Siarah - Siarah

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?

“Wow…. People don’t like me? Oh, I have a bad attitude? Well cry me a river and DROWN in it!”

— INTJ (in a friendly intervention about their behavior)

in the slytherin common room

hello, i'm a representative of the omen darkly defense foundation and i'm here to inform you we will destroy you utterly and strike your name from the records for implying that the precious wholesome darkly child is less worthy than the two dangerous, self-obsessed psychotics that currently pass for main characters. set your affairs in order while you can fool

Well, I don´t really know which post this is about but I gotta admit that I find Omen´s parts extremely boring and annoying ... I would apologize but I´m really not sorry

Kenobi was luminous, a transparent being, a window onto a sunlit meadow of the Force.

Skywalker was a storm cloud, flickering with dangerous lightning, building the rotation that threatens a tornado.

——Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith, Matthew Stover

YES

I'm praying romantic Valdug never becomes canon. It would just be wrong on so many levels.

some thoughts on valdug

currently waiting on my mentor to arrive and frankly i hope she’s still alive but i figured i may as well start typing this out

this. might get long, but essentially it’s Why I Don’t Think Valduggery Would Be A Good And Healthy Romantic Relationship, But It Would Be Interesting To See It Explored

the basis of their relationship is about missing someone else

val and skul met for the first time (excluding when valkyrie was a baby) at gordon’s will reading - personally, i think they see one another as a replacement for gordon.

skulduggery lost one of his best friend’s to his worst enemies; it’s only natural that he’s going to cling to someone who reminds him of said friend. however, the fact that this was literally a twelve year old is a bit ://, but whatever.

valkyrie just lost her uncle, and in some ways, her mentor. i feel like, unconsciously, they both looked for someone to replace gordon, found one another. which is like. yeah. odd, but whatever.

i’m also 100% certain gordon and skulduggery were shagging. and the reason why this was never mentioned is because gordon’s family (fergus and beryl) are religious, and might not have appreciated gordon fucking a guy

and also, because introducing your dead boyfriend to your mortal family might not have been a great idea

valkyrie’s personality and many of her values have been influenced by skulduggery, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

once again, valkyrie was TWELVE when she met skulduggery for the first time. throughout her entire teenage life, she had him as a Main Adult Figure; like a parent or guardian to look up to.

she’s still going to see him, even now, as someone like that - she seemed to aspire to BE him, and i don’t doubt many of those habits are with her, even now, as an adult.

romantic valdug = them being friends, work partners and lovers. that’s a fucking lot.

essentially, with romantic relationships, you’re going to be around your partner a lot. shocking. but valkyrie and skulduggery work together, solely, for the most part. meaning that if they got together, they’d be around each other nearly constantly; which seems like a Lot. not necessarily a bad thing, no, but holy shit that’s not going to be great if they fall out over, like, laundry and have to work together on a murder.

skulduggery and valkyrie, mentally, are off the shits

neither of these two are mentally healthy in any way, shape or form. both of them are in/have been in borderline abusive relationships (see: abyssinia and vile, valkyrie being a little shit to militsa) and this sort of abuse could wildly escalate if they’re together. there’s a reason skulduggery has his reputation as a cold hearted, brutal murderer. this guy was so cold and angry he turned into lord vile. valkyrie isn’t in a good place, mentally, and skulduggery’s naturally manipulative relationship is not going to help with that at all.

if it doesn’t work out, then what?

this is more why i WOULD like to see it explored. it’s a relationship that might not work out well, have an unfair power balance, could go sideways so fast and explore things that ever should have been explored. its the exact opposite of valkyrie’s cutesy, wutesy relationship with militsa.

but if it doesn’t work out and they split up, that’s something that’s going to change them both and their opinions and views of one another forever. they’re not going to get over that one in a hurry.

and! some more personal reasons why i don’t like the idea of valduggery

bones aren’t hot, you guys are just weird

skulduggery is like one of those perfect, wattpad-esque, “what the writer would love to be in an ideal world” versions of landy. i feel like he’d treat valduggery like his and laura’s relationship, which grosses me out.

i refuse to support anything laura supports

m/f purely platonic relationships are so rare in fiction, i would genuinely love for this one to stay that way

bones still aren’t hot

i could not BEAR to find out if skulduggery has a fake dick

i had another good point here but i forgot it

OH YEAH the age gap thing being a normal part of magical society does weird me out personally, again mostly because of landy’s personal relationship. :/

stop shaming people for being passionate about the things that they love. stop mocking people for having unusual interests. like, honestly, i'm so tired of feeling embarrassed for being "too much". if being too much means having deep interests that fill my life with romanticism and excitement, then let me be!!! i'd much rather listen to anyone ranting about their latest obsession with 16th century swords than have a boring ordinary conversation with those who shame passionate people

Everybody keeps posting about how good SoW is and I´m just here waiting until my paperback copy finally arrives in two weeks :(

At least now I´m positively hyped to read it as opposed to just hoping Landy doesn´t kill or destroy my favs.

Doesn’t She Know (It’s the End of the World) (Skulduggery Pleasant)

Title: Doesn’t She Know (It’s the End of the World) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16936872 Platform: AO3 Creator: bubblemoon66 Work Type: Fanfiction Fandom: Skulduggery Pleasant Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Pairing: Valkyrie Cain/Skulduggery Pleasant Word count: 3717 Warnings: Major Character Death Number of comments: 8 Completion Status: Complete Short summary/description: 

According to the clock on the Bentley’s dashboard, it was 06:23. About 37 minutes before the world had been scheduled to end.

Skulduggery and Valkyrie are used to high stakes and heroic deeds done with minutes to spare. Together, they’ve saved the world a hundred times over. They were bound to slip up eventually.