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nakachuchu · 1 year

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Temptation | Vampire!Okkotsu Yuuta (nsfw)

SYNOPSIS: Vampire AU - You're in a contract to be Yuuta's fresh source of blood.

READER: female

INCLUDES: blood drinking, kissing, contract bloodbag/slave, seduction, oral (f), markings

WORDS: 2k

WRITTEN: 12/28/2022

NOTE: This is part of @mekiza 's Bloodbag collab event! I was excited for this so I wrote it fairly quickly, and if I can think of another vampire idea, maybe I'll put in another entry <3

There were different regulations in different countries and nations as to how vampires and humans would coexist. In the U.S., it varied by state but in California, humans had more rights than vampires. In Texas, the rights were equal but the humans fought against having vampires enter their state.

Okkotsu Yuuta was a vampire from an old aristocratic family and compared to others, he was a newborn. It was because he was still nineteen, both technically and physically. His parents were well above their one-hundred mark, but even they were considered young in their family.

Yuuta left the family the minute he could in order to travel the world. He wanted to explore different cultures and taste different foods. He had such a great time in Africa that he stayed there for a whole year, and during that time, he became a vegetarian. He didn't consume human blood at all, and it was a bit difficult at first in terms of feeling hungry, but the taste he didn't mind.

Yuuta never enjoyed drinking human blood, especially straight from the source because he didn't like the way they were treated. His family didn't care about how inhumane it was, claiming that "there are laws so we can't kill them anyways." It didn't make a difference to Yuuta.

But when he arrived home in Japan, his family forced him to drink human blood. He was hoping they would understand, but of course, they didn't. What he never expected his parents to do was bring a live human to him.

"This is your blood bag, Young Master," said the head butler.

"Blood bag?" Yuuta questioned in shock.

You stood in front of him in a loose dress that was meant for easy access and easy movement. There were no marks or chains on you to suggest you were a fighter.

"We bought over her rights. As imperial law, killing is not legal, but should you kill her, I shall take care of it," said the head butler. "You would do best to drink. You wouldn't want the master and madam to get angry."

The head butler left silently, closing the doors to Yuuta's bedroom.

"It's nice to meet you, young master. I'm Y/N," you greeted.

"There's no need to call me that," he gently said. "Yuuta is fine."

You nodded. "Drink," you said as you angled your head to the side to expose your neck.

"What? Wait — no, I'm — I'm not going to drink," Yuuta objected.

You frowned. "I don't get paid until you drink, so drink."

"You want me to drink from you?" he questioned. "Why would you do that? You shouldn't have to be a blood bag."

You stared at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity. "Money. I need money."

"I can give you money — "

You shook your head and walked closer to him until you were right in front of him. Your chests were nearly touching.

"I already signed the contract. I'm bound to you until I die or until you become the master of his house and fire me yourself. Those are the conditions for my unemployment," you explained. "Now drink."

"No! I'm not going to — "

You reached out and grabbed his hand, bringing it to your neck and using his fingernails to scratch your neck. His sharp nails drew blood, making him stumble back.

The smell of fresh human blood was making him both nauseous and hungry. He closed his eyes and tore his face away.

"Stop it."

You frowned. "Why?"

You brushed against the blood with the pads of your fingers and brought it to his lips. Immediately, he grabbed your wrist in an attempt to both stop you and force you down.

Your blood was on his lips and the urge was too great. He licked his lips and his morals were thrown out the window.

His grip on your wrist was starting to hurt a bit, but the money was most important to you. He had technically consumed your blood and that meant you got paid. Even if you died here, you would be able to support your family.

He grabbed your neck and guided you to his bed, pushing you down by the throat. You choked a bit, heart racing as he climbed on top of you.

His eyes were black and dark and seemed to have no soul. You were a bit scared now. All that bravery and confidence you had before was gone, but you were still determined. Your next goal was to live this round and come back for your next paycheck.

Your right wrist was pinned above your head, and you knew he didn't bother to grab the other wrist because he was significantly stronger and faster than you.

His knee was wedged between your legs as he nudged your face to the side to get better access to your neck. His fangs sunk into your flesh, making you cry out in pain.

Your left hand bunched around his blouse, nails digging into his flesh as he sucked your blood. You were getting lightheaded, seeing spots in your vision.

"Y-Young Master," you murmured.

He either wasn't listening or couldn't hear you. He was too focused on his first human meal in years.

"Yuuta!" you shouted.

He froze, snapping out of his feral state. He immediately withdrew his fangs from you and put some distance between you and him to get a better look at you.

Once he saw the state you were in, his face turned hot. You were panting with blood smeared on your neck and he was still pining your wrist above your head. Your dress rode up to your stomach, exposing everything below, and he just noticed how close his knee was to your flower.

"I-I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, letting go of you and flashing to the other side of the room with his inhumane speed.

"It's — It's okay. I'm just a little dizzy," you murmured as you slowly attempted to sit up.

"Let — Let me help you!"

He flashed over once again and picked you up bridal style. You gratefully accepted his help, even though you knew you were contractually his slave.

"We need to get you some water and food. I'm sorry," he murmured. "This is what I didn't want to happen."

You were pleasantly surprised by how kind and polite a vampire could be, but you chalked it down to him being him. He stayed with you as you ate and drank water, even though the head butler showed great dissatisfaction with it.

But after you got better, Yuuta did his best to avoid you. He didn't want to risk nearly killing you again, but you weren't giving up. You would walk around the manor, trying to find him. Of course, it never worked out because vampires were the masters of the shadows, and you were just a simple human.

And so, you had to entrust the head butler for help. Your goal was money, but the head butler's goal was to get the young master to drink human blood. The two of you worked together to trick and trap Yuuta in the library, a place he enjoyed.

"You two tricked me?" Yuuta questioned.

You nodded. "He said that if you leave without drinking, he'll call your parents."

You stood in the middle of the library where there was a fireplace and two loveseats underneath a rug. The fire was crackling, setting the mood for a night in the library. The moon was dim, hidden by the clouds.

"Y/N, I'm not going to drink from you. I nearly killed you."

"But you didn't," you retorted.

"That's not the point!"

Well, you already knew he wouldn't give in, so you had a backup plan. You took out a pocket knife in an attempt to cut your shoulder, but Yuuta acted quickly.

He grabbed the knife and threw it across the room, lodging it into the locked wooden doors — courtesy of the head butler.

"Déjà vu," you whispered.

Normally, Yuuta would be embarrassed at the similar, intimate position but he was too angry at you to care.

"I could kill you. Don't you understand?"

"I understand completely, but I trust you," you said fiercely. "In my short time here, I've learned about who you are. You're not like other vampires I've met or heard about. You're so...human, and it's amazing."

He blinked in surprise and snapped out of his angry state. "There's nothing to be amazed by," he muttered.

"You're so utterly beautiful and you're ignorant of that."

"I'm not beautiful," he said bashfully.

"Yes, you are," you replied adamantly. "You practically glow. I saw you feeding carrots to rabbits in the garden and tending to the roses when you have people for that. But most importantly, you care about my health and safety. As a human, you've piqued my interest. You're the most beautiful vampire I've ever seen and — "

He cut you off by placing his lips against yours. You were surprised at first but quickly gave in to temptation. His fangs brushed against your lips as he kissed you. Your bodies molded together, hot and urgent as you moved your hips for more friction.

"I wanted to ask for permission," he murmured against your lips. "But then you kept talking and I really wanted to kiss you."

"It's okay. I liked it," you whispered. "And I want more."

He kissed you more roughly this time like the world was ending and he would never get another chance to touch you again. He let go of your wrists to roam your body with his hands, and you did the same.

Yuuta had never done anything with a woman before, but he was taught by his tutors how seduction and intercourse worked.

He liked you. He liked how refreshing and simple you were, even though you were stubborn and too smart for your own good.

"Yuuta," you whispered. "Touch me please."

Your gentle pleas spurred him on. Knowing he shouldn't touch your pretty pussy with his long fingernails, he slid down, kissing your stomach and thighs in the process.

He was slow, choosing to enjoy the moment and your scent mixed with your arousal and excitement. He kissed your clit through your panties, watching your reaction. You hummed, back arching off the rug.

"You're so pretty," he praised as he pulled down your panties.

"Yuuta," you moaned.

He threw your panties over his shoulder, not caring where they ended up. He licked a long stripe up your folds before circling his tongue around your clit. His pretty eyes were looking up at you, long eyelashes fluttering as he sucked on your clit.

Your hand tangled in his hair, urging him on. His fingernails dug into your flesh enough to draw a bit of blood as he satisfied you.

"Yuuta, that feels good," you moaned.

He smiled and buried his face into your cunt. His nose rubbed against your swollen clit as his tongue wiggled and pressed inside you. He would switch between moving his tongue inside you and flicking against your clit.

You would occasionally jolt in surprise when his fangs grazed you, but his soothing kisses made up for it. He sucked on your clit like a newborn calf, holding you down when you began to shudder and hold your breath.

"J-Just — R-Right there, Y-Yuuta. R-Right there — "

You came on his tongue, digging your nails into his scalp as you rode out your high against his tongue. He hummed his approval, wanting to give you pleasure he would never give anyone else.

He kissed your clit one final time before licking the blood from the crescent-shaped marks he created on your thighs. Then, he got to his knees and lifted your leg to kiss your ankle.

"Is it okay if we do more?" he questioned.

You offered a tired smile and nodded. "I'd like that."

While you didn't mean for it to go this far, you weren't complaining. You only meant to trick or seduce him into drinking from you, but this was far better than what you imagined.

#jujutsu Kaisen x reader #yuuta okkotsu x reader #okkotsu yuta x reader #okkotsu yuuta x reader #Bloodbagcollab

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featherisderp · 7 months

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aight whats some of the hc that you are very passionate about?

there is no limit since I really like your aus

A- Thank you- I get awkward about my AU's so seeing someone say they like them is always appreciated. :,3

Anyway uh- Long post under the cut!

The main one is Meta Dad. This is something that will never be taken from me- A lot of people see him as a sort of mentors to the kids (and that's fine!) but I personally think he's just- Dad mode. He goes out of his way to help the kids with anything, saw Tiff sad by the fountain and decided to ask her what was wrong (before knowing it had to do with Kirby), and tends to keep an eye on them when there's danger.

Another one is that puffballs can sense each other and monsters. This one I sort of got from thewinterraven, but seeing as puffballs usually manifest as Star Warriors, sensing monsters and each other would be rather cool!

A really big one is that reproduction doesn't happen. Children (of any species) just sort of manifest, although some species will require two parents to want a child for it to appear. This one is mostly because now I don't have to worry about any of that.

I like to think that Meta Knight appeared on Popstar shortly before or after Tiff's existence. He's probably had to babysit her a few times (which leads to him immediately getting attached in some AU's).

One that applies to the anime is why Tiff and Tuff have a hard time figuring out whether or not to trust Meta Knight. I can acknowledge that the anime probably didn't think too much about it but I like to think that it's because the two of the grew up knowing Meta Knight and that he worked for Dedede. Even after getting to know him, they'd both be aware that he's obscenely loyal to his job and following through with orders, even if it doubles as a way to train Kirby. They aren't confused about whether or not he intends to kill Kirby, they're confused because they're not sure whether or not he's willing to put those orders above his concern for them.

Meta Knight is the monster that betrayed Nightmare. I have this explored in more depth in another post (you can read that here), but this is a hc I will die with.

Nothing dies from old age. I like to think anything can age up to a certain point, but stops aging past the peak of adulthood. This means they can still die of illness or injury, just not from their bodies slowly deteriorating. Some species age faster than others but they all take a relatively long time compared to humans. They may use sentences to say things like 'I'm ten years old' when they've technically been alive for a couple hundred/thousand years, but that's entirely so it's easier for me. I should probably specify that a child is still a child even if they've been alive for like- 28 years, if their species ages slowly.

I think that's it for now, thanks for ask, anon! This was fun! ^^

#kirby #nintendo #hal laboratory #kirby right back at ya #kirby au #headcanons #asks #ask #answered asks #answered #thanks for the ask! ^^#I enjoyed this one a lot!

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oviids · 3 years

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pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.* - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul. slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes* - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

#if you told me i'd be doing this in 2020 three weeks ago i'd have laughed in your face :/#deancas #supernatural #fic recs #spn femslash #destiel #fic #the alie tag #spn posting

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vidalinav · 3 years

Text

Burning Questions I Still Have:

You know SJM really hasn’t given us too much substance in these book talks so I’m just going to put down these questions as my own way of expanding the topic of the book beyond Eris, Azriel, and the copious amount of sex they’re going to have (Nesta and Cassian) though all of that is very exciting.

1. How much does Mor factor into this story? Are we going to see her at all or would she be more focused in on an Azriel story if we get one?

2. Does Elain have any say in sending Nesta away? Will she have some involvement in Nesta’s healing? Will we see her in Illyria, visiting her sister perhaps, or will it be short instances?

3. Does Nesta make new friends? Assumedly she does, but right now it’s looking very established character centric, but you know with these lack of spoilers. (rolls eyes)

4. Will the witch concept brought up in ACOWAR come up in ACOSF? Is Nesta technically a witch? Because her power extends beyond her natural reserve “technically.” Will we see other witches? Witches vs Illyrians... Maybe?

5. What is the main conflict in Illyria? And how will it be resolved? So far we know it has something to do with rebellion, but how do you fix that realistically?

6. How will the women in Illyria gain some autonomy, because lets be honest, everyone learning to fight is and is not going to fix everything?

7. Where is Bryaxis?

8. Eris has a deal with Rhysand to help him kill his father. How would that work? Does it involve Nesta, does this then involve her more in the Inner Circle’s antics in which she’ll gain a job in some way? Whether she wants to or not.

9. How does Nesta suffer? We know emotionally, yes. Power, yes. But how does that come about when there’s so much potential conflict in this book.

10. What is the main conflict of this story? There seems to be many, that I’m sure will be extended to the other books that come out, but to what to extent does this book extend to the others. Will we see all of the same characters in the books after this one?

11. Eris’s mom and Helion; Helion and Lucien. Enough said.

12. Nesta dealing with her father’s death.

13. Cassian’s mom, who is supposedly dead. (Jury is still out on that one; no dead body, no dead)

14. What’s that shadowy evil substance that Mor discovers by her estate?

15. Will Mor get a story? Especially since if she does then she’d be the first LGBTQ character from the SJM universe to have their own book... I think. Don’t quote me on that. But she’s got a lot to deal with too and I think she deserves a book. She’s a very interesting character. She reminds me of a mixture between Aelin and Bryce and the more secretive aspects of Nesta.

16. Will Elain ever get a mate or significant other? Honestly, I’m on the fence with this. Mostly because one, Elain is purely side-character to me. She’s interesting, but not enough right now to warrant a whole book. I also just think that right now she’s kind of useless, and I don’t mean that to be mean, I just mean that she doesn’t have a purpose yet and most of her personality right now is purely fodder. It’s her main personality I say. Maybe not the honest to god deep one, but she’s got at least the surface level personality with hints of iceberg feelings.

Interestingly enough it makes more sense I think to have the next book centered on Lucien and Azriel if they’re going to settle that conflict. Even though I hate love triangles in any sense, but none of them love each other right now anyways... And I think that it would be hard to figure out these three relationships when they’re already linked together in ACOWAR and ACOFAS.

17. Will we ever know why Amren and Nesta got into a fight? Will their relationship be fixed? Also where she at in this whole conflict of interest that is this book and Nesta being sent away? Will we see her often?

18. Will Rhysand have a good amount of time in this book? What is his involvement with Nesta--his sister-in-law lol? Will their relationship reach some level of understanding? Will they hate each other for ever? Will they have some semblance of mutual respect and a common denominator that is the love for Feyre and their protectiveness for their family?

19. What are Cassian’s conflicts? To be quite honest, I feel this book is very Nesta centric, and I do hope that Cassian is not just thrown in there for romance and that’s it. BUT we know the Illyrian conflict, the Mor/Azriel conflict, the issue with being born a bastard, not belonging with his people. The Nesta conflict, the war probably. But like besides Nesta, all of these conflicts have existed for as long as he’s lived. So is that really a conflict or an issue to be dealt with... A lot of this will be resolved through the “Powers of Love” lol and whatever else they can do in Illyria, but then what else? Internally, I don’t feel he has too much to deal with because well... a lot of his problems center around other people.

20. What will Feyre being doing? Let me be honest, I don’t like the thought of Feyre being pregnant. I understand her body her choice, but this girl literally went from let’s spend time with each other to let’s have a baby, because maybe it won’t happen in a few hundred years. But let’s be honest, if I was her I would not be thinking that it would happen in a few hundred years. Things happen in the most inconvenient times, and right now with all this, it’s very inconvenient. I also think I really don’t like it because right now she is really playing into that role of a wife and not as everything we know her as. I mean she’s allowed to relax, to be loved and what not, but I don’t know. Lame, I think, that she became high lady in name, but probably not in any sort of empowerment way, and I think that’s sad because she could do an awful lot of good, and should do it, because right now her court has soooooo many issues, even issues that Rhys kind of just puts in the back burner and hopes for the best. She is the equal to Rhys, but so far she’s not seeming so equal and she also seems to have lost some purpose. So I’m also wondering if this want of a child and planning for it is Feyre’s way of being useful again... because she spent so much of her life taking care of other people. Which again..... ehhhhhh.

21. What the f*** are Nesta’s powers? What do they do? I hope it does not end in some vague inclination like Mor’s truth power whatever. But like, she should be all powerful, death god status. I want to see Nesta as the goddess she is.

22. Koschei??? The stealer of the hero’s wife or whatever as he’s referenced in Russian lore... I think? Is he going to be more involved in Vassa, or Elain even (because Elain right now has always been the damsel) or Nesta, because of the queens and “their powerful ally.” Wouldn’t he be the best teacher for Nesta’s power really, when he’s a powerful sorcerer in the book/death god that has worshippers and what not and collects women.

>>> My theory is that if Elain and Lucien are the next pov’s then maybe Nesta will be kidnapped by Koschei at the end, and Elain gets to really show what she’ll do for her family, and what she’s made of. But it also keeps the story going without cutting it off completely, and we keep the bigger conflict which is that there’s a whole world of problems and rulers and that Nesta’s story can’t really end at this book, because again she’s suppose to be all-powerful, cauldron incarnate, the wind has heard of her, spreading the news around, and that she does need to learn her powers and I doubt anyone can really teach her, but she for sure probably can’t teach her self.

23. Will the love triangle situation not be between Elain, Lucien, and Azriel, but Vassa, Elain, and Lucien, or maybe a love square like A Midsummer Night’s Dream? That would be kinda cool. I just don’t really know if Azriel will be a love interest for Elain, even if he has that fondness for her. Azriel has a lot of problems, but he’s also like... I don’t know. Off topic.

24. The Queens--what the hell? What about that one who turned old and is now immortal? They were chilling in Vassa’s kingdom. Where are they so Nesta can beat their asses? Also, these human kingdoms--what? What are they doing now that their queens are just in hiding and that allied with Hybern to be fae? Do they know?

25. Magical humans--fae blood sometimes trickle into human lines from that one fae whoever she is. Doubt she’s the only one. Probably will have magical humans, realistically.

26. Vassa--all of Vassa. Maybe Vassa and Mor.... You never know. I doubt they’ll get that curse reversed and she’ll be completely human, so maybe she’ll a be a shifter of a sort. If I can remember she’s like the only successful experiment. So maybe she got some fae blood and she can live for a long time and can be with Mor. I certainly hope Mor does not give up her immortality for her love interest, which I’m assuming you can do like in TOG.

27. The fae kingdoms, that conflict needs be somewhat resolved. Doubtful. There’s three main ones I think. No one’s been signing treaties. How? That is all.

28. Azriel powers, shadows, how did that happen? Does it elude to something bigger.

29. Cassian’s background. Who the hell is he? Will we know papa? Mama? Past? He’s the most powerful Illyrian commander, he can’t be normal. The laws of fiction dictate otherwise.

30. Last names? Middle names? Titles. Give me everything Sara.

31. Eris. After daddy is dead, what next? Is his conflict so small and easily taken care of. He is very interesting to me.

32. Did they actually take care of the cauldron? Miriam and Draken, will we see them again and their ideal world?

33. Will Nesta travel? Because she should. She deserves to, it was her plan in ACOTAR, but then she stayed, and now she’s a shell. Please have Nesta see the world. With Cassian or without. Don’t care. Maybe both.

34. How is a treaty going to be established, when humans hate fae, fae enslave humans, and the fact that there is so much more than fae that exist as we know????? Hmmm???

35. Oh Tamlin! Where he at? What he been doing? How will he help this conflict? Assuming he’s probably going to factor more in Lucien’s story, I’m almost positive he’s the next POV. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise to my fanfic writer/ obsessive reader brain.

36. The objective of different worlds. I know SJM probably won’t get into it too much and it would probably be very complicated, but other worlds. Are people still coming in? Do some want to leave? Is it easy to travel between them--provided you know how? *whispers* can Nesta do this?

37..... I don’t know. I will add more if I can think of any, because I probably can. Honestly this was like therapy and made me feel so much better than any of SJM’s lives about the future of this series.

38. ADD YOUR OWN; unless I wrote almost everything. But doubtful!

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #Azriel #Mor #feyre #rhysand #feysand #elain #lucien vanserra #acofas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #acosf #SJM #feyre archeron #vassa #eris vanserra #helion

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hawksugarbaby · 3 years

Text

Fatgum x reader- Atlas

Fluff + Greek mythology AU.

You were nothing more than a simple human, roaming the built up world to find something new and interesting, something no one could see but you, a secret for you and the universe to hold together. You needed to find something special is what you thought, taking a break at the atlas mountains in the scorching Morroccon sun. sweat bead down your forehead and your skin was hot to the touch but the adventure and experience, the trials to find something undiscovered was worth the peeling skin on your shoulders being soothed by aloe over and over.

Your persistence to find the unknown secret may have started genuinely, you wanted to find what the universe wanted you too, but eventually it gave you a reason to travel the world. You've travelled to 28 countries in 4 years, beginning at 18 and now you're 22, you skipped uni and college, you made money from ad revenue on youtube since your vlogs became popular, and you were incredible when it came to saving money.

Of course, you were still searching, but now you felt like you had even bigger reasons. Exploring the world, drinking in fountains of culture and knowledge, that was perfection enough. But the secret was missing.

You stood up rolling your neck and started your walk up rocky paths of mud and stone to the sandy houses forming a village and your senses lead you to a vendor, golden couscous with colourful, roasted vegetables mixed through smelled amazing and glasses of fresh mint tea lined up for you to drink while eating couscous at the vendors stall. You requested a glass of the tea, sat down, and drank it too quickly, burning your tongue from the hot water. You sucked in sharply and hummed in pain. "Thank you!" you said paying for the drink and continuing to the mountains past the beige buildings with terracotta tile roofs.

You felt like if you walked between the fingers of the mountain grabbing the earth with their hands you would find something unknown. You walked around the spurs peering into the joining point of each interlocked section but none tugged you in, pulled you towards them with mystery.

Apart from one. The sun was on the opposite side so technically there should have been no light, but it seemed perfectly visible to you? Was it a trick of the light? Possibly an illusion? Either way your heart longed to investigate and so you did. You trudged forward kicking a stone out your way and looked at the joining line. "You have to be something right?" you muttered and put your hand between the drack. You drew a triangle, mimicking the shape the spurs made and as quickly as you could blink, the mountain began to shake, not violently, but it trembled like being coerced into sharing it's deepest secrets.

"Okay... mountains don't usually do that" you say with wide eye's as the seam rips apart and balls of moss and rock tumble into a pile on the floor. Was it a doorway for you? Who knew, you didn;t care, whatever it was you were finding out one way or another.

You stepped into the cavern, dripping stalagmites made your head turn in the direction of every 'plop' into the puddle and your hands brushed against the side of the wall for stability and a sense of surrounding. "These feel like bricks?" you whisper in a questioning tone as your eye's begin to adjust to the dark and you found that you were going aimlessly through a long, triangular corridor. The bricks were a muted clay colour with green moss and algae blanketing them, the grout in the walls was black and viridian unidentifiable as something anyone had ever known of.

The terracotta sparsely began to cut into black white and grey granite eventually forming a whole wall as if the bricks had never been there to begin with. The marble was just as unkempt and ruined as the bricks but the walls got wider, further and further away from each other until they opened into a wide, white cavern, glowing and inhumanely clean. In the middle was a statue of a hulking man, holding the sky. He wore no shirt and had a pair of orange shorts on and black sandals, sandals that looked real and hyper-realistic looking shorts that flowed with the draft and skin you could see the detail of every pore in. hold on... fabric made of marble should not flow in the wind and should not be such an even orange no matter how much paint.

You slowly looked up, the chest rising and falling with a huffing breath it had to take, the hands trembled and the lips quivered. The hairs on his leg and arm stuck up with the chill of the wind and his elbows dropped slightly making the sky move. Finally, you dared look at the eye's of the giant, who was looking back at you confused as a bee trying to escape through a shut window. Mustard yellow eye's with sunken bag's looked right back at you and you backed up letting out a girlish scream.

"Hey hey wait!!" he shouted, wishing he could reach out and shake your hand or reach after you to emphasise that he wanted you to stay. "Please! Please don't go. I don't have anyone to talk to, I promise I won't hurt you!" he begged, glancing at your figure backing up and starfishing against a wall like it would absorb you and push you out the other side. "Y-you you're talking! And moving! But you, you're a statue?" you shook your hands in front of you and he laughed lightly. "I'm not a statue, I'm a titan. I'm just a big God to be honest, big God doing his job" he nodded his head at his rhyming ability and you slid down the wall grazing your burnt back. "Don't do that you'll hurt yourself" he said.

You took a deep breath to calm yourself then blew out, another deep breath and blew out, another deep breath then blew out. "Okay. so... what you're like atlas or something? He was... he was a titan right and he just held up the universe forever and that looks like something important like the universe" you pointed at the sphere on his back constantly shifting and changing colours and he made a whiney voice at the back of his throat. "Sorta? I'm Taishiro, nice to meet you" he greeted with a nod and you nodded back glancing again at the exit.

Could you trust him?

One look from him and it wasn't hard to tell he was overjoyed to finally talk to someone so you stood in front of him with your hands on your hips so he could see you while he was looking down. "Should I know who taishiro is, not to sound rude but everyone's heard of atlas, who is taishiro?" you asked biting a nail and the titan nodded understandably, fair enough, you would ask valid questions.

"so like, zeus wanted to do something cool and like "oh look i'm redeemable" se he basically said hey all the titans weren't so bad and just did what dad told them to so they all got freed or whatever but someone still has to hold the sky so they gave me the job" he said in one breath which was impressive to you but he wasn't finished. "which is okay, I don't mind it here but it's boring and lonely and my arms have cramp and God I miss food. And like they just made me a titan, they just chose me off the street after work and were like yo we need a new titan and I thought, hey y'know what i'm a hero, i'd be doing good for the world but i'm bored and hungry" he finished his ramble and you giggled.

You opened a packet of pistachios and a muffin and looked at him. "Can I climb you?" you asked gripping the pistachios in your teeth and pulling the muffin in a travel cup that clipped to your belt. "Sure! Not like you're very heavy to me" he joked and you laughed quietly grabbing the threads of his sandals and pulling yourself up like a climbing wall. "Oh you're so small. It tickles" he laughed. Resisting the urge to twitch and jerk you off his leg. You climbed quickly like the ropes in gym class then when you got to the shorts you pulled yourself up until you rested on his knee, flat as a table.

"Uhh, I think this should be good" you nod and balance cautiously to sit down pulling out the muffin and tapping his knee. "Hey open your mouth" you ask and he does so without question. You throw the muffin like a shot put and he grins, savouring the sweet, chocolatey taste "sorry their human sized" you sigh and shuck the pistachios for yourself, chewing on the green nuts with hundreds of questions buzzing in your head.

"So you were a hero?" you question flicking the pistachio shell into the bowl below you where taishiro's feet stood rooted to the ground. "Mhm. BMI hero: fat gum. I was like 46th, the world thinks I retired, that's what I told them but to me i'm still being a hero" he explained and you hummed agreeingly. "It's pretty hero like to give up everything to hold the weight of the world" you smile up at him and he blushes lightly. "Aw, you sound like one of my old interns. I miss it sometimes though, and I miss talking to people so much, it gets lonely here" a breeze flew past you and he shivered, but didn't lose an ounce of balance on the sphere, it was firmly rooted above him, it could have been suspended for all you knew. "Yeah, I bet, especially since being a hero is a pretty team focused job right?"

He smiled sadly and looked up at the tiny exit. He couldn't fit through doors like that anymore, he was the height of the eiffel tower and with one step he'd crack open the crust of the earth. "Yeah. you sound like you know what your talking about" you smiled tucking your hair behind your ear and shrugged "I do. I went to shiketsu to be a hero but when I left I was like... nah, that ain't my purpose. I wanted to like, find a secret the universe had that no one else knew about so i've been travelling for 4 years and I guess you were the secret right?" you thearised and he agreed happily. "It's cool knowing the universe wanted you to find me!" "heck yeah it is!"

You stayed with taishiro for a few days before having to leave and you had never felt so sad before. It was finally over, you didn't have a reason to travel anymore, you found the secret and had solidified a friendship with him but now you were leaving? Despite the snacks and drinks and stories shared about what you'd seen. You felt guilty leaving him again but he looked overjoyed. "I'll visit soon okay!" you shouted and he nodded "I'll see ya around. Say hey to little red riot for me, and suneater!" he instructed and you saluted exiting the cavern back into the dank corridor.

You kept your eyes trained on the ground until you left the mountain. A shimmering rainbow was directly in front of you and you swiped your hand through it like a cloud of smoke you tried re-directing.

The rainbow fizzled and formed into a human with long white hair and pasty skin, a long sundress with rainbow accents and black eye's. "Hi, (y/n) (y/ln) am I right? Oh I know i'm right don't worry, i'm iris Goddess of the rainbow and a messenger for the Gods of sorts. See I'm here to offer you a fast pass from wherever you are to right here in Morocco, next to our dear friend Tai whenever you please" she said with a smile, arm around your shoulder and walking away from the entrance like a car salesman.

You crossed your arms and raised an eyebrow interested but cautious. "What will it cost me?" you ask bluntly and she laughed, slapping your back lightly. "Your hilarious kid. No it costs you nothing more than a prayer or 2 to me and my dear friend Hermes, see he's the God of travel, he's my partner in this see, and what we'll do is just zip you over here faster than you can think!" she exclaimed. You nodded and thought. A free service from 2 Gods? Were they typically that kind? No not really so...

"Oh I see. Zeus wants a fuck doesn't he" you jeered and the sky's went pale grey, like the colour your skin would go if you;d seen a ghost. Iris choked and looked up. "Um... the God of the sky does take an interest in you, yes." you rolled your eyes and stuck your tongue out at the sky. "Keep it in your pants buddy! I want the fast pass for free or I tell yo wife!!" you bargained, though it was hardly a haggle as the king God, terrified of his wifes wrath, told irish to just give you it for free.

"Thank you! I'll be sure to think of you when I see rainbows from now on, maybe we can have a chat! Oh oh or come see me and Tai some time, he says he gets lonely, you should visit him!" you grinned with a wave and said your address, being transported immediately like cargo from morocco to your home.

You crashed into your bed and huffed grabbing your limbs to make sure you were completely there. "DOES THIS WORK WITH OTHER COUNTRIES!" you shouted to no one in particular, your voice cracking while you spoke and then collapsed into bed, falling into a deep slumber.

A/n: Not gonna lie I really dont like thos chapter. It feels rushed and boring, I think I'll revisit it at somepoint. If you have any feedback feel free to comment!

#bnha #mha fanfiction #my hero academia #bnha fanfiction #boku no hero academia #wattpad #mha #boku no hero fanfic #fatgum x reader #fatgum #taishiro x reader #taishiro toyomitsu

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ccohanlon · 2 years

Text

another interview with c.c. o’hanlon

[In 2008, an Australian artist who used to be a close friend — we fell out several years ago and now no longer acknowledge each other — interviewed me for an obscure, now defunct online journal, Hobo Eye, to accompany their publication of passages from one of my notebooks.]

“This photographer is a realist in the documentary tradition. He sees, he understands, he interprets. He knows that words in a picture add dimension to the image…”

The late, legendary, American photojournalist, Arthur Rothstein, wrote this about C.C. O’Hanlon’s photography when O’Hanlon was 28 years old.

C.C. O’Hanlon was well-known (or was it notorious?) for a while in the late ‘90s as the founder of Australia’s first and, for a time, most successful web marketing company. Maybe that’s why, despite having published several hundred essays, diary excerpts and short stories, and exhibited a diverse portfolio of photography in half a dozen group and solo shows, he looks uncomfortable when anyone refers to him as an artist.

“I don’t have the technical skills or the imaginative capacity,” he says, dismissively.

Born into privilege, the son of a best-selling Australian novelist, O’Hanlon has travelled the world since birth, moving restlessly not just through different cities and countries but entirely different lives. He documents this haphazardly, unreliably, in words and pictures. What emerges, if and when it does emerge, is a sort of poetry which features an obsessive/compulsive attention to unusual detail — his language around the weather is notable — usually associated with outsider artists.

His chaotic, peripatetic life is his real work of art. O’Hanlon’s personal narrative has been punctuated by episodes of bi-polar disorder — and just plain disorder — marked by indiscipline, excess, hubris and wanton destructiveness. In recent years, he has been, by his own description, “a misanthropic recluse”, indulging a self-negating inclination to get lost even to close friends. He strays far, living for years at a time in places like Brighton, England, or Hiroshima, Japan, or Tulsa, Oklahoma, or the shores of the South China Sea (where, it turns out, he is now).

When he returns, excerpts from diaries and voyeuristic black and white photographs circulate among his acqquaintances. In many respects – not least, his travels, the duality of his life, and the diversity of his social connections – he is like a grimmer, less sociable Peter Beard.

You’re thought of as an outsider but you’ve successfully infiltrated the mainstream several times. And yet you don’t appear to be motivated by fame, money or even acceptance.

Oh I wouldn’t exclude fame, money and the love of beautiful women — Freud was right about all these being the real motivation of a creative mind. Just before the nineties’ dot.bomb, I headed a publicly listed web company and I was almost entirely consumed by a lust for money and a very shallow kind of celebrity. Then I underwent this radical epiphany and after I’d gotten over the soul-shredding mind-fuck of it, I had to rethink nearly everything in my life, to find another way not only of working but of being.

You’ve spent a lot of your life since childhood living in hotels, as documented in your photographic series, Hotels Are My Real Home. You don’t do it as much anymore...

I don’t have as much money as I used to so I can’t afford it. I would still much rather live in a hotel than a conventional apartment or house. But right now, I want to live on a boat, which is not only compact and comfortable but also mobile. A good shore-bound alternative would be an Airstream trailer (but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as environmentally friendly. Plus, I can’t drive.)

Hotels are the antithesis of the self-sufficient, independent style of life I want to live now. They’re like serviced wombs for adults.

You’ve lived large and extravagantly sometimes. What drew you to a minimal, nomadic life?

An emotional need for simplicity. Then recurring episodes of homelessness. I figured that if I could strip back the requirements of my daily life, if I could limit my need to consume for consumption’s sake, I might be open to more vitalising opportunities. Minimal isn’t new for me. I’ve traveled my whole life. Such an existence necessitates paring things down, living light, and being practical in the choices of what (and who) travels with you.

Simplicity doesn’t exclude fun and self-indulgence — I’m still a big fan of them.

You’re a hard man to actually locate. I have maybe four phone numbers (all in different countries) and about the same number of email addresses. Where are you now?

A boatyard in the jungle inland from Jomtien, just south of Pattaya, in Thailand.

What are you doing there?

I’m thinking of building a 38-foot double canoe or catamaran inspired by traditional Polynesian voyaging canoes.

What inspired this?

It’s hard to locate a particular…thing.

I’ve always had a close relationship with the sea and boats – I sailed a dinghy by myself at age eight and I have spent long periods at sea at different times of my life. However, increasingly, lately, living on a boat feels like the best means of escaping some of the less palatable aspects of urban life, particularly in the developed world.

I came across some interesting ideas about sea-bound communities written by a pioneer of multihull sailing in England, a guy called James Wharram, and it led me to his designs. I decided to build one and try out some ideas of my own.

You used to be thought of in Australia as a provocative thinker on future technologies …

“Used to be” is the operative phrase. That was back in the late ‘90s. A long time ago.

Yet you now almost completely reject technology. You don’t even own a cell phone…

Actually, I do.

You never turn it on.

That’s true.

Have you lost faith with what you once referred to as the “millennial religion of network technology”?

I think the context of that line was the almost evangelical righteousness I saw in many technologists, and their sense of infallibility: I mean, just because they could do something, they never questioned — still don’t — whether they should. As a result, networked technologies are beginning to erode some of the elemental fabric not only of social environments — where it enables increased surveillance, breaches of traditional privacy and data-mining by governments and corporations — but also of cultures. There is an increasingly dense and impenetrable cloud of data acquisition that hangs over our lives like a shroud and yet very few, relatively, even recognize its threat.

I still engage with technology. I just refuse to fetishize it or to rely on it. I discourage others from relying on it too. At sea, I avoid it almost completely.

You’ve been a qualified navigator for 32 years.

Yeah. Old school. Paper charts, compass, sextant, clock.

You appear to approach your observations of culture and society like a navigator – a lot of painstaking plotting of history, anthropology, geography and even archaeology.

In learning navigation, you’re always reminded that there are only two things that are important: where you are now and where you’re trying to get to. The former is elemental to resolving the latter. However, to figure out where you are now, you have to be able to plot a track from where you estimate you last were, taking into account all sorts of variables, none of them precisely measurable, that might have driven you from your intended course.

Pretty much like life, individually and collectively.

You were the founder and CEO of what was, for a time, one of Australia’s first and most successful web advertising companies …

A very short time, before I completely fucked it up [laughs].

But you describe yourself as a Luddite at heart. Do you think it’s possible – or even practical – to try to reverse engineer society’s acceptance of computer technology in order to regain some simplicity…

…and privacy and intimacy and unsynthesized, unappropriated creativity. No, I don’t think so. However, I think you can redefine the role it plays in an individual life, hopefully as a part of a broader re-design of one’s personal approach to living.

I remember this passage from an essay you wrote for the Australian news magazine, The Bulletin, in 2003:

“A few years ago, at the height of the dotcom boom, when technology was almost a cultural fetish and we couldn't wait for everything to be what we called instant-on, instantly accessible from everywhere, all the time, a fashion magazine included me in a group of people from different occupations — fashion, architecture, interior design, entertainment, technology — to offer ideas about what would define luxury in the ultimate 21st-century lifestyle.

“My contribution was simple: a windowless, padded room in the middle of your home or office, densely insulated from sound and microwaves, noiselessly ventilated, which would have no furniture other than maybe a few white pillows. The walls would be colourless, opaque. There would be no decoration, no phone, no television, no stereo, no computer, not even an architectural feature to arrest the attention. When the light was switched off, the darkness would be absolute.

“And that was it. An empty, soundless room.”

So, do you really think that more people will desire slower-paced, noiseless, disconnected lives?

Jesus, don’t you? Doesn’t everyone see the isolation and dehumanisation proposed in a pair of iPod ear buds?

I take it you don’t ‘do’ digital when it comes to your own creativity?

No. My cameras are old-fashioned, mechanical —I love film, despite it becoming an anachronism — and I write by hand in leather-bound notebooks. I use a computer for research and long-distance communication but that’s about all.

Why do you document your life?

In order to keep track.

Another thing you wrote:

“… the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick once argued that if two people dream the same dream, it isn’t a dream anymore – it signifies the existence of an alternative reality ... The insane always occupy multiple realities: their internal narratives are always different to their actual or external experiences. For me, that can be complicated by the fact that, when I was unmedicated, which was for most of my 49 years, the character I adopted for one experience was very different to another that I adopted for a different experience somewhere else. The process was so compulsive that I would, for extended periods, devise a complex network of different characters and different lives in different parts of the world, with different relationships, then live intermittently in and between them, while blending them all into a fluid mutability that had the parallel narratives and multi-tiered options of a computer game. And the game engine was an invisible “real” me, solitary, sentient and more than a little crazy.

These days, medication gives me the possibility of sustained reason, of a reliable perception of the present. But the same cannot be said of what I remember, so I am disenfranchised from my past, condemned to roam in search of a future.”

When did you begin?

With the madness, the medication or documenting myself? [laughs] As far as taking pictures is concerned, I guess when I was about 10. I wrote simple diaries and took snapshots on an old Kodak Box Brownie. I became more dedicated when I was in my late teens.

The medication came much later. Probably too late, truth be told.

You weren’t very interested in exhibiting your work until other people almost begged you to.

I’m still not. I’m not making art. As I’ve said, I’m creating and archiving information about my own life, to keep track of where I am, who I am, and why, and who with. This information is, in some respects, elemental to a map of my self, from which I can figure out who I am and where (and why) I am going.

A lot of your work contains words – whether it’s a sentence from your journal scrawled on the print or text in the image itself: graffiti, signage, brands and so on. Why is this?

It’s not a conscious thing. I suppose I subscribe to Samuel Beckett’s view: “Words are all we have”. I tend to edit myself compulsively.

Most artists try to explain their work. You don’t, in anyway.

Because it’s not intended as ‘work’. Besides, I’m not looking to make any excuses for it – or myself – or anything else I do. Not anymore.

First published in Hobo Eye, USA, 2008.

#interview #memoir #travel #art #photography #nomadicliving

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thenewnio · 3 years

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39 questions for B.E.N.

1. How old will you be in 8 months?

I think I almost lost track of my age after living a hundred years marooned on Treasure Planet, but as far as I remember, I think I’ll be 127…and a half. Technically. I still feel a whole lot younger! See, age isn’t measured in years. Me being a robot, age doesn’t matter much to me.

2. Do you think you’ll be married by then?

Me? Married? I can’t tell how many times I’ve dreamed of getting married! It would be fantastic!

3. Was yesterday better than today?

Oh, every day’s a good day to me! Especially since I have my buddy Jimmy to keep me company!

4. What did your last text message say?

What do you mean by text message?

5. Who was the last person to text you?

I still don’t think I get it. I wouldn’t have a clue as to who “texted” me ‘cause I don’t have a clue as to what texting is!

6. Do you prefer to call or text?

Oh, you’re talking about telephones? Sorry, we don’t have phones on Montressor. Actually, there aren’t any phones anywhere! I forget what phones are! Are they one of those old Earth devices?

7. Do you have any pets?

Well, if you’re talking about Morph, that’s Jimmy’s pet. Although I have wished for a dog. Just someone to play with while Jimmy’s away at the academy. Dogs are a lot of fun!

8. What were you doing at 12 am last night?

I try not to stay up that late. It’s not very good for my all-important mentality. But if I do, I’m usually up cleaning up the inn for Sarah Hawkins. Of course, no matter how late I stay up, I’m always the first one to be up in the morning! Gotta stay on top of things when you’re running an inn like the Benbow! Know what I mean?

9. Do you like carrots?

Carrots? I can’t eat carrots! But I can say I’ve tasted one. It put me through a rush! It’s certainly quite different from my daily oil rations.

10. When is the last time you saw your mom?

Never in my entire life! My creator Martin—that’s my dad—told me that she died before I was even born! He did used to talk about her a lot. Gee, I sure wish I could have met her. She sounded like a sweet lady.

11. What are your exact feelings for your ex?

What? Ex? Do I have an ex?

12. How many houses have you lived in?

Not many really. I did have a home with my dad on my home planet. It was over a hundred years before I found a nice, new home with Jimmy and his mom.

13. How many city/towns have you lived in?

I didn’t find a real home until Jimmy came along. That, and I’ve been nearly everywhere in the galaxy. Does living with Captain Flint for 15 years count? Or should I have mentioned that in the other question?

14. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet?

Well…have you seen my feet? I can’t even were socks, let alone shoes! They’d look better on humans. Never try to put shoes on my feet!

15. Are you a social person?

Yes! I’ve always been a people robot!

16. What was the last thing you ate?

I get a ration of oil two to three times a day. And a spot of bite-back bananas hits the spot. I’d say it was flying pop rockets. It always tires me out trying to chase those little suckers.

17. What is your favorite color?

Every single color is my favorite color! Especially blue! I find blue to be nice and peaceful.

18. What are you doing for your next birthday?

My birthday? Gee, I dunno. I don’t ask for much. But I do hope Jimmy gives me a present! I haven’t had a birthday since…well…actually, I’ve never had a birthday in my whole entire life! Which gets me wondering why Dad never gave me one. Oh! I remember! I had to go off and be a navigator for the Gold Lagoon. One of those gigantic merchant galleons!

19. What is your favorite TV show?

I was only just recently introduced to TV, so I’m not particularly sure. I can say I am partial to Phineas and Ferb.

20. If you had the chance, would you get back together with your ex?

I would if I had and ex…which I don’t. At least, I think. Did I even have a girlfriend?

21. Do your folks like coffee?

Not a clue! I never saw Dad drink it and I never asked. Maybe he did while he was making me.

22. You like someone right now?

If you mean a girl, I haven’t found her yet. But I’ve always got Jimmy. Course, he and I are best buddies!

23. Who is your best friend?

Well, I just said, Jimmy.

24. What are you listening to?

I think I can hear this humming sound. Is that me? Must be my inner gears working. Which is always a good sign!

25. Can you sing?

Sure I can! But I’m more of the karaoke type.

26. Do you know how to play poker?

I’m more into checkers. I have the whole checkers concept wired! Lemme tell ya!

27. What are you most looking forward to?

A good work day with the Hawkins family! And a chance to play with the Doppler kids! I love ‘em to death; they are so cute!

28. Any plans for this weekend?

I’ve convinced Jimmy and Sarah to take us all camping! That’s gonna be such fun!

29. Do you have anything bothering you?

Oh, come on! Why would I have anything bothering me?

30. Do you smile often?

Almost all the time! Keeps me and everyone else in high spirits!

31. When was the last time you cried?

It was when Jimmy hugged me back! Ya know, after Treasure Planet blew up. It’s a long story.

32. Have you ever had a life-threatening injury?

I hope not! Well, I did have my primary memory circuit get pulled out. Does that count? Probably not.

33. Have you ever been in an ambulance?

Never in my whole life!

34. Do you prefer an ocean or pool?

Both! Pools let ya play with friends and…well, I guess the ocean does that too. But! You don’t get to see wildlife in a pool! Oceans are also beautiful during a sunset. Oceans it is!

35. Why is your relationship status the way it is?

Not many girls fall for a guy like me. At least, not mutually. Not sure why.

36. What is the color of your bedroom walls?

A nice wooden brown. Well, it’s the style where I live.

37. Do you shut off the water when you brush your teeth?

I don’t need to brush my teeth. I use a special cleaning fluid once a month when it’s time for my monthly tune-up. But if I did brush my teeth, I’d shut off the water. I mean, why waste water? It’d be bad for the environment if I didn’t shut it off! Don’t you think the world’s in enough trouble already?

38. Do you wish someone was with you right now?

I’ve got Jimmy. Sure, I’d like to be with someone right now. Doing this questionnaire thingy is kinda making me lonely.

39. Are you frustrated right now?

No…not really. Why would I be frustrated? Unless I’m trying remember something important. But that’s not a problem anymore, now that I’ve got my memory circuit back!

#treasure planet #not my work

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xxcxcs-blog · 3 years

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Everything You Need to Stock an at-Home Bar

So you finally found the bar cart of your dreams, and you’ve loaded it up with your favorite liquor. While those are two very important steps to curating an at-home bar, to really make your setup recall that of your favorite watering hole, you’re going to want to add some barware and cocktail equipment. But that can be an intimidating task, especially if you’ve had more experience drinking cocktails than making them. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money. “Most people in their home bar really don’t need that many tools,” advises Joaquín Simó, a partner at New York City’s Pouring Ribbons who was named Tales of the Cocktail’s American Bartender of the Year in 2012. “I say you start with the absolute basics and concentrate on the things that you like to use.”

If you’re in a pinch, Martin Hudak, a bartender at Maybe Sammy, says you can always use bartender tools you may already have on hand: “For your shaken cocktails, you can use empty jam jars or a thermos flask. For measuring, spoons and cups, and for stirring, any spoon or back of a wooden ladle.” But Stacey Swenson, the head bartender at Dante (which currently holds the No. 1 spot on the World’s 50 Best Bars list), notes that if you’re going to put stuff on display, you might want gear that’s both practical and stylish. “You want something that’s functional and also something that’s pretty,” she says. “If you’re putting it on your bar cart, you kind of put on a show for your guests.” With the help of Simó, Hudak, Swenson, and 28 other experts, we’ve put together the below list of essential gear for any cocktail-lover’s home bar.

Editor’s note: If you want to support service industry workers who have been impacted by the coronavirus closures, you can donate to the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation, which has set up a COVID-19 Crisis Relief Fund, or One Fair Wage, which has set up an Emergency Coronavirus Tipped and Service Worker Support Fund. We’ve also linked to any initiatives the businesses mentioned in this story have set up to support themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Simó, all shakers “technically do the same thing, and there are very cheap and very nice versions,” so there’s really no superior option when it comes to function. That said, many professional bartenders use Boston-style shakers, which are basically two cups that fit into each other and form a tight seal to keep liquid from splashing all over you. “If you want to look like a bartender at Death & Co. or PDT, and you want the same kit, then you’re probably going to go metal-on-metal,” or “tin-on-tin,” Simó notes. Six of our experts recommend these weighted tin-on-tin shakers — which come in a range of finishes, including copper and silver — from Cocktail Kingdom, a brand that nearly every bartender we spoke to praised for its durable, well-designed barware. Grand Army’s beverage director, Brendan Biggins, and head bartender, Robby Dow, call this “the gold standard” of shaking tins. “Behind the bar, there’s almost nothing worse than shaker tins that don’t seal well or don’t separate easily,” explains Krissy Harris, the beverage director and owner of Jungle Bird in Chelsea. “The Koriko Weighted Shaking tins seal perfectly every time and easily release,” she says. And because they’re weighted, they’re less likely to fall over and spill.

For some people, a two-piece setup like the above shakers might be tricky to use comfortably. “Say you’re a petite female — if you have very small hands, then maybe using a Boston-style shaker may be a little harder,” explains Simó. In that case, a cobbler shaker may be the better choice, because it’s smaller than a Boston-style shaker and thus easier to hold. The other convenient part of a cobbler-style shaker is that the strainer is already built into the lid, so you don’t necessarily have to spring for an additional wine tools. Karen Lin, a certified sommelier, sake expert, and the executive general manager of Tsukimi, suggests this shaker from Japanese barware brand Yukiwa. “The steel is very sturdy, and the shape fits perfectly in my hands,” she says. “It is also designed well so you can take it apart easily to clean.”

You know how James Bond always ordered his martinis shaken, not stirred? Well, if you were to ignore Mr. Bond’s order and make a stirred martini — or any other stirred cocktail, like a Negroni or a Manhattan — you’d set aside the shaker to use a mixing beaker instead. A mixing beaker is essentially a large vessel in which you dump your liquors and mix your drink. And though you can purchase handsome crystal ones for hundreds of dollars, both Simó and Swenson agree that they’re kind of superfluous for a basic bar kit. “I don’t think you should spend any more than $25 on a mixing glass,” says Swenson. Harris agrees, saying that since they are the most broken item behind the bar, you should stick to a well-priced option like this mixing glass from Hiware that “doesn’t have a seam, so it’s stronger and very attractive.”

One of Simó’s hacks to getting a glass mixing beaker for not that much money is to use the glass piece from a French press, which is something else you might already own. If you want a dedicated one for your bar cart (that could serve as a backup for your French press), he says you can buy a replacement glass like this one, which has a capacity that is particularly useful if you’re making drinks for a lot of people. “I generally will take one or two of the big guys with me when I’m doing events, because then I can stir up five drinks in one, and it’s really convenient,” Simó explains.

According to Paul McGee, a co-owner of Lost Lake in Chicago, “finding vintage martini pitchers is very easy, and they are perfect for making large batches of cocktails.” Plus, they’ll look more visually striking on your bar cart. This one is even pretty enough to use as a vase when it’s not filled with punch. The photo shows the pitcher next to a strainer, but you’re only getting the pitcher for the price shown.

If you’re making a stirred drink, a mixing or bar set spoon is also necessary. “Three basic styles exist: the American bar spoon has a twisted handle and, usually, a plastic cap on the end, the European bar spoon has a flat muddler/crusher, and the Japanese bar spoon is heavier, with a weighted teardrop shape opposite the bowl,” explains Joe Palminteri, the director of food and beverage at Hamilton Hotel’s Via Sophia and Society. None of our experts recommended specific American-style bar spoons, but Simó told us that one of his favorite Japanese-style spoons is this one made by bartender Tony Abou-Ganim’s Modern Mixologist brand. “It’s got a really nice, deep bowl to it, which means you’re able to measure a nice, level teaspoon” without searching through your drawers, according to him. Simó continues, “The little top part of it has a nice little weight to it, but it’s not too bulky. So it gives you a really nice balance as you’re moving the mixing spoon around,” making your job a little easier.

Should your at-home bartending require a lot of muddling, Swenson recommends getting a European-style spoon like this, which he says will still allow you to stir while eliminating the need to buy a dedicated muddler. “You can actually use the top of the spoon to crush a sugar cube if you wanted to for your old-fashioned. I have one of those, so I don’t have to have two tools; I’ve got both of them right there.”

You don’t necessarily need a strainer if you’re using a cobbler shaker, since it’s already got a strainer built into the lid. But if you’re using a Boston-style shaker, you should get what’s called a Hawthorne strainer to make sure the ice you used to chill your drink doesn’t end up in your glass and dilute the cocktail. Three experts recommend this one, including Lynnette Marrero, the beverage director of Llama Inn and Llama-San and the co-founder of Speed Rack, who says it’s her absolute favorite because “it is light and easy to clutch and close correctly.” If you choose to buy this Hawthorne strainer, Simó also recommends getting “the replacement springs that Cocktail Kingdom sells,” telling us they’re a good way to give a worn-out strainer a face-lift. “They’re really, really nice and tight, and you can generally slip them into any Hawthorne strainer that you have.”A jigger is what you use to measure the liquor into the shaker or mixing glass. A hyperfunctional, albeit nontraditional-looking, option is the mini measuring wine decante from OXO. “I know some bartenders, including the ones at Drink in Boston, one of the best bars in the country, swear by those graduated OXO ones because they love the ability to read them from both the sides and the top,” explains Simó. “You can measure in tablespoons or ounces or milliliters, and it’s all on the same jigger.” Part-time bartender Jillian Norwick and Ward both love it too and keep the stainless steel version on hand (which looks a little nicer when left out). Noriwck adds that she’s in good company: “The peeps at Bon Appétit love it.”This fancy-looking jigger combines the functional appeal of the OXO measuring wine glass (it’s basically a cup that grows wider to accommodate different amounts of liquid) with the aesthetic appeal of a classic bar tool. It also makes measuring a snap: “This handy measuring bar table and stools is super-easy to use and enables the imbiber to essentially build all the ingredients of a drink in one go,” says Confrey.If you’re going for a more classic look but still want something practical, Simó recommends this double-sided metal jigger that has a one-ounce cup on one side and a two-ounce cup on the other. The one-ounce side on this strainer also has a half- and three-quarter-ounce lines etched into it to make it even more precise. “That gives you a lot of wiggle room” and will allow you to measure for most basic cocktails, Simó says. “From there, you really just have to learn what a quarter-ounce looks like in there, and you’re pretty much good to go.”

Biggens, Dowe, and Swenson prefer a Leopold jigger, which has a unique bell shape (with one bell holding an ounce, and the other two ounces) as well as lines etched on the inside marking both quarter- and half-ounces. “They’re really easy to hold and they have some weight to them,” Swenson adds. “Somebody who’s not really experienced using a jigger is going to be fine with something with a little bit more weight to it. And they look cool.”

Though it’s easy to want to get a different type of glass for every type of drink you make, that’s really unnecessary when you’re first starting out. According to Simó, “You can make 90 percent of drinks into a good, all-purpose cocktail glass like a rocks or a collins glass.” (While this section contains our bartenders’ favorite glasses, if you want to shop around, you can find most of these styles at various price points in our list of the best drinking glasses.) A collins — or highball — glass is the one that looks like a chimney, and generally you’re looking for something that’s about 12 ounces, like these collins glasses from bartender-favorite brand Cocktail Kingdom. “You don’t want a 16-ounce Collins glass because you’re going to be hammered after your second Tom Collins,” advises Simó.

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ottomanladies · 4 years

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Hi! I was wondering if we can blame Sultan Suleiman over the execution of Mustafa? After all he was his son and he could at least listen to him or even investigate more on this issue and do you think that excecution was the only punishment?

I mean, history is not a blame game. History is understanding why something happened and withhold a judgement. Judging and therefore blaming is not part of the historian's work.

After this historiography introduction, let's get to your question.

I have, many times, referred to Zahit Atçıl's essay "Why Did Süleyman the Magnificent Execute His Son Şehzade Mustafa in 1553?" but since nobody reads it I guess I'll have to summarise it myself.

What happened in the months before October 1553

as we all know, Mustafa was favoured by the Janissaries, to the point that Venetian ambassador Navagero said:

One cannot describe how much he is loved and desired by all in the empire to succeed. The janissaries want him, and they let this be known manifestly. There is no Turk or slave of the Gran-Signor who does not have the same opinion or desire...

That the Janissaries "let this be known manifestly" was surely alarming to Süleyman: I have repeated this a lot of times but he was eighteen years old when his father took the throne with the help of the Janissaries, effectively deposing Bayezid II. I also have said this a lot of times but Selim I deposed his own father because of his "weak behaviour" against the Safavids. Selim thought the sultan should have gone to war against the Safavids, Bayezid - now in his sixties - preferred diplomacy to war. The Janissaries agreed with the prince and therefore supported him against Bayezid and his favourite son Ahmed.

As I have already said, Süleyman was already eighteen and played an important role in his father's capture of the throne:

Selim proceeded to use Suleyman and Hafsa’s presence in Caffa as a springboard to the throne. He took refuge there in 1510 as he made his way toward the capital and the confrontation that culminated in his unseating of his father. Selim then enlisted the help of the Crimean khan Mengli Giray to transport Hafsa and Suleyman to Istanbul, where he could better protect them. Selim then left Suleyman to guard the capital as his deputy when he set off to fight his brothers. Suleyman was nineteen when he got his first taste of what it meant to hold an empire together. Only when his throne was secured did Selim in 1513 permit his son to take up a new provincial assignment in Anatolia, the theater of the brothers’ brief but vicious civil war. — Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

So he definitely remembered the whole thing.

In the 1550s, he was sixty too - like Bayezid had been - and that's when rumours about Mustafa's candidacy to the throne started to become stronger. Moreover, the Janissaries especially wanted Süleyman to go on a campaign against the Safavids— it's the same exact scenario of Bayezid II's deposition.

Moreover, Mustafa had contacted Venice asking for support to get the throne.

A dispatch Trevisano sent to the Venetian Council of Ten written on 15 October 1553 indicates that Mustafa had sent a messenger, Nebi Bey, to the bailo asking for his help gaining the throne; this man had also traveled to Venice to negotiate with the senate. The bailo had received word on 6 October that Nebi Bey had arrived in Venice on the first of the month and was scheduled for an audience with the Venetian Collegio the following day. According to the rumors circulating in Venice, the mission of Mustafa’s man was to broker a deal with Venetian authorities, who were willing to support Mustafa with Venetian intelligence and technical services if he would return to them the former Venetian strongholds in Morea (the Peloponnese).

We don't know how the Senate replied because Mustafa was executed in the meantime. As Atçıl says in his essay:

This abortive episode in princely diplomacy, however, demonstrates that just as Hürrem (probably in collaboration with Rüstem) did for her sons, Mustafa likewise was acting to bolster his claim to the throne; moreover, he was more successful than his half-brothers in gaining valuable support. Forming coalitions and seeking allies were perfectly legitimate moves for a candidate to the throne, and supporting a particular claimant constituted a way for various social groups (e.g., janissaries, viziers, scholars, middle-class citizens) to participate in imperial politics.

In September 1552, Süleyman sent ahead Rüstem with an army with the probable intention of joining him in spring. "Rüstem was likely meant to oversee only the mustering and organization of the soldiers coming from Rumeli". The sultan had stayed in Istanbul because he was not in good health; for this reason, Rüstem did not go very far from Istanbul: "fearing that Şehzade Mustafa would attempt to ascend the throne with the janissaries’ assistance if the sultan’s health deteriorated"

And this is when things start to heat up: in winter 1553, while Rüstem was in Anatolia with the army

"the janissaries who were with him said that they wanted to go to pay respects to Mustafa, their future sultan. The pasha immediately understood the situation, and suspecting some threat to himself, issued a command that no one would leave him but that all the troops would accompany him in the direction of Iconio. The janissaries, however, did not want to be prevented from doing what they had decided [only] because of this command, so they all set out along the path toward Amasya. The pasha continued toward Iconio with the agha of the janissaries and with those others who had remained."

[Iconio is Konya in Italian]

Now, this is is like the worst that could happen because soldiers could not swear allegiance to a prince. They were the sultan's soldiers and their allegiance was to the sultan himself. This is why Rüstem forbade them from going to Amasya, though he also did that because he was afraid that something would happen to him should Mustafa muster an army.

The Janissaries in Amasya, Mustafa made a very big mistake:

The janissaries who arrived in Amasya and went to kiss Mustafa’s hand were welcomed and fêted by him; they received abundant food and one ducat each.

Atçıl goes on saying:

"If he had rejected this obeisance right away as a display due only the sultan himself, he could never have been portrayed as a rebel to his father; rejection of the soldiers’ advances would have communicated that the legitimate sultan was alive in Istanbul and that he, as his son, by no means disregarded the authority of the sultan. Mustafa probably did not intend to undermine Süleyman’s power and prestige, but he almost certainly did not foresee that embracing the people’s love would result in his demise."

Unfortunately, Mustafa did not refuse the Janissaries' obeisance. Furthermore, when the "rebelling" Janissaries returned to Rüstem's camp, the Grand Vizier had received a letter from Istanbul which said that the Sultan's health had deteriorated.

Mustafa, too, received this news, immediately understood the situation, and prepared himself to ride [to Istanbul] in case [news of ] the sultan’s death should follow. It was said that he had a hundred thousand men ready who would mount horses to follow him at the sound of a trumpet. [...] [With Mustafa] no more than five thousand men were found at that time, but all of them were well chosen and counted as three men [in prowess]. It is also true that the army would not have followed either Rüstem Pasha or the agha of the janissaries, no matter what they offered as present or promise to keep the troops together, because Mustafa was so loved by all the imperial soldiers, and everyone impatiently awaited the moment he would become emperor.

So what happened is that the Grand Vizier effectively lost control of the army. This is serious because not only was he the Grand Vizier of the Empire but he had been appointed as Süleyman's deputy so basically the army at that moment was ready to disobey the sultan's orders and to follow instead a prince.

At this point, Rüstem sent messengers to Istanbul, telling the sultan what was happening. This is when Süleyman famously denied that Mustafa would ever betray him:

God forbid that my Mustafa Khan should dare such insolence, and for the love of the sultanate during my lifetime should extend his foot from the quilt! It must be the idea of some troublemakers. They slander him in order to obtain the rule for the prince they support. See that you never let similar rumors appear and never again repeat such a thing.

Nevertheless, Süleyman recalled the army back to Istanbul and promised that he would lead the campaign himself later. So, Rüstem returned to Istanbul and on 28 August 1553, the army left again; this time it was the sultan commanding it. Before leaving, Rüstem left his brother Sinan as deputy governor of Istanbul but he didn't stop there: he appointed him Grand Admiral (even though Sinan was not a seaman at all) with the specific task to block the straits if Mustafa were to arrive before Hürrem's sons (Selim was at his provincial post, Bayezid was in Edirne tasked with guarding Rumeli and Cihangir was with Süleyman, as we all know)

When Süleyman arrived near Amasya, he sent messengers to call Mustafa to Ereğli. Mustafa's advisers (and Mahidevran too) told him not to go but in the end, the prince decided to obey. He arrived on October 5th but was scheduled to meet Süleyman only on the 6th, when he was strangled in his tent.

All of this to say that the matter was more complicated than "Hürrem planned Mustafa's execution by poisoning Süleyman's ear through Rüstem". I have said that the historian should not judge but if you asked me personally, I cannot blame Süleyman for doing what he did. The circumstantial evidence was pretty damning: Mustafa did contact another country (and Ayas Pasha) but most importantly, he accepted the Janissaries' allegiance. As I have said before, I don't think he wanted to rebel and take the throne as Selim I had done but he probably didn't think about how his father would see his actions either.

I don’t want to sound rude but I hope this is the last time I have to talk about Mustafa’s execution because I’m a little tired of talking always about the same thing.

#ask post #ask: ottoman history #sehzade mustafa son of suleyman i #rustem pasha #suleyman i #nadiall

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lunarr-rrose · 3 years

Video

What is the Deal with Property Insurance?

https://u109893.h.reiblackbook.com/generic11/the-storage-stud/what-is-the-deal-with-property-insurance/

Crum-Halsted is a full service insurance and risk management agency headquartered in Sycamore, IL with six offices in Illinois providing outstanding service, security, and peace of mind for businesses, families, and individuals for over 90 years.

Greg Jones is the Vice President of the Chicago Real Estate Council and Director with the Rogers Park Builders Group as well as a Deacon at Christ Community Church in Lemont. When not working, he enjoys watching the cubs with a good cigar and a great whiskey in hand, playing poker, and riding motorcycles.

https://crumhalsted.com/

Fernando O. Angelucci is the Founder and President of Titan Wealth Group. He also leads the firm’s finance and acquisitions departments. Fernando Angelucci and Steven Wear founded Titan Wealth Group in 2015, and under his leadership, the firm’s revenue has grown over 100% year over year. Today,

Find out more at

https://www.thestoragestud.com

https://titanwealthgroup.com/

Listen to our Podcast: https://thestoragestud.podbean.com/e/what-is-the-deal-with-property-insurance/

Titan Wealth Group operates nationwide sourcing off market investment properties for Titan Wealth Group’s acquisition as well as servicing a network of thousands of active real estate investors world wide. Prior to founding Titan Wealth Group, Fernando worked for Dow Chemical, a Fortune 50 company, rolling out a flagship product estimated to gross $1B in global revenues.

With an engineering background, Fernando is able to approach real estate investing with a keen analytical mindset that allows Titan Wealth Group to identify opportunities and project accurate pictures of future performance. Fernando graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.A. degree in Technical Systems Management.

Titan Wealth Group was founded in 2015 with the vision of gathering individual investors that have the means to invest but lack either the time to find high-yield investment opportunities or the access to these off-market deals. All too often, founders Fernando Angelucci & Steven Wear came across investors who had deployed their capital only to regret the lack of consistency or degree of returns their investments were producing. In response, Titan Wealth Group provides access to highly-vetted real estate secured investments and off-market acquisition opportunities primarily in the Greater Chicago MSA. Today, Titan Wealth Group not only assists individual investors but has grown to support the acquisition goals and capital deployment of investment groups, private equity firms, and real estate investment trusts (REITs).

As a facilitator of wealth growth, Titan Wealth Group believes that success is not limited to the sum of our efforts and is infinite with what can be accomplished through partnership.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fernando Angelucci (00:16): Hey everybody, welcome back. We're doing a special Thanksgiving podcast here today. So on this episode of What's The Deal, the real estate podcast that gives answers, we'll be covering What's The Deal with Property I nsurance. Real estate is one of the few investment vehicles that you can purchase in property insurance for, you now, yay for hard assets. So joining me today to provide some coverage on the topic of Property Insurance is my good friend and colleague Greg Jones. So how are we doing Greg?

Greg Jones (00:51): Good. How about you, Fernando?

Fernando Angelucci (00:53): Doing good. I'm doing good. It's 72, 73 degrees outside in California. I'm glad I'm not in Chicago at the moment.

Greg Jones (01:01): It's not quite that nice here right now.

Fernando Angelucci (01:06): Okay. So Greg, on this podcast, we have all types of listeners from super professional, you know, multi million dollar portfolio, all the way to the new investor or someone that is trying to become a new investor. So let's back up a little bit and, you know, explain who you are and what you do.

Greg Jones (01:26): Got it. So my name is Greg Jones. I am a risk advisor with Crum Halstead Agency. So I work with real estate companies and developers as well as contractors around consulting around risk and placement of insurance.

Fernando Angelucci (01:42): How'd you get into the business?

Greg Jones (01:45): I was introduced to a guy that owned an agency shoot, this is probably almost 10 years ago now. Right place, right time. I grew up in a background of construction, both my dad and my brother owned construction companies. Had friends that were in real estate, didn't want to do construction for a living. So I figured I would give insurance a try and it ended up being a really good fit.

Fernando Angelucci (02:10): Oh, okay. I didn't know that about you.

Greg Jones (02:13): Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci (02:14): Figured it would come up in one of those late night poker games.

Greg Jones (02:17): Yeah, exactly.

Fernando Angelucci (02:20): Okay. So for people that don't know what is Property Insurance and what does a risk advisor do?

Greg Jones (02:31): So property insurance is realistically, it's a like a contract. So the owner of the property has a contract in place with an insurance company, say whether that's a Travelers or a Hartford or whoever the carrier might be. And in that contract, it will lay out in the event of a claim. Here's what the insurance company is going to pay out. And that covers both damage to the property as well as if there's an injury to someone at the property. So the contract States, what the limits are, what the causes of that claim are covered versus certain kinds of causes of claim might not be covered, unless you buy that or purchase it as an add-on, a good example of that is earthquake coverage. Earthquake isn't automatically included, but you can purchase it as an additional coverage line item, but it's all built into a contract that lasts for 12 months between the owner and the insurance company.

Fernando Angelucci (03:28): Okay. And then with those types of con, let's bring it into reality with some examples. So say I'm a new investor. I'm going to be buying a four flat property in Chicago. I'm going to live in one unit myself, rent out the other three units, let's say each units, 1200 square feet and the buildings' a hundred years old, what am I looking at for coverage? Or what should I be looking at for coverage? Where are the premiums going to fall? And what are some things that I should be paying attention to or looking for in those contracts?

Greg Jones (04:04): Right. So the first question you have to answer, especially because you're living in one of those units, is how are you going to cover the property? You could cover it on a personal insurance policy, or you could cover it on a commercial policy because it's four units, that's the breaking point. You could cover it either way. After you get to five units, it's always considered a commercial policy.

Fernando Angelucci (04:27): Okay.

Greg Jones (04:27): If you go the route of commercial, which is typically what I recommend the coverage form is a little bit broader in what it will cover you for. The downside is you have to treat yourself because you're living in one of those units as a tenant, you're a tenant within your own building. So your personal property as the resident, isn't going to be covered, but your asset, the building contents within the rental properties, those are covered under the contract.

Greg Jones (04:59): When you're looking at a four unit building, based on the square footage, there's typically a dollar amount that insurance carriers will look at in terms of we're want to cover this for what it will cost to replace it. If you have a catastrophic loss, right? Every carrier has their own algorithms they'll use for this, but typically it comes down to a dollar amount per square foot. The average we're seeing at least in Chicago right now, if it's joist and masonry or better is typically anywhere from 150 to $170 a square foot is what it would cost to completely rebuild. So we would look at what does that cost look like? Then you can set up whatever deductible structure you want. Deductibles go as low as, I mean, realistically, you can go as low as you use the $500. I never seen anybody go that low. Usually the average is, you know, 25 to 10,000 for a deductible. So then if you do have a loss, everything that it's covered under that contract is paid out minus the cost of your deductible.

Fernando Angelucci (06:00): Exactly. Now, one of the things that occurs quite often in Chicago is we have these pockets, these neighborhoods, where the cost of buy the property is significantly below the replacement value. For example you know, my partner, Steven?

Greg Jones (06:16): Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci (06:16): He has a property where, you know, it's 140 year old masonry and limestone building the cost to replace that type of building would be a 1.4, 1.3, 1.4 million, but he bought it for significantly lower than that in those types of situations, what do you recommend doing with the coverage amount with the policy?

Greg Jones (06:42): So it really comes down to as the building owner, what is your goal in the event of a claim, right? So you want to make sure you have enough coverage so that if there's a partial claim or a partial loss is what they call it. So let's say hale comes through and destroys the roof. It's not a total loss. You want to have enough to repair that roof.

Fernando Angelucci (07:03): Right.

Greg Jones (07:03): The question is, if you were to have a catastrophic loss, the building is completely destroyed or it's damaged so much that the city comes in and says, you have to take this building down. It's now a safety hazard, right? In that kind of scenario, what do you want to do? Do you want to rebuild something there? Or would you rather just take the money and go buy something else and sell the land after the debris has been removed, right?

Greg Jones (07:28): So the answer to that question really drives how we advise, typically in these situations, I find the investor really would rather just take the money and go buy something else because that coverage amount that you've got for that partial loss is more than enough to buy at least another building like it in that area, or maybe even more, right? So you get this dilemma of, I bought it for, you know, say 250,000, but it will cost me 1.5 million to rebuild it. Right? Insurance companies will allow you in some cases and it depends on the carrier, but they will allow you to do what's called a stated amount, or it's a, some carriers call it a loss limit. So, you as the building owner can say, this is how much I want to cover my building for. I recognize it's not enough to rebuild it, but I want to cover it. So let's use this building and as an example, you buy it for 250,000 let's say it's 1.5 to fully rebuild it. And you say, I only want to cover it for half a million dollars, half a million will cover any partial loss that happens. If it's a total loss, I'd rather just take the money and go buy something else. The rating for that is typically a little bit higher, but it still ends up coming out much less than it would be if you were to fully insure it for $1.5 million.

Fernando Angelucci (08:51): And when you say rating, what do you mean by that?

Greg Jones (08:54): So, the premium for insurance for property is driven by a rate. So whatever value is selected for that building. So let's say a million dollars for round number purposes. So you take that million dollars, divide it by a hundred and you multiply it by a rate, and that equals your premium. So let's say it's you're getting a 20 cent rate. So for a million dollar building divide it by 10, multiply it by 0.20, that's your property premium.

Fernando Angelucci (09:24): I see.

Greg Jones (09:24): Rates vary based on the asset type. So typically you'll see multi-family tends to be the highest rated asset class out there where retail is considered a little bit less hazardous, office and industrial tend to be considered the least risky. So you could have a building of the same square footage. Let's say you're at a 18 cent rate for apartment building, same size building would be a, what? 10 to 12 cent rate for retail. You might get as low as 8 to 10 cents on office or industrial, just depending on what the asset class is and where it's located.

Fernando Angelucci (10:06): Interesting. Now with, let's say someone in what situations would somebody opt for the full replacement cost is that if you have like a super custom property that, you know, you can't find anywhere else, or?

Greg Jones (10:20): If you have a super custom property, or if the idea is I like where I'm located, the land has significant value. Even if I was going to take the money, I would rebuild something here. I might not rebuild the same thing. So another way that you can do it is some carriers offer what's called Functional Replacement Cost. Right? I seen this particularly with real estate related to older church properties and some need, especially you think about Chicago land. There is all of these churches that were built in the 18 hundreds, the architectures' crazy. You're not going to rebuild one of those just like it stands right now. Right?

Fernando Angelucci (10:58): Right.

Greg Jones (10:59): But you look at, if we were to have a total loss, we would want to rebuild something, same purpose, but we're not going to rebuild it the same way. And so you can use, what's called a Functional Replacement Cost, where you'll estimate based on, if we had a loss, what would we rebuild? What would the square footage be? Same questions, but you're not basing on what's there, you're basing it on what you would build.

Fernando Angelucci (11:24): Right.That's interesting. With the property insurance business, there's a lot of moving parts and it's one of those vendors in the real estate space that usually a lot of the investors don't actually know what goes on behind, right behind the curtains here.

Greg Jones (11:43): Right.

Fernando Angelucci (11:43): Walk us through. When I talk to you, it almost seems like every person that works within your organization, It's almost running like it's their own little business with inside of the organization. Almost like you're not entrepreneur or entrepreneur, some people would say, what is the day in the life of a risk advisor look like, what are you doing on a day-to-day basis?

Greg Jones (12:04): So on a day-to-day basis my time is usually split in a few different categories, right? So there's the time that goes into just the day to day servicing of your existing clients, right? That's helping guide through the process of whether it's an acquisition, that's coming up a disposition, a refinance, there's always moving parts, particularly within real estate. Right? And so there's a lot of day to day servicing. I mean, the interactions with a real estate client versus let's say a manufacturer is completely different.

Fernando Angelucci (12:38): Right.

Greg Jones (12:38): Right. Just because of all those moving parts. So part of the time is spent with that servicing with myself and my team. There's another element of it, of I'm trying to connect with new people. So before we hit a, you know, pandemic that involved going to lots of events and networking and, you know, all that came to a screeching halt in March. So now it's been a lot more time on the phone working through marketing, trying to figure out different creative ways to connect with people, to bring in new clients. Right?

Fernando Angelucci (13:09): Right.

Greg Jones (13:10): And then once you open that opportunity and you're starting to work on a new client there's a lot of time that goes into underwriting. So if an investor says, Hey, we want you to look at our portfolio. There's a lot of detail that you work through with them to gather the right information. And then you're compiling that information and really painting a picture for your underwriters. So, I mean, people have asked me before, what's the difference between a good broker in a bad broker or a good adviser, bad advisors is it's really making sure that you're painting a picture for an underwriter to make that client look really good versus here's 12 locations, here's all the basic raw data, what's my rate? You know, if you actually go into more detail and explain, like here's what the company does, here's what their practices look like, here's what they require of tenants of vendors coming in and out of the space to do work. You can actually derive a much better result than just providing a spreadsheet asking for someone to get you a quote.

Fernando Angelucci (14:12): Interesting. So almost painting a picture of the whole business, not just that one property, you're looking for.

Greg Jones (14:18): Exactly.

Fernando Angelucci (14:18):

To quote on.

Greg Jones (14:19): Exactly.

Fernando Angelucci (14:20): Interesting. How about on the other side? So that's, you know, that's your prospect side, if you will, but how about the actual carriers that you match up with? How do you find these guys? How do you know if a deal is gonna be right for a certain carrier? Cause I know there's hundreds of insurance companies around.

Fernando Angelucci (14:38): Hundreds.

Fernando Angelucci (14:38): In Iowa and I saw every one of the buildings.

Greg Jones (14:42): We're all headquartered there.

Fernando Angelucci (14:42): Yeah.

Greg Jones (14:42): Well, maybe not all of them, but a lot. So yeah. Every, so every insurance company has a different appetite, right? So there is some time spent with those and what those underwriters figuring out what that appetite looks like. So some carriers will, every carrier will say they like real estate in some capacity. Right? But the question is what kind of real estate that you like. So back in the day is when carriers would stop by the office and, you know, have a catch-up meeting with us, you know, they would talk about their appetite, what they've been hitting on recently where they've seen success. And so the first question is always, what kind of real estate are you writing? So in some cases, it's, they really like office and industrial, some carriers really like apartments, few carriers, like every asset class, there are a few. And then I would say in today's market, it's even changing beyond what it has been historically, just because of the unknowns of, you know, what will come of the pandemic and particularly around office and retail and what that's gonna look like. So we've even seen carriers backing away from those asset classes where they historically have been of the most appetite.

Fernando Angelucci (15:55): Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So for example, how many carriers do you work with if you had to guess?

Greg Jones (16:03): So in the real estate space, I would say we probably have 15 or 20 that really focus in on real estate that specialize in that. So the team that I came over with that help launch our Chicago office has really put a lot of emphasis into partnering with the right companies that work with real estate because real estate is our focus. And so, if there's a market we've come across, that we find is really competitive in the real estate space, we do what we can to get a contract with them. So there's very few markets that specialize in real estate that we don't work with.

Fernando Angelucci (16:36): Yeah. And it's funny, we've worked with each other in the past and you really know which carriers have an appetite for what type of assets. You know, we do some niche style assets, not only the single family, multifamily, but also the self storage buildings.

Greg Jones (16:51): Uh-huh.

Fernando Angelucci (16:51): And you've gotten quotes to me not only quickly, but usually beating out almost all the competition on the premium. And I think one of the things that really helped us, is the fact that you do have a really good ability to paint kind of that picture. Here's what the company's like. Now I have, I'm somebody that always believes that you should get insurance and, you know, plan for the worst, but hope for the best I have come across a lot of investors that do the opposite.

Fernando Angelucci (17:20): I survived.

Fernando Angelucci (17:20): And swear by real estate insurance is a scam and the carriers never pay out. So for you, what would you say? Why should a real estate investor have property insurance? And on top of that, why should they use a risk advisor or a broker as opposed to just contacting a company directly?

Greg Jones (17:43): Good question. So I would say, why should they have property insurance? The short and simple answer is in most cases, if there's a bank involved, it's going to be required.

Fernando Angelucci (17:54): Right.

Greg Jones (17:54): Where it's an option is where you actually own the asset a hundred percent. There's no lending requirements. You can choose whether you're going to insure the building or not. I've seen this particularly be the case when you've got developers who are buying, let's say a vacant property that they're going to repurpose, right? So usually they'll in a lot of cases, they'll buy it for cash or there won't be a bank involved if you will. So they have a choice whether they want to cover that building or not. The, I would say the reason you want to is because you want to have something that protects your investment, right? And it's not just the asset itself, especially when you're looking at development projects, you might purchase a building for, let's say a million dollars.

Greg Jones (18:43): You're going to put a couple of million into it, repurpose it. It's not just covering that initial million dollar investment. It's also looking at what is the potential income that you stand to lose if you lose that asset. Right?

Fernando Angelucci (18:58): Right.

Greg Jones (18:58): So insurance is, I mean, if you think about it, there's not a product out there where you can spend, let's say, I mean, I'm thinking back to one that I did for a client a while back bought a vacant building for it was like half a million dollars. Once he was done with the repurposing of it, he would have been into it for probably about 2.5. And the monetary return on this was going to be over half a million dollars a year. Once it was all done, the coverage of insurance was like $8,000, but we were covering the building for $2 million. Right? So you're spending eight in the event of a total loss. You're getting all of your investment back minus your deductible for 8K to protect an investment of significantly more. So, I mean, being someone that's fairly risk averse I would strongly recommend it.

Fernando Angelucci (19:59): Yeah. And so you're talking about the significant income that, that property would bring in. Is there some type of a rider that you can get for say, instead of it being a total loss, but say something happens where all of a sudden you lose your income generating potential from that building. Is there some type of like loss of rents protection or income protection that you can put on as a rider?

Greg Jones (20:20): So typically you'll have a loss of income or what's called business interruption coverage that's built in. So once you have a stabilized asset, it's generating rental income, you can cover that two ways. You can do it on a stated amount. So you're stating for every location that you have, this is what our annual income is. And if there's a claim, so let's say there was a fire at the building, right? The tenants have to relocate because you're doing all these repairs, it's going to take six months to do the repairs.

Fernando Angelucci (20:51): Yeah.

Greg Jones (20:51):The policy will pay out that loss rental income for those six months until you're back up and operational again. That's based on a stated amount, it functions the same way. A lot of companies prefer to do what's called actual losses sustained, which means you report what the rental income is, but you're not capped at that number. This is particularly important on portfolios where tenants change, right? You don't want to have to go back and report every single time. Well, this tenant moved out, this tenant, moved in. The rents went up a little bit, you know, and change that number all the time. So having actual losses sustained what they will do if there's a claim, they'll look at at the time of the claim, what was the rental income? And that's what they start paying until the repairs are done.

Fernando Angelucci (21:42): And I know we're skipping ahead here, but what are your recommendations on the two methods stated income versus actual? What do you prefer? What do you advise people to go with?

Greg Jones (21:54): Oh, I always prefer actual losses sustained. If you can get it just because it makes it very clean. So, I mean, a lot of times when you'll have an investor that's buying a new asset, they're typically inheriting tenants, right? They might be doing things to the building, providing more value, updates, all kinds of things. Right? And with that comes typically at lease renewal time adjustments in the lease. And if you have actual losses sustained, it doesn't matter what those adjustments are. You can have a unit that's going forward $2,000 a month. You put a lot of value into it, updates, improvements. You're going to increase that from, you know, $2,000 a month to 2,500 a month or whatever the case might be. You don't have to go back and report it every single time. So you don't want to have a cap on what could be paid out for lost income. Actual losses sustained is a much cleaner way to do it.

Fernando Angelucci (22:49): Gotcha. So what are some of the decisions that an investor or someone would be faced with when choosing insurance, what should they be looking out for? What are the things that you're recommending they look for, or pushing them or nudging them towards getting, if it's additional riders, if it's certain types of policies, kind of walk us through that.

Greg Jones (23:13): So there's a few things that I always look for. First time I see a policy. So one of those things is co-insurance which is a very confusing thing for most investors, co-insurance has to do with how much you're going to cover your building for. So the average investor will always cover their building for replacement costs. Typically that's the most standard way to do it. So let's say you have a building that's valued at a million dollars at replacement cost. Co-insurance allows you to insure it for a little less than that. So typically you'll see either 80% or 90%, but if you go below that, there's, what's called a co-insurance penalty, which means, let's say the buildings' a million dollars in value. You have an 80% co-insurance clause in your policy. That means that you can be fully insured up to 80% of the value.

Greg Jones (24:08): So in this case it would be 800,000, right? If you are insured for less than that, and there's a claim, even if it's a partial claim, they will subtract a percentage off of what would have been your claim paid amount based on how far under that 80% you are. So let's say you're insured only to 60% value. Well, you're 20% below where you should have been any claim that gets paid out is going to be docked 20%.

Fernando Angelucci (24:38): I see.

Greg Jones (24:38):

So what we do is, we look at trying to put everything on what's called Agreed Amount, which waives co-insurance, which basically is stating, I mean, we've gone through the process to make sure we're insured adequately, right? But we don't want any risk of co-insurance or penalties. If there's, you know, evaluation difference between the time we wrote the policy and the time of claim happens. So we are going to the carrier is a green in their contract. They will pay out up to X, no questions asked if that is on agreed amount. So that's one of the big ones we look at. One of the overlooked coverages I think is sewer and drain backup. And it's oftentimes put at a very low limit, but if you've gone through claims before, water damage, and you're a lower level, that can cause a significant damage to repair.

Fernando Angelucci (25:31): 60 to $80,000 worth of damage. Greg Jones (25:34):

Exactly. So that's something that I always want to make sure is at a very good limit. That's included in the Chicago market the other one is ordinance and law coverage.

Fernando Angelucci (25:46): Yeah.

Greg Jones (25:46): So it's not automatically included, but it provides coverage for, let's say you have a catastrophic loss and you're dealing with a building that was built in 1912.

Fernando Angelucci (25:56): Right?

Greg Jones (25:56): It's been updated, but there's a lot of things that are grandfathered in, just because of the age of the building. When you reconstruct, you have to reconstruct according to 2020 building code.

Fernando Angelucci (26:09):

Right.

Greg Jones (26:10): And that's an additional expense that is not automatically covered. So making sure that you have those kinds of things. So we, I really focus on trying to get into the weeds on this kind of thing, to make sure you know exactly what it is you're purchasing, and that it's actually protecting your asset, right? Because there's nothing worse than you go out and you purchase a policy from your broker, you have a claim. And then in that process, something's not covered. And you're like, well, I paid for this policy. Why is this not covered? It's like, well, this wasn't included, or this was sub limited. So only a certain amount of it gets paid and you're left spending money out of pocket. The last thing you want is to spend money out of pocket after you've had a claim, and you're already dealing with that headache.

Fernando Angelucci (27:00): Right. How would you advise someone choose the right coverage for their building in a word? It seems like property insurance is kind of like this pull lever here lose a little bit on the other side, pull lever on the other side, loses a little bit here. Usually it's with premium or with, which coverage amount, you're talking about things that are, let's call them named coverages versus unnamed.

Greg Jones (27:26): Right.

Fernando Angelucci (27:26): You know, issues. So what would you advise for someone and how they should approach choosing the right coverage?

Greg Jones (27:35): So typically the way I've always approached it is, I want to lay every option out there. That's on the table, right? These are the coverages that are available. Here's the tiers at which you can get these coverages. Right? So think about sewer and drain backup. For example, I can show you if you want 25,000 of coverage, it's going to cost of this. If you want 50, it's going to cause this, if you want 250, it's gonna cost that. Right? And then based on the size of the building what's your lower level construction type, right? Is it all block and stone? Okay. You probably don't need as much as then you're looking at, you know, fixtures and things like that versus yeah. We have a frame drywall, carpeted, you know, lower level, right?

Fernando Angelucci (28:19): Yeah.

Greg Jones (28:19): That's gonna sustain a lot more damage. So there's a lot of consulting around, based on what you have. This is what's recommended, but here are all the options. And so you lay that out on the table, make a recommendation but at the end of the day, it's up to that investor to choose what they want to proceed with.

Fernando Angelucci (28:37): Okay. What is the most common mistake or mistakes you see real estate investors make when it comes to property insurance?

Greg Jones (28:46): I would say the most common mistake I see is that the first thing they do is they look at what the premium is and they make the decision based on the premium without actually diving into all of those little ancillary coverages. Right? So they'll look at what the premium is and how much is the building covered for, they won't look at things like co-insurance, they won't look at is there any limitation on what my business interruption coverages, is equipment breakdown included all of those little things that if there's a claim will have a big impact. They're just looking at my billings cover for a million dollars and it costs this much. That's the least expensive one. Let's go with that. Or also looking at, what carrier are you partnering with? How does that carrier respond? If there's a claim. Or they carry that really will push back and try to find any possible way, not pay a claim or do they have a good track record of really working with their insurance, right?

Fernando Angelucci (29:47): How do you find that information?

Greg Jones (29:50): So that's where I think working with a adviser comes into play, especially one that's ingrained in the industry by the industry. I mean the real estate industry. So someone who's worked with multiple carriers has been able to see claims walked out from multiple carriers, and be able to say, I've seen experience with this carrier, They're all willing to offer you terms. Here's the pros and cons of each one and what I think their strong suits are.

Fernando Angelucci (30:19): Gotcha. How about on the flip side, what are some of the common mistakes you've seen risk advisors make?

Greg Jones (30:29): I would say the two that I see the most would be not going into full detail and doing the full underwriting themselves on the front end. So, like I said before, there's a lot of brokers out there. I mean, there's thousands of insurance brokers, right? I mean, you can go to anybody, you want to get insurance pretty much.

Fernando Angelucci (30:48): Right.

Greg Jones (30:50): But if they are not going into that full detail and figuring out all of the things on the front end before they start quoting something with a carrier. There's a lot of things that can get missed. Right? Not actually doing the legwork to make sure are we covering the building adequately, are we running the right reports to make sure that this asset will be fully protected up to the investment level that the investor has, right? Are we including the right coverages?

Greg Jones (31:20): Are we asking for the right endorsements or add-ons right. I would say that's probably the biggest mistake because that's where you find they rush through the process, they get a quote, something happens and then there's an item that wasn't covered, and then it's up to that broker to make that right. So I would say that's probably the biggest mistake I've seen. The other is just not actually, like I was talking about before painting that picture with an underwriter, the difference that you can get for a client through that is huge. It's really, that's a way to create value for an investor when you do it that way versus just spit balling out there to any carrier you can to get a quote. And it's also a way to potentially lose the client in the long run, because you're going to get the best pricing when you paint that picture, versus you're just marketing it out to everybody and taking a shotgun approach. It's very easy for somebody that really knows what they're doing to come in and create that value drive down that cost, and then you lose the client. So.

Fernando Angelucci (32:37): One of the things that I have seen is trying to do everything yourself, as opposed to building out a team to help you with that. And you've alluded to it multiple times that you have a team around you that helps you fill these duties. What does that look like? What does your team look like? And what are they responsible for each?

Greg Jones (33:00): So on the team is built out of there's multiple advisers in my firm multiple ones of us that focus in real estate. I think one of the real advantages is the way we've built out this office is we have professionals that are focused not only within real estate, but within various aspects of real estate. So you have guys that are really focused in the multifamily space. You have guys that are focused in commercial, meaning like office retail, industrial. You have others that are focused in condominium associations, right? So it creates a wealth of knowledge that you can pull from. So let's say you're working on something that's a little bit outside of your wheelhouse. You have that resource that you can bring in to make sure that nothing's getting missed through that process, right? There's expertise there. There's also a service team that handles a lot of the transactional pieces that happen within a real estate account. So when you're going through a refinance there's documentation that the lender needs to see based on what you have on your insurance policy, you know, evidence of coverage, et cetera. We have a team that one processes, those changes provides those certificates when they're needed, helps process the day-to-day things of those transactions that you're doing on the front end behind the scenes with the carrier, so that people like myself, the advisers can really interact more with their clients and do the consulting piece.

Fernando Angelucci (34:31): Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So let's move back to say new investor, new real estate investors looking to get involved, just saw this podcast. What advice would you give them when they're looking to buy their first investment property or start their first project? Let's say maybe it's inside of a rental, It's a fix and flip property.

Greg Jones (34:57): Right. I would say as someone new that's getting into it, the, I think the most important thing you have to think about when it comes to insurance is partnering with the right broker, because a lot of people are generalists that'll say, sure, I write real estate. I also write restaurants and I write manufacturing and I'll write a trucking company and they're not ingrained into the industry. And there are, there are brokers that really specialize within an industry like myself, that's real estate. Right?

Fernando Angelucci (35:29): Right.

Greg Jones (35:30): As a new investor, there's a lot of education that comes with that first investment, that first project, even the first few. Right? And so being able to partner with someone that is part of the team with you, that can say, okay, based on what you're investing in, or the project that you're doing, these are all the things you want to consider. Right? You don't have to go with all of them, but at least you have the information and you can make an educated decision.

Fernando Angelucci (35:58): And then how about on the flip side, what advice would you give to somebody considering becoming a risk advisor or an insurance broker?

Greg Jones (36:07): I would say if you're going to become an insurance broker or an advisor. The most important thing I think you need to be able to do is specialize in an industry.

Fernando Angelucci (36:15): Okay.

Greg Jones (36:15): For the same purpose. Right? There's obviously a lot of change happening within the insurance industry, right? I mean, online rating systems are on the rise. I mean, think about your home and auto insurance. Right?

Fernando Angelucci (36:31): Right.

Greg Jones (36:32): You don't have to go through a broker to get home and auto insurance. You can go online, plug in your information, the quote will get spit right back out at you. It's turning it into very much of a commodity. Right? I think in the commercial space, there's still a lot of room to bring value to clients. Right? But the only way you bring value is if you can bring consulting and advice and you can't bring consulting and advice on 12 different industries, you have to really be able to understand how your client's business works and speak to that versus taking orders or reacting to what they're asking for when maybe what they're asking for isn't actually going to protect them the right way. And you want to be able to bring value. And that's the only way you can do it.

Fernando Angelucci (37:24): I always tell people, especially new investors for real estate investors, it's good to be a Jack of all trades and master of none. But then you surround yourself with investor or with advisors that are the opposite.

Fernando Angelucci (37:38): Exactly.

Fernando Angelucci (37:38): The advisors is a master of one thing, not a Jack of all trades.

Greg Jones (37:41): Right.

Fernando Angelucci (37:41): So, you know, I worked with you in the past. I know you, I know a lot of people that worked with you in the past, what can a real estate investor do to make themselves a good partner, a good client to you? So that is the interaction between the two is seamless. And you don't want to scream every time you see Fernando calling you on the phone.

Greg Jones (38:07):

Yeah. I would say communication is probably the biggest thing. Right? I was talking with a colleague about this a couple of years ago, and I was like, you can tell a difference between a client that views you as a vendor and a commodity. Versus a client that views you as an advisor and part of their team. Right? And the difference there is, they're bringing you into conversations about what the future looks like in advance. So I've got some clients that are really good at this, where we have quarterly meetings and we'll talk about this is what's in the pipeline. What do we need to be thinking about? Let's prepare for this in advance. They'll ask a lot of questions, and you particularly see this where if you've got an investor who's maybe changing their direction of their focus, right? So let's say I've talked to some groups recently where historically they've done a lot of work in the office and retail space.

Greg Jones (39:05): They want to launch a multifamily division. And so they'll say, okay, we're changing direction here. What do we need to be thinking about as we start looking at a different kind of investment versus what we've done in the past? With those kinds of conversations, the process is much smoother versus the I have a portfolio of office and retail and, Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you, I'm closing at noon tomorrow on a 80 unit apartment building. I need you to get this added for me, which if there was no conversation on the front end, who knows if the carrier that you're with, you could even add that location to, or you have to go and get something from scratch and you're on a you're on a deadline to do it. So I would say the communication and just having open dialogue about what's going on within the company and asking questions and keeping that line of communication open is the best thing a client can do.

Fernando Angelucci (40:03): Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense with almost any advise you work with. You've got to really make sure you're, you're communicating not only often, but well in advance of when you need things to be done by a certain deadline.

Greg Jones (40:20): Right.

Fernando Angelucci (40:20): So with that being said, how can, you know, how can people reach you and what should they know, or what should they prepare before trying to contact you or reaching out to you?

Greg Jones (40:34): So I can be reached my contact info I believe is on our website www.CrumHalstad.com. I also can be reached by phone, email. I don't know if you'll have that information up later, but that's typically the easiest way to get ahold of me phone and email. As far as what to have prepared, I mean, typically I like to start just by having a conversation with, what is it you're looking for? What do you have? What's the plan? One of the things that I've tried to do that's a little bit different with clients is not just looking at what your particular need is right now, but also like what's the next 12 months look like? Right. So I was a good example of this. I was talking with an investment group that so far all of their investments have been in Chicago. Right? But over the next 12 months, they're trying to start investing in multiple States. And so, having an overview conversation around what the plan is, is really helpful because you want to set a platform that a client can grow from. Right? So as far as what they have prepared, just have a conversation and then we can kind of direct from there, what information we need.

Fernando Angelucci (41:55): Yeah. That makes sense. Come prepared, that I know you like to get involved a little bit earlier in the process and what most investors will involve you in the process. Right?

Greg Jones (42:06): Correct.

Fernando Angelucci (42:06): How many let's say I got a closing on December 30th, when should I call you?

Greg Jones (42:13): I mean, I would say as far in advance as possible but.

Fernando Angelucci (42:18): Right as you to go into contract then?

Fernando Angelucci (42:19): Yeah right as you go into contract. So it really has to do with, it's not so much what our timeline is, really. It comes down to what the carrier's timeline is, right? Because when we get that phone call that says, you know, hey, I'm closing in four or five days, there are some carriers that could be really competitive in that space, but they can't turn it around that quickly. They, because they already have so many files on their desks that they're trying to work through. They're not going to jump on the last minute one that just came in and push everything else they've been working on to the side typically. So as much in advance as you can is great. That being said, there's always options. I mean, I've done it before where I get notification two days before we put something together, it doesn't allow us time to go out to all of the options. Right? But it still allows you to provide some, right?

Fernando Angelucci (43:14): Yeah.

Greg Jones (43:14): And then you talk at that point of, okay, so what's the strategy after we move forward with this, you know, do we try to remarket it down the road at next renewal? Start the process earlier, et cetera.

Fernando Angelucci (43:27): That makes sense. Alright Greg, I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you for giving us the scoop in on Property Insurance and Risk Advisers. Everyone that is watching, they'll have a link to your contact information below as well as the website there, if with whatever you'd like to provide.

Greg Jones (43:50): Awesome

Fernando Angelucci (43:51): And thanks again, everybody for tuning in to What's The Deal, the real estate podcast that gives you answers. If you have any questions or if you have certain topics you'd like us to cover, feel free to comment below, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. And that is our Thanksgiving edition of What's The Deal. Hope everybody has a safe and happy holiday.

#real estate #real estate investing #the storage stud #storage stud #fernando angelucci #self storage #Greg Jones

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revengerevisited · 3 years

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i found this vanqua fic the other day, it’s only a couple chapters but i like it so far. :3 it does have a ‘creator chose not to add warnings’ label though, so please be cautious. also baby-xemnas aka kotbysleep (nsfw) aka nekokat42 (also nsfw) is a much better vanqua artist than me so please check him out. X’D (heads-up those twitter threads are way longer than you think so make sure you see eeeverything~).

anyway, more wip art below the cut, plus my endless rambling (i talk about 18+ topics, just a warning)—

i’m still working on venqua week and i’ve got 2 more prompts to go, one i haven’t started yet and one i’m halfway done with—

~aaand yeah i’m re-using it for a vanqua pic too... X’D am i lazy, or just resourceful? you decide. ;P

but yeah, both of these pics will have an 18+ version as well. i admit i’m super anxious about posting it next week, as i’ve seen just how absolutely toxic fandom is on twitter. like, you thought tumblr was bad? i’ve spent the last few days preemptively blocking literally hundreds if not thousands of antis just so i can feel a little safer posting my content without some asshat calling me a pedo or telling me to kill myself over cartoons. XU i somewhat worry that i’ve accidentally blocked some people who were just joking around and weren’t actually harassing anyone, but it’s just so hard to tell sometimes. if i’ve accidentally blocked anybody here, just let me know so i can unblock you. :3 (idk why that sentence came out so sinister sounding but i’m legit being sincere X’D).

but seriously, idk when fandom suddenly got such a stick up its ass (around 2016-17 from my guesstimate) and decided aging-up a fictional character by a year or two is such a crime, but i guess that’s just the state of things. :T i could draw vanitas as a centaur or make him blond or whatever and no one cares, but aging him by one year? suddenly big problem! yeah, right. XP like, i know i said every character in kh is 17+ as of khmom (ignoring any weird timeline retcons of course), but heck i could make an honest case for the wayfinder family all being adults. hear me out—

it’s been 13 years since bbs, right? and for 12 of those years, aqua was in the realm of darkness, terra had some awareness while being possessed by xehanort, ven experienced some of sora’s life when he was in a coma, and vanitas was almost certainly in ven/sora’s heart as well, so all four of them could be said to be 31, 33, and 29 respectively. it’s not like their character models were any different when they were young teens as opposed to older teens, so can we really be sure they’re not all 30~ by now? heck, since ven is from the age of fairytales i could say he’s 1000 years old if i wanted too! (psst, it’s almost as if these are all fictional characters living in a fantasy world with time travel and whatnot and their ages are completely arbitrary numbers nomura made up on the spot, numbers which he has retconned before! :P).

now i don’t actually think they’re that old, but if people are gonna hassle me over a goddamn 2-year age difference, i might as well say fuck it and have fun with it, right? ;P it’s not like antis even know what the canon character ages even actually are, like when they try to say that skuld is underage when (assuming she’s subject x) she’d be around 28~ by now, or axel and saïx’s age. (maybe i’ll draw some saïx x skuld art and watch the antis lose their minds. ;P it wouldn’t even have to be nsfw to rile them up).

anyway, i do admit i’m feeling a little burned out on art recently. XP i’ve been trying to get one art piece out per week plus venqua week, and yeah it’s kinda taken its toll. i know this really isn’t anything anyone wants to hear, but i’ve been kinda thinking of moving away from fandom projects to work on my own original work. now, i’m not saying i’m abandoning a heart and a half nor anything as drastic as that! but i have spent like 2 years of my life on it just to get to the halfway mark, and i’m not sure i can spend 2 more doing only that.

i’ve got an original story idea that i’ve been working on-and-off on for the past 7 years or so, and i’m thinking of going back to it again (it does need a pretty big re-write). its main pairing is actually pretty vanqua-ish, now that i think about it. like, imagine the realm of darkness but instead of the heartless it’s infested with demons, and the main characters are the demon-slaying duo of a serious yet kindhearted half-angel and a feral, snarky half-demon. i even aged them up from 14 to 18 so none of my potential fans have to suffer the same anti bullshit that i have. XP

what else can i ramble about... oh, i got these super cute pins for christmas! :D the heartless is by xkirakira, and vanitas and aqua are by maxxmerch. they’re just so cute! X3 i hope everyone had a merry christmas and a happy holiday! i’ll see you guys later. ^3^

*looks around sheepishly* ó3ò alright... confession time. spoilers for a heart and a half for the rest of this post—

sooo~ i’ve kinda hinted at this before, but yeah i’ve always planned on adding a sex scene to a heart and a half; when i started writing back in 2018 i hadn’t realized how hostile fandom had become compared to only a few years ago, and it worries me that some readers might drop the fic because of it, or be angry with me over the underage aspect. :(

idk, i could go on about how i just wanted to explore every aspect of a romantic relationship, or how other disney/square enix characters married or had kids young (ariel, sarah hawkins, héctor, claudia strife, possibly jasmine), or how attempting to apply real-world rules to a videogame fantasy setting is inherently silly and pointless, but really it’s just ‘cause i love vanitas and aqua to bits and i just wanted to write a cute and funny mild sex scene between them (this fic is rated mature, not explicit, so much less graphic than confection affection), and at the end of the day they are just fictional characters, after all.

i guess all i can hope for is that i’m a skilled enough writer to pull it off in a believable way, and that my audience won’t be too put off by it. >_> i know vanitas and aqua have technically only known each other for about 2 months so it might not be ‘realistic’ for them to go so far into a relationship so soon, but i think it’s important to remember that ultimately this is a romantic fairytale, and other canon disney couples haven’t seen nearly as deeply into each other’s hearts as vanitas and aqua have (and this video also helped me feel better about it).

i also wanted to finish that nsfw venqua fic i started a few months back, it’s set just before the mark of mastery so yes ven would be 16. i suppose it’s a way of testing the waters to see what kind of reception i’d get (hopefully positive) before i get to that part of a heart and a half. i was also thinking of including some of the uh, ‘keyblades as erogenous zones’ aspect from this terraquaven fic as well... w-why are you looking at me like that?! it’s funny! *sweats nervously* o3o’

in all honesty, i’m probably just overthinking all this (which, knowing me, is almost a guarantee >_<) and i should just *ahem* let my heart be my guiding key, and just write what i want to write without worrying about it all the time. i just get so anxious so easily... buuut that’s not really news to anyone, now is it? ;P well, i think that’s the end of my endless ramble, thanks for reading if you got this far. X’D and i really hope i didn’t actually upset anybody about a heart and a half. ;_; i just felt like i needed to vent a little, but don’t worry about me, i’m doing fine. anyway, i really should stop typing and get back to work on venqua week, sooo... bye! X3

#wip #rambles #rant #tagging just in case

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the-lightning-strikes-again · 4 years

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Do you think quintessence exposure prolonged Allura’s life and she would’ve lived an unnaturally long life for even an Altean if she’d lived? I think about this question a lot because this girl got blasted by and was exposed to insane amounts of it.

Hi, asennnaa. Ah, those are good questions! I’m not sure I have a perfect answer because I’m still grappling with how to handle some of the holes or contradictions in this show. I do think VLD’s entire universe confirms that infusions of quintessence into a body, as you suggest, can unnaturally prolong a life. But what counts as “enough” quintessence exposure to really make one immortal? Just “how immortal” can Allura get? Because other characters are shown to require multiple infusions of quintessence in order to remain even marginally immortal.

It looks like Zarkon was still aging, even with quintessence infusion. Here is a fresh Zark:

And here he is again ~10,000 years later with the wrinkly lips, sunken-in cheeks, and big eye baggies that are all standard signs of aging.

Old zarkturtle status achieved.

So despite standard access to quintessence infusions, and even being overcome with quintessence in the rift itself, both he and Haggar seem like they’re fighting a battle with the clock and still losing. Could their lack of immortality and constant need to infuse with quintessence be because they were accosted by rift creatures (so not experiencing “pure” quintessence infusion in the rift)? I suppose it’s possible.

And a lack of ongoing access to pure quintessence might also be part of the entire Galra Empire’s continuous desire to get to purer and larger amounts of quintessence. Because it’s not just power on the line.

Zarkon himself confirms what he hopes to achieve through quintessence in s3:

Desire for immortality is a huge motivator for the entire empire harvesting quintessence in the first place. Zarkon wants to live forever with his friends and family. But oh nu, he’s still aging. And even Lotor?? What is ten or one-hundred-thousand years in the face of a universe that is billions of years old? Is anyone technically immortal in this show? How long can anyone actually live?

An “imperfect-immortality” would also explain the strange reality of Lotor. He is a beautiful boi and is also 10,000 years old as well. Executive Producers Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos suggest in a Season 5 AfterbuzzTV interview that Lotor’s infusion with quintessence in utero results in him aging very, very slowly.

(Here’s the dialogue from the interview if you want it, from around the 13:30 mark:

JDS: It’s pretty safe to say that Lotor’s kind got that Daywalker kind of thing going on.

Interview: —Little vampire—

LM: Being in…in her womb, as [Honerva] was being exposed to all of this quintessence—it’s part of his DNA. It almost puts him on a level with Allura, pretty much who her quintessence is a part of her DNA. So it’s interesting to see.

JDS: And it’s allowed him to stay so beautifully young.

LM: He’s aged at a much slower rate than your average Galra.

Interviewer: So he IS a vampire.

LM: I think all Galra are kinda space vampires.

JDS: They’re kinda space vampires, yeah. Safe to say. You’re getting instead of blood, you’re getting like…planet juice.)

And it just so happens that, in the active plot of VLD, we’re introduced to Lotor at a point in time where he’s aged physically and mentally to the point of, what, maybe early twenties? The canon’s not clear about it. Despite the lack of a canon-backed “mental-to-physical human-age equivalent,” Lotor appears to careen between a tricky mastermind and a boi who’s still a bit embarrassed about his nanny:

(While I tend to think he’s early 20s in physical and mental agility, you could probably even argue Lotor acts like an older teenager still sometimes, lol. Quality eye-roll and pout right here. Does anyone else get, “Mom, shut up” vibes from this gif? And even his idealism, his unshakable belief that simply giving the empire what it wants will result in peace--it lacks a critical foresight about other people experiencing quintessence madness, dangers from within the rift, and the inevitable wars to “control the gates” and such technology. And there’s some things to be said about humans obtaining full brain development around age 25, as the prefrontal cortex, which inhibits impulses and assists with critical decision-making, is the last section to develop in full. So it makes me think, for all his intelligence and schemes, that he’s mentally a bit younger than he’d like to appear. And obviously doesn’t want to appear, considering how embarrassed he is about his nanny in front of his new-found friends, lol.)

But I digress. So just based on the evidence and the extra-canon commentary from EPs, it seems that if we panned out 20,000 years in the future, we might see a significantly aged Lotor, with the deep face lines and lip wrinkles and gaunt cheeks. Because he’s never stopped aging. His body clock is just totally and utterly creeping along, lucky boy.

If you want to trust the extra-canon text, then you might be able to extrapolate that like Lotor’s DNA, Allura’s DNA gives her an extended life. Although unlike slow-age Lotor, Allura appears to have had a more accelerated childhood. She can’t be more than Kova’s 28 decaphoebs (years), given that the season 3 finale shows Allura was born after Kova’s introduction. And yet, unlike Lotor’s strange history of taking forever to grow up, Allura presents as physically mature within a fairly normal timeline.

This would actually suggest that something is a bit weird about Allura’s DNA. And its something that makes her quintessence more intense than even Lotor’s own quintessence signature, if you want to go by the interviews where LM says, “It almost puts him on a level with Allura.”

So what was this mysterious event?

Allura certainly could still infuse herself or be infused with quintessence to prolong her life, but that wouldn’t prolong her life indefinitely or put her even within range of what’s naturally going on with Lotor’s DNA.

Is there something inherently unique about Allura’s lineage or species, then, that could answer this?

Let’s look at Alteans first. The canon seems oddly contradictory about the natural age of Alteans. Coran is at least 600 years old because he was alive with the Castle of Lions was being built. But yet executive producer LM states that there’s something inherent in Allura’s DNA that makes her even more special than the average person, and even more strangely…Allura’s father, Alfor, doesn’t seem to fall into either of these two categories.

Despite Alfor understanding the deep secrets of the universe via Oriande, and having personal direct exposure with unlimited pure quintessence through building and even fighting in Voltron, he ages. Hard.

Here’s Alfor as a young man:

Here’s Alfor, only decaphoebs later, not long before he died.

So here we have an aging Alfor. And oof, in less than 28 decaphoebs, with no explanation as to why Coran would be doing so well in comparison. (Feel free to speculate!)

So whatever is wrong with Alfor’s life cycle, it would seem to be an isolated incident that not even exposure to Voltron or to the rift could undo. In which case, it’s hard to know if Allura’s DNA would naturally have the same weaknesses from her lineage. If not, then she should at least be able to reach 1,000 years naturally, if the spunky Coran is any measure to go by.

But Alfor did do something that I think places Allura as entirely unnatural and probably the most likely candidate to have a form of true immortality in this entire show:

So right in season 1, episode 1, Coran admits that Alfor has done some pretty wild alchemy. He physically connected Allura’s essence with the essence of Voltron—the single source of self-regenerating, infinite quintessence throughout the whole of the entire universe.

I’m not sure if this alchemical forge-bond would protect Allura from physically aging, but it would suggest that Voltron’s life force and Allura’s life force are intimately tied on the material plane. There is no other canonically shown bond like this in a living person, in the VLD universe. It makes Allura entirely unique as a character and likely helps to explain why she is so consistently over-powered compared to even Haggar/Honerva.

Because unlike ANY other Altean, including Honerva, Allura has an infinite, massive battery of pure quintessence to pull from at will. And it’s tied to her very life force.

I don’t know if a person’s life force being personally connected to Voltron would confer physical immortality, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that as long as Voltron exists, Allura’s essence would be preserved within it. And as we saw in season 6, Shiro was capable of interacting with other paladins despite his physical death, because Black Lion had preserved his essence.

So I guess all of this is to say, it seems there would be a lot of reasons for why Allura could live a very long life. It does seem that if she infused herself with quintessence in an ongoing fashion, and she quite often has, then her already long Altean lifespan would become longer. And even in physical death, Allura could still “exist” like s6 Shiro to communicate and interact with the living, in a way that not even her father could.

(Which makes you wonder about that s8 ending with the Lions mysteriously flying off for an unknown reason and Lance’s Altean marks lighting up like a homing beacon, but oof, that’s perhaps another topic.)

Thank you so much for the ask! I hope my winding ramblings help to answer your question or encourage further thought about the possibilities!

#Voltron #Allura #Lotor #Zarkon #Alfor #Haggar #Honerva #Quintessence #Space Vampires #Quintessence Aging #Imperfect Immortality #Alchemical Bonds to Machines #Thanks for the ask!

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nerianasims · 3 years

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Billboard #1s 1980

Under the cut.

KC & The Sunshine Band -- "Please Don't Go" -- January 5, 1980

Is that falsetto in the opening or merely an attempt at it? KC & The Sunshine Band trying to do a sincere, sad ballad does not work. Now I have the dance remix by KWS that was a hit in the 90s (and apparently plagiarized from a Euro-dance group) in my head.

Michael Jackson -- "Rock With You" -- January 18, 1980

I thought I had never heard this song before until I heard the chorus. Oh yeah, this one. I don't know if Michael Jackson singing a sex jam would have worked for me before, well, all the child molestation coming to light. Now it really doesn't. There's only so much "separate the art from the artist" I'm capable of, though I am in favor of it. On another note, in the video, he's wearing the sparkliest outfit I have ever seen.

The Captain & Tennille -- "Do That To Me One More Time" -- February 16, 1980

I don't want to think about The Captain doing it even once. That is the problem with this song. Other than that, I think it's a perfectly acceptable cheesy love song. Well, except for the... plastic flute? I don't know what that is, but I'm not fond of it.

On a kind of strange note, I scrolled ahead, and starting here, I recognize almost all the songs for the next couple years on this list. Maybe they were played more on the oldies stations? At clubs? Restaurants? Maybe I came to musical consciousnous at three and a half years old?

Queen -- "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" -- February 23, 1980

This is not a top tier Queen song, but Freddie Mercury belching would be better music than anything Barry Gibb did. Not top tier, but still very fun. And it's always great hearing Freddie Mercury do whatever the hell he wants to do with his voice. Here, he has fun doing a little bit of Elvis, but not too much. It's a rockability track by Queen. So it's great.

Pink Floyd -- "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" -- March 22, 1980

We don't need no education. This is a song about the horrible British teachers who used withering sarcasm and cruelty against the children under their care. (Like Snape, basically.) I think it's about boarding schools, since the teachers apparently have control over whether or not the kids get pudding. British boarding schools were terrible. British boarding schools are terrible, though they seem to be trying to be better. We'll see. They have hundreds of years' practice at bricking kids' psyches up in walls, and I don't trust them to change. Um, anyway, it's a good song, but not one I'd choose to listen to separate from the entire album.

Blondie -- "Call Me" -- April 19, 1980

This song actually does start with "Color me your color, baby." Or I suppose "colour" since Blondie are Brits. But it's not like the lyrics are deep -- if you can understand "Call me," you get it. I guess it's technically a love song, but since Debbie Harry sings in such an intentionally icy manner, it's anything but passionate. It's still fun and light and musically interesting.

Lipps, Inc. -- "Funkytown" -- May 31, 1980

This song is about moving out of a town that's stifling and to a town that's right for you -- "Funkytown." It could be any big city with a music scene. It's a dance song with very few lyrics, and yet the lyrics are important. The singer has "talked about it talked about it talked about it," but is determined to finally do it. It's a good funky disco song, and a good send-off for the genre's dominance.

Paul McCartney and theWings -- "Coming Up (Live At Glasgow)" -- June 28, 1980

It sounds a little bit like McCartney trying to do Philly soul, horns included. But lighter, because Paul McCartney. I can't remember the lyrics even just after I heard them, but it's a love song. Quite boring.

Billy Joel -- "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" -- July 19, 1980

I love a lot of Billy Joel songs. I don't really love this one. I like the sentiment -- "Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers/ 'Cause it's always been the same old scene/ There's a new band in town but you can't get the sound/ From a story in a magazine/ Aimed at your average teen." He also criticizes the 80s' roaring materialism, which hadn't even hit its nadir yet. But I dunno. Maybe it's a little slow? It needs something.

Olivia Newton-John -- "Magic" -- August 2, 1980

I had never heard of the movie Xanadu until about a decade ago. It's a staple of bad movie sites. Its plot is bonkers, and some very 1980 blockhead is the male lead. The story would have made more sense and the movie been far better if Olivia Newton-John's character had gotten together with Gene Kelly, who's also in the movie, instead. Anyway, this love song is from the movie's soundtrack. It's got a little bit of that mystical vibe that Stevie Nicks did so well, and that always appeals to me. I can't pretend this is a great song, or even necessarily a good one. But it speaks to the 12-year old in me.

Christopher Cross -- "Sailing" -- August 30, 1980

This is the most Florida song ever. Because it doesn't sound like he really has a boat. "Fantasy, it gets the best of me/ When I'm sailing/ All caught up in the reverie, every word is a symphony/ Won't you believe me?" Musically, it sounds like it would go well with a sailboat. But almost none of us have sailboats. We have fantasies. It's a nice-sounding song, and if you think about it enough, it becomes more complex than it seems.

Diana Ross -- "Upside Down" -- September 6, 1980

I'm going to have to face up to the fact that I usually don't like how Diana Ross sings. She's too slick and detached for me, without lyrics that go with that. I cannot believe this woman was ever turned "upside down" by love. And of course the guy she's singing this to is cheating. But she's okay with it, because of course she is, he's just so awesome that she's singing to him "respectfully." I like this song musically, except for Diana Ross' emotionally distant singing, but I hate the lyrics, and I am extremely sick of this no-maintenance schtick.

Queen -- "Another One Bites the Dust" -- October 4, 1980

This might be the only Queen song I don't like. I'm not saying it's bad. It's probably very good. But I have heard the chorus way too much. Otoh, I've heard "We Will Rock You" even more, and I still like that. Maybe there's too much... stuff in this one? I don't know. It's definitely too repetitive. It's no "Don't Stop Me Now," that's for sure. Queen's best songs never reached #1 in the U.S., and I don't know if any came near until "Bohemian Rhapsody" hit #2 when I was in high school. But reaching the charts is a very bad sign of whether or not music is actually good.

Barbra Streisand -- "Woman in Love" -- October 25, 1980

I'm not going to go back to check, but I think Barbra Streisand has exactly the same pose and expression on the covers of all her singles. This one was written by Barry Gibb, oh joy. I wondered if this would be an additive or a multiplicative factor in how bad the song (which I had never heard) was. Something happened that I didn't expect: It made the song so boring it slips out of my head while I’m listening to it. There's the line "no truth is ever a lie." Brilliant, Barry, what a lyricist. Also, that line is not true. Barry Gibb was apparently not familiar with Othello. Anyway, since I'm just bored, I guess Streisand and Gibb together is actually better than them separately. Still bad, though.

Kenny Rogers -- "Lady" -- November 15, 1980

It's a love song in which the narrator sings that he's your knight in shining armor. That sentiment should be surrounded by more interesting music in some way. Something operatic, or mystical, or country, something. Kenny Rogers was never one of my favorites, but he's capable of something. This song is nothing. Lionel Richie wrote it, so of course.

John Lennon -- "(Just Like) Starting Over" -- December 27, 1980

This song hit #1 just after Lennon was murdered. I was 4 years old, but I actually remember when John Lennon was murdered -- I was in the car with one or more parental units (I don't remember who), and it came on the radio. I was upset. I knew Beatles music, my parents played it all the time, and I knew who John Lennon was. I'm still extremely sad about his death today. This song is about how happy he was with Yoko, all settled down and looking forward to a nice, calm, loving future together. Ugh I'm gonna cry.

BEST OF 1980 -- "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen. WORST OF 1980 -- "Please Don't Go" by KC & The Sunshine Band

#billboard number ones

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nicknellie · 3 years

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By the time I finish/send this it’s going to be at the most random time so I say good night and technically good morning for whenever you read this!

I’m glad that you were able to finish your schoolwork, if it’s any consolation you still did hand them in, which is amazing! Also shame on them, they should’ve explained how all of this was going to work.

Same here! It’s so fun replying to these

Let’s do this

(Also if I were to make a tally of how many times I used exactly and agreed I would be in the hundreds by now 😂)

1. You are so brilliant, yes. Reggie just uses random stuff to hold his things especially considering that he has like 1000 scrapbooks so all the other stuff needs to go somewhere. (He also has used Luke’s and Bobby’s)

2. I didn’t think that Reggie actually has pictures of random baby, oh my goodness that is hilarious.

3. Exactly, and the reason why he doesn’t recognize the French dip is because he has no clue where it came from but it does belong to him

The non-box stuff

First two very random comments that totally did not come from me accidentally hitting some board games and seeing jam which led to inspiration for this

First point, Sunset Curve and then later Julie and the phantoms most definitely had board games. In this scenario I’m going to use Spin Master Hedbanz because, I have no clue when this game came out so I’m just gonna say it’s a game that the Molina’s play.

(Hedbanz is the fast-paced, easy to play question game of “What am I?” Ask “yes” or “no” questions, I think Amazon can be thanked for that description)

Anyways, so they play this and after not guess Luke flips a table. that’s this entire point that Luke is the one during game nights to flip tables (never play Monopoly with him)

The second point, the jams. First Reggie hates strawberry jam, loves raspberry jam and is indifferent to marmalade (I mention the last one although it’s not really a jam) however Alex loves marmalade and grape. Luke has no taste, but sometimes likes jelly, and Bobby like marmalade as well (honestly idk)

Now numbers,

2. Wait yes, I don’t know how else to describe it aside from that. (All of them feel guilty, and massive group hug and movie night after)

3. Luke as a frustrated puppy is his facial expression when Reggie accidentally scares Victoria and Luke sits down on the couch. Also yes, that is exactly the conversation they have (Yes Willie can also get through to him). Also it does work when Juli tries it however maybe not as much as when Alex and Willie talk to him.

4. Yes, basically Luke and Alex are two halves of a whole and can read each other very well.

5. Oh yea, Alex is always very sarcastic with the boys and is a tiny bit hesitant in front of Julie however after that interaction he acts more like how he normally is.

6. Yes and there’s no in-between (although it could be that he stayed there for a few days and hasn’t been back since). Aww, that’s so sad and exact what happens, however he doesn’t have someone who gives him a flower, unlike Julie, so he just sits there crying.

8. Yes! I like that theory as well, also for some reason Luke was always very good at solving Rubiks cubes however Bobby never was.

10. So I randomly saw this meme one day and you mentioning the spinning tea cups reminds me of it (I have no clue who made this sadly)

(Just change Luke to be sitting with Julie then) Also yes Luke doesn’t like things that spin, honestly I love the fact that I went off on a board game tangent and you went off on a theme park tangent.

Yes, every single ride Alex goes on, also yes for bobby. I love the little addition you made that they save it for the end of the day, adding on there’s like one ride that Bobby won’t go on (maybe the tea cups) and he always rides the logflume ride during that time)

Oh yes, anytime they go to a waterpark or go on a roller coaster or basically anything Reggie will take a picture of it, (also there’s quite a few of the boys going on roller coasters that Reggie doesn’t want to ride)

Luke goes on a ghost train once and regrets everything, he spends the entire ride with his head buried in Alex‘s hoodie. Yes, also Bobby has to make sure that Alex doesn’t accidentally bump in to random strangers.

Toffee nut- for a second I thought you said that Reggie didn’t know one of his friends was allergic to gluten and I was like this fits Bobby so much but I misread that severely. But that’s exactly what happens, also Julie brings it up once, just in general, and that’s where Alex has to be like ‘Reggie we are already dead’

11. The game to see if Reggie is lying or not, love that. (Honestly I wanted him to have actually met Queen Elizabeth very randomly however your theory fits so well)

13. Yes, they all just randomly dance around the studio. I mean the band in full cowboy outfit should be very high up on your list of things to expect for season two.

14. That’s exactly why I said that, because Nick shouldn’t be able to see the boys however since he’s actually Caleb during that moment he can. So he has to pretend like he isn’t furious, he kind of fails but somehow is able to pass it off.

They can’t deny good music, love this line and yes they most definitely can’t.

15. I’m glad that you like the little Han-solo idea

16. Yes, yes, we all know that Alex still lets them in the kitchen because he can’t say no to the puppy dog eyes however during that moment he tries his best to keep them out

17. Alex was most definitely the cutest baby also that is precisely what the photo looks like. (As you mentioned earlier I believe whenever Reggie was upset at Luke he would give Julie baby pictures of Luke. So of course Reggie does the same to Alex and shows Willie pictures of him as a baby. And Willie has heart eyes for the rest of the day from that photo

19. They definitely jump in puddles also the amount of times Luke has done that to Alex for no reason at all is a lot (also this is adorable)

20. Yes, I think everyone fell in love with Alex after the first episode as they should. ‘I have been crying for 25 years. How is that possible?!?!’

Yes Reggie and Willie definitely only talk in puns to each other and Alex is not happy (lies but for now they will let Alex be)

Also this makes me think that if flynn had known that Luke existed when she was going to egg Julie’s house, he definitely would’ve helped. Also yes, Emily buys those eggs right then and there, alongside toilet paper because.

21. That’s exactly what I thought but now seeing it in writing makes me upset. Him having a key symbolizes that he now found his home, and when Luke ran away Alex was so torn because obviously he supported his best friend more than anything however at the same time he just didn’t know what to do. (I don’t think I’ve seen this list but I am very intrigued, should we petition the show to let you write Mitch‘s character for season two) Yes, Alex and Luke are such brothers and we can blame Mitch.

24. The first time I saw the song I just thought that she sang in it as background vocals or something and then I was massively disappointed. Wait wait, what if in season two we get a song from Flynn that basically answers flying solo and shows how much Julie means to Flynn. I am in the same exact boat flynn is in a music program so at the very least we have to see her doing something they can’t just waste that talent like that. So I know this YouTube creator by one video and one video alone which is I’m going to kill Santa Claus, but yes I added it to my watch later (also you did get the title right, caps and everything)

25. Yes, he wanted to be strong for her which is why he initially went. (Third chance at getting a family 🥺🥺 awww)

Yes they exactly would’ve been uncle Reggie, uncle Luke, and uncle Alex, she definitely would’ve been nicer just due to the fact that the boys never would’ve let her get away with it.

26. I mean even when the boys forgive him, he still doesn’t forgive himself. Also yes, and the first thing he does is remake the hat for Alex because for some reason Alex hasn’t been able to find the hat (and or one for Willie because he wears beanies as well) Just imagine happy Bobby reunited with his bandmates (family) though aww.

28. Yes, also Reggie is like a cat when it comes to yarn so after he initially got tangled of course he got himself even more tangled until he just became a ball of yarn. (I love that title, also there is two parts because Reggie made a similar one again due to the fact that this happened twice)

30. Yes, Willie does have an old soul and him and Alex connect very well with Vitoria

32. Yes, best fan base ever. Legitimately they will get stopped on the street and if someone finds out that their sunset Curve they immediately get some sort of fanart or sticker (also a hug because Luke will give free hugs to everyone)

Yes, honestly I was thinking that Alex could be a cat as well however you’re entirely correct it’s Bobby who is the cat. I’m a bit stumped on what Alex would be, hear me out he would be a hedgehog just because that would be absolutely adorable. (Also I love the owl idea that’s brilliant)

Wait, not only does Alex get that but a fan handmade a puzzle of the band and it’s one of Alex‘s most treasured items from a fan.

34. The boys laugh for so long but the eventually help him out of the fridge, not before Reggie takes a picture though

35. Wait yes, Ray helps them out with the photoshoot. At first he thought that Flynn was asking him to take the pictures and he was completely prepared but then he quickly realizes that she kind of just wanted him to be there too not only help out but because he’s the greatest.

37. They take all of his hoodie expect the pink one, however they do wear it just give it back.

39. He says it immediately, honestly doesn’t even register that he says it until about five minutes later

40. It’s actually a mixture of both, also because Alex wears Luke’s shirts while they are practicing. Even if the practice doesn’t turn out the best they always have a great time just because they love spending time with each other and that makes everything better.

So you mentioning Willie wanting to learn lifts and stuff, and it made me think of the fact that Kenny Ortega has done dirty dancing which means they should have a scene like this

https://youtube/DIKpUa0O7Ns (if the link doesn’t load basically its the dirty dancing - time of my life final dance)

So now I need this in season two. (Also Willie is the one who is being lifted)

Also I agree this may take the cake for my favorite (also because I now have the dance I want Willie and Alex to do in season two)

Now I may have Time of my life stuck in my head ‘and I owe it all to you’ (actual a song lyric and technically I only have myself to blame)

I’ve been trying to answer this all day but kept getting interrupted by things including but not limited to my schoolwork and the fact that my kitten escaped the bathroom while my mum was trying to wash her which caused s t r e s s but I’ve finally got round to it so here we go!

Before I start, thanks! I actually managed to get most of my work in on time today which I’m really proud of (all of it was in on time if we ignore maths, but that’s my worst subject and I don’t think my teacher is excepting much from me anyway 😂😭)

And oh god I kind of am tempted to make tallies of how often we say that now lmaooo I’d add for me any variation of “ahdslflkdp” or “omg lmaooo yes”

Anyway! Let’s start!

BOX STUFF

1. Thank you!!!!! Exactly but somehow I can imagine he still manages to be messy. Like all his stuff is packed away neatly, but the boxes they’re packed away in are just everywhere and it’s a nightmare for Alex who likes to be clean and tidy. (Luke doesn’t care whether things are messy or tidy, and Bobby is messy but not as cluttered as Reggie I think) And yes!! He uses Luke’s and Bobby’s too, as well as a drum Alex accidentally broke and is now kind of like a box if that makes any sense lol

2. Ikr lmaooo he just puts them in there like “well we needed something” and when Bobby continues to say it doesn’t count because it’s not him he just claims the baby is an honorary member of the band

3. Yes! Maybe he found it one day, thought to himself that he’d read it and try it out later but then completely forgot about it and the box

BOARD GAME AND JAM STUFF

1. I am so in love with this idea oh my godddd, yes, your mind!!!! They have these extravagant board game nights that last hours and hours (while they’re all wearing their matching pyjamas or onesies of course). I love games like Hedbanz omg and I can totally imagine them playing this and also games like Cluedo, Pictionary, Articulate (great game btw if you’ve never played, highly recommend), and any game Julie finds like at a charity shop (because I can totally see her and Flynn going to charity shops and finding a bunch of cool stuff??) Whoever is in a team with Julie is pretty much guaranteed to win (unless it’s Luke, but Alex or Reggie with Julie are pretty much unstoppable) and in the old days Reggie was the master of all games. You’re so right about Luke getting angry lmao monopoly was banned after the first fifteen minutes of the first time they ever played it

2. I love how random that whole thing is but also that you’re 100% right. Also the fact that This Band Is Back is also called Reggie’s Jam has led to some interesting different versions of that song over the years

NUMBER STUFF

2. This kind of links in but not really - once they’re with Julie they have movie nights too and Flynn and Willie often join in. Julie and Flynn have a couple’s jumper and Reggie and Luke are jealous of how comfy they look all snuggled up together so because Luke is wearing one of Alex’s hoodies they both get into that. The only problem is Alex’s hoodie only has one head-hole so they end up stretching it and Alex isn’t happy. Him and Willie just watch the whole time, Alex not finding any of it amusing, Willie laughing his head off

3. Yes that was the exact image I had in my head!!! And it only works when Julie does it because it’s Julie and Luke isn’t really convinced but he’ll agree with her because it makes her happy and that’s all he really wants

4. Ok that made me think of Merlin if you’ve ever watched that show??? If you haven’t then you should, it’s on Netflix and one of my all time favourites. Anyway the phrase two halves of a whole is really similar to two sides of the same coin which is used all the time in Merlin and now I kinda wanna write a Merlin AU where Luke is Arthur, Alex is Merlin, Reggie is Gwaine, Julie is Gwen, Carrie is Morgana, Caleb is Uther, etc.

5. Yeah 🥺 I kinda just want more of Alex relaxing around Julie next season y’know? Like they’re obviously super close but he doesn’t always act around her the same as he does with the guys. I want to see them get closer, have nights where it’s just the two of them, maybe Alex officially coming out to her (though I like to think he already did that and it just wasn’t shown to us)

6. Omg ok that hurt. Wow. Because the boys don’t cross over or go to wherever Rose went after they died, they just stayed in the dark room for an hour, they can’t watch over Bobby and see how he’s doing and they can’t send him any signs like Rose did for Julie. If they had been able to do that then things would have been so much different!

8. What if Bobby started trying like everything the boys liked when they were alive? Like after he realises he can’t make jewellery or write poetry anymore he tries the Rubik’s Cube but can’t do it. So he tries puzzles but just can’t find them as interesting as Alex did. And he tries crosswords and sudokus but can’t wrap his head around them like Reggie. Eventually all his interests kind of drop away and he’s left with even less than he already had.

10. Absjdldl yes lmao that’s perfect! Honestly I love that for us, little random tangents here and there is perfect 😂

Yessss I love that lol like when he meets up with the guys again he’s soaking wet and grinning like an idiot lmao

Reggie has scrapbooks dedicated to their theme park trips and it’s kind of messy and most of the photos are blurry but he loves them as they’re some of his best memories

Also the image of Alex getting so lost in his happiness watching everyone having fun that Bobby just has to pull him out of the way of people is glorious and I love it

Also I had another random thought literally just now. This is kinda based on something that happened when I was 12 I think? So Sunset Curve goes to a theme park and they’ve just finished lunch and Alex wants to go back on rides immediately so they decide to go on something small and not scary so they won’t like vomit their food everywhere. Reggie goes with it because they won’t be going on a big ride. They go on one of the smallest rides there, literally it’s this platform that moves side to side I can’t really explain it better than that. And it is the most terrifying ride any of them have been on in their entire lives even though it looks fine and Reggie refuses to go on anything else for the rest of the day just in case he’s tricked by its tame appearance again.

Toffee nut - omg yeah no I love that! Bobby is definitely allergic to gluten. Alex loves baking special gluten-free stuff just for him and the others are banned from eating it (but y’know they ignore that and do anyway)

11. Tbh now you’ve said that I want it too and I’ve changed my mind, there’s a high chance he did meet her. Somehow. Even he’s not really sure what happened but yeah he did 😂

13. Honestly just any kind of fancy dress? Like cowboys is up there but I’d love to see Fairy Princess Luke ngl

14. I love the image of Nick very poorly containing his anger and ending up accidentally saying something like “they wouldn’t know sophistication if it snuck up and slapped them” and then having to explain what the hell that meant to Julie

16. No one can resist Reggie and Luke’s puppy dog eyes 😂 I love the idea that he shoos them away but they look at him through the door. So he shuts the door, leaving them outside, but they move to the window. He pulls the curtain down over the window but they come in through the front door and stand in the kitchen again and either he has to relent and let them stay or offload them to Bobby or Julie depending on when this is

17. Afjkgjl yes and Alex looks as if he’s embarrassed by it but really he’s isn’t, he’s actually angry because he wanted to be the one to show Willie his baby photos and Reggie stole that from him damnit!

19. This is kind of unrelated but it’s on the subject of water so kinda close - water fights. Absolutely. Especially in summer. Alex is the best at them. Luke sucks (it’s kind of becoming a theme that Luke is awful at anything competitive and I love that lmao)

20. LITERALLY. He said that and a bunch of other things (there’s too many to list lol) and I was immediately like “ok yeah he’s gonna be my favourite isn’t he” and I was right

Absjdidko yeah he hates the puns but love that they’ve found something to bond over, he’ll just never admit it. Whenever they’re doing it he just shakes his head disappointedly, trying to hide a smile

Lmao yeah Luke is well-practised at egging houses and for at least an hour he would have been thinking “I want to but it’s Julie” unable to decide and eventually he would have done it for the fun

Emily Patterson honestly would’ve won Mother of the Year imo (except the arguing with Luke, but that’s one flaw and otherwise she was great)

21. Omg yeah totally, he would have definitely struggled between supporting Luke by not going and supporting himself by going. Either he would have not gone, or gone secretly and updated Emily and Mitch to tell them Luke was safe.

YES DEFINITELY PLEASE AND THANK YOU. Honestly I love Mitch and there’s so much I want to see from him (especially a conversation with Ray) and I would love to write his character @ Kenny Ortega please hire me :)

Also here’s the list of you want to look through it whenever lol

24. I love this yesss we deserve to see Flynn’s response to Flying Solo! Honestly my prediction for her is that she kind of starts feeling left out of everything because she can’t see the boys (even though Julie and the guys obviously don’t mean to leave her out and they’re devastated when she tells them that’s what’s going on) which A) could be how she starts to reconnect with Carrie and B) could be the reason she sings a song for Julie. And YES Jadah Marie is so talented therefore Flynn is and that can’t be wasted!

Lmaooo I’m Going to Kill Santa Claus is one of the only videos I’ve not seen of his but I love all his other stuff. And I’m legit proud of myself for remembering that title 😂😂

25. Exactly! Like Trevor I think would be a semi-lenient parent and whenever Carrie acts up it would have been Alex who was the first to tell her off and tell her what she should have done. He would never shout, but he also wouldn’t sugarcoat it and would be honest. Reggie and Luke would have been gentler on her but Bobby would have just been terrible at discipline lol

26. Yes omg 🥺 the little gestures like making more hats are the things that get the boys to finally forgive him. And I know for a fact that Willie wearing a beanie is all I’m going to be thinking about forever now, holy moly

28. Ajsbdkspskke yes!! Eventually it turns into a whole series of songs that end with “Bobby I Swear I Will Hide All Your Knitting Needles If You Don’t Start Cleaning Up Your Yarn, This Is Your Final Warning”

32. I love that! The band is very sociable so they run into fans a lot and fans just start bringing their fanart and stickers wherever they go because you never know when you might run into Sunset Curve

Omg I can totally see hedgehog Alex that’s literally perfect I love it! Because he’s kind of shy and nervous but also prickly (like come on, his sarcasm and the way he just deadpans half his lines is brilliant)

Yessss it’s this really detailed painting made into a puzzle of all of them and Alex puts off making it for ages because he doesn’t want to damage it or anything 🥺

34. Lmao yeah Reggie has to take a load of photos because he’s using his Polaroid and he’s laughing so much that the camera shakes and the photo comes out blurry every time

35. Yes she wants him there because Ray is obviously the Best Dad Ever (I am definitely in agreement with Reggie on this one). Also it helps because then it doesn’t look like Flynn is by herself taking all these photos because the guys can’t be seen 😂

37. Yes lol the one rule is that if you take the pink one you MUST give it back. Willie is the only one who can occasionally get away with breaking that rule, in which case Alex just takes it back himself

39. Absjdldl yes especially because Carrie doesn’t comment on it (because she’s not really listening to him, just speaking her thoughts aloud, because I feel like she does that a lot? Talks to herself because it’s easier to understand her thoughts when she says them?)

40. Omg yes and that’s even better because Alex had done it with Luke and Reggie so he knows how! I mean, it doesn’t go well at all, but they have fun!

God me too now I’ve got it stuck in my head 😂 tbh I had Devil Went Down To Georgia and also Ring Of Fire stuck in my head for ages after we mentioned those so it only makes sense lol

#the spacing probably turned out weird between paragraphs idk but it just wasn’t working so I had to go with it 😂#williexmercer #asks #emily answers

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edenamador · 3 years

Text

100 Things about My Father

I forgot I was a poet. Skip down for the poem that came to me as clear as a crystal last night. Trigger warning - Suicide.

I mean I have an inclination toward having dreams at night,

thinking they have deeper meaning, and waking up with music in my head at 1:15am in the morning.

There is something about 1:15 in the morning which has a razor sharp precision to it. Even though I’m more of a disconnected abstraction. Some constellation of stars nobody has given meaning to. Dreaming about that straight crush in college twice in one night. All this after in real life, oh and he was a poet too, now in grad school, who knows if he is the happy academic he craved to be. Who knows if he is still writing poetry or writing technical sentences with so much jargon nobody can understand. . .

Its all rambly. I know it is annoying but that is how it comes to me. He asked me if I had followed the spirit and I told him I wrote the poem I was suppose to write. He was proud of me, like a dead ghost now, I loved him then but he is a stranger in a distant land now.

Yes, I was at Target, a place I worked so long ago and a previous co-worker said to me, “You look poetic, like you could be a poet.”

I didn’t know what to say but now I am dreaming of my poetic college muse and he is telling me to follow the spirit just as Beauvoir so now I’m on tumblr again because of that Target co-worker who said I should have a blog and get a following. An idea I laugh at because my poetry is well, I am poetic, I am not exactly a poet if I’m not writing poetry. So I guess I will share what came to me last night. At least a draft.

My mother always says, “You have choices to make.”

So when my boyfriend says, “You never talk about your father,” and then asks, “Why is that?”

I pause and my mother’s voice repeats, “You have choices to make.”

I could say a hundred things about the same thing. Like a simple fact about the color of a chair, “My father is dead.”

It sounds like, “The chair is red.”

1. My father died.

My boyfriend might ask how he passed away which means I have to say more. This leaves me with more choices but I haven’t even jumped the first hurdle. I don’t even run track but the baton has been given to me, “How did he die?” I could have anticipated the next question and already answered it more bluntly.

2. My father blew his brains out.

If I want to keep my boyfriend I should frame things particular to his way of life. That would be too precise and come off as indifferent like my father never mattered to me. He didn’t.

3. He died when I was four.

Again, if I put it this way he might ask, “How?” and I would get to say

4. He loaded a pistol. I think it was a .45 pistol or a glock, and took the weapon to rat lake where he blew his brains out.

If I present it with “when I was four” the cold way in which I say, “He blew his responsibilities away,” pops like a childhood bubble.

5. He’s pushing up daisies.

6. He’s seven feet under.

7. He croaked.

Before the gun fire went off out in the country where only the frogs and flora of the boreal northern forests would hear it the American toads reed. When the gunfire went off silence consumed the forest for a few minutes before returning to normal a few minutes later. A few hours later, with the loons calling, a friend of my father’s came across his body and reported it to the authorities.

8. My father was a mail carrier.

I could have said this as it would have delayed revealing the information about the death of my father, and how he died, the conversation about the long term effect it had on my psychology and the psychological impact on the rest of my family. Though, according to my mother everything turned out fine. Which is why as I approach 30 years old I am waking up in the middle of the night because I’m having dreams about people in graduate school programs saying, “He doesn’t even talk about his father! He talks about Black Lives Matter, Marxism, Gender Theory and all this crap, but he hasn’t even mentioned his father.”

9. My father is out of the picture.

10. I would rather not talk about my father.

11. I didn’t know much about my father.

12. I don’t remember much about my father.

13. My father left me with dry skin and a proclivity toward depression.

14. My mother was a single mother.

15. I guess I don’t talk about my father. Hugh, I wonder why that is.

I like this because I can act like I’m just as dumbfounded by it as my boyfriend is. Creative writer circles often told me I am not concrete enough. So I guess we were sitting at a park in Hutchinson Minnesota when my boyfriend at the time asked this question. A few years later when the relationship had faded and I asked to be dating again he told me, “Some gay men have issues.” While I cried about it and refused to speak to him ever again he was right. I was a gay man with issues, daddy issues to be exact.

16. My father had a beard.

17. My father was an alcoholic and when my mother said she had enough he couldn’t handle it and blew his brains out.

This one is the worst of them. It sounds like my mother caused my father to commit suicide. Nobody but my father took a gun to his head and blew his brains out.

18. My mother never remarried after my father was out of the picture.

Again, I could say this but it remains vague enough to lead to other questions any intimate partner would have the right to know. Or perhaps nobody has the right to know about my father and that I have the right not to talk about him to anyone. “Did they get a divorce?”

19. Do we have to talk about this. I’d rather not talk about this because I am not ready to reveal that story and its long term effects on me. Look, it’s a nice day and I’m happy talking about a million other things.

This might indicate I lack the trust necessary to share that story. He may take it personally and think that our relationship should be more open. Or he might respect that answer and remain curious. Most people would talk about both their parents openly and in positive ways.

20. All the options in my life have been formed by my father’s decision to kill himself.

21. He killed himself.

22. He offed himself.

23. He decided he no longer wished to live.

24. When given the option between suicide and coffee he chose suicide.

25. I need counseling to answer that question.

My mother was right. The choices were really endless. I could even use the same word presented in a different way. There were a lot of strategies for answering this question. Even after the question was asked I kept gathering new academic methodologies to answer the question, “Why don’t you talk about your father?”

26. If I open up about him I’m afraid I will scare you away because if I talk about my father I am admitting that I am a flawed human being with an abnormal childhood upbringing.

Again, more options appear even if I avoid the subject of my father all together. It seems that certain events have greater effect on the long term psychology of the individual than others. But was my childhood “abnormal” or was my mother “doing the best she could” in situations which were out of her control? But it couldn’t of been out of her control. . . “Everybody has choices to make. . .”

27. “My father died when I was four.”

28. “I was four when my father died.”

I cannot remember which of these I used but it was one of the two. So I said what I thought in the moment. I paused. I know I paused and my boyfriend said, “Only if you are comfortable talking about it.”

29. I might cry if I talk about my father. But I don’t think I will. I usually don’t but its sad. Don’t be sorry, you didn’t do anything. Why do people say sorry when I say this? What personal responsibility did they have for it? Why do I have to answer this question? Why will this question always come up when in relationships?

30. His death effect me because I was too young.

That’s a lie because I know it impacted the whole trajectory of my life. There were material consequences. For example his life was attached to the union. This left my mother with a small financial cushion to fall back on when she was left to raise three children. While it may have been small it was enough for her to go to college for ten years and get a bachelor’s degree in education.

31. I never talk about my father because then I have to talk about my mother. My mother looks like an American hero for the choices she didn’t make but talking about my mother also reveals the hidden demons I am not suppose to talk about as it might make her look bad.

32. I never talk about my father because it usually becomes a really long essay about masculinity, the effects of neo-liberal feminism, and requires a master’s degree in sociology and a Ph.D. in philosophy to get to the bottom of it. It requires skill, tact, intelligence, emotional strength, and persistence to answer with any certainty. It’s a philosophical question at heart and I am not a philosopher, I am merely a subject exposed to systems of power which shape my experience in a world I did not create.

“Why don’t you talk about your father?”

33. Why did he commit suicide? Why did my brother point a gun to my head? Why did my mother trust a teenager to get me to and from school going ninety miles an hour down icy unplowed country roads at seven in the morning? Why did the chicken cross the road? Why is the sky blue?

34. He’s sinking in the swamps.

35. The worms are feeding on his body.

36. He’s dead.

37. He’s gone.

38. He’s no longer with us.

If at this point the possibilities seem pointless, redundant, or obnoxious, imagine being at work when a co-worker flippantly says, “I’m ready to blow my brains out.”

39. My father hurt his back and wouldn’t go to see the doctor. It was severe pain and he couldn’t really talk about it. He drank his physical and mental pains away. Sometimes he would come home drunk and punch walls in. I do remember waking up to the sound of shattering glass. The stove glass broke because my father kicked it in during one of his masculine temper tantrums.

40. I didn’t know it when it was first asked but I now think my father died because of hyper-masculinity. I don’t think he was allowed to express any of the emotional or physical hardships he had. He likely had depression and was obviously having thoughts of suicide. Other’s in the family had committed suicide and had mental issues. When I go to the psychologist they show me genetic connections but as a sociology major I am thinking more about the limits on men expressing emotions. My father couldn’t express his emotions, that’s for sure, so he likely imploded, quite literally.

41. I don’t mean to come off as cold hearted or disconnected, it’s just that the death of my father strikes me more as an abstraction than a concrete reality. When it does come up I am reminded of my differences, my class upbringing, the social values that played out in my childhood.

42. For my brother my father was a something which became a nothing. For me my father is a nothing who, when asked about his existence, becomes a something that should have been, but wasn’t.

43. By opening up about my father I cannot really say who he is without explaining who he was not and for me he was more of a not than a was.

44. “Your father loved you,” my aunt says.

45. My father bought two stuffed monkeys. The monkey was Abu from the Disney show Aladdin. He did this a few months before he killed myself. In addition to that he also bought me a small baseball glove. My uncle on my mother’s side went with my dad to the store to pick these up. My uncle says he was likely planning his suicide during this time and asked my mother that we hide these items when my uncle was around so he wouldn’t be reminded of my father’s suicide.

How could my father have loved me if he blew his brains out? It hardly seems like an act of love to abandon your child at the age of four.

46. “God has a plan for everyone and even though it may not make sense to us down here there is a plan and there is nothing we can do about it.” Likely something my pastor said or something my grandmother said or something someone said along the way. When on a date with an attractive suitable man one doesn’t want to delve into religious theology and questions about the existence of God, determinism versus free will, the meaning of life, and deeper levels of spiritual enlightenment, or lack there of. One wants to eat ice cream, giggle about some superfluous thing, and see if one can see some concrete shape in the clouds: its a duck, a bird, a dinosaur, a giraffe. What do you see when you look at the sky? Is there something more out there?

When asked about my father I am asked about a whole series of causal effects. When asked about my father I am asked to see myself as an object in the world formed by what the existentialists refer to as facticity. At this moment I free myself from the container which shaped me and am allowed to reconstruct the object that I am as I choose.

I also begin to ask myself, “what if things had played out differently,” as I am prone to ask the questions I was told weren’t worth asking. I was told there were no answers to them but the questions which don’t have answers are the questions I like the most. So being asked about my father is really asking me who I am and how I became who I am. I am inclined to answer if one has the time for it. Most people don’t have the time, the intellect, the patience, the attention span, or the emotional capacity for such things. So I prefer to say,

47. “Shh, daddy is sleeping. We must not wake him. He’s a terrible ghost. Let’s play hide and seek with death! Can you count to one hundred?”

48. “In any case, that little boy didn’t want to grow up for fear of becoming serious.” pg. 327 Jean Paul Sartre War Diaries

49. “But as soon as man grasps himself as free, and wishes to use his freedom, all his activity is a game: he’s its first principle; he escapes the world by his nature; he himself ordains the value and rules of his acts, and agrees to pay up only according the the rules he has himself ordained and defined.” 326 Jean Paul Sartre

50. “And man is serious when he forgets himself; when he makes the subject into an object; when he takes himself for a radiation derived from the world: engineers, doctors, physicists, biologists are serious.” 326 Jean Paul Sartre The War Diaries

51. When my father died my mother was left to raise three boys. He was a step father to one of my brothers so one of my brothers still had a father. So my father is really three people: a dad who was then wasn’t, a dad who wasn’t then was, and a step dad.

I could have never explained all this that day I was asked. There in a rural town in the middle of a corn-field playing out the waves of one of my first gay relationships I simply said, “My dad is dead.” Reality is bleak like that. It restricts possibilities. Reality is only here in the field of “you have choices to make”. Reality are the options available. I am free to make choices in relation to concrete possibilities. For example I used covid stimulus money to pay for my rent so I could I have time to write this. I could have used it to buy copious amounts of liquor to subdue my existential angst. I could have used it to put it to my loans. I quit my job to give myself the time necessary to heal the wounds of the past. I refuse to conform to the pressure to buy a vehicle and get a license because I would have to buy car insurance which would mean I need a job to pay for the cars insurance. I would need gas to go back and forth to work where I would only continue to suppress my authenticity. Authenticity can never be achieved. It can only be something which is consistently reproduced. I reproduce myself as a writer only in the act of writing. Even the short pause between characters I realize other possibilities. Writing must be a consistent act I partake in everyday as a way of pursuing my own projects with the material conditions given to me.

52. My father is four people or five people because he was a co-worker to my middle school friend’s father, also a wife, a brother, an uncle. Six or seven people. He was never a grandfather though and could never be a grandfather. He could never have the possibility of being a grandfather so when my nephew says he doesn’t have a grandfather, his great uncle says he would be happy to fill the role. So my uncle, married to my mother’s blood sister, is my nephew’s grandfather.

The more I think about choices the more I start to confirm that choices are in relation to particular material conditions given to a situation which show the constricting impact of choices.

53. My mother, because of my father’s death, often found jimmy-rigged options for babysitters when family members were not available. When she realized my brother and I weren’t mature enough to handle being at home alone by ourselves, she looked into other options such as having me stay at the library until it closed. Later I learned that urban libraries have a phrase for this condition called, “Library latchkey kids,” which are children who’s parents are busy because of social economic conditions they end up going to the library after school for free baby-sitting.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16451347

I would stay in the library until it closed. My mother would slip the librarian a twenty dollar bill. I asked about it once and I learned in one way or another not to ask about such things.

When I took the Myers Briggs test in high school I scored nearly a hundred percent INFP which to me meant I was destined to be a genius like Shakespeare, taught in English classes all around the world for centuries to come. It meant I was introverted, intuitive, feeling, and perceptive. It meant that my room was messy but that my bookshelves were ordered perfectly with the Dewey decimal system. In high school I read Waiting for Godot with no idea it belonged to existential literature. On the question of why I don’t talk about my father, I am still Waiting for Godot.

54. My father’s suicide, in the long-term, meant I got to be alone with books. I often tired of reading and would chat with the librarian. She would ask me if I had a girlfriend and show me the things she wanted on craigslist. Sometimes she had to rapidly click her computer screen to hide some areas of the internet that should not be looked at while a minor sat reading Dr. Seuss, books about nature, or how volcanoes worked. I loved reading. I could never get enough. One of the librarians never believed I read as many books as I did and often discredited some of the books she believed were above my level. I was smart and there’s nothing worse to rural people than a smart, effeminate, boy with a love of reading.

I was always told that my mother was good and was always asked if she was still in college. For ten years I said yes she is in college. For twenty years I never told anyone my brother pointed a gun to my head because she left us unattended with the gun case unlocked. When I brought it up to her in my late twenties she said it wasn’t possible because my twenty year old cousin was there in the camper. When I asked I thought I was testing whether or not she could have subdued her ego enough to admit to the possibility that it may have not been the best choice to leave minors unattended with an unlocked gun case at home. That’s the way things were with her growing up so why would it be any different with us? All of a sudden she gets away with making the right choices because, “She pulled herself up by the bootstraps and got a degree in education.”

Anytime I try to explain my experiences of these circumstances I am caught in a social trap by which the liberal value of women choosing careers over a life of drunkenness and whoreish behavior to capture the love of a man my mother’s story overrides. My experience of having a gun pointed at my head by my own brother is over-ridden by another set of values.

55. I had a shot gun pointed to my head by my own brother because I was singing too loudly and he was hungover because he was drinking alcohol.

56. I didn’t know if the shot gun was loaded.

57. I stopped singing, fell backwards, and made a snow angel.

“Well, you’re mother could have brought over a bunch of rotten men. You could have been sexually abused.”

58. My brother used to chase me around the house naked and dry hump me. These are the effects of leaving minors unattended after school out in the country. And you know it which is why you started getting babysitters for us. It was after too many nights coming house to a destroyed house that my mother decided to have some family members watch over us and make sure we did our homework.

59. “Stop being a victim you liberal snowflake.”

60. But I’m actually criticizing the effects of applied feminism in the 21st century.

61. “You’re mother is a good person.”

63. “It could have been worse.”

64. “Everything turned out fine.”

65. “Everyone has trauma to deal with. Everyone has baggage.”

My boyfriend told me of growing up. His father was a chemist at Kellogg’s and his mother was an instructor at a community college. He was a potter, a knitter, and a banjo player. He became an English teacher. He told me that one time his dad brought home bags of Lucky Charm marshmallows for him and his sister to eat. His father recorded their responses to the marshmallows and adjusted the ratios of sugar based on those tests. That doesn’t sound like trauma to me. That sounds like a healthy childhood which leads one to have self confidence, self esteem, and the emotional stability necessary to face the mixed messages of life. In the meantime I seek out people who tell me I’m dumb, ugly, stupid, and will never amount to anything because I think that’s a normal relationship. If I am not doing that I am hiding in my room wondering what the point of being alive is wondering if there is any hope for me to heal and get better.

66. My father’s suicide is a traumatic past which shapes my entire experience. It’s a past that I have the right to represent by writing it. It’s a past which is not, “Everything turned out fine,” and no my mother did not, “Pull herself up by her bootstraps,” she had choices to make and one of those choices was to leave minors home alone with a gun case full of weapons and to trust that nothing bad could have happened in that circumstance. I will not limit myself to the blindness feminist discourse encouraged when I told my story to an existential philosophy professor at a liberal university. Yes, she could have chosen worse, but it could have turned out much better. I will not sit here silently submitting to my brother’s words, “Don’t tell anyone or I will kill you!”

“Why don’t you talk about your father?”

67. Well kill me. I’d be better off anyway. I am willing to die for the truth in the same way an American soldier is willing to die for his country. I am willing to stand for something even if I am alone. Pull the trigger. If it makes you feel like a man to point a gun at your brother you might as well pull the trigger.

“It wasn’t loaded. Do you think I would actually put a shot gun shell in it. I love you, I’m your brother. Do you think I’m an idiot? I wouldn’t actually do that. . .”

“Why don’t you talk about your father?”

68. It’s exhausting. It’s a threat to my existence. It reminds me that blowing my brains out is a real possibility whereas for most people its a thing you say when life sucks. The following is an example of that.

When I was working as an English as a Second Language instructor I thought I had made it. I thought that teaching immigrants and refugees English meant I had established myself as a concrete being in the world permanently enmeshed as a career oriented man. My degree in Sociology was justified and my graduate certificate was no longer a waste of time, energy, and effort. I quickly learned that my masculinity was always under question and that the few men in that field were perfectly miserable beings. The whole notion that people became teachers because they were heart filled beings with a passion for helping others vanished when my co-worker, a professional teacher who taught abroad in Japan, made the shape of a gun with his finger, lifted it to his head, and pulled the trigger. I had simply asked him how he was doing and it was apparently not well. I was feeling rather dismal and would like to think I responded like this.

69. It’s a great position to be in. A cock loaded full of cum in my mouth and my cock loaded full of cum in his mouth. The tension was rising. Would we ever get to the desired result of all of our efforts? Would we ever achieve orgasm? Would we ever blow? Rest assured we exploded and were perfectly satisfied. There’s just something about holes and filling them which none of us can resist. Yet, even when the hole is filled to the brim with hot cum we feel so empty that we can no longer go on and so we pause. It’s okay to have long periods of stagnation so long as we can pull out at the right time and forgive ourselves for our responses to the past. The future may not appear to hold much but there is so much time and so many holes to fill.

70. They covered my father’s hole with makeup. They closeted the cause of his death. At the funeral they closed the bottom half of the casket which made me think that someone cut my father’s legs off with giant scissors. I screamed. I was convinced that his legs were cut off with giant scissors and that someone had caused his death.

71. How is a four year old suppose to understand this when adults are unable to tell the truth when the child asks questions about his dead father. He isn’t going to understand these things if adults themselves still don’t understand them. Adults go to great lengths to omit the grievances and effects of such events. “Everything turned out fine,” and “You’ve got choices to make.”

A four year old’s brain is not ready to understand such things because adults don’t understand them. His memories are barely forming and he is still fascinated by blowing bubbles. Adults have lost their imaginations. He smiles at the sound of popcorn popping while adults drench popcorn in so much salt and butter that they die of heart attacks and call it death by natural causes. A child laughs when he sees a frozen lake swarmed by a hundred seagulls as teenage boys stuff frogs down the barrels of shot guns and laugh when American toad guts go spiraling into the sky like fireworks.

The events surrounding my father’s death are my first memories. There are many of them like the pastor holding me trying to give me comfort. I press my stomach for comfort. My first memories are the feeling of anxiety, that weird pang in the stomach which goes unexplained by doctors and still causes ulcers. There’s my cousin saying my father is away for a very long time and that he is in heaven. These memories attach themselves to future interactions when all compiled leave one wishing there were no choices to make at all. It leaves one wishing that there was one defined path meant for everyone which would eliminate all angst and all decisions. In fact it often feels better if there was no free will at all and that God really did have a plan for each individual.

There is another pastor, who many years later, told me my father was in hell. This leaves me with one of those ridiculous choices and questions, “Is my father in heaven or in hell?” There is my aunt who tells me that my pastor is wrong and the Bible never mentions. There is my uncle who says people who don’t believe in God are not allowed in his home. There is the ice cream I ate after I was taken out of the funeral home to ease the emotional burden a screaming four year old must have placed on my father’s friends and family members. The ice cream was a temporary cure which taught me that negative emotions could be easily drowned with chocolate sauce and colorful sprinkles.

72. My father is in heaven.

73. My father is in hell.

74. My father is in purgatory.

75. I don’t know where the fuck my father is.

76. Do souls exist?

78. What is the difference between agnostic theism and agnostic atheism?

79. It’s ok to think about dying now and again. I think everyone has thought about it now and again but I’m not sure. I’m only one person with so many heartbeats.

80. I don’t think I will commit suicide because it doesn’t solve anything. Living doesn’t solve much either but at least I can say I tried to count to one hundred.

81. I might cry if I talk about my father.

82. It’s ok to cry.

83. It’s ok to cry.

84. It’s ok to cry.

85. It’s ok to cry.

86. It’s ok to cry.

87. If you cannot sleep count the sheep or cry.

88. It’s ok to cry.

89. Real men cry.

90. Real men cry.

91. Real men cry.

92. Real men cry like big men.

93. Real men cry like grown men.

94. Real men cry like real men.

95. It’s ok to cry.

96. It’s ok to cry.

97. Facts may not care about feelings but feelings are always seeking out facts to justify themselves. One must be careful about the facts used to represent their feelings.

98. Over intellectualization isn’t crying. It’s a defense mechanism.

99. It’s okay to cry.

100. Everything turned out fine.

#spilled ink #spilled words #masculinity #manhood #lgbtq #free will #existentialism #Sartre #jean paul sartre #lyrical #lyrical poem #lyrical prose

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