#1) I'm in my twenties applying for college
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WHY THE FUCK IS APPLYING TO COLLEGE SO STRESSFUL?????
#probably because#1) I'm in my twenties applying for college#2) college + accommodation is very expensive especially when you're repeating a year#3) I'm not quite sure I'll get in#4) my bloodline is cursed with chronic anxiety
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as a huge fan of the original ACD canon, I desperately want to hear your elaboration about why you don't like BBC's Sherlock :D
hi OP I hope you're ready for a monster essay in response because that's what I ended up with!
For ease of reading I've divided up my answer into four sections: 1) explaining Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock with historical context, 2) analyzing BBC Sherlock/Moffat's Sherlock using a cross-section of Watsonian and Doylist techniques and sheer spite, 3) my thoughts on Johnlock, 4) comparing & contrasting Doyle's Sherlock with Moffat's Sherlock. Disclaimer: I'm not a historian, although I do I have some understanding of the history of detective fiction. Mostly I'm just an avid reader/fan.
Part I: Original Sherlock
To start with! I will talk about the characterization of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Here's something which people who have never read the stories don't seem to know: Sherlock is kind.
He's not particularly nice, I'll give you that. He tends to think he's the smartest person in the room, and you know what? He almost always is. He has plenty of dry and sarcastic comments for the London police, for clients who don't bring any evidence, etc. But he goes out of his way to be kind. My favorite example of this is the Boscombe Valley Mystery.
The Boscombe Valley Mystery is far from my favorite Sherlock story in terms of mystery-solving, but one of the best in terms of characterizing Sherlock. To summarize: two wealthy, widower landowners, John and Charles, are next-door neighbors with one kid each–John, a daughter named Alice and Charles, a son named James.
Sherlock gets called in when Charles is found murdered, and everyone suspects James of doing it. Of course, it's not that easy. It turns out that twenty years ago, John was a highway robber in Australia, and he robbed Charles but left him alive. John then left the life of crime, started a family and settled in England a wealthy man. Then Charles moved in next door, recognized John, and proceeded to blackmail him for money, land, etc. This escalated until eventually Charles demanded Alice's hand in marriage for his son James. John refuses, and eventually kills Charles to protect Alice and to free himself from Charles' blackmailing/tyranny.
(The problem is that James is actually a decent person, and he and Alice are secretly in love, but there's also a bar maid involved and it's complicated and not relevant. Anyways).
Of course, Sherlock being Sherlock, he figures out that John is the murderer. But here's the thing: he defends John. He doesn't turn John (or his signed confession) over to the authorities. In fact, Sherlock goes to court to protect James by arguing that there's not enough evidence to find him guilty. Sherlock catches a murderer, goes "you know what? He was kind of right tho" and looks away.
Do you understand how radical this is for Victorian England? This is the 1890s. People still believe in God over gravity. The idea that a criminal isn't a criminal for life? That a highway robber can turn over a new leaf? That a murderer can be in the right? [Now would be a good time for a source] Like this is so new, I can't think of a way to translate it to the 21st century.
And it's key to who Sherlock is. He puts his reputation on the line for this case. He says that he didn't manage to solve this case, even though he did. His professional pride and reputation is worth less to him than protecting John, a MURDERER, and James, his son who admittedly is a nice guy whose worst crime is making dumb decisions in college (see: the bar maid).
Because here's the thing about Sherlock's "professional pride:" it's not "I'm the smartest person" or "I'm always right." Sherlock genuinely believes in his deduction method, not as a superpower which he alone possesses, but as a tool which anyone can use if they apply themselves. Which brings me to my second example: Irene Adler.
If you (general audience) only know Irene Adler from BBC Sherlock, I'm gonna ask you to forget all of that right now. Arthur Conan Doyle's Irene Adler is an American opera singer who used to be in a relationship with the future King of Bohemia. The king asks for Sherlock's help retrieving an incriminating photograph that Irene Adler has threatened to send to the king's future wife (a Scandinavian princess) and her family. (Irene Adler is currently in England, getting married to some guy named Norton).
Sherlock promptly gets outsmarted by Irene Adler. She leaves for America with Norton and the photograph, though she promises not to use it against the King of Bohemia, and keeps her promise. Because here's the thing about Irene Adler: she's not a criminal. She's not a bad guy in any way. She doesn't blackmail the king. She had a fling with the King of Bohemia, eventually moved on with her life and married Norton. When Sherlock came sniffing around for her private property, which she was under no obligation to return/give up, she got the hell out of England.
Despite this, Irene Adler is often framed not only as a criminal but also as Sherlock's love interest in adaptations. (And I'm not even talking about BBC Sherlock, trust me, we'll get to that). I think this is due to a fundamental failure or refusal to understand the nature of Sherlock's interest in Irene Adler. He explicitly states that he is not romantically attracted to her. (And neither is she to him). He is impressed by her intellect. It is rare enough for Sherlock to be outsmarted; I think Irene Adler may be the only example in the original stories where the person/group who outsmarted Sherlock was not a career criminal or other type of evil-doer (such as the KKK, in The Five Orange Pips, yes that KKK).
For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler is an ordinary woman, trying to do an ordinary thing (get married to Some Guy), who just so happens to get one over Sherlock in a case where he is arguably in the wrong. That is what makes her so special. Sherlock believes that his deduction methods can be implemented by anybody, but here's somebody, actually implementing them! And she was trained as an opera singer, not as a detective or some such field! And she's not using it to systematically murder or blackmail or anything else, she just wants to live her best life away from this Bohemian nonsense!
Sherlock is excited when someone outsmarts him. And it is so rare for there to be no horrific crime taking away from that excitement.
In summary: Sherlock Holmes is a perfectly well-mannered English gentleman (the social class, not polite descriptor) with shockingly progressive morals for the 1890s, a need for brain puzzles and adventures, and a non-debilitating addiction to crack cocaine.
Some other notes about original Sherlock before I move on to the next section:
Sherlock indirectly caused someone's death in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and does not feel at all broken up about it. Honestly? I respect that.
Doyle was not perfect. Irene Adler was smart "for her sex." All of the stories mentioned above contain examples of foreigners importing struggles to England. Violent Americans from Five Orange Pips, armed robberies from Australia in Boscombe Valley, loose(?) Bohemians(???) in A Scandal in Bohemia, a mercenary and violent "doctor" from Calcutta (though English by birth) in Speckled Band, etc. I could go on. And I am sure that he made some claims later proved to be scientifically inaccurate.
Aside from Doyle's biases, the Sherlock Holmes stories are also prone to the same real-world changes as any other famous series. Doyle famously killed off Sherlock only to bring him back due to the public outrage. The many, many short stories vary quite a bit in quality, and a little in consistency. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and go with the Doylist (heh) reading. We'll get back to this.
Sherlock would not be caught dead in Buckingham Palace wearing only a bedsheet. He often disguises himself in the short stories, as a grandfatherly figure, faking a Cockney accent, as all a manner of (typically older, and therefore less threatening) men. Part of his strength as a detective is his awareness of social circles and the workings of society. He uses it to his advantage, he doesn't provoke public scandal.
He's a private person. He didn't ask to be famous, or to be memorialized as a genius, and again, he doesn't go around looking for adoration or outrage.
Sherlock scorns romance, yes, but not in an internalized aphobia, "I'm suppressing my emotions/desire for the sake of The Case" kind of way, but in an "I'm the only reasonable person here, the rest of you are just weird" kind of way. We'll get back to that one.
Sherlock did have Moods. He also did drugs. But drugs didn't have the social context of drugs now.
Sherlock was superhumanly strong, for no particular reason? There's one story where someone threatens him (in his own flat, no less!) and he remains very polite and unflustered by it. Once the man leaves, he picks up the metal poker that the man bent and straightens it.
Honestly the disguises and the hand-to-hand combat made original Sherlock so OP. I'm not projecting modern values onto old characters, you are. Send Tweet.
Doyle was a spiritualist?!?!?! Like a committed believer in ghosts. Like so committed it ruined his friendship with Houdini. Yes, Harry Houdini. This is not relevant, I'm just impressed that an author so spiritual could write a character so famously and firmly rational.
Okay that's the important bits for original Sherlock. I could easily double the length of that section, but I hope it's clear enough now why I consider original Sherlock to be Very Cool and Interesting.
Part II: BBC Sherlock
Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Where to start with this one. Well, here's hbomberguy's 2-hour video essay on why BBC Sherlock is trash, to start. It's been a long time since I watched it but I recall it focusing more on its creator, Steven Moffat (and what that man did to Doctor Who as well, God sometimes I just lay awake thinking about every precious thing Moffat was allowed to put his slimy hands on). So I will attempt to focus on a few key things I don't remember hearing in that video essay.
First: The Trope of the Autistic Genius. I'm sure you (general audience) have seen this in some form of media: a socially awkward or unaware character, perhaps outright on the autism spectrum, perhaps just Weird™ who is a genius in a particular field. It's related to the Idiot Savant trope, thanks TV tropes, and portrayals range from a cute fictional romance with an autistic lawyer in Extraordinary Attorney Woo to the somewhat real-to-life story of John Nash, a real mathematician who made incredible contributions to the field of economics and also had incredibly difficult personal relationships due to his schizophrenia.
For some reason, Moffat decided to use this trope for Sherlock Holmes. I say "some reason" but it's pretty clear why: Sherlock is a genius. And there's a long tradition of "genius as a curse" characters where their intelligence comes at a cost: their ease of relationships with other people. Sometimes this is an explicit curse where the character traded power/intelligence/money etc. for the ability to feel (romantic) love (see: Howl's Moving Castle the movie). For the autistic genius, usually the price of their ability to grasp concepts (usually math or some type of science) beyond the understanding of Mere Mortals is their ability to understand people and social cues.
The thing is, the way Moffat does this with Sherlock makes no damn sense. He's a detective. His whole ass job is to understand social cues, human behavior, motivations and generally what makes people tick. There's probably a good way to make Sherlock autistic. However, the way Moffat does it creates this inherent contradiction, where Sherlock swings wildly from totally missing social cues to perfectly understanding people's desire and motivations. Make it make sense. Make up your mind. Is your Sherlock a tortured genius who cannot understand or relate to normal Molly Hooper, or is he a brilliant detective who Gets how people work? You (Moffat) can't have it both ways. It doesn't make any sense.
Second: the Reading People as Superpower thing. Moffat fully subscribes to the idea that you (general) can just look at somebody and deduce their whole backstory. This one pisses me off personally because it leaks to real life all the damn time. The phone charger is probably the most infamous example of why this doesn't work. (Fun fact, if the area around your phone charger is scratched from you repeatedly failing to plug it in, that doesn't mean you are an alcoholic!)
But it occurs both in BBC Sherlock and IRL. Usually IRL people are nice enough to only say out loud something that they think is positive. But here's the thing: they're almost never right. I've had nice little old ladies tell me "I can see that you are XYZ type of person" in the most well-meaning of ways and be completely off the mark. Not a single person who has guessed my race (out loud) has gotten it right. But I'm not just saying "don't make assumptions for the big things like race/sexuality/religion etc." I'm saying, we all make those assumptions when we first meet someone, whether we like it or not. But we have a choice whether to act on those assumptions. Reading people is not a fun thing smart people do in media, it's a common thing all of us do despite not having a higher chance of being correct than Moffat was with the phone charger thing.
The "you can read into anything because there's secret meanings behind everything" that BBC Sherlock encouraged led to one of the funniest and most pathetic phenomena in fandom: The Secret Good Sherlock finale. There's a good 1.5 hour video essay about it and how a portion of BBC Sherlock fans deluded themselves into thinking that the horrible, horrible ending of BBC Sherlock couldn't be real, and that there was a real finale coming if you just followed the clues where Johnlock was canon (more on that later). Because they just couldn't accept that this show which portrayed itself as so clever and Moffat as a 4D chess-master always fifteen steps ahead, was just Not Good.
(Side note: I missed all of the BBC Sherlock fandom experience despite watching the show, because I watched the show with my family. We all knew Doyle, you see; my father read those stories to my siblings and I as bedtime stories when I was little. I still remember his reading cadence and the character voices that he did. So when we heard about BBC Sherlock, we thought "hey, we know that guy!" and settled in to watch it as a family. I distinctly remember thinking that it was…fine? Like, just okay. But nothing about it was better than the original, and I would how much worse it was years later).
Third: Sherlock is just weirdly mean? All the time? In BBC Sherlock. I can only assume this is some sort of power trip fantasy, where the author self-insert (we'll come back to that) Sherlock is the most perfect boy who is always right and correct and so much smarter than everyone else that he just doesn't have to put up with their stupidity.
Like many of the gripes I have with BBC Sherlock, what I hate the most is how Moffat's portrayal seems to have influenced the general public's perception of who Sherlock is. Would this type of Victorian Sherlock exist without the type of arrogant monologuing that Moffat favored? I mean, maybe. I can't prove it. I just feel like they're related. (To be clear, I like Sherlock in that scene. I just think it's inconsistent with original Sherlock's interactions with the police, but to be fair, original Sherlock didn't have a little sister in jail for murder).
Fourth, IRENE ADLER MY BELOVED I WILL AVENGE YOU ONE DAY I SWEAR.
So Steven Moffat cannot for the life of him write a female character I'd feel bad for him if it wasn't so painful to watch in Doctor Who, Sherlock, and basically everything else he's ever done. Moffat, like many adaptors of Sherlock, was dead-set on making Irene Adler a femme fatale. She's not only a criminal, she's also sexy and very weirdly interested in Sherlock (again, the author self-insert strikes again. All the women must be interested in me I mean my most perfect boy!)
I am far from the only person who noticed this. Here's a Reddit post which calls Irene Adler out for basically sexually harassing BBC Sherlock throughout that episode. I don't disagree with the substance but I disagree with the reading. That post takes a Watsonian approach: Irene Adler repeatedly expresses sexual interest in Sherlock, who does not reciprocate. Despite this, the characters around him assume he reciprocates and at the end of the episode his brother Mycroft blames his nonexistent/unconfirmed interest in Irene Adler as the reason why she got one over him. When he does his dramatic "I am Sherlocked" reveal, he is saying 1) that he's really not interested, 2) that she didn't get one over him, and 3) that her emotional/sexual investment(?) in him is why she lost.
Here's the Doylist reading: Moffat's fantasy is the sexiest/coolest woman (Irene Adler) chasing after his author self-insert (Sherlock) who remains coolly aloof despite her advances, because he's cool. Everyone else's assertions that he's secretly interested stems from society's need to smash two dolls together and say "now kith" regardless of what the dolls in question are saying. At the end of the episode Sherlock makes the points that I made above, yes, but Moffat's also reaffirming that no one is allowed to outsmart his most special, most perfect boy (/self-insert), not even the character that CANONICALLY OUTSMARTED HIM. (Although to reiterate: original Irene Adler was not a criminal, did not blackmail anyone, and was not interested in Sherlock. Also she was American lmao).
There's one key scene (which I loathe with all my heart) that demonstrates how Moffat sees Irene Adler, and that's her introduction scene. Why? Because she walks in naked. Why? Because that way Sherlock cAn'T rEaD hEr. (Which brings us back to point #2, Reading People as Superpower).
This is mind-bogglingly, mind-bafflingly stupid. If Irene Adler really wanted Sherlock to """"not be able to read her"""" she should've just stolen the clothes of the first woman she saw that was her size. Or men's clothes, not her size, and not hers. That way any traces of character left on the clothes (i.e. coffee stains, hems worn down from constant worrying, cat fur, etc.) would've belonged to someone else, thus throwing Sherlock off even more.
And it's not like the body lacks marks unique to the person. Jesus Christ. Surgeries leave scars, as do accidents and injuries. Birthmarks, bite marks, stretch marks, scar marks, people drawing reminders or hearts on themselves with sharpies, tattoos, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Bodies are not blank canvases.
There is no good Watsonian reading for why Irene Adler walks in naked. There is only a Doylist reading: Moffat thought it'd be hot for his femme fatale to meet his self-insert butt-ass naked. That is why I disagree with the Reddit post I linked which I assume you (general audience) read. Irene Adler's actions don't make sense when framed as "she's smart but obsessed with Sherlock despite never having met him before." I mean, it's possible? But it makes her far less intelligent from the very start than the show tells you she is. Her actions only make sense when framed as "Moffat thought it would be hot." (Dear Moffat: it's not).
Fifth, and finally: The Big Bad. This is not Moffat-specific: the need to have one main villain, to have everything in a series building to the big showdown with the Big Bad exists all over the place. Episodes are getting longer and longer while seasons get shorter and shorter. Sherlock, originally a series of short stories (with some long-form stories, my favorites <3 thrown in the mix), is perfect for the 30-45 minute 12-16 episode seasons. Instead it got…BBC Sherlock. With Moriarty as The Big Bad. Who Irene Adler is working for? For some reason? And has come back to life maybe? It's dumb. Bring back my case-of-the-week type stories :(
There are plenty more gripes I could list about BBC Sherlock, but those are the main ones. This is already getting much longer than I intended, so onto part three: my thoughts on Johnlock.
Part III: Do I ship Johnlock?
No.
Part IV: Just kidding!
Well, I don't not ship them. A friend asked me recently if I shipped them, and I thought about it for a minute and eventually said: "Honestly? I am so thoroughly neutral about them."
You could convince me of Johnlock. However, I remain unconvinced by the vast majority, if not all, of BBC Johnlock. It essentially feels like a derivative form of a derivative and vastly inferior form of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Basically: the Johnlock that you (general BBC Johnlock shipper) are a fan of are just two people who happen to share names with the characters I know as the great detective Sherlock Holmes and the good doctor John Watson. But they're not actually Holmes and Watson, thus what you're shipping isn't even "real" Johnlock.
There are two parts of Johnlock's dynamic that I think are missing from the broader conversation (which is not to say that they're not talked about, just that they should be talked about more).
First, we're back to Watsonian vs Doylist readings, this time with the origin of the term in mind! (My literary analyst heart cackles in delight). You see, the Doylist reason for Watson's existence is to chronicle Sherlock's adventures. Genius characters are near-impossible to write from their perspective. The mystery and ingenuity vastly improves when explained by Sherlock to Watson after the fact. We, the audience, need John Watson to exist for the stories to be enjoyable. He is a plot device.
Now, I'm not saying that because John Watson exists for plot purposes, we can't consider the emotional connection between him and his flatmate. The Watsonian reading, according to Johnlock shippers, is that Sherlock and John live together because they are gayandinlove.
Which brings me to part two of their dynamic: the QPR-ness of it all. I think there's a lack of conversation about anything between "straight" and "gayandinlove" when there's so much gray area to discuss. Johnlock, in both the original and in my preferred version, strike me as a very comfortable queer-platonic relationship. It feels wrong for Sherlock to have a wife, husband, boyfriend, lover, etc. because it is so contradictory to who Sherlock is. I just can't picture him engaging in any modern or Victorian-era dating or courtship ritual. And not just because he explicitly derides and expresses his lack of interest in romance in the originals. After all, it's impossible to separate Sherlock's bachelorhood from the part where it was obviously impossible for him to marry a man in the 1890s; the institution of marriage simply didn't mean then what it does now. He certainly never and would never speak about sex, or his sexual preferences. I am sure they were assumed to be Good And Heterosexual. Which isn't to say that Victorian times were less queer than modern times. Doyle's contemporary, the Irish poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was very famously (/infamously) gay. The author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is also rumored to have cheated on his wife with her brother/his publisher.
No, I've always seen Sherlock as aroace just because…he comes across as very aroace? I don't know how to explain it other than "read it and tell me I'm wrong." And Johnlock always came across as very comfortable to me. Like there was a total lack of yearning. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand projecting into characters, so if you (general Johnlock shipper) add yearning to your Johnlock I'm not criticizing you. (And no, I'm not getting into Mary Morstan and her differing characterizations because then we'd really be here all day).
I also don't subscribe to the idea that Sherlock is aromantic because of his genius, his detective career, or his suppression of natural instincts in favor of the aforementioned reasons. It's aphobic and it's not how Sherlock works. The man is not judging himself for his lack of interest, he's judging you (aphobe) for thinking there's some deeper cause or something wrong with him for not being interested in romance.
And I can't fathom him engaging in sex except as an intellectual exercise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I always thought BBC Sherlock was so weird about the concept of being gay. I mean, there were gay jokes galore but They Were Not Gay and Moriarty was gay-coded but John was definitely not into Sherlock and Sherlock was not gay but he wasn't into Irene Adler either, but that didn't make him asexual either, just…a genius?? Apparently??? Like he's straight but he's also too smart to be fooled by Irene Adler's wily wily feminine wiles. Like Straight 2.0 where they make you pay more for the same product with ads this time.
Which finally brings me to the last section: comparing original Sherlock and BBC Sherlock!
Part IV: We all know where this is going
Honestly most of this section has written itself already.
Original Sherlock Holmes was remarkably progressive for its times; BBC Sherlock was somehow less progressive despite being made centuries later. Its portrayal of women was somehow worse than the thing written in the 1890s. I'm a big believer in judging things with historical and social context in mind, which makes original Sherlock all the more astounding, and BBC Sherlock all the more regressive.
Original Sherlock Holmes was an excitable bloodhound who believed in his rational method and was genuinely delighted when he met his match. He was irritable and moody and indirectly killed a man with no remorse. BBC Sherlock is an arrogant, self-obsessed jerk who constantly belittled and mocked the intelligence and achievements of others. He, despite not understanding people, popularized the "you wear that sweater to remind you of your dead mother. You feel lost without her and are seeking a substitute in Macys Mother's Day line products" type of armchair psychoanalysis.
Original Sherlock loves a good case but sees his clients as human, at the end of the day. BBC Sherlock cannot stand to be wrong.
Original Sherlock and John are companions, comfortably; not normal/regular friends, though I would never say "more" than friends. Maybe, in a modern era, they'd be romantic partners of some sort, maybe not; I don't really care. BBC Sherlock and John are…friends but you gotta believe Moffat when he tells you that they are Definitely Not Gay. Like Not At All. Not Even A Little.
In conclusion: I loathe BBC Sherlock with all my heart. It is an insult to the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. A regression in the face of how radical Arthur Conan Doyle was. i genuinely feel sorry for all the people who have watched that show but never read the originals because they have no idea who Sherlock is, and original Sherlock is so damn cool.
#ask#sherlock holmes#bbc sherlock#sherlock fandom#arthur conan doyle#apologies this has not been proofread at all#essay#This is probably not what you (indigotigress7) expected as an answer#Context for you (general reader) is that I posted an Enola Holmes fic two days ago and whined about BBC Sherlock in the author's notes#i hope this is coherent but i know in my soul it is not
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I have some nice pjo recs for you (many crossovers bc I'm a sucker for those) :
the ship of theseus by zipadeea - i think one of the best pjo crossovers i've read (dcu/pjo) afaik it readable without having to read HoO. Absolutely heartwrenching.
the ship of theseus (14839 words) by zipadeea
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Batman (Comics), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), <a href="https://archiveofourown.org
Baby Blofis College Fund also by zipadeea: very funny
Baby Blofis College Fund (2908 words) by zipadeea
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Paul Blofis/Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson & Sally Jackson, Sally Jackson/Poseidon (Percy Jackson), Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Characters: Sally Jackson (Percy Jackson), Paul Blofis, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson), Poseidon (Percy Jackson), Estelle Blofis
Additional Tags: Humor, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Humor, Family Feels, Pregnancy
Series: Part 3 of how to co-parent your reckless demigod 101
Summary:
Valerie calls her an hour later.
“Sally, what the hell?”
“That bad, huh?”
“Bad? Sally, it’s gold. I went from squirming in my seat to crying genuine tears. And that twist, making him a Greek god, it’s exactly what we’re looking for right now. How soon can you get me the next chapter?”
***
In which Sally Jackson realizes by the time the new baby is eighteen, a semester of college will cost an arm and a leg. And those Fifty Shades of Grey books sure did make a lot of money.
glass figures by ahermioneh: epic marvel/pjo crossover that is partly responsible for me to actually get an ao3 account, deviates from pjo canon a lot but uses a lot of the world building
glass figures (211796 words) by ahermioneh
Chapters: 36/36
Fandom: Marvel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clint Barton & Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson & Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton & Percy Jackson & Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Characters: Percy Jackson, Clint Barton, Sally Jackson, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Phil Coulson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Paul Blofis, Steve Rogers, Most of The Ensemble from Both Universes Appear
Additional Tags: the timeline is screwed to hell, demigod powers kick in in their twenties, clint is so young, Like, vaguely, Phil Coulson: Ace Recruiter, Nat is honestly so suspicious, Not graphic depictions of violence, but also like possibly, Year by year, POV First Person, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pre-Canon, percy literally shows up to mess with MCU canon, Be Nice to Clint Barton, Canon-Typical Violence, does this count as, Childhood Friends, Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, full disclaimer: we haven't seen agents of shield at all, and we've barely read toa, Complete, just to be clear this is an incredibly self-indulgent crossover, Goode High School (Percy Jackson)
Series: Part 1 of closing the cracks
Summary:
I lifted my gun, pointing it towards the minefield of shattered fragments, and kicked the small coffee table out of the way.
Only to stare down at an awfully familiar face, which split into a somewhat lopsided grin. The intruder raised his hands in a mocking surrender. “Long time no see, dude.”
I lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing in South Peru?”
Or in which Clint Barton and Percy Jackson have a long personal history that starts in high school.
The File (series) by denimbeans: Another epic (long) crossover series for marvel/pjo, very spoilery for HoO tho:
https://archiveofourown.org/series/2375215
Nothing to make a song about but kings by iwilllpassthis: all the world building, all the politics. Also post-HoO
Nothing to make a song about but kings (201210 words) by iwillpassthis
Chapters: 59/59
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Amphitrite & Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson & Poseidon
Characters: Percy Jackson, Amphitrite (Percy Jackson), Poseidon (Percy Jackson)
Additional Tags: King!Percy, Undersea politcs, Merpeople, Atlantis, My boy truly has no idea what he's doing, Do I? We shall never know, Powerful Percy Jackson
Summary:
Percy knelt before Atlantis’ throne, feeling the ancient power of the sea run through his veins in an uncoordinated dance.
You are the sea now, it whispered, and the sea is you.
A crown of gold and emeralds was placed on his head.
Long live the king. Long live the king.
.
It’s a fortune that Poseidon has a mortal son, because when an ancient curse hits his kingdom and all the sea gods disappear… well, someone must rule.
THANK YOU
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Act 5: -> Scene 1: Lee Hyunjae Jaehyun
WRITTEN PART -> (0.8) -> no ss after text
june 10th, 2002.
hey travel diary, it's your favorite girl!! just saw the most hottest boy ever.. ♡♡ ok well i have seen a lot of cute boys while solo traveling but this one is different. this time… we actually talked. he sounds so majestic, a voice so smooth i think im melting as i remember the sound of it
i was feeling brave today and decided to approach him at this cute cafe, i saw him through the front window and i just had to talk to him.
his name is lee jaehyun, but i like to call him hyunjae for fun hehe. we're the same age and he's here for his studies, a semester at the university nearby. said he's deciding to go into business, you know what that means.. rich husband in the future ;)
we're going on a date tomorrow night at this restaurant by his university. the dress code is semi-formal but i'm not sure if i have anything like that in my luggage. he said that it's fine and anything i wear will be beautiful to him..
maybe later that night we'll… dot dot dot :)
July 16th: One day before Yin's Wedding.
The four were now sailing around the island. Juyeon controlling the sails and Younghoon napping on the deck. Leaving Hyunjae and Yin to talk.
“Ah, congratulations on your wedding by the way. I haven't been to one in forever, I'm honestly a little excited”
yin chuckles softly, “im excited too! i haven't been to a wedding since i was a kid”
“It's funny that Y/n now has a grown daughter, I would've loved to have a daughter. I would've spoiled her with anything she wanted.”
“do you have kids?”
“Nope, only a dog, his name's Darong..”
“hmm cute! i've always wanted a pet but i'm always running around doing stuff”
“That's perfect for pets though? Ah wait, how old are you again? I don't think I asked yet.”
“i’m twenty!”
“Oh wow! Twenty, hmm twenty years ago was around the time i met your mother..”
“how did you meet my mom..?”
Hyunjae grins as he thinks about past memories, “It was at a cafe on the mainland, I was there for a semester and honestly I should've stayed for longer if I knew I was going to meet someone like your mother.” Yin smiled softly at the sight of his gleaming eyes while talking about her mom.
“Your mom saw me from outside the window and went inside just to talk to me, the first words she said to me was,” He chuckles while remembering her past words, “hey good-looking, are you single?”
yin's mouth is agape at the idea that her mom was so bold, “no way mom said that” hyunjae smiled while shrugging, “Your mom was very charming when we first met. So charming that I decided to ask her out on a date the next day..”
“you must've really liked her”
“Of course I did. I'm going to be honest. She was the first woman to ever pursue me first. I was always the one chasing after others, which did not work at all, so to have a beautiful woman call me good looking and basically ask me out, I was going to make this a thing."
“and did it become a thing?”
Hyunjae leans back on his hands and looks away from Yin. “Well.. No? We did go on a bunch more dates and were practically stuck together all the time, but sadly, my semester had already ended. I had to go home after meeting the possible love of my life.” Yin frowns at this, “Don't worry, it was years ago, and I'm alright now, came here to possibly become close with your mom again.”
“Oh, not like that Yin, only as friends. I wouldn't want to do that to you when your dad is here. Oh, where is he by the way. I want to see who was the lucky guy to marry Y/n”
“uhm.. i don't know!”
“Oh! Uh.. I'm sorry, what?”
“i don't know who my dad is..”
june 24th, 2002.
no way… he's leaving me :( my hyunjae…
I SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN A GAP YEAR, maybe if i went to college right away i could've been in the same uni as him (if i did what jiwoo did and applied to every place we could think of)
i thought traveling was supposed to be fun, not heartbreaking. why does this happen to me :((
first, that beautiful man walked away after making eye contact with me for 10 seconds and now hyunjae..
what's next..? wait, im not going to say anything just in case i jinx myself
synopsis = a day before her wedding day, Yin decides to find her father so he can walk her down the isle, the problem? There's three candidates: Lee Juyeon, Kim Younghoon, and Lee Hyunjae.
last/next
masterlist
taglist:
@boomhoon , @sanasour , @loonaluvz , @jaerisdiction , @cowsmicwu , @jundundun , @piripurora
#tbz imagines#tbz smau#tbz x reader#the boyz drabbles#the boyz imagines#the boyz smau#the boyz x reader#the boyz scenarios#hyunjae x reader#juyeon x reader#younghoon x reader#younghoon smau#hyunjae smau#juyeon smau
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Arranged to Love🪽
My Life
Chapter 1:
Paring: Chris Evans x Apsyn Anderson
Word Count: 2k
Warning: Angst, Smut
Apsyn Pov
My fingers are shaking as I'm putting my heels on. I smooth out my cream-colored dress, apply some lipstick, check myself in the mirror, and walk out.
"Took you long enough," Theo says as he is sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me to come out of the bathroom. He walks towards me as I grab my coat from the rack. He grabs the coat from my hands and throws it back somewhere in the hotel room.
"You don't need that, and you chose to wear that?" he says, eyeing me up and down.
"Yeah? I can change," I say, looking at the floor and avoiding his gaze.
"NO! Just let's go; we're already late, and you've already decided to dress like a widow," he says as I flinch when he grabs me by my wrist and pulls me out with him down the hall towards the elevator.
We take the elevator down to the lobby area, and Theo doesn't even wait for me and walks out as I carefully walk in these high heels.
I walk out, thanks to the help of the bellman, and see Theo already in the car on his phone, typing away as he smirks.
I walk around the other side as the driver holds the door and gets in. I roll the window down a little as Theo's cologne is starting to give me a headache, and the driver takes off.
Theodore and I are attending one of his office parties tonight. Theodore works for a big firm. We used to live in Seattle, where he managed one of the firms, and he recently got promoted to a bigger firm. One of the companies Theo works for partners with Evans Enterprises. From what Theo told me, it is a multi-millionaire company, and tonight they are hosting a party.
Theo's new job required him to stay in Massachusetts, so his company is moving us to Massachusetts, in a little suburb city. As of a few days ago, we have been living out of a hotel until our things from across the country arrive.
...
I stare out the window as we pass tall buildings, and it reminds me of when I used to live in New York when I attended NYU to become a writer.
I once used to be really happy in my early twenties. I lived with my aunt and uncle. Anne and Michael... My aunt was my mom's sister; when my parents passed away, she took me in, and everything was great until she married my uncle.
Michael always had a problem with gambling, and when I was away in college, he took money out of my trust fund. My parents left me and used it all towards betting, putting him in debt, and I was kicked out of college. Michael didn't want to go to jail and owed a lot of money, so he ended up selling me to Theo in exchange for marriage.
Theodore is very handsome, has green eyes and a charming smile, curly short brown hair, and is 5'9. I was in my third year of college when we got married, and Theo never supported me to pursue my writing anymore. I didn't think it was going to be hard to get married to a complete stranger, and it would work out. Little did I know.
So here I am now, three years later, married to Theodore Akens. At first, Theo was really nice and loved me, but then slowly he would start hitting me and verbally abusing me after six months of being married to him. Part of it had to do with his parents; they never liked me, and his mother started filling Theo's brain with awful assumptions about me. He would often bring other women into our room and fuck them next to me while I would pretend to be asleep, and in the morning I would find their belongings around the room. If we were to go out somewhere, he would often put on a show around people and show how much in love we are. or do the complete opposite and flirt with women right in front of me.
...
The driver arrives at the location in the city. It is really cold out, and so many people are in attendance. Theo gets out, and the driver helps me out. I thank him and walk around, and Theo links our arms together, and we walk in as if we were a couple madly in love with each other.
"Mr. and Mrs. Akens, Welcome! All the guests are on the forty-ninth floor. I hope you have a pleasant time," the bellman says as he opens the door.
...
I am standing in a corner of the room with water in my hand and watching Theo from afar. After we entered the party, Theo just left me and wandered off, leaving me all alone.
Theo is standing next to a woman in a revealing red dress, just staring away at her chest, and he is probably now laughing at something she said as he puts his hands on her hips.
I scoff and roll my eyes. I can't do this... I really wished he would have just left me back in the hotel room instead of bringing me alone.
After mingling around with a couple of people, my feet are killing me, and this dress is really uncomfortable. I am walking down a tiny hallway, trying to find my way toward the bathroom.
I turn my head around the other way, and when I turn it back, I run into something hard, and before I can react, I'm on the floor.
"I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Here, let me help you up," I hear him say, and I look up into his bright blue eyes. He helps me up, and before I can thank him, he helps me up.
"Sir, they need you over here," I hear another voice say, and before I can thank him, someone drags him out of my view.
I stand on my feet and notice how much dirt is on my dress. I need to clean this up before Theo can see it. I walk further down the hallway and see the women's restroom.
...
After using the bathroom, I walk back to the other room, and I can't see Theo anywhere. I walk over to the bar and order another glass of water with some lemon, and while I wait for my water, someone pushes me, and I bump into another person, and they spill red wine all over my dress.
"Fuck, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to." This man says this to me as he is grabbing napkins.
I look down and see that my dress is all ruined. How am I going to explain this to Theo?
"It's okay, it's not your fault," I say to the man as I grab the napkins, trying to blow out the stain.
"I'm Scott," he says.
"Oh, um... nice to meet you, Scott," I say, looking over at him and trying to see if Theo is nearby.
If he even catches a glimpse of me talking to another man, Theo will lose his calm, and tonight will not go well.
"So, do you have a name? Or..."
"Uh, yeah, Aspyn," I say, and he reaches to shake my hand.
"Nice to meet you, Aspyn... This is my husband, Steve," he says as he introduces me to Steve, the man standing next to him who has an apologetic smile on his face.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Theo walking back into the room. "It was nice to meet you folks, but I need to find my husband," I say, leaving them before they have the opportunity to talk.
I walk up to Theo, and he doesn't look so happy. I walk up to him, and he looks me up and down and pulls me out to the side.
"Aspyn! What the hell?" He said this, looking at me.
Before I can say that Theo presses the button for the elevator and we get in, he presses the first floor, and it hits the stop button, and the elevator stops. He is just holding my hand and squeezing it super hard, to the point where it is starting to hurt. He pushes me in and cages me against the wall.
"You had one job tonight, and you had to fuck that up, didn't you? You just have to look like a slob in front of everyone, don't you?" Theo says, and I can smell the liquor on me as he gets closer.
Theo punches the wall next to my head, making me flinch. "I'm going back upstairs, and you are going back to the hotel. Don't do anything stupid while I'm out; you hear me," he says as he lets me go, grabs the card key, throws it in my face, and pushes me out of the elevator.
I compose myself as tears threaten to spill out of my eyes and walk out towards some of the car services. As I get in the car, I tell the driver the location, and he takes off. As soon as I get back to my hotel room, I take off my heels, place them next to my suitcase, pull out my night slip, and head towards the bathroom.
I lock the bathroom door and turn the shower on. I walk over to the counter and start to remove my makeup while I wait for the water to turn hot. As I take off my earrings, I notice my bracelet is not there. I stop what I am doing, run out of the bathroom, and trace my steps to the front door, trying to find it. After looking around, I can't find it, and my eyes are threatening to spill out the tears that are building up. I can't believe I lost my mother's bracelet.
This night just hit rock bottom.
After my shower, I get into bed and pull the sheets to my chin, wanting to forget this night. I stare at the ceiling, wondering where Theo went and when he is coming back. I can't even text him or do anything since he took my phone away last month.
...
I'm startled awake when I hear a loud knocking. I turn the side lamp on, and I hear someone knocking at the front door, followed by some giggling. I don't even remember falling asleep. I get out of bed and walk towards the door. I look through the peephole and see Theo leaning on the door.
I open the door, and I see Theo leaning on the same woman from earlier. His shirt is open, and he has some hickeys on his chest. I look down and see his pants undone, about ready to fall down, as he is holding them up with one hand.
"About damn time," he slurs out as he lets go of the blonde and leans into me. "Call me next time you are in town, baby," she chirps at Theo, and I close the door on the blonde and help Theo walk towards the bed. He is drunk, as he is trying to walk in a straight line.
He sits on the bed and is trying to take off his shoes and pants at the same time.
"Here, let me help you," I say as I grab for him, and he pushes me back. I back up as he falls onto the bed.
He shuts his eyes, and I walk over to him and take his shoes and socks off, placing them on the side. I slowly pull down his pants, but his boxer also comes off along with his pants, and I spot cum stains on them. I look at his erection, and he is still leaking cum.
I back up, shaking the disgust out of my body. I walk back to his laundry bag and throw them in there. I head into the bathroom and grab a washcloth, walking back towards Theo. After cleaning him up, I pull the sheets over him and walk back to my side.
I turn off the lamp, get close to the edge of the bed, away from him, and close my eyes in the hope of a better day tomorrow…
#chris evans#chris jamal evans#chrisevans#christopher evans#steve rogers#andy barber#chris evans smut#chris evans characters#chris evans angst#chris evans x reader#chris evans fanfiction#chris evans fluff#arranged marriage#theo james
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for that character prompt exercise (feel free to pick and choose lol): 7, 9, & 10 for Al; and/or 1, 3 & 8 for Lupa!
For Al I answered #7 here!
9. What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.)
Christmas!! Al loves it a lot. She likes making presents for people if possible, she loves decorating, she loved her grandmas' and mom's cooking. she gets so into the Spirit of it. She used to create drawings and comics for her mom/cousins all the time as gifts! She would spend the morning at church, then with her whole family for the day afterwards, and though there was a tinge of sadness bc of her dad's death, Christmases were always core memories for her. her first glove and bat, first bike, the pair of glasses she really wanted--her mom would always splurge to get her what she really wanted bc she loved her so much, and so along with the good times she also remembers her mom that way. None of the other monsters really like Christmas but they come around to make an effort bc they're helplessly endeared to Al :']
(here u go. mistletoe sketch <3)
least favorite holiday is halloween bc of a Certain Traumatic Event (it's a spoiler!). it didn't always used to be bc as a child she hated the how loud fireworks were on the 4th of july and that soured it for her for a long time. she would eat her consolation hot dog under the bed covers and try and read comics with a flashlight.
10. What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.)
Baseball bat for. a weapon djkjf. her bandana obv. a med kit for the other monsters (it has a lot of bandaids). a million crumpled lists in her pockets of things to remember (that she forgets). on a carabiner: rubber bands or hair ties, mostly there to be fidgeted with; swiss army knife; key to her mom's old house in georgia. no wallet. you don't really need an ID if you can get away with starting an interaction w/ 'Be not afraid'.
1. What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)
my girl Lupa loves beer. probablyyyy modelo. and presidente when she can get her hands on it. she doesn't really care how people perceive her taste. she can't drink it too much bc she went a little overboard in high school and so now she has just the perfect amount of high tolerance that makes her think Just One More Will be Fine (not only is this bad for her as a werewolf bc they have a generally lower alcohol tolerance but also she's a stupid sad drunk past her twenty minute fun stage. the thoughts don't stop running. oops!)
3. What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)
Lupa really doesn't have disposable income until her late 30s so within the story i'm telling uhhh . probably the windbreaker she wears in the third season.
OH wait i remembered. she saves up a whole summer to get herself braces as a teenager bc she was super embarrassed abt her teeth and her parents couldn't afford and also refused to help her with it. she also saves up a good amount to apply to the colleges she wants to get into. that's it's own story.
Oh and I also answered #8 here!! i really like this answer too it's v in depth
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This is a list of my daily moods :) (some are in the order of the hours in which they happen. Yes they overlap often and I hate it.)
1. 22:00-13:06 — i want to cry and I'm also mad at everyone. Fuck off and let me sleep ughhhhh I just want a hug and my imaginary friends to be real
2. 13:07-15:00 — oh well I already ate so that's something I guess, not enough tho. Why am I even trying.
3. 15:01-4:00 — THERE'S SO MUCH TO DO I NEED TO DO IT ALL I NEED TO DO IT ALL UGHHH DAMMIT I JUST SPENT MORE THAN AN HOUR IN MY PHONE
4. 00:00-12:59 / 13:40-00:00 — if the song isn't loud enough to cover up every single other sound while I dance and pace around and pretend I'm talking to people or in a stage theN IT'S NOT WORKING
5. 00:00-00:00 (this is all day) — if I don't imagine something constantly then I'll die. Oh wait fuck how do I stop it
6. I hate you you know that I'm slow you know that I need to make sure everything is correct why the fuck are you yelling. See this is exactly why I don't talk to you
7. You know, working in a cafeteria would be nice, in my cozy small apartment in my late twenties after I graduated college. I'd already have a job but the waiter would be a side gig
8. Ouch what did I know and why does this part hurt
9. How am I even gonna be able to survive school
10. Why am I like this
11. I am literally so fucking awesome??? Like damn bro I am so cool and funny and good-looking
12. Oh. Trans. (this applies to gender happy, gender sad, and gender how-do-I-live-with-this-and-how-do-I-tell-this-to-my-dad)
13. Frens :3
14. *gasp* SOMEONE MENTIONED THINK I'M INTERESTED IN I AM SO HAPPY I THINK I'M GONNA EXPLODE I NEED TO TALK ABT THIS TO SOMEONE I NEED TO LEARN MORE
15. Noo bad thing pls stop it i don't like (bad number, wrong sound, bad texture, etc)
16. I'd say "kill me already" if I wasn't afraid I'd actually die from that
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The Midnight Beast
Chapter 1: Unexpected Confrontations
"You are what again?! You're fired?! How am I supposed to feed you and your cousins now?! What did you do at work?!" My aunt's voice echoed through the dining room, filled with rage and frustration.
Sitting at the table, I kept my head low, avoiding eye contact with my furious aunt. It felt like being scolded as if I were a child who had forgotten to eat her lunch. But I was a twenty-five-year-old woman who had lost three jobs this year alone, and it wasn't the most pleasant situation, I know, and I'm working on it.
Meanwhile, my spoiled cousins, whom I didn't particularly care for, were in their room, immersed in their expensive PCs, taking turns sneaking glances at me and laughing—typical bullies straight out of the novels I used to read. I wished I could give them a good punch, but I knew I'd only end up with a bright red mark on my own face.
We lived in a simple city apartment with three rooms, accommodating my aunt, uncle, two cousins, and me. It wasn't the grandest place, but it was home.
"... your boss! You seduced your boss, didn't you?! And you got caught!" My aunt's hand slammed on the table, making me flinch. Her accusation took me by surprise, and I raised my brows, widening my eyes, still refusing to look at her, my gaze fixated on the poor dining table that endured her angry fists.
"... I spent so much money on you! Do you have any idea how much I paid for your college tuition?! And this is how you repay me?!" My aunt continued her tirade.
I fought the urge to snicker, managing to hold it in. I rolled my eyes, my gaze still averted. I was certain my aunt had taken the savings my mother had left me—savings worth more than my college tuition. I had attended a public state university, unable to even consider applying to private ones due to my aunt's influence.
"... are you even listening to me?! If you had an affair with your boss, you should have been more careful! And now look at what happened!"
Finally, I lifted my eyes to meet my aunt's fiery red hair and furious eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from anger. It suited her well—the red, just like her soul.
"I wasn't fired because of an affair," I calmly stated, staring back into her blazing eyes, surprised at how composed my voice sounded despite the alcohol in my system.
"I don't believe you, Irene!"
"There was this creepy pervert who tried to grope me! I didn't know he was an important investor, so I kicked him!" I defended myself, my hands involuntarily gesturing as I spoke.
Deep down, I knew I would have kicked him even if I had known he was important. I couldn't stand someone violating my personal space like that.
My aunt glared at me, her hands firmly planted on her hips.
"I kicked him pretty hard, but I didn't mean for him to go flying across the room and break his arm!" I continued, my hands illustrating the incident.
I had been shocked when a disgusting hand grabbed my chest while I was organizing files for a meeting. Without hesitation, I kicked the owner of those perverted hands, and before I knew it, he was screaming on the other side of the room like a banshee. His screams irritated me to no end, and I wished I could have shoved a towel in his mouth to silence him.
Thankfully, my bosses arrived and witnessed the scene before I could worsen my "sin." They were shocked by what they saw—a large man writhing on the floor, screaming and a slender, enraged girl standing nearby. I was certain they would remember that scene for the rest of their lives.
Just as I had hoped during my interview, I had made an impression. Not exactly the kind of impression I had envisioned, but I had achieved my goal. I just wished I had done it in a less embarrassing and infuriating way.
"It's because of your clothes! Why did you choose to wear that? You're just like your mom!" My aunt exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at me.
"What's wrong with my clothes? They're perfectly decent," I retorted, rising from my seat and twirling around in front of her, further fueling her anger.
I wore a long, loose skirt that reached below my knees, paired with a brown blazer over a white polo. I failed to see what was wrong with my outfit and what it had to do with my mother.
"Just like your mom! She came here with a big belly! We don't even know who your father is! I won't be surprised if you showed up with a big belly too!" my aunt fumed, smoke practically billowing out of her ears.
My patience reached its limit, and in a moment of defiance fueled by the alcohol in my system, I couldn't help but blurt out, "Well, at least she gave birth to a beauty like me! Unlike you!"
My aunt gasped, a look of surprise and betrayal crossing her face. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, trying to mask my own shock at what I had just said. I couldn't believe those words had come out in front of my aunt.
But what I had said was true. I was indeed beautiful, with my black raven hair contrasting against my pale blue eyes. My body was slender yet strong enough to send a grown man flying across the room, as had happened earlier. I often projected a cold and harsh personality, quite the opposite of my true self.
"Are you saying my kids are ugly?! How dare you!" my aunt retorted, anger flashing in her eyes as she scrutinized me from head to toe. "You're the ugly one here! My children are fine and beautiful!"
"Their faces may be fine, but their personalities are far uglier than their looks," I shouted, pointing an accusing finger at my cousins, who stared at me in disbelief.
Anger consumed me, releasing years of pent-up frustration. I had never felt this liberated and angry before. It was an oddly satisfying feeling.
"What are you saying, you b-" My cousin's words were cut short by my aunt's stern glare.
"Look at you! Such foul language!" I accused my cousin, my eyes wide and filled with judgment. My aunt's glare turned into anger, and she slapped my hand away, leaving a stinging red mark on my skin.
Rubbing my hand, I glared back at my aunt, a defiant expression on my face.
"You! Shut your mouth!" she exclaimed, raising her hand, ready to strike me across the face.
My eyes widened, and my hands instinctively shot up, prepared to catch her hand. But then the door clicked open, and we both froze, our hands suspended in mid-air.
Standing in the doorway was my uncle, my real uncle, the brother of my mother. Unlike my demonic aunt, he was handsome and kind. I had always adored him, and it was unfortunate that his children hadn't inherited any of his traits. Sometimes I wondered what he had done in his past life to deserve such a stroke of bad luck.
"What's going on here?" he inquired, his voice laced with concern.
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Hello there, everyone! It's my pleasure to introduce myself. My name is Jasmin Angela J. Balauag. You can call me Aki, Jas, Anj, or whatever you want. I'm a stem student. I'm currently studying at St. Paul University Philippines. I completed my junior high school in Western Cagayan School of Arts and Trades. I am 16 years old and my birthday is on 24th of November. My hometown is Centro, Lasam, Cagayan, but I currently reside in Ugac Norte, Tuguegarao City. I'm very interested in gaming, books, films, and music, and I enjoy streaming, playing, watching movies, listening to music, and reading books.
1. Where do I see myself 10 years from now?
There is a saying that time flies by so quickly that we don't notice it. For better or worse, many changes can occur in ten years, and one can become a different person. I see myself as a positive, free, healthy, and, most importantly, happy woman, and I recognize that the only person who can get me there is myself by putting all of my passion, effort, and determination into everything I do. The most difficult opponent I face is myself, and I am confident that I will be able to overcome my fears and weaknesses. At the age of twenty-sven, I can see that I am a contented, successful woman who has checked off more than half her bucket list. If those objectives have not yet been met, I will work hard to achieve them. I believe that, after ten years, I am still studying to be a doctor and will be a successful surgeon. I will have traveled to countries all over the world and seen places of breathtaking beauty. I will be able to build a very beautiful and huge house, a dog shelter or stray shelter, and luxurious cars. The only way to be proud of yourself ten years from now is to stop thinking about time and start focusing on what is happening right now.
2. Was STEM the best choice after all?
YES! Since the Philippines has already implemented the Kinder to 12 (K-12) program, students can select an academic track for their two-year senior high school experience. If you want to be a doctor or any other type of medical professional in the future, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Strand is the best choice. The STEM track, with its curriculum focusing on advanced science subjects such as chemistry and biology, will provide you with the academic foundation you need to apply for admission to one of the Philippines' few prestigious medical schools.
3. What course will you take in college and why?
· Medical Technology. because they said it provides you with the necessary skills and training in performing laboratory tests. These tests are used to detect, diagnose, prevent, and treat a wide range of diseases.
· Nursing. "Go for nursing," the elderly said, because this bachelor's degree will prepare you well for medical school. According to them (my friends, kuyas and ates who took BSN), BS Nursing consists of four major components: health promotion, disease prevention, risk reduction, and health restoration. In this course, it will help you to learn how to interact with and respond to your patients' needs.
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Ohhh, for the headcanon post, can I ask for enemies to lovers? It's a weakness of mine.
Hii!!!
Hmm, Enemies to Lovers is a famous trope... but it's not my fav :P so if this is not good I'm sorry!
[send me an au!]
I'm going complete AU on this one btw!! No supernatural, full human :P
Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski are six years apart in age.
Derek is blessedly unaware of Stiles' existence for the first eleven years of his life. But then. Cora starts school.
It's a big deal. Cora is the baby of their house (even though Uncle Peter and Uncle Chris' twins, Malia and Jackson, are a whole month younger than Cora) and Derek just wants Cora to go off to School so that his parents can stop crying. Seriously. He remembers them when he was sent to school, and he didn't even want to go! His parents were smiling at him. But with Cora? They're crying.
They're laughing (and scolding) when Cora tells them how she met this boy with a strange name (she hit him with her ball, and when he didn't cry like a baby, she immediately decided that he was her best friend).
Derek meets the boy—Stiles Stilinski; who even names their kid that?—on Cora's fifth birthday party in November. He had previously managed to somehow not meet Stiles, but oh boy does he meet the kid now.
Stiles is rummaging through Derek's book collection when Derek goes to his room to escape the demons in his living room. Stiles has his hands on Derek's prized comic collection.
Suffice to say, Derek hates Stiles. Nobody touches his stuff! Nobody, not even his dad! And Stiles hates Derek because "he's a grumpy mcgrump Cora! I can't marry you with him in your family," "Don't worry Stiles, I'll make sure he isn't there when we marry!"
Derek is obviously concerned for his life after he hears those two whispering about marrying each other without him in the picture. Derek makes the executive decision of ignoring the two of them. Somehow, years have passed ignoring them.
Stiles is twelve when Derek goes to college in NYU, following in Laura's footsteps. Stiles is super glad; he hates Cora's brother. He's rude. He's snappy. He's an asshole. And he always steals Stiles' food.
Stiles is fifteen when Derek comes back from college for his twenty-first birthday. He has a girlfriend, Jennifer (Stiles remembers Paige, Derek's highschool girlfriend of three months. Stiles never saw her, but Cora says she sort of looked like him). (Stiles doesn't know, but Derek broke-up with Paige because Cora said the same thing to him).
Stiles hates Jennifer. She keeps making-out with Derek all the freaking time. And she's rude, and a bitch to everyone. She makes Cora almost cry. Literally everyone hates her, but Derek doesn't seem to care, too busy getting laid. Stiles hates him, more than ever.
Stiles makes a plan. By the time Derek goes back to NYU, he's single. Derek somehow knows Stiles was after this; he corners him, alone, and they have an argument that gets way more heated than it should. (Thankfully, no is physically hurt; but they've both always been too sharp, too bitter with their words, too cruel. They don't leave a single scar unscabbed).
Derek is so fucking frustrated, so wound up, that he loses himself in alcohol and women (and men; apparently that's a thing now). This goes on for a few years, and he doesn't go back home. Not once, not even when he gets a job; especially then. He doesn't want to see Stiles: that kid ruined Derek's best relationship because what, he couldn't take a few harsh words from Jennifer? [Derek doesn't know that she was like that with everyone, not just Stiles—aka misunderstanding #1]
Derek ends up getting a woman pregnant. The mother doesn't want the kid; the kid is completely Derek's responsibility, all at the age of 28. At least he has a good job.
Stiles, 23, is an FBI Agent (he was an honorary intern; Cora has to get her Bachelor Degree before she can apply, and still, it will take her another few years to become an actual agent [I'm not sure how many, but I'm going with 3 'cuz in this 'verse she is the coolest xD] They want to be partners).
Stiles rises the ranks like a pro. He gets the hardest cases done in a snap, and finds out that Chris and Peter aren't actually lawyers, but like, two of the top most secret agents. (That explains their extended absences and the decision(tm) to send their three kids (Allison, Jackson and Malia) to Boarding School).
Stiles needs to lay low for a while, after a case. New York seems like the best option, with so many people there, and because Stiles has never been there before.
He ends up stuck with Derek Hale. (Peter tells him to suck it up and stay). Derek is suspicious of course, because why would a lowly worker in an average company get such a long vacation? And why does Stiles keep lying about how he got these many scars on his person? (Derek has a good position where he works, and he has a... superior complex about it. Sorta).
Stiles is 28, Derek is 34, Derek's kid is 6. You can guess what kind of shenanigans ensue with a kid in vicinity who loves their aunt's Cora's best friend and two men who hate each other but are sexually attracted to one another :P
Some examples are: late night movie sessions because it's Saturday night and the kid ends up sleeping on both Stiles and Derek and the forced proximity is... filled with tension, to say the least.
Another is: Stiles getting hurt and Derek plopping him in the bathroom to passive aggressively help Stiles.
(Just realized I forgot to write this: Everyone thinks Stiles was fired from FBI for whatever reason, or something similar, because he is a Secret Agent. Ya know?)
Derek and Stiles grow close over the course of the three months that they stay under the same roof and both of them realize that the other is not who they thought they were.
When the kid is in school, a fight breaks out, and everything comes to light—except the fact that Stiles is still keeping a secret (his job) from Derek and that just... makes Derek angrier.
They're not enemies anymore, per se, but they aren't friends either. I don't know what they are, but whenever they think of each other, their skin catches on fire with the could-have-beens and what-ifs, while the reality douses that fire with its incredibly off-putting mistrust between them. (Derek trusts Stiles to take care of his kid, and Stiles knows that Derek would help him no matter what, even if he was covered in blood, but this mistrust is... something different. Deeper).
It takes a few more years before they both realize that this feeling isn't going to go away, and they decide to try, to work out what's between them. (People say the best kind of love can turn into the worst kind of hate—maybe the opposite of that is true, too).
Okay, yes, in the end I didn't know what to do... butttt I had plenty fun with this one :D @ineffablybookish I hope you like this?? And sorry if you don't, EtoL isn't a trope I'm all that familiar with.
#derek hale#stiles stilinski#sterek#sterek fic ideas#answered ask#my fav bits are the secret agent stiles and secret agents Peter and Chris Argent-Hale :P
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DOPEMAN Part 1 - Chapter 5
Tags: Explicit language, sex talk, sex in general, masturbation, fluids… not an accurate depiction of what being a cam girl actually is, and possible bad English (this text has not been proofread by an English native speaker, so it might contain spelling and grammar errors).
Word Count: 2449
Author’s note: It’s Wednesday, my dudes! So that means new chapter. Thank you to all the people who left comments, reblogged and liked the other chapters, and thank you to all the lovely asks and messages, I thrive on them.
On with the show!
Dopeman [21:01]: Hello, gorgeous.
ArkAngel [21:01]: Hello!
ArkAngel [21:01]: Can you guess what?
Dopeman [21:02]: No, what?
ArkAngel [21:02]: Tomorrow is my birthday!
Dopeman [21:03]: Really? Happy Birthday!
ArkAngel [21:04]: And this is our twelfth session, which means we've known each other for about three months.
Dopeman [21:04]: Wow, time does pass quickly.
Dopeman [21:04]: Are you going to do something tomorrow to celebrate?
Dopeman [21:05]: Your birthday, I mean, not the other thing.
ArkAngel [21:05]: My parents want me to eat with them, and I'm probably going out with some friends after dinner.
Dopeman [21:06]: Are you gonna go dancing at one of those posh clubs that you college girls go to?
ArkAngel [21:06]: Maybe. Are you jealous?
Dopeman [21:06]: No.
Dopeman [21:07]: Well, a bit. I've seen you dance, I know what I'm going to miss.
[21:07] YOU HAVE RECEIVED 60 DOLLARS FROM DOPEMAN.
This time, ArkAngel wore the same makeup and clothes as the night they had met, except for the headband with the halo, which she had replaced with the wings. Dopeman liked them, and ArkAngel had noticed it, just as she had noticed that he liked watching her apply moisturizer, or study naked, or get a pedicure, almost as much as watching her masturbate.
“Hello, Dopeman, what do you want to do today?”
“If you keep saying that, I'm going to develop a Pavlovian reflex,” he joked. “Every time someone asks me what I want to do today, my cock will get hard, and that can be a problem.”
“Maybe. I can say something else if you want. For example, ... ‘What is my lord commanding tonight?’” she joked in turn.
“My God, no!” He laughed. “Hey, you told me you do karate. Can I see you do karate?”
“Dressed like this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I suppose I could practice some kata… although I should warm up first,” she said. “I have an idea: I'm going to change into a set of sports underwear, and then when I'm warmed up, I'll put on my nightgown and wings. What do you think?”
“Okay. I'll give you twenty-five dollars if you change on camera.”
“Deal.”
[21:18] YOU HAVE RECEIVED 25 DOLLARS FROM DOPEMAN.
She changed into a set of grey sports underwear, the bra crushing her breasts almost to the point of disappearing. Dopeman guessed that was an advantage when jumping and running, compared to wearing normal underwear.
He watched as she pulled her hair into a ponytail and began her warm-up with a series of stretching exercises. Then she began to run in place, raising her knees to chest level, and then she began to jump rope.
“What are you doing in there?” Dopeman heard a voice ask from the other side of the door.
ArkAngel made a face of being caught in a mischief and turned the camera. Now Dopeman saw a window covered by a pale blue curtain, through which the street lights could be seen.
“I'm sorry, am I making a lot of noise?” She asked the other girl. Dopeman thought that must be the roommate she had mentioned.
“Not more noise than usual, but different.”
“Oh, well, Dopeman wanted to see me do karate, so I'm warming up a bit first,” she explained.
“Are you in session with him now?” Asked the roommate, alarmed.
“Yes, but he can’t see you, don’t worry.”
“That’s a relief. Apologize to him for me for ruining the vibe.”
The door closed and the camera returned to its original position.
“I'm sorry,” ArkAngel apologized, amused. “I think she got a little scared.”
“Have you told your roommate about me?”
“After the incident with the unicorn, I had to tell her,” she replied apologetically. “Also, she noticed the stunt I pulled off at her birthday party.”
“That was fun,” he replied.
“It was, but she noticed.”
“And how did she react?” He asked.
“She thinks I'm crazy, but she supports me, and she has promised that she won’t say anything to anyone, my parents included,” she said, shrugging. “Break is over!”
She skipped again for a while, and then went on to warm up her upper body. After a total of thirty minutes, she put her nightgown and wings back on. She then dragged a punching bag in a foot into the frame and began to practice katas, first striking the air, and then striking the bag. Towards the middle of the sequence, Dopeman began to think that she had forgotten that he was looking, so he said nothing so as not to break the magic, but for some reason, the contrast between the violence and her angelic appearance made him very horny. She ended at the same time as him.
“Dopeman? You still there?” she asked, approaching the camera.
“I'm still here.”
“I hope you don't want me to masturbate today, because the truth is that this has made me more tired than I expected,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Oh, you don't need to do anything else today, gorgeous,” he assured her. “I already... I'm done.”
“Have you masturbated watching me fight with a...?” She asked. She fell onto the bed laughing before she could finish the sentence. “Oh, Dopeman, you surprise me more every day.”
“What can I say, it's sexy,” he replied, a little defensively. “And the sounds you made are a lot like the sounds you make when you touch yourself.”
“Okay, I'll buy that. Dopeman?”
“Yes, gorgeous?”
“Can I ask you something? A small birthday present.”
“Sure, my gorgeous ArkAngel, what do you want?”
“A picture of you, in your underwear. But I don’t want a selfie.”
“Okay, you'll get your picture tomorrow,” he promised, smiling.
“You spoil me too much, Dopeman,” she replied delighted. “I should take a shower… I'm all sweaty. Shall we talk next Friday?”
“Of course. You know I don't miss it if I can help it.”
“Good night, Dopeman,” she wished him.
“Good night, ArkAngel.”
[22:20] YOU HAVE ENDED THE VIDEO CALL WITH DOPEMAN.
[22:21] DOPEMAN HAS DISCONNECTED.
[22:21] YOU HAVE DISCONNECTED.
While ArkAngel showered, in his bedroom, Wes stripped down to his underwear.
“Hey man, can you help me with something?” He asked, leaning into the living room.
CC was with that girl he used to fuck: the neighbour on the fourth floor, Mei, a girl of Vietnamese descent who worked in a beauty salon, and who Qweenie said she made the best acrylic nails in that part of town . They were watching TV while eating popcorn and CC had a hand on her left boob.
“Sure, man, what's up?”
“Tomorrow is ArkAngel's birthday and I want to give her a gift,” he said.
“And you need my help because...?”
“Because I need you to take a photo of me.”
“Okay,” CC grumbled, getting up. “Damned the cyber-hooker!”
“Don't call her that,” he scolded CC. “She is a cam girl, and her name is ArkAngel.”
“Yeah, just like your name is Dopeman, right?”
“For her, yes, it is. Come on, stop complaining and help me get a couple of good pics.”
CC rolled his eyes, but entered the room with Wes. CC thought about saying something to his friend about why he was in his underwear, but he bit his tongue and just took the pictures. Wes couldn't make up his mind, so they ended up taking about ten different photos.
“We need a woman’s opinion,” CC said. “Hey babe, come in!”
“What’s going on?” Mei asked, entering the room.
“We need your opinion,” Wes said.
“About what?”
“You see, tomorrow is Wes' little friend's birthday, so he wants to send her a picture of him in his undies. But he can't decide which one to send her.”
“Could you look at them and tell me which one you would send?” Wes asked. “Or which one you’d like to receive.”
“I can do that,” Mei agreed. CC gave him the phone. “Let's see... No... No... Oh, this one is good. And this. Not this one, definitely… No… No… What the hell is that face, Wes? Were you trying to be sexy or were you trying to hold a fart?” CC laughed. “The last one is fine. Wes, does she know how huge you are?”
“Yes.”
“Then send her a picture holding your cock,” Mei said. “Something elegant, with the coolest underwear you have.”
“Are you sure?”
“That's how CC convinced me to sleep with him.”
On Saturday, while partying with her friends, Molly received several notifications from the app.
[22:35] DOPEMAN SENT YOU A PHOTO. CLICK HERE TO OPEN IT.
[22:35] DOPEMAN SENT YOU A PHOTO. CLICK HERE TO OPEN IT.
[22:35] DOPEMAN SENT YOU A PHOTO. CLICK HERE TO OPEN IT.
Dopeman [22:36]: Happy birthday, my gorgeous ArkAngel.
The first photo showed Dopeman standing up, leaning against the wall and staring defiantly at the camera. He wore plain grey boxer shorts and a silver chain so short it was almost a choker.
The second was an American shot of him from the side, putting on a black sweatshirt, as if the photographer had caught him dressing.
The third was a picture of him kneeling on the bed, wearing different, tight, low-rise, red boxer shorts that showed he had even more tattoos. He wasn’t looking at the camera, but down, as if he was shy, and he held his erection with one hand, making the outline stand out even more powerfully under the red cloth.
“Who is that?” Helen asked, snatching the phone from her.
“Dopeman,” she replied laconically, trying to retrieve her phone.
“This is Dopeman?” Anne asked.
Isabelle, Anne's girlfriend, leaned over to look over Helen's other shoulder with mild curiosity.
“Yes.”
“God, he’s very hot!” Mandy said.
“Why did he send them to you?” Helen wanted to know, handing her the phone back.
“They're a birthday present,” she replied, shrugging.
“Oh, Mol...”
“What?”
Helen grabbed her elbow and dragged her into the bathroom.
“Rule number 1 of the profession: don't make friends with clients,” Helen said in an angry whisper.
“I haven't done that!” She protested, yanking free.
“Yes you have. It's dangerous, Molly.”
“Why?”
“Because when you care about them... boundaries become fuzzy. You have your schedule, right? He shouldn't be texting you outside of those hours, and he shouldn’t be sending photos like those.”
“Hey, I'm not going to fall in love with Dopeman, or anything like that, okay?” She retorted defensively. “The photos were just a game, a private joke, because he paid me a lot of money to go to the bathroom on Anne's birthday and take pictures for him.”
“Okay, but please don't ever meet him in real life, and don't tell him your name.”
“I won't, I promise."
“And if he wants to tell you his, nip him in the bud, okay?” Helen added.
“I'm not stupid, Hel. Why do I have the feeling that there is something else behind this?”
Helen sighed, running a hand through her hair.
“It was six years ago, I had just started as a cam girl,” she told Molly. “I desperately needed the money; my mother was ill and the landlord threatened to evict us if we did not pay him at least half of what we owed him.”
“After a few pretty nasty guys, I ran into another who wasn't. His nickname was BlueBird54, and he was very generous in that first session. And like you with Dopeman, he became a regular client. He told me all kinds of things about him, and I told him some about me, including that we still owed the landlord almost a thousand dollars, and that if he didn't get the money soon, he was going to kick us out. He paid me five hundred dollars, and said he would give me the other five hundred if I agreed to do some work ‘off camera.’”
“I wasn't overly confident, but then he told me that he was having a company dinner and that he had no date to go with him because he had just divorced his wife. I just had to put on a nice dress and attend the dinner with him, so I agreed. As you can imagine, it was disastrous.
“What happened?”
“His ex-wife was at that dinner. And his eldest daughter, who was a year older than me then,” Helen continued. “I remember how at the end of dinner, when people dispersed to go to the bar, her daughter came up to me. ‘Are you fucking my father?’ she asked, and I was so surprised that I didn't know what to answer her. ‘If it's about the money, you can quit now. My mother is going to get everything he has out of the divorce,’ she told me. It turned out that they were still in the process of getting divorced.
“While his daughter accused me of being a gold digger, he and his ex-wife had started arguing, raising their voices more and more. Then she started hitting him yelling ‘You bastard! Motherfucker! That girl is your daughter's age!’ Someone called the police, and they took us all to the police station. They almost filed me for prostitution, but he said that I had only agreed to accompany him to dinner as a favour for a friend, without financial compensation involved, so they released me.
“When I got home, he had transferred me five hundred dollars, plus another hundred ‘for the inconvenience.’ I thanked him, and told him not to text me again or I would report him for harassment. And immediately afterwards, I blocked him. You have been clever, you wear the wig to go on camera and you keep the two things separate, but you are not immune to something similar happening to you. So please be careful.”
“Oh Hel… I’m sorry, I didn't know, I…”
“Don't apologize,” Helen cut her off. “I stand by what I said at the time: of all the jobs I've had, this is the safest… if you follow the rules. You've already broke the rule of not befriending a client, so at least stick with not seeing him in real life.”
“I will.”
“That being said ... Dopeman is very hot, and he’s got a massive dick.”
“I know.”
“Does he turn on his camera when you have video calls?” Helen asked curiously.
“Sometimes.”
“It helps that he's handsome,” Helen commented.
“Indeed. We should go back, the girls will be worrying.”
They returned to the party. Before continuing, however, Molly texted Dopeman.
ArkAngel [22:44]: Thanks for the gift. They’ve turned out very good. You could be a model, you know?
Dopeman [22:45]: Sure, gorgeous. Have a good time... but not too good, huh? See you on Friday.
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I'm a trans guy and I'm going back to school soon, just getting some prereqs out of the way then trying to get into the fire academy. I'm afraid to start transitioning while I'm still living with my moms (I'm out but its complicated) and I cant move out until I finish school and get a better job but I cant stand the thought of finishing school and still being a girl. I dont know what to do
i’m sorry for the usa-centricism. i work with what i’ve got & know.
the draft is basically required for fasfa & govt benefits
firstly, i want to mention that (in usa) legal males have to register for the draft aka “selective service” in order to receive college funding. however since trans people are not allowed to change their gender markers on the draft forms until the draft becomes active again. also whether the marker will be changed &or whether you’re disqualified for the draft is up to the board. this means unless you’re able to get the documentation showing you are/were exempt or else otherwise register before your 26th birthday (you can only be 18-25 when registering), that you will likely lose your ability to get government grants for college & other things.
quote from 2005 https://transequality.org/issues/resources/selective-service-and-transgender-people
>
Failure to [register] is punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, though individuals have rarely been prosecuted. Applications for federal financial aid for higher education, federal employment, United States citizenship and other government benefits have been made contingent upon Selective Service registration in order to encourage compliance. Therefore, when applying for government benefits, transgender people can often face particular difficulties in regards to their Selective Service registration status.
>
here’s the draft’s faq mentioning transgender people.
https://www.sss.gov/QA
>
How does the Military Selective Service Act apply to individuals who have changed their gender identity from the sex assigned at birth?
Selective Service bases the registration requirement on gender at birth and not on gender identity or on whether they’ve had a sex change. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register. U.S. citizens or immigrants who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. The legal authority is based on the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA), which does not address gender identify or transsexual persons. In addition, Presidential Proclamation 4771 refers to “males” who were “born” on or after January 1, 1960. Thus, Selective Service interprets the MSSA as applying to gender at birth because Congress did not contemplate transgender persons or a person’s gender identity when it required on “males” to register when the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed and amended by the Selective Service Act of 1948 to create the Selective Service System. Until Congress amends the MSSA or passes a separate law addressing transsexuals and gender identity, Selective Service must follow the intent of the of Congress when it required only males to register – the registration requirement is based on gender at birth.
In the event of a resumption of the draft, individuals born male who have changed their gender to female can file a claim for an exemption from military service if they receive an order to report for examination or induction.
>
this next quote is from 2005. the current pdf link from the form this quote mentions is this one: https://www.sss.gov/Portals/0/PDFs/SIL.pdf?ver=2015-02-24-150707-763 note that you must be 26 or older to fill out this particular form.
(you might want to call the place up 1-888-655-1825.) therefore, Before you get your birth certificate changed, you must get the official copy with the incorrect gender marker & deadname before you change it (in order to prove that you had the wrong classification at birth). this is in order to give them a copy. i recommend getting like at least 3 notarized copies, because these copies will have to last your entire lifetime! (and we move around, have accidents happen, sometimes we don’t get them back etc.)
>
FOR INDIVIDUALS ASSIGNED FEMALE AT BIRTH
People who were assigned female at birth are not required to register with the Selective Service regardless of their current gender or transition status. When applying for federal financial aid, grants, and loans as a man, however, you may be asked to prove that you are exempt. To request a Status Information Letter (SIL) that shows you are exempt, you can either download an SIL request form from the Selective Service website (http://www.sss.gov/PDFs/SilForm_Instructions.pdf) or call them at 1-888-655-1825. This service is free and the exemption letter you will receive does not specify why you are exempt so it will not force you to out yourself in any other application process. The Selective Service does, however, require a copy of your birth certificate showing your birth-assigned sex. If the sex on your birth certificate has been changed, attach any documentation you have to that affect. Once you receive your Status Information Letter, keep it in your files. For those FTM people who transition before their eighteenth birthdays and change their birth certificates, it is also possible to register with the service. However, no one may register after their twenty-sixth birthday. Also, please note that although Selective Service materials refer to transgender people as “people who have had a sex change,” their policies apply to those who have transitioned regardless of surgical history.
>
there’s also this information from the how to register part when you’re between 18-25. i selected a very helpful means.
https://www.sss.gov/Registration/How-to-Register
>
CHECK BOX ON FAFSAAnother way a young man can register is to check a box on the application form for federal student financial aid (FAFSA). A man can check “Register Me” on Box #22 of that form, and the Department of Education will furnish Selective Service with the information to register the man.
>
it’s also unclear on whether legally designated women can voluntarily sign up for the draft or if they are going to be compelled to do so in the future because gender-neutrality. however the trend seems to be in that direction.
https://www.sss.gov/Registration/Women-And-Draft/Backgrounder-Women-and-the-Draft
https://www.sss.gov/Registration/Women-And-Draft
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/02/26/no-women-dont-have-sign-draft-yet-heres-whats-next.html
TLDR: figure out how you can register for the draft so you won’t lose federal funding for college.
reasons to start transitioning before you graduate:
i would suggest that it would help your professional networking if you were able to present who you are (which coincidentally) is a guy instead of having to retcon your time there by getting a court order to correct your name & gender marker after your classmates & teachers went their separate ways.
also if you get flack over guys having sexist advantages, i would just mention that while you are trying to weed-out transphobic employers that transgender people are discriminated against, etc too. basically transphobia exists & therefore you still suffer from sexism.
it would also help to complete school. the distress might be so strong that you drop out before you get a diploma/credential which will make student loan debt much harder to pay off. if you could get your gender dysphoria/distress/issues dealt with. it could also help with getting a job when you’ve already went thru the 2nd puberty/adulting into manhood when you’re not on the clock. (seriously, hormones during puberty is basically a rollercoaster that teens tend to experience. therefore you have to take that into account when you’re deciding when to transition.)
regarding legal paperwork here’s the information for changing your name & gender marker by state & it’s also commonly easier to change your driver’s license or your state ID than it is to change your birth certificate (which is fixed to the state that you were born in AKA you can’t just move to a place with better laws). (i’m sorry for the usa-centricism.):
https://transequality.org/documents
https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/social-security
also note that you need to make sure that your social security paperwork is also corrected when you get the changes as well.
good luck, peace & love,
eve
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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN INVESTMENT
This is too big a problem to solve here, but I'd say the test is whether you're good at making things. So what if they fail? Though they're less well known, the angel investors are probably the more critical ingredient in creating a silicon valley in another country, it's clear the US is disorganized about routing people into careers. Easy, compared to college, but boring. 99%.1 The groups then proceeded to give fabulously slick presentations. What made him seem older? If I were a better speaker. More like the first step into a swamp. This form of lie is not without its uses. You know how you can design programs to be debuggable? But when they looked for startup ideas they didn't see this one, because unconsciously they shrank from having to deal with you later.
Foreseeing disaster, my friend and his wife rapidly improvised: yes, the turkey had wanted to die, and in particular, Internet startups are still only a fraction of the world's economy, this component will set the tone for the rest.2 They're started by the poor and the timid; they begin in marginal space and spare time; they're started by people who dropped out of school to do it yourself.3 Rejection is a question of seeing the obvious. Just a teacher? There have always been occasional cases, particularly in the US, and good high schools and good universities, like most other industrialized countries, I'd take the US system. 9782 free! But by the time we funded their second startup, a year later, they had become extremely formidable. And you know what you're talking about, you can do whatever you want and don't cite any previous work, and indignant readers will send you references to all the papers you should have been making.
But I can imagine a future in which the default choice of ambitious young people is to start a company at first. There's no evidence that famously successful organizations like the Roman army or the British East India Company were any less afflicted by protocol and politics than organizations of the same size today. But I don't wish I were a farmer and suddenly heard a lot of propaganda gets slipped into the curriculum in the name of simplification.4 What weaknesses could you exploit?5 Sometimes they're more candid and say explicitly that they need to see some traction.6 Because I wanted to keep the pressure on an investor or acquirer all the way to the close. They wouldn't well, seven of the eight startups we funded will make it. That's what makes sex and drugs so dangerous.7 With speaking it's the opposite: the two dovetailed beautifully. Works to your advantage.
Finally, what should one do about html? Hacking is something you learn best by doing it. So if you make it clear you're going to have to do to get the attention of an audience is to give people everything you've got, right away. I think, 24 hours to say yes or no answer to that question.8 My vote is they're a bad idea, for example, are working on an Ajax calendar. This pattern suggests that attitudes at Stanford and Berkeley are not an anomaly. Most were emerging from twenty or so years of being told what to do. He had all of us roaring with laughter. Imagine picking out apples at a grocery store.9 I must have been to till the same fields your whole life with the aim of being their Thanksgiving dinner. But it worked so well that we plan to do all our investing this way, or the large sums of money involved, but investment negotiations can easily turn personal.10 The most important quality is in a startup depends mainly on how smart and energetic you are, and much less on how old you are or how much business experience you have.
Not all ideas of that type.11 But that wears off after a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. Instead of just tweaking a spam till it gets through a copy of something they made, but they also laugh at someone who tells them a certain problem can't be solved. To start with, investors are letting founders cash out partially. But of course there were the usual nightmares associated with servers. Increasingly it will mean the people who think they don't need investors to start most companies; they can do a deal in 24 hours if they need it a lot. For example, most painters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used brownish colors. Prefix Syntax? The idea is basically that you sort search results not in order of bids, you can envision companies as holes. If I encourage too many people to apply to Y Combinator, which is low to them. I don't think any would have traded it for a job in a cubicle. There isn't so much a phone as a replacement for x.
If this succeeds you get a silicon valley in Germany, because you tend to be calmer and more upstanding; they don't need to do iffy things to get an edge, and don't want to because they have no redundancy.12 You just know someone knows something, and see if there's a limit on the number of people want a large amount.13 Arguably they've done a bad job of hiring otherwise. In the meantime I tried my best to imitate them. Could a trend based on them be that powerful? I've said before, is a way for writers to make money.14 But if you parse it all, your filter might degenerate into a mere html recognizer.15 They try to hide even the existence of these words for as long as a startup founder about whether it might be good to solve? In a language with prefix syntax, any function you define is effectively an operator. And why is it hard to get emails out of your inbox? If the iPad had come first, we wouldn't think of the iPhone as a phone; we'd think of it as a tablet small enough to hold up to your ear.
If you want to understand startups is to look at what you enjoy as guilty pleasures. But there are limits to how well this can be done, no matter how obscure you are now. Just as happens in college, you may also be ready to. Now most VCs know they should be funding grad students or even undergrads. That will tend to get fixed. Or could have been implemented as a couple hundred lines of Perl; in fact they do all look the same. But we should be able to clear our heads of lies we were told. So now I'd advise people to go ahead and start startups right out of college. The disadvantage of having a larger universe of tokens is that there are going to be fairly laborious no matter what, and the reason why, unlike other languages, Lisp has dialects. Well, if you're starting a company that will do something cool, the aim had better be to make money and maybe be cool, not to be cut out of the way as soon as you can, so you start learning from users what you should do is to sacrifice unpromising startups. The result is bronze, which is predicated on the idea.16 Don't realize what you're avoiding One reason people who've been out in the world won't save you.
After all, the companies selling smells on the moon base could continue to sell them on the Earth, if they lobbied successfully for laws requiring us all to continue to breathe through tubes if they could avoid it. Most investors, especially VCs, are not like founders. But that's something you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people. But those aren't the only reasons parents don't want their teenage kids having sex are complex.17 Some we helped with technical advice—for example, finding the recipient's email address base-64 encoded anywhere in a message is a very good spam indicator.18 We'll start with the one everyone's born with. Not just founders, but investors too.
Notes
Because we want to avoid this problem and yet managed to find users to recruit manually—is probably part of grasping evolution was to backtrack and try another approach.
You end up.
You won't hire all those 20 people at once, or want tenure, avoid casual conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct to say exactly what constitutes research in the sense that if you were going to need to be the only one founder take fundraising meetings is that as you get nothing. Come to think of the money.
Ed. Good news: users don't care about may not understand you at a Demo Day. What happens in practice is that the big winners aren't all that value, don't worry about the paperwork there, and don't want to sell earlier than you otherwise would have met 30 people he meets at parties he's a real idea that evolves into Facebook is a trailing indicator in any case, because you have for one user. These anti-immigration people to claim that companies will one day be able to fool investors with such tricks, you'd get ten times as much effort it costs.
It might also be argued that we wrote in order to win. But one of these people.
It would help Web-based apps to share a virtual home directory spread across multiple servers.
I used a technicality to get into a big chunk of stock options than any other company has to be most attractive when it's their own itinerary through no-land, while simultaneously implying that lies believed for a certain threshold. And while this sort of things you sell.
Heirs will be. For founders who had to push founders to have kids soon. These false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you money for. The point where things start with consumer electronics.
Could you endure studying literary theory, or to be doctors?
We're sometimes disappointed when a wolf appears, is not writing the agreement, but I'm not against editing. It will require more than that total abstinence is the odds are slightly worse. Some VCs will try to start some vaguely benevolent business. I was surprised to find it hard to do would be very hard and doesn't get paid to work for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have seemed to someone still implicitly operating on the order of 10,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the evolution of the word programmers care about, just try to accept a particular valuation, or editions with the high-fiber diet is to discount knowledge that at some of these titles vary too much to hope for, but when that happens, it tends to be staying at a pre-money valuation of zero.
There is no different from technology companies between them so founders can get very emotional. Something similar happens with suburbs. I remember the eyes of phone companies are up-front capital intensive to founders.
The person who would have for a smooth one. But that solution has broader consequences than just salary.
There are circumstances where this is not merely blurry versions of great things were created mainly to make more money was the fall of 2008 the terms they were, they'd have taken one of the main effect of this essay I'm talking here about academic talks, which is to the year x in a time, because the danger of chasing large investments is not one of those you should. How much more attractive to investors. When governments decide how to achieve wisdom is that there could be done at a friend's house for the board to give him 95% of spam, for example, MySpace is basically a replacement mall for mallrats.
In-Q-Tel that is actually a great reputation and they're clearly working fast to get into a pattern, as Prohibition and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen.
A company will either be a trivial enhancement of HTTP, to a degree in design is any better than his peers will get funding, pretty much regardless of how to value potential dividends. So in effect what the rule of thumb, the increasing complacency of managements. Since capital is no longer play that role, it increases your confidence in a rice cooker, if the current options suck enough. Yes, actually: dealing with the bad idea, at least for those founders.
College English Departments Come From?
Microsoft must know in the country it's in. I used a TV as a source of food. Or rather indignant; that's the main emotion I've observed; but it is not just something the automobile, the second type to go to a college that limits their options?
Now many tech companies don't advertise this. I think the main effect of this model was that they aren't. This wipes out the existing shareholders, including the numbers we have to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go ahead. Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.
Thanks to Richard Jowsey, Bob Frankston, Geoff Ralston, James Bracy, rew Mason, Abby Kirigin, Chip Coldwell, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen for the lulz.
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#rice#Syntax#Bracy#editions#users#Company#ideas#replacement#curriculum#calendar#idea#home#apps#groups#James#Thanksgiving#spread#TV#mall#chunk#College
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Hey Kuri. I just need a little life advice. How did you find your call in Teaching? I'm kinda struggling right now trying to find what I want to do with my life. Im going back to college soon but the subject I'm studying isn't what I'm interested in. I've tried to love it but its been difficult. I often times feel like a disappointment to my family because my siblings are all doing great and I feel like a loser not getting there yet.
Strap in, there, Anon, this’ll be a long one…
If I’m being honest, my call isn’t teaching - it’s writing. Even now, though I have a Big Girl Job and everything, which pays my bills and keeps my fur babies in food and toys, I consider my writing to be my real job. Even if, at the moment, it’s just writing fanfiction.
The first piece of advice I would give you for anything in your future is to do something you love. That way it will never be a chore and you will stick with it longer than five minutes.
Now, on the heel of that, the second piece of advice is: if you can’t pursue your passion, pursue something you don’t hate. And it might take you a while to figure out what that is.
I graduated high school with pretty decent grades, went to a good college and did well there (Liberal Arts), and I applied to university hoping to major in Creative Writing and Minor in German Language. My outside logic was: it would help me get into a writing field like journalism or translation. Inwardly, I figured I was just taking university courses while I was busy writing my novel and that before graduating I would be published and famous and rich.
Yeah, eighteen-year-old me was a bit of a naive idiot.
Cue life-experience:
My parents were kind of wary about the whole thing, they didn’t really believe I was doing a good thing, but it was my choice and they had to respect it. They knew what I didn’t, but would learn for myself. At the time I was also working in a bookstore, which while not my passion or anything, I actually enjoyed. Work never felt like work, and for minimum wage, that’s a good thing.
Flash forward to my first semester of university, in which I learned that a) my German skills were beyond what I could be taught at uni and I wouldn’t be able to take half of the courses I needed to fill my minor, so it was basically a waste of time to take and b) my Creative Writing classes basically centered around having a published author (and I use this term loosely to define a person who self-published one grungy, literary shock fiction and passed it off as literature) get up and talk about how to write. And not write actual good stories with decent plots and characters and such, but the gritty, sensory, detailed lyrical crap…and if you didn’t try to write exactly like that person, they flunked you.
So trying to follow my first passion didn’t exactly pan out.
I ended up switching my degree completely, majoring in Classical Civilisation and minoring in History. I figured, I love history, and I love research, maybe a degree in this could help me get a job in museum studies or as a researcher or something. The next two years passed quite nicely…and though my part-time bookstore job fell through because of crappy managers, I started to tutor a lot more (and my brother was in his last years of high school at this point, and needed my help getting through his classes) and I realised that I was actually pretty good at breaking down information and explaining it in different ways. Plus, I already had a lot of experience with learning difficulties due to my brother.
So, one year before I graduated, I get the bright idea to become a teacher. I had enough credits to switch majors, but the problem was, my university only offered Early Childhood Education…and while I dearly love little kids, more than five or six of them below the age of ten would probably drive me insane. I figured teenagers would be more mature.
(*pause* *waits for riotous laughter from Those Who Know Better*)
Anyhow, I had to apply to a whole new university program just to get into a high school teaching program. And that was the most miserable two years of my life, because teacher education is the most useless piece of trash degree you can take. You know when you learn? When they stick you in a school as a student teacher. I didn’t learn one thing from my second university degree except that sometimes the only way to move on to the next stage of your life is to sit through the boring shit and get a stupid piece of paper saying you sat through the boring shit.
And THEN…
I didn’t even get a job for another two years.
The thing people don’t tell you about university is that when you get out, there is almost no one hiring. The Baby Boomer generation is not retiring any time soon, the job market is flooded with so many newcomers that competition is fierce, and on top of that, your chances are reduces based on what field you go into. Science, Engineering, Computers, Medicine, Business and Law? Competition will be fierce, but you will definitely have a job at the end of your degree. Anything else? Unless you somehow become famous, every other job out there has a crappy percntage of hiring, and chances are you are going to have to get an average Joe job for a year or two before you actually get hired to do what you studied.
Me, I had one learning experience where I moved to England because there’s a huge demand for teachers (and learned why there’s a huge demand is because the school system there is complete shite), and then spent a year unemployed and basically acting as an unpaid domestic/caregiver because my mother was sick (I lived at home, though, so that’s why it worked out). I still tutored when I could, but I didn’t have as many clients as I had hoped for. Things were so bad at this point and I was so depressed I couldn’t even write…
I did finally get hired, but the way I did won’t make you feel better. I basically sent my resume to one of the schools where I did my field experience, telling them I was available for tutoring in the upcoming year. I got a call back (on my birthday) to see if I was interested in taking on an actual teaching job - they remembered me from my internship and remembered my brother (who once was a student there).
So I basically got the job because I knew someone.
And that’s the reality of it. You will not get a job (in certain fields, at least) unless you know someone. Networking and good interview skills are so important to getting hired these days, and your ability to be social (or fake being social) is key.
Even now, I’m not exactly secure in my job. As a teacher in the private sector, I don’t even have a contract. I literally spend every August sitting by the phone biting my nails hoping that they’re going to call me back for the year.
But it’s a foot in the door. You always have to think about it that way.
Contrast this to my brother - he finished high school, took a trade (auto mechanics), and had a job within a year. He now makes and will continue to make more in a year than what I will in two. He had his forever job at 19; I didn’t find mine until I was 27.
Now, if you’re still with me and I didn’t bore you with my life’s story, here’s the take away:
1. Pursue your passion. If you can make a living from it, you’re one of the lucky few. Keep doing you, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Friends, family or loved ones, it doesn’t matter what they think.
2. If you can’t pursue your passion (full time, at least), do something that you don’t hate. Something that you are good at, a job where you can show up to and do your work happily and then go home at the end of the day and not stress about. Again, if anyone is telling you to do something you hate, DON’T. In five years, you’ll be burnt out, stressed and miserable. It is so not worth it. And if this is an Average Joe Job like working in a bookstore? Fine. Do that. It gives you more time to pursue your actual passions, and looks good on a resume.
3. Get a trade. Seriously, if you put off university for a year to get a trade, like real estate or mechanics or electrician or something, you not only give yourself the ability to be hired sooner, you can also support yourself throughout your academic career - and for those of you facing a future of student loans, this is so important!
4. If you pursue higher education, be prepared to change your mind A LOT before you graduate. You might find your are more interested or better at a certain subject that you thought, or a complete loss. There is nothing wrong with changing your major or minor until you find the right fit, just make sure you get all your General Education courses out of the way first so that you have that leeway.
5. After graduating, unless you’re in certain career fields, be prepared not to have a job right away. Get an Average Joe Job to keep you going, keep sending out CVs and going to interviews, and just hang in there - you will eventually get there, even if it takes you a little longer than your friends. And network! Make sure you keep in contact with people who might be able to help you in your career.
6. If you have the money and means, travel. Because chances are you won’t have the chance to do it once you join the rat-race.
7. MOST IMPORTANT: Do not let stress take over your life. You MUST find a way to balance your life while you worry about school/career stuff. Go out with your friends, travel when you can (even if it’s just a day trip to a museum!), write or paint or play music or build models or code or binge watch your tv show of choice, or whatever it is you do for fun - make sure you do it every day. Because your brain needs a way to unwind from the not so pleasant adulty stuff.
Anyhow, that’s the advice Twenty-Nine-Year-Old-Present-Me would give Nineteen-Year-Old-Me on the eve of starting university. I don’t know if she’d listen to all of it, but I wish someone had told me all that. Especially the parts about not getting a job right away. I thought I was a humongous failure because I couldn’t find work, when the reality was, I was just one of thousands of people seeking employment in an uncertain economic environment.
So, on that note, I hope that you managed to find some comfort or guidance in these words. Remember, you are not a disappointment and everyone moves at their own pace. Maybe you’re having a slow year and your siblings aren’t. Maybe next year you’ll be the one who has exciting new opportunities and they are stuck in a rut. Our lives are very static and you never know what’s coming around the next bend. Just keep on keeping on.
And personally? If I was struggling to love my college program? I would take a very good look at whether it was really for me.
Thanks for the ask :)
#advice#ask kuri#life lessons#the important thing is to breathe#career#school#passions#wish someone had told me this#the more you know
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