#I think I feel demoralized by the news that I won’t actually be able to schedule my induction | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ayamturd · 3 years

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aroace│mcyt hc

warnings: small mentions of hate, fluff

prompt: (requested) “could I request headcanons on how each mcyt would react to reader coming out as aroace? platonic btw!”

pairings: irl platonic! dream, ranboo, and tommy ; c!technoblade

a/n: as i myself do not identify as an aroace, pls correct me on any misconceptions or things i did not portray accurately

a special thanks to new friend @youtubesthings! they’re pretty pog and gave helpful insight to specific parts

wc: (1.0k) - m.list

dream -

you’ve known dream for a while now, long before he began to attract online fame

even then, you were still hesitant to come out to him

rationally, you knew how supportive dream was for his friends, but reason doesn’t stop the fear of rejection for being yourself

he’s an affectionate guy that isn’t afraid to express his (platonic!) love for others, and while you’re not romantically involved with him, it’s still terrifying to think that he might push you away for how you perceive relationships

whether you identified as an aroace for some time or only recently discovered the fact for yourself, you felt trapped and needed to tell someone

would approach him one evening and be closed off the entire conversation

he obviously would take note to your strange behavior and softly confront you about it

“Y/n, you okay? You seem on edge.”

“Actually, I-I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

moment you managed get get the words out, there’s a slight pause before he speaks

“Oh. Is that all?”

he’d pause and realize the implications to how his words sound and begin panicking

“No, wait that’s not what I meant. Y/n, that’s honestly so amazing, I’m so glad you trust me.”

if you were still wary to telling others, dream is the most trustworthy of your secret until you’re ready (he’s able to disclose only the things he wants people to know very well considering he’s faceless)

but if you decided to fully come out, you can bet he’s the loudest and most supportive person you know

will not hesitant to defend you from any haters or trolls and tries speak out for all aroaces

admits he’s not the most knowledgeable but tries (will search things up in his own time)

genuinely takes your coming out seriously but treats you the same like the person you’ve always been

c!technoblade -

let’s be honest here, technoblade isn’t canonically shown to have any romantic advances towards anyone in the smp

as a close ally and friend, you trusted techno easily and didn’t think much about coming out to him

“Hey Techno.”

“What?”

“I’m Aroace.”

“‘kay cool.”

this isn’t to say he doesn’t care, but he doesn’t see a point in fawning over the fact when it’s just you coming out as yourself

he’s closed off to some degree about how he normally feels on certain things, but your trust in him makes him feel more welcome to sharing his own thoughts and feelings

will honestly become confused should a person mock or be unaccepting of the fact, and instinctively will unsheathed his weapon

“Why are you laughing?”

*pulls out Orphan Obliterator*

“No seriously, why?”

that being said, he honestly just forgets about it from time to time

he can keep secrets, no doubt, but considering how normalized he finds it, he isn’t really strict about talking about it if the situation comes up

if someone were to somehow imply you both were romantically involved, Techno would be so casual about it

“Aren’t you two together to something?”

“What? No, y/n’s Aroace, that’s weird.”

“…what?” :D

i mean you should’ve expected this when you first told him-

he’s the almighty Blood God, a fearless warrior that strikes down all his opponents mercilessly, and truth be told, someone who respects his friends greatly

ranboo -

ranboo is unmistakably someone you thought of first when contemplating coming out

from his donation stream to his constant efforts of normalizing LGBTQ rights, ranboo has always been considerate of the fact

so one day you decided to tell him after a stream

it was late and he was honestly tired, but you wanted to get it out of the way before you lost the confidence go through with it again

“Hey Ranboo?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m Aroace.”

“…”

“Ranboo?”

“Sorry what? I didn’t hear you.”

he had yawned in the middle of you talking and didn’t hear you come out

honestly it was really funny to look back on, but he’d probably feel awful every time you reminded him

once you repeated yourself though, he was quick to celebrate and congratulate you

ranboo isn’t one to go into many heavy conversations, but if he noticed any hate or criticism once you fully came out, he will stop his stream just to emphasize how any hate is not tolerated on his channel, especially regarding his friends

if ever need be, he will (with your permission) speak on your behalf if someone didn’t understand what being aroace meant

he knows how to lightly joke around the topic and chooses to do so as a way to show he accepts you for how you are

that being said, doesn’t mention it often since he knows doing so can be demoralizing like a label

overall, never fails to express his support and (platonic!) love, and sees you beyond your coming out as his friend that he respects and appreciates

tommy -

alright, okay

this is tommy we’re talking about here, a known advocate for LGBTQ rights; though he can say some mixed up intentions, his devotion to enforcing those rights on his channel and throughout his daily streams has always been endearing, but much like dream, the idea of telling someone so emotionally driven was nerve-racking

it’s not like you didn’t plan on telling him, but he probably would have found out by accident

you had been in a discord call with him late at night and it slipped out naturally

“Have you noticed you’ve been shipped recently with (someone someone) lately?”

“I have, yeah. I hate it.”

“… why?”

“Oh it’s nothing against them, I’m Aroace.”

“Wait really?”

“…”

“...”

“Oh fuc-”

after you explained to him how you trusted him but honestly didn’t mean to tell him, he’d respect you for what it was and leave it be

tommy is sincerely mature when he needs to be, and won’t bring the subject up until you wanted to talk about it with him (since he wasn’t originally meant to know)

once you were ready though, he would go full protection mode

online, he’d make his support loud and clear, and while he’ll make mistakes from time to time, he has good intentions to heart

privately, he always tries to be subtle in his understanding if the topic or situation called for it

he’s proud of his friends (that’s a given), and will never hesitate to make it known that you are someone he admires for being themself

#dream smp x reader #dream smp x you #dream x reader #dream x you #dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken x you #technoblade x reader #technoblade x you #tommyinnit x reader #tommyinnit x you #ranboo x reader #ranboo x you #mcyt x you #mcyt x reader #mcyt headcanons #dreamwastaken headcanon #technoblade headcanon #tommyinnit headcanon #ranboo headcanon

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rosesutherlandwrites · 2 years

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So. My phone refuses to upload video and I won’t be able to do any self taped auditions until I deal with a bunch of technical fixes...which may mean buying new equipment. The four week course I was stoked for because I wanted the guidance on how to navigate reentering the industry after so much time off got cancelled. And since we got our callback notice for FOH this week, at least TEN of my coworkers have announced they won’t be returning (actually I think more but I've lost track)in addition to all the announcements from people made over the course of the pandemic. Most of them have left the city, and theatre, for good, and more than half of the former staff is gone. The latest was one of my favourite people, and I am just feeling so demoralized about everything today. I’m tired, y’all.

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pantstomatch · 3 years

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I love your writing, and (the cliche, it burns) one day I'd like to publish too. But a lot of things have changed since the last time I was confident in trying to do this, and I wondered if you would talk about the process (getting an agent, that sort of thing) if you're comfortable and have the time. It's also cool if you privately respond, if you'd prefer, I'm just trying to figure out how to get started again? And so many tips are "publish on Amazon!"

Thank you!!!! Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m probably not the best person to ask about this, because I’m actually really bad at being published, but I can tell you some stuff that I’ve learned? That might be helpful? I ended up being long-winded, so (if tumblr works right here) everything is under the cut...

1. Querying!

So in general, querying sucks balls. Like… it’s probably the worst thing you’ll ever have to do. You’re gonna want to research what agents are looking for the kind of stuff you want to write or have written. Some are looking for certain genres or what they think is marketable, and you want to send your query to someone who’s open to what you have, or it’s a waste. Most likely the agency website or the agents “I’m looking for…” page or whatever will give you specific instructions on what to include in your query email - how the subject should be written, what they’re looking for, how many pages of your manuscript they want to see, how to attach it to the email and in what form, and if they want a synopsis of your novel. Some agents use Query Manager, which is basically a form you fill out and attach all the things they want, and you can go back in and edit it and it’s a nice way to keep track of your query. Next, they’re gonna (hopefully; some just never respond) either say no thank you very politely, or ask you for the full manuscript. Most of these agents will also give you a general timeline for a response, and if they’re open to a nudge from you or not. After that, they’ll either say no to the full manuscript, or welcome you aboard!

Most places allow you to send multiple queries out for the same work, meaning they’re not “exclusive,” except within their own agency. If they ask for a full manuscript, but before they get back to you, another agent has snapped you up, they’ll want you to let them know so they don’t waste their time on it. Occasionally, if they want to see your full manuscript, they’ll ask for you to not send the full manuscript to someone else until they’re done, or for you to tell them if someone else is looking at the full manuscript. You can also change your mind! You can email them and let them know you’ve decided to pull the novel out of consideration, maybe if you think it needs more editing.

I have never successfully queried. I found the whole thing demoralizing, and I did my first contract on my own, without an agent. This is something I don’t recommend because I had to figure out a lot of confusing shit on my own that I still don’t fully understand. And it also made me doubt my writing after the fact, because agents don’t give a shit if you’re already published, they’re focused solely on whatever you’re presenting them with. And then after that, I figured if I got another book out of my current editor, would I want to present that to the people who already didn’t like my writing? I have an agent for another project I’m working on, and the only reason I have her is because someone introduced us and told her I desperately needed help.

1a. So you found the agent(s) you think you like!

Other than the instructions/guidelines written out by the agency/agents that you’re interested in, you’re gonna need the most complete and fully edited version of your novel in hand. If they ask for your full manuscript, you absolutely should not say it’s not done. Make sure it’s finished, and preferably edited, before you send your query in. If they ask for a synopsis, hard pass. Ha ha ha, just kidding. No, really, arguably, this is going to be the hardest thing to write. A synopsis will suck your soul out of your body and make you weep blood. The only thing worse than querying is writing a synopsis for that query. I have never written a synopsis that I didn’t think was utter shit. I hate them.

Querytracker is a cool place to look up agents that you want to query and see how responsive (and nice) they are. It took me a little bit to figure out the abbreviations, though.

2. Pick your genre carefully

Unless you are a best selling author, they are never ever ever going to let you change genres. I mean, maybe if you wrote under a different name. Maybe. But they’ve bought your book based on how they think it will sell, and they’re going to want to sell you, too, and genre jumping is usually a no-go. This is, basically, one of the biggest things I hate, and one of the greatest things I love about fanfiction, that I can write whatever the fuck I feel like writing. So, you know, make sure you really really really want to write about what your first book is going to be about, because you’re going to be writing about that forever. And I don’t mean just YA vs New Adult vs Adult, although you need to take that into account too. I mean if you’re writing about high school regular kids, you probably can’t write about supernatural high school kids. You can’t write about high school kids in space. You can only write about regular high school kids. So.. think sci -fi vs fantasy vs historical vs contemporary, etc.

3. I hope you don’t hate people!

Do you want to go to a bookstore and talk in front of a crowd? Do you want to go to cons and network with other authors? Do you want to call up publications and volunteer for interviews? Do you want to talk about your books with strangers? Because I sure don’t. Publishing houses do the bare minimum of publicity for you for your book. First book, they’ll probably help set up some store signings. Going forward, if you weren’t proactive the first time around, they’re probably not going to do anything. If you’ve got some really good advance reviews, they’ll do ads. They’ll probably do the rote social media posts. But basically, you’re going to have to advocate for your book. You’re going to have to create your own brand. You’re going to have to make swag and send it out, call up bookstores, post constantly about it on twitter, buddy up to other authors, go places where you can network. And I will tell you that all of that is my nightmare. I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t like meeting new people. I had several panic attacks leading up my book signing, and the book signing itself was pretty bad. I’m just… not good with people. And, honestly, at my age, I don’t want to be any better. All it does is give me stress and hives, and to get over that I’d really really have to want to do it.

4. Personal perks?

Editors! I’ve worked with two awesome editors, and it’s amazing having someone to tell you how to fix things in a way that makes sense. By far, one of the only perks of being published for me. I absolutely don’t know for sure, but I always got the feeling that they expected more push back from me with their suggestions, but nope. I was open to everything, and that’s probably why the books worked so well, because editors absolutely know what they’re doing and only want what’s best for the book.

Holding a solid book of my work! Always awesome to hold that first book in your hands, with the beautiful cover work and everything. The fact that other people can read it and know it was me who wrote those words only counters that by about a half.

Money! Advances vary drastically, but, listen, the money kind of made the panic attacks worth it. A little.

5. Advances and royalties

The things I’ve read about advances is that too little, and you might think they have less confidence in you, and too much and you’re panicking about selling, because if you don’t earn out your advance, there’s a chance they won’t want to invest in you in the future. Generally, the way they work is they offer you a contract with the amount they are willing to “advance” you. This is basically saying, we think this book will give us this amount of money, and this is your share of that amount of money. You earn this out with royalties. When you sign the contract, you will get a certain amount of money, usually half of your offered advance. When you deliver the finished manuscript, after your editor and you have gone over it and it’s been approved, you’ll get the other half. A two book deal would be split into 4 parts, and you’d get the first 2 parts for signing the contract (1/4th for each book), the next part for the first finished manuscript, and then the last part for the second finished manuscript, generally after the first book is already published. After that, you won’t see any money until your royalties reach the amount they already paid you in advance. Unless otherwise negotiated, you’d get a royalty check twice a year. Your earnings from January to July would be sent to you in October, and your earnings for July to December would be sent to you in April. Since any books sold to bookstores and online stores can be returned to the publisher if unsold, they will usually “hold back” a certain amount at first, to make sure you’re really earning that royalty. Royalty statements themselves are a hot mess and I’ve never been able to read them, which is also a good reason to have an agent. An agent will get your money sent to them, make sure it’s the correct amount, take their cut, and then send you a check from them.

6. Self publishing

Okay, I know nothing about self publishing, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if you have the right support system (ie editors). If you’re going to have to do a lot of the marketing yourself anyway, I don’t see how this is much different. Biggest thing would be the upfront cost, and making sure you make that cost worth it. Independent author S Usher Evans has some good advice for self publishing - Sush’s worked very hard at it, and started her own publishing company. Also, @qwanderer might be a good resource, I think they use Lulu, which is a really cool self publishing site.

Uhhhh, so that’s a lot of info and also not a lot of info, so please feel free to ask me anything else, and I really hope I haven’t made this harder for you to get started ha ha ha. I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you want to write and write it and just… go from there. If you really love what you have, someone else is going to love it, too.

And if anyone’s had a different experience or thinks I got something wrong or has more/better advice for @heyninja, let me know!

#heyninja #replies #publishing advice #my two cents #writing

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ingridsama · 4 years

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Little Red Riot (Part Two)

Crimson eyes glared down on the wooden floor of the hut as breakfast was being served to them at the dining table. Two pairs of eyes had been staring at him for a long time that he started unconsciously fidgeting in his seat. Last night, he almost died. He and his friends joined in hunting the werewolf that had been rampaging among their village as their own definition of fun.

But Kirishima didn't know how dangerous that task actually was until he was staring at the beast's face-- frozen in horror at what might happen to him if he made a wrong move.

"Please eat up, Kirishima-kun," a feminine voice brought him back to reality and he met kind green eyes that belonged to Midoriya's mother, Inko.

"Y-yes... thank you for the meal," he answered before he froze upon meeting a pair of bright red ones that had been staring at him the whole time.

Kirishima willed himself to look away as he reached for his chopsticks to start digging in on his breakfast when the slamming of the front door had him jump from his seat in fright.

Looking back, Kirishima saw a teen with just the same age as his, standing by the door and glaring at him-- he had white-red-colored hair that was equally parted in the middle and heterochromatic eyes of silver and blue.

The stranger held gazes with Kirishima for a moment before he looks away and stomped towards Midoriya's now empty room and slammed the door behind him.

"Half-and-half sure is mad as hell," the blonde werewolf said as he smirked, ignoring the glares Midoriya was giving him.

"I'm going to talk to him," Midoriya said before excusing himself and entered his room where the stranger went.

"Who was that?" Kirishima asked, turning to Inko who was washing up the utensils she used to prepare breakfast.

"That's Shouto," Inko said with a smile. "He and Katsuki, here, are staying with us,"

"S-so he's... a werewolf too?"

Inko hesitated but nodded to confirm what Kirishima said.

"He's upset because we're letting you live," Katsuki answered. "He hates humans... especially hunters like you,"

"I'm not a hunter," Kirishima said in defense. "I just volunteered to go with the hunt. Besides, I'm particularly not a fan of werewolves either so I guess the feeling is mutual,"

Katsuki didn't reply back and Kirishima took it as a sign to start eating his breakfast-- trying hard to ignore the tensed and awkward air that filled the dining table as he shared his breakfast with the werewolf that almost killed him.

"Ain't spicy enough," he heard Katsuki grumble after taking in his first spoonful of breakfast and made to reach for the condiments at the middle of the table when he winced and pulled his hand back.

Kirishima's eyes widened as he realized that Katsuki's left arm was bandaged and a blotch of red had stained it.

"Fuck," Katsuki cursed silently, hissing in pain as he cradled his arm.

"Language!" Inko hissed from the kitchen.

"S-sorry," the werewolf grumbled.

"D-did I... Did I do that?" Kirishima asked.

Somewhere during the commotion that happened last night, Kirishima could vaguely remember how his body automatically moved on its own out of adrenaline and fear that he had almost shot Midoriya-- if the blonde werewolf didn't come to the rescue in the way and pushed the greenhead out of harm's way.

"Of course, you're the only one here capable of hurting us with that gun of yours, hunter," A voice retorted even before Katsuki could reply and Kirishima looked back to see Midoriya and Shouto coming out of the room.

The half-and-half eyes were cold and full of hatred when they met Kirishima's and the scar on his left eye added to the hostile aura the werewolf was emitting.

"Shou... I told you it was an accident, didn't I?" Midoriya said gently with a smile, rubbing soothing circles on the back of Shouto's hand that relaxed the latter.

"Yeah, I wouldn't die with a bullet grazing my arm, half-and-half," Katsuki agreed, throwing Kirishima a wink before looking back at Shouto. "So no need to get worried about your brother,"

Shouto rolled his eyes. "My concern has been for Izuku only," he answered. "That hunter would've killed him last night if you had been too late in pushing Izuku out of the way so..."

Shouto abruptly stopped himself and Katsuki's smirk grew. "So... what? Keep going half-and-half, you're almost there," he said.

Shouto growled before looking away, scrunching up his nose that made Midoriya smile.

"Katsuki-kun, are you done eating? I need to change your bandages," Inko said. "Izuku, Shouto-kun, please go ahead and eat your breakfast before it gets cold,"

"U-um..." Kirishima called as Katsuki stood up from his seat. "I-if this means anything, I-I'm... I'm sorry, for... for shooting you, or... for not shooting you, I... it was an accident,"

"Well, I wouldn't say that it's alright since it really did hurt like hell," Katsuki answered, scratching his nape.

"Kacchan, you're way out of character today," Midoriya said.

"Did almost endangering your life changed you?" Shouto followed.

"SHUT UP, BASTARDS!" Katsuki yelled.

"And he's back," Midoriya muttered under his breath, shaking his head in amusement.

"M-Midoriya," Kirishima called. "T-thank you... for the meal a-and for last night, but... I have to get back to the village,"

"What are you talking about?" Shouto said.

"S-Shouto..." Midoriya made an attempt to stop him.

"E-eh?" Kirishima answered in confusion.

"You didn't tell him?" Shouto asked, turning to Midoriya.

"I-I was about to," Midoriya said.

"Tell me what?" Kirishima asked, dread filling him up as his mind went haywire-- was his friends killed? Or did they declare him dead already? Are they going to kill him after all? Who wouldn't, though; he knew too much already for Midoriya to let him go.

"U-uh... Kirishima-kun," Midoriya said, "It's not that we don't... trust you, but... you've seen Katsuki and Shouto already s-so we thought t-that... that letting you go back to the village isn't s-safe for... us, so--"

"Unfortunately for you-- and inconveniently for us as well-- you'll be staying here for a while," Shouto finished what Midoriya had trouble starting.

Kirishima met Midoriya's eyes as his mind processed what the greenhead just said before finally uttering his answer. "... what?"

***

Plop!

Goes the sound of the water as another stone dived down the pond as Kirishima threw stones at the innocent body of water to relieve the anger he was feeling.

Midoriya had just broken the news to him this morning-- with Kirishima seeing and knowing who the werewolves were and who was protecting them, they couldn't let Kirishima go back to the village. The redhead had tried negotiating but it just ended up with Kirishima lashing out at Midoriya when the greenhead stood his ground and shook his head no in letting him go.

Kirishima threw another and bigger stone down the pond with unintentional strength that caused some water to splash back at Kirishima-- coincidentally hitting him square in the face.

With his tension rising up, he grabbed a bigger stone and threw hard on the pond with a loud curse.

"Damn," A voice behind him caused Kirishima to jump back and turn sharply-- only to see the blonde werewolf looking at him with an amused smile on his face. "What did water ever do to you?"

Kirishima looked away, annoyed. "Leave me alone," he grumbled as he turned back to the pond-- frowning at his wavy reflection on the water.

"Inko-san told me to come and fetch you since I don't think Deku would be able to persuade you to come inside,"

"Well you won't be able to persuade me either, so leave me alone," Kirishima snapped.

The redhead turned his head back to the pond, fist clenched tight in frustration-- frustration that he couldn't escape back to the village and Katsuki still wasn't leaving him alone as the blonde stood there with his arms crossed, giving no indication that he was leaving anytime soon.

Giving out a demoralized grunt, Kirishima snapped at the werewolf once more. "I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE, DAMN IT!" he yelled. "Isn't already good enough for you that I can't escape here?! Why do you have to tail at me like some dog?! Go away! "

"Kirishima-kun? Everything okay?" Midoriya entered the scene with worry in his eyes and Kirishima started to see red.

"Absolutely!" Kirishima yelled angrily. "Everything is fine! I can't go home after encountering your monsters for pets, but it's totally fine!"

Kirishima knew he had hit a nerve when Katsuki's eyes darkened but he didn't care-- he was angry and he wanted them to know that.

"K-Kirishima-kun, please calm down," Midoriya said as he took a step closer. "I-I know you're upset about this, but--"

"I'm not upset, Midoriya! I'm furious! Why can't I go home? Why are you keeping me captive here?! I'm not going to tell anyone about you or them... I just... I just want to go home!"

"Please understand," Midoriya said, growing frustrated as well, as he walked closer. "We're just being careful, I--"

Midoriya was cut-off when a hard punch got in contact with cheeks as Kirishima gave him a right hook-- causing the greenhead to stagger back.

Wide green eyes met wide crimson ones as Kirishima also got stunned by his actions.

"M-Midoriya..." Kirishima drew his fist back and tried to help the greenhead up. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. I don't know what came over me, I--"

Both sensed another presence nearby and Midoriya turned his head to meet heterochromatic eyes that were radiating violent anger.

"S-Shouto..." Midoriya mumbled and Kirishima sensed the greenhead's fear.

"M-Midoriya?" Kirishima asked as he glanced at the latter and at Shouto.

"You hurt Izuku," Shouto growled as his teeth started sharpening into fangs and his eyes seemed to glow.

"Run," Midoriya muttered.

"W-what?"

"Run, Kirishima-kun!" Midoriya pushed the redhead away just in time for Shouto to transform in his wolf form-- hackles raised as his eyes locked dangerously on Kirishima who had fallen on the ground, frozen in fear.

"Shouto, please! Listen to me!" Midoriya pleaded as he scrambled back to his feet to try and get Shouto to calm down.

But the half-and-half hybrid was blinded by his outrage and leaped over Midoriya-- claws out as he targeted Kirishima who only had time to close his eyes and welcome death.

Another growl permeated the scene followed by a yelp that had Kirishima open his eyes in shock to see a blonde werewolf standing in between him and Shouto.

Kirishima's breath was caught up in his chest as he looked up at the same bright red eyes that belonged to Katsuki as the werewolf glanced at him before giving out a warning bark at his comrade-- warning him to back off.

"Get up!" Midoriya's exclamation jolted Kirishima back to reality as the greenhead pulled Kirishima up to his feet and got him away just in time for Shouto to charge at Katsuki-- both werewolves snapping at each other and fight for dominance.

"Izuku! What's going on?!" Inko asked as she ran towards them and watched the hybrids fight-- horror in her eyes.

"Mom, please get Kirishima-kun out of here... Please," Midoriya said as he pushed Kirishima to Inko. "I need to stop them before they get hurt,"

But before any of them could say another word, a yelp erupted from the fight and Midoriya turned to see Shouto lying unconsciously on the ground-- Katsuki standing next to him and let out a sad whine as he nudged Shouto's paw.

Inko gasped and Kirishima's eyes widened before the scene.

"No..." Midoriya whispered as his body willed itself to run to both hybrids as they transformed back to their human forms.

Katsuki's knees buckled from exhaustion as his eyes fluttered close but Midoriya caught him on time and laid him next to Shouto who's eyes were fluttering open.

"Izu...ku," Shouto mumbled.

"I-I'm sorry..." Katsuki whispered as Midoriya knelt in between them.

"Shut up, your wounds aren't that bad. You're not dying!" Midoriya said as he got out some bandages he always kept with him and started treating their wounds.

Inko was by his side and covering up Katsuki and Shouto with blankets as Kirishima just stood there-- stunned that a werewolf he had known to be dangerous just saved his life.

"You'll both be fine, okay?" Inko said with a smile as she and Midoriya started patching up the wounds they got from the fight.

"M-Midoriya..." Kirishima called but Midoriya didn't give a sign that he heard him at all-- either that or he was ignoring Kirishima. Even Inko couldn't look up to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I..." Kirishima stuttered and looked down on the wounds on the hybrids' bodies-- wounds that he caused. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Midoriya's actions paused as he took a deep breath and answered. "You've already done enough, Kirishima-kun..."

"Look, I'm sorry... I--"

"If you want to go back to the village so bad, then you're free to go..." Midoriya cut him off. "With what you did, you proved that humans like us can be more of a monster than them... So, please... just go before you cause another injury,"

Kirishima looked at Inko for help, but she had looked away sadly. Then he looked at Katsuki and saw his wounds.

"I'm sorry..." Kirishima whispered before he turned and ran away from the scene-- leaving with a heavy heart.

~ TO BE CONTINUED ~

#kiribaku #bakugou x kirishima #Kirishima Eijirou #bakugou katsuki #werewolf #little red riding hood #tododeku #bnha headcanons #kiribaku fanfic

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bearfeathers · 4 years

Note

“Hmm. So you do have feelings.” - for Kylux >:3c

The pain is what re-enters his awareness first. It’s an inescapable presence, smothering him beneath it like a pillow pressed over his face. Yet there is a second presence, as all-consuming as the first and it fills his senses before he can even begin to question where he is or what’s happened.

Hux.

When Kylo’s vision clears, he can see the general sitting at his bedside—for he is in a bed, it would seem—his attention devoted entirely to the datapad in his hands. His greatcoat is draped over the back of his chair but that’s the extent of his state of undress. His uniform is as crisp and clean as ever, his hair parted neatly to the side as it always is, his face clean-shaven as usual. But from the dark circles beneath his eyes and the uncollected empty cups on the table beside him, Kylo thinks he must have been there for some time. Longer, he thinks, than it would seem at first glance.

“Ah, the great Kylo Ren deigns to once again grace us with his presence,” Hux drones boredly without looking up from his work.

“Where are we?” Kylo rasps, finding his throat dry and his voice scratchy with disuse.

“Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship,” Hux says. “I collected you from the defeated heap you’d been left in by that traitor and the scavenger girl and brought you onboard, as our Supreme Leader requested.”

“Collected me as your pet project imploded around you?” Kylo grunts as he moves to sit up.

Hux’s light eyes cut to him sharply. As usual, he can give it, but he can’t take it. But then the same could be said of Kylo so perhaps that’s why they can never seem to be rid of one another.

“As you might imagine,” Hux says tightly as he returns to his datapad, “neither of us are in Snoke’s good graces at the moment.”

Ah. So Hux is hiding, then.

“Hiding from him here won’t do you any good,” Kylo comments, his eyes roving around the private room. It’s dark in its furnishings, as all First Order fleet rooms are, but clearly not in the medbay. Something which Kylo finds… odd. “Why am I not in medical?”

He senses a sudden spike of emotion from Hux. Anxiety and embarrassment flurrying to cover something else—concern.

“It had occurred to me that the crew might find it demoralizing to see you in… the state you’re in,” Hux says carefully. He clears his throat primly, straightening his posture even further, if possible. (Kylo has never seen the man slouch and he’s not sure Hux is even capable of the action.) “However much I may not wish to admit it, the crew derives a sort of strength from your presence. From the power that you wield. Seeing you struck down would be difficult for you to recover from and lead to unease among the ranks. I thought it best to keep you secluded to your chambers with access restricted to meddroids at hours outside peak foot traffic from the crew.”

Kylo squints at Hux. “…were you worried about me?”

Hux makes a noise like he’s just been Force choked, color rising high on his cheekbones as his lips press together into a thin, tight line. “Don’t be absurd. I merely chose the best course of action regarding the future of the First Order.”

He didn’t, though. Kylo closes his eyes, sensing the indignation and anxiety rolling off of Hux like a tidal wave in a bid to drown out that speck of concern surfing the calmer waters behind it. But bits and pieces of memory begin to resurface, allowing him to part through the tidal wave before him. He can feel the chill of his body lying in the snow. He hears the muffled sound of shouting. He feels the press of Hux’s hands against the bleeding wound in his side, sees the bright red of his hair against the frozen landscape like a flaming beacon, drawing his attention as a flame would a moth.

“Hmm,” Kylo says under his breath. “So you do have feelings.”

“I most certainly do not,” Hux informs him, the crease in his brow telling Kylo that the mere implication offends him. “You’re delirious. Stop bothering me and go back to sleep. Now.”

“You think our best option to please Snoke is by presenting a united front,” Kylo says suddenly.

Hux narrows his eyes. “That’s not an opinion, it’s fact. Our best chance to recover from this setback is to combine forces. Which we might be able to do if you could stand to be agreeable for any prolonged period of time.”

“Right, because I’m the one who’s not agreeable,” Kylo says, hissing in pain as he tries to prop himself up in bed.

With a heavily put-upon sigh, Hux rises from his seat and punches a few buttons in a nearby wall panel, raising the incline of the bed so that Kylo can sit up without exerting himself. The general then snatches a glass of water off the side table and thrusts it into Kylo’s hand.

“Drink that and stop moving,” Hux says crisply, resuming his seat and focusing again on his datapad.

Kylo, to his own surprise, does as he’s told. Lying back against the pillows, he watches as Hux continues to work in silence, paying Kylo no further attention. But a casual scan of the general’s thoughts reveals that Kylo is very much still present in them. It’s not as though Hux is ever far from Kylo’s thoughts either, for better or for worse. Usually worse. He’d assumed the “better” portion had been left behind after their first meeting, when Hux had delivered Kylo to his new Master for their first face-to-face meeting, but that may not be the case. Perhaps they’d merely needed to be knocked down to the same level for the chance to see eye to eye again.

“We can try it,” Kylo says. “The united front thing.”

“I am pleased beyond measure,” Hux drawls sarcastically.

(Kylo doesn’t mention that he can sense that Hux actually means it.)

Prompt me! | Read on AO3

#star wars #kylo ren #armitage hux #kylux #my fic #star wars fic #post-tfa #lywinis #asks #replies

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anexplanationofunfortunateevents · 4 years

Text

this is an alarmist post

This post might sound alarmist because I don’t know the respectable, non-alarmist way to put this. He’s going full final-days-in-the-Fuhrerbunker. I want to be alarmist. We need to be alarmed.

On one level, I’m pretty sure you know this. You can probably see a vague reference to “what happened in Portland” and know exactly what the writer means. Unidentified little green men in military-style fatigues deployed against peaceful protesters. Protesters kidnapped off the streets in “proactive arrests.” ordered by someone illegally acting as the head of DHS. Journalists attacked. Middle-aged women beaten and tear-gassed. The mayor of Portland tear-gassed. It was, of course, worse than it looked, and only the most telegenic of concurrent power grabs.

But it’s really hard to stay at the appropriate level of alarm for even three hours – and we need to stay there for the next three months. It’s exhausting no matter what, and nearly all of our current information environment makes it even more difficult than it needs to be.

Most of what the mainstream media has to say about the election isn’t reporting so much as it is fanfiction. Characters with familiar names and recognizable faces feature in an alternative universe where “normal” political forces (which were defunct ten years ago) apply. Sniping about “messaging,” pathologically boring lectures about “enthusiasm” – it would be annoying anti-Democratic concern-trolling in a world where a free and fair election could be taken for granted. In the real world of powerful and accelerating anti-democratic threats, it is both dangerous and bizarre, like dumping a fifth of vodka into a Super Soaker and trying to use it to put out a brush fire.

The mainstream conversation is so disorienting that it’s understandable why there are also a fair amount of influential progressive commentators who have burrowed themselves into the reverse narrative. It doesn’t matter what we do, Trump is just going to steal the election anyway; it doesn’t matter if he loses, he’s going to refuse to leave anyway. A subset of these fatalists swing all the way around to conventional Pundit Brain: Trump has already blown up all the rules of democratic politics because Democrats aren’t using the One Weird Trick that would make them good at democratic politics!*

Before jumping down the rabbit hole of whether these narratives are true, it’s important to emphasize that they are not constructive. We are in a crisis. In a crisis, you need to help people understand that something abnormal is happening AND that there is something they can do to make things better. Communicating to people that things are fine, as the mainstream horserace normal politics model does, isn’t helpful, because it helps people rationalize the false but comforting belief that everything is fine. Communicating to people that things are hopeless, as the doom-mongering counternarrative does, is even less helpful. If you’re acting normal about something abnormal, there’s at least the off-chance you’ll get lucky and unwittingly bluff your way through the short- and medium-term. But if you’re constantly getting the message that you’re screwed no matter what, it’s human nature to either a) go into denial and double down on an unproductive response, which is irrational but understandable or b) get cynical and give up, which is an entirely rational response to a situation that actually is hopeless.

Trump is already trying to steal the 2020 election. He has help from the henchmen he has put in charge of important federal agencies and from the white-shoe lifers in the Republican legal establishment. Anything you can imagine he might do, you should assume he has at least considered it. He will consider things that would never even occur to you.

He hasn’t succeeded yet. He can be stopped with overwhelming turnout. We know this because of the 2018 midterms. Autocrats who are successfully smothering a democracy do not allow the opposition party to win partial or full control in regional governments, take over half the federal legislature, and gain a foothold in the presidential line of succession. That’s not how autocracy works. If you come across a commentator who is under the impression that a burgeoning dictatorship just gives away that kind of power for the lulz, consider taking that person’s opinions on the subject with a grain of salt.

Thanks to the 2018 midterms, House Democrats have been able to foil some of Trump’s schemes and warn the public about others. Even with Individual 1’s desperate thrashing at the intelligence agencies, we’re getting a lot more specific information about Russian attacks on the election than we were this time in 2016 from the Obama administration.

One more important thing we learned in 2018: just because Trump would do something, doesn’t mean he will. Here’s the Once and Future Speaker a few weeks after reclaiming her title:

At least Trump “didn’t declare the election illegal,” Pelosi said. “We had a plan for that” — though really, she acknowledged, the only workable plan was “to win big. Had it been four or five seats, he would’ve tried to dismantle it.” In his news conference the day after the midterms, Trump spoke respectfully of Pelosi….

The Spectacularly Failed New York Times buried the lead as usual, but there are a few really important points packed in here. Democrats did, in fact, have a plan for that, which you’re going to need to remind yourself if you try to follow political commentary in the next few months. For whatever reason, a surprising number of supposedly anti-Trump writers are eager to undermine Trump’s opposition with false claims that Democrats are bumbling naifs who in 2020 still haven’t realized that Trump might not respect the results of an election.** This demoralizing premise is, as you can tell from the Wayback Machine link, not true, but for some reason it remains a popular lie, so it’s worth debunking.

More importantly, we didn’t know about the plan until afterward because they didn’t need it. Trump has blinked before, so there’s no reason to assume he won’t blink again. We shouldn’t assume he will do the same thing in 2020 that he did in 2018, because it’s a different situation! Just that people who have assumed Donald Trump will act in a completely different way than he has in the past usually end up with egg on their faces.

My two cents – AND THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO YOU CAN SKIP IT – is that any kind of post-election autocratic power grab would probably need decisive action from Trump within days, maybe even hours, of polls closing. That, in turn, would require Trump to absorb the narcissistic injury of a loss immediately, which he has been psychologically incapable of doing for the first 74 years of his life. Remember, he didn’t have to come to terms with the curb-stomping he received in the midterms right away. At first he could tell himself that Republicans holding onto the Senate (by the skin of their teeth when they should by all rights have swamped it, but whatever) represented a “split decision” and even a moral victory for him, so he could afford to go into, like, con man autopilot mode and try to charm “Nancy.” Everyone else adjusted to the Democratic victory the next day, and the next night, people got into the streets warning him not to try any bullshit. It was only after bigger districts finished counting and mail-in ballots were counted that it sunk in for him how badly he had lost and what the consequences would be. Then he soothed himself by shutting down the government indefinitely, which he seemed to feel was a display of his power – until “Nancy” pantsed and dog-walked him so he had to slink off and pretend it never happened.

If an election which was more or less as legitimate as the 2016 election (questionable but not Belarus) were held today, I think the most likely result would be a scenario a lot like the midterms: East Coast states make it clear which way the wind is blowing to most people, but Trump goes to bed at 3 AM thinking he’s close enough to fight it out in court. Over the next couple of weeks the mail-in ballots get opened, Miami and Philadelphia finish counting, and the real numbers start penetrating even his toxic bubble. Eventually someone reminds him that his armed Secret Service detail can escort him off the premises no matter what he does, so he loses what little nerve he has and skips Biden’s inauguration to go golfing at Mar a Lago. Or maybe Sochi.

But again, that is not a guarantee or even a prediction. The FACT is that anything can happen in the next three months, and Trump and his goons are putting a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone does happen. I spelled out my opinion of what seems most likely at the moment because it can get really easy to dwell on the worst-case scenario, which leads to fatalism and inaction. The least-bad scenario is actually more plausible than it’s been for the last few years, if we motivate ourselves to get it done. We can’t waste all our time and energy thinking about what he’s going to do, because we need to think about what we’re going to do. Voting is the core issue as always, but it helps to be more concrete.

If your state has early in-person voting, and if you can do so safely, vote in-person as soon as you can. Every state’s vote by mail infrastructure was going to be strained this year before these dirtbags decided to sabotage the postal service. If you can cast your vote early, you can help make the lines a little shorter on Election Day while leaving vote by mail resources for people who need them.

If you are a person who needs vote by mail resources for whatever reason, use them! Request your ballot now. Fill it out and return it as soon as you get it. You might not have to mail it back – your county may have drop boxes, or maybe someone can bring it to the local elections office for you. If that’s a safe option for you, please take advantage of it. If it’s not a safe option, mail your ballot back as soon as possible. You’re not helping anyone from the ICU.

If you and the people you live with are relatively low risk, or if you’ve survived COVID and your health care provider thinks you have immunity for the next few months, consider volunteering as a poll worker. Usually a lot of poll workers are retirees, who are by definition in a high-risk group. If enough of them decide to sit this year out – and that’s the smart, responsible choice – then polling places end up closing, which helps Republican voter suppression by making the lines longer. The more volunteers your area has, the more polls they’ll have open, which makes it that much easier to let people vote quickly and at a safe distance from each other.

This last one isn’t directly about voting, but it’s still pretty important: get used to pushing back on bullshit. There already is another effort to drive down turnout by inundating voters with disinformation. Last time we weren’t ready; this time, we have no excuse.

*Avoiding sources because this stuff is toxic. If you think I’m making this up because you haven’t seen it anywhere, good.

**Look, nobody*** is more sympathetic to The Men and their psychological frailties than me, but seriously, guys, some of you need to log the hell off for a few days.

***For certain non-traditional values of “nobody.”

#democracy #2020 election #authoritarianism

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

When the old guard goes out of its way to crush a new endeavor, you have to wonder what’s at stake. Nick Solheim and Saurabh Sharma of American Moment are young, devoted, and driven to “forge a cadre of aligned and dedicated young people to serve in government and public-policy organizations to support strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.” Why should an editor of National Review—a publication whose very reason for being is ostensibly to energize and guide the conservative movement—want to undermine and discredit this exciting new endeavor in the eyes of his movement conservative audience?

“If you believe the people behind the new organization American Moment,” writes Butler, “the main problem with the Swamp is simply that the wrong people have been in charge. In case you were wondering, they think they are the right people.” How dare they.

I know it’s hard but imagine an organization on the right actually trying to “identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all.”

Imagine if that organization is “not adherent to the morally bankrupt system that is American higher education, so college degrees, as well as prior political experience, are not requirements for admission.”

Imagine if it practices what it preaches, reaching out to find real talent outside of fancy schools or wealthy families: “generous funding is designed to make the fellowship livable with no external income, so young people of all economic means are encouraged to apply.”

It’s—it’s exactly what we need.

The implicit conceit here is that National Review, by contrast, has hardly any aspirations to influence public policy or install conservatives in positions of political power. Judging by the waning influence and failure of establishment conservatism over the last decade or two, we will not fault anyone for believing this to be true. But the clear implication of the snipe is that in the purity of their small-government piety, National Review simply wants to eliminate as many of those positions as possible. This is an impossibility, as well as a lie.

…

The real reason some in the old guard feel threatened by American Moment is not that Solheim and Sharma want to influence politics. It’s that they accuse Conservative, Inc.—that dependable stable of campaign consultants, op-ed writers, and think tank wonks who have dominated intellectual conservatism since the ’80s—of having institutionalized failure. Those accusations hit home.

…

In defense of this outrageous attack, David French said the quiet part out loud: “millions of Americans aren’t doing their best. Indeed, they’re barely trying.” Leave aside for a moment the pure blinkered prejudice of these astonishing statements—their blithe disregard for global economic trends, the ease with which they wave away the constant verbal abuse that poor white Americans receive from well-heeled Democrats and Republicans alike, their unwillingness to entertain the notion that any of this meaningfully contributes to the suffering of middle America. Bracket the evidence crashing down around downwardly-mobile Americans’ heads that their bipartisan elite has spent over twenty years putting their country at odds with their interests and at war with their identities. Even tabling all that, the fact remains: Americans—lots of them—are hurting. Badly. What do establishment conservatives propose to do about that?

The answer is: nothing. No, really. They tell us that government and political leaders can do nothing. “Government Can’t Heal Us, Tucker Carlson,” Kyle Smith insisted in National Review in 2019—as if Carlson’s now-famous monologue suggesting maybe Republicans should craft policies that, you know, actually help their own voters was some form of sacrilege. Smith went on to say that leaders who actually care about us ackshually can’t help us. “Leaders may want” good things “for us, but we should have no illusion that they can provide those things for us,” chided Jim Geraghty. Shut up and lose, in other words. As we said a few years ago, “[t]his anti-politics of principled loserdom is a secular form of homiletics, preaching unheard to the unwashed.”

So perhaps there is one thing that they have elected themselves to do: preach scornfully to demoralize and disparage Republican voters, hurrying up the day that so many have died, retired, or sunk into oblivion that their whole icky demographic has disappeared and been replaced. In other words, exactly what the woke-led Left is doing. But look, our superiors in Conservative, Inc. know they are better Christians and citizens than millions of their fellows, as they like to remind us all daily. For them, tough love for your actual citizen neighbors means telling them how they are responsible for everything bad in America, from racism to the spread of COVID-19.

…

This suicidal “messaging” hasn’t worked electorally in the past and it won’t work in the future. Unless the Republican party prioritizes the ruled classes—not the ruling ones—in its campaigning and policy proposals, we risk squandering the major inroads Trump made, ones that won the Republican Party an unearned second chance at survival. The result will be obsolescence and irrelevance, which are exactly what Conservative, Inc. seems to welcome in its heart. Republicans can keep gaslighting and abusing their core constituency—that “credulous boomer rube demo,” those “childless single men who masturbate to anime”—but it’s not going to end well for the party. Why not do something for the people you’re supposed to be championing, for a change? Why not fight to claw back their trust?

Perhaps because it’s just too late. Maybe Conservative, Inc. is simply too old, too tired, and too compromised to close its yawning credibility gap. In which case, the younger generation of conservative leaders like Sharma and Solheim are to be thanked, even celebrated, for stepping into the breach, and not a moment too soon. Here, on the front lines of restoring the Right to greatness in our time, we support their endeavor unreservedly. How tiresome that anyone who shows initiative of this kind is faced with vicious resistance from movement police lording shamelessly over decline. But if the old guard is really committed to its self-defeating obstructionism, so be it: we don’t need them anyway. In their hearts, conservatives know the new Right has already taken the lead.

…

Spare us the mumbling about William F. Buckley. That was a long time ago now. What Buckley accomplished was to bring a coalition together and lead it forward into battle. When National Review publishes dumb and vindictive attacks on American Moment, the Claremont Institute, and all those mendacious poor whites voting for The Donald, it reveals it is incapable of that task today. This is no longer about “having the debate” or hosting various viewpoints. This is a rudderless ship.

At first, we gave our detractors the benefit of the doubt—these are trying times, and people disagree about what is to be done. But it’s been five long years, and it is still not clear where they stand. It does not matter whose fault it is that NR doesn’t even seem to understand or be able to explain to its readers where the fault lines on the Right now are. We hope they eventually figure it out. But the upshot is this: Conservative, Inc. is no longer the gatekeeper or standard of anything, and everyone knows it. This American Moment has passed them by. If they remain alarmed and confused about the outlines of the consistent, coherent popular agenda the energetic young new Right is proposing and developing—if they continue to blindly oppose it—well, let the dead bury the dead.

#claremont institute #read the whole thing

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

IT'S CHARISMA, 372

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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badsext · 4 years

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Kid Klaus’ Christmas

The Concept: Hazel and Cha Cha go back earlier in time (before Five even learns about the apocalypse) to storm the Hargreeves mansion and take him out. They bungle it again…

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, drug use, underage drinking, violence. —————————– Fourteen year old Klaus wakes up from another night of barely sleeping. He listens for the others. Nothing. So he reaches under the mattress for the bag of weed he’s been hiding from Mom. He stuffs a towel under the door, rolls a sloppy joint and lights it, takes a few drags. It is strange to be the first one up, he thinks. But he just shrugs it off and pops a new mixed tape into his Walkman, one he made for himself with songs from The Smiths, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, songs of aching and longing.

Klaus lays back down, pulls the headphones over his ears and closes his eyes to enjoy his moment of peace before morning drills. Grace always knocks. He makes sure the volume is just low enough to be able to hear it. He smokes until the joint is so small it burns his fingertips, hides the evidence and sprays some cologne he stole from Diego. Klaus’ stomach is rumbling at this point, so he gets dressed in his uniform and ventures out of his room to see if breakfast is ready.

All the bedroom doors are open. The hallway is empty. The kitchen is empty. “Mom?…Pogo?” Klaus snatches a banana to eat while he continues to look for signs of life. How early is it exactly and where did everybody go, he wonders. He goes into the parlor. Mom has decorated - a tasteful Douglas Fir and literal boughs of holly. Funny how little they actually celebrate, but it’s Christmas Eve and at least the place looks the part. Klaus checks the old reliable grandfather clock for the time, but becomes deeply distracted by his reflection in the glass.

Something suddenly catches his eye. Moving figures in the courtyard change the shape of the light streaming through the adjacent windows. A twinge of fear sends Klaus to hide behind a column and peer through the curtains to see who it is. If he did miss drills, that probably means more hours locked in the mausoleum. To his surprise, there are two suited masked figures with guns standing in the snow. Maybe this is a test.

Hargreeves believes that guns are a crutch, especially for those with powers. The only gun in the house is Reggie’s old big game hunting rifle in the garage, which is too far away to be of use at the moment. Klaus needs a plan, but first he needs to hide, so he heads for the attic, his favorite hiding spot. Reggie wouldn’t be caught dead up there among the dust bunnies and old junk - that was the servant’s domain, so it was a good place to escape the old man’s torment for a while. The floorboards in the mansion make creaky music in certain spots, but Klaus has them memorized so he could avoid them when sneaking out at night.

From the attic with his ear to the floor, he can hear the intruders. “This place looks empty. It’s Christmas, right? I thought the kid was going to be here.”

“Well, look around. If we don’t find him maybe we can get a clue or something. Climbing that wall was a real bitch. I’m not leaving empty handed.”

“Let’s split up. Check all the rooms. We can’t fuck it up like last time.”

Last time? Who are these people and which kid are they looking for? Am I just paranoid?, Klaus considers the fact that he’s still pretty stoned. But if this is real, as the apparent ‘man of the house,’ he would need to step up. Scared, angry, demoralized…Klaus is all of these things, but he loves every one of his siblings and would be damed if he’d let a couple of masked assholes hurt even a hair on their heads. He determines that whatever he does, Reginald is likely to throw him in the mausoleum for more ‘conditioning,’ so he might as well just go for it.

Klaus takes some old drawing paper and a charcoal pencil from an unmarked box. Here he finds drawings, elicit ones of Hargreeves at his worst. Some are funny, some are just accurate. Maybe he is not the only one using the attic to escape. He regains his focus and begins sketching out a map of the mansion. If they are searching the bedrooms, he’d need to start at the other end of the mansion setting traps. They have been taught this skill, though Klaus has spent many of these lessons high, as he’s recently discovered how it provides some relief from his terrible power. He’d have to get creative. He looks around and spots Luther’s old dumbbells that are no doubt too light for him now. Maybe he could wait from above and drop them on these fools cartoon anvil style. He reaches for one and struggles to lift it, but it won’t budge. Nope. Okay, what else do we have up here…

He locates some darts, sharp ones that Hargreeves once made them throw at each other for practice. When they asked why they couldn’t use targets, Hargreeves insisted that they needed to feel a sense of urgency or it was a waste of everyone’s time. When the children hesitated, Hargreeves threatened them with punishment, as if it wasn’t punishment enough. Grace provided first aid for the resulting wounds. It was a miracle nobody lost an eye. Klaus stuffs several of the darts into his pockets.

Diego brings his knives any time he leaves the house, so Klaus wouldn’t have access to any of those, but the kitchen is full of knives and other sharp and heavy things. Allison has a flat iron in the bathroom that could come in handy. He recalls having experimented with it on his naturally curly hair. He could hear the chime of the clock in the distance. It was time to get serious. He collects some rope, super glue, and a flask he’d stashed up there for emergencies. It’s lighter than he remembers. Klaus suspects he’s not the only one using liquid courage. It is another reminder that he’s not the only kid suffering at the hands of his father. Whoever those goons downstairs are after would be counting on him. He hardens his resolve and climbs down the ladder to execute his plan.

In the kitchen Klaus rigs a mixing bowl full of every knife, blade, scissor, corkscrew, basically anything sharp and a blunt instrument or two above the door with the hope that something is bound to fall at the perfect angle to do some damage. It is hard not to make noise, but the kitchen is one floor and several rooms away from the bedrooms where the villains are searching. Klaus oils the floor as he exits and moves onto the parlor.

He finds a few packs of replacement violin strings on Vanya’s music stand. He ties them together between the columns to create a zigzag pattern. If it does’t trip them up at least it will slow them down, he figures. He hears them arguing in the distance followed by a loud crash and a chorus of metal clangs. 'Yes!’ Klaus celebrates silently with a little wink to the taxidermied owl on the wall.

“Now we know you’re here setting your cute little traps! We’re gonna get you, you little bastard!”

Klaus hurries up the stairs to the bathroom. He snatches Allison’s flat iron and applies some eyeliner, a little war paint, while he waits for the iron to heat up to 450 degrees. He brings the hot iron to Reginald’s study. Klaus removes the millionaire’s garish portrait to reveal a safe, a safe to which he knows the combination and has for months. He’s never taken anything, for that there would be hell to pay. He just opens it from time to time, touching the objects inside for the personal satisfaction. He sticks the hot iron inside, hides the cord and leaves it wide open. Then he stands at the base of the stairs. “I’m right here. Don’t you two have guns?”

Klaus dodges a barrage of bullets that miss as the bumbling assassins trip through his maze of wires. The chase is on. Klaus runs through the study and out through the other side, squeezing a generous layer of super glue on the door knob and closing the door behind him. The bad guys enter the study. “Hey look at that,” the big one sees the open safe.

“There’s nothing in there. Why would they leave an open safe with something in it? I’m sure the little shit took everything of value,” the short one replies.

“No, there’s something in there,” he insists, reaching blindly inside and grabbing the hot styling tool. He screams, shaking his burnt hand.

“You’re an idiot,” the short one goes for the door. Her hand becomes stuck. She is sure to lose some skin removing it.

By this time, Klaus has called the police and is waiting in the foyer. He goes to sit and is startled by sudden sharp pains in his thighs and buttocks. He remembers the darts in his pockets. The villains stumble down the stairs. Their masks are gone and it’s clear they have taken a beating. Each of them have handkerchiefs wrapped around their dominant hands, now barely able to hold their guns. This is the first time they have seen each other close up and face to face. Klaus is nervous and frightened.

“Hazel, is this the kid? I don’t even think this is the right kid.”

“Jesus, Cha Cha, I don’t know. Whoever he is I’m gonna kill him.”

A spark of recognition comes over Cha Cha’s face. “This is the kid - the guy in the towel we kidnapped…the junkie with a choking kink. Look at that face and add fifteen years.”

“Holy fuck. You’re right. Grab him. I want to make an example of this one.”

Klaus starts throwing darts as they approach. Police lights flash outside. It is too late to escape now. They are surrounded on all sides. Klaus has the satisfaction of watching them get taken away in handcuffs. Cha Cha’s words made no sense…well, most of them. Klaus is pulled aside for questioning. They give him a blanket and a glass of water while they take his statement. When Hargreeves and the rest of the clan return home, the police turn their questions to Hargreeves. Klaus overhears the police being offered and accepting money for their silence. The kids look at Klaus incredulously, too afraid to say anything in front of their father. Diego comes up to Klaus. “I tried to wake you up, but Dad said we needed to leave you behind…I was going to say you missed a wild mission today, but it looks like you had one of your own…That’s pretty cool how you managed to capture those two. Merry Christmas, man.”

“Merry Christmas.”

@bubblyani @helena-way07 @writingthosedaydreams @moorehollandplz @chipster-21 @bi-satanist @therealzoeyael @siriuslynore @yeetskeetbuddy @renegadesheehan @chokemerobert @fandomaddicted123 @dandycandy75 @zoemassingale @cottagecompanion @klaushollandyoung @klaushargreeves420 @dopeybubbles @zombiedixon89 @onedaysoonyoullsee @feral-cat-lady @eightpolygonidiots @vinawyatt

#TUA fanfic #klaus hargreeves imagine #klaus christmas #tua imagine #tua christmas #klaus hargreeves #diego hargreeves #the umbrella academy series #home alone homage #klaus home alone

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gjjokok · 3 years

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01 - December 20, 2020

Recently I’ve just been feeling so weird about the relationship and kind of detached in a way? We’ve had some facetime calls recently where I feel like I’m just waiting for it to end so I can go back to doing literally nothing. Even when he looked excited to see me I just didn’t feel much. This hasn’t exactly been a long term thing, only the past month or so really. But it just feels kind of unfair to feel like this and act like everything is ok? Recently it’s felt more and more weird to tell him I love him and to call him ‘babe’ and stuff like that because it feels fake and like kind of mean?

Over the past 3 days of constantly thinking about this and nothing else, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that this just isn’t what I want. At least not at this point in my life. I have some sort of weird fascination with the first steps in a relationship where you barely know each other and you’re excited when you see you have a text from them and when you’re scared to hold their hand while watching a movie. And it’s been really like demoralizing recently to realize that, if I am with him for the rest of my life as I thought it would be and as we’ve discussed, I’ll never have that again. I think that I want what we have right now in 5-10 years, but not right now when I’m only 23 and I barely feel like I know who I am.

I haven’t really been single for more than a few months at a time in over 6 years so it feels like my personality has always been whatever I want it to be to fit into what my significant other wants. I mainly had this discovery when my roommate and I were talking about what our interests are...and I just have like no interests. I’ve gotten into reading recently which has been nice, and I like to workout (which can’t really happen due to COVID), and I like playing video games. But I just want to be able to discover what I like and what I’m interested in on my own. I really believe that everyone has things that they are interested in that makes everyone interesting, even if they themselves think they are boring, and I just feel like I haven’t found that and won’t be able to in this relationship. It makes me feel like an asshole saying this though because I know that our of anyone in the world he would encourage me to find new interests and would be excited when I tell him about something new I like. The problem in it is that I know that he would want to be included in it. Like when I started reading, he thought it was cool but was immediately like “Ooh we should choose a book and do a book club together!” and like that’s such a cute idea, but I just don’t want to do that. I just want to have interests that are mine. It’s not even unreasonable for him to want to be included in my interests, obviously. And I know that if I just told him like “Hey I actually just kind of want reading to be my thing I do by myself when I need alone time” he would be fully receptive to that. So then like what am I even worried about? Or what do I not like about the current situation? Maybe just the idea that it feels like there’s this person in my life that I have to just talk to about everything in my life and everything new in my life, since we are in a relationship, and have been in a relationship for years, and always discuss our future together with kids and pets and etc. On top of being a generally independent person, even when I’m in a relationship, I think I just really want to be alone in life at least for some time.

One thing that scares me most, though, is that I’ve had these exact thoughts in the past. When I broke up with him at the beginning of last summer when I was taking summer school, I felt like I just wanted to be alone for a while and I thought that our relationship was just boring. Actually, right after writing that I realized that I developed a crush for a new guy in my program before I had even broke up with my bf, so maybe I was just bored of my bf and not really wanting to be in a new relationship? Anyways, after I had been single for about 4 months, I went into this depression (not actually a depression because I dont have depression, but I literally couldnt listen to happy music and didnt smile for 2 weeks) because I missed him so much and felt like I made such a huge mistake. When he agreed we could talk and we got back together again, I felt so happy and I felt like I had wronged the biggest regret I had. But now, a little over a year after we got back together, I feel like I need out again. Maybe this is just a momentary feeling that I’m having and I need to just wait for it to go away? But at the same time, I think it’s a pretty bad sign that I’m having these feelings at all, and that I’m feeling them so much I have resorted to having to write them down.

I’ve had these thoughts in the past too, a couple months ago. We were having issues and miscommunications and we seemed mad at eachother and sad at the situation we were in. I even said to my friend before I had a discussion with him about it “I feel like I just don’t even care how we turn out. I think if we broke up this afternoon I wouldn’t feel anything at all except some relief.” Later that afternoon him and I spoke and I felt so much better and felt like i fell in love with him again, but now here we are, and I’m avoiding answering his texts because I feel guilty using emojis and telling him I love him when I’m feeling like this inside. Maybe these massive mood swings are a result of the fact that I dont know myself and don’t know what I want? I want my independence and see us arguing as a reason to break up with him, then we have a discussion and I get scared at the thought of losing him and feel crazy for ever wanting to break up with him.

In the end, I’m not sure what I want to do about this. I’m thinking that us taking a break for a week or so might be a good idea, and then at the end of the week I can evaluate if I missed his presence or if I was happy to be alone (not gonna lie, typing that out excited me - it made me kind of excited to think about a week where I don’t have to text him). But, its Christmas in 5 days and our anniversary is on January 4th, so there are multiple occasions in the near future that would kind of, idk, be very noticeable if we didnt talk to eachother. Again, I dont think I would be too disappointed if we didnt talk on Christmas or whatever, but I know he would. But, like I’ve said, just continuing as if everything’s normal feels very disingenuous and guilty. How am I going to be able to be with him on our anniversary and tell him I love him when I’m just thinking about us breaking up the whole time?

This was far more rambly than I meant it to be, but I think it’s very representative of the fact that I have no idea what I want or how I really feel. I can conclude, though, that writing this definitely didn’t lessen my feelings of wanting independence and to be alone.

#diary

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emperor-of-blood · 5 years

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Aight so I guess I’m doing a session review?/Prediction?/Analysis of how I think @neonwolfeh session might go.

So starting this off with the premise:

It’s a normal session with no specific prototyping fuckery or trolls or whatever. and I got some brief character summaries:

Ross, Heir of Doom: Ross is a jaded, angry guy who just wants to have -One Good Daytm-.

Luca, Rogue of Life: Pretty upbeat, tries to make the best of every situation (and does not succeed).

Kase, Seer of Rage: Fuckin edgelord, thats p much it. Full of hate and will say slurs.

Abby, Witch of Hope: Basically a shoujo anime protagonist, awkward and peppy and sweet.

Odin, Prince of Time: Embodiment of nervousness and jumpiness. This guy needs a nap and a hug.

Niko, Knight of Space: Like Dave Strider if he was as suave as 2012 fanon interpretations said he is.

And now for my takes on them:

So starting off my initial impressions of the session are complete failure, mostly based on one thing. Odin, the Time player. While he sounds decent enough of a guy you have to understand the reason that every session requires a Space and Time player to succeed. Technically speaking, only a Space player is needed to overcome the wall of creating a new universe. The Time player is needed because the game is just that hard. The image I get of Odin is that he won’t be actually doing much Time traveling, likely too weak-minded to believe that he could pull things off. A lot of pressure would be resting on his shoulders and he needs to answer. As I said in my Patrick Star analysis, I believe that he’s going to be wasting a lot of Time. For different reasons here though, he’s still destined to procrastinate. That is likely going to get people in his session killed. Sburb is hard and everyone involved needs to be doing their part to beat the game.

My analysis doesn’t end with that though. We still have 5 other players to throw into the mix! Moving onto I’d like to talk about the cool cat Niko, the Knight of Space. So inherently here we have a contradictory classpect. The Knight is a protector, in their session they are supposed to cooperate with their Space player to breed The Frogtm. They are meant to be a companion. The Space class is one of solitude, barring their frog breeding partner. Space is a vast domain and both Jade and Kanaya spent most of their time alone. It’s one of their themes. They spend time worried about the bigger picture that with the smaller problems that their teammates deal with. Likely, they are very alone. And that makes me wonder, how much of the “Cool Guy” is real and how much of it is, well, him being lonely? Or a defense mechanism because of that? Keep yourself distant and aloof because that’s where you’re going to end up anyways. No reason for people to get hurt, sort of deal.

Next I wanna talk about Luca, the Rogue of Life. I imagine her as the kind of person who is peppy to the point that it makes people uncomfortable. Trying to bring Life happiness to all of her friends by being a never ending source of sunshine. Which is all well and good, these types of people are well liked and a party falling into the traps of depression is likely to fail. That being said, I can’t help but believe that her failures come from her unending sunshine. Sometimes people just need to be sad. Life has it’s ups and down and that’s natural. People probably feel exhausted around her, much to her dismay. You must go down to rise back up. I feel like she’s probably Odin’s self proclaimed best friend and also a main source of stress for him. “You can do it!” is encouragement (He probably sees it as empty/naive), not useful advice. Her being unable to see that has got to be one of her personal challenges. She’s not responsible for rewriting everyone’s lives or fixing their problems. Those are not hurdles for her to overcome. I feel like every Rogue has some weird interaction with their aspect. As one who steals Life/steals from Life I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally. She ain’t sucking out peoples souls. I’d say she maybe has an aura of demoralization for her enemies, kind of like a mental attack? Or it could be something more direct like absorbing Life essence through contact or something. Like a magic drain attack similar to the androids from DBZ or some equivalent. The stealing from Life is maybe... just a literal item teleportation ability? Like an actual Thief Rogue. Beyond that, she can probably bring people back to life once just like every other Life player ever.

Ross the Heir of Doom is, well, kind of a loser. but he doesn’t have to be. His main challenge is going to be realizing that his “One good daytm” isn’t just going to randomly show up. It’s something you have to work for. Once he does, he’ll probably be fine. Weirdly enough the fucking Doom player is likely the most competent out of everyone, which is really funny imo. His powers are uh. Well. One who inherits Doom/is protected by Doom. I’m shooting in the dark here despite there being a canon Heir of Doom. I’d say he maybe influences enemies to fight each other? At least early on during the passive protection phase. Later on once he awakens his powers he might be able to suck “Bad vibes” into himself, weakening his enemies and strengthening himself. That might be leeching into Thief territory but I wouldn’t know what else to say here honestly. Maybe he can fix things? Inheriting the Doom of something and taking the damage into himself? It’s up for debate.

Moving on to Kase, Seer of Rage. The dude’s probably a complete asshole. The kind that you question why you’re even friends with them. Probably racist but also hates people in general and claims that it’s OK because of that. Probably gets along really well with animals because of that too. He’s probably feeding into Odin’s insecurities, which, might actually be helping him stay until he’s really ready to time travel. But that’s not Kase’s intention (Ask him about it afterwards and he’ll claim otherwise forever.). He just want’s to be a dick and thinks being edgy or ironic is cool. As on who understands Rage he’s likely well aware that it can be useful in the right scenarios. Maybe he lets himself get taken by the berserker Rage at just the right moment and come back down afterwards. But he hasn’t really come down. You can’t just have a heart filled with Rage and hate and be a normal person the rest of the time. He can probably tell when it’s time for others to let loose as well. But likely has trouble convincing them.

Kase and Ross probably get along really well.

Finally, we have Abby, the Witch of Hope. Honestly? She sounds really basic. She’s gotta be the most “Normal” person out of the bunch. Which, when your surrounded by weirdos, is a good thing. Everyone needs someone sane to fall back on and that’s definitely her. I imagine that’s how she manipulates Hope, just giving people some reference, some piece of mind, that they haven’t gone off the deep end. Or maybe that the have and need to rethink things. She’s probably the one that’ll help Odin figure his shit out. Maybe she drafts up a plan of events he should change. Then in the new timeline he seeks out her help again and repeats this until he can do things himself. While I don’t see her as the leader of the party, she is likely the anchor. She also probably will play a bog role in everyone else figuring out their shit too. Telling Ross to shut the fuck up, Kase to man up and do something, Luca to do something productive, Niko to call her when he the loneliness starts getting to him, just to talk. Her challenges likely revolve around realizing how important she is. After all, she’s just a shoujo protag, what can she do? Everyone is out there killing monsters or solving puzzles or hacking their alchemists. Ans she’s just a plain Jane. But that’s what makes her special. Her powers are probably basic hope lasers and maybe being good at giving speeches.

So with that out of the way how would the actual session go? Well, I think there’s a lot of fighting. I imagine Kase wants to be the leader being the “Only one capable of it” and he’s not exactly wrong. But he’s also insufferable. So it doesn’t matter that he’s competent because nobody wants to listen to him. The only other options are Luca who everyone also likely can’t deal with for extended periods of time for previously stated reasons; or Niko, who is likely to busy with their own shit to also manage the party. So I think everyone has to meet up and decide that it’s probably best for Kase to be leader and that everyone should just agree to follow him and give him some advice where they can. Kase is probably actually competent. He’s likely a bad leader but an even worse follower. I can imagine him just ignoring anyone else as the leader and going off to do his own thing and fucking shit up. With him as the leader, not causing trouble and everyone else in a kind of, secret alliance I guess, the key players are going to be Odin and Abby. Odin needs to be able to fill his role or everyone dies. Simple as that. Abby needs to a) help him figure his shit out if he can’t on his own. And b) help ground everyone else (So they can solve their problems) and keep some semblance of sanity. If they can, there’s a solid shot at victory. If Odin dies before he can Time travel, well, I guess that’s that. There’s a lot of personal challenges to overcome based on a character’s classpect and I think it really comes down to, are these people/characters capable of growth?

Hopefully the way I viewed the characters was how you wanted but with so little to go on I might have misinterpreted somethings. Either way this was fun!

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toonstarterz · 5 years

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BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #165

Summer shenanigans are a staple of the manga and anime work, though how much you can expect the clichés to actually happen depends on how much effort you’re willing to put into making it a reality. Fact is, summer is never as fantastical or memorable as we’d like to dream. You only get three(in Japan) high school summers in one lifetime. But as they say, it’s who you spend it with, not what, that will stick around with you.

Chapter 165: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Enjoy My Last High School Summer Break

Hey, if Futaki wants to be a professional gamer girl (minus the bathwater), she’s gotta stay on top of the new releases.

Mother always knows. Always.

There’s a fine line between persuading and threatening, Katou. Just saying.

I can already see the (not totally implausible) jokes about Mako and Yoshida secretly meeting to hook up. Even though that’s 99% not what will happen, Mako’s vagueness is something to note. The way I see it, Mako doesn’t want Yuri to feel left out, so she’s downplaying the “fun” she’ll be having with Yoshida.

Or Nico Tanigawa are blatantly ship-teasing. Either or.

Nemo’s got a pretty sweet LINE avatar.

Even through her messages, Nemo is still passive-aggressive, like she expects Tomoko won’t listen to her unless she’s demanding in her tone, exclamation points and all. She still gots a way to go to meet Katou’s level of intimidation, however.

Summer school?

Oh, the beach.

The greyscale nature of the manga medium makes this beach look a lot prettier than it probably is. Those delightful memories involving washed-up stingrays sure doesn’t help.

I’m not entirely certain just how studious Yuri is as a student, but I imagine she’s playing up the “all work, no play” angle just to free herself from Nemo.

Nemo makes a fair point. Getting too cooped up indoors where it’s comfortable can make it difficult to study, especially when you're surrounded by distractions. A change of scenery can clear your head and make it easier to retain information.

Of course, that sort of environmental shift doesn’t work for everyone. Someone like Nemo may appreciate the summery atmosphere, but a girl like Yuri would get agitated by the heat and humidity. Having external stimuli is ideal if you’re the type who operates better when your attention is dispersed. But for those that need to be focused on a single task to complete, it can be quite difficult.

Next time on Mythbusters...

But in all seriousness, I would like to see if there have been any real-life studies on certain sounds–waves in this case–improving one’s ability to concentrate and overall performance. My amateurish theory is that a lot of that “improvement” is a result of the placebo effect, or that there are otherwise too many extraneous factors to make a clear correlation.

In that respect, I think Yuri and Nemo’s arguments are both valid.

A recent trend I’ve been noticing with Yuri is that she looks to Tomoko for validation. She acknowledges that they’re not the same, but having Tomoko back her up probably makes her feel more confident in her opinions, if for nothing more than having an equal-to-majority rule.

Of course, when Tomoko does disagree with her, that’s when Yuri has to either stubbornly stick to her guns, or honestly reassess herself. And thanks to the beauty of character development, the latter’s been happening more at a healthy pace.

OUCH.

It pains me to see Okada call out Yuri like that.

It pains me even more that you can’t really call out Okada for it, either.

Introverts are generally self-conscious about the very traits they embody, even when it’s that’s their comfort zone. Much like how an otaku will get uncomfortable when non-otakus hype them up. Sure, Okada probably meant it as a compliment when she called Yuri talkative, but it’s based on the idea that Yuri’s quiet nature was an incorrect assumption, which can feel kind of demoralizing.

It’s not an easy thing to address, and I’m curious to see how they’ll work through it going forward.

Quick, someone go update their Wiki pages!.

Reality ensues. All those amazing anime-esque summer plans can be deterred by something as simple as unreliable weather.

Although, having to make your own wave sounds kind of defeats the purpose of being there, doesn’t it, Nemo?

Now playing...”Eroge BGM” Playlist.

Set on autoplay.

I’m glad that no one’s complaining about translating this text, cause let’s get real. The amount of redraws that would take is ridiculous, especially for an unofficial translation.

If you think that I’m going to screencap every image of Yuri smiling just so we can bask in her cuteness...

You’d be absolutely correct.

Oooh man, this is arguably worse than calling out the quiet kid as “talkative”. At least during that time, it could pass as just an innocent observation. But being able to smile is one of those things they supposedly instill in you during primary school. Bringing it up like that suggests that Yuri is a child who purposely tries to hide her smiles. Again, Okada meant no harm, obviously, but if they’re going to push for an OkadaxYuri friendship, there’s going to be a lot of hoops to go through.

Tomoko may have opened her mind up more about the negative stereotypes about “normies”, but the positive stereotypes still persist. In this case, it’s the idea that her more sociable peers would enjoy school simply because they can hang out with their friends. Little did she know, that’s often not the case...

PINEAPPLE-CHAN DEVELOPMENT, BABY!

Ahem, pardon my outburst, but I’ve got a lot to say about this. We’ve known for a long time now that Okada is part of the “semi-in-crowd”, and it was easy to assume that all her socializing–going to karaoke for example–were just things she always enjoyed.

But what if it wasn’t. From what Okada’s implying, she sometimes ends up hanging out with people that she would rather not. Perhaps its a friend-of-a-friend type of struggle, where she hangs with people she doesn’t really like out of politeness for a mutual friend. And even if Okada is harboring a few dark thoughts, there’s plenty of reasons to not like going to school, as she said. As someone who’s relatively extroverted, having to work through the more solitary parts of school like studying can be especially difficult.

In short, hidden depths are great.

I can’t really blame you, Tomoko. When you secretly put people on a pedestal like that, it’s hard to acknowledge their human sides that show how they struggle with everyday problems just like anyone else. Even the most well-adjusted of people have their share of frustrations.

This was totally Nemo’s plan all along.

All these panel shots of Yuri off to the side while everyone else gallivants fills me with those paternal feelings of a father wanting their daughter to make friends. It goes against everything I know about Yuri’s character, but I guess you shouldn’t underestimate the power of moe.

This is a pretty good example of the line that separates Tomoko and Yuri. They have very similar perspectives, but it’s Tomoko’s status as an introverted extrovert that allows her to go in the ocean, while Yuri’s extroverted introvert personality lets her stay on the sidelines.

Poor Beach-kun is not having a good day.

So even the others are noticing how Tomoko is like Yuri’s social floatation device.

Another person probably would’ve taken the sentimental route, going on about “saving these precious memories” or “I want you to experience this with us”. The kind of things Yuu-chan would say.

Thing is, Tomoko would get too embarrassed saying that touching crap, so she has to go the indirect route instead. Using pseudo-logic so she doesn’t have to exaggerate her emotions (which are there, just more reserved).

Either way, it still sounds vaguely creepy coming from her.

Thankfully, it actually works here because Yuri has trouble articulating her emotions, too. Tomoko probably knows subconsciously that touching crap doesn’t work on Yuri, so it makes a great deal of sense that Yuri would be more responsive to dumb logic. Especially if it’s from her loveably dumb friend.

I can get used to Tomoko and Yuri unknowingly showing Nemo up.

Off in the distance...

“Getting tangled up in gross seaweed so you can spread your own grossness to other girls? Gross!”

Okay, so I know Tomoko is probably just genuinely startled by what's happening here, but you can’t tell me that her face doesn’t scream, “NOW’S MY CHANCE FOR A GROPIN’!”

lewd.

Okay, let’s be honest. I’ve watched enough anime to know that shots like this are easy fodder for fanservice. Conveniently transparent wet uniforms, amirite? And to be frank, I don’t think the mangakas are totally playing the innocent game. Sure, it’s not as blatantly objectifying as a lot of other series tend to do in scenes like this, but the posing of the girls and angle of the camera just seems too opportune to be anything but deliberate. Be careful when walking that fine line, Nico Tanigawa.

On a more positive note, I’m glad Tomoko’s first instinct was just to help them up. Though heaven knows she’s gonna milk this for all it’s worth back home.

Oh, Yuri and your accountability issues.

When life gives you lemons...you know the rest.

The best part about watching the crazy shenanigans you see in anime is that you can omit all the boring and troublesome real-life consequences. So yeah, accidentally getting splashed by beach water may seem fun in the moment, but the annoyance of having to wash your clothes afterward just isn’t worth it.

Sometimes, summer just won’t give you a break.

Yes. Yes, you did.

Ignoring Tomoko’s embarrassed (or lewd–it’s kind of interchangeable) expression, this is probably the most wholesome summer chapter is the series’ run. That’s not to say that the chapter is “unrealistic” in any way. Sure, the end shot of all four of them reeks of 4-girl slice-of-life moe, but it actually deconstructs it a little. Instead of a fun memory, the memory itself is decidedly bothersome and more trouble than it’s worth, but there’s a sense of enjoyment to be gained from that. As Tomoko once implied, doing stupid, embarrassing things isn’t so bad when you can share in the experience. There’s a reason for the saying, “A few years from now, we’re gonna laugh at this,” after all.

It may be Tomoko’s final summer in high school, but it will most certainly be her fondest.

#watamote #watamote review #chapter 165 #no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular!#tomoko kuroki #asuka katou #yuri tamura #mako tanaka #hina nemoto #akane okada #review

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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

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BERNIE 2020

This time last year, everyone who announced they were running for the Democratic nomination was running using chunks of Bernie Sanders' 2016 platform. Everyone supported a $15 minimum wage and Medicare-For-All. It was then announced that the health insurance industry was going to go all out in terms of the money they were going to spend against a single-payer system, and as the months went on, not only did all those people walk back their support, or attribute the phrase "Medicare For All" to their own plans which were not that, more people announced they were running, who never claimed any of these beliefs. Many candidates have dropped out, many more have joined. While once it seemed like everyone was claiming Bernie's policies, but offering a more diverse slate of identities, now everyone is running to the right of him, with more and more people joining to be even farther right still.

Honestly, the very fact that Bernie has not caved, when everyone else did, in the wake of all the money which is very clearly stacked against him, should put you in his corner, if you believe that integrity matters in the slightest. What's going to drive me insane is that it feels like the forces arrayed against him are specifically AGAINST integrity, the very idea that someone cannot be bought. I am aware my ideas might seem like "conspiracy theories," but it's all so out in the open that it genuinely feels more like terrorism. Anti-abortion activists killed Dr. George Tiller, and now less people receive the medical training to perform the procedures he performed. What we are witnessing now is that money will be spent to kill your career, if you want to get money out of politics. A few months ago I was insisting no one under forty was going to vote for Joe Biden. Now, to take his role in the race, of "old white man with right-wing politics who is ostensibly electable in terms of being able to win over voters who are undecided between Democrats and Republicans despite the fact that no one likes him" is Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg is, somehow, worse than Joe Biden; arguably, perhaps even probably, worse than Donald Trump. Like Biden, there's a long history of racism and sexism in terms of policy he has pushed and things he has said. Michael Bloomberg spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2004, in support of George W. Bush, at the height of the Iraq war. He also supported stop and frisk in New York City, and changed the laws so he could run for a third term as mayor: Everyone worried about Trump declaring himself "president for life" and not retiring quietly should look to Bloomberg's example of how plutocrats bend the rules in their favor. I don't believe he would win an election, he is a truly sub-John-Kerry proposition. However, it is arguable Bloomberg would be a worse president than Donald Trump, able to impose right-wing policies without any of the opposition Trump enjoys. That opposition, as it is, feels pretty nominal, and the fact that Democrats seem to prefer Bloomberg be the nominee over Sanders points to why. It feels like the idea of insisting people vote for Bloomberg for the sake of "beating Trump" is psychological warfare, not a "compromise" but intentionally designed to degrade and demoralize not just "the left" but anyone with any sort of historical understanding or basic opposition to right-wing hegemony. I will not vote for Michael Bloomberg in a general election. If offered the false choice between Bloomberg and Donald Trump, two Republican plutocrats, we should give up on the idea that democracy exists and all become full-on anarchists. It is in both the Democratic party's interest, and my own personal psychology, to avoid making me feel this way about the assorted other candidates running. I basically avoid learning too much about Pete Buttegieg, though I already resent that I know how to pronounce his last name. I truly hope he goes away forever. Elizabeth Warren would've been, at one point, an "acceptable compromise" between the left and more moderate wings of the party, who I would be happy to support, but her campaign is now being run by people interested in the paradigm of degrading the left and it's pretty depressing to think that she has no interest in actually passing Medicare-for-all or any of the other large, sweeping changes this country sorely needs. I think all these people, Bloomberg and Biden especially, would lose an election. Regardless of my vote, I believe that Bernie Sanders is the only person who can win, although perhaps he can only win if the entire media apparatus is not violently opposed to his campaign. To his credit, he is not actually publicizing this conspiracy for the sake of his campaign. He did so in 2016, when he was running against Hillary Clinton. It is considered "divisive" to do so. Sanders instead is basing his campaign on how many people his policies would help, how painful our current society is, how much pain there is in our society. I feel like I have made it obvious, in other places, how this includes me. I've written often about being poor, and having limited options in this society, despite my assorted privileges. What's funny is that I feel like something I have in common with Sanders, besides our Jewish heritage, is a disinterest in talking about ourselves. I don't want to say "My life is pathetic, I am poor, and voting for Bernie would help me out." And Bernie doesn't want to say "All these bastards are arrayed against me, vote for me so they can lose power and we can start to have a functioning democracy." So it's my role to say what Bernie won't. There are people who think talking about Sanders, and his obvious integrity contrasted with other politicians, is akin to believing in a cult of personality. I don't want to accuse everyone of participating in acts of projection, but what's interesting is I think centrists largely believe that every politician has integrity. That's why they don't think it matters when someone takes high-paying gigs giving speeches, or whatever. There isn't the same understanding of power acting to protect itself by maintaining a status quo. Without this basic belief in what integrity is, the whole fact of Sanders' popularity seems suspect. There are pundits who describe the fact that Sanders has large crowds of passionate supporters as in itself Trumpian, whereas Bloomberg and Biden, with their histories of racism, sexism, mental decline, lying, and support for the rich, actually manifest the parts of Trump's being that are the problem. Bernie Sanders is real, he's genuinely what every person who has professed liberal opinions over the past thirty-odd years claims to be. The people who hate him are not all political operatives, but they're people who think like those operatives do, fake as hell smiling backstabbers who are allergic to the real. There are huge contradictions between the values they claim to have and how they act, and so they are unable to see the lies of the politicians they support. However, the rest of us, the vast majority of society, see through all of it, and recognize Bernie Sanders as being genuine. This is why Bernie Sanders can win, and why he should win, and why he'll be able to be a good president once in office. He's right, when everyone else for the past forty years has been wrong. Bernie Sanders is right because he's the only person who is not lying to themselves, and that gives him an enormous advantage in terms of his basic relationship to reality.

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vradika · 4 years

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Master!Anakin Padawan!ObiWan

Just a little warning, my english is not as good as I would like it to be so please bear with it, thanks! This short writing has been inspired by MarchofBirds and their fic Loosen Up wich is highly recommendable.

Summary: initiate Obi Wan has little confidence in himself and has been choosen by the Choosen One none the less, how that happened? well to this day Obi Wan doesn’t know how or what his master sees in him, but he is highly confident that he must have something good... right?

A small crowd of masters and initiates is gathered to observe the initiates’ trials, there are at least fifty younglings and just over a dozen masters and knights that will choose their next student. Among those knights there is one who prefers to observe from the shadows, his face is almost hidden but you can see him frown, as if he did not want to be there.

Despite wanting to go unnoticed, you can feel the excitement of the teens and the surprise of the other masters and knights. It is strange to see The Hero with no Fear, The Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker himself to attend the initiates trials. Every teenager wants to impress their potential master, not only with their skills and control of the force, but with the management of their emotions. And of course everyone wanted to impress The Choosen One.Well, that was happening right now, but in Obi Wan's mind there was only the idea of being chosen, by someone... whoever. Anakin Skywalker's presence was the least of his worries, he knew he could fight and win but he didn't trust himself to use the force and let go of the emotions he felt during battle. Obi Wan’s thoughts were interrupted when he felt a jerk on his shoulder.

-Obi it's your turn, react! - Urges his friend Bant making him head to the battle arena.

-Oh force- Obi Wan walks towards the arena warching his opponent. I'm not ready, I'm not ready. He repeats to himself like a mantra, but before he could calm his nervousness his body reacted to the first hit, almost failing to dodge it. The other teenager says nothing but her face and her gaze says it all, for her, Obi wan is no match. And for Obi Wan that is demoralizing, rather than getting angry, it causes a lump in his throat, but he knows he has to go on.

The girl lunges relentlessly, one attack after another, Obi Wan finds each of her attacks with a dodge of less intensity. Has she always been so strong? Or am I so weak? The thought forms in his mind just before he stumbles and falls to the ground, the girl's triumphant smile makes him wake up from that movie in which he is not in control, to finally take charge of his body and see everything clearly. For an instant he knows what to do, the nervousness went away along with the doubts and part of the anger that was beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. If this were a real fight, he knows he has to survive.

In a swift and almost impossible move Obi Wan dodged the blow that would mark the end of the fight, pushing himself with the help of the force to position himself behind his opponent and placing his training lightsaber on the surprised girl's neck, leaving no room to respond. Everything must have happened in a couple of seconds, even less than the silence that followed. Coming out of his stupor, the Jedi Knight who served as the referee ended the match by pronouncing Obi Wan as the winner. Only at that moment Obi Wan could breathe, he did not realize that he had been holding the air. To say that he did not know how he achieved the result would be unfair, because in the last seconds of the fight he knew exactly how to act, he allowed himself to feel some surprise until the voice of his contrincant made him turn his attention to the annoyed girl.

-It's not fair!- she yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at him - He did nothing but a pitiful display of defense!

-The demonstration of skill is only a part of the test, to your places- the Jedi Knight finished with a tone that left no room for further discussion. The girl looked at Obi Wan with resentment as he made his way to Bant's side feeling sheepish.

-Don't let her get into your head Obi, you did well - Bant whispers to him.

-But she is not wrong, it is as if I had forgotten how this was done- for him, the result did not matter, as the Jedi Knight said, that was only part of the test, and it is not as if he had demonstrated great skill during the combat. Not to mention that probably more than one master was able to sense his emotions during combat. Without seeing his friend, he makes an exasperated sound as he brings his hands to his face - I'm sorry, I don't want to think about anything Bant- and I don't want to see anyone either. He did not want to see the faces of his other peers and the Jedi, and especially he did not want to think about The Chosen One who was also among those. Although of course, his brain was not his best ally at the moment, so he involuntarily turned to see the place where he felt Skywalker had been to see an empty place, perhaps he felt it wrong.

Later that day some of his classmates were called to be presented with their new masters and among them were Bant, Siri and that girl who was his opponent in the fight. Part of him was happy, really happy for his friends, but he couldn't help the lump in his throat and the urge to cry. What difference does it make, if I'm not a jedi anyway, I can cry whenever I want. Maybe one day he could go visit his brother Owen who was almost a stranger to him or leave the Agri Corps and live in Stewjon, although none of it makes sense to him and does not make him feel better either. Obi Wan doesn't have a lot of belongings so he doesn't bother packing his bag and decides to tour the temple one last time, at least he would take with him the places that made him feel better.

When he arrived to the observatory there were few people in the place, nobody bothered to pay attention to him which he was grateful for, the projection of the space that surrounds Coruscant always fascinated him and filled him with tranquility, it was a pity that outside the Observatory the stars and planets were not visible because of the lights of the impossibly bright planet. As he walked around the site the holo projection changed. He was actually wandering aimlessly until the projection stopped at a binary system in the outer ring of the galaxy and Obi Wan stopped to watch it.

-It's an insignificant place don't you think? - a voice behind him pulled him out of his trance

- What?- asked as he turned to see a well-known figure approaching him.

-That planet over there, it is insignificant- Anakin says pointing to a place in the binary system, - It is inhabited by people who don't want to be found, slavers and ... enslaved people of course.

Obi Wan takes a while to make sense of what the knight just said, for some reason he is annoyed by his words

-There is no insignificant life ... knight Skywalker- he answers as he turns his eyes to the projection, as if it were the most interesting thing in the place until he hears Anakin laugh heartily.

-Yes, of course Obi Wan, that's true. See you soon- the jedi tousles his hair before leaving the observatory, going through the projection.

-Of course - snorts the teenager - see you the day you need seeds for a planet- Never, that is. The chosen one would never be assigned to such simple tasks.

With the desire to continue touring the temple disappeared, he decided to go to rest a little before leaving for Bandomeer. Opening the door to the initiates' rooms Obi Wan is greeted by a pair of annoyed eyes.

-Obi Wan Kenobi! The comm has a function, you know?! And it makes no sense if you don't have it with you- Siri Tachi has never been discrete when it comes to complaining.

-If I didn't take it with me, it's because I didn't want to communicate - he replies irritated, he has never known how to control his reactions with her.

-Obi- a calmer voice calls him- we were trying to locate you, why weren't you at the pairing ceremony? - Obi Wan did not think Bant was being serious

-Are you kidding Bant?- He answers, feeling his level of irritability rise - I am happy for you but you do not need my moral supp ...

-He doesn't know! Hahaha I told you- Siri laughs addressing Bant. Obi Wan is in no mood to continue listening so he leaves for his shared room.

-Hey hey, calm down, you ditched The Chosen One, honestly nobody thought that a Padawan was going to play hard to get -Siri walked towards him while she spoke.

-Siri seriously, nothing you say makes sense, so move, I don't want the last time we see to end in a bad way- and as things were going Obi Wan was about to say things that he really didn't want to.

-Bant, if you don't tell him I'm going to do it and he won't like it -the blonde turns to her partner expectantly.

-Obi, Knight Skywalker chose you as his Padawan, it was a late choice and when they came looking for you, you weren't here. We tried to reach you but nobody had seen you, you left the chosen one waiting, although he seemed more amused than annoyed - says Bant thoughtfully.

It took a while for Obi Wan to process the information. His ears began to feel hot with embarrassment as he recalled his encounter with the aforementioned Knight, why hadn't he said anything to him? See you soon ...

-My beautiful and dramatic friend, did you understand what Bant just said? This is not the last time we see each other, so enough of your melancholic humor- Siri continues while pulling one of his ears.

-I am a Padawan- is the only thing that comes out of Obi Wan's mouth.

-We have broken him Bant- Siri's voice is heard -You are the Padawan of Anakin Skywalker, not just a Padawan

-Oh force, I am the Padawan of The Chosen One - all the information rushes to fill his mind and begins to make sense. How could he meet the expectations of such a teacher? If I can't even fill my own.

-Calm down Obi, that's good ... - Bant starts but is interrupted

-I can’t ! I'm not, I don't ... I don't want to- Lie, I do, but I don't know if I can.

-Breathe Obi- Bant approaches to put her hand on Obi Wan's chest, projecting tranquility through the force. - You can, Siri and I know it and your new master knows it- Obi Wan started breathing normally

-Only you think that and maybe knight Skywalker only felt pity for me or thinks I'm a challenge...-

-Listen well Obi Wan Kenobi! It is the second time that I have to call you by your full name and I promise you will not survive a third. YOUR Master is a Jedi, and as such he knows that pity is not the way and you know it, he saw the same thing that we see in you and that others cannot, and I am not going to tell you what it is because you need to see it for you self. So tomorrow you are going to get up early because we will meet our masters at the end of breakfast, they will pick su up outside the dining room. Take your things with you- And with that Siri goes to her bedroom being followed by Bant.

-Congratulations, I'm glad to have you here, and I'm sure Siri is happy too- Obi Wan watches her smile and they leave him alone in the hallway. He walks on autopilot to his bed and miraculously falls asleep.

The next day Obi Wan wakes up to the reality of empty beds and missing people in the dining room. He didn't really think about all his peers who were not chosen and that makes him feel a little guilty. I did not say goodbye to them. He thought he would see them on his way to Bandomeer. Siri and Bant left with their respective masters a while ago, there was only him left. What if he regrets it and won't come? He walked towards the doors of the dining room as he felt his own enraged heartbeats deafened him, anxiety began to invade him when hurried footsteps caught up with him.

-Obi Wan!, good morning, I guess there is no breakfast left for me - Anakin Skywalker says a little agitated, smiling at him - I'm sorry I didn't come earlier, but hey, yesterday you left me waiting so I think it's only fair - he continues - Obi Wan? - Anakin asks raising an eyebrow.

-Ah yes, sir ... good morning master, I'm sorry about yesterday, I, ... I did not think that my presence was required and well, it was not my intention - stutters, Great.

-Luckily we are already here, come with me, let's go to our apartment, I'm really hungry. If you want, you can have breakfast, or have another breakfast ... Or take ... something, whatever follow me.- His master continued speaking distractedly while he walked assuming that Obi Wan would follow him, which he did ... From that day on Obi Wan continued to wonder, what did his master see in him? Someone so bright in the force and he, well he was just him.

#Star Wars #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #Master!Anakin #Padawan!Obi-Wan

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l2gkiug-blog · 5 years

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PhD as a job

I recently reread this passage in David Graeber's _Bullshit Jobs_ (by the way, I highly recommend reading the book):

In the spring of 2013, I unwittingly set off a very minor international sensation.

It all began when I was asked to write an essay for a new radical magazine called Strike! The editor asked if I had anything provocative that no one else would be likely to publish. I usually have one or two essay ideas like that stewing around, so I drafted one up and presented him with a brief piece entitled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.”

The essay was based on a hunch. Everyone is familiar with those sort of jobs that don’t seem, to the outsider, to really do much of anything: HR consultants, communications coordinators, PR researchers, financial strategists, corporate lawyers, or the sort of people (very familiar in academic contexts) who spend their time staffing committees that discuss the problem of unnecessary committees. The list was seemingly endless. What, I wondered, if these jobs really are useless, and those who hold them are aware of it? Certainly you meet people now and then who seem to feel their jobs are pointless and unnecessary. Could there be anything more demoralizing than having to wake up in the morning five out of seven days of one’s adult life to perform a task that one secretly believed did not need to be performed—that was simply a waste of time or resources, or that even made the world worse? Would this not be a terrible psychic wound running across our society? Yet if so, it was one that no one ever seemed to talk about. There were plenty of surveys over whether people were happy at work. There were none, as far as I knew, about whether or not they felt their jobs had any good reason to exist.

This possibility that our society is riddled with useless jobs that no one wants to talk about did not seem inherently implausible. The subject of work is riddled with taboos. Even the fact that most people don’t like their jobs and would relish an excuse not to go to work is considered something that can’t really be admitted on TV—certainly not on the TV news, even if it might occasionally be alluded to in documentaries and stand-up comedy. I had experienced these taboos myself: I had once acted as the media liaison for an activist group that, rumor had it, was planning a civil disobedience campaign to shut down the Washington, DC, transport system as part of a protest against a global economic summit. In the days leading up to it, you could hardly go anywhere looking like an anarchist without some cheerful civil servant walking up to you and asking whether it was really true he or she wouldn’t have to go to work on Monday. Yet at the same time, TV crews managed dutifully to interview city employees—and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were the same city employees—commenting on how terribly tragic it would be if they wouldn’t be able to get to work, since they knew that’s what it would take to get them on TV. No one seems to feel free to say what they really feel about such matters—at least in public.

It was plausible, but I didn’t really know. In a way, I wrote the piece as a kind of experiment. I was interested to see what sort of response it would elicit...

[Graeber reprints his poignant essay]...

If ever an essay’s hypothesis was confirmed by its reception, this was it. “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs” produced an explosion.

It occurred to me that, just as "bullshit jobs" was taboo to discuss but of wide resonance, the same might apply to **the steps one should take to pick, perform and/or leave jobs if one has internalized that one's job or career is indeed bullshit.**

At least it seems that way in my university's PhD programs. I suspect many of my peers don't like their PhD jobs, and distinctly, many have jobs they "secretly believe [do] not need to be performed." I suspect many of those peers are actively interested in how to deal with these situations: should I leave PhD? If not and if I haven't yet chosen a boss, how should I choose? If I'm already stuck with a boss, should I switch? Should I try shirking and see what happens? Should I just keep working as I am and stop worrying about the utility of my work, which could very possibly make me happy? Will bringing in my own funding give me more negotiating power? I'll call these questions "bullshit job considerations." But it's taboo—I haven't found students talking about these questions, and almost always I'm the first one to bring up that I've even _considered_ these questions (which evokes one of a few reactions: giggles, "don't say that!" or rarely, "yeah maybe I should think about that too") before meaningful discussion ensues.

This is not to say that there aren't many students who enjoy their PhDs: it seems highly variable. On the question of the usefulness of their jobs, I suspect many students would say that they feel they're contributing to knowledge, teaching others and helping advance health and medicine.

But for those students who don't feel so positive, I think it could be very helpful to open up spaces in which to discuss what to do in reaction to those feelings, to make this area of discussion and thinking non-taboo. For example, many students entering PhD are confronted with the decision of which boss and lab to work for in their thesis research. Each PhD program, older PhD student and postdoc will recommend criteria with which to make this decision. Commonly, I've heard "Make sure your PI [principal investigator, aka boss] and you get along," or "Look for a PI has your interests at heart." I agree that these are important criteria, depending on the definition of "your interests." I think these criteria would be greatly supplemented by "Look for a PI who gives you ample free time," "Look for a PI and lab that don't believe in 'work as an end and meaning in itself' (Graeber), e.g. a PI who won't be happy or sad with you depending on the number of analyses or experiments you run," or "Look for a PI who won't pressure you into working on a project whose usefulness you don't understand or believe, even if that means long spells of no visible production." I myself am unsure whether I can realistically find a PI matching these criteria, given that my university research environment feels very productivity-focused, but I think these criteria are at least worth acknowledging as things to aspire to.

Talking about leaving the PhD is even more taboo, although surprisingly, I've heard more talk about that than about tactics for increasing free time, either by shirking (which seems to be more commonly discussed and practiced in other industries) or by winning negotiating power with your boss by "providing value" to them. The latter is a major subject in multiple books, including Tim Ferriss's _4 Hour Workweek_, which enjoys popularity outside my university's academic bubble. (This again deepens my stereotype that we have a longer way to go on these issues in academia.)

I sometimes feel, inspired by Nassim Taleb, that a very good work setup for me would be either complete freedom (i.e. retired and pursuing my own projects) or sinecure-cum-freedom (i.e. having a job that disappears after I leave the office at 12pm each day, and complete freedom afterwards)[1][2]. Another good setup would be in an organization I really believed in (a combination of many factors) and could contribute to. At this point, these feel mostly compatible with my PhD, pending finding a compatible boss, but I haven't seriously imagined if life not in the PhD would be better for pursuing these.

Footnotes:

I've experienced complete freedom and I think that some balancing force of commitment, i.e. the sinecure-cum-freedom, might actually feel better. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why—perhaps some routinized social interaction or feelings of immediate usefulness to your co-workers.

What counts as a "very good work setup" probably depends a lot on the person, but at the same time, I do think many people look for similar things. I think control and freedom over one's time and one's self is a common value, and I think the work setups I mention above are trying to honor exactly that value.

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