#also puts 'eat of my body drink of my blood' in a different context considering sacrificial death for humanity's sins | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

samwisethewitch · 4 years

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Using Human Body Parts in Spells

Many witches believe that the human body is sacred. Whether they’re pantheists, animists, or somewhere in between, most magical practitioners agree that there is some sort of divine or magical essence contained in all living things, including our bodies. But if that’s the case, why do so many witches hesitate to use parts of the body in their craft?

Part of it is the “ick” factor. Western society is shaped by religious and cultural influences that tell us our bodies are unclean, gross, or even scary. In order to comfortably work with the energies of the human body in magic, we have to unlearn these cultural influences.

This post covers the uses of human effects (materials that come from the human body) in witchcraft and magic.

Why Use This Stuff, Anyway?

By far the most common use of human effects in magic is as a taglock. A taglock is an item from the person a spell is meant to affect — either a small piece of their person (such as hair or fingernail clippings), or a personal belonging that is energetically connected to them. A taglock acts as a sort of anchor, tying the energy of a spell to that specific person and providing a direct link between them and the magic. Think of it as an energetic targeting system. This brings faster, more powerful results.

The use of taglocks is connected to the concept of sympathetic magic, which states that what is done to a small part of a person or thing (including an image or effigy) affects the whole. This idea is as old as humans — in fact, some archaeologists believe that Paleolithic cave paintings of injured animals were a form of sympathetic magic meant to manifest successful hunts.

If you need a taglock for a spell and can’t or don’t want to use hair/fingernails/etc., use one of the person’s belongings instead. This can be a business card, a child’s stuffed animal, or a napkin they used at dinner — whatever you can get your hands on. If you can’t get a personal belonging, use a photograph of the person.

Aside from linking magic to a specific person, different human effects have their own magical correspondences (see below). Depending on your spell, it may make sense to include hair as a symbol of personal power and self-expression or menstrual blood as a symbol of releasing old energy. Most witches don’t think twice about using milk or eggs, which come from the bodies of cows and chickens, in their magic, so why shouldn’t we use things from our own bodies as well?

There is an unfortunate stigma around the use of human effects in magic. Things like blood and hair are unfairly associated with dark magic, and many witches avoid them for that reason. Like any other magical tool, human effects can be used in spells for good or ill. You could use a taglock to add power to a healing spell, for example, or put your own hair in a success spell to anchor that success to you. These items are a part of you — they are no more evil or scary than you are.

Ethics and Safety

We’ve already discussed the ethical implications of doing magic on other people. This is especially important to keep in mind when working with human effects, either your own or someone else’s, because you are working directly with that person’s energy. Sympathetic magic gets very up close and personal, so it’s important to take care.

Don’t do anything to the personal effect, whatever it is, that you wouldn’t do to the person themselves. (Yes, this still applies if you’re using one of their possessions, or even a photograph.) Be gentle and respectful. Don’t throw it around or be careless with it. Don’t set it on fire or cut it up unless you really know what you’re doing and really want to fuck with the person it came from.

There are certain safety precautions that need to be taken when working with human effects, especially bodily fluids. I’ll talk about safety protocol for blood magic in a future post, but for now just be aware of the danger of bloodborne diseases and other possible contaminants. Sexual fluids may carry STIs, for example. For this reason, you should always take care when handling someone else’s bodily fluids. Wear gloves and make sure you don’t have any exposed cuts or sores.

Hair and fingernails are the safest human effects because they contain dead cells, and thus the risk of contagion is low. They’re also usually a little easier to get a hold of, especially if you’re doing magic for another person. Hair and nail clippings are most witches’ go-to taglocks for these reasons.

And finally, do not ever, under any circumstances, eat, drink, or bathe in anything that came from another person’s body. Some older spells call for adding blood or some other bodily fluid to food, and some old initiation rituals require the initiate to drink wine containing a drop of blood from each group member. In modern times, we know that this is dangerous because it could potentially spread disease. Trust me when I say there is no good reason to ever consume someone else’s DNA. Just don’t.

Correspondences

Below are correspondences for some human effects that can fairly easily be incorporated into spells. I have also included substitutions, for those who truly just aren’t comfortable working with human effects. These substitutions may not be quite as powerful, but the symbolism is similar.

Note: The use of blood in magic is a huge topic with a rich history, so I have chosen to devote an entire post to it. Blood is not mentioned in this post, but I will be posting about it soon!

Correspondences of Human Effects

Hair is closely tied to a person’s essence and personal power, perhaps more so than any other effect besides blood. In many cultures, hair is never cut to avoid dispersing this power. (Think of the story of Samson in the Bible.) Hair is also associated with the head, mental abilities, and thoughts. Hair is one of the most powerful taglocks, and can also be used in spells related to strength, beauty, and mental clarity. Use a few of your own hairs to tie something up to bind it with your personal power.

Substitutes for Hair: clove (for empowerment), rosemary (for mental clarity), catnip (for beauty)

Saliva lends itself to many purposes because of its wide array of correspondences. On one hand it is associated with kissing and sex (think of the phrase “swapping spit” to describe kissing), but on the other it can be extremely offensive (spitting on someone is a very old and very strong insult). Saliva can also be substituted for any other bodily fluid.

Substitutes for Saliva: cardamom (for love and lust), vinegar (for cursing and insult)

Fingernails are, of course, linked to the hands and to a person’s ability to act. They’re also one of the easiest human effects to collect, which make them a good choice for a taglock. I usually see fingernails used in this context rather than to bring a certain energy to a spell.

Substitute for Fingernails: clove (to empower action)

Semen and Vaginal Arousal Fluid are, naturally, associated with sex. Both are associated with pure potential, fertility, and action, and can give your spell a heck of a power boost. Use sexual fluids in spells for growth and new beginnings. They are also useful in love magic — anoint a red candle with your sexual fluids to attract a lover.

Substitutes for Semen and Vaginal Arousal Fluid: penis or vulva shaped candle (for sex magic), rice (for fertility), rose (for love), cinnamon (for lust)

Urine is a traditional ingredient in the witch bottle, a powerful protective charm. It’s also found in both curses and love spells in American folk magic. Interestingly, it’s also used to break curses. One of my teachers practiced Appalachian folk magic, and she used to say that the most surefire way to get rid of any curse was to “piss on a brick.” (Red bricks are also associated with protection.) As you can see, urine is perhaps the most versatile bodily fluid when it comes to magical uses.

Substitutes for Urine: vinegar (for protection, cursing, and curse breaking), cardamom (for love and lust)

Human effects are a powerful way to add strength to any spell. Next time you’re conjuring healing, manifestation, or love, consider throwing some hair or fingernails in there. Let your body’s magic be a part of your craft.

Resources:

Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison

Of Blood and Bones by Kate Freuler

“The Meaning of European Upper Paleolithic Rock Art” by Cristian Violatti on ancient.eu

A Green Witch’s Cupboard by Deborah J. Martin

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shinydelirium · 3 years

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Kiro’s R&S: Lonely (Season 2 Chapters, 2-5) Translation [CN]

***WARNING!!! THIS POST CONTAINS CONTENT THAT HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED YET ON EN SERVER!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED!!!***

This is a translation from Kiro’s R&S for Season 2, Chapters 2-5. Just to let everyone know, I do not know any Chinese but I have taken an interest in learning it because of this game. Therefore, I’m learning the language as I go. Everything has been done using Google Translate so do expect some errors and mistranslations. I’ve tried my best to make it flow well. Also, shout out to @link4eva for walking me through this process. I’m not gonna hide the fact that I hate technology and technology hates me so this is my first time posting something so monstrous, lol. Without further ado, please enjoy!

***Some context before reading. The events of this R&S takes place towards the end of Season 1 when an impending comet is about to hit Earth. MC spends what little time she has left with the guys until she is summoned to some unknown place and gets set back in time.***

Even if the world fusion collapses, it cannot stop a firm heart.

[Chapter 1]

*Click, click*

The sound of the gear turning stopped again and behind the door that was slowly opened, a calm voice sounded.

“She has gone.”

Drifting light spots lingered in the endless darkness and the stairs slowly retreated to its origin. Everything seems to have not happened and it seems to be silently waiting for some tomorrow to come.

“The future is far away, but it will come.”

Helios didn’t speak, but stood still, looking towards the end of the stairs.

“Are you scared?”

The person in the dark tempted again, and he smiled after listening.

“No matter how difficult it is, she will definitely find a way so that everyone can meet tomorrow. What is there to be afraid of?”

At the end of the speech, his voice became very soft, containing some fear hidden in his heart.

The girl’s face slowly appeared in front of Helios’ eyes. He suddenly remembered that in the world of Eternal Winter, she kept approaching bravely, gritted her teeth to face all the unknowns, remembering every moment she had illuminated. He always believed that she would be able to make the most correct choice and let the doomsday meet the future. It’s just...

There was a seemingly silent laugh from the darkness. Helios released the palm he had just unintentionally clenched, and turned to look at the scattered light spots, “I just want to know one thing.” His hand gently lifted. The light spot swayed at his fingertips, like stars hanging in the dark, losing their orbit. “That uncontrollable future is the future of this world?”

The distant voice seemed to sigh, “What do you think the world is like?”

Helios did not speak.

“The countless choices of mankind have gathered into all nets of the world. It is infinitely extended and leads to the future.” He paused. “But the future will end. This is countless civilizations relying on the destruction, over and over. The conclusion drawn again. Although it is moving forward slowly, it seems to return to a certain point of origin.”

“Destruction.” Helios raised his head and said this word in disbelief.

“This world should have stopped today, but a possibility has arisen.” While Helios was still speculating on the deep meaning behind this, the voice did not stop. “This possibility gives her the ability to choose the most correct one. The path leads the world to a distant place beyond truth and common sense.”

Helios frowned slightly and caught the core part of the words in an instant. “You mean, there will be even more incredible changes in the future?”

“This is not a question I can answer.”

The sound of the gear turning sounded again, and the person’s voice seemed a little tired, and finally slowly disappeared in the darkness, like the last hint.

“This world has completed its choice, and it will not stay. It will continue to move forward to witness the arrival of tomorrow, no matter what posture or form this tomorrow is presented to humanity...It belongs to the tomorrow of this world, and you...” The voice faintly revealed the meaning of expectation and scrutiny, “Tomorrow you will naturally be the same as her, you will be the way you crossed from today to tomorrow.”

[Chapter 2]

From the dome of the hall, one can see the lights of comets approaching from the sky. The people around the round table appear to be extremely silent. They all looked at Helios who walked in, seeming to be waiting for his final answer.

“It’s too early to prepare for the end.” Helios walked to the front of the main seat, but did not sit down. He gently propped his hands on the round table, and there seemed to be sparks jumping in his eyes. “Everything went according to the original plan. In time, we have a lot to do.” When everyone dispersed, Helios stood alone in the hall, looking to the sky through the dome, and muttered, “It seems that the secret that I can’t tell you is still valuable.”

No one can be seen on the street where the end is coming, not to mention such remote alleys. At the end, there is only the rustle of stray cats eating garbage.

Kiro pressed the brim of his hat, turning around in the scattered alleys in a familiar way, until a faint yellow light slowly hit his eyes. A little “Mondlicht” was written on the side of the door, like the spell of an ancient magician. He glanced at the end of the sky one last time, took a deep breath, and opened the door with firm eyes.

“Welcome.”

The man standing behind the bar didn’t seem to be surprised by the visitor who appeared suddenly. He gracefully wiped the wine glasses and greeted Kiro with a smile. Kiro quietly looked around and sat at the bar expertly.

“The end is two hours away. Do you want something to drink?” The man smiled and shook the wine bottle in his hand.

“It’s almost the end and you’re still opening the shop?” Kiro put his hat on the bar, ignoring the man’s invitation.

“My life creed is, I’d rather stand earning money and die than to lie down bored.” The man seemed to be indifferent to Kiro’s refusal, still mastering the bottle with skillful control.

“I’m not here to drink.”

“You have tried so many times, don’t you ever give up?”

Kiro’s eyes flashed with a hint of anger but only for a moment. He slowly smiled.

“I have no reason to give up.”

The man neatly put down the cup in his hand and took a breath: “Well, since you’re so insistent, I won’t stop you. The name is Drey.” ***Don’t know if this will be the name used for this character in EN server but it’s what Google Translate gave me, so we’ll go with it***

He put the wine in front of Kiro, the bright red liquid filled the man’s eyes with a smile, but seemed a little ruthless and indifferent.

“Thank you for the business and support.”

[Chapter 3]

Kiro found Drey a month ago. Seeing Drey again, he still couldn’t control the urge to retch inside. Kiro sat on the sofa, clenched his palms fiercely, and like a constant trance in his heart, forced himself to give priority to the task at hand. In a daze, he saw the girl standing under the soft light and shadow, her face radiating with warm light. She reached out to him and called his name. “You are the best Kiro in the world.”

The slight pain in the palm of his hand slowly pierced all consciousness along his fingertips. He barely raised his eyes and calmly looked at the man Drey, who was standing not far from him, the first assistant of the experiment.

Many years have passed since that distant and dark memory. He was also much older. Drey threw himself down in front of Kiro in a panic, “Please, don’t kill me...!!!”

Kiro looked coldly at the man who was kneeling in front of him, his whole body shaking. “If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have let you escape that time.”

Trembling, he took the box thrown by Kiro and saw the glinting “S” on it. He was so scared that he almost dropped it to the ground.

“How did you get this? No, you don’t need to answer me...” Drey shook his head and firmly gripped the box in his hand. He realized that Kiro who was cooperating with him now is no longer the advanced experiment: number 3684. Drey looked down at the box in his hand, “What do want me to do? Could it be...!!!”

Kiro knew from a long time ago that Drey was the person who knew his body data the best during that experiment, and naturally had enough ability to be the first assistant. “This is impossible!”

“I’m not here to listen to your nonsense.” Kiro interrupted him coldly, “You just have to work for me, right Dr. Drey “the current boss?”

Drey rubbed the box in his hand, gritted his teeth and finally let out a sigh of relief, “...I see, can the operating table on floor B4 be used?”

Even in the colorful laboratory covered with floral wallpaper, Kiro still had a serious mental rebuke. It took him a lot of effort to force himself to lie down on the experimental table. Since then, he can’t remember how many times he vomited and how many tubes of medicine he took.

Drey frowned, “I said it’s going to be difficult for you to become stronger.” He lowered his head. “Your experimental success is not universal. Considering the collective interference of many micro-factors, your body may not be able to withstand the second experiment. The experiment made your genes, under the catalysis of a special substance, form their own unique irregular structure, which is absolutely different from ordinary people.” He pursed his mouth and paused, his expression stricken, and looked at Kiro. “And we are not sure whether this reaction will continue, and all the side effects can’t be estimated. Why should you take such a big risk!?! You are fully capable now...”

“It’s okay, let’s just get there first today.” Kiro wiped the blood from his mouth, barely propped himself up and sat on the experimental table. The night fog filled him countless times, tying him into the abyss in the dark night. There are countless ferocious and scrutinizing gazes. He is standing in the bloody prison, but now, he is no longer afraid.

“I said that you aren’t too tired to go home and eat dessert?” Since Kiro accidentally missed the dessert date, this person always used it to tease him from time to time. Kiro didn’t answer him. He walked around the store several times, slowing down his trembling footsteps, “Is it natural?” ***Don’t really understand what's going here in this scene, lol***

The boss nodded, “It’s okay. You guys finished so early today?”

“It’s because there is a special performance today.” Kiro put on his hat, blocking most of his face, “It’s very important.”

Kiro walked towards floor B4 step by step. When he arrived at the entrance of the laboratory, Drey was already there waiting for him. “We’ve tried numerous times and if you continue like this, your body may...”

“It’s fine.” He unwaveringly interrupted Drey’s unfinished words. “There has been progress last time, hasn’t there? Let’s keep going.”

Kiro’s footsteps towards the laboratory were extremely firm. The whole world seemed to be only a piece of endless white, with the girl’s back at the end. He kept ordering himself to run towards her. This has always been the case. Although there is not much time to download this voice, he will never give up even if it is the end.

[Chapter 4]

When Kiro opened his eyes again, he knew that he had won the bet. Even if he didn’t have the strength to lift a finger, he raised a satisfied and happy smile for the first time. He couldn’t remember how long he laid until he could finally and slowly prop up his arm to support himself. He sat on the operating table panting and wanted to pull out the infusion affixed to his arm in disgust.

“it’s better not to pull that one out.”

Kiro raised his eyes in warning. The boss leaned against the door holding a hot cup of coffee along with a smile that has remained unchanged for years. Kiro blinked and tilted his head, “The time...”

“Don’t worry. It seems that the comet hasn’t hit yet.” The man stretched out his index finger and pulled Drey over who happened to be passing by and came back to check the situation. “Look at him.”

Kiro breathed a sigh of relief and covered his head with a bit of pain. Drey hurried over and said, “You’ve just woke up now, don’t be so anxious. You need to be observed again.”

Kiro snorted coldly. With a sound, the microcomputer he had been carrying around suddenly rang. He grabbed his head and pulled off the infusion from his body. He stood, limping hurriedly and almost fell to the ground due to the excessive movement.

“You can’t move right now!” Drey stopped him in a rush.

“Let go!” Kiro waved Drey’s hand away, reluctantly pressing it against the wall. He turned on the computer, tapping the keyboard intermittently with stiff fingers, looking at the screen with a heavy expression. “You guys leave.”

“You can’t use your abilities now!” Drey still insisted on explaining to Kiro, “We are not yet sure about their stability. Your current body is too weak. If you use your enhanced abilities immediately, you will...”

“Get out.” Kiro’s voice did not have a hint of warmth or room for argument.

“But your body...!!!”

“Excuse me.” The man drinking coffee beside him smiled and shook the syringe that came out of nowhere. “You will not be charged for the gift.” Kiro stretched out his pinhole arm without hesitation, “Thank you.”

Kiro recovered some strength after the drug injection. He leaned in the corner of the laboratory and gently closed his eyes.

“Ki...mmph!”

“.....If I said I might know a way, would you believe me?”

“It’s okay, you’re already amazing and you’re still my superhero!”

“Will you leave again this time too...?”

“I believe that no matter who you are, you will not change...”

“No matter what decision you make, I’ll support it.”

“All this time, you have always been illuminating me.”

He can always hear her voice. Kiro gently opened his eyes and saw himself in the mirror. He raised his mouth unconsciously, without a trace of hesitation. Since this world will not end, no matter what happens, it will become the future of tomorrow. He has to be prepared for this unknown future.

The golden light in the pupils of his eyes danced in the mirror but at this time, it was like a gentle and powerful blessing, giving strength to those who can cross all obstacles to reach hope. Even if it may be temporarily silent in time because of the drastically changing world, one day it will become a milestone to guide the future, pointing to the end in its heart, and meeting the long-awaited person.

“I command you to always be the one and only brightly shining Kiro--to be brave and to keep getting stronger.”

“I command you to never forget her.”

“She is MC, your Miss Chips.”

“She is your most favorite person.”

The golden light diffused through the pupils into every nerve ending and blood, melting into the grand and brilliant white snow at the end of the world to form the final agreement. The world was slowly shrouded by the seemingly gentle but unbreakable water mist. It was born from the bright white light and permeated the earth, extending in countless directions. On the note-filled recording paper in the notebook, the notes on the staff seemed to be placed upside down, disappearing one by one on the paper. And all this is just a moment.

End

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eldritchsurveys · 3 years

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1090.

Can you say you are fully happy right now? >> Some surveys have such standard and generic questions that I can’t rightly tell if I’ve already taken it. This is one of those, and because it’s so long I’m hoping to god I don’t get to the middle of it and be like “oh. I did this literally last week” lmao. Fingers crossed. I don’t know what “fully happy” means. I took my walk like I promised myself, and I made an offering and am now drinking it (it’s delicious, a dessert stout called Big Luscious), so I’m on track for how I wanted my day to go. And I’m not triggered or having any kind of episode, so I’m okay there. Which means I am currently stable, which is a great place to be (considering the alternatives).

Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? >> It’s possible, I guess.

Is there someone who stopped talking to you for no reason? >> I mean, probably, at some point. Ghosting is a common thing these days, for some reason.

Did you ever get called horrible names like (whore, skank, bitch)? >> Sure.

Where did you sleep last night? >> In my bed.

Ever slow danced with anyone? >> Yes, outworld and Inworld. Inworld is obviously the best, though. ~

Ever cried in public? >> Yes. Privacy and solitude was a rarity and a luxury for most of my life, so I had no real choice.

Ever feel safe in someone’s arms? >> Inworld, yes. I don’t know what that’s like outworld.

What would you do if you were pregnant? >> Die.

Are you afraid of letting anyone in? >> So, I have disordered attachment, am a product of CEN and CSA, and have resultant CPTSD. You do the math. (*makes some kind of joke about how it’s probably gonna be algebra because of all the acronyms--*)

Do you like cuddling? >> I love it Inworld. It basically gets me through everything. I would basically remain glued to Can Calah at all times if I could (and on some bad days, I do). Outworld is a completely different story because of the things mentioned just above.

Ever cry in school? >> I’m sure I have.

Who is the last person to send you a message on facebook? >> Probably Casey, like a month and a half ago.

Do you look decent when you wake up? >> Why am I paying attention to how I look when I wake up? I’m in bed. Who the fuck am I performing for? -___-’

Have you ever been given roses? >> No.

Had a long distance relationship? >> Yes.

Does it bother you when people never answer their cell phones? >> Why would that bother me? I am also one of those people. Oh, I guess you mean, like... I call a person, they never answer... hah, as if I would ever call a person. This is totally outside my experience.

Do you care what happens in politics/your government? >> I mean... here’s the thing. I care in the sense that I’m not totally disconnected from the effects of politics on people like me. But the realm of politics, specifically, is so alien to me that I have no idea what to do about it except halfheartedly vote and hope for the best? I don’t know how much more I’m supposed to care. I hate the political system, period, I want nothing to do with it. People assume that anyone that feels that way must be privileged and unaffected by politics, but I guess their shortsightedness about how different people can experience and feel about things is not my problem.

Ever been called babe/baby? >> Sparrow says “babe”.

Have you ever witnessed someone else engaging in a sexual act (not necessarily sex)? >> Yes.

Where did you get drunk last? >> I don’t remember. I don’t get drunk anymore, I just like to drink a beverage and enjoy the taste and slight buzz. Like right now, it’ll probably take me the next hour or two to finish this stout, but that’s the way I like to drink. Slowly and comfortably.

What’s your relationship with the last person you texted? >> I’m married to her.

If someone went through your pictures, would they find a dirty one? >> Nope. The only time I ever took nudes was just for the fun of it, not to be sexual or anything. Just enjoying having a human body (god, I wish that were me now...). But that was a long time ago and none of those photos are available anywhere anymore.

Do you want to see anyone right now? >> No.

Have you ever fell asleep in someone’s arms? >> Inworld, yes. Outworld, no.

How long does it take for you to fall asleep at night? >> About a half-hour after laying down, usually. Some nights a little longer, but then I just catch up on my reading.

How many pillows are on your bed >> Two.

When’s the last time you cried? >> Yesterday.

Is it cute when a guy buys you flowers? >> I mean, I’d require more context than that. If I’m friends with a guy and he’s like “I saw these flowers and thought of you!” that’d be adorable. I do love flowers, thanks for thinking of me! Also, I’ll probably use them as an offering, so double win. If some random guy sent me flowers, I’d be a bit disturbed and put-off.

Will things change in the next month? >> I mean, yes. That’s how it works.

How did you do on the last test you took? >> ---

Have you ever wanted to tell someone something but didn’t? >> I mean, yeah. Are you afraid to grow up? >> ---

Are you busy tomorrow? >> Probably not, unless something really unpredictable and abnormal happens. I might be plenty busy playing FFXIV, though, considering I can’t today because it’s patch day.

How long have you had the shirt you’re wearing? >> It’s an undershirt, idk how long I’ve had it.

Do you give out second chances way too easily? >> Er, I assume not? I’m not usually in this kind of situation.

Has anyone told you that you’re amazing? >> Yes.

How many black shirts do you own? >> Like 15. For reference, I own like 20 shirts total.

Do you think you will be in a relationship three months from now? >> I don’t see why I wouldn’t be. A lot of weird and sudden shit would have to happen to change that.

How come you’re not going out with the person you like? >> ---

When you feel cold does eating warm food help you feel warm? >> I don’t know. I do feel warmer after eating, just in general, probably because of the blood moving around to start digestion.

Do you want to diet? >> No. No I fucking do not. Don’t even suggest that to me.

Are you unsure about your feelings for someone? >> I’m not unsure about my feelings for anyone. I know how I feel about people. It’s other people whose feelings are a complete mystery to me.

Who did you last hang out with? >> Sparrow, because we live together.

Would you take $40,000 or a brand new car? >> I mean, obviously the money, since I can’t drive and don’t want to...

What song are you currently listening to? >> None.

Are you happy with your relationship? >> It’s fine.

Who was the last person to smoke something other than a cigarette or weed in front of you? >> Other than a cigarette or weed?? So, like... crack???? I really couldn’t say. It’d be years ago.

Does anything on your body hurt? >> Not right now.

If the last person you kissed were calling you right now, would you answer? >> I would, because if she’s calling me, then it must be a real ass emergency. Or probably like an EMT using her phone to find an emergency contact. So yeah, I’d answer. One of the very rare times I’d answer my phone.

In the run of a week, how many times do you straighten your hair? >> ---

Are you mad at someone right now? >> Nope.

Last thing someone gave you? >> I don’t remember.

Who woke you up this morning? >> Just me, naturally.

Who is your favorite family member on your mom’s side? >> ---

What do you do in your spare time? >> All my time is "spare” time, by other people’s standards, so, uh...

Who was the last person you were under a blanket with? >> Just Can Calah. :B

Where is the last person you kissed? >> Inworld.

What was the last thing you ate? >> Veggie burger and chips, breakfast. I’ll probably grab some lunch and queue up a movie after this.

Which of your friends is the most likely to get pregnant right now? >> ---

Do you remember the meanest thing the last person you kissed ever said to you? >> I don’t think she’s said anything particularly vicious to me. Just... kind of thoughtless things, I guess, earlier on.

What does your last outgoing text say? >> It was a link to a TikTok of a cute dog.

Have you ever been called prince/ princess? >> No.

Waiting for something? >> No. Well, the Dinnerly box, which is gonna get here eventually and which I’ll have to go downstairs to retrieve and then unpack.

Have you kissed anyone when you’re single? >> Yes.

What are you doing this weekend? >> I imagine the same things we do every other weekend in these COVID times.

Could you go the rest of your life without smoking a cigarette? >> I imagine so.

Have you ever kissed someone who was in a relationship? >> Yeah. Where is your biological father right now? >> ---

Where is the biggest scar on your body? >> Probably the one on my face. How late did you stay up last night? >> Not very. I think I went to sleep shortly after 11. Have you had your birthday this year yet? >> Yeah, in May. You had to kiss the last person you texted, would you? >> I mean, I have. What would you call your body type? >> I don’t want to call it anything. Are you a morning person? >> Yes. Have you ever been to Target? >> Yes, many times. Do you like iced coffee? >> It’s okay. When is the next time you’ll be at work? >> --- Has anyone ever hacked your accounts before? >> Not that I can recall. Could you ever be friends with someone that broke your heart? >> Probably not. I take that kind of shit super fucking hard. Ever made a prank phone call? >> No. Does your mom vacuum early in the morning, when you’re sleeping? >> --- Have you ever been in a car accident? >> No.

Have you ever been in a fist fight with someone? >> Yes.

Have you ever seriously hurt anyone by mistake? >> Physically? I assume not. Have you ever had stitches? >> Yes. Name a time when you had to be strong. >> Like... all the time? I don’t really know how to answer this. Have you ever dealt with a divorce or parents fighting or any kind of abuse at home? >> The first two, no, because my parents were not together. The third, yes. Have you ever lost someone close to death? if so, how many? >> Once. Have you ever had any volunteer jobs? >> No. Have you gone through a lot emotionally growing up? >> Obviously. Has a boy/girl ever cheated on their boyfriend/girlfriend for you? >> I really would not want anyone to do that. Anyone that can disrespect the rules of their current relationship so flagrantly is going to disrespect me next. Also, that’s a messed up thing to do to the third party, too. Do you want to see someone this very minute? >> Not especially. Unless it’s D. :)

Are you happy with the way things are going? >> Some things, sure. Are you a forgiving person? >> Sometimes, I guess. It’s not what I’d call a character trait of mine, though. Do you have to check in with your parents before you go someplace? >> --- Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to? >> --- Describe how you feel about your life in the past month using one word: >> I cannot do that. Would you like to go back and change any part of your life? >> I mean, I don’t know. I am who I am, and that’s because of what I’ve experienced. I don’t know who I’d be otherwise, and I do like myself and I want to continue being myself, so... I have to take the bitter with the... less bitter. When will your next kiss be? >> I don’t know, whenever I want it to be. Last person you saw other than your family? >> --- Will tomorrow be better than today? >> I mean, today was pretty okay, so if tomorrow’s even better than today, boy howdy. Are you feeling guilty about anything right now? >> No. What’s going through your mind right now? >> I’m just taking this survey, dude. That’s all I’m thinking about. When’s the last time you had fast food? >> Day before Thanksgiving. Do you believe that there’s good in everybody? >> I mean, I guess, if we have to put it that way. I just think that people are largely alike, and that if I can see the “shadow self” in me and everyone that is capable of many of the evils of the world, then I don’t see why I can’t also see the “higher self” in me and everyone that is capable of the beautiful things that people do for and with each other. These divisions always make me twitch a little because I think making it a dichotomy misses the real point a bit, but I haven’t run into better words for this yet so I’m doing my best with what I’ve got. Is it okay if you kiss people when you’re single? >> ... When was the last time you saw someone attractive? >> I mean, I can see Can Calah or King Crimson whenever I want. :B What was the first thing you did when you woke up? >> Probably reached for my phone to see what time it was. Think back eight months ago, were you single? >> No. What do you carry with you at all times? >> Myself :) Are you okay with the life you live? >> I’m okay with a lot of it. Way more okay with the lives I’ve had to lead before.

Do you have a Tattoo? >> Yes. What other piercings would you get other than the ones you already have? >> I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought about it because I’ve been so focused on tattoos in recent times. I’d just rather have ink. Did your last kiss take place on a bed? >> Probably. Have you ever been to Disney World? >> No. If so, how many times have you been? >> --- Does grammar and capitalization mean anything to you? >> Meh. Like, here’s the thing -- even if I don’t capitalise proper nouns or use dialect grammar as opposed to “proper” (don’t get me started on the connotations of that term) grammar, I can still be understood. And that’s the whole fucking point. I use the social standard for grammar and capitalisation when it’s necessary, and for some reason I’ve been taking surveys with the social standard of English for so long that it’s a habit by now, but I’m not obsessed with it. I love being able to code-switch and I love using vernacular and I love “Internet dialect/grammar” and all of that. Language in all its forms, unrestrained, is just so. fucking. cool. Are you good at wrapping gifts for others? >> Sure, I like the orderly origami-like process of wrapping. Do you have a dirty clothes hamper in your room? >> No, it’s in Sparrow’s (bigger) room. Do you enjoy big holiday dinners? >> I enjoy big dinners and small dinners. I assume by “big” you mean “lots of food”, not... “big” as in “lots of people”, because that I do not enjoy. Is your vision good? >> Yes. Is your present hair color, natural? >> Yes. What was the last thing you ordered online? >> A crystal. Fuck, that reminds me, I gotta poke around on Etsy for some stocking stuffer type gifts. Have you ever worn color contacts? >> Yes, quite often back in the day. If you have a significant other, how long have you been together? >> Almost nine years or something, idk. I’m bad at time math. Where are your parents as of now? >> --- Do you follow a certain religion? >> No. Do you have any family members who live out of town? >> --- Do you consider yourself short? >> Not really. What room are you in? >> Mine. Do you listen to any country music? >> Sure. Do you ever watch Lifetime? >> No. I don’t have cable, but I wouldn’t watch Lifetime even if I did. Would ever consider having children in the future? >> Probably not. Have you ever lived on a farm? >> No. Do both of your parents have jobs? >> --- If you had the chance to move to a completely different state, would you? >> Yes. What is something you’ve always wanted a boy to do for you? >> Clean my house. IDK, lol. What do you wish you had more knowledge about? >> Oh, stuff. What food are you craving right now? >> I’m not craving anything, even though it’s lunchtime. I have no idea what I want to eat. ...Hmm, egg, rice, and roasted veggies sounds really good but idk if I want to make eggs right now... How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa? >> I never was told about him. I kind of vaguely knew he existed from just... cultural saturation, or whatever, but yeah. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed? >> A lot. Do you have a friend you can tell stuff to and you’re sure they won’t tell? >> --- Would you ever get someone’s name tattooed on you? >> You know, every time I see this question I totally fucking forget that I already have a person’s name tattooed on me. My X-Files tattoo that matches with Sparrow’s says “scully, it’s me”. Scully is a name lmaoooo So, yeah, I guess the answer is yes.

Does your family have family picnics? >> --- If your doctor said you were pregnant, what would you say? >> “That’s not a funny joke, so please stop”, I mean, what else would I say? That’s literally impossible so the doctor must be trying to pull a funny. A really fucking bad one, too.

#surveys #survey #random survey #not for reblogging *glare*

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xexilia · 4 years

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I notice when you do your comics, it applies a certain level of toner. I ended up deciding on the route of using paint brush india ink, and charcoal for toner instead. Does this aesthetic difference change the marketability of graphic novel, compared to just using toner? In the context of the prologue in this web comic, it is used to denote a fog atmosphere. In the upcoming chapter, I might use it for graveyard fog.

I think first I need to establish that what you mean by “toner” is “shading”?

I do use tones, but tonER is the stuff used in and by physical printers. Print tones refer to the dots, lines, etc. that are present in the majority of my work and that Roy Lichtenstein emulated in his paintings. Tones are dots because that’s how printers print; Thousands of dots. The closer together, the more solid the shade or color is. I’m not trying to correct you on terms, but knowing this difference will help you later because I promise, if you buy toner online and expect to get tones, you’ll be disappointed by what arrives in the mail!

So, I think you’re falling into a common trap webcomic artists make in the beginning, which is focusing on the wrong parts of the project. You asked me if this changes marketability; But you didn’t tell me:

What medium do you want to publish in? Do you want to ONLY have your comics online, or do you want to print them?

Who is your target audience and age group?

Do you want to sell or profit off your webcomic?

The first question is important because far too often, webcomic artists design for the web/screens first, foremost, and only; Later, they decide to print a book, and this is when all hell breaks loose. Lots of media (Charcole, watercolors, etc.—media is the art term for materials) can look both better OR WORSE on a screen—this is where technology comes into play, like the scanner you have, the DPI (dots per inch) its able to scan things in at, and the size of scannable area. A lot of my favorite media and mediums (I like pencil on paper), are really delicate drawings—and like a lot of artists who favor these materials, scanners just never seem to do them justice. Lots of fine artists I talk to admit that they feel their work looks best in person, and no matter how high the quality scanner, small, delicate details get lost. Part of it can be a cheap scanner, the wrong DPI setting, but the other part can be the wrong medium (That’s the term for things like canvas or paper), or the wrong SIZE medium.

Size matters; Both in terms of the scanner surface area AND the size of your medium. A lot of people (And I did this myself for a lot of the first book), work on standard size paper—8.5 by 11 inches; But professional artists, print or not, are always better off to work at a LARGER size than the end result will be. When I printed my book, I didn’t come out too terribly for the size I worked in, because manga book page sizes are smaller than their American counter parts. I also knew I planned to print from the first page onward, so everything was designed for print first and web second—this is much easier and less time consuming to do than the reverse, because a lot of print errors can occur that don’t appear on screens—and literally can’t—and can take hours, days, weeks or more to fix, depending on how bad and common the issue is and how many of your pages have this problem. A big one is called moire, which DOES NOT show up on screens; This happens when an artist applies on tone directly over another. Because most of us work digitally these days, it’s even easier for artists to start doing this and not realize the consequence until you print a book. . .and discover all places where tones overlap create this weird square pattern within them—which is called moire. This is why it’s critical to use separate tones for different shades and such, because unlike solid color printing, you cannot overlay tones like you would layers in Photoshop or other such programs. Ignore this at your peril!

My first suggestion before you go to far is; Of you want to ever, EVER print this, print out a copy of a page at home. Even if you’re happy with it, consider how you may be printing or mass producing these things; If you’re going to make them via a copier at Kinko’s, take a page down to a copier at Kinko’s and see what quality you get. If you don’t like it at full size to the ratio you worked in (In other words, printing on the same size paper you created it on), you can get some improvement by using smaller pages—but going UP in page size will cause quality to drop. I now work on paper—digital or not—that’s always 11 by 17 inches AT LEAST. For anything I make, I try to work in a size 3 to 4 times larger than the end result will be.

When I first began, I made my comics with a copier at Kinko’s, and discovered while my ink wash method looked good, it looked better with color printing; Color printing is ALWAYS more expensive, hence why when digital comic creation tools (Like Clip Studio) got invented, I was an instant convert! It saved a lot of time and money (Tones and such are all expensive), the environment (No trees died for my drawings), effort (Tones are REALLY tricky to work with by hand), and it’s no wonder that manga artists now are nearly ALL working digitally.

Also, for the disabled (Like me), digital allows us to work from beds, at home, etc. instead of in front of a desk, all hunched over. I don’t accidentally smudge ink, my cat doesn’t drink my ink (Yes, it’s a thing cats do!), and if I mess up, the power of Undo/Redo/Copy/Paste/Transform CANNOT be understated. I’ve mentioned it before, but I believe in working smarter, NOT harder. This is why I draw out a lot of backgrounds (Which you can’t see on the free copies online, but you can if you buy a physical copy or the Amazon eBook), separately, and I can just drag and drop them around as I need. That way, I can focus on drawing the characters and not on drawing a giant cathedral for every damn appearance it makes or scene change I do.

As for marketability; A lot of this depends on your target audience and age group. Even so, people tend to grow to like something even if it may be atypical of the general stuff they like. I’m generally not a fan of shoujo-ai—but many of my favorite anime and manga ARE in this genre! Turns out, if the story is good, I don’t care about the sexuality of the characters!

A lot of people expect or want color comics these days though, which is odd to me, since the manga produced in Japan is in black and white (Color printing is expensive—even for a major publishing company!) People still read it, and those who expect an artist to make a free webcomic with color pages and update several times a week or month aren’t aware of the time, effort, or consequences. Generally; No, they will NOT buy a book they’ve read for free online (As much as people love to say to support us creators, they rarely actually do), and they damn sure won’t pay for the extra cost of color printing. If you want to see the difference, check out Ka-Blam comic printers and do a price comparison between printing pages in color versus black and white.

Yes, there are people who do a Kickstarter and such and get these funds up front; They are exceptions, not the rules. Consider them—and most artists who make comics or art they make of their own choosing (Not commissions, but only originals), the same as you might someone who plays a sport and decides that they are GOING to play professionally for some orginazation or team—which is, they are counting on being in this LESS THAN 1% of their field. Yes, some people pull it off; The vast majority don’t—and skill isn’t the biggest factor in the end. Just like an athlete with all the promise in the world can have their career ended before it’s begun by an injury that never heals right, art itself is a career path with MANY hidden pitfalls and problems—and health is a major one. Too many of us don’t eat right, don’t exercise our bodies and minds, and so on; It adds up. I personally really recommend a diet with a caloric/carb intake ratio that works within your activity levels; In other words, if you’re determined not to work out (Which—don’t make this mistake), you can’t eat as much as you’d like—not only will you gain weight, but it impacts your health health, your blood sugar—it can be a recipe for an early, but preventable, grave or a LOT of suffering that could be avoided. I try to jog at least two miles a day, meditate daily, and really put my health as the main focus in my life—even before my art. I can’t draw anything or write more stories if I’m dead, after all, and I can’t produce my best work if I’m not in the best condition I can manage. With an autoimmune disease, there’s only so much I can do or control and I’m often still very sick and in a lot of pain; But I still do all I can to run or walk two miles—at least, and even if it takes me an hour or more—and to keep my heart rate at 120 beats per min. when I do. There’s a lot of days where this is about the ONLY thing I can manage and where my pain is so bad I cry and cry—because right now I don’t have a lot of means of relief; This doesn’t happen to everyone, but it means that health—no matter what you do in life—can make or break you at times. Audiences aren’t always understanding of these circumstances and yes, ones career can dry up as a result. Just because someone manages to play for the sports team of their dreams doesn’t mean their health can’t or won’t turn on them, or a serious injury will end their career; We do not live in a world where people will continue to support you because of a series of or singular unfortunate event.

This brings me to the last point, which is if you plan to sell or profit off your work; We all want to, but often making sales can come at the cost of producing something that we, as the creators, really love or are passionate about. I decided from the jump that, while profiting was nice, I’d much rather make the title I wanted to make rather than the one that sells the most copies; If I were concerned with it, trust me, Eternity Concepts would be a wildly different story, with different art, etc. I’d have written a formulaic story that was entirely predictable and changed so many aspects, you’d never recognize it; Manga fans tend to be teens, so I’d have made the cast all teenagers! It’d be set in school! Someone might magically transform to fight evil or some such thing.

I didn’t want that; If you do, there’s no shame in that, but audiences will keep buying and reading what we keep producing, and if we’re too afraid to take a risk on a chance that our story won’t make a dime—because making a dime is the most important part for you—then we can’t be surprised when it’s what people keep buying—because we aren’t even attempting to sell anything else.

Publishing houses (With novels and such) can be really guilty of pushing for changes based on market research; The thing is, the research is often based off past sales of what’s already in the market. Plenty of novels that became classics and best sellers got rejected for years and years until a publishing company was willing to take a chance and discovered that people can, will, and do enjoy new and different things. They might also do market focus group testing—but these are small sample sizes of average people—and your audience may NOT be average people.

All creative pursuits involve risks, at the end of the day; You just have to decide what rewards you want or are willing to sacrifice if you take them.

As for aesthetics, there’s no accounting for taste and I’ve seen plenty of paintings I hated sell for insane amounts of money, plenty of art styles I hated become popular titles, etc.

I will say this; When I, PERSONALLY, see a comic with tones or color, usually that’s digitally produced (It cuts out the need for a scanner!), it looks to me like it’s professionally made—by someone who is on their way or already at such a level.

While a lot of newer artists try to make do with other materials, again, the world is not a kind place and making do is just that—making do. Yes, there are a million and one reasons why one can’t get their hands on better or more professional materials—but sadly, people don’t want to hear excuses, and many successful artists got their tools by working jobs they hated, saving up, living in their cars—making major sacrifices to get to where they are now. There’s no easy road or shortcuts to the end; Yes, I do, sadly, think the mixed media approach you’re trying won’t be favorable towards your marketability—but I could always be wrong (Look at how many MS Paint comics made it big!) There’s a first time for everything.

Comics, though, is also about production speed, and traditional materials can come at the cost of working quicker. I’m a big fan of suggesting people save and wait and invest (And it IS an investment) in serious materials and tools if they wish to be seen and taken as seriously; This means making sacrifices and at the end of the day, plenty of people still won’t like what you make, no matter what tools you have or plot you employ. The person who NEEDS to like it most? . . .Is only you.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and the faster you accept that, the happier you’ll be with what you make.

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awed-frog · 6 years

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Consider this your ask about "ghost village" (from the bear skeleton post)

Hello person who reads tags! Thank you for this ask!

I’m more of a book person than a dig person, so I won’t be able to explain this properly, but basically what happened is that ten years ago I randomly got the chance to work on a dig in Georgia (the country) and I got very excited because

considering you work for free, it’s surprisingly hard to get any kind of international experience;

Georgia is the El Dorado of Greek archaeology because most of the sites were abandoned and forgotten about, so we keep finding awesome things;

Georgia is also a beautiful country in its own right, and well worth a visit;

and what all of that means is that I was too busy jumping up and down to properly look into the work we were going to carry out there.

(Also, to be perfectly honest, most of my research was about stuff like ‘what to do if Russia invades’ and ‘how to outrun a tank’ and ‘contacting your consulate 101′ and possibly ‘Russian for: don’t shoot I’m an archaeologist’, so.)

To give you a bit of context: Georgia is not a country it’s easy to be ready for, and the first few days were a confusing, surreal experience. I’d read about Georgia’s hospitality culture, but I was shockingly unprepared for just how pervasive and ritualistic it was. Like, I was expecting that the other students and I would immediately be put to work (my normal dig experience that far had been something along the lines of ‘Welcome! That is your tent and here is your shovel! Enjoy!’) - instead, for the first three or four days no one even mentioned why we were there? During the day, we were encouraged to laze around the camp - self-imposed activities to appear busy included picking wild hazelnuts, offering to help in the kitchen and marveling at the boss’ outstanding backgammon skills - while at night we were whisked away to various social events.

Aaaaand more context, because ‘social events’ doesn’t cover it.

First of all, picture a table of sixty people in evening gowns, plus ten archaeology students in polo shirts and work boots (no one had told us to bring suits or anything). Embarrassment factor, checked. On top of that, those were not random people peacocking in their one good shirt - we were informed in advance, in excruciating detail, of everyone’s rank and title and family tree (think very wealthy donors who’d contributed money for our dig), and for some reason it’s even more uncomfortable to be there with your zip-off trousers next to literal royalty. Third, you can’t speak to anyone because there’s just no common language. Georgian is not something you pick up in two weeks, and my Russian didn’t extend beyond ‘I’m twenty-six’ and ‘Alexander Pushkin died a long time ago’, so there’s a lot of smiling and nodding and checking useless pocket dictionaries and stammering გმადლობთ every time you’re handed something. Fourth, there’s thousands of unwritten social rules you know nothing about - and I know, I know, social rules are a thing everywhere, but I’ve yet to find something quite as complex and fascinating as a Georgian feast. And finally, because of the aforementioned social rules, all of this happens as you’re blind drunk.

(If anyone’s curious: every Georgian meal is basically a banquet, because no matter the circumstances there are going to be at least fifteen different dishes on the table, ranging from home-made stuffed bread to whole sheep’s heads, and the problem is, you can eat as much as you want, but you have no control - zero - over what or when you’re drinking.

At the start of the meal, what you assumed was a water glass - think a decent-sized thing - is filled with wine to the very brim. Next, everyone starts eating. After ten minutes or so, someone calls for a toast, everyone stops eating, and they all listen and cheer as a guy makes a five-minute speech about the host and how the host is the best person on the whole planet. Once he’s done, everyone drinks - as in, you have to drain your glass in one gulp - basically a shot of wine - and wait for your glass to be refilled. More eating, more pretending you understand a word of the conversations around you, and then a second guy stands up - there’s a very precise hierarchy for the toast orders - and starts praising the house of the host, most beautiful and welcoming. Shot of wine, more eating, another toast: to the wife of the host! Shot of wine, more eating, another toast: to this most blessed evening spent in such blessed company! And next: to the dig! To these talented students we’re so lucky to have at our table! To their bright future! To our glorious past! To Georgia! To this amazing wine our host made with his own hands! To the host! And it all starts again.

I’ve been told that as the evening goes on, toasts become more and more ridiculous as people struggle to find a worthy subject. Since you can’t drink when you want to, but only after a toast, there’s a rush to toast everything and anything either because a) you want to drink yourself or b) you worry your guests want to drink and you’re preventing them from doing that with your shameful lack of toasts. So in the end, it doesn’t matter how much you eat: since you can’t pace yourself, mostly every evening meal ends with a blood alcohol level of .99.)

So this is the situation: by the fourth day, I was walking around in a haze, never quite sober, happy with everything, grateful to everyone, more khachapuri than human being, and when we finally got to start working, we found all the upper layers had already been removed, which meant we would likely start finding bodies in a matter of hours.

Except we didn’t: there are no bodies in Georgia.

I think it has something to do with the chemical composition of the soil and how it eats away at the bones, but as I said, my knowledge of this stuff is pretty limited. What happens, though, is that you find graveyards and graveyards of invisible people. You uncover the beads and spirals of headdresses, then a clasp, next a pair of bracelets, and a pair of anklets, and finally the grave goods, placed at the feet of your mystery woman. And when I realized this was how it was going to be, at first I thought it would make things easier?, less creepy?, but I actually found it more unsettling - we were in the middle of this old, overgrown forest, and it started to feel like those people had gotten up and walked the fuck away - like they’d left behind their jewelry and weapons and clothes and simply - disappeared, and maybe they were there with us in that very moment, sitting on the ground and watching us marvel at their rings and pottery, maybe they would follow us back to our wooden houses, and maybe - surely, this seemed more and more like an inevitability with every passing day - surely they would sit down with us for the banquets, they would find those evenings a kind of coming home, because that laughter, those rituals, that wine aged in clay pots buried deep undeground - those things were all as old as those ghosts dining with us; Homeric Greece hunching down upon us, dark and glittering and something I will never, ever fall out of love with.

(And if anyone’s confused and incredulous and all, ‘But Frog, are you saying everyone’s drunk all the time?’, well - no - Georgians have this soup they drink the morning after a feast, and it sobers them right up, fog gone, headaches gone - one bowl contains about fifteen cloves of garlic, some magical herbs and one cow hoof - a whole-ass hoof, just floating there - so our group quickly found itself split into hungover people and hoof-eating people and you know what?, I’m damn proud of the camp I chose.

Damn proud.)

#ask #archaeology #georgia #sakartvelo #wanderlust #ancient greece #cow hoof for ts

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fallxnprxnce · 5 years

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Has Prince Nuada ever spoken too other fae Kings/kingdoms about his ideas on giving the world back to them? Has he been denied, decided against it or just not considered it? I feel that other fae races would be interested in joining him or at least discussing with it. I hope you are doing well, and thank you!

This is a great topic! I apologize forthis being so late, but I didn’t want to write just a quick answer, so I had towait until I had the proper amount of time and brainpower to do the thing, heh.

So… there are two ways to answer thesequestions. I have mused on this myself, imagining what Nuada would have doneand how other races would have reacted, and I have also discussed it atlength - both IC and OOC – with a goodfriend of mine and some of her muses. One muse in particular, actually, but sheshall remain nameless. She knows who she is. XD

As far as I’ve mused on the subject,early on Nuada would have approached other races about his gripes with humans,and later about his plans to eradicate them. Most other races of fae were notonly not interested in joining his cause but figured he would never see it cometo fruition anyway. They thought it was the ramblings of a petulant prince andnothing more.

The reason for this is because they seea war with humans as just as catastrophic as what the humans might do to theearth, except quicker and with a higher loss of fae life than if they just waitthings out. Chances are, most fae races will acclimate over timebiologically to things like pollution (after all, humans have in many ways),and will evolve and adapt in other ways to continue on as the earth changes.And the earth will change. I thinkthat’s something major that fae generally understand that Nuada does not isthat everything changes. Nothing remains the same forever. One must adapt tochange, not resist it. Versatility during hardship and change is what ensuressurvival, not exile and resistance.

The other reason they would not want to joinhim is becauseit sets a dangerous political precedent. Fae races and plenty of othertypes of non-humans races can be difficult to deal with, it’s true. They can bewarlike, reclusive, territorial, selfish, antagonistic… all of those things.However, when it comes to the overall planet and causes and cycles greater thanall races combined, the fae realize that cooperation is key. That is not to saythey’re going to start breaking bread with orcs and ghouls and certain speciesof trolls anytime soon, but it’s more like a general understanding of we’re all in this together. If Nuada,who is a representative of high Elven races whether he wants or intends to beor not, were to move against the race of humans and obliterate them, that meansthat anyone who has a gripe with anyone else can just decree or bring aboutgenocide in order to solve their problem. It’s a dire precedent to set, and it’snot one that is appreciated by anynon-human races, least of all the fae ones.

Biodiversity is celebrated among non-humans. Again, that does not mean all races like allothers, not by a long shot, but it just means that they are glad there are somany different types of races on earth. It keeps ecosystems alive, keeps cretainpopulations and borders at bay, and generally makes for an interesting earth tolive on. To wipe out one of the most dominant races on earth (just speaking inthe context of population size) should not and is not a viable or sustainable option. Fae races believe if Nuadagoes down that path, he will find that out a lot quicker than he will be ableto set his plan into motion.

Now… as far as what my friend and Ihave discussed both IC and OOC, it is her personal opinion and that of some ofher non-human muses that fae races wouldn’t just shake their head, call Nuadaan insolent upstart, and leave him to the karma of the universe to either righthim or stop him depending on how far he takes his plan, but rather they wouldactively seek to kill him themselves if things went too far. Before that? Theywould make it abundantly clear that they believe he is not only bigoted,hateful, and masquerading the horrors of genocide as a righteous path, but heis also incredibly ignorant and genuinely dumb. I’m paraphrasing for a specificmuse in particular, and if that muse would like to add anything to this littlemeta, she is invited to do so. I shall tag her associated human here: @queenrookandbishop

Why all the snark, rage, and intensedislike for Nuada from this muse and others? Aside from agreeing with myearlier sentiment of genocide not being a viable answer to anything, there are severalof very pointed reasons as to why fae races or any non-human races would beagainst eliminating humans, according to this outspoken muse. She has hit Nuadawith almost all of them personally by now I think, but he is showing clearsymptoms of pigheadedness. Surprise, surprise. Nevertheless, she’s right, so I shall the most important reasonsto not wipe out humans here:

1) Humans take care of a lot of shit on earth,so who is going to do that when they’re all gone? Yes, human make a lot of garbage and waste.Yes, they pollute. But they also clean up, remediate, treat, manage, store, andotherwise deal with their waste as well. Not all of it, to be sure, but enoughof it such that if all the humans disappeared tomorrow, everybody left behindwould be in big trouble in really not a lot of time. No more water filtrationfor plastic wastes. No more maintenance of nuclear power plants. No moremanagement of toxic waste sites with drums of deadly and/or radioactivematerials. No more environmental groups instituting things like beach cleanups,litter pick-ups, tree-planting events, running animal preserves and rescue operations,etc. If all the humans disappeared tomorrow, we’d be left with all the bad andnone of the good as far as what humans have done so far with the world. Maybetheir factories would shut down, they would no longer drive cars that releasegreenhouse gases, they would no longer be drinking water bottles and discardingthem in waterways, they wouldn’t be farming mass quantities of land withchemical fertilizers and pesticides, but you know what…? What humans havealready done is enough to pollute the world for centuries to come. And… whatthey are doing to remediate pollution and keep toxic waste contained and keeppotentially dangerous facilities up and running will suddenly stop… and evenmore contamination will be released into the environment with none of thecountermeasure to clean it or stop it. The consequences of human life endingsuddenly on earth far outweigh the benefits, to both the actual planet as wellas all other non-human races that inhabit it.

2) What happens to all the bodies of dead humansonce this genocide occurs? There wouldbe more bodies left to rot worldwide than there are microbes and predators capableof dealing with all that biological waste. Sure, some corpses will be scavengedby predator animals… Bears, large cats, not to mention predatory fae and othernon-human races. And bacteria and fungi will go to work, putrefying and rottingbodies depending upon their specific metabolic needs. But the need for these thingsto occur will far be exceeded by the number of bodies there will be. The GoldenArmy will kill humans fast. So whenthis happens and there are bodies everywhere, predation and natural rotting andrecycling of nutrients in those bodies will take a decent amount of time. Inthe meantime, bodies are leaking putrid fluids into soils. They’re falling intowaterways and poisoning them. Diseases are breeding in corpses baking under thesun. So much gas is released that the air becomes poisonous, and furthercontributes to global warming. It’s really not a good picture at all. Manyraces on land and in the water will be poisoned to death if not made very ill.Weaker individuals will die, and those left will have to deal with all thebiological waste somehow or risk much of the earth being uninhabitable for along time.

3) Many non-human races rely on humans as afood source! Vampires, largetrolls, dragons, rusalka, ghouls, wendigo, lycanthropes, etc. all feed onhumans. Some, like vampires, are entirely limited to humans such that, were allhumans to disappear, so would they… or else they would be reduced to drinkinganimal blood and become weakened and sick depending on which set of vampirelore you’re going with. My point is, taking out an entire food source that hadpreviously been so prevalent is going to rock the web of life and the foodchain considerably. Some races may die from lack of food, while others willbegin to eat other races… like elves,perhaps, potentially bringing about the extinction of other races who cannotsupport that level of predation.

In short… fae races and othernon-humans would have the common sense and wisdom to understand that taking outall humans is not the answer. So why doesn’t Nuada? After 2K+ years of life,why isn’t he wiser? My first answer is to call bullshit on Guillermo del Torobecause I think Nuada would be wiserthan that after all that time. There’s really no way he couldn’t be. But I’mnot going to do that because GdT is awesome and saying the canon is flawed isjust a copout answer anyway. XD So… I will go with a two-fold answer of 1) hisisolation after going into exile put him in an environment where he did notreceive very much constructive criticism or opposition. He isolated himself,stewed about his own ideas, and sought out other like-minded individuals (e.g.,Mr. Wink). That kind of lifestyle served to maintain, preserve, and perpetuatehis own ignorance. And 2) Nuada was poisoned by his own emotions, as we all knowis a definitely thing with elves. His anger, sadness, hopelessness, depression,etc. over what was happening to his people actually worked much the same waydepression does in humans… it chemically changed his brain to continue thatnegative thought pattern feedback loop, which then also led to him becomingphysically damaged by his own emotions as well. Ultimately, his way of thinkingwas actually altered by his emotions after spending enough time wallowing inthem without the help he needed or the opposition he potentially should havehad.

I hope this answered your questions,and thank you for sending this in! =D

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rivetgoth · 6 years

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The Twin HCs

Okay, so without the third movie (which supposedly was gonna delve into Lucifer’s backstory and Hell’s beginnings) we’ll never really know the lore for the Twin sadly, and I’ve spent a billion years thinking about it so I’m just gonna throw my headcanons at you all. I’ve put a lot of time & thought into all of this and included MANY sources both from the movies and from outside sources, but of course it may not prove to be canon should Terrance ever decide to release info we didn’t previously have :)

The Twin was the serpent in the Garden of Eden who tempted Eve. Aside from “demon snake” making this already an obvious conclusion to jump to, this fits to me because June is meant to be an Eve-like figure in “Alleluia!”, as she “eats forbidden fruit” (the book she takes even has an apple on it) and she’s cast out of God’s kingdom for trying to gain knowledge that God didn’t want her to have. The Twin is the very first being she truly interacts with in Hell, and he lures and tempts her and then steals from her. Plus a lot of what he does with Merrywood is tempt her and lure her into losing everything. It feels like a fitting parallel.

Edit: By complete coincidence I had to read some literary analysis recently that actually explored the fact that the serpent in the Garden of Eden has frequently specifically not only been used as a symbol of trickery (very very obviously fitting of the Twin), but also of a symbol of theft, which fits the Twin stealing June’s horseshoe pin from her as well, and being the carny specifically chosen to confront Merrywood in the first film after she’s damned to Hell for literally being a thief. Some scholars actually also consider the serpent a symbol of sexual desire, which is fitting since I want the Twin to f

(Actually, as a side note, what’s super interesting about that is that in Dante’s Divine Comedy the part of Hell that thieves are sent to is specifically filled with serpents, because of the reason stated above. As punishment for thievery the serpents rob the damned souls of their own identity.... THAT SOUNDS... FAMILIAR, RIGHT. ANYWAY...)

Genesis 3:14- “So the LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.’”

So after the Twin tricked Eve into tasting the forbidden fruit, God curses him and all serpents to live the rest of their lives crawling on the ground. Who knows what the Twin looked like prior to this curse. We have no way of knowing, but now he was in the form of what we think of as a modern day legless, armless noodle creature. A snake.

However, Lucifer defied God, perhaps at the Twin’s plea (more on that in a second), and gave the Twin a human form with legs and all. This was a big deal, because it was a very early act of defiance against God and his wishes from Lucifer, as these were still the early days after the fall.

Nivek Ogre on the Twin- “I myself tend to have too much empathy so I wanted to make him very sympathetic. I kind of saw him as one of the original shells that were shucked down to hell. He probably made a bargain with the man below and is now living in fear trying to escape his fate by taking on the appearance of another. However while doing this he tends to see the best parts of him which gave him a slight bit of humanity. He also would see their nastiest thoughts which ultimately would do them in. It is both an empathetic and vicious character. I see myself as the bait for Lucifer.“ [source]

The “bargain with the man below” is left ambiguous; I think that could realistically fit my headcanon, if you envision that the “bargain” the Twin made with Lucifer was to defy God’s curse on him and give him a human form. However, if you go along with that idea, Ogre’s words also imply that the Twin isn’t necessarily happy with what he got on his end of the bargain. He “lives in fear trying to escape his fate”...

...Which brings me to my next point, which is that Lucifer’s powers are not nearly as strong as God’s, especially not at this point, when he was still young and had only just begun his work on Hell, and Lucifer certainly can’t create life. He could only kind of give the Twin a facade of a human form.

In “Alleluia!”, during the flashback with June, we see the Twin’s skin is different. He appears to have serpent scales almost breaking out of more human flesh, as opposed to the fully scaled form we see later on in the future (in the first movie and at the end of the second). We also see that the Twin uses a cane sometimes in the first movie.

An article about the makeup for the second movie- “[The Twin’s] make-up goes back and forth from past to present. Through the film we finally see him become the lizard-like Twin through a series of different looks like leprosy.” [source]

Note that maaaybe this isn’t the most reliable source on concrete facts, especially considering the fact that the Twin is referred to as a lizard rather than a snake lol (and I think he is definitely supposed to be a snake, he... he hisses), but it’s a good and official quote to point out the obviously intentional visual change and progression in the film. I also think the leprosy comment is interesting and fits the theme; leprosy is seen in the Bible as an uncleanliness that only God can cure. If Lucifer gave the Twin a body that goes against God’s wishes, perhaps it would begin to “fall apart” in a way similar to the way the Bible claims one who is unclean from God’s blessing would?

(comparison between the Twin’s flashback makeup and “present” makeup)

I think the Twin’s body degenerated over time and slowly returned to a more serpentine form. Lucifer’s powers could only do so much. Now, at the point he’s at by the time we see him in the first movie, I don’t think his condition will get “worse.” I don’t think he’s going to lose his humanoid form altogether, but I think initially, at the very beginning, he looked significantly more humanoid, and as time has gone on his skin has shed (the way a snake’s would) back into scales and his legs have become weaker, and it can cause him a great deal of pain to walk on them for too long a period of time, because they’re entirely unnatural to him. They directly defy God’s wishes. The Twin drinks and uses a cane, we see that in the first movie. I think he deals with a lot of physical pain.

Nivek Ogre on the Twin Part 2- “My character is the twin who’s an empath and someone who is able to take on the characteristics - physical and emotional - of anybody that they come in contact with. He’s a trickster, but at the same time I think he is one of the most empathetic characters in hell because he’s able to feel all of your pain, all of your troubles and all of the worries that you have. But also all of the secrets and the nastiness. That’s where it turns dark for him. He does show empathy, but he’s still, at the very heart of it very sociopathic and reptilian almost - in a way, cold blooded.” [source]

This quote gives the best insight to the Twin as a character, I think. To summarize as well as inject some of my own interpretation and headcanon, the Twin is very much a snake at heart. “Cold blooded,” as Ogre puts it, both literally and metaphorically. I think the Twin has a sense of morality on a totally different plain than other people, and I think he’s very instinct driven. I think he enjoys shiny things and carnival games because frankly he’s a simple creature and he’s amused and distracted and pleased easily by these things because, again, he’s a snake. He was a snake and there’s a part of him that will always be a snake. He certainly is not human, and does not have a human conscience.

However, I don’t think this makes him “evil” at all. As Ogre states numerous times, the Twin is a very, very empathetic creature, which also makes sense to me in the context of him being a snake. Snakes can sense emotion in a very unique way; they’re sensitive to touch and feeling and if a person shows fear around a snake, for example, the snake is more likely to be tense and aggressive. Being calm around snakes is imperative for their own comfort or else they lash out or flee. So in a way, snakes are incredibly empathetic, but in a very instinct-driven way. The Twin, too, can sense the emotions of others to an extreme, even supernatural degree. He can take their emotions on and adopt them as his own. He feels their pain and their fears and the darkness in their hearts that sent them to Hell in the first place. But, like Ogre said, at the end of the day he’s very “sociopathic” about it, and these don’t necessarily impact him in a long term negative way that they would a human taking on the extreme negative emotions of others, so he’s the perfect man for the job down in Hell of doing exactly that.

Although there’s no long term emotional exhaustion from the Twin when he takes these emotions on, and he’s able to “cope” with feeling negative emotion pretty easily and simply reflect it back on the person to torment them, I think that experiencing these emotions does “humanize” him in a way, or “gives him a slight bit of humanity,” as Ogre says. The Twin doesn’t experience human emotion firsthand, but he does secondhand, and that’s stopped him from being literally nothing but an instinct-driven snake. There’s something more there.

I also think the Twin is, in a strange way, very much a big brother figure for the other carnies. He has no ill feeling towards them. Actually, he has no ill feelings towards anyone (except perhaps God and his angels). Again, he’s not evil. He’s among the carnies in every major crowd scene, participating and having fun alongside the others. He’s in every audience during the songs of the first movie, even participating and laughing and throwing coins and drinking with the others, he dances with everyone at the end, and he throws his armband with everyone else in the second, and claps and cheers for June when she does the same.

He was one of the first beings in Hell, and the other carnies, I think, are very aware that he’s incredibly powerful and full of knowledge - and secrets. I think a lot of them have a lot of respect for him, and maybe fear him a bit; they certainly wouldn’t tease him the way they do the Magician. It doesn’t help that I don’t think he’s necessarily wildly social and he can be very hard to understand and connect with on an emotional level (because, again, he’s a snake), but he does care in his own way. He is, after all, an empath, and he can relate deeply to their experience of being cast out by God and trapped in Hell for eternity. He’s driven primarily by instinct, and his idea of friendship probably mostly is based around playing cards and other silly carnival games because he really clearly enjoys that, and he would have absolutely no qualms robbing you if you had something shiny on your person, but he still does care about the other carnies and has fun with them when he’s around them, even if he’s a bit cold and intimidating and difficult to interact with one-on-one.

If another carny were “make the first move” interacting with the Twin, like actually coming to his tent and initiating a conversation or asking to play a game with him, I think that’d actually make him really happy, and he’d be really happy to have someone to spend time with. He seems like he’s enjoying playing cards with Wick at the beginning of the first movie!

Cute! =}

As for some more fun headcanons I have that aren’t grounded in much but they make me happy:

The Twin hisses when he speaks because he has a snake accent. He’s gotten good at covering that accent when he’s in another person’s form, but he still slips up sometimes and you can still hear him hissing in another person’s voice. He’s working on it.

The Twin likes to tell stories, and he can get very excited while he’s telling them, and if he gets too excited, he’ll start taking the form of the people in the story as he’s telling it. Like, “And then the Magician said THIS-” [takes the form of the Magician without even realizing it]. It’s actually very entertaining and makes his stories even more fun to listen to, and he really doesn’t notice he’s doing it.

The Twin is actually impressed by the Magician’s magic on good days, which makes the Magician feel really proud of himself because the Twin is such a well respected figure in Hell, but he really shouldn’t be all too proud because actually, the Twin literally is just impressed by shiny things. The Magician conjures up some sparkles and the Twin acts like it’s the best thing he’s ever fucking seen (but, in seriousness, he’s also impressed by the Magician’s little magic tricks, because the Twin himself clearly dabbles in magic tricks in his own games, so the two of them can actually bond over that shared interest).

The Twin sheds every... I dunno, thousand years? Ten thousand years? It’s not a wildly frequent occurrence, but he sheds just like a regular snake would, which is a wildly unpleasant process. When a snake sheds, their ENTIRE body sheds, including their EYES. For a period of time before shedding a snake is almost entirely blind as its skin encloses its eyes. He’s incredibly uncomfortable during this time, not only is he blind but there’s, like, a literal full layer of skin half-attached to his body. He probably spends this time hidden away inside his tent, not social at all. Snakes in general tend to be more cautious and reserved and hostile should they be bothered during this time, because they’re so vulnerable. He’s in an extra pissy mood during this time. Then, afterwards, he gets a shiny new coat, bright green and very pretty, but it’s very sensitive at first, so he’s still not very keen on social interaction for awhile LOL.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!! THERE’S MORE HONESTLY but I figured I’d keep it at this since this is already long as hell, buuuuut I wanted to share OKAY I love him. 💕🐍💕

#THIS IS SO LONG I JUST HAD TO SHARE OK.#the devil's carnival #alleluia! the devil's carnival #tdc

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agilenano · 4 years

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Agilenano - News: Blood Glucose, Brains, and Heart Attack | Salty Talk 007 | THRR

Welcome to Salty Talk. This is a special edition of Healthy Rebellion Radio. Each week on Salty Talk Robb will do a deep dive into current health and performance news, mixed with an occasional Salty conversation with movers and shakers in the world of research, performance, health, and longevity. For the full the video presentation of this episode and to be a part of the conversation, join us in The Healthy Rebellion online community. WARNING: These episodes may get “salty” with the occasional expletive. So about 10 years ago a critical piece of information was put on my radar… Blood sugar swings (going from high to low) might be the primary precipitator for cardiovascular events. This was in pretty stark contrast to the purely lipid-centric model of heart attack, stroke, and the general atherosclerotic process. Over time the case has grown to look at blood sugar much more closely to see how it might effect a host of metabolically driven disease processes. In this piece I look at a couple different angles: How the amount of glycosolated lipoproteins affects cardiovascular events (the linkage is powerful) Blood sugar swings and their effects on neurodegenerative disease You likely know that although I’m a big fan of low carb diets, I acknowledge some folks do just fine on high carb, low fat. BUT you must understand where YOU are in the story of carbs and your blood glucose response. It will go a long ways towards improving your health and mitigating disease risk. This was one of the main features of Wired To Eat and is certainly a compelling reason to tinker with the 7 Day Carb Test as outlined in the book Kettle & Fire makes the first USDA approved, shelf stable bone broth made with grass fed AND finished beef bones and organic pasture raised chicken bones. They are committed to making healthy food accessible to as many people as possible. Check them out at http://kettleandfire.com/saltytalk and use code SALTYTALK for 15% off. SHOW NOTES: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987719314422 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30518364 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30101436 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263176/ https://www.virtahealth.com/blog/covid-19-type-2-diabetes-glycemic-control Transcript: Download transcript here (PDF) Nicki: Welcome to the Healthy Rebellion Radio. This is an episode of Salty Talk, a deep dive into popular and relevant health and performance news pieces mixed with the occasional salty conversation with movers and shakers in the world of research, performance, health and longevity. Healthy Rebellion Radio’s Salty Talk episodes are brought to you by Drink Element. The only electrolyte drink mix that’s salty enough to make a difference in how you look, feel, and perform. We co-founded this company to fill a void in the hydration space. We needed an electrolyte drink that actually met the sodium needs of active people, low-carb, keto and carnivore adherence without any of the sugar colors and fillers found in popular commercial products. Health Rebels, this is Salty Talk. Nicki: And now the thing our attorney advises, the contents of this show are for entertainment and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered medical advice. Please consult your licensed and credentialed functional medicine practitioner before embarking on any health or dietary or fitness change. And given that this is Salty Talk, we should expect the occasional expletive. As we sit here and stare at each other and wonder which one is going to open the show. Robb: Yeah, we’re just like who’s going to crack the seal and welcome all of you to another edition of the Healthy Rebellion Radio Salty Talk. Nicki: Salty Talk. Nicki: We did that in harmony sort of. Robb: We did ish. Nicki: Not really. Robb: Yeah. Isn’t that a jinx pickle moment where I get to slug you or something like that? Nicki: I don’t know. Robb: Cool. So what’s a show about? Nicki: This episode of Salty Talk is about, I don’t know, you tell us. We’ve got a title of Blood Glucose, Brains and Heart Attack. Robb: Yeah. So I want to say about six years ago, the potentiality that one of the big precipitating features of a heart attack and stroke, the occlusive process, atherosclerotic process feeding into a blood clot and whatnot the blood glucose changes going from high to low could be a major precipitator in that whole process. And it was interesting clearly. Most of the world is very wrapped up in this lipid centric model, cholesterol, lipoproteins. And without a doubt those things play a feature here. But what was interesting is again, several years ago, just this idea that just simply the change in blood glucose was really powerfully correlated with the precipitating events for a cardiac event. Nicki: And this over the course of a day, like after a meal, having really high blood glucose and then it plummeting or. Robb: That’s it. That’s it. Yep. And that was interesting, but you file these things away and you just keep looking at stuff. And then a number of other papers popped up where they started looking at the glycosylated lipoproteins. Most people are familiar with glycosylated hemoglobin, hemoglobin A1C and that is a measure of average blood glucose over time. But there’s one paper that really fired me up. I’m like, “Okay, yeah, we’ve got something worth digging into here.” They were looking at the glycosylated lipoproteins and looked at reasonably sick individuals, they looked at a bunch of different stuff. But the thing that really stood out, the thing that seemed to be the most predictive of whether or not folks had poor health outcomes was this glycosylated lipoprotein. And so that was a piece of this story. Robb: Another piece of the story is this recognition that again, these blood glucose deltas going high, going low, seems to feed into a process of neurodegenerative disease. And this isn’t as simple as the stuff that I used to believe or think about, say like 10, 15 years ago, where if blood glucose goes high, then it was a guarantee that you ended up say like in insulin resistant state. That isn’t necessarily always the case. But I did point out in Wired to Eat and this is based off of some of the work that Stephan Guyenet has done in the past that when we look at the blood glucose levels of pre-westernized societies, even if they eat a high carb diet, they don’t get the blood glucose changes that westernized people do. They look more like your blood glucose, whether they eat high carb or low carb. Robb: And a big thing that I pulled out of this was by hook or by crook, whether you need to eat low carb or whether you can eat high carb or you need to work out beforehand or something, it really behooves you to not have these extraordinary excursions and blood glucose levels. And what I think is physiologically appropriate is way lower than what the standard mainstream medicine sees. And Peter T. I think has some cut points that are even tighter on this if you’re wanting to avoid most of the problems associated with blood glucose excursions. So again, can’t emphasize enough. There are some people that do pretty well on carbohydrates and those people generally their blood glucose looks very similar pre, post meal as what my blood glucose does eating low carb. Doesn’t get that high, doesn’t drop that low. There’s just not that much of an excursion. Robb: If you are experiencing that, then I will go out on a limb and say that you were exposing yourself to a much higher risk profile for everything from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative disease. And this is a fairly easy to get on top of and do something about. Nicki: Awesome. Well let’s dig into it and folks, members of the Healthy Rebellion get access to this video with the slides. So that’s an option as well. Robb: Absolutely. Nicki: Let’s jump in. Robb: Hey Rebels, welcome back. Today’s show should be a little bit mellower than the last one. The 5G unpacking was a lot generally pretty well received. Some folks had some good questions as a followup to that. Some other people continue to lose their minds over this thing. I will do a followup looking at some of the mechanistic proposed papers that there may be a problem with these voltage gated calcium channels, these proton or protein pores that move ions and other substances around the body. There’s a review or a propose mechanism paper out there that suggests that radio frequency waves can be problematic there and I will dig into that and hopefully try to put a little bit of context around that. But anyway, today’s piece the working title is Blood Sugar, Brains and Heart Attacks is looking at a topic that has been on my radar for quite a while, which is this idea that cardiovascular events, stroke and heart attack, although we tend to think almost exclusively about the lipid part of that story. Robb: Primarily cholesterol and lipoproteins like LDL cholesterol and LDL lipoprotein. It’s been my sense that there is something else going on with that and I’m not in the 100% cholesterol deniers camp. I think that lipoproteins status can influence, say like cardiovascular disease risk. But I’ve also been of the opinion that there’s a lot more to the story than just that. And as an example, somebody who has say like LDL lipoprotein count of 2,000 and they’re eating a low carb diet is their risk profile the same as somebody who has an LDL lipoprotein count of 2,000, but they’re insulin resistant heading towards type 2 diabetes. I think that those are two very, very different people and different risk profiles and I think a lot of that has to do the effects that big blood sugar excursions can have on our health. Robb: So we’re going to dig into that and we’re going to look at everything from the cardiovascular disease perspective on this all the way to the effects that significant blood sugar excursions can have on our brain. Because I think once you span heart disease, cardiovascular disease, trending into neurodegenerative disease, you’ve peed on a lot of territory there as far as the things that we might succumb to. And if we have strategies for mitigating the risk in that story, then that’s probably pretty valuable stuff. So this first paper was the article, was in Wiley study on the levels of glycosylated lipoprotein in patients with coronary artery atherosclerosis. So oftentimes people are familiar with glycosylated hemoglobin A1C which is a measure of the amount of advanced glycation end products which have accumulated on red blood cells. Robb: And that that gives us a valuable measurement for the average blood glucose levels that an individual’s experienced over the last chunk of time. There’s a little bit of variability there, like people eating low carb diets, the red blood cells tend to live longer, so you can get some artificially elevated A1Cs. But this is looking at the levels of glycosolated lipoproteins in patients. And again, if you’re new to this scene, generally when we go to the doctor, we get a physical and we get some health screening. We get some basic blood work that looks at cholesterol levels, total cholesterol, HDL, cholesterol, LDL cholesterol. But what’s missed in that story is that this cholesterol is carried around the body in these things called lipoproteins and the LDL-P, LDL particle is where the LDL cholesterol is shuttled about and then you have the HDL particle and you have other intermediate and very low density particles as well. Robb: But the just screening for cholesterol content has all kinds of problems. In my opinion and in the opinion of most lipidologists doesn’t really give us an accurate picture of what’s going on with regards to some cardiovascular disease risk profiles. I think there’s an additional layer to this which is considering the glycosylated lipoprotein fraction in these folks basically. And this isn’t just the singular mechanism here, which would hopefully I’ll remember to talk about that later, but alterations in the lipoproteins caused by glycosylation, basically sugar sticking to these proteins may be an accelerant, a critical factor in this whole atherogenic process. So in the study they looked at 200 folks that had had previous heart attacks and had a host of different health problems and then they had 230 control individuals. And generally things are pretty similarly matched. Like average heart rate is a good bit higher in these people who’ve had a cardiac event. Robb: Their systolic blood pressure is a bit higher, diastolic blood pressure is a bit higher. Smoking is about the same in both actually the control had a few more smokers than the heart attack group. One thing that’s interesting to me in a significant potential confounder here is that hypertension, elevated blood pressure was a good bit higher. It represented 52% of the heart attack population, whereas only 12% of the control population. That’s a pretty big deal and that’s also one of these things that may be tough to control for because what they wanted was a group of healthy people and it’s very, very difficult to have both elevated blood pressure and any designation of health. But when I’m talking about these challenges around elevated blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin, I do think that that’s a really important consideration. Robb: But the hypertensive piece I think is something that we’ve known for ages is a significant risk factor with regards to atherogenic potential and stroke and heart attack. But I think it’s underappreciated how significant it is because one of the competing theories out there around cardiovascular disease progression is the endothelial damage hypothesis and this thing holds a lot of water for me. Like it takes a lot of the boxes that the standard lipidology model of cardiovascular disease really doesn’t address. And in that model hypertension is just outstanding route for causing damage to the vascular endothelium. And it’s worth noting that you generally do not see any type of atherosclerotic plaquing on the vascular side, the vessel side of the circulatory system. It is almost exclusively found on the arterial side, which is the higher pressure side, which is the side that we could potentially experience things like non laminar flow, turbulent flow and turbulent flow is understood to potentially cause damage to the vascular endothelium. Robb: Now there can be adaptations to that, like calcification of the area or thickening of the area, which one could argue is beneficial and adaptive. But then there’s also trade offs with everything. So maybe under certain circumstances that adaptation to this non turbulent flow could be problematic. And if we’re just subjecting the system to blood pressure levels plus blood glucose levels and maybe lipid levels too that are outside the ancestral norm, then maybe that’s feeding into the overall problems that we have. As far as dyslipidemia, that was about equal in both groups and then diabetes there was significantly higher prevalence about 30% of the heart attack individuals were diagnosed with diabetes where it’s only 8% were diagnosed as being diabetic within the control group. Okay, so when we looked at their triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, it’s interesting in the case group, the group of the folks that had preexisting cardiovascular disease, they had suffered a heart attack typically. Robb: Triglycerides were a bit higher, not shockingly higher, but a bit higher. Total cholesterol was actually higher in the control group. Again, not massively and once we account for the error bars, then there’s actually pretty good overlap there. There was slightly higher HDL in the control group, but interestingly slightly higher LDL in the control group too. So this is another one of these things where when we look at cardiovascular disease risk profiles, LDL cholesterol, LDL lipoproteins do correlate with this process in a lot of ways, but it’s not 100% uniform story. And hopefully we’ll circle back on that here in a bit. They also looked at fasting blood glucose, which was definitely elevated relatively in the case group, the heart attack group. And this was evidenced both in the fasting blood glucose and also in the A1C, which is the blood glucose average over time. Robb: The A1C was 6.1 in the case group and 5.7 in the control group, which is not a great A1C to have for a “healthy” population, but it is definitely better. Oh, when we look at the levels of glycosolated lipoproteins in the different groups, both with regards to LDL and HDL, the case group, the group that has suffered cardiovascular events had significantly elevated glycosolated LDL and HDL. So this is the case that these folks are building around largely correlative elements upfront and then suggesting some mechanisms of causation. In the summary to the paper, the lipid levels were not a major factor in the development of coronary atherosclerosis. Then level of modified lipoprotein is closely related to development of coronary atherosclerosis is necessary to take action for glucose control while administering lipid lowering therapy. And I’m going to touch on that in a moment. Robb: Statins are used to lower liquids and lipoproteins. They do a lot of other stuff too. Certain satins can enhance nitric oxide release in the vascular endothelium. They do seem to have some anti inflammatory effects. So it’s entirely unclear whether or not the vascular benefits that are conferred to some people with statins is related to the modification of the lipid profile at all. And I think that that’s a reasonable thing to contest into question. May not be 100% the case all the time, like we have some familial hypercholesterolemia where there seems to be some improvements and morbidity mortality in those circumstances with a statin. But again, is it 100% the effects of lipid lowering or is it some of these other knock on effects? But some of the thoughts here is, like I said before, they definitely seem to ignore the reality that elevated blood pressure could be a real factor here. Robb: Hypertension is a fantastic way of damaging the vascular endothelium and lipoproteins are involved in repair and so if the vascular endothelium is getting damaged at a good clip. So like if we had a scenario in which we had high blood pressure, which in theory would be damaging the vascular endothelium and then high lipoproteins in particular LDL-P, then we have an interesting scenario there where arguably we’re set up better to heal the vascular endothelium, but if the level of damage that’s occurring is above and beyond what our expected ancestral norms are, then we could start developing a chronic degenerative disease state. And I think that this shouldn’t be too controversial of a topic. It’s not like statin denying, it’s not cholesterol denying, but it starts accounting for some of the nuance that we see. Robb: And then if we add in the additional wrinkle that the advanced glycation end products which modify these lipoproteins and will absolutely affect their structure and the way that they function, both the way that they directly function in our body and also the way the immune system sees these chemicals or these molecules, that could change a lot of the story. And now a quick word from our episode. Nicki: This Salty Talk episode is sponsored by Kettle & Fire. Kettle & Fire makes the first USDA approved shelf stable bone broth made with grass fed and finished beef bones and organic pasture raised chicken bones. Bone broth is super helpful in improving gut health. Can help with leaky gut and provides nutrients for stronger hair, skin and nails. And the cool thing about Kettle & Fire is not only do they make amazing broth, but they have a whole line of soups that they make with their broth. And we in our household particularly are fans of the tomato soup. One of the things we like to do after we have a robble frequently bake a chicken or we’ll pull the meat off the carcass and… Robb: I’ll just dice that up and maybe saute that with a little bit of veggies, maybe not. And then just put the tomato soup on it. And if you’ve already gone through the process of prepping the meat or even if you just had some chicken or… Nicki: I think it’ll work with any protein that you have leftover. Robb: It could work with any protein but for some reason the chicken just seems to pair really well with the tomato. But anyway, it can be literally a three minutes process, you’re through. Nicki: Also could be a quick lunch if you’re working from home. But we definitely like it, the girls like it. Robb: Kids smash it. Basically, whether or not we do two, a second exposure of the meal is kind of did we have to write the kids to eat it. Nicki: The litmus test? Robb: Yeah Nicki: Yep. So check out Kettle & Fire, go to kettleandfire.com/saltytalk and use code SaltyTalk for 15% off your order. And now back to this episode of Salty Talk. Robb: One of the earliest papers that I ran across, there are newer papers in this one I’m talking about here from the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism. It was published January, February, 2012. And the title is, Does Hypoglycemia Cause Cardiovascular Events? This is the first paper that I found that made a suggestion, and again, it’s not necessarily contrary to the lipid hypothesis, but really made a case that there might be a different accelerant, like a different initiating factor in this. And from the abstract, typoglycemia is a very common side effect of insulin therapy and to a lesser extent of treatment with oral hypoglycemic agents. Robb: Severe hypoglycemia can precipitate adverse cardiovascular outcomes such as Myocardial ischemia and cardiac arrhythmia. These are mainly secondary to autonomic activation, which results in the haemodynamic changes, vasoconstriction and rise in intravascular coagulability and viscosity. Basically, when the brain tends to get fairly well attuned to the blood glucose environment that it’s in, and if the glucose goes up slowly or down slowly, we tend to not see the really severe response like this autonomic activation phase of constriction, elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure and whatnot. But in these all too common hypoglycemic events where blood sugar goes very high, which itself is problematic because of advanced glycation end products, which can occur throughout all of the body receptor sites, lipoproteins like we just discussed, but also seems to have a pro-inflammatory effect. Robb: And so this is the first paper that I ran across years ago that made the case that hypoglycemia may be the precipitating element to cardiovascular events, and it’s been cited a ton of times since its publication. And again, lots of newer papers likely have a better take on this, but I have links to this paper in the show notes. It’s worth digging into because to my knowledge, it’s the earliest paper in this story that that raised this question of could blood sugar deltas like going from high to low. Could that change in level be a precipitating factor for cardiovascular events. And then circling back around a bit to where we left off on the first paper where the end of the paper made the case that elevated blood glucose levels are really problematic with regards to atherogenic potential and that we need to be mindful of blood glucose levels when we are managing cholesterol and lipoprotein levels because statins have a tendency to elevate blood glucose levels. Robb: So this is a journal Cardiovascular Diabetology number 17, published 2018 number 155, but the title is Effects of Statins on Fasting Glucose in Nondiabetic Individuals, nationwide population base health examination in Korea. This thing is a bit of a retrospective study, but it’s interesting. This looks at the effects of statin therapy on fasting blood glucose over time and it’s a very consistent upward trend in blood glucose. And from the conclusion in the paper, more adherent and intensive use of statins was significantly associated with an increase in fasting blood glucose of non-diabetic individuals and subgroup analysis of individual statin use atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, pitavastatin and simvastatin had significant association with increase in fasting glucose and then some other statins tended to not have as much. Robb: So it’s one of those things that really needs to be weighed in this decision making process. Let’s say that you do have elevated lipoproteins, but you also have elevated blood glucose levels. What should you do? Some people are just… they have a sense that this is an absolutely crystal clear answer. It’s not entirely crystal clear to me because when we think about individual differences and possibly the dueling banjos of what’s happening here, I can see where this could be a bit of a murky outcome. But I will say, and maybe the self-serving because I’m a fan and clearly of paleo and low carb diets and all that stuff, but in my mind, shifting to a lower carb way of eating makes a lot of sense here because we have a direct mechanism for lowering lipoproteins and cholesterol, which that happens in most people under these circumstances. Robb: Not all, some people see an elevation, so we need to definitely keep that in mind. But we definitely see a reduction in blood glucose levels. And so it’s a really good question to me about how we want to tackle this. And again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a super low carb intervention to have efficacy if we just are shifting people off of refined carbohydrates, particularly liquid carbohydrates. And we’re some a whole food, paleo Mediterranean type deal is probably going to be a win. But as we’ll reconsider the work out of the Weitzman Institute here in a little bit, there’s a lot of individual variation there. Some people just they don’t do that well with carbs and there may be a situation in which they are overeating saturated fat. Robb: These things can affect insulin sensitivity in a negative way and tend to promote elevated blood glucose response. But just as an example for myself, I have tried every iteration of improving my insulin sensitivity so I could eat a modest amount of carbs and it just hasn’t worked. And I’m not by any means saying that that is the story or the destiny of everybody. But within this population, we draw a big bell curve. There are some folks who are going to navigate all this stuff really well and there are going to be some people that have a heck of a time handling much in the way of blood glucose excursions or just dietary carbohydrate. Robb: So statins clearly have some specific utility. Again, I’m not in that Uber statin denier camp. I think that many people are a bit too aggressive in the application and not really considering the a cost benefit risk analysis there. But clearly there’s some utility there. It tends to be in some really specific sub categories of people, but there’s also a pretty clear trend of statins increasing blood glucose levels and these elevated blood glucose levels lead to increased atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events. Robb: So do you want to get in and do something that screws up blood glucose levels, just so you can “treat” the cholesterol? This is just a conversation that I don’t think is had often enough between doctor and patient just when people are considering the pluses and minuses of different approaches. And again, there’s definitely interventions like getting adequate sun and exercising and lifting weights, all of these things can favorably impact both the lipid part of this story, the blood glucose part of this story, the hypertensive part of the story. And this is why addressing the four pillars of health, sleep, food, movement, community/stress, they’re non negotiable features of getting on top of this complex chronic disease process. Robb: Shifting gears from the cardiovascular considerations, there’s a piece that appeared in medical hypotheses June 2020. Looks like it’s going to be published. It’s interesting. So it’s in electronic publication right now, June, 2020, it’ll be print publication, but does hyperglycemia downregulate glucose transporters in the brain? And this is an interesting treatment where they discuss the different families of glucose transporters, the different ISO forms, and then what happens in the scenarios in which the brain is subjected to higher than is likely good blood glucose levels. And it makes the case that under glucose fed circumstances, glucose is the primary fuel for the brain, but when these glucose transporters are exposed to significant elevations in blood glucose, they will tend to downregulate the glucose transporters and this is a protective mechanism to prevent an overabundance of energy in the neuronal tissue. Robb: And it’s interesting because energy toxicity is… there’s two pieces that I look at in a lot of this chronic degenerative disease state. The first is a chronic energy toxicity where we’re just chronically overfed and you can certainly do this on a low carb diet. Like I think people overeating fat can overwhelm their mitochondria with the triglycerides that are are coming in, calories do in fact matter. I do have a sense that eating a mixed diet where it’s easier to overeat calories in total and have both the negative effects of too much glucose and too much fat. I arguably think is worse but overeating of any kind is problematic. But the two dueling banjos or different ends of the spectrum that I see happening here is on the one hand, we can have damage to different tissues and most especially neurological tissue from a situation in which there is energy toxicity. There’s too much energy being rammed through either the glycolytic process and or the mitochondria and there’s all kinds of problems that can come about from that. Robb: But then the flip side of this is that we can end up in these energy deficit states where we have too little energy actually making its way through these different tissues. And this is interestingly one of the features and benefits of things like ketone bodies is that they’re called energy recovery substrates for these situations in which again, specifically say like insulin resistance in the brain can’t get enough glucose in or the neurological tissues will tend to start being damaged and dying if we don’t do something about that. And both lactate and different ketone bodies, mainly beta-hydroxybutyric can provide an alternate fuel substrate to prevent that energy crisis within the cell and the ATP and NAD reduced production. Robb: So when the blood glucose goes very high, we tend to get both energy toxicity and some damage to the cells, which causes a downregulation in the glucose transporters. And then if we end up in a hypoglycemic event, which is not difficult to do with these blood sugar highs and lows, we go from an energy toxicity and damage state to a situation in which we are at an energetic deficit state. We’re not keto adapted, we may be insulin resistant, even if it’s just “at the blood brain barrier.” And then we suffer the damage that is inflicted from an energy deficit state. So these blood sugar excursions and these running the highs to lows are really dangerous. And I would make the case that these blood sugar excursions are far more dangerous than just about any given lipid level and there’s caveats to that. Robb: I know that, again, in the case of familial hypercholesterolemia, we can have some remarkably high lipoproteins and cholesterol levels. And there clearly is some linkage to morbidity and mortality there but throw a big glucose excursion scenario in with that and think about the proinflammatory effects, the increase in viscosity of the blood, the energy toxicity followed by energy deficit state and it’s a really damaging process to be in this blood sugar roller coaster experience. Robb: Now again, I think it’s really worth remembering some things like the work from the folks out of a Weitzman Institute where they had the piece personalizing nutrition by prediction of the glycemic response. This was a great paper and was really front and center in Wired to Eat. And the takeaway that… if you guys recall this, it looked at the blood glucose response of about 1,000 people. They did a gut microbiome analysis, full genetic analysis, and comprehensive lab testing and they started feeding people different meals, different carbohydrates, and looking at their blood glucose responses. Robb: And they were all over the map. And although they did in theory, find some signal in the noise with regards to gut microbiome interfacing with genetics and what carbohydrates amounts and types people might do best with, what was fascinating is there were examples of people eating chocolate chip cookies and they would have a totally nominal blood glucose response, but the same person would eat a banana and have a crazy blood glucose response and then vice versa, where a banana caused a virtually nonexistent blood glucose response and then the cookie caused a sky high blood glucose response. And the big takeaway for me is that we need to really respect the fact that different folks have vastly, sometimes shockingly different blood glucose responses to various foods. Robb: And what’s interesting for me is that the folks who do really well on high carb say low or moderate low fat diets they tend to have a blood glucose response that looks pretty similar to what I have eating broccoli, kale and maybe a little bit of carrots. These folks will sit down and eat rice and have a lot of it and their blood glucose might get 110, 115, maybe a little bit more than that, but not much more than that. And these are the folks that are able to motor along really well on a high carb diet and it seems to work well for them. But the thing that is, in my opinion, so missed in this story is that the blood glucose response still needs to look like what most people experience under low carb eating. Robb: And the folks who don’t experience that end up developing problems, not the least of which is that they tend to overeat because of these, again, hypoglycemic events, the blood sugar goes high, then it crashes low. This is a great way for stimulating hunger because we want to rectify that low blood sugar experience with something other than cortisol and adrenaline pinging the liver to release glucose. So this is the merry-go-round that people can get on with regards to these hypoglycemic events and I think it’s a little bit in my mind of the Rosetta Stone within these macronutrient wars. Some people do well on low carbs, some people do well on low fat. Robb: The folks who do well on low carb oftentimes cite the fact that they get really high blood glucose levels in response to a denser carbohydrate sources and that’s true. But what is oftentimes missed is that there are other people like my wife who eat dense carbohydrate sources and they have outstanding glucose disposal. They have good phase one and phase two insulin response. And so their body’s anticipating the carbohydrate but then it matches that second phase insulin response appropriately. So we don’t get a hypoglycemic event and they motor along pretty well on that. Robb: But this is something that again, in these macronutrient wars and trying to unpack all the stuff, we’ve made it this arbitrary deal where it’s got to be one or the other. And what this ends up doing is abandoning between a quarter and a half of the population that doesn’t fit into whatever the theory to ensure these extreme positions put forward. There is a great piece from Virta Health, which again, I have a link to this in the show notes. The Emerging Science Connecting Glycemic Control to Improved COVID-19 Outcomes. It’s a really great piece and it isn’t like some of the over the top things that I’ve seen where people are like, “If you eat keto or carnivore, you can’t catch COVID.” That stuff is ridiculous. But we do seem to have some indication folks that have better glycemic control, better metabolic health, that have fewer of these metabolic complications seem to be navigating this whole process better. Robb: So this is really important both from the infectious disease standpoint in this story all the way to the chronic degenerative disease point. So a couple of takeaways, good glycemic control might be a really smart thing to do. I think that there’s just a really strong case to be made for that. And again, what constitutes good glycemic control is likely going to be different from person to person and situation to situation. And some people may have great glycemic control in their youth and rather poor glycemic control later in life. Or if you went from being quite active to reasonably inactive, that’s going to really change things. But having an eye towards glycemic control, I think is likely far more important than lipid levels. And a host of other things. Robb: There’s just so much stuff that gets effectively addressed by finding an appropriate glycemic response for people. And again, I made the point that what may be a favorable food for one person, may be a terrible option for someone else. I definitely made that point that people who do well on low carb have a blood glucose response or people that do well on high carb have a blood glucose response that looks more like mine. And it’s really important for folks to remember that. That two people could eat completely different dietary compensations yet at the blood glucose level have similar or identical glycemic or blood glucose response. Robb: And I will go out there and say that the modern acceptable cut points for blood glucose are likely pathological. Stephan Guyenet did a piece years ago looking at blood glucose responses in non westernized populations. And again, this is one of their benchmark pieces that I used for Wired to Eat. He didn’t see blood glucose levels hardly ever get much above, about 100 nanograms per deciliter, and this is in populations that are eating 70, 80% carbohydrate and stuff like that. Now, it tends to be largely whole, unprocessed foods and things like that, but there is still a reality that these cut points are significantly lower than what we would generally see as acceptable within the Western medical scenarios. So that’s what I’ve got for y’all today. Hope you all are doing well. Hopefully we’ll see you over in the Healthy Rebellion. Take care. Nicki: All right, that is a wrap for this episode. Thank you for listening and tuning in. Remember to grab some bone broth or some tomato soup from our show sponsor, Kettle & Fire at kettleandfire.com/saltytalk and use code SaltyTalk for 15% off your order. And please share the episode. Robb: Share the episode, yeah. Nicki: Share the episode and I think it’s really important right now in particular as we’re learning more about how one’s metabolic health makes you either more resilient in a time where there’s a pandemic like COVID-19 out and about. So if you have people who maybe aren’t metabolically healthy but might need a little goosing in the right direction, some of these episodes could be helpful in perking people’s ears up. Robb: Yeah, because it’s worth mentioning, I assume that most people know that big blood sugar excursions are a problem. Not everybody does, not everybody gets as fired up or as concerned about it with regards to chronic disease. It’s like diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s. But all that stuff seems really distant into the future even though we’re laying the groundwork for that today if we’re not eating and living properly. But there’s a reality that it’s possible that this COVID experience may become a seasonal experience similar to just the common flu. And even within the context of “just the flu,” the folks who fare poorly in that scenario are the metabolically unhealthy folks. And I think that there’s just a real opportunity here that this is clearly a topic that is front and center for people. And so if they’ve been reticent to do any type of diet and lifestyle modification in the past, their ears may be perked up in a way that they will be amenable to doing something new here. Nicki: All right, we’ll see y’all next week. Robb: Take care. Bye-bye. Nicki: Bye. As always, Salty Talk episodes are brought to you by Drink Element. The only electrolyte drink mix with salty enough to make a difference in how you look, feel and perform. Get salty at drinkelmnt.com. That’s drinklmnt.com. #HeartAttack #Cardiovascular #Brain #BloodGlucose #SaltyTalk

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blackmilshake · 7 years

Text

Misunderstandings *Harry Styles

Six months had gone by since you and Harry broke up. More like he broke up with you.

***

You had met up with your childhood male friend since he was visiting the city for the first time due to some business.

You had made some time in your schedule to show him the city because you were so happy to see him after like seven years, so when he invited you and your boyfriend to his wedding you were more than proud of him. A successful businessman, soon-to-be married.

Sadly that time you used with your old friend had cut down the time you would talk to Harry.

For a whole week you had barely communicated with him.

Little did you know you had a paparazzi behind your back all week.

It was a Friday when the article was realized. "HARRY STYLES' GIRLFRIEND MORE LIKE AN EX" with tons of pictures of you and your old friend around the city, smiling, laughing and eating in different places.

Also a video was shown of you two laughing non stop.

There were even a couple of photoshopped pictures of you two kissing and holding hands that looked so fake you couldn't believe people thought they were original.

It was all over the freaking news and on every gossip channel.

Anxiety grew inside you.

Before leaving for promo harry had offered to take you with him but you had to decline his offer, you were still studying, close to the finals and needed time to study since it was your last period in college. Of course, you not going had leaded to a small fight right before he left. And now everything sounded out of context. "She doesn't go with her boyfriend for promo so she stays with her little affair." "Maybe they broke up long ago, that's why she isn't with him." "If I had the chance to date such a hot male I wouldn't cheat on him."

Anger built up inside of you.

"You don't know a thing." You screamed due to all the rage you had.

Utter bullshit.

You turned off the tv and went for your cellphone, you needed to talk to Harry just to clear things.

Harry was doing promo at the other side of the world at the moment.

Apparently you had sleep while the whole world freaked out over something so fake.

Your cellphone soon collapsed owing to Twitter and Instagram notifications that arrived non stop, you weren't even given the chance to turn off your data before your cellphone turned off itself.

Death treats, hate and more hate was all you could see on the tv, your now dead cellphone, computer and soon the threats reached your telephone so you had to disconnect that too.

Tears fell down your face and you wished more than anything to have Harry right next to you, embracing him, while listening to his soothing words and caring spirit.

You just wished he hadn't believed all that crap that was being said about you.

You thought about leaving your flat but saw tons of paps and Harry's fans on the street, waiting for you to come out.

You wanted to go to your best friend's flat but you were sure they'd eat you alive outside.

Fear was all over your system.

You hated this part of Harry's life, although you knew what you signed for when you accepted to be with him, death threats, hate and constant stalking. He came along with that whole package.

When you heard strong and insistent knocks on your door you stood froze.

If they all came in, there was no way out. You'd be trapped.

Sobs left your mouth as your trembling figure stood there, like a deer caught in the lights.

Then you heard his oh-so-familiar voice.

"IT IS HARRY. OPEN RIGHT NOW!"

Even when his voice was too loud you opened immediately and threw yourself at his arms– or that's what you had in mind but he stopped you in mid-tracks, pushing you as if you were some sort of venom. It had taken you by surprise.

"Don't fucking touch me." He spat with so much rage. You had never ever seen him this mad.

He had believed their words.

He had written you text messages all week, only to be answered hours later. You didn't got his FaceTime calls, nor the normal ones. He thought the reason behind that was because you were studying very hard so he let you be for a while.

You didn't really tell him about a male friend coming over because he was kind of jealous and things were a little tight since the fight so you had let him think that it was a female friend.

Big mistake.

But when he turned on the tv and saw the pictures of you and a man, giggling, eating and having the time of your lives all the blood inside him boiled.

When the pictures of you and that guy kissing were shown he lost his shit in a mixture of jealousy, anger and impotence.

He took the first flight available to you. He needed an explanation.

But he hadn't read your messages, telling him how you caught up with a male friend and how he was also invited to his wedding right after your friend left your house and invited you to his wedding.

The flight had calmed him a little but the paps outside the airport and your building had gotten the best of him to a point were he was held back by his bodyguard so he wouldn't punch a pap in the face that had dared to call you names.

Now he was at your doorstep, his thoughts filled with the rumors that were everywhere and the harsh words of paparazzis outside your place. How could so many people be wrong? He had thought even when he, himself had tasted several times how those things worked.

His eyes were red and puffy, his face pale with dark bags under his eyes.

His broad back rigid and his muscles tensed up, making the veins on his forehead and neck surface, knuckles white.

He was definitely mad, and that made you take a step backwards.

You had never seen him this mad over anything.

"Harry... you can't possibly believe what they are saying."

"Then explain, because there are fucking pictures and videos EVERYWHERE, was him your fucking FEMALE FRIEND?" he roared and you wanted so bad to shout him back but deeply you knew it was your fault, for lying. He hated when people lied to him and you knew it.

"Harry... calm down, please come in."

His eyes had narrowed at you. "I'm fine here, explain now because trust me I am trying to be fucking calmed."

His mind itself was too loud to think rationally. His own thoughts haunting him. His past ghost coming back to him.

He was never lucky with girls, even when he was that famous and loved by millions, he always chose the ones that used him for his money or fame and you had seemed so different. Now the world was trying to show him wrong.

But he claimed blame too. He was always so absent. He barely saw you, a relationship with him is like dating a phone. Calls, messages, even emails. And you were too perfect for him. Selfless, thoughtful, kind, sweet and loved by literally everyone on his close circle of family and friends. Anyone worth your attention could be considered gifted.

He just couldn't believe it when he saw those rumors.

So there he was, shouting for an explanation that he could trust, one that could stop him, he didn't want to end things with you... but this was too much. Too much pressure on his back. The whole world was expecting him to be perfect.

But you were speechless, stammering at his cold, fuming and distant demeanor.

You were never good with pressure and his eyes where so intimidating.

Then you took a deep breath and tried to control your heartbeat, steady thoughts and shaking hands.

"Harry, he's just a friend. It's not what it looks like and..."

"Why did you lie to me? What did you say your male friend was a she?"

He was trying so hard not to break.

"I thought you would get jealous so I didn't tell you, I know it's my..."

In a matter of seconds he lost it.

"DO NOT TRY TO FUCKING PUT THE BLAME ON ME!"

"Harry, he's about to get married." You said anxiously and his mouth was faster than his mind.

"So he came all the way here to be pleased by his favorite hoe?!"

And your hand faster than you will. Hurt taking over your body.

You slapped him right in the face, but his words hurt you a thousand times more than the burn in your hand.

His eyes became almost black in anger and his usually respectful self was blinded with rage. He raised up hand and you tried to cover yourself from what you thought was a slap but he stopped in mid track, completely scared of himself as he watched you flinch in fear.

It took both of you a couple of seconds to realize what was going on.

And then he talked again. Still too afraid of what had come to him, his voice breaking in the process.

"I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. We're through. Don't look for me, don't call, don't text. Cause for me you no longer exist."

You closed your eyes as you felt your heart breaking, hearing how your worst nightmare became your reality, your knees giving up as the door closed right in your face.

***

Now you were drinking at a pub near your best friend flat since she was tired of trying to go out and have fun with you and pretty much made you go with her. You had never gotten drunk before your breakup with Harry and now you were gulping the drink in your hands as if it was water. Yeah it burned, but it was making you forget.

Also you had never really danced in public being your shy self- something that had made Harry fall even more, nor were you used to having eyes on you. Usually everyone's eyes would be on your now ex boyfriend or your hot best friend, but she had managed to fit you into a tight little black dress and crazy heels and some extra make up in order to "celebrate your first job as a graduated woman" and while being sober you almost had a panic attack feeling the eyes of some males in the pub, now with each glass of alcohol in your system you barely noticed a person standing in front of you.

Yeah, you were drinking fast but surprisingly were still able to stand up and your friend wanted you to dance before you couldn't even talk, so when your new favorite song came on she took the change to try to make you dance. Thing that she hadn't achieved since you know her.

"HEY! IT'S SLOW HANDS. YOUR FAV. COME ON."

She literally drags you to the dance floor.

Harry himself was miserable without you. You used to be his sunshine, his voice, soul and heart, his air. Without you he was like a zombie walking around. He had tried his best to move on for his fans but his heart always carried a dark shadow he couldn't remove. The space you had left.

He couldn't forgive himself for breaking up with you, when your female best friend called him, screaming for breaking your heart when you had done nothing, hanging up after a talk that had left him in pure shame. He was ashamed of himself.

And you did as he asked. You never called, messaged or contacted him. In fact you changed your phone number, deleted your account on every social media. Your best friend had noticed how you would want to call him from her phone so she had to delete him too, block him on all the accounts he followed her and she even rented your flat to have another income and moved you with her.

When he had realized how much he needed you, you were off the map. You weren't in college anymore, no address, no phone, not working anymore in the library you used to.

He was in the same town you live, and he felt so empty when he tried to go to your flat only to find someone else living there. In a place where you two had made amazing memories that still haunted him.

He started to walk aimlessly, not really caring about where he would end up that night. A pub around the corner where he was almost called his name, his legs felt numb already, his mouth dry and his knees almost giving up. He had been on his feet all day.

He showed his pretty face to the guard in the entrance and was immediately welcomed, avoiding the long line as he was used to.

Inside, everything was a mess, as usual.

People drunk, high and making out on every corner, couch and stair they would found. His thoughts mixed with the loud music. He sat down in one of the empty chairs near the bartender, ordering "the strongest one you have, double" and started to eye his surroundings.

He saw a woman that looked so much to you and he couldn't help but stare at her. She was bitting her lip the way you used to, for a second he thought it was you but he wasn't sure, he could only see the side of that woman.

His drink arrived and he drank it in two sips, ordering another one.

His eyes back to the woman that looked so much to his love.

It was not until you stood up that he noticed that it was actually you. His first instinct was to run up to where you were but he stopped himself, you had suffered enough.

He couldn't help but notice how much you had changed. You had definitely lost weight and that made his heart sink to the bottoms of his stomach. Were you not eating enough? Were you sick? Were you ok?

His heart skipped a beat when he saw you stumbling a little, obviously drunk. And fought the urge to come to you and help you. Take you with him and apologize till he wins you back. But he remembered your best friends words "You told her that she was fucking dead to you, now you are fucking dead to her, ass."

He had never seen you drinking more than needed, let alone drunk. And he wondered when you had picked up that habit. Was it because of him? He was hoping a no for an answer, he would never forgive himself.

He was looking for a companion too, to see if you had come with someone but he could only see your best friend and felt nothing but relieve, as selfish as it sounded.

Then his second drink arrived but he didn't drink it and asked for water and something to eat instead. He wanted to see you, even if it was from afar. And of course he wanted to protect you from any dork around.

He was definitely jealous of that dress you had on because it was caressing your soft skin even though it was too short for his liking. His eyes went to your shoes, also too high for his liking, you could fall and hurt yourself. But other side of this mind was punishing him. You looked so damn hot, he felt his little friend so happy, and not just at the thought of you at a wet dream of his, but your walking self.

You stood there for a second, your mind still working a little, you had never danced in front of anyone, you saw your best friend shaking her hips and you stood there not knowing how to move, you had only done it when no one was watching, taking a shower of while being alone. As soon as she saw you paralyzed, she took your hands and started moving them. She shouted "Close your eyes and feel it!" You did as ordered.

He saw your first dance moves, a little awkward but definitely cute, he felt like a proud father seeing his child on a dance. A little smile crept into his strong features. He saw the way your eyes closed and how your hips started to move slowly.

Soon your moves changed from cute to absolute sexy . Your arms were no longer awkwardly hanging to your sides, they were fully up, touching yourself, each other arm first, then your hair, your neck and going down, like if you were giving yourself the pleasure no one else was giving you.

He was watching you such an intensity that he didn't noticed that other men started to notice you too nor the girls next to him trying to catch his attention.

You were definitely feeling every melody of the song and your hands wandered all over your body, your eyes closed, happy that you had finally forgotten-even for a second- the grieve inside you.

Before the song was over, you felt two strong arms around you, your back against someone's chest, his hands in your hips moving you along. During any other situation you would have ran out but now you were too numb to. Now the alcohol had made its work, you even pictured Harry being the one holding you.

"You look so hot, baby" his voice was deep and you felt something hard pressed against your back but you did not care.

Then his hands made his way up to your dress, finding his way up to your inner tights, making you moan, his other hand making its way to your chest and his mouth whispering in your ear things you couldn't get because of the loud music. A wet kiss between each word, and very deep in your mind you knew where it was leading.

But Harry's vision was interrupted before that had man approached you, by a kiss of a woman that had the guts to stand in front of him and put her hand on the boner he had and didn't even knew about, one that started to hurt in the tight space of his black skinny jeans. Of course seeing you had his effects on his friend too.

He politely pushed her aside and told her that he was with someone else, she pouted and walked away after several minutes.

He looked for you but couldn't find you.

"Fuck." He muttered and stood up, feeling how his soul abandoned him. You could be at danger right now he thought and wanted to knock himself out for not taking enough care of you, for not taking you home with him when he first saw you. He started to run, looking for your face, hair, something. Anything.

You were being pleased in ways you hadn't in what now seemed such a long time.

His hands were still all over you, lifting your dress more and more. He left kisses all the way up your neck and you pictured Harry doing that to you, when you looked at his face noticed that he was definitely not Harry so you tried to get away from him but he held you tighter. You looked for your best friend but she was no where to be seen. "You won't go anywhere, baby."

You were about to make a tantrum. You. Wanted. Harry.

"LET ME GO!!"

Harry heard your voice screaming even with the loud music. He could recognize your voice anywhere.

When he saw a man trying to take you by force, something inside him was born, something he had never felt. A mixture of jealousy, anger, fear and protectiveness. For the first time ever he wanted to kill someone with his bare hands.

He practically ran to where you were and tapped the man's shoulder, only to punch him with all his strength right in the nose, and eye twice, making him fall, almost taking you with him. But Harry caught you fast enough. You took a glimpse at your savior only to be greeted by Harry and your heart skipped a beat, still too drunk to know what was really going on.

His eyes were still focused on the man with bloody nose and swallowed eye. "WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM DUDE? I WAS DANCING."

"She fucking said let go, dude. Now go away before I fucking kill you for touching my girl" Harry spat, with utter hate in his eyes. Then turned back to you but didn't really looked at you. He took your arm in his hand with a tight grip and headed out the club. Once you were out he dialed someone on his phone, what you understood was his bodyguard. Then you started to giggle, finding funny the thought of a tall man in his pijamas heading to drive another man and a drunk woman. But that was what uber did, huh? Just not in pijamas.

Harry glanced at you, still too shaken at what had happened inside. His hands shaking. What if he hadn't been there? What if..? He didn't even wanted to think about it. His chest burned.

"You look so funny pacing around." You fully laughed at your own joke.

Harry felt his heartbeat race up again at the sound of your laugh. A laugh he had missed so much.

Oh the effects you had on him. One second ready to kill someone and the next one smiling at your laugh.

Then you stopped your laughs and looked at him serious.

"Are you really my Harry or am I imagining you again?"

He felt something in his guts. Probably guilt. But he had imagined you too, endless times.

"I am your Harry, kitten." He said, full of love and care, looking straight at your eyes while you smiled happy at him, happy to hear that nickname again. Then the smile disappeared.

"I feel dizzy, Harry." You pouted.

He took your hand and noticed how cold it was, something that always happened when you were sick.

"Want to throw up, love?" You nodded, too dizzy.

He guided you to a bin, took your hair in his hand and the other one keeping you from falling as you emptied your stomach.

"That was not nice." You hiccuped.

"You'll see what's nice with the hangover that waits for you." He shook his head, already taking note to give you water and some pills as soon as you get home.

A black Range Rover pulled over and who you assumed, was one of Harry's body guards, smiling at the scene, opening the door.

"Good night Henry, please to my place."

Henry nodded, kind of happy to see that you were with his boss again after all the lonely rides to bars and studios.

Harry was still worried at you. How many alcohol had you put in your system? Had you eaten before getting that wasted?

"Harry..." you said, lifting your hand to the furrow in his forehead.

He drove his attention back to you.

"Yes, pet?"

"I missed you."

He didn't want your words to get to him as hard as they did. He felt his own tears building in the back of his eyes. He inhaled deeply, remembering all the nights he had spent alone, his phone in his hand, waiting for you to say those words.

"I missed you too."

You nodded again, to sleepy to generate another thought.

You let yourself sleep on his lap, his hands making their way to your soft hair and skin.

He took off your shoes and the pins you had on your hair.

How hurtful these must be, he had thought.

Soon you arrived to his flat. One he had bought just to be near you and hadn't used in so long so and as sorry as he was for having Henry running errands at three in the morning, he asked for him to buy you some food for the morning, and to pick up your best friend, drive her to her flat and bring some of your clothes.

He had carried you in his arms all the way up to his bedroom, left you asleep in his bed and went to the kitchens to grab some bread, water and the pills you'd need for that hangover only to find you sat up on the edge of the bed, smiling at him.

His heart skipped at beat at that smile. It had the power to make him weak at his knees.

He cleared his throat before talking.

"Y. You... You should eat this bread and drink this. So you won't feel so bad in the morning."

You still thought it was a dream of yours. You had already lost hope about getting back together with Harry, he was very clear. You were dead to him. So having him taking care of you must be a dream.

You did as he asked, ate the piece of bread quickly and gulped the pill he had in his hands, feeling goosebumps at the touch of your hands, your heart beating faster and your stomach turning nicely.

You saw his eyes, he had felt it too, the energy.

You slowly got closer and closer, till your nose was touching his, moving your face side to side, just like you would always do.

His breath was irregular, heavier, his hands sweaty. Only you had the power to make him that nervous.

After what seemed like ages to him, your lips touched and moved in sync, perfectly made for each other.

You started to push him to bed, desperate to get as much of him as you could before you woke up from what you thought was a dream.

But he pushed you back. He was so much sobered. He couldn't do this.

Disrespect you in that way. He would never take advantage of your drunk state. If something was happening between the two of you, you had to be conscious.

You pouted as tears started to fall down your face, until you were sobbing uncontrollably in a matter of seconds.

Harry didn't really knew what to do. You were so complicated while drunk. He was more like a clingy toddler, but you, you were a wreck of everything.

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't cry kitten! What's wrong?"

"Not even in my dreams I can get you to love me back. I don't like this dream anymore."

He was well aware of your drunken state but your words still burned.

"I love you to pieces, so much I can't even describe with words. I don't want to take advantage of you while drunk. If we are going to fix things you have to be sober and not thinking that it's a dream. Let's shower you so you can feel better."

He walked to his closet, took your underwear, the one you had left in case you wanted to stay at night while you were still together, and of course one of this shirts as a pijama.

Then he left it on the bathroom and went back for you.

"Can you please help me with my dress?" Your voice was low and insecure. Your mind too fast and dizzy at the same time.

He almost regretted offering you a shower as he felt the skin of your back under his fingers while unzipping the delicate material, taking it off your body without really being able to touch you.

You stood there, only with your underwear, ironically feeling completely naked in front of him.

He took your hand and guided you to the shower, with water cold enough to sober you up but not could enough to make you sick.

His eyes wandered all over your body, wet and delicate. Your eyes wide open and your lips slightly opened.

Oh, he was feeling like in a dream, but at the same time so alive again.

"Take this underwear, I'm gonna close the door so you can change, 'k?"

"Don't go, please"

He closed his eyes. Why did you have to do this to him?

"Then I'm just closing my eyes."

It took you a couple of minutes to put on the new clothes.

He silently took you to his bed and lied down next to you. A huge part of him was thinking about giving you more privacy and leave the room to yourself.

But what if you only wanted him by your side kind of drunk?

But he didn't knew you were now sobered up, and wanted to be with him, feel his heartbeat against you, his scent, his warm body.

What if in the morning you woke up hating him?

So he hold you tight, your head in his bare chest, your legs in between his, your ear close to were his heart beat faster than ever, watching you fall asleep as soon as he finished singing a song he didn't even know he was singing.

And he watched you all night, the way your breath was so calm, the moonlight touching you with delicacy. And everything was back to normal, you lying next to him, his hands sticky, heart pounding fast and butterflies on his stomach like crazy. But he felt home, and it was such a marvelous feeling, after feeling lost for so long.

He realized how much you really meant to him, how much you still mean to him.

And there was no thing on earth that would make him give up on you again.

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nmcconnellportfolio · 5 years

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To Love is to be Ethical: Moonlight, Beloved and the Denial of Embodied Experiences as Denial of Humanity

With thirty years that separates the two from each other’s premieres, with 142 years that creates the space between 1874 and 2016 from where their texts are set, the texts of Beloved and Moonlight are renown for illuminating African-American life to mainstream society. Beloved, published in 1987, is a ghost story that explores the intergenerational trauma of slavery in America and the possibility of recovery and life after such trauma. Moonlight, screened in 2016, is a realist coming-of-age film for a young man coming to terms with his sense of identity under the pressure of toxic masculinity and homophobia in modern-day Miami. With the space of time and the difference of protagonists with Sethe and Chiron, there is two connections between the two texts. The exploration of African-American experiences in America – from the aftermath of the Civil War and the 13thamendment to the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of Miami (with such poverty an intergenerational result of slavery). The exploration of the embodied experiences of suffering and love – how both U.S slavery and modern-day toxic masculinity end up denying these embodied experiences, and in doing so, end up denying the humanity of characters such as Sethe, Chiron and Paul D. The last subject – the denial of embodied experiences as denial of human rights

To understand the mechanisms of denial of embodied experiences in Beloved and Moonlight, we need to define embodied experiences and their relationship with human rights. Within the praxis of human rights, the prevention of suffering is considered to be an important factor to the construction of international human rights law. More particularly, one of the most renown human rights instruments – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – was drafted and created in 1948, in response to the atrocities committed in World War Two i.e. the Holocaust, the Hiroshima bombing, Nanjing Massacre and so on (all, which you may notice, was institutionally and governmentally sanctioned). And perhaps, arguably, the creation of international humans’ rights laws and instruments could be a response to the concept of ‘a bare life’. The philosophy of a ‘bare life’ came from the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which focused on biopolitics (i.e. the politics of the body), where a bare life is defined as the life of an individual that is restricted to the sheer biological fact of living (eating, drinking, surviving) to where the quality of the life – the act of living, beyond just surviving, of existing politically and socially - is not considered (Buchanan, 2010, pp. 41).

The denial that the characters of Beloved and Moonlight are capable of suffering, is shown to be a denial of human rights. In the historical context of American slavery before the 13th amendment in 1868, slavery denies the subjects underneath this institution their own personhood, only allowing a paradox to occur; for slaves to be considered people to face legal consequences but considered property and, therefore, without protection from the law that demands that they be held to be consequence. This is shown in Belovedin multiple instances when Sethe and Baby Suggs recount their experiences before they escaped their owners; when Sethe and her lover are not able to legally marry, when Baby Suggs has multiple of her children taken away from her, when Paul D is put into a chain-gang. Slavery reduces them from people capable of loving and suffering to merely bodies that act in servitude to white men; Allain writing how slave-owners theorised that slavery was the natural condition of African-Americans on the basis of their skin colour, in order to justify slavery (Allain, 2012, pp. 131). Crossing over generations and centuries later, one could make the argument that the legacy of slavery also lives on within the neighbourhoods of Miami, which is the setting of the 2016 film Moonlight. Centralizing around the protagonist of Chiron (who is addressed across different stages of his life; Little as a child, Black as an adult and Chiron only as a teenager), the audience is witness to Chiron’s life in Miami. More particularly, the situation of trying to survive where his mother neglects him (on the basis of her drug addiction), living him to fend for himself in poverty and also being the subject of intense bullying (mostly due to homophobia).

A massive aspect that links the denial of suffering is how their suffering is ignored or delegitimized – both of which are aspects to the trauma of slavery and of toxic masculinity. In the book Narrating Violence, Chandra talks about how the taking of Sethe’s milk by the schoolteachers men, after Sethe attempted to run away, is unique in degrading her from her humanity: “this act is, therefore, set apart from the more familiar physical or sexual violence of whipping and rape, both of which are forms of subjugation which recognise the humanity of the slave in the very attempt to suppress the rebellion. The taking of milk, however, is a qualitatively different form of othering whereby the polarisation is not one of master–slave but the far more radical one of human– animal.” (Chandra, pp. 50-51). This discourse of associating black bodies with animalism is also associated with black bodies, more particularly black male bodies, a discourse that Chiron is forced under the weight of. In the book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the acclaimed intersectional theorist bell hooks wrote how the presentation of black masculinity in a society predominantly ruled by white patriarchal societies is the legacy born from the plantations of Antebellum America: “black males who refuse categorization are rare, for the price of visibility in the contemporary world of white supremacy is that black male identity be defined in relation to the stereotype whether by embodying it or seeking to be other than it.” (hooks, 2002, pp. xxi)

The entirety of Moonlight is about Chiron being caught between embracing what society wants him to become – a hardened, stoic and strong man – and what he actually is, which goes against it – a gay man who is ridiculed in his childhood and teenage years for his emotionality, shyness and sensitivity. Chiron is forced to deny his feelings of suffering and rejection – from his peers and most predominantly, from his mother – as a major aspect of toxic masculinity, whereas mentioned in another text of bell hooks, “to indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings” (hooks, 2004, pp. 22). However, as many philosophers note, the body can remember experiences – hence the term embodied experiences– where the mind refuses to, Bergthaller noting how until Sethe and her community can found the linguistic means to tell their stories, their emotional/psychological pain that is denied and repressed is transformed into bodily realities that cannot be ignored or denied: Sethe becomes colour-blind after she murders her daughter Beloved, Denver becomes deaf and mute after discovering the revelation of how far her mother was willing to go to prevent Denver from being returned to Sweet Home and Paul D. loses control of his hands after he is sold from the plantation (Bergthaller, 2007, pp. 120).

However, while the denial of suffering is a form of denial of humanity prominent in Beloved and Moonlight, there is also another major embodied experience that is linked to humanity and consciousness: love. As expressed by my lecturer Joanne Jones, the famous philosopher Julia Kristeva wrote about the psychological aspects of love within culture and semeiotics in the 1987 book Tales of Love. Paraphrasing from both Joanne Jones and from Tales of Love, the central idea of Julia’s Kristeva’s theories on love sees that in loving the Other, we able are able to recognize ourselves in the Other and by recognizing ourselves, we recognize the dignity of all and we are able to become ethical beings (Kristeva, 1987). If anything, the biggest denial of embodied experiences is the denial of that one can love and be loved in return and belong to a community towards the characters of Beloved and Moonlight. In a passage from Beloved, Paul D. notes how he can only pick the smallest stars in the sky to love, because any love greater – and the heartbreak that results from death or separation that was constant for slaves – could end breaking him; “to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, THAT was freedom” (Morrison, 1987).

This denial of love (and by extension, the denial of embodied experiences) also is prominently found within Moonlight, most particularly between Chiron and Kevin and between Chiron and his mother, Paula. Paul D. and Chiron share the greatest similarities out of all the characters; both are young men who have being denied the possibility of community and love and have closed themselves off from love, only for the text to show the character’s journey of relearning how to love and be loved. Another particular connection between Beloved and Moonlight is the recovery of family. As drug abuse and poverty create a chasm between Paula and Chiron, the intergenerational trauma of slavery (which Beloved becomes the flesh-and-blood embodiment) creates a divide between Denver and Sethe. The situations between the families of Beloved and Moonlight, may call back to Julia Kristeva’s connections with love and the Other; that only in being able to love can we become ethical. It’s important to note that within slavery, the family unit was impossible to protect with family members frequently being sold to other slave owners, causing the separation of child from parent, wife from husband, sibling from sibling. And while the situation is not so dire in modern-day Miami, poverty in black-majority communities can be considered a legacy of slavery and because of the forced inability to form a family, the difficulty of creating loving relationships – where slavery did not allow African-Americans to occupy the position of being someone’s child or mother or lover – still lingers generations onwards. Because these families have being relegated to their most biological dimensions, relegated to ‘bare lives’, they can only struggle in truly living a life that goes beyond the biological (Buchanan, 2010, pp. 41).

Which is why one of the significant aspects of both Beloved and Moonlight is the relearning of how to love when one has been forced to deny the possibility of love. Paul D. and Chiron, through living in poverty or living in slavery, are presented as individuals with fragmented identities and both of whom are closed off from love – most shown through the presentation of the narrative of Moonlight, where the three chapters of the film are titled with the different epithets that Chiron takes on (‘Little’ as a child, ‘Chiron’ as a teenager and ‘Black’ as an adult). Paul D., as explained above, is someone who has closed himself away from feeling, who feels that his red heart has now became a ‘rusted tobacco tin’, one which he feels ashamed of sharing with others – and where only with a sexual interaction with Beloved, does he gain his heart back (Chandra, 2008, pp. 52-53. And yet, by giving themselves permission to the embodied experience that is love, Chiron and Paul D. are able to finally gain a whole sense of themselves. Only when Chiron reunites with Kevin and tells him that he loves him, that no other man has touched Chiron (physically and emotionally) the way Kevin has touched Chiron, years after he has embraced violence, does he finally gain a complete sense of self, to make the identities of ‘Little’ and ‘Black’ and ‘Chiron’ together as one person. As Bergthaller writes, only in remembering their bodies and their families and their histories – when Chiron is able to look back at his life, when Paul D. is able to make sense of his past – can they recollect the experience of being embodied (Bergthaller, 2007, pp. 126).

In conclusion, Beloved and Moonlight where the narratives of people being brought down to the physical parts of themselves and are denied any other embodied experiences of suffering and love that validates their sense of humanity. Through toxic masculinity and slavery, many characters are left fragmented and alienated and confined to their bodies – by a system that has reduced them merely to bodies. Yet, as seen in both Beloved andMoonlight, the possibility of reclaiming their bodies (and in doing so, reclaiming their ability to suffer and love and be recognized as human) is possible in both texts. Moonlight and Belovedpresents the possibility of rising above the bare lives that the characters are given, in being able to find a future – but only through embracing the truths and experiences of our bodies.

References

Allain, J. (2014). The Legal Understanding of Slavery (pp. 105-134). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bergthaller, H. (2007). Dis(re)membering History's revenants: Trauma, Writing, and Simulated Orality in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Connotations: A Journal For Critical Debate, 16(1-3), 116-136. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/196677714?rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo

Buchanan, I. (2010). A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2nd ed., p. 41). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chandra, G. (2008). Narrating Violence, Constructing Collective Identities: 'To Witness these Wrongs Unspeakable' (pp. 50-72). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

hooks, b. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Washington Square Press.

Hooks, B. (2004). We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. London: Routledge.

Kristeva, J. (1987). Tales of Love. New York: Columbia University Press.

Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. London: Vintage Classics.

#moonlight #beloved #magical realism #trauma #trauma narratives #critical theory #essay

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xxparabellumxx-blog · 5 years

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A Cry For ̶H̶e̶l̶p̶ Validation

Since when I was about 12 years old, when I was already massively struggling with food and weight, occasionally, someone who wasn’t part of my family would voice their concern about my eating habits, at times even directly referring to the risk of me developing anorexia, while other times it’d be a more sublte remark. My family’s reaction was usually something like “hahaha that fatass, i think not”, again, sometimes a little more subtle than that, but not much. And not always. They made the same jokes when doctors told me my blood sugar level was too low and that I should definitely eat some time soon. They continued to make that “joke” for months, even years after, each time I was going to eat or skip a meal or when someone randomly mentioned food. “Better eat, you know what the doctor said, you should watch your blood sugar level hahahhah”, usually accompanied by a direct or indirect comment about my weight or body. Always in the context of weight or body shaming. Now, while around that time I was slightly overweight (nothing dramatic, just a slightly chubby kid. I also was in so many sports clubs that I had a different activity after school every. single. day. I wasn’t lazy, I was rather active and always had been), it was defintely uncalled for. I learned to invalidate any medical issues and blame literally everything bad that ever happened to me on my weight. More specifically, on my lack of self control and discipline that had shaped my body, or rather failed to. (This is the short version of course. There was a lot more to all of that.) At age 14 I was already the weight loss QUEEN. -10kg in two weeks, no big deal. I’d do that several times and be cheered on my family. I had a perfectly healthy BMI by then, but that didn’t matter. Not only did I see myself as he fattest and most disgusting person in the world, regardless of my flat stomach and perfectly alright figure, I was deeply ashamed of ever needing food. Feeling hungry was a disgrace. Giving in and actually eating was a disgrace. Not losing weight rapidly was a disgrace. Every normal body function made me feel ashamed. Every curve of my body, my boobs, my hips, my thighs. Every rib I couldn’t see without sucking in my stomach. I got deep into heavily restricting my food intake and exercising until late at night. Then proceeding to do crunches in my bed. Sleep is for the weak, right? It was around the age of 15 or 16 that I started to be more obvious about my disordered habits. People started noticing that I’d never eat in public, that I’d skip meals, that I was obsessing over my exercise schedule. And each time someone mentioned any of that, I panicked. I felt exposed for being obsessed with my weight and STILL not having the perfect body. I felt like a miserable failure for putting in so much effort and still not being good enough. But I also felt like people were finally seeing my struggle. And how badly I was struggling. I remember being utterly terrified when after half a week of fasting I fainted in P.E. Sure, I was feeling like that lazy fatass kid that embarrassingly collaped while trying to be active, I was deeply ahamed, but my physical condition also scared me so much, that I decided to eat when I got home. But I didn’t really feel like eating. I had no appetite and each time i considered what to have, I just felt sick. I got worse physically, so I grabbed a cube of cheese - and gagged. I put it back and lay in bed. I was miserable by then. Blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, pain. I was shaking. I was on the edge of passing out several times. Walked to the fridge to get that cheese cube several times. Gagged at the mere thought of eating it and put it back several times. Until I decided to keep it next to my bed and eventually, after a long, long time of mental preparation, I took a tiny bite and swallowed. It felt nearly impossible not to throw up, but I managed to keep it down. I wanted to eat, I wanted to feel better, I wanted to be healthy, but I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t let me. It took a while until I was able to get myself to eat little portions again and I only did because the incident had left me terrified. I still felt fat. I still felt like a disgrace. I still wanted to lose weight. But I also wanted people to see I was struggling. So I started to talk about my excessive exercise. Talk about skipping meals. Talk about not being hungry at all. But I did it with a smile, full of joy, as if it was a relief that I didn’t have an appetite so I didn’t even have a desire to stuff my face with all the unhealthy food everyone my age was craving. I even started talking about how fat I was, a topic that I would never have DARED to bring up before, because I realised that people started reacting differently. They seemed concerned. They pointed out that I had already lost so much weight, that my stomach was flat, that I didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to my figure. They suggested I should make sure to eat regularly and be less hard on myself when exercising. That I should allow myself some food I enjoy. If you do not have an eating disorder, chances are you cannot possibly understand the thrill of all that. The joy it caused me. They were seeing my struggle. They were seeing my effort. AND the process. The more obvious I was about my doubtlessly disordered habits, the better I felt about myself. But was that a cry for help? Was that me wanting to stop? Next thing I know is I’m addicted to the feling of that validation. I’m making myself worse so more people would notice, more people would point out my weight loss, my extraordinary discipline and self control that they usually thought impulsive, over-emotioal little me was lacking. Not to mention I finally had people worried about me. People cared. But then they also wanted me to stop. Well, I couldn’t have that, could I? If I stopped, all that constant validation would be gone. I’d have to go back to feeling fat and ugly and unlovable and undisciplined and like a failure again WITHOUT people constantly reassuring me the opposite was the case. No bloody way. So, of course, I had to pretend to be fine in order to stop people from wanting to stop me. I needed to go on making obvious progress but without worrying people enough to take that away from me. My own family was still body shaming me and making jokes about everything food related all the time, so I didn’t have the self esteem to stop restricting my food intake, constantly weighing and measuring myself, over-exercising etc. That wasn’t an option. In my head, there was literally no option other than making myelf worse and constantly finding new ways to get away with it. When I cried out, I clearly needed help. But each time I told myself I only wanted the validation.

(All of that was very different from how I talk about my struggle nowadays to point out my recovery progress and call out the disordered thoughts instead of embracing and encouraging them)

What motivated me to sit down and write all of this down today? Well, I see more and more young people joke about their clearly disordered eating and I see other people attacking them for “normalising” unhealthy eating habits that can cause a severe disorder. BUT THIS IS WHAT WE ALL DO. This is what eating disorders tend to make you do. You invalidate yourself because you want to talk about your struggle, but you’re too scared of the consequences of someone taking you seriously. This is the only way most of us can manage to ever talk about their struggle at all. Maybe the people casually joking about skipping meals every day and just drinking iced coffee are assholes. Maybe they’re just like you. Maybe they’re just unsure whether they’re crying out for help or validation.

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moviegroovies · 5 years

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just realized i never wrote that interview with the vampire post i promised y’all, so here we go

first of all! i love it. just want to get that out there. like, 10/10 stars, would watch again, have watched again, almost twice, kind of planned to watch for a sort of fourth time tonight, might not. idk. it’s great!! it’s great both as a movie (i watched the movie first like a blasphemer) and as an adaptation of the book. actually, it’s a GREAT movie adaptation of that book, probably one of the best jobs i’ve ever seen of adapting a book into a screenplay and then getting it on film. as i said, i read the book after i watched the movie, and pretty much everything was adapted directly, even significant amounts of dialogue, to the point that it felt sort of like a novelization, if novelizations were perfect.

this is what i WISH novelizations were, actually. like, using it as an example isn’t fair because it was written before the movie, but as the kind of loser who has read novelizations (i payed. like 40 dollars for a ghostbusters one. and then like 2 bucks for a Different ghostbusters one which i haven’t read yet but don’t have high hopes for), this was what i always want them to be like. same plot, lots of the same dialogue (i HATE novelizations that try to make it their own by changing the dialogue slightly. i was reading that ghostbusters one and i don’t even think i had watched ghostbusters recently but i know the lines well enough that it threw me the fuck off when the author changed them. like if someone came into your house and moved all your furniture slightly to the left? that was what it felt like), but a few things that didn’t happen in the movie, too. deeper characterization, the kind of worldbuilding/character building you can’t really do in a limited time frame on screen. getting into the charater’s thoughts. using nuance. novelizations could totally be this! or at least i wish they were! basically what i’m saying is stay tuned for my unlicensed nuclear accelerator novelization of ghostbusters going up on this blog coming soon.

anyway, a thing i liked about it as an adaptation of the book was that it was always true to what anne wrote (and i think she did at least part of the script, although i heard the director did heavy edits on it), but there were some lines that weren’t in the book that improved the scenes imo! like the little exchange in the theater of vampires where louis is commenting on the vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires, and claudia responds “how avant garde.” it serves both to clear up what’s going on (since we don’t have the benefit of louis’ narration at this point in the movie) and to humanize them a little. most of the added dialogue did that, and that’s something i really like--especially that line as louis watches new orleans burn and thinks that lestat deserves his revenge. Loved that. and him getting to see the sunrise again through film? oof!!!! honestly i liked the ending of the movie more than i did the book, which makes me feel blasphemous. it seems like louis is just doing... better in the movie. i don’t want to give too many spoilers or anything, but in the book he ends up completely detached, and never gets that gay power moment of telling armand he’s not going to give up his pain and then leaving him, so What’s The Point. on a more positive note, another thing i liked was the “you used to eat rats?” exchange. that was a much needed cute family moment.

oh! and they put some stuff from the vampire lestat into this movie, too, which, again, i liked, or at least, i like now that i know that’s what was happening. lestat being able to read minds and louis not being able to. lestat only wanting to drink the blood of evil doers. a lot of the added stuff helped make lestat more sympathetic, which was a definite necessity. actually, tom cruise acted the hell out of that role, which was surprising. not really that he could act (i’ve seen things i liked him in) but that he could be lestat, a flamboyant vampire prettyboy. wasn’t tom cruise the one who punched someone for implying he was gay? idk.

actually, i was really surprised how gay this movie was for a movie starring tom cruise and brad fucking pitt. like, tell me before i watched it that those two were the stars and i would have been expecting (i was kind of expecting) the most no-homo rendition of the movie possible. and yeah, they toned it down a little from the book... but not that much. louis’ narration is a lot less overtly homo than lestat’s anyway, and brad pitt really fucking Nailed being louis.

(which i find hilarious, because while tom cruise apparently got really into the vampire chronicles while they were filming this and had all these opinions in like movie promoting interviews about how lestat was actually a good dude, and loved louis (smthn along those lines i skimmed the shit about this), which really came through in his characterization of lestat, brad read like, one chapter of the book and lost interest. i loved the book, myself, but what a fucking icon.)

that almost-kiss with armand at the end? also iconic.

really, the only sexual stuff they actually tuned down was the louis/claudia shit, which i’m all fucking for. like, claudia is a grown woman, but it’s still so awk in the book whenever she’s coming onto louis, especially considering how often he reaffirms that she’s his daughter. even worse when he comments on her sensuality, or when she kisses him.... ick. plus, kirsten WASN’T a grown woman, so that would have been really nasty if they kept it.

oh and christian slater!!! i didn’t know he was in this until i started watching it, and i was very excited to see him. that’s my heathers love talking. i was talking to my dad after i saw it and apparently river phoenix was supposed to play daniel before he died, and my dad thought he would have been a lot better for the role i guess, but personally i think slater really picked up the part. he also didn’t shy away from being a little homoerotic, especially toward the end. he got the part right. plus, heathers.

and i can’t gush about the actors without talking about kirsten dunst. she was 11 when she was in this (apparently her parents wouldn’t let her actually watch the movie when it came out, which, ha), but she absolutely conquered the part of the 60 year old woman in a child’s body. there were times when i actually forgot that she was just an eleven year old, because she was that good. the scene with the body in her bed isn’t in the book (not quite, although something else happens with claudia and leaving bodies around), and it’s one of the best in the movie imo. you can see lestat doting on her but not understanding her, you can tell why she would resent him, you can see her resentment and before she even snaps at him you can see that she’s an adult woman stuck inside a child (like that villain from batman the animated series--did anyone else think of that?), pissed off that she wants to be treated like the grown person she is but continues to be given dolls. also, there was some peak murder family moments in that scene, with louis standing there lowkey horrified. we never got the exchange with claudia telling louis that she’s going to kill lestat and him telling her Do Not Do This Thing, unfortunately, which was something i liked more from the book, but his concern and confusion in this scene kind of speak to that. you can especially tell that he still hasn’t realized that she’s grown--he’s seeing her the same way lestat is. aww.

so, i read the book and watched the movie in pretty quick succession, and i’m writing this a day after finishing the book and a few hours after my kind-of rewatch and about a week after the last time i saw it all the way through. my memory of both being pretty strong rn, there are only a very few things that i can think of which changed from book to movie outside of things necessary to take it to the screen and keep the movie from being like twelve hours. claudia is necessarily aged up from 5 to 11--it’s just practical, a 5 year old would not nearly have had the range that kirsten did for this. armand is changed from looking like a 17 year old redhead to antonio banderas (is it bad that i’m so uncultured that before this i only knew him as the dad from spy kids?), age 34, in a Really Bad black wig. (in general i’m all for banderas in the role, and he definitely acted it well, but what the FUCK was that costuming. why does his hair look like that. i digress but they did him dirty, especially considering how much Better everyone else looks as a vampire.) the subplot with lestat’s blind father living with him and louis at first is cut, which is kind of a shame imo. i really liked how on edge lestat was when begging louis to kill him (not as bad in context), how it kind of breaks the mask lestat tries to wear and shows that he’s confused and vulnerable and he really just doesn’t know much about being a vampire--that “and why should i know!” outbreak they put in did a good job of being the movie’s counterpart to that scene, however. the ending is changed a bit, altho i’ll leave the spoilers of how exactly up to your imagination. some things should stay sacred, right?

one thing i’m REALLY glad they added was louis freeing the slaves on his plantation. i think it was a nasty choice on behalf of anne rice to write her sympathetic, thoughtful protagonist as a slave owner in the first place, especially one who by his own admission didn’t see slaves as people for a long time, and it’s unfortunate to me that it had to be adapted in that way (although i don’t think ignoring that aspect entirely would have been a better movie solution), but the slaves were at least made free men before louis moved to new orleans. in the book, louis still burns the house, but he doesn’t free the people enslaved there, and he never reflects on that. fucked up if true, i guess. i blame mostly anne for that whole thing.

ooo, that scene with lestat killing the two prostitutes was good. it’s pretty much adapted word for word from the book, but the book doesn’t have the visual of tom cruise leaping over the coffin to sit on it while she’s in it, and that was one of the sexiest scenes i can remember. so.

just remembered at the last moment that i liked the “i’m going to give you the choice i never had” thing, both because it gives a little hint of lestat background (and makes him more sympathetic/adds to the whole breaking the mask thing that i like) and because they did a Very fucking good callback with it at the end.

there’s probably more about that movie that i have Opinions on, but when i remember them i’ll just have to make another post, ig. i will say tho? that last scene they added is so FUCKING good. cue up sympathy for the devil on my way out, will you?

#interview with the vampire #text post #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #claudia de lioncourt #every time i talk about two versions of a thing (like i did with heathers) and only one of the versions is a movie i feel #like i'm cheating by putting it on this blog #but lbr i can't put this kind of bullshit on my main #and it's movie centered #gafdhsgfjhdgfm sorry about that one sentence with Too Many Commas

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perspectiveartist · 7 years

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@opus13

Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people

THE LAST: 1. Drink: raspberry white tea 2. Phone call: Uh...shit who was it? It was either James or Mom. 3. Text message: Abby <3 4. Song you listened to: ...”Prelude 12/21″ by AFI...I WAS BEING NOSTALGIC 5. Time you cried: Sunday when Mom shamed me into shaving my knees by saying they were gross

HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: I mean...I guess. 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Kinda. I didn’t at the time but in retrospect, there’s people I wish I had never shown affection for. 8. Been cheated on: ...kinda ambiguous. I thought we were still dating but she claims we weren’t so idfk but as far as I’m concerned yes, that cunt cheated on me and then BRAGGED to me about it 9. Lost someone special: Too many. I’ve been to a lot of funerals. 10. Been depressed: Chronic depression over here :))) 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Nope, I don’t drink

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: Blue, black, and either silver or gold. Which of those I like best depends on the context.

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends:Yeah! I made some online friends, at least. I don’t think most of them consider me much of a friend, but I am happy to have them. 16. Fallen out of love: No 17. Laughed until you cried: Uhhh maybe? I don’t think I have but my memory’s shit so I could have 18. Found out someone was talking about you: I guess if anyone’s gossiped about me, they were smart enough to not let me hear about it 19. Met someone who changed you: Nah 20. Found out who your friends are: Ehhh any drama I had with friends was mostly just me taking slight to stupid shit, not anything serious that actually tested any friendships.

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: Well yeah since James is friends with me on there 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Most people tbh. I don’t really add online friends very often. 23. Do you have any pets: My cat Samoa and betta Maui here, then my two calico girls Kia and Autumn at Mom’s. 24. Do you want to change your name: I used to want to change my name to Melanie or Melissa as a kid tbh but after a while I just accepted my name. Idek what I’d change it to but it wouldn’t feel right. The closest I’ve come is having friends call me Al. 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: Laid on the couch sick as a fucking dog watching TV as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Yaaay happy 25th! 26. What time did you wake up: 10-ish? 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Trying to paint my fidget spinner with nail polish LOL but I fucked up and then got sad and realized I was way tired and was getting to that toddler phase of “I’m so tired that everything is upsetting me”. It wasn’t even much of a day, I think I was just hungover from a full weekend of socializing. 28. Name something you can’t wait for: uhhhhhhhhh I don’t think there’s anything particular I’m excited for. I don’t get hyped for games or movies anymore cuz I don’t have money to drop $60 on a game and movie theaters freak me out (anxiety) 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: Yesterday evening when she was dropping me off in Van Wert for James and his dad to drive me back home 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Only one? My anxiety. At the very least, it would get rid of my eating issues, I could hold a job once I got my strength back, etc. I can live with the depression, but I feel like everything would be more tolerable if my anxiety didn’t stop my body from taking care of itself or working right. 31. What are you listening right now: I WAS listening to Philip DeFranco but tbh that was just white noise for me, I didn’t pay attention much to the issues he was discussing. It just ended. 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Yeah, my friend’s ex. I cussed him out over the phone. Then he had his mom and sister cuss ME out lmao what a fucking coward 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: Hmmm nothing at the moment. But that can easily change. 34. Most visited Website: Tumblr because I always come back out of the hopes of finding something new to look at every few minutes 35. Mole/s: Yeah, some. I have one under my right boob that I’ve had since I was little, I have a birth mark on my right elbow that’s like a mole, and then I have little moles on my legs and a couple on my stomach? 36. Mark/s: Yeah, a couple scars if that’s what you mean. I have a vertical scar on uhh my right shin I think, and then I have a scar on my upper lip. 37. Childhood dream: First I wanted to own a zoo, then I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I realized I can’t handle the nasty parts of working with animals like shit and blood and stuff. So then I just didn’t really have a dream aside from maybe making a comic. But I gave up on that. 38. Haircolor: Dark brown 39. Long or short hair: Medium 40. Do you have a crush on someone: Idk I don’t consider it a crush if you’re in a relationship with them 41. What do you like about yourself: :)))) 42. Piercings: None and no intentions of getting them 43. Bloodtype: No fucking clue. In 8th grade we tried to do an experiment to find everyone’s blood type but my fingers are small and the rooms were cold and I have bad circulation so my teacher lanced me twice before deciding I wasn’t going to get a proper drop of blood to test and he was scared of bruising me cuz I guess I seem like the type to sue. So I never learned. Idek if Mom knows. 44. Nickname: Al, Sharkie 45. Relationship status: Taken 46. Zodiac: Capricorn 47. Pronouns: She/her 48. Favorite TV Show: uhhh idk I don’t do well picking faves I guess Bob’s Burgers 49. Tattoos: None and probably will never have any. If I did, it would be a watercolor style one of a flower that reminds me of a loved one. 50. Right or left hand: Right 51. Surgery: None 52. Hair dyed in different color: Nope. I want to get some blue in my hair but neither my budget nor my Mom seem thrilled about that so it will probably never happen. It’s expensive and time-consuming to safely bleach my hair. 53. Sport: Idk I played soccer in 4th grade but hated it, then I was on a bowling league for 6 years. But I ain’t played sports in 8 years. 54. (question wasn’t here) ...:D 55. Vacation: Like a dream vacation? Idk travel stresses me out too much for me to get excited about going anywhere outside my house. 56. Pair of trainers: wh...what? Like shoes?

MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: Fried stuff yeee 58. Drinking: Coke, bottled tea, water, uh...fuck idk 59. I’m about to: smack my head against a wall for my brain being made of cotton 62. Want: security 63. Get married: I have no idea tbh I want to be with James the rest of my life but ceremonies suck. I also have issues of commitment in the way of “Oh god what if it doesn’t work out and then it hurts that much more cuz then he’s not just an ex, he’s an ex-husband?” And if James and I did split, I highly doubt I’d get married. I don’t even have an interest in dating. 64. Career: Fuck a career, I just want an income. I have no illusions of having a job you could call a career.

WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: Hugs 66. Lips or eyes: Eyes 67. Shorter or taller: Kinda weird but it seems like the women I’m interested in I prefer same height or shorter, but men I prefer taller 68. Older or younger: Same age. I don’t have an interest in anyone over a year younger than me, and I just can’t wrap my mind around dating someone older than my brother so no one more than 2 years older than me. 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: idk I don’t care about either 71. Sensitive or loud: Sensitive indicates to me that they’re touchy and I don’t do well with that, but I don’t like loud people either so...they both suck I guess? I can’t be around sensitive people who take things too personally, but I also fucking hate loud assholes. 72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship, I don’t fuck people I don’t know well. 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: I guess hesitant since a constant troublemaker would get fucking annoying.

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a Stranger: No 75. Drank hard liquor: No 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: No 77. Turned someone down: Yes 78. Sex on the first date: No 79. Broken someone’s heart: I wouldn’t call it breaking his heart, but I did break up with a guy and he was upset for a little while. He got over it. I’d say it was a dent if anything, we were only together a couple months. 80. Had your heart broken: Not really but I never put myself out there to get it broken either 81. Been arrested: No 82. Cried when someone died: Well duh 83. Fallen for a friend: Yes, hard, but I got over it eventually

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: nah 85. Miracles: nah 86. Love at first sight: nah 87. Santa Claus: nah 88. Kiss on the first date: Depends on the date LMAO James and I technically kissed on our first date but I’d also known him for years and already had feelings for him. If I went out and dated some rando, no, no kiss. Kisses are commitments.

OTHER: 90. Current best friend name: Uhm...A tie between Abby and Katie. They’re both always there for me and have been my friends for the past like 12 years. They’re reliable and sweet and supportive and I fucking love them like sisters. 91. Eyecolor: My eyes? Brown 92. Favorite movie: Aladdin

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