#if my 'success' depends entirely on how much I'm willing to give all my time and energy to conforming to their standards | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dzpenumbra · 10 months

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8/4/23

I took the day off today. Okay, that's a lie. I tried to take the day off today.

The only work I did was to string the beads, knot between them and add a nifty slipknot to the end so the necklace is length adjustable. I decided to go with black hemp, the beads are a very deep blue that goes almost black along the edges. They don't have a perfect mirror buff to them, some of it seemed to fade a bit, but not nearly as much as the red ones did. I'm not really sure... why that's happening... but it's a thing. Instead of letting the beads sit for a few days to see how time and atmosphere affect their finish, I just strung them. And the final product looks pretty damn cool.

I like these jewelry pieces so much that I would wear any of them, and often do just sorta cycle through whatever catches my eye that day. I don't really think I'd have too much of a problem parting with them... as long as they go to good people... The trouble I have is, as always... how to price my shit.

In fact, the majority of my therapy session today was dedicated to how to price my shit. Which I just clearly really fucking blow at. Because I have dedicated so much of my life to putting value on things other than money and material possessions - like relationships and experiences. I keep calling it a "monastic approach to life". Like... I want nothing more than to just give my shit to people who love it, so they can have something special. Then I'm left fucking penniless and dependent on my shitty family's financial support. It fucking sucks.

My therapist was one of the first to get it himself, to connect the dots and go "man, you really were born a few centuries too late, weren't you?" And I just laughed and nodded. The first time I've ever heard that said by another person where I didn't have to lead them there. Hopefully we can follow up on that, maybe he has some ideas... because honestly? I really feel like most of my life problems would go away if I joined some kind of art community. Like some weird art collective living in studios with like a group kitchen and shit. Or at very least working as an art teaching assistant (or even a professor or guest speaker or something) and having the school take care of my food and board. Like... that would be fucking ideal. Well... the teaching would be less ideal because I'd have to learn how to teach and all that, with the art collective idea I could just really focus on my craft 24/7. I'm curious to see where that idea goes.

But yeah, pricing my shit... I have no idea what to charge for this necklace. This was a second attempt at this process. The red ones were the first, they came out okay. This was a 2.0 with the tung oil and it came out much better. I think it's one of my better pieces. So... here's what I'm not sure about. Since this is entirely hand-crafted. No power tools at all, the raw beads and hemp were sourced, but the rest of the process was entirely by hand. So I dyed them with 15 year old ink, coated them in an organic plant-based sealant, and sanded, waxed and strung by hand. These ones took me over a month. That said... I did have them on the backburner for a bit, but like... the tung oil alone takes 3 days to dry each coat. I put a tremendous amount of time, energy and labor into this piece, especially with the sanding. I don't really know how to convey that in like... an Etsy shop... in a way that doesn't sound gimmicky. And I really don't know what to set as a price point. $40? $80? $120? Where does it get ridiculous? Where do I get greedy? I just don't know. When, with art, the real answer is always "however much the person who must have it is willing to pay".

All that business talk just makes my brain freeze up and draw a blank. I really, honestly, really wish I didn't have to ever worry about that. Which is so alien in America. Most people are consumed with getting attention or making money - fame/fortune/success. And my only real metric for success has been... is the piece happy? Is my muse content? Is the piece where it needs to be? Does it feel complete enough to enter society? And if it does, I celebrate, and attempt to present it to society... and they summarily nod off and change the channel because they have the attention span of gnats and need to see actual crimes being committed in order to keep their attention more than 5 seconds.

So... my big problem is... I'd absolutely love to just make new pieces all day every day. Just new art projects all day long. And that's pretty much my life right now, which honestly... I'm very very lucky. Our society is simply not designed for that. And the only reason I can actually do this is because my deeply unsupportive family are tolerating it until I can support myself. Which is a very odd way of saying "we don't want to support you." Their goal in our relationship is to no longer support me in any capacity. Red flags, anyone? XD So yeah, that's scary enough. Plus, my rent just went up. And the cost of living is... utterly terrifying. So we're living in this super weird version of reality where I try to get a billing issue figured out with Comcast (Xfinity, whatever) and it is literally impossible to speak to a human. They literally do not hire human beings anymore. And, at the same time... it's impossible to be an artist without having another job... So... somehow... society is simultaneously eliminating human resource jobs... while also demanding you work a second career or else you starve to death. Shit is so fucked.

I don't even wanna go down that rabbithole, I know we're all feeling it, I don't even need to say it. Young people? Like... people a generation or two before my Millennial ass... just please do know that this is not normal, it's not reasonable, and you should absolutely be vocal about the situation we're all in right now.

Okay, mini-rant over. I was talking about... how setting my prices and valuing my time monetarily is a requirement in this society. And I'm so fucking bored of talking about this that I'm literally falling asleep. Ugh. Good lord, I'm depressed and trying to live a fulfilling life, can some fucking art supporters out there just like... magically appear and save me from this commercial hellscape? I really don't ask for much...

Welp... therapy today helped. Most of it, at least. We had to go over how I kinda freaked out when my former friend contacted me. And he kinda confirmed that the former friend is definitely acting sketchy. But the part about like... who the fuck do I talk to when I'm freaking out, and how can I get some perspective and grounding on important decisions I'm making... That's a really tough one. I mean this, when I was younger and had "friends" (or so I thought...) I really "didn't want to bother them" with my problems. I would just sorta keep it to myself and avoid things that I was too insecure about. I rarely got second opinions and missed a TON of opportunities because of it. The lesson I thought I was supposed to learn was - get a second pair of eyes on important decisions, but keep in mind the bias of the source. Essentially that I should not let my insecurity or "not wanting to bother" prevent me from taking big leaps in order to accomplish great things in my life.

It turns out... my self-protective insecurity... was unfortunately correct. And now... my brain kinda flails and doesn't know what to do in those times... and then starts slide-showing all the horrific nightmarish ways people I trusted and thought were there to support me had treated me like human garbage when I went to them with like... every day shit.

I even had my therapist say the word today, and it's still echoing in my head even this many hours later. "Gaslighting". And not in the new colloquial way people have kinda been misusing it, as a way of sorta referring to all kinds of manipulative behaviors... I mean classic Gaslighting. Literally convincing a person in extreme isolation who is detoxing alone off of benzodiazepines that he is losing his mind... as a way to justify not being supportive. Both family and "friends", my entire support network at the time, did this to me. It's so fucking hard to process how they can sleep at night.

So... without getting too deep into that, because I can already feel the emotions flooding back and my chest tensing up... When I need a second opinion on something - like a "former friend" showing up out of the blue and wanting to commission work that's not in my field, when I'm suspicious he might be trying to take advantage of me and get free work out of me - I now... often have trauma responses to that. Just the experience of needing help is a PTSD flashback. Fucked, right?

Why? Because I don't have anyone left in my life. It's just me and my therapist. That's it. And our relationship is strictly professional. So I feel absolutely horrible sending messages at a time like that, that's not really what a client-therapist relationship is for. But in some ways it is? Ugh, it just gets so fucking messy.

So... what I'm going to have to do is... just fucking Hail Mary all of those situations. Just sorta... live life without a second set of eyes on shit. Until I manage to make a good friend who is willing to fill that role. And here's the most fucked part.

The Hail Mary approach? That's what earned me the title of "crazy", "manic", "impulsive", "unstable", by my family and "friends". I'm really at the point where I might put family in quotes, too. Me "impulsively" reaching out to tons of people, trying to rebuild my life, coming up with tons of art plans... they viewed that as "crazy". So... they refused to offer me a second opinion based on their judgement that I was "crazy"... and their judgement that I was "crazy" was formed because I took leaps of faith and ambition without getting a second opinion! And they got so deep and hurt me so badly that I just turn into a fucking trembling leaf in the wind when I pull up a blank email to send to a former teacher to see if she is willing to mentor me, or needs an assistant, or if she could help me get integrated into the local art community.

My insecurity says I'm going to "overshare and overwhelm her with a novel, like I always do". My trauma says "you need to get a second opinion, but you'll get hurt if you get a second opinion. It's fire on both sides. You're fucked." All over a fucking cold-call email.

Have you ever stood on a skateboard? If you're brand new to it... the idea of rolling down a ramp on that thing seems like fucking suicide. Like, your knees are buckling and shaking and something inside you literally freezes you in your tracks and prevents you from going, because it thinks you're going to hurt yourself. I wrestle with that every time I skate, to varying degrees. Because, very often, that part of my brain is lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.

The more you gain experience (XP), the more reference material that part of your brain has access to in order to make that safety judgement. And a lot of consistent successes rolling down that ramp will build a sense of comfort and familiarity with it. The paralysis grip just sorta... vaporizes. And, eventually, it just becomes a natural part of what you do... to the point where you look at someone who is shaking and can't get themselves to roll down the bank... and you struggle to even remember what it was like to be in their shoes. What demon they're actively going up against.

Now... imagine you've conquered that. You can comfortably ride down that ramp, it's second nature to you now. And one summer... you run up and throw your board down and hop on and roll down the ramp and get shot with a fucking sniper rifle. And then when you recover, you go back and face that fear and do it again... and you get shot again. 5 times in a row, this happens. When it's not just hitting a pebble or slipping out... when it's like... losing half your front teeth or hitting your head and almost dying? (I used sniper rifle for dramatic effect, obviously) When it's something really traumatic... especially consistent repeated traumatic events... that shit fucking haunts you, man. It's next level. And I guess some people are just more susceptible to it than others? Idk.

That's a really tough nut for me to crack. The concept of "support". And the subsequent deep betrayal from those in a role that are supposed to have my back. That's a big part of where I'm stuck. And it leaves me in this fucked up place where I can't really get any perspective on big decisions I make in my life. And it leaves me feeling more alone than I've ever imagined I'd feel. Teenage-Loner-Me was a fucking joke compared to this.

It's scary. And it feels like... like it's always going to be like this? Like it's not okay for me to get a second opinion, or ask for help. And that message is... not coming from me, for once. It's coming from the outside. "Your goal is to get to the point where you don't depend on people for guidance in those moments". Really? Since when?

I guess the endgame is for me to be able to Hail Mary again. Like I used to back in college, when I was more emotionally detached and my anxiety was easier to manage. Like I did back in 2019, which spawned this wave of trauma in the first place. I guess the only way forward is to just... put my foot on the board and push, and trust that I know what I'm doing. That I'm not going to get hurt. That I'm not going to embarrass myself and alienate others and lose valuable opportunities that I desperately need.

I mean, when you put it that way... yeah. It kinda is the endgame. It would just be so much easier and less of a living nightmare if I just had one fucking person to like... be there for me to lessen the blow. In any capacity. Proofread a letter? Reassure me in the interim when they haven't immediately written back? -_-

Anyway, enough of that sad shit. Ugh.

I took the day off... ish... I mean this is clearly work. And therapy is work... analyzing this whole complex trauma thing was the very end of therapy, the rest was really good but was pretty overshadowed by this. I finished the necklace, it's awesome. I made a nice dinner and ate in my comfy chair and watched TV, I haven't done that in fucking ages. I watched a behind the scenes documentary from Star Wars Episode 1. It was really cool, I really liked it. And... it's been raining and thunderstorms all day so, yeah... that's about it. Just a quiet day full of nightmarish self-reflection, more labor than I was supposed to do, and a cool documentary.

But the day isn't quite over yet. So I think I'm gonna do some more yoga and take a bath or something. Spa day kinda deal. That could be nice. Maybe get to bed early.

I just wanna say this before I go, because I think it's really important. I often beat the shit out of myself and feel ashamed of my PTSD shit, and my anxiety problems. And that often takes the form of it being "my fault". Mea culpa. Like I just lack the willpower to push through that invisible force that cripples me. Like all of these things that haunt me, from years and years ago, it's "my fault" for holding on to them. I should just "let it go" and let the past be the past. And, in theory... yes... "let it go" is the answer, but... this is not the way. What I really need to keep reminding myself in those moments... is that... it's not my fault. Being a victim of other people, whatever the fuck logic they had to strike me at times when I was most vulnerable, and twist my own mind against me... being a victim was not my fault.

I've heard others refer to this as like... a form of self-forgiveness? But it's beyond that, right? Because... how can you forgive something that was never your fault? I guess we just don't have a word for that. So... it's easy to turn this into rage, or vengeance, or whatever... against the people who did do this. But that obviously doesn't fix anything, it just creates more problems, more suffering. And I think it's much healthier to just let the past be the past in that sense, and correctly allocate the fault off of my shoulders. So... to stop incorrectly blaming myself, to let their mistakes be theirs to learn from, and to try to move forward with that in mind.

I just say this because... I've started to notice that those moments where I flash back... when I try to push through it can often have a sorta chinese finger-trap effect. The more I push, the worse it gets. But if I just acknowledge that I'm feeling echoes from the past, and I decide to act like a fucking friend to myself and say "it wasn't your fault, they were assholes"... it can do really surprising things. Kinda like a yoga thing, where you struggle to get into a pose because you're gripping too hard without knowing you are... so the way to push further into the pose is to... counterintuitively... relax?! Supine Twist comes to mind, for me. I got quite a bit out of it at first, but once I cued in to the idea of getting in position and then on an exhale just letting my body go limp and have my body weight do the stretch for me? It was a game changer.

So yeah, I just thought that was important, since I've been talking PTSD a lot here tonight. On that note, off to do yoga before bed. XD

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of thoughts #stream of consciousness #ptsd

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mysticalrambling · 3 years

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Hey there😄😄I hope you are doing well...You did my last request so fabulously🤩🤩So I'm back with another request😅😅It's another arranged marriage request and I think its the most bizarre request I ever had so please be patient with me😂😂 and you can decline the request if you don't feel so😅😅...Ok so here it goes..

*Steve and y/n are required to get married under the marriage law, he doesn't wants to but being the good soldier he obeys the government....they get married but steve is cold towards his wife...his teammates tell him to give his marriage a chance but he ignores them...Then the accords happen and without a care he leaves his wife behind who is heartbroken seeing all this..Then after 2 years he sees her but again he feels nothing but after the snap when he saw losses around him and he gives his marriage a second chance, he starts being civil to his wife and cares for her but they never consumated their marriage...When the time heist becomes successful Steve consumates his marriage with the reader out of happiness and she thinks all is well...Everyone returns from snap and no one dies...But steve returns the stones and stays in the past and old steve comes back.... Heartbroken Y/n refuses to meet him and leaves the compound...turns out she was pregnant with Steve's baby and doesn't wants the old steve to know so...One day old steve sees pregnant y/n who is around 7 months pregnant and realises its his baby, he apologizes but she ignores and turn away from him... He goes to get help from Scott bcz he wants to be with his wife and son now bcz he and Peggy couldn't have kids, everyone thought steve was selfish...But then he tells the truth that he never wanted to stay in past, but when he went to say goodbye to peggy, she abducted him and broke the timetravel apparatus and forced him to stay in the past...Young Steve comes back and now his son is born who is around 8 months old...He attempts to get back with his family but his wife still ignores him and doesn't let him come near her or her son...Steve regrets for not loving his wife in the past and also volunteering for returning the stones...Then one day powerbroker (Sharon) blasts the house where steve's family lived thus killing his family, in way to revenge her aunty peggy...Steve is left with nothing but pain and regret....*

Regretting His Decisions (S.R)

A/N: Thank you so much lovely and I loved the plot line. I loved writing about it and I made a few additions to the story. Hope you like it.

Steve Rogers Fanfiction (Fanfiction Master List)

Summary: You and Steve get married and he is really rude to you. Then he leaves you behind and goes back to Peggy but he doesn’t realise that you are pregnant. However, Sharon kills you and the baby to avenge her Aunt Peggy and Steve is left with nothing but pain and regret.

Warnings: Angst all the way.

._._._._.

Steve never wanted to marry you or anyone else for that matter. But the government wanted it and like a good Captain, he listened to them. It was the stupid law and he wanted to wring the neck of those who made it. The protectors of the world had to get married so that the world sees them as fellow citizens instead of humans with super powers.

All the Avengers knew that Steve was hesitant to get married and he was doing out of duty. They knew that it was unfair but they all had met you. They all loved you instantly and knew that you and Steve would hit it off. However, the only problem was that he refused to meet you. The only thing that he knew about you was your name and your job occupation. Apparently, it wasn’t worth his time to get to know his to be wife.

“You need to give it a proper chance before you form an opinion.” It was the night of your bachelor party and while everyone is blackout drunk, Steve and Tony just sat on the side couch. For a person who was getting married tomorrow, Steve looked miserable and Tony couldn’t help but interfere.

“I am doing my job and that’s all that matters.” Taking a quick sip from his glass, he didn’t even wince at the liquid burning his throat.

Sighing, Tony filled up his glass again. A drunk Steve was better than a sober one, in his opinion. “A marriage is not a job and you need to try harder.”

“You don’t get to have an opinion, Tony. You got the perfect girl and the perfect wedding.” Jealousy coursed through his veins when he realised that everyone got to be with the love of their loves while he was stuck with someone who he barely knew.

Tony was left speechless and before he could come up with a response, Steve got up from his place and made his way towards his room. Calling it a night, he dreaded the next morning. He was happy for all of his friends but he also wanted to fall in love over first coffee dates, first movie nights, the first kiss and the moment he proposed because he loved you. Not because he was obligated too.

“You ready, Stevie?” Bucky was trying to be supportive but the headache was killing him. The tequila was literally seeping out of his pores. “How are you not hungover right now?”

“I didn’t drink like a maniac last night.” Adjusting his bow tie, he took a deep breath. This was the most difficult thing that he was going to do in his life and he just wanted to be left alone for sometime. “Can I have a moment alone?”

“Are you going to run if we leave you alone?”

“I am not a quitter and you all know that.” They all filed out of the room and he just sat down on the sofa and gave himself a prep talk.

You were no better on the other hand but you were ready to give it a try. Captain America was a good man and he would make a good husband. At least, that’s what you thought. You understood that the marriage was not happening under the best of circumstances but you could give it a fair chance. Taking a deep breath, you went to join your father on the doorway. He gave you a tearful smile and linked his hands with you.

“Do you take Steve Rogers as your lawfully wedded husband?” The minister asked the much awaited question and you quietly responded with an ‘I do’. During the whole ceremony, you wanted him to look at you but his eyes kept wandering. You passed it off as nerves but little did you know that he was so repulsed by the idea of this marriage that he refused to look at his wife to be.

“You guys are finally married. Treat her well, Rogers.” Fury took you both in a bear hug while your husband just hummed in response. You were like a daughter to Fury and that is why he recommended you as Steve’s spouse. He knew that Steve was an honorable man so he would fulfill all his duties as a husband.

The whole night was spent with you both smiling and engaging in conversations with the guests. However, you both made minimum effort to talk to each other except a few stolen glances. Your feet were killing you by the end of the event but you were never the one to complain. A look of relief appeared on your face when Steve announced an end to the event and thanked everyone for coming.

“Come on.” Hurriedly meeting his steps, you sat in to the passenger seat and those were the last words that were exchanged between you. When you entered the house, he took you straight to a guest room and then left. Whatever expectations that you had for tonight were crushed and so you went to bed with tears in your eyes and your wedding dress still on you.

During the next few weeks, Steve didn’t even glance at you but whenever you made an effort to do something nice for him, he shot you off. He was not willing to give it a chance and for the first few times that you made him dinner, he just picked it up and threw it in to the trash. You were never allowed in to his room and you learned it the hard way.

One day, you just wanted to put his laundry in to his room because he was not home yet. What was the harm? But boy, were you wrong. He came home early that day and he bursted at you the moment he saw you in his room. He called you some very mean things that you do not even want to recall. That night, you cried so much that your entire pillow was soaked but you didn’t want to leave him. You were in love with him way before you were married. He was the guy who saved the world and he was a good and an ethical man. Maybe he wasn’t nice to you but he was a good man and you couldn’t disagree with that.

It wasn’t that you needed a man in your life or you were dependent on him. It was that you had feelings for the man and your parents never raised you to be a quitter. You were still hoping that it all may be alright in a few days or weeks and you could have a family together. She knew that she had to be realistic but sometimes a girl wanted hope.

“I won’t be coming home for a few days.” At least he had the courtesy to tell you this time that he was going. "I have asked some of the agents to check up on you daily so if you need anything, just ask them."

"Okay." You quickly dismissed his questioning stare because he thought that you would ask questions. However, you knew that he would be rude and you would snap at him this time. A girl could only handle so much.

A week had passed and you got daily updates from Liam and Noah regarding the civil war. You still couldn’t believe that Tony and Steve were fighting because you witnessed their friendship firsthand. They had just informed you that Steve and his team were arrested by the government and shipped off to a black sight. You wanted to go to Fury and ask him to release all of them but Liam told you that it wouldn’t work. It was out of his hands.

“What do you mean?” You couldn’t believe your ears right now. Fury came by your house instead of Liam and Noah. He informed you that Chris and the other Avengers escaped from the prison and no one knows their location. Hurt was one of the most evident feeling running through your body and you didn’t know how to respond. How could he leave without telling you anything? How could he just leave?

“There will be some investigations on you but it would be nothing serious.”

“Why?” You exclaimed.

“The government is convinced that you know their location. It will blow over in sometime.”

“I am not going to sacrifice my freedom for someone who wasn’t even bothered to tell me about all this.” The hurt quickly turned into rage.

“But (Y/N)-”

“Tell all of them that I will not be doing anything and that you all should leave me alone.” You stood up and Fury took it as his cue.

Closing the door, you don’t let yourself ponder over the throbbing ache in your chest and instead get to packing. You were going to move out of this house and leave this life in the past. You moved into your parents house and immediately shot down their questions about Steve. There was a bookstore across from a studio apartment that Tony helped you find in the next few days. You loved books and the job paid pretty well. Soon, you forgot all about Steve and your failed marriage. Of course, there were feelings that you had to bury deep inside of you but you successfully managed to move on with your life.

“Have you heard, munchkin? Cap is back.” Tony shuffled your hair as he entered the library.. Pausing for a minute to absorb his words, you got right back into arranging the magazine section. It was the last thing that you had to do before you got off for the night.

“I don’t care. Are we still on for the night?”

“Yes. Pepper is cooking for the first time. Just say that you like the food.” From the past two years, Tony has been your person. He was the one who ordered you food when you were feeling too low or who massaged your feet when you had feet sores from lugging around books all day. You were thankful to have him in your life because he was not there to support you financially, he was there to support you emotionally. Sometimes, you felt so alone that you thought you might go into depression. But he was there to pull you back and so was Pepper. They were your family.

“Okay, Tony. I already know.” Quite a few things have changed over the years such as you changing your hair color to low lights and getting bangs. You changed your sense of style and. now you were pretty much unrecognizable. It was all in hope of leaving the past and turning over a new leaf. And you were somewhat successful.

“So how was the food?”

“Awesome!” The fake, shrill voice was hard to recognise, even for you but you didn’t want to hurt Pepper’s feelings.

“I know it was not good so I ordered some pizza as a back up.”

“I love you.” A chorus sounded from Tony and you as you both hugged her and kissed her on either cheek.

“Yeah, yeah.” She quickly dismissed you both but the cheeky grin on her face was hard to hide. You called it a night when you started feeling sleepy and you said your goodbyes. Your apartment was only two blocks away so you decided to take a walk to clear your head. Steve had been on your mind since the time Tony mentioned that he was back. As much as you wanted to believe that his arrival didn’t effect you, you couldn’t deny all the feelings that came rushing back in.

“Robbins Library, how may I help you?” Without looking up, you asked the question in a fake, chirpy voice.

“Why are you not at the house?” The voice startled you from your receipt checking and you gave him a confused look. As you had time to process the question, you looked over his appearance. More muscular and a fully grown beard was an interesting look and definitely suited him.

“Well, it was not mine to begin with.”

“I left you that house so you would be comfortable.”

“I am doing just fine without it. You know, I didn’t need anything from you but love and respect.”

Steve was trying to do something nice for you but he didn’t understand you. He felt nothing towards you even if he tried. Guilt coursed through him when he saw the look of hurt on your face but he couldn’t do anything about it. “That is too much.”

“Well, I deserve it and I am not going to settle for anything less.” This time, the brain won the battle and you were secretly glad. You resumed your work and he left without saying another word.

The city was in chaos in a few days because there was an alien invasion in place. The Avengers were all over the problem but Pepper and you were panicked. However, the only difference was that she could ask about Tony’s whereabouts and you couldn’t do that for your husband. There were no updates for you and when Noah came to get you both with a battered suit, you were worried.

Walking towards the tower, you realised that many people were crying but the most important thing was that it looked like half of the population was gone. There were a lot of things that you didn’t understand right now but only one thing mattered. One person. Steve. You ran towards the tower and when you saw him sitting on a chair with his head in his hands.

“What happened?” The logical part of your brain started working right on time.

“We couldn’t prevent the snap and Thor escaped.”

You didn’t know what it all meant but it was definitely something bad. “So what does it mean?”

“It means that half of the human population have disappeared. It means that half of our friends, families, loved ones have disappeared. It means that I have failed!”

“Why are you getting angry at me?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Do not speak to me like that. I do not deserve it. When you are in the right frame of mind, come talk to me.” You were not the person that suffered silently. You were the person who knew. what she wanted and how she should be treated.

Going outside, you called your parents but it just went to voicemail. However, busy they might have been, they always picked up their phone. So you knew that they were gone too. You were alone in this world and you didn’t know what to do. In the far distance, you saw Tony and Pepper hugging and you were happy to see that your best friend was not gone.

With tears running down your eyes, you turned back and collided into a firm chest. Looking up, you saw Steve and you just wanted someone to be with you right now. That’s what Steve also wanted because he felt like a failure right now. He wanted to give the marriage another chance as he thought that it was a miracle that you both were still here after the snap. It was not fair on you but he just needed someone and so did you. It was a fair trade.

“I just don’t want to be alone right now, Steve.”

“Me too. Let’s go upstairs.” You both just silently hugged each other and kept staring out into the Manhattan skyline. You knew that he didn’t have any feelings towards you and you cared about that. But not today. Today, you wanted to just lie down and soak up in his presence because he was the only one left for you.

He brought you breakfast in bed the next morning and he took you to all the meetings. You were confused as to why he was doing all of it and when you asked him, his answer was ‘I am trying’. You didn’t get your hopes high because you knew that it would be pathetic. This was going to be temporary and you just knew it. However, you just wanted a companion so you rolled with the situation.

“We can work around quantum physics and get all of our friends back.” He informed you over the ice cream that you were sharing. A Netflix movie ran in the background because it was a Saturday and it was a routine for you both.

“That’s a really good thing.”

“We are going to do it tomorrow.”

“Nice. I am going to bed. Are you coming?” He mumbled out a small yes and picked up all the dishes to put them in the sink.

The whole day tomorrow you clinged by your phone and called your parent’s number after every fifteen minutes. You looked crazy by the end of the day but when they finally picked up, you couldn’t explain the joy that coursed through your whole body. Talking to them for hours, you promised that you would visit them and you cancelled the call.

Steve came back with a bottle of wine in his hands to celebrate. “We were successful. The world is saved. Cheers!”

“Cheers!” Both your happiness knew no bounds and after a few many glasses, you both were dancing to Taylor Swift songs. By the end of the night, you two were truly drunk and one thing led to another. You woke up the next morning with sheets wrapped around your frame and the pillow beside you crumpled but cold. You regretted the night so much because you knew that he did not have the same feelings for you.

The whole day, you spent cleaning the apartment as there were empty bottles of alcohol laying around. Then you went to the library and today was a busy day because many people wanted an update for the past five years of their lives. It kept you distracted from everything and when Tony came in, it was like the past repeating itself. He told you that Steve went to place the stones back but he came back as old.

You stopped listening to him after sometime as your mind tried to process what was happening. He betrayed you. Again. You were preparing yourself for the hurt whole day but this was totally unexpected. You knew what to do so it was a good thing. Detach yourself from the situation and do damage control. That was your motto for the next seven months and you refused to meet him even after you found out you were pregnant.

“You are in the mood of some ice cream with pickles, hmm little bean?” Rubbing your round belly, you walked towards the snacks aisle. The flavored pickle was on the top shelf but it was out of your reach. A wrinkly hand from behind picked up the jar and when you turned around to thank him, your voice was stuck in your throat. There stood your husband but the older version. The wrinkled face still held some similarities to the young captain but he had a slight hunch and grey hair.

“(Y/N), is that you? Are you- You are pregnant?” The question in his eyes was pretty evident.

“Seven months.” You curtly spoke and wheeled the trolly towards the check out. He quickly figured out the timeline and felt guilty. It was his baby and he left you alone. He caught up to you when you were bagging the groceries.

“I am sorry, (Y/N). I didn’t know. If I could change everything, I would. Please give me another chance.”

“You chose Peggy so you don’t get to come back in my life. Leave us alone. It would be a favor for this child if he never gets to know you.” Telling him off made you feel a whole lot better and you went towards your car.

Seeing you leave, Steve knew that he had to make things right. He went to the compound where all the Avengers were lounging around.

“I thought you had retired, Cap.” Peter called out from playing his video game with Bucky.

“I want your help, Scott. I want to go back to my old self.”

“Why, Captain? Got bored of the grandfather look?” Tony asked while stuffing his mouth with buttered popcorn.

“No. I just found out that my wife is pregnant and I want to be there for them.”

“That’s sweet but why? You already had your chance with Peggy.” Natasha wasn’t very happy with Steve right now but they all had the same question running through their minds.

“Peggy and I couldn’t have kids.”

“So you are using (Y/N) and this kid as a replacement. That’s just selfish, Steve.” Everyone gave him a disgusted look because they couldn’t believe that he was just using you and the child to fill a hole in his life. Not because he loved you both.

“That’s not true. I didn’t want to stay in the past with Peggy but she forced me to. She broke the time machine apparatus and I had no other choice but to accept that life.” He looked at all of them and saw that they all were listening to him. “I made a time machine the whole time I was there and when it was complete, I got the hell out of there.”

“Oh, Steve. We are so sorry. Of course, we will all help you.” Hugging him tight, Nat spoke on behalf of all the others. The machine was all ready to go so Steve stood in the middle of it with Scott. They had to go back and fixed the machine’s timing and it would take some months to do all that.

Meanwhile, you got back home and unpacked all the groceries. Your hormones were running wild at the moment as you sat on the sofa with your swollen feet on the coffee table. You wanted a companion sometimes who would massage your back or who would call you pretty when you were feeling insecure about yourself or who would bring you food at four a.m. But this was a dream and you gave up on it a long time ago. You were enough for your baby and that was a fact.

When Steve came back, 10 months had passed by. You had given birth to a beautiful baby boy after a 21 hour labour. You cried and even though you had your mom with you, you still called out for Steve. You wanted him with you and afterwards, when you held that boy in your hand, you wanted Steve to be there with you to enjoy the moment. However, it was the last time his name even came out of your month.

“Oliver, you need to eat, bubba.” The last 8 months have been a rollercoaster ride for you and you knew through Tony and Pepper that Steve had gone back in time. You didn’t bother with the details because you had another human being to worry about.

“Nooooo.” This one word was the kid’s favorite and everyone of his sentence started with it. You were interrupted in the middle by the doorbell. Picking up your child from the high chair, you made your way through the house towards the door.

“What are you doing here?” Steve looked the same age as you so you knew that the time machine trip was successful. But you saw red. He didn’t deserve you or Oliver.

“(Y/N), is- is that him?” The blubbering baby did not even pay attention to his father and kept on pulling your hair. He was an exact replica of Steve from the dirty blonde hair to the charming smile. A literal reminder for you but you loved this little boy to death.

“Yes and now go away. We don’t need you.” Looking at the baby, he regretted the day he made the decision to be the one to return the stones. He regretted the fact that he did not allow himself to love you. He regretted everything. “Do not come near us. Goodbye.”

You went on with your week as per usual with feeding Ollie in the morning and taking him to the library with you where he had his own play pen. Then getting light lunch across the street and coming back home to take a nap for a few hours. Afterwards, you both ate dinner while Oliver’s favorite cartoons played on the tv. Except for the fact that Steve was at your house, your job and your cafe from the day he came back. He tried to apologize but the years that you spent in agony was too much. It was too little, too late.

It was a Sunday afternoon and by some miracle, Steve had left you alone. He had a meeting with the other Avengers regarding Asgard today. You were just playing with Oliver on his mat as he tried to crawl towards the stuffed toys in your hands. Before you picked him up, you thought that you smelt gas. However, a loud explosion threw you in to the nearest wall and you knew that your time was here. During the last few breaths, you tried to find Oliver but you couldn’t move. Mentally calling out for Steve, your gaze became unfocused and you lost conscious.

“Wha-What happened?” Steve knew that there was a bomb blast and he wanted to hope against all hope that you both were safe. However, the two body bags wheeled out of the burnt down house had him fall to his knees.

“There was an explosion and we caught Agent Sharon fleeing the scene.”

Sharon had confessed that she wanted to have revenge on Steve for cheating on her aunt Peggy. The new family that Steve had was a disgrace to her Aunt’s memories so she murdered them. She had gone a little crazy because Peggy was the one who take care of her when she was a child and she felt that Steve betrayed her.

Steve didn’t know what to do with his life at the moment. He was left all alone and his family was snatched away from him. He didn’t get a chance to be with them and now he was left with nothing but pain and regret. Trying to convince Fury to let him go back in time and prevent the explosion was futile because Fury just told him that this would upset the balance of nature. He didn’t understand it at first but then as time passed, he did. All the toys and photos that were salvaged from the house now decorated Steve’s very lonely apartment and he never let himself forget.

This was his punishment and he was not going to run away from it. Not this time.

Hope you guys enjoyed it!!

._._._._.

A/N: I loved writing about Steve but I am no longer taking requests for some days. I actually have some of my drafts that I want to complete. You can send in requests but it will take some days for me to get to them:) Love you guys and do tell me if you want to be added to my taglist.

Taglist: @kalopsia-flaneur, @justile

Like, comment and reblog.

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traumacatholic · 2 years

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Hi hun, i suffer from a chronic illness and sadly i also suffer from a severe Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia that made it impossible for me to leave my house at times. It’s been 6 months since i started going to therapy + psychiatrist. And i’m so much better with the right meds. i’m starting to see the light again and go out for (very) short period of times. for me this is a huge success after years of being locked in my house with terrible panick attacks,mood swings and more.

I’m a catholic and i love God with all my heart but for this reasons i’m not able to go to church in person. i watch mass online and read scripture and keep him in my heart every day.

But my catholic friends are mocking me about this as they say “i should find relief by God and God only, without the help of a psychiatrist.” what do you think about this? i’m feeling so hurt and misunderstood. i think this “school of thought” is so damaging and dangerous for all the people struggling with serious mental illnesses.

i follow your blog religiously as you give me so much comfort. i’ll keep you in my prayers. <3

I think it can be a range of things that lead to the line of thinking of 'just pray it away'. The most common one being the very poor understanding people have of mental health issues. Where they conflate very real emotions such as sadness or being nervous about doing something like delivering a talk at school, to something like depression or anxiety. So when they feel sad, and they feel improvement from praying and from practicing basic self care, they make the assumption that this is all that people with depression need to do in order to improve themselves. They can power on through the nerves in order to give a class speech, and so they think that's what an anxiety disorder is like. People also don't like confronting that they might have held or currently hold harmful views, and so they can be very disinterested in learning that they have a poor understanding of mental health issues and how they actually impact people.

There's also a very weird and hypocritical form of 'piety', where people will very happily tell these kinds of people to cling onto God alone whilst very much not doing the same in their own life. Would these people deny themselves food and wait for God to send down angels to provide them with food? Would they truly be willing to entirely forsake earthly friends and/or sexual pleasures and rely on their social needs being met only through praying to God? Treating our mental health is not much different from providing ourselves with the food and water we need to keep on living. It provides us with the nutrients we need, it sustains us, and the food that we have on offer in the world truly is a gift from God. Just as medication is. Medication can very much provide us with the energy for prayer and Church attendance that we might not otherwise have, or it might bring those things into the realm of possibility over time as it allows us to begin healing. There doesn't need to be some divide between God and medicine. You don't have to pick one or the other, and I'm sure none of these people would refuse some form of medical care if their life depended on it. It's very easy to tell someone who has a very different lived experience from us how to live their life, whilst ignoring the glaring faults in our own. It's just like how you'll see people telling addicts to simply stop being addicts.

I would really recommend reading 'A Catholic Guide to Depression' if you haven't already. It doesn't just talk about depression, but it does also go into some discussion about mental health and the kind of attitude and culture surrounding it. I don't know if there's any real way to challenge the kinds of attitudes that people still have surrounding mental health issues. But I think developing our own understanding of our mental health issues, and so on, can be really beneficial. Because even if other people aren't supportive, we at least have the confidence and understanding of research to not feel (as) guilty about accessing these things. And thank you so much for the kind words and the prayers, I'll keep you in my prayers also. God bless you!

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hyatoro · 3 years

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What's your opinion on omegaverse? Do you like it?

This response gets long so I'll drop it under the cut. Basically my entire take on Omegaverse. It is absolutely subject to change but these are my thoughts for now. I'll also link this to the rules for anyone that wants to request omegaverse so they can see how my personal take on Omegaverse works.

TLDR; I like some aspects but generally take it for plot progression rather than get into specifics like what goes on downstairs unless I got to.

I do write for omegaverse if that's what you're asking. BUT if you're going to request omegaverse then you HAVE to read what's below.

I like bits and pieces of it. I also like mixing and matching stuff like whether or not alphas and/or omegas are common etc etc. When we get to genitals I just kinda. gloss over it? Like. I'm not going to get into cloacas and retractable dicks and stuff. That's too much going on that I don't care enough about.

What I DO like is scenting/marking/etc the 'animalistic' behaviors and how easy it is to use that to make things horny. It's also really cute when making characters help each other through ruts/heats non sexually though.

While I do understand that Alpha/Omega ≠ Dom/Sub, that's kinda how it is as a majority? Do you know what I mean? Like there's definitely Dom!OmegaxSub!Alpha works out there, but if I'm going to write it personally I just make the reader the alpha 80% of the time. But I also really fucking love Alpha's cowering in fear of an Omega who's proven themselves time and time again, not in a harem/poly sense though. I don't personally do harem/poly (which is stated in the rules).

I also like the multiple stances on where Betas stand. Like there are some where they're just normal people. Some where they get both side effects of alphas and omegas without as much of a benefit. Some where they are actually the exceptions where they just don't fit in and are outcasts.

Once we get into more than ABO and into more roles like deltas and shit then you've lost me. I don't go past ABO.

Also while ABO originated for gay ships I'm mostly versed in straight/lesbian parts of ABO fiction. That's cause I'm a bi woman so I generally only read things where I can project onto one of the characters and that usually means one of the characters is a woman.

When we get into pregnancy though oh boy... It's fiction. Anything can happen however you want. For me, my omegaverse has it so that women, no matter if they are abo, can have kids. BUT abo status does have an affect on how successful/safe it is to bear a child. All omegas can give birth. Yeah mpreg but I'm not getting into the details fill in the blanks yourself. If you want the dude to have a vagina+dick+asshole go ahead.

All Alphas + Men can impregnate. But similar deal where ABO changes your success rate. So a lot of Omega men have almost infertile sperm (but still possible depending on if the plot wills it)

Betas are literally just chilling based on where they are above. If they're just normal people then it's whatever I don't have to explain. If they got both cycles then during heats theyre uh. breedable lmaooo. during ruts they're chances of doing the impregnating go up.

Presenting happens in teenage years, like high school age. No I will not go into detail about the physical stuff my brain hurts. With heats/ruts at early years they aren't that intense. Like how it was for me when I first started getting periods lol. Nowadays I've been getting cramps and headaches though so I'm equating them to that. Heats/ruts only actually get bad when they've presented for a couple years. So like the first few years are training wheels where it's just mild discomfort that has warning bells. For some it stays like this, but their scent gets stronger. For others it gets worse and they can't fucking go to work.

Suppressants exist. Pills, patches, uh and also implants? If you've ever seen birth control implants you can assume they're like that. But like. A shit ton more expensive and very unheard of. So like you'll only ever see me using the implants in settings where there's super secret agents and spies and stuff where their organization requires it for field work and stuff.

Nesting and scenting is cute so it stays. Scenting can also absolutely be familial and platonic. Doesn't just have to be romantic and/or sexual. Same for nesting. Sometimes you just want to chill with the homies.

Bonding. Alphas/Betas can bite Omegas officially. Or like. have a literal physical effect. Omegas can 'bite' too but it's more of an informal thing that only happens between some couples.

Soul bonds only exist if I want them to otherwise they are irrelevant and people can pair up freely without worrying about soulmates.

Knots... yeah sure why not. Just cockwarming with an extra step. Knots can only happen during ruts. So Alphas and Betas can have them.

If you have any other questions of my thoughts I'll do my best to answer them as well as update this page accordingly.

#non request #omegaverse #dom!reader #questions

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animeomegas · 2 years

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Since you have always known your preference for being dominant, could you tell us how difficult/easy finding a partner is? Because I discovered this side of myself only a couple of years ago and I’m losing hope in finding the man of my dreams…

Well, while it's true that I have known I had dominant preferences for a long time, I'm afraid I have almost no experience dating. I'm a virgin and I haven't even had my first kiss yet lmao.

My academic success definitely came with the sacrifice of never dating in my teen years, and I have a very, very specific type that I won't compromise on because I don't really enjoy dating by itself, so I would only be interested in dating with long term potential, so if our goals don't align then what's the point? I'd much rather be single forever than compromise on my 'partner checklist'. That's how I see it lol.

That being said, I do know lots of people, and being as open about myself as I am, I end up in discussions about this topic fairly frequently.

So, let me tell you a story!

One day, in the sixth form only section of the school library, myself and a large group of people in my year all took the BDSM test. A lot of people were very shy, but because I was open with my results, people felt comfortable enough sharing their results with me, and for some of them, only me.

I saw them all.

The group was comprised mostly of men.

And even though I'm sure people were editing their results slightly, there was only one other person in the group who had Dominant in their top three, and his result was still nowhere as high as mine was.

Most people were switches.

Almost everyone on the group had at least one high 'submissive' kink.

(Shout out to my friend who looked at his results and loudly asked, "What's a rope bunny?" to the entire room lmao.)

Anyway, I know that isn't a scientific test, but I really do believe that there are a lot more sexually submissive men out there than it may first appear.

But also, I think it depends a bit on where you live. Admittedly, I live in one of the most liberal cities in the world. There are places where men are not going to be as comfortable admitting or indulging in submissive behaviours because of cultural backlash, even if they may enjoy it deep down.

Ultimately, I don't know how easy or difficult you will find it.

It will depend on where you live, what your other requirements for a partner are, how obscure your kinks are, how much you are willing to compromise, how many people you meet with, what you yourself can offer as a partner etc.

But if sexual compatibility is important for you in a relationship, then don't give up! Keep searching!

Good luck! ♥

#asks

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jesusology · 2 years

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okay okay i can answer the question: I followed you something like 9 or 10 years ago when we both watch yu-gi-oh zexal. so sorry to put you on blast for that, unfortunately i've written too many things on this blog to ever change my username again. *SO* succession. i have follow up questions: if tom is not actively in line for this why is he Like That (specifically thinking about the nero comments with his wife's??? cousin???) are these people deeply unwell (my guess) or is there context to that

I REMEMBER YOU!!! oh my god i'm getting emotional over here thinking back to those days... i can't believe it's been like 9-10 years. i'm never leaving this website it's my ride or die. come at me with all the succession questions babey i am more than willing to talk. *rubs my palms together like a shitty fly*

"are these people deeply unwell" bingo. OK WELL TO TRY TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION AS BEST I CAN WITHOUT IT SOUNDING ENTIRELY CONFUSING Logan (head of the company Waystar Royco) is supposed to be picking a successor but instead of actually picking one of his children he's pretty much stringing them along, dangling the carrot in front of them without hopes of actually giving it to any of them. he's an asshole, bottom line.

now, how that works in with Tom. i believe he did marry Shiv out of love but i also don't think his intentions are all completely innocent. he's never particularly accepted into the family, he's not seen as anyone except Shiv's husband and he's more or less treated like a punching bag on several occasions. he wants acceptance into the family at the cost of his own humiliation. it's obvious he wants power in the company, he wants to be taken seriously much more than he is now. he didn't come from money so a lot of the time it looks like he's in over his head trying to become a Bigger Name at Waystar.

Tom - once Greg gets a position in Waystar - agrees to look after Greg and realizes Greg is the only person he can sort of... be a jackass to for lack of a better word here. his own little punching bag. like, he's HIS superior and that gives him kind of a power-trip but there's definitely affection from Tom as well (though it's repressed as hell). Tom does care about Greg despite how he acts toward him, you can sense they've kind of got this bizarre friendship (calling it a friendship feels weird. maybe attraction is a better word here)

there are several interviews with the actors that kind of delve a bit more into their relationship (i'll have to look for them), it's sort of a co-dependency thing by this point. And yes, Tom did in fact say he would castrate and marry Greg in a heartbeat like the icon he is. Tom is just........yeah..... he's just Like That. plus he and Greg have been through certain events together that links the two of them emotionally more than Tom has had ever with his own wife. i am a sucker for both tomshiv and tomgreg because they're such different dynamics and it's delicious. i feel like Tom's got this deep loneliness that's just kind of an ache that Greg soothes. he tells Shiv that a lot of the time he's pretty unhappy, i think he feels he could be happier with Greg but it's not something Tom could ever outright admit so instead he says the most wacky things

I'M SORRY I SORT OF RAMBLED ON HERE AND IT MIGHT NOT MAKE ANY SENSE DGKJDGJ

#t post #t ask #pipiezexal

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grethan-allmance · 4 years

Text

My thought, again. I saw their friend Ryan made a vid. I haven't watched the vid itself, but I watched spill sesh' recap of it. I think it was recap anyway. I'll probably watch the vid some time in the future, if it doesn't get deleted.

I was kinda.... What the hell is going on with them? They have said plenty of times before how paranoid they are, but really seeing it, more than just them saying it, really drives home how paranoid they are. I think they are aware though, and they knew it's something they have to fix. I think everytime they mention it, it's as something they really hate too. I think Ethan at one point said that in an older vid, hating how their life made him so paranoid. It's really ruining their relationships.

Thing is, I don't think this kind of paranoia is even exclusive to them. I don't think it's even unfounded, especially since I remember the thing on the alleged voice recording stuff. That meant someone had really come to them, pretending to be a friend, for the purpose of finding dirt on them and keeping receipts. Like, I get it, that shit's traumatic. But Ryan is a friend of them for 10+ years. Have their trust in people really became so skewed they can't even tell if their friends is someone that would do shit they feared he would or not?

I still don't think the twins are bad people. Impulsive, paranoid, and a tad rash, yeah. I think they're trying, but freaking hell they are so fucking lost. At least that's how see them rn. Grayson especially, since he's the one with the more visible, explosive emotions. He's very emotional. I mean, I guess we knew that already. But this time I'm seeing it in a negative way. He jumped to conclusions too fucking quickly. I think he did try to rationalize, but his brain doesn't work fast enough in his highly emotive state and ended up going to bad direction instead. I think Ethan tried to be the 'voice of reason', but it's kinda clear his priority is pretty much Grayson.

I don't think either of them really knows how to do 'normal' friendship. Feels like it's gotta be some form of give and take with them, maybe because that's all they know and can count on, at this point. Like if they're dependent on them, by form as in their employ, then that means there's no reason to betray them, since there is a somewhat tangible 'bind' to them. Not that they think it like that, probably. I get the impression normal, close friendship is something they really want, but scared to have. I'd like to think they really do care for Ryan, but their mental stuff is ruining that relationship.

(By the way, I think Ryan isn't entirely blameless either. They all have ISSUES, and sometimes, Issues clash in ugly ways. Though I guess in this case, the twins are the ones with the power in the dynamic, so they kinda does hold more responsibility in it.)

I think there's also some sort of complex they have. Ryan continued with his school and I think there's some sort of insecurity/inferior/something complex the twins have about that. They know it's a good thing, an admirable thing, but when I watched that bit, it kinda sounded to be there was something more bitter than proud when (I can't remember if it was grayson or ethan) said it. Sometimes I felt like it's something that bothered them, to not have a higher education. I dunno if I think that because of their dad and I'm projecting, but that was what I got anyway. I think they do like learning, but not with the formal and systems and grades and that pesky stuff that comes with it. Probably why they didn't try to get a higher education. Probably think it's not like they need it either. They're plenty successful, self-made people already without it.

*sigh* by the way, if you've read it this far, does it still show I'm not hating on them? My rant doesn't seem like it, but I really don't hate them. Disappointed, definitely. But, I'm like, willing to still see if they'll grow. I still think they're good people, just maybe doing kinda badly rn.

Fuck it, I dunno guys. I wanna stay in the fandom, but at the same time, thinking stuff like these (like, too fucking deep and borderline psychoanalyzing) about them doesn't seem healthy for me too.

#dolan twins #my thought

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mbti-notes · 5 years

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I'm a female ENTJ. Do you have any wise words for ENTJ women struggling with the looming specter of the "woman box" and who experience or have legitimate fears of career and social consequences if they are wholly themselves around other people? I am experiencing major burnout and hits to my professional success because of this. (I'm working hard to burn the "woman box" down entirely, but this is a work in progress.)

“Wise” words? Maybe not. I’d love to write out a big girrrlll power speech for you but, in reality, it really comes down to personal choice. You have to reflect on: how much you believe in what you’re doing, how much you’re willing to give, how much you’re willing to fight, and how much you’re willing to sacrifice for perhaps somewhat intangible rewards down the road. Personal values are issues of morality, and morality can often be boiled down to a question like: What state of affairs allows you to feel content… able to feel like you’re being your best self, able to live with yourself, able to sleep peacefully at night? These are Ni and Fi related questions that perhaps an ENTJ might not think to dig really deep into.

Some women choose to play the game and “be like the boys” in order to succeed. Do they end up in a good place? It depends on how much they personally felt they’ve had to sacrifice along the way. E.g. If you feel like you can never be yourself and have to constantly suppress authentic self-expression, then the sacrifice might escalate and eventually become unbearable (and even psychologically damaging) down the road. But if you feel as though you can find other outlets for expressing yourself authentically, then perhaps work sacrifices are easier to brush off.

Some women choose to change the system and fight to make it better. Do they end up in a good place? It depends on whether they feel as though they’ve devoted too much of their time to the political fight vs the work they love. If the fight becomes all-consuming, then maybe it won’t end perfectly for you, though you might be successful at improving conditions for those who come after you, which is not a legacy to sneeze at. However, an abstract future legacy might not be enough to keep you motivated when you’re knee-deep in the most difficult and challenging moments.

Some women feel forced to choose between life vs work because they don’t see them as one in the same (as some ENTJs might). Do they end up in a good place? It’s a tradeoff. Perhaps you feel perfectly content with personal life but end up wondering what might’ve been. Perhaps you reach the apex of your career at middle age only to feel you totally missed out on living. Hindsight has its disadvantages.

Some work environments are more supportive than others, even within the same line of work, it really depends on the individuals involved and especially the tone that is set by management. Sometimes there’s something worth salvaging but sometimes you might have to admit that a particular work environment is beyond toxic and seek out greener pastures. If you believe it feasible, you can make your way into management so that you are the one who sets the tone.

Obviously, nobody can or should make these choices for you. Feminism is about equal opportunity, which relates to the freedom to pursue your happiness. You get the freedom to define what it means for you, as an individual, to be a woman in your workplace, and freedom comes with responsibility. After the women’s movement of the 70s (in the U.S.), some 80s women felt that they had to play the man’s game in order to forcefully grab the privileges that they had long been denied. But that turned out to be a trap of sorts because their mentality was still just as circumscribed by narrow patriarchal definitions of success. On the other end, some “radical” feminists decided that they wanted to reject masculinity and elevate femininity. This also turned out to be a trap of sorts because their mentality was still inextricably tied to the concept of oppression. To become truly oneself is impossible through conformity or rebellion because, either way, you define yourself superficially, always confined by your relationship to an oppressor. To be a true trailblazer is to leave prescribed definitions behind and discover something new about what it means to be fully human. I mention this point because, despite some social advances in understanding gender, there are still a lot of people trapping themselves in this concept the more they try to escape it.

The most important thing is that you reflect on all of the possibilities before deciding to devote your precious time and finite energy to anything: 1) consider the long term implications of whether your decisions ultimately lead you to a meaningful place in life (Ni), and 2) consider how important it is to you to stay true to yourself and what that ought to look like in your decision making (Fi). Just how much sacrifice is too much? It’s up to you to figure out the right measurement by weighing your options properly. If you put all of your eggs into the career basket but then it doesn’t turn out as you had hoped, what are you left with? Diversify. Extremes always beg to be rectified, so avoid them by trying to maintain a healthy balance between the different elements of your life. Balance is the unglamorous but tried-and-true key to lifelong psychological well-being.

#entj #career #auxiliary ni #inferior fi #gender #feminism #ask

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script-a-world · 5 years

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Is it honestly actually possible that bad people run most of the galaxy or several galaxies? Or at least even just an entire planet? It's done in sci fi a lot. However in real life that obviously has never happened. I'm not sure how to well, begin, create the circumstances that will give them that kind of vast power and not be defeated before. Even if they are the good guys, still, can't see how they can run everything either.

Bina: Totally possible since “bad” is relative depending on you who ask. If they have a believable facade of being “good” (or if they ARE doing good....... to just the right people (such as, politicians or powerful allies who will back them up)), and if they have a lot of supporters who think they’re the good guys, then it’s super feasible that they can take control of the majority of the galaxy with very little opposition.

Heck they can even get away with people just not thinking badly of them. They don’t necessarily need supporters who think they’re the right people to have in charge. Having people be neutral towards them can also be also good enough for them to take control without anyone complaining. All they need is people not caring. People supporting them is bonus, but apathy from the common man also goes a long long way in helping bad people come into power.

In the end it’s all about controlling their narrative and their own publicity. They can be totally truly evil, but if they cover their tracks with enough propaganda and efforts to appear like they’re doing nothing wrong, or even that they’re doing things for the benefit of the people (or that they’re beneficial for powerful people who have more sway than the average person and can thus override the wills and desires of the common people), then the baddies can take power and the common man would either take no issue with it or be unable to do anything about it.

Tex: The thing about leadership is that morality doesn't really calculate into it - they're two separate areas with very little overlap, especially if a leader is a successful one. The longevity of a leader's reign has more to do with their bureaucratic competency, organizational skills, competency to set and achieve certain goals that benefit those whom they rule (in some form), and ability to manipulate people. And, I hate to break it to you, but both "good" and "bad" people are manipulative, just for different reasons.

Al Capone is a classic example of how "bad" people can do good things that legitimately benefit others. He was a gangster that directly or indirectly had a hand in killing a great deal of people - but he was incredibly influential in making sure milk had expirations dates, among other things (Atlas Obscura). It could be argued that running bootleg alcohol at all was a good thing, given that a significant portion of the US population did exactly the same thing (to various degrees) during Prohibition. Is profiting off civil disobedience in such a manner against the mores of altruism? Murder or no murder, Capone straddles the line of "good" and "bad", depending on your point of view.

Martin Luther King, Jr, while on the surface might look like a paragon of virtue, did purposefully break laws with specific goals in mind - while his civil disobedience resulted in drastically fewer deaths than Capone's, he did still break the law. There are some schools of thought that believe adherence to the law is virtuous, and thus moral (and thus, "good"). Is MLK virtuous in this regard? Does his position as a minister of his faith grant him more morality than the average person, who isn't an official representative of a codified set of beliefs?

Both MLK and Capone caused immense upheaval in their respective eras and societies. Is this necessarily good? Is upheaval - change - bad? I'm sure there are proponents regarding both of them that can see the advantages and disadvantages of their respective actions. One is classically referred to as a "bad" person, and the other a "good" person. Why? And through whose lens are these judgements being made? Is the perspective itself moral?

Let me bring some fictional examples into this.

Emperor Palpatine, of Star Wars, is coded to be a distillation of evil - the evil, a scourge upon the galaxy. And yet, when he rose to power and declared himself emperor of a new empire, he was lauded as an incredible unifier. General evil-doer he may be, but his grip upon his own galaxy was ironclad, and his background as a senator and then chancellor shows that he was canny, able to organize his political agenda in influential ways that effected significant change upon the political and even economic landscapes of the respective eras of his life.

He was respected - yes, even by the Jedi - for his affable demeanour and bureaucratic acumen. His death, depending on the canon you subscribe to, did not end the vast reach of his influence, with post-mortem orders that were followed with the same fervent veneration as in life. Palpatine's opinion was trusted, and regardless of his moral compass, trust is still something that needs earning. What perceptions his followers are predisposed to, well- that's certainly another topic.

Aragorn II, son of Arathorn, of Lord of the Rings fame, ruled over the reunited kingdom of Arnor and Gondor after the war against Sauron. He is typically coded as the exact opposite of someone like Palpatine - generous, compassionate, wise. A unifier that began an unequivocal era of peace. However, his death toll is proportionally similar to Palpatine's during the war that secured his place upon the throne, and he had eschewed his responsibility as blood heir to the throne for a great deal of his life, a time during which there was famine, suffering, and death from Sauron's own influence. Are his reasons for obscuring his identity and being a Ranger good enough to justify the expansion of Sauron's reign through his relative inaction, his non-acceptance of leadership? Does the end of the war justify the means that Aragorn took to get there?

Is Aragorn more moral, more good than Palpatine, because his reign was brought about through total bloodshed? Palpatine's was wrought through the genocide of the Jedi, and yet his own reign brought a stability to his empire. It can be argued that the inaction on Aragorn's part, and the action on Palptine's part, during their respective wars pre-coronation, were a manipulation of the masses. They both chose to guise themselves for who they really were - the son of Arathorn II and the Lord descendant of Bane's line - only to unveil themselves at an opportune moment hastened on by their own actions to claim, and unify, these warring factions.

All four of these individuals, be the real or fictional, share something in common - the ability to be a successful leader. Their morality did not, in the end, impede them from swaying the masses to their opinions and leveraging the influence that they had - through argument, through force, through lineage - to assemble under a common goal. They all enacted dramatic, sweeping changes upon the society in which they lived, and utilized the power granted to them through their public's opinion to direct society in a direction that they wanted. They were good leaders, but that doesn't mean they had to be good people.

Saphira: In my novel, I am working with two different rulers. One is an Empress and the other a Tyrant. I'll see what I can glean from each of these two to provide more context in a fictional setting.

The Empress has a positive perspective from her people, as he is backed by her Goddess and her long family line of rule. She has well developed court, council and structure set by both the Goddess and generations of Empresses before her. (Yes, it's an all female-ruling lineage because they're Elephants and the species is largely Matriarchal, but I digress.) She uses generations of Faith-based morality and ideology to cultivate the values and perspectives of her subjects. Her choices are just because the Goddess has told her to do it, and our Goddess is Benevolent for all. Behold, she has given us life and freedom beyond our bestial origins. She makes her decisions and rules her people using rigid methods and strict guidelines to keep the common life consistent and rational. Whether she is aware of it or not, it is not so much the faith or the prestige of her rule that is powerful, but that selfsame consistency and rationality of her people.

What I mean is this: because the way of life is consistent, it feels rational. Any good or bad that she does is ruled by the same beliefs as those before her. That makes it easy for her subjects to accept her decisions because it makes sense in the context of their everyday lives. Of course she is going to hoard all the 'non-essential' food in storehouses for the war, because we, the entirety of our people, have been preparing for the war that dominates over other races since our inception. Of course we will put finances into the arts, because we are the great race that will take over the planet and arts show how sophisticated and glorious we are. All of the laws that control, govern and guide her people tether to the same principles, and that makes her powerful. There is minimal resistance, because to resist is to change their daily life and core philosophies.

The Tyrant, on the other hand, has by definition stolen the power for himself by force, and that leaves him with a radically different set of tools to stay in power and rule his territories.

First is the Legacy. The narrative of his glorious victory, his noble war that dominated over the nations to protect the underdogs, helps give him some positive influence, but force is force. He is still dealing with those who will be able to mentally reject or object to his power. He could have taken one of two simple routes: A. Quell or crush any rebellion, or B. Wield that rebellion and outcry as a tool for positive change. A sometimes needs to be done, but his ideal is B. This helps create a positive influence over the territories to help reinforce his Coming to Power Narrative, and also fixes problems in the nation that allows him to turn his focus to other problems. Fun stuff.

His true power is that he is cheating. He is using his arcane ability (which won him the war in the first place) to A. live far longer than anyone has any right to, and B. give the overall impression that he can snap his enemies with the thought of snapping a matchstick. This makes his greatest tools Benevolence and Fear. Or, rather, Love and Fear. This gives the people two reasons to hesitate against him: "I don't want to because he does a decent job most of the time," followed by "also I just like being alive in general."

Where he lacks in 'legitimate rule' with a long lineage, he has made up for in a single, long lifespan. The current generation has never lived outside of his rule. Their parents were under his rule. Their great grandparents were under his rule. This also introduces a fear of change, and the fear of change is the greatest tool of all. If there is no great and colossal reason why something should be different (like, I dunno, a lot of people dying) then things tend to stay as they are.

So what it comes down to are three factors, for staying in power.

1. The populace thinking it's honestly not that bad, or it could be worse.

2. Fear of change, or that this thing that claims to be better, isn't.

3. The consequences of change are too dire. This person can murder me, my family and if they die the economy dies with them.

The moral strength of the character may be a direct influence over these factors. That moral compass might be completely irrelevant. That depends on the characters you want to write and what the narrative needs to present your ideas xor experience. Either way, it's how the ruler handles these factors, ether with skill or great lacking, that determines the strength and distance of their power.

Constablewrites: Cracked just had an article about this from the perspective of the citizens: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-normal-people-allow-evil-rulers-to-thrive/ It's got some good links to sources discussing real-world regimes and historical examples.

#pylons #morality #government #Anonymous

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lowat-golden-tower · 6 years

Note

Hey have you read homestuck? I'm trying to decide godtiers for the sides and thought that maybe you could help?

I have indeed read the Chaos Devil’s spawn of memes. Back in its hey-day I was eyeballs deep in that fandom, and yes, I was actually a source for classpect information at one point. I went and sifted through my old sources (god bless @dahniwitchoflight tbh) and tried to puzzle this one out.

Now note, I am very rusty with all of this and honestly the classpect system can be dissected any number of ways. So this is purely my interpretation.

With that said, shall we get to it?

TL;DR Version (for explanations and thorough analysis, check under Read More):

Thomas - Mage of BloodLogan - Witch of LightPatton - Knight of HopeRoman - Maid of Heart (ha)Virgil - Rogue of DoomDeceit - Sylph of VoidRemy - Heir of Breath (hi john)

So first I went and took a look at possible classes. I decided to include Thomas, Remy and Deceit along with the sides just for the fun of it, and surprisingly only one of them actually lined up with a single class and no other (the rest have many that could work).

Remy is a Breath player. Hands down. Nothing fits the sleepy rebel boi like Breath. Breath players can be disconnected, apathetic and indifferent. They’re detached, obsessed with liberties and freedoms and independence. They seek flexibility. If that isn’t Remy, then I don’t know what is. He shares these qualities with Virgil, actually, but I decided Remy exemplified the class far more.

Now for Remy’s class, I found four to be appropriate, so it was a matter of choosing the best. Heir, Mage, Sylph or Knight; after much deliberation I finally decided on Heir. Mages tend to have a dichotomy with their aspect I don’t see for Remy, Sylphs are too obsessed with pushing their aspect onto others, and Knights tend to use their aspect as a shield for fear of lacking in it. None of these suit Remy like the Heir, true naturals of their aspect who often don’t even need to actively seek it out. Usually they have problems getting stuck on one thing or another, and Remy does seem to have troubles with adapting. (Poor Thomas.)

Remy is an Heir of Breath. (Like John Egbert!)

Let’s go with Deceit next. He has the next lowest number of associated aspects after Remy, with just two: Rage or Void. In the end I found Rage to be too extreme of an aspect for Deceit, at least for the moment, with so little information known about him as a character. Ironically, he shares the Void association with Virgil, but I feel it is definitely more appropriate for Deceit. Void is infinite possibilities, its indifference and confusion, secrets, doubts, irrelevance. All things Deceit either is or does. The other sides would like to see him as irrelevant. He creates doubt and confusion through deceit, hoards secrets, and sees the bigger picture of things which is what prompts him to be deceitful in the first place. Creating something from nothing just because? Sounds like Deceit.

Now class… haha, oh boy. This was not so easy. About two-thirds of the classes for this aspect could apply to Deceit. So I had a lot of comparing to do, to narrow it down. Mage and Bard are two classes that I really struggled with, honestly. I feel like Mage of Void would suit Deceit if he became the truly despicable person we all know he could be, as the embodiment of deceit itself? While Bard of Void would apply more to “sympathetic Deceit,” a reformed Deceit who didn’t want to be the villain but was made out to be. And yet… Sylph of Void. Oh, Sylph of Void just screams Deceit, they are masters at hiding things and will happily do so, and make others do so.

Yeah, this one was really difficult. At the end of the day, I feel Sylph is the happy medium between Mage and Bard. They’re meddlers. They hide things; their actions, their motives, themselves. A Sylph of Void in particular would not be good working with others, making them feel useless, meaningless or insignificant. They’ll talk over others and shut them up. No one ever knows how much they’re hiding, or what they have up their sleeve. It’s all fitting.

Deceit is a Sylph of Void.

Let’s go with Thomas next. He’s tied with Logan for the most associated aspects at three. Space, Heart and Blood. In the end, I went with Blood. Heart just screams Patton to me far more, and Space feels more like Roman (but I’ll decipher those two when I get to them). No, Blood definitely feels like our Thomas. All about bonds, commitments, dependency on others and others onto you, taking responsibility and upholding promises. Our Thomas has an enormously strong bond with his friends, and even with the community he’s created. Not to mention his sides. :)

But now, what class for our creator? I narrowed it down to Mage, Maid or Knight, but in the end settled on Mage. Knight seemed just a little too insecure for Thomas, at least in this stage of his life. And Maid was a little too submissive, a bit too much of a doormat for relationships. No, Mage suits Thomas best. Tied down to his obligations; commitments to fulfill, promises to uphold, connections and bonds to maintain. They try to support the people they’ve bonded with, friends and family alike, and work hard to maintain those bonds.

He’s Mr. Dependable, or tries to be, but he often wonders about giving up a few of those obligations, of getting some more freedom and having fun. He fully feels the strain of all that responsibility. This even applies to his sides, each of whom he cares for and tries to keep stable, including their relationships with each other.

Thomas is a Mage of Blood.

Who next? Let’s go with Logan. Yes, finally digging into the main core of the sides. (He’s also my favorite.) Now due to Thomas taking Blood, that leaves Logan with Light and Mind as his possible aspects. Those of you familiar with Homestuck will understand why, as both are composed of a form of knowledge; having it, seeking it, stealing it, what have you. Now, Light also has a bit to do with luck, but that’s why I’m going to pick apart the threads and dissect them to figure out which suits Logan better.

Now for starters, Mind is the opposite of Heart, which I said suits Patton a lot. Hell, we have an entire video titled “Mind vs Heart” via Thomas, about how Logan and Patton are opposites. Nonetheless! I wanted to look at Light as a legitimate contender. Mind is reasonable decisions, it is logic, it’s rational and driven by pure thought. It can be impersonal, apathetic and indifferent; all things Logan has been, though he’s working on it. He gives equal weight to all options, not favoring any, no matter their moral siding. It is supremely Logan as any aspect goes.

Now Light, those with this aspect are knowledge seekers. They want to understand things. They take multiple sources of information and turn it into something useful, something usable. Scholars and researchers dedicated to knowledge for knowledge’s sake. They go after it with an intensity that might put off others. At their best, they are resourceful and driven. At their worst, fussy, pedantic and insensitive. HOO BOY if all this doesn’t sound like Logan too. And in the end…

Obvious a choice as Mind might be, I think Logan is indeed more Light. Perhaps in the beginning, when he was just Teacher, he could have been Mind. But he’s opened up so much more, revealed to us his quirks and eccentricities. He isn’t cold, unfeeling fact. He’s a rush of enthusiasm and a spark of joy and always thirsty to learn more, more, more to the point he can be blinded by his own desires. Yes, Logan is most definitely a Light player.

Class-wise, it was surprisingly hard. Few of the classes suited Logan all around, with the closest being Witch, Sylph and Heir. Now, we already have the latter two. I was trying to avoid doubles of the classes and aspects. Heirs are already gifted with a huge heaping helping of their aspect, they naturally gravitate to it. Their challenge is to not get stuck on one thing; to learn to change and adapt. Very Logan-like. Sylphs, as I mentioned, are meddlers, which is also very Logan-like. Witches, now… Witches control their aspect. They manipulate it. Think of Jade Harley, Feferi Peixes, Damara Megido; all witches who could utilize and abuse their aspect with a snap of their fingers.

Logan embodies logic, and knowledge; he loathes luck, probability and superstition. There have been times where he used his knowledge to come out on top, to try and expose others’ flaws, and he’s willing to see how some knowledge can be subjective. He often disagrees with the others on what they consider meaningful and important, and replaces it with his own views. He’s a know-it-all, he has an ego, and honestly he’s a little attention seeking. But he can also manipulate the information at his disposal, all the data Thomas has learned, to glean more from it- even if it wasn’t correct, or useful. This has also been shown in canon. Thusly, my conclusion…

Logan is a Witch of Light.

Let’s go with Virgil next. Now, like I said, I’m trying to avoid doubling up here. Remy is far more suited to Breath, and Deceit is more suited to Void. That leaves Virgil with the aspects of Heart, Rage and Doom. (I’m sure all of you saw the latter two coming.)

After reading further into Heart while looking into Thomas, I’ve decided it really doesn’t suit Virgil like I initially thought. Which gives us Doom and Rage to compare. Now Rage is unconditional hate or fear, refusal, rejection, skeptical criticism, doubt, negativity, despair, Getting the ‘Red Light’ or a Hard Stop, just absolutely no. That is Anxiety, and Virgil, to a T. Everything is going to turn out wrong. Don’t be fooled by peace and success, it can all go to Hell in a second. Nothing is “fine,” nothing is “okay.” But it’s not always fierce and lashing out, it also creeps up on you, paralyzing you, ensnaring you in a cage. It’s anxiety.

Doom on the other hand is harming, it’s all about control and limits, negativity, withdrawal, caution, but it’s also acceptance. It’s a little less extreme than Rage, more caution than outright disbelief and denial. Like Deceit with his classes, I get the distinct notion Anxiety was a Rage player, but once he became Virgil he settled firmly into the Doom aspect instead. He suffers, but with that suffering comes wisdom and empathy. He isn’t a healer or a fixer. He’s there to tell you something is wrong, but it’s okay, he’s there to suffer with you. He can be kind, but at his worst he can also be bitter, resentful and fatalistic- traits we saw far more in his earlier appearances.

So, Virgil is a Doom player. For him, I see Heir, Seer, Sylph or Rogue. Yet again, we already find ourselves with an Heir and a Sylph. Virgil sure does have a lot in common with Remy and Deceit, eh? So let’s focus more on Seer and Rogue.

Seers are shown knowledge of their aspect, and need to figure out how to apply that knowledge to the relevant situations. Virgil, seeing all the doom and negative consequences, and attempting to apply them where necessary; as anxiety does. Rogues, on the other hand, have problems coping with their aspect. They often think they can’t handle it, and they give up. Very defeatist. They’re supposed to come to terms with their aspect and own it.

And that, right there, is the key. Virgil initially being embittered by all the bad he saw in the world, the dangers, how no one ever wanted to listen to him or thought he was overreacting. Hyper-focused on if he can handle this job, if he’s really doing the right thing and being effective. Hell, there’s an entire video about Accepting Anxiety and I feel like it’s that video where Virgil would truly start to come into himself as a Rogue of Doom.

Rogues of Doom have trouble coping with rules, limits, obligations and responsibilities. They may think they don’t have the proper structure for it, or that they can’t handle it, or don’t deserve it. These are all doubts and fears Virgil tells to Thomas, as his anxiety. He constantly worries and frets over them not being good enough. He acts like he doesn’t care about not being accepted by the other sides, but in Accepting Anxiety it’s shown he really does. It eats him up inside. He feels repulsive to them, unnecessary and too pessimistic to be helpful or healthy.

Is it really futile to chase this desire? What if you stop, and regret it for the rest of your life? How do you know for sure this is necessary? Is it worth the sacrifice? Anxiety is uncertainty and questioning yourself, and that’s precisely what a Rogue of Doom does. They’re avoidant.

Once Virgil realizes he is important and is needed, he can step up and embrace those doubts and fears. He can use his pessimism and caution more constructively, to help Thomas and guide him, perhaps even pulling burdens and fears from the other sides to help them out as well. He, like all rogues, starts out selfish but has the capacity to become one of the most selfless classes. And through the progression of Sanders Sides, we have witnessed this growth.

Virgil is a Rogue of Doom.

That leaves us with Roman and Patton. I’m going to save Roman for last, because I feel like he’ll be tough. So let’s take a look at Patton!

I’ve already stated Heart suits him very well. However, we proved Logan didn’t fit the obvious, so let’s also look at the other aspects he could be associated with: Life and Hope. Hope and Heart are also aspects which could be associated with Roman.

Hope is unconditional love, confirmation, harmony, acceptance, naive optimism, belief and positivity. Everything is going to be okay, someway, somehow. It’s warm, accepting and open arms, lots of hugs, lots of “I’m here for you’s.” It’s a drive pushing you forward against all odds. Life is also positivity, growth, energy, recklessness and liberation. They’re always concerned for others and are deeply empathetic. They often put others’ needs before their own. At best, they are great caretakers, listeners and nurturers. At worst, they can prove to be passive-aggressive and pushy because they think they know best.

Heart, meanwhile, is irrational impulses, instinct, emotional, feelings, biased opinions, empathy and passion. It’s the soul. It’s who “You” are. It’s irrational and driven by pure feeling. There may be no justification for how they feel, but gosh darn it, they’re gonna feel it a whole lot anyway! Focused on morals, on what they view as “right,” and they show favoritism to options in this way. Very strong moral compass and, well, Patton is Thomas’ Morality.

So… yeah. This is indeed a tough one. I think it’s safe to say Heart and Hope trump Light here, and that Heart can most definitely suit either Patton or Roman. So to solve this, I decided to do a quick check to see if Roman would actually be a Heart player.

I’ve already crossed out Hope for him, as that is most definitely more of a Patton aspect. Fitting as Time is, I crossed that out as well. I feel it’s just a little too focused on the endgame and the “end of things” for Roman. He enjoys the story and the journey as much as the conclusion. Then I looked to Space, which is all about creation- but Space players are also patient. They pick and choose their battles, they take things as they come. That… is not Roman. Thus, in the end, I have decided.

Roman is Heart. Patton is Hope.

I’ll get to Roman’s class later. Let’s get back to Patton, now that we’ve established he is a Hope player. I narrowed down the classes to Knight or Page for him. Knights hide a fear of perceived fundamental failure with their aspect behind a shield of confidence and obvious effort. They’re supposed to learn that they are, indeed, enough and take it down a notch. Thanks to the nostalgia videos, we’ve seen this does, in fact, fit Patton. Pages, on the other hand, start with a lack of their aspect that they try to overcome with obvious overcompensation. They need to keep at it, even through the failures, to become the strongest of all player classes for their respective aspect. This also sort of suits Patton, but…

I’m gonna go with Knight of Hope. I really don’t see Patton lacking the aspect, even if he would try to overcompensate. He aligns more closely to Knight in that way, I find. Good at exploiting his own optimism and positivity, a great motivator and positive force. Great at instilling hope to get things moving along, a fantastic driving force sitting firm in his beliefs, even if occasionally he wonders if its enough. Is he being positive enough? Happy enough? Is he motivating the others the right amount? He piles and piles on the optimism, the joy, the good vibes even when he himself feels low. He welcomes and accepts new people and ideas, though he doesn’t tend to waver on his beliefs and ideas unless shown a “more real” alternative. And when he fails, he feels it intensely, as if he led everyone else astray. The moment he discovers one of his beliefs is false or truly harmful, he’ll drop it like it’s hot.

Patton is a Knight of Hope.

And last but not least, we have Princey. Roman, whom we’ve already determined is a Heart player. So half our work is done. Now to discover his class....

Out of those remaining, Maid or Page would be the most suitable choices. Maids of Heart start out relying on others to tell them what to love or hate. What to feel strongly or passionately about. They may even rely on others for their sense of self. Think a young Roman, a young creativity. Thomas turning to Disney, to Broadway, to his friends and parents and teachers for inspiration. Hell, Roman almost religiously follows Disney, believing all dreams will come true, princes are heroes and villains are irredeemable. I imagine these impressions being made at a young age.

As he grew, Roman would need to start relying on himself for that direction. He would need to look into himself, who he really is, and only take those outside forces as possible influences rather than the end-all, be-all. No one can tell you who you are except you. No one can decide what you love or hate. Roman creates his own sense of self, finds his true passions and then follows them, leading Thomas along this path. He’s an absolute force to be reckoned with when it comes to these passions, i.e. Disney. It’s infectious. Others get caught up in his own enthusiasm and excitement. Very Roman.

Pages of Heart, on the other hand, try to overcompensate for their lack of the thing rather than rely on others to fill the void. They act irrational and impulsive based on their instincts, which often leads to wrong decisions and interpretations. They try to act caring and empathetic to the point it comes off as insincere. Overemotional, open and honest to the point of giving away far too much information. They go overboard, they become obsessed with their passions. Super affectionate, over dramatic in their emotional displays. They blow everything out of proportion. Driven by strong desires, wants and needs. They need to learn how to be balanced.

As you can see, both of these classes suit Roman to a degree. However, I feel Page is a little... too extreme. I don’t believe Roman overcompensates that much, and he certainly doesn’t go to great lengths to be affectionate and caring towards the others. In fact, sometimes those emotions can be stunted, particularly with Virgil or Logan. No, I see Roman as a Maid. I see him as being inspired by the world around him, and then taking that inspiration and owning it.

Roman is (a) Maid of Heart. (Ha.)

#forrestwyrm #thomas sanders #sanders sides #homestuck au #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #deceit sanders #remy sanders

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lizabethstucker · 3 years

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Asimov's Science Fiction (March/April 2017)

Digging into my backlot of science fiction magazines. A mixture of verse and stories. I've only reviewed and rated the stories. This particular issue is the 40th Anniversary one! 3.8 out of 5 "Soulmates.com" by Will McIntosh Daniel wants someone to share his life with, to love and be loved by. When he meets Winnie through a dating app, he thinks she could be the one almost immediately. Emily, his former girlfriend and current best friend, is more suspicious, doing a deep dive on who Winnie could be. Which, considering they never meet in person despite Winnie being in Atlanta and Daniel in Athens, not that long a drive, is valid. Starts extremely slowly, assumingly to establish the characters. Not my favorite way as most writers don't do a good job at it. I'm not entirely certain that this is actually science fiction, despite the use of Artificial Intelligence. As to Daniel, I found him to be incredibly childish, blind, immature, and boring. He learned absolutely nothing from his experience. I struggled to complete this novella. 2.5 out of 5 "Number Thirty-Nine Skink" by Suzanne Palmer It started simply enough, an expedition designed to bring life in balance to an empty planet. Then the humans left suddenly, leaving Mike willingly behind with Kadey whose programming makes the creatures populating the area. When Mike dies of cancer, Kadey continues her work. Until the night something changes. Poor Kadey, struggling with loneliness, possibly incomplete programming, and the knowledge hidden from her regarding why the humans left. Sad, yes, but with a more hopeful ending that is also a beginning. Lovely story, so well written. 4.5 out of 5 "Three Can Keep a Secret..." by Bill Johnson & Gregory Frost A convoluted tale of assassins, misdirection, love, greed, and con-artistry with an almost noir feel to it. It's almost impossible to give a synopsis that isn't chockful of spoilers. The first person narrator isn't totally reliable, but still intriguing in what he shares. I loved this more than I expected with this strange little story. FYI, in case you don't know, the title is from an old saying. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. 4.5 out of 5 "The Ones Who Know Where They Are Going" by Sarah Pinsker A child must suffer so the city can be happy, or so they say. One particular child is taken from her mother, locked away in the dark with no social interaction beyond the delivery of food. As time passes, language is lost and memories of a happier time begin to fade. Then one day the door isn't shut tightly and the child gets out of the tiny dark room. She crawls up the stairs, each step bringing back a particular memory, heading for freedom. But at what cost? Rip my heart out, why don't you? Two and a half pages of the most gut-wrenching narrative. The tightly woven writing is painfully descriptive. And the ending! Oh, the ending. I just cannot deal with it. 5 out of 5 "Invasion of the Saucer-Men" by Dale Bailey Teenagers have been foiling alien invasions for some time. After all, the adults are either locked in their homes consuming television or would dismiss the very idea of aliens. The newest landing of a flying saucer bonds together teens out at the local make-out point. Per the author, his idea was to take the cheesy sci-fi and horror movie titles of the 1950s and treat the core idea with some emotional and thematic nuance. Here we have a group of teen archetypes, from the football star to the nerds to the beauty. There are also the followers that are always found in high school. This brings back memories of too many cheesy nights at the drive-ins in my county. I've always found my sympathies fell with the aliens most of the time, faced with humans whose first response to the unknown was always violence. Horrible ending to this story. Horrible. CW: extremely graphic attack. 3 out of 5 "Kitty Hawk" by Alan Smale After receiving word of her brother's death, Katharine Wriht travels from Ohio to North Carolina to help her other brother. Instead of Orville preparing to pack up for the trip home with his beloved

brother's body, he is trying to continue with the flight experiments that killed Wilbur. Katharine finds herself engaged in helping, even learning to fly herself. This is a complete AU of the Wright Brothers and the birth of flight, through World War I and the suffrage movement. The writing is evocative of the time period and the dangers of experimental flight. I don't know why it didn't click with me, but I struggled quite a bit in reading this imaginative tale. I can see others enjoying this greatly, just not me. 3 out of 5 "Cupido" by Rich Larson Marcel is a genius at chemistry. He came up with a way to make pheromones specific to the pair he's paid to bring together, either by one of the potential couple or by a third party. The majority of the money he charges goes to pay for his grandmother's colon cancer treatment. As word gets around, he finds himself moving to smaller cities to avoid identification. As yet, what he does isn't illegal. He didn't expect to find himself attracted to his potential mark. Frankly, I don't consider this to be science fiction at all. The science is already viable. Add the consent issues which would be called dubcon (dubious consent) and I'm too busy cringing to enjoy. In my mind, Marcel is anything but a hero. 3 out of 5 "A Singular Event in the Fourth Dimension" by Andrea M. Pawley Olive was removed from the reducer pile, adopted by a childless couple to help stave off loneliness. Now that the second grandmother is living with them and Mama was pregnant, Olive is worried that she will be sent back to the pile, no longer needed. A loving, imaginative little android who believes in fairy dust, even if the fairies never seem to do anything magical like in the stories. Love doesn't have to be limited to just humans or blood relations. Sweet and touching. 4.5 out of 5 "The Wisdom of the Group" by Ian R. MacLeod There are theories and studies about group-think, how certain groups can intuit a trend or coming situation without any real knowledge. With the right group, the members could get wealthy or probably save the world, depending on their inclination. Samuel has been part of such a group since brought in by his professor while still in university. Now, years later, Samuel is wealthy, has a liv-in lover, three dogs with unfortunate names, and a gorgeous house in Washington state. But something is wrong, something that seems to be originating from Samuel. The response is usually to cut the wrong out of the group. A complicated basis for a disturbing story. I had to sit on this one for a while in order to determine what I felt about it. Definitely strong writing, could almost be considered psychological horror. I don't know if I would ever say that I liked it, but I recognize the work done and the uniqueness of the story. 3.5 out of 5 "After the Atrocity" by Ian Creasey Abu Hameed, the terrorist behind the attack that left ten thousand people dead, has also died during interrogation. The solution? A machine that can make exact copies, complete with memories, of an individual. Violet Ruiz, operator and creator of the machine, even made a duplicate of herself in order to work 24/7. As Hameed's copies die during the enhanced interrogation, more copies are needed. Soon Violet II wonders about the ethical implications. Well thought out consideration of just how far a nation is willing to go in search of revenge wrapped in the disguise of intel. Patriot Act, enhanced interrogation the Greater Good, dismantling both Habeas Corpus and the Geneva Convention, anyone? 4 out of 5 "Goner" by Gregory Norman Bossert In order to explore space, humans had to be converted from flesh into nanotechnology based creatures. The pilots call themselves Goners. Char's best friend's father is a Goner. Already fascinated with the idea of flying, Char uses a sliver of Pilot Clark to begin changing. While this is complete in itself, the story also begs for more. What is happening to Char? Will he be allowed to live his dreams despite his age? S fascinating a concept. 3.5 out of 5 "We Regret the Error" by Terry

Bisson A series of news corrections from the future. So many corrections, even some corrections of corrections. Taken individually, these are amusing. Pieced together, there is a much deeper story playing out. Oh, and a nice dig at Disney's well-known history of not paying some of their artists for their work. 3 out of 5 "Tao Zero" by Damien Broderick Teenagers, incredibly smart ones, have unprotected sex after winning $370 million in the Mega Millions lottery. The celebration leads to a child, the narrator, and the money to try to trap the Tao, the Way that cannot be named, inside a machine. I tried, I really tried to read this without success. After rereading the first two pages over and over in an attempt to struggle through, I put the story aside, hoping to pick it back up when refreshed. Didn't work. DNF

#magazine review #science fiction #Asimov's Science Fiction

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savrenim · 6 years

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I'm so jealous of your gay elf murder bachelorette campaign that I now desperately want my own. Any recommendations on how to find people to play D&D with? I have several friends who are interested, but none of us have any questions experience (between my secondhand experience of reading about your adventures) so we don't know how to get started

oh gods so apparently I have A Lot Of Opinions and it got really long, so under the cut, also thank you for reminding me that I should probably properly type up the finale of Gay Murder Elf Bachelorette Campaign Book 1 because it was freaking epic and this is the one campaign that I can properly rant about on tumblr without worrying about spoilers

(I’m in three campaigns right now) (by complete accident) (on the one hand it’s a bad life decision in that I have zero free time anyways with grad school, but on the other hand it has become my sole social interaction with anyone ever and also coping mechanism for the stress and one good thing I do for me and, like, they’re not all weekly campaigns, so hours-per-week I’m devoting isn’t ridiculous) (and I miss my friends and it’s re-connected me with them and also has introduced me to upperclassmen in the department) (but sometimes there are character secrets and people who potentially follow me on tumblr so I can’t post the super long dramatic things about a character that I really want to)

OKAY SO HOW TO GET INTO PLAYING

I will be real, the three campaigns that I am in right now are the first time I’ve played DnD for anything that lasted longer than a week and a half at a summer camp type deal, like, arguably, this is my real first time playing DnD….ever. That being said, I’ve worked at gay theater camp for….six years now? And they do super intense super in-character LARPing that is far more roleplaying-heavy than mechanics heavy and has trained me to both have very good story instincts of, like, “this is how you make decisions that both fit with your character and support the narrative instead of oppose it, and either do not tear the party apart, or tear the party apart but for a very good and fitting narrative reason (i.e. if there’s going to be strife, make it mean something)” and in my opinion it is when you bring those sorts of instincts to a DnD game that you get the most satisfying story out of it. Character creation, team cohesion, and story and world development are all things that I do feel super comfortable speaking about because that is my literal jam outside of my math jam which is paying for me to be alive and stuff. So here we go.

There are a couple of questions that you need to immediately answer, the first being, “do you want to play Dungeons and Dragons, or do you want to start with a mechanically less complicated system?” Because there are a lot of pretty good systems out there that are high fantasy even (i.e. Dungeon World) that are a lot more streamlined in terms of “you don’t need to be as familiar with a set of rules in order to play.” That being said, Dungeons and Dragons is classic and is fantastic and I freaking adore it. (I will be completely honest, the only other two systems I know right now are Dungeon World, which is fantasy, and Mech Noir, which holy shit you are playing noir style detectives except in a SCI FI SETTING WHERE YOU PILOT MECHAS and the entire game system is around applying “adjectives” to people like, if you successfully roll against an enemy, you get to pick any adjective you can think of ever from “grappled” to “trusting” to “confused” to “located” and it just makes for such interesting storytelling)

which vaguely brings me to my first piece of real advice: you learn how to play best by witnessing playing happening. if you are a podcast person, I highly recommend either The Adventure Zone or Friends At The Table (or, honestly, if you have the time, both). The Adventure Zone plays DnD, 5th Edition, and it is a super quality family who are goofing off and having fun together and then the plot that arises is like “oh shit I am crying about a wizard named Taako, pronounced taco, how did this happen to me” and it’s great. The Adventure Zone is 100% the reason why I reached out to friends and was like “yoooo is anyone starting a campaign because TAZ has made me want to play again.” Friends at the Table starts with Dungeon World and it is some of the best storytelling and worldbuilding I’ve ever heard? And you will learn so much about how to set things up and go with the flow and the DM talks a lot about his process as offhand comments and you will learn so much. I’ve heard good things about Critical Role, but haven’t listened myself. But get out there, listen, and then don’t be afraid of copying things that you admire. Best way to learn.

If you’re going with Dungeons and Dragons, start with 5th Edition. 0th, 1st, and 2nd are all ridiculously unbalanced, 3 is “actually everyone uses 3.5,” or a combo 3.5/Pathfinder. While 3.5/Pathfinder is a great system and is what we’re playing both in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign and in the math grad departmental campaign, and was the game that I learned on, 5e is a lot more streamlined and they’re aren’t super picky exact rules for every tiny thing you could think of doing, which means you don’t need to be familiar with a vast system full of loopholes and counters and counter-counters to know how to effectively play the game. we don’t talk about 4th edition

Decide who is going to be the DM. There are sometimes comic stores that’ll run weekly or biweekly or monthly games of DnD, but those are almost definitely going to be less story-based and usually are one-shots? And if you’ve got a good group of friends, I recommend just playing with them and not trying to find an external group that you don’t know. I’m vaguely assuming that you’re volunteering to be DM because you’re asking? But if there’s someone in your group of friends who likes writing things or likes managing things or is interested, or if people want to take turns trying stuff out, go for that. The department group rotates DMs (and rotates games) just based on who has something written that they’re excited to try out.

You also might want to ask around to see if there are any people that you vaguely know, or that are friends of friends, who play. You’d be surprised how many people do. I’ve also seen blogs on tumblr sometimes going “hey, I’m running a Skype campaign and I need two or three more players, if people are interested fill out this survey and then depending mostly on times people are free but also what you say about what you’re looking for from a game I’ll pick the players?” or if y’all are in college there is almost always a DnD club somewhere, hidden semi-secret on campus, on the register to get club funding but under the radar because nerds. But you and your friends who are semi-interested will work just fine, as long as semi-interested means they’re actually willing to commit for a bit. So how do you get started?

Get the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and read them cover to cover. If you’re playing and not DMing, eh, skip this step, and have the DM do it instead, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide especially will walk you through how to set up things mechanically very well and if you’re going in blind it will be good to have gone through and read it all once. I’ve read the 3.5 DMG cover to cover several times, haven’t read 5e yet, I know that I didn’t like their storytelling tips, but read through it once to get an idea of what mechanics might look like, it gives very good starting mechanical advice.

1. Speed and smoothness of playing are important, which means that sometimes, if you don’t know a rule, you want to make something up on the fly and deliver it with a completely straight face. Everybody does homebrew. Rules are great because they keep things from devolving into chaos and they can settle disputes, but also, sometimes you’ve just got to make a call, and if you make it while looking like you know what you’re doing, everyone will believe you. Similarly, don’t make the same rolls, or the same number of rolls, for NPC characters as you would for PCs. For example, in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, when Iria was both directing a full assault on a hobgoblin fortress as well as had put herself on the special strike team that was going to sneak in and open the portcullis, the DM made ~one or two rolls~ to see how successful the Caedic units were at each of the points of Iria’s plan, instead of rolling a full battle between ~40 hobgoblins and ~80 elves. screentime is important; if you’re spending too much time on not-the-players, it gets boring for the players, so roll enough dice to decide what’s going on with a tad bit of luck and so it seems like other characters have rules that they have to follow, but you don’t have to let the rules dictate every single thing that happens in-world. you dictate that.

2. Character creation is how you set yourself up for success. Do not underestimate the importance of party dynamics. You don’t all have to be playing best friends or even people who get along–in Spelljammer, Marian and Djin had the character backstory of “ten years ago we were captain and co-captain of a vessel and for Reasons got into a huge fight over nothing and split and Marian took half the ship with her and she thought she’d never see him again but now oops they’ve both ended up jobless on the same station and Marian was already pooling as many resources as she could to try to put together a new ship and Djin arrived a couple months into this and needed the work so joined this ragtag democratic crew, but there’s a shit ton of tension.” This worked because we were snippy to each other in dialogue, when push came to shove, Marian is professional enough such that her whole deal is putting personal feelings aside always no matter what, and Djin takes the passive in passive-aggressive super seriously, so it never meant that the party was sitting around arguing for hours or refusing to cooperate. Meanwhile, I’ve seen and heard of campaigns falling apart because “there are two thieves and one really wants to get to do all the sneaking so they argue all the time over who gets to do cool stuff” or “the evil fighter literally just wants to murder everyone which means everyone else can’t get stuff done.” You can have intra-party strife and have it be interesting, but only if players are doing it cooperatively instead of being at each other’s throats irl. Rule of thumb: if the party dynamics are frustrating the other players, you are doing something wrong.

2.5 That being said, if a party starts to develop into bad dynamics, it is fixable without betraying character! For example, in the department campaign, I’ve been playing a super sheltered youngest child elf wizard from a super established Elvin wizard family (of, like, oh the arcanic postlines that let mail be sent around the continent? Grandpa came up with that theory. Schools of magic identified and classified originally? That was the Maewels) so Seraph is a tad bit privileged and a tad bit sheltered and is uppity sometimes. There was a fighter in the party who liked his alcohol, once missed a huge battle that the rest of us had to cover for him because he’d seduced two women at the inn we were hanging out at before the town was attacked, and typically did things like walk around in the morning with no pants on. And he proceeded to interpret Seraph’s increasing shock and disdain for him (or rather specifically, how upset she was the first time she saw him pantless) as “yeah all women go for me.” The party was vaguely splitting into “Seraph’s side and Silas’s side” so I decided to aggressively interpret one of the battles we went through together as a bonding experience and lo and behold Seraph’s feelings started to change over the next couple of weeks to “you might be an inconsiderate asshole but you’re OUR inconsiderate asshole so only we are allowed to rag on you” and she became one of his biggest supporters esp when they got to his hometown. All you really need is one super solid, proactive player in a party to make sure that things are resolved in a solid manner, so if you’re not the one DMing? Be that player.

2.75 Okay but if you’re DMing, have the conversation with your players as they’re designing their characters about point (2) because good party dynamics are easiest when you get it from the start.

3. Design encounters around the party. You don’t need a traditional setup of “a tank, a mage, a healer, and a thief” to have an effective and fun party. Maybe everyone wants to play a thief, great, design the scenario to be “you have all been contracted by the thieves’ guild to sneak into this party and assassinate this noble, you have three days to prepare and these resources, make a plan” instead of “this is a traditional dungeon crawl where you are fighting big scary monsters despite the fact that none of you are melee fighters.” Similarly, figure out what sort of stories and settings and aesthetics your players are interested in, and then play that game.

4. Make it personal. Ask people about their backstory and then incorporate stuff in. Notice what they become invested in and adjust your plans to include more of that. Give characters individual arcs that fit vaguely into the overall story, but also that they are the semi-protagonist of. Right now in Spelljammer, we’re all dealing with “so there are weird tears in the universe that Password, this Extinct AI we found and befriended, says are reminiscent of literally the entire universe ripping apart at the seams and are possibly why the Extinct went extinct, oh and some random lady gave us this artifact called the Eye and told us to hide it from the Blind King? And now his servants are hunting us? We are literally scav elves this is so above our pay grade.” Except going on as subplots, Algol is being hunted down by this evil overseer of whatever place in Echoside he originally escaped from, Leif got a stone that gives her prophetic dreams, Kimi has been super close to Password and Leif dreamed about them stitching the universe together, and Marian is dealing with an "oh shit I’ve accidentally adopted these three kids even though I don’t do personal” along with “oh god have I literally become the captain of this ship because I AM THE ONLY ADULT LEFT” along with some old friends from her past trying to reconnect just after we got a prophecy about how the last thing the Blind King would send to steal the Eye was someone we loved turned against us. So yeah, sure, there are big Adventure Plotlines going down that involve the entire party, but we’re not doing things just to do them, everyone is personally invested in this for their own reasons. So when you plan a big adventure, both plan places where individual party members get to start both for who they are and what they can do, as well as along the way keep an eye out for things that you can tie in for them.

5. Consequences matter. And not just stuff like “Iria got stabbed really bad first session and nearly died, now every time she goes into rage at the end needs to roll a fortitude save to not fall unconscious, and whenever she rolls a one same deal.” But also consequences like “you were really rude to this person and now they don’t like you and they are friends with the owner of the apothecary, who now also doesn’t like you and marks up prices behind your back” or "you let one of the patrol escape and now the whole army knows that you’re coming” or “you saved this kid’s life even though you were in enemy territory and now five years later he recognizes you even though you’ve been captured and is making sure that the party is taken prisoner instead of killed.” Make NPCs (non-player characters, ie characters the DM controls) recurring characters instead of people that you meet once, and have the way that the NPCs feel and then interact with the players change based on how prior interactions go. Have them care about things and have them remember. It makes the world feel a lot more real.

6. Preparing for a session goes petty much "how much do you like improv”. If you’re chill improvising, you want written down the stats of the monsters/enemies your players are potentially going to encounter, and probably a vague idea of goals, and then just play it by ear. Jeremy (the person running gay murder elf bachelorette and spelljammer) has I think at this point 13 “Books” written for gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, will write long descriptions of characters, settings, has maps drawn, has customized his own random encounter tables, has made his own homebrew system for how spaceship mechanics works specifically so that we could better piece together our spaceship with fantasy duct tape during the Death Races, and overplans every last detail all the way down to “has different musical themes that he’ll swap out and play at different times.” like, Iria has a Trauma theme that is played every time her wound starts acting up. He has collected music for books in advance. He has multiple different theme songs for each of the players in spelljammer. He writes notes about what NPCs are thinking so that he can reference it later. But that’s because he knows that he prefers the things he comes up with when he has time to plan things out, instead of when he’s surprised. He knows his own storytelling style. “eh, an outline and some monster stats” would not work for him the same way that I’ve seen it work for other people. You don’t have to put a ridiculous amount of prep work and writing time into being a DM, you need to figure out how much prepared material you need to run something comfortably, and then prepare that much.

6.5 Understand no matter what you plan, bits and pieces will probably be derailed, and be okay with that. Nothing is more upsetting than when a DM does not respect player autonomy and invalidates the clever things they think of, because it goes against their own plans. I think being a DM/running a story is sort of halfway “you’re writing a novel” and halfway “oh shit except this time the characters ACTUALLY have minds of their own” and striking a balance instead of dominating the narrative makes it fun. Also, it means you can throw in problems that you have no solutions for. During the Death Races in spelljammer, our battery started running out of plasma, which meant that the pressurization was getting all wonky, Leif immediately goes over and says “I have a spell called Reduce Object, can I cast it on the internal casing to try to up the pressure of what little plasma we have left” and Jeremy goes “uummmm sure if Kimi is over there to help you rewire the rest of the battery on the fly because you are SHRINKING HALF OF ITS PARTS” and then that held for three minutes until oh shit it was still low on plasma and Marian ran over and went “wait a second guys I have a Flaming Sphere spell except Jeremy, Jeeeeremy, I’m technically a plasma variety of Light Cleric, my ~god~ that ~gives me my divine magic~ is the collective of star dryads which live in balls of plasma, we’ve established prior in this setting that some of my fire spells are actually plasma spells, not fire, Jeeeeeremly can shove my hand into the empty battery casing and cast a flaming, 10-foot in diameter ball of plasma to try to give us a fuel boost” and Jeremy went “okay fuck it, stick your hand in the battery and cast a flaming sphere of plasma to give the ship a fuel boost, Leif, make another concentration check to hold the pressure.” and it did and we won the race the end we’re the coolest space elves ever. moral of the story: your players will come up with clever things. Sometimes clever things that mess up your plans. Let it happen, it’s more fun that way.

(Iris has come up with a truly heinous but potentially really effective military tactic that gay murder elf bachelorette campaign is actually a bit more delicate because it’s set in a larger world that Jeremy is running multiple other campaigns in and I’m still not sure if Iria is legit going to be a villain that I face off as a good PC one day, or if she’s a historical figure, or even whether or not this campaign is set in the past, but either way the history of this world matters? and the idea that I came up with has the potential to re-shape history? and I told it to Jeremy and he was quiet for a very long time and then thanked me for telling him and so Iria told Talvus in-character and we’re going to see whether or not in a couple of books this ends up changing the entire history of the world that he runs multiple campaigns in or something drastic like that, but hey, player wants to do something you haven’t thought of, “I didn’t think of that” is not a good enough reason to not let them do it.)

7. Decide if you want to write your own adventure, buy/find online a pre-written one, or vaguely do something in the middle. If you’re going for something pre-written, edits bits and pieces as you go to personalize it to your characters. I have a friend who just wrote and published something for DnD 2nd Edition? And it looks great? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229248/War-Wizards-of-the-Wasteland Even if you don’t play a pre-written adventure, reading a bunch of them will give you an idea of what preparing for sessions is like and what sort of information you should have on hand.

8. Don’t be afraid to make up home-brew mechanics, either for the whole party or for an individual player. Jeremy ran a vignette session called “Flight of the Kalla Tukal” in which we were playing a trio of orcs that had fallen through a tear in space and had just managed to get back and were searching for our tribe, which left without us. Except in his setting, orcs are a super psionic almost hivemind race? You meet orcs outside of radiation space sometimes, but they’re usually Not Coping Very Well with the fact that they’ve been cut off from their community. But the Kalla Tukal were still all linked together so we weren’t all going mad. then the other part of being psychic orcs meant that we could at any point attempt to do telekinesis or mind-control something, and the way that it was determined whether or not that worked is roll a d20, except we’re not trying to get 20, we’re trying to roll as close to each other in number as possible. There was one dramatic moment when two of us rolled 4’s or something and it was a critical success. but it was so cool to have that weird drift-comparability mechanic, and, like, the more people in our group that wanted to contribute, the more likely two people were to roll the same number. it was just?????? so cool??????? so if you want your party to all be psychically connected and be able to throw stuff with their minds I totally recommend that.

on a more personal/one-player level, in the department campaign, it has developed that Seraph really wants to be a research wizard like her family before her, and so the DM and I had a long conversation about the topics that she would want to research and a particular narrative impetus for her to start researching, and he came up with five or six new spells that Seraph will be able to invent over the course of the campaign, except because it’s experimental magic it’s going to start out with a 40% partial-to-total failure rate that will go down the more she tries to cast the spells, because hey, she’s working out the kinks. to me, it’s more than “oh this is a cool new mechanic,” it’s the DM cared enough to take the time to work with me and put what I thought was interesting into the campaign. and you have a lot of room to do that by adding your own rules and conventions and what-not. don’t be afraid to experiment, see what works, and then keep those mechanics around.

9. Start small. Don’t try to start with a whole huge epic campaign, you want to start by running a bunch of mini-arcs in different settings so that you get a feel for how to play and how to run things. This also gives you a chance to figure out how your group of friends plays, who is going to be the person that gives you the most scheduling problems, some of them might like the fighting parts more than the “come up with clever plans” or “interact with NPCs” parts, and this will give you an idea of who you actually want in a long-term campaign. Because long-term campaigns go on for years. Like, gay murder elf bachelorette is probably going to be a year and a half if Jeremy and I keep going at this pace? and that’s vaguely on the short side for something that Jeremy runs. A proper full epic campaign can be a huge time commitment, so start out with mini-arcs just to have fun and get used to stuff and because that is something that people will actually be able to commit time to.

I interrupt this long list of advice for another list of advice of potential ideas for miniature campaigns you could run for your friends. or one of your friends could run, if they’re interested in DMing:

COOL IDEAS FOR ONE-TO-FOUR SESSION MINI-CAMPAIGNS THAT I CAME UP WITH RIGHT NOW OR STOLE FROM FRIENDS WHO CAME UP WITH SUPER COOL THINGS

—as mentioned in a previous bullet point, “you’re a group of thieves planning an assassination. this is how much money you have. each of your characters has one character connection in the city who can help you get items or forge a document etc etc. this is what the castle looks like. this is what you’ve figured out about guard shifts and security for the party. you have a week to plan. go” and then, like. somebody wants to try to pretend to be a noble to get in? fantastic. someone wants to try to seduce a guard? fantastic. sneaking in the traditional way? fantastic. all three at the same time. faaaantastic. it’s fun, it’s short, the way that you would prepare this is you would think about guards, defenses, patrols, maybe some of the nobles at the party are trained in magic or have weird special teams of guards and maybe have agendas of their own, and then what the actual ball itself would look like and maybe make a castle map, but the fun part of this scenario is the players get to be as creative as possible and I guarantee they will think of the coolest things and then you get to figure out how to react to those things in interesting ways to figure out whether or not they work.

—okay this is a one-shot I have only heard legends about but everyone was playing a rock band of monsters who were about to give a super huge concert in monster city and I think someone had stolen a drum set or a guitar or something and they were trying to dodge paparazzi and get their instruments back but it was also ridiculous sex drugs rock & roll culture and a comedy one-shot that apparently was the coolest thing in the world, but you can’t go wrong if you start with “crazy monster rock band superstars”. during the sequel they went on tour to the human lands and I think wrecked a couple of cities.

—this one is stolen from TAZ but fantasy WWE, the intro plot setup that is exposition in the first 10 minutes was “a friend of yours who is a famous wrestler just had her partner assassinated before the biggest match of the year, one of you has been asked to fill in for the match, another as the manager, and then the rest of you are trying to solve this murder mystery super quick because your friend is worried she’s the next target”

—honestly any sort of “huge gladiator/fighting tournament but there’s drama and foul play going down behind the scenes” makes for a really good short arc. there’s a game that actually Jeremy invented that is played irl at gay theater camp called “bloodrush” which is such a ridiculous game, it’s….vaguely fantasy football except everyone also has daggers and swords and stuff and you are allowed to stab members of the other team but only when they’re holding the ball, although cheating is basically a requirement when the refs’ backs are turned, oh, by the way, the refs are vampires. there have been cases at camp where teams waiting in the bleachers for the next match enemy teams have crept up behind them and slit all their throats with foam daggers while the refs were watching the game, or poisonings, or just. anything you can think of, it’s gone down. my little brother once jumped on the biggest baddest counselor’s back, stabbed him in the shoulder, snatched the ball from him, did a front roll, and ran off, and scored a goal and that is one of his proudest moments of his life to this day, basically what I’m saying is you can’t go wrong with “bloodrush tournament” or whatever your own crazy fantasy sportsball game you want to make up and play.

—“we are a bunch of archeologists who have a little bit of combat or magic training but not too much because mostly we’re archeologists and someone poked a button in a pyramid and oh god we’ve accidentally summoned an ancient race on monsters that feed on human souls, which also apparently there’s a secret military conspiracy that has been watching this site to try to stop these monsters and have come here to contain them but oops also are ready to murder ALL OF US because WE have human souls, now we’re trying to run and hide from both groups and figure out if we can find anything to banish the monsters again” (this is 100% stolen from a LARP written by a friend of mine) (I’m pretty sure same one who wrote the monster band one-shot, actually) (they’re a really good writer, okay)

—PRISON ESCAPE. Think Guardians of the Galaxy 1. You can’t go wrong with a prison break game. character design will be so fun. I swear I thought of stuff like this separate from Jeremy. Jeremy’s writing a prison break game and has promised that I get to play Captain Jennijack, a genderfluid space pirate who totally woke up in this prison a week or so ago and doesn’t for the life of them know why they are here, there are, like, eight or ten possible things they could think of but they’re not sure which one they’ve technically been convicted of, and I am holding him to that.

—Honestly, you have a book that you like? A movie? A TV show? One that you haven’t convinced your friends to watch yet? (or one that you have and they will recognize halfway through.) STEAL THAT, write and run a fanfiction game, it’ll be fun.

ADVICE PART 2: PREPARING FOR A LONGER CAMPAIGN ONCE YOU’RE COMFORTABLE DMING AND HAVE FIGURED OUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE GOOD CHEMISTRY AND DYNAMICS AND WANT TO STICK AROUND. I’m assuming you want advice for getting something vaguely like gay murder elf bachelorette to run, so I’m going to talk about broad story-based things that I think are important for setting up good stories?

10. Scheduling is key and what is most likely to mess you up. Pick your players carefully, pick people who are invested and who will turn up. If there are people who didn’t get along during your mini arcs, or who just had very different expectations of what the game should be like re fighting/mechanics and roleplaying balance, don’t put them in the same party. Picking a party isn’t about picking your friends, it’s about picking people who work well together as players, and whose playing style matches your storytelling style. You’re better off with less people but who are super quality players and share a vision with you and get along, than letting someone into the game that’s going to mess stuff up for everyone because of outside-of-game social politics. It’s just not worth it. Not when this might go on for years.

11. There’s something really powerful about a story that isn’t about the Chosen Ones, but instead you’re just a group of people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and now oh shit it’s on you to save the world. Epic campaigns generally become epic, like, you invest that much time and energy into something and by the finale you usually are saving the universe, but be willing to start out not special. Let specialness develop.

11.5 There is also something really powerful about there sometimes being problems that magic can’t fix. Or that just aren’t fixable. If you haven’t read the Young Wizards series go read it and cry.

12. Write in arcs. This goes along very well with starting small, but have there be different parts of the campaign that are semi self-contained as you slowly build up to something bigger, this is also where you start dropping in personal arcs. Arcs also allow you to change up the feel of the game and keep things interesting and keep people on their toes. The Adventure Zone does maybe the best example of how to have self-contained plot-driven arcs that build to something eventually cohesive, all arcs with their own unique setup and flavor. (The Adventure Zone: Balance is a really great game and I really do advise you listen to it, it’s ~70 episodes but it will get you used to the mechanics of 5e, and holy fuck is it a story.)

13. Don’t be afraid to steal plot points from your favorite things. Hell, don’t be afraid to steal the entire plots of your favorite things. Especially if you’re worried about your own writing skills or creativity or whatever? Fanfiction is freaking great, and it’s fun; some of the best games I’ve ever played have been fanfiction of super obscure things that the writer has afterwards told me what it was fanfiction of and it was so freaking fun to go read/watch the original after I’d already played an even cooler version???? It’s also pretty easy to start out fanfiction and then through developing personal arcs and following party interest, ending up with a story by the end that is entirely original and you. So write fanfiction if you don’t have any ideas, or honestly, if your fanfiction ideas excite you more than when you sit down and try to write with a blank slate.

14. You’re not limited to a high fantasy setting. Honestly, standard high fantasy/dungeon crawl stuff has gotten pretty boring for me? (although the department campaign is pretty cool, but that’s only because it’s high fantasy but we slip in jokes like “Seraph marches downstairs in her pajamas and channels her mother to start yelling at the innkeeper about the utterly terrible customer service of getting poisoned, non-consensually, and that she would like to speak to the manager of the local thieves’ guild to lodge a complaint” because even though it’s high fantasy, it’s funny. TAZ does really good high fantasy too because of how they weave a whole bunch of other stuff in.) but, like, YOU CAN DO DND IN SPACE. you can do modern urban fantasy. you can go post-apocalypse. you can go post-high-fantasy-apocalypse. you can play a supernatural style game. it’s your world, make it whatever you want.

14.5 It is possible to play things that are mechanically the class in the book, but have a different interpretation in the setting. Or just to works differently in the setting. in spelljammer, elves don’t have gods, and I vaguely developed over the course of a couple of months an old belief system that was pretty old even when Marian was a kid that she just pseudo-learned and didn’t quite believe but is now revisiting, and the difference between divine casters and arcane casters is actually just “magic is vaguely a part of physics and most arcane casters are tinkerers who are doing it via weird cool gadgets or are pseudo-scientists/engineers in their training and approach to magic, while for divine casters it’s more of an internal, feelings-based thing.” I’m also very very excited because I have developed a super intense and specific lore that is canonically what elves used to believe and what Marian believes, but might not actually be how the world and death specifically works at all, so I’m bouncing up and down on my feet waiting to discover what’s going down behind the scenes with gods in that campaign, instead of it just being “oh yeah choose your gods from the gods in the book.” in the department campaign, Seraph is from a family of wizards and thinks that she is a wizard even though she is actually an arcanist, because the world doesn’t have words different types of casters esp niche types of casters yet. the DM and I are planning for it to be a huuuuge surprise now that she’s leveled up enough to have access to “arcanic exploits” which are at-will abilities that wizards don’t have, and it is going to be an in-character process of her discovering that she can do something that according to the known laws of magic she shouldn’t be able to do, and now oh shit she has to research it. even though mechanically, we’re going pretty much entirely by the book, the book doesn’t exist in the world! characters don’t know what players know! make it interesting to discover things that you as a player might otherwise take for granted!

14.75 make magic and fighting sound cool, and design how you describe it to be specific to the setting or the culture. in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, the way that Caedic casting works is you first have to draw a rune in the air that then hovers there all glowy, and then you “thread the needle” which is projecting power through it in a very specific manner, I’m pretty sure that Surrians cast differently, magic works different in different parts of the world. having a melee fight scene? describe how people exchange blows back and forth or let them choose how their killing blows will look or just make them feel like badasses whenever they try to do a cool thing because it’s cool. I am used to playing magic/caster characters just because I generally am more familiar with magical mechanics than fighting mechanics and magic has always been more interesting to me but holy crud I have never had a fight scene so fun as the one when Iria had led a researcher from the Black Lotus Labs to a fae font that she’d found scouting in the woods and this seaweed creature eventually attacked them and she did a badass holding it off with her scimitar an then Vennikus, the researcher, tried to throw a cold iron knife at it but missed, and so Iria, who had been training in two-weapon fighting, saw the knife, did a front roll underneath the monster’s next swing, picked up the knife, exchanged a flurry of blows with the thing now two-handed fighting which eventually ended with her doing this super badass throwing both weapons in the air and catching them to switch hands, leaping on the things back, slashing so deep with her scimitar that it finally got through all of the seaweed and cleared it before it could get back to a weird, pulsating green heart, which then she drove the cold iron blade into all the way up to its hilt. which was so much cooler than “oh shit I rolled a crit on my scimitar hand and confirmed it and I guess that deals enough damage for this thing to die,” nah, I drove a cold iron knife into that thing’s pulsating heart and so that’ll be a scene that I never forget. Even when I miss Jeremy makes me sound cool because then when the enemies miss he talks about how good my footwork is or how well I’ve drilled to block these exact kinds of blows so the Surrian had no chance because my training kicked in type deal. it makes fight scenes more than just rolling dice, and thus easier to get engaged in.

14.8725 I swear I didn’t start out this essay as an “I’m going to sing the praises of Jeremy for several thousand words”

15. It’s always interesting when you have mechanical reasons for players leveling up. Or for what their classes are. That’s always a tricky one to balance, and it’s one that I’ve been doing aggressively as a player? And to be fair, if your players start out with young and fairly inexperienced characters, “I am gaining experience at doing a thing” is a perfectly good narrative reason to level up. You want to play an older character? One of my friends is playing a 150-year-old orc who was a Great Adventurer back in the day and retired to take care of great-great grandkids and is back in an adventuring party now but wheeee is starting at level 1 because they’re out of practice oh, and they have bad knees. There’s also always the option of “I hurt myself real bad and I’ve been recovering,” leveling up isn’t ~gaining new experience~, it’s slowly getting better through whatever your injury is. or just you can write this off as an unavoidable mechanical aspect of the game, eh, not that important, I just love it when tiny details match up. This isn’t actually an important point, I’ve kind of moved on to the “picky details that I care about” second of this advice rant.

16. Make the unexpected important. JEREMY GAVE ME THE MOST ADORABLE PET SPACE OCTOPUS AS A FAMILIAR AND I HAVE BEEN ASSUMING THAT VELO IS JUST VELO AND THEN JEREMY MADE SOME SORT OF A SIDE COMMENT ABOUT “YEAH VELO IS NOTHING LIKE YOU’D EVER HEARD OF BEFORE” AND YEAH DUH BECAUSE THE LIL’ BUDDY WAS SUMMONED THROUGH A MYSTERY SPELL IN A MYSTERY PIECE OF EXTINCT TECH BUT NOW I’M FREAKING PARANOID OUT OF CHARACTER THAT VELO IS SECRETLY AN EMISSARY OF RAT JESUS OR SOMETHING. but also just, like, nothing is cooler than “oh that tiny thing that happened when you were level 1 that you didn’t really think much of and it’s just been vaguely a thing you’ve carried with you for the adventure? turns out it was the most important thing in the world!!!!!” just. good foreshadowing. unexpected foreshadowing. it’s great.

17. Your players will invent stuff, either as a part of their backstory or as something that they’re interested in. Let them, especially if you don’t have a previously established canon opinion on the thing. This is 100% a self-serving thing of what I wants DMs to do when I’m a player of, like. I really love getting to write stuff into the setting, but also it’s because good improv means go with the flow. Someone says something? Work it in, oops, it’s canon now. This can be both on-purpose or accident; in the department campaign, I wanted to write in-character letters to an NPC in my backstory from the beginning, except goddamnit I didn’t want to have to deal with “and it’ll take a couple of months for the mail to travel across the country to get to them,” so I made an offhand reference in the email that I was sending the DM the letters of “can we say I just threw them in the arcanic postlines,” which then, like. After doing this about five times I sat down and wrote out the exact magical theory about how arcanic postlines should work considering how we’d said that they function in-game and the DM went “okay, sounds great, that’s consistent with how we’ve been dealing with these letters for the last two months” and that is why the fantasy world of the departmental campaign has a highly functional postage system. On the improv end of things, there is a beautiful moment in The Adventure Zone where the wizard just, in-character, teases another wizard about “ooooh, don’t want to burn your spell slots,” and the DM just went with it and suddenly it became canon that instead of spell slots being a behind-the-scenes mechanical thing that doesn’t exist in-world, it was a legitimate way that wizards referred to how much magic they could cast a day. Which I love so much, that’s so interesting for a high fantasy setting. Letting players add to the setting will bring in cool new things that you didn’t think of, and you should be open to it.

18. First priority is everyone should be having fun, and communication is key for that to work. Debrief sometimes after sessions. Ask people what their favorite parts are. listen to them chat about their theories. follow up on actively developing framework for the things that people think are fun. ultimately DnD is as much about friends getting together and having a good time as it is about telling a huge, epic, intricate, interconnected story, and the huge epic stories are a lot more fun if you’ve been having fun the whole way along.

All that all being said.

Don’t expect your campaign to look like gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, the way that I am playing in gay murder elf campaign is…..a bad way to play in a party? Being a conscientious player means being aware that the overall story arc isn’t just about you, it’s weaving together about everyone and there is always a part of me that is thinking about “is everyone getting equal screentime” and going “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NPC JEREMY SHE’S SO GOOD AT FIGHTING OH MY GODS THAT MURDEROUS LOOK SHE GETS WHEN SHE’S FACING OFF AGAINST SURRIANS AND SHE DOESN’T THINK ANYONE IS WATCHING JEREMY I AM IN LOVE” and, like, actively going over to try to talk with her any time I had the chance to ever and insisting on sparring with her any time we had free time and insisting on having a bunch of scenes with Talvus of “oh my god Talvus help she said three whole words to me what does it mean” which made all this the gay mess that it was would have been something that I wouldn’t have done if there were other people in the party with other agendas; gay elf murder bachelorette campaign gets to be gay elf murder bachelorette campaign specifically because Jeremy and I realized “….wait, there are only the two of us, we can get as ridiculous with this as we want” and have decided to commit. Fully. But that’s not the sort of shit you want to pull if there’s a whole other group of people who just kind of have to sit and watch every time you want to go over and flirt with your murder-rival-who-will-maybe-one-day-be-your-murder-girlfriend before they can do the stuff they want to do.

(As a secondary warning note if you’re doing any sort of roleplaying and are playing a fictional character in love with another fictional character being played by a friend of yours, you better be on the same page as your friend as, like, one of you not having a secret crush on the other in real life because shit gets messy and then real life and character stuff starts to blend and it’s just. I have been there and done that when I was a 17-year-old Gay Mess and I feel like it is my responsibility as a 22-year-old Slightly More Responsible Gay Mess to warn you against that. Jeremy and I know each other very well and have for years and know each other’s boundaries and talked about triggers and boundaries before starting this campaign, which to be fair was more because as a villain campaign dark stuff is probs going to happen but we have talked about fictional romance too , but I would not play this intimately with someone I didn’t trust intimately. So keep that in mind when designing things?)

ALSO THAT BEING SAID

if you want a gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, there is a game called Monsterhearts that I have never played but heard about friends playing and they all freaking love it and there are a lot of undertones about dealing with mental illness and being queer and in the closet and the entire setup of the game is y’all are monsters in high school having love life drama and everything I have heard about this game is how remarkable it is combined with stories about the most ridiculous teenage drama, sooooo possibly after I have ranted for 8000 words about how to set up a functional Dungeons and Dragons campaign which the party and DMing advice still I think applies to any game Monsterhearts might be the game that you want to start with.

BONUS: ADVICE FROM JEREMY.

#jeremy believes in you #so do I #wheeee that got long #dungeons and dragons #storytelling advice #gay murder elf bachelorette #if you stuck around through this whole thing wow congratulations I hope I wasn't too boring #I have a lot of friends who are very good at mechanics and who can speak a lot about good game design #this is what I can offer though

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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You're going to think I'm such a weirdo because you're my go-to person for whether particular British monarchs were gay, but I have another question along those lines. Was Queen Anne in a lesbian relationship with Sarah Churchill? And if not, was she gay? I read one book that explained she wasn't "because she hadn't heard of it." Needless to say, I didn't finish it.

Ahaha. We’ve all gotta be known for something, right?

Short answers to both your questions: No and no, but also in both cases sorta, and which reflects a really fascinating entry point into a discussion of the female side of seventeenth/eighteenth-century LGBT culture. (Seriously, guys, the eighteenth century was HELLA GAY. I’ve written about the male side of it, but there is just as much or more to look at from the female. It’s also why you should continue to laugh at Certain Unnamed Persons telling you gay people did not exist before the 1960s.)

Anyway, so, Anne. As girls, both she and her sister Mary (the future Queen Mary II) had a passionate attachment to an older woman, Frances Apsley, and wrote letters to her that reflect this romantic imagining. (p.1648-49). The thirteen-year-old Mary addressed the twenty-two-year-old Frances as “my dearest dear husband” and called herself “your faithful wife, loyal to your bed […] how I dote on you, oh I am in raptures of sweet amaze, when I think of you I am in ecstasy.” In fact, when Anne began her own correspondence with Frances, Mary was jealous of her/seemed to have viewed her sister as a romantic rival for Frances’ affections. In their letters, Anne cast herself and Frances as star-crossed lovers from the play Mithridates, and there was an atmosphere of unabashed hedonism and sexual liberty at the Restoration court of Charles II. The girls were mostly kept away from this, but there were plenty of plays, novels, etc that centered around themes of female same-sex desire. Eighteenth-century English literature (see p. 261-62) had all kinds of exploration of it, and indeed reflects a vernacular for LGBT relationships arguably more detailed than what we have today (if by nature pejorative): “sodomite” and “molly” were the terms for the active and passive partner in a male homosexual relationship, and “sapphic” and “tommy” were the equivalents for a female homosexual relationship. (But of course, I forgot, we didn’t have LGBT people before the 1960s.)

What Valerie Traub calls “the renaissance of lesbianism in early modern England” wasn’t just a literary phenomenon either. The habit of women sharing beds at all level of society, from working class to noblewomen, and the usually all-female social circle of young women offered a convenient environment for practical explorations of the kind of passionate desire seen above. At least one contemporary commentator had no problem with it (see p. 54) and viewed it in pragmatic terms:

Calling himself “neither their censor nor their husband,” Brantôme maintains that “unmarried girls and widows may be excused for liking such frivolous and vain pleasures and preferring to give themselves to each other thus and so get rid of their heat than to resort to men and be put in the family way and dishonored by them, or to have to get rid of their fruit.” As for the homoerotic exploits of married women: “the men are not cuckolded by it.”

In other words, female same-sex activity might not be optimal, but it’s essentially harmless, preferable to unwanted pregnancies, illicit abortions, or the spoiling of marriage prospects. And since everyone knows (according to bountiful eighteenth-century medical wisdom) that women are “hot” and need to relieve their humors with sex, lesbianism (though it wasn’t yet called that) was fine as an option. This of course was not the only view on it, but it does absolutely make it the case that yes, Anne (and other women of her class and era) would have heard of it. (Seriously, do these Str8 Historians just… assume that nobody ever mentioned same-sex relations/desire/literature, because gay people are “so modern” or… what? I’m baffled. On that note, Emma Donoghue’s “Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801″ is also a recommended read.)

Anyway, back to Anne and Mary themselves. It’s highly unlikely that their ardor toward Frances Apsley ever went beyond letters, and Mary did not have another relationship with a woman of the same intensity; after a very rocky start to her 1677 marriage to William of Orange, she fell quickly in love with him and devoted herself to him. However, Anne continued to have the same sort of passionate attachments to women, including that to Sarah Jennings, later Lady Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. Sarah is a fascinating historical lady for many reasons, and through her relationship with Anne over several decades, was able to exert considerable influence and prestige. She was a strong-willed, well educated, politically ambitious, and formidable woman, and I think the assessment of her relationship with Anne in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (login needed for full text) is essentially correct:

Anne wasemotionally vulnerable and always depended very much upon her near circle offriends; Sarah wasthe closest of these. Anne wasromantically, but platonically, in love with Sarah, who, for her part, understood very well theimmense value of her relationship with the princess. So close did Anne feel to Sarah that from about 1691 she insisted thatthe aliases Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman be used between them, to overcomeany undue feeling of formality when in private. Although Sarah eventually found the princess’sattentions irritating in their childlike ardour, she responded with genuineaffection, but not with love. She later wrote that she had little in commonwith Anne; she usedher periods of exclusion from the court to widen her reading, including Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, Montaigne, and Seneca, whereas Anne remained stubbornly non-intellectual. Nonethe less, their political interdependence and genuine affection kept theirpersonal relationship alive.

I would say in my view this is about right. Anne was definitely in love with her, while Sarah liked her, but saw the overall value in being attached to the princess (later queen). They fell out over differing political opinions (Sarah was a Whig, Anne was a Tory) and both had devoted relationships with their husbands. Sarah’s was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the statesman, political player, and hero of the War of Spanish Succession, and Anne’s was Prince George of Denmark. Sarah and Churchill had seven children, while Anne had at least seventeen pregnancies by George, but only one living son (William, Duke of Gloucester, who died at the age of eleven).

George has generally gotten a bad rap as a total unambitious dullard, and there has been some attempt to portray Anne and Sarah as lovers while Anne was unavoidably saddled with George and only kept having sex with him in hopes of a Stuart heir, which I think is both inaccurate and unfair to George. He had almost no political ambition at all and was absolutely happy to let his wife rule and be queen and to support her decisions, which was the reverse of Anne’s sister Mary and her husband William (Anne’s immediate predecessors). William refused to let Mary be crowned as sole queen, even though Mary and Anne were both daughters of James II and the hereditary right was Mary’s (for her part, Mary refused to countenance rulership without William and never wanted it much, but accepted it in the name of the Protestant cause/saving England from Catholic monarchy under her father). So by the time of Anne’s reign (1702-1714) it was still not at all negotiated how exactly a new (female) constitutional monarch, post-1689 and Bill of Rights, would rule by herself, but Anne did pretty much that. She didn’t have constitutional strife, she took England from the chaos and civil/religious wars/Commonwealth/etc of the seventeenth to its emergence as a major world power in the eighteenth, and George was a-okay with all of this. He declared that “I am her Majesty’s subject, I will do naught but what she commands me,” and they adored each other. George’s death in 1708 absolutely devastated Anne and was one of the reasons that snapped her fraught relationship with Sarah, as one observer wrote:

[George’s death] has flung the Queen into an unspeakable grief.She never left him till he was dead, but continued kissing him the very momenthis breath went out of his body, and ‘twas with a great deal of difficulty my Lady Marlborough prevailedupon her to leave him.

Sarah and Anne’s relationship had been steadily deteriorating over political differences, Sarah’s domineering personality, and Anne’s affection for a new female favorite, Abigail Masham. Indeed, Anne’s Whig opponents (and Sarah herself) fanned rumors that Anne and Abigail’s relationship was that of lovers, including by scandalous poetry (see pp. 157-8):

Whenas Queen Anne of great RenownGreat Britain’s Sceptre sway’dBesides the Church, she dearly lov’dA Dirty Chamber-Maid….

As Traub points out, Sarah’s accusations are more likely motivated by jealousy at losing her position as favorite to Abigail, and Anne herself never forgave Sarah for insinuating lesbianism (as in the physical act of it, rather than romantic feelings) in their relationship. Again as Traub comments: “It was the result of a transformation in discourse, whereas intimate female friends, including matronly monarchs with seventeen pregnancies behind them, could be interpreted as purveyors of sexual vice.” In other words, the accusations flung at Elizabeth I, the woman ruling alone in the late 16th-early 17th century, had been that she had inappropriate male lovers; now the charges against Anne, a century later, were of inappropriate female lovers, and reflected, as discussed above, the emergence of this entire construction and visibility of same-sex female desire. Accusations or intimations of homosexuality were nothing new to the Stuarts; both William and Mary (especially William) had been painted as having inappropriately intimate same-gender relationships, and William’s Jacobite enemies had likewise gotten considerable mileage out of pamphlets portraying him as a “sodomite.” (Which, again, they had political reasons to do, so there is that, but it’s fascinating, if unfortunate, that this had now become the preferred currency of political slander, as that was not necessarily the case before).

Overall, Anne certainly had strong emotional relationships to women for her entire life, and in some cases, those relationships were accused of being explicitly sexual (reflecting a culture that was, as noted, really hella gay for both women and men, and this gayness was both accepted and reviled in turn) but for the benefit of her enemies (Sarah’s unflattering depiction of Anne was basically accepted as fact until the late 20th century). So in one sense, Anne and Sarah were in a long relationship that ended badly, and Anne was absolutely biromantic. Sex (or the lack of it) is not the only defining marker of a relationship, but if we mean a lesbian relationship in the modern sense of the word (where they are both romantic and sexual partners) then no. Anne and George were known for being devoted and faithful to each other (as noted, not at all the norm in the Stuart court) and Anne’s seventeen pregnancies make it clear they had sex throughout their marriage. Anne herself took the accusation of physical lesbianism with Abigail Masham as an unforgivable slight on Sarah’s part; i.e. the feelings or the rhetoric were acceptable to her, but the action was not. We have no reason to think she was being a hypocrite about this, or willfully concealing/ignoring it. Because, surprise! People’s attitudes and identities toward sexuality are complicated and shifting and partial and evolving, and conditioned by class, time, place, religion, society, etc.

Anyway, since this is another novel: we could definitely classify Anne as queer in the modern definition (having romantic feelings/romantic-if chaste-involvements with women, but lovingly and faithfully married to her husband who was her sexual partner), but probably not actively and certainly not exclusively lesbian. She was traditional in her views and devoted to the Protestant church (and to George), so yes. I would classify her as biromantic with a preference for/sexual activity with men, but whose long relationships with women were both politically and personally influential and absolutely deserve attention within the context of eighteenth-century LGBT history and literature.

#history #queer history #queen anne #the stuarts #whysogrimm #ask

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agirlnamedally · 7 years

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Allyyyy I start hsc on Monday and I'm supppppeeer nervous. I have been studying a lot but ofc enjoying my time with everyone at the library and talking etc. I'm stressing about my atar bc I really want to get in to social work bc I really wanna help people :((((( I wanna do psych but it's 99!!!!!

My tips for anyone starting Year 12/HSC/Senior Year:

Know that it’s perfectly normal to be nervous! I’m pretty sure I was scared to start VCE from Year 7 onwards, it always seemed like this giant, scary, looming monster that would destroy my happiness and suck out my soul like a dementor. Mostly, I just assumed I would have no free time, wouldn’t be able to keep up with the workload, and would fail absolutely everything.

Then, something funny happened. Year 11 came around and I realised… nothing had changed. The work might have been harder, but I had done the required training (aka Years 7-10) and was fully equipped with the skills to handle it. The transition from Year 10 to Year 11, and then again from 11 to 12, is really not that significant or scary! Your workload might increase a tiny bit, because (and in hindsight now I can look back and 100% support this) practice really does make perfect. Teachers don’t make you write 100 essays because they hate you and want you to be miserable or have no social life, it’s because they want you to be a good writer, but more than that, they know that the more essays you write, the easier it will be for you to write one come exam time. It will be less stressful, less terrifying and so much simpler to just regurgitate a piece of writing you’ve practically memorised because you’ve ingrained it into your memory throughout the year. That’s just an example for say English or Literature, but I think the same thing applies for all subjects, no matter how you’re tested. Practice makes perfect. Or at least, practice makes progress, haha.

Now, ATARs. Those finicky little bastards. I’m not going to tell you to forget about it, because I know that when I was in the midst of VCE it was always on my mind. I even had older kids, who had already graduated, constantly telling me how insignificant it was and that it wouldn’t matter one year from now, but I didn’t believe any of that. Now, looking back, I know that they were right. In terms of measuring your intelligence or potential for future career success, ATARs mean nothing. No matter what score you get, I promise you, you can go on and be anything you want to be in life. There will always be obstacles and challenges between you and your dreams, but if you want something and you’re willing to work hard and be nice to others, nothing can stop you. The only difference an ATAR can make is the journey and how you go about it. The only thing an ATAR determines is which course you might do. You might have your heart set on a dream course with a super high ATAR. If you want to shoot for that, go for it! Just know that if your number is lower, there are still ways to pursue it. You can take a gap year, travel, discover the world and find out who you are, uncover your passions, gain some experience. Do a TAFE course, start somewhere else, transfer. Defer it, reject it, volunteer somewhere, change your entire perspective on life, completely change directions. You still have the choice. Unis will often accept someone who didn’t get a first or second round offer initially as a mid-year enrolment, or you could do a semester or two somewhere else and then jump across and hopefully they’ll let you keep those credits under your belt. You may not even want to go to uni! There are many many options and paths you can take, don’t let a number limit or define your future.

Personally, I knew I wanted to further my education but wasn’t entirely set on any particular existing occupation. I knew my two favourite subjects were Psychology and Health and Human Development, but that I also enjoyed writing for English, so I could envision myself happily doing something that encompassed those things. For me, an Arts degree was the perfect choice because it allows you to dip your toes into many different areas of study, test the waters of various fields before arriving at a favourite – your major. The course I most had my heart set on had a pretty high entry score, one which I actually thought I had no possible chance of achieving, but I set it as my goal anyway because as I was so undecided, I didn’t want to ‘limit myself’ (typical Year 12 brain thinking). It worked out wonderfully for me, somehow I found the drive and ended up doing a lot better than I’d expected, really surprising myself (and probably everyone else) and guaranteeing a spot in the course. However, I wholeheartedly believe that had I not achieved the score I did, had I gone to a different university or course, or even taken some time off from studying, I would be just as happy. I would have found another way to continue learning, whether it be by sitting in a lecture theatre or travelling to see it myself. I could have enrolled in a different course, disappointed in myself and thinking it was only temporary, and ended up LOVING it. Maybe even more than this course! Who knows? These are the kinds of ‘what if’s and ‘maybe’s that make my brain want to explode. Being a human can be exhausting.

Whether you have a goal course you’re hoping to get entry for, a dream uni, hopes of studying abroad, a plan to defer for a year or no desire to study at all – but they’re all okay and all achievable! No matter what it is you want in life, there are ways to get there. Not just one, but limitless varying courses of action you can follow. One might be more direct, but it might also be more boring, or less challenging. It might grow you less as a person, or prevent you from meeting some really interesting people that another path will introduce you to.

Year 12 is an awesome time. It can be stressful, overwhelming, demanding, sleepless. It can invoke self-doubt, nostalgia, fear of plummeting into the depths of the unknown (your future) and leaving behind the safety and security of routine (your past). However, it can also be rewarding, exciting, bonding, enriching, growing and deliriously fun. I say delirious because there will definitely be times when you and your friends are so overcome with work and anxiety that you just have to laugh. Misery loves company and Year 12 is proof of that. Study dates are perfect for simultaneously motivating each other and collectively crying into the bowl of chocolate you just devoured. I’m probably not painting the best picture here, but seriously, it can be a terrific time.

If I could give you one piece of advice for entering VCE, it’s to maintain a balance. Balance in life is the key here, because otherwise you will either burn out from too much studying, fall behind from not enough, get sick from not taking care of yourself, or something else just as un-fun. When you’re studying, dedicate proportionate amounts of time or energy to subjects depending on their current level of significance. If possible, do assignments as soon as you get them, but prioritise the ones that are due first or worth the most. More importantly, ensure you have balance throughout your whole life, holistically. It’s just as important to take care of your mental, social and physical well-being as it is to reach your education goals. Make the time to keep active, even if it seems like there is none. I can’t even tell you how beneficial it is to get outside, clear your head and get your heart rate up. Endorphins are your best friend and a powerful stress-buster, so keep a pair of runners at the ready. If you’re not a fan of solo workouts, can’t stay motivated or simply don’t enjoy it, I highly recommend joining a team sport! In fact, I recommend this for everyone, because it’s beneficial to your mental, social and physical health. All at once. Plus there’s the accountability factor – you can’t just skip the workout or hit snooze when you don’t feel like it - you made a commitment and your teammates are counting on you! Honestly being a part of a group like that will make you feel so needed or wanted, and it’s great to make new friends or connect with like-minded people. SPORT RULES. Taking care of your physical health also means nourishing your body with the right foods, getting enough sleep and drinking plenty of water – all the basics. Back to balance – it’s also essential to dedicate time to doing things just for you. Bubble baths are a great choice, there’s also reading, meditation, getting a massage or mani-pedi, having a movie night, seeing a friend, anything that makes you feel relaxed, happy and at peace. These are the things that keep you going! Imagine a pie chat, split into 3 sections. One section is school and schoolwork, one is health and fitness, and the last is dedicated to me-time or fun activities. The three sections represent mental, physical and social wellbeing = all equally important and necessary for not only success, but holistic health in general. If you’re feeling stressed out, look at which of the three sections might be out of balance. Are you not getting enough sleep? Have too much on your plate? Need some alone time? Not fuelling your brain and body with enough or the right nutrition? Try to keep these things in check and remind yourself that they’re all significant and deserving of your attention.

Most of all, know that VCE is completely unique to your own experience. Like karma, you will get out only what you put in. You can make it an easy time, just for socialising and blowing off class, you can dedicate 110% of yourself to studying every waking hour, never lose a mark and never see anyone else, OR you can have the best of both worlds and strike that beautiful, sweet balance.

Decide what your own goals are. Make your own rules. Ask yourself what motivates you, and then go after it. Use this time to challenge yourself, grow as a person and exceed any expectations, limitations or barriers that have been set by anyone – including and especially yourself. It’s an exciting time that you should definitely make the most of, because it will be over before you know it. I know it’s hard, but try to forget about ATARs, or at least diminish the all-mighty power and holy-grail presence that it can take. It’s just a number. If you try your best, that’s all you need to do. I have complete faith in you anon,

YOU CAN DO IT :D

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