#it synthesizes a LOT of what I’ve learned
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Okay blood enjoyers! I come back with more thoughts.
I still need to see if I can find a resource on soft tissue injuries in cephalopods, because I’d prefer to use that as my model, but I’ve developed my own model in the mean time.
I’m assuming copper is an easy nutrient to find on Vulcan (n.b. I should address possibility of humans getting copper poisoning), so hemocyanin isn’t a resource to be conserved. The long progress of bruise healing is because humans conserve iron and recycle it, which is is hate been holding up progress, as there’s no comparison to heme for Vulcans to break down. If copper is not worth recycling, though — and given the vast quantities needed for the construction of a Vulcan-appropriate hemocyanin, I have to assume it isn’t — then it can simply be expelled as a waste product, which led me to my breakthrough: skin is a major source for releasing waste products. (That’s why garlic makes you smell.)
So with this happy decision under my back, I came up with quite a few consequences and notes on what that process might look like.
Bruises start very faint green, for reasons I’ll address in a bit. Almost like a soft flush. They grow brighter blue over time, and then fade away slowly (although the brightness of the blue doesn’t decrease) over time.
I’m also toying with the idea of forming a sort of “plaque” that eventually surfaces, similar to a human scab. I like this idea because it gives a suggestion of the shedding invertebrates have, but it might not be practical. It might be that Vulcans’ genetic ancestors (i.e., not ancient Vulcans, but the species leading up, like Homo erectus for humans) consumed these to regain the lost copper.
This is an itchy process, because it’s an irritant/foreign body under the skin.
I went with oxygenated hemocyanin because the alternative is a colorless bruise, and ultimately, that’s not fun for writers. After all, I started this whole process because I got tired of Spock always having green bruises, with no nods to the healing process that results in rainbows on humans.
To expand on “brighter” blue, I’m imagining an initial dark, purple-ish color, that grows into the bright blue of, say, hermit crab blood. I know skin and light diffraction play a part in what color blood appears, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t care enough to figure it out.
The color also narrows to a smaller and smaller spot, which impacts the appearance of it growing more vivid/opaque as time passes. This is not necessarily correlated with the site of injury.
Now, I’ve already established that there must be other elements in Vulcan blood to give it the green color, and I specifically didn’t want those to go through the same process as hemocyanin. That would be fluid, and desert animals generally take conserving fluid to an extreme.
As far as that goes, I’ve more or less decided to have the yellow blood serum contain other necessary blood parts. For Spock in particular, this includes a human immune system. I do have a few specific thoughts on how this impacts his healing process, but mostly they can be summarized as “lower risk for clots and abscesses, higher risk for infections going septic and serious blood loss.” I won’t be making those specific points because the impression we get is that Spock’s biology is mostly Vulcan.
Because of the fluid conservation, I imagine there’s some edema (swelling from fluid). How diffuse this is depends on the injury, but I don’t imagine it being very severe. More notable and long lasting than in humans, but nothing dramatic.
While the blue concentrates over time, yellow spreads. There’s a limit, but healing blood vessels requires some space.
Because a Vulcan immune system involves a lot of clotting, there is a risk of several things going wrong. More seriously, a blood clot could block off a vessel, causing tissue death. This is rare, and the more severe the bruising, the more likely it is to happen. More bacteria also increases this risk.
If bacteria enters the system near or through the wound, there’s a not insignificant chance of an abscess forming. Again, Vulcan immune systems operate primarily on a “cover the bacteria(/virus/etc) so it can’t do anything” principle, and walling off an area to keep an infection contained is part of that.
A bruise very close to the surface, and/or with lacerations (think: hitting concrete or gravel, where a bruise would form but there would also be superficial lacerations in the skin) may ooze slightly, as the fluid can’t be contained and/or may be contaminated. This can cause confusion for doctors, because bruising is a dry process for people.
Extreme bruising can put stress on nearby joints. Vulcans manufacture hemocyanin in their connective tissue, and right now I have joints as bearing the brunt of that.
This is responsible for the initial green, as the hemocyanin has not been separated from the serum.
So…while I do intend to do a bit more digging to see if I can find better grounding, I think for now this is a very workable model of bruise healing in Vulcans.
#mine#spock biology quest#Star Trek#this one gets the stek tag bc I finally hit an answer#I wrote this in a notebook in my biology class#but look my professor overexplains things#anyway#I couldn’t look anything up so this is much more my own reasoning#than the previous researched based posts#but I’m honestly pretty happy with this#it synthesizes a LOT of what I’ve learned#the stuff I didn’t even always talk about LOL#and probably in ways that are non-obvious
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One thing the North Node in Aries and South Node in Libra has been getting me to see is “boundaries” aren’t really about how many people you can shut out, or how quick you can be to shut someone out at the first sign that they could maybe be problematic. I’ve lost out on many opportunities to learn from people and to receive love or support, doing this in my past.
No, healthy boundaries are something you have to be willing to work on within relating. By all means, if someone clearly purposely screws you over, turn your back on them and never look back. But if you’ve been taken advantage of a lot in the past, you might be prone to seeing potential toxicity someone will bring into your world, where it doesn’t actually exist.
I’ve learned that pushing away people before even actually learning what they’re about is not a flex. Also I’m no longer worried about being open to someone who turns out to have tendencies I can’t be around. Because I’m now confident that I can utilize boundaries other than just never letting anyone into my world in the first place. (And I had to be willing to be open to interacting with more people again to even be able to practice this.)
What a lesson truly synthesizing Aries and Libra. My boundaries these days are starting to feel so much more productive for me and I’m grateful. 🙏
#astrology blog#astrology#north node in aries#south node in libra#lunar nodes#eclipse#north node#astrology transits#tropical astrology#astro tumblr#astroblr#spirituality#astrology observations#boundaries#aries#libra#astro community
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Chocolate Donut with Rainbow Sprinkles
Note: SNW Spirk drabble :). For some reason this has been in my head for the longest time lol.
Jim woke up feeling no better than he had the day before. It was only two days beyond the anniversary of the Farragut’s catastrophic encounter with the cloud creature from Tycho IV and he had not been himself for a week. First, because he was anticipating the anniversary. On the day of the anniversary he was reasonably sure he had not spoken a single word. Now not two days had passed and he felt marginally better after reaching out to the families of some of the dead crewmen he had known best. But he was still feeling it, and though he was adept at compartmentalizing and finding solace in his work, Jim felt like the bottom of a boot. Still, he dragged himself to the mess for breakfast and sat up straight as he drank his coffee for breakfast, since nothing looked appetizing enough to eat.
So he was surprised and slightly perturbed when Mr. Spock sat down in front of him. Spock was carrying a tray with a plate, a covered dish, and a cup of tea on it. He set down the plate bearing his own breakfast of some grain Kirk was unfamiliar with and berries. But he set the small covered dish in front of Jim as if Jim might be expecting it.
“Mr. Spock,” Jim said flatly.
“Lieutenant.” Spock nodded. “Good morning.
“Good morning. Uh… what’s this?” He racked his brain, wondering if, in the relative stupor he’d been in for the past few days, he’d made some agreement to have breakfast with Spock. Was there a reason he should be expecting a covered dish?
He hardly knew Spock. Yet he liked Spock. He felt an odd kind of magnetic pull around Spock and put it aside…accepting the occasional fantasy when he was alone in bed late at night.
Spock did not start eating. He folded his hands and did not meet Jim’s eyes, instead looking down at the table. “For the past six-point-seven days, I have noticed that you have been acting unlike your usual self. While on the bridge you have spoken, on average, fity-seven percent less than usual. You are one of those humans who is, as the saying goes, easy with a smile. Yet I have not witnessed you smiling once in the last week. And you have not laughed. I… I have found myself concerned as to your well being. After speaking to your brother-”
“Sam,” Jim muttered, rolling his eyes.
“After speaking to your brother,” Spock went on, “I learned that two days ago marked the anniversary of…” He met Jim’s eyes and perhaps seeing Jim’s subtle reaction of dread, stopped himself. He swallowed. “I am aware that you are perhaps marking the anniversary of a great tragedy. I desired to…assist you in some way. That is, I wished to make you feel better. If possible.”
Jim blinked at him and felt a great and welcome warmth come over him. “Oh. That’s exceedingly kind of you. But-”
“I am not asking you to talk about the events of Tycho IV,” Spock said quietly.
“Good.” Jim relaxed and emitted something close to a chuckle. “I’ve actually talked about it a lot. Just…not with anyone on this ship.” Spock looked at him with interest.
“I understand.” Spock reached out and lifted the cover off the dish in front of Jim. “I only wished to give you this.”
A pink frosted chocolate donut covered in rainbow sprinkles sat on the little plate and instantly Jim was transported. Bobby’s Donuts in Riverside, Iowa. It was actually a full bakery and it had been Jim’s favorite place to relax after school (with the exception of the barn back at home). This was his favorite concoction and one of Bobby’s simpler offerings. Fresh baked chocolate donuts with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. He had not eaten one since…since just after Tarsus IV probably.
“I once heard you speaking of your fondness for this delicacy to Nurse Chapel,” Spock said. “This is not a synthesized item. I…” Spock sat up even straighter. “I made it personally. Captain Pike assisted me.”
“You made me a donut?” Jim stared at him. “You made me a donut?”
Spock looked back at him. Jim knew little about the anatomical properties of Vulcan, but he was pretty sure Spock was blushing, the olive tones of his cheeks darkening subtly. “I am given to understand that humans often enjoy baked goods or sweets as a form of comfort.”
“We certainly do,” Jim muttered. “I just… I don’t know what to say.”
“Perhaps you should try it before you say anything,” Spock said.
“Yeah.” Jim picked up the donut and the corners of his lips quirked up when he felt that it was still slightly warm. He took a large bite and the chocolatey fried dough, not overly sweet frosting, and slight crunch of sprinkles instantly transported him to his child self. He was ten years-old, content in a booth at Bobby’s Donuts, reading about the achievements of Captain Jonathan Archer and distantly hoping his father was safe wherever he was. All that, and at the same time, across the table, he met Spock’s eyes and felt consumed with the urge to throw his arms around the Enterprise’s science officer. Perhaps later.
Jim swallowed the first bite and his mouth twitched before he finally said, “Spock. It’s… it’s perfect.” He could not contain the smile that burst across his face. “Thank you. I… Spock, I think this is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while.”
Spock all but glowed, relaxing slightly in his seat. He raised his head and a subtle expression of satisfaction came over him. “I am pleased.”
Jim took a sip of coffee and couldn’t help moaning slightly at the juxtaposition. Spock’s eyes flashed and he looked down at the table.
At Starfleet Academy he’d begun drinking coffee. He’d found donuts (that were not as good as Bobby’s but still pretty good) at a spot a few blocks off campus. Studying warp core relays, chomping on donuts, sipping coffee…
“This is the best I’ve felt in weeks,” Jim said softly.
He wanted to say more. That it was not entirely about the donut. That something inside him had snapped to attention upon meeting Mr. Spock already, and maybe now he knew why.
Spock finally dug into his breakfast and he’d taken several bites as they sat there in contented silence before he said, “That is all I desired.”
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why joel was right to save ellie bc i have a lot of opinions and by god i’m gonna share em
so since the show has premiered i’ve seen this debate flare up again and a lot of people saying joel “robbed the world of a cure” when he saved ellie but lets be real, the fireflies were never gonna make that cure.
first off in the original game the hospital and operating room were FILTHY. and yes in the remaster they retconned it to be clean but that just seems silly to me. the fireflies had so little infrastructure that they were wiped out by ONE angry old man in a single night, where are they getting hospital cleaning crews? where are they getting the supplies to properly and i mean PROPERLY sanitize a working OR? more importantly WHO were the medical staff? what were their qualifications? to pull off what they wanted they would’ve needed a team of brilliant scientists specializing in different specific fields and i doubt any of them had been to med school recently. the outbreak was over 20 years old by that point, and medicine is a continually evolving field. those licenses were EXPIRED and even if they had experience during the pandemic it likely would’ve been in field medicine, which is not the same as epidemiology or neuroscience or any of the things they would’ve needed specializing in to get a cure. also the fact that they were saying “we’re gonna make a vaccine!” was another red flag, bc fungal infections aren’t even treated w vaccines. it just goes to show they didn’t know what they were doing. they were just reckless and desperate and ellie would’ve died needlessly.
secondly killing ellie especially right off the bat would make NO sense. what if they find out later on they need a live subject or more samples or whatever? well too late your only subject is dead. why wouldn’t they do blood tests? imaging? or if the cordyceps is only in the brain you can still do a biopsy without killing the person. again, these people didn’t know what they were doing. they were grasping at straws and even if they had gone through with their original plan they probably wouldn’t have been able to synthesize a cure anyway. the sample would’ve expired or been contaminated in the dirty hospital or they would’ve fucked up their sample through ignorance. the whole rushing straight to pulling ellie’s brain out was ridiculous. they would’ve killed a kid needlessly without a second thought.
which brings me to my next point. the fireflies aren’t exactly cut and dry good guys either. i may be reaching w this and i need to rewatch the premiere episode to confirm this but they don’t seem all that picky about their targets and civilians seem to get caught up in them a little too easy. the fireflies aren’t super concerned about human life if it gets in the way of their cause, i mean they were recruiting young kids and giving them weapons just like fedra did. there’s a reason tommy left them high and dry. they’re extremists and they don’t care who they hurt or exploit so long as it serves their cause. they aren’t philanthropists and they FOR SURE would not have been giving out that cure out of the goodness of their hearts. they would’ve gatekept it to themselves and they absolutely would’ve used it as a recruiting tool or political bargaining chip.
but more importantly even in the very unlikely situation they COULD make a successful cure AND mass produce it AND move it cross country which they clearly don’t have the resources for, there’s no way fedra would’ve let them get away with it. their fascist control is all justified in the name of preventing infection, if the disease is no longer a threat that’s a massive blow to fedra’s power. they might’ve been chasing around fireflies for setting off a few car bombs or whatever but if you think fedra isn’t going full extermination mode if they find out the fireflies have a cure you’re kidding yourself. and we’ve clearly established the fireflies would be crushed if they had fedras full attention given that they were pretty much eradicated by one guy in a single night.
and if we’ve learned anything from our own covid pandemic, it’s that if you want to effectively immunize a whole population it needs to be WIDESPREAD. you can’t just treat a few people and call it a day, EVERYONE needs to take the cure or the disease is going to survive and mutate until it can come back in a treatment-resistant variant again and again and again. and after a 20 year outbreak the kind of infrastructure you need to make that happens is gone. it just doesn’t exist anymore. fedra is probably the only group with the level of organization and infrastructure anywhere CLOSE to being able to achieve that kind of feat and i doubt even they could, and even if they could they wouldn’t.
so the fireflies were NEVER gonna be able to make a cure in the first place, they were NEVER gonna be able to mass produce and distribute it, they were NEVER going to be handing it out to anyone they weren’t tight with, and even if they had been well equipped philanthropists who could make a cure and were actually giving it out freely fedra would’ve crushed them immediately.
and i’ve also seen people argue that either way it should’ve been ellie’s choice but i disagree. ellie was a traumatized CHILD with severe survivors guilt. she was not mature enough or in the right headspace to make that kind of decision. JOEL was the closest thing to a legal guardian she had, and it was HIS responsibility to protect her until she was old enough to make decisions like that for herself AND HE DID. a kid should not be allowed to make that choice even if they want to because they’re a KID. also the fireflies weren’t gonna let joel live anyway, i’m pretty sure they were planning to kill him even if he complied.
and ultimately it’s not like joel was considering all this when he made his choice, he saved ellie because he LOVED her. like i’m sure he picked up on some red flags and knew things were sketch and realized the fireflies would probably fail and she’d die for nothing but more than anything he went back bc that was HIS BABY and he wasn’t letting desperate assholes sacrifice her for their cause. “save who you can save” remember? maybe you can’t single handedly change the world or make some miracle cure but you can do what you can for the people you love and maybe that’s enough. maybe you can never make the world go back to the way it was and maybe you SHOULDN’T but you can take it as it is one step at a time and you can do it with the family you’ve made. i think that’s a much better takeaway and i don’t like how the “joel was selfish and did the objectively bad and wrong thing” narrative in tlou2 minimizes that.
#the last of us#tlou#tlou hbo#joel tlou#tlou series#tlou part 2#joel and ellie#joel miller#ellie williams
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How to Write Good Omens Meta
Someone left something in my ask box that intrigued me:
My Ask is for insight into the theory of clues and how S2 clues move and build S3. Is there a meta on this? (If not, would you consider it at some point?)
Well, I did consider it, and here’s my first shot at answering this really good question. It's more about the art of writing than of clue analysis, but I may do a second piece in this series, if it feels necessary. Anyway, here we go:
read on Ao3
Learn Something New
People want to read meta to learn something that they didn’t know before. This probably means you will have to learn something that you didn’t know before. Some meta-analysts arrive pre-loaded with a rich background in costuming, tarot, biblical canon, and the wide array of cultural references that appear in the show. We also seem to have a fair number of psychologists (formally trained or otherwise) representing. I (and others: see Chekhov's Contract by @ineffablyruined) happen to have a background in law and so I was able to make a unique contribution via my piece Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop. But for other topics, I have to self-educate.
In my personal opinion, the work on direct canon analysis (that is, watching the show and reporting what you see) has largely been done and I don’t think there will be many more breakthroughs until some people go away and come back with a freshly informed perspective. Personally, I’m waiting for someone to go learn everything there is to know about S.W. Erdnase and tell us what they found, because that is a very specific reference that I haven’t seen fleshed out yet (link it in the reblogs if it already exists!).
Don’t Be Afraid of Outside Sources
For example, quite a few times I’ve gone away to read outside source material before writing a new meta. Good examples are: Honolulu Roast, The Lament of the Metatron, and The Hornet in the Beehive. These are topics where I had no particular advantage over anyone else, I just had a question and decided to keep digging until I had something that looked like an answer.
On choosing a topic: in each of these cases I began with an in-show piece of information that seemed both unambiguous in its directness and yet unexplained. Why is there a mysteriously appearing sign in the coffeeshop that says Honolulu Roast? Who is the Metatron? Why is there so much attention drawn to bees when Crowley goes up to Heaven? If I start with a solid question and then follow an investigative pathway, usually beginning with the Bible given the nature of this show but not always, I’ll usually find something.
There are also some Clues that we’re basically told to investigate. The books on the shelves. The movie playing in the background in The Resurrectionist Pub. These are unambiguous breadcrumbs but they’re a lot of labor. I’m not going to read all those books and watch all those movies. So pick one (1) and go read it, or watch it, and then tell us what you found, so I can read your 1,500 word piece to learn what I need to know about it.
Sometimes you get enough information for a meta just by hanging around long enough and absorbing information. That’s how I put together my pieces on Terry Pratchett’s Death and Crowley’s Dream. The trick in this case is to be able to synthesize it, and for that, the very best way to learn how to do that is read other people’s meta.
Specializing
The asker asked the most important question of all: what’s the balance between trying to manage all the Clues or ignoring them entirely? Well, think of it this way (I’m borrowing an XKCD comic for brevity):
The takeaway here is, when you get a PhD, you become a hyperfocused expert in a very narrow topic and you’re relying on lots and lots and lots of other PhD students becoming highly specialized experts in other topics so that together you are expanding the diameter of human knowledge.
We (meta-analysts) are all getting PhDs in Good Omens, one way or another. Some people are doing their theses in color theory. I am doing mine on the concept of memory and identity permanence (though frequently dabbling in law). Yet others have flung themselves body and soul into the topic of Crowley’s gender and God bless them. Heck, there’s a team of people on Discord who are on any given day ripping the Bentley down to its studs and building it back up again. Feel free to explore while you seek out your passionate topic but don’t feel the need to tackle all of them. You’ll find the one that you fit best in.
You do not have to solve the S3 plot puzzle by yourself. You have to find two pieces, put them together, and then go find a buddy that also has two pieces and see if your pair of pairs makes a quartet. Literally. That’s what we’re doing here guys. It’s a team effort or nothing at all.
Organize your ideas into digestible segments
Great, so you learned something new, you have a tantalizing hypothesis, and you’re ready to write! But what does a good meta look like?
Your abstract (which I recommend you write last) will go at the top, followed by evidence in a logically progressive order that finally culminates in your conclusion. If you’ve ever written a five paragraph essay, you have these tools in your toolbox. And yes, sometimes you will even need to rebut counterarguments (“but Neil said” is the bane of my existence) just like your teacher taught you. But it shouldn’t be formatted like a five-paragraph essay. This is not an 8.5”x11” sheet of paper with 1” margins: this is Tumblr.
Walls of text are great and all but reading handicaps come in all flavors and I for one benefit greatly from having section headers that help me navigate a meta. I’m much less likely to read it if all I have to find my place by is paragraph breaks.
Section headers should tell me what the next paragraph or two are about, and if I read just the section headers, I should have a pretty good idea of what evidence you’re pulling from where and what conclusion you’re going to support with that evidence.
Here’s my opinion on gifs: if I need to see Michael Sheen’s micro-expressions to really understand your point, include it. If I just need a reminder of where we are in the story, or what a costume looks like, a still is fine and less distracting. For a lot of things, though, images are unnecessary. You’ll find the right balance but don’t overburden your written work with images. I think there are quite a few people who only read my work on Ao3 because they simply don’t like the Tumblr, image-centric format.
Have a main takeaway
What does all your evidence point to? It may feel like stating the obvious, but state it anyway. Put a little ribbon on top of this gift you have given to the fandom. Label it. Tell them exactly what your conclusion is from all this information you gathered.
…but don’t feel a need to draw a firm conclusion
In my meta Continuity Errors, I conclude that Crowley stops time in order to move something that was hidden in the bookshop out of the bookshop. I do not speculate on what exactly that something is that he moved. I don’t need to. By leading others down this path, I am tapping the collective resources of the hive mind to think about what exactly was hidden with the bookshop’s protection. They may have some information I don’t because they’ve been looking other places. Not having a hypothesis for this shouldn’t (and didn’t) stop me from publishing my work.
Go back to the top and write your intro/abstract
Have you written your main takeaway? Did you support it with evidence? Good. Now take that and write a 20-30 word elevator pitch that you’re going to put at the top of the meta so that people know what it’s about before they commit to 1,000-2,000 words of being led down the garden path. I have a bad habit of burying the lead, and I’m trying to break it. For a moment people were worrying about putting big revelations below the cut so that we’re not interfering with Neil, but I don’t think Neil has ever seen my work and I doubt he ever will, and at this time my opinion is that playing “hide the lead” is more of a hindrance to the fandom than helpful to protecting the integrity of the IP. So be bold. Tell people exactly where you’re going with this and a short roadmap of how you’re going to get there. You don’t necessarily have to “give away the goods” but the theme should be obvious. An okay-ish example of an abstract is the intro to my first meta. My abstract for Continuity Errors is decidedly more tongue-in-cheek. You'll find your own style.
Cite and Tag
If you read someone’s post and it gave you a great idea, cite them as inspo! It’s a feel-good moment for them and it ties the fandom together. If you’re relying on your own prior work or someone else’s work to support a point, link the piece and tag the author. You will probably want to start copying links to metas that you like into a doc or spreadsheet to make this easier. Check out mine to get an idea of how you could organize a spreadsheet, or check out this doc to see an alternative approach to meta database management.
Speaking of which: @cobragardens, @aprilodite, @drconstellation, @vidavalor, and @irispurpurea, your work appears in this... whatever exactly this is idk.
Recruit a Mentor/beta
Various Tumblrites have published comments or posts that they are willing to beta other people’s work. Reach out to those people before you need them and ask if, whenever you’ve written your next piece, if they wouldn’t mind taking a look at it? Have an upfront discussion about turnaround time. Most of us work, and have other obligations, so it’s unlikely we can look at a thing the minute you send it to us, even if we’re active on Tumblr at that moment. Some people have set days off that they know they’ll have time to curl up with a cup of tea and read the first draft of your meta; you may find that having a weekly schedule with someone pushes you to produce and improve at a pace you wouldn’t achieve under your own steam. Writing is a skill; you get better by practicing and getting constructive feedback.
Anyways, I hope someone finds this helpful: maybe meta-analysis seems like an intimidating thing to get into, but it shouldn’t be! This is a welcoming community with room for all shapes, sizes and flavors of contributions. If you have any follow-up questions about this piece, please feel free to drop them in my ask box!
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I’ve been having Venti in the real world brainrot lately and I was wondering if you have hcs for if we let him listen to modern music. I can see him liking the more upbeat songs though modern rock/metal might scare him a tiny bit
Headcanons with Venti and modern music:
Anon you have read my mind, every time within the past week that I have listened to music I'll just start just randomly thinking about how Venti would feel about it, every time
Warning: like absolutely nothing
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• So, first thing first, he is absolutely baffled by the amount of music that exists at his fingertips
• He's also genuinely glad that music is such a big part of our world, continued evolving with the times and all that
• I want to say that his favorite genre just default would be some sort of singer songwriter indie folk stuff, you know the type
• It's like the closest that I can think of to what he is used to
• Often just one singer, writing their own lyrics, typically just one instrument like an acoustic guitar, fits the vibe
• He really has a soft spot for songs that tell stories too
• I think it would take him a minute to get used to it, but once he did, he would totally be down with listening to more upbeat, fast paced music that includes more than just your standard instruments
• I feel like he could also get down with classical or orchestral music, to an extent, like he would have it on as background music when just doing things
• Now things like edm would scare him, none of those sounds are even remotely close to anything he has ever heard before, that stuff is like the most detached from his reality
• I could see him being down with classic rock, and also disco and jazz to some extent
• But yeah, modern rock, heavy metal, any sort of screamo music, those would terrify him
• I also think he would be genuinely shocked by some of the lyrics in modern songs, like mouth opened wide eyed shocked
• This applies both to the really sexual stuff and really sexist stuff
• He would, no doubt, be incredibly interested in modern instruments, would want to learn all about how the stringed instruments have evolved into what they are now
• Would also probably be fascinated at how you could synthesize the sounds of musical instruments through a computer
• You'll probably have to set a few weeks aside to properly show him a bunch of different types of music from different decades and genres, wants to learn about it all
• Would never immediately harshly judge anything you listened to, when you show him the stuff you like that's what he would be most open minded about
• I mean, he knows you have good taste
• He would adore if you made him a playlist, would listen to it almost every day
• Would want to make you one as well as soon as possible when he finally got a handle on exactly what songs he liked and didn't like
• I also have this really funny idea that you could secretly record him playing and singing for you and then post it on like Spotify or SoundCloud or something
• I imagine the comments and just general reaction to that would be absolutely hilarious
• I also feel like there would be a lot of bard jokes, and that's what makes it even funnier
• Show him like a month later and he'll comment on how he's just destined to be a widely loved musical talent throughout all universes
• He'll always prefer playing for you though <3
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Just finished off The Magicians (the syfy adaptation, in case there was any confusion). Was told to expect something godawful; was actually pleasantly surprised, in the sense that this is the only time I’ve seen a show like this semi-competently wrap everything up in a normal-length season finale that comes on the tail of one of their basically-could-have-been-in-the-middle-of-an-earlier-season Wacky Heist Plots. It was a shitshow but not Rise-of-Skywalker levels. It should have been much more viscerally unpleasant than it was.
Structurally I feel like one of the show’s biggest problems was that they never really worked out what to do with Quentin, their erstwhile protagonist; Conceptually, he’s interesting because he’s meh. He’s Harry Potter if Harry Potter’s childhood was conventionally shitty, middle-of-the-road suburbia shitty, and there’s an interesting statement wrapped up in how his unwavering love of the fantasy series of his childhood is validated (it was all very literally real!) but he himself isn’t necessarily exceptional, he’s the “chosen one” not by birthright but by virtue of groundhog day shenanigans where the people who instigated the loop keep trying to steer him into not getting everyone killed, he’s kind of a fuckup and a burnout who keeps learning that escape isn’t and can’t be what he needs it to be. All of which worked really well for me in the first season.
But to synthesize a lot of meandering misgivings I have with his character arc.... you can only push the disillusionment line so far before he basically gets that being the chosen one is a bogus concept and that fantasy novels aren’t a life roadmap... and from there he’s basically just constantly putting out emergent fires, and I never felt like there was necessarily a thesis with his character- the bones of one, rattling around, the obvious parallels he has with the first-season Big Bad as an obsessive looking for an escape, but never quite realized. And without looking it up, his death feels like the kind of thing where the actor wanted to leave the show and the writers had to grit their teeth and make do.
All of this leading to a situation where, in the final Quentinless season, it’s very strange because the cast is objectively now composed entirely of cast members I found more interesting and charming and funnier on their face than Quentin, and they’re throwing in a lot of meta-level elbows to the rib about how it was never really Quentin’s story exclusively, right, these characters are strong enough to carry it themselves, but there’s undeniably something missing, for all his deliberate mediocrity. Well, that’s kind of it, isn’t it? Deliberately trying to cultivate mediocrity in a character in order to make a point, but then not springboarding to something more complicated than that, at least not in a way I found satisfying. I mean if you start cracking jokes about how you don’t really need your mediocre white male protagonist that badly, and then you demonstrate that you’re basically right.... that’s kind of an implicit condemnation of the four seasons you spent with this guy as the lead, isn’t it? The bottom should fall out of your show, actually, if you remove the protagonist. Pick a guy who is the center of the story, with a good reason for that. Or keep the haves-and-have-nots dual-life-path-with-the-childhood-friend thing going further. I dunno. I respect their attempted pivot into an ensemble thing but it didn’t quite land.
(Also I didn’t like the Penny-23/Penny-40 situation. It was like they couldn’t figure out a satisfying direction for Penny 40 so they pseudo-kill him and replace him with a version whose character development occurred in a doomed timeline. Other things could have happened there!)
But, broadly speaking, I did like it moment to moment. There was never a single moment that I was watching the show and wanted to not be, never a single moment where I was not entertained, very few jokes that I didn’t find entertaining. I think this might be what it’s like to watch an okay television program. Striking that balance where nothing you’re watching is too grotesquely uninteresting that you get up and walk away, even if the zoomed-out overarching narrative skeleton is one of those bizarre badly reconstructed fossil amalgamations borne out of the 1800s paleontological arms races. Interesting experience all around.
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Toady FAQ!
Hey y’all! I get a lot of the same questions (both on Tiktok and here in the bog), so I thought I’d answer a bunch of em at once! As always, if you have questions not listed here, I’m happy to chat :)
Are you going to upload/continue the 90s series? (Alternatively: Upload the 90s series. You should upload it to Tumblr. Continue the 90s series.)
With all the love in the world, no. At least not for the moment—ask me again in 6 months!
Writing that series ended up being super stressful, and I’m not super eager to get back in there at the moment. I’m worried I’d continue to carry that stress and that I’d grow to resent the story, which is not at all what I want! I also don’t want to be 8 chapters into a new piece of writing and still have people asking about the 90s series, which I hope is understandable.
By all means, save the posts from Tiktok so you can revisit them. Just please don’t post them anywhere :)
Do you have Spotify? Can you make a playlist of all the songs you used in your Tiktoks?
I’ve thought about this question a lot, and basically: you tell me.
I have a Spotify account, but haven’t shared it for privacy reasons. However, if enough people wanted it, I could be persuaded to change my username and share my playlists :)
I do think it’s fun to have music to go along with a story, and it’s actually the one thing I miss about Tiktok. So the other option would be to maybe post chapters as audio posts with the text underneath, if I can figure out how to do that?
Basically: you tell me what you think, and I’ll do it!
Will your next story feature XYZ?
It depends on your request (and, honestly, the tone in which you ask it). I’m more than happy to consider requests and suggestions, but I have two stipulations:
1. There are certain perspectives and lived experiences from which I simply cannot write accurately; if you’re asking me to write about the experiences of a marginalized group, consider that I might not be the person to portray them. On top of being in a privileged position myself, I’m also just not an experienced enough writer to properly research and depict experiences so inherently different from my own. I can definitely try my best to recommend other writers, but know that, in all things, my knowledge is limited to my own exposure and experience.
2. I cannot possibly make everyone happy. If I took every request I received, I’d end up with a disaster of a story that I wouldn’t even feel like I’d written. I need to retain some creative freedom in order for this to feel worth doing, so while I welcome suggestions please don’t be offended if I don’t take every one I see!
Any advice for people who want to major in English? What are you doing with your degree?
Yes!
Find your niche. Mine was American lit, specifically the weird stuff. The weirder the better—American Gothic, true crime journalism, 19th-century Spiritualism—you name it, I’ve written about it. If you can find a subgenre of literature that you LOVE, nothing you read or write will feel like work.
Don’t edit, rewrite! Print your draft and go over it in red pen, then re-type it with your corrections. I swear by this!
Don’t limit yourself, ever! Take classes on fantasy, sci-fi, children’s lit, climate crisis fiction, religious texts, whatever you can find. You will be better for it!
Everyone is wrong. There’s a TON you can do with an English degree. I worked in finance straight out of college—I knew nothing about business, but my degree taught me to communicate effectively and synthesize information from different sources. You have valuable skills, you just need to learn to market them! Now I’m working in my field and it’s great, but it was never the only option.
DO A STORY ABOUT X IN Y TIME PERIOD SET IN THIS SPECIFIC TOWN!
Beloved, stop yelling at me.
Can I use this as a writing prompt/write my own story/create fanart using these characters?
YES! Knock yourself out, I only ask that you tag me in the final product so I can see your lovely work and hype you up :)
Do you have book/movie/show recs that are similar to your work?
That depends! Send me a specific request (ie: MMCs with similar vibes to Jasper Stevens) and I’ll try my best to recommend you something. If I can’t think of anything, we’ll crowdsource!
#toady talkin#faq#got more questions? hit me!#and please advise re spotify#also bonus fun toady fact bc i can’t get enough of overjustifying why my current work is different from previous stuff#i double majored >:) in psychology >:) my thesis was on prolonged grief >:)#so we can add it to the list#prolonged grief spirit photography gothic womanhood and ripping apart true crime podcasts#perhaps we can see why toady’s no good at romance
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okay phew I have worked steadily from 7:45-2 and have gotten… well… not a lot of concrete stuff done BUT a lot of important big-picture thinking and planning for the year. here’s what I have done:
I gave C final feedback on our flyers
I spent hours synthesizing notes from a zillion faculty meetings and really thinking about what big-picture infrastructure needs seem to be emerging here. I also started to sort those needs into different tiers/levels—like what are the easy wins my team can achieve this year that will make people’s lives a little better vs. what are the bigger projects that are going to require partnering with lots of different people/groups and will take longer but are really important vs. what are the huge institutional or culture-level structural issues that are going to take many years to address (and are totally unlike any problems I’ve tackled in the past!!!) but could have massive positive impact if we can make even a little progress towards them. then within the tiers I’m trying to organize things further like what is most urgent or what’s a heavier vs. easier lift + who can I lean on to help me figure out various things. this is a work in progress obv but I feel like my role is finally starting to come into focus for me in a way that is REALLY exciting. I love the work so much!!!!!! I am so excited to be doing it!!!!!!!!! I can still feel my inexperience and I know I have a ton to learn about how these massive projects unfold in this institutional context… but also I am starting to see I could be quite good at it if I’m really putting in the time and building the relationships and learning the work inside and out. I’m excited!!!!!
I broke the seal on a task I’ve been delaying because it makes me nervous (emailing people to ask if they’ll serve on my steering committee). I started with the nicest people so hopefully I get some yeses before I move onto the people who might be a harder sell
I emailed a bunch of people that other people connected me with so I can start scheduling my next big wave of meetings
okay okay. NOW WHAT. I had hoped to finish the website and the getting-started guide but those might get shunted to friday now. or hmm let’s see I might go into work really early tomorrow and try to get in a couple hours of sustained work before I lose the entire day to welcome week events. here’s what I think I’ll do now:
2-2:15 brief scroll break then get dressed
2:15-3:30 pick up paint + do ON, EL returns
swatch paint then shower & eat a late lunch
look at the website draft one more time and decide if there are any pieces I can delegate to my PM—I think I’ve done enough of the heavy lifting that I can pass it on to someone else to finish without feeling guilty
MAYBE look at the research guide but I have a feeling I won’t want to lol so I absolve myself of having to do that. if I WANTED I could send one more steering committee invite but tbd
then liz is coming over and we’re going to make dinner and hang out!!!
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How would you say you’ve changed the most over the years, both creatively and personally?
I love how much you’ve improved in your art!
Ooh, that’s a fun question!
Creatively I’ve been experimenting with the way I make comics recently, and trying to adopt more lineart into my work. I think if I can show a wide range of art styles and synthesize them into something unique, I might be able to reach different kinds of people with my work. I have also been learning a lot from the resources out there from Japan and Korea, other illustrators who share their progress and PSD files, studying them because some of these artists have work that CAPTIVATES me and I wanna give it a try too!
Personally, I think I’ve let go of a lot of grudges and am more aware of the things I truly need to have a fulfilled life. I love interacting with children in small doses, I love to paint and draw and write and talk about stories, and I have definitely been exercising a lot more recently. My current day job sucks ass, but I’ve been able to look forward to making my life outside of work closer to what I want for it, rather than wallowing in how much I hate it there lol.
Thanks for the question, I didn’t expect to reflect on how I’ve grown today, but it was a good thing to do first thing in the morning lmao
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Just thinkin about the Bandmates crew again and realizing that idk if I’ve actually fully stated who they are in relevance to being an actual band!
So, each of them is inspired by a different genre of music I listen to, though its pretty broad even when I try and narrow it down a bit, and a few of them are furry ocs I’ve had forEVER that have finally found a story to kinda be slotted into.
Anyways, the main concept of the band is that they are rhe band that plays the music during my mental animatics for other ocs when I zone out, somwtimes even just doing concert animatics themselves when a somg doesnt go to a particular oc, and sometimes, they get special guest preformances from my other ocs! (Namely Xadian). All in all, they’re a very comedic, rag tag, 4th wall breaking set, and this is a little bit of who they are and their roles (color coded for fun)
Dusty “Riot” the Hyena: (he/him) hes the oldest oc of the bunch and has gone through many design changes, but has always been generally rock inspired, namely bands like hollywood undead, fall out boy, and other classic middle school emo rock kinda stuff. Hes the lead singer/main guitarist of the band, but he also plays drums for when its Dimitri’s turn to sing! He’s kind of an awkward, golden retriever type of guy offstage, absolute sweetheart and a total klutz, but he always means well! Hes also a huge nerd and takes the most after myself.
Cherri the scarlet fox: (she/her) shes only a little younger than Riot, and just as loud and peppy! She’s his adoptive sister figure of sorts, more in a childhood friends to besties kinda way and shes more inspired by the pop songs and female vocals in my playlists like Kesha, marina and the diamonds and so on. Shes got a loud, party girl personality and is the worst/best driver of the group (thats up for debate. She hasnt wrecked, yet, but also dont have open drinks if you’re riding with her and use the oh shit handle generously). Shes very blunt and rude about things sometimes, but she means well. If you need to find someone to go wreck a rage room, shees your gal.
N3XU5 alpha: (he/it/they) the first half of N3XU5 prime, hes more the cold, calculating logic behind the band, a mechanical dragon and inspired by a lot of darker techno music and hardstyle edm, bands ranging from Daft Punk to Coone to Chonny Jash, it mans the synthesizer and blasts all sorts of beats from their mechanical jaw, lights on their neck acting as soundbars. He’s kind of the “oldest sibling” type of guy and is honestly the only thing holding the band accountable for anything. It keeps up the matienence of the band’s gear and makes sure everyone arrives on time to practice, though hes not the best at talking to the fans and can come off quite intimidating
N3XU5 beta: (she/they) the other half of N3XU5 prime, she’s the bubbly and eccentric robotic dragon, more steampunk inspired than their silvery twin and much more on the fem presenting side. She does the higher pitched electronic vocals and is inspired by a lot of classic mechanical singing like vocaloid and nightcore and shes just very generally pinkie pie coded. They play the keyboard and always have such a great time just hanging out with her friends at practice! While their brother is more scientific and logical, she is more spiritual and curious and seeks to understand what humans believe about the world rather than what their AI tells them is fact about the world. Shes always eager to learn new things and can fuse together with their bother to make the dual headed drake “N3XU5 Prime”.
Dimitri: (they/them) they’re the cool, calm skaterboy/anarchist of the group. Inspired mostly by metal vocals from 5 finger death punch and a lot of the rough, snarling growls in some music, they’re a dragon who gives zero shits about the world. First and foremost, they’re the band’s drummer, but in their spare time, they’re an avid graffiti artist and arsonist, often setting bonfires in less than safe areas. They like to skateboard at an abandoned skatepark they’ve made their home, and are always down to party with Cherri and Riot when asked, but even better if you can offer up some chaos
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i tried and i tried
to quit you
but the smoke in my lungs
formed a sticky tar coating
and i’ve been coughing you goodbye
for two years
and now the end of withdrawal is near
this is your big MO
there nothing left you can do to me
i’m clean for the first time
since i learned things your way
here in the first light of the day
i see how i did what i had to do
cause i thought i was in love with you
and now,
i’m healing and fucking letting you go
…………………………………………………………..…………………
explanation/analysis of how i’m feeling:
(i’ve been super sleuthing in therapy and had a breakthrough where i realized that my relationship with my ex that i’m still in love with was all a trauma response and how accurately we were both reliving our childhood wounds with each other. very sad, like inevitable roman empire devastating early 20s relationship canon vibes so i’m not regretful cause i know i learned a lot from all of that experience through the love bombing and the withdrawal from him. i was fr emotionally addicted and grew dependent on him so quickly. i couldn’t see it at the time and it’s so sad to finally be where i am now and comprehend how i was manipulated but it’s also really nice to be able to have that realization and to be in a place with my self compassion that i forgive myself because i quite literally didn’t know any better. and i’m thankful for that relationship because without it i wouldn’t have come to the realizations and gained the self knowledge that i have because of it. if you’ve gone through/ are going through something like this whether it be an abusive version— which i’ve also been through with a different ex— or a penny method manipulation example like the one i describe here, know that it’s not your job to blame yourself for what people have done to you but you can break the cycle and synthesize love for yourself from yourself and through that you will plant roots of expectations to your friends and family of how to treat you and how to deepen those relationships without codependency. i deserve to love myself and to have people in my life who love me and value me authentically. and so do you!!! ♡)
#mine#poetic#female poets#poetry#poetsandwriters#my wrtitng#original poem#poetblr#writers and poets#writing#heartbreak#self love#loss
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i will actually finish my short ode to the s1 finale when i’ve gotten any sleep. for now: why the four good place leads actually voltron together to create one perfect human!!!!
(aka: why the good place makes the argument pobody’s nerfect, there’s a lot of ways to be smart, and we need everybody crushing it in their own lane together to overturn the system instead of trying to go it alone or assume people who don’t see the world the same way we do don’t have anything to offer us.)
chidi's the most obvious one, and the kind of intelligent we find easiest to acknowledge: he fucking loves books. like eleanor says, he’s the smart one. this is a source of so very many hilarious jokes, but on a characterization level everything we know about chidi says this is instinct for him. he honed himself over the years, sure, but the kind of intelligence it takes to sort through and synthesize a bunch of theoretical information and come up with his own take on it all is driven deep right into his nerdy lil’ soul. the books helped and expanded what he’s already got and thanks to one very hilarious/sad childhood misunderstanding he has decided they are literally the answer to everything.
eleanor's got the next kind of intelligence we more or less respect. jj bittenbinder would call it street smarts. eleanor might not know who died and left aristotle in charge of ethics, but she can read the troubling undercurrents of a room and cut through all the bullshit to what’s really going on. people like eleanor instinctively leave the party right before the cops arrive. her childhood and life spent forced to emotionally fend for herself turned her into a knowing when things are about to turn and getting out first nightmare human, but like chidi this is part of who she is. this is why she’s the one who figures out they’re in the bad place almost every single time; something’s not right here, and she can feel it.
tahani's the next level down, and a little harder to spot: it’s social intelligence. not necessarily social skills, but tahani can look at a room and understand the dynamic and what it needs in a way that is somewhat like eleanor’s way of knowing where all the exits are, but not quite. tahani is good at reading and inserting herself in a social flow, cruise director style. the rules of social flow she learned living in Weird Rich People Land mask some of this early on, but the whole hostess gag covers a real truth: it’s fucking hard to plan and then throw a good party, let alone one that stays good.
jason is our last one. he’s the wise fool archetype, but done in a way i like better than the standard set-up of just pulling out random facts we find surprising a total dumbass knows; jason’s emotional intelligence is off the fucking charts. he understands undercurrents like ‘when you’re nice to someone and they’re not nice to you, something’s not right’ and ‘janet should be treated with reverence’. it’s why he’s the one who knows they should have caught that magic panda and used her powers! (the visual payout of the panda joke later is truly one of the funniest jokes on the whole show.) he’s the kindest person in maybe the universe, and he’s the only one other than eleanor who ever figures out they’re in the bad place, also because he just feels it.
the way the team grows once they find each other is about becoming the best version of themselves, but it’s also about pointing out even the best version of ourself lacks skills the best version of somebody else finds instinctive and easy to understand. they end up needing all those skillsets to find their way to the (fucking amazing) series finale; take a single one of them out of the mix entirely, none of it would have worked at all.
(there’s also a lot of fun overlap between the four, too; chidi and tahani’s skills are about Speaking Fluent Bullshit, eleanor and jason’s about cutting through it. tahani and eleanor share the social situations angle, and jason’s kindness overlaps with chidi’s intense desire to be ethical, & etc.)
#the good place#ugh i love this shooooooooow#i love that whole 'we're all two characters' thing and i am chidi and jason ngl
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Had a wonderful weekend! My best friend drove down and we spent Saturday and Sunday morning together. I got two new squishmallows, we got Korean food, she dyed my hair for me, and we did two puzzles together (including a 1000pc Harley Quin that we barely finished in time before she had to leave). After she left I got my Covid shot and then went to a concert with Husband.
Today I had my 4th block exam, got another A, yay. I love when I do well while maintaining a good balance of home/friend life.
I know I ranted about this a little last week, but I don’t really like it when the lecturers or block leads tell us how well we did on the exam as a whole compared to other cohorts. We’ll hear that for raw scores, the school-wide the average was an 82% and that we were the highest average cohort at an 86%- and that always prompts celebration for being the best. I’ve already discussed why this irks me… but today it particularly irks me.
First I’m annoyed by this: my classmates seemed disappointed about the test and felt it was harder with weird or confusing wording, and the discussion of how well we did was offered as a consolation, like “yes, it was a hard test, but at least you did better than the rest of the school.” I’m a staunch believer that emotions deserve to be felt and understood even if based on cognitive distortions, and that we need to do the feeling and understanding before we can address the distortion. I won’t ever tell somebody they are wrong to be disappointed when they didn’t do as well s they are used to. But I feel like the issue here is that there is an expectation that our class average be around an A, and instead of addressing the issue of high performance expectations overall stemming from hyper competitiveness, the consolation is still “you did better than other classes” which makes it into a competition.
“It’s okay this test was hard, you still crushed the competition.” Except it’s not a competition, and 86% is still a firm pass in the coursework. Why not just say “this test was designed to be a little harder to show you more of where your own knowledge or understanding deficits are. We don’t expect an A average- it’s another learning opportunity. I am still so proud of how hard you have worked and the knowledge you have gained this week.”
Another reason this bothers me: 1.5 questions isn’t a lot, but when it’s framed as 82 vs 86%, it feels like a lot. Tests are usually made harder to increase discriminatory power for high-performers by removing discriminatory power for low-performers, often done by increasing the “order” of the question (think applying knowledge or synthesizing multiple knowledge points together vs simply regurgitating info). When you get to those kinds of tests, what does a difference in 1.5 questions correct on average really mean? It could mean our students are more well-rested or well-nourished, or that they studied an additional 2 hours, or we just so happened to have hammered in one niche knowledge point that showed up on the test, or that we all speak English as our first language, or that we have one less “low performer” and one more “high performer” than another cohort… etc etc.
It also irks me because I know that scores vary pretty wildly within a cohort. A person eking by with a 71% might feel really shitty after hearing about the test even though they may have done “poorly” because they were sick the prior week or got a migraine before the test and couldn’t move it. Or maybe they were feeling emotionally down and needed to prioritize their mental wellness. Or whatever it is. Everybody responds to pressure differently, but I honestly don’t know a single person who truly responds better to harsh criticism and guilt vs constructive criticism given with empathy, understanding, and encouragement. If we truly want to support the “below average” students- of which, many are by definition (this depends on type of average taken and std deviation and such)- then we need to understand that the competitiveness probably isn’t helping as much as another approach could.
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tagged by @blizzardshot! five songs i’ve been listening to lately ^_^ if anyone wants to do this, consider yourself TAGGED!
jacob’s ladder || chumbawamba
i’ve been listening to a lot of chumbawamba lately (very funny thing to say) and they have a ton of these kind of cold, aloof-sounding tracks in about the middle of their discography that i’m obsessed with. jacob’s ladder is the one i’m hung up on right now.
the mollusk || ween
surprise surprise i like this album a lot! whoaaa what a shock! the synthesizer on this track is sooooooo fun. there should be more concept albums in this world, generally. if you ask ME
heat (full album) || piotr kurek
this! is not a song. it’s an album. Sorry
i DO like it. i was drawn in by the cover art and it turned out to be a very interesting eerie ambient album. i’ve been trying to listen to more instrumental+ambient stuff recently. i enjoy all kinds of music but i’m prone to going “wow. i’m bored” in the middle of a song and skipping to the next one. so i’m trying to listen to more things that take time/have a slower pace to learn how to be more patient instead of just listening to girl front five times in a row. i don’t know if that’s silly, but it’s important to me to make an effort to understand things in that way. (other things i’ve enjoyed from this endeavor are the angela sanchez quartet’s “bushido” and ornette coleman’s “free jazz” album which is something i’m just head over heels for <3)
we travel the spaceways || sun ra
i could put the yann tomita version on here as well (excellent steel drums in that song!) but both versions are their own beasts and both beasts are great beasts.
boggleboggle || beautybox
i don’t know how i feel about the song itself (if i had a dollar for every kay pop song i could say this about and if i had another dollar for every time it was said because of a bad so-called “Rap” verse </3) but i’ve ended up listening to it over and over again because i’m SO charmed by the music video. i love weird and slightly alienating concepts!!!!! everyone executes it brilliantly and i think that a doll-like concept is really inspired for a song about having a crush. all the awkward poses and jerky movements!! it’s so good...
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Hello! I thought I’d do a brief description of my practice and techniques used for anyone curious
Traditional Astrology
Traditional astrology varies from modern astrology in a few ways, but the most notable is the rulership scheme and planets used. Traditional astrology only uses the first seven celestial bodies. Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury. Though a lot of traditional astrologers still use the modern planets (Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto) as ways to gather more information, they only use the traditional seven for their rulerships. Traditional astrology also typically uses Whole Sign Houses and does not contain the psychological aspect that modern astrology does, as the addition of psychology to psychological practices was a later development. Personal preferences and practice do vary from astrologer to astrologer, though.
Traditional Rulerships
Aries: Mars
Taurus: Venus
Gemini: Mercury
Cancer: Moon
Leo: Sun
Virgo: Mercury
Libra: Venus
Scorpio: Mars
Sagittarius: Jupiter
Capricorn: Saturn
Aquarius: Saturn
Pisces: Jupiter
Whole Sign Houses
Using Whole Sign Houses is pretty standard for Traditional Astrology. Basically, it’s only one House per Sign. Cusps like the MC, IC and ASC are depicted as floating points within the sign. Whatever sign your Ascendant falls in will be your first house, and the next sign will be your second house, and so on. The Houses are all the same size. This is how horoscopes were done in the past, because it was easy to see what transits were happening and where in a broad range of peoples charts without knowing anything else about them, so it was easier to make statements. Ex. Leo risings will always have a Scorpio 4th house, so anytime something happened in Scorpio, you could make statements for Leo risings about 4th house matters.
Me, as an Astrologer
I am not a full-time Astrologer, but I do take my study seriously. I’ve trained with Maren Altman to get me started, and now I’m studying independently through texts and gaining experience synthesizing what I see. Ultimately, I hope to help people. I know what it feels like to be so lost in life, and divination can be a powerful tool to give you information on your life. The more you know about yourself, the more you have to work with. To me, Astrology isn’t about changing the future, it’s about the acceptance of reality and learning to work with what you have. I aim to learn to use Astrology to be able to depict accurately what people are dealing with so I can help them gain some footing in their life. As such, I don’t focus a lot of time on personality traits. I focus a lot on life events and life patterns that may or may not have a psychological aspect to them. I don’t work with degrees, but I do work with Decans. I work mainly with the traditional planets, but I’ll use Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Chiron for more insight.
Currently, I don’t accept clients. But if you enjoy my work, consider tipping me through Tumblr or buying me a coffee through Ko-fi. I put a lot of effort into my work, I do a lot of research, so if you’re able to, please consider showing your thanks. I do a lot of my work in a coffeeshop, so you’d be paying for a nice lil day to sit and work. However, no money is needed to enjoy my work. It’s a tough world out there, and everyone deserves to engage in spirituality without a monetary requirement. I’m happy to answer questions through asks (within reason).
~ Achillea 26.06.22
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