John Price fingering you in front of the mirror, x afab fem reader, MDNI !!!
tags: John price smut, Price cod, John price, Captain john price x reader, Captain price, Price x reader, call of duty smut, cod smut, cod price, john price x reader, captain john price
cw: Mirror kink, “Good girl”, reader gets fingered
A/N: Hey everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t really uploaded much life’s been a bit busy!! I’m working on some things rn but the motivation to keep writing is really low but i’ll power through no doubt 👍👍 enjoy!!!! ps: I barley proof read it 😭
John Price was a mad man; a fucking machine. Built like a superhero, covered in dirt with that sexy beard of his but god damn you’d let him do the unspeakable to you.
He could fuck for hours, for nights- you swore if he had enough energy he could go on for days. But one thing he struggled to do was finger you.
You felt a bit embarrassed to ask why as you always assured him it felt good but the disgruntled expression and sigh he makes when he pulls out of you made you worry. You began to wonder if it was something wrong with you and that’s the reason why.
In your head it made sense, him making it plainly obvious he didn’t want to do it every-time it was over but your mind always made something up to contradict your theory.
If he hated it so much why did he enjoy eating you out? Why would he throw you in the bed, staring at your pussy hungry before attacking your clit fast and hard like the military captain he is? And if he hated fingering you so much why did he offer?
Why did he do that?
You stretched your legs out under your office chair before packing your bag and leaving work, on your way home. Tonight was the night you were going to ask him, embarrassing or not. You couldn’t let your dwelling and overthinking cluster up your head any longer, it was time.
You opened the gate to your rustic home and headed for the big door. The house you two had bought was quiet old and elegant and you’d loved it so much, decorating the decaying walls and overgrown garden and making it your own. You loved the style and it made you feel cozy, this was your dream house.
The door shut behind you and the farmilliar scent of vanilla candles and firewood cascaded through the walls as the fire cracked beside you. You hung up your coat and dumped your bag on the floor.
“Baby? Where are you?” You called and after hearing a couple strained grunts you heard Price yell back a ‘Here’ from upstairs. Curiosity flooded your mind and you jogged up the stairs and pushed open your bedroom door to see him crouched on the floor, tool kit sprawled behind him and a screw driver in his hand.
“What the fuck is that?” The laughter of your voice falling through as you store at the mirror nailed to the wall, it was huge. Something out of a ballet studio and you turned back to him, heavy breathing and whipping the sweat off of his pink face.
“Thought you’d like it, pretty big though.” Yeah, just a little. Head to toe taking all the room and right in-front of the bed, how amazing. Cant wait to wake up to my own reflection.
“Doesn’t exactly go with the rustic design of the house does it?” But all he did was laugh and pull you closer, giving you a sloppy but loving kiss on the lips as you tried to wriggle away. His hands clasped around you waist and you remembered what you were going to ask him. Your mouth fell ajar but before you could speak he was dragging along the wide wooden chair to sit on before placing it infront of the mirror and take a seat.
“Want to know what it’s for?” He asked, words laced with something you couldn’t put your tongue on but you hesitantly nodded, wondering why he bought this. It must’ve costed a lot, and it was rather beautiful, it was as clear as glass. Why did he get this.
Price smirked letting a deep chuckle through his tight lips before patting his laps for you to sit. You sat down hesitantly and glacéd in the mirror at you two, his hands around your waist, just above your black skirt and eyes locked onto you. His left hand trailed up towards your neck sending tingles down your body and dampening your panties again. His other creeping closer down and rubbed your thigh soothingly.
“When I finger you love, I struggle a lot. I know you notice and I want to let you know why I struggle.” His hand reached your neck just below your chin and he tilted your neck back so your head laid on his strong shoulder, still looking at yourself in the mirror, with him in control.
"I love to see my fingers inside you, your cum gushing out after i finger you, but i also love to see your little face. Your cute little scrunched eyes, mouth wide open out of pleasure.” You couldn’t fight back the small whimper you let out as his hands on your thigh slowly rose higher, slipping comfortably under your skirt.
“But darling i’m getting old now, aren’t I? It’s too hard to look up then down then up- I miss a few things and I don’t like missing.” His seductive grin send pools of lava to your stomach and your thighs tensed under his hands as his thick fingers grazed the soft fabric of your panties. Teasing you and loving every fucking second.
“But fuck, from this angle? I can see all of you, all of you at once. Your breathing, face, pussy, everything and I love it.” You shut your eyes in embarrassment and you felt your face burn while he slid your underwear down slowly and gently tapped against your precious sensitive skin.
Tracing slowly down your wet slit coating himself in your taste. He groaned at the feeling kissing your temple while his finger prodded into your entrance greedily. Next time he will take his time, next time he will have you begging for his fingers. Next time because god he couldn’t wait now.
The thickness of his finger stretched you out slightly as he thrusted it in and out of you, burning your hole slightly as he added another and another. Your moans and cries send sparks to his dick below you and you felt him harden more and more beneath you- he didn’t stop to fuck you though.
“Oh yeah darling look at you, fucking look at yourself.” His other hand stretched to your chin, tilting your face up and through tears you watched yourself be finger fucked by John. Tightening around his hand more and moaning louder as tears rolled down your cheek.
“Baby I’m going to-” You started but he shut you up shushing you quiet with a small kiss and rapid movements. His husky voice demanding you just to let yourself go.
“Come on, that’s it. Just let it all go, cum on my fingers. Good girl, oh my god you’re such a good girl.” As you came, cum squirting out of your abused hole and dripping down his sticky fingers. Your back arched and your legs started to shake and tremble against him and he just smiled. Pulling out of you and holding you for a moment, licking his fingers clean.
“Was that good darling? I loved it. So much better than usually fingering you.” You breathing calmed down slowly as you shakily nodded. John leant over giving you another loving kiss before chuckling.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to calm down and then we’ll go again, yeah?”
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Be God.
We sometimes fall victim to the 3d/mirror, which makes us waver and accept circumstances that we don’t want to accept. But it feels too real so you end up feeling hopeless, like you can’t do anything about it. You end up feeling like you can’t manifesting and find yourself in the constant cycle of WAITING. WAITING for something to happen and for YOU to be shown proof of what you want.
Let me tell you something; IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. The 3d is a MIRROR. YOU validate IT. The mirror cannot show you what you aren’t showing IT. It will always reflect YOU/imagination. You’re seeing your mental creations being made physical. But where was it created first? IMAGINATION. The mirror can only make things physical when YOU accept them as already so/they’re already done/you are that person.
You’re literally GOD. You can create and be anything you can imagine. But the problem comes in when you bring in the MIRROR.
Do you really need to be validated by the MIRROR? So much so that you rely on it to be happy? To prove to you that you have your desire? Are you that weak? Can you really not accept it as done and be satisfied by YOUR WORD? By Gods (your) word?
Realise who you are. Realise that you create what you are currently seeing and feeling. Realise there is no other source that affects your life/manifestations but yourself.
It’s always going to be:
Want something —> accept that you have it in imagination/ it is done —> continue to be that person who has what they want bc you literally do. It’s in imagination, the reality that creates everything, so therefore it is true/manifested.
You don’t need a mirror to prove that you have what you want. It will show you that you have what you want when you show IT that you have what you want.
Don’t wait. Don’t wish. Don’t cry. Don’t stress.
ACCEPT THAT ITS ALREADY DONE.
I insist that you work on manifesting things through a god mindset. This doesn’t mean having a god complex where you think you’re better than everyone and that everyone should worship you, it means that you know you create and can manifest anything. The feeling is not a power trip, it’s a realisation of who you are. It’s not 3d based. Having a god mindset just means you only care about your word and not what the mirror is showing you. You trust yourself and have faith in yourself, in your abilities and don’t contradict yourself and always live in imagination/the 4d while still operating in the 3d knowing it’s done.
It’s an inner validation (from yourself), not an outer one.
Now practice it. Pick whatever you want and accept that it’s already done bc it truly is. Don’t go looking for it in the 3d or assume it in the 3d, just know it’s done in imagination/within. And when you falter because of the mirror, remind yourself who matters. You, as god of your reality, or the mirror, your creation?
Be god.
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Jupiter Dominant Women & Daddy Issues
TW: mentions of rape, abuse, suicide etc
Over the years of my studies, I have noticed that its Jupiter dominant women who tend to have daddy issues more than any other planetary dominance. Solar women (Uttarashada, Uttaraphalguni & Krittika) tend to benefit from positive male influence in their early life, so they have healthy Yang qualities (they're driven, self-motivated, critical thinking) whereas women who haven't had a healthy male influence in their early lives, either develop a heightened but fragile femininity (understood in a very traditional way, this means being passive and excessively reliant on others to get by, I know this is misogynistic but i am talking strictly about a traditional notion of femininity) or they cultivate inner masculinity.
Jupiter is a masculine planet and across the naks of Punarvasu, Vishaka and Purvabhadrapada, women tend to have a very unguarded, open, almost masculine presence. I mean this in terms of what they talk about or how self-assured they seem, traditionally women were expected to be more withdrawn or to talk little. I don't mean to say Jupiterian women are brash or aggressive, they're very poised, and elegant and put across their point eloquently. They're 9/10 times very well-spoken. When one lacks the security of a male figure early in life, one tends to cultivate inner masculinity because it's understood that you cannot rely on any man.
Caroline Polachek, Punarvasu Moon, has spoken about her difficult relationship with her father on numerous occasions. Here's a link to a post where she talks about it. Her lack of a father figure in her own words caused her to be "self-sufficient". Notice how in the post, she speaks about making amends with him later in life and even ended the post with "love you dad". This is the kind of generosity that you don't see from most other nakshatra types. To forgive someone who was never there for you/abused you/hurt you/caused you immense pain, requires a great deal of strength and maturity and not everybody has it. Punarvasu's innate nature is to absorb everything into its orbit and always be the bigger person. Due to the vast, abundant nature of Jupiter, they are ABLE to, accept these people for all their contradictions and see them as flawed, which makes it easier to forgive them. Most people let their traumas define their identity (im not saying traumas don't shape you, only about the kind of perception most people have about their own traumas) and spend their whole lives blaming others for who they've become or what they've done to them. To live a peaceful life, one has to take the high road, look beyond everything and see it as a part of life. It sounds very callous when I say it like that but that's what I mean. Not everyone is capable of being the bigger person or taking the high road.
Jupiter is the guru or teacher and how would one describe an ideal teacher? Someone who forgives the mistakes of their students as having risen out of immaturity and forgives them for not knowing better or being better. A teacher is forced to operate on a higher moral plane than others simply because chaos would descend if the teacher came down to the level of others. They are figures of wisdom, knowledge and higher learning, therefore their behaviour has to reflect the same. Jupiter natives are harshly punished for behaving in ways that are not fit for a "guru" because subconsciously society/those around them subject them to a different standard. Others can do the same exact thing and not suffer any consequences but when a Jupiter native behaves that way, they're ostracized. People kind of expect them to have it all together or be better. Any lapse on their part is judged harshly.
One of the biggest mysteries is how Jupiter natives emerge from often brutally abusive and neglectful childhoods into relatively well-adjusted adults. In the case of famous parent-child situations, there is public proof of their wrongdoing but in numerous other instances many do not believe Jupiter natives to have suffered the way they have or to the extent they have simply because on the outside they seem to have it all/seem so put together. This is yet another manifestation of Jupiter's duality and this not being believed/seen for who they are/how they've lived can be a source of pain/grief for some of these natives whilst others like to pretend it never happened and present a very positive view of their life. They don't hold grudges and often simply overlook the horrible nature of their loved ones, especially their parents and try to make amends with them.
Drew Barrymore, Punarvasu Moon, comes from a very famous family of actors but her father John Barrymore was a violent alcoholic and a drug addict who abandoned her & her mother when she was a child. She did not have any relationship with him and seldom spoke to him until he was diagnosed with cancer. She took care of him and even paid his medical bills until he passed away in 2004. Here's an IG post where she talks about her dad. It's so touching to see the compassion with which Punarvasu natives talk about people who've hurt them so much (in her memoir, Drew recalls how one time her father picked her up as a three-year-old and threw her against the wall). Truly, I don't see this level of kindness in any other nakshatra if I'm being honest. This is a photograph of her with Steven Spielberg who directed her in E.T when she was 7 years old, he's kind of a godfather figure to her and she apparently asked him to be her dad when she was a kid 🥺🥺
I also think Jupiter natives have a complicated relationship with their mothers as well, sometimes they're extremely close but other times, I think Jupiter natives feel the need to be their mother's saviour because they know how much she's gone through in her life. This manifests itself in a very complicated relationship. There is love but there is also a lot of bitterness.
Drew Barrymore has a very complicated relationship with her mother, who used to date the men Drew dated, pushed her into acting and exploited her as a child and admitted her to a psych ward when she was 12 among other things. Drew still takes care of her financially and has mentioned that her mother has even tried to steal money from her.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Punarvasu Moon is the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Her parents separated when she was a child and she lived with her father. In 1984, she did a duet with her father and starred in the music video for a song called Lemon Incest which describes an incestuous relationship between father & daughter. She was 12 years old at the time.
The music video is creepy, to say the least and features both of them half-naked in bed together. In 1986 when she was 14, she starred with her father in a movie called Charlotte For Ever which is about an alcoholic man whose only link to life is his daughter (Serge was an alcoholic). She has spoken about how difficult the filming experience was for her as he would push her to her extremes.
Here's a very uncomfortable clip of him kissing her on the mouth when she wins a Cesar. She is 16 years old.
Jane Birkin commented on the song saying "It never came as a shock or a surprise or even a worry [to her], knowing Serge's great love for Charlotte". Many believe that Birkin enabled Serge's abuse of their daughter since she left him due to his alcoholism and violence but left Charlotte in his care. She has also stated that her mother would always dress her up as a little boy when she was a child and that this complicated her relationship with her femininity.
Charlotte has only ever said good things about both her parents and denied any abuse.
She's also starred in multiple films directed by Lars Von Trier where she plays gruesome sexually depraved characters and Lars is well known for being difficult to work with. She has said that she sought fatherly approval from him ._. and again has only said good things about him.
Kali Uchis, Punarvasu Sun, Vishaka Moon & Rising has spoken about being abused as a child and that she no longer maintains contact with her family. She was kicked out of the house when she was 17 and slept in her car and worked at a supermarket for years to support herself.
Halsey, Punarvasu Moon. She grew up poor and has spoken about her difficult childhood, both she & her mother suffer from bipolar disorder and in her song Whispers she sings “Why do you need love so badly?/ Bet it's bеcause of her daddy." In the Armchair Expert podcast, she said that she has both "mommy and daddy issues".
Mariah Carey, Punarvasu Moon, has published a very revealing memoir about her life where she chronicles the abuse she experienced from her family. She had a moderately good relationship with her dad but was estranged from him as an adult. Her mother however continually exploited her for money.
Miley Cyrus, Vishaka Moon has a complicated relationship with both her parents. Currently, she's not on speaking terms with her father after he married a woman around Miley's age.
Beyonce, Vishaka Moon has been performing since she was a child and was in a girl group Destiny's Child which was managed by her father. She dropped him as her manager in 2011 and in the same year, his divorce from her mother was also finalized. He had apparently fathered a love child with another woman in 2009 and this was the reason for their divorce. Some speculate that they are now estranged but in typical Jupiter fashion, she has never bad-mouthed him in public. Jupiter natives do not air their dirty laundry in public ever. Their grace and dignity even in the face of extreme humiliation/shame/pressure is commendable.
Jennie, Vishaka Moon is very close to her mother but she's never mentioned her father in the 8 years since her debut. In the Blackpink documentary, she said that growing up it was just her and her mom. In this interview she spoke about living with her mother and how she never got a chance to spend much time at home as she was sent to boarding school at 8 years old. She remarks that she and her mom are like sisters but she's never said anything about her relationship with her dad, ever. I am not going to assume that they have a bad relationship but I thought it would be interesting to mention.
Demi Moore, Vishaka Sun
Moore was born to a 19-year-old mother and her biological father left before she was born. The actress' mom remarried a man who worsened her problems with alcohol, which led to violence and instability. The family moved many times throughout Moore's childhood and when she was 17, her stepfather committed suicide. In the early '80s, she embarked on her acting career and helped her mother stay in rehab throughout the years. In 1997, her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer and she reunited with her in the final months before her death.
Lily Collins, Purvabhadrapada Sun
Lily had a strained relationship with her dad growing up“Because my dad was often gone, I never wanted to do anything that would make him stay away even longer,” she wrote. “I became extra careful about what I said and how I said it, afraid he'd think I was angry or didn't love him"
She penned an open letter that said: "I forgive you for not being the dad I expected. But it's not too late”.
Alia Bhatt, Purvabhadrapada Sun has said that growing up she saw very little of her filmmaker father Mahesh Bhatt who is known in the media for being a very problematic figure. He once posed for a magazine cover in the 90s with his daughter Pooja Bhatt where they're kissing on the lips (Pooja is Alia's half-sister) and said that he would have married her if she weren't his daughter 🤮🤮Mahesh is known for being a very temperamental man (you'll be hard pressed to find a video of him not screaming) and it's quite well known that he and Alia's mother had a pretty rocky marriage that her mother could not leave as she was financially dependent on him. Her sister, Shaheen Bhatt has talked about struggling with depression and suicidal tendencies since she was a child.
Rekha, Purvabhadrapada Moon is the illegitimate child of actors Gemini Ganesan and Pushpavalli. Her father was already married to another woman when she was born. He refused to accept the paternity of Rekha and her sister Radha and she grew up in the same city that her father and his "legitimate" family lived in and attended the same school as her half-siblings where she occasionally saw glimpses of him dropping his other kids to school. She has stated that growing up she was called a "bastard" and that the only male figure in her life was "God". She made her debut as an actress when she was 13 against her wishes because her family had fallen on bad times and she had to work to support her 6 siblings and ill mother.
This interview of hers offers a glimpse into her early life. Regardless of what she's been through, Rekha has always been stoic and conducted herself with immense grace and dignity even when she received an award from her father who was never a part of her life. She said this in response:
“Why should I grieve for him when he’s so much part of me? Why should I grieve when I’m so grateful for his genes, his teachings, his rich life and his sheer existence? Grieve for what??!! I’m happy I didn’t have to share unpleasant moments with him. He existed for me in my imagination. And that’s so much more beautiful than reality. Everything I love is unqualified by worldly time constraints. I’m just a small link in the larger scheme of things. I’m not the first one to go through death, nor am I the first one to receive an award. I’m enjoying everything that comes my way…good bad or ugly. I try to make good use of what life’s experiences offer. I think I’ve done a good job of my life, whatever others may think.”
The Jupiterean ability to always look at the bright side and forgive people who don't deserve your forgiveness is heart-breaking but enlightening at the same time.
Rita Hayworth, Purvabhadrapada Moon confided in her husband Orson Welles that she was sexually abused by her father as a child and had been repeatedly raped by him.
Elexus Jionde aka Intelexual Media, Punarvasu Moon has mentioned that she's estranged from her father.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Punarvasu Rising & stellium has spoken about being emotionally and physically abused by his parents especially his father who would beat him up. They also abused him because they thought he was gay due to his preoccupation with the male physique (he wanted to be a bodybuilder and would later become Mr World).
Keanu Reeves, Punarvasu Moon has been estranged from his father for the majority of his life. Charles Reeves abandoned the family when Keanu was 3 yrs old.
Kaia Gerber, Purvabhadrapada Moon has like most other Jupiter natives kept a low profile and seldom spoken about her personal life and has only ever said nice things about her parents. Her father Rande Gerber has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women and there have been blind items about Cindy putting Kaia on a calorie deficit diet since she was a child to prepare her for a modelling career (this is awfully common among celebrities so I don't even think this is a stretch). When Kaia was 7 years old, her parents were threatened with a picture of her, barely clothed being gagged and bound. It was said that the picture was taken by a female babysitter during a game of cops and robbers because she wanted to prank the Gerbers by pretending to kidnap Kaia (sincerely, wtf) but there have been conspiracy theories that perhaps Kaia was abused by her parents and this picture was leaked from their collection. Anyway the matter has been settled and it feels wrong for me to speculate too much but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Asia Argento, Purvabhadrapa Moon, is the daughter of filmmaker Dario Argento and has said that she never saw her father as a child and had no kind of relationship with him until she started acting in his movies when she was 16. She said "I never acted out of ambition; I acted to gain my father's attention. It took a long time for him to notice me. … And he only became my father when he was my director."
Her characters in his movies were undressed, raped and generally psychologically traumatised on screen. She once said:
"But I always had this feeling of never being a part of anything, not even of my family. My parents forgot about me. I did everything I could to get their attention."
Chyler Leigh, Vishaka Moon. Her parents divorced when she was 12, following which she was estranged from her father for many years. Her mother moved her to LA when she was a teenager so that she could pursue an acting career. At 15 years old she starred in a movie called Kickboxing Academy as her biological brother's love interest (he was 19). She is said to have been manipulated into doing so by her mother. She has said in a recent interview that she's been estranged from her mother for over 20 years and that like her mother, she too suffers from bipolar disorder. She said, "Because I was put in a position to support my mother, I didn't get the opportunity to speak about my own feelings when I was in my teens." She moved out of her mother's house to live with her then-boyfriend and now husband Nathan West.
Han So Hee, Vishaka Sun was in the news when her mother using her name to borrow bank loans and her debt became public news. Its very rare to hear about the private life of a celebrity in Korea but Sohee came forward to clear things and said her parents divorced when she was 5 following which she was raised by her maternal grandmother with whom she lived until she was in highschool. She's estranged from both her parents and only realized that her mother had been in debt after she turned 18. She found out that her mother had been borrowing money under her name illegally ever since she was a minor. She paid off this debt and apologized to everybody concerned.
IU, Purvabhadrapada Moon grew up in poverty. Her family fell into debt and she was raised by her grandmother who could barely take care of her and her brother. She saw little of her parents growing up. Its unclear how close they are now.
I realize just how many of them are nepo babies lol but I'm kinda glad because it means so much of their life is on public record. Its really unfortunate to see that so many of these natives had absent fathers or fathers who were present in their lives and very abusive.
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consciousness is the only reality
posted by sensibly_aesthetic on reddit
“This sentence explains absolutely everything when it comes to manifesting. I hope these explanations help things click into place the way it did for me.
Stop reacting to the physical world. For now and evermore. If consciousness is the only reality that exists, why react to the physical world?
That also involves this: stop trying to change the physical world. It doesn’t exist. If you want your problem to go away, just stop focusing on it. Lack of attention to something makes it fade away. You can’t be successful if you keep focusing on and changing the old. You just bring more struggle into your experience.
As your consciousness is the only reality that exists, you already have what you want. There is nothing you have to change (in the physical world) when you have what you want.
The only thing you have to change is your mind. It is all that exists. Absolutely nothing else does. You already have what you want. Creation is finished. Realise and be aware that your wish already exists, it doesn’t need you to help create it, it just needs you to be loyal to its existence. Get used to being aware of your desire, instead of being aware of its lack. You have to BECOME. Not try to get, not try to manifest, but become. All these thoughts are references of something that already exists. So live the life you would now that you have what you want. Let the old story of trying go away, and the new story of having come in.
None of the things you see outside is the ‘truth’. To be honest, nothing is. As consciousness is the only reality, what you think or believe is the truth is what you’ve paid so much attention to in your mind. With all those thoughts and feelings, it had to come into your physical world. That’s why manifesting isn’t about something contradicting the other. It’s about paying all of your attention to something else so it can arrive in your experience instead.
Once you truly understand what you’re supposed to do, which is simply becoming, you might wonder about the when’s, the how’s, the “is it even possible” questions. Let me answer each of them. It is a universal law. The very fabric of reality. It will deliver, no matter what. The fact that you have it in your mind is proof enough, as it is in the only reality. The world will reflect that. As for the other two, it doesn’t matter. The world isn’t based off of ‘this is more logical and likely than the other outcome’. It is based only off of your mind. It doesn’t change, it reflects. Absorb the meaning of that. As long as you have a clear and powerful image in your head, it will bend to answer you. Anything is possible.
The physical manifestation will and must come. As Neville said, the time difference is inversely proportional to the amount of naturalness. I like to think of the physical world as a screenshot of your mind right now. You might ask, if I have it right now, why can’t I see the corresponding screenshot? The thing is your mind is filled with all the old thoughts too. The more you sink into the right mindset, the more evidence you will see. The world doesn’t reflect all of a sudden. It takes every thought and reflects it physically. So it’s happening physically little by little, to reflect the perfect whole image in your head of already having it. That’s why this is a practice. Neville said something similar, to focus on the feeling fulfilled until it crowds all other ideas of consciousness. Don’t keep on changing to having the old story or your progress will be slower, or it’ll even stop. Your mind should be full of this new reality where you already have it. The less you focus on the old story and the more you focus on the new one, the more evidence of your desire you will see.
I’m going to quote myself from the previous point: ‘Your mind should be full of this new reality where you already have it.’ And that’s what Neville was trying to say all along when he talked about changing your reality. He wasn’t telling you how to change the physical world. The physical world reflects your mind, it isn’t a reality. And that process is automatic, you don’t have to meddle with that. He was explaining how to change your mind. By accepting that you have it, and living life from there. He was teaching people how to change their mind to realise that.
Sometimes it’s hard because you see the world and you think, oh no, this stuff is happening, nothing is changing. Remember, the world in every moment is a screenshot of your mind. Nothing is happening, it’s just screenshotting and reflecting. Your new desire is crowding out everything else. You might still see evidence of your old story. But if you’re loyal to the happenings in your mind, that won’t be very long. You have already determined the end result. Stay true to it. Live in that state of mind. You already have it all, so none of the things you see matter. They’re fading away, being crowded by the new image.
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Why do I think this scene:
Is a horrible adaptation from this manga panel:
Dialogue
That's an important thing to consider, because we have a case of almost opposite messages
In the anime it is «That's right, what of it?»
It's a confirmation of what Yosano is asking to Ougai, almost immediately when she spoke to him. First point to consider
He's answering "yes" in other way, he's basically doing an affirmation of what Yosano said. While also telling her indirectly that he doesn't care and doesn't feel bad about it using a question, we have an affirmation and a question in the same sentence
We can interpret that easily because everything points to that option
«What you say is correct, why should I care?»
But in the manga it is complete different
We have «... Even if that's true, so what?»
It's a question in all the dialogue I'm analyzing, being that the first difference
He takes a pause, takes his moment to think of an answer and then he speaks, those details are important differences because it shows you how different they are
His questions is related to a possibility. In other way to say what Mori said would be «Even if what you say is true, what does it matter?»
We can't do an affirmation/confirmation if he cares or not, because what Ougai says makes us do multiple interpretations based in Yosano's reaction, his facial expression and character in general since the intention isn't 100% clear... Basically doing theories and more theories because everybody has their perspectives and own ways to interpret what happened there
Expression and feelings related
In the anime we can say Mori speaks self-confidently as if he were too superior to the others
Acting like that, he doesn't care, he doesn't even look at here
While he's just acting calm, a little grumpy maybe, fixing his clothes... The anime indicates that he cares so little about what she says that he does something else at the same time
I could add that he even looks disgusted and annoyed but I'm horrible at socializing and reading emotions-
And the scene is too different from the manga that he has his eyes closed in all the dialogue while in the manga they are open
In the manga we can't guess emotions at all since Ougai looks extremely cold! Those dark eyes, that expression, his words of not caring about the consequences, here we can do a confirmation about it
Something to add is that we can see Yosano's reaction, because in the anime we lost all of those expressions that it's so sad :(
Ougai in the manga is more cold, less expressive, gives more things to leave many to imagination
How does Mori's character work?
It's not like saying «Mori in the plot works in a specific way»... But a «Mori has this behavior that repeats a lot»
He acts when necessary, speaks and gives orders when he considers necessary, he's a rational character that is thinking most of the time (to not say all the time)
The fact is that, when he doesn't gives orders... He says things that are left to interpretation since he doesn't explain them deeply
Things that actually share the real life author, and we have seen it in many times in the manga that, since Ougai doesn't explain anything, sometimes it feels like he says something that doesn't make sense or contradicts himself
We can't deny that he's smart enough to understand, know and comprehend the impact of his words
Mori is a genius, is a fact that we can't deny... It's just that we don't compare him too much with Dazai, Ranpo and Fyodor, specially when they have more time that “we can see them being intelligent”
But if it counts as a proof... Mori was steps forward compared to Dazai, just one specific time, that Dazai ended up
Mori knows, and we have to agree that Mori is capable to do many things
Why do I say it reflects Mori's character?
The scene has specific things... That I will explain
✓Pause → The detail of Mori taking his time to think reflects his rational side that doesn't get carried away by his emotions when acting, something that we see in him a lot, that he knows what he does, is aware of this and tries to make it all work out in his "somewhat dirty way of playing"
✓Dark eyes → A fact that we forget is we don't know how he ended up being like that. He's cold He can be cold when necessary, and we can't read Mori at 100%, no matter how hard we try is like trying to understand a void that you can't see their begining and end
✓Even if that's true, so what? → Both character and author: Interpretation. The author was characterized by playing with perspectives, showing different ones, leaving things to interpretation and letting the reader draw his own conclusions from what he read... Something that is also seen in the character. You have to draw conclusions from how he acts and talks, it's hard to understand him 100%, he makes people have so many different perspectives towards him that matches his author. Ougai plays with the perspectives and emotions of the rest, the author to tell stories to the people around him, the character to act and keep on living in his world with all the danger around him, and around his organization
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When women weren’t oppressed
Recently I got a private message asking when there was a time in history when women weren't oppressed. So, when was it?*
*I’m not a historian and my knowledge of this subject is far from complete. I welcome additions, corrections and conversation. This is a subject where you will find contradicting interpretations and as far as I’m concerned, attempts to silence anyone who dares to suggest patriarchy isn’t inevitable. Vetting of information isn’t easy without a background in relevant sciences. This is not a comprehensive look into female-friendly cultures as I’m not an expert at all on this subject.
Men want us to believe patriarchy is inevitable
At lot of us take patriarchy for granted. It has always existed. The past was even more horrible to women than the present day, right? The cave-men grabbed women by the hair and dragged them to their caves to rape.
We tend to consider males aspiring towards dominance as inevitable and natural, an inherent part of the behavior of Homo sapiens males.
This view of the past benefits the patriarchy. If we believe women have it better now than ever before, we settle for what we have now. If we believe the patriarchy is the natural social order of Homo sapiens, we might be satisfied with small changes that give us some relative safety and don’t pursue true liberation.
Rape is not inevitable
Rape is one of the main ways men oppress women.
We take rape as inevitable. It’s not.
Among Mosuo people, where women are the heads of the households and inheritance is matrilinear, the concept of rape doesn’t exist. I’m by no means an expert on Mosuo culture, so feel free to correct me. As far as I know, they consider rape an absurd concept – or at least did in the past, as nowadays patriarchal mainstream Chinese culture has started to affect the life of younger generations.
Imagine a life where you can’t imagine rape more than you can imagine someone forcefully stuffing food in your throat, which would be a violent and completely absurd act. I believe countless of women have lived at places and times where rape wasn't a thing.
The past is re-written by men
In the 19th century it was surprisingly commonly believed humans had a matriarchal past, but at some point the idea was ridiculed to oblivion so that it was (is?) basically impossible to study that subject and be taken seriously in the academia.
Later, continuing to present day, signs of matriarchal societies tended to be ignored or explained away. In contrast, rule of men is often assumed in historical findings from very little proof.
This assumption hasn’t been always right. A sizeable amount of prehistoric graves, assumed to be of male rulers or hunters, have now been proved to belong to women. Just lately scientists have realized the whole assumption of only men being hunters in historical hunter-gatherer societies is false. Women hunted too, as much as men.
The problem with researching the past were women weren’t oppressed is that we have centuries worth of interpretations based on the biases of male scientists who saw their own patriarchal worldview reflected everywhere they looked. Their imaginations simply couldn’t (and can’t) stretch to understand anything else.
Minoan culture
Minoan culture is one example of misinterpreted ancient culture.
This Bronze Age civilization based on Crete revolved around women. For a long time, male scientist refused to understand what their discoveries meant. Meanwhile they were completely capable of interpreting similar art and other findings elsewhere as prove of male rulership. But when the findings pointed to female leaders, it was assumed to be symbolic.
An interesting detail from Minoan art is how men are depicted to be very athletic and always wearing very little clothing – a bit like women are today.
It took a long time before men admitted women held high positions in Minoan culture, when it was very obvious from the evidence, had they been able to admit it was possible. Men tend to interpret the evidence to support their idea of a man the provider, man the ruler. And even most women accept it as the truth.
The patriarchal household isn’t inevitable
We often take it for granted that the natural human family structure is a male-led nuclear family. In the recent past and still today in many parts of the world, women move to their husband’s household, therefore ending up lowest in the social hierarchy as they are surrounded with the man’s family. When everyone else is related to the husband, it’s clear they more often than not take his side.
This is hardly the only way to arrange a relationship between a man and a woman. For example, the Mosuo people have a thing called walk-in marriage. Households are organized around a matriarch and her offspring. Both sons and daughters stay with their mother. Men and women of course have relationships, but the men simply stay for the night with their loved ones and then return in the morning to contribute to their mother’s household. Traditionally men haven’t taken care of their own children, but the children of their sisters. This is a practice that’s common in female-centered cultures.
An another alternative is matrilocality, which I understand has been or is practiced within certain Native American people. In a matrilocal system, the husband moves to his wife’s household. I believe this in itself causes a very different dynamic than a woman moving to a man’s family – the whole family now looks after the wife. Would you abuse your wife if you lived in the same longhouse as her whole extended family?
Venus figurines & Kurgan theory
There are signs that at some point in the distant past, Eurasian culture was very woman-centered. Venus figurines, depicting old women, have been found all over Eurasia.
At some point the Venus figurines disappeared.
The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 -1994), whose work has been ridiculed and largely forgotten, proposed Kurgan theory to explain the prevalence of patriarchy in Eurasia. Kurgan culture originated at the Black Sea and they are assumed to be the first speakers of proto-Indo-European language.
It is assumed Kurgan culture was more violent and patriarchal and violently spread over other cultures that were female-friendly.
Terra Feminarum
A text written in year 1075 describes a Northern European area called Terra Feminarum, Women's Land. Terra Feminarum was described to be located east from the Swedes and west from Russia. It was told the residents were Amazons of the Baltic Sea. "When Emund, the king of the Swedes had sent his son Anud to enlarge his powers, he arrived by sea to Woman Land. The Women immediately mixed poison to spring water and this way killed the king and his army."
It seems likely Terra Feminarum was located in Finland and/or Estonia, where Indo-European languages were never adopted (re: Kurgan theory). Maybe this area was one of the last female-friendly cultures in Europe. This is pure speculation at this point. Our traditional cultures have been disrupted by Christianity and patriarchy.
It might have been Kaarina Kailo – a Finnish scholar in Women’s studies - who I think said something along the lines of her taking some liberties when interpreting our past. That sometimes her interpretations might be speculative to a degree. You know why? That’s what men have been doing the whole time. They take the proof of men’s societal power as granted, even when the evidence is scarce. If the scarce lines written of Terra Feminarum described rule of men, no one would doubt it was true. But now Terra Feminarum is a myth, not history.
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This was only the tiniest scratch to the subject and I hope others have more to add. I don't have time to write a more comprehensive piece.
It's often said patriarchy originated with agriculture and the concept of ownership. Whether that's true or not, patriarchy hasn't been here forever.
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The thing about freedom is that no one tells you how hard it is.
It should be exhilarating, it should be freeing, it should be the best thing he had ever experienced.
But he found himself missing control. Concrete constraint over his acts; tasks lined, sequenced, culling the creatures of hell in clear arraignments. He did not have to reason every decision, only to deliver justice as a faithful blade. Complete confinement removes the burden of the self. The control from the council cast upon him, and it cut away the part of himself that he did not realize existed.
Perhaps he did, but non-acknowledgement is always easier than to grieve the loss of it. Plus, to deny cravings is to provide proof of perfect devotion.
So, he thought of nothing and equated kindness to killing.
And when it crashed down upon him, there was no longer a home (a prison; the sheath of a bloody sword) to return to. What reverberates inside him is not relief, but grand, grotesque grief. Over his past transgressions, over the slaughter of his superiors, over the loss of control. He knew not to seek fruitless redemption, but that did little to quell the restless regret occupying the same small space between the dips of his ribs as the looming giant of emptiness nesting in the crevice between the lungs and the skin.
And the shame. Oh God, the shame.
Somewhere below the small abstract concepts of “right”, “just”, and “fair”, it festered and spread, stretched like tendrils into veins, then capillaries. It crawled into him until he wished to shed his skin. Introspection did little to help. It fed this insistent infection abundantly until he was paralyzed – spiralling in the limitless expanse between each letter of F, R, E, E that was somehow still needle-thin enough to squeeze his lungs until breathless.
Logically, he knew he should not be ashamed for delivering one final justice, for the total liberation of all that still exists. It was the only choice he was given, and he chose what was just.
He did not regret his actions, but that did not mean he was not hurt and haunted.
So all of it does little to quell the spill of thorned vines in his veins. Shame was jagged and cruel, aggressive betrayal born from the same place that once hosted the holy Light. Between hell’s stagnant air and the sharpness of silence, it slotted firmly into the depth of his psyche, steadfast and unwavering like faith. They snagged and sliced his flesh at every movement until reality flayed apart at the edges of his mind. When he was still, he had the sensation of falling.
Was this the damnation?
To suffer in freedom in the last few hours of his life? To experience all and thrash under the terribly tangled amalgamation of emotions unfamiliar and frightening? To falter in the complex contradictions at the core of all creations and come undone by the simple brutality of it?
To see into reflections on his swords and unable to recognize the self that stared back?
How ironic, to be free from chains and miss them profusely so; to be released and realize your incapacity to function without imprisonment. Freedom is the absence of restraint, and he found himself lost within the infinite abyss.
When he looked inside of himself, he found the same chasm confined under the thin layer of skin. It swallowed him whole.
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USE YOUR VOICE GRETA VAN FLEET
If it hasn’t been abundantly clear how much I absolutely love the boys, I’m incredibly disappointed in how silent they have been. I’ve already voiced this before, but they do have impact. For the people saying that Greta not speaking about world issues shouldn’t be a big deal are just as complacent and dismissive of the actual pain going on in the world. We hear time and time again in their songs, messages of anti-war and the destruction that hate can bring and we have a duty to spread love, where is that love? Where is it? I’m a Grestie through and through, and I’m also an Arab Grestie. My grandparents and my extended family are Palestinian.
I was born and lived in the Middle East, more specifically Jordan, for long enough to know and feel the pain that my family and friends in Palestine are facing, seeing my heritage and traditions being wiped out right before my eyes. And I feel so guilty because I’m here now, a US citizen in the safety of my home watching it unfold. Imagine how people in Gaza are feeling? You absolutely can’t. The people in the West Bank are facing that fear of the inevitable if we don’t speak up and act. As for the hostages, captured both by the IOF and H*m*s, they’re not knowing any peace either.
For the people citing that the reason why they won’t speak on it is because of the mistreatment of LGBTQIA+ folks contradicts with Josh, that is not okay. Yes, we absolutely SHOULD and HAVE TO ensure safety of EVERYONE, no matter who they love or what they identify as, but repeating false rhetoric without any proof blatantly shows your Islamophobia and xenophobia. You regurgitate information being fed to you by bigoted sources with a reputation for falsifying experiences like it’s nothing. Not to mention, the US isn’t very safe right now for LGBTQ+ folk either. If we were under attack right now, would you stay silent too because Tennessee, Florida, and Texas are enacting hateful bills? Or are you staying silent now because they’re brown. Why don’t you actually ask a Queer Arab what it’s like over there? Talk to them? They exist, and they’re all over social media. And what about Queer Palestinians? Do they not deserve your advocacy?
I listened to and fell in LOVE with Greta Van Fleet because of their message. “They pass the torch and it still burns” gives me goosebumps everytime I listen to Age of Man, it serves as a reminder that through generations, we have a duty to fight and do better. “We do not fight for war, but to save the lives of those who do so” ARE YOU KIDDING? It is RIGHT THERE IN THEIR SONGS! If you still are dismissing the legitimate callout of the boys to speak on an issue WHO EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF SPEAKING ON ISSUES LIKE THIS, or you’re dismissing the pain that people who do have legitimate connection to the land in Palestine, please listen to the songs again. Reflect. And if you still don’t get it, I don’t have any hope for you.
I am so heartbroken, upset, and I will absolutely NOT let someone guilt me into not calling the boys out because “we should leave politics out of it”. This isn’t about politics. This is about HUMAN LIFE. Have empathy and for god’s sake, SHOW IT. SPEAK UP AND CALL OUT.
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Eighty-three-year-old Corine Woodson is poised to suffer a devastating blow: the loss of the home she shared with her late husband—who died in 2022—for over 60 years.
Her land, 40 acres set amid rolling pines outside of Auburn, Ala., was purchased in 1911 and passed down through generations, a rare example of Black land ownership in the Deep South. But in recent years, this once rural property, now parsed out among various family members in a form of ownership known as “tenants in common,” has caught the attention of investors who hope to purchase and develop properties they consider prime real estate.
Cleveland Brothers Incorporated bought out Woodson’s relatives, accumulating 49% ownership of the previously Black-owned property. Now, the case is making news as it heads toward the Alabama Supreme Court, with the company declaring that it will suffer “financial harm” if Woodson delays the sale of her share. (A representative of Cleveland Brothers told WTVM that Woodson could stay on the property for a year even if the sale goes through.)
Soon, Cleveland Brothers will probably purchase the remaining property, displacing Woodson. “It’s happening right before our eyes,” Melissa Woodson, Corine’s daughter and a licensed realtor said, “and the sad thing is that there is very little we can do about it.”
Stories like Woodson’s have been common for Black residents of the rural South for more than a century. The continuation of patterns of Black land dispossession exposes how—for all of the civil rights gains made over the last 60 years—there is still much to be done to secure racial equality in the U.S.
At the turn of the 20th century, Black landowners owned and operated 890,000 farms. Around midcentury, however, that number began to decline sharply. Beginning in 1950, they lost more than half a million farms; by 1970, only 45,000 remained. During the 1960s alone, the Black farm count in 10 southern states dropped by 88%.
Read More: The Forgotten School Integration Story that Challenges What We Think We Know
This drop off reflected how, for decades, wealthy white people utilized the power they held in their communities as government officials and business owners to push local Black people off land that their families had lived on for generations. Local white people also exploited new laws and subsidies to remove landowners or renters, deploying what an Emergency Land Fund report in 1974 described as, “a great deal of chicanery.” New capital-intensive farming practices also favored the wealthy, while industrial development led to corporate interest in rural tracts, driving up prices.
Rural Black women were particularly vulnerable to these threats of dispossession. Take Susie Young, for instance. Within two weeks of the death of her husband in 1955, Young received notice from the Allison Lumber Company that she had to vacate the land her family rented from them and had tended for over 20 years in Choctaw County, Ala. They considered her now incapable of maintaining the property.
One Black Perry County, Ala., woman had a similar experience. After the death of her mother in the 1950s, a nearby white landowner returned to claim the 60 acres her parents had bought decades prior claiming he “didn’t sell [her] that land.” Though the family retained counsel and provided proof of purchase, they were nevertheless pushed off their land. Black landowners often lacked formal deeds, and white judges frequently ruled against their claims.
Even as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 afforded Black Americans new opportunities and greater equality in many areas of life, these laws didn’t address land loss. In fact, the 1960s introduced a massive contradiction: at the same moment Black Americans achieved political gains, they were also experiencing a quiet economic catastrophe, the result of what historian Pete Daniel calls “intended consequences.”
Of course, civil rights organizations recognized the impact of Black land loss, not only for landowners but also for sharecroppers and tenant farmers. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC), and regional groups, such as the Southwest Alabama Farmers Cooperative Association (SWAFCA), pushed back against white structural control and assisted Black people facing displacement.
They understood that resistance to economic exploitation was inextricably intertwined with the civil rights movement’s racial justice initiatives. In 1968, for instance, the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) conducted an investigation of land dispossession in Alabama’s Black Belt. The Commission found that rural Black men and women were pushed off land at higher rates than whites, denied protections and grants by local Farmers Home Administration (FHmA) and Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) officials, and intimidated by hostile neighbors.
Civil rights organizations and the USCCR advised stronger enforcement of federal protections against discrimination and fair access to federal programs and grants. But it was state and local offices, often run by racist whites, that controlled implementation of these programs. This structure meant that racial equality and programs to assist the poor were nothing more than “empty promises and a cruel hoax.”
Decades later, the federal government agreed. In 1997, a group of Black farmers filed a massive class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, arguing that between 1981 and 1996, the department had discriminated against them on the basis of race. The USDA denied Black farmers loans and delayed assistance, which resulted in land loss. The plaintiffs won. The decision in Pigford v Glickman and a subsequent settlement inspired a second round of filings in 2010, known as Pigford II. In his landmark opinion, District Judge Paul Friedman acknowledged that, despite the settlement, “historical discrimination cannot be undone for the broken promise to African Americans and their descendants.”
Read More: How Civil Rights Were Made—and Remade—By Black Communities In the Jim Crow South
But these struggles have gone unnoticed by most Americans. Traditional civil rights narratives have typically centered urban spaces like Atlanta, Birmingham, or Memphis. Yet even as the civil rights revolution brought significant gains to Black residents of those cities, the story was very different in rural places like Lee County, Ga., or Lowndes County, Ala. As activist Wendell Paris put it, “the civil rights movement passed over Sumter County, Alabama, altogether.” In rural spaces, the same old local white power structures continued to dominate county boards and courts, while wielding new tools to exclude and limit Black Americans. Land loss was one of these.
Rural stories of dispossession like Woodson’s—and the sobering reality that they continue to happen—challenge popular civil rights narratives. These hopeful, progress oriented arcs, reveal an American propensity for national congratulation and, as Jeanne Theoharis has contended, “place the struggle against racial inequality firmly in the past.”
And yet, white supremacist power has not disappeared. While some of its iterations remain overt, others have shapeshifted since the 1960s, adopting new rhetoric and tactics even as they wreak familiar devastation on Black lives and Black communities. Redlining, gerrymandering, harsh sentencing, and predatory lending have proliferated just as talk of colorblindness has become mainstream. Indeed, as professions of racial parity have increased so have discrepancies in outcomes, hidden and compounded by the invisible hands of racial capitalism.
In 1968, C.H. Erskine Smith, then Chairman of the USCCR’s Alabama State Advisory Committee implored: “the people of rural Alabama and the rural South must not be forgotten.” To understand the long Black freedom struggle and to seek racial justice today means that we must heed his call.
Ansley Quiros is an associate professor of history at the University of North Alabama and author of God With Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, 1942-1976. She and Dr. Matthew Schoenbachler are currently working on a memoir with Dr. Wendell Gunn. Allie R. Lopez is Ph.D candidate in history at Baylor University, writing a dissertation on the freedom struggle in rural Alabama. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here.
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I love the conversations in ITSAY that are about things other than what they seem
And the scene where Teh and Ohaew float in the ocean, before having their first kiss underwater, really struck me in particular.
First we get Teh's perspective:
"This feels good. I don't have to think about anything. I want to stay this way.
I love it when the seawater touches my back. I feel like something is holding me up."
Teh doesn't want to think. He's hiding from all the thoughts he's been having, avoiding self-reflection and putting a name to his feelings. We see that in the next part of this scene, when Ohaew pushes for definition and confirmation and Teh can't say anything more specific than "Isn't it nice, what we have now?" When Ohaew first reveals his feelings for Teh in the hammock, and indicates he knows Teh likes him too, Teh doesn't actually say anything, he just doesn't contradict or protest what Ohaew says. Teh doesn't say aloud he likes Ohaew until the last episode, while talking to his brother, and we can see how difficult that is for him.
In the ocean, laying like that, Teh doesn't have to put in work. The saltwater supports him, keeps him afloat. Why change what's already comfortable? Why dive into the unknown (break up with Tarn, confess to Ohaew, etc.) when he can keep doing what he is doing.
Teh feels like he's drowning, body contorting, breathing deeply like his lungs haven't had air in too long. He reaches out for Ohaew whenever he can, gulps lungfuls of his scent, anything to get close to him, but he won't take the plunge and vocalize his feelings.
I think it speaks to Teh's relationship with others and especially his mother too - he says "I love it when the seawater touches my back. I feel like something is holding me up." Teh is so concerned with what the people in his life would think if he reveals his feelings for Ohaew and dates him. When he is spilling his heart to his brother about Ohaew in episode 5 he says "If I date him, how can I tell my friends? All my friends date girls" and "If I dated a guy, would [Ma] be ok? What would Ma think of that?" He fears losing his support network, the people who "hold him up," if he is honest and takes the plunge to confess to Ohaew.
So as a result, Teh chooses silence and stagnation. He doesn't verbalize to Ohaew his feelings (despite signaling them in all his gestures and actions), he doesn't break up with Tarn or tell her how conflicted he is (beyond saying "I'm confused"), he tells Ohaew he wants things to stay the same between them. It's easier to remain, at least outwardly, the same Teh he's always been - heterosexual - rather than change his understanding of himself and update others on who he is now.*
When Teh visits Tarn's house to ask if she still loves him, desperate to find some sort of proof, a reason, to forget all the feelings he's been having about Ohaew and return to a (heterosexual) normal with Tarn, she challenges him to tell her he loves her back. She yells "SAY IT!", a desperate plea to have Teh vocalize the thoughts and feelings he's been having - but he doesn't, just like he doesn't say anything to Ohaew. "It's your turn" she says, and I'm sure Ohaew would yell the same. They are tired of being the ones thinking and talking and taking the risks - it's Teh's turn to take the plunge. "Why are you so quiet?" Tarn asks. "Why are you doing this?" and it's true, Teh is only hurting himself and the people he loves by choosing to float, unthinking, unchanging, staying where he is.
Now for Ohaew's perspective:
"But you need to hold your breath all the time with this posture. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable.
And when I don't want to control anything, I release my breath, and let myself sink."
Ohaew points out that Teh's approach isn't as relaxing as he makes it out to be. It still takes work to float, even in saltwater. You have to tense your body and hold your breath to stay above the waves. And we've seen that in Teh, how tense he is, how he writhes around as if desperate for release but he can't quite reach it.
In contrast, Ohaew says when this existence gets uncomfortable, you have to surrender to the waves. Stop trying to hold on even when it's causing pain and relinquish control. Ohaew has many things he is stressed about, like his grades, making his parents proud, getting into university, etc. but there's many things he is more comfortable with than Teh. He seems confident in his sexuality (he knows he's into boys, has no fear at confessing to Teh his crush on Bas, dates Bas openly, etc.), he share his life with others freely on Instagram, he studies but asks for rest days, etc. He takes the plunge and tells Teh he has feelings for him and that he knows Teh has feelings for him too. He's often the first to reach out for Teh and move into his space, directly challenge the boundaries of platonic friendship.
In fact, times when Ohaew is least comfortable are times with Teh: when he waits for Teh to open up about his feelings, when Teh pushes him away, when Teh says he wants to continue as friends, when Ohaew considers how he can't change for Teh.
So Ohaew relinquishes control: he can't change how Teh feels and acts, so he lets Teh go and tries to move on with Bas. He's still caught up in his feelings for Teh (especially since he knows they are reciprocated but Teh is unwilling and unable to step into the unknown) but he's trying to move on, let the tide take him where it would, find happiness elsewhere.
This conversation floating in the ocean tells us where they are coming from, and the next bit shows us where they end up:
Ohaew puts it out there: he tells Teh how he feels, he initiates non-platonic contact, he pushes Teh to open up as well. Teh fights it, tries to remain floating "effortlessly" on the surface, keeping everything just the way it always has been, though the water keeps pulling him under and he's been holding his breath for months.
Ohaew practices what he preaches and surrenders to the waves, takes the plunge, and, after a moment, Teh follows.
*side note to say this reminds me of some of the thoughts I've had about Tinn from MSP (here) and how it can be hard to challenge other people's expectations and preconceived notions of you even if they don't quite fit anymore
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Side Character Roles/Functions
I've been thinking about the roles of side characters in this series and how they function as narrative devices. I have no specific point to laying them all out other than I think it's interesting to take a look back at what they've shown us about the main characters.
Yo & Plug - I'm putting them together because they're almost always in scenes together. To no one's surprise, I think they are intended primarily as a mirror to SandRay's relationship. What is first presented as a seemingly ideal relationship turns sour fast when Sand and Ray catch their breakup outside of the bar. Yo is afraid of commitment much in the same way that Sand is afraid of setting boundaries or rejecting people he cares about lest he lose them. In that way, Yo's behavior almost contradicts Sand's own--Yo is so afraid of losing someone that she opts to leave them first, while Sand is so afraid of losing someone even if they treat him badly. There are so many juicy comparisons to Sand and Ray's commitment to each other.
Atom - Also unsurprisingly, Atom functions as both a point of conflict for Boston and, more importantly, a turning point for Boston in his own self-reflections. What makes Atom different than Boston's other hookups is that Boston had established a genuine friendship with him prior. Not only that, but Boston was under the impression that Atom was 100% straight up to the point that Atom asked if he could try things out with Boston. Judging from Boston's reaction, the fact that this friendship leads to a sexual encounter is disheartening in that it once again affirms Boston's worth as coming from his body. This topic hasn't been explored in too much detail, but I like that the situation with Atom subtly hints at it. Additionally, we see Nick tell Atom that he knows what it's like to be in love with someone who doesn't love him back (right in front of Boston!) which is a poignant line for Boston to hear. Boston was already aware of this, but in light of his recent revelations, I think it hits harder to hear Nick say it in the interaction between AtomBostonNick.
Boeing - Boeing is here to ruin everybody's day. I think he serves multiple functions given that he is involved in multiple relationships (I'm sure he will have an important function in BostonNick's relationship as well judging from the Ep12 preview). For TopMew, Boeing is both another road block for them to move past and proof that though Mew wants to forgive Top, he still wants to take revenge against him. Boeing is a convenient way for Mew to take that revenge; Boeing even invites it. Mew deciding not to take the bait though is what allows him and Top to move forward. For SandRay, Boeing is a source of conflict that they must overcome too, but he also plays a very integral role in illustrating Sand's boundary issues.
April - April is here to be the unproblematic gf of the year. In my own personal opinion, I think she deserves better than Cheum. I do not think Cheum is a bad person, just like I don't think anyone in this series can be considered a bad person, but her behavior--especially with the Atom/Boston incident--frustrates me to no end. But back to April. I think her relationship with Cheum is important in that it remains fairly consistent even though it has its own issues. I'm glad they encountered some conflict to remain realistic and show the audience that not even the lesbians are safe from drama.
Moms/Dads - I won't go too deep into this since there are so many avenues (might be better-suited for a longer post), but moms and dads play an important role for many of the main characters, particularly Sand, Ray, Boston, and Mew (with variation of course). Contrasting the relationship that Ray had with his mom to Sand's mom/Mew's moms illustrates how Ray has been lacking in a familial support system for much of his life. On the other hand, Sand's father is an absent figure while Ray's father is only mostly absent, though he does care about saving Ray from his mother's fate. We also see small glimpses of Boston's father and Nick's father; Boston's father is an especially good indicator of the role of reputation, expectation, and even toxic masculinity in Boston's life.
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Crowley and Aziraphale always came off as romantic to me; both in the book and in the show. They have so much more chemistry than anyone else. And I always second guess me reading their relationship as romantic when I see the general public's takes. So then I go back over like, okay, if this was a man and a woman, how would this read. They do couple things all the time. They use pet names. The show leans more into pining but in the book it feels like they're already married. Both the narrator and other characters refer to them as a couple and its never contradicted. Is that subtext or just plain text. I wouldn't call it queerbaiting, but queercoding or representation doesn't feel quite right either. Are we reading too much into it or is media literacy dead.
Hi there! Thank you for sharing these thoughts in response to my post from the other day. What you've mentioned here (how this would read if it was a man and a woman) is something I have thought about as well--both in terms of Aziraphale/Crowley and Michael/David, as I have shipped them outside of the show for some time now, and especially given the increasingly fuzzy line between them and the characters (which both Michael and David themselves have talked about in multiple interviews).
I think what we're seeing is neither queerbaiting nor queercoding/representation, but instead a sort of incongruity between what was put on the printed page when Good Omens was first published and what was brought to life on screen when it came to TV. What I mean by that is I often see a lot of people point to the line "gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide" as proof (almost typed "poof" there--hello, Freudian slip...) that Neil/Terry meant for the characters (specifically Aziraphale) to be gay. But from what Neil has said, the main intention here was for this to be a play on words--so, "gay" as in homosexual, but also "gay" as in happy, which was the original meaning of the term. I'm then led to think that in the minds of two cishet men in the late 1980s, "gayness" conjured a particular, unserious image, which they then brought into the writing.
Fast-forward to thirty years later, and you have Good Omens finally becoming a television show. Terry Pratchett (Gnu) had sadly left us, and so the task fell to Neil to write the screenplay and honor Terry's last wish by faithfully adapting the story. And while Neil wisely decided to cast Michael for his goodness and angelic-like nature, what I think he didn't count on was Michael's long-held beliefs and ideas about the character of Aziraphale and how he would portray him, or his profound penchant for playing numerous queer characters over the last several decades. The gayness of Aziraphale on the written page was something that Neil could control, but he couldn't control the gayness of Aziraphale as interpreted by Michael.
So that led to Neil having to address some things that I don't think he was quite prepared to address, both about the show and inside himself. Mainly, that if we are to extrapolate that what we see in season 1 is a reflection (to some degree, anyway) of Neil's views on relationships, a straight couple with little to no chemistry can jump into bed together without any hesitation, but a gay couple with tremendous chemistry and who share a deep and profound connection can't express that, either physically or by simply saying "I love you."
Much discussion has been made about how it's not necessary for someone to say "I love you" to convey such a sentiment. But what I've noticed missing from this discourse is the age/experience of anyone who has been in a relationship where that wasn't said (or conveyed) by one partner and how painful that was for the other partner. And as I mentioned in my other post, even once gay/queer people started to exist in media, they still weren't allowed to fall in love. (The phrase "the love that dare not speak its name" even came into being because of this taboo, for crying out loud.)
So when we then look at the countless tweets from Neil about how Good Omens is a love story while considering the vastly different ways in which that love is regarded when it's straight vs. when it's gay, his words start to ring somewhat hollow. And if he repeatedly has to emphasize that something is a love story, then maybe it isn't coming across as a love story in the way he thinks it is. Maybe Neil being more comfortable with casual, meaningless sex than a deep commitment speaks to a larger issue on his part. Or maybe Neil was fine with the abstract idea of a gay love story, but suddenly less comfortable with the concrete, three-dimensional reality of it.
If I had to use a word to describe it, then, from a media/cultural standpoint, I think I would call it "queerplaying," which I would define as roleplaying queerness on a surface level without actually delving into the complexity and messiness of what it actually means to be a queer/non-cishet human being. (To be clear, I am applying this to the writing/the original GO text, not to what Michael and David ultimately brought to the roles as actors.)
I hope this all makes sense. Again, the second season could come out tomorrow/Friday and prove me completely wrong about everything I've just said here, which would be wonderful. But I'm glad that other people have felt similarly about what we saw (or didn't see) in the first season, and the disconnect between the perceptions of fans/the perception of the public vs. Neil's authorial intent. Thanks for writing in! x
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Hey! I wanted to ask if you could do an in depth explanation on James Jani’s video on ‘debunking’ manifesting! I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!
his video is debunking the law of attraction. and his main point is that there is no actual scientific proof of thoughts and feelings having “vibrations”, it creates toxic beliefs (toxic positivity etc) and there isn’t actually any proof that the things that happen in your life are related to the thoughts you think.
i don’t ever talk about “energy” or “vibrations”. it is obviously pseudoscience. “energy” is just an abstract enough term to mark it as the basis of why thought creates. if you’ve taken basic chemistry or physics then you can find plenty of examples why this is all contradicting.
the basis on which i am practicing the law of assumption is not based on “energy”. mine is a concept that can’t be debunked by empirical science. consciousness is the only reality is a philosophy. it’s a way to view life. it’s not claiming to be scientific. why consciousness is the only reality is because you can only experience life through your consciousness. for you, only consciousness exists. you cannot access anyone else’s experience because you can only access your own consciousness. even if you could access someone else’s experience then it would still be your experience because you’d be experiencing it through your own consciousness. therefore, for you, all there is is your own consciousness. therefore consciousness creates. because if there’s only your consciousness then only your consciousness can create.
i think positivity is a crucial part of the law of assumption. the attitude you have towards life are reflected on the outside. i agree that you can’t just tell people “just smile!”. obviously you shouldn’t ignore your emotions because they tell you a lot about yourself and any deeper attitudes about your life. but as consciousness is the only reality, all thoughts, feelings, problems, desires and assumptions are subordinate to you. acknowledging this can help you deal with your emotions. that is not toxic positivity. that is letting yourself be happy.
from a law of attraction perspective i could definitely wrongly associate what happens on the outside with my feelings and thoughts. my success and failure could be related to something else. but from the law of assumption perspective, however, i am leaning on a purely theoretical philosophy. you cannot debunk that you are aware right now and you have a consciousness. you cannot debunk that you experience things because you are conscious. this is common intuitive knowledge. so consciousness being the only reality is just a perspective you can take on life, something you can acknowledge if you want to, because it isn’t debunkable from an empirical science point of view.
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"Among the influential poetry scholars in this period, Charles Altieri comes closest to acknowledging the circumstances by which critics became mute in the face of historical crisis, though he does so, not in discussing critics, but in discussing poetry. In this passage from his powerful 1984 book, Self and Sensibility in Contemporary American Poetry, Altieri reflects on the revolutionary sixties from the vantage point of the Reagan era. In that decade, he writes,
poets felt that intense poetic experience might serve as witness and proof of the power of mind to recover numinous values trampled underfoot by the assumptions of liberal industrial society. Now that the desire to transform society, or even to transform long-standing aspects of American personality, has come to seem to many at best escapist and at worst another of the illusions Americans create to avoid the contradictions in their lives, poets have sought quieter, more distinctly personal and relativistic ways of adjusting to what seem inescapable conditions…
Ours is an age that must come to terms with failed expectations and, worse, the guilt of recognizing why we held such ambitious dreams. (36–37)
This passage is exemplary of the refusal to think about the role of capital in political and literary history, for two reasons. One is that, in trying to dismiss left-wing political aspirations as psychological flaws, and approvingly citing a turn to 'quieter, more distinctly personal and relativistic ways of adjusting to what seem inescapable conditions,' Altieri ends up creating the contradiction he thinks this inward turn avoids—a contradiction between the quietude of the inward personal life, rendered as a retreat, and the force required to keep the world away from it. This contradiction has a psychic expression as well, which is the 'guilt' that Altieri, with heartbreaking candor, says attaches to having dreamed of a better world. That guilt, like the wall around a gated community, blocks further political thinking by punishing the political thinker for having dared to imagine or to work for revolutionary change.
In mentioning this guilt, Altieri touches on a powerful structure of feeling in American political life, one that has always posed problems for the left, which congeals in the idea that it is a betrayal to think against the system—a betrayal against one’s friends, one’s community, one’s art. Distantly behind this idea lies the real material threat against workers who choose to strike—the possibility that striking would threaten their family’s security, or bring down violence on them. Transposed into an academic setting, the idea seems to be that, in developing a critical analysis of capitalism, the critic forsakes daily life, the small beauties; he becomes arrogant, unable to see what’s right in front of his nose; or she becomes preachy, solipsistic, hypnotized by abstractions. If one is a critic of poetry, the too-critical critic loses the ability to perform subtle close readings."
Christopher Nealon, The Matter of Capital
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EP Review - Here, Hear. IV – La Dispute (2024)
This EP was the best gift that 2024 could give me, and we're still only in March. A game between the traumas in the stories recounted in La Dispute's first "great" albums - Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair (2008) and Wildlife (2011) - revolutionary for the experimental world of midwest emo, post-hardcore and the underground community in general, and the latest works of art that are most listened to and reflected on, which tell us through the details of everyday life, feelings, landscapes and images open to the listener's imagination - Rooms of the House (2014) and Panorama (2019) - when recitation becomes part of the post-hardcore trends.
Despite the pained voice and the contrasts that create the perfect synthesis of the guitars and bass, the rhythmic coherence of the drums and the literary personality of the band that has always been faithful to us from the beginning until today, elements that have created the "brand image", I notice that these geniuses of emo music don't mind experimenting with new electronics, the absence of screams and distortions, love, new ways of saying things. The fact that we can't catalog and put aesthetic labels on certain artists, because they are constantly metamorphosing and contradicting themselves with the genres given by fans and record companies, certain types of festivals and events, algorithms of streaming platforms, etc., is a proof that the post-hardcore of these bands that continue to record over the years is maturing as a movement. And this EP has made me reflect on my generation, which adapts to trends by not adapting to it at all. Perhaps silences and improbable harmonic resolutions are the oxygen pump for artists and listeners of music created in a studio as if it’s a laboratory.
Here, Hear. is a collection of four volumes, the first of which was released in 2008, the band's big bang year. In the four volumes, we can see that La Dispute exploded at the beginning and took their own advantage of the sounds in a very genuine, pure and direct way, unashamed to use unconventional instruments such as pianos, maracas and “folklorized” melodies - always recognizable on a timbral level, anyway - but it was in this last one, sixteen years later, that we see the band flourish, not in an explosive way as before, but always pure and honest. They reinforce simplicity and the timeless stories. Sixteen, the fourth song on the EP, and one that had been released before on Spotify, marks a new life of La Dispute: it reminds me of the walks I had to school when I was fourteen and of my first crush had dedicated the song Such Small Hands (2008) to me in anonymity; of the song Woman (In the Mirror) (2014) when I was always at home trying to discover my own way of (always hidden) teenage happiness. Today I've discovered how happy I can be and that the nostalgia for the sadness, heartbreak and melancholy that went on in the corners of my neighborhood while I listened to La Dispute's entire discography for most of the years I lived there is part of it. We were sad listening to sad music, and happiness, today, is based on that. This single, according to my empirical experience and to the community of fans writing online as well, reminds us of those nostalgic times.
And the group's aesthetic minimalism continues. Not just in the music, but in the band's overall image. And I'm enjoying watching it. The lyrics and stories increasingly make sense, since the instrumental part of the EP makes them prevail. In the song Reformation, which concludes the EP in a mode of ecstatic tranquillity, we have a beautiful guitar that harps along with Jordan Dreyer's unsung and unshouted voice. Just like that. Everything that the music of sensitive people needed to offer about the art of growing up and noticing life's little symbols, even when you drink your coffee in the morning before facing the life of an adult who is emotionally trapped by the years that have passed.
«You awake at 3AM to the soft voice of her dream, saying
"These are the people who said that you like him would never die
Until you do and you will and I will too
Just like this, baby, but longer, forever
And there's nothing past that door, I know it"
Before she drifts back to sleep where you can't now and it's okay
Peace be with you»
Reformation, La Dispute (2024)
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Anon wrote: Hi, I am an INXJ 21F (unclear about own type) with an INFP acquaintance. She is very vocal and firm about her position and thoughts, she also finds it very easy to share her darker/messier self to others and to ask for help and advice. I am utterly torn about this person and wonder if my negative reactions are a reflection of my own insecurities as she herself seems like a well-integrated and self-aware person. I admire her ability to share so openly because it initiates an opportunity for others to be vulnerable with her as well. I know that it is not something I could do myself with my perfectionism and dislike of burdening others. But I find it frustrating and embarrassing that she is the only one on the group chat being vocal about her stress and everyone else coddling her up, when hypothetically this should go both ways. I’d appreciate your insight on what this says about me or about her!
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1) What does it say about you? It looks like you've got some idea already because you mention how it may be reflective of your issues like perfectionism. The way in which you are unnecessarily getting entangled with her is probably an indication of projection. Projection is the (unconscious) tendency to see your own unacceptable desires in other people.
On one hand, you deem it "unacceptable" to be authentically yourself in public. Why? As you've alluded to, it's likely due in part to self-loathing. You yourself don't want to see your negative aspects, let alone expose them to others. Perhaps you fear that others will judge you just as negatively as you judge yourself. Hence, the perfectionism.
On the other hand, authentic self-expression is a real and legitimate human need, and you cannot deny a universal psychological need no matter how hard you try. Thus, when you see someone being so effortlessly authentically themselves, it serves as proof that it's quite possible, and it reminds you of how terrible it feels to deny yourself the opportunity.
This contradiction of denigrating yet desiring authenticity creates cognitive dissonance for you: Are you right to deny your authenticity or is she right to express hers?
Projection is a defense mechanism. Instead of confronting one's own wrongs, it's easier to point out the wrongs of others. By judging her authenticity as "unacceptable", you can continue believing that you're in the right to deny your own need for authenticity. Unfortunately, defense mechanisms are unhealthy because they separate you from the reality of yourself, but you can't escape reality forever. The reality is that you keep denying yourself of authentic self-expression and it's immensely painful and that's why this issue pops up for you. You use perfectionism to blunt the pain. You use martyrdom to blunt the pain. But these strategies can never eliminate the pain because they never confront the true extent of the pain and its root cause. (FWIW, this issue is prevalent in INFJs.)
You also say you're frustrated and embarrassed when she's so open and gets all the attention because it should hypothetically "go both ways". I don't disagree with equality in relationships, but your negative reaction raises an important question: Why would people "coddle" you when you never allow yourself to express the need for it? After all, you don't show off those darker aspects of yourself, right? The fact that you use the word "coddle" in reference to emotional needs belies a very negative attitude about emotional life on your part.
I can't speak for the others in the group who aren't here to speak for themselves, but the inequality you witness in your relationship to her isn't because of her, it's because of YOU and your unwillingness to treat your emotional needs as important and deserving of "coddling". Just like above, it is also projection to judge/blame her for hogging attention just because you deem it "unacceptable" to ask for so much attention for yourself. It wouldn't be fair to want her to feel apologetic or in the wrong for doing what you can't do.
Now, if you explicitly asked her to reciprocate (to attend to your emotional needs the same way you attended to hers) but she flatly refused, then you'd have a right to feel resentful. That would serve as concrete proof that she doesn't care about your needs as much as her own. However, even then, it's not very useful to get lost in blame or judgmentalness - what would it achieve? It would turn you into a cold and dark version of you, thus giving you even more to dislike about yourself. When someone proves to be a bad friend to you, you could choose not to dwell on it and simply move on to find a better friend.
2) What does her behavior say about her? Does this question presuppose that everyone should have some kind of judgment about her behavior? Being judgmental is an indication that you lack proper interpersonal boundaries, which is, in part, what makes projection so easy to deploy. Lack of boundaries means you don't know where you end and others begin. You don't see the world as it is but as you are.
Reflect: Why do you get so invested in how others behave? If someone isn't being grossly unethical, on what basis do you feel justified to make judgments about them and their character? After all, the way they choose to live is really none of your business, is it? Do you believe that people should be free to be themselves? If not, you're going to have a lot of relationship problems. If you want the freedom to live as you please, you should grant the freedom to others. But if you don't take advantage of the freedom, are you going to begrudge others for doing so? It wouldn't be fair of you.
I have nothing to say about her because how she behaves is her business. It has nothing to do with me, so why should I have any judgment about it? It affects you, though. You fixate on her because she is bringing your unconscious issues to light. She is an image you've created for the purpose of self-scrutiny. You can use this as a golden opportunity to address your underlying struggles with authenticity, or you can indulge judgmentalness and continue to get triggered by these brazenly authentic people for the rest of your life.
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