#lasted me 2 years 11 months which is a bit less than id have liked but it did see a Lot of use

[thorndrool]

tablet recs?

my huion decided today would be its last day. it only works if i hold it at a ~30 degree angle with one hand, which isnt super practical. so, any of you guys have any recommendations since ill apparently need a new tablet?

i know it isnt the cord because i truly did just today buy a new USB-C cord, and this has been a hiccup its had for months.

#digital art #pen tablet #drawing tablet #tablet broke #tablet recommendations #tablet drawing #huion #i had a HS610 btw #lasted me 2 years 11 months which is a bit less than id have liked but it did see a Lot of use #nma #text poast

[crackheadgeminibby]

better for you

pairing: chris evans x female!black!reader

warnings: age gap, angst, language

word count: 2.7k

a/n: this lowkey sucks and is very poorly edited, i’m sorry but on the plus side, i surpassed 400 followers yesterday!! so thank you to those 400+ people🤍🤍

i do not consent to my work being copied in any way, shape of form or reposted on any other platform

not my picture

You didn’t consider yourself a jealous person. Much less a jealous girlfriend. Not at all. Never had and you thought you never would.

You had practically raised yourself as your parents had always been more preoccupied with their jobs. You loved your parents, you really did, but when your high school counselor told you that you could graduate high school a year and a half early, you took the opportunity to start college immediately and move out of your parents’ house. This drastic change when you were so young made you become extremely independent. Which is why your relationship with Chris worked almost perfectly. You valued your independence, as he did his, and you respected his independence, as he did yours.

As a corporate lawyer that had multiple firms around the country, you traveled a lot, needing to meet with clients. Chris, as an actor, also traveled a lot.

You both trusted the other without a doubt at the beginning of the relationship despite that Chris was, at first, a little wary of being with someone as young as you. As a 24-year-old, he thought that you should be living your life, partying, sleeping with whomever you wanted without being tied down, but you had explained to him that despite your age, those were not the things that you wanted.

You and Chris were truly made for each other, knowing the other more than they knew themselves. You would even dare to call yourselves soulmates.

Which is why you could not fathom why you were in your current situation.

You had left early in the day for California, where you were overseeing the opening and start-up of your newest firm. Chris, on the other hand, had left 3 days ago to go on some trip his publicist had arranged for him. You hadn’t bothered asking what it was about, assuming that it was about ASP. Plus, you didn’t mind it: he had to do what he had to do.

But now, you couldn’t believe yourself.

You were sitting on your hotel bed, in a white and fluffy robe, fresh out of the shower. Your computer was open in front of you, the TV was blaring the news and you had your phone in your hand. It was almost 11pm but you had been doing this for at least 3 hours. All three electronics were talking about the same thing: Are Chris Evans and Lily James dating??

It was a bit your fault that people gave themselves the right to assume things like that, to be honest, since you had been the one to pressure Chris about keeping your relationship secret. You knew that people would talk and judge you for your 15-year age gap. You, personally, didn’t care and neither did Chris but his career was dependent on his public image and you didn’t want to hold him back, especially not at a pivotal moment in his life like right now.

So, you had agreed on telling your families and your very close friends and Chris had convinced you to let him tell his publicist, Megan. God, she fucking hated you. When Chris arranged for you guys to meet, she had called you “a walking, breathing PR disaster”. You had laughed it off calling her funny, but you knew that she was 100% serious. You really shouldn’t have been surprised that she would do something so fucked up at some point.

A bunch of different news outlets were pumping out new stories every 30 minutes, each article a little more detailed than the previous. It was all over the Internet and it seemed to be the only thing that people cared about today.

Considering the 8-hour difference between London and San Francisco, you hadn’t been able to talk to Chris at all since you got to your hotel. You weren’t even sure if you wanted to talk to him. He hadn’t even tried to talk to you. Why was he avoiding you and acting like he had something to hide?

You’re reading the latest Daily Mail article on your computer about how Chris and Lily apparently got to his hotel in the same car when you hear your phone ring on the nightstand. You don’t even bother looking at the caller ID as you reach for your phone, eyes still glued to your computer and answer,

“Hello?”

You hear a loud exhale on the other end of the phone before you hear Chris’ tired voice, “Baby, hi.”

You tense up slightly before asking, trying to seem nonchalant, “What’s up?”

“Have you watched the news today?”

You bite your lip, thinking, before replying, lying through your teeth, “No, why? What’s going on?”

Chris sighs again before answering, “Nothing, it’s fine. How was your day?”

You roll your eyes. Was he seriously not going to say anything?

“Fine, but it’s really late and I have to get up early tomorrow so good night.”

You hang up the phone before Chris can answer anything. You throw the phone at the end of your bed, frustrated beyond belief.

You continue to read the Daily Mail article as you hear a message coming in. You don’t bother to get up to pick up your phone as you see the message appear on your computer screen a couple of seconds later.

chris💙, 11:01pm:

Good night baby girl. Good luck tomorrow🤍

You groan loudly at his message. Even when he had pissed you the fuck off, his words still brought butterflies to your stomach.

You disregard his message and finish reading the article. You roll your eyes as you close your computer and get up to put it on the hotel desk. As you’re walking back to bed, you take your phone from the end of the bed and put it on its charger, ready to go to bed.

You’re not sure how you manage to fall asleep that night as your mind swirls with unending thoughts.

When your alarm wakes you up at 6am the next day, you feel groggy, having slept very badly last night. Which was to be expected.

You get up and change while eating a protein bar before heading to the hotel gym: you needed to do something to get your energy up. Once you finish your workout, you head back to your room to get ready for the day.

When you get out of the shower, you open your computer and, having left the Daily Mail website open last night, you see a new article posted 2 minutes ago: Chris Evans and Lily James seen on a date in a London park.You groan loudly, closing your computer as you hear that your cell phone is receiving multiple texts.

You reach for your phone on the hotel desk and your eyes widen as you see your lock screen.

5 missed calls

12 messages

You open your Phone app seeing one call from Chris, two from your best friend, one from your brother and one from your mom.

You open the Messages app as a new message from your brother comes in.

will, 7:31am:

When did you break up with your boyfriend? And why didn’t you tell me?

you, 7:32am:

i didn’t

yet

will, 7:32am:

You know i’m gonna fucking murder him right?

You smile fondly at your brother’s concern, chuckling softly as you type your reply.

you, 7:33am:

as you should(:

You open the rest of your messages, mostly asking the same thing. You didn’t feel like talking about it anymore so, you ignore them until you get to your conversation with Chris.

chris💙, 5:22am:

Hey, I’m sure you’ve seen the articles by now.

I’m so sorry

Call me when you can, please. I really need to talk to you.

You bite your lip as you think about what to answer. You didn’t have the energy to deal with this right before your firm’s opening. Shaking your head, you lock your phone, putting it back on the desk, getting dressed.

As you get back to your hotel room, exhausted from your day, you hear your phone signal an incoming text for the millionth time today.

You sigh loudly: you knew it was Chris texting you again. You had been ignoring his texts all day because you didn’t want to get in a bad mood while you were opening the firm.

You put your purse and work bag on the floor, unlocking your phone. You open the conversation with Chris, scrolling through his messages.

chris💙, 6:15pm:

I’m leaving a bit earlier than I planned, I should be home tomorrow morning.

Are you back in Boston or are you gonna stay in LA?

You sigh, feeling guilty that you had been ignoring his texts all day. You start typing a reply, your finger hovering over the send button for a couple of seconds before clicking on it.

you, 6:17pm:

i’m still in san francisco i’m leaving tomorrow morning

As soon as your message goes through, you see the three dots pop up in the conversation.

chris💙, 6:17pm:

Oh my God, hi. Are you okay?

Can I call you?

You chew on your bottom lip: you really didn’t think he was going to answer that fast.

you, 6:18pm:

i’m about to take a shower then i’m gonna go to bed i’m really tired sorry

chris💙, 6:18pm:

Okay, I’m sorry

Good night

You groan loudly. You really didn’t know why you felt so guilty: he was the one running around with another woman. As you think about this, you realize that you didn’t really know who she was.

You shake your head at yourself as you pull up Google on your phone and look for her. You don’t even realize it but, 20 minutes later, you were now at the oldest post on her Instagram.

You curse at yourself, dropping your phone on your bed, and head to the shower.

You stay under the hot stream of the shower for at least an hour before you finally get out, toweling off.

You order some room service for dinner, settling down in front of a random show playing on the TV. After pushing your food around for half an hour, you sigh loudly, put the tray on the hotel desk and get under the covers before finally falling asleep.

You had not slept very well so you had been in a rush to leave the hotel and catch your flight to LAX in the morning. You were exhausted and hungry when you got to your shared LA home with Chris but there was no food in sight, considering that neither of you had been here in a couple of months.

As it was not too late in the day, you decide to take a nap and order some food after.

When you wake up a few hours later, the sun has already completely set and the house is pitch black. You rub the sleep out of your eyes and take your phone before heading to the living room to order some food.

As you enter the kitchen and are about to head to the living room, you hear a deep voice, “Hey, you’re up.”

Taken by surprise, you throw your phone in the direction of the sound and scream, “Holy shit!”

“Ow… What the fuck?”

You’re breathing heavily, clutching your chest as you turn on the kitchen lights, brightness illuminating the area as you see Chris holding the side of his head.

“Jesus Christ, Chris! You almost gave me a fucking heart attack!”

Chris rubs at his head as he looks towards you. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Your heartbeat starts to slow down as you roll your eyes.

“What are you even doing here?”

Chris frowns and replies, “Well, you never told me where you were going to be but when I got back to Boston and you weren’t there, I assumed you were coming here.”

You groan silently, crossing your arms over your chest and raising your eyebrows,

“So, London seemed to be very fun.”

Chris shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling, before making eye contact with you, “I didn’t know that’s what the trip was about.”

You chuckle humorlessly, “Really, Chris? Since when do you go on trips, not knowing what they’re about?”

Chris exhales loudly, taking a couple of steps towards you, “I promise that I didn’t know. Megan planned everything and just sent me the info.”

You snort loudly, rolling your eyes. Chris frowns before asking, “What?”

“Megan, Chris? Really? She fucking hates me, of course she would pull a stunt like this.”

Chris frowns again, shaking his head, “What are you talking about? She doesn’t hate you.”

You laugh, this time, actually finding this funny, “Chris, she literally called me a walking disaster.”

Chris struggles to find an answer to that: he knew that Megan used this exact kind of formulation so he couldn’t deny it.

“And you know what? It’s fine. Maybe you really should be dating her instead of me.”

Chris’ face contorts in a mix of hurt and anger, “Why the fuck would you say something like that?”

“Because it’s true, Chris. She’s better for you. She’s actually your age, not a fucking child compared to you. She can give you the things you want from life that I can’t. Maybe it’s better that way.”

“What way?”

You shrug your shoulders, looking at your feet, mumbling, “If we weren’t together.”

Chris scoffs, “You literally have to be kidding me.”

Chris takes large steps, making his way towards you and takes your chin in his hand, forcing you to look at him.

“Y/N, I’ve told you before and I will tell you again. I do not give a shit about your age. And I thought you didn’t either. So, what’s the problem here?”

You bite your bottom lip nervously, “Because what if what Megan said is true? I mean… If people find out that we’re dating, the shit talking would never stop. I can’t do that to you.”

Chris sighs, enveloping you in a hug.

“Baby, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters if we’re not together.”

He lets you go, stroking your cheek, “You’re it for me. There is no one better for me than you. And no one is going to take that away from us. Not you. Not Megan. And certainly not my fans. If they love me as much as they say they do, then they’ll respect you.”

You chuckle slightly, “Chris, I don’t know what kind of fantasy you live in, but in real life, that’s not how things go.”

“Okay, but who cares? There’s two people in this relationship, you and me. Not you, me, Megan and my fans.”

You scoff, mumbling, “Yeah, tell Megan that.”

“I will. The same goes for her. I didn’t know she actually meant those things about you and I’ll tell her that she needs to knock that shit off.”

You sigh, nodding slightly, “Okay.”

“And, baby, I’m sorry.”

You furrow your brows, trying to understand, “I never should have agreed to Megan’s little plan thing. But, most importantly, I should have told you as soon as I knew. It’s just that I kinda owed Lily a favor and she needed this. But it doesn’t erase the fact that I should have been honest with you and I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

You sigh, “I know, it’s okay. I knew this kind of thing could happen when I decided to be with you, and I overreacted a bit so I’m sorry too. I knew it wasn’t true and I should have asked you about it instead of ignoring you. I just… couldn’t let go of the fact that maybe you should be with her.”

Chris shakes his head, “I shouldn’t. And I never will be.”

Chris laughs a bit before continuing, “Sorry, but you’ll have to try harder to get rid of me.”

You laugh loudly, throwing your head back. Looking back at Chris, you smile warmly before hugging him,

“I love you, Chris. Like, a lot.”

Chris chuckles, squeezing you tighter, “I love you too.”

#chris evans #chris evans x black!reader #chris evans x reader #chris evans imagine #chris evans fanfic #chris evans x black reader #chris evans x female reader #chris evans x woc #chris evans fanfictions #chris evans fanfics

[jeannereames]

This is probably a very stupid question, but how did the Ancient Greeks measure time (in terms of years and months) ? What was their calendar like? What year would Alexander have viewed himself to be living in?

I love these sorts of daily-life details, so I may have got a little carried away…. Before I get into the weeds, however, I want to make everyone aware of a reference resource:

E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World. Thames & Hudson, 1968.

Yeah, it’s old now, but Bickerman spent most of his career on dating puzzles, and I don’t think there’s anything recent to match it. When I first was told about it years ago in my historiography class, I practically bounced off the walls. (My fellow grad students thought I’d lost my mind.)

I’m not sure of the best way to address this query—topically or geographically—but I’ll go with topically. I’ll also say upfront that I’m unfamiliar with Egypt, so they’re not much mentioned. Also, if you want more details on any particular system (Roman, Athenian, Babylonian, Jewish), there are plenty of online resources.

Long-count Calendar

How to number years across a span? Regnal years was most common in antiquity: year 1, year 2, year 3 of ___ king. Also, king lists detailed how long ___ ruled. The Ancient Near East (ANE) excelled at chronologies; we have some that go back to Sumer. That’s pre-Bronze Age. The span of some reigns can be deeply problematic (e.g., mythical), but we have the lists. Fun note, Neo-Assyrians named years by its major military campaign. Tells us a lot about them, no?

What about places without kings? Greece, Rome, Carthage?

The Greeks had several systems, internal and panhellenic. Internal systems often dated by the name of a prominent city magistrate. In Athens, that was the eponymous archon, in Sparta, the eponymous ephor, etc. The panhellenic system used Olympic years. In Dancing with the Lion, if you look at date plates before sections, that’s what I used. It’s a 4-year system, so, “In the year of the 97th Olympiad,” “In the first year of the 97th Olympiad,” “In the second year…,” and “In the third year…,” then we’re to “In the year of the 98th Olympiad…” In modern annotation it’s Ol. 97.1, Ol. 97.2, Ol. 97.3, Ol. 97.4. From (our year) 776 BCE down into the Roman Imperial era, the Olympics made useful anchor dating for the eastern Mediterranean (Magna Graecia).

Rome had its own system: two in fact. It counted years by both consuls, but also AUC = ab urba condita … “from the founding of the city.” Carthage used a similar system involving their two senior Judges for their senate.

When it came to “world histories,” authors such as Diodoros Siculus used several systems: Olympiad, Athenian archon, and Roman consuls. It gets a bit unwieldy, but is about as universal as we have for the Med until Christianity took over everything.

Yearly Calendars

Much of the ancient world used lunar (354 days), not solar (356 days) calendars. Yes, they knew a lunar year didn’t line up with the solar, and they used “intercalation” to fix it, avoiding summer festivals being celebrated in winter. Either a 13th month was needed every 3 years, or they added a few days to months here and there, making a “lunisolar” calendar. We have an intercalated day in our own calendar: Feb. 29th in Leap Year. To fix a calendar, however, an “anchor” is needed. This anchor is usually a solstice or equinox, which may (or may not) correspond to their New Year.

Our modern (Western) world places New Year’s in the dead of winter. But many pre-modern calendars put it in spring. Makes sense: life renews, it’s a new year. The Babylonian New Year was decided by the spring equinox—first new moon after—which pattern affected most of the ANE.

The Hebrew New Year (Rosh Hashana) is in autumn, but their first month (Nisan) is in spring. (They also have a New Year for Trees! Tú bish'vat. How cool is that?) Wanna know when your Jewish friends are having a holiday? Use Hebcal, the gold standard.

MANY ancient cultures have more than one calendar running at a time. So do we. Working in the uni, I have the “normal” year, but also the “academic” year to keep up with.

Despite the dominance of certain early systems like Babylon, counting the new year was specific to a region and people, and their religious traditions. No single Greek new year tradition existed. Both Delos and Athens used the first new moon after the summer equinox: early July. The Macedonian calendar seems to as well, so Alexander was born in the first month of the year. Other city states were different. I’ve forgotten most but do remember Sparta’s is in autumn because their new year almost falls on my birthday.

Remember, although we today talk about “ancient Greece” as if it were a country—it wasn’t. There was a landmass called Hellas, but each city-state was independent, and had its own laws, gov’t, coinage, and religious cult. Too often “Greek” winds up being conflated with “Athenian,” because we happen to have the most evidence from ancient Athens. But both Athens and Sparta were weirdos. Corinth, Thebes, Argos, Mytilene, Cos, Eretria, Miletus…all were a lot more typically Greek in their gov’t systems, etc. There were also 3 (or 4) different branches of Greek: Ionic-Attic, Doric, and Aeolic. When we talk about reading the “ancient Greek” language today, most people mean Attic Greek, or even Koine Greek (Hellenistic era common Greek).

That means every city-state had its own calendar, connected to its own festivals.

In fact, most city-states had several: sacred, civic, etc. Athens had a 12-month lunar calendar for festivals, but a 10-month civic calendar corresponding to the 10 tribes for Assembly business. Originally, they had only 4 tribes, not 10, so political changes meant calendar changes.

In each city-state, month names were derived from the major festival for that month. We have the complete month names for only a few: Athens is one and (fortunately for me) Macedon is another (specifically Ptolemaic, but it’s likely the same as the Argead). Below “Ancient Greek Month” REALLY means “Athenian month,” which annoys the hell out of those of us who don’t consider Athens the be-all and end-all of Greek history!

Because their months were lunar, they bisect our months, e.g., July/Aug = Athenian Hekatombian or Macedonian Loos [Alexander’s birthmonth], Jan/Feb = Athenian Gamelion or Macedonian Peritios [probably the month that gave Alexander’s favorite hound his name: Peritos]. Likewise, as the Athenian new year began in midsummer, dating ancient events also bisects. You’ll see 342/1 to designate the year from July of 342 BCE to June of 341.

As mentioned, most places used lunar months as the most basic time-keeping, but the moon isn’t the only way to make a “month.” Rome originally had 10 months of 30/31 days, adding 2 later, which is why our 12 months have Romanesque names.

Just remember: NO UNIVERSAL SYSTEM for months.

What About Weeks?

A seven-day week is borrowed from the Jews via Christianity. Both Jews and Egyptians had a dedicated day of rest. (For Egypt, the 10th day.) In most places, however, days off were festival related. Every month had festivals, which might last from half a day to several days in a row. You worked…took off for a festival…then you worked. No regular day of rest. (For the modern weekend? Thank unions and the Labor Movement!)

How did others subdivide a month? Athenian months were c. 30 days, divided into 10s: 1-10, 11-20, 10-1. Yup, the last is backwards. But dating also counted waxing and waning moons. So the new moon began a month, the 7th of the month would be the 7th waxing moon, the 24th the 6th waning moon. This is the Athenian system. Other city-states are less clear, but probably similar.

Romans had kalens (1st), nones (7th), and ides (15th). Nundinae (market days) means 9th, but were really the 8th day. The 7-day week is late Imperial and, again, owes to Christian take-over of Jewish weeks.

Most systems had “auspicious” and “inauspicious” days for religious activities, civic activities, and business activities. Don’t start anything on an inauspicious day! (These were manipulated, especially in Rome, but that’s a whole different discussion.) The closest modern equivalent I can think of is Mercury Retrograde. 😊 Although in modern Greece, signing a contract on a Tuesday morning is bad juju, or May 29th. Constantinople fell on a Tuesday morning May 29th, 1453. We might, in America, consider 9/11. Who wants to open a business on 9/11?

The Horai (The Hours)

When did the day begin? Again, the ANE and Med are different. In the ANE, day typically began at sunset. So yes, that’s why the Jewish shabbat starts at sunset on Friday and lasts till sunset on Saturday. (If you didn’t know, the Jewish “day of rest” isn’t Sunday, but Saturday.)

For Greece and Rome, et al., day began at dawn. Each day was then evenly divided between day and night, so there was no standard length of an hour. It depended on the time of year. Each half had twelve hours, subdivided into 4 groups of triads. Originally in Greece it seems there were only 9, not twelve, but they increased to match the lunar months. The division of 4 groups of triads also yielded the 4 seasons of 3 months each. Hora was initially a season, not an hour.

In any case, dawn was always the first hour, noon the 6th, sunset the 12th. Same deal for night (twilight, midnight, pre-dawn).

This is great for military and civic purposes, but most people tended to refer to daytime divisions more generally: dawn, midday, etc. And there was nothing like minutes or seconds. That’s totally modern. Closest, they might come would be to count “breaths.”

The gnomon (sundial) was the chief way to measure hours, as it matched longer or shorter days. But it’s kinda hard to use a sundial at night, or on a cloudy day, or inside. Night hours were approximate.

The water clock (klepsudra) was first popularized in Greece in courts and the Assembly (to time speeches), but spread to other use, for inside or on shady days. Yet water clocks are unwieldy to carry around.

The Romans did have portable sundials (below), but again…needs the SUN. Btw, I should add that sundials aren’t only a Greco-Roman thing. The Chinese had them too. By contrast, the sand-clock or hourglass is a medieval invention. Won’t find them in the ancient world.

#time-keeping #calendars #time in the ancient world #months in the ancient world #ancient Greece #ancient Rome #ancient near east #Jewish calendars #sundials #the Horae #The Hours #Classics #ancient history #ancient Mediterranean history #asks

[teeth-and-tea]

ANIME & MANGA I HAVE BINGED IN THE LAST MONTH: May 2021

I've Been Hunting Slimes for the Past 300 Years and Now Ive Maxed Out My Level: incredibly long name aside, cute af slice of life that suffers Same Face Syndrome. I'm still happy to watch it because of how feel good and fluffy it is though, Im probably gonna forget about it in two or three years tho. 8/10.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro: I found out this was a webcomic first and suddenly all the HORNINESS made so much more sense. A Femdom, Degradation, Humiliation, Dacryphilia Bullies to Lovers story disguised as a high school rom-com which, I'm not going to lie, misses SKEEVY CITY by mere inches on a regular basis. However, I'm a Dom/Switch and this entire relationship sets off my dom brain center like New York City just shy of midnight. So if you're into that sort of scene, this anime is for you. If not, it's still fascinating but you're probably gonna be a little put off by how mean the Girl!Bully is to the guy MC. Unless you find out something about yourself, in which case, congrats! Stay safe, sane, consensual, and learn about the traffic light system on top of safe words, I promise you'll have a better life in general after that. Still Ongoing, currently 10/10.

Fruits Basket: IM GONNA CRY I LOVE THIS ANIME SO MUCH???? The original anime came out when I was in... I think middle school and my parents were really strict on what I watched so I never got to experience the first wave and I never bothered to watch the show ever after I moved out of the house years later. However, now that I'm much older I honestly can say this is one of my favorite anime to date, and all the characters are charming, lovable, with their own problems that I can connect to or sympathize with, and I love the MC which is always a treat tbh. Except Akito. Akito can suck a sandpaper dick. I'm only on S2 tho so no spoilers! Anime 11/10.

Monster Girl Doctor: went in thinking it was gonna be a monster girl who's a doctor with a homoerotic assistant (her name is SAPPHY okay sue me for thinking it) and ended up watching the entire dubbed harem series. Honestly, I've seen worse and this one has consistent follow-through on interesting characters and backstory enough for me to shove aside the blatant under-monstrousness of the female monsters and the harem-ness of everything else. Dubbing is honestly really good, which is a treat, and the monster designs are not the worst and the MC is tolerable. Honestly, I don't mind having watched it! The mix of cgi and the traditional animation together work pretty strangely though, and it often doesn't flow super well. 7.5/10

So I'm a Spider, So What: Dubbed version which honestly isn't that bad. Took me a bit to get into it, but after realizing that it's got a mismatched timeline a la The Witcher, it made so much more sense. Heavily done in cgi, and you can definitely tell between the 2D and 3D animations, but not the worst in the world. I went in not expecting much but it ended up being an Issekai I can stand and even enjoy. On god has a decent story... with the spider. I'd be a liar if I didnt say I skipped some of the human parts just to get back to the best part of the show. 8/10.

Somali and the Forest Spirit: I'm so fucking nostalgic for this thing it makes me want to go and hug my dad. About a human girl under threat of being eaten with a monster-dominated world. Very obvious "humans fear what they don't understand" message but instead of the humans learning tolerance it's what happens when they get annihilated first so like, kudos for the mangaka for having the guts to do that. I cried like a baby regularly. It's really good, I watched the dub and ID WATCH IT AGAIN!!! 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Oh my god. O h my g o d. Fell in love on the first episode, ngl. About if an immortal being learned how to be a person from scratch. I love it. HOWEVER. Keep a box of tissues on you at all times because you're gonna need them. I'm only on EP7 because that's all that's out right now but just know. I love it. Not for everyone but certainly for my "what do we define as human and the human condition" ass. 12/10.

Those Snow White Notes: A sports anime without any sports. About shamisen playing which is cool because I never realized how cool this instrument was??? Its neat af. OP1&2 are by Burnout Syndrom so know theyre fire. Gonna be real, its pretty alright, but not extraordinary. You can tell they were using the characters as archetypes rather than actually characters which kinda kills a lot of the emotional value you could've had, but I'm still gonna watch it. It doesn't make me cringe as hard as other sports anime tho so I consider it toptier in that regards but if you're a big sports anime fan you might be bummed out by it. Every single musical performance is INCREDIBLE tho. A solid 8/10.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun: THE ART OMFG IT'S SO GORGEOUS. Listen, if you took coptic markers and gave them an animation budget with some manga panel direction thrown in there, that's this anime. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. I'm in love with the aesthetic every second. Story? Really good. Characters? I love the MC and his evil little twin brother asshat. Demons? Not super imaginative but I'm carrying on happy as can be anyways. Dubbing? A bit shaky at times but I found the voices charming if a little off for some of them. I'm already waiting for the second season with popcorn at the ready. 10/10.

Prison School: I watched this directly after Hanako-kun and it was like I got slapped in the face by sweaty unwashed titties and some fedora wearing schmuck's piss kink. No character is likable or redeemable. I finished it, but at what cost? 2/10 and only because a character shit his pants and I laughed.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: watched this right after Prison School and it was NECESSARY tbh. Its so CUTE and honestly, im not even kidding you, the fucking funniest anime I've seen in months. I watched the dub and the VAs are having the time of their lives working on this anime not just giving it their all but literally just going ham. Its great. If I read this im sure id be bored outta my mind but the VAs giving it a joyous performance make it an insta fave for me tbh. 9/10.

Sk8 the Infinity: i watched the dub with my bro and I can confirm that its a spectacular show because we both loved it and we have vastly different tastes. Incredibly SUSPENSFUL AND STRESSFUL for an anime about skateboarding but we finished it in a single sitting tbh. The last episode is not dubbed for some reason but we still loved it. Like if Free! was less obnoxious but the only fan-service here is Joe ♡ a beefcake who owns my lesbian heart. I think there's exactly one named female character tho and I legit couldn't tell you what it was if there was a gun to my head. So, over all, 9.5/10.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I'm going to be entirely honest, I went in thinking it was going to be a boring isekai of no value. I was right about the Isekai part. It was honestly pretty interesting and focused on nation building like you're playing civilization rather than the usual "Get Stronger" narrative or "Get Some Pussy" narrative most isekais take which is delightfully refreshing. Granted there are flavors of that in this which means it doesn't alienate the big isekai watchers out there, but it's not the whole dish and it doesn't make me want to cringe the same way others do. You've got a slime MC just vibing and building a nation of monsters nbd. Does lose points for making the female monsters more humanoid than their male counterparts but makes them back by only doing perfunctory fan-service and nothing that makes me want to cry... except the butt sumo episode but in fairness it was all a terrible dream. Literally, the MC refuses to dream anymore after that. solid animation, decent voice acting, decent story, made me realize how HUGE this is in the Light Novel community???? There's like 18 fucking novels and that's WILD. 8.5/10.

MANGA:

Spirit Photographer Saburo Kono: a one shot special by the mangaka of The Promised Neverland! Honestly a really delicate touch of both super creepy and really touching, and I'm not gonna lie I'm bummed that this isn't a bigger project but the single chapter makes it a good taste for their style. I've been wondering if I wanna read/watch The Promised Neverland and now I think I will. 10/10

Deranged Detective Ron Kamonohashi: from the mangaka of Hitman Reborn comes this Sherlock and Watson derivative! Not even 20 chapters out yet with a sort of spotty schedule, I honestly love it even thought it's exactly as you expect. HOWEVER. Kamonohashi the "Sherlock" character uses mental pressure to kill all confirmed murderers and it's up to Toto the "Watson" character to save all those people before Kamonohashi kills them! It's just recently introduced a "Moriarty" family of crime lords (not a big spoiler don't worry it was obvious) so the tension surrounding Ron's past is amping up rn. Personally, I think the art is GORGEOUS, the characters engaging, and the story quick enough to keep my interest. Most mysteries are solved within a chapter or two so you're not stuck 20 chapters into one locked room mystery which is just peachy tbh. RN, 10/10. If this gets an anime, I anticipate a legion of fangirls who ship the two main characters along with their many friends. I've been alive too long to believe otherwise.

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: Yeah I read the manga after I watched the show. A slower build than the anime, but it works for the format, if theyd done the same with the show then I don't think it wouldve done as well. Honestly? Cuter tbh but just as horny. You dont start really LEARNING about your character until like, chap 65 tho and no real "drama" happens until like 75. A good chunk of the chapters are like 8pgs so its a breeze to get through. I love these slow burn idiots of the century. 9.5/10 because you can DEFINITELY tell the mangaka does hentai too.

Yugen's All-Ghouls Homeroom: one-shot by the mangaka for Food Wars, it's no wonder there's this constant perviness from the MC, a guy who can see and exorcise spirits. Takes place at an all girl's finishing school with KICK ASS monsters tbh, kinda bummed its not longer. The MC? Blatant monsterfucker who is also a CONFRIMED monsterfucker???? Idk i vibe with that single emotion. Everything else is hit or miss. 7/10 for monsters and cool concept, lost points for the MC very pointedly being okay with admitting he'd wait for the teenagers to be adults tho. Creepy af. Could live without that.

Hell's Paradise: I finished the entire 127chps in 3 days and I was really enthusiastic about it 90% of the time thinking about how deep it was and then I actually thought about it and I ended up being very neutral about the whole thing tbh. The art is fantastic tho, but DEFINITELY deserving of the M rating. Tits. Tits everywhere. But not tits to be ecchi over, no, monster hermit tits on beautiful women-ish figures. Now generally I give that a pass but a huge theme in the story is that men and women are "no better than one or the other" but like, lady tits are what you see 99% of the time. Men tits are few and far between. I call bullshit on most of the "deep" themes is what I'm saying, so it's like the mangaka was trying for those deep thoughts but missed the margin a little too far for my preference. That being said, the MC is a married man who loves his wife which automatically makes him my favorite character so like... idk so many good things, so many misses, but overall really spectacular themes and imagery. Unique but classic all at once. It's getting an anime and I have NO IDEA how much censorship they're gonna be doing but they're going to be doing SO MUCH. Oh yeah, and one guy is a plant/human hybrid who fucks a 1000 year old plant-hermit which makes him a canon monster fucker. And one canon non-binary character who I, a nonbinary, actually like. So like... gosh I've got mixed feelings. 8.5/10.

Choujin X: From Sui Ishida, mangaka to the mega hit Tokyo Ghoul comes this brand new manga!... Of one chapter, lol. Not really binge-y because it's just the one chapter out right now but I'm already keeping my eye on it. The grasp on anatomy in the art is PHENOMENAL and you can see Ishida flexing his art skill which is great. Can't give a true rating but I'm giving it a tentative 9/10 because I'm excited to see more.

Shag&Scoob: technically not a manga, its an ongoing webcomic I binged an subscribed to in one day and I just think it deserves more attention. Starts off funny with "what if Scooby Doo had a gun" and has been led to "what if all cartoons are aliens that survive and receive their powers by the humans that love them in an epic war with Martians." On god, its good. I finished the current series in a couple hours so it's a breezy read, highly recommend it. 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Yeah I watched the anime and then finished all current 143 chapters in like 3 days. GOD IM WEAK. I don't buy physical manga unless I know I want to remember the story forever and I'm already budgeting for the current books out. Yeah, this is a good series. That being said, definitely not for the faint of heart or those who suffer under common triggers like suicide, molestation, death, etc. It's all framed as bad and necessary to the story don't get me wrong, but it's there and has lasting affects on the characters. Incredible story telling by the creator of A Silent Voice. Keep tissues nearby at all times. 12/10.

#i've been killing slimes for 300 years and maxed out my level #don't toy with me miss nagatoro #spirit photographer saburo kono #fruits basket #deranged detective ron kamonohashi #yugen's all-ghoul's homeroom #monster girl doctor #so i'm a spider so what #somali and the forest spirit #to your eternity #jigokuraku #hell's paradise #choujin x #shag and scoob #toilet bound hanako kun #prison school #sk8 the infinity #that time i got reincarnated as a slime

[never-sated]

Four years ago, after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump, one of the most brutal conversations I had was with my then-11-year-old son, who had grown up imagining that the world looked a certain way and discovered overnight that it did not. He was worried that he might someday have to defend children at his school from racists and bigots in the schoolyard, and he feared he wasn’t up to the task. His words at the time broke my heart. He said something like, “I know myself. I’m never gonna be the No. 1 guy to step in. If someone else steps up, I could be the No. 2 guy. But I don’t think I could stop it myself.” We talked a lot in the weeks after about bystander intervention, about being the chip guy on the subway (he just ate chips until a violent situation was defused), and about the beautiful words Mary Beth Tinker once shared with me, about how terrified she was when she wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War. She was the one who explained how sometimes you only have to be “a little bit brave.” 

When I scroll through social media today, I am gripped by the same fears—of violence and unchecked power—that have made it nearly impossible to exhale for the past few months, perhaps years. I cannot predict what this day, this week, will bring. But what humbles and amazes me is the civic courage I’m seeing, the flexed muscles of so many ordinary people who never believed, in 2016, that they would survive this, much less find courage to step in if they were called upon to do so. 

Thousands of people phoned strangers in Philadelphia on Monday to urge them to vote. Some of them never thought they were capable of such a thing. My friends who marched in D.C. just last week to protest the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation were fanned out across the country knocking on doors Monday. My friend Mark is poll watching today in an East Philadelphia precinct that has received credible threats from white supremacists. When I scroll through social media these days, I genuinely don’t recognize some of the skinny First Amendment scholars I knew over a decade ago. They are now suited up to monitor and protect and intervene in the tense circumstances to come. I look at my journalist friends, who have come to treat death threats and bomb threats as the cost of doing business, and at how many of them have written and spoken and fought at their personal and professional peril in these dark times. I see people who have gone from citizens to activists to inspirational T-shirts, from historians and local voting rights activists to someone else’s only hope. 

Doctors and nurses and orderlies and teachers. Transportation workers, election workers, and factory workers. None of these people thought they would have to do what they now do every single day. But those muscles and callouses and scars are now part of who they have become. I am looking around at the feeds of folks who never in a million years would have thought of themselves as protesters, marchers, organizers, passive resistors, civil rights attorneys, poll monitors during a pandemic, and I wonder if they see what I saw this morning: that whatever this wretched four years has broken, it has also built so many different kinds of brave, such a thick and rich kind of civic power. It’s the kind of brave that will have people standing in lines for hours, the kind of brave that will have them voting in the face of closed polling places and burdensome ID requirements and even threats of harassment. It’s the kind of brave some people have been doing for a long, long time but a lot of other people knew little about.           

I was reminded this morning of Justice Antonin Scalia, in an oral argument in the 2010 case Doe v. Reed. Opponents of marriage equality were challenging Washington state’s practice of publishing the signatures on petitions for a ballot referendum, as part of their public records laws. They wanted the right to try to deny marriage equity, and to do so anonymously. Some of the court’s conservatives suggested that publishing the names of signatories of a petition put them in danger of harassment and threats. Justice Samuel Alito fretted about religious affiliations being published and people storming others’ homes seeking “uncomfortable conversations.” But it was Scalia, tag-teaming with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who insisted that much as we might wish otherwise, “The fact is that running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage.” He went on to point out, rather presciently, that “the First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate, or to take part in the legislative process.” He went on, more or less shouting that “you know, you can’t run a democracy this way, with everybody being afraid of having his political positions known!” And—no surprises—Ginsburg had his back throughout. At the time, it was all very hypothetical, but in the years since we’ve heard these arguments, GOP groups have hidden their donor lists under this same theory of protecting themselves from public criticism, while doing immense damage to the institutions of democracy, and more recently to the institution of voting itself. The “civic courage” for which Scalia advocated that day is today apparent in the people who realize that political silence is not a marker of “politeness” but instead can be a hallmark of complicity.

Strapping on a semi-automatic weapon and terrorizing voters isn’t bravery any more than invading a small college town with flaming torches is bravery. Tweeting encouragement for the jailing, kidnapping, and assault of your political opponents isn’t bravery, just as deriding the military while dodging the draft is not courage. Being a bully requires neither courage nor conviction, just the knowledge that you will be protected in your abuse of those who are powerless. But for the millions of Americans who have marched and organized, who have been arrested for the first time, who have knocked on the doors of strangers, who have made the art of the resistance and baked cookies for the resistance, and ended friendships, and stood up to trolls, and explained hellish truths to their kids, and who are still today—as the president incites his bullies—doing the kinds of things they would never have imagined themselves doing, well there is a name for all this activity: It is civic courage, and without it, there would only be bullies to occupy the field. 

I have no idea what comes next. I have no illusions that electoral victories will change fundamentally broken systems of power and money and gender and race. This will require decades of work to repair. But take a moment, in the maelstrom of today, to gently thank someone you’ve watched become just a “little bit brave” over these past four years. You may not recognize it in yourselves, but you will surely see it in those around you. And as the person who has penned a dozen “_____ Is Not Going to Save Us,” articles—about the Bob Muellers, and Adam Schiffs and even the Justice Ginsburgs—know that today I see the chip guys all around. You are the chip guys you had hoped to see in the world. I hope you see it too.

[raywritesthings]

Dear Friend, 7/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Felicity Smoak Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: When Felicity decides to get serious about Ray, she knows it won’t be a good idea for Oliver to be hanging around. So she turns to the world of online dating to keep him distracted. Unknown to the both of them, over the summer Joanna had set Laurel up with an online dating account in the hopes that her friend could move on from past failed relationships. There’s only one way this can end. *Can also be read on my AO3*

She was elbow deep in a file with a couple of clerks when her phone started ringing late one morning. Knowing she’d lose whatever detail she was trying to find if she broke off now, Laurel nodded to her cell on the desk and met one of the clerk’s eyes.

“Can you get that?”

Abby nodded and picked it up. “ADA Lance’s phone, can I take a message.” There was a pause, then Abby covered the phone with one hand. “Um, there’s a man asking if you can meet him for lunch.”

Laurel looked up. “What?” She stepped around the desk and took the phone, glancing at the caller ID.

Oh.

“Seriously, Ollie?”

“You did say any time between 11:30 and 2:00.” The slight teasing tone left his voice as he asked, “Does today not work for you?”

She had half a mind to give him an irritated yes, but she paused. This was the first time Oliver had even tried to take her up on her offer. Had something happened?

“No, I can make it.” She looked over her shoulder at the clerks and the pile of work on her desk. “Just, maybe give me thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Oliver promised, and he hung up before she could reply.

Laurel shook her head and returned to her work, not even leaving room for her assistants to ask any questions.

True to his word, Oliver was rapping on her door frame just after noon. She grabbed her purse and walked with him out of City Hall.

“Your pick,” Oliver said. “You’d know better than me what’s good around here.”

So they really were just getting lunch. Laurel led them along to a sandwich and soup place, trying to gauge his mood. Oliver had been odd ever since his and John’s trip to Nanda Parbat, but nothing about this seeming good mood rang false.

She couldn’t resist asking as they sat down with their food, “So what brought this on?”

“Does something have to have brought this on?”

She gave him a look.

Oliver shook his head but was smiling just a little. “A lot’s been going on. With the League, the team. I guess I realized maybe I could use a little normal.”

“Okay.” She started to unwrap her sandwich, and he did the same.

“What were you working on when I called?”

“Building a case. You know, the usual.”

“Right. How’s your dad? I’ve been trying to stay out of his way.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t blame him. Even if she had told her father the Arrow wasn’t at fault, he was still likely to lash out if provoked. “He’s drinking again. Angry. Feels like old times.”

“I’m sorry.”

Laurel lifted her eyes from her plate. “There’s no point in saying it, Ollie. We’ve both made our positions on Malcolm clear.”

He nodded. “I wish there was some other way.”

“You do?” It was the first he’d said so.

“I miss seeing you happy.”

She had trouble finding her voice for a moment. “Well, I’m not — I’m better than I have been. Going out there with you guys helps.”

Oliver nodded.

“What about you?” Laurel risked glancing up at him while keeping her face tilted down. “Are you happy?”

“Trying to be.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“A lot. Me, mostly.” Oliver sighed. “Maybe it is possible to have a life along with the work that we do, but so far I have not been able to find that balance the way the rest of you have.”

“Well, hold the applause, because I’m not sure I’m the best example of someone who has it all,” she remarked. “What do you feel like is missing from your life? A job, a social sphere?”

“A little bit. Connection. A relationship, I guess,” was his final answer, causing her heart to sink despite herself. “The trouble is those never work out for me. And at this point, I’m not sure it’s what I deserve.”

Laurel sighed. Ever since he had first come home to Starling, it seemed Oliver was in constant conflict with himself over what he could or couldn’t have. That back-and-forth had burned her more than once. The least she could do was help spare the next woman. “As much as things have gone wrong at times, as mad as you can make me — you always have the best intentions. I don’t think that anyone who is genuinely trying to do good for others deserves anything less than happiness. Even if it’s not today.”

He looked at her, lips forming the slightest potential of a smile. “You really believe that?”

“I have to. You’re not the only person who’s made mistakes, you know.”

He shook his head. “I think if we get into comparisons, it’s gonna become obvious pretty fast which of us deserves that happiness.”

“Good thing it’s not a zero sum game, then,” she replied. Then she took up her food again, keeping her eyes on it as she spoke. “So stop stopping yourself, would be my advice. If you want to start a relationship, then you should go for it.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “The worst thing is to have to wonder what might have been. Trust me.” Laurel hoped her smile met muster, but it was an effort to keep up.

“Okay. Thanks, I needed to hear that.” Oliver settled back in his seat as he also returned to his food.

They talked about this and that for the rest of the meal, never straying into anything that serious. He even walked her back to her office. It was the nicest lunch she’d had in a while.

Oliver could be really sweet when he wanted to; he’d make someone else very happy.

If there was any consolation, it was that all this talk seemed to be purely in the theoretical. After all, Oliver wasn’t currently spending time around many single woman. She’d have some time to prepare herself for that inevitably.

—-

John was certain in his decision to marry Lyla. That didn’t mean he liked all the decisions that came with a marriage, or rather a wedding.

Things had been much simpler in Afghanistan. No questions of table centerpieces or who sat where, what their colors were going to be. He’d jokingly suggested camo and gotten a roll of the eyes out of Lyla for that. About the only worthwhile part of the planning was when they had decided what part little Sara was going to play in all of it. A part of him was glad she was here ahead of the wedding; it was their love for her and each other that had him going through with this.

But he was going to tear out the little hair he had if they didn’t get this guest list situation sorted out soon.

Felicity had flipped back and forth on whether she wanted to bring Palmer, knowing John didn’t completely approve of the situation. Then Thea had dropped her plus one. A couple of the guests on Lyla’s side had had to cancel last minute due to unexpected assignments. But he thought they had the whole thing settled now.

It was the last possible person he could have ever expected to throw a final monkey wrench into the whole thing.

That afternoon he made it down to the base ahead of everyone else. Everyone else, that was, except Oliver. His friend was going through his usual workout, but rather than at least finish the set he was on, Oliver stopped as soon as he noticed John enter the room.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Something up?”

Oliver nodded rather than answer. He took a long pull of the water bottle he’d set aside, and John couldn’t help noticing the fingers of his free hand twitching at his side. Nervous energy.

Oliver wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and said, “John, I need a favor. And it’s about the wedding.”

John shook his head. “Look man, there’s nothing you need to worry about. You’re good with speeches, and there just isn’t a better choice. You’re my brother.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that, really.” Some of Oliver’s tension had dissipated, but not entirely. “I was wondering if it’s too late to ask for a plus one.”

John stared. “You’re bringing a date?”

“Hopefully.” Oliver licked his lips. “I still have to ask her.”

“But you haven’t been dating anyone.” When would he have even had time?

“It’s sort of a long story.”

John crossed his arms. “Alright, when did you meet this girl?”

“This past fall.”

“But Felicity—”

“It wasn’t until after we tried — she should be okay with it. She’s got Ray.”

He had to raise an eyebrow at that. It was Ray now?

“And this woman knows you were in love with Felicity.”

“She knows I was trying to get over someone. But it was one failed date, John,” Oliver reminded him.

“And how many dates have you been on with this new woman?”

His friend looked like he only just held back from rolling his eyes. “Look, I know it’s sudden. And you have every right to say no. This is your wedding, and I don’t want to bring someone into it that’s going to complicate things for you or Lyla,” said Oliver. “But I have given a lot of thought to this, about whether this is a step I want to take with her, and I think I do. I think I want to introduce her to the other people in my life.”

He didn’t know what to think. Yes, Oliver had been rather quiet on the whole Felicity front for a while, but he’d thought that had been his friend’s typical coping mechanism of repression. How could he have missed this?

“You’re really moving on?”

“Yeah.” Oliver didn’t sound sad or wistful. In fact, there was the smallest smile on his face. “Yeah, I think I am.”

John sighed. “Alright. Yeah, we got room for one more.”

Oliver’s smile made it actually seem worth it. “Thank you, John.”

“Anything I should know about her?”

“Well, she’s funny, but sort of with an edge to it? Tough, but really just kind underneath it all. She is a really good listener. I mean, I know I only started talking to her about four months ago, but it feels like we’ve been friends for years.” His voice had grown softer and his smile, though still present, shy. He really liked this girl.

John pushed the misgivings he might have had to the side and reached out to squeeze his friend’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you, man.”

Could he really begrudge him for trying to move on when Felicity was doing likewise? Though that did make him wonder just what Felicity would have to say about all this.

Oliver left to grab a bite to eat — was he meeting this new woman? — and within half an hour Felicity arrived at the base.

It would only be fair to warn her, right? He didn’t really want some blow up at his wedding.

So he approached her station at the computers. “Did you know Oliver was dating?”

“What?” Felicity looked totally shocked for a moment, until suddenly her confused expression cleared up. “Oh! Yeah, I set him up with an online account. Didn’t really think he’d tell you about that.”

John frowned. “He didn’t.”

Felicity frowned in an almost perfect echo. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he didn’t mention the online bit. Just asked me for a plus one to the wedding.”

“Woah, something actually happened?”

“Guess so.” Now the misgivings were back in full force. Oliver thought he was serious about some online chick? Did he even know if she was real?

“Well, who is she? What’s she like?”

He thought of what Oliver had said and shook his head. Anybody could pretend to be witty and charming online. “I have no idea. He didn’t even tell me her name.”

“He must be really serious about her if he’s meeting her in-person and everything,” Felicity said, her eyes downcast.

“I’m sorry, Felicity.”

She blinked and looked up at him again. “Why would you be sorry? This is exactly what I wanted.”

“But you — I mean, why set him up with someone else?”

“Because I have watched other women try to get over Oliver Queen. And that is impossible to do when he is single. Helena went crazy, McKenna has never come back to the city. I mean, Laurel hasn’t dated for almost two years because of how things turned out with him and Tommy! I do not need that kind of emotional scarring.” She took a breath, and her tone grew more subdued. “And I guess I made the right call, if he really could get over me by talking to some online woman.”

“I’ll tell him not to invite her,” John decided.

“Well, you already gave him the plus one,” Felicity reminded him. “And if you take it back now he’s going to think I had some problem with it, which I don’t. I’m happy with where things are between me and Ray. The last thing I need is an Oliver swinging in at the eleventh hour.”

“If you’re sure.” A thought occurred to him. “You don’t think you could use his phone, trace this girl’s signal back to the source?”

Felicity was already shaking her head. “Oh no, I am not getting involved.”

“But it could be anybody on the other end. He could be setting himself up to get real hurt.”

“Well, that’s a risk he’s going to have to take if he wants to meet her. But I don’t even want to know how angry he’d get if he found out I hacked his phone. You couldn’t even pay me. Not that any of you ever have,” she added in an undertone as she swiveled her chair so her back faced him. A pretty good indicator that the conversation was over.

John sighed and backed off. He could only hope they weren’t all making a huge mistake, and that Oliver was right that he really did know this girl.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #john diggle #felicity smoak #green arrow #black canary #my writing

[paopuofhearts]

Okidoki let’s hope Tumblr let’s me post this whole thing all at once:

WASHINGTON STATE EDUCATION AND BUDGET / FUNDING ISSUES.

[For @theautisticagender, and anyone else interested; I may go back and do some color coded pictures with linking arrows, because some of it makes more sense with a visual aid, but anyway].

BUDGET STUFF

So the Washington State budget, as of 2012, is a Balanced Budget. What does that mean? It’s a state constitutional law that the state can’t overspend. The money the state makes is the amount of money that can be used - no more, no less. Why was that decided? Because Washington owed a lot of money, since the state used more money than it had - so the logical idea is to not use more money than you have.

If you look up Annual Survey of State Government Finances on the census website, you can scroll through and see how your states income-vs-spending [budget-vs-expenditure] plays out. So taking a look at Washington state basics throughout a few decades:

2000: Income = 30,615,762,000 / Spending = 25,901,790 ,000 Debt = -11,734,229,000  2005: Income = 36,802,442,000 / Spending = 33,047,710,000 Debt = -17,023,063,000 2009: Income = 24,387,004,000   / Spending = 43,453,465,000 Debt = -24,603,219,000

That’s a lot of negative money there [deficit/debt]. Which is why the state government decided to go with the Balanced Budget: to make sure that negative money [deficit/debt] wouldn’t increase. So then we look at how that played out, both immediately and presently:

2010: Income = 44,306,789,000 / Spending = 46,237,740,000 Debt = -27,522,099,000   2015: Income = 50,247,419,000 / Spending = 51,142,118,000 Debt = -32,231,967,000 2017: Income = 62,989,517,000 / Spending = 54,878,871,000 Debt = -33,427,752,000

Now what we see with the bolded is that the Balancing aspect does flip-flop back and forth, and there’s a lot of discussion as to how that doens’t actually work. Even when there was more Income, the Debt got higher, and there is still more Spending than Income happening. However, the positive is that it didn’t go up as much: it went up nearly 15,000,000 between a 5 year period between 2000 and 2005, but took 10 years to go up that same 15,000,000 from 2005 to 2015. So it’s a buffer, but not a solution.

So why doesn’t it work? For that you have to look at what generates “income” [money you make] and “spending” [money you spend]. So we take a look at the Washington State government website, specifically the Office of Financial Management, to see how they break down and define where money comes from.

OPERATIONAL FUNDS

Now, first up we have Operational Funds. This means the bare minimum in which the state functions [so to say]. The 2017-2019 Budget [which, Washington State does a 2 year cycle, so 2017-2018 and 2018-2019] says that it will cost $102,370,000 for the 2 year cycle [which is on par, if you look at the 2015-2017 cycle above, which adds up to $113,236,936,000]. That will be made up in with a bare minimum income, and use to operate a bare minimum of government functioning.

So let’s know what we need to spend first, as that will tell us how much we need to make:

Human Services [42.2% of the budget]

K-12 Education [26.5% of the budget]

Post K-12 Education [15.5% of the budget]

Government [5.1% of the budget]

Transportation [3.4% of the budget]

Natural Resources [2% of the budget]

Miscellaneous [5.3% of the budget]

And what do those things mean?

Human Services: mental health, public assistance, health care, correctional facilities, homeless initiatives

Government: administration, court funds, utilities [like light and water and garbage]

Natural Resources: environmental protection, national park upkeep

Miscellaneous: debt services, pension and retirement, law enforcement, firefighters, judges, etc.

The rest I feel are pretty self explanatory

So now that we know what we’re spending money on, how will we make that money in the first place?

Income includes:

Taxes [50.2%]

Miscellaneous [21.1%]

Federal Grants [24.8%]

Licenses, Permits, Fees [3.9%]

And what do these things consist of? For that we can look at things like the Washington State Department of Revenue [which include references to law codes].

Taxes: state, property, utility, business and occupation, liquor and tobacco, retail, [basically sales taxes (Washington State has one of the highest, at 9.17%), because we don’t have individual income taxes (which would include things like tax on social security, pension, retirement, etc); a comparison could be Colorado, where they do have an individual income tax (4.63%), but also a low sales tax (2.9%), because it balances out].

Miscellaneous: science surveys, advances/reimbursements, delivery charges, penalties/interest, resale fees

Federal Grants: welfare [WIC, SNAP, TANF, etc], healthcare [like Medicaid], transportation, education [Pell, TEACH, FSEOG, etc], veteran support, etc.

Licenses, Permits, Fees: ID, driving, construction [where and what you can build], agriculture, occupation [medical licenses, teaching certification, that kind of thing], recreation, vendors/events, etc.

So that’s the Washington State budget for bare minimum functioning. And we can go back to those  income-vs-spending [budget-vs-expenditure] tables again to see how that plays out, breaking it down. 

APPLICATION

For example, looking at 2017 [though, granted, as a federal government source, it’s split up a bit differently than above, but I tried to kind of match them based on government definitions]:

How Much Made = Total Revenue: 62,989,517,000

General Revenue [sum of 3-12]: 47,091,108,000

Intergovernmental Revenue [Federal Grants]: 14,228,084,000

Taxes [Taxes, specifically property and the like]: 23,997,592,000

General Sales [Taxes, in that it’s profit from the different in selling price vs. making price, I believe]: 14,509,841,000

Selective Sales [Miscellaneous, as I believe this relates to resale things mentioned]: 4,660,927,000

License [Licenses, Permits, Fees]: 1,453,628,000

Individual: None

Corporate: None

Other: 3,373,196,000

Current Charge [Taxes and Miscellaneous, as it relates to business and occupation but also reimbursments and interest]: 5,882,552,000

Miscellaneous [Extra Costs Not Covered But Intergovernmental / Federal]: 2,982,880,000

Utility [Taxes]: 221,000

Insurance [Taxes]: 15,898,188,000

This is a breakdown of spending by accumulation:

How Much Spent = Total Expenditure: 54,878,871,000

Intergovernmental Expenditure: 12,657,621,000

Direct Expenditure [sum of 3, 6, and 7]: 42,221,250,000

Current Operations: 29,318,781,000

Capital Outlay [Utlities]: 3,165,197,000

Insurance Benefits: 7,190,780,000

Assistance / Subsidies: 1,056,420,000

Interest: 1,490,072,000

Salaries / Wages: 8,302,069,000

This is a breakdown of spending by sector:

How Much Spent = Total Expenditure: 54,878,871,000

General Expenditure [listed below]: 47,443,213,000

Intergovernmental Expenditure: 12,657,871,000

Direct Expenditure [this takes out bits and pieces from the last one because it’s restructuring expenses]: 34,785,592,000

To specify:

General Expenditure [sum of 2-11]: 47,443,213,000

Education: 19,629,589,000

Public Welfare [Human Services]: 12,195,196,000

Hospitals [Human Services]: 4,409,139,000

Health [Human Services]: 1,957,734,000

Highways [Transportation]: 2,429,486,000

Police [Miscellaneous]: 429,060,000

Correction [Human Services]: 998,828,000

Natural Resources: 900,049,000

Parks and Rec [Natural Resources]: 142,693,000

Government: 1,106,616,000

Utilities [Government]: 244,878,000

Insurance [Human Services]: 7,190,780,000

Interest On Debt: 1,490,072,000

SUMMARY

A Balanced Budget is a nice idea, but it’s only a buffer, not a solution.

The Balanced Budget also tends to restrict money because it tries to lessen overspending - which is great, but that also means a lot of things aren’t getting fully funded.

And this ties into the “people don’t realize their taxes pay for things” - because there are so many people that complain about how expensive licensing and permits are, but honestly, think of how little that money actually makes up of the budget. And I’m not saying it isn’t ridiculous [I mean, a state ID card here is like, $50 - and a driver’s license is almost $90, even though both are good for 6 years, that’s a pretty big chunk to pay up front; if we’re converting that to work hours, and minimum wage is technically $15, that’s 3.5 hours of work for a state ID, and 6 hours of work for a driver’s license, almost a full day; and then you have to license your vehicle for like $10, and update the tabs every month for $30, and do emissions testing for $15, and gas is like $3.50 a gallon on average - it adds up fast!], but it’s also like - that’s why the state keeps adding taxes to licenses and permits, because they’re the least percentage of the budget.

But then you can also look at the housing market, and like - let’s talk Seattle, because the general Seattle Tacoma Olympia Bellevue area is where most people in the state live. Average house price in Seattle is almost $700,000; in Tacoma, it’s about $300,000; in Olympia, it’s $350,000; in Bellevue, it’s $925,000; and in surrounding areas [for example, I’m in the Auburn/Kent/Renton area] it’s around $400,000-$500,000. So you have mortgage payments on that, which from I know from people around this area, it’s from $1500-$2500 a month - and that increases when property taxes increase, and property taxes from specific levies can determine the extra funding a school gets [it’s kind of like asking the community if they can donate, and if you live in a wealthy neighborhood, they’re more likely to spend more money - and in general, if you live in a wealthy city, like Bellevue, your schools are going to be way more well funded than a less wealthy city, like Tacoma, because again, those taxes are what fund the schools; Bellevue property tax at 1.1% would be around $9500 in taxes, versus Tacoma property tax at 1.3% gives you $3700 in taxes - it’s a big difference because of the total amount, even though the rates would make it seem opposite].

EDUCATION SPECIFICALLY

Anyway, if we’re looking at Education on it’s own, Education [K-12 and Above] is 42% of the Operational Budget. So you think it would get 42% of the Expenditure - which would be $19,926,150,000. And it does get about that much - only $296,560,000 less.

And yet Washington State education is still incredibly underfunded; why is that?

Well, let’s back it up a bit and focus just on K-12, because that gets more information. K-12 has a budget expense of 26.5%, or $12,572,451,000. So that’s the budget we’re working with, $12,572,451,000.

So what goes into running a school?

Well, unfortunately, the 2017-2019 budget isn’t over, so we’ll have to look at the last one, the 2015-2017 budget. So we’re gonna do some averaging, because the 2015-2017 budget was interesting in that 2015 was a deficit [more money was spent than earned] but 2017 was a profit [more money was earned than spent]. It will technically fudge this up a little bit and make it more hypothetical than realistic, but this is fucking Tumblr, and this makes it a bit easier to hash out than going through each year individually.

So back up there I mentioned that the 2015 / 2017 financial situation was:

Income = 50,247,419,000 / Spending = 51,142,118,000  Income = 62,989,517,000 / Spending = 54,878,871,000  

Average means to add together and divide by how many there are, so:

Income = 56,618,468,000 / Spending = 53,010,494,000

Now let’s say we stuck with a Balanced Budget and K-12 Education still took 26.5%. That means that, based on the averaged Spending, K-12 Education would take $14,047,780,000. [And this is where the fudging comes in, because technically they got a little more than that due to specific initiatives during that period, so].

So in 2015-2017, what did it take to run a school?

Well, if you look at the general breakdown the Office of the Super Intendent for Schools shows, you have:

General Apportionment = 13,240,000,000

Special Education = 1,730,000,000

Transportation = 93,000,000

Equalization = 73,000,000

Learning Assistance Programs = 45,000,000

Compensation = 42,000,000

Reform = 24,000,000

Bilingual = 24,000,000

Alternative Schools = 16,000,000

So already that’s $18,140,000,000 - 4 billion and extra over budget. [Again, technically, do to specific initiatives during the period, the budget was closer to that 18 billion, so they were only a few million over budget].

And to specify, let’s mention what’s in General Apportionment:

Staff Salaries [teachers, counselors, administration, nurses, librarians, psychologists, tutors, aids, etc]

Staff Training

Classroom Allotment [classroom budgets to update resources]

Health and Safety [ensuring things like the fire alarm systems, lockdown systems, computer systems, building codes, etc. are up to date]

Other such things

What this basically comes down to is that, like everything that isn’t a for profit business built on exploitation for capitalistic value: public schools end up like people, in that prices keep rising but the money needed to pay for necessities isn’t rising at the same rate, and it costs way more to exist than what you make by existing.

MCCLEARY CASE

So some might argue things like, well, why not just cut the school budget?

That’s where Washington State excelled in enforcing Education as a foundational necessity within the State budget. The problem became that it’s demand is incredibly generic, so there are hundreds of other cases and laws that have been enacted to specify what can be considered necessity based on the language of this case.

In general, some students sued the public schools for not providing enough assistence to help them achieve foundational learning requirements, and so the McCleary Case decided:

“[Washington State is] to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders”.

“Ample provision” is the key phrase of discussion, and Washington State was sued by the federal government for failing to provide basic education to students in the state, upon which Washington State was then fined $100,000 a day for over half a decade over their budget funding not properly supporting Education.

WAC Codes can be found individually [and collectively] here.

It was only just last year agreed that Washington State finally had a plan in place to properly fund education in the state. Unfortunately, that’s relatively theoretical, as it won’t come to fruition - or at least be able to be studied to see if it was a worthwhile plan - for another few years. At that point, we’ll either continue taxing in order to offset the lack of funding due to the Balanced Budget and not that much Government Assistence, or find out that it isn’t actually generating enough [or even, it isn’t being spent properly] and we end up back at square one.

#i can go into wac codes for budget and funding more if that was the original question #but when it comes to finances it's usually more useful to look big picture #then slowly go downward into the specifics

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The narrative after the 2016 Democratic primary was that black voters overwhelmingly chose Hillary Clinton in part because they didn’t like or connect with Sen. Bernie Sanders. That dislike for Sanders was often attributed to his focus on inequality based on class rather than race and to his sometimes clumsy comments about racial issues. That narrative never really went away, and we’re already seeing coverage of his 2020 campaign that suggests he has a problem with black voters that he must fix if he wants to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

But while some black political activists may dislike the Vermont senator,1 there is little evidence that black voters do. Polls suggest black voters liked Sanders in 2016 and like him now. Rather, if 2016 is any guide, the barrier to Sanders winning black voters will be whether another candidate comes along who black voters like even more.

During the 2016 primary process, exit polls found that Clinton won almost 80 percent of the black vote overall, and she romped through Southern states with large black populations because of that strength. That advantage in the South and with black voters overall (they were about 25 percent of the Democrat electorate in 2016) were huge factors in Clinton winning the Democratic nomination.

But I believe that strength was likely built more on pro-Clinton votes than anti-Sanders votes. Here’s some data that points me toward that conclusion:

In a Gallup poll conducted at the beginning of 2016, 53 percent of black Democrats had a favorable view of Sanders, while only 16 percent had an unfavorable view2 — +37 is a good net favorability rating. In fact, Sanders’s net favorability rating was about as high among black Democrats as Clinton’s was among white ones.3 But Clinton was really popular with black Democrats, with a net favorability rating of +70 points (82 percent favorable, 12 percent unfavorable).

A poll conducted by Survey Sampling International during those same months showed a similar dynamic. Asked to rank their feelings about Sanders on a scale from 0 (very unfavorable) to 100 (very favorable), black voters gave the Vermont senator a 58, on average. That’s not great, but it’s not bad either. For context, Donald Trump averaged a 22, and Sen. Ted Cruz a 36. Again, Clinton was notably higher at 72.

In a March 2016 poll, the Pew Research Center asked registered voters if various candidates would be a “great, good, average, poor or terrible president.” Among black Democratic respondents, 67 percent said Clinton would be good or great, while another 25 percent said average. Sanders also had fairly high marks: 62 percent said he would be good or great, 27 percent said average.

And young black voters actually liked Sanders more than Clinton by some measures. A Gallup survey from April 2016 suggested that Sanders’s favorability rating among black millennials (67 percent) was higher than Clinton’s (60 percent.) And this was borne out in the results. Among black voters under 30, the two candidates split the vote about evenly in 2016. But older black voters were a bigger part of the electorate the 2016 primary (suggesting they were most likely to turn out and vote), and they leaned heavily toward Clinton.

I’m not saying that Sanders was beloved by black voters in 2016, or that he couldn’t have done a better job of appealing to them. But I think an accurate reading of what we know from 2016 is that black voters liked Sanders — just less than Clinton.

You can see all this in recent polling too. Sanders remains fairly popular with African Americans. A December 2018 Quinnipiac poll found that 55 percent of black voters had a favorable view of Sanders, while 26 percent had an unfavorable view. (Clinton was at 62-22.) Most more recent polls didn’t publish candidates’ favorability with specific demographic groups. (Often the sample sizes aren’t big enough for the results to be meaningful.) But we reached out to Morning Consult, which is doing regular polling of the 2020 race and so amasses fairly large samples of racial and demographic groups. According to their national polling conducted March 18-24, 71 percent of black Democrats had a favorable view of Sanders, compared to 10 percent who had an unfavorable view.

“Duh,” you might say, “Sanders is a Democrat4 and about 90 percent of black voters back Democrats, so of course black people are favorable toward him.” And you might ask: “Why does it matter if a group likes a candidate if they won’t vote for him or her?”

It matters for two reasons. First, understanding this dynamic between Sanders and black voters should influence media coverage. If Sanders’s problem with black voters in 2016 was about Clinton, not him, the media should probably not cover Sanders with the assumption that he has a tense relationship with black voters or doesn’t understand them. Secondly, it complicates what approach Sanders and his campaign can take to win over more black voters. The Vermont senator is making outreach efforts to black Americans a part of his strategy from the beginning of his campaign in 2020 in a way he did not in 2016. But these efforts may not amount to much if the issue isn’t Sanders’s flaws but his opponents’ strengths. In fact, he may need to attack some of his potential rivals who appeal to black voters. And some Sanders allies have been doing just that over the last few months, in particular highlighting Sen. Kamala Harris’s controversial record as prosecutor.

Who should Sanders be worried about beating him with black voters? The obvious answers are Sens. Cory Booker and Harris, the two prominent black candidates in the race. But the Democrat who is really popular with African Americans right now is former Vice President Joe Biden. In the recent Morning Consult polling, Biden was viewed favorably by 77 percent of black Democrats, with just 8 percent viewing him unfavorably. He’s the only potential candidate who had a better net favorable rating than Sanders with black respondents. Booker (45 favorable, 11 unfavorable) and Harris (48-13) are popular too, but a lot of respondents either don’t know who those two senators are or don’t know them well enough to have an opinion of them yet.

Morning Consult found Biden getting 40 percent of the vote among a national sample of about 2,900 black Democrats, with Sanders at 24 percent, Harris at 11 and Booker at 6. A Quinnipiac poll conducted from March 21-25 similarly found Biden with 44 percent support among black Democrats, with Sanders in second among the 2020 candidates at 17 percent.

In the Morning Consult data, Biden gets a bit more support among black voters than he does from the electorate overall. Harris and Booker overperform a bit with black voters too. Notably, while Sanders doesn’t overperform with black voters, he doesn’t underperform either.

In any case, it’s way too early to predict which candidates will ultimately do well with black Democratic primary voters — or primary voters overall. We don’t know even know yet if Biden is running. Still, I don’t think we should completely discount Biden’s early strength with black voters either.

Looking to next year, you could imagine five or six candidates (or more) staying in race through the first dozen primaries or so. Maybe several of them, including Sanders, get significant chunks of the black vote and no one really consolidates it. That’s a good scenario for the Vermont senator if he maintains his base of younger voters. Or maybe Sanders could gain support among black voters — they already have pretty favorable views about him and he is trying hard to appeal to them. That’s an even better scenario for him.

But Sanders could face the same problem he did in 2016 if the race comes down to say, Sanders vs. Biden or Harris — a candidate who most black voters just like more than the Vermont senator. Either way, there’s little evidence that black voters start off the 2020 race hating him.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

[eldritchsurveys]

o82.

[[ Random Survey Questions // By @x-hallie-x ]] 1. When was the last time you just wanted to be alone? What about the last time you really wanted to be around people? >> I don’t remember the last time I wanted either of these things consciously... like, they might be vague thoughts or feelings floating around in my headspace, but I don’t always focus on them. Also, I’m never alone, technically, so I guess there’s that.

2. Have you ever gone somewhere in your pajamas? What makes this acceptable or unacceptable to you? >> Yeah, sure, I used to walk to bodegas and shit in NYC in pajamas quite often. There’s really no point in changing if I’m just walking down the street to get a 40 or a sandwich, like... Also, the only dress requirement for leaving the house in a casual sense is to just be decent -- bits covered, you know. The idea that one must wear a certain kind of clothing in order to be seen outside of one’s domicile isn’t necessarily true. (Now, if I were going to a specific venue that did have a specific mode of dress -- a certain kind of event, say, or a government office, or something, then yes, I would wear the appropriate clothing. But like, no one in your local corner store cares how the fuck you’re dressed as long as you’re dressed.)

3. Other than the usual things like IDs, etc, what do you always carry with you when you go out? >> The only things that are always present with me when I leave the house, no matter where I’m going, are the standard PKW (phone, keys, wallet) and my lip balm. (If it’s daytime, then also sunglasses.)

4. If you were to go on a picnic, what type of setting would you prefer, what types of food would you bring, and would you bring anyone along with you? >> Honestly, anywhere somewhat nature-y is good as far as location is concerned, even if it’s just a municipal park or a place like Union Square (which isn’t a park so much as it’s a... like, town-square kind of construct). I guess the food I’d bring would just be anything portable and easy to eat without needing a table (sandwiches are always good, of course, but even something like a plate from the hot-food spread at Whole Foods is good, I’ve picnicked with that). A lot of my outdoor eating escapades have been alone, so like, it doesn’t matter who’s with me, I guess. Anyone who wants to come.

5. What is one song you feel as though you sing particularly well, if any? >> Guaranteed by Eddie Vedder. I think Eddie and I have a lot of vocal similarities. Which is good, because I love him and his voice. :p

6. Have you ever kept a mood chart or anything like that? Did it help you pick up any useful patterns in your moods? >> I’ve never tried to keep a chart of them, no, especially since I’m not sure what half of my feelings even are, when I do have them.

7. What was the last lengthy task you completed? >> The survey I took yesterday. :p

8. Do you look toward the future or focus more on the here and now? Are you good at being in the moment, or do you always feel drawn to worrying about other things? >> I do a lot better when I only have the present to focus on. It kinda glitches me to think about the future too much, not because of anxiety or anything, but just because it kind of doesn’t make sense to me. I can think about the future in entirely abstract terms, like for the sake of argument or flights of fancy, but not in any concrete sense. It is the greatest great unknown, and I’ve never had any success trying to manipulate it or understand myself through it. I don’t know what I’m going to be doing (or who I will be) in the next hour, and people want me to think about months and years into the future?! Wild. I also think that the way I’ve lived the past decade-plus before moving here made thinking about the future really difficult for me, because I was really living from day to day. When I’m concerned about where I’m going to sleep from night to night, planning for a future seems like a luxury rather than a fact of life. But also, I guess... I just like to focus on what I’m doing right now. I like to be present here. I have a pretty deep-set confidence that the future will take care of itself as long as I take care of the present, but if I focus too much on the future then I will have missed the plot entirely. I feel more secure when I focus on the present. It is the only point in time in which I truly exist.

9. What does it mean to you to have empathy? Do you think you’re an empathetic person? >> I’m not really sure what empathy means anymore, to be honest. I definitely don’t consider myself an empathetic person, by any of the definitions that I’ve heard. I think I can empathise with fictional characters, because I’m a storyteller and jumping into the heads of characters is kind of integral to telling honest stories... but actual people in front of me, not so much. (Characters are a lot less complex by design, anyway. Kind of like the difference between Sims and people -- Sims’ needs and motivations are pretty obvious and predictable, whereas people are... wild cards, a lot of the time.)

10. What was the last thing you did that was particularly selfish? What about selfLESS? >> I’m really not sure. 

11. What is something about your life that is currently beyond your control? >> The weather, lmao. I’m watching it get real cloudy real fast and I’m like “but... I want the sun... :(” The weather don’t care what I want. ... Annnnnd it just started raining. Pfft.

12. What is one small thing you could do to change about your life for the better? >> Eating healthier is always the top option. I mean, I don’t eat badly or anything, it’s just that there’s always improvement to be made in that area. But I also understand that obsessing over my consumption is actually just as counterproductive, so I try not to make a big deal out of it, and just enjoy what I’m eating. We all gotta die of something anyway, I guess. It might as well taste good, or else what is really even the point.

13. What type of photography do you enjoy looking at? Do you take any photos yourself, and if so, what types of things do you prefer to photograph? >> I like urban photography -- not necessarily shiny cityscapes, but more like... street-level urban, like of old abandoned buildings and back alleys and people sitting on stoops and just city life. I like various landscapes, especially deserts/tundras, and marshes and complex ecosystems. And I like photography that evokes certain Moods(tm), whether it be because of the content or because of the lighting or the framing or... whatever. It’s definitely that “I know it when I see it” kind of thing. I don’t really take photos of anything except myself and random things I want to show people, I guess.

14. Have you ever gone out for the black friday shopping rush? Did you enjoy it, or not so much? Or, what’s the busiest shopping day you’ve ever experienced? >> I have never been shopping on Black Friday, but I have been just out and about while it was happening. I don’t really care for that kind of thing -- I like the sales and stuff, but I don’t like the mad rush. It just makes me feel kinda... alienated, like, in a “this is what life is?” kind of way. Just a deeply personal feeling, nothing against the whole concept.

15. Do you enjoy reading diaries or stories you wrote from when you were younger, or does it embarrass you? If you’ve kept them, was there a particular reason for hanging on to them so long? >> I do enjoy reading those things, and I wish I had more of them, but the ones that were on paper have been lost for a long time and a lot of the internet sites I used in the beginning are no longer active and the content has been lost (or I can’t find it anymore). My old deviantART accounts are pretty much the oldest content of mine that still exists on the internet in a form that I can access, and although a lot of that stuff is definitely amusing, I can’t imagine finding it embarrassing. 

16. What would you say was your first true hobby? What about your most recently developed one? >> Drawing, maybe? I don’t know. My most recently developed one is probably MMO gaming.

17. Is there one thing that throws off your mood more than others, whether it be lack of sleep, lack of food, heat // cold, etc? & when was the last time you felt especially cranky? >> I’m not sure, since keeping track of my moods isn’t something I really do with any success or skill. Maybe sensory overload -- that’s always a reliable mood-tanker, and a lot of my inexplicable moodiness/mental exhaustion can probably be attributed to just being overloaded. The last time I felt cranky was last evening, and I’m not sure why, but it probably had something to do with being frustrated about Dragon Age Inquisition being broken and then like... some low-grade dissatisfaction with life or something. Nothing worth making a mountain out of.

18. What are some ways you deal with stress? Are these healthy or helpful to you? >> Distraction is usually my method. Playing video games, watching tv or youtube, slam-dunking myself into a pile of plushies, making origami stars and listening to music, that sort of thing. And yeah, I think distracting myself from stress is pretty healthy for me, since it lowers the cortisol and enables me to approach whatever is stressing me out later on without the heightened emotional response. (Although, also, a fair amount of my stress isn’t based on anything that’s solvable or like... worth even giving attention, so the distraction enables me to refocus my energies onto something actually worth doing, so then later I can just be like “lmao that wasn’t even a big deal” and go on with my life.)

19. What advice, if any, would you give someone else in your situation? >> I’m not sure what situation I’m in, lmao.

20. In general, are you the type to feel comfortable giving advice? Has anyone ever come to you for advice and you had no idea what to tell them? >> I feel comfortable giving it if it’s an area I feel experienced or skilled in. Otherwise I’ll just flat-out say that I don’t have any advice, or point them to someone that might.

21. What is one common area of life in which you feel you have little to no experience (college, children, marriage, etc)? >> Definitely college, I can’t even... like, fathom college. What is college even like??? All I have to go by is movies and shit, lmao. I’ve not been married yet, so that’ll be a new experience (although I strongly suspect it won’t be too much different from being unmarried, aside from getting accustomed to using a different set of words to describe my relationship). I have no experience in not being poor, since I’ve never not been poor. This is the most not-poor I’ve felt, but like, that’s not because of anything that’s changed in my personal finances. I just live in a cooperative household.

22. What kinds of things are you likely to complain about? >> I don’t know, really. I don’t do a whole lot of complaining unless it’s a quick vent and then I move on (or unless someone I’m talking to is bitching about something and I’m like “OMG SAME” and we have a little bitchfest lmao). I don’t really like to focus on stuff like that.

23. Besides money, what is something you would like to have more of in your life? >> Meatspace socialisation.

24. What types of blogs do you like to follow? If you have a tumblr, how has your blogging style changed over the years, if at all? >> I follow over 900 blogs, I don’t even know what my “type” is. I just follow whatever looks good at the time, and then unfollow if I get bored of the content or whatever. I think my blogging style has changed in the sense that I’m not as... talkative? I used to make a lot more text posts on my personal and then I kind of just... stopped. I’m trying to get back into it lately, varying up my content, appearing more like a person instead of just a reblog bot.

25. Do you like to put any extra effort into your food in terms of presentation, or do you prefer to just put it on a plate and eat it as it is, no frills? >> I don’t, because I... I don’t know, executive dysfunction, I guess. Also, like... I don’t have the stuff I want, like the kind of dishes I like, etc, and the kitchen is small and disorganised and usually I just want to get out of it as quickly as possible and yeah, I can’t be bothered with making my food look nice when I can barely be bothered with making food, period. I do like presentation and all of that, I think it’s great and definitely adds to the joy of eating. It’s just... not something I can do right now.

26. When was the last time you were mean or rude to someone else? How about the last time someone acted that way toward you? >> I don’t remember. I don’t think I’m especially rude in general, I’m just straightforward and I think people prefer sweeter tones or whatever. I’d rather put my social energy into saying what I mean rather than saying it in a way that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy, or whatever, I don’t know. It’s just not a priority of mine to sound “nice”. It’s never been. I don’t remember the last time someone was rude to me, mostly because I forget shit like that really easily. It’s low on the importance scale.

27. What kinds of things are most likely to make you lose your temper? Have you ever done something regrettable or embarrassing while angry? >> It’s really hard to get me to lose my temper completely, which is good, because I already give an aggressive impression -- imagine what it’s like when I’m actually feeling aggressive. I’ve definitely done things that I would rather not have done when I’m angry, which is another reason why it’s good I don’t get angry often.

28. What has stood out about this day in particular? Has this day been an average day in terms of what you usually experience? >> Well, it’s still only 11a. That random two-minute rain was interesting (it’s now partly-cloudy again), but that’s it so far, really. This is a pretty average day.

29. How would you describe your current mood? Do you experience a lot of highs and lows or are your moods relatively stable? What is the most your mood has changed in a day? >> My mood is my normal baseline, which is... no mood. Like, I really don’t have a mood most of the day, unless something specific happens to change it. I kind of exist in a comfortable greyness most of the time, with little spikes here and there.

30. Do you remember what it was that got you into taking surveys in the first place, or why you initially decided to stick with them? Where did you originally start out taking surveys? Are there any blogs you recommend (lol, I’m always looking for more surveys!)? >> Man, I have noooo idea. It was over 10 years ago by now, so surveys really just feel like a permanent fixture in my life. I think I first took them on MySpace? That seems likely. And I’m in the same boat as you, I think, lmao -- I just take the ones in the tag or on LJ or whatever the “random” function on Bzoink gives me that isn’t terrible (there are so many bad surveys on that site lmfao).

#surveys #survey #random survey

[allenmendezsr]

5 Minute Survival Blueprint

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/5-minute-survival-blueprint/

5 Minute Survival Blueprint

 Buy Now

    Fast, Easy, And Inexpensively

In Less Than ONE Single Month

Simply By Following An Expert In The Field…

Here is a one-time opportunity for you to grab a unique survival program specially designed to keep you and your family safe and secure from disasters of all kinds, starting today. In fact, you’re going to love my 5 Minute Survival Blueprint because it’s:

Fast to accomplish (most actions can be completed in five minutes or less)

Easy to follow (I’ll show you precisely what to do step-by-step)

Inexpensive (I’ll share with you dozens of ways to get prepared, many of which don’t cost a thing)

Plus, the program is delivered straight to your email inbox each day so you won’t have to download anything, login anywhere, or wait for the Post Office to deliver your mail.

My name is Damian Brindle.

You may know me from my website, reThinkSurvival.com, a long-standing and trusted survival website with many thousands of readers.

I’ve spent the past decade studying and discovering nearly everything I can about survival, especially at home preparedness, to ensure my own family’s survival.

I know more than most folks about bugging in, bugging out, food storage, off-grid cooking, home safety and protection, and so much more.

Over the last several years I’ve dedicated my life and my time to helping others just like you better survive disasters of all kinds. Like I said, it’s my life.

I’m also husband to a wonderful wife:

My Wonderful Wife With Me, And One Big Reason I Choose To Prepare

Father to two growing (and occasionally strange) boys who are now 14 and 17:

My Boys, Who Are The Biggest Reason Of All Why I Prepare (And, yes, they’re a bit silly too)

…as well as a devoted Christian and fellow Patriot.

I’ve spent years ensuring my own family will be 100% safe, secure, and ready for emergencies of all kinds and now I’m offering you the chance to do the same for you and your family through this exclusive offer of my 5 Minute Survival Blueprint program.

Your 27-day program covers the following crucial topics:

DAY 1: Do This Before You Do Anything Else (Or You’ll Regret It)

DAY 2: One Simple Way To Be The First To Know When Disaster Strikes No Matter Where You Are

DAY 3: Phone Contacts Everyone Should Have (But Few People Do)

DAY 4: How To Store Water So It Lasts A Lifetime

DAY 5: A Simple Water Treatment Solution, And It’s NOT Boiling Or Bleach

DAY 6: How To Stockpile Food Fast (And Without Even Thinking About It)

DAY 7: How To Double Your Food Calories For Pennies Per Meal

DAY 8: An Easy Solution For Cleaning Dishes Without Running Water

DAY 9: Grab This Book… It Could Save Your Life

DAY 10: The 3 Most Likely First Aid Concerns After Disaster (And What To Do About Them)

DAY 11: How To Create A Truly Useful Disaster Fist Aid Kit

DAY 12: The 2 Biggest Dangers After Disaster Most People Don’t Think About

DAY 13: The ONE Action You Must Take NOW To Keep Yourself And Your Supplies Safe

DAY 14: Stop Trying To Heat Your House, Do THIS Instead

DAY 15: Build This In 10 Minutes To Cook Food Any Time, Nearly Anywhere

DAY 16: Get This Light (It’s The Most Functional For Disasters)

DAY 17: The Two Easiest Ways To Communicate With Family (Both During And After Disaster)

DAY 18: Don’t Buy A Generator, Here’s 3 Reasons Why

DAY 19: Like Bandages, But For Your Home

DAY 20: Why Barter Items Are A Waste Of Money, Space, And Your Time

DAY 21: 14 Crucial Items To Include In Your Power Outage Kit

DAY 22: The Most Important Addition To Your Vehicle (Few People Think About This)

DAY 23: 3 Easy Solutions For The Most Common Car Troubles

DAY 24: Add These Two Crucial Items To Your Keychain Now

DAY 25: Can You Evacuate In 15 Minutes Or Less? (And Why You Should Be Able To)

DAY 26: How To Be Ready For 90% Of Disasters In About One Hour

DAY 27: Some Important Things I Didn’t Cover Yet

You simply MUST prepare yourself now.

Here’s how to get yourself and your family prepared with dozens of easy survival solutions in only five minutes a day.

Remember, I’ll share with you dozens of ways to get prepared, such as:

How To Store Water So It Lasts A Lifetime (it’s one of the best options few people take advantage of)

How To Double Your Food Calories For Pennies Per Meal (it’s so easy to do, too)

How To Create A Truly Useful Disaster Fist Aid Kit (traditional first aid kits are useless for real emergencies)

How To Be The First To Know When Disaster Strikes (no matter when they strike or where you are)

How To Evacuate In 15 Minutes Or Less (all without missing anything that’s important to you)

How To Be Ready For 90% Of Disasters In About One Hour (you’ll kick yourself when you realize just how easy this really is)

Inside we’ll cover all major aspects of getting prepared, including water, food, sanitation, first aid, safety, heating, cooking, evacuation, and so much more.

Sounds Great, What’s The Cost?

That’s the best part, for a minimal one-time investment of only $27.95 $7 you too can uncover these very secrets for yourself.

And I can almost hear you saying: “That’s so inexpensive! Why not just give it away?”

I’ve considered doing so (as well as charging much more, that’s for sure) but I want to:

Weed-out those folks who aren’t truly serious about their family’s safety and security

Get this critical survival information into the hands of as many people as I can

…which is why I’m offering this program at an insanely low price right now.

But, who knows, I may decide to raise the price to its full retail value or even higher in the very near future.

It couldn’t be easier, just click the “Add to Cart” button below and you’ll have access to your own 5 Minute Survival Blueprint program sent directly to your email inbox starting right now.

Donna King says: “FINALLY! Someone gets it. Preparation truly made easy for anyone and everyone. It’s practical; it’s relevant; and finally, it’s actually doable. Thank you for your extremely well laid out, easy to read, go-at-your-own-pace program. This program will work, regardless of age, gender, family makeup, geography, or financial situation. You have truly made a difference. May God bless you for that.”

Of course, I’d never expect you to try this without a rock-solid guarantee. As such, you’re fully covered by my 60-day 100% money-back guarantee.

That’s right, if at any time you’re not overjoyed with my 5 Minute Survival Blueprint program (even after you’ve finished it) then simply email me and I’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Or, if you’d prefer to contact my program retailer directly to request a refund, here’s how to do so.

Remember: it’s all delivered directly to your inbox, one email each day, for about a month so you won’t have to download anything, login anywhere, or wait for the Post Office to deliver your mail.

If you have any questions or concerns you’re welcome to email me, Damian, via the contact information at the bottom of this page anytime.

It really is that easy.

But it’s only available to those who are determined to keep themselves and their family safe right now.

If you are one of them, then click on the Add to Cart button below and get access to your own 5 Minute Survival Blueprint program for only $7 right now…

I firmly believe in taking action when the opportunity presents itself, and I believe you do as well. Here’s YOUR opportunity to keep your family safe before disaster strikes you.

Thank you and may God bless you and your family, Damian

P.S. Act NOW and I’ll even throw in a handy 5 Minute Survival Blueprint checklist which you can utilize when the 27 day program is complete to ensure you don’t miss anything:

Click Here To Access The 5 Minute Survival Blueprint Right Now And Discover Precisely How To Stay Safe And Secure From Disasters Of All Kinds Fast, Easy, And Inexpensively Starting Today

Privacy Policy Disclaimer

For Product Support, please contact the vendor here: 5minutesurvivalblueprint (at) gmail (dot) com.

For Order Support, please contact ClickBank HERE.

© All Rights Reserved. 5minutesurvivalblueprint.com, 2020

ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.

[tak4hir0]

And back to the UK, it’s cold here! In brief, I admit I had a blast at Dreamforce this year! It was great to: 1) Showcase HIVE and the teams that I’m doing quite a bit of work with, at the developer keynote. Which had a whole chapter as part of the technology announcements for the year, which I was working with to get it ready with the product and evangelist teams before the event. One of which was Alba Rivas from the dreamOle team that has recently moved on to the Salesforce Evangelist team, it was so nice when I got a whatsapp from her early on in the prep for the keynote Although it really is great to see oneself on the big screen like this I wanted to showcase the team, so I managed to sneak in a little sign. I wonder if Wade thought for a second… oh dear another protester!    2) Laura Walker (who I also work with) opened the Admin keynote, high five-ing Parker Harris on to the stage! And Michael Kolodner, who by the way I had the pleasure to discover is such a gamer! We may be on to something about board games at Dreamforce…   3) Recording the day before Dreamforce a Pluralsight course with Don Robins, Agile for Salesforce coming up in couple months for the #SFPlayByPlay series. It’s a pre #Df19 wrap! Last batch of 2019 #SfPlayByPlay in the can: @Inescapinezka on Agile with #Salesforce and @jan_vdv demystifying #CPQ. Browse all in the PxP gallery https://t.co/xFIYkLxh5J & follow me on @Pluralsight to get notifications https://t.co/ANtDQdrMB9 pic.twitter.com/3uvYV5b5A7 — Don Robins (@donrobins) November 19, 2019   4) Having my crazy cards selling out at the DreamStore. And it’s OFFICIAL: #Dreamforce is going to be epic! My recently released #GAME https://t.co/Tpaf59M8ZY IS @ the #Dreamstore @ #DF19. For #agile teams to selfasses, improve & have fun! Thankyou to make this happen #Agile & #trailblazercommunity. #BNT adventures. I’m over the moon! pic.twitter.com/WAz6hrn1dL — Ines Garcia (@Inescapinezka) November 17, 2019   5) Also sharing some content about Release Readiness, Appexchange and digital nomads, Building applications in the Salesforce platform workshop and a Lightning roundtable. … enough bragging. But seriously it was awesome! Now, I thought to ping some product highlights and share knowledge on what’s coming: Firstly, it was a breath of fresh air during the main keynote to openly acknowledge that one uses more things than just Salesforce. (That statement includes AWS Trailhead modules available now and Amazon Connect as a strategic partnership). Salesforce Economy update is that it keeps growing and growing, so let’s bring people in! So we all can be ready to fill those opportunities with willing, capable and prepared professionals. The little device running Einstein Voice (I think this is Amazon under-the-hood and with connection to Service Cloud, you can build skills to power apps too) made it to the big stage as the announcement of the year, even managed to have a section in every single keynote. The @Salesforce and @AWScloud strategic alliance is expanding to include ways to achieve customer service, learn skills, and make Einstein Voice Builder compatible with @alexa99 and other voice assistants. See everything else announced at #DF19 https://t.co/8rixQcqbYT pic.twitter.com/JO7JQjkg3s — Dreamforce (@Dreamforce) November 25, 2019   Tableau was part of the main keynote, but in my opinion with a very poor showcase and demo. Throughout the conference I had many confused conversations on where does this sit, including from Salesforce Employees. So impatiently watching the space to find out more. More and more on Customer 360 Truth Which connects data from across sales, service, marketing, commerce etc. to create a single, universal Salesforce ID for each customer. Revamp of the Salesforce mobile app, and one of which in my mind must be related to the ‘Trailhead Go‘ a separate app to do modules on the go… ahem this is for questions tick-box not actually doing hands-on exercises. But it’s a starter! There was the announcement that Marketing Cloud will run on Microsoft Azure, so hopefully this will enable other things like: as customer you could find your own logs, be less clunky and have sandboxes? Those are my hopes but not quick ones to deliver. From Marketing Cloud side of things there was another good product release in my mind: the embedded forms within emails I think is pretty cool (maybe an outcome from previous acquisition, I think). Watch the dev keynote! but few quick notes: announcement of Evergreen (serverless functions and elastic compute), Lightning Full sandboxes within minutes!, Data policies and Masking across environments, local development (beta), Open sourcing Lightning base Components… BOOM! Permission set groups another layer for separation of concerns, I think we may need to do some migration from profiles to at least permission set at some point soon. (Conspiracy theory disclaimer: that page layouts will go away) With the announcement of Dynamic Forms for record pages, you can go as granular level of 1 field, that is not only display area but dynamic visibility on user and other value within the record. But is not all ‘happy clappy’, the True to the Core session was good too. It felt to me a bit too short as a big part was to explain the announcement of the IdeaExchange, which is basically a revamp where not all points count the same, so when voting for new features you would do it as ‘a product manager’ with 100 coins to distribute on and how things are important to you. Check it out it’s live already: https://ideas.salesforce.com/s/prioritization There was a really honest session on ‘open conversation of DX’ I leave here a snapshot on what the product team is aware they need to sort out:   On top of all of this, I had some incredible conversations with people, some deep and even some non-Salesforce related (!), certainly quality over quantity. Which with Dreamforce madness this can easily be a challenge. So a big thank you for being part of this Dreamforce to remember! I certainly missed my peeps Chris & Mike throughout, I kept sending them silly stuff… sigh!

#Salesforce Weekly

[newaesthetes]

ok I'm gonna answer @basiilhallward‘s questions for the tag thing bc I need a Break from reading crime and punishment and there’s nothing nicer than an excuse to talk about myself

1. 5 songs you like, and what do you like about them?

brand new- soco amaretto lime. Youth! I don't know, it makes my heart swell a little, the lyrics could almost be a happy song, we’re young and it reminds me of walking in the dark when I'm tipsy after a party The front bottoms- the plan. its a nice little fuck you society song that its easy to jump around in your room to, also weirdly inspirational   the world is a beautiful place and I am no longer afraid to die- Wendover. a good song, a bit Sad John lennon- imagine because you know, I'm That champaign socialist. but this was also the first song I learnt on the guitar (also the green day cover version bc that one makes me wanna start a revolution) vampire weekend- unbelievers - its fun And makes me think about god and shit 2. favourite bit of theatre you’ve seen/read/heard

you Know I love Bourne’s swan lake. The opera I saw in Verona was an Experence. In terms of straight theatre? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is always a fave

3. if you could get any job, no questions asked, no qualifications needed, what would you chose?

ah I don't know, you mean right now at this point in my life or in the future. I guess I feel like if I couldn't deal with the questions and qualifications side of a job I wouldn't be ready to actually.... do it. idk, I guess id love to go into research. 4. someone you want to talk to again? i never want to talk to anyone lol. idk a few months ago i had a rather difficult conversation with one of my friends and we’ve grown apart since and i think I'm almost at the stage where ill want to reach out and talk to them again. but idk, if i want to talk to someone i message them, and i have a tendency to... not want to push reaching out again to people i used to be close to- the memories are there. when i was in yr 9 i remember wanting that friendship group to meet up again at the end of yr 13 to see how we’d all done but now I'm here i don't feel that desire at all really. 5. something good that happened recently!

i passed my driving test the other day which is... neat 6. pick up the nearest book and type out the 1st (few if needed) lines! do you like the book?

I'm sitting right next to my e m forster short stories so 

‘My pedometer told me that I was twenty-five; and, though it is a shocking thing to stop walking, I was so tired that I sat down on a milestone to rest. People outstripped me, jeering as they did so, and even when Miss Eliza Dimbleby, the great educationalist, swept past, exhorting me to persevere, I only smiled and raised my hat’ (that's the start of The Other Side of the Hedge)

yeah I like this book! ive only read three of the stories but they've been good so far, I'm keeping the rest for uni bc I find it better to read short stories than novels when I'm busy.

i actually wrote half of the answers to these questions yesterday including the above one and i thought id check out the book beside me today which is my Sylvia Plath journals. it begins ‘july 1950- i may never be happy, but tonight i am content’ and i thought that was worth writing here. i tried to read all the jounals a number of years ago but gave up half way. putting aside the weirdness of reading someone’s diary, its an incredible read. she was fascinating. 7. do you believe in a higher power or a God?

no. Well, sometimes but not really. I am fully ready to accept the possibility that there is a God, I'm a bit of a classic agnostic in that I think its absurd to think anyone can Know either way. And sometimes I do rather fall back on the idea, and I Do have an affiliation with the Christian god. But in terms of true belief, in terms of faith, no. 8. a choice you wish you could have done differently

I don't have any specific regrets, there are some things ive done or said at various points (or not done or said) where life would be better if I had acted differently. But I’ve recently succumbed to the belief that the way we act is the only way we could have acted. I’ve acted the way I thought best at the time at any given point. I also think ive learned from every mistake ive made, if I avoided making it at one point I'm sure I would have made it again later. and I'm happy with where I am right now, its my choices that lead me here.

9. what brought you to tumblr in the beginning?

idk, i looked on my old blog and my first post was a reblog of that tyler josep tweet telling people to stay alive or smth. i was emo and sad and questioning my sexuality and from what i heard tumblr was the best place for being all of those things 10. somewhere you’ve never been and want to see?

Up to a month ago I would have said Florence but ive been there now :’) so next on my holiday pining list is probably st pertersburg, might take a few years.

11. what are you most proud of?

how far ive come in the last 2 years in terms of my self confidence. less abstractly, i independently researched and wrote an essay and presentation last year on art history and art theory and i put a lot of effort in and it was good

[arya3610]

Was tagged by @jay--may

Rules: Answer these statements and tag 20 people (i... don't have 20 friends I'm a loser)

I tag @hereforhistory, @space-juice-smoothie, @jeonghandled, @queenofminininjas and uuuhhh anyone else who sees this and wants to do it go for it, I’d love to see what you say

also if i tagged you and you dont want to, you can ignore me, its cool lol

ALSO JUST BEE TEE DUBS THIS IS A LOT LONGER THAN I THOUGHT LOL SO IF U DONT HAVE THE TIME DONT WORRY ABOUT IT

THE LAST:

1. Drink: Tap water lol

2. Phone call: I missed a call from my mom like two hours ago

3. Text message: my mom telling me to do my laundry

4. Song you listened to: probably Nightmares by All Time Low. It’s good, I’m a fan.

5. Time you cried: ah jeez, idk like... junior year? so 2-3 years ago. Everyone in the drama club went out for an after-party thing except me bc everyone forgot to invite me lol. found out about it later and cried pretty hard. still makes me sad tbh. 

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: id have to date someone Once for that ahahah. No.

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: No

8. Been cheated on: Nope.. Again, requires a relationship to begin with

9. Lost someone special: family members, yes, but in a romantic sense, no

10. Been depressed: um I've been sad plenty of times but idk about like “depression”? Maybe?

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: no lol I'm under the legal drinking age and also not into breaking laws

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12. purple

13. blue

14. that kind of iridescent black where you can see rainbows in it

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: Yeah! :D

16. Fallen out of love: No lol haven't been in it to fall out

17. Laughed until you cried: like once. it was this video

18. Found out someone was talking about you: um no? hopefully not

19. Met someone who changed you: I don't think so?

20. Found out who your friends are: wow this is worded aggressively lol. My friends are all great <3 

21. Kissed someone on your FB list: Nope, no kisses from me 

GENERAL:

22. How many Facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them lol Facebook is used for family (i don't get on it a lot, my family is awful)

23. Do you have any pets: I have a long haired German Shepherd named Micah! She is adorable

24. Do you want to change your name: Not really. I used to as a kid bc its super common, but I'm used to it at this point lol

25. What did you do for your last birthday: had cake lol ACTUALLY MY BIRTHDAY IS FRIDAY (7/28) SO IM EXCITED FOR THAT

26. What time did you wake up: like 8:25. and then I cursed my sister for waking me up so early lol

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: watching Ray Narvarez Jr. (Brownman) play Dream Daddy lol

28. Name something you can’t wait for: my books to ship in! I ordered a bunch of novels from Amazon :D

29. When was the last time you saw your Mom: last night :)

30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: maybe my family? I just wish they were more accepting and less super Christian republicans 

31. What are you listening to right now: my brother watching Youtube videos in the other room. idk what he's watching but it sounds like a lot of yelling

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yeah, Tommy and I were co-valedicorians of our high school :D He’s  super chill guy

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: My mom telling me i can't dye my hair again for a while lol

34. Most visited website: probably Youtube or tumblr

35. Mole/s: ALLLL OVER I am a very mole covered person lol      freckles too, but not on my face which is weird

36. Mark/s: birthmark on the back of my right hip lol

37. Childhood dream: I wanted to be an Author bc I loved to read so much like all the time

38. Hair color: It’s a darker blonde with purple streaks and bits all over. the purple is fading out though. :(

39. Long or short hair: oh my goodness, my hair is long. It hits a few inches below my bra strap

40. Do you have a crush on someone?: nope, not really my thing lol

41. What do you like about yourself: I like my hair lol. No matter what else happens in my life, I can always say my hair is soft af

42. Piercings: lobe piercings and one up on the shell (thinking of adding another set of lobes and another shell one, but... in time, in time...)

43. Blood type: I don't know??? is this a thing Im supposed to know??

44: Nicknames: not really

45. Relationship status: Single and not really looking to change that for the moment

46. Zodiac: Leooooo

47. Pronouns: she/her

48. Favorite TV shows: SPN, Broadchurch, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine lol

49. Tattoos: NOT YET but I will... one day

50. Right or left hand: Right hand

51. Surgery: nope, I am a healthy child

52. Hair dyed a different color: Purple! love it, would do it again and again

53. Sports: Noooope

54. Vacation: went to Florida earlier this month lol

55. Shoes: what is this even asking lol like “shoes” how many, what kind? idk Im just going to skip it

56. Eating: nothing currently

57. Drinking: uh water? Stay hydrated kids

58. I’m about to: play Stardew Valley :D

59. Waiting for: uh. My motivation to finish my 20 AUs?

60. Want: a cookie rn like dang that sounds good

61. Get married: Maybe one day, but they’d have to be pretty great

62. Career: I am a college student, currently

WHICH IS BETTER:

63. Hugs or kisses: Hugs!! Warm hugs!!

64. Lips or eyes: Uh idc? I don't really pay attention to either I guess. Eyes?

65. Shorter or taller: This seems kind of shallow lol idk Taller?

66. Older or younger: as long as they’re nice, idc 

67. Nice arms or nice stomach: um okay but how about nice sense of humor? :D

68. Sensitive or loud: my dog is loud, thank you for asking

69. Hook up or relationship: relationship I guess

70. Troublemaker or hesitant: these are weiiiirrrd queessstiiooonnsss

HAVE YOU EVER:

71. Kissed a stranger: Nah

72. Drank hard liquor: nope

73. Lost glasses/contact lenses: Nope! I’m very careful with my contacts and glasses

74. Turned someone down: Yes but it was for a good reason lol

75. Sex on first date: Aahahahahahaa Im Ace yo

76. Broken someone’s heart: Nope, no one really feels that way about me

77. Had your heart broken: nope, I’ve never fell in love with anyone

78. Been arrested: no, I was valedictorian lol I am the most boring child

79. Cried when someone died: no, but no one super close to me has died

80. Fallen for a friend: No, but my friends are great <3 <3

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

81. Yourself: I believe in a thing called love... just listen to the rhythm of my heart lol

82. Miracles: idk?

83. Love at first sight: i believe in infatuation at first sight that can develop into love. I also believe in an aesthetic/sexual attraction that can develop into love. idk about love at first sight

84. Santa Claus: He’s a good dude. You do you, Santa

85. Kiss on the first date: if ur feeling it man go for it. I’ve never been on a date so idk XD 

OTHER:

86. Current best friend: idk I have a lot of important friends 

87. Eye color: Brooown

88. Favorite movie: uh... I like Hercules a lot?

[coffeeselfies]

This is technically the “I think I need coffee,” selfie, but it’s been so long since I’ve posted that I figured anything was better than nothing.

I’m still trying to sleep through the inspiration of a very wonderful Bob Goff.

I. love. him.

But on to darker things, like my not-so-distant past!

Hahaha. So I was looking for an old assignment I e-mailed myself, and instead found a bunch of cryptic-heavy things I had texted one of my rarely used e-mails from my phone.

So of course I’m going to put them together, here, since I will probably just lose them otherwise. And because everyone on the internet loves reading the things I e-mail to, well, myself (WAIT, DO I NOT HAVE FRIENDS, WHAT IS MY LIFE). :p

4/12/12 - A veces no quiero hablar Por Nada con mis amigos. Solamente, "Hoy me dice ,estas loca, pero le esta loco a Juan!" Y mas Nada. Yo quiero hablar about cosas lejas. Ayer y Hoy hable con jean y veronika, solamente small talk primer. Pero despues, yo decido hablar about the things which I was.actually thinking about lately, the deeper layers. My thoughts were kind of awkward. Random. But I'm so glad I did, it lead to such good convos! As if, although my own thoughts or specific revelation (another one about love, of course), but led to true, sincere convos from the heart. Yes! Thank you, Lord. It's funny how I won't open up and ill get frustrated at the lack of depth in a conversation, yet really all I need to do in some cases is just jump right into the true issues. Ahh small talk kills me.

3/4/12 - He asked us a few questions: Who are you using?

How are you using them?

Physically. Sexually. Emotionally. Spiritually. Monetarily.

How can you restore that? Who's using you? Do you love money, and use people?

Or do you love people, and use money?

5/9/12 I think my id and superego are in conflict... I prefer that psychological term to saying that right vs wrong or my flesh is in rebellion, I guess. I just want to do all sorts of things that aren't of God, and i don't even know what to do. I think I need to just remember that life is short, and not about what I want. I'm getting too caught up in the worldly details, my visions going, my path, every time I think I'm expanding it, is getting more and more limited. Goodnight, from post Dave n busters with cartel, post umsl, going to school tmrw. 

5/17/12 - "Can you keep a secret?" I should have realized by now that this question should be answered with fear and heaviness rather than curiosity.

5/29/12 - I dreamt that, after they thought I had left, my parents started fighting. Loudly, viciously, hatefully. I came down shouting, 'stop it, stop it!!' But their heads were already covered in blood, as I'd they were going to kill eachother. I never found out if they stopped or not, because dad called to me in real life from the other room. At first I wondered if I had really been shouting, and that's why he had contacted me, but no, it was just about bulk trash being today. Something sounds like its gnawing on something, I can hear and feel the vibrations of it through my pillow. Creepy. 

6/4/12 - I have always been a compassionate person – making little houses for wounded snakes and worms – befriending the kid who’s got no one but himself for company, partnering with the girl who doesn’t really speak English. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve recognized that God has been faithful in granting me patience, mercy, and grace as well, and I know that these are not my own,  but I am meant to share them with the very people God has give me a heart for – the downtrodden, broken, and outcast, and ultimately just humanity in general.  This has, more or less, been my (more recent) life pursuit. To follow God’s Will for my life, regardless of where it takes me. So far that has meant giving hope to weary and often lost travelers of Amsterdam, mentoring at risk juveniles and raising awareness for human trafficking in Los Angeles, running English and Summer-School programs for Chinese immigrants in New York City, training and creating jobs for families in Haiti, as well as hosting events and creating opportunities for girls to leave brothels , learning how to run a business in Mexico while also helping out at various orphanages for disabled Children, and even just being there for my own family and friends when they’ve needed it most. It has meant months of Ministry Training schools, years of living in International Community Houses, working in roles that range from administration, to construction, to managerial, and an ever growing reliance on and relationship with Jesus Christ.I’ve been back in Saint Louis for a year now,

7/1/12 - Today started strangely, my head still a little blurry from the wine from the night before. I went to church, very late, where daren had a cupcake waiting for me. Why? Because Tuesday I had admitted I had experienced some downer bdays and he realized that it was my half birthday. Mom came, cried, we hugged, went to the church picnic.. I went home, told dad about her accident, and he just started weeping, so hard that his nose began to.bleed. I stroked his hair and.got a bit teary eyed.and then we got.on our knees and prayed... Later was feeling down and missing Luke, but jean got me out.

11/11/12 - And with your hands in the air, your feet barely touching ground, I take that smile to mean that life is finally turning 'round. And we laugh til we cry and we dance til we cant, and I feel free as can be each time I see that gleam in your eye. Then the secrets come out and its less about being blessed and more about a high. So when you're dancing I'm wondering if that's you, and when you're singing, I know you would be singing.the blues... But that gleam in your eye, well really its more of a glaze all along, I just saw what I wanted as you,strung me along. 

12/20/12 -

Well the queens off her throne Hiding in a stairwell Feet strewn about the stairs Seeming barely aware That her kingdom awaits The king, divorced long ago He's crying Where's his iron fist? Seems he's traded it for sentiment "Pathetic!" He might self accuse If only his tears would let him Seems everything's a dream these days, Some hellish, some sweet But all 

--

I used to find the idea of receiving a text in the middle of the night strange.

Now, after years of practice, I find it comforting, perhaps a reminder that I am not so alone as I would feel.

I hadn't realized this, of course, until now.

Now, when I wake up to nothing but darkness and my own thoughts.

Now, when, regardless of whether I toss myself awake at 2am or 4am, there is no message.

There's nothing to reassure me that there's another person in this world who is awake and eager to share a moment, even a small, electronic message with me.

1/11/13 - Today Gave my testimony. Adopt a block, played ninja. Eva likes hanging out with Christians. I break rules and have real convos with the disciples. Play bs. Go to angelus temple. Do food distribution. Met hosea who talked to us because he thought I was pretty, was super catholic, thought tim was my bf, etc etc etc

1/29/13 - Oh hi, I'm feeling cold and pathetic, and thought I would ... Email myself. That seems fitting. Somehow emailing yourself feels much more pathetic than just journaling. Right now I feel like I wish anyone, absolutely anyone , would sit down across from me. Even the old creepy man who, after asking a few non essential questions, left me for the warmth of the indoors, or... I don't know, a donut. Why do I feel like this.Lord? Is it because I am not so busy in school? Is it because Adam moved and despite the fact that I was barely hanging out with him last semester anyway, he was a crutch, and knowing that at 1am when I feel pathetic and lonely and confused, I can't even text someone I know would care? I mean. I know others would care. But we aren't exactly on that level just yet. What is my life? Why am I this way, and why do I want attention for it? Or why do I feel the need to find someone who would , what, save me ? From myself.? From my thoughts? Why am I seeking comfort in shallow things, the wings of friends and acquaintences and , frick, anything. Whywhywhywhy. I don't know. Is this what life is like for people? Lord, you are the one God, the only thing worth it, you are good when no one else is, am I getting caught up in things that I shouldn't, what am I even going on about? Life life life. It's all good, right

2/13/13 - (From a voice to text translator)

tomorrow I'm supposed to have an awkward cuddling session with my love scene manager and a love my phone from church I'm not sure how I get myself into these awkward situations but I definitely am good at it office tomorrow my uncle is moving in for a month but should be really awkward and I wish that I had a lock on my door and the house I'm learning that the things that I desire to have a find myself feeling empty when I do get them but I'm happy about it because it gets me clarity because it shows me that nothing else really matters is just kind of in my head really got the only thing that matters is the only thing I should pursue S I miss Adam I know you won't hang out that much before you left but now I guess I'm missing him double I don't know I don't know what I mean exactly but he's been gone a few weeks now and it's weird not having a best friend to talk to you about everything I have a lot of friends I have a lot of good friends but this is different it is different when you have someone who knows so much about you already and you don't have to tell the back story every time you tell them a new story because I already know who so I'm so is or why you feel that way or white was a bad idea that you did that so I'm also giving up ice cream and I'll call for lunch and I'm going to be time to eat a lot better subject tomorrow hopefully that I've also really just been wanting to be free of employment just live and everyday wake up and say what I want to do without help homeless people if I want to make something I want to sell another day love you babe I wanna go out with a friend I make my card I definitely don't want to spend 5 shifts a week at cartel but at the same time I don't feel like I'm self disciplined enough to not have a job I'm just getting tired of the creepers and the internet the kids off work as well as yeah I don't know ent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!

8/18/13 -

Woke up really missing my dad. Go figure. Able to properly seduce emotions into a flat, shruggable denial ever since those first few days, and now, on the day I hoped to "stay strong" the most, I can't stop thinking of part of the song he wrote for Rachel, only now in regards to him - "I miss you, in the summertime.. I miss you, in the wintertime.. I miss you - all the time. I love my Rachel Sue." Only.. Daddy-o, or something. Ahhh.. Thank you, Lord, for such a kind father. Please help today glorify your name, run smoothly.. its so obvious we can't do it without you.

8/19/13 - I miss my dad. I am sad that I'll never have him burst in my room in November at three am with pancakes and lit birthday candles because he started thinking about some of the birthdays of mine he had missed, and wanted us to be able to celebrate  together. I can't drink milk or even look at rootbeer without hearing him ask for some, so eagerly, and then sigh 'mmmm, now that's good,' so contentedly after his first sip. I miss that his crazy stories are not going to be things that I share in everyday conversation with my friends, because they're all old stories and it will seem out of place. who do i have to talk to about my dad? no one. it makes everyone sad. theres no one to just share his life with, aside from close family, and that will be limited. Everyone keeps telling me I'm so strong. What does that mean?I'm strong because I didn't start sobbing when I spoke? Because I'm smiling and laughing with you? Is that strength or disposition? Blake said that I was handling this better than anyone he's ever seen deal with death. What does that mean? 

12/13/13

I see a sadness in your eyes.Behind the words, another message.The weight of your world becomes tangible, heavy, a thickness that weights me like a fog rolling in with, strapping invisible bricks to my body. Sometimes it's your words, blatant and straightforward, other times it's the sighs, the eyes that flash with emotion for just a moment, Did you know that's been seen? So many words, how can they be contained? I hear things you've never said, I see 

1/03/14-

I've tried reflecting on 2013.. tried finding words which could somehow, miraculously encapsulate all of the growth, struggle, joy, depression, transformation, and experiences that it contained. It will be one of the most memorable years of my life, for many reasons, but it may also be one of those years that the full impact of may be lost on me for awhile now.In the past few weeks, I've been looking through journals, photos, and letters, remembering and realizing exactly how many changes this year has brought. Led my first missions trip, felt the loss of saying goodbye to one of my best friends, discovered what living with not just my dad, but my uncle Ken, five chickens, two cats, two ducks, a dog, and whoever else decided to stay over was like, became the missions director at middletree church, became an AUNT to the most beautiful little Emelia Skye, gained a new set of amazing and wonderful friends, played nurse/daughter/friend/staff member/sister/maid/hopsicecare/barista/student/leader to the point of confused identity and exhaustion, left cartel to become part of the Caife Caife family, DIDN'T leave the country for the first time in yeaaaaars, actually had to turn down exciting travel/jobs, speaking opportunities, and a leadership position with a non-profit (rather than seek them out, like usual), spent 7 months of the year experiencing the beauty, hardship, and love of caring someone who is dying in more and more ways every day, the trauma and release of my dad's actual death, the months following that are nothing but fog, sorrow, and blurred memories, the 14-state family road trip of a lifetime, moving to the Loop with Dani, experiencing being 'home for the holidays' without any actual family to be home with, and .. I don't know.. the Sara of today, who can look back on things only a year ago and find I have a whole new perspective on them. ..I only wrote one public (well, as public as it can be when I have a total of 8, predominately inactive followers) blog post in 2013, mostly talking about overcoming fear to become the person I feel I'm called to be. It was mostly inspired by revelations from the LA Dream Center trip, and I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to look back on the goals and dreams I wanted so desperately to become a reality, and to be able to say that, even through all the changes and sorrow of this year, that they were able to come to fruition. I'm not in to new years resolutions, but I do highly recommend kickstarting your year with an inspiring, transformative experience, which can set the trajectory for how you are going to live, what goals you will meet or fall short of (but still come closer to, which is still GROWTH, something to celebrate!) in the coming adventure of 2014. No matter what 2013 held, don't let fear of who you were just last month keep you from being who you want to be tomorrow. This little blog post is nice for me to re-read, because it reminds me of my fears, and what overcoming them, even one step at a time, can lead to. 2013 was a hard year for me, but it has also brought me to exactly where I feel I'm supposed to be right now. 

1/29/14 - "I'm good" I wore the reassuring words like a blanket. Cover, no, smother whatever was beneath, within.   Protect yourself from the cold, vulnerable words might slip thru the holes in the blanket... exposed means they can feel temperature of your meaning. Heavy, heat from the heart. you can feel their response.  Pray for a warm touch, but there's always risk of icicle daggers

2/19/14

it's just that

I have a lot of thoughts

ideas, fears, ..a lot of places that I'd like to explore

But they feel so heavy when it's just me and them

feels like there’s a lot of trees to climb before i get to the clouds

and I'd like to share them with someone

who cares about them just as much as I do,

someone with just as much to risk,

who understands each side of the story.

And sometimes, I see planets in those eyes,

but have no rocketship to get me there

And I see that depth, but there's just no way to tap in

Im searching for someone to explore with

those infinite galaxies in your mind and mine.

Someone to make sense of it,

write poetry about it

but not get so caught up that it's just us - no

Always God first.

Always seeking his planets, his stars, his truth..

and maybe that's the adventure..

[spectralsims-blog]

After seeing @flamedeyes​ have fun with this, I decided to do it myself :)

1. What’s your favorite sims death? I genuinely tried to kill a sim with (cheated) hysteria in my last game (before starting this simblr I had a game involving septuplets and I wanted to kill the dad off to explain why he wasn’t around) and... it did not work. It’s my favourite  solely because I’ve never felt so told off by a videogame before

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Maxis Match! It’s good for my graphics card lol 

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? Nope! I am a genuine fat kid from a family of fat kids so I really have no issue with weightier sims. As you’ll see in later installments of my legacy, Raven puts on a lot of weight that, tbh, I did not even notice until looking back on old screenshots. 

4. Do you use move objects? Sometimes. I’m not much of a builder so I don’t really need it too often. 

5. Favorite mod? MC Command Center by @deaderpoolmc​, tbh. I know it’s not one of the ~cool~ or ~weird~ mods but I’m such a control freak and it keeps me from spending too much time in console. 

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? I’m on a shared account (shh don’t tell Origin shh)  so by the time I bought in, the other users had already bought Get Together, Get To Work, City Living, Outdoor Retreat, Spa Day, and Dine Out. 

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE. I just heard somebody say it like LIVing and it freaked me out tbh.

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? I’m going to ignore ts3 and say Amina, who’s my icon rn. 

9. Have you made a simself? I did for very embarrassing reasons but the save file it was on got wiped months ago and I get really weird about simselves. 

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? Creative, Ambitious, Loner. Other applicable traits include childish, geek, gloomy, hot headed, music lover, and noncommittal. It’s really dumb but I was actually upset that sims got less trait slots rather than more in the switch from ts3 to ts4. 

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? I LOVE the slightly greying brown. It’s some quality content.

12. Favorite EA hair? The slightly pulled-back with barrettes hair from Dine Out. I’m a sucker for that hair.

13. Favorite life stage? Teen! It’s has the most opportunity for making up stories tbh. 

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? GAMEPLAY! All of my games are based in story. I only made my simblr because I feel like I’m wasting my time making up stories that no one else will be able to see. It’s been more difficult than I expected because I’m so used to suspending my own disbelief for the sake of plot but I constantly worry about how weak my voice is in my sim stories (since there isn’t much wiggle room there). It’s also been so much more fun than I expected though, so worth it. 

15. Are you a CC creator? Technically not yet but I’m working on some stuff! I’m more interested in script mods than anything else tho since I love coding. 

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? Nope! I’m still a bit of a newbie here so I haven’t had enough time to make friends. I’m very much planning on starting a discord chat for maxis match simblrs tho, so if you’re interested in that, stay tuned. 

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4):  I’ve been getting really into 4 but I still don’t have the level of fluency I did with 3. I feel like modding got a whole lot easier with 4 tho, which is a major bonus. 1 and 2 were always more my mom’s games, so I didn’t get into them nearly as much. 

18. Do you have any sims merch? ...There’s merch?

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? Not yet but I’m planning on taking up streaming just so I don’t have to be so lonely this summer :3c

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? When I first started out in ts3, I would literally pick the same face, hair, clothes, and traits for every sims I made. I can still see their generic-ass faces in the corner of my mind. I then went on a huge cc binge and downloaded anything I could find, which was a BAD IDEA. Then, when I first got ts4, I was determined to use purely maxis content- a sentiment which lasted about a year before I got bored and went back to modding my game. I still tend to use game-generated faces rather than trying to have any specific style (I’m so worried about all my sims turning out the same), but now I can at least add face overlays lol

21. What’s your Origin ID? Again, I’m on a (super top secret) shared account and my friends are not cool with me giving it out :(

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? Anyone who makes mm-friendly hair for black sims and mm menswear is literally a god 

23. How long have you had a simblr? I made this back in... April? May? Towards the end of this past spring semester. So only a bout a month and a half or so at most. 

24. How do you edit your pictures? I, uh, crop them in the built-in windows picture editor. The furthest I’ve ever gone was pixlr for a shitty edit of Amina and mspaint for introducing my legacy founders. I’d love to improve my editing game but let’s be honest, photoshop was not my favourite part of computer camp. 

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? Seasons is always a fun one and of course Pets is a classic, but what I REALLY want is a full supernatural pack for ts4. Supernatural for ts3 was my SHIT Oh, and University. That was some good stuff

Also I’m not kidding. If a supernatural pack is not at least hinted at by the time sims 5 is announced (if it’s ever a thing lol) then I will personally mod my own supernatural pack into the game. Don’t test me

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? City Living and Parenthood have been the most enriching to my playstyle, tbh. 

I’m gonna follow in @flamedeyes‘ footsteps and tag literally anyone who hasn’t been tagged yet! Just remember to tag me so I can see :)

#metagames #saviorhide #alex.txt

[spiffysixxsense]

1-92 for the entertain me asks

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged? 

i have already, so yes

2. You talked to an ex today, correct? 

nah, nice try though

3. Have you taken someones virginity?

yes. (2 in fact lol)

4. Is trust a big issue for you?

a little bit. My instinct is to trust,  but then my past experiences stop me in my tracks like WHOA MAN DONT DO THAT. 

5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

I saw Alex and Ariel yesterday, I kinda like both of them. 

6. What are you excited for?

4 months of no school

7. What happened tonight?

Well tonight hasnt happened yet, so how would I know?

8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted?

no, you do you girl. 

9. Is confidence cute?

To an extent. Its a fine line.

10. What is the last beverage you had?

green tea

11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

one, really. (maybe 2.)

12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans?

yes, only for boot purposes. 

13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

Next saturday? stay up til midnight to see all of Ariel’s birthday speeches lol

14. What are you going to spend money on next?

Ive spent way too much in the last couple weeks, im taking a break lol

15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed?

yes i am

16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?

Ill be a year older? does that count?

17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

Alex and Ariel

18. The last time you felt broken?

like a week ago

19. Have you had sex today?

I have not, but hey it’s only 6.

20. Are you starting to realize anything?

nothing comes to mind

21. Are you in a good mood?

Im okay. 

22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks?

uh no? jeez

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s?

yes

24. What do you want right this second?

maybe more tea

25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

what the ACTUAL FUCK

26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color?

yes

27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

no

28. What was the last thing that made you laugh?

Alex fucking up the timing to SOB in the car

29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

not really. 

30. Does everyone deserve a second chance?

Depends on what its for. 

31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

No

32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do?

I am pretty sure he’s gotten the hint at this point. 

33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda?

never, no. but i think i drink it less than others (i live off tea)

34. Listening to?

The sound of my own typing

35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore?

no

36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is?

pretty sure hes home.

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

no. attraction at first sight, sure. 

38. Who did you last call?

Alex, probably.

39. Who was the last person you danced with?

Alex in my living room, probably my ex at prom if that doesnt count

40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed?

I like him?

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

I have absolutely no idea.

42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today?

No, I havent even talked to the one i live with

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

I dont think so, but im pretty embarrassing so probably. 

44. Do you tan in the nude?

no, Id get fired.

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?

no

46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?

Until he fell asleep at least, yes

47. Who was the last person to call you?

My insurance company, im super popular

48. Do you sing in the shower?

sometimes

49. Do you dance in the car?

sometimes, sorry Alex and Ariel

50. Ever used a bow and arrow?

Maybe? maybe not, i was offered but i probably said no

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?

If Michael & Zarhaa count, then a couple weeks ago. If it has to be a professional with a studio, then my senior pictures 3 years ago.

52. Do you think musicals are cheesy?

yes, and annoying. 

53. Is Christmas stressful?

yes, everything is stressful

54. Ever eat a pierogi?

yes, i approve

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?

apple i guess

56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?

Scientist, i know thats vague af now but thats what i would say. (I think i meant a chemist)

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

I want to, they seem neat

58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling?

Im sure at some point in life

59. Take a vitamin daily?

No do i look that put together to you

60. Wear slippers?

no

61. Wear a bath robe?

no

62. What do you wear to bed?

Tank top and shorts

63. First concert?

Nickelback

64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart?

target 

65. Nike or Adidas?

Nike

66. Cheetos Or Fritos?

Cheetos

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

Sunflower seeds (pumpkin seeds are better)

68. Favorite Taylor Swift song?

shake it off? lol

69. Ever take dance lessons?

god no

70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing?

As in what I want him to do? no

71. Can you curl your tongue?

yes

72. Ever won a spelling bee?

Ive never been in one so no lol

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

I don’t think so.

74. What is your favorite book?

I used to have an answer for this and now i cant remember the name of the book lol

75. Do you study better with or without music?

Depends on what Im doing. actually reading? no. making flash cards/reviewing? yes76. Regularly burn incense?

no

77. Ever been in love?

yes

78. Who would you like to see in concert?

Who I havent before? uh. Well after checking spotify, thousand foot krutch is the first one that comes up that i havent seen before 

79. What was the last concert you saw?

A year in new york? maybe

80. Hot tea or cold tea?

cold

81. Tea or coffee?

tea

82. Favorite type of cookie?

the chocolate chip walnut one i had yesterday was pretty lit. 

83. Can you swim well?

define well. I wont drown. but i cant swim faster than you either. 

84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose?

Anyone can? just stop breathing. 

85. Are you patient?

no. 

86. DJ or band, at a wedding?

band i guess

87. Ever won a contest?

no

88. Ever have plastic surgery?

Have i? no. will i? probably not

89. Which are better black or green olives?

NEITHER HOW DARE YOU

90. Opinions on sex before marriage?

go for it

91. Best room for a fireplace?

Living room? maybe bedroom if its big enough

92. Do you want to get married? 

someday