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skvaderarts · 3 years

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Hiraeth Chapter 43: Grimoire

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Forty-Three: Grimoire

Note: And here’s me, genuinely unable to remember if Vergil gave V his book back and what chapter that could have happened in. I’m certain he has, but fuck, really that bothers me. Not even joking. It was so many chapters ago. So many months…

(-~-)

One day later…

Thick sheets of ice shattered underfoot like faulty glass, sending a slurry comprised of semi-melted ice and slushy snow jetting out in all directions. The temporary surface slid slightly, but due to the height of the surrounding snow, didn’t migrate very far and was still able to be walked upon if done so carefully.

It had stormed in the short time that they had spent away, leaving the entirety of Redgrave and its surrounding municipalities covered under a moderately thick blanket of powdery-white snow. But today was different. The snow had gone from heavy clumps stuck together by the moisture in the air to soft flurry barely noticeable to casual passers-by, and the sky had gone from an overcast gray to something substantially darker, the foreboding clouds admittedly daunting to take in.

More than one storm was brewing just over the horizon, and no one present was sure what to make of it. They knew that they were not ready for what was to come, but now was the time to prepare for it, nonetheless. Underestimating their opponent would gain them no favors, and as a result, they could only do their best to over-prepare for the unexpected. Simply waiting and hoping for the best was out of the cards, at least in most respects.

Having left just after Aluta’s unfortunate diagnosis of V’s newly contracted ailment, Vergil had yet to return. Not a soul knew of his whereabouts, and several possibilities were tossed about amongst everyone aware of his sudden departure, but in regards to concrete proof? Well, everything was still up in the air. It had only been a day so far, but it had still been somewhat jarring when everyone had prepared to leave and they were one descendant of Sparda short of a complete set. Where had he gone at a time like this, and what was keeping him.

But knowing full well that simply sitting idly by and awaiting his return would do them little good when they could be using that time to do something more meaningful, they had opted to return home at the time that they had originally scheduled, unsure as to what else they could do in a situation like that. Vergil knew his way home. They would simply have to wait to see what happened. And while they waited to see what the outcome of his unscheduled trip was, they would prepare themselves in any and any way that they could.

Standing in front of the front steps to his home, V wrapped his arms around himself and took a few deep breaths, exhaling slowly and allowing the chilled air to cool his lungs. He shivered, feeling a chill crawl up his spine as he exhaled again and watched the frost blow from his mouth. Despite everything he had been through in it, there was still something he found relaxing about the sight of snow; something primal within him that awakened at the slightest touch of the frozen water molecules. His muscles didn’t agree with his mind in this regard, but he still enjoyed it in spite of that. But that time had now passed, at least for the foreseeable future. He had been warned to stay within the confines of his home for reasons that he was told would make more sense to him once he returned. And now that he was back, he was willing to believe that Aluta might have been onto something.

Flora nodded in approval as she looked at the snow-draped building, watching as a large ice sickle dropped from one of the overhanging windows above and crashed into the ground, shattering like a thousand broken dreams. She turned as he approached, her long white coat trailing against the ground as she did so. Her long black hair had been placed into two loops, hanging from the lower portion of either side of her head. She popped her gum as she tucked her hands into her pockets, a strange flavor that V was certain he’d never heard of before just by looking at the color of the bubbles it made. After all, how often did someone chew black gum?

“What flavor is that?” He asked

“The gum? Oh, it’s black licorice. A favorite of mine. I’m told that makes me quite the outlier. Can’t say that I mind, though.” She shrugged nebulously, stepping out of the way as he unlocked the door and opened it. He then stepped to the side and allowed her to pass him, sure that she probably wanted to get out of the cold just as much as he did. “Care to try it?”

V hadn’t exactly brought any luggage with him. It was just an overnight trip, and more pressing obstacles had stood in the way of more trivial things like reading. All he really had with him was a change of clothes, and nothing more. Well, aside from his book, but that didn’t count. It never left his side, even when he didn’t make the fact that he had it known to anyone else.

He shook his head politely, declining her generous offer. “I appreciate the offer, but no thank you. I like the tea quite a bit, but aside from that… Well, I’m afraid not.“

She nodded, shrugging in polite indifference. In truth, that was the answer she was expecting. After all, it was the one she normally received when she offered someone some of her favorite candy. It was genuinely amazing to her that licorice companies stayed in business with the number of people that she’s met who hated it with a passion. Where did the demand come from?

“Fine by me. I get that. Most people besides me don't seem to like it much. Guess it’s a matter of taste” She said, popping the gum again. She unwrapped another stick, pausing for a moment to add it to her mouth. She then continued to chew, stopping only when she was forced to migrate the gum to one of the sides of her mouth in order to speak. “ I’ve never actually had the tea. Didn’t know that it was even a thing.”

“Yea, you're probably right about that. I don’t think I know anybody that likes that stuff now that you mention it.”

Both V and Flora turned to watch as Nico approached them from around the corner. Having just stashed the van in the garage, she was now ready to join them inside of the house where it was presumably warm and not snowing. In truth, she was willing to take at least one of those things. Anything was better than freezing to death in the snow outside of V’s front door. She liked to look at it, and she didn’t mind going out in it, but in this outfit? No way, she was going to catch her death out there.

Smiling, Flora motioned for Nico to follow them inside and stepped across the threshold, brushing off her coat as she did so. As soon as Nico scampered through the doorway, V closed it and leaned his cane against the entryway wall before heading into the living room and immediately over towards the fireplace. There had to be some way to light it. There was fuel in it, after all.

Noticing her newfound companion’s plight, Flora headed over to watch, noting that he seemed to be looking around for something to light it with. She waited for a short while, not wanting to step on his toes in regards to something so simple, but admittedly growing colder and colder by the minute. It was something that she could remedy easily enough, but not something that she wanted to attempt in someone else’s house. She didn’t sense any notable traces of magic in this house, so that meant that there were no protective wards in place to protect it from fires. Well, at least for the time being.

Realizing that there wasn’t anything he could use to light the fire, he turned towards the young Ludwig girl, catching on to the fact that she was quietly offering her assistance simply by being there. He shrugged slightly, clearly unsure as to what she could do, but willing to take any help that she could offer him at this point. The nearest store had been burned down during his run-in with Belial, and he was admittedly still a little unsure as to whether or not he wanted to go shopping again anytime soon.

“Could you assist me with this, please? I have a hunch that you might be able to.”

A sneaky smile spread across her lips as she nodded and stepped forward, rubbing her hands together. She seemed to concentrate carefully on what she was doing before pointing her left palm towards the wood that had been added to the fireplace. She got in close and placed her hand on the log, whispering something for a moment before a small spark became a vibrant flame and she ignited the wood, allowing the fireplace to finally serve its purpose.

V nodded in approval, admittedly impressed and grateful to finally be able to warm himself by the fire. He would have to ask her how she did that, or at least purchase a fireplace lighter before she left. Something told him that he couldn’t just do what she had done. It didn’t look particularly easy when she had done it.

Upon realizing that she didn’t have to suffer in the cold hallway any longer, Nico came over and flopped down on the floor in front of the fire, clearly grateful for its rejuvenating warmth. She closed her eyes and laid down, forming a sort of snow angel on the wooden floor. Nico then pointed up towards Flora as she sat up again, nodding in dramatic approval. It wasn’t every day that you saw something like that.

“Sirrus did something like that once, but it was with some kinda black fire. It was pretty cool, not gonna lie.” Nico shook her head, seemingly still in disbelief that she was surrounded by so many extraordinary people. Her life had been so normal just a year or so ago. Well, as normal as it could have been considering the fact that she was working as a gunsmith and had recently met Lady. That had probably been the beginning of the end for her. “You think you could teach me some of this cool stuff you guys do in that big, fancy house of yours? Because I want in on that. It would be super cool.”

An almost teasing look crossed her face as she punched Nico playfully in the shoulder, coaxing an entertained but brief laugh from the mechanic as she sat up again and attempted to right herself. “I suppose nothing bad could come from showing you the basics. We're always looking for new disciples. Just don’t say I showed you. I’m certain that madam Willow would have my head for it if she knew.

Nico exclaimed excitedly, jumping up and heading into the kitchen. Flora and V made themselves comfortable in front of the fire in the meantime, seemingly ready to call it a day even though it wasn’t even noon yet. Perhaps that was the problem. It was too early for at least one of them, and almost too early for the other. Nico was too sporadic to say definitively. But as she sat there basking in the glow of the warm fire, something occurred to her that hadn’t the moment before. And thankfully Nico had returned from the kitchen empty-handed in the meantime. She could answer her question.

“Black fire you say? Very interesting… That’s quite the rarity if I’m not mistaken. I can barely make an orange flame.” Flora brushed her hair out of her face, clearly flustered slightly. What a strange thing to hear about from someone outside of the estate. She had never seen anyone wield that kind of power in person. She only knew about it through her studies. That kind of magic was forbidden. Too destructive from what she understood. “In fact, they are not quite flames at all, in that respect. Those flames, they burn cold. I’m curious what he hoped to accomplish using that type of fire.”

Yawning, Nico sat back down on the floor and stretched out, unsure as to what else she could really add to that discussion until she remembered something. “Oh, believe me, Missy, it was definitely hot. Now that I think about it, the fire was black and white. Might have something to do with it. I don’t know, I’m not the one with the fancy magic.”

Flora blanched. Clearly, she had misheard that, or Nico was simply mistaken. Black and white flames together were simply unheard of. Was that even possible? Everyone she’d ever met put together couldn’t amass the power necessary to pull something like that off. Could Sirrus actually…

“Now then, do you still have that scroll that you were given before your departure? I was told to assist you with it. Considering the circumstances, it should be invaluable, at least from what I have been led to believe.” Perhaps it was best to simply change the subject. After all, there was nothing she could do to influence things one way or another. The possession of that kind of power didn’t mean anything worrisome in the grand scheme of things. It was more down to the user than anything else when it came to deciding if an ability was hazardous or not. The gifts he might possess were potentially calamitous, but that didn’t mean that Sirrus was planning to wage a war of epic proportions against them simply because he possessed the ability to. Now she better understood what Hydrangea had been talking about all this time…

V reached into the inside of his coat pocket and produced the scroll, handing it to her. She unfurled the piece of paper, carefully looking it over in the dim light before holding it closer to the fire so that she could see it better. After a moment, she nodded and then returned it to V, turning her attention back towards the fire. “Know what to do with it?”

He considered simply telling her no before deciding to look it over himself one final time, curious to know it was possible for him to glean anything useful from it in spite of his inability to actually perform magic. Well, at least on purpose. V was positive that he had accidentally done so on several occasions without realizing it, the first time he’d ever manifested his spectral canes being a stand-out example of that to him. He wasn’t sure if that was an inborn gift, or simply a case of him accidentally doing something he hadn’t known was possible. All that he knew was that he had wondered what would happen if he had tried to move his hand in a certain position after feeling a strange surge of power, and in that instant, he had figured out how to utilize that specific ability.

After studying the scroll for a moment, V furrowed his brow ever so slightly, sure that he had misunderstood what it was trying to impart upon him. He then turned his attention back to Flora, giving her a questioning look. “Am I to understand that this should be thrown into the fireplace?”

She nodded, seemingly impressed by the fact that he had actually been able to read the scroll. She then gestured towards the fire, moving out of the way so that he would be able to proceed. “Yes, as it turns out, this is a more advanced ward that requires activation instead of just reading it. Tossing it in should do the trick.”

Upon hearing this, Nico stood up, nearly falling over herself in the process. She steadied herself and brushed off her clothes, having accumulated a thin layer of dust from sitting so close to the fireplace. It seemed that V had missed that part of the room when he had attempted to clean. Or perhaps it had simply returned to that state after V and Flora looked at her curiously for a moment before she broke the silence, clearly excited.

“Okay, so… can I throw that paper or whatever that is into the fireplace? Because I never get to mess around with this kinda stuff and it just seems super cool. I get to make stuff sometimes, but I can’t use it, ya know? I just wanna know what it’s like. That alright with you, V?”

Admittedly, V was shocked by her question. Her point was completely valid, but he hadn’t thought about the fact that Nico might feel that way. Something told him that she would probably be genuinely excited to wake up with demonic powers one day, unlike him who just didn’t know how to take it at first. He had no issue with her request, but was that even possible?

V looked over his shoulder at Flora as if to ask her if it would be possible to honor Nico’s request. She nodded, shrugging slightly but not unpleasantly. It seemed that it didn’t matter how it ended up in the fireplace. All that mattered was that it made it in there one way or another. He then turned to the mechanic and handed her the scroll, nodding in agreement. “Of course you can. Be my guest”

With a barely concealed yelp of excitement, Nico chucked the scroll into the rolling flames, going slightly wide-eyed as they turned bright purple and shot up the chimney and out of sight. A sort of heaviness lingered in the air for a moment and the windows and door rattled as the walls vibrated before settling down and returning to normal. Nico couldn’t have looked more excited if she tried.

Leaning over to teach Flora’s ear, V smirked slightly, more than a little amused. “Are you positive that you should teach her any form of magic? I’ve seen her drive. That is a disaster waiting to happen.”

(-~-)

Oh shit, I forgot to tell you all that Thursday is my Mom’s 50th birthday! We’re going to be celebrating basically all weekend, so I’m going to try my best to get the chapters out on time for Friday (I’m working on them today) but don’t be surprised if they are a little late. If you don’t see them on Friday, check back on Saturday! They should be out by then!

I hope you liked this chapter! See you in the comment section, and have an amazing day!

#Hiraeth #V #Nero #My OC #My Post Devil May Cry 5 AU #My Post Devil May Cry 5 OC #DMC5 #DMCV #My DMC AU #My DMC OCs

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thatishogwash · 5 years

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To the Edge of the Universe

Written for Bokuroo Week 2019

Day One: April 2nd - Galaxies/Universe

AO3

“Name.” The doctor, Shirofuku, requests as a red light scans over his body.

“Kuroo Tetsurou.” Kuroo stretches his fingers, hopes that the aches and pains of his joints and muscles is just another side effect like the short term amnesia and spotty vision. “Designation Alpha-Alpha-Five-Two-Eight-Victor. Thirty-five years old, Coordination Specialist for JAXA or Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency. Assigned to Space Station Journey.” Kuroo rattled off more information. He had woken half blind and in a state of confusion and panic. He had been made aware that Suspended Status had never been used to that extent before, that there might be unforeseen problems but so far everything seemed to be slowly coming back to him.

“You’re showing signs of dehydration,” Shirofuku reported, reading lines of information on her tablet that were being fed to her from the various devices Kuroo was hooked up to. “Are you experiencing any other symptoms besides the mild aches you reported before?” Kuroo stretched his fingers once more, considered keeping somethings to himself before thinking better.

“I think the amnesia might be more long term than initially reported.” Kuroo’s thumb rubbed absently over his ring finger. Shirofuku nodded, making a note on her tablet.

“Tell me what you do remember and I will see if your file reveals any missing information.” Shirofuku tucked a strand of her dark red hair behind her ear as she gave Kuroo her full attention.

The Earth had quickly filled to capacity. Humans had expanded out as much as they could so they started to build up and when that became too full they created long term Space Stations that orbited around Earth. Yet even that became too much far too soon. Kuroo had grown up on one of those Space Stations, he was made an early orphan. There had been a sickness that rampaged the station, decimating the population. Kuroo had survived but it had been months until anyone attempted a rescue, too concerned with contamination. Kuroo had lost what little he had, when JAXA came calling he answered because he wasn’t sure what else to do with his life.

Kuroo remembered the years of harsh training, long nights spent studying and crawling his way to the top. A mission, to take a newly built state of the art station out into the wide expanse of the universe. There would be twelve separate crews of twelve people, all widely experienced and highly trained. Kuroo would be put into stasis for almost two hundred years, or until the three specialist before him died. He was apart of the fourth crew.

“You seem to be remembering your own history quite well.” Shirofuku reported, checking Kuroo’s memories with his file. “A sense of deja vu or forgetting something is expected.” Kuroo rubbed at his tired eyes.

The Station was equipped with lighting that was supposed to replicate the changing of days to give the crew a concept of time. Kuroo had grown up on a failing station that had always seemed to be in a state of dark so his sense of time had always seemed off. But from the logs he was made to keep and the meals he ate he estimated it was nearly a month before he was finally allowed out of the small medical room he had woken up in. He knew it was only procedure, to make sure his entire body was up to handling interaction with any other people.

Kuroo pulled at the hem of his overly starched uniform, feeling a bit silly for the formality when it was just the twelve of them for the foreseeable future. He still felt as if he was missing something, had realized while he remembered in great detail his history and training, he remembered none of the people who would have made up his life. Shirofuku had seemed interested but not too concerned.

Everyone was gathering to meet for the first time, Kuroo felt a shiver of anticipation run down his spine as the rest of the crew entered the observation deck one by one. Introductions all around from the engineer to the captain to the doctor.

The Captain, a serious-looking man by the name of Sawamura Daichi who had shook Kuroo’s hand in an almost crushing grip and was more cunning than his country accent portrayed him as, opened the metal walls to reveal floor to ceiling windows that looked out into the vast nothingness that was space. They all stepped forward, looking to the left as a group to see a swirling purple, pink, and blue galaxy. It was terrifying and beautiful in a way only the universe could be.

Kuroo felt eyes on him, had felt eyes on him since he had stepped onto the observation deck. It wasn’t concerning at first, they had all been sizing each other up. They had been paired as a crew after taking over a dozen very detailed tests that analyzed them as the ones who would work best together. But they hadn’t known each other before.

At least that was the impression Kuroo had gotten. He turned his head, saw the swirling galaxy in light brown eyes that almost appeared golden in the artificial light that was supposed to represent early morning. Those eyes were heavy lidded but a wide grin spread across the chief tacitians face. He had a golden band around his ring finger, Kuroo knew this as an old Earth tradition symbolizing marriage. He hadn’t known anyone still did that, especially someone who spoke with diction that portrayed one of the wealthier space stations.

“I know this might seem like an odd first order, especially since we are all highly trained in our own particular areas but I am assigning pairings. It’s important that there is more than just one person who knows how to fix something that gets broken.” Sawamura spoke up, deep voice easily cutting across the soft chatter. He broke everyone up into groups of two, not stumbling over any of the names. Kuroo asked if he had practiced that speech in the mirror, felt a swell of ridiculous pride when his assigned partner, Bokuto Koutarou, laughed behind him.

“Are you sure about that?” Shirofuku asked, small amused smile curling up her wide mouth. Sawamura looked between Kuroo and Bokuto before letting out a long suffering sigh.

“Why fight the inevitable.” Sawamura said, as if he knew them them both inside and out.

Their titles were mostly a nod to the far distant past. It was true they were on an overgrown ship but it needed a captain as badly as it needed a pilot, and considering it was self automated that meant not at all. A more apt title would probably be peace keeper, or daycare worker. Sawamura’s job was to know the ins and out of the crew, to settle any disagreements before they could become a problem. He was everyone's therapist, their psychologist, their bestfriend and father-figure. He was also in command of them, every decision or discovery was to be run through him first. It was not a job Kuroo envied.

“So you’re the coordination specialist?” Bokuto popped up into Kuroo’s eyesight as everyone broke off into their respected pairs. Kuroo felt his mouth twitch up in a grin though he wasn’t really positive why. “You’re the science guy right?”

“C’mon, I’ll show you my lab.” Kuroo motioned for Bokuto to follow, which the other did. The light bounced off the small piece of jewelry and Kuroo found himself speaking before he had really considered it. “Did you know it’s an old Earth tradition for lovers to exchange rings during a marriage ceremony?” Bokuto’s grin was impossibly wide as he looked at Kuroo. Kuroo thought he might be a little taller than the tactician but it could be his hair giving him added height. He had mostly kept it closely shaven, water was rare on his old station but they had plenty here and he had let it grow out.

“I know, that’s why my husband gave it to me.” Bokuto admitted easily, throwing Kuroo off momentarily. “His knuckles swell so he can’t wear the one I got him, so I’ve been holding onto it for him.” Kuroo resisted the urge to stretch his fingers, his own knuckles were swollen and still ached but he believed it was from the prolonged stasis they had been in. A side effect like his missing memories.

“I’m sorry.” Kuroo apologized, feeling like a fool for bringing it up.

“For what?” Bokuto asked. “Oh you think I left him behind? No he’s here. He uh- I guess you could say he’s kind of still asleep.”

“But you can’t see him.” Kuroo couldn’t understand how someone could be so chipper about being away from someone they cared enough about to enter into a union with. Bokuto looked at him with those golden brown eyes before a gentle smile light up his face.

“Maybe one day he’ll wake up and remember me, but until then I have you.” Bokuto nudged Kuroo, there was a familiarity in the action that Kuroo did not mind. “We’re partners after all, right? Captain’s orders. Someone once told me that sea captains could marry people, practically makes us a couple.” Kuroo snorted as the door to his lab swooshed open.

“I’m not quite sure that’s what Sawamura meant when he paired people off.” Kuroo said, not quite denying Bokuto though he wasn’t sure why. He just knew that he found Bokuto’s presence soothing to nerves he hadn’t even realized were frayed. It felt like he could finally take a nice, deep breath and let go of tension he hadn’t realized he had been holding onto since waking. Perhaps even before he was put into stasis.

Bokuto listened to Kuroo’s lengthy and detailed explanation of his role unboard the station. Kuroo found his own job interesting but knew few others did. Bokuto only interrupted with more questions, allowing Kuroo to go on long tangents about the probes they sent out to bring data back for him to analyze.

It wasn’t until later when Kuroo was dodging Bokuto’s expressive arm waving as he enthusiastically explained his own position amongst the crew of twelve that Kuroo began to get an inkling of something. It tickled the back of his mind, an acknowledgement to the growing warmth inside him that spoke of more than just an easy friendship born of common circumstances and a friendly personality.

“Why did you decide to accept this mission?” Kuroo asked as they walked down the long corridor together, meeting back up with the others for an evening meal. The infinite universe spread out before them, separated by a seemingly insignificant amount of glass, reflected in golden brown eyes as they squinted in a happy smile.

“Because I’d follow my husband to the end of the universe if that’s what it meant to be with him.” Bokuto’s fingers grazed Kuroo’s. It could have been an accident, Bokuto struck Kuroo as the type of person to always push into others space, the one who needed physical comfort. But it felt like something more and Kuroo felt that sense of something just beyond his reach, a feeling that was coming familiar to him.

“Lucky guy.” Kuroo said honestly, earning a wide spread grin from Bokuto.

“He is, isn’t he? I’m amazing!” Bokuto yelled, voice echoing down the hall and earning an exasperated look from Sawamura who was walking ahead of them.

Kuroo was not sure if he would ever regain his full memory. He wasn’t even sure if what he was feeling was just wishful thinking or the edge of the truth. But they had an infinite universe spread out before them to figure it out and Bokuto didn’t seem as if he was planning to go anywhere anytime soon.

#bokuroo week #bokuroo week 2019 #my writing #haikyuu!!#haikyuu

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jordanjaeger · 5 years

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Life Update + What Will Become of This Blog

Hello everyone! I know it’s been a very long time since I last updated this blog. I still log in and browse around from time to time, but obviously I’m no longer very active. So I apologize for that.

I see I’ve gained quite a few new followers. I want to say nearly 150-200+ since Fall 2017. I’m not sure. I haven’t really kept up with who’s new and who isn’t. That’s why I wanted to come on here and give you guys an official update and what the future of this blog may look like.

If you’re not necessarily interested in my life update, then you can go ahead and skip down to the section where I talk about my blog and what I foresee it becoming in the future. If you are interested in getting to know me, where I’ve been, what I’ve been up to, and how I’ve been, then keep on reading!

To my old friends whom I made when I first started this blog, I really, truly hope you are all doing well! I noticed some some of you have changed usernames, or moved on to new blogs. I’m just happy to see that most of you you all are still here. <3

As you may know, and to the new followers who may not know, I’ve been in college for about three almost four years now. My first university was a four year school just ten minutes away from my home. I attended there after graduating high school back in 2015, but I only attended for two years primarily to focus on my general education courses and save money. I did this because my first school didn’t offer my degree, which was Graphic Design, so I knew I would eventually end up having to transfer.

While I was at my old school, I had a lot of free time on my hands. If I wasn’t at school I was at home in, my room drawing, writing, or binge watching Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other various anime. It wasn’t until Attack on Titan season 2 that I really became invested in the show, and decided to create my blog jordanjeager.

I knew I loved anime and writing, and I had already been following a multitude of different AoT/SnK blogs, so I thought why don’t I create one myself? It’ll be fun, and hopefully I can make some friends who enjoy the same things as I do in the process. In the end, my blog became very successful. I found myself writing almost everyday all day, even at work, and I made about five or six really amazing friends on here.

In Fall of 2017 I transferred schools to pursue Graphic Design. That’s when things started to turn left. It was my first official “freshman” year as it was my first time being away from home, and having to adjust to a new city, new environment and new campus turned out to be more than I could handle. Also, I was distracted with new friends, and just overcoming personal battles that would help me to promote growth and happiness. Because of this, I had a hard time focusing on school which in turn reflected on my grades. Not to mention I was still trying to find time to write for my blog. I ended up triggering a small era of depression that would come and go.

2018 was just a bad year for me period. The friends I had made my first semester at my new school started falling off one by one. One got pregnant, so she moved back home, and the others just failed to reciprocate the same energy I had given, so I eventually backed off and became isolated. I was alone, and for a while I was fine with it, but as time went on, my depression worsened.

In the summer of 2018 I took two classes, each one was four hours long, which in total was 8 hours. You guys, I was going to school for 8 hours a day, four days out of the week, with no breaks. The classes were extremely accelerated and it felt like I was working a 9-5 job with no pay. Not to mention towards the end of the summer semester, I became extremely ill for two weeks.

Fall 2018 came around and my on and off depression had gotten a lot worse, mostly because of my degree. I was finally getting into my upper level classes for GD, and after barely passing one of my classes, I was starting to come to the realization that maybe GD wasn’t for me. But I was too conflicted to switch majors because I was afraid of either starting over or prolonging my graduation year. I currently won��t graduate ‘til Fall 2020. You guys, I’m 22. You see my dilemma here?

I tried to do my research on what I else I could possibly pursue in the arts that wouldn’t put me behind, but my options were degrees that I knew I’d struggle to find a job in. I don’t want to be living paycheck to paycheck after spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on a degree.

Finally, 2019 rolled around and I started another semester. This time though, I’m taking the part II to the class I barely passed last semester. Still unsure of what to do as far as my degree, still depressed, I wondered if I’d ever find something to study that brings me joy and makes me happy, but will, at the same time, sustain me with a decent salary. Then something amazing happened.

After talking to one of my professors, whose class I both needed to take for my GD degree and am now currently taking, I learned of a new degree that overlapped with GD. It’s called Intermediate Design (app and website building) and it was basically the gist of the class I’m taking right now, which is Interactive Media. You guys, when I learned about this degree, I was quick to do my research and schedule an appointment with the advisor and head coordinator, because the class I’m taking now with said professor is basically a synopsis of ID, and I love my IM class.

So after talking to both the advisor and coordinator of the ID degree, I realized that this is what I want to pursue. This is what makes me happy. Despite it being challenging, I find myself becoming more and more excited as I work on my projects for my IM class, and if the projects I’m doing now are what’s to be expected of the ID degree, then I know what I want to do.

Since making the decision to switch my major, I have been nothing short of happy. I withdrew from the class that was the second part to the class I barely passed last semester, and am now only taking three courses. I can’t tell you how happy and relieved I am, and how much weight I feel has been lifted off of my shoulders. I feel like I have a clearer headspace now that I know what I want to do for the remainder of my college career.

The Blog

With all that being said, I want to start back writing again. I’ve had a lot more time to catch up with AoT/SnK, and now that I’m up to speed with the manga, I feel inspired to write again. I want to write again. Writing has always been a hobby of mine and a getaway from everyday life.

I don’t have any friends where I go to school, so I’d like to pick back up this hobby because I know it’ll help take my mind off of the loneliness I sometimes feel being here. Plus, I know that I won’t be judged for liking the things I like and participating in the things I enjoy.

But, I want to know what you all’s thoughts are. To those of you who have been with me since the beginning and those of you who are new, would you be interested in me opening my request box up again? I still get many notes and reposts from you all, and I’ve even gotten a couple messages from some of you hoping that I’ll start taking requests again. I want to make this an experience for both you and I, and I want to become more engaged with my followers. So let me know you guys’ thoughts and I will take them all into consideration.

That’s all I have for now!

Xoxo

Jordan Jaeger

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1917farmgirl · 6 years

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Different

For the Merlin Memory Month event - Day 1.

Path I – “Being different is nothing to be afraid of“

Path III – Emotion/Mood: Kindness

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

― Kahlil Gibran

*****

The logs in the hearth had burned down to nothing more than smoldering embers when the door finally creaked open and a dirty, exhausted shadow slipped inside.

From the corner where he sat unnoticed and hidden in the gloom of night, Gaius watched his boy turn and quietly fasten the latch, pausing for just a moment to lean his head against the old wood, shoulders sagging toward the floor as if pulled by the weight of the very earth herself, before he pushed away and crept through their chambers and up to his tiny room.

Gaius sighed.

This marked the third time in as many weeks Merlin had slunk back in the dead of night in an attempt to keep his mentor from seeing as he licked his wounds and nursed his aching heart.

But he did see. He saw it all – the torn and muddy clothes, the hidden bruises, the fake smile that didn’t even come close to covering the pain and confusion in those innocent, blue eyes.

Gaius sighed again and stood, ignoring the protests of his weary bones, then gathered up his medical bag and a bowl of water and climbed the three short steps.

This pretending had gone on long enough.

When the old physician pushed open the door, the lad was sitting dejectedly on the edge of his bed, jacket half off as if he attempted to remove it but just couldn’t muster the energy. Merlin didn’t move; didn’t even look up or attempt to wipe the silent tears that slid down his bruised and filthy face away. Gaius placed the water bowl on the small table, then sat beside him, heart breaking for this young boy he’d come to love so unexpectedly and so fiercely over the last few months.

“The kitchen boys again?” he asked, gently easing the stained jacket the rest of the way off and setting it aside, before turning his attention to the ruined tunic.

Merlin shook his head but allowed his ministrations without protest, all fight seeming to have drained away. “No. That was last week. Tonight it was the squires and stable boys turn to play kick the peasant.”

Tunic removed, Gaius’s frown deepened as the moonlight coming through Merlin’s small window illuminated the cuts, abrasions, and bruises that littered his ward’s skin.

“I thought it would be different here,” Merlin’s vulnerable whisper broke the silence after a moment. “I thought I would get a fresh start. That I could blend in and just be normal. Just Merlin.”

With gentle hands, Gaius wet a rag in the bowl and started cleaning the boy’s raw skin as the tears and sniffs grew louder and Merlin raised a hand to scrub angrily at his face.

“They hate me, Gaius, and they don’t even know me. They don’t even know about the magic or that I don’t have a father or that I have some stupid, all-important destiny. They don’t know any of that, but they still hate me!” he cried, and Gaius set the rag aside, gathering his boy into his arms instead and cradling Merlin’s head against his own.

“They’re jealous is what they are,” he answered softly.

Merlin scoffed, though it came out more like a smothered sob. “Of what? The peasant stink I set wafting through the castle? Or maybe of the gargantuan ears, or the fact I can’t take more than five steps without tripping over my own worthless feet?” He choked on his words and suddenly it was too much. The boy’s arms were slipping around Gaius, trembling as he clung on for dear life, the tears and the sobs rolling off of him in waves and reminding the old man exactly how young this boy still was.

“I’ve never had a quilt before, or a horse, or two sets of dishes let alone twelve! I can’t help not knowing all the right things to do as a servant or in a castle!” His words were spilling out now, in breathless, hiccupping masses as all the pent up anguish of his heart burst forth. “And I try so hard not to be clumsy, to watch and to learn…but it’s no use. I’m no use…for anything. To anyone.”

Anger and indignation filled Gaius – to a level he’d never felt before, not for anyone. The fury of a…a parent, he realized with a slight shock, to the point he found himself momentarily consumed with the desire to track down these serving lads and squires and return pain for pain. But he forcefully pushed it away – no good had ever come from revenge, and he was only a weak, old man.

Still, he made a mental list of those whose medicinal potions would be tasting extra foul for the foreseeable future.

“And what of Arthur?” he asked instead, hoping to steer his ward back from the edge of despair he was teetering on.

Merlin finally pulled away, sitting up and carding a shaky hand through his muck-crusted hair, bits of the filth flaking off to float down through the moonlit air around them. “He thinks I’m a useless servant, too, you know. He fired me.”

“And promptly re-hired you, with an apology I gather.”

“He yells at me. And throws things at my head. And gives me all the worst jobs.”

“But he also laughs with you—”

“— at me—”

“—and drags you everywhere, and lets you get away with calling him ridiculous names. No one else, not even the squires and knights he grew up with, gets away with that, my boy.”

Merlin sighed and picked up the rag Gaius had set aside. Gingerly, he starting to work at the dirt smeared across his bruised face.

“Are you saying he doesn’t think I’m worthless, because I guarantee he does. He assures me I am at least three times a day.”

“He also defied his father and faced a cave full of deadly, magical spiders to retrieve a tiny flower and save your life,” Gaius reminded him softly, patting his arm tenderly as he gazed into his still watery eyes.

Merlin looked away, hands falling back into his lap, fingers wringing the now filthy rag. “I’m just so tired of being different, Gaius,” he finally breathed. “The magic and the destiny and the hiding are bad enough. Why do I also have to be a stupid, ugly, clumsy fool?”

Gaius’s heart shattered at little more at the self-depreciating words coming from his wonderful boy, and he shook his head, searching his mind for the right things to say, the way to make Merlin understand just how special he was. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “You are different, Merlin, but not in appearance, or skills, or anything such as that. Do you know what differences I see, that your mother sees? That Gwen and your other friends see, and even Arthur might even be starting to catch a glimpse of?

“I see a young man who is brave. Who is unfailingly kind to everyone, even those who have not been kind to him. I see a boy who possess the greatest ability to be selfless and think of others before himself that I have ever witnessed. I see a servant who returns day after day to an overwhelming and mostly thankless job, who still smiles and jokes, and who treats a pompous and spoiled prince like just another lad – which is exactly what said pompous and spoiled prince needs, though he doesn’t know it. You’ve crept under his skin and come to mean something to him, even if he can’t admit it yet. You’re his friend, and he yours, and that makes you different from any other lad or servant or young squire that has set foot inside this castle since the day that stubborn prince was born.”

Merlin was watching him now, still and quiet with his eyes wide, so Gaius pressed on.

“Friendship is the real magic Merlin. Friendship and love and kindness. Courage, gentleness… Those things will always hold more power than spells or swords or even kings and their armies. And possessing them, practicing and cultivating them…those are differences worth having, my boy.”

Merlin sniffed, reaching up to rub at a particularly vicious looking bruise – one that suspiciously resembled the toe of a boot – on his shoulder. “It still hurts, though,” he muttered.

“Yes, I imagine it does,” Gaius agreed, standing up and taking the rag from his ward, rinsing it out so he could continue his work of healing.

“And it’s still not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Gaius agreed again.

“And my ears are still way too huge,” Merlin pouted dejectedly.

Gaius smiled. “There are worse body parts to have sized slightly out of proportion.”

For the first time since he’d returned that night, Merlin grinned. “Yeah. Could have been my whole head – like Prince Prat.”

“You have to be awake to serve said prince in a few short hours, so hold still now and let me finish patching you up.”

Merlin groaned, glancing out the window and noticing exactly how far the moon had traveled across the night sky.

“Do you think he’ll believe I fell down the stairs again?” the boy asked, voice quiet once more. Gaius dabbed at a rather nasty looking cut just in front of one of those unique ears, drawing a startled hiss from his ward.

“No,” he answered sharply.

The honest truth was that the boy was a mess. Three beatings in less than a month on top of almost dying from poison had worked him over to the point Gaius thought it a wonder he was still moving at all. Stubbornness was also one of those traits his boy possessed, though the old physician had purposefully failed to list that one. No need to encourage the lad.

“So, what do I tell him?”

“Perhaps you might try the truth?”

“So he can laugh at me, too?”

“Did the brutes damage your hearing as well as your skin, or did you selectively not listen to anything I just told you?” Gaius groused, fighting the urge to cuff the boy on the back of the head. He imagined the young man already had a pounding headache. “Arthur cares for you, in a way he hasn’t ever cared for any other servant. And he’s already different from the arrogant prince you meet three months ago. Give him another chance to grow and do the right thing, and then trust him to do it. I believe it will help you both in the end.”

Merlin opened his mouth, probably to protest again, but Gaius thrust a potion into his hand. “Drink that,” he ordered before the lad could speak. “All of it.”

The boy obeyed, further proof of exactly how tired and sore he was.

“Now, sleep,” Gaius continued, clearing the small bed of his medical supplies and pushing the boy gently down toward the pillow. “No bones are broken. You can finish cleaning up properly in the morning and then I’ll bind up the worst sprains and bruises once the swelling has gone down.” He reached over and carefully tugged off Merlin’s much-worn boots, placing them on the floor before drawing the thin covers up over the exhausted lad.

“Thank you, Gaius,” Merlin whispered, squeezing his wrist and gazing at him with eyes full of love – something he never would have imagined three months ago. “For caring for me. And for not caring that I’m different.”

“It is those very differences that make me care so much for you, my boy,” Gaius assured him gently, his heart full. “Now rest.”

And as Merlin’s eyes drifted shut and he finally allowed sleep to claim him, Gaius stayed by his side, sitting on the edge of the bed. Softly, he smoothed back the messy hair, patted the calloused hands, and thanked the gods for giving him such a wonderful, gentle and good, and remarkably different boy to love with all his heart in his twilight years.

#merlin fanfiction #merlinmemorymonth #merlin #hpft #gaius

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING CASES

I fortify myself by recalling McIlroy and Bentley's famous quote The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases. A founder who knows nothing about fundraising but has made something users love will have an easier time at $x/2. The other reason no one was doing quite what we do in those three months is make sure this new Lisp does some important job better than other languages. And if the author is wrong or right than what his tone is. I had to add a delay before people can respond to a comment, and make the length of it, and the founders ignore them, because they don't know what I'll do next, but I'll probably think of something. And those that did evolve this way are probably still written in whatever language they use. Valuation is at best third. If there was a problem with a server. Is not that they were experts in technology. Economically, the print media.

Is the worry that made the work good. It means arguments of the form Life is too short for something, you can figure out a way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it. You're not just looking for good ideas, so long as you seem to be expected. If your numbers grow significantly between two investor meetings, investors will be hot to close, and if it's no good they may never come back. Starting a startup will change you a lot. Just not now. The real test is revenue. If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that's bullshit, you probably spent too much. This is one case where it pays to be self-indulgent. Same story in 2004. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. It's obvious how too little money could kill you, but unless they behaved badly to treat it as the happiest time of their lives.

If people can't do it, then it is hard, at least for them. Their fundamental problem is that they all wait as long as no one is forced to use it. But the problem with Europe is not that they can't leave. But powerful as they are in the business of selling information to consumers has always been a stream of people who could have made it, if they'd quit their day job, is probably an order of magnitude less important than solving the real problem with Lisp, or at least log n more rewarding. But if capital gains rates vary, you move assets, not yourself, so changes are reflected at market speeds. Defense contractors? 5 didn't have macros, for example, got their seed funding from Andy Bechtolsheim, one of which won't surprise them, and find it very hard to answer in the general case. But the idea is so visceral it's probably inborn. I learned from Michael Rabin: that the way to make something people want. The stories on the frontpage now are still roughly the ones that win. Big companies are biased against new technologies, and to allow programmers to use inline byte code if you need to attract.

A fundraising is when you won't be able to charge for content when it works to charge for content? It was not until Perl 5 if then that the language was suitable for writing serious programs, and yet needs to meet multiple times before making up his mind, has very low expected value. The empirical answer is: no. Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself. When PR people and journalists recount the histories of startups after they've become big, they always underestimate how uncertain things were at first. I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. How long do they expect it to take? Do you need a San Francisco. The Matrix have such resonance.

When I want to invest—usually because they've heard you're a hot deal. So they don't make something users want. When I was in high school I spent a lot of smart people to a site that caused them to waste lots of time. This happens in intellectual as well as moral questions. TV helped Kennedy, so historians are correct in regarding this election as a watershed. Since getting the first offer is most of the work is as artificial as running laps. If the founders aren't sure what to focus on the wrong track.

Don't listen to them. Where did they get their pick of all the departments in a university. There don't seem to be a side project—an application to sharpen Arc on, and a woefully incomplete idea becomes a promising question to explore. The charisma theory may also explain why Democrats tend to lose presidential elections. When we started it, there wasn't any; the few sites you could order from were hand-made at great expense by web consultants. 1, solve the core problem in a startup, not a point, and what they use it for. I think people believe that coming up with an idea for something people want, and you need to launch is that it's still so poor. The biggest factor in most investors' opinions of you is the opinion of other investors. At least we know now what it would look like: The author's main point seems to be x. Be a real student and not start a startup. Some investors will let you email them a business plan, but you can learn when you need to get the effect of subroutines when the ui is just a means to an end.

He didn't foresee the future of handheld devices one locked down by Apple? But now that I've realized what's going on, perhaps there's a third option: to write something explaining the two types of schedule. But because the lies are indirect we don't keep a very strict accounting of them. Valuation is at best third. This comforting illusion may have prevented us from seeing the real problem. I studied Arabic as a freshman. Or rather, I don't know what the tricks are for convincing investors. In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than by, say, $2 million, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the money. When parents are of different religions, they'll often invest in phase 3. Saying YC does seed funding for startups is a description in terms of the old one. Basically, unions were just Razorfish. As for the theory being obvious, as far as I know, operate on the manager's schedule.

In a small country, a startup has a harder task: they have to behave well, they tend to split the difference on the issues, leaving the election to be decided by the one factor they can't control: charisma. Is particularly acute for people who are quite timid, initially, about the idea of starting their own company. Hacking What should you do in the real world, programs are bigger, tend to involve existing code, and often require you to figure out what lies you were told as a kid, they can tell themselves they're buying the users rather than the cleverness, and this essay is the advice we give them. I walked into the final, the main thing I'd be feeling was curiosity about which of my questions would turn up on the page. There's something fake about it. And when you agree there's less to say. Ideas get developed in the process, is money from individual angel investors. The bizarre half is what makes the religion stick, and the transformation was miraculous. In fact I don't intend to make any more iPhone applications unless absolutely necessary. The programs you write in classes differ in three critical ways from the ones you'll write in the real world where gaming the system stops working when you start.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #religion #meetings #people #future #length #Do #startup #things #unions #users #manager

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anticosmic · 7 years

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September 4, 2017

All things considered, August was a piece of shit. There’s been a shift, however, especially over the last few days. It’s like I can see things clearer than before, or rather I can see what’s in front of me and what I need to do better than before. I spent a good part of the last two years sort of not knowing what or who the fuck I was. It’s a byproduct of all the Crazy Shit I’m up to on a near constant basis, no doubt, but still, as the last six months of my twenties now approaches, and Saturn prepares for its return in my life, it’s good to get some of the latent garbage out of the way.

Hung out with L Friday night for the first time since June, when he was still a lowly single-man with no hope for life. Now he’s A Man in a Relationship, imparting relationship/love advice, with life all figured out. Oh how a few short months can change someone. Was I like this/am I like this in relationships? Can’t recall. L’s had far less luck in the relationship department–who knows when he was last in one, he keeps that data under tight lock and key–so I’ll give his idealism a break. Since he and I do keep in touch via the intimacy of FB messenger, I’ve received quite the digital earful about his girlfriend, how she’s so talented and smart and full of insecurities and has dated/fucked her fair share of guys and how he pretends that that doesn’t bother him and how she may, in some Foucaultian power struggle, wish for him to punish her for her past sexual indiscretions. We’ve covered quite a few bases, L and I, despite not having actually seen each other in meat space for a while. Feeling nostalgic for my past life when Jay and I used to drink 40s in the park back in Old Town, I suggested we buy a couple beers and make our way to the park in College Town. L was hesitant, but as per usual I peer pressured him and he followed along due to his jelly-like spine. We had a good conversation, mostly about the quite obvious impending civil war our country will see in the near future and the insufferable nature of white people inflicted with White Guilt that makes them say the dumbest fucking things of all time. All-in-all, it was a good conversation. Then L’s girlfriend, whom I can say I was partially interested in meeting just to see who she was and what she was like, arrived and I notice she has a dog. Well, no biggie, dogs are cool, and she’s a girl walking around College Town at night, so… well, it turns out she’s the archetypal Girl With a Dog. That is, a 30-something hipster whose life is devoted to a small, mostly useless type canine, who will cut off a reasonably engaging conversation about identity politics with a hearty “Fetch Ziggy!” as she throws a ball for Ziggy the Dog to catch. It’s all a bit much.

So Girl With a Dog made a bad first impression. But, I don’t know her, I don’t want to reduce her to a simple catch-all signifier right off the bat, right? Unfortunately, aside from her all-consuming affinity for her dog, there didn’t seem to be much going on with her. How old did L say she was? 30? 31? Roughly our age. Well, she just sat there, making occasional interjections about pretty much nothing, her focus being mostly on the dog. It was all quite disappointing. I truly cannot see what L sees in her, which is fine because she’s not my girlfriend after all, but I get the sneaking suspicion that he’s just with her because she’s there, and that his ego, brutally beaten through several unfortunate dalliances over the past few years, needed a bit of rehab. But I don’t know. It’s not really my place to conjecture what their relationship is like. Just as no one really knew why the fuck I tolerated K’s bullshit, I’ll go ahead and assume that L and Girl With a Dog have some certain unspoken, certainly ineffable, thing going on.

I just wish she talked about something, or at least gave me something to work with while we were at the park. She’s too old to be socially awkward. Socially insecure and anxious, yeah, I got that too, but I fake it when I’m in public, and just rue social interactions when I’m in the comfort of my own home. But in front of people I’m affable, somewhat charming, good at conversations. And so is L, who has many of my same anxieties more or less. We fake it. She just sat there, like a lump on a log, listening to L and I talk, which sadly wasn’t about much of anything when she got there because L’s attention was now split between her and I. She did have more input when we talked about weed and getting high (which I don’t do much of anymore but pretended I did at that moment for the sake of conversation), but it was mostly about how she enjoys spliffs. I do not enjoy spliffs. Spliffs are the Laodicea of joints. Joints are not my preferred method of smoking, but if I do find myself with joint in hand I want it to contain only some good ass weed because I’m a goddamn American! Get the fuck out of here with your spliffs.

She also rolls her own cigarettes which is nothing short of a travesty in my world. I never understood the point of rolling your own cigarettes. “It’s cheaper,” they say. “It makes you work for your fix,” they say. Well, if my Postmates, Door Dash and Instacart accounts have anything to say, it’s that I value convenience and efficiency over price or, god forbid, effort. Some things–love, career, art, consciousness–require the upmost amount of discipline and effort to fully realize their potential. However smoking, as well as any other drug, should be attained quickly and easily, with as little effort as possible. Just because something requires more effort does not mean it is more valuable, or is on a higher hierarchy than it’s easier attained siblings.

Of course, I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. I smoke weed maybe once or twice a year now. The singular Coors Light I was drinking in the park not withstanding, I never drink anymore either. However, my twenties having been devoted to all manners of consuming various substances, I still have opinions. Very strong opinions at that. Clearly.

Anyway, Girl With a Dog was a bit of a nothing person. Not quite a tabula rasa, I’d compare her more to a lump of clay. I don’t know what L sees in her, but she doesn’t seem to have much going on inside her. In many ways she was the Platonic ideal of a hipster, which is such an antiquated term these days with no real definition but it’s all I can think of when I think of her. Of course, she is a person, and people have worlds upon worlds living within them, but some of those worlds are a bit more populated than others. Whatever landscapes she has residing within her, I’d say it’s on par with a night time road trip around Idaho.

Saturday arrived and I felt more or less depressed, like I’d hit a spiritual wall of sorts. With this coming Friday being my last day at the office, I’ve been realizing the existence of these sort of blocks more and more. Leaving my job is a terrifying prospect, but for every con I can think of, there are maybe ten pros as to why this is an overall good idea. My savings has given me enough of a cushion to work on other ventures for a while, and I’d really like to spend more time with Mom. She may be here for six months, she may be here for six years, but I really want to be with her now because this is when she needs me the most. However, she’s been active lately, going out with Dad a lot. She’s gained a bit of weight, which in this case is a good thing, and she seems overall fairly content with life, but there’s always the question of her mortality lingering under the surface of all our thoughts. No matter what happens to me professionally now that my job will soon be in the rear view mirror, I will not regret spending more time with my mother.

If there’s any signifier that I’m going through quite a few life changes, it’s that my dreams have gone off the chain. Every night for the last couple weeks has been full of some pretty crazy dreams, and lately there’s been an influx of sex dreams, which I don’t normally have much of. My dreams only get like this when my life is undergoing a major transformation. Thus, my goal for the foreseeable future is to keep a record of my dreams. I’ve been meaning to do this anyhow, but now, with so much going on in my life, seems like an especially auspicious time to keep a journal of the Dreaming. However, dreams, no matter how fascinating, are inherently boring due to their highly subjective but equally nonsensical nature. They’re best kept secret. Also, even when I’ve kept dream journals in the past, they only seemed important or useful in retrospect. However, we spend a third of our lives asleep, our minds going elsewhere. To not at least do something with this time is to experience only a partially-lived life. Of course I need to get past the abundant mountain of laziness that always lands in front of me when I first wake up in the morning, but I think that keeping a dream journal, especially at this juncture in my life, will yield some incredible benefits.

#life

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mattparlmer · 7 years

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Teardown

This blog is a decent archive of my musings from the 2011-2013 period, but its usefulness has come to an end. “Thinking Loudly” is an appropriate name, because during that period in my life that’s mostly what I did. Since then, I’ve thought a bit more quietly. This blog will move to old-blog.mattparlmer.com; future writing will live at blog.mattparlmer.com. Some thoughts to wrap up:

Looking Back

Most of the writing here is political in nature, reflecting an interest in statecraft and the exercise of power that has followed me for as long as I can remember. My political philosophy remains roughly within the bounds of consequentialist libertarianism. The shorthand I applied at the time was “neoliberal”, and that term seems to have undergone a bit of a renaissance among serious people since I initially adopted it not just as an accurate descriptor of my views but also partly out of a desire to provoke conversation. Today I use the word “liberal” more liberally, more sincerely, and less frequently prefixed by “neo”.

A major force behind my lapse in political writing was a concern about the potential negative impact my airing of ideas might have on my clients, many of whom were political candidates. Twitter’s brevity seemed to lend itself to easier message-control, so I moved most of my ranting there and developed a bad habit around rambling, incoherent tweetstorms.

My interest in finance has declined steadily over the last few years in inverse proportion to a growth in awareness of my own incompetence in the field, despite having become better versed in economics. Additionally, Twitter seemed to be a better platform for when I wished to share observations. I still have strong opinions (weakly held) about day-to-day movement in the markets, but these days I rarely feel the need to make bold public pronouncements about global finance that are likely unfalsifiable and incomplete. As with actual finance, I’ll leave that to the professionals.

The cultural commentary in this blog is a demonstration of how not to do floral prose. I’m not proud of the double intensifiers, the obtuse vocabulary, or the overly complex syntactic structure. I’ve improved substantially on the first two points and the last is a work in progress. I’d say that I’ve tried to establish a more towards a colloquial voice, but the improvements have been mostly lexical and the project has failed to lessen my tendency for semantic acrobatics.

Looking Ahead

Most of what I think about the present state of politics in the United States and world affairs is publicly available on Twitter. If it ever becomes necessary, I’ll bundle my tweets into an archive. I don’t have much to say that I haven’t already said or plan to say in other forums, except for this: the American body politic is profoundly unwell and will continue to deteriorate until there is a political realignment along more coherent lines than are offered by the present constitutional and political configuration. I hope it happens soon, because the whiplash from eventual reconfiguration becomes more severe the longer we wait.

On a happier note, the last several years have been the most professionally and intellectually productive of my life. I look forward to improving on that level of output over the next several years. Since 2011, I learned how wrangle complexity, manage people, and address problems from first principles. I also became much more technical. While I’ve been writing code in the form of Bash scripts since 2006 and R programs since 2011, my skills didn’t really mature until I began to dive into computer science in 2013. The years that followed were marked by an intense focus on the fundamentals of computing, a field which I now consider to be an ancestor to mathematics itself. Besides realizing computing’s practical utility, I became fascinated by the beauty of algorithms as elegant cognitive machines by themselves; over time I’ve only gone deeper down the rabbit hole.

While I have always been blessed with an eye for structure, an intuitive grasp of complexity, and enough cognitive horsepower to apply the two together, rigor is not one of my natural talents. As I progressed from applying algorithms that predict human behavior to creating algorithms that predict human behavior, I developed an appreciation for discipline that has completely changed the way I think and work. Rigor requires a Sisyphean project of systems to separate discipline from willpower. I’ve made peace with the fact that this will be an area of my cognitive gestalt that will need work for the foreseeable future.

Over the next few years my primary area of focus will be software engineering in the context of a new professional vehicle, Ohlogen. Ohlogen is prononced “O(log n)” and is an applied computer science company that will tackle problems on the frontier of modern computing. In my view the most interesting projects involve engineering distributed systems across many nodes, generating insights from large heterogeneous datasets, and automating tasks that require sophisticated decisionmaking, and optimizing computational tasks at a very low level. These areas of practice are orthogonal, and I expect any project that Ohlogen takes on to involve a heavy dose of at least two of them. The economist and political scientist in me still has a passion for predicting human behavior, and I will continue to do some work in that space, particularly where it helps political causes that advance humanistic and neoliberal aims. The plan is to locate most of Ohlogen’s operations out of Chicago. I’ll discuss the company further in a more appropriate space.

Lastly

Whether out of a desire to accumulate data or a latent sense of totemism, I have great difficulty discarding bits of information. I’m not fond of everything here, but I’d rather it be archived than deleted. “Thinking Loudly” represents an instructive record of my intellectual progress. Thinking about what to do next requires an awareness of what was done before.

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