#I personally prefer the religious one; both because of my own complicated relationship with faith and because it's what I know best
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If you have an explanation for your preference, I'd love to hear it! Either in tags or reblogs <3
#klarion the witch boy#dc extended universe#klarion bleak#tumblr polls#txt post#I'm not sure if anyone has asked this question before sorry if it's already been discussed!#I personally prefer the religious one; both because of my own complicated relationship with faith and because it's what I know best#kingdoms and complex bloodlines just aren't as interesting as inner conflict for me hehe
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Hi!! 💕I was reading across your medieval queer history tag, and I came to the part of Muslims and homosexuality where you mention the active / passive narrative that this activity had.
I had two questions and I don't know if you can help me with them. I was wondering if there was something similar to that position in Nicky's time (?) at the European part of the world. And based on that, would it be a problem for the sexual activities that Nicky and Joe might have had? (sorry for this insane curiosity) I don't know if I'm being clear, haha. I mean, would it be a problem being active/passive for Nicky and Joe? ( based on common Islamic and/or European thought of the 11th century)
Thank you!!
Hmm. I feel like this is a better subject for fanfic (i.e. how Nicky and Joe viewed their relationship in the early days) because it touches on something historians can’t answer: how historical individuals privately viewed their own internal/emotional decisions and preferences. Obviously, Nicky and Joe themselves are fictional, so the only inner feelings they themselves had about how their relationship first developed, whether in its sexual components or otherwise, are the ones that are created for them by a team of modern writers and showrunners. As a historian, I can offer some perspective on the institutional, legal, and societal mores and customs that influenced how queer behavior was collectively viewed, tolerated, or restricted, but I can’t say how any given individual would have then interpreted that to themselves. Obviously, some gay people have been raised in such deeply self-hating environments that their internalized homophobia is very embedded and they struggle for years to get over it. Some others have been raised in the same environment but have never actually accepted any of it and have less difficulty in leaving it behind. Once again, this goes into the realm of speculation rather than strictly provable history, and which goes double for fictional characters.
Queer people have always existed in a complicated and sometimes contradictory relationship with the mainstream (that is, often heteronormative) dominant society. Sometimes they accept all of it in an attempt to “pass” or because they have been taught to be homophobic, sometimes they choose to selectively adopt parts of it but try to live a secret “second life,” sometimes they reject all of it. These choices are conditioned by personal safety/family background, political, cultural, religious, and social environments, formal and informal education, kinship and friendship networks, positive/negative reinforcement, individual character, and so on. There is not necessarily a “wrong” choice for a queer person to make, because each course of action comes with its own risks and rewards, but if you’re choosing to embrace your queer identity and to live out its truth (as Joe and Nicky seem to have done relatively soon after they met), then that will involve an element of rejecting whatever constraints heteronormative society has placed on you. After all, the formal legal conventions about sodomy in the Middle Ages weren’t developed in consultation with actual queer people. They reflected the concerns of conservative establishment clergymen, who weren’t interested in promoting social acceptance of it (and yet again, this doesn’t touch on THEIR actual feelings or whatever they might have done in private). I’ve discussed the complexity of disentangling historical homoromanticism (which was pretty widely celebrated in the medieval era) and historical homosexuality (which had a rockier time, but as I wrote about in this ask, the attempted policing of sexuality and sexual behavior was as much the case for m/f relationships as m/m or f/f ones -- nobody got away from this and it wasn’t just for the gays.)
Basically, I personally don’t think that either Joe or Nicky would have had a problem with sex or certain sexual positions, just because if both of them had reached the point of deciding that a Catholic/Muslim was their true love and they were going to run off together and be a couple no matter what anyone said about it, that already entailed rejecting a huge amount of the ideology they were originally taught and grew up with. It’s again a subject for fanfic how much Joe and Nicky were personally comfortable with being queer before they met each other, so this would more likely be a rejection of religious teaching about the unworthiness/evilness of the rival faith (as Nicky says, the love of his life was from the people he had been taught to hate). Since almost all medieval queer behavior and views on queer people had a religious component, if Joe/Nicky had gotten as far as rejecting the religious tenet that told them the other was Evil, they were (again, in my opinion) extremely unlikely to use any of those old religious arguments for prohibiting or proscribing certain kinds of sexual activity. I’m sure they had to negotiate many issues in the early days of their relationship (as I write about in DVLA), but they’re clearly head over heels in love with each other, wildly attracted to each other and have been for almost a millennium, and eager to embrace the physicality of that relationship, so I don’t personally see this as being a major stumbling block.
That said, you did ask about European views on sodomy in the 11th century and whether there was a parallel to Islamic views on the moral acceptability of the active vis-a-vis the passive partner. Since antiquity, there has always been less “shame” attached to the penetrative/top partner in sex, no matter whether the receiving partner is male or female. Ancient Greece is another example of this, where the adult man could not be penetrated without insult to his manhood and dignity, but the fact of him penetrating a younger man/teenage boy was a fine and even accepted rite of passage. We can obviously talk about how this is related to phallocentrism and misogyny, because the person “receiving” sex is usually expected to be a woman or a woman-equivalent person, which entails lower social status. The dominant male can take whichever sexual partner he pleases, and it’s a mark of honor and status for him to be virile (the very, very ancient chestnut about why playboys are tolerated and admired while sexually active women are “sluts.”) The gender of his partners might not matter as much as their social class, their status in relation to his, his “right” to expect sexual availability from them, and a whole lot of other factors. This could be and also was the case in medieval Europe. But may we point out that the men engaging in these kind of explicitly unequal relationships, which are more about reinforcing power and control than real desire, are very, very unlike the equal and loving mutual partnership between Joe and Nicky, where they were clearly happy to please and respect the other in whatever way.
It has not always been the case that same-sex activity would automatically be defined and suspect, though yes, there has never been an instance in Western history where it was placed uncomplicatedly on the same level as opposite-sex activity. It had to be constructed that way. As I keep saying, modern homophobia is a lot more stringent and explicit than any medieval expressions thereof, because if “homosexuality” was not constructed as a clearly recognized identity, there was less ability to rail against it. In fact, the usual rhetorical tactic was to just ignore it. Sodomy is known as the “silent sin” or “peccatum mutum” in Latin, because moralists usually didn’t talk about it or discuss it or give it an actual framework for debate and thus implied legitimacy. There were obvious exceptions (Peter Damian, Peter the Chanter, Bernardino of Siena, Heinrich Kramer, etc, etc) and as the medieval era went on, homosexuality became more grouped in with other undesirables. But that also reflected a growing visibility/awareness among people as to what it was. As I keep saying, you can’t be anxious about something, you can’t be worried about people being susceptible to it, you can’t be worried that it’s happening in reality, if it’s just an abstract concern of rhetoric that only a handful of churchmen know about. The increasing visibility of queerness as a category of exclusion in late medieval polemics reflected a) the social stress of the crises of the late medieval world and the usual function of Others as a scapegoat and b) the fact that by then, people must have had enough awareness of it as a pattern of consistent behavior for clerics to get mileage out of attacking it.
Anyway. In an attempt to summarize: historians can’t possibly know how historical queer people felt about themselves, if they were influenced by societal or internalized homophobia (itself quite different from modern homophobia), how much of the dominant social narrative they accepted, the reasons for the choices that they made, if they saw their queer preferences as a sin or as a valid lifestyle, and so on. But it seems unlikely that historical queer people specifically in loving long-term relationships, such as Joe and Nicky, would be unduly tied to much of that, and that has always been the case.
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Survey #433
“i really wish that you could help, but my head is like a carousel: i’m going ‘round in circles”
Would you rather visit Rome or Spain? Rome.
Do you really care what’s going on in celebrities' lives? Depends on the person. If I have a big interest in them, like Mark, then yes, because I care about that person and want to know they're well.
Have you ever broke a plate/bowl? Accidentally.
Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so.
Can you do a backwards London bridges? Hell no, I'd bust my ass and spine.
Are any of your pets “overweight”? Why the quotations? But anyway, no.
Has anyone ever bought you a ring? Yeah.
What has been the most traumatic experience of your life? Does it still bother you? The breakup with my first real bf. And well yeah, it resulted in PTSD. It sounds so overdramatic, I know, but I'm not even remotely exaggerating. Live a day in my head and tell me it's not actual trauma.
If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today? God no, not right now. I am not in a position to be married right now.
Think back to your most important relationship, was it all your fault it’s over? My damaged side wants to say yes, but I know to be realistic, we both failed in unique areas. He didn't communicate, and I just put too much weight on him.
What was your first alcoholic drink? A Mike's Hard Lemonade.
What were the first lessons you ever took? Ummm I want to say choir?
Did you ever go to a mental hospital? Multiple times.
Do you believe that weed should be legalized? Yes.
Have you ever had a significant other with a mental disorder? Yes.
If you could transform into something, what would that something be? Uhhh idk. Maybe a cat?
Out of 10, (10 being really shy) how shy are you? Oh, easily a 10.
When was the first moment you discovered love? I actually don't really know the moment I realized I was in love w/ Jason. It was a gradual thing, so no one occasion stands out.
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made? Well, I suppose accepting Jason's Facebook friend request because I thought he was a different Jason. I can't think of many good mistakes I've made... Even the one I mentioned, it's debatable how good that one was. I really do wonder how different my life would be if I declined it.
What do you think of frogs? I love frogs! They're so cute and derpy. :')
Who did you last worry about and why? My cat, because he was apparently hiding somewhere and Mom couldn't find him.
Who did you last feel sorry for and why? Sara, because of health stuff she's dealing with.
Is there a name that you can’t stand but it’s the name of a loved one? It sucks, I feel like this burning in my stomach a lot of the time when I hear "Ashley" because that was Jason's girlfriend after me. But I have a sister with the same name.
Are you currently looking for a new place to live? I'm not, and I don't think Mom actively is, though we both want to move.
When did you last make up a baby’s bottle? I don't think I ever have. Well... maybe once? idr
Do you believe there’s a devil? No.
Have you ever felt an earthquake? No.
Have you ever been on an island? Yes, actually.
Did you watch the last presidential inauguration? I've never watched one.
Have you ever been a fan of The Killers? I don't consider myself a true "fan," no. I only like two songs that I know.
Do you have your own lighter (why or why not)? No, because I don't need one?
Do you believe in miracles (why or why not)? No. I just don't. Everything has the have a cause and reason.
How often do you sleep naked? Never.
Are you looking forward to your prom? If you already went, how was it? I went twice, and it was fun. I especially loved having the pictures taken that I regret wiping from the face of the earth. Prom itself was pretty bland each time, like you can't hear shit and they just play awful music, but still. I was a teenager with a very fairytale outlook on love and wanted to just feel like I was in one I guess.
Do you prefer Quizno's or Subway and why? I don't think I've ever tried Quizno's, actually.
What’s one of your best memories from during a rain storm? I don't know.
Why did you need your most recent x-ray and what were the results? It was to see if I broke my foot, I think? If that's the one, then no. I also had my legs x-rayed at some point to see if they could find any damage there because of my extreme weakness in them, but there wasn't.
Do people more often mistake you as being younger or older than you are? I actually don't know.
Have you ever made out with someone you weren’t dating? No.
Do you know anybody who was abused? Yes.
Have you ever touched an elephant? No.
How many siblings do you have? I have five I "count," but I do have another half-sister on my dad's side that I don't know. I want to, but yeah... it just hasn't happened.
Do you get bored of your girlfriend/boyfriend easily? I've never gotten bored of any s/o I've had.
Who do you want for president? I voted for Biden.
Do you think abortions are horrible? No. Forcing someone to undergo what can easily be considered a traumatic experience is horrible.
Do you enjoy drama? Ugh, no.
Have you ever had a guinea pig for a pet? I've had a few.
Were you/are you popular in school? No. I was very much under the radar and mostly stuck to myself and a small group of friends.
What brand clothing do you wear the most? No clue.
Have you ever studied any new age or occult religions such as Wicca? Yes, actually, when I was leaning towards Neo-Paganism. I did research into some of its branches, such as Wicca.
Are you a wrestling fan? Not at all. I honestly think it's dumb.
What’s the longest movie you’ve ever watched? I want to say Troy? It never felt THAT long to me though because I love it.
Have you ever been on a subway? No.
Do you think spending a ridiculously large amount of money on one designer item is stupid? It sure as hell isn't for me; I lean towards people can spend their hard-earned money on whatever they want, BUT I do feel that they could still spend their money on more important things.
Do you find baths relaxing? No, they gross me out.
Do you have any hats? I probably still have the hat Dad got me at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game somewhere, but idk where.
Has any part of your house ever been flooded? Not on the interior, no.
Have you ever been interested in learning about murderers or murder cases? Not especially.
Is there anyone that you’re worried about right now? Who and why? I'm just about praying Sara's new med for her POTS helps. I think me worrying how Jason is doing after his mother's death is gonna be a permanent fixture in the back of my head...
If you won a lot of money, would you donate any of it? To what organization would you donate it? Oh, absolutely. I'd have to do some research first, but the Trevor Project comes to mind immediately, as well as ones that protect wildlife, help the mentally ill, fight cancer...
Are you a competitive person? What are you most competitive about? Not really, no. I have my areas where I'm more likely to feel it than others, but it's generally mild. I'm not too sure what I'm most competitive about, but maybe outdoing other hunters in WoW since that's my main class that I've played religiously for years.
Have you ever adopted a stray animal? Yes.
What do you appreciate most about your parent(s)? The fact they somehow still support me even though I'm like... this. I feel like I should've exhausted their faith by now.
Do you believe America should legalize drugs? If you think they should legalize only some drugs, which drugs do you think they should legalize? I only support the legalization of weed.
What is your biggest turn-off of a person (besides physically)? Arrogance, probably. Or being aggressive/explosive.
What song cover do you like better than the original? "Sound of Silence" by Disturbed, for one. That one's easy.
If you could find one long-lost friend of the past, who would it be? Megan. I want her to know I forgive her and miss her friendship.
What holiday do you enjoy the most? Christmas. (:
Were you born in the state you live in? Yep.
Have you ever lived in a house that has been broken into? No, but almost.
Who do you know that watches the most sports? Probably my dad? Idk.
Do you like South Park? Not really.
Are you good at bowling? No.
Made out for more than 3 minutes? Three minutes is nothin' lmao.
Have you ever gone snorkeling or scuba diving? If yes, what’s the coolest thing you’ve seen? No, but I'd love to.
What’s your favorite filling in chocolates? Caramel.
What do you remember from sex ed class when you were younger? Abstinence was the only option. Heteronormativity.
What’s the first instrument you ever played? Ha, a recorder back in elementary school.
Have you ever had a friend break up with a bf/gf for you? Essentially. We didn't date, but that's why he broke up with her, because he wanted me instead.
Do you see a bright light at the end of your tunnel? I don't like thinking about this. I can only hope there is, but I doubt it a lot.
Have you ever waited in line overnight for something? No.
Is there such a thing as being too rich or too poor? "Too poor" is very obviously a thing??? "Too rich" is more complicated to me, as I can see both sides to it. Like it's your hard-earned money, but at the same time, is it really necessary at a certain point? Like start donating regularly or something. Do something good.
Do you think having an expensive phone is a good investment? Depends on how expensive, I suppose, and what you use it for.
What’s your largest bill? Electric, gas, phone, etc. I don't have any of my own bills. It's embarrassing by this age.
Do you like your job? I'd like to even have a job...
What is your favorite song and why? "False Flags" by Massive Attack, because it's so poetically haunting in its message of how fucked up politics are. Its monotonous tone also adds another layer of sadness to it, like a reminder of how "normal" and bland and unsurprising everything is, no matter how horrible... I could honestly probably write an essay on how I interpret the song, especially if you add in the incredible symbolism of such a simplistic music video.
Are you introverted or extroverted? I am very introverted.
If you’re married and your spouse cheated on you, would you forgive them? Nope, byeeeee~
Who knows the real you the most? Sara, really.
How old is the oldest person you’ve had sexual relations with? He'd be 27 now.
Have you been upset the past few days? My PTSD has been kinda vicious the past couple days, especially today. Then earlier at my nephew's b-day party I had to nearly bite my fucking tongue off with that family's political bullshit. My anger really flared up a few times hearing despicable shit, but I think I concealed it fine by just not saying a word.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever thought of doing for a job? Nothing "crazy," really...
Who was your first celebrity crush? Jesse McCartney had my young heart, ha ha.
When did you last see or speak to someone you dislike? Why do you dislike this person? Today, at my nephew's aforementioned b-day party. I in specific don't like my sister's husband because he's sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted... I could go on and on. We don't just have "different opinions," we have different morals entirely.
When you listen to music, do you generally sing along, or just listen? I almost always just listen. I don't sing a lot.
Can you remember the last time you felt emotional? What was the reason? Today. PTSD is a bitch.
What if you were told that your life has to stay exactly as it is right now, and nothing will ever change? How would you feel about that? Quite honestly, I don't think I would want to live anymore.
Have you ever been to the hospital for something really serious? I'd consider an OD on cold medicine to be serious, but then again, I experienced almost no effects from it. Idk if I just got fluids fast enough or what, but whatever it was, I'm thankful for.
Are you excited for winter? UGGGHHHH BRING IT ONNNNNNN.
Have you ever had a moment with someone you like that seemed like a movie moment? Many.
What are you listening to right now? "Down In The Park" by Marilyn Manson.
What’s your favourite flavour of iced tea? Tea is gross.
Have you ever been to a casino? If so, which one(s)? No.
Have you ever visited a sex shop? I haven't.
Have you ever ridden a bicycle through a busy city? NOOOOOOOO. I could never do that.
What’s your favourite place to get pizza? Literally Domino's, lmao. I am so basic.
Do you have a lock number or pattern for your phone? No. There sure isn't anything important on it.
What’s the most number of people you’ve ever lived with? Five.
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My Ranking of Every Hercule Flambeau Episode (S01-S08)
There are some spoilers for S7 and S8, but they are fairly vague and pretty much the sort of thing that you might see on the official press release. So not true spoilers as such. Also this is totally subjective and the result of my own personal biases. It’s also behind the cut because it’s looooonnng.
8. The Two Deaths of Hercule Flambeau (s06e10)--
So, this episode is *fine*. It’s hardly the worst episode of the show, but it’s easily the weakest of the Flamby eps, despite their being a few isolated moments I enjoy. (Hercule getting a long overdue bedroom scene for one :P)
My main gripe is with this episode is the uneven way Lisandra Flambeau is written. The script seems to flip-flop over whether we are supposed to find her sympathetic or not. On one hand, many scenes imply that she genuinely loves Hercule despite them having a shotgun marriage after only a few days of knowing each other. On the other hand, she does not hesitate for a minute before poisoning an innocent (Fr. B) for no other reason than to hurt Flamby, which makes her lose a lot of sympathy points.
And as a result, it seems to make Flambeau seem like more of arse than normal for betraying her, while somehow also absolving him of responsibility for doing so, because she turns around and does *THAT.*
And ngl, it does make me a little uncomfortable that while the character of Lisandra (as an Italian) is possibly not meant to be interpreted as a POC, the actress portraying her definitely is. (Sara Martins is of Afro-Portuguese descent). Which makes the uneven characterization (and underwritten-ness) seem even more glaring, especially when compared to that of the other (white) women in Flambeau’s life (his first love Rebecca and his daughter Marianne, arguably Lady Felicia as well). It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if in all likelihood, the part wasn’t written with Sara Martins in mind.
I think a much more interesting approach to Lisandra would be to have intending to betray Flambeau all along. Maybe she had her own agenda for seducing Flamby, meanwhile he thinks he’s the one using her for his plan. Maybe she does develop some feelings for him along the way, but it only makes her hesitate for a moment before going ahead with her original plan. That way, she keeps her agency and isn’t reduced to the “woman scorned” stereotype while also leaving the writers free to ship Flamby with others in the future without seemingly endorsing guilt-free adultery .
Other random note: I can’t take parts of this episode seriously because the “Crown of Lombardy” is very obviously Guinevere’s crown from BBC Merlin with no attempt to alter or disguise it.
7. The Daughter of Autolycus (s04e05)--
Not gonna lie, I am not really a fan of “character has long lost relative that we’ve never heard of until now” plots. And that goes double when said long-lost relative is a child or sibling. As such my low ranking of this episode is partly due to unconscious personal biases against that trope.
That being said, if we had to get a long-lost relative that we’ve never heard of until now plot, I’m so glad we got Marianne--even if it takes her another episode to really live up to her potential.
I have to knock off a few more points for Nero Hound as a villain. For one thing, he was played by Nancy Carroll’s real-life hubby, but they didn’t let let him interact with Lady F at all. Such a *waste.* Also Nero Hound is far too similar a name to Nero Wolfe, and I’ve definitely confused them on more than one occasion). He’s also rather generic in my opinion, even compared to some of Flambeau’s other “generic mobster” rivals/associates like the ones in S8.
However, there are some moments in this episode I genuinely like--particularly the theft “imagine spot” and Flambeau’s bishop disguise in general. Plus, the scenes where Flambeau and Marianne appear together are excellent, as are the hints that Marianne will become a redemptive trigger in Flambeau’s life.
6. The Judgement of Man (s03e10)--
Again, the low ranking of this one may be due to personal biases. In this case, I’m still low-key bitter--five years later-- at the BBC marketing department for baiting me with the idea of Flambeau actually interacting with the rest of the squad (esp romantic tiems with Lady F) and then giving me the absolute minimum of Felicia/Flambeau flirting and no Flambeau/Sid and Flambeau/Mrs. M interaction.
But there are other reasons why this is in my bottom 3 Flambeau episodes.
Honestly, I feel like an equally compelling episode about the Vatican’s complicity in Nazi art theft could’ve been made without having to insert Flambeau in it. I mean I suppose it does make sense to have the art thief character in the art episode, but still I feel like both Flambeau backstory and important historical lesson about Nazis, the Church, and Jewish art suffer from being crammed into the same episode.
That being said, Mrs. McCarthy’s duchess disguise in this episode cleared my skin, watered my crops, etc, which is why I’ve ranked it higher than the previous two.
5. The Folly of Jephthah (s08e05)
It loses a few points because I got very exited about the idea of Marianne becoming Bunty’s thief gf cool new friend, and yet in the episode itself, they only shared one scene and didn’t really interact much in it. That being said, I did like like that Bunty and Mrs. M had a bigger role in this episode than the squad usually gets in Flambeau episodes.
Overall, I feel this episode works a lot better than most of the other “backstory-heavy” Flambeau episodes, because we’ve already gotten the Marianne-related exposition out of the way and can focus more on allowing her character, Flambeau’s and their relationship with each other to develop.
I’m also a bit smug in that I predicted (or at least hoped for) this exact character arc for Marianne within a few weeks of “The Daughter of Autocylus” airing and that my hopes came to fruition so beautifully.
It doesn’t particularly impact the ranking too much, but I do feel like this episode deserves a special shout out, because it has established a (hopefully-continuing!) pattern of Father Brown calling Flamby almost exclusively by his first name, which is a major significant step in their bromance and deserves recognition as such.
4. The Blue Cross (s01e10)--
As someone who was first exposed to Father Brown through reading the stories for a college course, I always find it especially interesting to look at the episodes that were adapted from Chesterton.
This episode is neither the most faithful book-to-show adaptation (which is probably “The Three Tools of Death”) nor is it the best (imo “The Sign of the Broken Sword’) , but it is arguably the most significant. “The Blue Cross” was the first ever Fr. Brown story and is probably the most well-known. It’s also the first real look we get at the character of Flambeau, who (in the stories and arguably the show as well) is probably the closest thing we get to a clear character arc.
The show keeps some of the important elements of the short story: Flambeau’s clergyman disguise, the switching of the packages. But it also has the challenging task of upping the relatively low stakes of the story, as well as introducing a major recurring character that resembles his book counterpart but remains distinct enough to justify the fairly different direction show canon is taking him.
The show does this reasonably well--if not particularly imaginatively. I do enjoy some of the touches (I’ve written an entire meta before about Flamby’s reading material on the train and how it relates to his character)--particularly the show’s choice to have Flambeau fixated on religious art specifically (RIP for Flambeau’s Dairy Company though. It will always live in my heart).
Unfortunately in the adaptation, loses a few points for not really using the show-original characters particularly effectively. It loses still more for Flambeau’s characterization in this episode . He comes across as much more serious and menacing in this episode than in all the others. It works okay when we consider this as a standalone episode but provides some glaring Early Installment Weirdness when we compare it to other episodes.
3. The Penitent Man (s05e15)--
So as the rest of this list will testify, I have strong preference for the “fun” Flambeau episodes over the more series ones. This is the exception that proves the rule--the serious, cerebral, melancholy episode that simply “works” for me in the way that some of the others have not.
A lot of it is due to the more-intense-than-usual Flambeau character focus that goes into this. Sure, we’ve met his (presumably ex-by-now) wife, his daughter, and his first love by this point, but all of those episodes focused primarily on Flambeau as an extension of the relationships with others. (”The Judgement of Man” in particular is far more Rebecca’s story than Hercule’s.)
Whereas this episode is very definitively focused on Flambeau himself and allows more nuanced exploration of two of the most defining facets of Flambeau’s character: (1) his fascination with religion--and spiritual salvation in particular-- as something he seems to resist and crave in near equal measure (2) his almost masochistic streak of recklessness.
Even though Flambeau’s supposed “piety” is revealed to be all part of his heist plan, there are strong hints that his desire for redemption and atonement are at least somewhat genuine, even if he is not ready to pursue them just yet.
Off topic, but a few random things of note in this episode: this episode all-but-confirms bi!Flambeau, wet!Flambeau at the end is extremely relevant to my interests, Father Brown attempts to smuggle Flamby a lock pick from the beginning and has the audacity to say “ I only use it when I get locked out of the presbytery.”
Also, it has this iconic exchange:
Goodfellow: What is that awful smell?
Father Brown (covered in sewage): It’s me
2. The Honorable Thief (S07e10)-- So nearly all of the Flambeau-centered episodes from S3 on have been a little preoccupied with filling in some of the gaps in Flambeau’s backstory, which is *fine*, but honestly, I feel like in doing so, they’ve really lost sight of why we fell in love with the character in the first place.
He’s vibrant and clever and funny and over-the-top. But most importantly, Flambeau is a lot of fun. Therefore, it follows that episodes that feature him should be a lot of fun too.
And well... they are all fun in some way, but they aren’t as fun as they really could be. John Light is insanely charismatic, but charisma can only go so far when the episode in question is a downer.
Fortunately, this episode is the furthest thing from a downer imaginable. It’s absolutely delightful from start to finish. The plot is serious enough to keep things engaging, but also light enough to keep us from getting too distracted by angst.
I’m also incredibly biased in favor of this episode, because it finally gave me the Felicia/Flambeau ship tease I’d been passionately hoping for (if not really expecting to get after “The Judgement of Man” disappointed me). But it was so much and so good, and I wasn’t ready for it.
In a broader sense though, this episode really delivered with Flambeau/squad interaction in general--which was a key component that has been missing from most of the other episodes. And the Father Brown & Flambeau interactions were also has heartwarming and funny as they always are.
If I have one tiny little gripe with the episode, it’s that Daniel is not Sid. He has enough broad similarities with Sid that I can’t help but wonder if the episode was originally written with Sid and then hastily re-written when Alex Price couldn’t return. That being said, he was a likable enough guest character in his own right, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him again.
1. The Mysteries of the Rosary (S02e05)-- Perfection. Not only is this THE definitive Flambeau episode, but is also one of the best episodes of the show overall. It has everything: the birth of bearded Flamby, bromantic road trips, a treasure hunt, great guest turns from Anton Lesser and Sylvestra Le Touzel.
I think part of the reason this episode resonates so strongly with me is that it’s really the first proper sense that we get of Show!Flambeau as a character. Sure we officially met him in “The Blue Cross,” but considering he didn’t show up until halfway through the episode and was in disguise for most of it, we didn’t really get much of a sense of who he is.
This episode changes all that and sets Flambeau up as the character we will know and love for the rest of the series--charming, urbane, funny, passionate, a carefree carpe diem exterior masking (or overcompensating for?) a sense of uncertainty and conflictedness.
Somewhat off topic, but as great an episode as this is for Flambeau’s character, it is nearly as wonderful for both Sid and Father Brown’s characters. We get to see Sid’s ease with Father Brown, the casual camraderie that the two of them have--as well as Sid’s protectiveness (and jealousy) when Flambeau decides to gatecrash their bromantic road trip.
Honestly, there are so many things that are great about this episode that I don’t think I could possibly list them--but one little detail that really struck my the last time I watched was that the first proper glimpse we see of Flambeau in this episode (we see him in shadow in a flashback before) involves him saving Father Brown’s life. Whereas the last proper glimpse we see of Flambeau is after Father Brown has saved Flambeau’s life. Thematic reversals. Cinematic parallels. We love to see it.
#father brown#bbc father brown#hercule flambeau#the adhd hitting hard; this was in my drafts for well over a year#that's right another flamby episode aired and had to be added before i finally finished it#that being said i really enjoyed it#let me know if you want me to rank more things#like i don't think i could rank every episode; but perhaps every episode in a given season#or the seasons themselves#or the top 5 best or worst episodes--either in general or for a particular character#meta#misc#one of these days i'm gonna go full feral english major and write a giant character analysis on book flamby vs show flamby#and all the interesting adaptational implications and nuanced writing choice of#mon petit gallique merde
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AoS McKirk Recs
At the request of @fireinmywoods I’m finally getting around to making a McKirk rec post, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. All these fics are McKirk endgame. This isn’t organized in any way whatsoever, and is also not a comprehensive list. I mostly just scrolled through my bookmarks and picked the things that weren’t outright porn. I always wish reccers would include their own notes along with the author’s summaries so... I did that. Hope y’all don’t mind. I’ll try not to be too spoilery, but I think it’s valuable to see what other fans like about a fic. Also, always heed the author’s notes, warnings, and tags. Definitely check out other fics by these authors, because I’m mostly not reccing a bunch by each person in order to keep this post slightly less long. And please consider leaving comments on the fics!
The palimpsest verse by fireinmywoods (series is 100k words)
Author’s summary (of the first fic in the series): “Skip to the point, Jim. The sooner you spit it out, the sooner I can refuse and get back to work.” “It’s really no big deal,” Jim says as the door slides closed behind them. “I just need you to come down to Hearth with us…as my husband.” The Enterprise has been sent to negotiate reaccession to the Federation with an isolationist religious group known as the Kindred. While there, Jim notices that some of the children seem to be gravely ill. The problem is, the Kindred practice faith healing and refuse to allow a doctor to be brought in. So Jim does what he does best: he improvises.
Gotta start with the gal whose fault this list is! When I read the first fic in this verse I was really at a low point in my McKirk obsession. This fic really brought me back into the fold in a big way. The whole series is just very very full of love. I ALMOST read one of the sequels first but thank god I heeded Em’s warnings to read palimpsest before reading the other fics. Seriously. You need to go into the thing unspoiled. Anyhow, if you want Jim and Bones way way super in love, for sure read this fic.(And listen, if you don’t want to read it because you hate fake marriage please read it anyway. I dislike fake marriage and I read it and loved it. Give it a shot, I beg you.)
Manhattan (Weeks Gone By) by blcwriter (8k words)
Author’s Summary: For the jim_and_bones St. Patrick’s Day challenge, because only I can turn a flash fic prompt into 8000 words. I haven't been able to stop listening to Frightened Rabbit’s “In Living Colour” from their Winter of Mixed Drinks album as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say for my next story, and then this challenge came along, and literal writer! is literal, so, there you go.The prompt was "Manhattan," and the boys wanted to be married in modern times and run a bar in the Village with the whole gang involved. Non-happy-fun-times ensue before things sort of resolve.
I love a lot of blcwriter’s stuff, but this one is my favorite. It’s a modern day au, and Jim and Bones’s marriage is in trouble. It’s a really wonderful look at people in a long-term relationship struggling to keep it alive and wondering whether to just let it die.
Something so right by blcwriter (series is 13k words)
Author’s Summary (of the first fic in the series): "Don't say we aren't right for each other, the way I see it is.. we aren't right for anyone else."
Okay, I said I wouldn’t rec lots of things by one author and this is my one exception. I HAD to rec this one as well as Manhattan. An utterly fantastic modern day chef au. Jim and Bones knew each other at culinary school but now find each other again as real grown-ups. And the sequel is a Christmas fic! Also contains Jewish Jim, which I’m always a slut for.
That Monogamy Thing by silverlining99 (11k words)
Author’s Summary: Jim thought he was doing it RIGHT.
I also need to mention the fic The Thing About Realizing You Are In Love With Your Best Friend by JenTheSweetie because these two fics are so identical in premise I can only assume they were written for the same prompt. They’re both great, but I slightly prefer That Monogamy Thing, so it got top billing. Both fics are set during the five year mission, or at least they’re set on the Enterprise. Basically, Jim and Bones start sleeping together and Jim assumes they must be now in a Monogamous Relationship(TM) and gets with the monogamy program. Of course, at no point did anyone say they were in a monogamous relationship, so Bones is not on the same page, shall we say. It’s a classic “miscommunication causes delicious but short-lived angst” kinda vibe. You get it.
The Repairs verse by shinychimera and Yeomanrand (series is 69k words)
Authors’ Summary (of the first fic in the series): Young Jim Kirk is unstable and self-destructive, Leonard McCoy is withdrawn and wary, and the obstacles to surviving their first term at Starfleet Academy are not easy to overcome. A dark and brutal tale of the tangled borders between healing and hurting, where hard choices between emotions and ethics have far-reaching consequences; dealing with abuse and alcoholism, affection and neglect, piercings and bar fights, hot and cold sex, complicated questions of consent, and loyalty and love between people who aren't comfortable with either. A whole new spin on "I want my pain, I need my pain."
This one is kinda...whump porn. Like, read the tags. JIm is suuuper messed up and traumatized but sometimes that’s what you need in a fic, yanno? It’s an Academy fic that deals heavily with Jim having been violently abused as a child, and him growing to trust Bones while also kind of learning how to be an adult, rather than living life as the abused child he’s spent so long being. The abuse in this fic was not sexual in nature, jsyk.
En Promenade by newsbypostcard (series is 86k words)
Author’s Summary: After three months of weekend bar-hopping and a slow process of elimination -- with finding the right bar, that was, and tragically not discovering who Bones was into -- Jim was starting to narrow it down.
A very cute Academy fic that nevertheless deals with a bit of heavy shit for both Jim and Bones. Starts out with Jim bound and determined to befriend Bones by... discovering the perfect bar for them to hang out in. Has a lot of really great exploration of Bones’s character, and he’s written in a really entertaining way.
Future Imperfect by Savoytruffle (50k words)
Author’s Summary: Leonard wins the kid in a hand of poker. A hand of poker he plays in the dirty back room of a dive bar in East Bumfuck, Iowa, two weeks after his humiliating divorce is finalized, and on the sixth day of a bourbon-fueled bender that’s somehow taken him from his high-rise loft in Atlanta to a fleabag motel in the middle of nowhere.
This fic is an Academy fic, but in a pretty dark universe. Maybe not Mirror Universe dark, but it’s one where slavery is practiced on Earth. Jim is, in this fic, Bones’s slave. Not in a sexy way. He’s part of an underclass of people who weren’t designer babies. Bones goes to the Academy and tries to become a Starfleet officer, accompanied by Jim, his newly acquired slave. They grow closer as they deal with their pasts, and I guess I should stop there for fear of spoiling too much. This one talks a lot about childhood sexual abuse, so be warned. The story overall though has a hopeful ending.
Let Me Come Home by yawnralphio (7k words)
Author’s Summary: “Someone asked me what home was
and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue,
the flowers sprouting from your mouth,
the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers,
the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.”
For someone who theoretically dislikes modern day AU’s, there are actually a fair few that I really really love, and this is one. Jim and Bones run a travel blog together and journey around the US in a van. It’s a really lovely mix of angst and romance.
The Switch series by Ceres_Libera (series is 269k words)
Author’s Summary (of the first fic in the series): The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense. A Starfleet Academy story, set in the ST:XI universe.
I don’t need any sass, people. I KNOW you’ve all read Switch, and I know you’re all tired of seeing it on rec lists and I don’t care. It’s famous for a reason! It’s not just long, it’s WONDERFUL. The big, epic Academy fic that kinda sets the Academy fic bar. Goes from Jim and Bones meeting all the way through the end of the 09 film. And that’s just the main fic. I really love that both Jim and Bones are depicted as realistically flawed people, especially earlier on in their acquaintance. Neither of them are angst sponges, they’re both just... kinda messed up dudes. But they’re good people who learn to love each other. Also I guess it’s technically slow burn?
The Greater Good by emiliglia (29k words)
Author’s Summary: Doctor Leonard McCoy thinks he's getting by, working as both a surgeon and a researcher at UCSF Medical Center. A chance encounter with Lieutenant Jim Kirk - who's changed since they first met five years before, and not for the better - forces Leonard to face reality about his own situation while trying to keep Jim from heading down the same path.
This is the only fic on here not on Ao3, as far as I can tell. Anyhow it’s modern day AU. Jim and Bones help themselves by helping each other and falling in looooove.
The aftershocks series by canistakahari (series is 30k words)
Author’s Summary: Jim Kirk turns down Pike’s challenge, and doesn’t get on the Starfleet recruiting shuttle. But neither does Leonard McCoy, who’s actually been in Iowa for six months already, doing fuck-all. Becoming drinking buddies seems like a natural progression.Sometimes the path to the stars is just a piece-of-shit dirt road. You know, the kind that’s filled with potholes and surrounded by brambles and conveniently happens to be located in the bottom of a ravine. But every once in a while, when confronted with such a twisted mess of circumstance and cracked foundation, the universe still does its very best to fill in the holes.
I haven’t read this in a long time, but I remember it being really good and kinda mindfucky. Not in a dark or stressful way, though. Jim and Bones don’t join Starfleet at all. I feel I shouldn’t say more because I don’t want to spoil things, but the tags should give you more information if you want some.
i think i’ll keep you (like a secret) by hoosierbitch (3k words)
Author’s Summary: Bones came to Starfleet with a hell of a lot of baggage. Jim came empty handed.
Some good ole Jim angst. Prominently featuring: Tarsus things! Allergic-to-everything Jim! Jim allowing himself to be vulnerable around Bones! All that good stuff. I just love me some vulnerability.
How Whales (Sorta) Brought Jim and Bones Together by highschool-facelesshellion (4k words)
Author’s Summary: For Leonard, first dates are flowers and small, homey restaurants where you talk quietly like you're sharing secrets with your potential girlfriend.They are not supposed to be at a table covered with aquarium maps and aquarium souvenirs. And they are certainly not supposed to be spent with a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy rambling about whales.(Or: Where Leonard is the only person that doesn't think Jim's too crazy for his whale obsession and Jim notices.)
Fairly goofy, slightly cracky remix of The Voyage Home (the one with the whales). It’s just silly and charming and I don’t know why I love the idea of Jim being a whale aficionado, but I really do.
Any Road Will Take You There by shoreleave (63k words)
Author’s Summary: Slow-developing K/M, beginning right after the shuttle ride and showing what happens the first year at the Academy. Told from McCoy's POV.
This fic is verrrrry good. I know I have a lot of Academy fic on here, but please treat yourself and read this one. Shoreleave is really good at both plot and characterization. I really like this fic in part because it explores the root of Jim’s complete lack of trust in authority figures, while also showing just how dangerous that lack of trust can be for him.
Seeing Stars by lindmere (1k words)
Author’s Summary: Inspired by Chris Pine's wig in Bottle Shock. Jim sneaks into Riverside for an old-fashioned Fourth of July.
A very sweet, sort of domestic established relationship fic.
His Eyes are Opened by tresa_cho (21k words)
Author’s Summary: Lt Colonel Leonard McCoy thought his service days were over. After the Great War, he was ready to disappear into the sanctuary of anonymity, but the government had other plans. Strange men whisk him away from his comfortable existence to investigate an airship crash unlike anything the United States had ever seen before. The year is 1947. The location, Roswell, New Mexico.
Despite the summary saying ‘Great War’, this fic is clearly post WWII, so I think that must be a typo. There is a dearth of McKirk fic set in the forties, and hot damn does this fic ever hit the spot if that’s what you’re looking for. Usually fics that are set in modern times or earlier take out all the sci-fi elements of Star Trek, but not this one! Just a very well done fic with a unique premise.
Investigations by AceOfSpades (series is 93k words)
Author’s Summary: The first thing Jim noticed about McCoy, and what started him on this whole messy path, was that McCoy was just a little…off.
GOD DAMN I love this fic. It’s a Doom (2005) fusion, but you don’t need to know anything about Doom to get this fic. It might even help to not know anything about Doom. God knows I don’t and I adore this fic. Academy era, with Jim simultaneously befriending Bones and trying to solve the mystery of this weird Leonard McCoy guy. Theoretically we’re getting a sequel sometime, and it can’t come soon enough in my opinion. Never fear, though, the fic is complete as-is and has lovely closure. Really really really recommended!
The Galactic Adventures of Major Zeph by winterover (14k words)
Author’s Summary: Jim is a comic book nerd who’s finally found his one true sidekick. Leonard is a convention virgin who really needs a drink. There is only one bed left in San Diego.
Academy fic! For some reason I always love fics where Jim is into some kind of craft or art, or is just generally a nerd about something. This fic provides that twice: Jim is a comic book nerd as the summary says, but also really into cosplay. And Bones just happens to look like the sidekick of Jim’s favorite comic book character. Romantic hijinks ensue.
The Man Who Held Up Atlas by thalialunacy (7k words)
Author’s Summary: Five times Leonard McCoy fixed Jim Kirk’s back, and the one time he didn’t have to.
Really really lovely 5 plus 1 fic with reverse chronology. Starts with Jim and Bones as old old men and moves back in time from there, showing little snapshots of their relationship.
and i can lend you broken parts that might fit (like this) by jeyhawk (17k words)
Author’s Summary: Academy Era. First they fall into bed. Then they fall in love.
Funny and sweet. Nothing too heavy, just loads of Jim and Bones being wildly in love with each other. And sexytimes.
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ds9 (idk if have you done yet but don't mind me😉 I'm just curious)
I have not done this one, yet. Thank you for asking! :D
OTP: Hm, this is pretty complicated, but right now I have to say it’s WeyLana (Weyoun/Kilana). The only Weyoun I would not ship with Kilana is Seven, because Kilana deserves better than Weyoun 7. I know this probably sounds like a super dull pairing to a lot of people, but these two just feel like they were made for each other, though they are never shown together onscreen. Platonic, or romantic, they would fit together like puzzle pieces! I can just imagine how adorable their chemistry would be. I enjoy that they are both so dedicated to their faith and their work, and I wonder what that could mean for them if they loved each other. Romantic relationships between Vorta is never discussed in canon, so it is interesting to think about the religious and cultural implications of such things, within the Dominion.
NOTP: This is difficult as well, because I cannot think of one particular pairing that I really dislike. I guess I’m not too fond of Bashir/O’Brien, Damar/Weyoun, Damar/Kira, Or Dax/Bashir (both Jadzia and Ezri).
OT3: I’m not really one for polyships, but I guess Weyoun/Ezri/Kilana. Just because I ship each of them with each other.
A currently canon ship I’m okay with, but don’t prefer: Benjamin/Kasidy were a well-matched couple, there’s no denying it, but they did not really grab me.
A ship that would only work in an AU, but would be awesome: Bloody Grilka/Pel! Give me a little latinum winner and a gorgeous Klingon warrior, who cherish each other like a summer flower cherishes the sun! There isn’t room in the Alpha Quadrant for the amount of charm these two would have.
A ship I’d like to see explored, but not stick around: I have a bit of a soft spot for Ziyal/Nog. Really, I mean Ziyal as played by Cyia Batten, who seemed much younger than her two successors. I just think that it would have been sweet to see her and Nog interact, maybe go on a couple of dates. They are both young characters, struggling to fit into two opposing cultures, so I feel they would have a lot in common. I think it would give Ziyal the opportunity to bond with someone her own age and have a good time, and it would give Nog some character development as he would learn to see a girl as person and a friend, as opposed to merely a female.
A ship that may as well be canon: Garashir and Kira/That Romulan Ambassador who’s name I can’t recall, sorry and Jadzia Dax/Lenara Kahn.
The ships I’d give my OTP pair, if the other died: For Weyoun, either Ezri Dax, or Yelgrun. For Kilana, either Ezri Dax, or Eris.
A crossover ship I’d dig: To be quite honest, I’ve never really thought about it! Off the top of my head I’d say Jadzia Dax/Soolin (Blake’s 7).
A ship that would work great in a Coffee Shop AU: EzLana (Ezri Dax/Kilana). Specifically, these two would work brilliantly in a 40s/50s Coffee Shop AU. Give me shyest butch, Ezri and glamorous femme, Kilana, or give me death.
A ship that would work great in a Sitcom AU: I have said before that Dukat/Weyoun 5 are the Basil and Sybil Fawlty of Star Trek and I stand by that. That said, for a happier sitcom couple, I would say that Quark/Odo, or Garashir would both work perfectly.
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oc facts: charlie
no one tagged me i just love her a lot
PLACE IN SOCIETY
✖ FINANCIAL – wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty
like all of my oc/canon girls, charlie is filthy rich - and all of it came from her parents, a politician/university professor and a med school lecturer/a highly respected surgeon. some of those money her parents got from their families; but the point is - charlie never had to worry about money.
(until she met her soon-to-be husband who robbed her blind.)
charlie has no problems with sharing her wealth with those in need - she frequently donates to various fundraising campaigns.
✖ MEDICAL – fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged
she’s bit of a couch potato, and a bit clumsy too; she certainly wouldn’t run in a marathon, and finds herself out of breath after a short, intense jog - but it’s nothing too severe. what she lacks in shape, she makes up with agility - she practices yoga, which renders her a tad more agile than an average person.
she still can’t do a lot of things though.
✖ CLASS OR CASTE – upper / lower / middle / working / unsure
charlie is, whether she likes it or not, a member of the social elite. her father spent two terms as a mayor of metropolis when she was a kid, and is an active politician, and a college professor. her mother is a globally renowned as a surgeon and comes from european nobility. charlie grew up with children of ceos, leaders, celebrities - and even after the untimely demise of her parents at the hands of her husband and moving to metropolis, she still finds herself amount the elite, quickly befriending bruce wayne himself, as well as getting cautious attention of the maroni crime family, one of gotham’s assistant district attorneys and thomas elliot - one of gotham’s golden boys, a highly esteemed surgeon and her mother’s pet student.
and whether all of this is good... that is a different matter entirely.
✖ EDUCATION – qualified / unqualified / studying
charlie has a master’s degree in english literature - nothing more, and nothing less.
FAMILY
✖ MARITAL STATUS – married, happily / married, unhappily / engaged / partnered / divorced / widow or widower / separated / single / it’s complicated
she’s a widow - because she killed her husband. it was an ugly mess of a situation - he killed her parents, stole her fortune (in the canon verse - in various aus this changes, depending on what I have in mind) and ran away, prompting her to go on a wild goose chase across the globe, culminating in her finally tracking him down and stabbing him to death with an ice pick.
one thing she hadn’t expected though was ending up in a long-term, happy, loving relationship with oz: gotham’s prodigal son, a failed revolutionary and a loyal friend to his (at times unwilling) loved ones.
✖ CHILDREN – has children / no children / wants children / adopted children
the idea of motherhood is kinda scary to her - she’s not opposed to being a cool aunt to someone else’s kid though.
(in chasing echoes oswald is eventually going to pull jason todd to his side, and charlie’s gonna develop a fun, unexpectedly satisfying relationship with bruce’s troubled ex-errand boy.)
✖ FAMILY – close with sibling / not close with siblings / has no siblings / siblings are deceased / it’s complicated
✖ AFFILIATION – orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by both parents / it’s complicated
even though charlie - painfully aware of her own personal mediocrity - sometimes felt like she doesn’t quite fit in with her social, accomplished parents - they still made a happy family. for various reasons, her relationship with her mother - eleanor - was always just a bit strained and tense; but it was still, above everything else, loving.
TRAITS & TENDENCIES
✖ disorganized / organised / in between
if left to her own devices, charlie’s going to inevitably scatter her belongings everywhere, forget about doing the dishes and start getting late to things. due to unfortunate depression - time simply flows differently for her.
✖ close-minded / open-minded / in between
charlie is very open-minded, thanks to her father being an outspoken leftist - perhaps even a bit too open-minded. after the split-second of initial confusion, she’d be willing to accept everything - even a violent “revolution”. even an unjust revenge. some may call it open-mindedness; others - naivete.
✖ cautious / reckless / in between
in general, she’s rather cautious - mostly thanks to overwhelming depression and anxiety that make her doubt her every move.
✖ patient / impatient / in between
most of the time, she’s patient - but then come those times when she’s waiting for oz to hurry up and pay attention to her. then, suddenly, she’s the most impatient, almost nagging person you’ve ever met. it has a lot of charm though, because she’s well-aware of being a pain in the ass.
✖ outspoken / reserved / in between
this is something her parents taught her - have your opinion, but know a time and place for it. don’t reveal too much to people you don’t trust, or to people you want to see gone. after all, her mother did come from a noble family, and her father did have a political career. even if he kept challenging his rivals to fistfights.
✖ leader / follower / in between
charlie has absolutely NO desire to lead, or to be in the spotlight - and to be honest... she kind of doesn’t understand people who do. it’s just too responsible, too difficult, too stressful.
✖ sympathetic / unsympathetic / in between
charlie has a lot of sympathy for other people - and that’s why her short-lived marriage with a con artist struggling to pay off his debt to the mafia was so tragic: she would’ve helped him if he asked, no questions asked.
✖ optimistic / pessimistic / in between
though she might appear to be an optimistic ray of sunshine - she’s actually very, very pessimistic. she actually did go through her fair share of feeling deeply let down by people in her life; so she tends to look at every relationship - and every possible scenario - without a glimmer of hope.
✖ hardworking / lazy / in between
you know how i said she inherited a fortune from her parents?
yeah.
(to be fair, she did work hard for her degree, so it’s not like she doesn’t know how to put effort into things. she simply never really had to put that effort into anything, thanks to her financial stability.)
✖ cultured / uncultured / in between
despite appearing as a ditzy socialite only interested in fashion and gossip - charlie is actually very cultured. she knows quite a lot about many topics, from french cuisine to religious traditions of indigenous cultures; her parents made sure she knows as much about the world as possible.
the problem is - she’s painfully disinterested in most of those topics, instead pretending to stick to things she’s actually into: fashion, games, literature.
✖ loyal / disloyal / in between
all it takes to earn her loyalty is to give her affection and attention; and she’ll be yours forever. she’s also not above being loyal to two people whose causes clash; she can be loyal to her lover, who wishes to kill harvey dent - but also to her friend, who wants to see dent flourish.
✖ faithful / unfaithful / in between
she’s faithful, she’s monogamous, she’s not afraid to wrap herself around her partner in public to make sure everyone sees how much in a relationship they are with each other.
(she might sometimes fantasize about doing the deed with someone other than her partner though. like fish mooney, because have you SEEN fish mooney? charlie had.)
SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION
✖ SEXUALITY – heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / omnisexual / demisexual
charlie is bi, without any actual preference for her partner’s gender. fate (me, it was me, it wasn’t fate) caused her to mostly end up getting intimate with guys - but her first partner was a girl, she’s very into fish mooney and selina kyle and she did once have a massive crush on lex luthor’s sister.
✖ SEX – sex repulsed / sex neutral /sex favorable
charlie LOVES sex - but only with the right person. she’s definitely not against talking about it with people she’s only platonically involved with, and has nothing against having others go at it in appropriate semi-public spaces, assuming it doesn’t go too far.
but yeah. she likes sex. it makes her feel good, plain and simple - and she likes the sense of connection between her and her partner, as well as feeling comfortably vulnerable and excited.
✖ ROMANCE – romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable
charlie really craves romance. she wants - needs - to both feel the butterflies in her stomach, and to be a source of someone else’s butterflies. she craves the casual intimacy, tender words, affectionate gestures... it’s all like water to her: an absolute necessity.
✖ SEXUALLY – sexually adventurous / sex experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious / uninterested
while she’s not actually very experienced - she has a lot of fantasies and ideas she’d love to try out one day. she’s also not averse to toys and porn; even if she tends to not watch a lot of porn, for various reasons.
(such as: various fundamental problems rooted in modern-day porn industry, like incessant violence, name-calling and really bad camera work.)
ABILITIES
✖ COMBAT SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none
to be honest, she only knows Woman’s Self Defense 101: the heel-stomp, the deadly elbow, the nails.
oh, and she also knows how to stab people. and oz taught her to shoot.
✖ LITERACY SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none
she has a master’s degree in english literature.
except we all know this doesn’t mean SHIT, since there are people with actual degrees claiming kylo ren is queer and femme coded out there, so: she’s actually damn good at reading and understanding things and picking up subtexts and nuanced aspects. her father was a college professor, remember? he was a good teacher, and she was a good student.
✖ ARTISTIC SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none
she has, and i can’t emphasize this enough, negative artistic skills, both verbal and visual.
(”but she has a master’s degr-” have you ever read anyone’s master’s thesis? because i did.)
this is one of the core roots of her depressive thoughts also.
✖ TECHNICAL SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none
give this girl a piece of paper and tell her to fold it in half and moments later the paper’s gonna be torn and on fire and she’s gonna be having a depressive meltdown.
she is... not very good at using her hands to make things happen. this is actually one of those few things her parents did wrong; they kind of overlooked this part of their kid’s development, and as a result - charlie is a clumsy mess.
and, by the gods, don’t give her a hammer. unless you really hate all of your kitchenware, that is.
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Can we hear more about Jan?
Of course, anon! I’d be glad to yell a lot of information about the man who lists yelling as one of his hobbies.
And, without further ado, an introduction and character summary below.
Jan Kees Jones, personification of New York State
All art credited to @zapphi, 2017, 2018, 2019
Physical Description
Jan Kees is 5′11, with semi-styled sandy blonde hair, and blue-green eyes. He is of a medium build, and decently fit. He has been referred to as a shorter version of his father, Lars. Neither can deny relationship to the other. He identifies as Dutch-American. His birth year was 1614, and he celebrates his birthday on July 26th.
Jan Kee’s face claim is model Andrej Halasa, his voice claim is Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre fame, and as of this moment, he has no singing voice claim.
Personality
Money makes the world go around, the world go around… (Me, starting this section).
Jan is a loud, somewhat egotistical bastard, whose got just enough of a hidden golden heart to be worth knowing, somehow. He’s really good with kids, passionate, and driven to do whatever he decides to do. His passion and drive can play against him at times when he comes off as stubborn and resistant to outside ideas, and aides in many negative perceptions of him. He can also be very indifferent at times to various situations, unless he has a direct stake in it, and pride is a very definite and major downfall he has.
At the same time, he believes strongly in family. While he probably fights with his two brothers more than anyone else, he’ll be right at their side the moment anyone else goes after them. And as for his family back in Europe, he considers himself still very close to his father, and visits him often. He’s also a little bit of a prankster, and he and Seth (@zapphi’s Massachusetts) have gotten into multiple prank wars.
Sexuality and Gender
Jan Kees is queer and cisgender. He has tried ascribing other names to his sexuality over the years, but it has been very fluid at times, so he prefers the overall term of queer. The closest he’s come to using any other name for his sexual orientation was bisexual, but he remained somewhat uncomfortable with the term before switching back to queer.
Jan can additionally be very open with his sexuality at times, and has historically been quite the womanizer and been willing to sleep with about anyone who lets him. When other states joke about the “Promiscusquad”, they count Jan Kees in as a founding member. However, if you’re in a serious relationship with him, he’s a one-person man.
Religion
Jan was raised as a Dutch protestant, and while he remains culturally Christian, indetifies as an agnostic or atheist nowadays. He is very aware of other cultures and religious practices, and tries to be very respectful of them, and has spent a lot of time studying Judaism in particular, as both his brothers are Jewish.
Employment
Jan has two fields in which he’s incredibly passionate and focused in, law and finance. Following World War Two, he has predominantly focused in law, although he continues to invest his money. He used to mainly making a living in finance, but after the Great Depression, felt that law was a more stable career.
Pets
Jan has three pets, all gifts from Lars to celebrate another century of age. In order, he recieved:
Niagara
A Friesian mare Jan recieved on his 100th birthday, Niagara was a very practical gift. He was a growing colony, and although he was now a British colony, Lars felt he needed his own transportation and Arthur was failing to provide him it. Jan and Niagara were pretty inseperable until the age of the automobile. Nowadays, Niagara lives on Jan’s property in upstate New York and enjoys her well-deserved retirement.
Hamilton
A blue and white British Shorthair was given to Jan as his 200th birthday present, and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Jan is definitely more of a cat person than a dog person, and Hamilton can about get away with murder. He sleeps on Jan’s chest (which is bad when he weighs as much as he does), loves all of Jan’s “enemies” more than he loves Jan, and loves the smell of mint gum which Jan is sometimes forcefed so he won’t smoke.
Hamilton, you traitor, stop adoring Massachusetts.
When life gives you mint gum, Hamilton glues himself to your face.
Rembrandt
Rembrandt exists pretty much solely because of this picture of Jan’s faceclaim. Rembrandt was a gift for Jan’s 300th birthday, and Rembrandt the hedgehog is living the ideal life in Jan’s apartment. He crawls around on the floor as a walking pincushion, Hamilton is terrified of him and Jan’s terrified of stepping on him, he gets taken out for fun photoshoots by literally anyone who’s ever housesat for Jan so they can spam Jan with pics. His life is amazing.
After reiceiving Rembrandt, Jan has made it clear he has as many pets as he wants, so he didn’t recieve another pet for his 400th birthday in 2014.
Relationships with other States
We’ll start with family.
New Jersey
Elijah, only ten years younger than Jan, has never been someone whose content to be in the shadows OR bossed around by his older brother. Fiercely independent from the start, he resisted assimilation into a Dutch way of life, clinging to his native roots and converting to Judaism very early on. Half the time, they’re at the other’s throats over the smallest things. The other half of the time, they’re about the only person watching each other’s back. They’re a formidable team when cooperating, and Elijah admits he’d miss arguing with him if something happened to the asshole, but don’t you dare tell Jan that!
Delaware
No art for Aaron, so imagine Elijah, but approximately one inch shorter.
Aaron always felt a bit like the third wheel of the family, and he isn’t entirely wrong (Jan and Elijah can be rather self-centered at times). At the same time, Aaron serves as a peacekeeper between the two and he and Elijah bond over their shared faith.
Yet, some doubts about his place in the family were destroyed when Aaron came out of the closet as trans. Jan Kees and Elijah immediately stopped using Aaron’s deadname, Miriam, and bookended his seat for several meetings, ready to throw down with anyone who challenged Aaron. Jan Kees has even helped financially with some of Aaron’s surgeries and made sure his brother has all the expensive male fashion that he will probably never wear because “I never wore this sort of stuff before, Jan, why would I start now?”
Okay, family section over onto other states
Massachusetts
He’s only around eight inches taller than Seth, but this is what Seth thinks their height difference is. And honestly, Jan gloats over it, so he does too.
Seth Adams Jones and Jan Kees’ relationship with him is one of the most complicated things in Jan’s life. He can’t decide if he loves or hates the guy.
I’d like to thank Talia and also Talia for my life. -Jess
Jan Kees came into the original thirteen colonies in a lot of turmoil, and Seth didn’t help. Jan Kees had lost his only parental figure at the time, couldn’t speak much English, was a Dutch Protestant rather than a Puritan, and had Jewish younger siblings.
Needless to say, when one of the first memories you have of someone is getting into a fistfight with them for stealing your brother’s Magen David, you have gotten off on the wrong foot.
They eventually figured out some sort of antagonistic truce, and half-cooperated long enough to see themselves through the French-Indian War, and during the lead-up to the Revolution, Jan had a horrible realization, that he had a lot of feelings towards Seth. So in classic Protestant fashion, aka conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know, he pretended those feelings didn’t exist. He went through the revolution as a spy for George Washington wishing that he was literally anywhere else doing anything else like maybe fighting with his crush by his side but also no I don’t have a crush on him God I’m a mess, help me.
Also, kinda awkward when your crush mistakes you for an actual redcoat and shoots you at one point when you’re trying to bring in your spy reports.
Jan’s crush remained pretty steady until after the Civil War, when it slowly began to fade over the next fifty years (in canon, Jan ends up dating @bottot‘s Florida, Marco). However, in many AUs, it just keeps simmering in this idiot forever until eventually, somehow, it slips out.
They continue to have a semi-antagonistic friendship, because really to Jan, is it worth knowing someone if they aren’t at least a bit of a fucking bastard? (He says, crawling out of the Boston Harbor for the sixteenth time this year after Seth threw him in.)
And, when times are tough, they can set aside the bullshit and be there for each other. Because you’re my oldest frenemy, damn it, I need you to help get me through this.
Michigan
Ever end up as the primary mentor of a kid who thankfully ends up nothing like you? That’s Jan Kees and Fatima in a nutshell. Fatima had been around for a while as a very small and sometimes struggling personification, but when the Erie Canal opened, so did a whole new world of settlement from the northeastern states, and trade, with New York being the center of it.
Jan served as a primary contact between Fatima and the world for a while, and even bought her her first translation of the Quran when she admitted to being curious about Islam. But in some ways, most importantly to her, he introduced her to Elijah. She and New Jersey somehow hit it off, even with totally opposite personalities, and now she’s practically his sister-in-law, so at least she tolerates his bullshit really well.
Florida
This just in: The moment Elijah realizes Jan Kees liked Marco, he had Jan’s type in men pegged to a T.
Marco is a bitter old salt whose approach to life is “Fuck it, if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll be something I can tell stories about later”. Full of salt, short, and ready to argue with anyone who will let him, he and Jan have interactions eeirly similar to some of Jan and Seth’s interactions.
But Marco also has a way of bringing out the kid in Jan again, making him do ridiculous things and actually having him enjoy it. Finally having their first proper meeting right after the Civil War, they were pretty wary of each other at first, but over time, a begrudging respect formed, followed by begruding affection.
They might not admit it, but they’d literally cross a war zone for each other.
At the same time, they have some things in their relationship that are a little explosive and tense. Marco is jealous of several other states who had short-term relationships with Jan since he used to be very promicious, and can hover a little too much in Jan’s space at times because of that. Meanwhile, Jan can be overprotective and stifle Marco with good intentions and concerns. But they’ll eventually set aside the argument, talk it out, and then go to bed together that night, with Hamilton and Pink treating them as their own private heating pads installed on the mattress.
In the end, they’ll never get used to the other’s weather, but they’ll never stop enduring the heat/cold to see each other either. They’ve both waited long enough to have something good like this, and they’re both too stubborn to let go.
Other States-Brief Thoughts
Vermont- Jackass. Rarely calls Ethan by name, since he fought so damn hard to be Vermont.
Rest of the NE besides Vermont and Massachusetts- Eh, assholes, but I’ll live.
Pennslyvania- Is this actually food or are you poisoning me?
Virginia- Oh, fuck off, you got the capital, but I’ve got the banks.
California- Stealing your money, power, glory, and fame since 1849.
Oregon- Feral tree child.
Washington State- Attractive. Slept with her a few times after WW2. Got threatened by Roberto for it. In retrospect, California was probably right but still. Ouch.
Kansas- Yeah, the appropriate way to get over your crush on Massachusetts probably isn’t to sleep with the girl he considers his daughter. Funnily enough, she ends up dating Washington State later, so that happened.
RANDOM FACTS
-In the Statetalia Canon I’ve created, Jan Kees is the Original Yankee because England misheard his name as Yankee. He referred to Jan as this until Jan knew enough English to correct him.
-He ran away to Canada in 1940 and joined the Canadian Army in response to the invasion of the Netherlands and continued US inaction. Alfred didn’t know until Matthew sent him a telegram that basically said “Yeah, I have custody of New York until the war’s over, bye!”
-Sports team rivalries are his life. I, Jess, know nothing about sports.
-Speaks Dutch, Iriquios, Yiddish, Spanish, Italian, Quebecios French, Mandarin, and English.
-Major insomniac, has no really well established circadian rhythm.
-A really good cook, actually! Too bad he prefers to order take-out.
#Anonymous#aph new york#hws new york#oc jan#ask hipsofsteel#you ask for ze boy and i deliver (eventually) ze boy
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Fallout: New Vegas Character Sheet / OC Questionnaire, 5k+ words
This is the part where I pray for consistency with my previous character essays...
The majority of these answers are from a character building perspective. Other perspectives are kept in parentheses.
Mason Shepherd McCoy
which faction did they side with (NCR, legion, yes-man, or house)?
Unwittingly, he sided with the NCR. But he abandoned the cause shortly before the lead up to the Second Battle for Hoover Dam.
preferred armor?
He favors dusters, but beneath that, he usually dresses in raggedly layers. Cycling between two pairs of majorly distressed and ripped jeans, and collected vintage scarves he finds from abandoned buildings.
(In game, light armor. Specifically the courier fatigues from the Courier’s Cache mod, modded with the standalone Lonesome Road courier duster.
Screenshots: front / back)
melee, guns, energy weapons, or unarmed?
Most skilled with a ranged bolt or lever action rifle.
After a compromising incident while he lived in Zion, Joshua attempts to teach him unarmed combat. But because Mase is a difficult, stubborn student, the lessons don’t continue on for long, and Joshua’s patience is tested to its limit.
highest skills? secondary skills? lowest skills?
His skill in everything aside from guns and repair are fairly mediocre, but his worst skills are definitely survival and unarmed. It’s pretty transparent that Mase’s priorities are focused on catering to his preference for gunplay.
(It’s hard to avoid having every skill high when level ups are forced on you, so I'm going to ignore in-game stats in favor of character development. Speech is the most notable skill I prefer to max out, but I don’t know if it’s exactly character-fitting for Mase considering he’s not actually a talkative person.)
SPECIAL stats?
3, 9, 6, 4, 7, 8, 3
what are their perks?
Confirmed Bachelor, babey. And Hand Loader. That one’s important.
(I'm not sure if this is asking me to list all perks my character has, but for the sake of not doing that – as it would be lengthy and tedious – I’ll leave it at these two.)
favorite companions? least favorite companions?
Mase adores Arcade more than he cares to admit. However, that adoration doesn’t overpower his own cowardice. He carries the weight of endlessly wondering what fate befell Arcade after Mase left the Mojave. He likes to...imagine he’s happy with the Followers, tending to new researches that could maybe benefit the public. The mental image distracts him from his guilt, at least.
The only other companion Mase was close with was ED-E. He doesn’t actively hate or dislike anyone, though.
any romantic partners? how do these relationships begin and end? are they healthy?
Yeah...Mase kinda...tries to pursue a relationship with Joshua, but it’s majorly onesided, and overwhelmingly unhealthy. Even Mase is aware of the unhealthy aspect, despite his feelings.
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I’ve thought a lot about how to avoid making this sort of scenario lore-breaking. I can’t realistically picture, given what we see and know of him in-game, that Joshua would ever reciprocate any sort of romantic feelings anyone might have for him.
This might be my own interpretation, but I think by the time the courier meets Joshua, he’s resigned to live his life thinking he can find redemption through his faith. And I think he’s convinced himself to be wholly devoted to it. He even twists the biblical quotes he uses as excuses for his own internal anger. He needs to think that the things he does are justified by God.
Beyond the religious dedication, Joshua tells us that he feels indebted to his family, and the tribes of Zion, for welcoming him back like he had never done anything to shame them. After questioning him about his past, and the defeat he suffered, he ends with, "I will never be able to repay the debt I owe to them, but I must try." The way this is all presented leads me to believe there isn't much room in Joshua's life for anything else.
Also, on another note, one quote by Mr. Sawyer, who wrote the entirety of Joshua Graham’s character, stuck with me:
It's not as simple as being "set on fire". After suffering a terrible failure, he was humiliated by his superior and the people he commanded. He was cast out and left for dead. His entire reason for living was gone. When your entire way of life is completely destroyed, it has a profound impact on how you view yourself and your place in the world. [...]
Read the entire quote here.
There was also a quote, if I am indeed recalling correctly, by Josh Sawyer that expanded upon Joshua’s dialogue in-game that spoke about the love he received upon his return to New Canaan – about how he was in disbelief over it, how he thought he didn’t deserve it. But I can’t find that quote again, so don’t take my word for it.
I know that the developer’s input isn’t the “word of God”, and that Sawyer has said that he strongly dislikes when authors discourage fan interpretations and have an almost authoritarian hold over their stories. However, I still find it useful to reference dev commentary when expanding upon my own ideas.
Returning to the original point, as much as I’d really just like to say ‘they both lived happily ever after’ about my courier and Joshua, it’s not something I can picture happening. Joshua isn’t an ordinary man, and domesticity wasn’t ever an option for him.
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There are some deeply self-indulgent scenarios I’ve written about for Mase and Joshua, and even in the more intimate pieces it always takes Joshua years to think it’s okay to even let Mase sleep next to him. So, I don’t imagine within the first year of staying in Zion anything even vaguely resembling intimacy would develop between them. Mase would have to come back to Zion after returning from the east coast and put a lot of work, time, and dedication into getting Joshua to open up on that level.
But, because I don’t feel fully confident in discussing my thoughts of how things change within the game post-canon-storyline (both base game and Honest Hearts/all DLC alike), these ideas and scenarios remain strictly self-indulgent. One detail I am comfortable saying that happens post-NV is that Mason does eventually come back to Nevada and end up settling there.
Since this is already a sort of a self-indulgent post about my oc, I will share some jumbled-context thoughts I’ve had. But keep in mind, if I were to keep this confined to my comfort on respecting the canon storyline and not exploiting it for my own purposes, this would have ended with Joshua never reciprocating, Mase leaving the west coast and returning at some indeterminate point, years later.
With that being said...
Mase and Joshua argue about the feelings between them a lot. With Joshua it’s always “You understand my position, we’ve spoken about it countless times. You’ve said you understood, yet you continue to persist.” / “I know. And, I’m...sorry. I just can’t help but feel like I’m a nuisance to you. That the way I feel disgusts you-” / “You know that isn’t true-” / “You always push me away-” / “I’ve told you why-” etc, etc.
The closer they get, the more doubt Joshua begins to show, the more he pushes Mase away, and the more Mase wants reassurance that Joshua still finds him important, in some way. Joshua does value Mase’s companionship, but what Mase gives is unabashed love, and there’s a huge discrepancy in outward reciprocation. Mase tries his best to adapt and subdue how he feels – to try to understand and match the level at which Joshua keeps him. But it’s hard. A lot of “you don’t care about me like how I care about you” feelings.
Joshua insists the discrepancy isn’t true, and it’s only perceived that way by Mason. He loathes when he’s forced to remind Mason of his situation – of the path he’s chosen to take in his life, his dedication to it, after what happened to him at the Grand Canyon. How large the amount of atonement he owes. How, even if he wanted to break away from this path, there are still things he would never be able to do for Mason.
Of course, Mase tries to keep all of this in mind. But with the lack of communication, and the constant distance from Joshua, it’s hard to know if the boundaries are because of Joshua’s self restraint, or if Mase is truly no longer wanted. He’s just...very troubled and brokenhearted by it all, and the situation isn’t easy.
There’s also the awkward re-acquainting with each other after the years they spend apart. Which is disheartening to Mase because, before, he’d felt Zion was akin to a home due to the time spent there, and, when he comes back, it feels foreign – like there’s no place for him anymore. Everything looks and seems different. It takes a long while to get over that feeling.
Joshua looks different after all that time, as well. He never takes to fully discarding his bandages – it’s too personal for him – and his scarring doesn’t ever necessarily fade, but they do heal, lessen in severity, and subsequently cause him less pain. Because of this, he’s more comfortable exposing his forearms without bandaging, and the areas around his nose, mouth, and jaw.
It takes Mase a moment to process this upon first seeing him again. In the past, he’d only ever seen Joshua without his bandages but one time, and it was because he’d been gravely injured and in recovery. He thinks it’s a good look for Joshua, though. And, more importantly, he’s overjoyed that he isn’t in as much pain.
Mase also continues travelling even after his return to the west. Especially between his home in northern Nevada and Zion. So it’s not as though he spends his every day with Joshua, although...he does try to persuade Joshua to visit his house and stay for awhile. Which he does eventually succeed at, after some complications on tribal responsibilities.
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...tfw you set out to write about your own character and end up devoting the most time writing about Joshua Graham. To be fair, I have another huge character post about Mase that establishes way more about him, and I’ve been meaning to write about the dynamics with Joshua for awhile now.
yes, i’ve thought a lot about this. damn.
anyway...
doesn’t it suck when your first love after you get retrograde amnesia is a revenge obsessed warlord with misplaced dedication to a faith that he manipulates to lie to himself that his revenge obsessions are justifiable
:(
real sad boi hours
gender / sexuality / ethnicity / species / etc.?
Boy/gay/???
He doesn’t know much about his ancestry, or the roots of his past in general. Doesn’t want to know. He’s pretty sure he’s human, though...maybe. But he’s also considered the possibility of being an alien misplaced on earth. Maybe...
He’s also not particularly attached to his biological sex. He is genetically male, and does predominantly identify as male, but it’s not something he feels is important or necessary to his identity as a whole. On a basic level, this applies to, say, clothing. If he found a dress appealing, he’d wear it without thinking much about what gender a dress was intended for. If that makes sense.
This sentiment is also applicable to sexuality. He doesn’t really label himself in any specific way. He just knows that the majority of people he’s found even somewhat attractive or appealing happen to be men.
where were they born/raised? when/why did they leave?
He doesn’t know.
when, why and how did they become a courier? how long did they remain a courier before benny shot them?
Again: part of a past that he doesn’t remember. Brings him anxiety over the thought of finding an answer to who he was before.
how did the bullet affect them?
Retrograde amnesia. His memories never returned. After awaking at Doc Mitchell’s, it was difficult for him to acquaint himself with who he was. He didn’t recognize his voice, his age, his appearance. Nothing felt familiar. His speaking patterns even sounded foreign to his own ears.
Other than that, recurring migraines that plagued him for weeks after his awakening.
how did they deal with benny?
He spared him. Read more here.
what’s their reputation with the ncr / the legion?
Liked/Neutral
Mase aided the NCR whenever necessary, especially during the beginning of his travels in the Mojave. He refused to agitate the Legion. He never realized he was weaving himself into becoming a mercenary of war for the NCR, and, had he realized they were going to proposition him for such a task, he never would have helped to begin with.
In retrospect, after abandoning the Mojave, his regrets in assisting the NCR don’t add up to much. After consideration, he realized he would prefer an NCR victory as opposed to a Legion one. He’s aware there might have been a better alternative, had he stayed, had he put himself at the forefront of the decision making. But, he simply isn’t that kind of man.
what’s their reputation with goodsprings / novac / primm? (i know primm reputation was cut from the game but like let’s pretend for a minute sdkfjd)
His reputation with Primm would be the worst of all three, entirely due to his uncaring mistakes in handling finding new authority for the town. The NCR wasn’t the worst of the outcomes, but it still wasn’t favorable with the existing community, and Mase only realizes that after it’s far too late.
Goodsprings and Novac act as the friendliest respites Mase knows, and he is mostly in good standing with both towns’ residents. He assisted Goodsprings during the trouble with the Powder Gangers, and, similarly, assisted Novac’s trouble with feral ghouls.
what is their motive for taking vegas?
He doesn’t. Ideally, freedom for Vegas and Freeside would be what Mase would want, but he’s too prone to fleeing from pressure and stress. He doesn’t want the responsibility of an entire populace on his shoulders, and when presented with fight or flight in regards to the war for the Mojave, Mase chooses flight.
what do they look like? how tall are they? are they attractive? any piercings, tattoos, scars?
Just under 6′. Tanned, freckled complexion. Hair naturally dirty blond/light brown-ish, but frequently bleached lighter. Crooked, gapped teeth. He has multiple scars over his entire body, but half he can’t even remember the causes of. The most prominent ones being the bullet wound in his hairline, and the surgery scars from the Think Tank.
how old are they? do they know their birthday? if so, what’s their sign?
22 around the time of the events of Goodsprings. His birthday is November 22nd, information courtesy of his Mojave Express ID card, and not of his own memory. I suppose that makes him a sagittarius.
The only fitting quote I could find from a sagittarius horoscope was: “You are very critical of those around and of yourself and sometimes will prefer to isolate yourself.”
do they speak any languages other than english?
He doesn’t. He tries to learn the language of the Dead Horses and the Sorrows, but only retains basic phrases.
can they read, write, do math, sing? did they ever receive an education?
He is educated, but only utilizes his intelligence in areas that are practical to him. Like the kilometer calculations while adjusting his rifle scope. Other than that, he frequently writes in a journal that he received from the Mojave Express. Its primary function was to track deliveries, but he re-purposed it for personal use.
Mase is also somewhat of a collector, and, in his home, he has a guitar with rusted metal strings and a piano with many keys that don’t work (don’t ask about the complications of transporting the thing from an abandoned pre-war home to his own safehouse.) He aspires to fix them both and learn how to play them, and maybe write his own music, but he doesn’t often get time to do so.
what were their parents like? are they still on good terms with their parents?
Doesn’t know who his parents are. Doesn’t want to know.
what’s their d&d alignment?
Starting off as neutral good, but quickly becoming chaotic neutral the longer his travels across the Mojave go.
how’s their karma?
Canonically neutral.
how do they feel about killing people? do they try to avoid it?
He doesn’t actively seek confrontation – he’s no murderer – but he doesn’t have any moral objections to killing if there’s a good purpose for it. Killing the “bad guys”, etc. He’s not a coward either, and he’s confident in his gunplay abilities.
do they take chems? if yes, when and which ones?
Other than admittedly using med-x a couple times in attempts to treat his insomnia, he tries not to dabble in drug use outside of meds for intended purposes. His preferred poison is alcohol.
do they gamble? where? is their luck good?
He doesn’t partake. The atmosphere of the casinos on The Strip gives him a deep sense of discomfort. A piece of the world, frozen in time, sheltered away from the destruction of the wastes that lay just outside the doors. Men in suits, focused on their greed, their only concern how much nicotine they can inhale.
In his tattered duster and ripped blue jeans, face smudged with dust and dirt, Mase feels horribly wrong amid all the leisure and recreation. It’s stifling.
where do they usually sleep? do they have more than one home location? do they live with any other people?
Throughout his campaign in the Mojave, Mase doesn’t ever keep a main base of operations. From his room at Novac, to the Lucky 38, to Zion, to anywhere he’s welcomed to rest his head for the night. He keeps his belongings down to what he can carry, or things he’s isn’t afraid of losing if left behind.
After his return to Nevada from his journey out east, Mase settles in an abandoned, lone ranch somewhere in the mid-north part of the state. It’s there, in his late-20s, that Mase truly finds himself able to call a location a home. He begins to collect more, and his safehouse soon turns into an unorganized, messy museum of sorts.
what are their favorite weapons? where did they get these weapons?
He’s partial to his rifles, both bolt and lever action alike. Namely, the Medicine Stick and Paciencia, courtesy of the Gun Runners. He takes to further customizing both rifles (and altering the customizations already applied).
do they flirt a lot? is it well-received?
Mase and Arcade have a platonically flirtatious relationship. Neither of them desire to take it further than that and are comfortable in their friendship. However...there are nights Mase remembers fondly: bedrolls haphazardly thrown onto the floor of whatever safe place they could find to rest in their travels, Arcade somehow ends up in Mase’s arms in the early hours of dawn, his head tucked into the crook of Mase’s neck, Mase’s fingers carding through Arcade’s hair as the haze of sleep slowly fades.
Though Mase later ends up developing feelings for Joshua while in Zion, he doesn’t dare anything close to flirting. He regards their relationship as too important for empty flirtatious comments, while also knowing it wouldn’t be received well anyway. Between them, it’s more of mutual respect and trust.
At some point during Mase’s year stay in Zion, Joshua does clue in to the way Mase treats him, and what that alludes to. They speak about it, if very sparingly, and it can be summarized by Joshua vaguely referencing whatever is between them by saying: if Mase is waiting for something from Joshua, he’s waiting in vain.
do they goof around a lot? do other people find it funny or do they just entertain themselves?
Mase has short-lived moments of hyperactivity, but is usually more stoic in nature. He recalls his time spent with Arcade as having some of the more expressive moments in his life. So it’s to be said that he has the ability to be a more humorous or entertaining person as long as he’s comfortable around the company he’s with.
what do their companions think of them? are they close? have they done any companion quests?
He doesn’t stay with anyone long enough to become truly close to them, aside from Arcade.
ED-E is Mase’s first real travelling companion. After repairing the eyebot, Mase decides to keep it and regards it as little more than an extra weapon. The longer the road takes them, the more Mase finds himself talking into the open air about a myriad of things. Sometimes it’s a mess of world salad and scattered thoughts – the product of distant feelings of deja vu and the many migraines the bullet wound had caused.
The more this happens, the more Mase starts feelings like ED-E is listening to him. Maybe the beeps that he gives aren’t indicators that he’s listening and are just coincidence, but all the same, Mase starts to see a personality in ED-E, and starts to think of him as less of a weapon and more as a friend.
On a fittingly drunken night at the NCR Mojave Outpost, Mase crosses paths with Cass. He enjoys her attitude and her humor, and more than delights in sharing a bottle of whiskey or two- or three, or four. Beyond that first night of drinking challenges and hazy blackouts, and a few following encounters, Cass and Mase don’t stay as travelling companions. Fast friends over a bottle of brew, but nothing more.
Later, but still early in his travels, Mase finds himself with his hands full in Novac. It’s here he helps Boone uncover the truth about the person who disposed of his wife. He agrees to arrange the revenge without hesitation. There’s not even a droplet of blood on the red beret atop Mase’s head; he doesn’t flinch when Boone takes the shot.
Unfortunately, Boone’s animosity and hostility towards the Legion prevents them from travelling together. Mase understands, and it’s left at that.
As for Arcade, well...some of Mase’s largest regrets concern Arcade; how he feels he must have let him down after he’d left. He’d known of Arcade’s ideals, about his feelings towards what he’d wanted for the the people of Freeside, and Vegas as a whole. The wayward feelings of hope Arcade found in him. The rare moments of open vulnerability in the secrets Arcade shared of his past. Just how many things were shared between them, and how Mase let it go to waste for nothing – for his own cowardice.
For as much as having someone close to him by his side gave Mase strength, it also added to the weight of expectation from the pressure he already felt. Arcade wasn’t enough to change that. Nothing was.
do they draw, paint, play any instruments?
His main creative outlet is his journal. Writing and doodling little sketches. He doesn’t consider it a “real” art form, though.
how do they deal with injuries? do they use stimpaks, healing powder, med-x? does a companion help them? can they bear a lot of pain, or do they need to attend to injuries immediately? when they do have to see a doctor, do they have a preferred doctor, or do they just see anyone?
Mase has a high threshold for pain. The first time he’d been seriously injured (from memory) was during the shootout in Goodsprings. A bullet had pierced his upper left arm, thankfully missing any arteries, and became deeply lodged without breaking through the other side of the impact site. He remembered noticing he’d been struck was delayed, his arm had felt hot, wet, and uncomfortable, but almost indistinguishable through the adrenaline.
Once he noticed the red stains from the hole in his jacket, he stared wide-eyed and pale at the blood flowing from the open wound, the pain spiking like a blistering heat. He didn’t know what to do with himself; didn’t groan, didn’t cry, just stood with a lost look. He was in good company, though, and Doc Mitchell was there to care for the wounded.
Subsequent injuries have been reacted to with similar disconnect. He understands the importance of tending to wounds through the lecturing on infection from the Doc, and because of this tries to treat injuries as urgently as possible. However, if he can help it, he’d rather take a stimpak and slap a bandage over the wound and call it done. Fortunately, Arcade doesn’t let him get away with that one very often once they start travelling together.
have they ever been irradiated? how did they deal with it? did it have lasting effects?
In contrast to the high pain tolerance, Mase cannot handle radiation. In slight doses, it’s manageable, but when his Pipboy near deafens him with its Geiger clicking, like clockwork, the nausea immediately sets in. It debilitates him, and the contamination to his body never settles until he flushes it.
He recalls an instance of trying to bear with the radiation, barely dragging himself up the road from Novac, forcing himself to try to tough it out. He realized he’d made a mistake when he started profusely vomiting, and immediately checked his Pipboy for the nearest medical help.
Trudging up the slopes to Camp Forlorn Hope, Mase manages to make his way to the medical tent, limbs shaking and fatigued. Of course, Dr. Richards insists on helping him, having already been acquainted with the doctor from previously assisting with missing medical supplies. Mase had been hoping on a return of kindness when he’d chosen Forlorn Hope, while also not averse to being sweet-talked.
It seemed simple enough, let Dr. Richards hook an IV to his upper forearm, relax, and let the Radaway do its job. But...Mase had been shaking and hyperventilating from the nausea, and right as Dr. Richards offered him a reassuring “It’s going to be all right, buttercup”, Mase lurched and vomited on the doctor’s shoes.
Needless to say, one of his top most embarrassing moments.
in conversation, are they kind? gentle? sarcastic? rude? do they speak warmly and openly with people, or are they more guarded? do they talk a lot?
Generally very soft spoken, with little to say, especially in regards to strangers or people he’s just met. A monotone speaking pattern, with tendencies to a blunt manner of speaking his mind.
However this changes the closer he is to someone. He becomes more adaptive to the other person’s speaking patterns, becoming more or less talkative depending on the personality of his partner.
do they like long journeys through the mojave, or do they prefer to travel more quickly? do they prefer using roads or travelling through the deep desert?
It depends. He’ll have bouts of wanting to travel long, deserted stretches of land, leaving time to himself and his thoughts. No companions. And other times he’ll prefer to stay to more populated areas, not wanting to be alone, and dreading the idea of being left with no one but his own thoughts to keep him company.
name a random fact about your courier.
He has hang-ups about his name. For the first few months of his “new” life, he didn’t have a name, and was simply called “Courier” – which doesn’t entirely die out, even after he discovers his real name. The title “Courier” is something he more familiarly associates with his being/existence/person.
A continuous problem that his amnesia left him with was the inability to grasp or understand who he was. As time goes on and Mase becomes more self aware, this effect does diminish, but the conflicting feelings he has about his name remain. Sometimes he feels like his name is an important identity – one that he’s afraid of losing again, and sometimes he wants absolutely nothing to do with it.
When he leaves the Mojave, he throws his first name away completely, and takes to only telling people his middle name. Arcade had called him “Mase” consistently, with fondness; Joshua had only ever called him “Mason”, never the shorthand version. Somehow, that felt important. He didn’t want these memories to resurface – he didn’t want to remember what he’d left behind, or feel that pain – so he abandoned the name completely.
do they watch movie holotapes? what are their favorites? least favorites?
(Say The Man With No Name trilogy exists in the Fallout universe. That would undoubtedly be Mase’s favorite.
I admit I haven’t thought much about this sort of thing. The main kind of entertainment I imagine Mase consuming is mostly the radio. In-game, we have Radio New Vegas and Mojave Music as far as music/entertainment goes, but I like to think there would be other stations where the main focus is storytelling. Reruns from pre-war times, and newer stations featuring people recounting tales from the wasteland.)
what do they do with the lucky 38? do they like being there? do they leave their companions there? if they’re a yes-man courier, do they open it back up as a casino?
Much like how Mase feels towards the rest of The Strip, the Lucky 38 is a stifling, unwelcoming environment. He takes advantage of the shelter and amenities given, but he knows he’s being watched – being kept close like a useful tool, exactly how most factions and people in power treated him. He doesn’t make a habit of using the Lucky 38...but, he does like the convenience of running water.
what do they do after hoover dam?
Wanders out east towards Ronto. It’s possibly the most aimless 4 years of his life. He has no purpose, he falls onto self-destructive behavior, and loses what little sense of self he was able to garner from his time in Nevada and Utah. Ultimately, after confronting many internal fears and doubts, with not a slight bit of soul-searching, Mase makes the decision to go back home to Nevada.
how do they die? how is their death received, by the mojave and by their companions?
... (I haven’t gotten that far. I’ve only just barely decided Mase settles in Nevada, which is dependent on an NCR Hoover Dam victory. Which is extremely important to how things change in west coast territories. And thinking of Mase’s future involves thinking of the future of Nevada and the west as a whole. I don’t know if I’m capable of handling the weight of the aftermath of the NV storyline with my meager ideas.
I do imagine Mase would die from a shot to the head, though. Seems fitting.)
what are their vices? are they an alcoholic, a thief, a hoarder?
Mase has always had a proclivity for alcohol – these habits severely abate during his time in Zion, and then rise to a destructive level of full alcoholism during his time out east.
Hoarding has a negative connotation to it, right? Generally collecting garbage, and other trash? Mase collects items he finds to be interesting in his home in Nevada, but it’s not rubbish. It’s more of a collection similar to the likes of a museum.
can they cook, and if so, what do they cook? what are their favorite & least favorite foods?
Despite having less-than-useful survival skills, Mase is very interested in cooking recipes. The easiest and most satisfying one to follow is the desert salad, with more difficult recipes being mushroom cloud and wasteland omelette. He’s only had the opportunity to cook the latter two once each (thanks Quarry Junction and Bloodborne cave), and he savored every moment of both meals.
Another favorite would be iguana bits – a food he’s tried to replicate, but can’t quite pin the recipe for down. Besides that, he admittedly has a palette for pre-war sweets. Fancy Lads have a specifically...gone off...flavor about them, but he enjoys them all the same.
did they kill caesar? vulpes inculta? what about prominent ncr figures, like kimball and colonel hsu?
He doesn’t kill any prominent figures. Perhaps if he had been a different person, he would have been openly hostile toward the Legion – he disagrees with their values, and despises their leader – but this was not the life he felt he could lead. He already had enough paranoia about the prospect of having enemies coming back to kill him from the life he couldn’t remember, let alone adding to that by agitating any specific faction or group.
/
I deleted some questions I felt were already answered well enough in previous posts about Mason. Namely: this one.
I also just deleted things I didn’t feel like answering because it was too much effort.
The companions question is unfinished because I felt like that bit was getting really unorganized and chunky to read. So, some companions are omitted. May go back to this and edit it / add more to it.
#oc shepherd#fallout new vegas#i know no one aside from me will care about this#since it's not art and nor is it easy writing to consume#but that's ok because i love writing#and more importantly#i love writing character building for my oc
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Disobedience
I mean, you had to know I was going to see this. I think one of the best things about going to as many movies as I do is getting to unlock doors into all kinds of worlds, including ones that I’ve never seen before. I feel that’s one of the most powerful gifts that the movies can give us - a way to look in on and embody experiences we’ve never had before and never will, in an effort to further enhance our empathy and humanity. Disobedience is a perfect example of this.
The film is based on Naomi Aldraman’s novel of the same name, and centers around an incredibly devout Orthodox Jewish community in London. The head rabbi of the sect dies, and his daughter, Ronit (Rachel Weisz) returns for his funeral for the first time in years. She had chosen to abandon the sect and move to New York to become a photographer, and is now basically shunned from the community. She stays with Dovid (Alessandro Nivola - those of you who have seen the cinematic masterpiece Face/Off will recognize him as a grown up Pollux Troy) and his wife, Esti (Rachel McAdams), but things become complicated because Ronit and Esti were lovers when they were girls, before Ronit left. Now that she’s back, it’s all but impossible for them to resist one another, and the consequences are felt throughout their entire community. This is a movie about faith, desire, love, duty, and freedom, and I had been looking forward to it for months. So, that’s a lot of heavy expectations for this film - did it deliver? Well...
In so many ways, yes.
Some thoughts:
First of all, the performances are basically career-defining here for McAdams and Weisz. McAdams especially - there’s so much frustration and simmering rage in her as soon as Ronit appears in her house. Esti is stifled, she is caged, and watching her slowly emerge from that cage over the course of her relationship with Ronit is beautiful and painful, as all true transformations are.
I appreciate the ways in which the deep-rooted faith of the community is portrayed. It would be so easy to say that these people are old-fashioned, out of touch, and homophobic and leave it at that. But there is comfort in the ritualized performances of faith here, and that comfort is richly portrayed in the prayers and preparations for a Sabbath dinner. For queer people who also have faith, this can be a crossroads of identities that is incredibly difficult to parse, and Esti is no exception. I appreciate that Esti had to wrestle with both desires within herself, but not shamefully. She is not ashamed of her feelings for Ronit, but she is torn between following the desire for her or following the teachings of her faith, and that struggle is not one I’ve seen in a lot of LGBT cinema.
Tbh, it was just a huge relief that neither one of the queer women ended up dead by the end of the movie, so already it gets top marks for clearing a super low bar.
The sex scene. Everybody wants to talk about the sex scene. I get it - people are squicked out by the spit play, and that’s FINE. I’m pretty squarely in the camp of “two (or more) consenting adults? Do whatever makes you happy” but I feel like people are missing the point that the sexual encounter we are seeing is one between two women who know what the other one likes. If you think that all queer women are just going around spitting in people’s mouths during sex, then I’m pretty sure you don’t know any actual living queer women. I’ve also heard “Well this clearly shows that the sex scene was written/directed by a man” and while I, too, wish that queer women’s stories were being written and directed by actual queer women, this sex scene just didn’t feel exploitative or male gaze-y to me AT ALL. There’s no gratuitous nudity for nudity’s sake - we don’t even see the characters’ breasts - instead we focus on faces, and hands, and showcasing pleasure. Ronit knows what Esti likes - the spitting is an act that has clearly happened between them before, and there is trust involved there. It’s visual shorthand to convey the return to a connection they had when they were younger, to show us “I remember this, I remember how you like to be touched, and I want to do that for you because I love you.” I get it if the actual act being shown grosses you out, but like, at least it’s there for a purpose.
Wife and I had a long talk about the ending and whether it felt like anything was going to change in these characters’ lives or not. I personally felt like they would, because the film gives us a lot of hopeful music cues and beats to suggest so; she did not believe anything would actually change. However, whichever way things would realistically shake out for these characters, I think the key takeaway is that the choice for how her life will look ultimately belongs to Esti, and that choice was not one that she had before. It’s a small thing, but a mighty thing.
Small, indie religious dramas are not usually my preferred genre, but I was deeply moved by this story and its forefronting of two queer women. It transported me to another world not so far removed from my own, and it showcased two truly excellent performances by its two leads. I want more stories like this, written by queer women, directed by queer women, and focusing on stories we haven’t seen before.
#118in2018#disobedience#disobedience review#rachel weisz#rachel mcadams#alessandro nivola#naomi alderman#movie reviews#film reviews
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Living for one another--Romans 14:1-12--September 13, 2020
Think about this plastic Pepsi bottle for a moment. It’s empty; how do I throw it away?
One option would be to put it in the recycling container; at least then it would continue on in a useful, environmentally friendly way. But there are other options as well. I could, for instance, throw it in the woods behind me. On one level that accomplishes the same thing—I have thrown it away.
Or have I? Is it possible to throw something “away”? Is there some place labelled “away”—a place we could go and visit, perhaps? A black hole where things that have outlived their usefulness just go, out of sight and out of mind?
We can go to some of these places: the place in the Pacific Ocean where the currents bring together all the plastic that lands in the ocean; landfills in other countries where children scavenge old computer parts and other such things, trying to earn enough money for their next meal. But it is important to realize that there is no “away.” We live in a closed system; things that we come into contact with are with us forever.
Now let’s think about people. What do we do with the people we don’t want to be around anymore: people who are annoying, or post irritating things on Facebook; people who hurt us; people who are cruel, rude, indifferent, or some combination of all three. Can you really throw another person away?
I would argue that we cannot. We can “unfriend” people on social media or “ghost” them when they call or text. Some marriages end in divorce and some churches split. Neighbors go to court and nations go to war. But that does not mean we are no longer connected to those persons, and the closer we were connected before the division, the harder it will be to separate after the division.
We have to deal with our trash, whether that trash comes in the form of a Pepsi bottle or someone we used to love. And it is as this point where I give you my almost weekly reminder about what Paul is doing in the letter to the Romans—he is writing pastoral, congregational theology. He is working out what it means to confess with our mouths “Jesus Christ is Lord” and believe in our hearts that “God raised him from the dead.” For Paul, confession of faith and baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the starting point for our life together in the Kingdom of God. We have some things to work out down the road.
Life together in a house church
For the “congregation” in Rome, life together was quite a bit different from what we experience. The Christians there did not meet in buildings like ours; they met in homes. The size of a house church was dictated by the size of the house and was likely to be anywhere from 10-25 people. Paul wasn’t writing to one “congregation” but to a group of house churches who would have had some interaction with one another but would rarely have all met together at the same time and place.
Being a member of a house church required each member to “be present” for others in a different and more intense way. Think about how our relationships would change if our experience of church involved meeting in a living room instead of a sanctuary; if it included a meal that at least for some was a significant source of food for the week; and if it was with people who really didn’t have other friends or family connections.
Some of you have experienced something like this in Bible Study groups that have extended over longer periods of time. It shows in the love you have for one another. I suspect that if this were more of our congregational pattern, we’d find that life would in some ways be harder. We would encounter significant challenges that would require hard work so we could get along. But we might also find that the potential impact on people’s lives would be even greater that what we have come to know in our congregation.
Real Christian welcome
So when Paul tells these Christians to
Welcome those who are weak in the faith (Romans 14:1a)
he is saying much more than we might realize at first.
One thing to recognize is that there were two Greek words available for Paul to use to say “welcome.” The commonly used word conveys a more passive meaning. We welcome people into our church like this all the time. It’s their first Sunday with us; we recognize them as visitors and make sure to speak with them, get them a bulletin, point them to the information card in the pew, and greet them in such a way that we hope they’ll return. It is both intentional and designed to give people some space. There is great value in that kind of welcome; but this is not the word Paul is using.
Paul uses the less common word for welcome, a word that is more active or assertive in meaning. It’s the kind of welcome you offer once you know a person and you realize you need to make some room in your heart for them because there are some complicating issues.
As an example, I suspect many of us have been on the receiving end of a difficult conversation with our supervisor at work. Some of you might have been on the giving end of these conversations. You’re a valued employee and you’re doing a good job—but there’s a problem, and your employer pulls you aside and says, “there is something you need to know, a problem you need to correct.” We don’t normally think of the word “welcome” as describing that situation, but if we stretch it a bit and realize the employer is working hard to make room for us—and helping us make room for others—I think we see how it fits.
This is what Paul is telling these Christians to do, because some in the congregation are “weak in faith.” There were Christians in this congregation who had grown up in the Jewish tradition. And even though they now confessed Jesus as their Lord and had moved away from Jewish worship practices, they still brought with them some old ideas that had been engrained into their thinking: there were differences of opinion over dietary laws—what foods were “kosher” to eat—and there were differences of opinion about the Sabbath. Carrying these old religious ideas with them into their house church created legitimate problems for two reasons:
First, remember that these are house churches that had to work out when they would meet and what they would eat. You’re in charge of supper and you got a deal on pork sausage. It’s not enough to say, “I’ll make something else for those who don’t want to eat pork,” because the issue really isn’t dietary; it’s spiritual. It’s a matter of faith, not food. Some in your house church would have been deeply, spiritually offended by even knowing that you would eat pork.
And that’s the second issue: diet and Sabbath were “boundary markers.” This was much, much deeper than personal preference; it was a matter of what is sinful and what is faithful. These issues were what would keep Christians from getting together under the Lordship of Christ, and they had the potential to cause people to walk away from the church. Just because they aren’t our issues does not mean they aren’t issues. They were as contentious and divisive as our own debates over human sexuality, abortion, war and peace, and anything else we might name.
The faithful response
It leaves the congregation with a question they must answer: “In the midst of congregational disagreement, what is the faithful thing to do?” Should people leave the church over this? Should they continually argue and belittle one another over this? It seems like these might have been possibilities in Rome because Paul tells them not to respond in this way.
What does Paul say? Essentially, his advice is, “Cool it. It’s not about you.” He doesn’t actually say it that way; his own words are:
We don’t live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s…Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God (Romans 14:7-8, 10).
It comes down to the fact that in our relationships, there is no “away.” We are bound to others. That “other” might be our sister or brother in Christ; they might be our neighbor; they might be a stranger; they might be an enemy. But we are bound to them in some way or other. The question is how will we be bound—will it be in love or in animosity?
I have an acquaintance who is now in her late 80’s. Her father was a missionary, and because of that she lived in a lot of different places for short periods of time. Then as a young woman she met a young man who had lived his whole life in the same community and she realized that if they got married, she would be joining his rural farm community, and she would spend the rest of her life in that place, with those people, and in that church. Which is what happened.
When she told me this story she said, “I realized that I would need to learn to treat people differently.” It’s not that she was rude or especially difficult. It’s just that being in close relationship with people for a long period of time requires a different skill set. You can’t fight every battle; sometimes you need to look at things and say, “This is not a hill I need to die on; I’m leaving it up to God. We still need one another even if we disagree deeply.”
We are forgetting that in today’s church. Somewhere about 1700 years ago the church transitioned from mostly house churches to becoming more of an institution. There are strengths and weaknesses to each, but it might be fair to say that house churches place a higher emphasis on relationships while institutions place a higher emphasis on rules. If a house church can focus more on “belonging,” institutions place a higher emphasis on “believing” and “behaving.” In the midst of our being the church, we are called to set aside the idol of individualism and make room for one another, because there simply is no “away.” We need one another.
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gratuitous screencaps & questions for an’dante
1. What is their gender? ... woman-ish?
2. What is their sexuality? Ace-ish, bi-ish. Complicated by a combination of trauma & who she is as a person.
3. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they the closest with? No siblings; when she was 3-4 she was... fostered? by her grandparents, and there were a few cousins who lived in the same apartment complex, but she was a very solitary child.
4. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives? Her memories of her parents are vague and patchy - her father’s callused hands, her mother’s deep voice singing a Zabraki lullaby.
On the other hand, she remembers her grandparents very well. She understands them well enough to know why they left her on the streets of Sobrik, and on good days she can even sort of sympathize - starvation is a hideous way to die. So she isn’t going to, like, hunt them down and murder them, but she has no interest in ever seeing them again, either.
6. What would they give their life for? Orro.
7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With who? How did they meet? She’s in something with Orro. When they first met, Orro had been cornered by a group of offworld thugs, and An’Dante went after them like a feral alley cat. She won more through the element of surprise and nascent Force abilities than anything else, but it was still enough to begin a fast friendship with Orro.
8. What do they believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? Either she’ll stop existing entirely, or she’ll become a Force ghost. As appealing as it might be to continue to influence the galaxy even after she’s dead, the fact that ghosts can be bound & their entire self made into a battery for someone to tap makes that prospect singularly terrifying. Even when she was a slave, it was only ever her body that could be broken and fucked and drained of blood. Death wasn’t an ideal escape, but it was always there. No such luxury if her ghost is bound. Nonexistence isn’t ideal, but it’s preferable to that.
9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal? Her favorite color is sunset red, and her favorite animal is a tooka cat, but the one that I associate with her is a snake, both for the obvious reasons and because of the death/rebirth symbolism.
10. What are some of their talents/skills? Rhetoric, blackmail, politics in general. On a more benign note, unearthing/handling delicate artifacts and translating ancient texts in a way that’s both faithful and aesthetically pleasant.
11. If they could make a mark on history, what would they like it to be? Empress of the Sith Empire, Conqueror of the Republic, the Great Liberator of Korriban. (Practically, she understands that she’d be better off as a combination shadow hand & eminence grise, but she’s not above the appeal of shiny titles).
12. How old are they? When is their birthday? She’s nineteen during the Sith Inquisitor prologue, but not exactly sure when her birthday is.
13. What do they do for fun? Watch drama-heavy serial shows (ideally w/ Fene or, later on, Talik’ime) and snark at them.
14. What is their favorite food? How often do they get to eat it? She’ll eat pretty much anything and enjoy it, but she really loves seafood and rare meat.
15. What was something their parents taught them? Not to get too ANGST-HEAVY, but by omission, probably “you’re an unwanted burden, and will be left behind as soon as it’s physically possible”.
16. Are they religious? Sort of - she’s Sith, and takes the code seriously, but her own interpretation of it is pretty heretical.
17. Where were they born? Small farming village on the outskirts of Sobrik.
18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages? She’s a native speaker of Basic & Zabraki, picked up Huttese and snippets of Mando’a in her early-mid adolescence, and learned Old Sith during her apprenticeship to Lord Volcari. Later on she tries to pick up Chenuch as part of her bid to insinuate her power base into Imperial Intelligence, and expands her knowledge of Mando’a with Fene’s help.
19. What is their occupation? Dark Council member.
20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them? She blackmailed Darth Vox into promoting her to Dark Lord of the Sith before murdering her and abandoning what was left of her corpse in a decaying orbit around Korriban’s sun. Approximately two years later, she escaped Jedi custody with a fair number of stolen relics and detailed knowledge of Tython’s defenses, earning the name Darth Moriah. She became the leader of the Assassin’s Pyramid after defeating Darth Rictus in a Kaggath, and operated as Empress Acina’s unofficial Hand between the destruction of Ziost and the end of KOTET.
Personality:
21. What is their favorite thing about their personality? Her wit.
22. What is their least favorite thing about their personality? Her sensitivity.
23. Do they get lonely easily? Yes, but she’s relatively good at dealing with it.
24. Do you know their MBTI type? INTJ
25. What is their biggest flaw? God, so many. But probably the worst, ethically and in terms of her relationships, is that she’s cruel.
26. Are they aware of their flaws? Sort of. She knows that she’s cruel, but she thinks that her greatest flaw is that she’s weak-willed and dithers over Doing What Needs To Be Done.
27. What is their biggest strength? Her adaptability.
28. Are they aware of their strengths? Yes - some of her arrogance is bravado, but not all of it.
29. How would they describe their own personality? That would depend entirely on who was asking.
30. When frightened, will they resort to “fight” or “flight”? http://pete-walker.com/codependencyFawnResponse.htm
31. Does this character ever put somebody else’s needs before their own? Who do they do this for? How often do they do this? She’d do just about anything for Orro, including framing & executing her own apprentice for treason, but she’d put a lot on the line for Fene, too. She tries to be sparing with displays like that, though - it’s an expenditure of resources, emotional and otherwise. Cryptarch’s qualm and all that.
32. What is their self esteem like? Not great.
33. What is their biggest fear? How would they react to having to face it? Being enslaved again - no surprises there. She’d go nuclear if faced with that - no concern for collateral damage or her own survival, just fighting her way out with claws and lightning and teeth, or, failing that, putting her own lightsaber to her heart.
34. How easily do they trust others with their secrets? With their life? An’Dante’s secrets stay under lock and fucking key.
35. What is the easiest way to annoy them? In terms of annoyance (rather than blind rage), probably telling her that she’s overreacting to something.
36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous. Dark & ironic, with a particular fondness for wordplay and last-minute twists. Pretty much any of these would have her howling.
37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it? Very difficult. She’s said it to.... maybe two people in her life, probably?
38. What do others admire most about their personality? Either her intelligence or her tenacity.
39. What does their happily ever after look like? After winning Orro over to her cause, crushing the Republic hypocrites and their Jedi lackeys, uniting a reformed empire under her rule (with someone else as a figurehead, naturally), freeing the slaves and hanging the masters by their own intestines, I imagine that she’d like to spend her time researching poetry fragments and teaching freed slave children to read.
40. Who do they trust most? Is that trust mutual? She trusts Orro & Orro doesn’t trust her, but Orro is quite trustworthy (& predictable) while she’s decidedly neither.
Physical Profile:
41. What does their laugh sound like? Do they snort when they laugh? How often do they laugh? Quiet and spiteful; if she laughs, it tends to be at people, not with them.
42. What is their favorite thing about their physical appearance? Thanks to her Zabrak mother, she has very sharp, prominent canine teeth, which make her sneer look much more intimidating.
43. What is their least favorite thing about their physical appearance? Probably the brands on her face. But for the same reasons that she doesn’t have any tattoos, she’s not going to get any kind of surgery to remove/cover them up. They’re a reminder.
44. Do they have any scars? If so, what are the stories behind those scars? Per her in-game appearance, she has brands/burn scars on the left side of her face. She also has heavy whip scars on her upper back, a fractal lightning scar that wraps around her torso (result of the one (1) time she mouthed off to Overseer Harkun), and some minor chemical burns from her experiments with poisons and forbidden artifacts.
45. How would they describe their own appearance? She probably wouldn’t, honestly.
46. How easily can they express emotions? How easily can they hide emotions? Hiding her feelings is pretty much second nature. She can express Sith-standard emotions quite well, and quite genuinely - she’s got a lot of anger and fury bottled up, even if it isn’t really directed at heretics - but sadness, fear, and the rest are more difficult.
47. What’s their pain tolerance like? High.
48. Do they have any tattoos? What are the stories behind those tattoos? No tattoos, and no plans to get any - she’s played with the idea of getting Sith tattoos to deflect from criticisms of, ahem, heterodoxy, but that would require allowing someone very very close to her face with very very sharp objects, and that’s a hard nope.
49. Do they have any piercings? Nope.
50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing? Semi-ceremonial light armor with flowy bits & a pronounced inclination towards the dramatic vs. “Robes befitting my station”.
51. What is their height? Weight? 5′3, 210 pounds.
52. What is their body type? Are they muscular, chubby, skinny, etc? Fat, with some core muscle strength.
53. What is their hair color? Eye color? Skin tone? She has warm brown skin and black hair. Her eyes are naturally brown, but intense dark side use shifted them to a molten gold color by the end of Act I. Faded back to brown while she was on Tython (Light Side-suffused environment + force-nullifying cuffs), then went orange/gold again after she escaped. At this point she’s had enough corruption/redemption whiplash that they’re kind of eerie pale grey with red limbal rings.
54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle? For the first sixteen years of her life, she kept her hair short, both for practicality - she couldn’t wash often, and didn’t want it getting caught in anything - but also so that no one could grab it. Upon being taken as Lord Volcari’s apprentice, she began growing it out. Mostly she left it down, but Fene would sometimes put it up in braids, which was her favorite. After being held captive on Tython, she chopped her hair off to about chin-length, and kept it there until she made Darth. It started coming in white after Ziost, but that was largely a moot point, since by then she had signed on as Acina’s left hand & was wearing a mask and hood. After her final break with the empire, she cut off the few inches that were still dark brown/black, so her endgame haircut is a blunt, chin-length bob.
55. What is their alcohol tolerance like? What kind of drunk are they? How bad are their hangovers? It’s not so much
56. What do they smell like? Why do they smell like this? (Is it the things they’re around or a perfume they wear?) If she smells like anything, it’s mostly old books and tomb-dust. Doesn’t actually smell like blood as often as you would think - she usually kills people via some sort of proxy, and even if she's in a straight-up duel, lightsaber wounds tend to cauterize quickly.
57. How do they feel about sex? Are they a virgin? Doesn’t like sex, not a virgin, the specifics are predictably related.
58. What is their most noticeable physical attribute? Probably her nose; it’s not very noticeable on her in-game model, but I always draw her with a big beaky nose.
59. What does their resting face look like? Do they have RBF? Carefully blank.
60. Describe the way they sleep. Deeply and overlong, now that she doesn’t have to wake at dawn or earlier. It’s one of the few luxuries she can partake of without any guilt.
Environment:
61. Which season is their favorite season? Obligatory “seasons work differently on other planets” stipulation aside, probably autumn.
62. Have they ever been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others? She was baited into an “escape attempt” by one of the overseer’s quislings when she was about thirteen, and never made that mistake again.
63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile? Ironic reversals of fortune.
64. Do they get cold easily? Do they get overheated easily? Gets overheated more easily than she gets cold.
65. What’s their immune system like? Do they get sick often? How do they react to getting sick? Since she’s half-Zabrak, her immune system is hella weak. She hates the vulnerability that comes with being sick, and tends to shut herself up in her compound with enough reading material for several weeks and enough painkillers to wipe out a small army.
66. Where do they live? Do they like it there? She has a compound on Korriban with one of the larger collections of Old Sith epic poetry in Imperial space.
67. Is their bedroom messy? What about their bathroom? Kitchen? Living room? Probably her quarters as a whole have a comfortable level of clutter - there’s some automated cleaning, but she refuses to use cleaning droids, and doesn’t have much time to clean on her own.
68. How did their environment growing up affect their personality? Significantly, but not indelibly.
69. How did the people in their environment growing up affect their personality? The fact that her grandparents wanted nothing to do with her and regarded her as a burden, and
70. How do they feel about animals? Do they have any pets? She likes them well enough, but feels uncomfortable with the idea of owning a living creature - she has some friends among the desert cats around her compound, though.
71. How are they with children? Do they have any? Do they want any? She’s okay with children, if a bit overprotective, but she’s never had any, and even if she physically could (like most half-Zabraks, she’s infertile) pregnancy is a terrifying idea for her. She’d even feel guilty about adopting a kid, since being associated with her would be Absurdly Dangerous - almost none of her rivals would hesitate to go after a child.
72. Would they rather have stability or comfort? Comfort, largely because she doesn’t really believe that stability exists.
73. Do they prefer the indoors or outdoors? Indoors.
74. What weather is their favorite? Do they like storms? Her favorite weather is dry and slightly chilly, with a bit of a breeze. Enjoys thunderstorms as long as they’re not on Dromund Kaas.
75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? She’d practice her Old Sith calligraphy.
76. How organized are they? She’s a wee bit paranoid about committing things to paper, so her things are as organized as she can keep them in her head. When she’s doing well, it works fine. When she’s not...
77. What is their most prized possession? Either her saberstaff or the holocron that houses her ghost friend. Probably the saberstaff, since thinking about what’s essentially someone’s phylactery as her possession would probably make her queasy.
78. Who do they consider to be their best friend? Fene.
79. What is their economic situation? Probably pretty good - I imagine that Dark Council members get a hefty salary.
80. Are they a morning person or a night owl? Night owl.
Miscellaneous:
81. Are they bothered by the sight of blood? Sort of, but she’s had lots of time to get used to it.
82. What is their handwriting like? Neat & cursive-adjacent, but she writes with a very heavy hand, since she was almost twenty when she learned how.
83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim? She can Sort Of stay afloat, and enjoys swimming so long as she can keep doing that. Deeper water makes her nervous, though, mostly because she’s spent so much time on Dromund Kaas: deep water is where the fish made entirely of teeth and pincers live.
84. Which deadly sin do they represent best? Fucking hell. Gonna say it’s a three-way tie between Pride, Envy, and Wrath.
85. Do they believe in ghosts? She literally keeps one in her pocket, so yeah.
86. How do they celebrate holidays? How do they celebrate birthdays? Hmmm... as a member of the Dark Council, there are probably certain state holidays that she’s expected to publicly celebrate, but on her own time I imagine that she keeps things low-key.
87. What is something they regret? Stabbing Orro in the back, physically and metaphorically. It’s worth nothing that this is at least partially because she didn’t actually get anything out of it - Jorgan recaptured her in fairly short order. (Part of her hadn’t really... adjusted to the fact that there were other people in Orro’s life by that point)
88. Do they have an accent? Xanthe Elbrick’s performance has grown on me a lot in my billion-odd playthroughs of a female Sith Inquisitor, but in my heart of hearts, An’Dante has a Slavic accent.
89. What is their D&D alignment? Neutral Evil.
90. Are they right or left handed? Left, but she’s trained herself to be ambidextrous.
91. If they were a tweet, what tweet would they be?
92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif.
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Dear BAE,
I am 35 years old and worried I will never meet the love of my life and have kids! I am smart, successful and pretty - I don’t want to sound conceited, but I’ve worked hard to get where I am!
Some background: I am Muslim (Shia) and want to marry a Muslim despite having had horrible experiences dating Muslim men. For example, some of the Muslim men I’ve dated used my sect as an excuse it ‘wouldn’t work,’ or that their parents ‘wouldn’t accept’ me. Others didn’t seem to understand basic consent, and acted like holding hands was license to grope me!
This just hasn’t been my experience with non-Muslim men: the ones I’ve dated seemed respectful of my cultural/religious background, wanted to learn more about me, and about what made me comfortable. When I dated non-Muslim men, I felt I was being ‘wooed’, whereas Muslim men seem to be asking, “how will YOU convince ME you’re good enough?”
Moreover, non-Muslim men I’ve dated had no problem being honest about our relationships, whereas Muslim men seem to be in denial we’re dating, or have guilt about it, claiming it’s ‘sinful,’ and that I was somehow guilty of ‘luring’ them!
I just feel when I date Muslim men, there seems to be a power dynamic where he has more options than he can count, and I’m competing for his acceptance, like in an audition or interview. The problem is, I know I want to marry a Muslim because my faith and culture are important to me.
Do you think there’s a way to reconcile my two realities?
Losing (my man’s) religion
Dear Losing (my man’s) religion,
Ugh I feel you on that anxiety over “time’s running out” - time is no one’s friend, amirite? There’s so much we want to achieve and have in a limited amount of time. What you’ve got - a career, financial stability, professional success - are things others do not. And while others may have found a partner and had kids, how many can say they’ve achieved the success you have at your age? We all have different gifts and challenges at different stages of our lives. And you have so much to be proud of and thankful for.
That being said, I’m sorry you’ve had such disappointing experiences while searching for a Muslim partner. It must be frustrating - but more so hurtful - to be rejected based on your religious identity, and that too, from a community you consider your own.
You are too amazing not to be swept-off-your-feet wooed in love, or worse, have your feelings ignored while being scrutinized and discriminated against! This ‘dating’ doesn’t sound fun at all. But that’s what falling in love is supposed to be - if it weren’t exhilarating, how would we be willing to dive into such excruciating vulnerability?
It sounds like you’ve had better experiences with non-Muslim men who’ve shown more respect not just for your feelings, but for your religious and cultural backgrounds as well. We can take a moment to consider why - perhaps because they’re conscious your faith and culture differ from theirs, they realize sensitivity is a prerequisite to any relationship. Muslim men on the other hand, might be taking your sectarian difference for granted, and think it’s fair game to discriminate due to an entitled sense of ‘preference’ - one forgets it’s easy to discriminate against others and chalk it up to sheer choice when one is in the majority.
But setting the discrimination aside, you’ve also expressed disappointment with potential Muslim partners over a lack of transparency and honesty about your relationships, respect for your physical boundaries and consent, and their parental co-dependencies.
I sympathize with your disappointment over a lack of transparency. Honesty regarding the status of your relationship - with each other, and with others - is important not just for knowing that you’re both on the same page regarding your commitment, but also for being able to talk openly about expectations in your relationship, including physical ones. How do we even begin to talk about what we’re comfortable with physically if we can’t talk about what we’re comfortable with emotionally?
That leads to the importance of understanding consent, something even wider mainstream American culture is trying to understand in the wake of #MeToo. Muslims seem to have the added complications of guilt and denial around relationships, leaving us even more vulnerable to situations where our boundaries are violated and we don’t know how to respond.
Also, the need for mommy and daddy’s approval is an unhealthy codependency in our community that needs to be addressed. I can’t even begin to tackle all the consequences of that dynamic in this post, but maybe in future ones!
So, you feel like you’ve been offering yourself up for scrutiny to males who’ve acted like they have the final say in sexual selection. Girlfriend, let me remind you that throughout evolutionary biology, sexual selection has relied on females! Remember that the next time you feel like you don’t have any power in this situation!
There is no reason to serve yourself up for scrutiny - you are not in an interview trying to get the job of your date’s future wife. It’s as much a place for him to get to know you as it is for you! You’re both looking to see if you’re a good fit for each other.
Actually, it’s possible your experience with discrimination has made you feel like a second-class citizen within our community, without even being aware of it. It’s this subconscious classification that could be causing you to give your power over to someone else - something a woman as successful as yourself wouldn’t otherwise do.
But this reversed sexual selection - that females have to compete for male selection - goes hand in hand with patriarchy. This doesn’t mean Islam is patriarchal because God has decreed it such, but rather, because the vast majority of adherents might believe it should be.
Consider the allowed practice of polygamy. While it may not be a reality for most contemporary Muslims, it still informs the culture regarding gender statuses. Another consideration: the Muslim belief that a sign of the end of days will be a skewed gender ratio of 50 women to 1 man. (See, https://islamqa.org/hanafi/askimam/81124)
What do these beliefs do, besides fuel paranoia that there are not enough men in the world and that women will have to compete to obtain the scarce, valued male resource?
Recognize that this gender ratio falls flat in the face of global population stats which tell us there are currently 1.01 males to females. That means there are more men than women, and the numbers skew even higher in favor of males from birth until age 25 where it is 1.07. The male female ratio only goes down in favor of women after the age of 55, when it is 0.96 men to women. (see CIA factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html).
That being said, would you consider pursuing more of the same good experiences you’ve had over those that may initially seem unnatural to you? For example, it sounds like you’re dating Muslim men you perhaps wouldn’t otherwise but for their “Muslim” label. These unnatural situations are indeed turning what should be fun dates into interviews that are just recipes for frustration, anxiety, and unhappiness.
While I respect your desire to want to only marry a Muslim man, I think it’s time to consider a few things: (1) what does that really mean, and (2) if you’re not finding what you’re looking for where you’re looking for it, is it time to look elsewhere?
First consider, what are the values you’re looking for in a partner? These are the values that are most important to YOU. There could be Muslim men who don’t have them, or non-Muslim men who do. Or non-Muslim men who are considering the Muslim faith, or actually have beliefs that are consistent with your values and faith, but are missing the label. Personally, I’ve known people in my life who didn’t call themselves Buddhist, but certainly had Buddhist beliefs, particularly about philosophies regarding ego and attachment. Is it more important what we call ourselves than what it is we practice?
All I’m saying is, don’t artificially shrink your dating pool!
There’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on yourself here: dating should be fun, enjoy yourself! And if you’re not enjoying yourself here, find a place where you are. Why? Because you have to re-introduce yourself to the joy in dating. Your attitude towards settling down seems to be scarred by your bad experiences, and the result is that your goal of meeting a partner is clouded with doubt, fear, and anxiety. If you can replace those feelings with positive ones through positive experiences, I know you will be closer to getting what you want, and enjoy yourself along the way.
Love,
BAE
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Grace Adams
Questions:
1. Is the character of Grace believable as an entity?
2. Is the backstory convoluted/too complicated? If so, or even if not, do you have any feedback on the background?
3. Do the other characters in the story come across as ‘props’? I’m doing my best to really flesh them out as well, but I don’t want them to simply be there for the usage of the main character to develop. Also, thoughts on the archetypes used as supporting characters? Are they too stereotypical/cliche given the context?
If you have any questions about the content of this post, or if I left out anything major, please let me know, and I will see if I can sort it out! Thank you!
Name: Grace Adams
Age: 23
Appearance:
Ethnicity: African American
Hair: Black, worn long and often tied back
Eyes: Black
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 150 lbs.
Fashion sense: understated and deliberately not ostentatious; generally composed of beanies, sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts, and leggings or jeans.
Cori here! Read the rest of this profile and review under the cut.
History: Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Grace Adams was raised to believe in the merits of hard work, faith, and family by her welder father Joseph and homemaker mother Angela. Grace excelled in school and fostered a curious and often confrontational nature which was fostered by her mother but clashed against her teachers, religious leaders, and even her somewhat conservative father. When Grace was beginning her senior year of high school, Angela was diagnosed with lymphoma and was forced to spend months at a time hospitalized. This embittered Grace from her faith in God and further strained her already-tenuous relationship with her father. Burying herself in her studies, Grace graduated in the top 5% of students in her class and was accepted into the honors program of Louisiana State University. Despite her father’s request to take a semester off to help him take care the house and her mother, Angela encouraged Grace to pursue her dream of becoming an evolutionary biologist. Joseph angrily cut ties with his daughter, and Grace gained her bachelor’s degree in biology a semester earlier than expected, feeling as though she would be letting her mother down and proving her father right if she returned home before her degree was completed.
In the winter of 2018, the semester before Grace was to begin her Masters of Evolutionary Biology program at LSU, she received an email from a former professor informing her about an internship opportunity with Cambridge University that would give her more practical experience in her field and better prepare her for the program. Grace jumped at the opportunity to create distance between herself, her father, and her mother’s worsening condition and contacted Cambridge to make the proper arrangements. That May, Grace made her way to the UK and to the home/laboratory of the professor with whom she would be interning: Dr. Roger Renfield, PhD. Though initially not too concerned with the professor’s standoffish demeanor and nocturnal habits, Grace eventually deduces that the strange and grotesque experiments that Renfield performs are evidence of something sinister, and she discovers that Renfield is in fact a vampire who has been attempting for almost 150 years to discover a scientific remedy for his condition. After learning the truth, Grace surprises Renfield by showing not horror but genuine interest in his condition and his attempts to cure himself.
The story itself revolves around the attempts by Renfield and Grace to cure vampirism in a purely biomedical fashion as well as to catalogue the various other species of monstrous beings that exist in their world in a genetic compendium titled the “Manners of Beast”. This process often involves Grace going on location to take photographs, collect biological samples, and hear the stories of various monstrous characters in order to fully understand the ‘dark side’ of the world outside human detection while also coming to terms with the idea that reason and spirituality can and often must go hand in hand while interpreting the world, all the while crossing paths with nefarious bodies looking to capitalize on the division between human and monster.
Personality: Grace is, by her own expression, a skeptic: a person who takes nothing at face-value and does not believe much of anything outside of what can be perceived through observation or research. Grace’s main motivation is initially the pursuit of knowledge, really for its own sake, and she takes her role as ‘field researcher’ in stride for this end, even though this could potentially put her in danger. Grace is also confrontational and headstrong in her skepticism with a very ‘f*** your feelings’ attitude towards others that she sees as less educated or as being ideologically motivated by something like religion. This cold, analytical exterior begins to crack over time as she is forced into situations with others facing their own tragedies, such as a newly-turned vampire who she is forced to talk out of suicide by sun exposure and the struggles of a destitute family of monsters forced to turn to hunting humans for food. Grace has a tendency to bury her head in her field when 'the going gets rough’ and feelings become too involved, but when her field becomes very much one of feelings during her travels, she becomes more compassionate and even begins to sympathize with the creatures she and every other human had been taught to fear hiding in their closets.
Hobbies: Chess, debating, photography, reading, jogging. Most of her time is dedicated to her work, so she doesn’t have much time for hobbies.
Abilities: Unlike the various mortal and immortal beings surrounding her, Grace possesses mostly the same physical and mental abilities of a young human woman of her general age bracket. She is however an excellent debater, researcher, and detective due to her headstrong curiosity and general lack of fear in most situations. Later in the story, Grace learns how to channel basic levels of magical energy under the tutelage of a demonic companion, but she is unable to tap into any large amount of magic, limiting her to what a normal human would be able to do after extensive practice, such as minor protective charms.
Relationships (first established):
Joseph Adams (father): Grace’s relationship with her father is initially very strained, as both of them have a tendency to retreat inward when confronted with hardship they do not know how to handle. Though they are very alike in personality, Grace resents her father for seeming to be weak in the face of Angela’s illness. However, Grace learns to forgive her father and empathize with him after her travels.
Angela Adams (mother): Grace tends to idealize her mother as this Amazonian standard of a woman before her illness, and she aspires to be the same ideal person someday herself. Grace deeply loves her mother and this feeling is reciprocated.
Dr. Roger Renfield: Grace initially regards the haughty and aloof Renfield with respect but also disdain. This feeling however begins to change into a more friendly mentor-mentee scenario once Grace learns of his condition. Renfield is metaphorically symbolic of the logical parts of Grace’s personality, blinded to that which cannot be quantified and defiant in the face of what it cannot explain on its own. This puts her at odds with Bethany.
Sister Bethany: The matron of the home for girls in which Grace initially stays during her time in England. A devout Catholic, Bethany tends to irritate Grace with her rituals and spiritualism, but Grace also respects the unending kindness that comes from the woman and her seeming peace with her place in the world. Bethany is symbolic of the emotional parts of Grace’s personality that she buries, seeking good in others and meaning in the world, and often disregarding that which she disagrees with as incorrect or unimportant.
Jude: A former drug addict and newly-transformed vampire that is 'captured’ as a specimen for experimentation on a cure for vampirism. Grace at first attempts to ignore the 'subject’s’ distress and sadness at his predicament and justifies it with the hope that their work will be for the betterment of mankind. However, Grace begins to grow close to Jude through her evaluations of him and learns of his inability to be near his ex-wife or young daughter for fear of harming them. Jude eventually becomes the main impetus for Grace trying to find the cure, and his eventual death at the hands of the antagonist Mina is what prompts her to continue her research with Renfield even after her internship has ended.
Before I get into the main part of my review, I just want to say that I REALLY liked reading about this character. I would read this book in a heartbeat if you published it. Now let’s get into it!
My first point of criticism for you is that I’d really like to see more details in Grace’s ‘appearance’ section. When I inserted the Read More link, I was surprised to see that I’d actually isolated the entire appearance section. With all of the great details in Grace’s history and personality, I’m disappointed that I don’t have a better idea of what she looks like. The phrase ‘African American’ covers a wide variety of skin tones and facial features. What is Grace’s skin tone? What kind of hair does she have, and how is it styled? What shape are her eyes, nose, and face? What’s her body type?
I’m going to jump to the personality section here–we’ll cover Grace’s history section in a little bit. I prefer to read about a character’s personality before I read about their history, because it makes the most sense in the context of getting to know someone. That said, I think Grace’s personality is well-rounded and her attitude seems to match well with her family history–she’s spent a lot of time distancing herself from her own emotions and expects other people to be the same way.
I’d be interested in seeing a few more details here–for example, how do her confrontations with people who are ‘less educated’ or ideologically motivated go? How patient is she in attempting to make others agree with her viewpoints? How does that affect the way her other colleagues and friends see her? And speaking of friends–how willing is Grace to spare the feelings of someone she likes, but believes is ‘wrong’? I want to see how Grace handles her confrontational attitude and what kind of things she can let slide before it goes too far and makes her upset.
Moving on! I don’t actually have a lot to say about Grace’s history, because you seem to have covered all of the important things. I don’t think it’s convoluted at all; it feels like a very realistic situation (especially for me, someone who’s butted heads with her dad all her life). I feel like I have a really clear picture of how Grace’s life has gone up to this point, so well done! I am curious about the relationship between her parents–if Angela was so keen on letting Grace follow her dreams even though Joseph wanted her to stay, how did that affect their relationship with each other? Was Grace hoping to keep things between herself and her father civil until he cut her off?
To answer your question concerning Grace’s relationships, I feel like they all present ways for Grace to learn about herself and grow as a person. If you’re concerned about them being too one-noted, my suggestion would be to give them a bit of nuance. I’m getting a little bit of that from Sister Bethany’s description–to Grace, Bethany seems to be completely at peace and her faith seems to come easily. But standing firm in your belief can be difficult at times, and Bethany’s probably had more than one moment where she’s questioned her life and her beliefs. I got a lot of that nuance from Jude, as well, so it seems like you’ve got a lot of good things planned for all your characters. For the sake of Grace’s profile, however, I don’t need a complete breakdown of each supporting character. The information you’ve already given me is enough.
All in all, this profile was very fun to read and I’m already imagining a ton of fun things that you could be doing with Grace’s story. If her appearance section had the same amount of attention and care as the rest of her profile, I would have very little to criticize. Good work!
~Cori
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09.05.2018: questionnaire time
**I borrowed this from a website (https://thoughtcatalog.com/rania-naim/2016/02/40-deep-questions-to-ask-if-you-really-want-to-get-to-know-someone/) And I thought it would be fun to do so you all get a better understanding of who I am. You are welcome to do this as well. [Scheduled post]
1. What’s your philosophy in life?
My philosophy in life is this quote: If you wish to be a warrior, prepare to be broken. If you wish to be an explorer, prepare to get lost and if you wish to be a lover, prepare to be both. -Daniel Saint
2. What’s the one thing you would like to change about yourself?
The one thing that I would like to change about myself is this: To be more heartless.
3. Are you religious or spiritual?
Tough question (because I think religion and spiritual go hand to hand sometimes) but I would say I’m more spiritual than religious.
4. Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?
I consider myself an extreme introvert. I love and value my solitude more than anything. It is very rare that I find someone that I love to hang out with and want to be with them 24/7 rather than being home alone, listening to music.
5. Which parent are you closer to and why?
Quite honestly, if I had to chose which parent I’m closer with and why, it would have to be my mom (I’m not close with either of my parents because of my childhood. One time my mother screamed at me, wishing that I was never born, so of course, I hold that dear to my heart). I’m close with my mom because we share somewhat of the same morals (I’m more liberal while she’s more conservative). Most of the time, we get along because we have the same wit and sassy humor.
6. What was the best phase in your life?
Probably the best phase of my life was when I was a senior in high school all through my sophomore year in college. Those three years were the best for me because I was having such a good time and hanging out with my peers at my college. I was always creating chaos (in a fun way) when I had to get together with my groups and my faith was at its highest that time (because of my peers).
7. What was the worst phase in your life?
The worst phase of my life was my junior year in college all the way through my senior year. I was lost, confused, hurt, and angry with life. I was not content with life and I was doing things that I regret to this day (I was doing things to get over the pain and agony that I was dealing with during that time). I was also dating someone who didn’t care one cent on how I was feeling, so that added more fuel to the fire.
8. Is what you’re doing now what you always wanted to do growing up?
NO. Haha, what I’m doing right now is not what I had planned to do growing up. The top three careers I wanted to do were: social worker, doctor or teacher. I’m not doing either one of them (I’m a manager at a retail store). I’ve always wanted to help people in many ways that I could and so of course, my big heart chose those top three careers.
9. What makes you feel accomplished?
What makes me feel accomplished is the fact that I graduated from college and I made it through without any complications.
10. What’s your favorite book/movie of all time and why did it speak to you so much?
My favorite book is the Hunger Games series (yes, I love all three of them) and my favorite movie is The Dark Knight Rises. The THG series gave me another dose of imagination and creativity (and it showed me that the book was somewhat influenced by the real world problems). The Dark Knight movie was a masterpiece in it’s own and I was impressed (and fell even more in love with theatre) on how well it was done.
11. What is a relationship deal breaker for you?
The biggest relationship deal breaker for me is, if you can’t be honest and completely open with me, it’s not working out. Period. I can overlook the flaws and imperfections, but the minute the person that I’m interested in lies to my face, I’m out the door. I was with someone who was a great liar (along with having a great liar living with me for eighteen years) and I do not tolerate it. I’m now extremely picky about honesty and it’s one of the reasons why I’m not in a relationship at the moment.
12. Are you more into looks or brains?
BRAINS. I’m so into brains because looks fade away as we grow older and wrinkles come kicking in. I have a knack for those who are clever and are very intelligent. I don’t know what it is, but I love people who are so wise that I can talk about life for hours. I want someone that I can talk about the meaning of life and the deep stuff. Tell me what’s your biggest fear, what’s your biggest dream, what’s your favorite memory, etc. All of those little things matter to me because it tells me more about you.
13. Would you ever take back someone who cheated?
I would NOT take back someone who cheated on me. Like I stated before, I do not tolerate lies and cheating. I saw it with my own parents and I experienced it myself. No thanks. I’m better off being alone rather than being with someone who lies and cheats behind my back.
14. How do you feel about sharing your password with your partner?
I couldn’t care less about sharing my password with my partner. If my partner wants to look through my phone, social media, etc, then go for it. I have nothing to hide.
15. When do you think a person is ready for marriage?
I think when a person is ready for marriage is when they know they have their life together in a way that they have a good career, has enough money to buy a house (and has enough for children expenses because kiddos are expensive) along with having a good understanding on how to be responsible (no partying, drinking, etc). They have to be completely mature to understand that marriage is a delicate compromise and there is no backing out. They are willing to spend the rest of their lives with the person they are going to marry.
16. What kind of parent do you think you will be?
I honestly have no clue. I think I would be the strict type of parent because I don’t want my kids to do the same mistakes as I did (especially if I have a daughter, I want her to be a better woman than me).
17. What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner?
Considering that most of the time, I do not agree with my parents’ opinions, but if they tell me that they do not like my partner then it’s because they know they are not a good fit for me. I may throw a fit, but I would take their opinion into consideration and understand that they’re saying they don’t like who I’m dating because it just isn’t going to last. Parents can tell when their children’s partner isn’t good for them. They just have that sixth sense and it’s so hard to explain.
18. Who is that one person you can talk to about just anything?
The one person I can talk about anything is my best friend, Kara. She has been in my life since I was ten and I love her very much. She’s like a sister to me and I would lay down my life for her and she knows that very well.
19. Do you usually stay friends with your exes?
I usually don’t stay friends with my exes because it isn’t worth my time. There is a reason why it didn’t work out and I would much rather have them out of my life. I will strike up a conversation with them if I see them on the streets (only if they start it) and catch up on life, but otherwise than that, I usually want them out of my life.
20. Have you ever lost someone close to you?
I have lost family members, but luckily, I haven’t lost anyone close to me, yet.
21. If you are in a bad mood, do you prefer to be left alone or have someone to cheer you up?
When I’m in a bad mood, I prefer to be left alone.
22. What’s an ideal weekend for you?
SLEEPING IN.
23. What do you think of best friends of the opposite sex?
I think they can be great, even though I don’t have a best friend of the opposite sex.
24. Do you judge a book by its cover?
Sometimes...it just depends on the person.
25. Are you confrontational?
Not at all. I hate confrontations.
26. When was the last time you broke someone’s heart?
The last time that I truly broke someone’s heart was last year in October. I was falling head over heels for a guy at my college while I was playing with this guy’s feelings (I met him where I met my ex, which was at another retail store, how ironic). I wasn’t thinking clearly and of course, I broke his heart when I realized that I wasn’t falling for him...instead, it was the other guy. It was a giant mess and to this day, it still stings when I think about it. I still feel incredibly remorseful.
27. Would you relocate for love?
No. Unless, I know, deep down in my heart that is love that will truly last. Otherwise, no, I wouldn’t relocate for love.
28. Did you ever write a journal?
I certainly do. I have about three (or four) journals.
29. What are you most thankful for?
I’m thankful for having a loving and wonderful support group.
30. Do you believe in second chances?
I did believe in second chances once before, but after seeing that people will take advantage of that...sadly, I do not.
31. What’s the one thing that people always misunderstand about you?
That I’m way too naive when in reality, I just observe and keep things to myself.
32. What is your idea of a perfect vacation?
My idea of a perfect vacation would consist of being in Mexico, with my family while laughing our hearts out.
33. What did your past relationship teach you?
As much as I hate talking about my past relationships, I think what I’ve learned from them is that no matter how hard I try to make the person love me (or do the things that I did for them) it’s not going to work if they don’t love and care about me. It doesn’t matter that I’m the best person they are ever going to have. They don’t want me and will do everything to push me out. I also learned that if they are not honest with me, it’s because they don’t trust me. If they moved on right after we broke up, is because that person already had someone else behind my back. If they never checked up on me, it’s because they never cared (or they just want to see if they can drag you deeper into the hole). I also learned to never put all of my effort in a relationship (one of my exes told me that the reason he never went out on all relationships he’s been is because he never wanted to carry that weight of knowing he put his effort and can laugh at the other party for doing so). I knew he laughed at me for being a fool and although I forgave him, I’m glad that he’s no longer apart of my life. He taught me well. Most importantly, if they hurt me, without any hesitation or remorse, it’s because they never really gave two fucks about me. If you try to change the person for the best, they won’t do it unless they want to do it themselves. Overall, I have learned to be heartless.
34. What are your thoughts on online dating or tinder?
I think they are quite...sketchy, but that is just me.
35. What’s on your bucket list this year?
Well, I wanted to go to Oregon and Washington this year, but I decided to go to Mexico to see my family. :)
36. When have you felt your biggest adrenaline rush?
I think the last time I have felt my biggest adrenaline rush was when I was competing at the state finals my senior year in high school. My knees were killing me, but I was able to ignore the pain and drop time (along posting my name in the top 10 in my high school’s history for the fastest swims).
37. What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done and would you do it again?
I don’t think I have done anything crazy yet, but I have messed around at work to the point that I almost got myself in trouble.
38. If a genie granted you 3 wishes right now, what would you wish for?
The three wishes I would grant would be: 1) to move to Oregon, 2) have enough money to pay off my students loan and 3) create a loving place for those who struggle with depression and anxiety without any cost
39. What’s your biggest regret in life?
There are so many things I regret in life, but I think the number one would be letting those who hurt me before back into my life. I don’t need that kind of negativity.
40. What do you think about when you’re by yourself?
When I’m by myself, I think about life and the what if’s.
41. Does your job make you happy?
Yes. Even though it is not the career I wanted, I’m content with it.
42. What did you want to be when you were younger?
I wanted to be either a doctor, teacher or a social worker.
43. Why did your last relationship end?
(Look back at question #33). And I wasn’t happy towards the end of it. I wanted something more and I knew the decision of cutting it off was the best for my own sanity.
45. What’s been your biggest mistake so far in life and what did you learn from it?
My biggest two mistakes would be: being with someone who wasn’t healthy for me and not taking greater chances when given the opportunity. What I learned from those two mistakes were that 1) it made me stronger and wiser than I was before and 2) I’m more aware of what I want and I’m still figuring out who I am still.
46. Where is your favorite place in the entire world to go?
My favorite place in the entire world is Mexico.
47. What are your top five favorite movies?
My top five favorite movies are: 1) The Dark Knight, 2) Avengers: Infinity War, 3) Ant-Man. 4) Ant-Man and the Wasp and 5) Captain America: Civil War
48. What are some of your favorite songs?
(It depends on my mood, but for now) my favorite songs are Everlong by the Foo Fighters, Fake Happy by Paramore, Would You Want Me by the Generationals, Not Even Jail (Remix) by Interpol and Where The Streets Have No Name by U2.
49. What qualities do you admire about your parents?
Besides them being incredibly stubborn, I admire their determination when they want something.
50. How would you describe your best friend?
I would describe my best friend as someone who is loving, caring and kind.
51. What’s your favorite hobby to do alone?
I love to write, draw and read.
52. What’s something you can’t go a day without doing?
Singing along to the songs that play at work.
53. What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve done lately?
I think cutting my hair really short (and dying it too).
54. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for love?
HAHA. Nothing.
55. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
People who chew with their mouth open.
56. Why do you think you’re still single?
For one, I am not looking for a relationship (I think it’s a waste of time) and two, I am still trying to work on myself and be the best person I can be. I will not let anyone in until I am completely ready (and until I meet the person that will touch my soul before touching my skin).
57. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Well, I guess graduating from both high school and college.
58. What is one dream you have yet to accomplish?
To move out of Indiana.
59. What is your greatest fear?
To die alone and not leaving a legacy behind for those to remember.
60. What are three things you value most about a person?
Honesty, loyalty and respect.
61. Who are five people you are closest with?
1) Mom, 2) my brother, 3) my best friend, 4) my coworkers and 5) my family
62. What is the greatest struggle you’ve overcome?
Well, I’m not sure. So far, I would say having a better control of my thoughts when I feel depressed/anxious.
63. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
Anywhere in the west coast.
64. What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened this past year?
I got promoted at my job. :)
65. What’s your favorite beer?
NONE. I prefer wine. ;)
66. What’s one thing that bothers you most about the world today?
I think the one thing that bothers me about the world today is how there is so much cruelty going on and it just breaks my heart.
67. Who are you closer with your mom or your dad?
Mom.
68. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
If I had the personality of an ice cube, then I would probably be a lot more happier.
69. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
To be more peace and less violence.
70. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
All of them because they inspired me to be kind, loving and caring toward others.
71. What sport did you fall in love with?
SWIMMING!
72. What is the weirdest thing about you?
Um...well...I like to write short stories....????
73. What was your longest relationship?
A year, but it wasn’t my relationship..... :)
74. What would your best friend say is your best quality?
My wicked, perverted sense of humor.
75. Who is your favorite historical figure?
Oh man...I don’t know, haha. It would have to be Rosa Parks.
76. What made you choose the college you went to?
It was close to home and I wanted to do something different than my peers.
77. If you could tell your former self one thing right now what would it be?
Hang on, buddy. It does get better. The storm doesn’t last forever.
78. What food could you not live without?
Anything with pasta in it.
79. Dogs or Cats?
Both. :)
80. What’s closest you’ve ever come to being arrested?
Um.....let’s skip this question.
81. What was your best birthday?
My 22nd. :)
82. What’s one thing you wish you knew how to do?
How to talk to people without making a fool out of myself.
83. Where’s one place you’d like to go that you haven’t been?
The west coast.
84. What was the last book you read? And When?
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and this past month.
85. Where do you usually get your news?
On the News App (iphone).
86. What are some of your own personal goals in the next 5 years?
Be myself without any shame, move out of Indiana and just travel as much as my budget allows me.
87. What would you consider your greatest accomplishment so far?
I already answered this question, haha.
88. If you could get away with anything that you do?
It would be to not buy plane tickets to go to Europe, haha.
89. Who is your greatest hero?
My grandma.
90. What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?
Probably creating this blog.
91. Why are we here?
We are meant to live a life with purpose and live our dreams.
92. If heaven is real and you died tomorrow, would you get in?
No.
93. Do you believe in fate?
Yes.
94. How do you think people see you?
Someone who looks and acts incredibly naive but just knows a little too much for my own sanity.
95. If you had the ability to erase something that you did in the past, what
would it be?
Any bad events that occurred from 2016-2017. And to bring my uncle and grandpa back to life.
96. What song makes you unconditionally happy?
Any songs from twenty one pilots, Paramore & U2.
97. If you could have anybody else’s life, who’s would you take?
Any of Hollywood’s directors and screenwriters. That would be an incredible job to just let loose your creativity (I’ve always wanted to do something like that because I love to write).
98. What fictional character do you most relate to?
Probably either Katniss Everdeen or Steve Rogers.
99. If I asked you at age 5 what you wanted to be when you grew up, what would you say?
With my crooked smile, I would say that I either wanted to be a teacher or doctor.
100. What is your biggest irrational fear?
Being alone and heights.
101. If you could take us anywhere in the world right now, where would you take us?
Germany or Canada.
102. What is your biggest regret?
Answered that question already (not taking opportunities when given the chance).
103. If you died tomorrow, what would you wish you had done?
To see the Northern Lights.
104. Can you pin point the moment in your life where you were the happiest?
June 25th of this year is when I became the happiest I have ever been and I’ve been this way for quite sometime now.
105. What song makes you unconditionally sad?
Losing Your Memory by Ryan Starr.
106. If past lives are real, what was yours?
Hmm...I don’t know. Probably some scientist.
107. Have you ever seen something you can’t explain?
Not really.
108. What is your biggest accomplishment?
Already answered that question, haha.
109. If you could do one thing without suffering the consequences, what would you do?
Ehm...let’s say torture a few people.... :) I’m kidding, I don’t know.
110. What is the strangest dream you’ve ever had?
Last night, I had a strange dream that I was outside and all of a sudden, everyone that I used to love (and date) were walking towards my direction...but they looked like ghosts....like something happened to them and it was freaky. I was just walking down the trials with my camera and somehow, my camera broke into pieces as those people got closer to me...but they didn’t say a word to me. The trees slowly turned gray as they were walking by and it was like they were taking away the colors that nature had. Their eyes looked like they had no color in them and they just looked dead. They showed no emotion and kept walking pass me, without a word...yeah, it was pretty freaky. Maybe watching too much Halloween movies.
111. What is the darkest thought you’ve ever had? What about the darkest thing you’ve never told anybody?
Hurting someone that hurt me badly. Well...I don’t have any dark secrets that I haven’t told anyone.
112. Is there something out there, a thought, an idea, a current event, or a fear that you find deeply unsettling?
I don’t think so. I’m already used to seeing so many...disturbing events in this world.
113. What would you consider to be your deepest fear?
My deepest fear is being alone. When I’m alone with my thoughts, I’m capable of doing anything and it just scares me.
114. Is there an activity that calms you? A place or a thing that makes you feel at ease?
Going outside in the woods usually does the trick to calm me down because my social anxiety likes to eat me alive when I’m in public.
115. What makes you feel uneasy? Overwhelmed? Anxious?
If I’m walking alone in a big crowd, usually I get really overwhelmed because I don’t know the people in the crowd (if that makes sense).
116. What is your favorite song and why?
Everlong by the Foo Fighters and it’s a simple yet deep song. If you haven’t listened to it, then you should...I think it will give you a better idea of who I am.
117. Do you have a favorite book? A line in a piece of literature? A poem? Why do you relate to it?
Okay, this is a f****ing hard question because I LOVE BOOKS and I’m a sucker for William Shakespeare. Anything related to his works are my favorite things in the world. He’s a romantic fool like I am and I can relate to his way of writing. If I could be involved in a play by William Shakespeare, I would in a heartbeat. I’m so starstruck by Shakespeare.
118. What scene in a movie has evoked the most feelings out of you?
Ya know....the scene in Avengers: Infinity War....ya know.
119. What do you do or where do you go when you need to be alone?
I usually lock myself in my room.
120. What makes you feel like you need to be alone?
When I have a bad day, I usually need to cool off before I want to talk about it.
121. Can you remember a time in your life you felt the most alive? Tell me everything about that memory.
June 29th, 2018. When I went to Mexico and that whole week, I felt so alive.
122. When have you felt the lowest in your life?
All of 2016 to 2017.
123. Where have you felt the most failure? The most success?
Most failure was in August of 2017. Most success is July 2018.
124. Tell me about the facts or harsh truths you choose to ignore but know you shouldn’t.
That I am not relationship material. No one will ever match up with the depth that I have. I can love deeper than the ocean itself and I have been shot enough times through the heart to know that I should stay away from relationships.
125. When have you felt like you were living life to the fullest? When have you felt like you weren’t?
Right now, I’m living life to the fullest and last time that I didn’t live to the fullest was 2016-2017.
126. What is the first lie you ever told? Which is the biggest?
That I loved someone and probably the biggest yet so far because it backfired me badly.
127. What is the first secret you ever kept from anybody? Which is the biggest?
None.
128. Are you a religious or spiritual person? Tell me why and tell me how.
I already answered that question.
129. Have you always had the same political beliefs? Is there something that impacted them?
Yep. I’ve always leaned toward the Democrat party and nothing has changed that (I’m a firm believer that the church and state should be two separate things and not combined. Everyone should have the right to do whatever makes them happy while obeying the common sense laws).
130. Where do you find meaning in your life?
In taking pictures of nature and just talking to people.
131. Have you ever been in love? Tell me about the times you have been.
Well s***...to be sincerely honest and open about that...no, I haven’t been truly in love. I have been infatuated but never in love. I haven’t met that person who actually touched the depth of my soul without touching my skin or lips. I haven’t met that person who motivates me to be a better person. I’ve been in relationships where I have given my all, but I knew deep down it was never going to last because I knew right off the bat that person isn’t who I would want to spend the rest of my life with...I just went with it and although many speculate that I was in love back in 2016-2017, I never really felt it throughout that time. Maybe I was too busy keeping that person around for my ego (if that makes any sense) and I know that sounds incredibly bad...but no, I have never been in love.
132. Tell me about the times someone broke your heart.
It sucks, but eventually you learn from it. You learn that it just helps you become wiser and stronger.
133. Why did you cry the last time you did so?
I haven’t cried since 2016.
134. Have you ever cried tears of joy?
Lately, no.
135. What did you do when you hurt someone the most?
Nothing. I just wished that they would experience the same pain that I felt.
136. If your life was a movie or a book what would be the title to it?
Everlong.
137. When have you caused the most harm to yourself?
Back in the end of July.
138. What has been the biggest change you ever made that made you the most proud of yourself?
Cut my hair super short and show everyone else my true colors. I’ve been told by guys that they don’t like my new hairdo because they missed my long hair and that shows me that they are super shallow and don’t deserve me. :)
139. Think about the people you love the most in your life, what do you do for them?
I have sent them gifts and see them smile, which warms my cold soul. :)
140. Is home for you a place or a feeling? Describe that place or describe that feeling.
It’s a place for me. It’s just a fuzzy warm feeling I get.
141. If you could be anywhere other than where you are right now, where would you be and what would you be looking at?
Oregon and the sea...and mountains and the pretty trees.
142. Have you ever questioned your sanity and why?
ALL THE TIME. I honestly think I’m very unwell (with how bitter and angry I am with life).
143. What is your most cherished childhood memory?
Playing in the leaves when I was 5.
144. Have you ever had dreams about a past life?
No, but I have had dreams about the future.
145. Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares?
Nope.
146. Do you believe more in fate or that we are the creators of our own destinies because we are governed by free will?
I believe in fate, but I think we have the right of free will and whatever choices we make, it makes up who we are and how we tell others about our stories.
147. Do you believe in extraterrestrial life? Elaborate on why or why not.
Yeah! And I mean, we live in this huge galaxy and there are so many other galaxies in the universe and I think anything can happen.
148. Would you find more comfort in the theoretical idea that that we were the most advanced species in outer space or would you find more comfort in the idea that we weren’t?
More in the idea that we weren’t.
149. What would be your thought process if you were presented with irrefutable evidence that a god didn’t exist? What would be your thought process if you were presented with irrefutable evidence that a god
did exist?
Oh man...here comes the biggest test, haha. Okay, well considering that I studied enough science both in high school and college, the scientific method already proves that (according to scientists) there is no such thing as a god. Now, the scientific method cannot prove that God exists because there is no way (you can’t prove celestial stuff, if that makes any sense). However, that doesn’t stop me from believing that God exists. If there is evidence shown that God exists, then I would accept it and continue on with life. You cannot argue with science when they have the evidence in your face because they have studied enough to show they know what they are talking about.
150. What do you think was there before the universe came into creation?
Nothing.
151. Do you believe in other dimensions and parallel universes?
You know...I don’t necessarily believe it, but just the idea would be pretty awesome.
152. How do you define art?
Anything from movies, writing to painting.
153. If you could have the option of eradicating pain from your life would you choose to do so? Why or why not?
No. Pain teaches us to be stronger and wiser.
154. Is a life exclusive to pleasure (no suffering) worthwhile?
No.
155. What do you think happens after death, if anything?
I don’t think anything happens after death.
156. If you could be given the date of your death would you want to know it?
Yes so I can do the things I’ve always wanted to do before I die.
157. Presented with the opportunity to be immortal would you take it?
No, if that means that my loved ones die before I die...I don’t think I can live with that pain.
158. Would you rather be loved or love?
None. No thanks.
159. How do you define beauty?
Beauty is what inside of the person (personality wise) rather than physical appereance.
160. Where does happiness come from? Define what happiness means to you.
When you are over the thing that made you sad. You realize that there will be better things coming your way if you learn who you are, what you want, etc.
161. Do you believe yourself to be truly free? If so, why? If not, what is holding you back?
Not yet. Once I have enough money to move out...then I will feel incredibly free.
162. Deja-vu: is there anything to it or merely coincidence?
Not really.
163. What was your father or mother like at home? How does he or she act different outside of family?
Father was violent at home and in public he was nice. Mother is about the same way both at home and in public (she’s sarcastic and mean).
164. If you were given a choice to choose your manner of death, how would you die?
Firing squad. Just shoot me and death will be quicker that way.
165. Tell me a really, really stupid joke that made you laugh.
Oh God...um....what do you call a fish with no eye? Fsh.
166. Pick two out of physical chemistry, lifestyle compatibility, emotional compatibility and intellectual compatibility.
It’s gotta be both emotional and intellectual compatibility.
167. If you were forced to vote for one the biggest dictators of history, (Hitler, Mussolini, Mugabe, Mao, Saddam or Stalin), which one would you pick and why?
Oh snap...I think I would choose Stalin. I cannot explain to you why, but he’s the first choice. I wouldn’t vote Hitler since he was a psycho (so are the rest, but I think he was beyond crazy and unwell).
168. Show me a music track or a scene from a film that made you tear up.
Avengers: Infinity War. Listen to that soundtrack and I promise you will end up crying.
169. If you could have any animal in the world as a pet, what would it be and why?
Either a tiger or a wolf. They are majestic and pretty awesome.
170. If you were given a chance to explore the oceans, go to outer space or visit 50 different countries, which one you choose and why?
Outer space, baby. Let me see the Earth, Mars, Venus, Pluto...all of those planets.
171. Do you think that men are more rational and women are more emotional?
Absolutely. From the men that I have known, most of them are not as emotional as I wish they could be and I have met women that are incredibly emotional (like me!!!).
172. Out of the negative emotions of greed, anger, jealousy and hate, which one would you say affects you the most?
Definitely anger. I get angry so easily and I need to learn how to control that. :/
173. Out of the positive emotions of compassion, positivity, enthusiasm and initiative, which one is your biggest strength?
Compassion. I may joke around about how heartless I am, but in reality, I have such a big heart and I care for others when I shouldn’t.
174. If you could be President of your country for an hour, what is the one thing that you would change?
FREE TACOS.
175. Describe your best first kiss.
HAHA...How about no.
176. Has another’s pain ever given you joy? Be totally honest.
I’m about to sound like the biggest bitch here...but yes. I hate to admit it, but for me, it was like “haha finally karma got you!” That person hurt me more than possible and it was nice...I guess.
177. Tell me your biggest strength outside of your workplace.
I’m not sure. Maybe just being my moody self.
178. If you were given a choice to turn into a zombie or to die, which would you pick?
Just let me die.
179. If you had to pick one, what is the most important value you would teach your children? Honesty, Kindness or Courage?
Honesty all the way.
180. Are you health conscious?
Yes.
181. Name the one bad quality you wouldn’t mind in a partner.
Okay, well I wouldn’t mind them burping or farting around me. I’m used to it.
182. Name the one worst quality you cannot tolerate in a partner.
Dishonesty.
183. Tell me your biggest supernatural or paranormal fear?
If I had to choose, it would be being haunted (I don’t believe in the demon possession stuff because I’m more realistic rather than being involved in paranormal/supernatural stuff, I think it’s just made up stuff).
184. If you got a free cheque for $5,000 right this second, how would you use it?
Pay off my student loans.
185. Name one really surprising thing that set your heart pumping and gave you an adrenaline rush.
I guess seeing sport cars because I love the speed and I wish I had a sports car to drive.
186. Tell me about the time you were so embarrassed in love, you wished you could disappear right there and then.
Oh God, okay so back when I was in fourth grade, I give this kid a Valentine’s Day card and he was like “ewwww.” I wanted to die in that moment there, haha.
187. Have you ever been unable to sleep? What do you do with your time then?
I usually listen to music and waste my time on Tumblr.
188. Tell me about your biggest love regret that made you wish you could turn back time?
Anything that happened in 2016-2017. If I could get brainwashed to forget those times, then I would in a heartbeat. :)
189. Do you believe in materialism or spirituality?
Definitely in spirituality.
190. If you were forced to pick one religion on this planet, which one would it be and why?
That’s a hard question...I would say atheism.
191. What is the most romantic and loving thing you have ever done for somebody?
Probably writing a few poems for someone.
192. What is the most adventurous thing you have ever done in your life?
Going to Kentucky to see the solar eclipse.
193. What’s your day-to-day mantra?
Work, eat and sleep. Then repeat.
194. What quote resonates with you more than any other?
“But sweetheart, you’re a wolf. No need to howl over the loss of men who are incapable of accepting you.”
195. What’s your anti-motto?
“It’s never too late to go back to bed.”
196. What trait do you envy in others?
Intelligence.
197. What skill do you wish you had?
Being able to talk to people without embarrassing myself.
198. How do you wish to be remembered?
Inspiring others (and making them laugh with my wit).
199. How would your best friend describe you in five words?
Humorous, kind, caring, loving and incredibly loyal.
200. How would you summarize your life purpose?
I’m here for a good time, not for a long time.
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7 Ways To Keep Your Cool
My soul sank when I heard the headlines last week of Florence Henderson's fatality. I possess compiled 2 remedies (none of the ones you stated - effectively one uses oil however has other points too) and also considerable amounts of people have discovered all of them helpful, although they do entail using the nit comb (however I believe you are supposed to accomplish that along with all therapies?), one is with olive oil, tea plant and lavender as well as the other along with scrubing booze or mouth laundry.
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