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jaejinmoon · 3 years

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⌜ PARK JIMIN, TWENTY FOUR, TRANS MALE ⌝ i just ran into JAEJIN “JJ” MOON in downtown wolvepine! they’ve been living here for EIGHT YEARS and they currently live in PINE PLACE. he is known to be CLEVER and LETHARGIC.

hey guys. aspen here with muse # 2 ! meet jj — or jae, whichever — moon, a 24 y/o writer, cat dad, aaand widower. ( deflated party horn here. ) beneath the cut is his bio, some basic stats, and some hcs. full page coming eventually. checkout my playlist for him though !

♡ ┊ playlist.

trigger warnings: alcoholism, substance abuse, very brief mention of homo/transphobia, death mention, car crashes.

basic stats.

full name — jaejin xavier moon. nicknames — jae, jj, jaej. current age — 24. date of birth — january 8th. ( capricorn. ) gender — trans male. pronouns — he/him only. sexuality — homosexual. occupation — ghost writer, published author ( under many pseudonyms ), professional alcoholic.

biography.

↬ to be known, as far as jaejin is concerned, is more trouble than it’s worth. it started sometime after he realized he had to pick his own name and then convince the world it belongs to him; a feat easier imagined than executed.

↬ at some point, you get tired. and maybe that’s just because he’s always been tired, metaphorically and medically, as it would happen. people saw the name on his documentation and he’d correct them once, but never a second time. ‘ this might as well happen,’ he’d thought then, and he would again, all too often.

↬ per script, jj stays tired. he watches the tides roll in and doesn’t bother to roll his jeans up no matter how sandy, no matter how wet they get. when he’s sixteen years old, he’s told to get out of his parents house shortly after he tells them who jaejin is, and he thinks again, this might as well happen. it’s nothing mikes hard and some xanax can’t melt away tonight on his best friend’s couch, then tomorrow again if he needs it. and he does. obviously. obviously, he needs it.

↬ when he gets on a greyhound bus and travels across the country with a fake i.d, he doesn’t have a plan. jj lands in a place called wolvepine and thinks little of it, because it’s not home, but it’s a good enough contender for it. this might as well happen.

↬ he stays in shelters, registers for school in wolvepine, and finishes his diploma without a roof over his head. he makes friends with the local cats and feeds them what he doesn’t have to keep for himself. he rolls along, because he’s too tired to do anything else. people are cruel, and it’s a struggle enough to get by, but eventually he makes some friends. a friend, actually. avery. just avery. he’s cis and doesn’t really get it at first, but he’s the first person who lets jj get far enough to tell him about it; to tell him about who jaejin is... and avery loves him. jaejin loves him too.

↬ he makes money any way he can, operating for a time after his eighteenth birthday as a sex worker online. this might as well happen, and it might as well get him through college in the few areas that scholarships don’t cover. he isn’t sure if he should consider his intellect a gift, but it’s convenient, that’s for sure. avery offers to pay for college, but jj doesn’t let him; he’s not his burden to bear. ( ‘you’re not a burden.’ ‘ you’re an idiot. keep your money. i love you.’ )

↬ money comes from other avenues eventually, anyways. it starts with him writing papers for others — just a little ‘slide me a 20 and i’ll ghostwrite your thesis' kind of thing. he stopped camming around this time because writing was less effort, something he liked, too; his passion beyond being just his major. he started writing everywhere he went, pages upon pages upon pages in messy little notebooks, and on a whim one day, jj submits a story to a publisher under a pseudonym: taeil.

↬ it’s a hit. jaejin almost doesn’t know what to do with the royalties as they come rolling in, and he definitely doesn’t know what to do with interview requests other than the immediate, polite decline. on another whim, he submits a story to another publisher, under a name, and it does better than the first.

↬ he keeps going. he keeps doing it, completely faceless in his successes and comfortable for the first time in his life. he and avery graduate when they’re both 22, and they move into a house too big for either of them in pine place. they get three cats: sushi, dipdot, and penny. avery works IT and jaejin works from home. there’s a ring, then another. they’re married. they’re happy.

↬ when the tides turn, jaejin meets with anger for the first time. at himself, at every doctor who told him there was nothing wrong with him, and childishly, at avery for dying when they get into a car wreck because jaejin fell asleep at the wheel. after the fact, he’s diagnosed with narcolepsy and he’s told he’s probably had it since he was a teenager, perhaps around sixteen. a lot might’ve well have happened, but — not this. this didn’t have to happen.

↬ that was about a year and a half ago. since then, jj’s begun ghostwriting again for cash he doesn’t need, has published dozens of different books under different names, and he’s up to about seven cats. the house is empty, and he thinks about leaving it every single day, but it’s a thought had drunk on his bathroom floor, and it’s a thought that dies with his consciousness when the fade inevitably comes. he’s back to accepting it — this might as well happen.

headcanons.

↬ while reserved, and maybe standoffish, jae really isn’t a shy or mean person. ↬ his seven cats have their own bedroom, and it’s very well kept. their names are: sushi, dipdot, penny, mufasa, stitch, artemis, & merlin. ↬ he owns just about every squishmallow. none of them are named affectionately. ( close friends may discover this is a lie, but only his favorite get nice names. the rest are stinky, ugly, and variants of the such. ) ↬ he is narcoleptic, and it does effect his day to day life. ↬ he likes singing, but only a little bit. ↬ he doesn’t really have a direction in life anymore, and has more or less become apathetic about it. ↬ he really enjoys swimming, the beach, video games, and photography. ↬ horror is his favorite genre to write, but he’s written everything from romance to fantasy to filth to completely nonfictive works. ↬ he’s a lot lonelier than he lets on, but too prideful to admit it, and too afraid to lose whatever he gains to change that. ↬ if there’s a cat cafe in town, that’s where he is. ↬ he has a pretty serious drinking problem but doesn’t really wanna talk about it, if pressed. the same can be said for what drugs he takes. ( the drugs are prescribed to him, is the trouble; he needs them, he just over-uses. this is pretty much only known to him, however. ) ↬ he has some chronic health conditions as a result of the car accident he was in; primarily, migraines and a bad leg. ↬ his sense of humor is really dry and he can be a little mischievous, sarcastic, and pessimistic but he isn’t a malicious person! i promise he’s very sweet.

#wolvepineintro

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writing-frenzy · 5 years

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Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan BL story ideas for anyone who wants them.

This is basically a dumping place for the said genres, because after reading so many, I just couldn’t help but think them up, even if I will never write them. But others might like them, so I thought why not? (though if anyone ever does write something, or has seen anything similar elsewhere, please tell me so I can read them.)

Warning: ideas got long, and some themes maybe sensitive: ie: Violence, Murder, Child abandonment, fighting, torture all that good stuff you find in these genres

First Idea: the things a Good Teacher can alter

So, basically, MC was a guy from our world, who ended up dying and being reborn into another one... centuries before a certain book he read even takes place. Needless to say, he doesn’t remember it. (after all, one can only read about so many stallion protags and their harem fun times before they all kind of bleed together into one mash up.)

But on the other hand, being able to literally do magic and all is still very much a thing he would like, so why the hell not become a cultivator? So he joins a sect, manages to pass it’s entrance trial by the grit of his teeth and becomes an outer disciple of one of the Peak Lords, learning all he needs to from his senior brothers and sisters. Everything should be great, right?

Well, here is the thing: it is hard as heck; Turns out, he has a constitution that makes cultivating near impossible for him. Getting out of the first stages of Qi Refining and forming his Golden Core took forever it seems, and when he finally made it to the Immortal stage, he feels as if he had been run over by a bus after he was rung out of all his energy. it’s like whatever a normal person has to do to make it, it takes him not two, not even three, but a hundred times more to accomplish. But hey, he has a thirty-ish young body for all the years he’s really been alive and he still has magic, so it could have been worst.

(though if one wants to give him a golden finger of sorts; he has an absolutely insane pain tolerance :D things that would cause even the most mighty of Martial Heros to fall would be like, ‘huh, is something poking me?’. or chronic pain is also a thing if you want to be mean :) )

Only... Now that he has time for the actual world, he notices how his Sect’s state of affairs seem to be on the decline, with less and less people there now, most of them moving on to bigger and better things, bigger and better Sects and Clans. How the politics in his own Sect seem to be going to bigger and higher stakes, and how disagreements and feuds even end up almost destroying everything, a few Peak lords even dying from it.

These reasons all combined end up making MC one of the very few Immortals Golden Core Cultivators in the sect. It is because of this, that he ends up becoming a Peak Lord.

And Irony of Ironies, he is actually pretty damn good at it. (My idea is that in a previous life, MC was a Teacher or an Office worker, or maybe even both.)

Now, MC does not have want one would usually consider a golden finger, he is not the one who gets good things in life; in fact, he usually suffers and gets little to no reward from it... The same, on the other hand, can not be said for his disciples.

Disciple 1: ends up being the long lost son of an extremely wealthy family, who dies in the original novel for tragic backstory/emotional motive/character development for a novel character, only for MC to have saved them, then kept them because oh, high constitution for cultivation + bad idea for a grieving child this pretty to go to an orphanage. (glaring at them slavers out of the corners of his eye)

MC: Hey, I know it sucks what just happened, take as long as you need to recover. and hey, if you feel up to it, after you decide what to do, you can even join my sect and learn cool things.

D1: *sees things he can learn* ... I will never be so helpless again.

*Years later*

Wandering Clan: Young Master! You are well and alive! and they have been treating you well, even letting you learn Cultivation? Truly a noble sect, worthy of our loyalty!

MC’s Sect: + 1 business division, + a bunch to treasury

Disciple 2: Sibling to one of the Harem members, had thought she had been left for dead/slavers in the original novel by their sister and had been a tough, regularly appearing villain for a while until the protag has her see the error of her ways and became a harem member as well. Only once more, does MC save her from her situation, ending up getting him her gratitude and has her actually look really close at her situation and helps her look into the mystery of it all even as he takes her as his student.

MC: yeah, I’m only hearing about this second hand, and even I can see the holes in the story couldn’t even cover a hobo’s modesty. There is obviously more to this tale then meets the eye.

D2: ... *sparkles as she learns more on how to be a detective, Cultivation style*

*Years later*

Big Name Clan head: Ah, once again you have solved such a terrible crime and even this time shown how I have been framed! Truly a noble lady such as yourself have wishes? Please let me reward you!

MC’s Sect: + 1 Big Backer, + 1 to fame + a bunch more disciples for other Peaks

Disciple 3: the actual main villain of the series, he joins his sect when, during a night hunt, one of the Sect’s Elders watches him actually manage to kill the monster due to luck and a bit of skill; unfortunately he has some sort of dark inheritance + abusive teachers and fellow students in his sect who made him disillusioned with the lighter path and chased him into darkness... only here, MC strikes again, with him finding this poor abandoned child first, saving them from getting injured and taking them home to be well cared for and properly coached through the troubles of life.

MC: Crap, damn it, oh fuck that is more blood spilling then I am comfortable with, hang on little guy I will have this treated soon.

D3:... No one has ever cared for me so much. *Childish hero worship + instant loyalty.*

*Years Later*

Fangirls and boys: AHHHH D3 is just so cool, he is so awesome, so handsome!

MC’s Sect: +1 for fame, plus a bunch of more disciples for the sect.

Disciple 4: Female Canon Fodder, originally in the novel to act parallel to the Female Lead and make her look one hundred times better in comparison in looks, personality and even morals. But here is still insecure teenage girl who, before she could be blacken and disillusioned, wants more in her life then to be an ornamental vase for a future wealthy husband, finds out that MC’s Sect not only takes women, but also actually trains them in ways of Martial arts/Cultivation/Pill Refining/Whatever? (Sign her the fuck up.)

MC: oh, you want to learn? Sure, let’s start. *is a great teacher who actually teaches equally*

D4: *is a wide-eyed sponge* I will follow.

*Years Later*

D4′s Clan: Ah, yes, that great girl is indeed a daughter of our clan, bringing glory and honor to our names, with men lining up only in hopes she will but glance at them.

MC’s Sect: + a Big Backer, + Fame, + more followers

Disciple 5: The Hidden Boss; the illegitimate son of a family (from wife or husband, whichever you desire), was outcast from them all without ever knowing why, not even allowed to learn his family’s martial arts and abilities even though he was incredibly talented and skilled at everything else he learned. In the original novel, he at first seemed like a helpful NPC family member of Protag/Harem member who would explain or even help the Protag and his harem, them all unknowing that he was in fact causing 30% of their problems. But here, MC notices Hidden Boss’s potential, sees how these people just seem to be wasting talent and goes;

MC: Hey, I can take him in!

Those who actually care about the kid: *sees all his other ducklings and the good rumors of his teachings.* sure, better with you then here.

Those who don’t care about the kid. *Sees the funny, ‘weak’ Peak Lord of a dying sect who is pretty far away from them* sure, as long as he’s not here.

*Year’s Later:

D5: *very successful, powerful, strong, and wealthy* Hello.

D5′s Clan: *sweats*

MC’s Sect: + 1 Fame, + Money, + Honor, + a whole bunch more.

Disciple 6: Female character who was basically created solely for the need to give the Protag character, emotional, and background development in the story, and then die in the most fan pissing off way imaginable. yeah, you know what I’m talking about, a girl giving only one dimension to her structure, who has a profound effect on the main character for how little time they were together, and then just killed off before we even get the chance to even learn more! Only here, instead of staying wherever she was before, she either gets picked up by MC early on on one of his recruitment drives or hears of the sect’s growing fame and awesome female disciples and decides she wants more (like she deserves)

MC: oh, you’re pretty good at that! I can see real talent for you here; would you like to learn more?

D6: Yes please! ^_^

*Years Later*

D6: *A Noble Empress, eyes cutting just like her sword arts, her elemental affinity working in twine with it as she delivers a finishing blow to her monsterous foe* Huh, I’m pretty sure these are some prime ingredients for Cultivation, I must be careful to preserve and dismantle effectively!

MC’s Sect: + Fame, + Fortune, + a crap ton of good things.

Whatever order you want them to come in, it’s up to you, just have fun with it.

But yeah, these are not the only changes from the original novel; for example, MC’s sect should have been destroyed/abandoned/deserted, only a footnote because of some obscure fact that needed to be know. (example: This monster is so terrible, it destroyed three sects! or MC’s Sect is the only one who knew of a technique to cure this poison; either find a survivor/search the ruins) Only for luck, the MC, and his lucky students to have saved it all in the end.

Note: To makes things more interesting, I think it would be funny if there were more Reincarnations/Transmigrators closer to the story line, but in shock of the differences to add to the comedy value.

Idea Two: The System messed up, like a boss!

Now, how this idea starts out is a bit different: it’s just a bit before the MC dies, showing that they have been a normal guy before they had found themselves held captive by some obsessed stalker/killer for a long time, who has made it to where if they MC ever tried to harm them in any way or form, it would just end up guaranteeing his own death.

And after enduring this literal hell for what feels like years now, here are MC’s thoughts on the matter.

MC: Okay then. *proceeds to rip his tormentor's own throat out with his teeth*

(Now, it is up to the writer if they want to hide this dark history or not, maybe hinting here and there about it.)

Cue them suddenly being connected to the system!

MC: ... what?

System: Hiiii~ I’m-

ERROR!

*Suddenly cut off, MC goes through one hell of a disorienting experience, only to wake up in some child’s body.

MC: What

Child’s Soul that still barely remains in the body: Please, I just want to see what’s beyond these walls, just once.

*sudden mindwammy of memories of the slavery this child has gone through, the torture from their masters, the cruelty of bystanders that just stand by.*

What the child’s words in a way mean: (I want to see one good thing, just one about this world, before I die.)

MC:... Okay then. *proceeds to rip out their current body’s Master’s throat, due to surprise, his soul not be the one that is enslaved, and a strange sort of energy*

(And maybe here it could be hinted about what happened if one wants to hide the MC’s past, about how this wasn’t the first time he’s tasted blood on his teeth or ripped out a person’s throat.)

This in the end erases the remaining slave binds on him, and makes it easy to escape the mansion he is being held in. Even better, it seems the place is also being raided by some group, so it’s even easier for MC to be lost in the confusion. When he is finally far enough away, when the distance finally feels just enough, the MC lets himself fall to the ground, right next to a shrub of some sorts before he finally takes a breath and fully taking in his surroundings.

Only to lose it as he finally takes in the scenery: a pretty jade like valley of some sorts, soft hills of green turned darker and yet still shining in the moonlight from a full moon and the stars all around them. You know those pictures of places with no light pollution on islands and such? This is what he see in this moment.

And both souls are in complete awe of it.

Child Soul: so beautiful... I never knew it (the world) could be so beautiful.

MC: I forgot it could be.

Child Soul: ... Thank you! Thank you so much! *smiles and passes on to bigger and better things.

It is after this bit of peace and quiet, that finally the system comes back.

System: Ah, sorry, technical difficulties, did not expect that; Anyways, I am the System, to help you in your role for your next life!

MC: ...Role?

System: Yes! You are the “Villainous Boss’ of -insert story name here-! I am the ‘Like a Boss’ System, ensuring one will act as a truly terrifying villain!

MC: *thinking* You said the VB of that story, aren’t they -insert villian’s name-?

System: Yes!

MC: The young Master who fell from the mountains and ended up following dark paths and murky unknowns?

System: Yes.

MC: the Villain who was dark haired and eyed, who’s skin was pale as jade was said to be, and could make man and woman go mad over his charm?

System:... Yes?

MC:... I think there has been a mistake.

1:Considering that this was a child who was sold into slavery very young, to a point they don’t even know about parents, has dealt with the hell that is slavery to cruel masters, and would have in fact died just now if MC didn’t make a way through. {2} actually does have a name, and isn’t the same at all as the Villain. {3} the Body does not in anyway have dark hair or eyes, and the skin is not pale as jade (not to mention charm, unless someone is weak for poor orphaned waifs).

Yeah, a mistake has been made.

System: ah.... oh dear; maybe you do a switch a roo?

only, turns out that they find that would be impossible as well, because not only are they way before the story line even starts, MC’s constitution is very... Strange. (Basically, because MC could be classified as a Vengeful spirit, if only for the way he died, but due to him already getting said revenge, and even helping another soul pass on to the pure lands, he has a very high, very good constitution for Cultivation... both righteous and demonic. and his body needs to maintain an about equal level between the both of them, otherwise it gets out of wack and could cause most painful death.)

So, MC has to maintain tasks from the system, acting like a boss, and do certain things (like joining certain sects, to betraying a comrade, to even slaughtering a group of people sadistically ); luckily, he doesn’t actually have to be a villain, but he does have to act like it, which gives ideas.

MC: Okay, I will be the red herring Villain! The, it’s so obvious it just can’t be them kind of guy!

System: DX ... why not, it might work.

And hilariously enough, it does :D I imagine MC would act like a combination between Ichimaru Gin from Bleach and Murkuro from KHR, clever, twisting, manipulative, and yet surprisingly playful and cruel when one least expects it. (that he has loyal fanatical followers with yandere tendencies goes without saying, though he has no idea; He has high intelligence, can understand emotions and motives, but does at times not realize just how much people have actually bonded with him himself.)

Examples of his relationships.

Twins he found: the famous mirrored twins, one going down the path of darkness and cruelty, even as one heads for the path of good and light; maybe in the original story they had been separated, or a distance was placed between them due to misunderstandings and jealousy. MC had gotten a get one and get the other free tag a longs, finding them when they were young and hadn’t yet joined a sect, only ending up bonding with them. Though he is admittedly worried about betrayal and being put down from them in the future, he still bonds and helps them as much as he can.

Though-

Twin 1: MC! MC! I’ve gotten even better in my Demonic cultivation!

Twin 2: shhhh, not so loud! But anyways, I have gone even farther levels in my out Righteous Cultivation.

MC: ... That’s nice?

They are like his most trusted advisors/Inner circle members (of course he would have one, any good villian would :D ) completely willing to do what must be done for their brother in arms and most trusted friend. (the one who had been there for them at their lowest, the one who was able to keep them all together, sacrificing what he needed, adding so many scars to his one body just to spare them. They are the ones who best know about the man he is, for they were the ones who saw how he was forged, turning his words, his looks, and even his smiles into the terrifying weapons they are today. He is the one who showed them you can be bathed in darkness and still be ever so good, something they will help with as much as they can.

His First Disciple: Now, MC does take his teaching duties seriously, whether he is an elder in the sect or even a peak lord (though I would think it would be awesome if he was a Librarian), so he would be very attentive with his pupil, even if he teases and gently picks on them, messing with them as they grow older. MC originally took this kid because he remembers them from the novel as the one who helps the protagonist, who was thought to be an enemy only to be the secret ally. So he is pretty sure the kid will betray him eventually, especially since he let’s them in on all his shady practices and dealings with demonic cultivatior and/or actually demon folk. And with them being a complete Kuudere, it seems that way..

Only...

1st D: I will follow my Master to the end of my days. and if my death could be of service to him, I will have died with a light heart.

MC: wtf no! No dying for me!

The kid turns completely and utterly into his proud minion, happily doing what ever his dear Master asks of him. (after all, who was it that pulled him from the darkness, who showed him such care and attention, always there with a kind word and a joke whenever he was troubled? There was no one but him who wanted him, not during these long years, only for him to be pick specifically? ha, he will follow all his days, just as long as he can remain at his side.)

Very powerful Demon Lord (not king): Someone MC met while still young and unattached to a sect thought; hey, let’s get my consorting with darkness task down! After all, this guy was a well known villain in the series, a troublemaker through and through, who betrayed and sacrificed his minions and others like pawns. Once again, MC thinks he’s going to get betrayed eventually, but hey, the guy ain’t all bad and he’s pretty friendly even! though...

Demon Lord that is in fact in control of a very terrifying and large territory: Sir, would you like me to take your coat? maybe even a drink? *orders a very expensive and luxury wine.*

MC: *eyes him suspiciously, but nods* I am willing.

why they insist on waiting hand and foot on him always weirds them out. (For the Half-demon, half-human, it only makes sense; this person is their benefactor, so overwhelmingly powerful, just being near them strengths them, who he has picked him up even while he was a weakling and saw promise, made a gamble on that promise and even to this day still profits. Who is honestly even more terrifying then the demon King in DL’s eyes, and desires to please him all the more, so that he too can always serve this higher life form in his eyes.)

And these are just some examples, mostly all of them would probably be the inner circle I said he had XD

But wait, you might ask; what about those tasks you mentioned, how could betraying a comrade or slaughtering a group of people sadistically be good? here we go :D

betraying a comrade:

MC: okay, so, this guy is embezzling funds, this asshole is abusing his students, and this.. one...

System: ...?

MC:... “This one is raping their own Disciples, huh?” is said ever so softly, their eyes half-lidded even as they stare at the profile picture of the filth. “When they go on their next mission, make sure I am one of their backups, hmmm? I haven’t had the chance to push anyone off a cliff yet, have I?”

Answer: In a big sect, everyone should be your comrade; that you are betraying their expectations, their values, or even ratting them out all make it up. (and cold-hearted murder always works for the scum of the earth too!)

slaughtering a group of people sadistically:

System: so, we have a group of Demonic cultivators consorting with slave dealers, we have some criminals over here doing despicable things there, and we have traitors over here, what do you want to do?

MC: how about all of them?

Answer: what about those no one would miss :D

Notes: I would find it so funny if the MC was actually an animal magnet; like, birds will happily eat from his hand, deer will sleep right next to him, guardian beasts will want to protect him and keep him safe because god damn it, hasn’t this poor soul been through enough?! (be cool if this was one of the reasons why the sect leader actually trusts him; he has a bond with a guardian beast that can maybe read the soul or something, which MC has no clue about, so thinks nothing about how this beast keeps wanting to cuddle him.

but you want to know what? Out of everything, with all the the MC is doing? All they truly want in life is peace and rest, maybe even a shoulder to rest his weary head upon when life gets to much. (but thanks to the system and it’s tasks, he will never be able to truly have it.)

huh, this got pretty long.... eh, I had more ideas, but I think I’ll leave it here for now. If anyone wants more Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan , I might make a part two!

#Wuxia #Xianxia #Xuanhuan #story ideas #fantasy #I thought these were cool

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Nildungsroman

by Dan H

Saturday, 27 September 2008

Dan finally identifies something that has been bugging him.~

I've always had a problem with Modern Fantasy. Not in the sense of "published within the last five years" (although there is also that) but in the sense of "set in the real world, only with magic and shit, which most people don't know about". Possibly that's Urban Fantasy.

This whole thing struck me while I was reading Cassandra Cla(i)re's City of Bones, which funnily enough seems to have a lot of traits in common with a certain other modern fantasy series that the author may or may not have heard of, and which I may or may not have said a few things about in the past, so these comments are slightly biased towards those two august tales, but I'll also be talking about other elements of the Geek Canon, including Buffy, Tolkein and Star Wars.

As ever, contains spoilers.

The Hero's Journey: Ur Doin It Rong

For what it's worth, I'm not actually a big fan of Joseph Campbell. I think the observation that lots of different myths have lots of things in common rates somewhere between "dog bites man" and "Bishop of Rome Espouses Nicene Creed" on the duh-o-meter. On the other hand, the Hero With A Thousand Faces One Of Which Is Luke Skywalker does nicely identify a basic structure which can, at the very least, make sure that a mythically-slanted story doesn't suck donkey balls.

Very broadly, the Hero's Journey has three stages: the departure, the initiation, and the return. The hero starts out as Joe Ordinary (or possibly as Joe Destiny), then goes off into the Crazy World of Magic Shit, then comes back a better and more complete man. Along the way he has to get eaten by a whale and meet a goddess, but that's basically the deal (any inaccuracies can be attributed to my not actually having read The Hero With A Thousand Faces and thus getting most of my information from Wikipedia).

Star Wars, as you probably already know, was based very, very, very (very, very, very) closely on the classic Campbellian journey (right down to including the trash compactor scene pretty much entirely to tick the "hero goes underground and bad shit happens" box). Early season Buffy actually holds fairly closely to the model as well, both in terms of its overall arc (at least in seasons 1-5) and the structure of individual episodes. An episode of Buffy usually opens with our heroine facing a Typical Teenage Problem, then getting drawn into a supernatural event which allowed her, at the end, to resolve her Real Life problem as well as lay the smackdown on some vampires. As I've argued before on Ferretbrain, I think Buffy lost its way around the point it stopped bringing everything back to the real world.

And that, in a roundabout way, is what I think is wrong with Modern Fantasy. If you blinked you might have missed it, so I'll say it again more explicitly. A lot of Modern Fantasy seems to be at least loosely based on the Hero's Journey, and while it does the departure and the initiation really well, it seems to write the whole "return" bit off as a waste of time. Modern heroes leave their home and family, descend into the underworld, and bloody well stay there.

Now I admit, part of this is going to be structure. In a TV series about fighting vampires (for example), you'll always get to the point where you can't view "going out to fight some vampires" as anything but routine, and you can only escalate so far before you have to play the "real life is the greatest battle" card or the "fighting the very essence evil itself" card (neither of which worked). On the other hand, part of it seems to be an issue with people actually missing the point of the Hero's Journey. I'm going to talk about both these phenomena, because I like to hear myself talk.

Sunnydalization: Myth Invades Reality

If, like me, you wasted your entire undergraduacy watching Buffy videos, and can quote pretty much the entire seven series end to end, including the "grr-arg" bits with the mutant enemy logo, you'll probably remember the bit in Prophecy Girl where Willow finds two dead bodies in the student lounge in Sunnydale High and, despite having seen at least a corpse a week for the past series, gets totally freaked out. When challenged about it, she says:

"I'm not okay. I knew those guys. I go to that room every day. And when I walked in there, it... it wasn't our world anymore. They made it theirs.

And at that point, Buffy changed subtly but irrevocably. Prior to that scene, Sunnydale was the real world, and the Hellmouth was the place where the monsters were. Every week, Buffy would battle the legions of hell, and every week she would come out and go to class and we would see exactly what she was fighting to protect. We'd see Jonathan and Cordelia and Harmony and the rest, all going on with their totally normal lives, totally unaware that little Miss Summers had been saving their collective assi.

After that moment, though, it all changed. Things got bigger and scarier, and the Demons didn't go back into their box. Buffy may have defeated the Master at the end of Season 1, but she failed to defeat the Hellmouth, and as the seasons progressed the line between the "reality" of Sunnydale and the Underworld of the Hellmouth became more and more blurred. In season three we are told that the mayor "built this town for demons to feed on" and by the end of season seven the two are so inextricably linked that the final closing of the Hellmouth actually destroys the town.

As I said above, I ultimately think this is an inevitable effect in a long running series. The first time a vampire attacks somebody on school grounds it's scary. The twelfth you just start to wonder why the school is still open. The Sunnydale body count became something of a running joke ("if we train hard, keep focus, and don't have so many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is gonna rule") but while it was funny it also began to undermine the point of the show. What started out as a nice little town threatened by a supernatural enemy became itself a seat of magical corruption. By the end of series seven there is literally nobody normal left in Sunnydale, they've all evacuated because of the effects of the Hellmouth (even the more sympathetic demons get out of town).

What this means is that, by the end of the series, Buffy has literally nothing left worth fighting for, except possibly Joss Whedon's ropey feminist doctrine. The later series of Buffy fall flat because, as Sunnydale itself becomes a place of evil, the Slayer loses all contact with the real world.

Mugglism: The Family Romance

Ultimately, though, I can forgive Buffy for its structural flaws. What I have more trouble with is the peculiar tendency in a lot of Modern/Urban Fantasy to treat the Fantasy World as just flat-out better than reality.

The chronic offender in this case is, of course, the Wizarding World of the Harry Potter series. Harry is rescued from the dull, dreary (and psychotically abusive) Dursleys, the "biggest load of Muggles" Hagrid has ever seen. He is then taken away into the wonderful Wizarding world where everything is fabulous and magical. He then discovers that he is a figure of the utmost importance in said world, and people either treat him with awe or loathing, both of which he finds equally affirming, while the infallibly wise guardian of his new world assures him that he really is all that and a bag of chips. Meanwhile the author informs us in interviews that everything in the Wizarding world is indeed superior to everything in the real world.

Oh, and just to forestall the inevitable "but the Wizarding world is really dangerous" apologia, there are two things to say about that. Firstly, until Rowling writes a scene that actually reminds me of the Holocaust, instead of just vaguely alluding to people making Nazi salutes, real life has Rowling licked when it comes to being dark, man. Secondly, horrors of actual, non-school-based wars aside, "like the real world but nastier" is yet another way of saying "like the real world but better". I'm going to hark right back to my third ever Ferretbrain article here and say that one of the things that really impressed me about Pan's Labyrinth was the fact that the really scary thing in it was not the Faun, or the Labyrinth, or the dude with the eyes in his hands, but the brutal mass-murdering fascist.

Anyway, where was I. Oh yes. The "fantasy is better than reality" style of Urban Fantasy usually winds up being a version of the (Freudian, and therefore almost certainly no longer reputable) idea of the Family Romance. The belief, common in young children, that their parents aren't their real parents, and they're actually something different and special. Of course most of us then grow up and realise that our parents are pretty okay people, and that being a Magical Princess probably wouldn't be that great, and actually there's some pretty radical stuff in the real world which we could be getting on with (like writing for webzines or playing World of Warcraft).

A mythical journey in which the Hero leaves the real world and then never comes back is always going to seem, to me (and therefore to anybody who matters), to be fundamentally juvenile.

Pan's Labyrinth would have been completely meaningless if Ofelia did not ultimately end up confronting Vidal (albeit hopelessly), and the Lord of the Rings loses a lot of its impact if the Hobbits don't go back to the shire. Harry Potter may save the Wizarding World, but muggles like me have no reason to care about that. Stories like the Potter series work absolutely fine, as long as you're still labouring under the illusions that you're a beautiful unique snowflake, and the only people that matter are you and the few others you're willing to accept as equally special. The moment you - not to put too fine a point on it - grow the fuck up, and realise that everybody else (yes even the teachers at your school, yes even your parents, yes even the kids who are mean to you) are real people with their own lives and ideals, you have to let go of the belief that your secret world is the most important one.

I've not yet finished City of Bones, much less the whole "Mortal Instruments" series, but it's shaping up to go the same way as potter: a long story about somebody totally failing to grow up.

In Conclusion: Why Americans Damned Well Should Be Afraid of Dragons

Roleplayers in the audience will probably know that White Wolf Game Studio used to publish, as part of their risibly-entitled World of Darkness line a game called Changeling the Dreaming. It was a game about, like, the loss of innocence and the death of dreams, man. Players took on the role of Changelings, fairy spirits in human bodies, who were slowly losing their beautiful-unique-snowflakeness under the crushing "Banality" of the modern world.

As games went, it was alright, it fetishised childhood in a slightly iffy way, but otherwise was decent Guns and Wizards Urban Fantasy fare. What bugged me about it, though, was the way it essentially divided everything in the world into "Banal" (soul destroying and imagination crushing) and "Glamorous" (drawing on the power of the Dreaming, the wellspring of human imagination). In particular, what bugged me about it was that it assumed that "imagination" was associated purely with the trappings of medieval fantasy. An artist who paints grim cityscapes and urban decay is Banal, an artist who paints forests full of dancing elves is Glamorous.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire is Banal wish-fulfillment tapping into people's desire to get something for nothing. The hundred or so fairy stories about farmer's sons who get fantastically rich because of a stroke of good fortune are totally inspiring and bring out the best in humanity.

In her article Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons? Ursula le Guin observes (perhaps correctly) that the Fantasy genre is looked down upon in America, and that this is perhaps indicative of a society too obsessed with industry, productivity and profit, and distrustful of the imagination. Fiction in general, and fantasy in particular, encourages the reader to stop thinking about how they can best make a million bucks before they're forty and start thinking about any one of the million other things they could be doing. As Le Guin puts it:

"Fantasy is true, of course. It isn't factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial... They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom."

Of course the important thing to remember about this particular essay is that Le Guin is using "dragons" and "fantasy" as a shorthand for "fiction in general", and you could the mistrust of Fantasy in the twentieth century with the mistrust of the novel in the nineteenth. A lot of fantasy readers (and, by extension, some fantasy writers) go further. Like Changeling they come to view "elves and dragons and shit" as being synonymous with imagination, and to view imagination as the only virtue required in humanity, instead of as part of a healthy, well rounded personality.

Sensible proponents of Fantasy argue that it is perfectly okay to like dragons and wizards, and that the presence of fantasy elements does not make a story frivolous. Less sensible proponents of fantasy seem to want to argue that it is perfectly okay to like nothing except dragons and wizards, and that fantasy elements make a story more meaningful by their mere inclusion. This is particularly common in fandom and geekdom, where people are massively more inclined to focus on the details of a particular setting (elves, vampires, wizards) than on the actual contents of the narrative (destruction of rural England, coming-of-age in small town America, why suicide is totally heroic).

Obviously, I don't want a return to the nineteenth century, I don't want a world where nobody reads fiction, or where it isn't considered perfectly okay to pick up the odd bit of Laurel K Hamilton if you feel like something light and pulpy, but I am deeply concerned about a Fantasy genre that is coming to view fantasy as an end in itself. That's fine if you're aspiring to nothing more than light holiday reading, but a lot of fantasy (even, or perhaps I should say especially children's fantasy) takes itself very seriously, and it's ludicrous to try to deal with "real" issues in something that's totally divorced from the real world. You can't show us the reality of war in a world where everybody acts like an overgrown five-year-old and people only die when the author is trying to make a point.

Fantasy is not factual, and because it is not factual it must remain true, and the truth is that the real world matters, and that real people are amazing, and a Hero who doesn't return is no hero at all.

Themes:

J.K. Rowling, Books, TV & Movies, Sci-fi / Fantasy, Whedonverse

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Arthur B

at 15:31 on 2008-09-27I'm reminded a little, in fact, of Terry Gilliam's

Tideland

, which kind-of repudiates the fantasy-as-an-end-in-itself stance he took in some of his earlier films: in that one you have plenty of people who use fantasy as a means of escaping from the world around them, with the result that their lives are completely stagnant and horrible, and you've got the protagonist who uses fantasy to endure the world around her whilst still progressing through it, so she comes out the other end more-or-less unscathed and with a potential adoptive mum to boot.

You've glossed over an aspect of the Hero's Journey a little, which is that when the Hero returns to the everyday world he isn't just a fuller and more complete man, he actually enriches the everyday world by the fact that he's gone on this journey in the first place.

Lord of the Rings

is an exceptionally good example of this; not only are the Hobbits better people for having gone to fight Sauron, but when they get back they solve the Shire's problems and then (for the most part) become its primary movers and shakers for the next generation. Arguably, part of the problem with the way Buffy developed was that whilst Buffy's own real life problems were often solved by her adventures, she didn't so much enrich the community by her adventures so much as prolong the death throes of the status quo: things gradually get worse, and worse, and worse in Sunnydale until it all goes to shit. Harry Potter's magical studies not only have no beneficial effects for his community in the mundane world, he's actually legally prevented from letting that happen.

I think the problem with Hero's Journey type narratives in fantasy set in the modern day is that "it's the modern day, but with vampires" seems far too close to the real world, if you see what I mean. Back in the day it was sufficient for the hero to walk a long long long way away and people could accept that "oh, OK, way over there is the land of magic and adventure". The problem with the likes of Buffy and Potter is that the land of magic and adventure is

right on their doorstep

, and this actually makes the return to the real world slightly problematic; because the vampires and werewolves and death eaters are in such close proximity (physically and in terms of always getting in each other's face), you'd expect the hero to be concerned about them all the time. The reason

Narnia

does the Hero's Journey so well is precisely because Narnia is a mythic otherworld which it's non-trivial to get to, and I would argue that that's a requirement for any mythic otherworld in a Hero's Journey-based story: if you can get to the Hellmouth by walking down the street then that's not so much a Hero's Journey as a Hero's Morning Jog.

I suspect the answer is to use a different myth for modern-day fantasy.

Supernatural

seems to get a lot of mileage (no pun intended) out of the old Lone Ranger/Fugitive "Eternal Wanderer" story (which has the advantage that it's a lot easier to adapt to television, because you can spin it out for as long as you damn well like, whereas the Hero's Journey pretty much demands an end point).

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Andy G

at 20:52 on 2008-10-05Great article! That really put the finger on something that had been bugging me, except actually I hadn't realised it had been bugging me until I read the article. I was just wondering how you think Star Wars would fit into the pattern of the Hero's return, as you'd given that as an example of one closely written to the pattern, but it doesn't seem as clear-cut an example as the LotR or others where the magical world/magical powers are left behind?

Possibly a stupid question as you have clearly read a lot of stuff ABOUT fantasy (where on earth do you find it? I mean I do like to read fantasy, but I can barely ever find anything interesting written about it - except on Ferretbrain, of course) but have you read On Fairy Stories by Tolkien? It covers a lot of the themes from above, and it's one of my favourite essays with some really well-made points.

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Arthur B

at 21:15 on 2008-10-05As far as I can tell, the supposed precise mapping of

Star Wars

to the Hero's Journey is a bit ropey, and came about mainly because John Campbell was all "Hey,

Star Wars

fits the Hero's Journey perfectly" and George Lucas said "Oh... really? I mean, yes. Yes it does."

So working out where all the various bits and pieces fit in is sometimes tricky, but I think the Hero's Return is very much there, although it's pretty much described in a single scene - it's the bit at the end where they're all getting their medals and all the rebel forces cheer them. Having ventured into the depths of the Death Star's chasm and faced the dark lord, Luke emerges victorious and the community (said community being the rebellion) is enriched for it. That's all you really need for the Hero's Return - tenuous, I know, but so's the entire Hero's Journey idea to begin with.

(The end of Return of the Jedi is interesting in this light, actually - the community is having a big party, but Luke isn't really part of it - he's off at the edge, burning his father's body and communing with ghosts, his experiences finally alienating him from his community because he's endured so many things that have no parallel in the common experience of the war - hundreds of people can claim they were involved in the attack on Death Star II, for example, but only Luke actually saw Darth Vader's true face.)

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Dan H

at 16:29 on 2008-10-06

I've not read it actually (I'm far less well read than I pretend to be, I just shout my opinions loudly and hope people assume I've done some research).

As for Star Wars, the "real world" if you want to call it that in the SW saga is (IMO) the Rebellion, the big deal is that while Luke goes off and learns from Jedi Masters and confronts Darth Vader, it's the regular guys in the guns-and-bombs shooting war that he comes back to. Our Esteemed Editor also points out that Luke's return to Han and Leia is a quite literal return to family at the end of the series.

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Sister Magpie

at 20:38 on 2008-10-30Great article! I've been catching up and had just read your review where you asked why someone would have to add fantasy to New York City to find a sense of wonder--quoting that paragraph that's a beautiful image strangely undermined by the addition of werewolves, fairies, vampires and mermaids. (Central Park, Chinatown, the Hudson River are all far more interesting.)

I've always liked "our world, but with magic" in terms of books starting in our world rather than a totally different secondary world, but I totally agree with this--because as you say, setting something in our world and adding magic doesn't have to mean that our world is the world that sucks or can't hold it's own. A sense of home is always present in LOTR and that makes the Shire stand up as just as wonderful as any magical place.

It reminds me of the book Hatchet that I had to read a couple years ago for a thing I was doing on YA books. I have only ever read that book, but there are several in the series. It's not fantasy, it's about a boy who survives a plane crash and must survive alone in the Canadian wilderness. But in the end he's rescued and there's other books, some of which follow a "what if?" scenario where he never leaves the woods. What struck me about the synopses of the later books was that the main character pretty much wound up going off to live in the forest. He didn't like civilization any more and preferred his solitary life.

The idea seemed to be that the author enjoyed the more "real" life experience of fighting for your survival, hunting your own food etc. But I thought it made the whole series a failure by not realizing that the point of a Vision Quest is to find out how you can help your community. Deciding to be a hermit--a fine choice in other contexts--is here just selfish and avoiding the responsibilities of being an adult in the community.

It's just important to make the distinction between this really being a flaw in Urban fantasy and it being just something urban fantasists can use it for.

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Dan H

at 15:25 on 2008-11-17Hiya, sorry it took me so long to reply (this just in, doing NaNo is

hard

). Thought I'd clarify one particular point:

It's just important to make the distinction between this really being a flaw in Urban fantasy and it being just something urban fantasists can use it for.

Oh absolutely. By "a flaw in Urban Fantasy" I basically meant it in the specific, subjective sense (as in "this is something I consider to be a flaw in the works of urban fantasy which I have personally read") not a fundamental weakness of the genre.

I find it particularly infuriating since so much Urban Fantasy is either targeted at children or "young adults" and if there's one thing that young adults *don't* need to be told, it's that being an adult is for losers.

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Sonia Mitchell

at 01:52 on 2009-06-25Once again I know this is old, but I hadn't read any Campbell when you wrote this. I'm rehashing now I've read enough of

Hero With a Thousand Faces

to comment. Not all of it, I have to add (psychology texts bore me) but a fair amount (I'm also cribbing the exact terms from

here

because it's been a few months since I touched the book).

And while I agree with the points you make, Dan, I don't think HWATF backs them up. It's not a check-list of ingredients for a story, but a variety of factors of which some (not all) can be found in a given hero's journey. Refusing to return

a valid stage of the journey, even if it makes for an unsatisfying narrative. I agree that it marks Harry out as an immature hero, just as I think it does Achilles and the Sandman and the Pevensies (who never intended to return home in TLTW&TW). For most of us there does come that point where we stop thinking Dorothy's mad for wanting to go back to Kansas (we grow the fuck up, as you so rightly say), but nevertheless according to Campbell heroes who don't return are still heroes.

Suicide

can

be 'totally heroic' in the classical model Campbell's following, which isn't using heroes as role models. Working in the chivalric model, which I think maybe you are, naturally it isn't. And Harry Potter seems to strongly invite one to take the chivalric viewpoint, right up to telling us how 'gallant' Harry is for protecting a(n extremely competent) woman with an unforgivable curse. If nothing else, the cosmetic details (suits of armour, portraits of damsels, Arthurian treasures and constant references to Merlin) are knightly not classical, and invite one to take a certain perspective (there might be an article in this, actually...).

As far as I can tell, the supposed precise mapping of Star Wars to the Hero's Journey is a bit ropey, and came about mainly because John Campbell was all "Hey, Star Wars fits the Hero's Journey perfectly" and George Lucas said "Oh... really? I mean, yes. Yes it does."

Which I'd say is the right way to do things - treating. HWATF as a tool for analysis rather than an instruction manual on how to write fiction. I think consciously ticking off the elements of the hero's journey would make for a rather boring (not to mention contradictory) story, since the natural temptation would be to take them far too literally. I'll take tenuous any day :-)

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 16:20 on 2009-09-10Great article and it immediately reminded me of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar trapesty, which is a bit narnian in its basic plot, has some slight elements of urban fantasy and I thin generally is a surprisingly awesome take on what seems on the surfce to be an awfully cliched fantasy world. Commenting on heroic suicides, I think this one has one brilliantly haunting example and a few others might qualify as well.

But really made me recollec this is the development of Dave, who is kind of an average guy compared to the rest of the cast and doesn't get any cool pwers or even the girl or anything. But in a very awesome ending, without any sense of needless fanfare, you know that he'll return back to the real world and things will be okay.

I won't explain more because I'd hate to spoil it for any one and I guess it would be a bit tedious.

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pitz182 · 5 years

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Marijuana as Harm Reduction: Chip Z'Nuff on the Medical Promise of Cannabis

The first time I grasped harm reduction for drug addicts (the idea that abstinence isn’t feasible for everyone so we’d better find a way to reduce mortality and damage), I was 35 and sharing a joint with two other writers—a decades-clean speed freak and a 12-stepping alcoholic. As for me? Everything, but heroin and pharmaceutical amphetamines have caught me the hardest (knock on wood that they’re never dethroned). Mid-joint, one of them asked me if I thought other people smoked as much as us.Not unless they’re avoiding something else, I said. Puff puff pass.The first time I experienced harm reduction, though, I was 19 and playing fly-on-the-wall in a rock star’s dining room. It was 1994 on the Irish south side of Chicago. I’d moved into a teenage crash pad where rumor was Enuff Z’nuff—a late eighties Chicago scene staple gone national; a band whose glam exterior lumped them in with acts like Poison and Skid Row while their vibe and melodies telegraphed Cheap Trick and Beatles—lived on the corner. After several weeks of reconnaissance to ferret out exactly where they lived, I was sent to ask them—the rock star strangers—for beer.They turned out to be Chip Z’nuff, singer, bassist, and original founding member of the band. He answered through an open screen door in his signature rasp: Well I don’t really like alcohol. It’s not good for you, but do you want to get stoned?Today, when I remind him of the exchange, he laughs a little.“Good,” he says, “I must have been in a good place then.”It’s been 25 years since I saw Chip Z’nuff and I’m a card-carrying medical cannabis patient now, a chronically sad trauma survivor with years of hard drug abuse and sobriety behind me. Spurts of hyper-sexual behavior and paranoia keep my psychiatrist and I discussing a secondary bipolar diagnosis, but we’re also not convinced I’m not just an analytical exhibitionist. All I had before was the trauma.I’ve come to talk with Chip about weed and advocacy, his stance on medicinal usage of marijuana.Illinois’ medical cannabis pilot program is in a growth phase. On his way out, Governor Bruce Rauner opened up access to include those Illinois residents who have been prescribed opioid medications, and new Governor J.B. Pritzker campaigned in no small way on the promise of bringing recreational marijuana to the Land of Lincoln.It’s a sunny Friday afternoon in Blue Island, still on Chicago’s south side but with a Hispanic flavor. Hilly in places, it sits on a channel of the Calumet River. Appropriately, a calumet is a North American peace pipe.“I’m a Cannabis Cup judge for High Times Magazine,” Chip says. We’re talking at his kitchen table about his longstanding, loud but peaceful weed advocacy. “They would always pick celebrities—musicians, rockstars, whatever you want to call it—and we’d fly over to Amsterdam and judge the marijuana in the different coffee shops. Whoever had the best shops and best pot would win. So I would go out there, and I did it with a bunch of different guys—Anthrax, Sebastian Bach, Patti Smith, a lot of cool artists—wanting to be a part of the movement because it was so powerful.”The movement was a pro-pot culture crusade—a coming out for stoners in the entertainment industry that had everything to do with harm reduction principles.“I got signed when I was about 25. My manager at the time was a guy named Herbie Herbert. He used to manage Journey, Roxette, Mr. Big, Steve Miller—bands that were all successful and sold millions of records. He used to tell me about growing up around the marijuana industry. He came from San Francisco and said that a lot of the artists were switching from alcohol and cocaine to pot, because it was easier on you. [The artists] seemed to feel better, were giving better shows and it wasn’t taking a toll on their bodies. Then I started reading up on pot and [Herbie] started teaching me about the medicinal stuff, the difference between CBD and THC. The guy was a genius. A six-trick pony. So I started studying up on it. [Medical cannabis] was a wave of the future that my manager knew about 20 years before it happened.”The current zeitgeist and loosening laws have everything to do with those years. The nineties, in turn, had been a response to the previous decade. Reagan’s drug war propaganda failed to differentiate between cocaine and cannabis—it was all the same enemy in the ads—but the crack epidemic made it clear that some drugs take a heavier toll on users than others. The public rejected the false equivalence. While celebrities rated weed in Amsterdam, Dazed and Confused announced Hollywood’s new stance on pot, hip hop culture flowed into the mainstream, and the leader of the free world quipped that he “didn’t inhale” live on television.In 1994, I was an undiagnosed ball of anxiety. I was a Lollapalooza Kid—a subset of Generation X that raved, rocked, and Rainbow Gathered in tandem while digging on Wu-Tang Clan and dancing to Front 242. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment where four, sometimes five of us slept on Tetris-ed floor mattresses in one room. Occasionally a ska band slept over. I was sexually assaulted in that place twice—once by a visitor, once by a roommate—and my only suicide attempt happened there as well.This is why I remember so many details of my quick stint (just a few months) as Chip’s neighbor. Because the kind of damage that writes books and overdoses was going down. But sitting at his table at age 43, interviewing my old friend for an article on reducing harm, these aren’t the things I remember.I’m recalling peace signs everywhere—it’s a part of their logo—and a Jane’s Addiction poster on one of the walls. Soft light. Warm skunk smoke hanging above everyone’s heads and a white cat with a full tail I used to pet while I watched the stream of strippers, strummers, and random hangers-on getting high. There were no hard drugs there. Just weed. And music.Chip’s voice is still raspy, and he’s talking about the medicine in marijuana.“Is it for everybody? I’m not so sure it is. I know from personal use and watching people around me, though, that alcoholics who start using it have gotten off of alcohol. That’s a great thing right there. Some people just can’t be on anything because it triggers other stuff. But anybody who’s sick, who has a debilitating illness, I think deserves to have the right to take cannabis.“I’ve got a friend of mine and she had MS,” he says. “She’d go through these tremors. She had problems speaking too. One minute she would be talking, then you couldn’t understand anything she was saying, but if she took a couple hits of pot she could speak so eloquently and perfect—it really helped her in a lot of ways. You can get on the internet and take a look at these success stories of people who have gone through terrible, terrible moments medicinally and have found a different way than what the doctors were prescribing to them. They turn their lives around and they owe it to marijuana in some capacity. I see that and go, ‘There’s a reason that God provides this plant for us on the earth. It wasn’t just to look at a beautiful plant.’ Is it for everybody? No. But for most? I say, could be.” What's your stance on medical (or recreational) marijuana? Let us know in the comments!

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starfxckersinc · 5 years

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“ha ha I have receipts on that person u like, time to give u what for” listen up captain moral high ground a lot of times people connect to a work of art before they hear any of the backlog, sometimes before the fucked up thing has even happened/been revealed. u ppl have to start learning the difference between liking someone’s art and liking someone’s personality, because convincing people that they’re secretly Nazis or pedophiles or some shit because they like a movie some fucked up guy was in is literally the grossest thing you can do. do you know what it’s like to have intrusive thoughts and chronic anxiety and severe self esteem issues and depression and hear shit like that??

just because you like a painting or a song or a film from a shitty/dangerous/fucked up guy doesn’t make you any of those things. but it also means you don’t have to support him. problems only arise when you try to defend the person behind the work instead of the work itself. you can cosplay as a Johnny Depp character and not become an abuser. you can listen to a Led Zeppelin song and not start locking groupies in a closet. this whole mindset of “if you like this thing you’re evil!!” is so gross because you’re basically forcing people to conform to this purity standard that’s completely unhealthy. You’re making it so no one can have a personality or thoughts of their own. Not to mention, people need to have critical thinking skills, and the soul intent of Tumblr seems to be to remove said skills and burn you like a witch.

art can be separated and enjoyed apart from the artist. the artist can burn in Hell and you can still like his sculpture. if u see someone defending said artist, feel free to pick them apart, but for gods sake stop getting mad at people for enjoying entertainment. stop guilting people about this stuff and focus your energy towards the people who are actually abusive and dangerous, as opposed to teenagers like me.

#aberdeen spoken word

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glamourouslife99 · 5 years

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Mama Hen’s Wisdom For A New Year...

It’s a new year, chicks. It’s hard for me to believe that 20 years have passed us by since we WERE partying in the year 1999. I turned 21 that year, and thought I knew it ALL. Let me tell you, chitlin’s- I didn’t know shit. I found out roughly a year ago, a man I was involved with from around February of 1999 until May of 1999, respectively, passed away from cancer. There was a pain in my heart for a moment. Neil wasn’t a *bad* guy exactly, he was just a liar, and I was naïve and fell for it. He told me that he was in the process of getting a divorce, it just wasn’t final. That is WARNING SIGN NUMBER ONE ladies AND gentlemen. 9 out of 10 times, there’s NO divorce pending, and their spouses have NO idea there’s even a problem. He was a football coach at his local high school in another state. We talked every day while I was at work, and nightly on the computer. It just so happens, Mama Hen despite being young and naïve, was no fool. Things just didn’t seem right. Ya’ll trust me, when they don’t feel right- trust your gut. Most of the time, your gut IS right. Back in the late 90’s, emails were easy to hack. I was SICK when I hacked his. He was talking to ALL kinds of women, and there was NO divorce. Talk about a punch in the gut. I was devastated. I was so in love with him, and this man was nothing but a liar. Needless to say, my heart was broken, but I dumped him like a hot potato. Was Neil the ONLY bad decision I made that year? Nah. Not by a LONG shot, but that’s part of being young. You make mistakes. You learn. The problem was, I didn’t have anyone really to help me along. My mother was just a saint. She didn’t drink. She didn’t smoke. She was a virgin when she got married. She did NOTHING. She did EVERYTHING her mother told her to. EVERYTHING. In absolutely NO way could she relate to me. None. Being a teenager, and then young adult was harder than hell with no one to relate to, or help guide me, that’s why you have Mama Hen. Mama Hen is here to break it down to you. I’m going to share with you, what I wish someone would’ve shared with me. You get ONE BODY. Love it. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, how short it is, how tall it is, how thin it is, how fat it is, how much excess skin it has, how dark the skin is, how light the skin is, what color your hair is, or if you have any hair at all. This body is YOURS. No one else has to live in it but YOU. Take care of it the best you can, and advocate for it. Don’t let ANYONE SHAME IT. PERIOD. Anyone who does- fuck them. I once weighed 400lbs. After being diagnosed with PCOS, and getting a proper treatment, I began to lose weight slowly. To this day, I’ve kept off over 180lbs. Do I have excess skin? You bet. Is my body what would be considered beautiful by most? Nope. I’ve got zero fucks to give. I wear a bikini to the pool every summer with my daughter. I want her to see that no matter what, I support body positivity, and that if you want to wear a bikini, put one on. This body has gained 200lbs, and then lost close to it again. This body has carried and given birth to two children. This body has nursed two babies. This body right now is fighting to stay alive through so many chronic pain/illnesses that after living 40 years in this body, I’m going to wear what I want, and do what I want. Don’t let anything stop YOU. Don’t let weight. Don’t let ability. Don’t let what peers at school, work, or family say or think. Don’t let society put you in a box by what they feel YOU should look like. YOU should look like whatever YOU think you should look like. Newsflash, if they don’t like it, they don’t have to fucking look at it. Girlfriend and boyfriend, you have EVERY right to exist on YOUR own terms! Do it! Don’t let anyone stop you! We are sexual beings. Don’t ever let someone shame you for your sexuality or being sexual. DO. NOT. SLUT. SHAME. Do NOT shame those who are choosing NOT be sexually active either. If you’re a virgin in your late teens, in your 20’s, or even later, (for various reasons- be it religious convictions, you haven’t found the right person, or you are DESPERATELY horny! And would jump the first person who said yes!) Don’t be ashamed! Things happen right when they are supposed to. Never be ashamed. I cannot hammer home this point enough- PLEASE, PLEASE- ALWAYS USE SAFER SEX PRACTICES, and USE THEM CORRECTLY! Yes, there are actually right and wrong ways to use birth control/STD prevention methods and devices. Know your status and know the status of your partner. Your life is too important not to.

If you are an ally to a friend someone who is LBGTQ, make sure you put your money where your mouth is. By this, I mean stand up for your friends. Being a young person is hard enough, but our LBGTQ youth (and yes, I know I’m old calling the late teens early 20’s our youth), have struggles those of us who are cisgendered take for granted. It’s a lot more than just wearing a safety pin on our shirts, and protesting at rallies (although, being there with your friends, and protesting makes a difference- keep that shit up). Be there when they need a friend. When you see injustice, speak up, even if your voice shakes. I know not everyone is going to be as outspoken and loud as I am, and that’s ok. (Yes, I’m the as loud and outspoken offline as I am on, probably moreso.)

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life, and don’t let ANYONE else make you feel guilty, either. Life IS about experience. When you’re young, how many people really know what the fuck they wanna do with their life? When I was 21, I had an Insurance License to sell Property/Casualty Insurance, I’d already dropped out of beauty school (I did go back and graduate when I was 24), I’d been working for the cosmetic counter I’d dreamt of since I was a Freshman in high school for 3 years, bought the car of my dreams 2 years before, and you know what? I felt completely lost. Had NO idea what I wanted to do. I got married at age 24. Had my first child at age 30. My second at age 35. Was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, tested positive for Lupus/RA, and began having severe Acute Intermittent Porphyria Attacks at age 40. I’m not going to sugar coat anything. I’m dying. I’m 40 years old, and I’m dying. You know, there were a lot of things I *wanted* to do, but I never knew exactly what I wanted to *do* with my life. Time is short. Don’t let people guilt you into doing something you aren’t happy with and you don’t want to do.

That leads me to my next point to hammer home. Don’t put up with abuse- ANY KIND OF ABUSE. Physical, mental, sexual, verbal, or emotional. You are a human being. You have worth. You do NOT deserve to be abused. I don’t care what happened in the past. I don’t care what you’ve done. You do NOT deserve to be hit- you never did. You do NOT deserve to be used sexually/raped/molested- you never did. You do not deserve to be manipulated into doing what someone says for their happiness if it makes you miserable- not now, not ever. You do not deserve to live on eggshells for fear of making someone mad/fearing their anger, or the living hell of the verbal/emotional abuse you’ll take for doing something wrong in their eyes. You don’t deserve that now, you never did. HEAR ME NOW. YOU DO NOT DESERVE ABUSE beautiful young people (and old alike). You do NOT DESERVE ABUSE. Please know your worth. Please know you are loved.

Be kind, but take no shit. I’m from the south. Those of you who are reading this and are from the Southern, US know what I’m talking about. We like our manners down here. We like to say, “Please”, and “Thank you”, “Yes ma’am”, “No ma’am”- you get the picture. We try to be kind to people. We’re the kind of people who will greet you with a smile and try to be helpful and friendly. I like people. I’m a social person by nature, and I do what I can to be a good friend. I’ve said this on more than one occasion, I’m not for everyone, and that’s ok, too. It doesn’t ruffle Mama Hen’s feathers. If we don’t jive, I wish ya well in life, I do. The thing is, I’m not gonna take your shit. I’m the nicest person you’ll ever meet, but never mistake my kindness for weakness. I’ll call you out every time. I don’t take shit. I’m not going to let anyone walk all over me. I didn’t do it at work. I don’t do it at home. I could make a “Sam I am” outta this. You see where I’m going with this. Don’t let people walk all over you. Be kind. Be a friend as best you can, but don’t take shit. Nip it in the bud. The quicker you stop it, the less drama you have to deal with. No one has time for drama. The older you get, the less time and tolerance you’ll have for drama.

Take care of your health. When you’re young, it’s not something you think about. Trust me, I NEVER thought about it. It never crossed my mind at 21. At 21, I never thought I’d be looking at 41, wondering how much time I had left. I never thought at 41, I would’ve already buried 10 of my friends and family members, all under the age of 45 before I turned 41. I thought we’d live forever. I never thought I’d get sick. Go for your yearly physical. Take a multivitamin. Drink your water. Little things can make a big difference.

Practice what you preach. Whatever you are, be a good one. If you’re a out there fighting for change, make it happen the best way you can. If you’re wanting peace, what are you doing to make it happen? If you’re a Christian (and yes, I am), are you taking that “Love One Another Thing” seriously? Remember, it came with no exclusions, that means the people fleeing over the border, our LBGTQ brothers and sisters, the homeless, the hungry, and that person you don’t like in the cubical next to you.

No one is useless. You might feel like you are useless, as if you have no purpose in this world. This is simply not true. If you’re breathing, you’ve got a purpose. So what if you’re not a Harvard Scholar? If you are, that is terrific! I salute you, and I’m proud of you! If you aren’t, that is terrific, and I’m proud of YOU, too! We all have gifts in this world, and we all have something to offer. You may have the gift of simply listening when a friend needs someone to talk to. You may be a gifted artist, who can sketch/draw/paint/craft/sculpt/MORE! You may be a creative person who has a gift for putting words to paper, so to speak, by writing short stories, fan fiction, novels/novellas, scripts- the possibilities are endless! You may be an empathetic person who has the gift of compassion, you may be someone who isn’t able to leave your home, but can offer gifts by support in groups. These are just a few of the MANY, MANY things in this great world, that connect us all. How many people here, on Tumblr have reached out to someone needing help, or found a common interest that has connected them? No one is useless. You have worth. Never let anyone diminish your light. If someone fails to see it, don’t let it extinguish the light inside of YOU.

Take time to take care of your mental health, it’s important. Not everyone has mental health issues, but it’s important to take time for your mental health for self-care to keep yourself in a good place. Take time regularly to do something that makes you happy, and makes you feel alive. Staying in a good frame of mind, and happy is something that is so important. It doesn’t have to be grand, it doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be something as simple as having a friend come over and watch tv, or going for a walk in the park, going to the club on Friday night, or even staying in for a quiet night and taking a bubble bath- whatever YOUR idea of a good time is, do it.

For those who are living with mental health issues- don’t EVER, and I mean EVER let ANYONE tell you, “It’s All In Your Head”, or shame you for your conditions. Don’t EVER let ANYONE shame you for taking your medications. Hold your head up high, and look them RIGHT in the eye and ask them, “Would you tell an insulin dependent diabetic, “You don’t need that insulin, you can (fill in the blank here IE: pray away, positive think away, new diet away, essential oil away, excuse of the day) that diabetes! Of course not! Why would you think that I don’t need my medication for (your mental illness)” They shouldn’t have a rebuttal. Because it’s ridiculous. I live with several mental illnesses. My mother was NOT understanding. At all. She refused to believe I had Borderline Personality Disorder. She acknowledged I had PTSD, but that was just about it. She treated me horrible. I mean horrible. I’m not going to get into all of that right now- but I refused to take it. I put myself, my health, and my family first. I had to. I took my medication as prescribed. I went to therapy regularly. I use my coping skills and do the best I can. I’m sure as hell not perfect, that’s for sure. Don’t let anyone make you think it’s all in your head, or however you need to heal isn’t ok. Do what YOU need to do, to be ok. Surround yourself with people who are loving and supportive. They are your tribe.

Don’t be in a rush to get married. Just because your friends are all getting married and having babies, don’t feel like YOU have to, too! Yeah, I know “Say yes to the dress!” is AWESOME! I LOVE me some Lori and Monte, too! My best friend Heather and I had been planning out our respective weddings since we were 8, the grooms constantly changed, but one thing was certain- we wanted BIG. SOUTHERN. WEDDINGS! I wanted to get married more than ANYTHING and wear a beautiful gown, and carry a gorgeous bouquet, and all that stuff! Ya’ll, don’t be in ANY hurry. Please, do NOT get me wrong, I love my husband. We just celebrated our 16th anniversary on December 31st. It’s been a rough road, anything BUT a fairy tale, that’s for damn sure. We’ve had our ups and downs and taken us a LONG time to get it right. I’m thankful to have my husband, I truly am. I’m sad that right now I’m at a point in my life where I spend most of my days in bed, or going from doctor to doctor, in and out of the hospital. When you get married, you sign up for that better or worse, in sickness and in health thing, and trust me, I’ve been through a LOT of that better or worse, and right now, we’re going through the in sickness and in health thing. You go through a LOT when you’re married. Not all marriages are like mine by any means. Some are SO much better, some are SO much worse, some are right in the middle. If it weren’t for me being so sick, we’d be in such a great place. We’d be broke as hell, but in a great place, none the less. The older you get, the more you realize money is nice. You need it pay the bills, eat, all that jazz, but you don’t need the material things half as much as you do the people you love. Focus on loving you, FIRST. THEN, worry about getting married. I promise you, you can STILL have that kick ass GORGEOUS wedding at age 30, OR 40. And God forbid you’re worried about your dress, buy it now and put it back. I’m not one who is ever opposed to planning ahead.

Alright, Mama Hen’s hip is hurting, so I’m gonna have to get my old ass up and walk. I love ya’ll. I wanted to share some of my words of wisdom for the New Year with my chicks. My inbox is open, but it might take me a few days here and there to reply. My health isn’t the greatest, so depending upon the day I may or may not be on. I hope at least you gained some of the insight that I wished someone had given me 20 years ago.

Love,

--Mama Hen

#Mama Hen #Words of Wisdom #1999 #Advice

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ackerbooty · 6 years

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Note: If you make it to the end, know this post turned out much longer than I anticipated. And god forgive me saying and switching between opiate and opioid all over, my head is so scattered and I ... yeah.

I'm terrified.

Maybe in a way that is different from most--but it has to do with my meds. I was in a car accident when I was 17 years old, it'll be 10 years next September and I sustained a multitude of injuries:

Head injury

Glass/trauma under left eye that has led to my vision worsening in left eye

Fractured collarbone

Fractured first rib

Pnemothorax (collapsed lung) that now affects my breathing/problems with scar site

Hypersensitivity that circles around left breast and ribs

Herniated disc - back surgery in 2011 where there is now a scar with massive scar tissue

Fractured sacrum (My ass. I broke my ass.)

Fractured pelvis in 5 places

Severe damage to the sciatic nerve

All of these fractures and injuries were sustained to my left side, and continue to give me problems to this day. It was nothing I, or my family, thought and was told would be long lasting or "permanent". The orthopedic doctor, while I was still in my wheelchair and unable to walk told me I DID NEED PHYSICAL THERAPY (he was a fuckin' idiot, but that's an entirely different story that ends with me giving my mom and look and mouthing "I want it" and her nodding and saying "duh".). I was 17. I didn't know to ask questions. I didn't know what questions to ask. My herniated disc pressed on my sciatic nerve and was said to be the cause of my chronic nerve pain and that surgery would be the best route to seeing about a solution. My neurologist made me wait over a year after meeting him because I was so young and should easily gounce back and he wanted me to try more PT and go through tests. He also first wanted me to see a psychiatrist because all of this pain could be a coping mechanism.

For so long I thought I was making it up. I had no idea of what I was feeling, when my left foot would feel like it was actually catching fire when I put pressure on the heel of my foot in bed, how my last three toes on my foot were sensitive and couldn't stay warm.

Money. Money. More money. Surgery. I wake up. My settlement money gone from just trying to figure out why I was hurting when I was told I wouldn't. What was this burning sensation? Why couldn't I live without pain medication? Why was I having to tell my mother that I wasn't addicted to the pills and that I needed them.

Diagnosed: Depression/PTSD

Chronic and constant migraines

Fibromyalgia (how many times am I going to see an eye roll from people who actually do not believe I this?)

Is my story important? I'm unsure. But because of the opioid epidemic declared at the beginning of January, and even before then, I've slowly seen access to the medications I need--yes, considered controlled substances--become more difficult and harder to get. I have been lucky, but only because my pain and injuries are more than well documented and because I've plundered more than 50k into medical bills trying to fix it for documentation to exist. I've also been seeing the same doctor since my accident. This doesn't take away from the fact that I am a 25 year old depend on opiates to help my REAL and CHRONIC and CRIPPLING nerve pain/body pain/migraines/etc. I admit to being lucky in so far as you can define the word to my situation. There are those I know who are being ripped off their medications all around me--one, diagnosed for years with depression and with bipolar disorder was taken off a regime of medication that worked for him and had been a solid, study foundation he trusted and was put on a vitamin instead. Another woman had been on the same C2 classified medication for almost 30 years and was taken off of it without any warning, and was sent to a pain management clinic without any help for detoxification and given a prescription for Naproxen.

I am on Medicaid. While working to get my Bachelors degree, I could not work and this is how I've had to support my medical bills. I am grateful, so very grateful for the help this provided me in getting the medical care I cannot afford, but it is also difficult to have medication approved for use. If a dosage is deemed too high or because of the brand, or because of what it is--an opiate medication--I am to try another first.

I haven't had anything taken from me. Not yet.

So why am I scared?

This was the first time, after being prescribed a new medication by my doctor that we were both enthusiastic about helping my quality of life, the insurance company faxed my doctor a form of six other medications I had to try before I could try what my doctor had given me. This could easily be an experience of someone else's, but before my doctor could tell them simply, "No, she has been on this before. She has developed a tolerance/it did not work./etc. and I could usually get what I needed. Like Movantik. TMI or just a lesson for you, because we all have biological functions that are kind of icky, but those of us who are dependent on opioid medication to just survive a damn day without a little bit of pain have a hard freakin' time pooping. Movantik is a medication specifically targeted at opiate induced constipation and while it can be hard on your stomach, it is a god send for me when I'm having a difficult time using the toilet. There are a few kinks, so to say with it, but I cried when I saw there was something like this finally on the market. My insurance tried to basically give me a prescription for Miralax. I have these two big ass--I'm unsure if that's a pun intended to make some of you guys still with me have a good giggle--bottles of Miralax powder that ... mm ...

I've been on medication since I was still considered a teenager. For me, at least, this treatment is not helpful on its own. It makes me cramp and is painful because it does not do enough of what it is supposed to do--as in, it does not bring enough moisture back into my stool so I can easily go to the bathroom.

So I'm scared.

I'm finally back home.

After seven years I have finally graduated. So I'm closer to my doctor's office and we can finally get me onto a medication that better suits my needs than what I'd been given.

I'm put on Embeda. With is a medication that is "higher tech" and "tamper proof". It's an extended release medication that is Morphine Sulfate with 1.2 mg naltrexone hydrochloride. I am currently on a 30 mg dose. I've been on Morphine Sulfate before that was described as a more dangerous medication and one that is considered easier to abuse than this one here. I can't be put on Morphine Sulfate because once my body decides to become dependent on a medication, it sure doesn't like being put back on it in any shape or form.

I was so happy to be put on my intended medication before given this, but I was still hopeful. It's difficult to find something that works and I have a cautious doctor--which I'm not complaining about, thank god--who starts me out on a lower dose so we see how I react. We usually always have to go up. It's all in all, what one could typically chalk up to as a long day. Tiresome. But necessary. Something I'm willing to go through because this is the only thing that has been able to give me any sort of quality of life. I combine it with exercise, acupuncture treatments, and constant chiropractic care (the last two of which are not covered by Medicaid).

But why am I scared? Why have I taken up this much room on your dash? Because it isn't working.

I know I'm not a doctor. But I know my body. The difference between needing a higher dose and a different medication altogether hasn't failed me yet, and I could be wrong about this. Obviously, I could be. I want to be. Because my doctor wants me to try a higher dose before we switch me to another medication on this list.

I'm in so much pain right now because I cannot calm my sciatic nerve damage down right now. It's like my entire left leg and bottom is an inferno. My body is also hot. I'm afraid.

And I simply needed to tell somebody. I have no idea what this will do.

Nothing, most likely. I could get picked on for being a Medicaid recipient, given complete and utter shit for something perceived as wrong or inaccurate in what I have said. I am writing my personal experience. What I am currently going through. And I keep switching from opiate to opioid/s. Maybe someone will tell me I can get this right. Or that I'll be okay. Another could even help me. Or I could get this out to someone else and let them know that this is utter hell and sometimes ... sometimes the pain makes me want to go back and figure out a way around what happened.

Perhaps, I can reach someone else going through chronic pain. Someone seeing the repercussions of this "epidemic" that has been declared. Maybe I can be the one, if they got this far, to say I'm here. I feel like I'm dying, I am crying, and I wish someone would help me, but I will live. And I have a hand for you to hold.

God I just want some help. It's unbearable tonight. I never thought I'd post about this. Like I said, I don't propose to have knowledge. I'm speaking from a point in time that is filtering itself through pain.

I just wish to know ... is there someone like me? Getting that evil look when you step out the car and "take away" a handicapped spot from "someone who could really use it", terrified of the sort of pain and overwhelming sadness that comes from one moment in your life you had no control over (that I don't even remember), forgetting your pride to ask for gas to make it to even get the scripts that may not work for you in the first place. Laying in bed and writing in hopes of finding community. Tired. Hurting.

xx lyndz

#my head is all over the place i just have no idea what to do guys #fears #meds #life #sad #flustered #migraines #did i get anywhere with this?#depression #ptsd #injuries #chronic pain #fibromyalgia #car accident #other tags i cant even think of #long post #writing

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random-thought-depository · 7 years

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I think @adepta-astarte/Purplekitte’s Primarch gender-swap ideas are cool, but I have a different interpretation of what Mara would be like.

I see a lot of autism coding and chronic pain/invisible disability coding in Mortarion. I think this is why I’ve always found him one of the more compelling Primarchs: I think I’m autistic or something and I have persistent low-level physical pain and a self-sacrificing streak, so I find it easy to see him as someone whose outer and inner struggles remind me of my own; he reminds me of the part of myself that once tried to tough out a serious toe infection because I didn’t want my mother to have to pay for my treatment.

I see Mara as very similar to Mortarion, and as very masculine/butch/GNC in ways that are totally tied into her brain-weirdness. She doesn’t object to wearing feminine clothing in principle, but most feminine clothing and associated things (long hair, make-up, jewelry) irritates her sensory sensitivities. She’s very strong and tough and fast, but she’s clumsy with small delicate objects and small finicky movements, so she’s a lot better at the kind of manual labor an agricultural society codes male, and this influenced her early experience of gender a lot. Femininity emphasizes a lot of the human things that are most difficult for her, like being pretty and sociable and good at emotion work. I see Mara experiencing her alienation from femininity as an extension of her alienation from humanity in general.

I see Mara’s early childhood as a lot more gender-neutral than Purplekitte does. I always saw Mortarion’s introversion in terms of ... he was raised by beings that were not human, that did not teach him to be human, he had to learn to be human later, and having learned it so late it never became easy for him. So I see the Barbaran overlords as inhuman beings, who wouldn’t share human things like gender roles, and who’d treat Mara and Mortarion about the same way.

I started writing a fanfic based on these thoughts a while ago, but it probably won’t be ready for posting before next year because I want to finish some other writing projects first. Also, I think I should read more Horus Heresy novels before I finish the fic, I’m mostly going by fandom osmosis at this point. Some other Mara ideas from my unfinished fanfic (a lot of these are just my Mortarion headcanons):

I actually did name her Mara, thanks @adepta-astarte for giving me permission to do that, it was better than any name I could think of.

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In my mind’s eye Mara looks a lot like @newvagabond but really big (she’s one of the bigger Primarchs, so she’d be bigger than this guy), with the body type of Julie Bell, a kinda sea-creature grey-white complexion, a stronger chin and gold eyes, and a lot of scars (I asked New and she said it was OK to mention this). I think there’s a couple of reasons my brain made that connection, and the spoonie thing is one of them.

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Mara was badly abused as a child, especially during the early years when the tyrant saw her as a biological curiosity instead of a potentially valuable future minion. Some of the things that were done to her permanently physically damaged her (her inhumanly white appearance is a manifestation of that).

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Mara has some sensorimotor issues:

- She has unpleasant sensory sensitivities. Everything feels jagged. Sensations scratch, bite, itch, burn, poke, tickle-scratch, are too much. Many things feel bad and few things feel good. Constant low-level pain is the background noise of her life

- She’s fast and graceful by human or even Space Marine standards, but every movement feels like it takes more effort than it should, as if her brain has to shout at her body, as if her limbs are moving through mud, and it’s frustrating. She’s also clumsy with small delicate objects and small finicky movements.

She treats these problems as embarrassing secrets and resists making any concessions to self-care.

She also has the autistic restricted food preference thing, but will eat almost anything anyway; she had to do that as a matter of survival during childhood and she’s exactly the kind of person who’d rather low-key torture herself than ask for accommodation.

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Mara ran away from the tyrant around 8-10 years old or whatever the Primarch years equivalent is, and was adopted by a human community shortly thereafter. I think that scenario evokes the feel of autistic/ND alienation better than her having run away as an adult.

She had an adoptive mother-figure: an old widow. This woman had an adult non-verbal autistic son who lived with her, and raising such a child gave her experience that was useful in dealing with Mara (knowing how to touch her in a way that didn’t irritate her sensory sensitivities, recognizing when she was feeling overloaded, etc.).

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Mara is mostly asexual, but she has proto-sexual crushes and proto-sexual sensual attraction. The analogy she thinks of for her own sexuality is a pot that sometimes comes to the verge of boiling but never boils, or a plant that never blooms because the soil it’s in is too stony and sour. She could probably enjoy sex, but she feels no strong desire for it. She’s relieved at being asexual, because she thinks her being celibate makes things simpler for herself and everyone else. She has never had a romantic relationship, and she has never had sex.

The closest thing she’s had to a lover was a girl a few years older than her in her adoptive village, who was her one childhood friend. She and this girl did a proto-sexual “take off our clothes and study each other’s bodies because we’re curious” thing as young teenagers. Later on this girl started training to be a singer/oral storyteller, and Mara had a strong sensual attraction to her voice (in my mind’s ear this girl’s singing sounds like this). This girl picked up that Mara was attracted to her and offered to have sex with her, but Mara wasn’t comfortable with that idea so nothing happened. They might have become lovers eventually but this girl died young from disease.

----

Mara started her rebellion against the overlords when she was a young teenager. When they’d been grooming her to be a minion the tyrant taught her a lot of stuff about weapons, and she taught the Barbaran peasants how to make cross-bows, guns, cannons, greek-fire-like-stuff, bombs etc.. She has a techie-nerdy side, but it often isn’t appreciated.

----

Relationships with other Primarchs (note, I haven’t figured out which other ones I’d gender-swap in this AU):

- Horus is one of the very few living close friends/intimates she has. He’s likely one of the very few people she’s told about her sensorimotor issues. They have a close older-brother/little-sister type relationship.

- She does not get along well with Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus. Given their schtick they strike me as likely to not get along well with a sibling they see as broken or defective. They don’t know the details of her condition, but they have eyes and they’re bright, they see and judge, and she can see them seeing and judging (and hear the occasional snide comment). She has some sensual attraction to how pretty and graceful and perfect Fulgrim is, which makes her resent him more, as she finds being attracted to him humiliating.

- She doesn’t get along with Magnus for the same reason Mortarion doesn’t: the Barbaran overlords were sorcerers, sorcery has bad associations for her, and she knows enough about it to have some idea how dangerous it is.

- Her default opinion of Leman Russ is “charismatic popular guy who finds all the stuff I struggle with easy,” and envy based on that. Going by some interpretations, may be surprised how relatable some of his experiences are to her if they have the right conversation.

- She probably dislikes Purplekitte’s interpretation of gender-swapped Russ for the same reason she dislikes Magnus: she doesn’t like sorcerers. Though I have an extremely vague notion of an enemies-to-friends fic for those two based on finding the mental image of Ljufa trying to teach Mara her weaving-sorcery thing interesting (Mara did textile work as a child but did not like it, especially sowing - her fingers were clumsy and she kept stabbing herself with the needle).

- I think she might have a very interesting relationship with Lorgar. Lorgar is another Primarch I easily read as possibly autistic, though in a way that’s only apparent if you’ve noticed a particular thinking style that I think may be autism-associated but that doesn’t fit common autistic stereotypes. Mara and Lorgar seem to me like kind of symmetrical opposites in terms of their relationships to brain-weirdness, embodiment, Primarchness, and gender (the symmetry isn’t perfect, but then gender is asymmetrical; gender-nonconformity tends to be a lot less accepted in men). I’m not saying I ship these two, but I’m not not saying it.

----

I should do a Primarch autistic headcanons post sometime.

#my writing #warhammer 40k #effortpost #alternate universe #autistic headcanons #spoonie headcanons #child abuse survivor headcanons #genderswap #maybe autistic

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carey-pricemas · 7 years

Text

Updated Queue!

Ok I know I fell so far behind earlier this week, but I’m trying to stay on track I promise! My smuts might take longer to get out because I’m struggling with them so if you requested a smut... bear with me please! That being said... here’s the updated queue!

Today- (maybe) Freddie Andersen- smut

Sebastian Aho- team finds out about you through Instagram

Thursday 6/15- Brady Skjei- makes her sing for him

Morgan Rielly- smut

Martin Jones- free rein

Friday6/16- Alex Wennberg- nervous about telling him youre pregnant

Brendan Gallagher- wearing a Chucky jersey

Connor McDavid- Family is Sabres fans

Saturday 6/17- Tom Wilson- The first time again part 2

Kasperi Kapanen- celebration smut

Matt Martin- jealous

Sunday 6/18-Auston Matthews- jealous of basketball team

Kasperi Kapanen- smut someone overhears you

Jakob Chychrun- boys and girls club

Monday 6/19- Martin Jones/Sidney Crosby- Skin by Rihanna

Brendan Gallagher- calm down (wink wink) during playoffs XD

Derick Brassard- pregnant during playoffs

Tuesday 6/20- Any Rangers player- John Green quote

Andre Burakovsky- friends with Patrick Kane

Andre Burakovsky- protective from man in bar (no one knows)

Wednesday 6/21- Morgan Rielly- large age gap

AJ Greer- Beach volleyball for team Canada

Colton Parayko- doesn’t know you speak English

Thursday 6/22- Mitch Marner- Sees self harm scars

Auston Matthews- both busy but make it to sons game

Auston Matthews- smut doesn’t like Dylan

Friday 6/23- Carter Hart- A million reasons by Lady Gaga

Alex Galchenyuk- smut same circles but never met

Mikkeal Boedker- run into each other at grocery store

Saturday 6/24- Jeff Skinner/Justin Faulk- harassed/assaulted and they save you

Austin Matthews- jealousy birthday smut

Connor McDavid/Mitch Marner- Late Late show about song

Sunday 6/25- Any Caps player- political law firm but then player gets traded

Brady Skjei- celebration smut

Zach Hyman- proposes through book

Monday 6/26- Matthew Tkachuk- Secret Love song by Little Mix

William Nylander- car smut

Mitch Marner- messes up Valentines day

Tuesday 6/27- Any player- your teenage son is gay and introducing you to first boyfriend

Andre Burakovsky- broke up and reunited at Casino night smut

Jacob Trouba- Part 2 of Walk in the Park

Wednesday 6/28- Auston Matthews- African dancer and he gets jealous

Morgan Rielly- smutty

Kasperi Kapanen- tutoring him in college

Thursday 6/29- Morgan Rielly- one of the guys Morgan’s overprotective and jealous

Auston Matthews- teammate finds sex toys (ropes)

Morgan Rielly- escape Leafs event and find each other

Friday 6/30- Dmytro Timashov- watch scary movies

Artemi Panarin- tired of being called cute smut

Alex Galchenyuk- Chasing Ghosts by Against the Current

Saturday 7/1- Sidney Crosby- damsel in distress

Artemi Panarin- love the sounds you make smut

Morgan Rielly- fluffy

Sunday 7/2 Taylor Hall- transition from Edmonton to NJ

William Nylander- first time smut

Rasmus Ristolainen- fluff

Monday 7/3- Auston Matthews- yeast infection and dr visit

Leon Draisaitl- getting ejected during A PLAYOFF GAME

Oliver Ekman-Larsson- love at first sight

Tuesday 7/4- Alec Martinez- Cinco de Mayo festivities

Auston Matthews- tired and clingy

Jordie Benn- wants to be a family with you and daughter

Wednesday 7/5- Auston Matthews- jealous of Laine

Auston Matthews- bad day brings food

William Nylander- snaps boredom Willy takes to fair

Thursday 7/6- Johnny Gaudreau- cheer him up after getting swept

Jo Drouin- sitting front row at a game

Brandon Montour- get into a fight

Friday 7/7- Filip Forsberg- free reign

Auston Matthews/Sidney Crosby- autoimmune disease

Steven Stamkos- free reign

Saturday 7/8- Brenden Dillon/Timo Meier- free reign

Jakob Silfverberg- for noranihilia

Aaron Ekblad- free reign

Sunday 7/9- Filip Forsberg- free reign

Brent Burns- free reign

Roman Josi- free reign

Monday 7/10- Martin Jones- free reign

Chris Tierney- free reign

Nikita Kucherov- free reign

Tuesday 7/11- Mikael Granlund- cute/fluffy

Jonathan Marchessault- free reign

Nino Niederreiter- free reign

Wednesday 7/12- Morgan Rielly- avoid feelings talk and he thinks you don’t like him

Brendan Gallagher- angry/hate each other smut

Charlie Coyle- Lipstick part two

Thursday 7/13- Auston Matthews- you do his makeup and Mitch puts it on Instagram

William Nylander- wearing something that turns him on unknowingly

Pekka Rine- celebrate sweeping Hawks

Friday 7/14- Auston Matthews- you’re sick and he and Mitch take care of you and your kid

William Nylander- free reign about butt and thighs

Auston Matthews- meeting friend who doesn’t like the Leafs

Saturday 7/15- Sidney Crosby- wakes up and mutters I love you a lot

Artemi Panarin- free reign

Morgan Rielly- part of the group but he likes you but just friends

Sunday 7/16- Colton Parayko- bffs and in car accident and he tells you feelings

Ben Hutton- fluffy smut

William Nylander- same height insecurities

Monday 7/17- Mitch Marner- gf has chronic migraines

Alex Nylander- faking hickies prank

Tyler Seguin- Company by Justin Bieber

Tuesday 7/18- Auston Matthews- Gaston song with his name and he loves it (in secret)

�� Sean Monahan- after wrist surgery

Morgan Rielly- fluffy/funny butt touching

Wednesday 7/19- Mats Zuccarello- free reign

Auston Matthews- Toronto Furies, play Aus to see who better player is

Jakub Vrana- part two of Doughnuts

Thursday 7/20- Mitch Marner- making fun of passion over el clasico

Alex Galchenyuk- smut

Charlie McAvoy- free reign

Friday 7/21- Sam Reinhart- season ticket holder, sees you at the game

William Nylander- happy with himself after seeing scratches

Morgan Rielly- after getting knocked out of the playoffs

Saturday 7/22- Mikael Granlund- gives goal pucks to his son

Morgan Rielly- They Don’t Know about Us by One Direction

William Nylander- sees bruises after sex (non-smut) and he feels guilty

Sunday 7/23- Jamie Oleksiak- taking son to meet the team

Leon Draisaitl- dominant hot smut

Andre Burakovsky- meets at a charity event, sees again later when he has a gf (probably also a multiparter

Monday 7/24- William Karlsson- ILYSB by LANY

Leon Draisaitl- smut after finishing exams/graduation

Nazem Kadri- hit on Ovi

Tuesday 7/25- Auston Matthews- trying to turn him on in an elevator with teammates smut

Michael Latta- Smut hot when he fights

Auston Matthews- getting knocked out of playoffs and shutting you out so he doesn’t take anger/sadness/frustration out on you

Wednesday 7/26- Jonathan Toews- sequel to I’ll say yes for toews19

Andre Burakovsky- sleeping and he steals the sheets

Auston Matthews- argues about dishes

Thursday 7/27- Andre Burakovsky- surprising you at graduation

Michael Latta- smut angry after game and takes it out on you

William Nylander- sleeping and someone posts a picture

Friday 7/28- Tom Wilson- club and Tom gets jealous, heated

Zach Fucale- smut after not seeing each other for awhile and she wears his jersey for first time

Adam McQuaid- overprotective of gay son

Saturday 7/29- Milan Lucic- visiting with Bruins over the summer

Auston Matthews- riding his thighs dirty

Auston/Willy/Mo/Freddie/Kappy choice- insecure about height/speaking Spanish/ Take on the World by You Me at Six, or Speakers by Sam Hunt

Sunday 7/30- Auston Matthews- thinks shes cheating and comes after her after fight

Adrian Kempe- Somebody Else part two

Claude Giroux/any Flyers player- partying with team and blurts feelings while tipsy

Monday 7/31- William Nylander- reader talks Swedish and Willy loves it (heated)

Tyler Seguin- nsfw smut

Auston Matthews- friend but he wants more but you’re unsure of his reputation

Tuesday 8/1- Dylan Strome- Dive by Ed Sheeran

Sebastian Aho- free reign

Tyler Seguin- based off his IG “love me” trying to get your attention

Wednesday 8/2- Mikael Granlund- he thinks you’re dating him for his money

Alex Nylander- smut

Tyler Seguin- part 2 of Orders

Thursday 8/3- Tyler Seguin- friends dancing and he flirty teases you

Jakob Chychrun- teaching kids to skate

Auston Matthews- smut based off of Fire and Desire by Drake

Friday 8/4- Connor McDavid- AHL ex who won’t stop bothering you

Brendan Gallagher- meeting family for the first time

Dylan McIlrath- free reign fluff/steam

Saturday 8/5- Auston Matthews- muscular and self conscious about it

Auston Matthews- field hockey player stages of relationship

Dylan Strome- congratulate him after winning Western Conference

Sunday 8/6- Sam Reinhart- You’re Here part two

Auston Matthews- act like they hate each other, but really in love

Auston Matthews/Morgan Rielly (probably Mo)- scavenger hunt fluff/steam

Monday 8/7- Morgan Rielly- trying to get him to unwind after game by being a distraction

Colton Parayko- smut comforting

William Nylander- long lost buddies and run into each other while out with team

Tuesday 8/8- Auston Matthews- convinces him to go to country music festival

Mitch Marner- dark; abuse, cutting, mental health problems

David Pastrnak- cute and fluffy

Wednesday 8/9- Alex Nylander- cute/fluffy about hair/haircut

Auston Matthews- taking care of sick girlfriend

Charlie McAvoy- cute/fluffy

Thursday 8/10- Jeff Skinner- comforting about self harm scars

Mitch Marner/Willy Nylander- fight and admit they like each other cute or smut

Morgan Rielly- Leafs event with Mo and meet team for the first time

Friday 8/11- Sidney Crosby- have twins

Alex Nylander- morning smut

Alex Nylander- about being a bad cook

Saturday 8/12- Auston Matthews- in his POV; reader stressed and cuddles

Charlie McAvoy- smut

Noah Hanifin- Just a Friend part two

Sunday 8/13- Auston Matthews- stressing over testing

Charlie McAvoy- smut

Mitch Marner- reader speaks German

Monday 8/14- Morgan Rielly/JVR/Gabe Landeskog- Say you won’t let go by James Arthur

Ben Hutton- smut

Casey Cizikas- making fun of each other over concussions

Tuesday 8/15- David Pastrnak- Disneyland tickets/fluff

Auston Matthews- smut after surgery he worries he’s going to hurt her

Sebastian Aho- Teaches the reader Finnish

Wednesday 8/16- Michael Latta- babysitting his niece and calls you to come help/Latts insta with the baby

Nico Hischier- smut

Lawson Crouse- fluffy free reign

Thursday 8/17- Jesse Puljujarvi- cute/fluffy free reign

Mikael Granlund- teasing him with team smut

Elias Lindholm- childhood friends meet each other when older

Friday 8/18- Nico Hischier- meet at draft and show him around the city

Roope Hint- FWB smut

Andre Burakovsky- She’s Not Me by Zara Larsson

Saturday 8/19- Connor McDavid- Slow Hands by Niall Horan

Sebastian Aho- sweet first time smut

Leon Draisaitl- tries to give you a perfect birthday, but messes it up

Sunday 8/20- Matt Martin- come home wanting quiet and he’s playing COD with boys

Auston Matthews- friends since childhood start dating

Nico Hischier- depression, but he comforts her

Monday 8/21- Carter Hart- concussion and taking pain killers, makes him loopy

Tyler Seguin- calls mom to ask for ring, but mom thinks its another prank

Morgan Rielly- surprising you at your graduation

Tuesday 8/22- David Pastrnak- reader gets wisdom teeth out and recovery

Tom Wilson- Trainer for Caps smut

Auston Matthews- Fire and Desire by Drake

Wednesday 8/23- Alex Nylander- baby and baby names

Sidney Crosby- smut

Auston Matthews- reader is ace

Thursday 8/24- Alex Nylander- introduced to parents but mom doesn’t like her

Artemi Panarin- fight and makeup smut

Auston Matthews- coming home giggly drunk

Friday 8/25- Mitch Marner- parents are getting married and siblings

Beau Bennett- drunk hook up, bond next morning

Nico Hischier- high school AU

Saturday 8/26- Sidney Crosby- son from other relationship and first Mother’s Day

Morgan Rielly- clubbing and see him after breaking up

Timo Meier- free reign

Sunday 8/27- Tyler Seguin- Ben Bishop’s best friend meet through him

Willy/Alex Nylander- problems with self harming

Dmytro Timashov- cooking/cleaning when stressed Dmytro doesn’t know why

Monday 8/28- Colton Parayko- honored for military service at game

Sebastian Aho- friends teasing about you and Aho in bed

Auston Matthews- they surprise you for Mother’s day

Tuesday 8/29- Morgan Rielly- wear black and boys tease about being too badass for Mo

Jesse Puljujarvi- soft smut

Alexander Wennberg- Slow Hands by Niall Horan

Wednesday 8/30- Leon Draisaitl- can’t sleep, helps you fall asleep

Andre Burakovsky- shower smut

Dylan Strome- has crush on you but you aren’t interested

Thursday 8/31- Andre Burakovsky- Finnish rap music and chirping

Kasperi Kapanen- girlfriend is a soccer player

Alex Nylander- first sleepover and seeing her dressed down and no makeup

Friday 9/1- Colton Parayko- work for the Blues and Hutton catches you kissing

Sidney Crosby- Small Bump by Ed Sheeran

Alex Nylander- comes to your dance competition

Saturday 9/2- Geno Malkin- go on a cruise and he takes care of you after you get sun poisoning

Connor McDavid- takes care of you while you’re drunk/hungover

Tom Wilson- someone insults her and he defends you

Sunday 9/3- William Nylander- makes banana pancakes

Mitch Marner- Canada playing home country and Canada wins and y/n is mad

Carter Hart- snuggling and listening to the rain

Monday 9/4- Auston Matthews- bring child to family skate/practice

Jake Virtanen- vacation in a cabin first time smut

Zach Werenski- takes puck to face and bummed but he gets to spend more time with you

Tuesday 9/5- William Nylander- cute ringtone for gf and boys tease and possible proposal

TJ Oshie- takes you home from club smut

Auston Matthews- you have a bf and he seduces you to cheat

Wednesday 9/6- Mitch Marner- chipped tooth vs Finland

Leon Draisaitl- smut

Brayden Schenn- free reign

Thursday 9/7- Willy Nylander- active about Bell Let’s Talk cause you struggle with mental illness

Auston Matthews- before game smut

Willy/Auston/Freddie/Mitch- short and nerdy

Friday 9/8- Brady Skjei- BFFs and secretly in love with one another and you confess

Auston Matthews smut- friend of WAG and hookup after game then he asks you out

Auston Matthews- buy a puppy together

Saturday 9/9- Jordie Benn- dating but kept quiet cause shes shy, but he lets it out

Brayden Point- dirty smut

Carey Price- Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift

Sunday 9/10- Auston Matthews- bff and comforts you after a guy wants to use you as rebound

Sidney Crosby- smut

Morgan Rielly- son’s draft day

Monday 9/11- Jesse Puljujarvi- Eyes Closed- Halsey

Cliff Pu- meet on vacation and lose touch but moves to Canada for school

Teuvo Teravainen- Supersankari by Laura Närhi

Tuesday 9/12- Sebastian Aho- nopsajalka by lupaan olla

Tom Kuhnhackl- takes her to Germany to meet family

Marco Scandella- getting divorced, but Marco convinces her to give him second chance

Wednesday 9/13- William Nylander- celebrating making semi-finals

Auston Matthews- listening to music and dancing surprise smut

William Karlsson- fluffy free reign

Thursday 9/14- Anders Lee- free reign

Auston Matthews- mom doesn’t like you and speaks to him in Spanish, but you are fluent in it

William Nylander- So Wrong part two

Friday 9/15- Sebastian Aho- proposing

Nick Schmaltz- smut

William Nylander- high school AU king and queen at dance

Saturday 9/16- Sidney Crosby- wedding day fluff

Connor Brown- smut

Alex Nylander- watching Willy play in the Worlds and spending time with his fam

Sunday 9/17- Auston Matthews- Worried his teammates don’t take you serious because you’re younger than him and in college

Trevor van Riemsdyk- gets jealous over teammate talking to you at club smut

Leon Draisaitl- with kids or pregnant gf/wife

Monday 9/18- Phil Kessel- pregnancy or children fluff

Auston Matthews- Because You’re Mine by Kitty Kallen

William Nylander- y/n leaf interviewer and Willy flirts with you

Tuesday 9/19- Mitch Marner- gf plays hockey and gets in a fight and he’s worried/thinks its badass

Pekka Rinne- work with charity but first time meeting team as his GF at a game

#nhl imagines #nhl imagine

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eeveelutionsforequality · 7 years

Text

Trigger warning: Suicide, rape, poop and child molestation.

My Facebook is almost entirely meme pages these days, so my feed is 90% jokes about killing yourself and chronic alcoholism, 5% puns, 1% each for gore, porn, poop and anime, and finally 1% articles (news and opinion alike). And before you ask, yes I have unfollowed the majority of my friends to make room for the aforementioned "It's time to put the I in suicide!" posts - I just relate to those more.

So imagine my shock when my pleasant scroll was interrupted by a post from a page that I shall not name but that can be summarized with "I smoke lots of weed, hate the government, and am likely to engage in revolutionary suicide so that even my death is virtue signaling" - said post being an article about "Pedophile culture". I've seen the article shared on here before (long story short: men like hairless legs, how can we use this to make men look evil? children have hairless legs... aha! lets claim men like children!), but this time I decided to look for some spicy reactions in the Facebook comments, maybe a good "this is bait" picture I could steal... oh how I came to regret that decision.

First I found a comment thread in which a person with Link (some Twilight Princess artwork, to be precise) as their profile picture very calmly and respectfully explained that liking hairless legs could be a number of things - simply not liking the texture of hair, or even being victim to the same brainwashing that the article claims the media inflicts upon women. To which the page responded "^ dude stop fucking kids" (and got 38 likes compared to Link's 18... kill me, just right now, end my suffering, please). Want to convince people that pedophilia is an incredibly prevalent problem caused by sexism? Well don't forget to fire off baseless, albeit jokey, accusations of child molestation at everyone who disagrees with you! That'll really hammer home the severity of the situation!

There was also a comment saying that people who use the term "SWERF" to describe certain feminists are "rape apologists", and some pretty gnarly stuff calling every guy on there who commented about his own preferences towards body hair a pedophile, and then blah blah patriarchy, blah blah women are oppressed, blah blah beautiful hairy pussy - suffice to say, most of the comments were the generic trash that I am used to scrolling past to get to that sweet sweet reaction pic.

But then... well, I'll let these two direct quotes speak for themselves:

[After someone else mentioned the "I'm a pedophile but not a monster" article] "I wholeheartedly agree with you. You're not a monster - you're a man. A rather common man. A microcosmic representation of patriarchy's most prevalent perversions."

"I and every other woman I know has a story of being sexually abused or taken advantage of by an older man when still a child or teenager. It's an epidemic."

Earlier I saw a video in which a man walked into a bathroom stall, did a handstand, and projectile pooped over the wall of the stall. That soaring turd made more sense than whatever twisted logic led these two people to claim that it's common, normal for men to be child molesters, that being a pedophile is simply part of being a man, and that society accepts- no, encourages child molestation... and on top of that, to imply with anecdotal "evidence" that 100% of women were raped by men as children.

Unlike the article, these two people are not simply trying to attribute bad intentions to a perfectly normal occurrence because of their own bias; they're literally claiming that men, en masse, are raping female children to enforce patriarchy (enough female children to be called "common", an "epidemic", the "most prevalent").

There are actual victims of child molestation, sexual assault, rape and child abuse - we get disorders that stick with us for the rest of our lives: PTSD, DID, OSDD, BPD, NPD, AVPD, depersonalisation/derealization, depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, eating disorders, fuck I could go on and on and on. It isn't a normal human experience. It's not common, prevalent, an epidemic, it's not something that every woman goes through or that every man wants to do/actually does. It isn't "Oh, there goes Bobby down the road, probably raping kids again, how quaint."

There's something extra sickening about people claiming that child molestation is just what men do all the time to enforce patriarchy. That's not why abusers do what they do. Even if you believe in patriarchy, surely you understand that individual people still do awful things without doing those things specifically to further patriarchy, and that by implying that raping children is some orchestrated global conspiracy amongst men and not the actions of a terrible individual you're fucking with victims and not only how they view their abusers, but how they view men as a whole; not to mention that you're invalidating male victims and victims of female abusers.

It's important to realise that there may well be actual victims reading these comments, and when you say that all men are as dangerous and cruel as their abusers... well, from where I'm sitting, that just looks like you're trying to incite paranoia and mistrust of an entire gender, in people who've already been through enough.

And I haven't even gone into the long rant about how this crime shouldn't be gendered or used to further gender-focused ideologies - about how many boys are victims of child molestation, about female teachers raping male students, about the cultures around the world that include being raped as a part of a boy's "becoming a man" journey, about the number of female abusers especially when you include cases in which there were multiple abusers (Spoiler alert: it's a fuck tonne higher than zero). I haven't even begun ranting about the article itself or the rest of the comments - I haven't talked about how there isn't a pedophile culture, about how it is literally seen as the single most disgusting thing a human being can be.

But I can't put all of my problems with these comments into words right now - fearmongering, lies, gendering child abuse/molestation, belittling the severity of abuse by claiming that it's an accepted everyday tactic that "the system" inflicts upon everyone within it, and more - I'm tired and the world sucks and people suck. It's like they got done diluting the word rape and they had to move on to something worse.

Next week on The Feminism Show: Is patriarchy gang-raping all babies and then feeding them to pigs? The answer may surprise you.

~ Vape

#Tw rape #tw suicide #tw child molestation #tw really shitty post full of bad jokes #Mod Vaporeon #your regular alter was unavailable so this post was brought to you by me

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emlydunstan · 5 years

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Marijuana as Harm Reduction: Chip Z'Nuff on the Medical Promise of Cannabis

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 https://www.thefix.com/marijuana-harm-reduction-chip-znuff-medical-promise-cannabis

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alexdmorgan30 · 5 years

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Marijuana as Harm Reduction: Chip Z'Nuff on the Medical Promise of Cannabis

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://bit.ly/2vctq48

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boatagainstcurrent-blog · 7 years

Text

An odyssey

I don’t even know where to start.

I guess I will begin by saying that I created this blog, at the suggestion of my boyfriend, as a safe haven for my thoughts. There’s a lot going on in my life right now. I need a space to let it all out.

I guess I’ll give some background: I’m an (almost) 25-year-old woman living in Virginia and my best friend is a cute, blonde-haired dutch guy that I am happy to call my boyfriend. We’re doing the long distance thing while he’s finishing school in the Netherlands. Generally speaking, long-distance relationships are pretty hard, but I think we’re managing smoothly.

Right now, I am working as a marketing coordinator for a non-profit, but my degree is in journalism and I worked in newspapers for a while. I live in an apartment with my roommate, Kassie. Kassie is 26 and works at one of our local hospitals as a nuclear medicine specialist. Kassie is probably the best roommate I’ve ever had. She loves to craft and bake cookies, and she and I share the same affinity for mint chocolate chip ice cream. Maddy lives close by and has been my best friend since I turned around and started talking to her about magic tricks in the 7th grade. She works for a clean energy company and is obsessed with rocks (one of the side-effects from being a geology enthusiast, I guess.) I have a 5-month-old puppy named Koda, who is a cross between a Beagle, German Shepherd, Red Heeler, and Mountain Feist. We call him our “Heinz 57″ dog.

I have two sisters, Meghan and Lauren. Meghan is 29 and is getting married to her long-time boyfriend, Erik, in December. I have always been very close with Meghan - we are very similar in a lot of ways. Lauren is 31 and has a husband (Michael) and two children (Eamon and Julian). Eamon just turned 2 and Julian is only one month old! Both of my nephews are adorable and I love them so much!

My parents are the reason that I feel I need to vent. Growing up, they were wonderful. Their relationship was what every little girl dreams of: High school sweethearts, married by 22, first child by 23, first house by 26. They were always very affectionate and sweet to each other. Money was tight when my sisters and I were young, but we never noticed it. By the time I was in high school, I think I started to notice things falling apart. My dad has always had a bit of a volatile temper, but his chronic illnesses were starting to make it worse. My mom was diagnosed with a weird condition that made her vocal chords spasm, so she could barely talk above a whisper -- think Diane Rehm, but worse. Then I went to college and was separated from any problems going on in their marriage, at least for a little while.

When I was a sophomore in college, we my sisters and I were contacted by a woman who claimed to be the daughter of my parents. This was a secret they kept from us for nearly 30 years. Apparently my mom and dad had conceived a child when they were only 15. My mom’s parents were public figures (my grandfather was an anchor for a national news network) and it was the 70s, so of course they couldn’t have a daughter who was pregnant. My mom was shipped off to Ohio to give birth to their child and was forced to give her up in a closed adoption. She lost the weight, moved back to Virginia, and her life went back to normal. The only people who knew about this trauma at the time were my parents, my mom’s parents, and the couple who took care of my mom in Ohio. Fast-forward 30 years and my parents are being contacted by their estranged child. After a lot of consideration, they decided they wanted to stick to the terms of the closed adoption and not forge a relationship with her. It was a difficult decision, but after talking to their lawyer, they decided that nothing good could come from re-establishing a relationship. Most reunions like this don’t end well for either party. It’s not like how it is portrayed in movies and television, there are too many hurt feelings and you can’t make up for all of that lost time. They felt like not reaching out to her was the most humane thing they could do. To this day, I still haven’t talked to my long-lost sister. I can’t really explain why right now, that’s a post for another day.

This all occurred between 2012-2013. Things between my parents were kind of rocky for the next couple of years. Come 2015, another event would rock the boat. My grandfather on my dad’s side passed away. My dad was incredibly close with his father, and he idolized him like a hero. Hell, my grandpa was a hero; he fought in Korea and Vietnam. My dad always admired my grandfather’s quiet humility and dedication to his family. My grandpa rescued my grandmother from an abusive relationship and moved them out of Baltimore and into Northern Virginia. He wasn’t just a stepfather to the four children she had with another man, he actually went a step further and adopted all of them. My grandfather was a mechanical engineer and actually built his family their first couple of televisions. He was smart as a whip, all the way up until the very end of his life.

My dad was devastated by the loss of his father, and as he was reflecting on his childhood and all the good times they had together, some other memories started flooding back. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but will say that my dad started to remember memories that he had suppressed about being sexually abused by one of his oldest brothers for years when he was very young. He never told anyone about what his brother was doing to him. I think part of it was shame, but a larger part was because my dad was a little kid when all of this was happening, and his brother had threatened to kill him if he said anything. My uncle was a really messed-up teenager and always had violent tendencies. I know that in his adult life, he’s gone to jail a few times for alcohol, drugs, and for domestic abuse. So, my dad obviously had reason to believe that his brother was capable of killing him.

My dad fell into a deep depression as these thoughts and memories that he had worked so hard to push down started boiling to the surface. He won’t talk to me much about what he’s going through, but I know that he feels an immense amount of guilt. My uncle has four kids (that we know of). I think that’s where most of my dad’s guilt stems from -- he’s terrified that his silence has made way for his brother to sexually assault more people, like his children, or his current/ex-wife.

Back at the beginning of 2016, my dad announced that he was miserable in his job and he needed to find a new one. He wanted a fresh start. He had too many bad memories of the city where we grew up -- and the place where he was abused for years. In the beginning, he told my mom, “I need to do this and you can come with me if you want.” Since then, that sentiment has evolved into the mindset that he needs to move away to heal, and he doesn’t want my mom around while he’s doing that. My mom is a strong woman. She took what he said and decided that she wanted to move closer to her grandchildren in North Carolina rather than being stuck in a house with this shell of a man who, frankly, doesn’t treat her like a friend, let alone a wife. She found a new job and moved into a new house much quicker than my dad ever expected. She’s now settled into her new place and my dad is living on his own. He’s still on the job hunt, but he hasn’t been hired by anyone yet.

My dad has been talking to a therapist for a few years, but honestly I don’t see much of a change in him. He’s more mean than ever and is completely pushing everyone out of his life - particularly my mom. They are officially telling people they are “separated.” I feel very confused about the whole situation. I am devastated for my dad. I can’t even begin to understand the pain he is going through. But also I do not understand how isolating himself is going to make anything better. He’s ruining his relationship with my mom. He’s hurting everyone around him.

My sister Meghan put it this way: What he’s experiencing now is so strong that he emotionally can’t put up with anyone’s feelings but his own. He’s is constantly reliving these painful memories of his childhood and he is therefore processing things like a child would. He has tantrums about the tiniest things. My mom was around him the most, so she had to deal with his anger issues more than anyone else. That’s not healthy for her and she shouldn’t have be around that. She also said it’s just too painful to have to be around him, and pretend that they are a normal couple and everything is okay. That’s why she moved. That’s why she’s telling people that they are separated.

I know that from a reasonable standpoint, I should be able to deal with this. I am not a ten year old whose parents are getting a divorce. I don’t even know if divorce will be the outcome of this horrible situation, but I don’t think it is smart for me to count that out. My parents have both said that they would be willing to work on things, both only after my dad takes the time he needs to recover. I don’t know how long that would take, and I don’t think that anyone would expect my mom to wait for him to come around.

I am 24, almost 25, and I should be able to take this in stride and accept that this situation they are in now is what’s best for both of them. My dad needs to be alone to be heal. My mom may not like it, but she knows that being around my dad when he’s acting this way isn’t going to make her happy. But I am so upset. I don’t know how to deal with it. I cry about it all the time. I hate that this is happening and I want to fix it, but I can’t. I can’t do anything. All I can do is try to be there to support both of my parents. But I feel angry at my dad. It’s hard for me to talk to him about it because I feel like he’s being selfish and he’s hurting my mom. I never know what to say. And then I feel bad for feeling that way because I know he’s not selfish. The reason that this has become so bad is because he suppressed his memories to try to protect everyone else.

See? It’s a rollercoaster of emotions. I am just so confused and upset. Maybe I need to talk to a therapist about all of this...

#family #depression #parents #abuse #sexualabuse #dad #mom #divorce #separation #relationships #marriage #therapy

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