#number 7 has never stopped being relevant but it feels even more so recently... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blockgamepirate · 3 years

Text

On Philza and Tommy

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while but I just didn’t wanna rewatch ANY exile streams because they genuinely make me so depressed and anxious but I finally forced myself to rewatch the one where Phil visits Tommy. Or I say “rewatch”, I actually never saw the whole thing before, I kept popping in and out of the stream while it was live bc of the aforementioned anxiety and shit..

Anyway, I’ve seen arguments over the topic of whether Phil is a terrible person for not helping Tommy or not. And I wanted to offer my take on it. So I’m just gonna go through the arguments:

1: “Phil is Tommy’s dad and has a duty to look after him“

I’m not gonna spend too much time on this because for one thing it’s not really canon and for another, I actually don’t think it’s the relevant issue here. Even if Phil was Tommy’s dad, Tommy has already basically been living independently for a while. And even back when Phil and Will were still talking about the family relationships being canon, Phil said as much: that he doesn’t have authority over his boys, they’re independent people.

2: “Phil doesn’t even know Tommy and it’s unfair to ask him to look after a stranger”

I legitimately have no idea where this take came from or what it’s based on. I feel like it’s so obvious that they knew each other from before Phil even joined the SMP. Tommy recognises him right away (1), they act very familiar with each other, Phil immediately attacks Dream when Dream blows up Tommy’s house (2), Tommy tries to convince Phil to join NLM but Phil is torn because he’s friends with both Techno and Tommy (3), they plan to make their houses in NLM next to each other and Phil helps Tommy build his (4), Phil specifically gives Tommy one of the three friendship emeralds he has (5)... Also OOC Phil refers to himself as basically a father figure to Tommy (6).

The reason their relationship becomes colder is because Tommy doesn’t approve of Phil staying friends with Techno. I think this is made pretty obvious too. Tommy gets upset with Phil when he sees him hanging out with Techno (7) and when Phil comes to visit him in exile, Tommy immediately acts cold towards him and accuses him of being Techno’s friend before softening a bit when Phil gives him gifts (5).

Ref:

1: I assume you’ve all seen this one it’s in Tommy’s video

2: Philza’s Twitch Archive: Nov 16 (around 03:44:30)

3: Tommyvods: Tommyinnit speaks to Philza’s wife (around 37:40)

4: Philza’s Twitch Archive: Nov 18 (around 18:55)

5: Tommyvods: Tommy Is Holding It Together in Exile with Dream (around 24:35)

6: Philza’s Twitch Archive: Jan 27 (around 01:20:30)

7: Tommyvods: Tommy & Wilbur make Tubbo a gift and he hates it (around 19:30)

3: “Phil didn’t help Tommy at all while he was in exile“

Oh shut up, watch reference video 5 again. He brought Tommy tons of useful shit, a stack of coal blocks, 8 iron blocks, diamond boots, how was he supposed to know that it would all get destroyed by Dream? When asked, he also helped Tommy with his projects at Logstedshire.

4: “Even if Phil isn’t Tommy’s father OR his friend, he still has a duty to save an abused kid”

Okay this is finally getting to the actual point.

So I wanna refer back to video number 5 up there on my references list again and I’m gonna go through that stream here:

- Ghostbur brings Phil over to meet Tommy

- Tommy is mad because Phil is friends with Techno

- Tommy gets distracted by Phil’s new clothes and the vision of Tubbo reappearing

- Phil gives Tommy a bunch of presents, including “Tommy Slippers“ (for the cold) and a friendship emerald from Techno. Tommy is excited about the slippers, somewhat apprehensive about the emerald until Phil assures him that it’s a gift from him to Tommy, not from Techno

- Tommy decides that Phil is his friend after all

- Dream shows up and acts all casual and friendly, Phil greets him politely but doesn’t interact much with Dream unless prompted to

- Tommy asks Phil and Ghostbur if they’re even real because he keeps seeing Tubbo

- Phil asks if Tommy has been drinking the sea water

- another vision of Tubbo, only Tommy and Ghostbur see him

- Ghostbur shows Phil around while Tommy tells Dream not to tell Phil about the beach party because it’s a surprise

- Tommy asks if the reason why Phil didn’t visit earlier was because there wasn’t a path and if the path made it easier for him and Phil says yes, because he didn’t actually know how to get there before

- More Tubbo hallucination shenanigans which I’m gonna cut out from now on, just assume that it keeps happening

- Phil tells Tommy not to drink the sea water, Tommy goes “I DID DRINK THE SEA WATER BECAUSE IT TOLD ME TO!“

- Tommy asks Phil (and also Fundy who showed up) to leave the VC so he can talk to Ghostbur and Dream alone (about the secret beach party plan)

- Tommy is happy about the fact that the path he made seems to be working and people are coming to visit him

- Dream notes that they aren’t even really hanging out with him so they might just be visiting Logsted, not him (which... Tommy literally asked them to leave them alone so they could plan, Dream is just blatantly trying to fuck with his head) and Tommy deflates and agrees that Dream is probably right

- Ghostbur invites Phil and Fundy to help decorate the beach (not telling them what for but it’s like super obvious that they’re planning a party) and they do

- all five of them work on the beach for a whole while and goof around until the end of the stream

So from Phil’s point of view Tommy is acting kind of cold towards him and doesn’t seem to particularly want him around (combined with the fact that he later doesn’t get an invite to the beach party that Tommy was obviously planning). Phil brought Tommy basic survival stuff and the slippers to keep him from getting cold, not knowing that all of that is going to get destroyed by Dream anyway. He seems a bit worried about the hallucinations but assumes it’s because Tommy’s been drinking sea water and tells him to stop doing that. He also notes that Tommy looks kind of rough but doesn’t push the issue.

Meanwhile Tommy is being manipulated by Dream into believing that Phil didn’t actually come to visit him, even as Phil is literally visiting him, with named gifts and everything. And he’s already doubting if Phil is even really present because he keeps seeing Tubbo who isn’t actually there so Phil could just as well be a hallucination too, or he could easily be convinced later that Phil was a hallucination.

Basically Phil sees that Tommy is having a hard time but there’s no obvious sign of anything being wrong besides him not taking very good care of himself and feeling lonely. Tommy says he hasn’t been sleeping and that he’s been drinking sea water (which is probably a joke but anyway). Him and Dream seem to be very friendly with each other, they even keep having all these secret chats that Tommy is telling Phil to leave for.

So.... assume this is your friend who you’ve recently had a bit of a falling out with. What kind of conclusions would you draw and what would you do? Honestly, yes, Tommy’s condition seems pretty worrying, but everything just points to him being lonely and depressed about being exiled, which isn’t really something Phil can easily fix other than just visit him more. But then Tommy gives really mixed signals about whether he actually wants Phil there or not (which is because he’s planning the party but Phil doesn’t know that) and then when Phil finds out about the party he doesn’t get an invite to it (because Dream stole the invites but, again, Phil doesn’t know this). So Phil just kinda has to decide whether to go there uninvited and presumably unwanted, or just vibe and wait to hear from Tommy. Meanwhile he has stuff to do with Techno who DID invite him to hang out.

Also Tommy seems to be doing better, he’s very excited about his beach, he’s excited about the fact that he’s getting more visitors (not just Phil but Fundy too) and he’s convinced that there will be more now that there’s a path. So as far as Phil is concerned, it seems like things are getting better and Tommy might end up doing okay after all, despite everything

As a sidenote also, Phil is a bit of a hermit, right? I feel like that’s fair to say about his character. He doesn’t mind hanging out with people but to him living alone in the wilderness isn’t a bad deal at all. Obviously he understands that Tommy is not like him and needs company but you can see how he might not see the situation as all that urgent. And you can argue about what Tommy’s canon age actually is but he’s been living independently and taking care of himself like an adult during his entire time on the server, this shouldn’t really be that different. Obviously the fact that he’s exiled is bad and upsetting for him but there’s nothing Phil can do about that either. He doesn’t have control over L’Manberg or Dream.

And I just wanna point out that all of this is exactly how abusive relationships work, right? Dream is deliberately distancing Tommy from everybody he knows and making him think that Dream is the only one who cares about him. And that shit can be really hard to pick up on. It might just seem like your friend is becoming kind of distant and has different friends now. And I’ll tell you, even if you DO see the signs, it’s really hard to decide when or how to intervene, or if you’re just paranoid about it.

It’s easy to say Phil should do this or that when you’re watching Tommy’s streams and KNOW what’s happening, but try to put yourself in Phil’s shoes for a second and actually think about what you’d do in a situation like this. Also please do so while assuming that Phil is a real person with his own life to live too.

You can say that he should have been more worried and more suspicious of Dream and gone to see Tommy anyway, that’s fair. But that’s a normal human mistake and also something pretty much everybody else should have done too by that logic. And Tommy was not being very receptive to help because he was being manipulated by Dream. Honestly this was probably something where Tommy needed to figure out for himself to break free. Which he did. (And speaking from a narrative perspective: that was the best possible ending to that arc. Tommy finding his own strength and willpower again, on his own.)

I’m gonna leave this here but I might reblog with more points (or make a new post). It does take ages to go through the vods, though, and I only made it up to December 9th so far.

#philza #ph1lza #philza minecraft #tommyinnit #dream smp #zablr #also yes expect something like this except way longer #for the techno essay #if i ever finish it

161 notes · View notes

kaizokuou-ni-naru · 3 years

Text

The Voyage So Far: Alabasta (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

crocodile is one of my favorite villains in one piece for a number of reasons, and one of them is because he’s such a threat, the first real one faced in the grand line and one of the toughest in all of paradise. the villains from the arcs before this, like wapol or the agents from little garden, could barely even land a hit on luffy in actual combat. so crocodile is introduced here as an absolute force of nature, a complete contrast to recent villains and a very tangible threat.

it’s an impression he very much lives up to later in the arc by crushing luffy not once but twice, which only makes luffy’s ultimate hard-won triumph feel all the better. luffy closes a huge gap over the course of alabasta in order to be able to beat crocodile, and giving us a sense of just how strong he is from the very start gives luffy clawing his way up to that level a lot more weight.

the successive reveals of luffy’s family never fail to absolutely delight me, because in any other series they would almost certainly feel contrived, but knowing luffy, it is absolutely unsurprising he just never happened to mention his relatives. nobody asked! luffy’s unique brand of honesty is one of my favorite character quirks, because he’s very straightforward and in fact can’t lie for shit, but his priorities are so completely off the wall that he winds up omitting highly relevant information completely by accident.

ace’s scene in alabasta really does impress me. oda’s said in an sbs that he knew ace’s fate from his introduction, which i find absolutely unsurprising given the intricacy of his story planning. that means he needed ace’s introduction to make him both likable and memorable enough in the space of just a couple chapters that the audience would be engaged when he became the focus of the story a couple hundred chapters on despite barely appearing at all in the intervening time, and he really succeeded.

kohza is one of my favorite minor characters in the whole series, and i think he’s a big part of why alabasta’s civil war plotline works so well and feels so real. nobody on either side of the war actually wants to fight, but everyone has been driven to such desperation that they feel they have no other choice in order to save their country; and kohza exemplifies that. he's a good person who loves his country a lot, and who genuinely likes and cares about the royal family and vivi especially, and the only option he can see to save alabasta is terrible, but there’s nothing else he can do.

it’s just fun for me to think about the fact that if crocodile was literally anything other than a very skilled logia, vivi would have ended the whole entire arc right here.

i really like civil war storylines when they’re well-done, and i think alabasta is one of the best ones i’ve seen in media. most of it is down to what i mentioned earlier, about how nobody on either side actually wants to fight but feels like they have no choice but to. nobody here is actually in the wrong except for crocodile, and so until crocodile is defeated, nothing can be fixed- which is what luffy, of all people, is the one to realize.

sanji’s mr. prince gambit is probably my single favorite part of alabasta, and i think one of the reasons i like it so much is because he basically beats crocodile at his own game. crocodile is terrifying in battle, but before anything else he’s a manipulator. he’s always working from the shadows, always deceiving people doing what he wants, and sanji manages to turn the tables on him and do the exact same back to him, twice.

also sanji looks great in glasses

smoker and tashigi both get kind of unfortunately sidelined after this saga, but they’re both really great characters in alabasta. (tashigi especially; i’ll get to her later.) much like the rebel army, they’re good people trying to do the right thing in the tangled mess of tension and politics and resentment that is alabasta- and when that means working with pirates, they’ll buckle down and do it, despite how much it might contradict their worldviews.

i love when events align in one piece so that people who don’t particularly like the strawhats wind up working with them for some common goal (as seen most prominently in impel down), and smoker and tashigi in alabasta are the first and still one of the best examples of that.

the entirety of luffy versus crocodile round one is so well done. we’re a hundred and fifty chapters in, and although luffy has struggled in fights before now and then, we get the sense he hasn’t ever really been pushed to the brink, and he’s certainly never lost.

and then he does, completely and absolutely, without ever even landing a hit on his opponent, and it hits like a punch.

oda seems to be a fan of characters just barely missing each other- the similar panel of robin and olvia running past each other from robin’s flashback comes to mind.

i’ve always liked that of all the strawhats, it’s usopp who gets the first “luffy is going to be king of the pirates” moment. they’ve all said it by the current chapters in wano (with the sole exception of robin, i believe), but usopp said it first, and that feels significant to me. he’s always been the one who feels the least secure in his place on the crew, but even so, he has so much faith in luffy.

nami’s fight with miss doublefinger is pretty silly in places and i think it gets frequently (understandably, it must be said) overshadowed by zoro’s fight with mr. 1 directly afterwards, but i really like it nonetheless. it’s nami’s first real solo fight in the whole series, and once she finds her feet she kicks ass, and i really like that. it feels like a very satisfying development for her, to stand up and risk her life in direct combat for vivi’s sake.

we’re now almost a thousand chapters in and its my firm belief that zoro versus mr. 1 is still one of the best fights in the entire series. i definitely think it’s probably zoro’s best fight- only his match with kaku compares. the narrative build over the course of the fight, from zoro struggling just to match mr. 1 (and getting shredded to pieces in the process) to cutting him down in one final stroke, is incredibly cool and satisfying to watch. it feels like a very tangible step forward for zoro in terms of ability, like a massive obstacle has been surmounted and, as he himself says, he’s now stronger for it.

its also very cool that this is, i believe, the first appearance of what is probably observation haki, though it isn’t named or recognized as such. i’m always endlessly impressed by all the little moments of internal consistency that oda manages to sprinkle into his story.

there’s barely any dialogue on these entire two pages, from crocodile dropping vivi to luffy and pell swooping in- the story is briefly told entirely through visuals- and i love that. it gives the impression of a single tense, frozen moment as vivi falls, which is then broken in spectacular fashion when luffy catches her.

i really, really like the progression that runs through all three of luffy’s fights with crocodile. the gap between them goes from being impossible, with luffy unable to even land a hit and crocodile basically toying with him; to surmountable but still huge, with luffy able to land some hits but still outclassed; to finally putting them on basically even ground. and every inch of that growth on luffy’s part is hard-fought and hard-won and well-deserved.

crocodile’s confidence in his abilities isn’t misplaced- he genuinely is that powerful. but if there’s anything we know about luffy by now, it’s that he doesn’t ever give up. it’s very fun to watch crocodile’s dismissiveness turn into disbelief turn into rage and frustration when luffy just won’t die.

luffy is, additionally, pretty clearly a better brawler than crocodile (which makes sense, crocodile is clearly used to devastating long-range attacks with his powers while luffy grew up fighting giant wildlife with his bare hands), which means that by the time of their last fight, where they’re just whaling on each other in the catacombs and crocodile is starting to get sloppy and desperate and lose control, if anything it’s luffy who has the upper hand.

zoro and sanji’s dynamic is always a favorite of mine, and one of the things i like best about them is how perfectly in sync they always manage to be when it comes to things that actually matter, despite fighting like cats and dogs pretty much every other time. i’ll never understand people who think they genuinely aren’t friends.

tashigi is really good in alabasta, okay. she essentially has her own entire character growth arc. she goes from her stance in loguetown, where she isn’t even tolerant of (fully legal!) bounty hunters, to here, where she’s forced to confront that the world isn’t nearly as black and white as she’s always believed it to be, that sometimes pirates are good and allies of the government are bad, and ultimately makes the right choice to help the strawhats even though it clearly pains and frustrates her that she can’t do anything more herself.

i’ll be forever mad that her only really significant appearance after this in punk hazard didn’t really live up to what her character deserved.

i really like how the countdown sequence is done. the tension is ratcheting up and up and up as the clock ticks down in the final seconds, panels cutting all over the city to show all the different characters, everyone who’s caught up in this conflict and everyone who’ll die if the cannon fires-

and then the clock hits zero, and we get this panel that’s just... quiet, after all the madness, as we see how vivi stopped the detonation. i think oda is very good at setting up his pages so they have a flow to them, so no matter how quickly you actually read sometimes things feel like they’re going very fast and all happening at once and then it slows down and gives the reader a chance to breathe, if only to speed up again later. i think oda is really good at pacing in general, really, both on a micro level like this and on a larger scale.

luffy’s greatest strength isn’t really his strength. he’s strong, absolutely, but that’s not really why he wins the fights he shouldn’t win. he wins because he just doesn’t fucking stay down. his fight with katakuri is probably the best example of this, because katakuri has him beat in pretty much every category except sheer endurance, and there as here, it’s that endurance that winds up getting luffy the win in the end.

i do love that it’s the rain that ends the war. not the explosion and pell’s sacrifice, not vivi’s pleading, not even luffy kicking crocodile into the stratosphere, but the rain, the thing alabasta’s been missing for too long, the thing crocodile stole, the only thing all these people are fighting over.

it’s crocodile’s symbolic defeat- at the same moment his power is broken by luffy, the stranglehold of dehydration he’s been using to foment war and rebellion is all at once gone, and he’s left with nothing at all, and alabasta can finally find peace and start to heal again.

i always love the little moments that show, usually without words, just how much the strawhats love each other, and all of them unanimously waiting until vivi is out of sight to collapse so that she won’t worry, won’t see how ragged they ran themselves for their sake, is definitely one of them.

i adore vivi’s sendoff, because while its sad she has to go, the certainty that someday they’ll meet again and that even if not they’ll always be crew manages to make this scene endlessly hopeful instead (which, i think, is also a good summary of one piece’s tone as a whole, at least in its more serious moments). luffy never says goodbye, after all, and nobody ever really leaves the strawhat pirates.

i’m really looking forward to vivi’s re-entry to the story. i really, really want to see her reunion with the strawhats.

hey look, it’s the panel my profile picture is from!

the mystery surrounding robin and her past is built up in little ways long before enies lobby, from her harsh reaction when confronted with by tashigi to her aversion to being called by her given name to this flashback, of her talking to cobra about her dream. of them, the latter is my favorite, because i think it’s probably the most sincere she is until enies lobby- which makes sense, given she thinks she’s about to die.

like many things about robin in alabasta, this gets cast in a new light by her backstory. if she dies here, so too does the entire legacy of ohara- but she’s so beaten down and hopeless that she really doesn’t see any light ahead to strive for. there’s no hope left, for her, and the whole world against her.

and then there’s luffy, who creates hope everywhere he goes, who makes her live anyways.

this is a hell of a spread to hook us very effectively right into the sky island saga. it’s a perfect reminder of just how much we still don’t know about all the endless mysteries of the grand line, and just how many adventures are still yet to be had.

#the voyage so far #arc: alabasta #one piece #opmeta #not japanese #long post

197 notes · View notes

yumeka36 · 3 years

Text

The ending of Frozen 2...a year later

I try to stay away from touchy subjects like this, at least here on Tumblr. But since @greatqueenanna @the-blue-fairie and @vuelie-frost have recently written inspiring posts on this topic (which you can read here, here, and here), I wanted to give my two cents (well, more like a thousand cents because what I thought would just be a few paragraphs ended up becoming a mini-book!)

Just to be clear, my intention here is not to argue with anyone or invalidate their feelings about the end of Frozen 2. It's quite the opposite, actually. In my view, when we're presented with a beloved hobby that has disappointed us, we have a couple of options: one is to simply stop partaking in that hobby and move onto one that brings us more pleasure (no doubt some ex-Frozen fans have done that), or keep sticking around the fandom despite constant negative feelings about it which, I can't imagine, is that enjoyable. But there's another option too: when presented with something we don't like but won't divorce ourselves from and yet have no power to change – in this case, how Frozen 2 ended – what we can change is how we view it. The fact that people who disliked Frozen 2 are still part of the fandom even a year later shows just how strong the Frozen characters and their world are…that despite dissatisfaction, fans are still not willing to give up on the franchise and leave it in favor of another fandom. And if they're not willing to give up, but still can't help feeling let down about it, I'm hoping the reasoning I present in this post can possibly offer a fresh and, hopefully, more appealing perspective. My intention here is to help alleviate hard feelings, not entice arguments.

I also want to mention that I'm only discussing the ending of the movie, specifically the fact that Anna is queen of Arendelle and Elsa is living in the forest. I've addressed most other topics of theorizing and criticism in my Frozen 2 analysis book “Seek the Truth,” which you can read here. While I did discuss the ending in detail in the last chapter, I didn't expand on it nearly as much as I will in this post.

To make things easier, I'm going to address the most common griefs about the ending one at a time and offer my input:

-----

Anna and Elsa were separated for 13 years so they shouldn't be separated again.

I definitely agree that it would be tragic if they were forced apart again, unable to have a relationship like they did for most of their childhood. But the more times I watch Frozen 2, the more I just don't see that in the ending. To me, a separation is when both sides are split up against their will, unable to get together again. That's not the case for Anna and Elsa. I admit the epilogue of the movie was rushed, but out of the many loose ends it could have touched on, the filmmakers made sure to include Anna's letter to Elsa about charades night, which to me shows that they want us to know that the sisters still get together regularly (that's the feeling I get from the movie; I'm not including the questionable canon of the storybooks/comics in this, which I’ll discuss a little later). We could still infer they get together even if they didn't show the letter, because we know the forest is free again and Elsa can ride Nokk to Arendelle whenever she wants. But the filmmakers chose to show the letter to make it clear that there's nothing keeping them apart.

So then the point becomes "spending only 3 years together isn't enough." What number is enough, then? 5 years? 10 years? Any number is arbitrary for a case like this. But the length of time doesn’t matter because, to me, Frozen 1 showed how strong of a bond Anna and Elsa have despite hardly ever being in physical contact…a bond of love strong enough to thaw a frozen heart. So to think that now they could never be happy unless they're physically together 24/7 does an injustice to that bond that transcends physical boundaries. They suffered because of their separation in Frozen 1 – that was a true separation, because they wanted to have a relationship but were forced apart against their wills – and at the end of the movie, they could finally have the relationship they were yearning for. And at the end of Frozen 2, not only was their love cemented further from the epic adventure they shared, but they can continue to see each other as a family as well as live out the new roles bestowed upon them. Unlike a movie with an actual separation ending, like Toy Story 4 for example, where Woody and Buzz would never be able to see each other again except by some crazy coincidence, there is literally nothing stopping Anna and Elsa from continuing to have adventures together in future stories, while also satisfying their new duties and enjoying their lives both individually and as a family. That sounds like a very fulfilling life to me.

But the "Anna sans Elsa" book proves that they barely see each other and Anna misses Elsa a lot.

This sentiment comes down to whether you want to consider the relatively few post-movie storybooks as true canon or not. I consider them loose canon at best because no one involved with the creation of the canon Frozen movies/shorts had any involvement in their development and probably even knows they exist. There's also the fact that they're having such a minimal release – just one or two European countries have been getting them, and they're not even being released in English, which is arguably Disney's largest market. There're also conflicting implications between the stories, for example, the "Anna sans Elsa" book implies that Elsa hasn't visited for a long time, but the German comic where Elsa visits for charades implies that she does visit regularly (from @bigfrozenfan‘s translation here, she says "I wouldn't have missed an evening of charades with you for anything in the world!"). Then there's the "Explore the North Book" which shows Queen Anna visiting Elsa in the forest. Just because this book isn't a story is no reason to disregard it, especially when you consider the fact that it was the first book released to show the sisters interacting post-movie, plus it was actually released in larger markets, like the US and Japan. Even Anna's letter within the movie canon itself, telling Elsa not to be late for charades, is not written in a way that implies she hasn't seen Elsa for a long time. If anything, it implies the opposite to me…that these visits occur regularly. So what we can conclude from this is that Disney's publishing branch is releasing a few post-movie stories to limited markets to make some extra earnings, but obviously the book/comic authors are restricted with the kinds of stories they can depict; as in, they can't have stories that would affect the lore and canon, like showing Elsa's role in the forest or how Northuldra/Arendelle relationships are progressing. So they're going with safe side-stories like Anna doing familiar things in Arendelle and Elsa visiting for charades – things that can be inferred from the movie's ending but don't continue the narrative past that. This could also be why these books are having such a small release. Perhaps because the English-speaking market is so large, anything brought to that market could be seen as having relevance and clout, and Disney doesn't want that for these stories (because there's really no reason to not bring the books to other markets when children's book sales are soaring thanks to the pandemic). The "Anna sans Elsa" book is even getting a re-release with new pictures, again, only in French, which to me further illustrates the limitations on post-movie stories currently going on. So ultimately, I would not take details from these books/comics that are available to only 0000.1% of Disney's worldwide market as the "word of god," especially when they're inconsistent with each other and canon implies otherwise.

Anna isn't fit to be queen.

I'm not really sure what (canon) examples there are of Anna showing traits that would hinder her ability to be a good queen, or at least not as good a queen as Elsa. Is the reason for this because of her naivete about Hans? There's no evidence that shows she hasn't learned her lesson from that…it's not like she rushed into marrying Kristoff right away. If it's something about her personality being too reckless or something, Elsa has exhibited recklessness too, doing things without forethought like running away to live alone in an ice palace and risking her life to dive into Ahtohallan. But despite having these very human flaws, Elsa still turned out to be a good queen, so why would Anna be the opposite? Anna has proven herself to be brave, noble, and outgoing with people…all of which are great qualities for a ruler. Plus she's lived among royalty her whole life, and no doubt helped Elsa during her reign as queen, so she's not going into the position as a total novice. We barely see Elsa doing queenly activities in the Frozen canon, so how can we assume she's so much more fit to be queen than Anna? Again, I think this is another sentiment that stems from an aversion to something unfamiliar: fans want Elsa to remain queen because we've been familiar with that for years, but that doesn't mean Anna can't be a good queen, too. Canon-wise we haven't yet seen Anna do anything in the way of ruling, so why not give her the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove herself?

The first Frozen established that Elsa shouldn't live in isolation and yet she's doing it again in Frozen 2.

In the first Frozen, Elsa isolated herself out of fear and refused to even get near anyone. What evidence is there that this is happening at the end of Frozen 2? I've heard assumptions that she's living in Ahtohallan now, but we don't know that for sure. The last scene of the movie shows her heading in that direction, but she could be visiting too. But regardless of where her actual place of dwelling is now, there's no reason to believe she's shutting herself off like she did in the first movie. The epilogue shows that she's happily interacting with the spirits, the Northuldra, and makes visits to Arendelle. Home is more than just a physical place where one dwells and sleeps; even if the forest is where Elsa does this now, Arendelle is still her home in all other regards.

An offshoot notion of Elsa living on her own in the forest is that it's somehow akin to the idea that "people who are different should live outside normal society." I don't understand this because to me it implies the person in question is being shunned; that they want to live in normal society but normal society doesn't want them. That is definitely not what's going on at the end of Frozen 2. As I'll explain in the following paragraphs, Elsa stays in the forest because she feels a newfound sense of freedom and is thrilled to explore this new world she found, but she can freely go back to Arendelle whenever she wants, and there's no indication that anyone there loves her any less (they should love her more actually because they all witnessed her save the kingdom from the tidal wave!) At the end if the movie, no one's being ostracized for being "different." Everyone's doing what makes them happy and can freely come and go as they please.

Why does Elsa need to stay in the forest? Why can't she stay in Arendelle and visit the forest?

A large majority of the hard feelings about Frozen 2's ending comes from the fact that it didn't clearly show what Elsa's role in the forest is. I definitely admit that the ending would have benefited from expanding on this, even just another line or two. But to me, it still leaves enough information for us to make reasonable inferences about what she's doing. We don't see the Northuldra or Arendellians interacting in the epilogue, which makes sense since they hated each other for decades and it'll take time to mend the relationship between them. When Elsa says to Anna "we'll continue to do this together" conveys to me that she knows they still have work to do as far as making amends between the kingdoms…she and Anna can serve as dual queen ambassadors between the two sides, a bridge, so to speak. Then there's also the fact that the spirits were angry for decades and it'll take time for them to return to the peaceful coexistent they had with the Northuldra, something Elsa can certainly help with (again, we don't see the spirits interacting with the Northuldra in the epilogue, only with Elsa).

On top of that, there's the fact that Elsa spent her whole life believing she was the only magical being in the world, and now she's discovered this whole new land of magic just waiting to be explored. As I explained in my analysis book, if we consider Elsa believing for years that her powers were a curse and no one but her possessed magic, and suddenly she's brought to a place where other magical beings exist, as well as a group of people who live in harmony with them, plus the fact that she's somehow a bridge between both magic and humans, it makes sense she'd be ecstatic and want to spend time indulging in this new land. The reason she doesn't just visit the forest while living in Arendelle is because being queen is a full time job that requires her to be present as much as possible. Trying to stay on top of all her queenly responsibilities while going back and forth to the forest all the time wouldn't amount to the kind of quality she wants for Arendelle royalty. But having someone like Anna who's already familiar with royal activities and loves Arendelle with all her heart, would be perfect for the role. Elsa never indicated it was her dream to be queen of Arendelle. She was born into the role and accepted it, and if the events of Frozen 2 never occurred, would have probably lived out her life happily in that position. But happiness isn't necessarily a final destination and sometimes things come along that alter the status quo, but also enhance what we thought was already a good life. What we can infer from Frozen 1 is that she doesn't want to live in fear and have to constantly suppress her powers and that she wants to have a relationship with her sister again. None of this is taken away from her at the end of Frozen 2: she's not living in fear but in freedom, she can use her powers without restraint and in brand new ways with the spirits and Ahtohallan, and she can not only continue to see her sister often and foster their relationship, but she can grow her relationship with herself and this new realization about the origin of her powers. And still another reason, perhaps the true purpose of the fifth spirit is more than a single task and Elsa is trying to discover what it is: what more can she do with her amazing powers now that the forest is free, both for the benefit of the Northuldra, the spirits, Arendelle…maybe even the world? There's a wealth of possibilities for future stories, and I believe this ties back to the fact that the post-movie books/comics can't touch on what her role in the forest is because it's too closely tied to continuing the canon story, and until the heads at Disney decide what direction to take it, all spin-off content will be limited.

And yes, it's true that these are just my theories, but they're theories based on many hours of rewatching, analyzing, and thinking critically about the movie, which I think is better than just dismissing the idea that Elsa has a role to play in the forest simply because it wasn't explicitly shown. Just because Elsa's new lot in life isn't spoon-fed to us doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and I think it's much more logical, and imaginative, to assume she's doing the kinds of things I just mentioned as opposed to doing nothing of significance in her life now. I prefer to be logical and imaginative, so I’m going with these reasons unless canon shows otherwise.

-----

After reading all this, you might think I'm in love with the ending of Frozen 2 and think it's perfect, but that's not the case. While I love Frozen 2 overall, I admit that the ending was rushed and it wasn't my first choice of an ending for the sequel I was anticipating for years. But at the same time, I'm open-minded, especially in regards to the fact that the story and characters I'm invested in are not my personal creations. They’re the products of someone else’s experiences, values, and beliefs, and I have to recognize that this is what makes them interesting even though I may not agree with everything. But who am I to say that my vision and headcanons for Frozen are somehow better than those of the filmmakers? I don't think so highly of myself as being more of an authority on Frozen than the creators themselves or even my fellow hardcore fans. But I have spent many hours of my life these past 7 years examining and analyzing the franchise and its characters, so I'd like to believe my words have at least some weight to them. That's the wonder of fiction…that someone's ideas can be interpreted and appreciated in a variety of ways by a variety of people. But that's also the tragedy of fictional stories that continue on with long gaps in between, like the gap between the two Frozen movies. During that long time, we can't help but build and prop up our headcanons and develop the feeling that we know these characters inside and out, what is and isn't good for them, how they would and wouldn't react in all situations, etc,. But two and a half hours (which is about the length of time of Frozen 1 plus the two shorts) is not enough time to show so much of a characters’ personality that we could really know them as much as we’d like (especially Elsa, who got relatively little screentime in the first movie). So when we're presented with the continuation of the story and find that the creators had a different view, a view that didn't return to the status quo we were familiar with, it can be very jarring. But that's the risk of falling in love with someone else's creations. And thankfully, the beauty of headcanons is that they're all our own and can be adjusted. Even though the outcome of Frozen 2 was not what I was expecting, it was a minimal effort to adjust my headcanons because I don't feel the ending was so outrageous and far removed from everything I loved previously about the franchise, for reasons I hope I explained clearly in this post.

If you still can't feel any better about the end of Frozen 2 despite all I've discussed here, I'm sorry…I really tried my best. All I can say now is that I hope future content will rekindle your appreciation for the franchise. I know it's been over a year since Frozen 2, which seems like a long time to go without any announcements of new material, but we have to remember that that's not a long time at all by Disney standards. The recent Disney investor's meeting proves how long it takes to churn out new content, especially on the animation side of things, as it took years for Princess and the Frog, Zootopia, and Moana to finally get new content. Disney immortalizes all their popular franchises and could go back to them months, years, or even decades later (The Lion Guard series came out over 20 years after The Lion King for example). Unlike other Disney franchises like Marvel and Star Wars that have their own production teams and studios, Frozen has to share resources with all of WDAS's other projects. So a year is still too early for the studio to go back to Frozen again, especially if you consider that it's technically only been a few months since we got new Frozen content in the form of Once Upon a Snowman. Patience is the key now and we don't know what the future holds. But I'm someone whose opinions will change with new information, so maybe tomorrow we could get an announcement about a new Frozen YA novel or Disney+ series that shows Anna and Elsa rarely see each other and Anna misses Elsa and Elsa's doing nothing noteworthy in the forest and everything I've said here can be tossed out the window. I don't think that will be the case though, so as long as we don't know anything for sure, I want to go with a positive outlook because, at the end of the day, your fandoms should lift you up instead of bring you down. Frozen is a juggernaut for Disney so I'd rather they take their time with the next installment for the franchise. It's not so much a question of "if" as much as "when" and "in what form"? So until we have those answers, I wish you all well…don't let the hope die out.

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen2 #disney frozen

116 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1273

What was the longest time you’ve had the hiccups for? Maybe for half an hour? Mine are never that bad.

What type of TV shows are your favourite? Not a big TV show type of person to begin with since it seems as if my attention span wasn’t built for once-a-week, season-breaks kind of content haha. I do like sitcoms, I guess...bite-sized ones like Friends, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Big Bang Theory, etc. Drama shows I’d bite into if the plot is extremely intriguing to me or relevant to my interests, like The Crown or Breaking Bad.

Have you ever been a complete fangirl/fanboy over anything? I was before then I wasn’t for a very long time, then I came back just recently with this BTS shit I got myself into.

Do you know anyone who has died in battle? Hmm. I don’t think so. My great-grandpa lived a few more decades after the war.

When was the last time you went on an adventure? July. My friends and I spent the whole day driving around and stopping by sooo many spots around the metro. It was a lot of fun and we were fucking b e a t after.

What brand is your vacuum cleaner? I dunno. My mom mainly uses ours.

Are you good at rapping? I have a number of songs and verses memorized that I can recite quite okay, but I can’t write any of my own.

Name one world issue that upsets you. Racism.

How do you feel about tanning? I never saw the the big deal. I will say tanning beds and salons are such a culture shock to me, though. Are some people really that obsessed with modifying their skin tone?

Have you ever given a public speech? Hmm, just the one time I was entered into a public speaking competition and was given a topic to talk about on the spot. That was honestly a lot of fun and I wish there were more opportunities to do that exact same thing.

Do you read comic books? No. I tried getting into that whole thing, but didn’t see the appeal.

Do you force your way into conversations in which you are not involved? Not always but if I’m starting to feel left out or awkward, I will start to ask a question here and there to ease my way into the conversation. But if the topic is clearly none of my business then I do stay out of the way.

Kiss with your eyes open or closed? Closed.

Do you believe you can change someone? This isn’t a black and white matter, I think. The idea of changing a person can have a lot of layers; in my org, for instance, I got to pick up a few quirks and behaviors from my friends just by being around them for a long time – in that sense, I changed. But you can also strive to change someone who’s struggling and try to make them become happy, which I tried to do with my ex – which of course I learned the hard way that you can’t change someone if in that context.

How did you react when your first pet died? I was bummed out but didn’t throw a fit.

Have you ever drawn anime? No.

Can you use a pogo stick? I’ve never even seen one in real life. I’m dying to try it out just once.

When’s the next time you’ll see the person that you like? I don’t like anybodyyy.

Do you like bathing/showering? I mean...yes? Like I’m not obsessed with showering, but it’s a necessity that I have to regularly do anyway lmao.

Have you ever considered entering a race? Sure! Just give me a couple of weeks to practice because my endurance and stamina are embarrassing.

Rihanna or Lady Gaga? Rihanna.

Who was your first good kiss with? My ex.

What accessory do you want in your bedroom? SHELVES

What do you take the most pictures of? My experiences.

What are you always in the mood for? Starbuuuuuuckssssssss.

What is something that you never turn down? A day out with friends. I’ll always make time. What is something that you always turn down when offered? Food, if I’m a guest at someone else’s place.

Name something sexy about your significant other. I don’t have any.

What is one of your hobbies that you refuse to give up? Surveys, I guess. I enjoy them too much and have been doing them for nearly a decade.

If you could be a professional in any sport what would it be? Tennis.

If you could be a professional at any instrument what would it be? PIANO.

Would you rather be a surgeon or mortician? Surgeon. I would be too terrified seeing dead people, anyway.

Have you ever been on a subway? Nope.

Are you in love? No.

Do you like having your lip softly bitten when you’re kissing? Sure. Softly, roughly...both are fine hahaha.

Do you want to get married when you’re older? I hope so. I want my turn, too.

What was the last band shirt you wore? Eh, I don’t own any. I wore a fanmade V-themed shirt yesterday, if that counts.

You can have a milkshake right now. What flavor do you choose? OMGGGG that sounds so fucking good rn. Chocolate chip cookie dough.

Have you ever given someone flowers? Mhm, I used to give my ex bouquets whenever it was our anniversary.

What day of the week is usually your busiest day? Monday like 98% of the time, so I hate them. It ultimately varies, though. Sometimes some days are a hell of a lot more hectic than others.

Do you have any concerts coming up? I mean...obviously not.

Do you like or hate the smell of fish? Oh yessssssss. The smell of seafood/ocean always makes me fucking drool.

What’s your favorite brand of chips? Pringles, or this local brand of salted egg chips that I love to get.

Have you ever written a poem and then read it aloud? Yeah, once. We had to write a poem as our homework and my teacher picked out a couple that he thought were the best-written, and one of them was mine even though I still firmly believe I did a shit job.

Do you like pineapple? Oh god no. One of the worse fruits I’ve had.

Does your house have a dishwasher? No. It seems to be just a Western thing.

Do you know anyone who has a flower tattoo? I probably do, but I just can’t give you a lineup of names. Flower tattoos seem to be trendy these days, especially in the line style.

How many different languages can you say goodbye in? So I have goodbye, paalam, 안녕히 가세요, adios, auf wiedersehen, sayonara, au revoir...so that’s 7.

Agree or disagree: You like Adam Sandler movies. Ummmm definitely childish and I can feel that the humor tries so hard sometimes but I do enjoy some of his movies, like 50 First Dates.

Have you ever had to get a tooth pulled? If so, what for? Yeah, I mentioned this on a previous survey.

Have you ever dated anyone while they were in jail? No, I’ve never dated anyone who’s been imprisoned.

If you’ve ever babysat, do you like it? I ‘babysat,’ but technically all eldest Asian daughters are expected to look out for their younger siblings and cousins anyway. I didn’t actively enjoy it, but sure, it was fun playing with them and it’s always nice to be viewed as responsible.

What is your favorite flavor on sunflower seeds? I don’t eat sunflower seeds. I don’t dislike them, I just really never seek them out.

Do you get cold easily? Yes.

Do you get a lot of spiders in your house? Hmm no. If we do get visited they are almost always too small to be seen.

Do you admire nature? Yeah, I try to be around it as often as I can.

Name one naughty thing you’ve done. Had sex while a few people were in the same room. I pay for it now hahaha; those friends who had the misfortune to be in that situation have never let me live it down and it’s one of their go-to stories when I’m being introduced to new friends.

Name two of your favorite things as a child. I loved everything Bratz. I also liked Play-Doh.

Do you own a Pillow Pet? No, I’ve never even heard of that.

Do you tend to solve problems with violence? Never.

Have either of your parents gone to jail? Nope.

Do you know a hoarder? I heard my grandma had been one, but I didn’t see traces of it when I used to visit her. I guess she had been when she was younger and stronger. I show traces of hoarding too, but I don’t think it’s at a concerning level; I literally just threw out a bunch of shit in my room I’ve hoarded over the last five or so years.

Do you wax, pluck, or leave your eyebrows? I don’t touch them; I’m never all that worried about my appearance. On very rare instances, I will shave some of the excess hair off. Do you have any interesting scar stories? None of them are interesting tbh, just results of my own stupidity.

Do you hate the texture of meatballs? I don’t hate their texture but I also just don’t enjoy meatballs in general. I find them boring, which has always led me to think if they’re really supposed to be just boring clumps of meat or if I’ve just always been served average meatballs.

Do you get migraines? Yes, I usually get one after work. They’ve decreased in frequency now but one will drop by every now and then to give me a shit time.

Do you like guns? No.

Are turtles amazing creatures? All animals are. :') < Yes! Except cockroaches.

How much time do you spend taking surveys? I dedicate an hour or so every weekend. I often wish I can allot more time, but I also have other hobbies and interests I would usually want to catch up on during the weekends. 48 hours is just too short :(

Would you rather visit: The Eiffel Tower or Egyptian Pyramids? Pyramids, in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even need to think about it.

Would you like to work at a candy shop? Uh no. If I had to, it would be on the back-end, maybe in the corporate side of things lol.

Do you have feelings for someone? Nope.

Which one of your guy friends is the best looking? JM.

Do you have anything to say to your ex bf/gf? No.

Which band do you have the most of on your iPod/music player? I don’t use music players anymore but my Spotify always reminds me of how much I listen to BTS whenever they do one of their quirky listening habit reports lol.

Which song describes your mood at the moment? I want to go with RM’s Bicycle just because I’m feeling quite content and relaxed at the moment.

Which movie(s) do you quote the most? Eh, I’m not a big movie quoter.

Which one of your best friend’s friends would you most likely date? I honestly don’t see any of them as date-able.

Would you ever let anybody else drive your car? Sure. I’ve let Hans and Gab drive it countless times when I’ve had too much to drink. It’s a small car and is fairly easy to use and navigate. I would let Anj use it too at some point, but I want her to perfect her u-turns first hahahaha.

Which one of your friends will be the most successful? It’s already one of my friends to begin with but I’m not naming names. They come from a privileged background to begin with and their godfather already handed one of his companies down to them, so. They were also told the CEO position is already a sure slot for them.

What store did you last shop at? I wanna say NCAT, this Korean-themed store that sells trinkets and jewelries and plushies and stuff. They also sell BTS albums so Anj and I dropped by to check out and touch all the albums we can’t afford yet HAHA

Do you think telepathy is real? No.

When did you last draw something for fun? Last Saturday when I played an online drawing/guessing game with my uncles and aunts.

Who makes the most in your entire family? My dad.

Do you like writing essays? I love essays, it’s my favorite writing piece to make.

Do you think plastic surgery is no big deal? It turns into one when it gets obsessive, like when people get excessive plastic surgeries specifically to look like another person. I’m looking at you, fucking Oli London.

Do you take your trash to the dump or have it picked up? It’s picked up.

When you sneeze do you sneeze into your shirt or your hands? I look away and just sneeze. Sometimes I’ll put up my elbow.

Do you usually have sex in the morning, noon or night time? Erm, I usually had it at night. I only had morning sex when we would spend the night; and I nearly never had noon sex.

Did you ever fail your learners/drivers test? No.

Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne? Gun to my head, Lil Wayne.

Name someone you’ve become a lot closer to recently: Reena!!! I’m so grateful Angela introduced us to each other :) We both tend to get shy so we don’t actually actively get chatty when we see each other irl, but I love her presence and I love that she is my friend. I make up for it by being super friendly and wacky in our group chat haha. Does your car have a sunroof? No. We used to have a car that did, but we had to sell that during the peak of the pandemic.

Are you closer to your mom or your dad? Dad.

Have you ever had a friend with benefits? No.

Who’s the last person you cuddled with? My ex.

Are you friends with any of your teachers on Facebook? Yeup.

#survey #surveys

2 notes · View notes

thesixthstar · 3 years

Note

Primes, character(s) of your choice

I'm gonna answer these for whichever character(s) I have the most interesting/relevant answers for:

2. Do they consider themselves an optimist? Pessimist? Realist? What are they like in actuality?

Nydra (drow moon cleric) is optimistic pretty much as part of her religion/is part of her religion because she is optimistic. She wants to believe the best of everyone and give everyone as many second chances as is practially possible

3. How do they carry themselves around strangers? Friends/Lovers? Family?

I'm not the *best* at roleplaying personalities vastly different from my own, so most of my characters, when they're around friends act as silly and rambly as I tend to be around my own friends. The main exception to this is HILDA (pissed off robot), who is the most different-from-myself character I've ever played, despite falling very firmly into the universal law of "DND is about projection". She is extraordinarily blunt, and always says things with as few words as possible. She's not comfortable with many people, but with those people, she's way more willing and able to admit she's not 100% confident and correct in her life philosophy, as opposed to the rest of the time, where she's not willing to entertain the idea that someone else might be right....

5. How does your character express they’re comfortable?

Leanora (chaotic stupid rogue) stops trying to impress people when she's comfortable. This is when all her worst ideas get to see the light of day.

7. How impulsive is your character?

As mentioned a moment ago, Leanora is a factory of the worst ideas you could possibly imagine. She doesn't just do stupid things without consulting the party usually (bc that can be a very un-fun table dynamic) but this is the character who goes to the local magic school, and buys the student's not-quite-right-but-not-disastrously-failed potions homework. This has resulted in hilarity and messes and she's been turned to stone by one of them.

11. How does your character blow off steam?

HILDA is definitely the character with the most steam to blow off, being filled with existential dread and rage at all times as she is. While she is in denial about a lot of it, you can really see a lot of that being expressed in incredible violence! There's a lot of grenades to be thrown, and a lot of uhhhhh needless cruelty in how she deals with organic life forms.

M'artha Stu'art, another half elf rogue, whose character concept is "housewife who finally fucking lost it and ran off to become an adventurer" also likes to indulge in violence, but also she does a lot of stress baking! Luckily her campaign setting involves a lot of access to ovens, so a lot of times she'll provide the party with delicious pies and cookies.

13. If they were a body of water, what would they be?

Nydra would be a lake, I think.

17. Does your character swear? What’s their favorite phrase/word?

Leanora has lots of reasons to go "oh sit. fuckfuckfuck noooooo" a lot.

19. How does your character act when they want to seem threatening?

HILDA goes with brute violence and a lot of looming over people. The rest of my characters tend go for leverage rather than "threats of bodily harm" when they need to intimidate, partly because I don't tend to play beefy lads (or beefy non lads).

23. Would your character want to be famous? Why or why not?

The only character I have that might want to be famous is my recently-created tiefling bard, Disco.

29. What does your character have too much of?

HILDA canonically has an endless supply of grenades. This may be too many.

31. Can your character visualize actual concepts in their head? Or are they just vague thoughts?

I personally really struggle to literally visualize images, and can't relate to people who can, so all my characters are like that too lol

37. What are some ways your character acts silly?

Leanora is trying to establish folklore about a minor god(dess) of soup. Any time the party is sleeping at an inn, she'll "spread the good word", especially if the inn serves a really good soup or stew.

Mercy (idiot Changeling sorcerer traveling with an evil party) will prank the warlock, by placing little toy spiders everywhere

41. What’s a texture/sound your character cannot stand?

I have misophonia and therefore so do all my characters. Disco hates anything dirty or slimy.

43. Is your character good at apologizing? Why or why not?

HILDA will never admit she has done anything wrong. Ever. Leanora will nope right out of the consequences of her actions mostly (or try to solve them by usually making a bigger problem).

Nydra can get a little single-track-mind, and when she realizes this in retrospect, she's usually OK about apologizing.

47. Do they consider themselves funny? How do they use humor?

Leanora truly uses humor as a defense mechanism. This is because DND Is About Projecting.

HILDA usually claims that humor is a stupid things that humans do, but when she occasionally has a zinger to contribute, she considers herself a comedic genius.

53. What does freedom mean to them?

One of Leanora's base ideals is freedom, in the sense of not letting anyone tell you jack shit about yourself. Her backstory is not Full Tragedy, but it involves a lot of her mentor and her social circle kind of telling her "this is how the world is, and this is how you need to act to live in it, and the fact that you're here means you're this kind of person", and the reason she's an adventurer is to prove to herself that it isn't true.

59. What’s something your character has realized?

We stopped playing this campaign shortly before HILDA actually realized this, but she was about to realize that, not only is gender fake even in general, but she's literally a robot and it doesn't even make sense for her to have a gender, she was just programmed with "female" as part of the concept of her existence. Her name is also uhhh, not a name. Its an acronym that stands for Household Integrated Live-in Domestic Assistant, and there are millions of HILDA units out there. The realization that she doesn't even have a name just a designated label, its like a toaster coming to life and continuing to just be called "toaster". The realization that she had been using a human designation that quite literally objectifies her, and the idea that this weird notion of gender had been foisted upon her without any input of her own and she had just gone with it without questioning that until now. That realization was gonna be a doozy.

I did not intend for HILDA to be this, but she accidentally became a way for me to look at my own agender feels. I really wish I had gotten to play more of that campaign for a number of reasons, but this is one of em. I also did a little bit of Agender Feels with Mercy the changeling sorcerer, but its less intrinsic to her character.

61. Who do they go to when they’ve had a nightmare?

It's cliche, but Nydra prays. Lately, though, the moon might be Fake, so she's not sure really where to go with things like that at the moment.

67. Selflessness or Self-Preservation?

Nydra is all about selflessness, and kind of struggles when she has to think of herself first, even when it means she's preserving herself so she can do More Good later. she's the asshole in the trolley problem who throws herself in front of the trolley to stop it, though she knows thats kind of also a flaw a lot of the time.

HILDA and Mercy are 100% self preservation, and M'artha is like 65% self preservation at least.

Leanora is very "por que no los dos" about everything, and tries to loophole her way into a Both answer whenever possible.

#tag #ask #ask meme

1 note · View note

weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

Text

The Weekend Warrior 5/7/21: WRATH OF MAN, HERE TODAY, THE UNTHINKABLE, MONSTER, THE WATER MAN and More

It’s a new month, and I guess going by previous years pre-COVID, this weekend would normally be the start of summer. This year, we’re instead getting a summer with a lot of movies that would normally be dumped into April or February or some other uneventful month. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t or won’t be any good movies, but really, there’s nothing that feels like a summer movie until A Quiet Place Part II and Disney’s Cruella open on Memorial Day weekend.

There’s been lots of great developments, though, including the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn reopening this Friday and then in a few short weeks, theaters may be allowed to be open with no capacity rules although social distancing and masks will probably still be in place. Believe me, it’s been a confusing week as the city that got used to being on the backburner when it comes to reopenings, especially with movie theaters, is now dealing with arguing politicians competing to see who could throw open the then most doors fastest. It’s actually pretty embarrassing.

That aside, this week’s The Weekend Warrior column is brought to you by the new album “Coral Island” from Liverpool band The Coral, which I’ve decided to listen to on loop until I finish this column, because it’s taking me so long to get through it. (Eventually, I switched to Teenage Fanclub’s “Endless Arcade,” since I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it yet…. And to an old standby, Royal Blood, with their own excellent new album, “Typhoons.” At least the record business seems to know it’s the summer!)

Before we get to this week’s new movies, a couple tidbits. First of all, I’m thrilled that my friends Larissa Lam and Baldwin Chiu’s documentary FAR EAST DEEP SOUTH can finally be seen by the entire world, or at least the United States. It debuted on PBS World Channel on Tuesday night as part of the “America ReFramed” series, but for the entire month of May until June 3, you can watch it On Demand HERE, and that is huge! (There will be other ways to see it that you can read about here.)

This is an amazing MUST-SEE doc that looks into the little-known Chinese communities that took root in Mississippi in the early 20th Century and how they became such a huge part of that area with their markets, also bonding with the African-American communities that were similarly dealing with racism from the typically white post-Civil War South. It’s not just a history lesson, and it’s an incredibly moving story about a family trying to find its roots in the most unexpected places. There was a good reason why the couple’s short “Finding Cleveland” won the Oxford Film Festival while I was on the jury that year, and Far East Deep South similarly won an award there last year after its World Premiere at Cinequest was almost scuppered by COVID. It’s amazing how much more relevant and important this film has become since I first saw it last year, since both Asians and African-Americans are dealing with serious racial issues, and this movie shows that more than anything, they should be working to boost each other rather than fighting. Do check it out On Demand this month if you get a chance!

Another musician making movies is Mr. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. I mentioned his documentary WHAT DRIVES US last week, but I actually only got to watch it on Thursday, and like his previous film Studio City and HBO mini-series, Sonic Highways, it’s a fantastic look at the music biz, this time through a variety of artists who began their careers by piling into vans and driving around the country. That is, except Lars Ulrich from Metallica, who mentions that the band was never so small or indie that they didn’t have a bus. But Grohl has used his vast connections to bring in a lot of great musicians including The Edge from U2, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more, making this a very entertaining movie both for fans of the various bands but also live music fans in general. I gotta admit that as much as I loved What Drives Us, it did bring me down a bit since it’s been almost 14 months since I’ve seen any live music, and I really miss it. This is now streaming on The Coda Collection, which you can subscribe to through Amazon Prime Video.

Guy Ritchie is back with his latest movie, WRATH OF MAN (Miramax/MGM), which reunites him with Jason Statham for the first time since 2007’s Revolver, I believe. Statham plays the enigmatic Paul “H” Hill who works at cash truck company Fortico, responsible for moving hundreds of million dollars around Los Angeles each week. Fortico has recently been hit by a lethal robbery, and H’s team soon learn that there’s a lot more to their new coworker, who happens to be looking for revenge against the man who murdered his son.

(Unfortunately, reviews for the movie are embargoed until Thursday at 6pm, so I can’t tell you whether it’s any good or not. Until Thursday night. Sorry!)

But I will talk about the movie’s box office prospects, because why not? Ritchie’s last movie, The Gentlemen, opened in January 2020, during the “before times,” with $10.6 million, but that was more of a classic Ritchie ensemble crime-comedy. Wrath of Man is more of the type of movie Statham has been making over the past few years, a cross between a revenge thriller and a heist flick. In fact, Statham has done a pretty good job creating his own brand through a variety of action-thrillers as well as a number of franchises including “The Transporter” movies, “The Expendables,” and eventually joining the “Fast and the Furious” franchise as Deckard Shaw with Furious 7 in 2017. Statham then went off to make Hobbs and Shaw with Dwayne Johnson, which didn’t do bad with $174 million. Before that, Statham starred in The Meg, a summer shark attack movie that grossed $145 million. Statham going back to help his old mate i.e. the director that gave Statham his start is pretty huge.

But as I said earlier, those were all in the “before times” and with the box office the way it is, it’s hard to imagine that the exciting reunion of Statham and Ritchie can open with more than $10 million but maybe closer to $8 million, because MGM/UA just doesn’t have the marketing clout of a Warner Bros. or Universal. Even so, that should be enough to be #1 this weekend as both Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer continue to fall away. Unfortunately, if the movie *is* any good -- and I can’t tell you one way or another -- then by the time reviews hit, people will already have other plans for the weekend than to go see the movie. So yeah, that’s pretty dumb on the part of MGM, huh?

UPDATE: MGM is putting the movie into 2,876 theaters and maybe I'm being overly optimistic, because, as you'll read below, the movie IS pretty good and reviews have remained positive with the American reviews rolling in last night, still at 70% Fresh at this writing. Maybe that'll help the movie do a little better, maybe as much as $9 million, although I'll probably owe MGM an apology if it cracks $10 million, and I don't think it will.

Mini-Review: If you’ve seen the trailer for Wrath of Man, you might go into Guy Ritchie’s latest thinking you know what to expect, because it’s sure being sold as another typical Jason Statham revenge thriller. Don’t be fooled by the marketing, the movie really is Ritchie’s chance to make his own version of Heat, an L.A. heist movie that owes as much to Rashomon as another movie being released this week.

Wrath of Man begins with the heist of an armored truck that turns deadly with the wanton murder of a couple guards. From there, you might think we know where things are going when Statham’s “H” company whose truck was hit, and on his first day, he stops a similar heist by killing the truck’s attackers. H is immediately the hero of the company, although he still has quite a few suspicious coworkers and the feeling is quite mutual. Ritchie’s film then slips into the second episodic chapter which goes back five months to that initial heist where we learn that Statham’s son was killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I don’t want to go too much deeper into how the movie and story play out, because like The Gentlemen and some of Ritchie’s more intricate films, there’s a lot that purposefully isn’t made very apparent at the beginning. To many, this movie will be seen as even more macho than most of Ritchie's films, to the point where even the only woman guard, Dana, being just as macho as the men. As the movie begins, there’s a lot of joke-cracking and crotch-grabbing, all while Statham’s character silently observes and only acts when necessary.

The film’s shift to more of a classic Ritchie ensemble does slowly take place, but by the third chapter, it shifts to the group perpetrating the cash truck heists with an “inside person,” taking the movie to yet another place that makes it more obvious that this is Ritchie’s attempt at delving into the L.A. heist genre that other filmmakers have done so well.

Oddly, Statham doesn’t have too many lines, acting almost like a Terminator in his determination to right wrongs, but as always, Ritchie puts together a fantastic ensemble cast including a number of great American character actors who we rarely get to see in such great roles. I was particularly impressed with Jeffrey Donovan, who has appeared in a number of otherwise forgettable crime films this past year. The same can be said for Holt McCallany as H’s truck driver “Bullet,” but Ritchie also cast the likes of Josh Hartnett and Scott Eastwood in smaller yet still significant supporting roles, all of whom become more interesting as you start figuring out who all the players are.

Like I said, the movie is fairly macho and the few women play very small roles, but it’s how things are set-up in the first few acts to then change course and build to an absolutely amazing third act that will undoubtedly bear comparisons to Heat. And yet Wrath of Man (which is actually based on a little-seen French crime-thriller) does branch away from some of Ritchie’s standards, first of all by being far darker and even more violent with any of the wisecracking humor that pervades a lot of Ritchie’s work to counterbalance such violence disappearing once the flashbacks begin. It’s all punctuated by a fantastically tense score by Christopher Benstead, which seems a bit much at first but eventually settles into the perfect pace and tone for the action.

Despite disappearing for a good chunk of the movie, Statham is still great, basically killing everyone as his characters are wont to do, but watching how all of the different ideas come together leads to such a satisfying conclusion that one hopes those who might be put off, thinking they know where it's going due to the somewhat pathetic and obvious marketing will give it a chance to see how Ritchie has changed gears as effortlessly as he did with Aladdin a few years back.

Rating: 7.5/10

After even a longer time since he directed a movie, Billy Crystal once again takes the helm for HERE TODAY (Sony/Stage6), a movie in which he plays comedy writer Charlie Burns, whose chance encounter with Tiffany Haddish’s lounge singer, Emma Payge, leads to an unlikely friendship, as he struggles with early stage dementia.

I’ve known about this movie for over a year now, and I was pretty excited to finally get to see it, since I was such a fan of the other movies Crystal has directed, 1992’s Mr. Saturday Night and 1995’s Forget Paris, and it’s just amazing to me that he hasn’t directed a movie since.

At first, it seems like it’s the type of meet-cute we’ve seen so much in Crystal’s past filmography, but his pairing with Haddish isn’t something that might work on paper, but in fact, their comic styles mesh so perfectly together that it’s amazing that no one thought of putting them together before.

Crystal wrote the film with comic Alan Zweibel, who adapted it from his own short story “The Prize,” which refers to Haddish’s character winning Charlie in an auction for a lunch. Actually, her ex won the lunch, and she decided to use it because… free lunch! It’s a pretty simple set-up but one that allows the filmmakers to explore some of the odder things that happen in life.

Much of the movie’s humor plays upon the differences between the two characters, and how unexpected their friendship is. I can totally relate, because I have a lot of good long-time friends who most people might never expect us to be friends, but Crystal, Zweibel and Haddish pick up on that and create a movie that’s very funny but has enough other characters around the duo toa allow their characters to show how they’re just really nice people. We see that with how Charlie takes a young writer at his late night show under his wing or how Emma livens up the bat mitzvah of Charlie’s granddaughter. Oh yeah, and Haddish sings. She actually has a number of great performances in the movie, and seriously, anyone who watches this movie is gonna wanna see a smart filmmaker put Haddish in a musical immediately.

The film also acts as a truly touching tribute to Crystal’s friend, the late Robin WIlliams, who was diagnosed with the exact same type of dementia after his suicide death, and knowing that fact, makes the film even more poignant. More importantly, it doesn’t use Charlie’s condition for laughs, and for that alone, I feel like this is ten times better than that overrated Oscar winner The Father.

Here Today’s biggest problems come in the third act when it feels like the movie is starting to over-extend its welcome, even going into somewhat expected places, but it recovers from that rough third act to land a really nice ending. Crystal has always proven himself to be a really strong mainstream filmmaker (ala Rob Reiner and others) who makes crowd-pleasing movies, and it’s so nice seeing him going behind the camera for a movie that’s obviously very personal but also highly relatable.

As far as box office, I certainly have high hopes that Crystal still has an older audience of fans who might want to see him on the big screen again. I’m just not sure if this will be in more than 1,000 theaters, and though I’ve seen quite a bit of marketing, I just haven’t seen Crystal or Haddish do nearly as much in terms of getting out there that would be necessary to reach an audience that might want to venture out into movie theaters to see the movie vs. waiting until it’s on cable/streaming. There’s also Tiffany Haddish’ fanbase, and there could be some benefit for the movie coming out the same week as her new CBS show “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

I’d love to be optimistic with this making $4 to 5 million but it’s probably more likely to be closer to $3 million especially with capacity limits still in place for most theaters and the audience generally being older.

UPDATE: Maybe I was a little too optimistic, because I enjoyed the movie so much and it will probably be closer to $1 or 1.5 million since other reviews aren't as great.

Next, we have two movies finally being released many years after their festival premieres…

The Swedish apocalyptic thriller THE UNTHINKABLE (Magnet), directed by Victor Danell, is finally being released after playing genre fests in 2018 and 2019. It stars Christoffer Nordenrot as Alex, a young piano virtuoso who ran away from home due to his abusive father Bjorn (Jesper Barkselius). Years later, he returns home for his mother’s funeral after she’s killed in a terrorist attack on Sweden. At the same, there’s a virus that’s erasing people’s memories, but Alex is still in love with Anna (Lisa Henni), the girl he had a crush on when he left, and the three of them will have to help each other face all the horrible things hitting their home at the same time.

As I was watching this movie, a lot of it felt eerily familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. The more I watched it, the more I realized that I actually HAD seen the movie before. Sure enough, I saw this movie over two years ago at the “What the Fest?!” in New York two years ago, and I honestly don’t remember loving it. Still, I decided to give it a fresh look, hoping to get more out of it on second viewing.

Some of the same things bothered me on this second viewing, because it’s really hard to figure out exactly what is going on and whether the horrific events are natural, man-made or a combination of both. For some time, we get so mired into Alex’s lame relationship with Anna, and when he returns home, his conspiracy theory-driven father is busy protecting a bunker that’s being invaded by foreign military troops he thinks are Russians. We cut between these two disparate scenarios while sometimes returning to the capital of Sweden and throwing in a few big set pieces. It’s so disjointed that you feel like you’re watching a lot of random unrelated events, maybe a bit like last week’s About Endlessness -- maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

There are aspects of The Unthinkable that are quite commendable, particularly those action moments and how the mystery about what is happening develops as the film goes along. Eventually, the film does find a more consistent pace, and things start becoming a little clearer, which makes the final act better than much of what we’ve watched earlier. Even so, it’s still quite annoying how long it takes to figure out what’s going on, even on a second viewing, and for most people, that may already be far too frustrating to get through it.

Hitting Netflix on Friday over THREE years after it premiered at Sundance is music video director Anthony Mandler’s directorial debut, MONSTER (Netflix), based on the novel by Walter Dean Myers. It stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Waves) as Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old film student put in jail, accused of murder in a bodega robbery. His defense lawyer (Jennifer Ehle) is trying to help him be released, but he’s fighting against the odds of a judicial system that sees him as a “monster” because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I have to be honest that I did go to see this at Sundance the week it premiered, and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t feeling it, so I only really caught about twenty minutes of it. Watching it now with more time and a little less weary than I usually am towards the end of Sundance, I was able to appreciate Monster more for what it is. On the surface, it’s just about Steve’s case and how what really happened unfolds before our eyes and we learn more about those around Steve and how their influence may have pulled a smart and studious young man into the criminal world that now has him in prison with much more violent life-long criminals.

We already knew that Harrison was a great actor, but Monster shows us that he was already on his way to greatness with this movie that for whatever reason got buried even as it dealt with issues that have been in the headlines almost every day since this debuted.

Mandler takes an interesting approach, both non-linear and also with blatant nods to Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which is even cited by Steve’s teacher, played by Tim Blake Nelson. Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson are decent as Steve’s parents, but they’re generally smaller and non-showy roles compared to the moments between Harrison and Ehle. Much of the film takes place in the courtroom with flashbacks showing what happened through the viewpoint of whomever is on the stand, which eventually includes Steve himself.

The way Mandler handles the material may lean more on the artiness rather than something more mainstream -- Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy comes to mind -- but it’s just as powerful in showing how someone like Steve can be othered by society into being a criminal. Sure, there have been other handlings of this sort of material that I thought were better films, but if you know anyone who has ever had dealings with the “justice” system and know how unfair and horrible it can be even to the innocent, then Monster will certainly strike a chord.

Also hitting Netflix this week is the new series based on Mark Millar and Frank Quitely‘s comic books, JUPITER’S LEGACY (Netflix), another kind of twist on the superhero genre ala Amazon Prime Video’s series based on Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys. I love the comics, and I can’t wait to finally get around to seeing Netflix’s first adaptation of a Millarworld property.

David Oyelowo makes his directorial debut with THE WATER MAN (RLJEfilms), a movie about a young boy named Gunner Boon (Lonnie Chavis), whose mother (Rosario Dawson) is battling leukemia. In an effort to cure her, Guner goes off on a journey along with a teenage girl named Jo (Amiah Miller) to find the mythical Water Man, who can provide them with a magic token that might save Gunner’s mother’s life.

I’ve interviewed Oyelowo a few times before, and I really like him a lot, so I had really high hopes for him as a director since I feel he’s just a terrific actor. Unfortunately, the material here is just not strong enough that I think even a far more experienced filmmaker could make something out of it.

Set in PIne Hills, we meet Gunner, a bright kid who loves drawing comic books, but he has trouble connecting with his father (Oyelowo), so when he has an idea that might help his sick mother, he goes off with a head-strong teen named Jo, in search of the Water Man, a summertime adventure permeated by a lot of very bad low-budget visual effects.

Honestly, I’m not even sure where to begin with where The Water Man falters, because Oyelowo has such a great cast, including Alfred Molina and Maria Bello in tiny parts. The story is a problem, as is the writing, which is just so bland and dull, that there’s really nothing in Oyelowo’s direction or any of the performances that really can salvage it. Neither of the child actors have much charisma or personality, and even Dawson’s performance, which would normally be a showstopper is repeatedly lessened by the constant cutting back to the kids. (And as someone who beat leukemia myself, I’m never a fan when cancer is depicted in movies as a death sentence rather than just another hurdle in life that needs to be overcome.)

Oyelowo himself may be one of his generation’s best actors, but he brings so little to the role of Gunner’s father, maybe to not take away from his younger star, but it hurts that he doesn’t do more to create a stronger conflict by making the character more horrible to drive Gunner away. The actual Water Man doesn’t improve things when he finally shows up, essentially talking like a pirate but not even remotely paying off.

Honestly, The Water Man seems like such a misguided venture -- Exec. Produced by Oprah, no less -- and it might have been totally forgettable if the characters didn’t keep saying the title of the movie every five minutes.

Hitting theaters Friday after a festival run is Tran Quoc Bao’s action-comedy THE PAPER TIGERS (WELL GO USA), starring ALain Uy, Ron Yuan and Mikel Shannon Jenkins as martial artists once known as “the three tigers but now middle-aged men must set aside old grudges and dad duties to avenge the murder of their teacher. I’ve had a screener of this since last summer when it played at Fantasia Festival in Montreal, and I just never got around to watching it, but if I’m able to squeeze it in before the weekend, check back here for my review.

Streaming on Shudder this Friday is Ryan Kruger's South African comedy-thriller FRIED BARRY (Shudder), starring Gary Green as Barry, a violent street junkie who is abducted by aliens who take over his body in order to… well, actually… they do a lot of drugs, have a lot of sex and other craziness. It’s a pretty strange and bizarre movie that reminds me a little of movies like a lower-fi Under the Skin or Beyond the Black Rainbow, and much of it is driven by the insane and unique performance by Green and the odd characters he encounters that I think will find its fans for sure, but it will definitely be for a very select audience of genre festival fans, as this is by no means a mainstream genre film.

Speaking of which, another movie out this week which I wasn’t allowed to see in advance is Gia Coppola’s MAINSTREAM (IFC Films), starring Maya Hawke as a young woman seeking internet stardom by making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger, played by Andrew Garfield, until “the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.” Yup, it’s one of THOSE movies. It also stars Nat Wolff, Jason Schwartzman and Johnny Knoxville, but I haven’t heard anything good about it, and I’m not sure my curiosity is piqued enough to spend any of my own personal money to check it out.

Hitting Amazon on Friday is the doc THE BOY FROM MEDELLIN (Amazon) from Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts, Cartel Land), a portrait of musical superstar J. Balvin, as he prepares for a massive sold-out stadium show in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia, which is hindered by the growing civil unrest in the area.

Lots of other movies this week, but a few that i just wasn’t able to get to this week, including:

ABOVE SUSPICION (Lionsgate) INITIATION (Saban Films) ENFANT TERRIBLE (Dark Star Pictures) QUEEN MARIE (Samuel Goldwyn Films) SILO (Oscilloscope) CITIZEN PENN (Discovery+)

That’s it for this week. Next week, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson star in SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (Lionsgate) and Angelina Jolie returns for the thriller THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (New Line) and Timur Bekmambetov’s thriller, PROFILE (Focus Features). That’s right. This will be the first weekend in over a year where we’ll have three or maybe even four new wide releases.

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #WrathOfMan #HereToday #Monster #The Unthinkable #TheWaterMan

2 notes · View notes

tearlessrain · 3 years

Text

30 questions tag game

Tagged by: @mercurypilgrim (thanks!)

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 5 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better.

Name/nickname: I’ve been going by tearless/tearlessrain for so long that a friend once called me that in person and I did not notice that it wasn’t my name until they said something. but I also have a lot of other names, only two of which have legal relevance.

Gender: male

Star sign: virgo, but I’ve been told by the local astrology gays that I’m also an aquarius moon and that it “explains a lot”

Height: 5′2

Birthday: a secret. I do not like being the center of attention.

Time: it’s like 3:40am. I will experience deep regret tomorrow, and I will learn nothing from this.

Favorite bands: queen feels like a cop out but like I’m never really not in the mood to listen to queen. linkin park, unironically. and all the different permutations of the crosby/stills/nash/young/simon/garfunkle cloud.

A few I am currently listening to, though: I can’t really call out specific bands/artists because I’m mostly listening to my oc playlists lately (I literally can’t stay in a bad mood listening to riska’s playlist and that’s just the energy I need in my life right now).

Favorite solo artists: (all together now) david bowie. also hozier and joni mitchell.

Song stuck in my head: O Come All Ye Faithful, in latin, for some fucking reason. it’s been there for days. send help.

Last movie: Kung Fu Panda, discord server was having a movie night.

Last show: WandaVision but I’m behind on it (loved the first two episodes but now I can feel the Marvel-ness looming again and I dread it)

When did I create this blog: god I don’t even remember, I’ve been here since the first age and never changed accounts/urls so like. around ten years now I think.

What do I post: whatever the hell passes through my brain from moment to moment, I can’t believe anyone follows me. lately a lot of rambling about my swtor ocs, sometimes it’s tolkien/silmarillion content, sometimes I liveblog terrible movies on purpose, sometimes it’s isaac asimov hours, sometimes just shitposting or unsolicited opinions about completely random things I’m not qualified to talk about. the only thing I can be relied on to provide is reblogs of ocean and horse photos, but not on any kind of consistent schedule.

Last thing googled: celtic invasion of portugal. I got slightly sidetracked from something else I was doing.

Other blogs: I’ve got art over at @tearlessrainart, horny art over at @a-world-of-osha-violations, and a little pile of extremely specific sideblogs I rarely use.

Do I get asks: not often, but those I do get are appreciated. except you, ray bans bot. I don’t appreciate you.

Why I chose my url: I originally used it as a deviantart handle (still there) because it wasn’t taken and I liked the overall way it sounded, and kept it because it’s rarely taken anywhere. and now it’s been ten years so like it’s stuck at this point.

Following: 305

Followers: 1392 which is far more than I deserve given my wildly inaccessible blogging style

Average hours of sleep: 7-8 hours usually but my actual sleep schedule skews late. I’ve never been one of those people who can skate by on 5 hours and be functional, if I get less than 6 hours I am absolutely useless and was that way even in high school/college when everyone else was pulling all nighters and shit.

Lucky number: I honestly have never understood lucky numbers, and how much I like any given number is solely dependent on how appealing its colors are according to my synesthesia. if anyone’s wondering, 420 is a hideously tacky blue/orange clusterfuck, but 69 is pleasantly greyscale.

Instruments: I play the flute, in that I own a flute that I was pretty good at playing in high school and can, if I choose, still play notes on it. I also own a melodica but I cannot play it, which to be clear does not stop me from playing it.

What am I wearing: pajama pants and a sith cloak. which sounds like a joke but I do actually own a set of sith robes and the cloak happens to be warm and very comfortable so I just kinda. wear it around the house sometimes in the winter.

Dream job: ornamental lighthouse hermit who may or may not be a wizard.

more realistically though I’m hoping to go into sfx makeup and cosmetology (I was like a week away from getting my license when the apocalypse hit)

Dream trip: I’d love to visit australia and new zealand, would also very much like to go back to scotland and possibly just not leave scotland.

Favorite food: sushi, specifically good salmon nigiri. god it’s so good. smeagol was right.

Nationality: regrettably, american.

Favorite song: god I have no idea. uh. I really like the boy in the bubble by paul simon. something about the visuals in that song speak to me.

Last book read: rereading The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov, which is a terrible book that I nonetheless subject myself to periodically because I like all the books around it a lot. I need to start on Robots and Empire but shit’s been going down recently so I haven’t been reading much.

Top three fictional universes I’d like to live in:

okay LIVE IN is a very different question from “universes I think are neat” because like. I love the whole thing firefly has going on but I wouldn’t survive it for more than five minutes. so with that in mind:

1. middle earth but like, the shire during the third age specifically.

2. I think I would enjoy being a legend of zelda npc. I could just be a weird little potion seller who lives in a tree or something. or maybe an inexplicably sexy fish man. or better yet, the inexplicably sexy fish man’s husband, who sells potions. yeah I’ve got my fictional life here completely figured out now, this is good. I would also own an extremely chonky horse.

3. one of the ones I made up, specifically the one that involves a lot of gryphons and interdimensional bullshit. more specifically the origin universe of said gryphons, which exists at the heart of an extremely complicated multiverse that includes both earth and at least one fantasy world but is part of neither. anyway it’s a nice place.

Tagging: @raemanzu @sith-nb @vampiraptor @nyriad @crypticspren

(only if you want to of course)

#long post #tag meme

5 notes · View notes

antoralisblog · 4 years

Text

Recent Content

SALES

10 Obvious Signs It’s Time to Consider a CPQ Solution

As a leading vendor of configure, price, and quote (CPQ) solutions, we at Oracle see what triggers companies to begin investigating...

SALES

How Clean Is Your Sales and Marketing Data?

A Complimentary Data Health Scan for Oracle Sales and Marketing Customers Today, nearly 52% of data in the CRM is inaccurate and 40% of all...

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY

From Concept to Constant Innovation: The 7 Steps Behind Oracle’s Journey Into Community Development

The decision to enter a new market is often not easy to make. It requires a thoughtful approach of r...

prevnext

Oracle

Site Map

Legal Notices

Privacy

Cookie Preferences

Ad Choices

Oracle Content Marketing Login

1 note · View note

quizmeghan · 4 years

Text

#12

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? more cereal than milk - nothing worse than soggy cereal.

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? love it!

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? it used to be whatever was to hand but now I don’t use them and just remember the page number.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? I haaaaaate coffee, if I was drinking normal tea (which is rare for me), i’d have it with a little milk and two sugars, but my go-to hot drink these days is lemon and ginger tea.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? i’m self-conscious about every part of my body.

6: do you keep plants? not even plastic ones.

7: do you name your plants? see above. but if I did have them, i’d definitely name them.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? does colouring in count? that or I dabble in writing but i’m not good at that and I haven’t tried it in a really long time.

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? always!

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? on my front with one leg propped up at a 90 degree angle hahah.

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? probably just quoting movies alllllll the time.

12: what’s your favorite planet? pluto! i also kinda love Saturn? also quite like Jupiter and Neptune.

13: what’s something that made you smile today? I had to get a bandage over my eye, but to hold it in place properly it was wrapped around my head and I laughed at myself as I was leaving hospital cos I could only imagine what I looked like.

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? the flat itself? probably very high ceilings as they’re all like that here. I do like the idea of a more modern one that's like, loads of glass everywhere. i’d like a flat to feel quite spacious too.

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! i’m too lazy to google and if I started that I would just read space facts all night, however I do know this one; if you screamed to someone next to you in space they wouldn't be able to hear you, as space is totally silent. you need air to carry sound vibrations, and there’s none of that in space. that’s mind-blowing!

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? anything with pasta in it really. I am partial to an arrabiata though.

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? I miss it being purple. i’d like to have gone for some sort of aqua-blue in my younger years, but it’s probably just as well I didn’t - I hardly have any healthy hair left because I dye it so much.

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. I do stupid things all the time so there’s no really good example, but one that springs to mind is when I got my hand trapped in a bus door when I was trying to get off haha.

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? no.

20: what’s your favorite eye color? I don’t have a preference.

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. my current favourite bag hasn’t really been to hell and back with me, but it is my newest one and I absolutely adore it. it’s a really nice shade of blue leather and the interior is like a baby pink colour, and it was a Christmas gift, and it goes perfectly with the majority of my outfits.

22: are you a morning person? not really.

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? eat and watch Disney or Netflix.

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? yep.

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? I've never broken into anywhere.

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? these days it’s just my one pair of skechers that I wore to work all the time. that or I have an older pair of ugg boots that I now use to wear around the house as a form of slippers.

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? I only really eat chewing gum, and it has to be blue extra!

28: sunrise or sunset? depends on my mood. right now i’d go for sunrise.

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? on every occasion where I've gotten some good news (both examples here are for when I got accepted into college/uni courses that I've wanted for YEARS), she’s written me out a card - or a page on a notebook and sent a picture - and it has congratulations and little notes of encouragement on them.

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? yes.

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. ok, here we go. I have many thoughts on this. socks must be worn at ALL TIMES when you are wearing shoes, and the only exception to this rule is if you are wearing flip-flops or something similar (and if that’s the case then your toenails need to be painted, but that’s a whole other story). i’ll NOT have this not wearing socks with trainers rubbish. I don’t really like socks being visible when you’re wearing trainers or boots (unless it’s the cut socks with boots that have the ruffles or something), so I almost exclusively wear those invisible socks. the idea of mixing white/black shoes with the opposite colour socks unsettles me greatly, but if they’re invisible it’s not as big a deal. odd socks didn't bother me when I was younger, but now they’re a giant no from me. and finally, fluffy bed socks are a necessity when you’re in your pj’s or loungewear. they are also the only acceptable socks that you can wear in bed; sometimes I wear them and sometimes I don’t, but I would NEVER wear normal socks to bed. I told you I had many feelings about this hahah.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. probably just drinking - we don’t tend to stay up that late unless we’re on a night out lol.

33: what’s your fave pastry? ngl, I love croissants.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? my all-time favourite teddy when I was younger was a postman pat one that my younger sister ‘brought’ me when she was born. there was his black and white cat teddy too but that got lost when we moved house when I was 4. I do still have the postman pat one somewhere, i’m sure my mum kept it. other favourites of mine included a Quasimodo and an esmarelda but I don’t have them anymore.

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Y E S. and i’m constantly buying more for college and uni. and i’m about to start teacher training and the stationary part of that job ALONE is enough to make it a dream job.

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? I've been in a real 5sos mood recently if that counts?

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? I obviously much prefer it when it’s clean, however it’s the getting to that stage that I hate.

38: tell us about your pet peeves! people who don’t remove the labels from the bottom of their shoes. people who chew loudly or with their mouths opened (SERIOUSLY). those are the first two that came to mind and the thoughts alone are enough to rile me up so i’m gonna stop there haha.

39: what color do you wear the most? black or blue.

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? my mum and dad bought me a pandora necklace; it’s a long black rope one with a large panda sort of charm/pendant hanging from it. I don’t wear it often. they bought me it when I graduated from uni in Edinburgh, and the panda is relevant because during my time there was the time that the two giant panda’s came to Edinburgh zoo. I always like that story.

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? harry potter was the last one I (re)read (fu jk rowling), and i’m pretty sure the hp books are the only books I've ever reread so i’ll just go for them.

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! I don’t drink hot drinks, so no. although there is a starbucks in our local cinema and I always love going in there cos the folk who work there are lovely.

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? myself.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? ooft, I don’t think I've ever felt that.

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? yes, they usually tend to be right.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. my dad is so bad for these so I should be able to think of something, but nothing’s springing to mind.

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? BANANAS. or even better - BANANAS on PIZZA. curse to hell the idiot who came up with that - that fucker should be burned at the stake.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? the ocean. and yes. the vastness and darkness of it all actually makes me feel physically sick. even thinking about it now has given me that sort of feeling of PURE DREAD in the pit of my stomach. and also sharks. just a massive nope for me.

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? I don’t even have a means of playing cd’s anymore, but the last one I bought was all time low’s new album wake up sunshine, which got delivered a few days ago. I already bought the album on iTunes, but I wanted a physical copy of the cd too.

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? the only thing I collect (now) is concert tickets. before, I literally would keep every cinema ticket ever. I had tickets from films that were out in ‘06.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? I thought of my mum and then I immediately thought of follow the yellow brick road from the wizard of oz because it’s her favourite film.

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? all of the memes have been covid-related and they got real old real fast.

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? literally, I've seen half of pulp fiction and that’s it.

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? my bestie.

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? i’d only ever be dramatic in talking hypothetically, so I've never really carried out anything that could prove a point (that I can think of, I may be wrong), but I can get pretty dramatic when ranting so...

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? people’s laughs.

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? I don’t need to listen to it to know it makes me feel extra haha. and if you don’t dramatically reenact the lyrics, have you even truly listened to the song?

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? ok the wine mom could be one of two of my friends, because one really is a mother and could probably do with a few glasses of wine, and the other is just the mother of the group, and the remaining friend is the vodka aunt. and there’s no real reason, she just is the fun aunt who would buy her nieces drink when they’re underaged.

59: what’s your favorite myth? ohhh,that some people think humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time. HOW can that be true? these people blow my mind. also, one that we spoke about recently in college; that there is an autism pandemic. not true, we’ve simply come up with better ways and means of testing and/or diagnosing. many people diagnosed nowadays are adults who were misdiagnosed as children, and that’s a major factor in why there seems to be a spike. just interesting.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? I don’t really like it.

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? the stupidest one I've ever given wasn’t really stupid but more funny, which was beard baubles for my dad at christmas, and one of the stupidest one I've ever received what a keyring which was one of those balls of fluff, but it had like, a small baby doll’s face in it. it was terrifying.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? either water or a little diluting juice.

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? I don’t have many of either, but they’re all alphabetical, by author/artist then by title.

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? practically black as it’s nearly 1am.

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? yeh but that’s a definite no-go.

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? there’d be some green, yellow, pink/purple, white, maybe blue. some daisy’s would be nice.

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? depends on the season because if it’s autumn then I like it but if it’s summer then it sucks.

68: what’s winter like where you live? honestly? just the same as literally every other season - in Scotland you get four seasons in a day most days.

69: what are your favorite board games? I used to love this harry potter game I had which was similar to cluedo. anything that’s a quiz I like.

70: have you ever used a ouija board? noooooo and I never will. they’re also legit banned from my house.

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? lemon and ginger.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? definitely.

73: what are some of your worst habits? being forgetful and clumsy.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. uhhh they’re fab and I love them, and physically they have naturally brown hair dyed blonde and blue eyes.

75: tell us about your pets! in my lifetime my family have owened almost 30 pets including budgies, fish, hamsters, cats, dogs, lovebirds and gerbils. I only have one living pet now who is an all black cat. we had a doggo who was the best doggo in all the land and I miss him so much.

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? sleeping.

77: pink or yellow lemonade? i’m partial to some pink lemonade.

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? fanclub. KING BOB!

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? probably a very nice or thoughtful gift.

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? they’re pink, and I have two large mdf boards which are a mint green. and I did choose them, just under a year ago we were decorating the house and I fancied a change. shocked me to my core tbh cos pink is definitely not a colour i’d have thought to pick, but the pink and green match in really well with the grey I have picked out for soft furnishings and my white furniture so i’m happy.

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. i’m not gonna do that i’m so tired.

82: are/were you good in school? I was, I still give myself a complex when there’s even the smallest possibility of rule-breaking.

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? probably an all time low related one?

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I have five already, but I have a list of more that I want in my phone. they’re all mostly small ones.

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? I don’t.

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? the only one I think I've ever heard is pink floyd’s the wall, and honestly, i’m not fussed either way. I may have heard more but just don’t know.

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? high school musical. everyone needs to understand the hype.

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? ...no.

89: are you close to your parents? yeah.

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. I like venice, London, Edinburgh but also Glasgow. got to have the hometown.

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? literally fuckin’ nowhere except to and from uni. thanks covid for blessing us w your presence.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? drowns. always drowns.

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? messy bun. i’m lazy. if it’s down though I tend to curl it.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? my friend.

95: what are your plans for this weekend? oh, big plans. i’m gonna paint my nails and help my mum konmari her drawers and wardrobes. big, biiig plans.

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? on my last laptop I procrastinated on them so much that they would forcibly shut down my computer and install themselves eventually, to the point where it would take over 7 hours to do it, until I eventually gave up on it. with my new one though I do it right away and it’s done in seconds. believe me; lesson learned.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? isfj; aquarius; slytherclaw (I was slytherin for years, and then was resorted as ravenclaw, and now every time I take one of those buzzfeed percentage ones, I get almost 25% per house, so I just chose to combine the two official sortings I got and be done with it).

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? wouldn’t say hike really, but last year at least, and I do enjoy that sort of stuff.

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. safe, six feet under the stars, and weightless, all by all time low, reckless by youmeatsix, December by neck deep.

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? if I went into the past I could fix a couple of monumental mistakes just to see if my theories of how things would have worked out are correct, but if I went into the future i’d with any luck be in my dream job so that’s a tricky one. the way i’m feeling right now i’d lean towards the past.

#12 #quiz #source: tumblr

2 notes · View notes

befinanciallysavvy-blog · 4 years

Text

How To Promote Your Business On Social Media

The world has come a long way further from promotions being just through the daily newspaper or brochures and posters stuck on walls and telephone poles. The world has developed, and life has become much more advanced than ever before, and it keeps growing constantly. The modern new era is the era of the internet, where everything has become digital and life has been much a whole lot easier through this absolute gift, a blessing that we regard as the technology of internet. In the modern new world, businesses and firms are turning to the internet and social media for the promotion of their business because that is where the masses are. And the main target for running a business is the masses, as we all are aware of. How do social media and business work with each other? Let us discuss.

How Does Social Media Help You Promote Your Business?

Social media provides a bunch of options to spend your time on. Posting pictures, browsing through interesting content for hours, updating yourself with the latest news, staying in touch with your friends, all that and much more is available on any social media platform. But that is not all that social media is for. In fact, it is one of the best and most efficient platforms to promote your business. Social media platforms enable you access to quick promotion by setting up short and quick posts and sending instant messages, which is a much quicker, structured, and effective method of getting your business in the eyes of the people.

Why Should You Promote Your Business on Social Media Platforms?

Well, a key factor in the growth of any business is that reaches more and more audience, so that a larger number of people become aware of your business. The best method to do so that pays off well is to target where there is a sizeable number of people. And the answer to that is social media. It has been widely observed that a very large fraction of the whole world’s population spends a considerable amount of the time of their day. That means that your business, if you promote and advertise it well enough, is bound to reach the eyes of the masses, thus helping you achieve your goal.

How to Promote Your Business on Social Media Platforms?

Advertisements, informative videos, announcements, sponsorships, there are so many ways that one can utilize to promote their business on social media and become a social media manager. Let us walk you through some of these ways.

#1 Sponsored Ads on Facebook:

Facebook allows the users, specially business pages and accounts, to advertise their business on the platform. Here is how these ads work: the companies or business firms create advertisements with their relevant information. The ads then play at the beginning of or during the videos that play on Facebook, making the watcher aware of your business and offers. Another benefit of this method of advertisement is that the more clicks and views that you get due to these ads, the more money you make. So, this way, not only do you expand the audience of your business but you also make money. This is a two in one, promotion and money-making strategy.

#2 Advertisement Stories on Instagram:

Many of you must have noticed that when you are going through the Instagram stories of the users that you follow on the platform, there suddenly pops up another story from a user that you do not recognize. Then you realize that it is an advertisement by a business firm, a service, or some institutions. You might even find something that piques your interest and click on the links given in the ad, which leads you to the main page of the business’ website. This is how businesses advertise themselves on social media platforms and attract the audience. The good thing is that it can work the other way around too, so feel free to use this method for your business too.

#3 Send Out Your Business Links on Twitter:

The best social media platform to send out quick messages about your business and/or its promotional offers is Twitter. With its limited characters option, it helps you in composing well-structured and concise tweets (short message posts) and let people know about what is going on currently and what is hot and happening in your business. A significant percentage of the population that is a frequent user of the various social media platforms have been observed to turn to Twitter to get the most recent news of the political and business world and update themselves. That is how your business can pass through their eyes and gain promotion. Moreover, you can also be updated on the latest news via Twitter and see what you can find to benefit your business.

#4 Create A Complete LinkedIn Profile:

LinkedIn is the one social media platform that is immediately brought into the conversation and referred to when the topic of said discussion is business and work. With a complete, sophisticated, and effective profile on LinkedIn, you can not only find helpful work for your business but people can also find your work. For example, if you are looking to hire, you can post an advertisement on LinkedIn. From there, the right and relevant candidates can find your business, which will make it more popular than it would have had been before.

#5 Post Descriptive Videos About Your Business:

It has been commonly observed that most people, specially those among the number of frequent social media users, prefer to view pictures than read long posts. And if it comes to getting information about something or some business, they prefer to watch videos instead of having to go over long articles. Plus, the graphics and the engagement in the videos make it a more attractive experience for the user. Therefore, it is a smart idea to post descriptive videos about your business rather than time-taking, lengthy articles. With interesting visuals and descriptions, videos can work wonders in promoting your business and keep the consumer engaged.

#6 Make Frequent Posts:

One thing that advocates about the activeness and dedication of any business is how frequently it updated its profiles and social media interactions. How responsive it is, also acts as a contributing factor in the reputation and face of the business. So, if you have social media or website extension of your business (which is the best thing to do in this fast-paced and digital world) make sure to make frequent posts on it and keep your followers updated on what is currently going on in your business and let them know of any promotions and deals if you are offering any. With frequent posts, let your consumers know how they can benefit from your business.

#7 Upload Pictures About Certain Aspects of Your Business:

As we have mentioned before, frequent social media users prefer to view pictures than read long posts. Good thing is that you can utilize this fact to promote your business. Post pictures on your business’ social platform that portray and describe certain aspects of your business. This way, the users of your business and the followers of your social media accounts, whether they are new or old and loyal, can know more and more about what your business is all about. This also creates the opportunity for you to make frequent posts on your social media and keep it active.

#8 Interact with Your Consumers:

Nothing keeps a customer more loyal to a business than an excellent and satisfying customer to business interaction. This makes the customer well understood and valued. And any business that values its customers runs further in the business industry and succeeds rapidly and majorly. Customers also turn to the conversation support offered by the business in case of any questions or confusion, and fulfilling customer support can promise more loyal customers to the business. Make sure to keep an active team or agent ready to provide steady customer support, and ensure interactive posts on your social media.

#9 Find Out the Customers’ Interests:

Customers and consumers will only be attracted to your business if they find something that matches their needs or interest. Through your business social media accounts, make polls and questionnaires regarding the customer’s interest and target your business towards their answers. This will also tick the “interact with your customers” box for your business.

#10 Stream Ads on YouTube:

YouTube has a humongous amount of traffic, and that is why it is the best place to advertise your business. With an advertisement plan, YouTube streams ads about your business in other videos which brings your business in people’s acknowledgment.

Ever since social media was introduced and made popular, it has been growing more and more every day, specially the major market-monsters like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. In today’s era, the best move is to digitize your business and never stop promoting it. Use these tips on how to promote your business on social media and get growing.

#investing money #social media marketing

1 note · View note

myrelationshipwithanarcissist · 4 years

Text

I met my partner 9 years ago at a New Year’s Eve party. We didn’t speak too much that night, but myself and my friend that were at the party we’re friends with two of the guys that he hung around with. Somehow I ended up with his number and we started texting a lot. He picked myself and my friend up a few times (he lived 45 minutes away) and we stayed down his area at his friends, went McDonald’s etc. We got on really well and of course it was flirty, but nothing in particular happened. I always remember being on the bus texting him and he told me he’d give me a baby. But things between us went quiet, I can’t remember why. Looking back on it I assume it’s just because he had a girlfriend (which I didn’t know at the time) and she probably saw the messages between us. Either way, we stopped talking. Two months later I had met someone else and got into a relationship with them. I won’t go into much detail, but the guy was an absolute arsehole (I seem to attract them. Probably due to my own arsehole of a father). I ended up falling pregnant at 17, and as typical story goes, he cheated, then ditched us. Throughout the years he came in and out as he pleased and we had a very toxic relationship (even though we weren’t together). In 2016 he left for good and we haven’t seen him since (other than the odd times I’ve seen him in public but we haven’t spoken). Since then he’s got married and had another kid (although also recently ditched that woman as well, no idea about the kid. If you’re wondering how i know this when we have no contact, it’s because I’m extremely close with his mum and my kid sees her regularly and his mum has nothing to do with him, but knows through her own mum who he is now living with. It’s complicated, I know.) this information is relevant because of certain behaviours and comments from my partner. Anyway, back to my current partner. Throughout the years we would end up messaging again. There would be flirting and just general talk. We’d always discuss meeting up but it would never happen, as he was still in another city at uni and when he came home he was in a relationship with someone else. He would also make sexual jokes to me sometimes, and out of awkwardness of not killing the conversation, I’d go along with it in a jokey way, but make it clear that obviously it wasn’t going to happen. He never pushed it majorly, but would make ‘jokes’ that we’d have to have meaningless sex at least once, because apparently our sex would be incredible.

(Every time I press enter it leaves a massive gap for some reason?!)

About three and a half years ago I was in a sort of relationship with this other guy. Nothing serious. More friends than anything that just hung out a lot. But we went to the cinema to watch the film ‘why him’ .. (the irony of it still makes me laugh) when I ended up seeing my current partner there with one of his friends. My face lit up seeing him because we’d always gotten on really well and I said hey and I think I gave him a cuddle I’m not sure? (This will come up in a future argument). When I was back at home I messaged him saying it was great seeing him, hope he was okay etc. It’s important to add that the messages were not flirty, and I did not invite him to come over or plan anything that would be considered inappropriate.

I’ve just realised it’s very important I add this in. When my daughter was two, I ended up moving into my own place with her. During that time I spent every evening alone as she was always in bed by 7. I became very comfortable with myself as a person, and my own company. I became someone that wouldn’t take shit from guys - other than my daughters father unfortunately, I was still a mug for him and would go running back every time he showed his face as I was desperate for my daughter to have a father I never had - and I honestly just had no interest in being with anyone. Sure I innocently flirted, and sometimes guys thought I was flirting purely because I was able to be myself and joke and laugh with them when flirting was the last thing on my mind. But I always made it clear I had no interest in anything. Not casual sex, not a relationship. Most of the time I couldn’t even commit to texting people regularly because I just preferred keeping to myself. I also knew that if my ex would come back, I’d go running to him, so I never wanted to get in a relationship with someone when I knew i was still a mug for my ex. But I genuinely couldn’t go more than a few days of talking to people consistently, it drained me. And I got fed up with guys seeing me as a challenge because I would tell them I wasn’t interested in anything, yet they thought they could change it. I was fed up with people creating this idea of me in their head and falling for that, rather than actually getting to know me for who I really was. For once I just wanted someone to actually take the time to get to know me for me, and want me for me. Not the idea of me that they’ve created. My depression also got pretty bad during this time and I struggled to find motivation to do anything and spent a lot of time in bed. This will also come up later.

A few months after seeing him at the cinema, we were both single. He’d sent me a video on Facebook and we got talking, and he mentioned how the last time we had spoken, I’d just stopped out of nowhere so he asked me what my deal was and I just explained, like I have above. He seemed pretty cool and understanding about it. The conversation continued and somehow we ended up arranging going out for drinks together. The night came and it was okay. We got on easily and had some laughs and made some jokes. In the car home we got talking about nudes or something, and I showed him a picture of me in my underwear. I did this because I hated my body, so when I got photos where it looked good, I liked to show it off a little to make me feel better about myself based on their reactions, and to obviously come off more confident than what I was. But nothing happened, and I went home to relieve my mum of baby sitting duties. The next day I was in town with my mum, and he kept texting me, but due to obviously being out and busy and my mum having a go at me for being rude every time I went on my phone, I wasn’t as into the conversation. This caused him to become insecure and arsy with me even though I explained that I was out with my mum, but he thought I was making up excuses and just didn’t want to text him, and in my head I was like oh fuck this, this is way too much energy and hassle. So I ended up ghosting him. I still had him on social media, I just didn’t text him back etc. I mean honestly his reaction there should’ve been enough of a red flag for me to stay the hell away.

Alas, a year came and went. During that time we had odd conversations as we had similar interests. Then I found myself craving social interaction, which is very rare to me. I think something had been said between us recently and I started to think about him, so I put out a snapchat story set so only he could see it, basically saying I was bored. He messaged me. We started chatting. He bought up me ghosting him. I explained that there was just too much expectation for something more and it caused me to close up. I wasn’t ready for something like that at that point of my life. I told him i just wanted to be friends, to build up a proper close friendship so we really knew each other before jumping in blindly. He was understanding. He said well let’s hang out as friends then. I was more than down with that. He came over one night. We chilled and we chatted. He was respectful, he didn’t try anything and we got on really well. He came and chilled the next night. Same again. He then showed an interest in meeting my daughter and since we were just friends, I was cool with it.

Now because of the whole issue with my daughters dad, she is very wary of men. It takes a lot for her to talk to them. And even then she does not trust them, she does not like being touched by them (no, she was not sexually abused; she would just see that due to my anxiety I did not like to be touched, and unfortunately that rubbed off on her). Like she would never admit that she loved or even liked a man, even when it’s clear she did.

He came over, gave her a peace offering of a hagrid pop figure. She started to come out of her shell. They quickly clicked and bonded over pokemon. She adored him. He was incredible with her. Understanding, respectful, playful, patient. He’d play with her and he had a great imagination. They pretty much fell in love with each other. (She was 6 at this time) And obviously my kid is the key to my heart. Win her over and treat her amazingly and that’s it, I’m yours. So things became more relationship orientated than friendship. In my head I was like, well I’ve known this guy for years, we get on really well and we have loads in common. I’m myself around him and he seems to like that. I made it clear though that it was to go very slow, I didn’t want him staying over, I didn’t want to have sex with him until I knew things were serious and we’d lasted a few months. He told me he understood and he was fine with it, although he would make sexual jokes.

After his second time of seeing my daughter, after she had gone to bed, we were sat on opposite ends of the sofa like always. Then he asked if he could have a cuddle. I obliged even though I felt anxious about being touched at first. But for some reason I felt comfortable once we’d settled into a cuddle. Like it felt right. He then kissed me. I was disappointed. Not because it was a rubbish kiss, it wasn’t. But I had wanted a build up. All the tension of taking things slow but really wanting to kiss until suddenly it’s the perfect moment and BAM, fireworks and romance - which he knew. (I read a lot of books and had very high expectations of relationships and love) and that didn’t happen, but I rationalised that this was real life and it doesn’t always go how we planned. This was my first stupid compromise. Of course it wasn’t long until he started getting extremely intense with the kissing, and of course began thinking with his dick like all men do. But I was adamant and kept saying no, so he stopped, but would try every night. Getting more and more insistent and pushing boundaries. Huge red flag. Should’ve paid more attention. But I was too blinded by his relationship with my daughter and how comfortable and easy things were with him. Eventually I just gave in because I stupidly ended up feeling bad for repeatedly saying no. Stupid compromise number two that I will always regret. There was no meaning behind it. I didn’t feel any particular passion. It certainly wasn’t what I expected or wanted. I mean for god sake, it was a quickie on the sofa. I was fuming with myself. And yet I should’ve been fuming with him. Already, this strong independent woman I had spent years carefully building was just falling apart.

The next thing was staying over. He still lived 45 minutes away and he started complaining about how much petrol he was using and all his miles. He started to guilt trip me and make me feel bad. I tried saying that it was too fast and would be confusing for Gracie-mae. But he still continued to make me feel bad. Saying how it would only be on the weekend, so that he could spend more time with us. I gave in. Compromise number 3. It wasn’t long until he’d moved in half of his stuff and rarely went home. I couldn’t ask for space because he would get all insecure when I would even so much as mention about having time alone. Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with him after all? I mean he wants to spend every minute with me, and every minute that we weren’t together due to work, we had to be texting. And if I wanted space it must mean that I don’t care about him the way he does me. Although at this point he wasn’t as blatant and obvious as this. That was like month 2/3 that he started saying his toxic shit straight (which shows that people really do show their true colours after 3 months because they can’t keep up with the charade). So I didn’t get time alone. I didn’t even get to spend proper time with my daughter without having to be on my phone texting him. Another thing I hate myself for.

I can’t remember much other details about the first few months except a few occasions. I remember vaguely that I had said about the whole space thing because I was overwhelmed with constantly being around him as I was used to having my own space, and he got distant and got his stuff and left. He then texted me saying he didn’t think he could do this, the whole kid thing was a lot to take on etc. He also started a guilt trip of saying that he felt like he’d thrown himself into this relationship and felt stupid for doing so because I hadn’t done it back - because I wanted alone time. Actually; I’ve looked at screenshots and one of my messages say ‘is this all because I won’t let you stay over and have sex with you’. So yeah. Of course I was completely blinded at this point and the thought of losing someone I was so comfortable with, and who was so amazing with my daughter was just not something I wanted to accept. Looking back on it I should’ve just let him leave because my reaction then set an expectation for him. He liked having me beg and fight for him. Huge red flag. Another argument was when we’d gone to the beach one day with my mum and sister and her kids. He wanted to stay at mine when we were back but I was like no not tonight, I’ve got work tomorrow etc. He threw a massive tantrum. Can’t remember the specifics. But then he sent me a guilt tripping message saying “I just want you to know that every moment I don’t get to be with you I feel is wasted. So I was so pissed off that I couldn’t stay with you last night. I absolutely adore the ground you walk on and I can’t get enough of everything about you” seems like a pretty cute and romantic message right? I thought so too. But when someone is using that as an excuse for why they’ve got pissed off and taken it out on you, it’s a massive red flag. Another time, my mum came over to help sort out my garden (she’s a career and so constantly working and whenever she’s not at work she always helps myself and my sister out off her own back. The most giving and selfless person ever). And my partner was over, yet he refused to do anything to help us out. Literally nothing. He just went upstairs to go on his ps4. (At this point I would just like to point out that he was 28 at the time). Now yes; he had just had a massive back tattoo done, so I dismissed it and was understanding. But he didn’t try to use that as an excuse at first. No. His first response was that this wasn’t his house (even though he’d pretty much moved in), so why should he spend his valuable time digging up my garden? Yup. This is coming from a guy that constantly spouts shit about being kind to everyone, believes in karma, the universe, agrees with Buddhism and has “warm heart & kind soul” in his bio. Funny that.

Then the jealousy started to come to light. Not just jealousy though. Extreme trust issues. To make it worse, my sexuality is very fluid. I personally could date anyone if I found them attractive and got on with them and enjoyed their company. Male, female, penis, vagina etc. Didn’t bother me. But then I would go through phases where I just didn’t find anyone attractive, mentally or physically. The thought of a romantic and sexual relationship was a huge no to me. But just the fact that I didn’t care about gender was a huge thing for him. It meant he had more than just men to be worried about apparently. Even though I had explained to him that I didn’t go out my way to fuck and date people when I was single, so why on earth would I suddenly start doing it now I’m in a relationship? But it didn’t matter to him. I couldn’t be trusted. Why? Because of my reaction to seeing him when I went to the cinema. A loyal person shouldn’t be that excited to see another guy. Even though I never flirted or tried to get him to come over. Another reason? Because me and my best friend are extremely close, she send half nudes to me so I can say whether they’re good or not, we frequently tell each other we love each other and we peck each other hello and goodbye. He generally didn’t like our relationship. Even though I’ve known her since I was 10. Even though she’s straighter than uncooked spaghetti. Even though I was in a committed relationship to him. Another reason? I’m too friendly and other people might think I’m flirting with them. Honestly I can’t even think of all the reasons. But apparently I come across as a very untrustworthy person. Despite the fact that he was the one liking half naked pictures of girls and general girls selfies over Instagram and other social media. But obviously I was untrustworthy. I work with children, he’d get funny about the dads that would come to pick up. He started to get funny about me making myself look pretty, because who am I trying to look good for? There’s obviously someone. He would constantly look at my phone when I was on it. He’d always ask who I was messaging. He would think that anytime I wouldn’t have him stay over, it’s because I had someone else over. If I went out without him, he’d want to know if I’d bumped into anyone. I saw his friends in town once and he asked how I looked and what was said, then called me a liar because I didn’t give him every detail of the interaction. He was on a stag do, drunk in some foreign country at a pub, and yet he accused me of being a slut and having someone over, because apparently I sounded sexy on the phone. He wanted me to send him a Snapchat of my bedroom to prove that I was alone, then lost his temper when i refused out of principle. Just a whole lot of jealousy and distrust.

As time went on, arguments became intense and verbally abusive. As someone who lived alone for a very long time I became very intolerant to pointless arguments, I couldn’t be bothered. Just give each other space to calm down then move on. But he couldn’t do that. He needed to get it out in the open there and then, then sort it out. But I just wanted to be left alone. He didn’t like that. He thought I was closing myself off and being distant. He didn’t understand that that was how I dealt with things. So he started to say extremely horrible and nasty things to try and get reactions out of me. Sometimes it would work. He would say about my parenting, call me a shit mum and make digs about how I couldn’t even get out of bed for her once and I just used to sleep all the time. He’d bring up my ex and make digs about him and say he understood why he left, I clearly drove him away etc. He’d make digs at my appearance. Even my family at times. He’d throw in my face that my daughter wasn’t his. Sometimes I’d react, sometimes I wouldn’t. He was then start saying ‘well just break up with me then, kick me out’ etc etc. So each time I’d get up and start to pack his stuff, to whilst he would immediately break down in tears, apologise and beg me not to do this. Sometimes he would even refuse to leave and instead tell me to ring the police. He would steal my phone from me and my favourite teddy that ive had since I was a baby to try and get a reaction. He would honestly just become this completely different person. But he’d beg and beg when he’d seen that he’d push me too far. And I would give in because he wouldn’t leave and I just wanted to sleep because I had work the next morning. It was a lot of late nights. Only for him to pull the same shit over dumb shit I don’t even remember the next night. At one point he even told me that he just wanted to fuck me up mentally and emotionally. I had so many screenshots, but he guilt tripped me into deleting them all, which I regret to this day. The things he said were vile. But it wasn’t always shit, we had pretty great times too. Then it would be like a week or two where everything would kick off. But it became this thing where I had to be so careful with everything I’d say or do just incase it triggered him. I had to make up silly little lies about the dumbest shit to avoid an argument. He’d literally try and trap me to cause an argument and kick off. Like with sex. Oh my fucking god. I won’t get started on that yet.

Back to the jealousy though. We ended up going on holiday just the three of us. And obviously you get entertainers on holiday. There were two specific guys though. One was quite small, but very muscular and a lot of the ladies liked him. The other was flamboyantly gay and I found him fascinating to watch. And obviously they worked together. They were in shows together. So when we watched them, if I watched too intently, he would accuse me of having a thing for the smaller guy, and would say I was trying to catch his attention to flirt with him. Even though I’d never said a word to him. Even though it was the gay guy I was watching. But that would cause arguments. He’d storm off.

But in November 2018 I’d finally had enough. We had been arguing loads over the fact that he was extremely jealous yet he’d constantly like other girls photos. And he would purposely do it to trigger me because he knew I’d see it. And there was this one specific girl he would use because I had a past with her where she tried it on with an ex of mine years back when we were together. And at the same party. We’d gone to the cinema to watch the fantastic beasts film. As we were waiting he was on his phone and went on Facebook where he’d suddenly got a notification saying this girl had accepted his friend request and I snapped. I told him I was done. When we got home I packed all his shit and made him leave. And he did. We didn’t speak for a week and during that time I felt so much better. I was happier, I had more patience for my daughter because I wasn’t constantly stressed and tired from arguing with him. I ended up bumping into an old male friend during that week whilst I was in town. He added me on Snapchat. It just so happens that yes I had slept with him previously, but we had also been very good friends until he’d turned into a sleazy fuck boy. He kept trying to get me to fuck him and i was adamant that I had no interest in it. But of course it was all on snapchat so I had no proof of this. Anyway; during the week that we had broken up, my partner had gone away. We had no contact. When he came back i received a message from him saying that I was right, he needed help and he’d booked intensive sessions with a therapist who specialised in anxiety and anger issues. I was still angry and hurt by him, so I had no interest. But it was shortly after that it was my daughters birthday and he’d messaged me asking if he could drop off presents that he had bought her. Stupidly I said yes. He came over when she was in bed as he said he couldn’t cope with seeing her yet. But then we got talking, he told me about his new therapist etc etc. As he was about to leave, he kissed me. I kissed him back. Which was so fucking stupid, because in my head I knew I was better off without him.

We started talking again. But he wanted me to chase him to feel better about himself. So he’d say that we couldn’t get back together. Our families would go mad. We couldn’t get back together because I’d said before hand that I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole and I was happier without him. Basically just making me want him. For some dumb reason it worked. We got back together. He was seeing his therapist. She was doing hypnotherapy on him. It seemed to have gotten better. He’d had the odd loss of control on his temper, but he mastered it pretty quickly. But he would tell me stuff his therapist said and I’d find it odd. Apparently she diagnosed ME with a split personality. She seemed to be very victim blaming. And a small voice in my head said it was clearly because of shit he was saying to her, but I ignored that voice because after all, he was getting help and things were better. And one of the times he lost his temper was because I’d told him about seeing my friend, and he obviously got extremely paranoid about it and I was stupidly honest. But of course he didn’t believe that I’d rejected his offer. It kicked off a lot of arguments, but he got his way as always, and I deleted the guy off of my snapchat. He also stopped staying over as much, but I could never tell him how much I enjoyed my alone time because then he’d get offended.

When we had broken up, I stopped taking the pill because it was giving me low mood, and I wasn’t having sex anymore so I didn’t see the point. Obviously when we got back together we started to be extremely careful because I was adamant that I didn’t want to go back onto it. I didn’t want to sink back into that depression. I was tracking my periods and ovulation and things were going well. Now I would just like to add that throughout our entire relationship he has frequently told me to stop taking the pill without telling him so that I’d fall pregnant. But he didn’t want to know because he wasn’t ready, but he did want a baby with me. He was scared, but he wanted it, but wasn’t ready yet. But anyway, it got to about April time and by boobs started to become very tender. I told him this and he said I was pregnant. I was like nooo I’m not. But I was. And although it was the dumbest thing I ever could’ve let happen, I wouldn’t change it for the world and it was clearly meant to be. He freaked out at first. Badly. I told him that if he didn’t want to be apart of the babies life I would understand. But we figured it out and made it work. Arguments would happen because I expected him to be a lot happier and enthusiastic about it, however he argued that because he had bought his own house now, and given the lack of stability in our relationship and our parents opinions on our relationship, it was hard for him to get excited. As my pregnancy went on, his verbal, mental and emotional abusive tendencies came back. I have lots and lots of screenshots of messages he would send me. They were horrific. He’d comment on my parenting, would specifically stress me out by arguing with me and then claim I was a horrible parent because I was causing our baby stress. He threatened to go full custody on more than one occasion, he also threatened to have nothing to do with the baby on more than one occasion. He would constantly threaten to end the relationship when he would get his own way, then refuse to leave. Then he’d tell me to pack his stuff. Then he’d start begging me to forgive him. He’d accuse me of cheating. Whilst I was pregnant with his baby. He told me he wanted a DNA test because he didn’t believe it was his. He would say absolutely horrible stuff to me, then when I’d be like I’m done texting you, fuck you, fuck off etc, he’d be like oh how nice of you. Even though he’d spent the last 10 minutes calling me an idiot, cunt, slut, shit mum etc etc. He’d cause an argument, push me to my limits, threaten to break up with me then be like ‘am I coming over tonight?’ As if he hadn’t spent the last few texts calling me every name he could think of. He’d be so angry, then he’d calm down and expect me to just forgive him, then when I didn’t he’d go straight back to being angry and abusive. Rinse and repeat. Told me I was making him look like a cunt. That I was malicious and I didn’t give a shit about him. Would tell me to either ‘grow up and end it or be a doormat. To pick it and life with it’ he’d said that me getting in certain types of moods (not wanting to arguing and telling him I wasn’t going to text him) that he thinks I’m capable of anything and that’s why he wanted a dna test. He’d say ‘tbf I’ll just turn up and do what I want, so see you later doormat’. He would make comments hinting that he was going to cheat on me to get a reaction. Oh!! And also; whenever we would break up he woud start messaging other girls for attention, then delete them when we’d get back together because he wouldn’t want me to take something the wrong way and it to cause an argument. Like I genuinely have a gut feeling that he hasn’t cheated on me, but I’m not dumb enough to believe he didn’t flirt like crazy with other people. At one point he tried messaging my sister to blame me for why he wasn’t at my nephews birthday party and legit tried to turn her against me.

And then he started to get physical with me. He’s never hit me. Not yet. He knows that that really is pushing the boundaries and I would straight up leave him and he’d never see me or the kids again. But one night I wasn’t looking at him like he wanted me too during an argument, so he grabbed my arm extremely tight with one hand, and my face with the other, also very tight, to make me look at him. He did the same thing a few nights later. I was heavily pregnant at the time. Another time during the argument I wouldn’t let him upstairs and he said to me ‘if you don’t move I’m going to get physical with you.’ Like straight up threatened me whilst I was heavily pregnant with his kid. I honestly don’t think it’ll be much longer until he does hit me.

There is still so much to write that I am missing, and I’m still not caught up to the current time and place. But it’s 10:50 and I have the school run to do. So I will continue this tomorrow. Goodnight.

#toxic #toxic love #toxic behavior #toxicity #toxic relationship #narcissist relationshio #narcissist #narcism #abusive relationship #emotional abuse #mentally and emotionally abusive relationship #mental abuse #jealousy #jealous #trust issues #manipulation #manipulative #manipulators

1 note · View note

ellygoesnyooom · 6 years

Note

Hello! May I request a happy ending for "Regret" please? The angst is breaking my heart ;w;" It's alright if you don't want to though. Have a nice day.

Originally, I wasn’t going to have a good end and wasn’t going to write it, but I decided hey, why not? So I whipped up a good end to Regret to heal your and my aching hearts. It’s not that fluffy, but it’s a good end either way, so I hope you enjoy!

The original angst can be found right here~

He listened as your footsteps fled down the hallway and out of the house, the door shutting quietly and leaving him alone in the house. Saeran’s hands dug into his hair as he sat down heavily on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at his feet.

“God damn it!” His scream echoed off the walls as he stood up, rushing to the wall and slamming his fist into it. It broke through the drywall, and when he removed his fist, a hole was left. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

He wasn’t sure what to do. His heart felt as if it had been torn in two, half of it still in his body and the other half with you. One part, the part with him, told him to stay put. It told him that he didn’t deserve your love or affection, that this was what was best for both of you. But, the other half of his heart, the part that walked out the door with you, screamed at him to run out the door and find you.

Saeran let out another string of curses as he paced back and forth through the room, his fist throbbing from being forced through the drywall. His hand was no doubt swollen and needed ice, but he wasn’t focused on that at the moment. That wasn’t important - you were.

He had fucked up, and fucked up bad. You no doubt hated him for breaking your heart like that, and he knew that simply apologizing was like putting a band-aid over a gash that needed stitches. It didn’t begin to fix anything.

With a sigh, he stopped pacing and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before finally leaving the room to tend to his fist.

Once the ice was secured on his hand, he went in search of his phone. He needed to at least send you a message that he was sorry. It may only be a band-aid, but a band-aid was better than nothing at all.

With his good hand, he typed out a message, reading over it a few times before finally holding his breath and pressing send. He watched as the message went from sent to delivered on the screen. He didn’t expect it to go to read, though, and his stomach immediately plummeted before his heart started to race. He waited for the small typing symbol to pop up on the screen, but let out a sigh when it never showed up. Of course you wouldn’t respond. You were beyond hurt.

“I’m sorry, MC. I’m so sorry. I’ll try later.”

He had hoped that you would respond after you had cooled off, but with every message he sent came the inevitable read script, until eventually you had stopped opening them period. It had been two weeks since the fight, and he was getting desperate. The absence you left felt like a void in his heart. He felt cold and empty. Nothing brought him enjoyment anymore. Everything reminded him of you, and it was driving him absolutely crazy.

He stared down at his phone, your text thread open. He was shocked you hadn’t blocked his number already, though maybe you just hadn’t gotten around to it. It was probably only a matter of time before you did, though, so he decided he needed to make a last ditch effort to mend things. His thumbs typed out the message seemingly on their own accord, and he read it over once before pressing send. It went from sent to delivered, and stayed at delivered. He didn’t know if you would respond, or if you would even listen, but he had a chance.

The ball was in your court, and he couldn’t do anything more but wait.

Your phone chimed, waking you from sleep, and immediately you reached for it on your bedside table with a groan. Your hand slapped down on the wood a few times before your fingers came down on the familiar backing of your phone and you grabbed it.

You already knew who it was. You didn’t need to look at the ID to know. It was early yet, your alarm clock only reading 7 am. All of your friends slept in late and wouldn’t be up yet, so you could rule them out.. The only other option was Saeran, and as soon as you woke the screen up, his name appeared.

Your thumb immediately went to swipe away the message preview, removing the message from your notifications. You would take care of it later.

The message stayed on your phone, the only reminder the small number beside the message icon. The little circle read 13. You had ignored thirteen of his messages, and part of you felt guilty. You had opened the first few, and knew that he felt bad, but he had really hurt you. You wanted him to know just how hurt you were, so you left him on delivered.

Curiosity burned at you with his most recent message. When you had removed the notification, you had caught the word ‘meet’ at the begining. The possibilities of what the message could say nagged at you from the back of your mind. Where did he want to meet? When did he want to meet? Was there another meaning to the message?

You busied yourself with cleaning your place. The whole time, though, the questions burned the back of your mind, teasing you until you finally gave in, opening his message.

Meet me at the cafe by my house tonight at 5. I need to talk to you.

A little part of you wanted to stand him up for what he did to you. That part of you was largely overruled by the part of you that felt overjoyed at the idea of seeing him. You really did miss Saeran. You may have only been in a friends with benefits relationship previously, but you had known him much longer than that. The two of you had met at the very cafe that he wanted to meet you at after you messed up his order. You had worked there for a total of four days before you met him. Very much like him, he cursed you out for messing up his order, and you quickly remade it.

When you brought him the coffee, he had apologized, scratching the back of his neck nervously. You had found it adorable, his cheeks tinged pink from the embarassment of his earlier outburst. He then handed you a $10 bill and left the shop, calling back to keep the change. As you were moving to place the money in the register, a slip of paper fluttered the ground, which had his number and name scrawled out. You had kept the paper in your pants pocket the rest of the day, unsure if you would text him. Curiosity won out, and you had texted him.

Much like that day, curiosity, you responded to his message, showing up a few minutes after five. The bells jingled happily above your head as your eyes scanned the small shop. You hadn’t been there since you quit a few months back, and it was still the same as before. Your eyes fell on the familiar white and pink hair of Saeran, who was sitting alone in the back of the shop, mint eyes staring at you as you approached.

“You came…” his voice was quiet and almost hesitant as you settled yourself in the seat across from him.

“I came. What do you want, Saeran?” You winced slightly at how sharp your words had come out. It wasn’t what you had wanted to sound like at all. His eyes squeezed shut at your words, but he didn’t speak for a moment. He looked so vulnerable, sitting with his shoulders hunched over and head low. It pained you to see him look so weak.

The silence hung between the two of you heavily for a while. Finally, Saeran’s eyes opened and he looked at you. “I’ll go order us drinks.” Before you could say anything else, he was gone.

He came back a few minutes later and placed a drink in front of you, settling himself in his seat with his drink in his hand. You reached for the cup and brought it to your lips, surprised to find your favorite drink inside. He really remembered it?

“So, did you ask me to come here so we can sit in silence, or do you have something you want to say?” Saeran nodded, dragging a finger around the rim of his cup.

“I… I…” You waited patiently, somewhat excited to hear what he had to say. He let out a sigh before continuing. “I grew up in a rough place. My mother starved me, beat me, and abused me. She used my brother and I for money and to get at my father. Half the time she was drunk, the other half she was drinking. I was the weaker one between my brother and I, so I was the one who got tied up and punished often. I would go days without eating or drinking all because I made too much noise. It was utter hell. I was lucky I even made it out alive, because I didn’t think I would.”

That was not at all what you had expected him to say. You were floored by the new information he was bringing up about his past. You would sometimes try to ask him about his childhood before things took a turn for the worst between the two of you, but every time you brought it up, he shot the subject down. You were happy he was finally saying something about it, but you were confused about the relevance to the situation at hand. Still, you let him continue.

“I’m fucked up because of that, and other things that happened after. My life has been a shitshow, MC. The things that have happened in the past have scarred me to the point of no return. I’ve never known love. Nobody has ever shown me love, not even the one who “saved” me. That’s why I panicked when you said that two weeks ago and I kicked you out. The words slipped out of your mouth, and my mental blocks flew into place. I didn’t mean a single word that flew out of my stupid mouth. I can never excuse myself for what I did, and I am so sorry.”

Your eyes teared up at his words. You had already forgiven him, and were about to tell him, opening your mouth to speak, but he rushed ahead. “I love you, MC. I’ve known it for a while, but I was scared to admit it. Hell, I’m still scared even after saying it. But, I’m fucked up. I’m broken, useless. I’m not good for you. I think-”

Before you could stop yourself, your hands reached across the table and cupped his cheeks. His eyes widened and you could feel his cheeks heat up in embarassment, but it effectively shut him up.

“I don’t care if you think you are broken, fucked up, useless, or any other derrogatory word in the dictionary, Saeran. I don’t care! Why? Because when you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with their baggage, too. You’ve had a terrible life so far, and it hurts me to think that you have gone through that. I’m not going to let you continue that sentence if you are about to say that you think that I would be better off without you, because let me tell you, I’m not.

“I’ve spent the last two weeks in agony. We never were officially together, but I grew close to you. I wanted to reach out to you to say that I’m sorry, too, but I was upset. I should have just texted you back after the first one like I had wanted to, but the stubborn, hurt part of me stopped me.” You took your hands off his cheeks before you continued. “We both did some stupid stuff these past two weeks. We both made mistakes, we both messed up, but let’s put that behind us, okay?” Slowly, Saeran nodded, looking both nervous and happy at the same time.

“You really think that?”

“I really think that. I want to move on, okay? No more casual hookups anymore. We can take it as slow as you need, but I want to move forwards with our relationship. We had an accident, but the accident is cleaned up, and we can move forwards again, okay?”

A smile you had never seen on Saeran lit his face up like the sun after a storm. It was a carefree, happy smile, and it took your breath away. Both of your drinks were forgotten as his hand reached across the table to grip your hand softly, his thumb rubbing against the back of your hand. “Thank you, MC. Thank you for giving me a second chance. I’ll try to make it up to you.”

You returned his smile as you responded, “You already have, Saeran. You already have,” and brought his hand up to kiss the back of it before letting go and grabbing your drink. It was growing cold, but you didn’t care as you took a happy sip. He followed suit, sighing out happily as he started to ask you questions about your childhood.

As you answered his questions and joked around with Saeran in the coffee shop that evening, you knew that things would be better in the future. As long as you had Saeran beside you, nothing could tear you down.

#mystic messenger #mysme #mm #mystic messenger angst #angst #saeran #saeran x mc #saeran angst #saeran x mc angst #saeran choi #mystic messenger saeran #mysme saeran #mm saeran #Anonymous

150 notes · View notes

yeonchi · 3 years

Text

The case for vaccines and the shadow rule of the minority

Currently, Melbourne is in the midst of a sixth coronavirus lockdown, which was announced at the start of August, less than two weeks after the fifth lockdown at the end of July and originally scheduled for 7 days only to be extended twice (potential extension notwithstanding) with a curfew slapped on the top of it. How’s that “7 days to stop the spread” working for you guys, huh? Look, to be honest, I’m getting sick of these lockdowns and I’m sure many other people are, but lately, people and governments are touting vaccines as a panacea to end lockdowns, much to the point that they are teetering on forcing people to get vaccinated. Personally, I don’t think this approach is as good as other people might see it and I’ll explain why through my understanding.

Development of the coronavirus vaccines have been expedited due to the situation of this pandemic, with the first (mainstream) vaccine, namely the Pfizer vaccine, being approved by the UK, the US and Switzerland in December 2020. While trials have been conducted on such vaccines, they essentially had to be rushed through in a year. Never mind the fact that we have to get two doses instead of one to be “fully” vaccinated, I’m hearing that the efficacy of the existing vaccines are under question, particularly due to variant strains such as the Delta strain (that mutated in India because fuck political correctness) and that we potentially may have to get booster shots (like the flu, get it?) if the virus were to mutate even more. Combined with the potential side effects of these vaccines, I don’t necessarily feel ready to get one at this point in time. Keep in mind that the vaccines were created to deal with a virus that originated in China.

The absurdity of vaccine passports and mandates

There are four stages in Australia’s national reopening strategy and the second stage is expected to be triggered when double vaccination (2 doses) rates reach 70%. Last year, during the second wave, the strategy was to “flatten the curve” and achieve zero daily cases, but this year, it is beginning to prove impossible with the Delta strain. As daily case numbers continue to rise, Victoria and New South Wales have decided to abandon that goal and instead focus on buying time so they can get more people vaccinated. New South Wales has drafted a roadmap out of lockdown that involves more freedoms for those who are double vaccinated, while Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has stated that they are going to “lock out people who are not vaccinated and can be” and are trialling some new rules in regional Victoria. In both states, the enforcement of these new rules will depend on the use of a vaccine passport.

In my opinion, vaccine passports are not a good idea, particularly in some settings due to practicality reasons. If vaccine passports have to be implemented, then they should mostly be implemented in settings where you have to buy tickets, such as sporting events, indoor/outdoor entertainment events/venues and long-distance transportation (airports and train stations etc). In other settings, vaccine passports aren’t so practical; in hospitality settings, if only vaccinated people can eat inside while unvaccinated people can only buy takeaway and wait outside, there is a risk that one could infect the other. Same in shopping centres - the NSW roadmap states that unvaccinated people can only access essential services, so if other stores are only open to the vaccinated, then the two groups could still come into contact. And what about outside gatherings? I think you get where I’m going here.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stated that any business has every right to deny entry or service to those who are unvaccinated, with bootlicking NPCs around the world seemingly parroting this point as well. Australia’s anti-discrimination laws make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race, age, gender or disability (health status?), so why are they suddenly creating another discrimination category and justifying it for the sake of public health because there just so happened to not be any laws preventing it? Well you know what? Fuck this noise. Businesses don’t deserve to exercise that right if they aren’t prepared to serve unvaccinated people (with the necessary precautions lol). In a world where businesses, corporations and governments don’t listen to the people they serve or are meant to represent, it’s only natural that people justifiably become “entitled”.

A similar principle applies to businesses mandating that their employees be vaccinated before they can work (the NSW roadmap states that only vaccinated people will be able to work in hospitality or retail). I largely disagree with this; instead, governments should be easing up on coercive tactics like vaccine mandates and passports and instead continue encouraging people to get vaccinated on their own free will, particularly with people who work in industries requiring them to come in contact with other people (including tourism and healthcare) as they are responsible for their lives as well as their own.

There is one big thing that is missing from all of this; how long can we expect these restrictions and vaccine mandates to continue? At what point can we say that vaccine passports aren’t needed anymore because everyone has been vaccinated or we actually managed to flatten the curve somehow? Let’s not forget that the vaccines are in high demand, with long lines at major vaccination hubs, and that getting vaccinated won’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus (aside from lessening the symptoms if you were to catch it, but your mileage may vary). And what about those who are just waiting to get their vaccination (first or second)? People can say that this isn’t about control, but for public health, but I just think the government is using public health as a justification to exercise more controls on people, which to some, is just a milder way of saying that this isn’t about health, but power and control.

Holy shit, when I write sadposts on the Waifu Network I didn’t expect them to become more relevant as time went on. “Our civil liberties are curbed in times of crisis.” “We are never truly free.” “The current political climate is enabling people to become pettier and pettier and it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to take a stand against it.” “It’s so ironic when the right people support the wrong things and the wrong people support the right things.” “Some people and businesses unironically exercise rights they don’t deserve to have.” The cope is real, ladies and gentlemen. But hey, I should have expected this when my ramblings and musings are based on politics and current affairs.

Vaccine supremacy and the dictatorship of the minority

What is probably the funniest and most ironic thing about this is that the topic of vaccine mandates is causing yet another divide in society and leading to a dictatorship of the minority. To give you an example, we have to go back to April 2021 Hong Kong, a place where the government’s laws have been oppressing people before vaccine mandates were a thing. The government decided to relax restrictions under a “vaccine bubble” program for restaurants that would see them split into four tiers based on whether the staff and/or customers are vaccinated and using the LeaveHomeSafe app, which has raised concerns with Hongkongers given recent events. The four tiers are as follows:

Tier A restaurants, who do not require their staff and customers to be vaccinated, can only have two people per table at 50% capacity and they can serve dine-in customers up to 6 PM, with a maximum of 20 people for banquets.

Tier B restaurants, who do not require their staff and customers to be vaccinated, but are following contact tracing guidelines by using LeaveHomeSafe or having customers leave their details on paper, can have 4 people per table at 50% capacity and they can serve dine-in customers up to 10 PM provided that staff get tested every 14 days (changed to 7 days from August 2021) or vaccinated.

This is where it starts to get crazy. Tier A and Tier B were in place before the “vaccine bubble” program, with the next two tiers being introduced as a part of it.

Tier C restaurants, who require their staff to have had their first vaccine dose, can have six people per table at 50% capacity (later changed to 75% capacity) and they can serve dine-in customers up to 12 AM. However, customers must check in with LeaveHomeSafe and restaurants must have a defined “clean zone” (like a fucking hospital, I assume the rest of the restaurant is just the “dirty zone” then?) for dine-in customers and vaccinated staff.

Tier D restaurants, who require their staff to have had 14 days pass after their second vaccine dose and their customers to have had their first vaccine dose, can have 8 people per table at 75% capacity (later changed to 12 people at full capacity as long as at least two-thirds of the table, so 8 people, have had their first vaccine dose) and they can serve dine-in customers up to 2 AM. They can also serve a maximum of 100 people for banquets (later changed to 180 people as long as at least two-thirds blah blah blah, so 120 people). Tier D restaurants must also have customers check in with LeaveHomeSafe and have a defined “clean zone”, same as with Tier C.

God, these rules are so complicated they make me want to kill myself. Anyway, where does the dictatorship of the minority come in?

Pro-government and pro-Beijing businesses are likely to embrace vaccines, so they are more likely to become Tier C or D restaurants. Pro-democracy businesses are more wary of vaccines (particularly Sinovac) and LeaveHomeSafe, so they are more likely to become Tier A or B restaurants (because they can get away with signing in on paper and maybe getting tested). The likewise applies for customers - pro-government customers are more likely to get vaccinated while pro-democracy customers are more likely to hold out on doing so.

Unvaccinated customers can only go to Tier A or B restaurants while vaccinated customers can also go to Tier C or D restaurants. When there is a significant proportion of unvaccinated customers, it is more than likely that there will be at least one “stubborn anti-vaxxer” in a group of (mostly) vaccinated customers, meaning that all the vaccinated customers have to eat at Tier A or B restaurants because of that guy.

Eventually, what ends up happening is that Tier C or D restaurants will find themselves unable to serve a diverse base of customers (not that they could already keep milking pro-government boomers who probably only give a fuck about the rules being enforced because they hate pro-democracy millennials and the rules don’t affect them, note that zoomers in Hong Kong are more than likely to be pro-Beijing) and as a result, struggling to choose between serving the unvaccinated or having a few more people on their tables and serving dine-in customers for a few hours longer. In the end, they have to pander to the unvaccinated and become a Tier A or B restaurant. It’s kind of like having to pander to Jews and Muslims because they can only eat Kosher or halal food or people with allergies (not that they could do their own thing already).

There are a couple of people I would like to credit for this section. The first one I would like to thank is Janelle Leung for creating the infographics that inspired this section. She was a pro-democracy member of the Kwun Tong District Council who was jailed for four months as a result of attending the “unauthorised” 4 June commemoration event (which is usually held yearly in Hong Kong but was not approved due to coronavirus restrictions being “conveniently” extended) last year and was disqualified from the District Council as a result. Our thoughts and prayers go to her as with other pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong (most of whom have resigned from their positions due to the passing of stricter laws). The second person I would like to thank is Nassim Nicholas Taleb who wrote the chapter that inspired the infographics, The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority in his book Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. You can read the chapter online on Medium.

Sadly, however, recent events have lead to all this not ageing well. As the Delta variant continues to spread and more people get vaccinated, the vaccinated have gone from the minority to the majority while the opposite applies for the unvaccinated, leading to more support for vaccine mandates. This isn’t a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, it’s a “dictatorship of the vaccinated”. At this rate, the “dictatorship of the minority” is going backwards with no recourse for the unvaccinated. Freedom with caveats is NOT true freedom. Either everyone is locked down or no one should be.

This isn’t an issue of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative or even Labor vs. Liberal, particularly because the premiers for Victoria and New South Wales, namely Daniel Andrews or Gladys Berejiklian, are from the Labor and Liberal parties respectively. If this doesn’t convince you that the main parties in a two-party system are just as bad as each other, then I don’t know what will.

My view on the debacle

Now look, I am by no means an anti-vaxxer and you’re retarded if you assume that I am, particularly if you’ve read everything up to this point. I can foresee myself getting vaccinated eventually, whether it be of my own volition or pressure from my family or work (ironically, I don’t have enough power to decide my own destiny). However, if I can, I want to hold out until I at least know how long the vaccines will last, whether the vaccines will be effective against newer variants of the virus and whether I will end up needing to get booster shots. Heck, I feel like making this into a social experiment to see how long I can get away without getting the vaccine. If I get vaccinated, then I’ll probably look like a hypocrite for saying all this, so I would just like to reiterate that I am pro-choice and anti-vaccine mandates.

“HahA YoU’re aFRaId OF GETtiNG VaCcInaTeD LOL” If it were that simple, then there’d be no point in me writing this post. Everything I’ve said in this would be the same even if I weren’t afraid of getting vaccinated. Speaking of which, how’s things going with that needle-free vaccine I’ve heard so much about? I’m surprised they still haven’t finished studies on it, but if they have, I’m surprised it isn’t mainstream by now.

“buT yoU HAD TO get VAccIneS AT ScHoOL“ Yes, I did, but keep in mind that the coronavirus was discovered right at the start of 2020 while other vaccines have been studied for at least five years. Sure, they gave you permission slips for your parents to fill in, but it’s not like you had any choice in the matter. “They came for kids like me, but I could not speak out because I was under 18 and my parents were legally the ones who could decide my fate.” I remember that one year where I had to get three vaccines for HPV. Good times.

If you want to get vaccinated, then get vaccinated. I’m not going to stop you and you shouldn’t let anyone else stop you either. But at the very least, have some respect for those who don’t wish to get vaccinated because they are human too and they have the same rights as the rest of us, and if they work in an industry like tourism or healthcare, calmly convince them why they should take responsibility for the health of others as well as themselves instead of forcing them to do something they don’t want to. I know that’s what adult life is all about these days, but people need to remember that others have the right to choose and that not everyone sees things the same way they do. I would say that it is possible to find a balance between liberty and safety, but people need to learn to live with the virus (in a controlled manner) and they should not have to sacrifice personal liberties for the sake of public safety. It’s absolutely weird how people are happy to throw other people’s rights out the window when it comes to vaccine mandates. Anyone who supports them is just as selfish as the anti-vaxxers or anti-lockdown protesters they happily scorn.

Once again, getting vaccinated won’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus, so it is still important for everyone to wear masks and practice social distancing when going out. Masks are a better example to compare seatbelts to over vaccines, even though people are saying that they aren’t enough to keep people safe. Let’s calm the hysteria down and show respect for our fellow human beings, because while we aren’t exactly China, North Korea or Afghanistan per se, we sure are sliding down the slippery slope to dictatorship.

0 notes

homosexualeo · 6 years

Text

1. He spends half a semester staring at me across the seminar table, flirts with me over Instagram, Super Likes me on Tinder only to say “I don’t date other grad students, I just wanted to show you some love” when you then ask him out. I feel confident he never would have swiped right in the first place if we had never met.

2. Around others, they are aggressively friendly and even flirtatious. Although they make it a point to mention they love spending time with other people, other bodies, every attempt to spend time with them one on one gets deflected or expanded into group plans; either way they rarely come to fruition. Eventually, over text, they tell me they are dating someone. This is our primary means of communication; it is the one where my body is least present.

3. I ask S out, they say yes. After three dates they tell me they aren’t in a space for dating and intimacy is hard for them right now. We keep flirting. A month goes by and I ask to check in. They say nothing has changed; intimacy is still hard. Two weeks later I see them on Grindr. I know that Grindr is used for a lot of different reasons, but I wonder why we never talked abt boundaries around intimacy before breaking up, and it crystalizes what has transpired. It has happened. Again.

4. I meet a social media celebrity through A, a mutual friend. We have heard of each other, but aren’t connected and don’t follow the other. This is common for queer of color microcelebrities. Queers of color always seem to think my work on bodies is somehow not as relevant to our communities. They rarely connect with and uplift my work the way I see white people from fat communities. This night, I see them flirt with the tall, thin, light skinned friend we met through. They post my work about economies of care on their platform for Valentine’s Day. I am flattered, and wonder why we never even exchanged numbers.

5. I’m with S at a dance party, shortly before I ask them out. I turn around and they are talking to someone that had approached them and introduced themselves. I keep dancing. I turn around and they are making out. I leave to give them space. Sometime later my friend reappears near me. Before I can talk to them someone else approaches them. And then other. I give them space. At the end of the night I leave without having met anyone new, without being approached or feeling confident any attempt of mine to approach someone would be received positively.

6. I’m with S on a date at a gay bar. A lesbian interrupts us to fawn over how beautiful they are in their tall, thin whiteness. She only interacts with me to affirm their beauty. Later we are at a coffee shop. Someone approaches them for a blind date for a friend and they decline graciously. We are sitting at the same table but the person does not interact with me. And even later, they casually name a Black trans femme mutual friend as being ‘bad at rejection.’ I wonder if they have considered how an evidently superior handle of rejection is might correlate w an experience of having opportunities handed to you, an experience less common for those of us not tall, thin and white.

7. My thin friends tell me abt their dates and their hook ups. They seem to offer this information as if it were not imbued. My attempts at making these connections similarly are rarely successful. My messages get responded to so infrequently I have stopped sending them. I offer the emotional labor of processing their rejections with them, and am humbled to see that thin people experience this too. I try not to ask for it back; I’m not sure if they can hold it. I’m not sure I can ask for anything at all.

8. My queer friends of color commiserate abt having our hearts broken by white ppl and masculine ppl. I wonder why we aren’t dating eachother but I also know why. The people we are fawning over are all some combination of thin, white or masculine.

9. My tall, thin, light skinned friend A and I talk abt how their normatively desired body is fetishized and tokenized in communities. I have listened to their stories of people crushing on them. I know the discomfort and dehumanization of being fetishized or even just desired. I would still take it.

10. Someone messages me on a chubby chaser platform and I can tell they are also fat because their message is polite, cautiously friendly and purposefully vague. It reads like a message I would send. I wonder abt the collective social histories that have produced this dynamic, and also why this is the only platform where I have seen ‘married (to a woman)’ as a relationship status.

11. I go on two dates with a fat, white guy I match with on Tinder. I find him obnoxious and ultimately us incompatible.

12. I have a date invitation from a fat man of color older than me. I’m open but reluctant, unsure of how well our political beliefs and intellectual interests align. I accept halfheartedly.

13. I gaslight myself by saying standards and expectations are not luxuries I can afford if I want to be loved. I wonder if the people I want to love me ever tell themselves this.

14. I spend most of last Monday sexting with a guy on Grindr. He initiates race play by telling me to worship his big white cock and tell him how much better white men are. I do it willingly, eagerly, happily. It feels good that someone wants to be honest with me for once. It fucks up my sleep schedule and we never end up meeting as promised.

15. A new friend taps me on Grindr. I feel confused abt the whole situation and try to lean into it. He makes a big show abt wanting to hang out; I invite him over at 11pm and he takes a raincheck. We mention plans abt Friday but never confirm so I make other plans. When he txts me that morning I feel guilty and cancel my other plans. He says he will txt when he is free. I dont expect to hear from him and have a fine night alone, but it hurts to be flaked on. When he finally txts at 2am I check in abt our tentative plans. He apologizes that time got away from him and I say I understand but it felt bad, am honest abt it being triggering and ask him to be more mindful in the future. He responds affirmatively and over the next few days our previously casual and consistent texting throughout the day slows to a complete stop.

16. The next night, I have a reading with T. 3 of my thin friends show up. I realize it’s the first time I see S since they broke up with me the second time. A and C come from hooking up w different people. J invited someone they wanna kiss, who kisses them back. I come home and C texts me abt how cute T is; T texts abt how cute S is. My thin friends throw themselves at eachother in front of me, casually mention their easy access to sex and pretend I have not recently vented abt the difficult it is for me to meet people, even for casual sex. Everyone is angry at S when I tell them the story. They all seem to see themselves as different, as separate.

17. This is how it is and how it always has been. I have no reason to believe it will ever be different. I have no more good faith to cling to.

19 notes · View notes

woodworkingpastor · 3 years

Text

Grace in the wilderness -- Acts 8:26-39 -- April 25, 2021 -- Fourth Sunday of Easter

The Lord is risen!

He is risen indeed!

I noted last Sunday that it is our secular habit to celebrate our holidays before the event and not after, while the church celebrates holidays after the event. Just as we spent the 40 days of Lent preparing for the death and resurrection of Jesus, now we spend time between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension celebrating, because 33AD is the date that governs our lives. We are an Easter people; people of the resurrection!

Please pray with me:

Good shepherd of the sheep, by whom the lost are sought and guided into the fold; feed us and we shall be satisfied; heal us and we shall be whole; lead us that we may be with you, and with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit, where you reign, one God, forever. Amen.

Many of you have asked about our trip to Portland. Simply put, we had a terrific time! Rose is doing very well there; the opportunity to “stretch her wings” has clearly been good for her. We also had a great time seeing that portion of the Pacific Northwest. If I had Power Point available this morning, I’d would have shown you pictures from our hikes in the Columbia River Gorge, our day at the Pacific coast, and the various places we visited around Portland itself.

But connected to today’s Scripture, I want to talk about the trip from our hotel in downtown Portland to Rose’s house in Gresham, a suburb about 12 miles to the east. I found myself having a bit of trouble committing the route from the hotel to her house to memory due to a number of one-way streets, bridges, interstate merges, and just being unfamiliar with the lay of the land; I was certainly glad for the Google Maps.

It wasn’t until our last day there that I noticed something that changed my perspective. It turns out that both our downtown hotel and SnowCap Community Charities are on Pine Street. It made me wonder—was it the same Pine Street in both places? It turns out that it is—just 180 blocks apart. On the day we volunteered at the food pantry, I thought we might just take Pine Street all the way there. That turned out to not be possible; Pine Street is minor neighborhood street that at one point disappears for 40 blocks. But there was another street that went all the way, so we took it instead. Because we had the time to travel through Portland (instead of around it) we really got an interesting glimpse of the city: houses, businesses, and even a restaurant we returned to for lunch.

The interstate highways are terrific if efficiency is your goal. But if you want to see what is creally happening in a place, the neighborhood streets (which sometimes an feel as intimidating as wilderness roads) are the place to be.

Salvation on a wilderness road

We do not want to lose sight of the fact that this salvation story happens on a wilderness road. The setting is as relevant as the content, for there is no place where Jesus is not Lord and there are no people who are too far away to be reconciled, no matter if we measure the distance in physical or in spiritual terms.

Philip is one of the deacons we met last Sunday; like Stephen—whose story in Acts 6 and 7 that we skipped over—Philip was appointed to make sure the Greek-speaking Jewish widows in Jerusalem were cared for. It is a task that we never see him actually doing, however, because Acts is most interested in telling the story of how the message of Jesus would spread

in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Having given a gospel answer to the racial and administrative problems with the food distribution to widows, Acts simply move on.

The story abruptly shifts to Philip, who is told to take a trip. He’s not given a destination; he’s not told what he’s going to do or who he’s going to see or even how he will know he has arrived. All he is told is to travel down the wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he goes, because Philip—like the other deacons—is

full of the Spirit and of wisdom (Acts 6:3).

He recognizes the voice calling him to serve, and he goes. As he walks down this wilderness road, the reason for his trip comes into focus. Just up ahead is a chariot returning to Ethiopia—a designation in those days that referred to the area south of Egypt. Seated inside is a high-ranking official of the queen, a man who has come to Jerusalem to worship and is now returning home. Somehow, the God of Israel has become known in this region far away from Jerusalem, and the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has taken root in this man who has the means to make the long trip to Jerusalem for worship.

What we must notice about the man is that there would have been little room for him in the rush of Jerusalem’s public, festival worship. He had invested significant time, energy, and expense to participate in a worship festival that he would have only been allowed to experience as an outsider, because he was a eunuch. As Deuteronomy 23:1 says,

No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.

This is not the kind of Bible verse we normally mention in polite company; you won’t find this verse artistically paired with an awe-inspiring photograph hanging in someone’s living room. But there it is, a “chapter and verse” reason why the man would have only been allowed into the outer courts of the Temple to participate in the worship of his God from a distance.

But in the fervor that often accompanies faithfulness and tradition, the people hadn’t stopped to deal with the fact that God had promised a day was to come when outsiders would be made insiders. As Isaiah would later say,

Do not let the foreigner joined to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people��; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off (Isaiah 56:3-5).

This conversation is the purpose for Philip’s trip, because the church was not looking to the literal wilderness for converts any more than they were looking to the metaphorical or spiritual wilderness to find those persons who were being left behind and left out. The Spirit’s intervention was necessary so that the church would be forced to make a connection it would not have made on its own.

Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch have a conversation about Jesus; using the passage from Isaiah the man is reading, Philip explains to him how Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in Isaiah’s message. Upon arriving at a place in the road where there is water, the man proclaims

Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized? (Acts 8:36)

It’s a fair question because he had just experienced Temple worship in Jerusalem where he was prevented from full participation. Would the faith of Jesus also keep him on the sidelines of faith?

The answer is “no.” The chariot stops and Philip and the man move immediately to the water because when faith in Jesus is authentic it will inevitably find the waters of baptism.

Finding our way on wilderness roads

The church has certainly found itself in a wilderness this past year; although it’s a stretch to call our outdoor worship venue a “wilderness,” being that this is our 58th week “in exile” from our Sanctuary and rhythms of worship, we certainly do wonder what mission and ministry will look like moving forward.

But lest we blame Covid for all that ails us, some recent surveys suggest a different source of our challenges:

Christian researcher Ryan Burge suggests that 40% of self-identified evangelical Christians attend church once per year or less. Not once a week; not once a month; once a year. That’s like “Christmas OR Easter.”

Research from the Gallup organization suggests that church membership in the United States has dropped below 50% for the first time in over a century.

You might be surprised at how many conversations I have with people who claim a belief in God and can even articulate a faith that is filled with spiritual practices like Bible reading, personal devotions, and prayer, but includes no relationship with a local church. Anecdotally, this seems to be on the rise in the people I meet.

For years I’ve heard that the church’s problems are the fault of the so-called “liberals.” But perhaps it’s not so simple. Perhaps we’ve been relying on the comfort of our own wisdom and methods and techniques and politics more than we have been trusting that God is still moving in wilderness places. If we will reject the temptation of allowing the church to be a comfortable place for the convinced and instead be a place where disciples are made and lives are transformed, then maybe today’s church can turn the world upside down like the church did in days of old.

What I’m saying is that despite the many challenges that face us, we have the spiritual resources to fulfill our calling. Could it be that Covid will function something like a fire sale—or at least a radical spring cleaning—where we are forced to admit that we’ve been hanging on to some things we haven’t needed? Might our love for worship in this outdoor space open our eyes to some new ways of being the church? Philip’s story shows that the church can function in the wilderness.

Reaching out on spiritual roads

If today’s church is going to thrive in the wilderness, then we must reevaluate our outreach.

We have a way of talking about outreach that encourages us to seek out what God is doing in the world around us and join God in that work. This is a wonderful way to understand the church’s mission. When Brethren hear this, though, our first thought is to interpret this through the lens of the second commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This, too, is excellent. The many ministries we support as a means of loving our neighbor and wanting to overcome the brokenness of the world by bearing one another’s burdens, and binding up the broken, and bringing beauty to the ugly places is always worth doing. Brethren have a long history of demonstrating to the world that we are not afraid of hard work on behalf of others.

But I sometimes wonder if our vision of outreach has gotten a bit out of balance.

The story of this text is about God literally chasing down a man who wondered about how much of a place he had in the kingdom of God so that Philip could show him the fullness of God’s grace. Both the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip would discover that in spite of their significant differences, grace would bring them into the same family.

In a recent Moderator’s Town Hall led by Paul Mundey, United Methodist bishop Will Willimon reminded listeners of a very interesting statement from John 10, where Jesus reminds the disciples,

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).

Today’s church is going to have to find where those sheep are. We must learn to come along side people and, beginning where they are,

proclaim the good news about Jesus (Acts 8:35).

These conversations will happen on contested ground, because we live in a time when even people who claim to be followers of Jesus shape their lives by values other than those of the New Testament. We will need to allow our own lives to be on display so that people will notice something different about us. Anabaptist theologian Stuart Murray reminds us that we will must

offer a [life] of peaceful witness that integrates words and deeds, personal and communal testimony, listening and speaking (The Naked Anabaptist, 83).

Sisters and brothers, these are challenging, difficult times. But out of the great challenge comes great opportunity for those willing to hear the Spirit’s calling and go to places yet unknown. Jesus is preparing the way!

0 notes