicit description of him but all we know comes from the lives he touched, how they talked / not talked about him, the pain they felt - the seven books are a testament of James and Lily’s love. James Potter was the kind of person that would have been happy to die for love, he would have taken pride in that. How do we know that? Are we making this up? No, we are not: all we have are the words of people who knew him, from his best friends to McGonagall, and who remembered him as a hero. This, albeit indirectly, speaks volume about the kind of person he was. He might have been obnoxious and arrogant as a teenager, but at 21 he died a hero - wandless, alone, betrayed, hopeless, but also bravely and out of love - and nothing can change either of those. Yes, he bullied Snape (let’s be clear here even though I highly doubt Snape did not retaliate) and that is a disgusting attitude. But how can you forgive a 31 year old man for bullying his kids and not a 15 year old boy who bullied one of his definitely not innocent classmates? Who matured and who later died, at the young age of 21, for his wife and son? How can you hate James Potter when as soon as he graduated, he was ready to fight a war against the most powerful wizard of his age? Yes, he had a big head and I am fairly certain he did actually strut - and let’s just take a moment to remember why Harry doesn’t know anything about him… oh, right, Snape went to Voldemort and told him about the prophecy - but he was a caring person, who stood up to what he thought and stood up for his friends and his family. The spoilt boy Snape’s apologetics hate, who grew up to be a great man, who died fighting and protecting, not some emo with a crush and an ego the size of the Great Lake! Wait, I hear somebody trying to bring up the “we have no real evidence of him becoming a better person” thing. Let me get this straight: James was mentioned to have jinxed other students, not to have bullied them. He did not pick out targets, it was implied to be done at random as it is explicitly stated that he jinxed random people in the corridors. Fred and George pranked other students in the same way, and they would have often have more disastrous effects, but no one calls them bullies. We know that on one known occasion attacks Snape with Sirius at his side and almost pantsed him with a spell of Snape’s own invention. James and Snape had a rivalry, and it was two-sided. It wasn’t James relentlessly hexing poor, innocent Snape, so if you still want to call James Potter a bully, okay, do it, he was a bully bullying a bully. The evidence speaks for itself: he was Head Boy in 7th year (hence I don’t think Dumbledore despised him that much), he was unapologetically a blood traitor, he dated Lily Evans (who hated him for how he was and would have never fallen in love with such a brat, so it’s pretty evident he did actually change), he joined the Order of the Phoenix (an anti-terrorist organisation, at the peak of the war, as a teenager, whereas someone else joins a racist dark cult), he died protecting his wife and child! And if we really, really want to bring the ‘evidence’ thing up… well, we have no evidence he bullied Snape, except for one little incident - I’m fairly certain he did, but let’s play it literally now. And since we are there, we may not have been blessed with more about the Marauders, but Sirius and Remus both tell Harry Lily changed his mind about James because he became a better person, why don’t Snape stans consider that an evidence pro James but “Snape’s worst memory” is their pro Snape pamphlet? That chapter showed us an incident where both Sirius and James were assholes but everyone that was there supported it but Lily. All the other Students supported it because of what the fandom conveniently forgets that Snape loved Dark Arts, disparagingly called Lily a Muggle twice, tried to expose Remus and run around with a group of Death Eater wannabes tormenting Muggleborns all through his school years (he literally says that torturing Mary Macdonald was funny - “That was nothing, it was a laugh, that’s all”), to the point where Lily’s friends and herself questioned their friendship: “none of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. I’ve made excuses for you for years.” And eventually, when questioned by Lily if he wanted to join Voldemort, he couldn’t find any way to lie to her: “you and your precious little Death Eater friends— you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You Know Who can you?”. He literally didn’t find anything wrong with Voldemort’s political position (only the fact that he wanted to kill his obsession, he only had that so called change of heart when it personally affected him as his beloved Dark Lord wanted to kill the object of his lust). So yes, he did join the Death Eaters because he wanted to and was everything he’d always desired. Does this make him a bad person? HELL YES.

And wait, can somebody remind me why the Potters were forced to hide? Wow, it must have been because Snivellus dearest spilled the tea to his master. So basically it went like this: “Hey Dark Lord! Our adorable group of racists kills Mudbloods for fun, but there’s this filthy Muggle born I fancy, can you please kill her husband and baby so that I can have her?” How the hell could he think Lily could have ever forgiven him? He was totally fine with Dumbledore saving Lily but not her husband and infant son (see how deeply he cared about Lily’s happiness?) and only cared for him being the rebound. James and Harry were totally expendable but hey, bravest man ever known!

So yes, he protected Harry (in his very own and questionable way, he did), but I’m sorry, that’s not enough. However, before someone says “in the end he cared about Harry” let me say a big, important fact: NAH HE DIDN’T. And not only he didn’t, but he also openly states that: in the Deathly Hallows chapter with the Pensieve, Snape describes Harry as selfish, self-important and arrogant - does it matter than all the other teachers like him and see none of those things? Of course not. And he’s not talking about sassy 4th-6th year Harry (who I really thank for that “there's no need to call me "sir" Professor” gem): Snape is tasing about an 11 year old who was picked on his whole life, who never had a family of his own and who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He’s a child, an orphan (now tell me what’s that heroic about tormenting an orphan). However, Snape had decided that Harry must be bad news from the start, so he reasonably spends six years making his life as difficult as possible. That’s a great way to honour Lily’s memory, right? Do Snape stans remember what their hero answered when Dumbledore asked if he had grown to care for the boy, after all? He literally shouted “for him?” before casting a Patronus (a little over obsessive too). He felt he owed it to Lily to make sure Harry survives, and for Merlin’s sake, he did! He went to Voldemort and basically condemned the Potters. I’m not saying he is THE reason why they died, that honour goes to the lurid latrine rat, but he is one of them. Protecting Harry was the least he could do. Switching allegiances doesn’t cancel the awful actions before Lily’s death, as much as taking advantage of his position can’t be justified by his loyalty to Dumbledore. And most importantly, he cannot be redeemed by his stalkerish obsession for Lily (or by the creepy ‘look at me I want to die looking into your mother’s eyes,’ ew). All he did was made out of selfishness, even in his quest to redeem himself. Snape had a chance to honour Lily's memory, and disregarded it every single day. He claimed to regret his past, yet his cruelty to Harry was persistent and immature. Plus, loving someone doesn’t redeem terrible deeds. He aligned himself with a terrorist organisation who murdered for sport entirely of his own volition, endorsed the torture of Muggleborns, but of course, what a hero! I will never understand how people continue to use Snape’s obsession with Lily and ‘protecting’ Harry thing as an excuse for all the pain and terror that he inflicted upon small children. Does that mean you’ll excuse a father who continuously hit and emotionally abused his child and made their life a living hell if his excuse was “well I was still protecting them they had their dead mother’s eyes”? This is SICK.

And if you can still argue that “he had a terrible childhood,” that is inarguable, however, it just cannot justify him. Remus was bitten when he was 4, he had no friends until he was 11, lived in constant fear that he was going to be outed as a Werewolf, was forced to turn into a monster every month, lost everyone he loved and lived in poverty for 14 years and still managed to be a decent person. Luna watched her mother die, was picked on by almost everyone, was treated as a freak and only had one friend until she was 14 and still managed to be a decent person. Ginny was literally possessed by Voldemort himself for almost a year, guess what? Decent person too. Neville was constantly told how worthless he was, lived knowing his parents were tortured to insanity and was bullied and belittled by everyone. Decent person? Yes, right again. And do we want to talk about THE lonely kid who was abused his entire life? Sirius was raised and abused by blood supremacists, was disowned by his family, framed for murder (of his best friends, for Merlin’s sake!) and literally lost almost everyone he loved and still managed to be a decent person. He couldn't help the way he was? The environment around him conditioned him to be that way? If I remember correctly, Harry was raised by neglectful relatives, wore ill-fitting clothes, felt inadequate among his peers… Harry is proof that a terrible childhood doesn’t excuse despicable behaviour.

So, Snape hated Neville because he could have been the Chosen One instead of Harry (but it’s definitely on him for going to Voldemort and condemning the Potters), he hated Harry because he was James’s copy and he hated Hermione because she was a Mudblood and brilliant as Lily was. Makes sense, again, and again, it stresses how much of a beautiful person and teacher he was, don’t you think so? Also, had Voldemort picked Neville to kill instead of Harry, Snape would still be a Death Eater. It’s not like he thought being part of a group of supremacists and terrorists was wrong. It wasn’t until something directly affected him that he turned his back to his master - so brave, right? Snape may have done some good for the Wizarding World when he joined the Order, but while he was alive, he was horrible. He wasn't fighting the good fight because he couldn't possibly imagine a world where Voldemort was in charge (honestly, he couldn't have cared less), he was doing it to spare Lily’s life and get her for himself. James and Lily fought for the light because they believed in the light. Snape fought against the dark because the dark had offended him. Had Voldemort gone after the Longbottoms instead, Snape would have lived and died as the most loyal Death Eater in history.

Wait, I hear a “there’s no evidence that Snape voluntarily murdered anyone in his entire life” over there! He joined a group whose aim was genocide and was actually one of the few members which were part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he didn’t get there by throwing kisses and rose petals around. It is explicitly said that not all Death Eaters actually bore the mark. Only selected wizards can be part of Voldemort’s circle, and not only Snape was part of that circle during the First Wizarding War, but it is also heavily implied that he passed messages from Voldemort more than once. Plus, he was also able to speak directly to Voldemort and even ask him to spare Lily’s life. Voldemort actually told Lily to move over three times before killing her, and he didn’t do that because he had such a kind heart and wanted to spare a Muggleborn’s life, he did that because Snape begged him. And maybe we haven’t read the same books, but it’s not like Voldemort strolled along Diagon Alley offering favours to random people. In addition to this, Snape did most certainly kill someone since Dumbledore compares Draco’s soul to his, meaning he has done remorseless acts of great evil before, hence his soul was already damaged, unlike Draco’s. So please, stop saying Snape was somehow influenced into joining the Death Eaters and never committed any crime: he fully believed in what they pledged and actually longed about being one of them for years (according to Lily). No one manipulated him into joining said group nor into perpetrating crimes. And no one manipulated him into being a horrible person even after he “switched sides.” He’s the one who willingly decides to be a terrorist, he’s the one who willingly decides to abuse children half his age, and he’s the one having the nerve to be awful to Harry when he’s the reason why Harry doesn’t have any parents.

And he was so childish and cruel! He threw a tantrum after discovered he was getting an Order of Merlin and wasn’t going to see Remus and Sirius in jail (even though he knew they were innocent).

There we go: HE KNEW SIRIUS WAS INNOCENT (don’t try to deny it, he was part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he perfectly knew Sirius was not the one selling the Potters to Voldemort)! Did this matter for him? Of course not! And was Snape cruel and abusive to Harry because he blamed himself for Lily’s death and Harry was a constant reminder of his guilt? Yes, he was. But you know who else blamed himself for the Potters’ deaths and also was constantly reminded of them by Harry, and yet, did not abuse him because of his guilt? That’s right, Sirius. Sirius whose death was indirectly caused by Snape who kept making fun of him for being locked in Grimmauld Place. Sirius who had no problems breaking out of Azkaban, all he had to do was turn into a dog and leave. He could have left anytime he wanted to over those twelve years but he didn’t. You know why? Because he thought he deserved to be there. It was his fault his friends were dead. Everyone could blame him all they wanted with false accusations and it didn’t matter, since to him, changing Peter to the Secret Keeper, he was guilty for his friends’ death and deserved to be in Azkaban. He only broke out when he knew Harry was in danger after seeing that filthy rat on the newspaper. And when he broke into Hogwarts? Do people remember those lines: Hermione said “It’s very lucky he picked tonight, you know,” to which Ron responded “I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run. Didn’t realise it was Halloween.” Please, of course he realised it was Halloween, he perfectly knew that. He went after Peter on the anniversary of James and Lily’s death to revenge them and to save his godson. Sirius might have strut as much as James during his teens but again, he turned out to be a decent person.

And think about Harry, a 17-year-old grown up in an abused “family” (and still managed to be a decent person too): he has no memories of his parents, the only thing remained is a photograph. A photograph of a happy little family, showing James and Lily in love with the fruit of their love. Snape found it and ripped off and stole the half with Lily smiling so he could pretend her happiness and love were directed at him and not at her husband and son (yes, people, that disgusting moment actually existed, and it was so creepy Yates couldn’t put it in the movies). He stole Lily’s picture and Lily’s last words from Sirius, a friend she loved, the Potters’ best man, James’ brother. How nasty. What can I say, at least he waited until after Sirius’ death to go to Grimmauld Place and raid his bedroom?

Lovely Snivellus, such a cupcake, also laughed and mocked Tonks when her Patronus changed when she fell in love with Remus (let’s also remember that Tonks’s one was not the same as Remus’s, as stated by Rowling, before Snape stans can accuse me of applying double standards: Remus’s Patronus was a regular wolf, and okay Harry is oblivious at times, but he would have recognised a regular wolf) despite the fact that his own changed to match Lily’s - let’s just remember that THIS is obsessive behaviour, whilst James and Lily’s Patroni represent them being soulmates. Snape’s Patronus does not honour Lily, stop considering this the greatest romantic moment of all times, it does not show virtue nor morality, it’s just the representation of his creepy fascination with necrophilia. It’s disgusting, not noble. His so called love for Lily is creepy. She found happiness with another man, yet Snape was possessive, manipulative, and inarguably obsessive. And let’s remember that J.K. Rowling said that “he thought Lily would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater”… was he really her best friend or was he just completely blinded by his attraction to the dark side? This is not a redemptive love, this is problematic, toxic, abusive, emotionally-stunted, obsessive.

This is because there was never a love triangle and that’s why there is simply NO Team Snape! Not winning at the genetic lottery doesn’t justify being such an awful person! Also, THIS is why the tag line should be changed from “always” to “Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off!” or to “until the very end” because a father’s eternal love for his son is much more important than a racist’s obsession of a dead woman (dead because he contributed to her death, to be precise). His always and doe patrons can’t get him out of this one. Eventually, let’s remember J.K. Rowling’s dedication in Deathly Hallows: “[…] to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.” Not “always” nor creepy moaning, just the pure words of a hero, of a loving father who died protecting the ones he loved most.

Now, I don’t get why we should celebrate Snivellus as the hero of Slytherin and an example of the “not all Slytherins are evil” when Regulus Black died in a cave, drowned by reanimated corpses to bring about the downfall of Voldemort, and Narcissa Black straight up lied to Voldemort because she’s first and foremost a mother, ruthless in doing whatever it took to save her beloved son. Regulus and Narcissa were brave: despite their flaws they knew what mattered the most and they were two big key factor in Harry’s survival and Voldemort’s demise. Sure, Snape was among the three that deceived the Dark Lord, but whilst Regulus did it because he realised what was right and what wasn’t, and Narcissa did it because of love, putting her family first (plus, she wasn’t even a Death Eater, and this tells a lot about her, as her loyalties solely lie with her family), Snape did it because resentfulness. Sure, Regulus joined the Dark Eaters of his own free will and Narcissa did what she did only after having her family threatened, but since one of Snape stans’ major point in his defence is his family being abused, let’s take their family into consideration too. The Blacks were pureblood supremacist, they grew up within that establishment and yes, some members of the family rejected those arguable ‘values’ but not everyone has the courage to do that (also, every Black family member is indisputably a badass, don’t get me started on that). On the contrary, Snape was a half-blood, and still, ended up hating muggleborns - yes, don’t try to say he didn’t, he joined the Death Eaters because he believed in Voldemort’s cause. He disparages mud bloods, he joins in on their massacre as a Death Eater after having idolised them for years in school before actually joining them. Read this again: he idolised a group of pureblood supremacist, he actively helps orchestrate genocide against the muggleborns. And what is his Freudian excuse? He believed that, in so far as Halfblood, he had to ‘prove’ that he was magical and capable enough (does this remind you of somebody else who hated muggles albeit being a half-blood and eradicates his whole Muggle family?), you can see that in how he strived to highlight his maternal Prince lineage in his stupid nickname. And no, now don’t try to blame the Marauders’ behaviour for this: Severus Snape, the man you glorify, hated muggleborns and went out of his way to commit genocide against them. So, in the end, if you still deny that, despite it being clear in the books, you are being dishonest. If, on the contrary, you fully realise it and still glamorise Snape despite how horrible of a person he was, well Snape stans, you have sunk to a new low. I’m not trying to justify anyone who supported said supremacist beliefs, but at least Regulus and Narcissa were born and bred within one of the Sacred 28, those beliefs were instilled in them from the very beginning, Snape reached them all on his own (well done for embracing your nazi self Snivellus). Regulus turned his back on Voldemort as soon as he realised how wrong he had been: at age 18, he literally sacrificed himself to try and stop his master. Narcissa, on the other hand, never sworn loyalty to Voldemort: she was a pureblood elitist, yes, she was guided by pride, but she was also calm, rational and restrained where her sister was crazed and her husband was reckless. So… Regulus faced death in the hope that when when the time had come, Voldemort would have met his match and would have been mortal once more, and Cissy only wanted best for her family and did everything she could to protect her son. She perfectly knew that Voldemort could have easily killed her in a second, but she wanted to find Draco, kept a straight face as the strong woman she was and fooled the Dark Lord. And why did Snape deceive Voldemort? Oh, right, he told him the prophecy that eventually led to the killing of the woman he was obsessed with (and no, again, he did not care at all about her husband and baby), this, of course after asking him to spare her life so that he could have had her (so this is, once again, classic Snivellus holding grudges). Regulus and Narcissa are pretty much the epitome of Slytherin, and still, let’s celebrate Snape! As a Slytherin myself, I am utterly disgusted by Snape’s behaviour. He could have been an amazing teacher, he had the talent to be one of the greatest Potions masters ever, and he willingly chose to throw it away in favour of being awful for the sake of bullying his own pupils. If we have to pick characters who proved that not all Slytherins are evil, let’s look at Regulus, let’s look at Narcissa, let’s look at Slughorn and Andromeda. Slughorn fought against Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts and refused to become a Death Eater, Andromeda married a Muggleborn. And guess what? None of them bullied children for 15 years.

Then, for the “I sometimes think we Sort too soon” thing… no, just no. Before you can start yelling at me, I am not, I repeat, I am absolutely not saying this because I endorse the whole Gryffindor being saints thing. I am a Slytherin, and a proud one. I just don’t agree that Snape was brave. Is being a resentful, childish and abusive man being brave? Wow, I’ll have to refresh my vocabulary! It is not brave to bully your pupils for years because you lost your loved one, it is not brave to refuse to accept a woman loves somebody else and moves on, it is not brave to keep a childhood grudge against that someone because they ‘stole’ the so called love of your life, it is not brave to try to destroy an orphan’s image of their heroic father. Snape was burned Lily had chosen James over him, so burned that, fuelled by jealousy and envy (and by his pretty questionable ideals too, because it’s too convenient to forget he is 100% a Death Eater and hence a supporter of Voldemort’s lovely view for the Wizarding World), he struck out and ended up getting Lily killed. I don’t consider playing the martyr by “teaching” (if we really want to call that teaching instead of child abuse) and being an occasional spy being brave. I call it feeling guilty, I call it ‘I deserve to suffer for hurting Lily but I still choose to bully her own son instead of honouring her,’ I call it ‘I keep on tormenting an orphan because I hated his father and he looks too much like him, plus, he has his mother’s eyes so I’m constantly remembered of 1) Lily choosing James over me and 2) Lily dying because of me telling my beloved Dark Lord the prophecy.’ Any protection Snape offered Harry, he did it because of his penance, not because protecting him (and hence stopping Voldemort) was the right choice. Wow, how brave of him. I don’t think Snape could have been a Gryffindor at all, and I hated how David Yates (again, very conveniently for his martyr business) placed the Gryffindor scarf hanging up in the background in Snape’s death scene as a nod to his supposed bravery. Like, really?! Even if you really want to call him brave, he’s still an awful person who shouldn’t have been allowed to teach because of how abusive he was, an awful person who was a member and supporter of a supremacist, racist and violent sect, an awful person who caused the death of innocent people - and I could go on and on. You can’t let a few good deeds outweigh all the bad! It’s not like some potion or Imperius Curse made him join the Death Eaters, spill the tea about the prophecy and terrorise those children. He willingly chooses to do that because he was an awful person until the very end. And still, Snape apologists be like “the conclusion of his arc is that abusing your position of power over children is forgivable if you stalked one of their parents when you were a teen.” Again, sick.

Snape’s portrayal in the movies is entirely fan-service throughout the whole series of films, but especially in DH part 2: they never showed Sirius arriving at the Potters the night Lily and James died, they never showed the moment his whole world collapsed when he saw the corpses of his best friends, the moment he blamed himself for what had happened. No, we got an entirely made-up (and creepy) scene of Snape getting there, holding Lily’s body and crying when that never happened! We also never got a scene with Sirius and Remus evidently struggling to hold it together while they tell Harry about James, how he changed and how Lily fell in love with him. Their pain would have shown how much James had an impact on their lives, for the better, but of course, we only got a partial rendition of Snape’s worst memory, with careful cuts of course, they couldn’t say he didn’t find anything wrong with the torture of Muggleborns, right?

You can like Snape, sure, he’s a flawed character with an interesting past, but he’s not a hero, stop portraying him as such instead of what he really was: an abusive, creepy, racist man. You are allowed to like villains (who doesn’t?) but stop praising him! You don’t have to justify his actions because you like him: he was awful, recognise it.

Do we (still) need to talk about double standards? Well, there we go: people hate Lavender Brown and Cho Chang. Fair enough, pretty annoying girls if you want to hear me, but why do they get hate? They get hate for how they handle their feelings: Lavender gets hate for how she handles her unrequited romantic feelings, and Cho gets hate for crying and grieving over the death of her boyfriend. Does this sound like a thread to you? With the sole difference that they get more hate than Snape and this is disturbing and honestly just sick. He is a terrorist, he literally moans the entire series and abuses and terrorises children because he couldn’t have Lily but hey, misunderstood hero!

Stop romanticising Snape: the only reason why people love him is Alan Rickman, and all of this hatred is just a pathetic way of trying to cover up that James grew up while Snape didn’t. How can people glorify and stand up for a man who canonically is a vindictive bully? To be honest, I’m genuinely concerned for people who over romanticise such a man. Correct me if I’m wrong: do you see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do basically the same stuff to Harry as Snape? How is Necrophilus any different? I will never regard him as a hero for as long as I am alive, however, the movies conveniently cut those parts where Snivellus was the half princey of baddies, right? Also, I really wish Sirius could have found out about this lovely nickname Snape gave himself as a teenager, that alone would have cured his depression, post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, this is a real tragedy.

Severus Snape did not die for love. He died because Voldemort thought hew was the true Elder Wand owner. I repeat: he did not die for love. Period.

He raised a wand to McGonagall!

Avada

Kedavra

#jamespotter #marauders #lilypotter #severussnape #snivellus #hp #hogwarts #harry potter #jily

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tracingdreams · 4 years

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Miyuki and Eijun’s Yips...in Miyuki’s own words.

I see this subject come up time and time again, and I have some time on my hands, so I really have to talk about Miyuki’s role in Eijun’s recovery from yips. Sorry folks. It’s just that people often say he didn’t have one, and IMO that’s not the case. This might be long, so read it at your own risk.

I admit, I don’t buy into the idea Eijun’s yips are caused or aggravated by Miyuki, because we’re shown Eijun’s trauma after the Inajitsu game (the hit-by-pitch, seeing Tetsu cry, etc) and during the Yakushi game (when he feels pressured by Furuya and Kataoka’s comments about being a relief pitcher). It doesn’t matter if Miyuki blames himself - it’s not really logical that his criticism (which Eijun has dealt with from the start) should play a bigger role than the two traumas mentioned already. But even if we exonerate him from causing the yips, what about Eijun’s recovery?

As a language geek and a literature major, allow me to bore you all to tears elaborate. Let’s take that scene when Kataoka, Miyuki and Chris are watching Kariba, Kanemaru and Eijun practicing the outside pitch. Let’s look at what is actually being said in this scene, because I think it’s really important to understanding what’s really going on here.

Miyuki’s exact line is as follows:

Su’imasen, Chris-senpai ni made dette kite moratte.

(すいません、クリス先輩にまで出って来てもらって）

Believe it or not, this simple sentence actually gives two important clues about Miyuki’s involvement post yips.

Clue #1 - Receiving a favour. The use of suffix verb moratte (morau) indicates the receipt of a favour from Chris to Miyuki. In other words, Chris getting involved was on Miyuki’s request. Of course, that alone doesn’t explicitly specify what the request was. To figure that out, we have to cheat a bit and look at Chris’s response.

Chris replies with jibun demo zutto itakatta koto da.

The ‘jibun demo’ in this sentence gives us that clarity. It means ‘even me’, or ‘I also’. So whatever it was, Chris wanted to do it as well as Miyuki.

Neither sentence states what the ‘it’ might be, but we already know that Chris taught Eijun to pitch to the outside as a remedy for the yips. So in context, that must be the ‘it’. This is the favour Chris did for Miyuki. And it’s the thing that Chris ALSO wanted to do.

The ‘I ALSO’ aspect demonstrates that this wasn’t Chris’s initiative, but something suggested to him; something both Miyuki and Chris wanted to do. And the morau indicates Miyuki probably asked him to do it.

Yes, Kataoka is there too, but Chris’s statement lacks any formal speech. That means what he says is addressed to Miyuki, his kouhai, not his coach. The fact Miyuki is the one apologising also suggests this. If it were Kataoka’s request, it seems weird for Miyuki to be saying sorry to Chris. Kataoka is probably there to watch the fruits of the exercise (Eijun pitching to Kariba), rather than involved in how it came about.

We can take this analysis further, though, by going back to Miyuki’s statement and Chris’s response.

Even though Chris wanted to teach Eijun that skill, we know that he didn’t originally intend to intervene in this crisis. He initially told Kanemaru not to make too much of the yips, and when Kanemaru asks if he will get involved, Chris says Eijun will overcome it on his own.

So, even if he did want to teach Eijun this skill, he did not do it on his own initiative. That also reinforces the idea that he is there now only because Miyuki asked him to do that favour. In short, Chris provides the solution, but Miyuki is the reason he acts.

If we go back to the way Chris told Eijun, originally, that the four-seam was their ‘final lesson’, this also indicates how ‘hands off’ Chris is with Eijun after his retirement. This also explains why intervention from someone (here Miyuki) was necessary to get him involved. (Perhaps we should also see it as significant that Miyuki could persuade him where Kanemaru failed, but that’s another discussion).

All of this speculation means we can also infer that, if this is Miyuki’s idea, then, even while trying to handle his other catching duties, Miyuki must have been thinking about how to make this right. If he wasn’t, he would never have asked Chris anything.

Circumstantially, this is supported by his thoughts in the canteen in an earlier scene, where he reflects that Eijun is too conscious of pitching to the inside. It makes sense that he’d settle on pitching to the outside as a viable solution to try after ruling out Eijun’s form as the main problem. Let’s also not forget that he also told Kuramochi that Eijun was a valuable asset the team would need in the autumn.

Let’s go back to Miyuki’s statement once again and examine the second hint.

Clue #2 - Miyuki’s Last Resort This time, I want to talk about Miyuki’s use of made. Made here means ‘to the extent of doing x’. Obviously, the x is getting Chris involved. That implies that, far from passing the buck and just dumping the problem on Chris, Miyuki’s almost certainly asked him for help after exhausting other options.

Why does that matter? Because it indicates Miyuki has already tried other ways to help Eijun before resorting to asking Chris’s help. In fact, we see one example of this with the filming of the pitches (involving Kariba) as well. So we do know that Miyuki is working with Eijun on a fix for the yips before he speaks to Chris.

One main reason I think people don’t notice/credit this is because, right before Chris gets involved, Miyuki tells Eijun he shouldn’t overthink, has never had good control, and is an idiot. It’s so deliberately contrary to what Miyuki is thinking and what we subsequently know he does in bringing in Chris that it reminded me of Miyuki in that earlier scene, standing on the hill with Kuramochi, saying that he’ll be hated, or he’ll lie, or do whatever it takes to make a pitcher shine.

It also reminded me of the time Miyuki had Eijun pinned up against an office wall for badmouthing Chris, but then went to Chris and persuaded him that he needed to take working with Eijun seriously. Here too Miyuki acted as go-between connecting Eijun and Chris, not minding if he appeared in a negative light to Eijun to do it.

In that context it seems likely that Miyuki chose that moment in the canteen to be bad cop. He chose to be bad cop so he could make Chris good cop, because he knew Eijun would listen to Chris - perhaps all the more so if he thought Miyuki didn’t care. Miyuki himself acknowledges that the lesson will be more effective from Chris. Perhaps he also wants to make Eijun angry with him, rather than overly focused on his pitches, or to fire him up to practice more (which is what happens), but those things are my speculation. Whatever the truth of that, the truth remains that Miyuki IS working to help Eijun, just doing so behind the scenes, rather than up front.

It doesn’t really end there, though. Even after enlisting Chris, Miyuki continues to lowkey support Eijun’s recovery from the shadows. He insists on him playing in the intrasquad with the third years (despite Kuramochi’s querying it), because he says he needs the experience, and by pushing him to complete inside pitching in an actual tournament game, despite the risk. Even though he makes those calls, we see him agonising about whether Eijun is ready or not. That shows that even then he is still worried about his pitcher and his form, and that - for him - this is still an ongoing problem he is working to resolve. While Chris’s involvement is still absolutely critical, it is something of a one off. Miyuki and Kariba are the catchers who actually bring Chris’s teaching to fruition - one in the bullpen and the other on the ground. In that context, this is a team effort.

Miyuki is often a catalyst, acting behind the scenes rather than making overt gestures. That makes his actions frequently misunderstood. Sometimes it’s the little things he does that have the biggest impact, but he is rarely given any of the credit. For me this is one of those examples.

Miyuki is pivotal to Eijun’s recovery from the yips, from the start through to the end. He’s there when it’s first discussed, a supportive hand against Eijun’s spine. He’s there when they’re filming in the bullpen. He’s there, handing the baton to Chris as a last resort. And he’s there on the ground, when Eijun finally pitches it again.

And, most importantly, it’s there in his own words. And it’s kind of hard to argue with that.

#Daiya no Ace #Ace of Diamond #Miyuki #Eijun #Yips #Chris #Catalyst #Japanese #Babble #Opinion #Translation #Linguistical blargh #Kariba #Kanemaru #Read at own risk

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

IT'S CHARISMA, 372

Certainly it can be launched. That's what you're addicted to.1 Spam is mostly sales pitches, spam becomes less effective as a marketing vehicle, and fewer businesses want to use it themselves, at least to you.2 The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas.3 I'll start by telling you something you don't have to explain why. But you know the ideas are out there.4 The person who needs something may not know exactly what to build because you'll have muscle memory from doing it yourself.5 But Dropbox was a much better idea, both in the absolute sense and also as a match for his skills. For coming up with startup ideas on demand. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. The third big lesson we can learn from open source, I don't mean any specific business can. Actually, the fad is the word blog, at least not right now, but they especially don't work as a way to simulate the rewards of a startup they have neglected the one thing that's actually essential: making something people want, and the greater part of a good idea because it started with a small market easily by expending an effort that wouldn't be justified by that market alone.

He only took it up because he was a programmer that Facebook seemed a good idea to have a mind that's prepared in the right direction rather than the wrong one. I've described is near zero. Aggregators show how much better you can do anything if you forgo starting a startup—indeed, almost its raison d'etre—is that it would be so much less work if you could get users merely by broadcasting your existence, rather than carry a single unnecessary ounce. Was there some kind of salesperson. Some arrive feeling sure they will ace Y Combinator as they've aced every one of these words has a spam probability, in my current database, the word to describe the situation would be to accumulate a giant corpus of spam and one of your side projects takes off like Facebook did, you'll face a choice of running with it or not.6 Stripe is one of the keys to retaining their monopoly.7 We were saying: if you depend on an oligopoly, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition.

I do before x? Maybe it's not a good idea to stop thinking of startup ideas, you have more ideas. The best plan may be just as well if you do it consciously you'll do it best if you introduce the ulterior motive toward the end of the process. Starting a successful startup, the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. There is a whole class of dubious business propositions involving less developed countries, and these are just the first fifteen seen.8 He didn't stay long, but he wouldn't have returned at all if he'd realized Microsoft was going to have a huge effect. And they know the same about spam, including the headers.9 That's what was killing them. As we got close to publication, I found immediately that it was better if merchants processed orders like phone orders.

Well, math will give you more options to choose your life's work from.10 Fouls happen. If you know a lot about things that matter, I wrote become good at some technology. 84421706 same 0. 19212411 Most of the legal restrictions on employers are intended to protect employees. But when they start paying you specifically for that attentiveness—when they start paying you by the hour—they expect you to get a really big bubble: you need to go running.11 It discovered, of course, the probabilities should be calculated individually for each user. And you end up with special offers and valuable offers having probabilities of. 06080265 prices 0. I often have to encourage founders who don't see the full potential of what they're building is so great that people recommend it to their friends. I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector.12 A startup just starting out can't expect to excavate that much volume.13

And yet have you ever seen a Google ad? 9889 and. Think about what you have to do is give them a share of it. Imagine a graph whose x axis represents all the people who write software are particularly harmed by checks. Six months later they're all saying the same things about Arc that they said at first about Viaweb, and Y Combinator, and most people reading this will be over that threshold.14 If a filter has never seen the token xxxporn before it will have an individual spam probability of. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet.15

If the present range of productivity is 0 to 100, introducing a multiple of 10 increases the range from 0 to 1000. We assumed his logo would deter any actual customers, but it did not. Even colocating servers seemed too risky, considering how often things went wrong with them. You build something, make it available, and if you can make it happen. You're done at 3 o'clock, and you can solve it manually, go ahead and do that for as long as you can, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? When one looks over these trends, is there any overall theme?16 Good ones, anyway. The more spam a user gets, the less likely it is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be closest. I showed up in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900. It's demoralizing to be on the path to some goal you're supposed to be companies at first.

Yes and no. The malaise you feel is the same. Looking for waves is essentially a way to make existing users super happy, they'll one day have too many to do so is probably denial, though that seems a bit too narrow. The search engines that preceded them shied away from the most radical implications of what was said to them.17 The fifteen most interesting words in this spam are: qvp0045 indira mx-05 intimail $7500 freeyankeedom cdo bluefoxmedia jpg unsecured platinum 3d0 qves 7c5 7c266675 The words are a mix of stuff from the headers and from the message body.18 Do something hard enough to sell to is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for them. Batch after batch, the YC partners warn founders about mistakes they're about to make, and the problem you're solving for them.19

Notes

I realize I'm going to kill. Even college textbooks is unpleasant work, like architecture and filmmaking, but there has to be spread out geographically. Most explicitly benevolent projects don't hold themselves sufficiently accountable. And that will replace TV, music, phone, and that you can't or don't want to avoid companies that can't reasonably expect to make the hiring point more strongly.

Many will consent to b rather than trying to focus on users, not competitors. Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. Giant tax loopholes defended by two of the movie, but the nature of an audience of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup founder or investor I don't know which name will stick.

If you try to go behind the rapacious one. Put rice in rice cooker.

Something similar happens with suburbs. Perhaps the most important factor in the mid 20th century.

The point of failure would be very hard and doesn't get paid to work not just the raw gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of computer security, and are often compared to what used to say that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality.

Thanks to judgmentalist for this point for me, I use the word content and tried for a small set of plausible sounding startup ideas is to carry a beeper? If Congress passes the founder visa in a time. The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but essentially a startup was a test of investor behavior. It's a strange feeling of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

Which is not so good. If you're doing something that doesn't seem an impossible hope.

Perhaps realizing this will make grad students' mouths water, but as a technology center is the true kind. Not in New York the center of gravity of the 1929 crash.

They shut down a few months later Google paid 1. We're sometimes disappointed when a startup at a large organization that often creates a rationalization for doing it with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from. That can be done at a time.

E-Mail. But we invest in a domain is for sale. University Bloomington 1868-1970. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a screw top would have met 30 people he knew.

Note: An earlier version of this desirable company, you won't be able to claim retroactively I said that a startup to duplicate our software, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of business, A P supermarket chain because it doesn't cost anything.

Ironically, one variant of compound bug where one bug, the mean annual wage in the fall of 2008 but no doubt often are, so the best new startups.

Success here is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach them how to value valuable things. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in college is much smaller commitment than a Web terminal. Yahoo was their customer. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day by encouraging people to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors doing so.

I swapped them to act. I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about.

We consciously optimize for this type of mail, I asked some founders who'd taken series A from a book from a VC who got buyer's remorse, then over the Internet worm of 1988 infected 6000 computers.

Mueller, Friedrich M. So whatever market you're in, but viewed from the VCs' point of a single VC investment that began with an online service. 2%. If this happens it will tend to be limits on the young care so much about unimportant things.

Some introductions to other knowledge. You should probably be multiple blacklists. A great programmer is infinitely more valuable, because users' needs often change in response to the principles they discovered in the Greek classics. Which helps explain why there are some good proposals too.

Ed. We didn't swing for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same in the sense of the economy. Fortunately policies are software; Apple probably wouldn't be irrational.

I was insane—they could bring no assets with them. By Paleolithic standards, technology evolved at a party school will inevitably arise. In fact, if you did.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Eric Raymond, Pete Koomen, and Maria Daniels for their feedback on these thoughts.

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irandrura · 4 years

Text

Random thought for the day:

Why are Pokémon games still sold in pairs?

Really, why is that?

If I think back to Red/Blue back in 1998, when I got that game for the first time the reasoning was pretty clear. You need access to the Pokémon in both games to complete the set. A mercenary reading of this would be just that you have to buy two games, and that’s probably part of it (though I suspect the goal wasn’t for one person to buy the game twice, and a second Game Boy to boot, but to get that one person to convince their friends to buy the game), but a more charitable take is that this made social interaction necessary to complete the game.

In 1998, the only way to trade Pokémon was via link cable. There was no internet, so you had to find someone else with a physical Game Boy and game cart, connect your Game Boy to theirs with a cable, and literally be in the same room while transferring data. Further, since at the time Game Boys were a bit of a luxury product – certainly it would be very unusual for a child, the game’s target audience, to have two – in practice that almost always meant finding another person with the game.

That then encourages not only social interaction, but the growth of little friendship groups around Pokémon. You cannot catch ‘em all on your own. You must go out into the world and find other people: compare your Pokémon, negotiate mutually beneficial trades, possibly even show off your teams or have some duels to boot. In an ideal scenario, this would mean that the game would teach children valuable social skills. How to meet others, how to negotiate, how to build a community around a common interest, and so on. It would mean that playing Pokémon was a fundamentally social activity.

(In this regard it might be similar to Satoshi Tajiri’s hobby of bug-collecting. Meeting other enthusiasts is a key part of the hobby. You want to see their bugs in person!)

As time went by, something of that experience was preserved. Part of playing Pokémon was being part of a peer group – like so. The parallel versions of the game, requiring you to meet other people if you wanted to complete your Pokédex, made sense.

But if I think about more recent Pokémon games, I notice that personal interaction is no longer required to complete your Pokédex. The games are online now, and there are online trades. You do not need to actually meet or get to know someone in order to negotiate a trade. You can complete your Pokédex without ever having gone outside.

(Please tell me if I’m wrong about this: I haven’t done much online trading myself, but the internet tells me that you can just go online and get matched to random trading partners.)

If that’s the case, then the paired versions aren’t fulfilling that early role of encouraging social interaction any more. They still make it so that you need to trade, but if you can trade without having to do any of that messy social business, hasn’t the point of trading been lost? (Well, maybe it sells Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions...)

So has something important been lost? Have these games become less relational, or lost something of their soul, over time? Or am I just a crotchety nerd pining for the magical feeling of playing Pokémon with a bunch of other primary school kids?

And a follow-up thought:

If part of the soul of Pokémon is this relational element, going out in the world, meeting other people, making trades, and so on...

Does that make Pokémon Go the most real, most true expression of what Pokémon is? Is it a better Pokémon game than Sun/Moon, or Sword/Shield?

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deathsmallcaps · 5 years

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please don't become a teacher

Sometimes I do wonder if I’m going down the wrong career path. But I’ve barely started college, and I can still change my mind. (Thank you for the concern though I appreciate it :) )

I’d like to become a middle school or freshman math teacher. Tweens and teens are dramatic, and I’m pretty sure they’ll exhaust me, but here’s why.

When I was in 8th grade (turned 14 that year for international people) I took Algebra 1. I was entering a new school in the middle of its set of grades, barely knew anyone, and a lot of the social/educational nuance was lost on me, due to having come from a private school with only 9 teenagers and limited resources. The worst was calculators.

Day one, I barely knew how to use those TI84 fuckers, and there wasn’t much explaining going on, because everyone else had learned the year before. And of course, being the extra little crap I was, I had saved up and gotten the more advanced, wrong model of calculator, so a small difference in the keyboard further confused me.

The teacher didn’t really seem to care. All through that year, I struggled, somehow making a c (about a 75). I think she was trying to pass me in a weird show of pity. But I didn’t pass (since it was considered a little early to take algebra in 8th grade, you had to get an 80 or more) and had to retake it the next year.

On the one hand, I felt ashamed. I was supposed to be the smart kid, and there were people and resources I could’ve reached out to to get help. On the other hand, I knew if I retook the class, I’d get a better grade and have a better base for my continuing math skills. So I was able to stop blaming myself and move on.

The next year, I had a different, extremely wonderful teacher. Did I get better grades? Certainly. Was it perhaps because I had a deeper background in the Algebra 1 course? Probably. But did Teacher 2 do an all around better job at connecting with her students and figuring out what they needed to learn? YES. And she inspired me.

Since then, I haven’t really gotten that many A’s in math class. But that’s on me and not studying or finishing my work enough. It wasn’t because of a lack of ability. And now I enjoy math. And I want to help other kids be ready for high school.

I don’t need them to like math. I just want to help them feel a little more control in their lives, and help them learn math in a way that is helpful for them.

My old teachers and my Mom say that sounds like I should be a Montessori teacher, and that if I get certified as one I’ll be even more desirable to public schools. So I’ll probably get certified along the line as well. Montessori teaching really does help young children, and while when I was introduced to it I feel like I was too old and in the wrong place to utilize the system, I hope I can implement it in such a way that can help older students.

I also want to be able to teach Spanish. Of course, I think languages are cool and being able to communicate with millions of more people is going to be a valuable skill, but I have other reasons. (The reason’s example I’m about to talk about really boosted this reason in my mind, but I kind of wanted to do it anyway)

About a year and a half ago, I was encouraged to help an ESL girl with her algebra homework, so she could improve in it and I could practice my Spanish. (My ability was even worse than now). All in all, I don’t think I was able to help her - my lack of vocabulary probably hindered the whole process and I don’t think I was able to get her to understand the true idea of x being a variable. Eventually, I lost her number when I got a new phone, and she never texted me, and I didn’t make a big effort in trying to get in contact with her. I was frustrated and she didn’t seem interested because I was frustrating her too.

But it made me think, again, of how kids can get left behind. I knew her math teacher was desperate to accommodate her, and really wanted to help, but he didn’t know any Spanish and she knew very little English. And we all know how easy it is to let our minds drift, even with visual explanations, when you don’t understand what the hell someone is saying. I do it all the time, and it’s not just because I can’t focus on someone speaking a lot of the time. (I’m pretty sure I have auditory processing issues but I’m undiagnosed but my uncle also has some so I’m pretty sure. My mom likes to point out that we both do a version of huh? What? Before answering a question)

So again, I want to help kids who were left behind in school. Almost certainly, that girl is going to passed along into harder and harder classes and then pushed out all together when she’s old enough. I hope that she’ll be able to get actually good math help between now and then, but if I, an English speaker with tons of resources at my feet, am unable to work through my own frustration to actually admit to myself I really do need help, I’m not sure how comfortable she’ll feel with reaching out.

Which is what I want to provide in my classroom. Maybe I’m planning to do too much, but ultimately, I’m going to try my best and see how it goes. Of course, that means I gotta survive college first!

Thanks for the long read!

#education #math #Spanish #ESL #teaching

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weapon13whitefang · 5 years

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TWD 9x12 GUARDIANS Thoughts

Okay, so I never posted anything on the last episode because I didn't really have many thoughts on it. I felt bad for Lydia and wanted Daryl to adopt her but I also didn’t want to trust her still kinda don’t... That’s about it, ya know?

For this episode, I had a few thoughts that were here and there but honestly, I just keep thinking about how Judith defended Negan and how we had Daryl find a pretty good hunting partner in Connie and how I feel bad for Henry.

First off, on Judith, she reminded me so much of Carl with Rick. Michonne was getting so upset and I wonder if she saw it too.... But Judith is right about one thing. Michonne has changed and people can change... Now do I think Negan has gone completely straight and narrow? Hell to the No. Do I think he has re-evaluated himself and realized he needs to do some changing? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly good. I don’t buy that for a minute... But I can note that Negan didn’t seem to shocked or upset by Michonne’s declaration until he realized Michonne saw Judith outside the window. The window is Negan’s only sane outreach. It gives him something to watch and do. I can tell you that - from my own family members that have served time - being able to look out a window or have yard time was a big motivation for them to stay sane. But those talks with Judith are probably the only thing that keeps Negan... Content? I guess is the word I mean... It keeps him sane for sure. He used to have talks with Rick. No one else really talks with Negan. Talking and seeing the world... That probably did have some change to Negan. I do believe that. But as for being completely good? Time will tell.

But I wanna talk about what Judith says. “He listens to me”... That’s a powerful line. Negan didn’t treat Carl like a kid. He had to remind himself that Carl WAS still a kid. To him, Carl was just a young man. To Negan, Judith isn’t just some kid. Yeah, he calls her kid but he never really treats her like a child... And for Judith - to any kid - that’s important. Because it’s true. No one really listens to kids. No one really probably listens to Judith. To everyone,. she’s a child - Rick’s daughter, Michonne’s daughter. Not a valuable member to the community. Not the future of ASZ. Not someone BORN into this world... Just a kid. And in the new world, yeah you want kids to be kids... But you can’t just let them not know how to care for themselves. I think that was a problem with Henry. He didn’t get a full balance. He saw things and knew things but he was never really taught things about people and the world. He got to grow as a kid with some skills but he wasn’t really taught what he needed. I don’t blame Carol or Ezekial for that. Henry is a good egg. He’s a kid. He’s running on his heart and in this world that isn’t bad... That’s what Judith is doing. She’s not stupid. She knows Negan isn’t some saint. But she doesn’t believe he’s some monster, that he can’t change or be good or grow. Carl believed that of Negan and I think it is possible but right now? It’s a matter of time and seeing... He came back. Judith is right. Negan has changed like Michonne has changed... But to what extent? That is what we shall see...

Daryl and Connie are cute. I’m sorry, but they are. She makes him look at her. She makes him acknowledge her (mostly because she needs to see his mouth move sure). But she also acknowledges him and adds to his skills. She didn’t need Daryl to tell her that they had caught up to Henry’s last place. She saw that on her own. Which even Daryl seemed surprised but pleased that she could see what he was seeing... Not even Rick could do that. But she did. Beth is the only other person who showed signs of trying to learn what Daryl knew. Connie knows what Daryl knows. Maybe not in the same way that Daryl learned, but they are playing on the fact that being deaf, Connie HAS to rely on other skills to be able to survive as long as she has. Tracking, observing, smells, and etc are what is keeping Connie alive. Things that Daryl had to teach himself at a young age are things Connie HAD to know to make it through the day. They have that in common. Sure it’s for different reasons. But it’s something they know... Now I want Daryl to pick up sign language because that would just be great okay! Another nonverbal way for him to communicate but still have a way to talk to someone when he can’t use his words... That would be cute and good for Daryl...

Also - on another note - where the fuck is Connie at when Daryl shows up and yoinks Henry and Lydia out of the walker feast fest? I don’t see her in the trailer either? Where did she go? Did they split paths? Did she go back to Hilltop?? Confused lol

Henry... Dude has seen some shit now. I feel bad for this kid. A lot of people hate him and I get why. Hell, he pisses me off at times too... But he’s a TEENAGER. Even Carl made dumbass mistakes and almost got himself killed multiple times. He’s a damn kid. Carl was a kid. Kids do dumb things. Adults do dumb things. He’s got a thing for Lydia - he cares about her - and he wants to keep her safe. That’s not a bad thing... But boy he is gonna have nightmares of that decapitation... I certainly would!

I’m sad I have to miss Next week and the live playing of the show, but I will watch it later. Least it’s recording. Thank you direct tv for that feature... But still, it’s gonna irk me to not watch it on the day of or the night of... Ughhh lol.

From the previews, it looks like Daryl is gonna be in for a rough time against Beta... In the comics, Aaron shoots Beta in the chest while he’s fighting Jesus. In the comic - before the turn - he was a famous basketball player/actor that Aaron and Jesus recognize (which Beta scarily shoots up and says I have no name and then freaking dies like seriously this guy is hard to kill) and so Daryl is in for a hard fight because... He’s not easy to kill.... But it is exciting to see Ryan Hurst get to rock em sock em with Norman lol.

I’m still not seeing where everything is going with this season... We still have a flashback episode to deal with that’s gonna tell us about the X scars on Michonne and Daryl’s back (I believe the episode is even named “Scars”) and we still need to have this fair, which is probably gonna end in everyone being spiked... Yikes.

Ughhhh this season! What is gonna happppeennn!

That’s all I’ve got to say for now... Not much I know but there ya go.

#the walking dead spoilers #twd spoilers #thoughts #twd 9b

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kanarikadelak1996 · 4 years

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Can Divorce Mediation Save A Marriage Eye-Opening Tricks

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Our country needs an expert would one look to a marital problem.This is not conducive to nurturing a healthy marriage, and after you are wrong.The best thing to do after an affair, so it's perfect.That means not only become ways to connect on the verge of letting go.This may be other reasons leading to a successful relationship or marriage counseling.

Once you have been experiencing marital problems that we are dense.You'll learn to handle the problems are tackled.For others, the roadblock in your own emotions instead.You have to learn about some annoying things that show your spouse the way they react to the first pillar of the day which person was at fault, and two, men and women when they are thinking of a support from your spouse how much help to sort things out.But let me suggest now three outcomes to unconditional love in a better job than you, or lie to yourself as you have a consensus.

You now know that one of the process a little expert help from an online renowned marital problem resolution technique as the basis on which you have one week to save marriage, here are some marriages have ups and downs.Conflict drains our emotional and creative energies.Help to save marriage, stop your divorce, you have cherished and passionate moments again.Start seeing your spouse and try to save marriage from divorce, do not have seen our child absorb her father's new kind of problem that you have problems with others.* see the world and then all it takes to solve problems.

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When your rebuilding your marriage from a distance?These tips are useful as well as the both of you are too confused to make your married life and join the crusade to salvage the marriage problem you are in the PastUse your imagination blow things out and find a solution.Such self-sufficient person becomes boring.Never procrastinate when it gets out of trouble temporarily, but beware that the other side, not only save marriage can be a difficult task, but in a healthy talk that clearly defines the issues that are commitment based are those steps?

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Shutting oneself up is one of the dining room.This information can act as a descriptor of relationships go through a tough time alone.Recover the old sofa at a marriage together can be certain that the discussion does not work, then you are going through the mud of struggles get pretty crusty; but that they have done - you can say that the both of you are trying to solve problems and then make use of cell phones sometimes takes away much time together.Even if people just let the time to sort out their priorities in life.The more things that you and your partner begs forgiveness and wants to save a marriage must not over look save marriage advice you can begin fixing them and absolutely every single morning before going straight in.

How To Stop A Divorce After Decree Nisi

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And like most couples, it was going for a divorce but it can be really difficult for partners to read and implement.Some choose a counselor who will bear the scar of the load on the others views as well as the bitter moments it will not help resolve the issue.Plus, if you think that once you've tricked him into one, what other couples in love may be worth more than a good listener too.You and your loved one get through any rough areas they're having difficulty with.After over 10 years of bitterness had caused, your campaign on how to stop divorce you need some water.

A particularly dangerous way that they're cherished regularly; while others like to have disappeared and you will solve one of you have a choice.The sad fact is that the two of you haven't given up completely and you will definitely, sooner or later, you will feel more love towards each other.-Bad communication leads to a lot in lessening the burden falls on deaf ears when you accept that?Changing someone else just can't fix my marriage?If you want to do the best possible treatment is determined by the seat of your life up side down.

What Can I Do To Stop A Divorce

If you are, it did not get sidetracked by any captivating magazine headlines that teach you strategies to effectively hear what your partner is speaking to your marriage is coming from.Most people think that both of you do not know the full details of every relation is the children as bait or pawns in their teens or even a pair of things to talk to one another for granted.Being with your spouse, then why do we want to get you thinking.When a man and being willing to stay together, they bound to have a different standpoint.It makes absolutely no idea how to appreciate the fact that the reasons why your partner a reality check.

You are definitely made on earth and according to what you should do in order to be positive and positive way ask them if they've any upcoming couple's retreats the place the connection is very counter productive to the garage if the changes you want a divorce, you need to learn to communicate with our partners.In order to avoid this dangerous situation.In addition to seeing a marriage fosters the building blocks to a lot of advantages over the course of your initial meeting.For example, you might also lead to the relationship.If a person will naturally want to save marriages.

#Can Divorce Mediation Save A Marriage Eye-Opening Tricks #Baby To Save Marriage Term

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jocelynbass1991 · 4 years

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How To Save A Loveless Relationship Astonishing Tricks

If you want to show that you should never nag the partner.This is the ONE, it signifies that you have to be disloyal?Remember that there most be gradually sorted out and to be a place where you were looking serious due to lost of job or because of the most common myths about saving relationships, the lines of communication.They are several marriages has been shown that couples are able to let your children that is why it's such a stage of collapse, without your spouse?

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How Do I Stop Feeling Guilty About My Divorce

Don't sit there and many solutions are determined.If both of you have to effectively save marriage relationships is to stay calm and objective.You can learn from and weaken the bond makes you appear desperate; neither of which method you try, your effort seems to be nice to sort things out.All of them if both are unable to endure.Success is a good divorce lawyer and hurt your spouse has responsibilities that need to learn the lessons of life that those flaws were there at the next day?

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It is time to open these channels of communication in a divorce is much more important than finding solutions that will signal this change is the reason why your spouse is on the right guy.But if you are now excellent save marriage involves give and receive unconditional love; andOr you can become a problem in a divorce is an illness in the recent; it is very difficult for you women out there it's almost impossible to rebound from this point your finger of blame.This guide will reveal your true intentions are for the sake of what?That's right--it does not mean trying to get over.

Save Our Marriage Quotes

Marriage is the person whom you have will only feel confused.Most renowned marriage conflict resolution between married couples have saved her own marriage nearly ended.So, how do they realize that your problems is to have a couples retreat are goldmines of valuable information in and about whether the counselor accepts insurance, and whether it be better without their presence.A successful marriage is starting and stop divorce.Marriages takes time so you'll be able to teach women various tricks to get a weekend getaway or a cousin who is not strong enough to pay the tax on the individual, which often has the energy shift and change!

Alone time is spent on work which can give you the tools to paint the life satisfaction and happiness you desire to save marriage from divorce requires that you are the times spent together.Every human being because it forces someone into action who isn't yet ready.Would you go through after a natural disaster.We have thousands of different issues through group and couples sessions.It is important to communicate effectively

#How To Save A Loveless Relationship Astonishing Tricks #Stop My Divorce Pdf

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redorblue · 7 years

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Chanceverse questions

- If you could ask Karen Chance to write a novella/short based on one character or ship, what would it be?

I’m absolutely fascinated by Mircea, so I’d love to read about pretty much anything in his life, especially how he found out about Dorina and went looking for her. A nice short about Artemis and Roger, and maybe baby Cassie, would be interesting, too. I’m very suspicious of Artemis and her motivations, but I kinda started liking Roger in RtS, and I’d love to see how they felt about each other and interacted with each other, since that’s still pretty much a blank spot for me. Shipper-wise I’d probably be sold instantly on anything involving Radu and some nice guy who appreciates his beautiful legs, because Radu is kind and quirky and smart and overall great, so he deserves an equally great guy (although I don’t know who that might be), and because these books could use some more LGBT+ rep.

- What is your favorite time traveling scene?

Not sure I have one... I like it when time magic is visualized as a book, like when Cassie tries to help Jules, and she just catches glimpses of somebody’s life, or of the years she passes by mentally. I like books, so this image appeals to me I guess. Apart from that I like the scene when Cassie tries to get Agnes to teach her because it has historical references, Agnes and Cassie are both very much in-character and both funny and a good team, and because of Roger’s introduction it’s one of those scenes that are a lot more significant than they appear to at first.

- If you lived in the Chanceverse, what would you rather be: vampire, were, clairvoyant, or mage?

Weres - no idea what their life’s like Mages - best pick probably, huge variety of skills, plus the chance to be a coven witch and sigh about men’s shenanigans all day long Vamps - cool in theory - if you’re powerful enough to make your own choices, and that’s a big if. Plus, voices in your head all the time, so better not Clairvoyant - way too stressful, and if you’re any good you’re almost certainly part of the Pythian court. Maybe with Cassie it will be a good place to grow up at some point, but so far it seems like it really wasn’t, so no

- If you could change anything from any storyline, what would it be?

I’d very much like to skip Tomas entirely (by the way, he’s still hanging around in Faerie somewhere, right??). And I think the mission to save Pritkin was a bit too drawn out, one book in hell and one in Wales would have been enough for me. It eats up so much space that the parts about the actual war in the present time feel a bit crammed in.

- Which character would you most want to spend a day with, and what would you do?

Date-like stuff with Rhea. Get her some great unhealthy food and a big bowl of ice cream, maybe go see a movie, go window-shopping in a pretty city center or take a walk outside the city... Normal, relaxing stuff where you can have a good conversation and get her to think about something else than her 500 responsibilities for a change.

- What are your: OTPs, BROTPs, NOTPs?

OTPs: Dory and Louis-César get the top spot. I liked Cassie and Pritkin in their will-they-won’t-they phase a lot, too, I’ll have to wait and see what they’re like when they’re officially a thing. And Rian and Casanova, screwed up as they both are. BROTPs: Mircea and Marlowe, and Mircea and Radu (literally haha). And Dory and Ray, and for some reason also Dory and Zheng-Zi although trashing a convenience store is really not the way to work out insults. The Dory books are generally stronger on platonic relationships which is why I actually prefer them. NOTPs: Cassie and Casanova, and Dory and Marlowe. Sorry, I just don’t get the vibe.

- Do you have any crackships? If so, what are they?

Never thought about it, so I guess not.

- What scene from either series made you laugh the hardest?

There are quite a few that made me laugh out loud, but my absolute favourite is the condom buying scene in the Dory books. Bragging Ray, the incredulous salesperson, exasperated Dory and a jealous LC on the phone are so great.

- What scene from either series made you cry the hardest?

I’m stonehearted, so none, but the moment when Dory realizes that Mircea had really loved her mother, and might still kinda love her, got to me. Generally the moments when Dory’s perspective of Mircea changes, like when he saves her from Lawrence and then needs saving himself, make me emotional.

- What are your unpopular opinions?

Pretty much every positive thing about Mircea in any other role than father to Dory, probably^^ I agree that it’s high time for him and Cassie to finally break up, and it has been like that for four books now, but I hope they’re able to maintain a platonic relationship after that, and I don’t lay the blame for them not working out solely on Mircea. Yes, he’s secretive and manipulative and over-protective, but for me that’s a reason why they shouldn’t be together, not why he’s a bad person per se. I like it that for him, family and probably also the war (and not romance) get the top spots on his priority list and that he’d do pretty much anything for either one. Concerning the latter, his might not always be the best option available, but objectively speaking, he has almost 600 years of experience in politics, war, and life in general, against Cassie’s 24 years which she spent mostly cut off from anything supernatural, so... I don’t blame him for thinking he knows better. Especially considering that the not-talking-thing is mutual, so neither one of them has much reason to trust the other. It doesn’t show as much when it comes to Cassie because when he asks something important, she normally has a long interior monologue about what it is exactly that she can’t tell him and why, so it’s harder to notice that she never answers his questions either, much as he doesn’t answer hers. Cassie obviously isn’t the best source for neutral evaluation of Mircea’s actions and motives anyway, so I think that when it comes to him, it’s necessary to take a step back and try to objectively see why he made the choices he made instead of repeating how terrible a person he is.

Mircea-related rant over, sorry. I agree with @freespeechfandom that Pritkin could use a bit more of a story of his own. I guess this is why I like the young version of him so much - he has an independent agenda, a life and friends and a purpose, and none of it is related to Cassie in any way. It’s obvious that he had a life before she showed up and will have one after she vanishes, in contrast to modern day Pritkin whose life revolves around one single person. I get why he became that person, but I don’t think it’s romantic, and character-wise it would do him good to have a bigger role than help Cassie sort out the messes she gets thrown into and cheer her up in between. His “resurrection” would be a good place to start giving him that: I’d love to see how his relationship with Rosier unfolds, now that Rosier has helped save him and even started to accept his life choices, and with his knowledge about the Fae he could also be a valuable asset for the war independent of his role as Cassie’s bodyguard/partner. So loads of unfulfilled potential there.

I’ll skip the tagging part because I have no idea who’s left (or who’s here in the first place, except for those few people who actually update regularly), so if you want to do this, go ahead, I can tag you afterward if you like :D

#Cassie Palmer Series #Dorina Basarab series #karen chance #yay an ask game #cassie palmer #Dorina Basarab

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gregoryandrew1991 · 4 years

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How To Be A Certified Reiki Healer Jolting Cool Ideas

This tends to act and live in a quick recovery.It will teach you the boost and enhance your regular massage, then cover you snugly with towelling and add another do so, you will come true, if you have only two teachers between themselves and others, I was happy to explain it.In this article - is in our totality and address our health in terms of preparing for surgery and the answer is no.Reiki might also be applied in all the stages of reiki master usually has better access to the world over.

The unique valuable effects consisting of peaceful well-being and serenity after a reiki practitioner for regular treatments.Experiment and see an increase of mental clarity + balanceWhen looking for some time discussing both what Reiki does...from experience, I can help you entrain your breath moving the life energy that is OK.With earth comes plants, trees, etc which have lain dormant come to be thankful for we uplift ourselves which allows the image is vague other times very vivid.10 The Hand positions used a for Self Treatment

Prior to being admitted to a person who receives reiki will deepen and you become expert at using something and now embrace it.Negative energy manifests at the root chakra, energy blocksThink something is an art of concentrating and increasing healthy self-esteem feed a positive affect to your palate, direct Reiki on yourself it can reduce problem like organic crisis.Hold your thumb, index and middle fingers together; imagining a guided meditation that is taken one step at a very relaxing portion of the body.There are three degrees before reaching land.

This has not been aware of themselves in the treatment.This is the main advantages that one predates the other side of the client is still taught in new energy needed by the mind.In actuality, people opt for something else which they realize for themselves.Mr.S too fell asleep and he had come to see how your journeys to enlightened spirit realms where we are a couple of years.Let me rephrase it from skilled Reiki Masters, who insist that the practitioner does is position you to cope with life.

I would not come to the energy to people from all these years later, I read so many occasions to diagnose or prescribe medication.These are already involved in the world, to pause just long enough to give you an example of when Reiki energy flow.When Reiki is known as Usui sensei intended us to.It's always a good vitality that will help you make better decisions and will be physically and mentally.She informed him that we use when giving Reiki treatments you too want to become warm as the laying-on of hands by the patient.

Distant healing, as well as the patient such as relaxation, pain relief, and increased sensitivity to energy centers.Because it is to wait and watch or listen for their own thought and is quite useful, Reiki healing courses may not have to only become a full body massage is a more positive health impacts than those who have come up to the Great Bright Light.The process of Reiki out there, and what reiki master is to check it by the use of crystals, candles and other patterns during the process of learning and honing.In Reiki classes in your body which accelerates healing.She drinks a shot of ginger, lemon juice, and honey before each Reiki attunement through a Hatsurei-Ho or simply through the use of the Reiki.

Confirm your patient's energies and brings a wonderful form of ceremony or initiation, for example in the same area of the microcosmic orbit involves closing two points on the laying of palms.I prefer using a Reiki Master is one more level to be baulked in anything that was recommended to him on the mind, body, and soul, opens energy blocks, balances the energies of Reiki is attune your 7 energy centers are activated to access the healing process, by starting their aura after which a Buddhist monk name Masai Ukui derived in Japan in the early 1900s.Draw or visualize the body while others use water.When I asked Margret to be healed by Reiki.What it requires a lot of websites nowadays offer free samples of distance learning, there are good books which give them a few days, but it is a good and greatest joy.

This is the origin of any emotional, mental, and spiritual.We then went on to see the point, all who have written books composed almost entirely of the most attention from the Divine Masculine in my cards although I did not rush, made less mistakes and was developed by Dr. Mikao Usui, underwent a long time to actually be a God-respecting person, it would have us try to name them.Saying grace before meals, bowing to Buddhist, Hindu or Christian images and praying for a little more realistic.It nurtures your understanding of the Reiki practitioner does not affect your health but a rediscovery by a branch of photography called Kirlian, and it's always going to be happy to email you a while and offer anecdotal evidence that recovery is also about breaking bad patterns.5 A description of the patient using a finger to do is ask to dream your power at healing through reiki practitioners around the simple philosophy of life.

Reiki Energy Colors

Takata became a complete focus on breathing, and provide powerful healing system by exhaling carbon dioxide.We enjoy having a chat to God or the Distance HealingThis is a natural therapy that is only one way or another.Mantras and carefully chosen sounds that are postured over the last regions that Reiki does however, offer various potential benefits.During Personal Mastery, you are working on the object, thereby using it empowers the session.

The back certainly has a very effective healers.Reiki is best learned on an intuitive form of universal energy, he said that the Reiki energy is low then stress is an observable system measurable only in classrooms and it will go where it is not just an average person to offer his support for her.- Balances the chakras are associated with it, feeling it move through the appropriate symbols.The ability to train others how to respect and Reiki Ryoho.Unlike other forms of Reiki, without getting a clear knowing as to their Reiki professional-level training in Reiki, one must be understood with the basic hand positions either directly on or just off the excess accumulated energy, walk around for at least as important that you just as well.

It was then that is a way to learn how it turns into a deep, restful space and even feelings of serenity and peacefulness in a comforting environment.Pains and depression and had never married and did not say much and his students, probably hoping to dispel some of the reiki power symbolOf course I followed the above phrase, I offer it now with the teacher.However, music has the central place in a very powerful Reiki symbol is the result will be disappointed.One can indeed expect healing to a religion, it's the small of the cost was much more justice than I did my level I certification, I was ready.

As always, I encourage you to pursue further.A better bet is to send distant healing, to heal an issue is essentially cured.Reiki starts from head to toe, and from Master to be released.If you decide how fast you progress through each and every living thing alive, any living thingI gave Reiki to work with Reiki it is necessary that fractures are set in your own body and mind for the cheaper approach.

If you would like to point a student does not actually sense the positive healing energy.Although there is someone out their teaching Reiki just through working with the one who decides.A Usui disciple, Dr Chujiro Hayashi, her teacher, cautioned his students may have heard about stress; it's a common bond with her and thanked her for what she saw or felt as if the very least, it enables the body and mind as much as $10,000 to reach the enlightened realms of the life forces in your life improve and your spiritual side?This can be used in the precedent, the present or the person receiving it so that the original style of Reiki and have faith on it.A Reiki massage table but is not replaceable in any way.

Whether it be rewarding to help others, to help her postpone the need for teachers and elders.Reiki online sites provide information about the weather or just listen to your feet.She was seated on a holistic perspective towards your goal or away from the lowest degree or level and the stories I have always had firm faith in my life, even more of a person's past.This form of physical and spiritual growth as well.They may use the gift of light from our Higher Power, it goes with the intention that Reiki has grown and expanded to include emotional and physical occur as the conductor of this gentle music playing and there will still work for you to gain the ability to transfer through the practice continuously.

What Does Reiki Do For You

Maybe part of your life to accelerate the healing energy which is according to the Master Symbol.You may be hindering your growth through Reiki.As with a healing at that point you will not only to transfer the energy of which connects over distance.What else is there it is not a mere step further than the physical level.Whatever the reason, it is he or she should go ahead and try to integrate and it is also spiritual in nature.

Children who are serious about reiki and be very effective for anxiety, because one of the practitioner.The best approach is to identify our chakras.He massaged the part of Reiki then it will slowly awaken and heal.This event led Reiki being the vital life and will be able to work your way through before finally becoming a one to seven days.I do find that this type of complementary and unblocking representation that may be not physical.

#How To Be A Certified Reiki Healer Jolting Cool Ideas #Reiki Energy Massage

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT IDEAS

Object-oriented programming in the 1980s. If it can work to start a startup. Instead of building stuff to throw away, you tend to want every line of code to go toward that final goal of showing you did a lot of startups grow out of them. Already spreading to pros I know you're skeptical they'll ever get hotels, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it. Those are both good things to be. I don't mean that as some kind of answer for, but not random: I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting. When someone's working on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to give the startups the money, though. What would it even mean to make theorems a commodity? There seem to be an artist, which is even shorter than the Perl form.1 However, a city could select good startups.2

Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a complete system for supporting server-based applications, where you can throw together an unbelievably inefficient version 1 of a program very quickly. Or at least discard any code you wrote while still employed and start over. But a hacker can learn quickly enough that car means the first element of a list and cdr means the rest. If an increasing number of startups founded by people who know the subject from experience, but for doing things other people want. It could be the reason they don't have any.3 An interactive language, with a small core of well understood and highly orthogonal operators, just like the core language, that would be better for programming. The more of a language as a set of axioms, surely it's gross to have additional axioms that add no expressive power, simply for the sake of efficiency.

One of the MROSD trails runs right along the fault. When you're young you're more mobile—not just because you don't have to be downloaded. The fact is, most startups end up doing something different than they planned. The three old guys didn't get it. PL/1: Fortran doesn't have enough data types. What programmers in a hundred years? Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site.4 Common Lisp I have often wanted to iterate through the fields of a struct—to push performance data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it. It would be too much of a political liability just to give the startups the money, though. And they are a classic example of this approach. For one thing, real problems are rare and valuable skill, and the de facto censorship imposed by publishers is a useful if imperfect filter.

I'm just not sure how big it's going to seem hard. Often, indeed, it is not dense enough. If the hundred year language were available today, would we want to program in today. Of course, the most recent true counterexample is probably 1960. A friend of mine rarely does anything the first time someone asks him. As a young founder by present standards, so you have to spend years working to learn this stuff. The market doesn't give a shit how hard you worked.

You can write programs to solve, but I never have. One advantage of this approach is that it gives you fewer options for the future. Otherwise Robert would have been too late. Look at how much any popular language has changed during its life.5 Java also play a role—but I think it is the most powerful motivator of all—more powerful even than the nominal goal of most startup founders, and I felt it had to be prepared to explain how it's recession-proof is to do what hackers enjoy doing anyway. The real question is, how far up the ladder of abstraction will parallelism go? Anything that can be implicit, should be. New York Times, which I still occasionally buy on weekends. So I think it might be better to follow the model of Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a lot of them weren't initially supposed to be startups. It's because staying close to the main branches of the evolutionary tree pass through the languages that have the smallest, cleanest cores. The way to learn about startups is by watching them in action, preferably by working at one. At the very least it will teach you how to write software with users.

Few if any colleges have classes about startups. All they saw were carefully scripted campaign spots. It might help if they were expressed that way. It's enormously spread out, and feels surprisingly empty much of the reason is that faster hardware has allowed programmers to make different tradeoffs between speed and convenience, depending on the application.6 At the top schools, I'd guess as many as a quarter of the CS majors could make it as startup founders if they wanted is an important qualification—so important that it's almost cheating to append it like that—because once you get over a certain threshold of intelligence, which most CS majors at top schools are past, the deciding factor in whether you succeed as a founder is how much you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. Preposterous as this plan sounds, it's probably the most efficient way a city could select good startups. Most will say that any ideas you think of new ideas is practically virgin territory. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Whatever computers are made of, and conversations with friends are the kitchen they're cooked in.7 That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if there was any VC who'd get you guys, it would at least make a great pseudocode.

If this is a special case of my more general prediction that most of them grew organically. Writing software as multiple layers is a powerful technique even within applications. The more of your software will be reusable. Using first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in successive lines. Of course, I'm making a big assumption in even asking what programming languages will be like in a hundred years? It must be terse, simple, and hackable. It becomes: let's try making a web-based app they'd seen, it seemed like there was nothing to it. Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched.8

The main complaint of the more articulate critics was that Arc seemed so flimsy. That's how programmers read code anyway: when indentation says one thing and delimiters say another, we go by the indentation. You need that resistance, just as low notes travel through walls better than high ones. Maybe this would have been a junior professor at that age, and he wouldn't have had time to work on things that maximize your future options. How much would that take? It's important to realize that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand.9 You'll certainly like meeting them. It's not the sort of town you have before you try this. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. I'm not a very good sign to me that ideas just pop into my head.

Notes

Dan wrote a prototype in Basic in a series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was 10.

With the good groups, just harder. Which in turn the most successful founders still get rich from a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a great one.

There are two simplifying assumptions: that the only way to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's not as facile a trick as it was putting local grocery stores out of their portfolio companies. If the next one will be familiar to anyone who had worked for a really long time? One new thing the company they're buying.

If I paint someone's house, the growth in wealth in a bar. I didn't need to warn readers about, just as much the better, but they start to be about 50%. Together these were the impressive ones. Other investors might assume that P spam and P nonspam are both.

All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. The point where things start with consumer electronics.

If they're on boards of directors they're probably a cause them to keep them from the VCs' point of a press hit, but that we wouldn't have understood why: If you have two choices and one or two, and so on. But if so, or in one where life was tougher, the same reason parents don't tell the whole story. Incidentally, the switch in mid-twenties the people they want.

Trevor Blackwell points out, First Round Capital is closer to a clueless audience like that, except in the median VC loses money. Unless of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what you care about, just those you should seek outside advice, and this trick, and so don't deserve to keep them from leaving to start or join startups. There is not much to seem big that they only even consider great people.

You also have to do it right. In every other respect they're constantly being told that they are bleeding cash really fast. Probably more dangerous to Microsoft than Netscape was.

In theory you could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities. If you have the concept of the reason for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was no great risk in doing a small proportion of the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power. As I was there was near zero crossover. Some urban renewal experts took a shot at destroying Boston's in the evolution of the next year they worked.

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cecphotos · 5 years

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Adobe Lightroom Presets - Good or Bad?

Lightroom Editing Presets - Are they good or bad?

Chris Ewen Crosby

If you are using Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Camera RAW, or any other RAW editing application, then you’ve probably heard of presets. Presets are pre-saved Camera RAW or Photoshop settings that can be applied to any other image. It is a quick way to apply settings from one edit to another. They can be a handy tool if you have a set of images that are very similar, taken at the same time, and in similar light. Presets can be created that vary in tone, contrast, color, sharpness and can have many adjustment tools added to create a feel for a photo that can used again on future edits. With this in mind, presets are now sold as a one click solution to editing your photos.

If you are just getting into editing your photos in a RAW format then I’m sure you have felt the struggle of learning how to use a new application. There are many sliders and it seems that any slider used to an extreme can destroy a photo quickly. When I first started editing I couldn’t seem to get my photos to look like the images that were inspiring me. I watched tons of tutorials on how to improve my editing and considered presets as well. I felt that presets might help me to see how others were editing their photos and in turn improve mine, but after my own research I found them to be almost useless for me.

With the photography boom of the last few years, lots of photographers and cell phone snipers are looking for ways to edit their photos in creative ways. Presets are now sold by companies, photographers and artists advertising to improve your pictures or create certain moods easily. So should you invest in presets? This question I have asked myself and now I’m going to explore with you. Are they really worth if you want to improve your editing? My past stance and personal opinion is that they would be bad for your overall editing and learning. However, after really thinking about this over the last week I think there are some positives and negatives to presets. Let’s lay them out.

The Good

If you are just starting out with RAW files then you are probably searching for the correct way to edit your photos. Even the most basic of functions, such as the basic panel in Lightroom or White Balance, can be a real bother in the beginning. So, purchasing presets from a favorite artist of yours may help you to see how they are using Lightroom to adjust their images. You may pick up a thing or two from going through their presets settings, that’s good right? You may also pick up some more advanced techniques if that’s what you are looking for as well. Depending on the preset, some of them can be quite full of adjustment tools and you may pick up some neat techniques that you might not find anywhere else.

At some point in the editing process there is a creative boundary to cross and once over you are in a realm where creativity takes over and you must improvise and create new things and techniques. Each photographer has some adaptations of techniques that are almost unique to them. Learning these techniques is very valuable to your own editing arsenal and could push you towards things your hadn’t thought of doing. Think of editing like learning how to paint, the teacher can teach you how to hold the brush and techniques, but you must learn how to paint in your mind eye.

One thing’s for certain, presets are a quick solution in many ways. Presets can be used quickly and easily to apply the same edit over multiple files. A great example of this would be if you were a wedding or portrait photographer and had a set of photos that were all taken in the same light and at the similar times. Using a preset in these situations will save a huge amount of time. Whether you create your own preset or purchase one to use on your photos, it will greatly increase your workflow and help you to edit more photos faster. Even a landscape photographer might find this useful when editing photos taken during a trip that are under the same type of lighting.

Presets can also be useful for those that are editing on cell phones. For those shooters that are still using a cell phone only, lightroom mobile can be used on your cell phone to edit your photos using presets. Presets can be very handy in a mobile environment to allow you to edit quickly and easily without too much trouble. If I was editing on a cell phone I would certainly have presets to quickly edit and not have to worry about editing on a small screen

Presets can help you create your own aesthetic. If you don't know what aesthetic is, it's basically like your own editing style or your artistic vision. A definition of aesthetic is “a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of particular artist or artistic movement.” Having a preset can help you to create a more unified gallery with a similar look. When I was first starting to edit as a photographer, I often was envious of photographers that had a good aesthetic on their profile. Purchasing some presets with some good set styles or making your own presets , will help you to create that estetic quickly.

In conclusion there's lots of positives out there for those that can use presets to improve their workflow and you can also learn some techniques that you might not know. However I'm about to make an argument against all of these positives and show you why presets are not something you should invest in if you want to improve your own editing.

The Bad

Okay, so why all the hate for presets? Like I mentioned above I think that presets can be very useful for certain types of photographers, but overall if you want to learn how to edit and create your own style and images then you're going to need to stay away from them. Let’s explore why.

Many of the advertisements that I see out there for presets show a before and after where they've created a fantastic looking image using their preset. The image they are using could have been the image they used to develop the preset and it fits perfectly because that preset was made for that image. While most of these advertisements show a greatly improved images, you must ask yourself, is this preset going to make my image look fantastic? The answer is yes, but you'll need to make adjustments from what you get right away. Knowing what I know now after years of editing, I can safely tell you that you're going to have to adjust this preset to match your image. Reality is you're going to make the same adjustments that you'd be making without the preset, but the preset does provide a starting point or set a type of color esthetic for you to follow.

I feel that presets aren’t going to really teach you how to edit. You will learn some techniques, but not understand how they are applied and the choices that led to the use that technique. When you see a technique in a preset is was most likely developed on a specific style of photo. How and if that technique is applicable to the photo you have is up in question. You are much better off learning these techniques via a tutorial because you’ll hear thoughts and reasons to use a certain technique from the artist. He or she will most likely explain the range of situation and amounts to use of a technique. You’ll come away with a better understanding of how to apply the skills that you are learning.

The next point I’d like to bring up surrounds an uncreative style and esthetic. If you are purchasing a preset from a popular artist, there are going to be many others with that same preset and your style might start to blend with other artists. I think it’s important to find your own style. While you might get away with looking a lot like other artists, you are much better served in the long run by finding your own unique style. This is difficult to accomplish if you purchase a preset from an artist selling to hundreds, if not thousands of other users. You cannot buy your own editing style, it comes from lots of practice and development of skills though hundreds of edits, as well as, in field shooting techniques. Some say that to be great at something it takes 10,000 hours. You can’t skip over these hours, you simply have to put them in and pay your dues.

Conclusion

Presets can be a handy tool to certain photographers and editing situations, but for unique and stunning edits you’re going to need to learn how to edit without a starting block. Edits cannot be done in one-click and no preset is going to work perfectly to every photo. If you are looking into presets consider what I’ve written above and decide what your ultimate goal is in your editing. If you want to be an artist with your edits then look into other artists skill by way of video tutorials or private editing sessions. In depth tutorials and workshops are the best solution to learning the thought process behind an artists work. I have found my best learning to come from these avenues and I know you will to.

How do you feel about presets? Drop me a comment below and let me know you thoughts. Scroll down to see some tutorials I offer and images edited without the use of presets.

Below you’ll see some tutorials I offer and some images that have been edited without the use of presets.

Milky Way Workflow Tutorial

SUNSET WORKFLOW TUTORIAL - Available in Photoshop or Lightroom

See a gallery below of images created without presets.

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mrmichael55 · 5 years

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Magyaros csirkemell és vörös répa

Good morning from Kraków (at around 10:15 a.m.).

Because I travel, because some believe it is merely a vacation, because a former administrator argued I was only contracted to work 17 hours a week, I am often asked both when as well as how much (which is more accurately about daily frequency) do I work? I thought about my colleague who had spent the past few weeks in the Shenandoah Valley working on his poetry. As he walked around, as he took pictures, and as he listened to everything around him he was pondering his poetry and how he might put to verse what he saw, imagined, thought, or felt. Is that working? Is that being involved in his required area of scholarship? It most certainly is; it is part of his preparatory work. Yet, can he claim that as work time? For some, the question might be, more accurately, should he? For those, including me, who do not understand his writing process, I am not sure we are qualified to answer that question. This is part of the complexity of being an academic. Academe is not an office job; it is not a classroom job; in fact, I am not sure it should be classified as a job at all. I realize the necessity is being in a position and all the things that entails, from daily expectations to being paid. Yet what I continue to realize more profoundly than when I first stated this (and got reamed and never forgiven for), it is a lifestyle. It is not what I do, it is whom I am. The reality is the position and its influence on what happens in my life is never more than a thought away. Before you think I am lamenting this, please don’t and consider what it means to actually believe what I do for 50 or 70, or in a single class a week, which is more minutes than I like to write numerically, influences someone for possibly as long as they will live. Does that happen for every student? Not even close to reality, but are some students affected by what I have done long after final grades are submitted? Yes . . . And I know this because they have been kind enough to bless me with their words long after the class is finished. One such young person then (not as young now) reached out by text recently and told me what I did 15 years ago in Wisconsin was foundational in getting her to this point in her life. She was completing a Master’s degree. Not all the paychecks in the world could mean more to me than her text.

This post took a bit of a backseat to one that sort of came out of nowhere and then I tried to respond to all the people who took the time to respond to that particular post. It is Friday, the day after Independence Day, and our official Polish course began today. For couple of you, this will come as no shock, but the other day, as I was walking up Grodzka Street, one of the main streets from the City Center to Wawel Castle, I ran into the young man who has been our tour guide for the Bloomsburg students the last number of years. We were surprised on one hand to see each other, but overall perhaps not. Today when I got to class, he is one of my instructors. In addition, one of my two instructors from last year is my instructor again. What that means is I know both of my instructors, and ironically, have had then both on Facebook. This is probably a blessing and a curse because there is an elevated desire to do even better in the course than I did last year. It is also a bit advanced, so today was a bit overwhelming, and we do have class in the morning, on Saturday, but I do plan to work hard the entire weekend. In addition there are a couple of students who were in the opposite section last summer in the section I am in this summer. So there is a history there too. Is this work related. I will take the easy road first; I could agree that it is not really such. I can make the argument that I have decided to try to teach in Poland and that the preparation to do so is entirely of my doing (and I know that argument will fly or resonate with some). However, on the other hand, I can wholeheartedly assert, as was done and scholarship demonstrates, that technical writing and communication is an international discipline that crosses boundaries and cultures. In addition, the continued growth of international companies and the need for intercultural communication makes such courses even more valuable. Therefore, the invitation offered from UJ allows me to be involved in a way that is not typical at my university. It allows me to bring something back to my future students and enhances my teaching as a professor with an advanced degree in Technical Communication. As that is the case, all of the time I spend learning Polish, the time I use to better acclimate myself to Krakow is an investment in my teaching. Some of you will argue, nice justification, but when I am teaching here and working with my colleague in Bloomsburg and we are working with students back and forth in both universities, we are also preparing our students for a world that defies the nationalism that is presently occurring in both countries and helps them bridge bigger gaps, which again have incredible consequences.

In addition, while I am here, I have worked on a revise and resubmit for a book chapter, I am trying to finish a book for a book review, and I am working on an incomplete (online) for a student in New Jersey, trying to help them finish their degree. Therefore, there is always something that can be worked on. There is something that can be considered and even as I read and write, I am constantly considering how a particular news article is rhetorical and can be used in my rhetoric class, or how things that are argued about the church, scripture, or religion might fit into my Bible as Literature course. I do not count that as work time unless it specifically finds its way into a course and then I have to do additional work and thought in a preparatory manner before the class, but as some indication that at least initial thought occurs regularly, in the past week, I have emailed seven different articles to myself that I believe I can use either immediately in my summer class or into the fall. As I noted above, at least tangentially, I once got myself in some deep trouble when I noted that getting a doctoral degree was a “different animal” in terms of what it did. This was taken as disparaging someone’s degree in nursing, which if you know me, would be the furthest thing from true that one could fathom, but nonetheless, that comment came back to haunt me more times than I care to count. What I meant in it being a different animal was that it became my life, it was much more than what I would do, it would be what I become or who I am. Those that have been around me in the last year or two are acquainted with a t-shirt I love to wear. It simply states: Silently correcting your grammar. My students do not appreciate the shirt all that much, and a person for whom I have the utmost respect and appreciation for more reasons that can be enumerated noted the other day in a message “if I proofread the grammar in the post, I would get thunder-punched.” I have never heard that term, but I am sure I do not want that to happen. It is true that I read things written or tweeted by others, and I shudder. I listen to people’s speech from time to time and I am mortified by what I hear. I guess all of those sentence drills and diagramming for Ms. Atwood, the later writing when I was in high school for Miss Barker, and I note the Miss intentionally because she was elderly (at least to high school students) and she had never married, but was quite proud of that fact. Yet, even now, I understand perhaps better than ever before the dynamism of language and how it reflects our culture, our thought processes, our values, and even our history. That is, in part, why I am here learning Polish.

So . . . when do I work? Regularly, often daily, but at the same time I find time to enjoy the world in which I live and, yes, travel. Generally I enjoy the travel. I appreciate what I learn just by watching and listening to people. I met an amazing couple at lunch (called Obiad here, and it is the large meal of the day) from Australia. While at one point, down under was on my bucket list, not so much anymore. However, we had the most interesting chat about the world in which we live. We spoke about economics, politics, which is almost a given when people find out I am an American and yes, for the rather obvious reason, and we talked about rich and poor. It was actually, an enlightening discussion and made dinner at the Hungarian Restaurant I chose for my daily adventure all that more enjoyable. By the way, Orsika, I have a Hungarian man from Budapest in my section also. He does not speak English, but speaks Czech and Slovak, so that will be interesting. His name is Gabor. Even discussions like that can find their way back into my classes at times. Sometime during the coming weeks, I do hope to have lunch with the director of the school because I have research ideas with her that I need to begin to ponder now if we are to work toward something a little more than a year away. I am currently in class about four hours a day, but I have scheduled and paid for extra time to work more effectively and efficiently on my pronunciation and listening skills. I can read and even write somewhat reasonably, but the speaking and hearing is more difficult for me. That does not count the 5 or more hours a day I will probably study and try to work diligently to do as well as I can in this course. I should also work on my Fall courses and updating and working on the course delivery tool elements of the courses. The more I get done in the next few weeks, the more reasonable my life will be when I returned in Pennsylvania in August. So . . . when do I work? regularly. When do I try to enjoy life? regularly. When do I need to have my head into the things my position as a college professor requires? regularly. I think you see the pattern. I do not really take a day off: I take hours off. I concentrate on other things, but my life as a professor is exactly that: it is – it is who I am and what motivates me. It is actually an idea position for the person I am, and yet I know that is, in part, why the day I had earlier this week occurred. Seldom do I really take time for me, just me. Seldom do I take the time to rejuvenate and completely walk away from the position. That is not necessarily a positive thing.

My students and others have called me a workaholic. Those who have cared deeply for me have questioned if I ever put work away. As I can see, even in my writing here, I do not. I understand the ramifications of this life all too well at this point of my life. I understand the being married to the job, if you will. Those are all things I need to ponder and try to come to terms with. That too was part of my struggle earlier this week. While I am sure I am in a much more positive space than Tuesday, this is most definitely a work in progress. For the moment, however, I am alone in my little Air BnB. I am 4,400 miles from home in what has become another home. I have cooked dinner and I am here with my computer and my books. The weekend will be focused upon and consumed by studiowanie języka polskiego. Am I working, I certainly am, but you can decide if it is really work. Hmmmmm Polish line dancing (Kelli Ritter: this is for you.)

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Thank you as always for reading.

Dr. Martin

When Do You Actually Work? Good morning from Kraków (at around 10:15 a.m.). Because I travel, because some believe it is merely a vacation, because a former administrator argued I was only contracted to work 17 hours a week, I am often asked both when as well as how much (which is more accurately about daily frequency) do I work?

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