Abyssina : I Treat My Body Like A Temple~

Headcanon

China thinks about the decisions of her past a lot. About how foolish, arrogant, selfish she was. And she wants to stop. She has, to an extent. She wants to be seen as caring, to let people in. But she can’t. Because at the end of the day, that is something she’s rarely done in her lifetime. It’s something she can’t control.

China Sorrows is scared. She always has been. And she’s worried she will die alone.

China: I do not “spew profanities.” I enunciate them clearly, like a fucking lady.

headcanon: dexter is left-handed

Ghastly: If Skulduggery knew I was helping you open a portal to the faceless ones’ dimension, he’d-

Valkyrie: I don’t care. He’d do it for me. Tell me he wouldn’t. If I were missing-

Ghastly: He’d burn the whole world down till he could dig you out of the ashes. I know. Hell, you think I don’t want to burn the whole world right now? I’m just trying to be a responsible adult.

Tanith: I just thought he needed to listen to common sense and reasonable discourse.

Kenspeckle: Please tell me those aren’t the names of your fists.

Tanith: My feet. I’m actually more of a kicker.

When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”

He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)

I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.

What is your objective?

Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.

I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.

I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.

Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.

Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.

How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?

Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.

Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?

Okay yeah, but picture this:

Valkyrie dying of old age many centuries from now and Skulduggery continuing on, dealing with her death.

Bonus: Skul consoling her on her last moments as she lies in her deathbed.

10. Dex in a tux at the requiem ball

11. talking about his cat Sabrina who showed her love by scratching him

because The Maleficant 7 and Armageddin Outa Here are also valid

Okay, listen up gang, what was your favorite Dexter Vex moment:

1. “Thanks Gladys!”

2. “Wilhelm, this is a private conversation!”

3. “Oh God I’m blushing, I’m actually blushing for you!” 

4. “They just want to hand me over which is actually pretty nice.”

5. the draugr / draugar explanation scene “They’re two different words.”

6. the t-shirt scene ya know

7. “the dead not-gender-specific persons??”

8. the cowboy dexter in the “apocalypse now” collection  

9. when they were about to jump down the hole in book 8 and skulduggery went: “first one at the bottom wins” and dexter was first to jump 

Please please please I know we all love Friends and Chandler was our favourite character and Matthew always put a smile on our faces and that’s all amazing but can we please please please talk about this:

“I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I'm still working through it personally, but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, 'Will you help me?' I will always say, 'Yes, I know how to do that. I will do that for you, even if I can't always do it for myself! So I do that, whenever I can. In groups, or one on one.

And I created the Perry House in Malibu, a sober-living facility for men. I also wrote my play The End of Longing, which is a personal message to the world, an exaggerated form of me as a drunk. I had something important to say to people like me, and to people who love people like me.

When I die, I know people will talk about Friends, Friends, Friends. And I'm glad of that, happy l've done some solid work as an actor, as well as given people multiple chances to make fun of my struggles on the world wide web...

but when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if Friends were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people.

I know it won't happen, but it would be nice.”

- Matthew Langford Perry

(August 19, 1969 - October 28, 2023)