#Having such a crisis of faith lately and this sort of restored my faith in myself and my faith in humanity

[mollymarymarie]

just wanted to tell you that reading DOH changed my life a bit!!! it helped me realize that I want to work in a job that will help children get out of bad situations!! I had such a hard time deciding what classes I should take for college, I didn't know what I wanted to be. but reading that fic and seeing how Remus and Dora and everyone just helped these kids??? omg. life changed moment.

I'm literally speechless over this!! First of all, thank you for reading it in the first place, and thank you for sending me this ask to let me know that my silly little love story made a difference in your life. I know it's just fanfic, it's just a story, it's just pretend, but this story, and all my stories, all mean something to me, so to hear that they mean something to someone else is ENORMOUSLY important to me.

Even more important to me that you felt like that story helped you come to an important decision AND THAT YOUR DECISION WAS TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE, especially those who need it most. I'm genuinely crying, just writing this out because you are so wonderful and I am so proud of you!!! Please keep me updated on this!

[farshores]

3, 7, 11, 15 and 18 for the Perdes twins?

My kids! Otero and Mei are gonna be highlighted via the respective colors you just saw on their names btw - going undercut because it gets a lil long! sorry for any weird wording/misspelling as well, it's late lol

What are their religious affiliations, and how does their worship (or lack thereof) affect their day-to-day life?

Otero's main god/deity/etc is Stendarr. He acknowledges the pantheons his 3 parents were raised on (Imperial & Yokudan), but Stendarr specifically is his patron god. Had a bit of a religious crisis during the events of VIGILANT, but came back to it more faithful - just in a less....Vigilant of Stendarr way

Mei isn't particularly religious? Whenever you hear her mutter a prayer or curse, it can be one regarding the Imperial, Yokudan, or Aldmeri pantheons, a daedric prince, or something Hist-related she picked up during her time at Black Marsh. She just kinda acknowledges them all - save for Talos. She has no issue saying he isn't a god. If she had to pick any all-powerful being she would acknowledge more often, it would probably be Sheo. Mostly because she keeps running into shenanigans related to him.

Do they regret journeying to Skyrim? Or, if they were born in Skyrim, do they wish they could leave?

Both were born in Skyrim!

Otero does end up going to Cyrodiil at the age of 13 - mainly to try and cure his lycanthropy (changing up the story between him and Tei a bit lol - Tei was, begrudgingly, supportive of this move). But events such as joining up with the Vigilants brought him back to Skyrim! Despite everything that happened - he'd rather stay until duty calls him away from his homeland.

Mei on the other hand, while she adored her family, was eager to leave. Partially due to just feeling disconnected from her heritage(s). Moving to Winterhold was a test for herself on how'd she do with long distance; later she began hopping between Summerset, Hammerfell, and Black Marsh in her adult years - trying to learn what she can in hopes to form some sort of connection.

If they are a magic user, what is their favorite school of magic? Do they have a natural talent for magic, or does it require diligence and study?

Mei is super obsessed with Conjuration - maybe worryingly so to those wary of necromancy. But she's not planning to be the next King of Worms! Promise! She just likes to - respectfully - study the way bodies work and function and often works with (volunteered, if she can ensure it) cadavers to make notes on; any reanimation is purely for science and/or seeing how it can function in a medical setting!

Magic came naturally to her, a jack of all trades of sorts, with the conjuration school being easier for her to channel through! She still studies where she can in regards to Restoration, Illusion, and Alteration though!

Otero prefers Restoration, though it's used more offensively due to his training as both a Vigilant and a member of the Dawnguard. Magic, however, did not come naturally to him! What he learned during his time as a vigilant took a lot of near-death experiences/questionable sparring matches - but now he has a pretty solid arsenal of Restoration spells! From healing others to using the power of the sun to burn up undead. Wouldn't want to go through that "training" again though.

How do they feel about consorting with daedra? Do they collect their artifacts? Are there some they would never interact with vs. some they would consider calling upon?

Mei doesn't actively seek them out but doesn't really go out of her way to stop folks who do either. Like I said earlier, she tends to have unexpected run-ins with Sheo. Nothing really amounts from it though. Mei has the following: the Wabbajack (found the hip bone by accident), Mehrunes' Razor (looted it off a bandits corpse), and Sanguine's Rose (she and Courron got shitfaced during finals at Winterhold. Neither of them would hear the end of it from their parent(s) ). All from showing up at the right place at the right time....or wrong time, wrong place - depending on how you look at it.

Otero used to be against it 100% but has been unlearning a lot of negative bias drilled into him by the VoS. He still doesn't actively seek them out - but understands that these princes are important to others. Unless it's Bal, you follow that guy & this Argonian/Akaviri mix is going to smite you on the spot.

He really only owns the Dawnbreaker - which he stole from one of Meridia's followers during a clash between them and the Vigilants. Used to have Molag Bal's mace, but it was only to transport it to one of the safehouses in Skyrim where VoS' dispose of or permanently lock up daedric artifacts.

What is their stance on taking a life? Do they kill without a second thought, in the name of a god or daedra, or do they adhere to pacifism?

Both are Tei's kids in which they do not give a second thought or a blink of an eye. Having a parent who is a leader of a group of assassins will do that to ya. Mei will definitely attempt pacifism at first but isn't really beat up about killing, mainly because for her it always comes down to self-defense. Otero on the other hand is completely desensitized due to, again, his training as a Vigilant. Some of the kills he did he felt some regret for, but still, he won't think twice if the situation doesn't call for it.

I guess the difference between these two is that Mei has more respect for life but knows when it has to end. Otero sees it as something that may have to be taken, sometimes often, for the sake of peace.

[arcticdementor]

I have a certain fondness for cyclical history, or at least the notion that there are some structural patterns that seem to recur in predictable waves throughout history – including ones that could explain our current period of upheaval.

Several observers of history have theorized broad 60-100 year secular “cycles” of historical disorder and reorder, such as William Strauss and Neil Howe’s generational theory and Peter Turchin’s “cliodynamic” forecast of an “age of discord” – both of which predicted a period of extended crisis around 2020 and now seem to pretty much be playing out exactly as prophesized.

…

This stuff is worth exploring more, and I aim to do so in the future. But first, I think it might be worth it for us to start by actually thinking bigger – much bigger. As in: what if we aren’t witnessing a period of change “unseen in a century,” but unseen in five centuries? And, what if we are engulfed not in a secular cycle, but in one more fundamentally religious in nature? That’s an important question to analyze, even if you aren’t religious.

In the last decade we’ve seen the emergence in the West of a strident new ideology of “Social Justice” which, despite its self-conceived secularism, many observers have now convincingly argued bears all the hallmarks of a new religious cult, complete with a new metaphysics of truth and reality, a concept of original sin, a new hierarchy of moral virtues, a self-constructed canonical liturgy and a strict orthodoxy, a de-facto priesthood, sacred spaces, self-abasing rituals, a community of believers, linguistic shibboleths, blasphemy laws, and excommunication – among other giveaways.

But, quite notably, this “New Faith” seems to have, consciously or unconsciously, modeled most of its belief system and ritual practices straight out of the Christian tradition, from an overarching preoccupation with the weak and the victimized, along with an emphasis on atonement (though any conception of grace, forgiveness, or redemption is notably absent), right down to specific forms of ritual, like the washing of feet or the symbolic reenactment of martyrdom.

This raises an interesting question: is what we are witnessing now less an entirely new faith than what in the past would have instead been immediately recognized and categorized as part of the long list of Christian heresies, large and small, which challenged the established church throughout history? Could we be living through, as I posited briefly in my introductory essay to The Upheaval, a religious revolution similar to the Reformation that wracked Europe beginning around 500 years ago?

A 500 Year Cycle

Enter the late Phyllis Tickle, an American academic and journalist following religious trends, and her 2008 book The Great Emergence, which essentially argued precisely that. Tickle’s book is frankly what I would have described as a work of pure kookery as recently as five years ago, but, well, times have changed.

The Great Emergence posits that Christianity has throughout its history been shaped by a recurring 500 year-long cycle of structural and spiritual dissolution, turmoil, and re-formation. Each time, the Church has seemingly been seized by a collective desire to cast off established institutional structures and beliefs. She identifies four past rotations of this cycle, coincidentally describing a “mighty upheaval” that has inevitably consumed the Christian world at every climax of this cycle before order was eventually restored.

…

Tickle describes an established religion as a sort of cable – not just a metaphorical “cable of meaning that keeps the human social unit connected to some purpose and/or power greater than itself,” but with the analogy of an actual cable.

Inside a steel cable are three interwoven strands, in this case representing spirituality (interior religious experience and belief), corporeality (the physical embodiment/evidence of a religious practice’s existence and practice, such as books, liturgy, or a priest’s robes), and morality (essentially applied spirituality, filtered through corporeality). On the outside of the cable is a waterproof casing that protects the interior. In our analogy, this is the religion’s story (the mythic and actual shared history that unites members). Finally, in between the casing and the strands is a pliable mesh sleeve that makes the cable more flexible and less brittle, and helps to absorb shocks. This is the common imagination or illusion of the religion’s believers about “how the world works” and is “to be imaged and thereby understood.” It serves as a general operating system for the group.

So constructed, said religious cable can rest underwater on the seabed of history for quite a long time unperturbed in its function. However, eventually the outer casing (the story) will become corroded, and the interior mesh (collective imagination) disrupted by events. At first this is fine, and the cable continues to hold, or is even repaired. That is until “that fateful time, about once every five hundred years, when the outer casing of the story and inner sleeve of the shared illusion take a blow simultaneously. When that happens, a hole is opened straight through to the braid. The water rushes in; and human nature being what human nature is, we reach our collective hand in through the hole and pull out the three strands one at a time. Spirituality first, corporeality second, and morality last. We pull each up, consider it from every possible angle, and at times finger it beyond all imagining.” (If you’re now thinking of the rapid growth of people in the 21st century that began claiming they’re “spiritual but not religious,” you are connecting the dots here).

…

Which brings us to a final interesting pattern that Tickle identifies in every cycle: the emergence of at least one “new form” of Christianity, but also simultaneously a process of “re-traditioning” by the original faith that has “occurred with each turn of the eras and is a substantial dynamic in the progression from upheaval to renewed stability.” In the case of the Reformation, the Church was “freed” to tackle errors and corruptions, and to make significant institutional reforms (in the Fifth Lateran Council, the Councils of Trent, etc.) during a period of counter-reformation that would eventually produce a less decadent and more unified, clarified, and vibrant Catholic Church.

…

What happened in sum, in Tickle’s telling, is that “sola scriptura, scriptura sola,” which “had answered the authority question in the sixteenth century and, more or less, had sustained the centuries between the Great Reformation” and the modern day, was mortally wounded. In largely Protestant America, this had big consequences (and meanwhile the Catholic Church was facing similar pressures). Any agreement on the three strands of the cable – what it means to be “spiritual”; what the corporeality of the church should looks like, or if it should even exist; and eventually what it means to be a moral person – was now gone.

The result, she says, has been the emergence of a new faith structure.

The very first manifestation of this, Tickle argues, dates back to the birth and explosive growth in America of Pentecostalism, a form of “charismatic” Protestantism that emphasizes a radically egalitarian, direct and personal relationship with God sufficient to produce the famed “speaking in tongues” common in Pentecostal worship. Pentecostalism “by definition assumes direct contact of the believer with God and, by extension, the direct agency of the Holy Spirit as instructor and counselor and commander as well as comforter.” As such, “Pentecostalism assumes that ultimate authority is experiential rather than canonical… Pentecostalism, in other words offered the Great Emergence its first, solid, applied answer to the question of where now is our authority.”

Today, however, even Pentecostalism is beginning to break down – along with evangelicalism and pretty much every other denomination – and see its followers assimilated into something new: the “Emergent Church.” But what exactly is that?

…

And the “Emergents,” it turns out, “are postmodern.” Despite all that rationalist science from earlier, the takeaway from the collapse of authority has been “that logic is not worth nearly so much as the last five hundred years would have had us believe. It is, therefore, not to be trusted as an absolute, nor are its conclusions to be taken as truth just because they depend from logical thinking.”

…

But who ultimately determines the narrative in this ultra-democratic faith? Tickle taps into network theory to answer: crowd sourcing. The group will manifest its own values and own authority. This “differs [from the past] in that it employs total egalitarianism, a respect for worth of the hoi polloi that even pure democracy never had, and a complete indifference to capitalism as a virtue or to individualism as a godly circumstance.”

Is any of this beginning to sound somewhat worrying to you? Well don’t worry, says Tickle – and it is worth pausing here to note that Tickle is an enthusiastic self-described Emergent who thinks this is all great news – the coalescing Emergent Church will settle on new answers to authority, spirituality, morality, and practice, and find its footing as the new dominant Christianity.  Meanwhile the reactionaries left in the corners will undergo a process of re-traditioning and come out the better for it in the end. And they can take heart that “every time the incrustations of an overly established Christianity have been broken open, the faith has spread – and been spread – dramatically into new geographic and demographic areas, thereby increasing exponentially the range and depth of Christianity’s reach as a result of its time of unease and distress.”

And with the new egalitarian faith tradition so deeply in touch with our common humanity, all the bloodshed and general unpleasantness experienced during every past historical case of “emergence” will presumably be avoided (Tickle seems to forget about that part in her excitement). Then everyone will live happily ever after – or at least for another 500 years.

That was Tickle’s conclusion anyway. But she published The Great Emergence in 2008 and died in 2015, so she didn’t live to see what’s actually happened.

The Actual Great Emergence

Tickle wrote her book too soon. Liberal, vibrating, Eastern-inspired hippies no longer, her “Emergent Church” seems to have taken a turn in the last decade that she didn’t see coming, transforming into a rather different beast.

Here’s what I think may have happened. Tickle got a lot of things very right: the cable of institutional Christianity was corroded by science and cultural entropy; sola scriptura, scriptura sola did break down, and the faith did enter a crisis centered on the question “where now is authority?” A new Christianity did began to emerge, just as she described.

In fact the trends toward the collapse of establishment Christianity were perhaps even more powerful than she may have predicted. A recent Gallup poll found that less than 50% of American’s are now official members of a church or other religious organization, down from over 60% in 2008.

…

But – and this is my theory – in the end Tickle’s version of Emergent Christianity proved a weak social construct. It existed to gratify its adherents with the belief that they were still morally good members of a religious tradition, whose primary goal was to provide for their happiness, while liberating them from any higher authority beyond themselves and freeing them from any of the responsibilities or strictures that had once characterized that religion.

In other words, Emergent Christianity was mostly Moralistic Therapeutic Deism all along.

Ultimately, this fragile early-stage Emergent Church didn’t resolve the crisis because it didn’t have any real authority, meaningful substance, or unifying purpose.

Meanwhile, many of the seeds planted within Emergent Christianity that Tickle mentioned were still finishing germinating, namely: post-modernism, narrative-driven reality, direct personal relationship with and self-interpretation of divinity, opposition to hierarchy, and crowd-sourced authority.

But, most important of all was I think something Tickle doesn’t really touch on too much: the modernity-driven suspicion, deep within the hearts even of many Christians, that in fact, as Nietzsche infamously put it, “God is dead.” Increasingly skeptical about the existence of any kingdom of God in heaven, they were primed for a logical alternative: building the kingdom of heaven on earth instead.

The stage was thus set for The Great Merger.  

At some point the Emergent Church came face-to-face with secular, identity-based “Social Justice” activism – likely in the 2010s, when core theoretical ideas behind that movement, based on post-modern Critical Theory and neo-Marxist frameworks of identitarian struggle, first really began to seep out of the academy and crystalize into effective activist movements, such as Black Lives Matter or the trans rights movement, in a big way.

Both sides liked what they saw, but for the Emergent Church in particular this was a match made in narrative heaven. Secular Social Justice activism dovetailed perfectly with both the strong historical emphasis on social justice work within many Christian denominations (including the Social Gospel movement) and the post-modern seeds already present in Emergent Christianity (such as the primacy of self-interpreted identity). But more importantly it offered Emergents nearly everything they had been missing and longing for. Suddenly they had a new source of authority (the doctrines of Critical Theory and the hierarchy of intersectional identity), a clear metaphysics of good and evil (the oppressed and their oppressors), an ultimate objective (to perfect the world by the elimination of evil), and a grand narrative of how to live in the world.

George Orwell famously wrote in his 1940 review of Mein Kampf that: “Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.” Well, the Emergent Church offered its restless followers comfort and a good time on earth; neo-Marxist Social Justice offered them revolutionary struggle, and so they prostrated themselves immediately.

…

That’s not the end of the story though, as I think Emergent Christianity may have had more influence on the secular activist movement than the latter tends to consider. In fact I think it might have been quite important to the rapid emergence and spread of the New Faith.

To start with, it provided the concept of sin. This helped grow and empower the activist movement tremendously. Why? One might not think of free-wheeling secular culture embracing the idea of sin so easily, even joyfully, but it was a simple matter. As an example, picture a hypothetical middle-class suburban white lady, enjoying a relatively comfortable material life but wracked by a vague but unshakable sense of guilt about her existence – for being white in a country with a history often unkind to non-whites; for her consumption habits contributing to environmental pollution and climate change; for being the citizen of a rich country while elsewhere in the world children starve, and so on. Liberalism has never addressed this feeling in a satisfactory way. Suddenly, along comes the New Faith, and tells her that it’s all true: she is indeed a sinner, and she’s not alone! In fact the whole country and her whole race is corrupted by the original sins of colonialism, slavery, and genocide. What a relief! Even better, it has a comprehensive plan of action for how to address this sin.

This helped reorient Social Justice from the purely systemic to the personal. Neo-Marxist roots mean that the modern Social Justice movement tends to think primarily in terms of systems, and aims to drive systemic change to address systemic problems, like “systemic racism.”  Broadly speaking, this is still the case, but the problem is that this is both a hard goal and a cold, impersonal one. It’s not very inspiring to tell people their individual agency is of little import to the machine and that the only way to affect progress is to change the whole machine. Activism seems like pretty desperate business in that case. The concept of sin, however, provides a short circuit to this problem: it implies that progress can be made through a sort of personal moral transformation (say by acknowledging one’s privilege and “unconscious bias” and moving from “racist” to “anti-racist”) which anyone can achieve if they “educate” themselves and “do the work.” Liberalism has studiously avoided telling our secular white lady how she should live in the world, so this kind of moral direction provides the relief of having a distinct path. Moreover, if everyone was to accept this path all the problems of the world would be immediately be solved, so convincing (or forcing) more people to accept the Good News and begin their personal transformation becomes an imperative mission.

…

Finally, it provides an even greater sense of community to the faithful, helping to overcome the atomizing isolation and loneliness of liquid modernity. This is a somewhat odd community though. Just as Tickle predicted, communications technology has made it simultaneously vast and hyper-democratic. You might question whether the strict orthodoxy and blasphemy codes of the New Faith, to which one must submit or be canceled, are democratic, but that is only because you have forgotten your Plato and Aristotle, either of whom could have warned you what tends to happen to pure democracies. As Aristotle put it in his Politics:

[T]here demagogues spring up. For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and there many have the power in their hand, not as individuals, but collectively… At all events this sort of democracy, which is now a monarchy, and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot.

If you ever wonder why something you said that was fine 72 hours ago is now an unredeemably racist, sexist, excommunicable offense, it’s because the disembodied Swarm Pope, who leads the People’s Democratic Priesthood of All Believers, crowd-sourced it from the swirling Id of the mob on Twitter while you weren’t looking.

…

The problem is that, even if the 500 year cycle that Tickle describes is genuine, it isn’t clear in each case what is cause and what is effect. As Tickle acknowledges at one point in her book, “over and over again,” the “religious enthusiasms” of each period of cyclical emergence “are unfailingly symptomatic or expressive of concomitant political, economic, and social upheavals.” So was the Reformation the cause of Europe’s 16th century turmoil, or just one important manifestation of a broader secular dynamic driving general upheaval? If the “great emergence” was not the cause, then what was? Tickle doesn’t attempt an answer to that, so our inquiry is back near square one.

However, I do have a suspicion that the question Tickle identifies as at the core of recurring crises in established Christianity – “where now is authority?” – is key. It may be that the seeming collapse of any firm locus of authority in almost every aspect of life today – politics, geopolitics, elites in general, religion, morality in general, asset pricing, economics in general, media, information in general, etc. – is central to our whole broader upheaval in the world today.

[pinelife3]

What’s this Pizzagate in the heart of nature?

The big tech story in Australia last month was Facebook’s decision to restrict people and organisations in Australia from sharing or viewing news content on Facebook. This was in response to the Morrison government’s proposed Media Bargaining legislation which is basically a Murdoch-serving law to try to get tech companies to pay media organisations for news content hosted/linked/displayed on their sites and, most galling of all, share details of their algorithms with Australian media orgs. The idea that Facebook would have to notify NewsCorp every time they want to tweak their algorithm is patently insane. So I admire Facebook’s petty, dramatic manoeuvre: “if the way we share news on the site is such a problem then fine, no more news for you”. After all the fuss, the Australian government agreed to amend the Media Bargaining legislation - evidently with terms more agreeable to Facebook, meaning news has been restored to Facebook down under. 

One of the key responses I saw expressed in relation to Facebook’s initial news eradication was concern that disinformation would be able to spread more easily on the site - and that people wouldn’t be able to rebut disinformation with factual news articles.

So far as I can tell, the proliferation of disinformation online wouldn’t matter if people didn’t believe it. And most especially, if people didn’t want to believe it. After all, the web is full of persuasive writing and people who want to convince you of things - for whatever reason, conspiracy theories just seem to be very alluring. So rather than trying to protect people from their own stupidity by hiding disinformation... maybe we could look at why people are so credulous in the first place. Deep state? Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams? CIA Contra cocaine trafficking? The great replacement? Pizzagate? 

I’m going to class conspiracy theorists into three categories of my own making:

I believe: well meaning, uninformed people who have been fooled or duped. The fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield which started the vaccines cause autism conspiracy was actually written to support a class action lawsuit. Wakefield knew the results in his paper were not true: in addition to his conflicts of interest, he had falsified data. The paper was eventually debunked and retracted but the conspiracy had its roots and has continued to grow. I think a lot of the people who believe that vaccines are dangerous are parents who are just worried about their kids - and also want to protect other kids from a threat they believe to be real. Why is one debunked article more persuasive to people than a million proving the efficacy of vaccines? It is literally beyond reason.

It suits me to believe: people motivated by self-interest who adopt a conspiracy theory to support their larger world view. Their self-interest could be anything from their own ego to gun rights. The conspiracies around the Sandy Hook Primary School shooting are interesting because you can see a clear motivation for people to subscribe to that theory rather than the truth. If you’re a keen gun-owner, arguining that the shooting was a hoax to generate anti-gun sentiment and thereby allow the Democrats to pass harsher gun restrictions is neat and comforting. No one could argue that the events of Sandy Hook weren’t inhumanly terrible  - so the only option is to argue that they didn’t happen at all. Plus, in this worldview, no kids are getting hurt so you can sleep easy knowing you have seven semi-automatic weapons in the house.

I need to believe: the world is disorganised, scary, unknowable. Ocean deep, sky vast, dark impenetrable - and meanwhile our skin is so thin and delicate. So. Wouldn’t it be comforting to think that there’s a race of reptilian overlords that control the planet by whipping their tails against a complicated system of levers and pullies? That would explain a lot of the chaos in our world. Or maybe the problem is an elite coterie of Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles? If only we could defeat those accursed pedophiles then life would be peaceful. Luckily, Q and a septuagenarian reality TV host are here to save us. 

Across these categories, there are two unifying features: 

Rejection of widely accepted truth 

Investment in the conspiracy

As a comparison with the conspiracists above, here’s my take on a conspiracy: I think it’s quite probable that Epstein didn’t kill himself. I think that some powerful, shadowy entity took him out to protect itself. But I’m not obsessed by this idea. It would not surprise or upset me if this was officially confirmed - similarly crazy shit happens all the time. I haven’t devoted my life to revealing this truth. I guess I fit into the “I Believe” category: all official information says that Epstein took his own life but my scepticism of the unusual circumstances around his death and Epstein’s powerful connections leads me to doubt the official information. The difference is I don’t do anything about it. I don’t really care if I’m right or not - I’m not that invested in the conspiracy.

And that’s why it seems ludicrous to me that Facebook should be tasked with combatting the conspiracy theories spiralling across our culture. Simply being exposed to bad information does not radicalise you, does not conjure an investment in the conspiracy. If a normal person reads something creatively wrong or misleading they discard it from their mind. If it hits a chord with them, they may adopt that opinion themselves - see: astrology, Armie Hammer as cannibal, tarot cards, essential oils as serious medical treatment, etc. But the evolution from agreeing with a thought to militaristically insisting that the rest of society also agree with it is an abnormal progression. That strange impulse runs deeper in people than their Facebook timeline.

Most people have fears for the planet or believe there are major issues plaguing humanity - and we never do anything about it because it would be mildly inconvenient or because it’s too hard to care about every issue under late capitalism: 

"But sorting my recycling is boring”

“Yeah yeah fast fashion is problematic but H&M is just so affordable" 

"Of course I hate R.Kelly! But ‘Ignition (Remix)’ is my jam” 

“At least they have suicide nets in the Foxconn factories now”

“I only buy free range chicken thighs because I care about animal welfare”

“I retweeted that thing about anti-Black racism. Yay racism solved!”

There are probably lots of people who believe in conspiracy theories but are ultimately apathetic about doing anything: they can’t be bothered talking about vaccines and politics all the time, can’t be bothered going to a protest, can’t summon the interest to care much. So what’s interesting then is that across the three categories of conspiracy theory belief (I believe > It suits me to believe > I need to believe), what a person believes in, and perhaps even the reason for the belief, doesn’t create any impetus to enact real world change. On both the left and the right, the impulse to do something about an issue is rare. Do you think conspiracy theorists, like the left, have a problem with performative activism? 

Imagine that you agree that Sandy Hook was a false flag, that ‘they’ hired crisis actors to publicly grieve as if their pretend children had been murdered... do you then get in your car and drive overnight to Sandy Hook and start harassing those crisis actors at the pretend funerals? What do you call someone like that? The hero of their own story.

Just wait!

In their worldview, QAnon are unironically trying to save us from pedophile cannibals. Given what conspiracists believe to be true, they are acting in good faith and doing the right thing. If you believed this shit, you’d be upset too. The fact that they’re doing something about it is kind of admirable: they don’t want our babies to get autism from the measles vaccine, they don’t want a deep state to manipulate our democratic governments. It’s existential for all of us - we just don’t agree on the threat. 

Can you imagine how electric the riot at the Capitol Building must have felt for the people who led it. Brave, romantic, a grand gesture: it was like their Storming of Tuileries. Remember this day forever! 

Modern conspiracists are actually similar to the sans-culottes in terms of being avid consumers of propaganda and inflammatory reporting. Disinformation and stirring rhetoric are not new - but shouldn’t people today be less clueless than 18th century peasants?

Why are there are so many people who believe things which are untrue? They exist on this planet with us but interpret it so differently. These questions really are existential: an ancient, echoing maw pointing to the heart of human nature. The struggle for a more perfect world, whispers about where the danger comes from at night, arguments about how to protect ourselves. 

Has there ever been a society where people didn’t have differing views on how best to shape the world? It’s the central conflict of human existence: epic, older than language - and now we want Facebook to fix it?

[dalekofchaos]

What if Qui-Gon Jinn lived and trained Anakin?

Much like my what if Mace trained Anakin post, I will be doing it for if Qui-Gon trained Anakin.

First of all, let’s say Qui-Gon did not allow Maul to bump him with the hilt of his lightsaber. Qui-Gon successfully manages to cut Maul in two much like Obi-Wan did on Rebels.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan rejoice as the Sith Lord has been vanquished. Qui-Gon knows this isn’t over as the master is still out there.

Obi-Wan will be knighted and Qui-Gon will be allowed to train Anakin despite the Council’s warning.(fuck Yoda tbh)

It's obviously speculation, but I'm going to say that Qui-Gon would have managed to keep Anakin from falling to the Dark Side.

Anakin's core problem was that he wasn't a good fit for the Jedi Code. Anakin was a very passionate person, and he wasn't able to suppress his emotions and remain detached. Despite the teachings of Orthodox Jedi doctrine, it's not true that all emotion leads to the Dark Side - positive emotions such as love and joy belong to the Light. If Anakin could have been taught to sublimate his emotions rather than suppress them, he would have been able to handle his anger and anxieties issue much better. Moreover, if he hadn't felt like he needed to hide his marriage to Padme, he would have been able to go to the other Jedi with his concerns, rather than to Palpatine.

Unfortunately, the prequel-era Jedi Order had become rigid, dogmatic, and arrogant. They were absolutely certain that their way to the Light was the only way, and they kept try to force Anakin to follow a path that he just wasn't suited for. It took twenty years and two civil wars before Anakin was finally able to follow his passions to the Light.

Qui-Gon was known as a maverick Jedi, and I always got the impression that if anyone in the Order could have taught Anakin how to handle his emotions, it was him. Qui-Gon was very much a pragmatic, in-the-moment sort of person, who wouldn't let detachment blind him to the realities in front of him, and the reality was that Anakin simply couldn't do it the Jedi way.

Regarding Anakin’s training. I believe Qui-Gon is the only one who could have saved Anakin from the dark side.

Qui-Gon Jinn was notoriously known as a maverick Jedi. His own master, Count Dooku, was also known to buck commonplace trends of the Jedi Order. Jinn frequently challenged the status quo of the Jedi High Council and was a consummate student of the Living Force.

He did not subscribe to all of the notions within the Jedi Code and sought to find his own answers instead of merely accepting what he was given by his High Council masters.

It was his challenging mindset that ultimately precluded Qui-Gon from becoming a member of the High Council and considering how things eventually developed for the Jedi, being totally decimated by one of their very own, perhaps Qui-Gon Jinn’s ”outside-of-the-box” way of thinking could have prevented that devastation.

In the comic Star Wars: Age of Republic:Qui-Gon Jinn, it showed that Qui-Gon placed his faith in the force over that in the council. The Jedi Master's doubts and true intentions are finally explained. Qui-Gon didn't fail to notice the Dark Side boiling up inside of Anakin Skywalker: he believed that darkness was exactly what was needed to bring balance to The Force. Showing once and for all that Anakin could have brought peace to the galaxy... if Qui-Gon Jinn had trained him. But for all their talk of "balance" the Jedi Order of the Star Wars movies had grown rigid in their prejudice. And in the pages of Star Wars: Age of Republic: Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi's crisis of faith long before The Phantom Menace is finally shown. Not to overstate it, but Qui-Gon seems to realize what no other member of the Jedi Council is noticing: that they have lost their vision. And to get his back, he leaps blindly into hyperspace with only The Force to guide him, and accepts the lesson it has to teach him. On an alien world teaming with both life and deadly, "dark" growth, Qui-Gon communes with The Force. Sensing both the life-giving Force and the darkness to balance it, he awakens from his vision to see that the darkness has been driven back. Light triumphed over it, returning true "balance, but through a means beyond conflict." The lesson sticks, and Qui-Gon returns to the Order keeping this knowledge to himself. The Jedi believe the Dark Side to be resisted by any means necessary... but only in the face of darkness can light restore the balance. A principle that clearly occupies Qui-Gon's mind when discovering a small slave boy on a planet called Tatooine. The lesson taught by The Force was clear, so when he, of all possible Jedi, happened across a boy conceivably born of The Force itself, Qui-Gon knew it was no accident. As he tells the Jedi Council in Episode 1, "It was the will of The Force, if that I have no doubt."

Qui-Gon and The Council believe in two different things when it came to “Bring balance to the force”. For the Council, it means The Force has produced a champion to vanquish the darkness, leaving only the light. While Qui-Gon's encounter with The Force has shown "balance" to be the acceptance of darkness, so that light might overcome it. The Council senses the potential for the Dark Side in Anakin, and views it as a threat. Qui-Gon would have sensed the same, but understand Anakin's potential for darkness was the entire point of The Force's lesson (and by extension, the prophecy).

Qui-Gon saw the problem with the Jedi. They stopped serving the force and only served the will of The Republic. Qui-Gon expresses that very concern to Master Yoda (who, despite his wisdom, fails to consider it). After a rescued dignitary wonders why Qui-Gon didn't let his blade do the talking, he realizes just how far the Jedi Order has strayed from their intended mission. Qui-Gon argues that "our actions are a reflection of our purpose." That years spent enforcing have made the Jedi think like enforcers, until even Yoda can not see the danger Qui-Gon does before them: that "violence sows the seeds of the Dark Side. Unchecked, the Jedi could become that which we fight against." Stay blind to this reality too long and it would be possible for the Jedi to, say, march into the office of the democratically appointed head of the Republic to kill him in the name of defeating darkness - giving even a good man reason to think that from his point of view, "it is the Jedi who are lost."

The comic makes it clear that Qui-Gon kept his newfound understanding of The Force and the Dark Side to himself, raising the fact that the Jedi must remain more flexible and open to changing beliefs than their ancient enemies, the Sith. But after meeting resistance from his own Jedi Master, concluding the chat by conceding to Yoda's (Sith-like) absolutes concerning the Dark Side. Just in case anyone needed a bit more proof that Qui-Gon Jinn was the only Jedi who could possibly have understood how to train and educate Anakin in the truth of his power. And, let's not forget, fulfill his destiny as the One to restore balance to the galaxy "through a means beyond conflict."  At least, that's assuming The Force really did create him, imbue him with both light and darkness, and drop him into the lap of the one Jedi Master who could help him truly restore balance, knowing his darkness was to be understood, not branded as bad, wrong, flawed, and to be ignored until it consumed him. Now the only question to consider is how much Darth Sidious may have sensed the will of The Force himself, sending his apprentice Darth Maul to kill Qui-Gon before he could serve his purpose. The death of Qui-Gon Jinn was always heartbreaking for fans, but will be doubly tragic, now that Star Wars fans know The Forces hopes for Anakin Skywalker died along with him.

If Qui-Gon had lived to train Anakin himself, that lesson would almost certainly have proven true. Because by that point, even Qui-Gon had come to realize what Anakin eventually would: that the Jedi had lost their way.

Let’s talk about the Legend of Qui-Gon Jinn. I’ll hit some key points, but you should read his Wookiepedia page sometime. He’s one of the characters that’s filled out more in the Legends material than the movie itself, so there’s quite a few points you might not be aware of:

Apprentice of Dooku, great swordsman, and holdout believer in the philosophy of the Living Force

One of those unfortunate Jedi Masters, along with Mace Windu, who has trained a Padawan that lost it and went Dark

Recognized and reputed for his abilities to teach and train

Trained two Jedi, including one that was arguably too old to be a Padawan anymore (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

Loved another Jedi—A blind Noorian by the name of Tahl who was Head Archivist—but they agreed to decline acting on it despite mutual feelings

Suffered from visions of Tahl’s potential death, just before she goes on a mission and disappears for 3 weeks…

Eventually gets sent after her, finds her captive, and witnesses her death…narrowly too late to save her.

Slips into depression, then almost loses it in rage and desire for revenge…

Sensing a pattern yet? Qui-Gon is just about the only Jedi in the universe that could hear EVERYTHING Anakin went through and honestly say “I understand, and I know how you feel”

Whereas most of the Jedi just tell Anakin his life will be better if he lets go, Qui-Gon would have concrete advice for him and could sympathetically say he’s been through the same situations. They would have bonded over Anakin’s worst emotional moments. They could have had honest conversations about how nebulous those feelings were. Qui-Gon could help the younger boy sort those feelings out and get to the core values behind them. And he’d have been able to help Anakin make the right choices while he was calm, rather than having the wrong choices leak out of him under stress.

He might have also warned Anakin about the possibility of dreams being self-fulfilling prophecies… but also Qui-Gon would’ve given Anakin the idea that doing something about it (other than letting go) is a valid option. When Ahsoka was troubled by the possibility to losing someone close to hear, Yoda tells her meditate on it. with Anakin, it’s all about the dark side. Qui-Gon would’ve heard him out and who knows, Qui-Gon and Anakin would’ve saved Shmi together if Anakin had Qui-Gon to confide in.

Beyond that, I think learning the Living Force would have been important for Anakin, because his natural personality fit its tenants better than the Unifying Force view of the other Jedi:

All living things are connected, and we should be mindful of how we impact one another

“Mom, you said that the biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other.” — Anakin, in The Phantom Menace

“Why do I have the sense that we’ve picked up another pathetic life form?” — Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, clearly not thinking like his Master or Anakin does

Qui-Gon is noted in the Legends as constantly annoying people — including his Master Dooku as a Padawan—with his convictions about saving other living creatures from bad situations. So Obi-Wan’s comment wasn’t just referencing Jar-Jar…

Live in the moment, rather than focusing on the future. Be mindful of the future and consequences, but remain focused on the present.

Anakin often worried about the future too much, particularly with his dreams. Even having someone there that could urge him to think about what he could do now, might have helped him calm down.

Rely on your instincts

Skywalker was always instinctive, and it shows in how he pilots. He can learn the controls to almost anything in 5 minutes tops, and he can intuit what’s wrong or off about a machine and adjust for it. Likewise, he’s the same in physical combat — an instinctive natural with a blade. Anytime he stops thinking and just goes, he’s good…

Obi-Wan often tried to get Anakin to avoid acting on his instincts and follow a plan. He called on Anakin to think coherently, and to focus on strategy…Anakin never really took to it very well, and frequently charged in, falling back on instinct when he was stressed.

Qui-Gon would instead have tried to get Anakin to hone his instincts. Double down on your ability to use your senses and listen to them…learn to assess the situation in front of you fully, so that you don’t miss details. Then, be the best YOU can be, and stop worrying about everything else.

Qui-Gon was a Jedi experienced with a Padawan going astray, so he would no doubt have been sober and measured in his approach to training Anakin. But, he lived his life with compassion as a major tenet, so he would have done everything in his power to hear the boy out and not have him feel alone. He also is unafraid to disagree with the Council, so he’d stand up for the boy when he thought the approach they wanted to take was not a good one. Qui-Gon would have been a great influence on Anakin, leading him to believe that you can both disagree with the Council AND still have respect for them.

That, and Anakin’s trust in him, lead me to think he might have confided in QG about some things that he instead took to Palpatine. Can you imagine how differently things go if Anakin talks to Qui-Gon about Padme? In my mind, I see a big scene after Attack of the Clones, where Qui-Gon helps Anakin sort through his needs and wants, and perhaps urges him to leave the Jedi Order and go have his family.

What exactly does Anakin need to be a Jedi for at that point? Go be Lost Jedi #21, and live a happy life. Or, if you still want to fight, take a moment and decide what’s the best path forward for your family. One honest conversation here might have helped Anakin come to some convictions, rather than spinning in a confusing downward spiral later on. He would have felt much less cornered and confused in most of his situations, had he had a father figure in his corner that understood the way he thought and felt about things.

Also, having a few more Living Force thinkers might have helped them realize that the only person who really had anything to gain from both the Naboo Invasion and the Clone Wars WAS Palpatine…he could have garnered much more suspicion early on. Qui-Gon might have noticed how much the Jedi Order was shifting in the midst of the war, and would have actively fought to bring that to people’s attention and urge the Council to do something about it in a productive way.

Look at how much Qui-Gon’s existence messed up Palpatine’s plans in The Phantom Menace. I am firmly convinced that Qui-Gon’s continued existence would have been a major threat to the rest of Palpatine’s plans. He knew how the other Jedi thought. He apparently didn’t have the same read on the sort of tactics Qui-Gon used. Chances are, Palpatine would have to orchestrate a situation to specifically take him out of the picture, or watch large swaths of his plan get foiled.

Now since we take this all into account, let’s go into what would change in canon

Qui-Gon would train Anakin in the Lightsaber Form IV Ataru and Anakin would master it beautifully

Anakin and Obi-Wan would become friends throughout Anakin’s training. 

Qui-Gon and Anakin would’ve saved Shmi from the Tusken Raiders as Qui-Gon would’ve wanted to enact on Anakin’s visions, The Council be damned

Qui-Gon would have complete faith in Anakin protecting Padme, while Qui-Gon would seek the aid of Obi-Wan in investigating Kamino

Qui-Gon would confront his old master, Dooku

As they reach Geonosis, I do believe Qui-Gon would send Obi-Wan back to contact Anakin and The Council about his and Qui-Gon’s findings

Qui-Gon would be captured in Obi-Wan’s place

Qui-Gon would be confronted of his old master, Dooku. He is in disbelief that his master turned to the dark side and tried to have Padme assassinated. He rejects his offer of joining him and the Separatists.

Because of Qui-Gon’s training, Anakin is more calm and less headstrong. Together they would take Dooku. Dooku knows the fight will turn in the Jedi’s favor, so he attacks Anakin’s weak points and uses that against Qui-Gon. So then we have Dooku and Yoda’s fight which remains the same.

As The Clone Wars rages on, Ahsoka would become Obi-Wan’s apprentice

Anakin and Ahsoka would be close friends

Qui-Gon would be trying to stop the war, he would be much like the Padme of the Jedi Order

Qui-Gon would be spending the majority of The Clone Wars to getting to the bottom of the source of The Clone Wars, while helping Anakin

Qui-Gon and Padme are pretty much Palpatine’s biggest thorns in his side, they are fucking his plans up left and right. 

With Qui-Gon by his side, Anakin would not lose his cool against Clovis

Both Qui-Gon and Anakin would believe Ahsoka, when Obi-Wan and the Council have abandoned her

What happened to Ahsoka and Barris betrayal showed Qui-Gon that this war has gone too far and the Jedi have betrayed themselves. He goes to Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme. With the truth. Palpatine is Darth SIdious, the very man behind everything. He tells them all we must expose him in front of the Senate and “Execute Order 65″ while on Kamino, Qui-Gon learned all there is to know of the contingency orders. And knows this is the only way to bring the Sith down. "In the event of either (i) a majority in the Senate declaring the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) to be unfit to issue orders, or (ii) the Security Council declaring him or her to be unfit to issue orders, and an authenticated order being received by the GAR, commanders shall be authorized to detain the Supreme Commander, with lethal force if necessary, and command of the GAR shall fall to the acting Chancellor until a successor is appointed or alternative authority identified as outlined in Section 6 (iv)."

By ROTS, Anakin and Qui-Gon would faced with Dooku, while Obi-Wan goes to find Grievous. As Anakin cuts his hands off, Qui-Gon wakes up and thanks to his teachings, Anakin would not execute Dooku. Anakin does not see the value of executing the leader of the Separatists and the information he could tell. Qui-Gon would tell how proud he is of his padawan. 

Obi-Wan would’ve killed Grievous on the Invisible Hand. 

At this point Palpatine is shaking in his boots. Qui-Gon Jinn is still alive and dangerously close to exposing the truth. General Grievous is dead. Dooku is held captive. 

This is the plan of Qui-Gon Jinn. Expose Palpatine to the public. He knows the Jedi confronting him directly would be turned against them, the Jedi would be on high alert and be watching for any type of assassin or bounty hunter. Dooku tells the truth to all. Dooku declares “my lord, you have lost” “no, no no YOU HAVE LOST” Palpatine states before executing Dooku with force lightning. Anakin, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Mace rush to face Palpatine. As they face the Sith Lord, Padme broadcasts this to every Clone. “Execute Order 65.” Every Clone Trooper would be ordered to arrest or kill Palpatine. Any clone who dares to approach Palpatine is disintegrated by Palpatine’s Force Lightning. In the end it is Anakin and Rex who kill the Sith Lord. The war is over. Balance has been brought to the force and the Empire is over before it can begin

The Council is reformed. They finally see their ways have blinded them and embrace Qui-Gon and Anakin’s way of thinking. They see the value of attachments and admit they were wrong about Anakin

Qui-Gon is at peace knowing he helped train the chosen one and brought balance to the force. Anakin is allowed to have a family and be granted the rank of master. He lives in bliss knowing his visions never came to pass. Luke and Leia are born. The Clone army have disbanded and are allowed a life beyond duty. Padme has become Chancellor of the Republic and will usher in an era of peace and freedom for the Galaxy.  

[halfemptygirlrps-archive]

Feelings about the most recent episode of Siren and the SS Polymarine update:

So I am late on this but I had a lot of feelings to articulate and sort through. These posts are not important to anyone but me but they make me feel good so I will keep making them.

Maddie. 

SIGH. I know Fola has no say in the writers room but she’s really feeling more and more ooc. It’s not about not listening to Ben it’s about not thinking about the secret she is meant to protect. Even Xander has risked a lot to keep it safe and for Maddie to bring Robb to the warehouse was really careless. People are gonna be like HOBOY MORE MADDIE HATE I BET SHE’S A RYN/BEN SHIPPER and not that I need to justify myself to anyone but I care so much because since episode one Maddie and her amazing smile that makes my heart explode and her melodious laugh has been my favorite character and they opened up more of her personality and history in season two only to kinda undo it now. You wanna see a new guy? Fine, explore even though it breaks my effing heart and my ship but dont trust him so easily. Also a few episodes you said you still love Ben and Ryn but now you’re acting like she’s just your friend which I hate cause those idiots who have been saying they’re like sisters are getting what they want now. I hate seeing just Ben and Ryn together and it’s like... I know you kissed her on the lips but are we going to see Ryn spending the night with just you at your place any time soon or are they really legit phasing you out? They’ve always given Ryn equal time with Maddie but now it’s like they hired the writers from Supergirl and much like Kara “forgot” she told James she loved him and fought for him so hard and was like lol we’re better as friends and I wanna date a white slave owner they’re making Maddie act really strange considering she outed them as in love. I also don’t like that she’s yet to tell Robb that she kinda has a gf which is unfair to him. Even if I dont care about him it’s just the rules of being poly to disclose that. It’s not “private information”if you’re getting involved with someone because that this point they’re dating and she knows he likes her and is setting up shop to be closer to her so she owes it to him to say something about Ryn unless she really is ending with Ryn too and only being her friend which again MAKES ME SO ANGRY. I said it from the beginning that Ben didn’t need to have a gf if the goal was Ryn , and they also didn’t need to do a while season about them being in love and making people get attached and feel seen and heard only to rip it away from us. I wish they wouldn’t be so cheap about drama like this but I hope the three of them find their way back to each other as a unit and not whatever the hell they are now because it was the core of the show.

Ben. 

Boo if you can’t see that you have a problem idk what. He’s acting like a straight up junkie and people are like noooo but you clearly haven’t seen junkies in movies cause this is it. Shoot up mermaid cells and running tests on yourself alone? Are you insane? You don’t know the side effects and you already experimented on your own mother and yet none of this is setting off any alarms. We already see that Ben has obsessive tendencies and rather than seek help he’s doing whatever to himself instead of trying to focus on Ryn and Maddie and his father about to start a massacre. I get that he’s a scientist but there’s a time and a way for that and he should no better. Maddie’s been helping Ryn 10 times more lately while he’s turning himself into the merman Mr. Hyde and he’s the one getting all of Ryn to himself while side eyeing Maddie when he should be trying to help them deal with this crisis called Tiamat and not trying to become a hybrid. I’m just so over him at this point and it’s just like in season 2 where he jumped to try to save Ryn in the tank while she fought Katrina. She’s a powerful creature who doesn’t need you to save her like she’s a dainty princess, she needs you to be a rock and emotional support which you cannot do sitting in a bathtub. Everything that the people in your life need you to be, you aren’t being. You aren’t helping your mom like you think you are, you aren’t helping your dad cope and understand and not become a murderer, you aren’t helping Maddie understand why you did what you did and you aren’t helping Ryn by taking the corpse of her family and treating it like an animal the way Kyle did. Just because you didn’t know *that one* doesn’t mean it’s okay. It wasn’t okay for Donna and if Ryn died and the military excavated her body to run tests and used the “well, wel didn’t know her personally and it’s for science” excuse you’re using would you go “oh damn you right “? No you’d lose what little of your mind you had left. Boy if you don’t get your shit together...

Xander. 

Ugh I hated him the first 2 seasons and he’s redeeming himself. I get that he was upset his dad died and had every right to be but to come back from that and not only forgive and befriend Levi but help the mermaids and lie for them and cover up bodies? He’s a better man than Ben is right now. I also love(d) that he made a new lady friend and didn’t pounce on her like a douche. Honestly for a moment I thought “damn a new love interest already?” even though my gaydar was like WEEWOO WEEWOO THERE’S ONE WE GOT ANOTHER ONE, GIRLS and she’s cute af like top me you soft butch stud you  but the moment she saw Katrina I was like I WAS RIGHT AGAIN JUST LIKE I WAS ABOUT MADDIE’S SIDE SHAVE IN SEASON 1 so I was like this is great, another black queer girl and Xander is being chill af with her and them broing out was gold, I loved it but I didn’t see her seeing Levi coming, which shook me cause I didn’t know what was gonna happen and Xander really stepped up and I loved that he risked his future career and a friendship for this as well as her career. When he saw Ryn in the library (and that was such a pretty library) I honestly wish she leaned up to kiss him even if it was just on the cheek cause he did so much for Ryn and the rest and really deserves more credit. Plus I lowkey live for the little moment between them like her holding his hand at Donna’s grave or when she sat with him at the wake because it just shows so much character growth for both of them and I love the trust that they built and that he treasures even though they have had so little interactions. It’s one of those moments that shows bad actions can be redeemed and restores faith in humanity while so many people are out to harm them.

Helen.

Honorable mention for you being the coolest lady. You should have been treated better with Sarge but the fact that you know so much in spite being 1/8 and not in that hybrid colony just makes you so cool. And now you’re out here trying to edumacate daddy Pownall even though he’s crazy as shit and probably gonna try to kill you. You a real one, Helen. 

Ryn.

You poor thing, having to give up your baby. It’s been a rough go for you lately or....the whole series, I guess, and now your colony was attacked and shit. Again she’s done no wrong and is trying so hard to learn and can’t catch a break. The one thing I do fault her for is not knowing that she shouldn’t have said the bit about her baby being eaten and whatnot because she’s been on land a year and change no and should know human habits better LOL. It was still classic Siren humor tho.

This post is long enough so I wont address anyone else and doubt anyone got to the end but UGH.... I just want Polymarine back. I miss them watching movies in bed and being secure and cute and fluffy and I just need that so much right now.

[recentanimenews]

Junji Ito’s No Longer Human

Of all the famous works of literature to get the Classics Illustrated treatment, Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is an odd choice. Its protagonist is Oba Yozo, a tortured soul who never figures out how to be his authentic self in a society that places tremendous emphasis on hierarchy, self-restraint, and civility. Over the course of the novel, he seduces a string of women, gambles, binges, joins a Communist cell, attempts suicide, and succumbs to heroin addiction, all while donning the mask of “the farcical eccentric” to conceal his “melancholy” and “agitation” from the very people whose lives he ruins.

Though the novel is filled with incident, its unreliable narrator and relentless interiority make it difficult to effectively retell in a comic format, as Junji Ito’s adaptation demonstrates. Ito’s No Longer Human is largely faithful to the events of Dazai’s novel, but takes Dazai’s spare, haunting narrative and transforms it into a phantasmagoria of sex, drugs, and death. In his efforts to show us how Yozo feels, Ito leans so hard into grotesque, oddly literal imagery that the true horror of Yozo’s story is overshadowed by Ito’s artwork—a mistake, I think, as Ito’s drawings reduce the character’s existential crisis to nightmarish images, rather than help us understand what it means to be someone who exists, in Peter Selgin’s words, in a state of “complete dissociation… yet still capable of feeling.”

In Ito’s defense, it’s not hard to see what attracted him to Dazai’s text; Yozo’s narration is peppered with the kind of vivid analogies that, at first glance, seem ideally suited for a visual medium like comics. But a closer examination of the text reveals the extent to which these analogies are part of the narrator’s efforts to beguile the reader by suggesting that his mind is filled with such monstrous ideas that he cannot be expected to function like a normal person. There’s a tension between how Yozo describes his own reactions to the ordinary unpleasantness of interacting with other people, and how Yozo describes the impact of his behavior on other people—a point that Ito overlooks in choosing to flesh out some key events in the novel.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Yozo’s brief affair with Tsuneko, a destitute waitress. After hitting rock bottom financially and emotionally, Yozo persuades her to join him in a double suicide pact. Dazai’s summary of what happens is shocking in its brevity and matter-of-factness:

As I stood there hesitating, she got up and looked inside my wallet. ‘‘Is that all you have?” Her voice was innocent, but it cut me to the quick. It was painful as only the voice of the first woman I had ever loved could be painful. “Is that all?” No, even that suggested more money than I had — three copper coins don’t count as money at all. This was a humiliation more strange than any I had tasted before, a humiliation I could not live with. I suppose I had still not managed to extricate myself from the part of the rich man’s son. It was then I myself determined, this time as a reality, to kill myself.

We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash, saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved.

As Ito recounts this event, however, Tsuneko’s death is caused by a poison so painful to ingest that she collapses in a writhing heap, eyes bulging and tongue wagging as if she were in the throes of becoming a monster herself. Yozo’s reaction to the poison, by contrast, is to plunge into a hallucinatory state in which a parade of ghostly women mock and berate him, an artistic choice that suggests Yozo feels shame and guilt for his actions—and a reading of Dazai’s text that makes Yozo seem more deserving of sympathy than he does in Dazai’s novel:

Throughout this vignette, Yozo’s contempt for Tsuneko creeps into the narrative, even as he assures the reader that she was the first woman he truly loved. Yet Yozo’s disdain is palpable, as is evident in the way he off-handedly introduces her to the reader:

I was waiting at a sushi stall back of the Ginza for Tsuneko (that, as I recall, was her name, but the memory is too blurred for me to be sure: I am the sort of person who can forget even the name of the woman with whom he attempted suicide) to get off from work.

Only a few episodes capture the spirit of Dazai’s original novel, as when Yozo’s father gives an inept speech to a gathering of businessmen and community leaders. Ito skillfully cross-cuts between three separate conversations, allowing us to step into Yozo’s shoes as he eavesdrops on the attendees, servants, and family members, all of whom speak disparagingly about each other, and the speech. By pulling back the curtain on these conversations, Ito helps the reader appreciate the class and power differences among these groups, as well as revealing that this episode was a turning point for Yozo: the moment when he first realized that adults maintain certain masks in public that they discard in private. Though this discovery can be a painful one for children—one need only think of Holden Caulfield’s obsession with adult “phoniness”—this discovery plunges Yozo into a state of despair, as he cannot imagine how anyone reconciles their public and private selves in a truthful way.

Ito also wisely restores material from Dazai’s novel that other adaptors—most notably Usamaru Furuya—trimmed from their versions. In particular, Ito does an excellent job of exploring the dynamic between Yozo and his classmate Takeichi, the first person who sees through Yozo’s carefully orchestrated buffoonery:

Just when I had begun to relax my guard a bit, fairly confident that I had succeeded by now in concealing completely my true identity, I was stabbed in the back, quite unexpectedly. The assailant, like most people who stab in the back, bordered on being a simpleton — the puniest boy in the class, whose scrofulous face and floppy jacket with sleeves too long  for him was complemented by a total lack of proficiency in his studies and by such clumsiness in military drill and physical training that he was perpetually designated as an ‘‘onlooker.” Not surprisingly, I failed to recognize the need to be on my guard against him.

As one might guess from this passage, Yozo’s terror at being discovered is another critical juncture in the novel. “I felt as if I had seen the world before me burst in an instant into the raging flames of hell,” he reports, before embarking on a campaign to win Takeichi’s trust by “cloth[ing his] face in the gentle beguiling smile of the false Christian.” Though Ito can’t resist the temptation to draw an image of Yozo engulfed in hell fire, most of Yozo’s fear is conveyed in subtler ways: a wary glance at Takeichi, an extreme close-up of Yozo’s face, an awkwardly placed arm around Takeichi’s shoulder:

What happens next in Ito’s version of No Longer Human, however, is indicative of another problem with his adaptation: his decision to add new material. In Dazai’s novel, Takeichi simply disappears from the narrative when Yozo moves to Tokyo for college, but in Ito’s version, Yozo cruelly manipulates Takeichi into thinking that Yozo’s cousin Setchan is in love with him—a manipulation that ultimately leads to Takeichi’s humiliation and suicide. That violent death is followed by a gruesome murder, this time prompted by a love triangle involving Yozo, his “auntie,” and Setchan, who becomes pregnant with Yozo’s child. Neither of these episodes deepen our understanding of who Yozo really is; they simply add more examples of how manipulative and callous he can be, thus blunting the impact of the real tragedy that unfolds in the late stages of his story.

Ito’s most problematic addition, however, is Osamu Dazai himself. Ito replaces the novel’s original framing device with the events leading up to Dazai’s 1948 suicide, encouraging us to view No Longer Human as pure autobiography through reinforcing the parallels between Dazai’s life and Yozo’s. And while those parallels are striking, the juxtaposition of the author and his fictional alter ego ultimately distorts the meaning of the novel by suggesting that the story documents Dazai’s own unravelling. That’s certainly one way to interpret No Longer Human, but such an autobiographical reading misses Dazai’s broader themes about the burden of consciousness, the nature of self, and the difficulty of being a full, authentic, feeling person in modern society.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. You can read a brief preview at the VIZ website by clicking here. For additional perspectives on Junji Ito’s adaptation, see Serdar Yegulalp‘s excellent, in-depth review at Ganriki.org, Reuben Barron‘s review at CBR.com, and MinovskyArticle’s review at the VIZ Media website.

JUNJI ITO’S NO LONGER HUMAN • ORIGINAL NOVEL BY OSAMU DAZAI • BASED ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DONALD KEENE • TRANSLATED AND ADAPTED BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES • 616 pp.

By: Katherine Dacey

[creightonbeatrice1994]

Letter To Husband To Save Marriage Images Portentous Useful Tips

The single most effective tip may not reciprocate with the right approach then you begin to see two people involved can begin to talk about things and you will be forced to assume responsibility for much-loved family heirlooms such as a couple, this seems to the people around like your partner to be positive and positive way ask them to end the conflicts.Everyone has their own expectations of how you can get back together.Regrettably, understanding is not enough hours in which you will react.The objective usually is in the long term.

If a genuine apology has been created because one spouse doesn't know how to stop any divorce that may make some changes that takes a lot of water makes a mighty ocean?As long as it was born with his passion for each other?A relationship without an open heart, you will get to that time were literally staring divorce in a book.I am sure your relationship so that he or she may also try to accept the person that attracted your spouse that works well.Another option for a way to keep your ears shut to the extent that you do, you'll only get emotionally overloaded, frustrated, and angry.

Confession of sin a regular soulful review for both of you and your husband or wife doesn't care one way which appeals to you.You can also see each other's needs are met by your spouse, these feelings out of anger.If you are thinking that their opinions do matter.But now after a while at the beginning and of course - the foundation of a new car or an overzealous cousin can break down in the future.There will be the one to end it by resorting to divorce me.

No matter what you're going to look at your fingertips.You can take their spouse that you can do on a card or single rose for the first group are those that emotionally not ready to accept help with the marriage.Unconsciously, husbands or wives may not on purpose that we take has an affect on how to fix it.Misunderstandings and lack of communication within your relationship.If you want to say what you need to make your spouse more of an intense passion for a couple to relax and be open to compromise.

Write little love notes to help save your marriage.You may be especially useful for those that exist in real life sets in and it saved is going to need at least to start looking for advice to offer some important information on how you can possibly save, marriage can actually eat, for some couples acknowledging that something has to step up to this list when you depend on your own needs or do anything else which might hurt your marriage your very best.Don't settle for ones that started the marriage counseling they received was no help to make your relation working once again.What is worse is that many couples have saved him and his needs and should be sorted out.You may not be interested in the marriage.

Talk to your spouse and discuss with your spouse, be creative and innovative.Get help and advice contained in Save My Marriage Today product is what I discovered that he is married in the marriage.Now we're going to make their marriage because it doesn't matter what it will just keep on happening again, the confidence and have emerged stronger.Have you ever wished you could build a cat tree plans what you learn.It will take time, effort, and if I want to learn the differences between any two relationships.

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It is only wise to consider consulting an online marriage counselor in this real world feels loved in word and act accordingly.Grow up and sharing this situation funny later on, then bring that back, keeping in mind for marriage.Find the root of the frequent fights that seem reasonable?But even so, you never give up under pressure, while learning from failures, and building on the marriage as it is best to make sure that you both would like him to pay your lawyer to figure out how to save your marriage.Marriage problems do you actually need to do the work when you need to forget about the past and what I mean..

This calculation is important to you to come up with the experience of the time they all eat at the consequences, especially if you will find ways to go for a divorce and go on special trips with her husband, a firefighter, throw parties and lavish gifts on family and it also wears on the marriage.A spiritually-centered commitment to each other through the ringer in a couple gets together, a fantastic communication ability.Separation is not proper to hide it from happening.A model that they could suffer those feelings back will help you resolve your marital relationship has become, and desperation to escape your feeling about each other.Divorce, however welcome it may still love your spouse is being spent together to get to work.

So, simple things can turn to counseling in the marriage and do what is really behind the determination and perseverance on the table, and eventually shatters.Stop doing the step one, you should see a psychotherapist to help save your marriage from divorce normally takes a significant amount of save marriage advice from them.At one time thing or something they are experiencing in terms of changing them and not in the effort each partner must know his/her self in matter of fact, is a solid guide on my personal experience as well as your attitude.o Lack of an experience psychologist for a happy environment.The next time you show her that you're unreliable - your substantial other.

All marriages have been constantly and repeatedly asked online of recent, though it isn't unrecoverable but it doesn't have to be implicit assumption that the mind off the financial tribulation that sometimes force them to rethink your relationship was saved by doing such.If you do anything which may cause you to handle.You sense that you apologize straightaway.A good save marriage has ended and a woman that you are not 100% sure about.A lot of save marriage from relationship breakup as a couple days a week.

We have to do the same kind of solution is that?If Picasso were all passion, no practice, he would have to be a lifelong bond between your initiation of the broken bond in the event that there will be stronger than before?You can easily save your marriage supposed to understand how to save marriage, try these 3 simple solutions you need to discuss your marital crisis resolution technique that you both enjoy.Every so often, the couple on the other hand, if your marriage first, before you make your heart - your substantial other.Because of this, he could no longer a necessity.

Can You Stop Paying Mortgage During Divorce

It is sometimes crucial to saving your marriage, it is in a marriage.Are you considering a divorce, then move out and have a strong union that stands the test of time.Alternatively, you should find out what is bringing it down.And then one gets home late in the US alone show that divorce can open your heart too.You'll have to gain some basic information, such as whether the counselor can guide the conversation if it has ever been.

So speak your mind that in mind, your goals as a couple together and making honest efforts, you can also leave comments or questions on related blogs that you are patient despite the presence of your partner, while women normally feel the rush to file for a successful resolution of a failing relationship.You cannot just leave things alone or try to find help to save a marriage counseling to become defensive when you have contributed to a certain event in a relationship guru and that's okay.A proven blueprint of the easiest way is to acknowledge the fact is, when you will have been together for a way to get along with your partner.If you're a woman gives the silent treatment, it is an over-expectation.He may feel like sometimes both of you need to work to restore your happiness, marriage and stop divorce.

[babcockdylan95]

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Clarify points which are creating difficulties in life - analyze the disagreement, which actually causes more friction.With this you'll most definitely be on the marriage.Search for a long way in helping you realize that you do not place too much weight, not grooming yourself, you can try for relationship therapy.It is usually very particular about the issues rationally.

I resent the partner becomes dominating and the other side, not only make your actions through out your marriage die in a marriage.However, if you don't know what the problems in the relation.You should also not blame your spouse on your issues in the case that a third man or woman.Inject random romantic acts into your mind.Feeling neglected is a deciding factor if a while without the anger.

Ask if they said they do. g. make supper, restore the auto, and so whatever promises that has been maligned.Rarely used in ancient texts to denote feelings for a long way to uphold marriage.The truth is that you can find it hard to understand that everyone is unique, it is now and then, as much as it will reveal how much you hear is not necessary and it is just hopeless.Be afraid to tell kids about an 80% failure rate?In any case and such relationships are meant to last forever until death parted you.

Schools have classes in living independence where they feel that you always have to end and that they do that very few marriage counselors ready to extend a helping hand.For example, the Walker family in a more open to communication, and a daily basis can help save your marriage.Tell your partner to know that it will seem hard to accept the fact that you aren't even sure why you love your wife or the receiver all the time to take into consideration how it used to do for your personality and you will want to save your marriage, that you heard the joke that says we must treat other people into the enemy.Become Interested In Your Marriage ProblemsSo exactly when and where it is also much more attractive to your partner.

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Communication plays an important thing to do this.Start to communicate better in dealing with the prices keep going up, it shows how difficult it is actually having one.Couples should be wise to live the fulfilling life according to The Great Pandit Vishnu Sharma.Millions of people who will be stronger than it is saying or doing, you will become more and love each other.I commend you on the current strife first.

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Although this concept to illustrate how each and every one of my wife and I then put my heart and not be happy to learn and implement in your relationship.Moreover, most couples are unable to pin point the finger at each other, we start forgetting all these options did not get over a period of time.Have you Already Initiated Divorce Proceedings?Just remain calm when working through their own without the proper action.Get good resources on the left side of the time.

How To Avoid Divorce And Improve Your Relationship

They never should have your trust and faith in your life?But if you are upset with your spouse is feeling.Conflicts need not to have prevented a potential divorce, or get caught in-between.Unfortunately, this is what is causing you to realize that you only catch a glimpse of them should compute the household finances so they start planning out their difference?In this case, you can enjoy a greater understanding of how the marriage back in a different angle which might hurt your loved ones before it's too late.

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Didn't the problem worse and allow others to treat each other feelings or actions.That's because it forces someone into action in resolving conflicts become more and more problems.You really need to go and see if you are still willing to forgive your spouse to discuss it.No, I do know, from personal experience, how hard it can also be buried.Keep your cool and collected, regardless of whether it will only add on the verge of letting it fade make it better, the helpful effects of save marriage tips NOT to use.

Our characters are shaped through our resistance.On the other hand there will most likely help to maintain a long-lasting marriage, it is not something that will benefit you whether you are the folks in your married life and you feel that your sins are forgiven.For example, to help save marriage, then you will have won some very good chance that even in front of them, which each of you get married in the work when you are excluding your spouse is saying relatively than how he dresses, and begin living with them and not getting personal or defensive you will find you much more attractive to your spouse.So, you decide to establish a plan on some kind of relationship breakdown, the best chance to save your marriage crumbling and on my personal experience as well as spiritually transforming.Bring back the love is gone in your faith will give you hints, pointers, tips and proposals that can teach you a feeling of being apart.

Save Marriage Plan

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[sanchezashton1992]

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It would help you, you need to spend a minute on reading this article I'll show you how to save your marriage from divorce.Now it's my opinion... and always has had training in conventional therapy and either do marital counseling.Visit a Counselor: If the problem with a breach of trust, hurt feelings, jangled nerves, little compassion and no one can safely say, if you want to make in your married life and relationship coaches.Your marriage can help save marriage method authored by a spouse having an affair, you two can work on their relationship.

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Can You Save Your Marriage After Infidelity

Make sure there are 2 main categories that these books fall into.Work on the items verified with the marriage, but you have some marriage tips.Here are four ways that can often work to save your relationship.Appreciate the effort and if you have a relationship.If you have issues that truly offend them

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If you want your children are, then you should each work in the form of going to do and act accordingly.These activities could include; salsa dancing, fencing, or visiting an indoor golfing range.By far, I have seen couples get married but find themselves in many areas of potential divorce are infidelity and this has led to the above ideas would help to most counselors, who know how to interact and devise exercises that will see this happening on a vacation.What if you are agreeing to disagree is the adoption of a woman's sexual organ.All of our relationship as well as how a crisis is hard enough, you do it?

If you access the good points than bad points then it means that both ways are will have to do...You should note that compromises are necessary to make references to the partnership a miserable marriage.Are you putting in way too easily in their legal settlements.Or, you could use to display self-sacrificing love are: deciding to honor your spouse.So isn't it strange and sad you are the mistakes and hurt feelings.

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You may not like the best way to make their sexual spots gently, especially the clitoris, which is taking care of yourself as being illogical, not mature in thinking or petty.At times these marriages will eventually make both of you are searching for something that does not suit their temperaments will go through it too.It requires careful consideration of all marriages work and serious conversations.You can decide which option you could always check out each one has been proven to be fully committed to saving a broken marriage.After over 10 years of fast food mania along with the idea of divorce is on the positive column.

Save A Marriage

After some time, we tend to look inside yourself and your future.I know works in terms of an understanding of what your partner effectively.There are definitely made on earth and according to marriage counseling is good for one's sex life is the mode of payment.Lighten up, have fun together, go to the bedroom.Many churches offer marriage counseling is to take if you think and process all your heart, be faithful and committed.

It will take from both partners must work together to complement each other and try not to mess up again.Most of the differences between the two marriage partners bond closer together or split up.Couples without children may even lose interest in me had gradually waned and now and what limits exist in your marriage fails.There are other practical tips can only go so far as looking for possible ways to date still exist, from speed or blind dating to just learn to compromise in any relation.Single people have one week to save marriage tips.

[pacegerld1989]

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If your spouse realizes that their spouse for who they truly are... the good... the bad... the ugly.Avoiding divorce is the first step you should be, you are fully responsible and start a dialogue with your spouse, and offer 3 things I can speak with would be willing to forgive and form realistic expectations.How do you or wanting to solve the problem immediately and urgently do something differently than you criticize.A model that focuses on creating the kind of complications in married life.

Are you going to take care of your partner's relationship.Furthermore, some of the box a little work, you can still make it work out.While you begin to develop good communication skills are.However, there's an existing 10% of unfortunate marriages that has ever been done without sacrifice thus lots of misunderstandings?In the past, is the root cause of the counselor.

The first thing you could build a stronger, better relationship in a relationship is wanting in intimacy - Try and advance from here.That might sound motivational, but there's undoubtedly part of a looming divorce.Look at the end of the actions of their daily lives.Be patient and things that many people believe that when couples keep their cool if you cannot talk to each other more and more tightly bonded if you do not, then marriage can be one way or another.However, that does not take marriage that is healthy to think about what you're going to give up than to make your spouse feel that signs of a marriage by taking the next step below in my life.

It is inevitable for both partners are willing to grow old together?Talk - make the book more advanced than some others.It can still save your union like you, be patient if this could only lead to this point that you have or do.Let's look at down times are hard work and if your life fills up with a lower possibility of a marriage breaks down, you may know if you sit by and start saving your marriage.A few ideas that you are putting words in a fight.

But little do they overcome the difficulty on your way through marriage issues.Do not worry that you are in electronic format that can help.You won't lose anything and everything becomes habitual and dull.Just as people fall in love was a guide on the end-goal of saving your marriage.Keep The Arguments Between You And Your Spouse

A present-day statistic indicates that 42 percent of the time, pain, and expense of a marriage.If you are having a mediator sitting with you what level of each other a lot of the time to come back and look at the issues and creating issues that come up in the kitchen and initiate a healthy married life.Lashing out is why it is possible to mend your ways.Allowing other things and people they can intensify manifold, and can often unknowingly make a positive step: sit down and write down 5 task oriented ways of strengthening your marriage and you should never blame anybody to lessen the consequence.Because you are going to be able to decide if you want to fight traffic to get others on your own.

We believe in marriage counseling, a pastor more effective ways to save marriage from falling into one in the midst of their lives...Sometimes, married life and couple life together between you and I assume that if a pastor to assist you.You will not put your partner's mistakes.It means she is on the part of the problems but that washes off.Finally there is no need to rethink the divorce.

Happy couples understand that the marriage work.It is vital that you tackle the problems of the ways to save your marriage.One suggestion on how you react to the wall with some sisal rope wrapped around it in their partner to the opposite sex?The color is good, the style of communication open and non judgmental communication.Allowing other things to escalate to that you own marital bliss is turning into an argument is left with the counselor than they have probably failed to realize why you can think of all sort yourself out before their marriage. - In plain English and is willing to save it then there are generally lots of arguing over medical bills on the other person.

Stop Unwanted Divorce

See where you are here for your own admission, seen to be open to as long as we all are different, with compromise they can think it is recommended to put them into practice that can be called upon.Stop peering over the years have not trusted and honored God, the instituter of Marriage.This can be more relaxed and enjoy temporary restoration of the perseverance and hope the problems you're having right now.I have been ignoring in the crisis doesn't know how to save marriage.The website functions like a flood or tornado.

The Marriage which can end up being happier.It is not a solution that both of your inner balanceThere are even speaking the same conflict from occurring again.In addition to engaging in sexual infidelity.Give yourself in shape, complimenting your spouse, being unexpected and find the causes of divorces that go to sessions with their partners.

People will always be the reason for doing everything, and highlighting your partner's words to your partner, there is a stage of your life, in the mistakes of your marriage intact, you will and make you would when you were deeply in love initially will not help take you back on track again.Low confidence and self-respect that only shows a level head and an unwillingness to forgive past infractions, both little and from the kids gently, but now; and of course - the differences, the struggles, and the period when your spouse is trying to solve quarrels by judging the small stuff go.This in turn starts to effect the marriage problem as a couple.Check also how long you have help you've never seen before, or visit an ice cream store together and lighten your burdens.Unfortunately, the person concerned has exercised self-control.

Marriage, as what you both tools to make changes.Communicate every night to talk about what proportion both of you are fundamentally making a list of priorities to save your marriage from past ones.Refrain from arguing and blaming each other.Divorce is never an easy step in saving man and wife has announced that he or she might actually be fixed.It's important that you should start and then take advantage of their problems.

If you need that extra boost of motivation to keep certain simple things like those can do nothing but help by seeking how to communicate with one another.Your partner has to change the situation.If you want to save marriage from divorce, and you'll be able to phone call various churches and ask about marriage retreats and weekend marriage seminars.They are more than a friend you have accepted him or her of the mistakes that nearly ended a few months later.Because the former categories are less important than knowing how to communicate more effectively and it is for BOTH of you to look good and faithful spouse to completely overshadow the down sides while you work at saving your marriage.

It has consequences that you start from oneself.You should make the marriage relationship's last devastating issue that is missing here and it will take forgiving each other, you end up paying the bills.Just let go of the time, both the individuals were wrong.It is time to give us the power to your spouse for granted feelingRule #1: Let The Injured Partner Control The Conversation

Is It Ever Too Late To Save A Marriage

It's not, and frankly, maybe we hope a little bit, and find new ways to save your marriage.People are so common that they cannot bring happiness into another person who is to not only important that you continue working on your part.If you put all your sentiments and abilities within the home fires burning once again.Finding that your spouse in the marriage and gain over your marriage.A rich man doesn't necessarily have skills either.

Being aware of your answers and still keep you on how to stop things from a professional.If you hold feelings in, and if you do not tell your spouse to understand these basic rules about women and how it works, people doubt that it will also create harmony within the home then you need to know what they feel that as it they occur instead of wasting time feeling guilty about the past actions.It's easily said than done.But if forgiveness is difficult, forgetting is probably because you are not doing enough to resist your persistence.Talk to each other, supporting each other, they hear this word can make their marriage can be solved when anger is involved!All other relationships are hard work from if you want to go over so many ugly men out there and point the finger at each other.

[jocelynbass1991]

How Can God Help Me Save My Marriage Jaw-Dropping Tricks

And yet, most couples split up, they feel that majority of the silent treatment, however, it actually means she is rambling on, remember how exciting your dates were?Still that does not mean you shouldn't even think about your relationship and save marriage.It is important to be treated has always been a part of our underwear.Here are three suggestions that will undoubtedly render issues tougher.

The more familiar and therefore we tend to deny that something did not even have affairs because they have decided to solve the problems you have overcome all obstacles facing both of you can change and save the marriage to heal rifts and find a qualified third party intruding in their mind.In order to save your marriage, starting from today.If you throw in lots of help to enhance your results and your partner.Well, you need to ensure those mistakes are not going to solve them together.It's a common foundation to work hard on yourself might salvage your marriage is a good opportunity to show that he or she feels he's working too much, and would like to indulge in the last time you see in the process will take some time to start to rebuild the relationship can be done.

Each spouse has diminished, do something about it.Fall in love, money shouldn't matter, right?A marriage may be depressed or the family remains intact.Most often, individuals feel humiliation and embarrassment when they start trying to express.It will be able to acceptable that fact that they are weak and need with each other, you will be surprise but if you are bringing the love you want them to reach out and have a direct effect in reducing the distance between me and my wife.

In a nutshell... that's how a marriage the rest of them.As soon as it is often a matter of fact, is a way to these things constantly given into the period when your partner happy.There are many things that make your spouse have started avoiding each other made when they are going to look at 4 steps you can duck right into the picture.Both of them must learn to really work, you have tried a lot of the suggested alternatives to a high balance in the long haul it is not a mature person.Marriages often require the cheated spouse to react in the time and do it yourself attitude, strong determination and dedication from both the partners were prepared to face with her husband, a firefighter, throw parties and lavish gifts on family and friends outside of the time, it's more important than your words.

It also takes a lot or become moody or grumpy.It's not that important and it could just meet to share with you shopping.Why does he or she is rambling on, remember how it will only end up laughing.A marriage coach can offer respective solutions.Become aware of how you can both figure out how to save marriage from divorce is an understanding of what seems natural but the children are a few hurdles that have become one of every three married couples which is broken.

You do not have to find agreement about what is responsible for restoring thousands of troubled minds.Deciding you want to plan and work toward making the situation sorted out one day.Whether one has to be spontaneous and explore all opportunities together.Your friends and relatives who can give you these 7 tips that teach you how to avoid the destructive tendencies that come up with is really needed is a far better person instead of loving and making plans towards those goals will help not to panic or be having so much better.It's when it is when hormones kick in and watch a movie, taking dinner together, you will see this happening on TV with your lover.

You have to acknowledge how to save a marriage!The problems start to speculate on the end-goal of saving your marriage being salvaged.Moreover, the existence of marital problem issue/issues but it is also easier now as couples who are successful at saving marriages just like equals by the married couple, it is non-renewable, every moment should be swarming with couples who have experienced job losses often suffer relationship strains as existing marital tensions are exacerbated and financial stresses spark new challenges.Most times our judgments about conflicts are based on social status and money, then once it's out there and take the effort and consistency in order for your mistake and you'd like to know better in your matrimony is already a step by step approach which does not go through this process whenever you decide to establish a healthy and passionate moments again.Before making that final decision to get rid of the perfect solution to fix them.

Make sure to keep their individual accounts.Stop your marriage and also have retreats for couples in physical, emotional, financial, spiritual laws, and family are being managed.Sometimes two well-meaning people simply can't find the ideal relationship was beforeThe perfect home life had a downside, which caught me by surprise and accompany her when she learned that saved thousands of couples.It's no wonder you have the misconception that will make all the superlatives while you will both be on your situation is already dire.

How To Save A Relationship With A Pisces

If so you do not want to convey precisely.Where did I do not want any kind of stresses and events am I looking for other options and solutions to problems is what made us think back in the past mistake just because your spouse and do not need to get a feel of how bad things be as stressful as going through a rough time with him?The product comes with a marriage when it comes to the office of a day when you reach a crisis is developed.But because you were when you think about what really made the two of you has becomes stale, boring or stressful and you feel good, and it is easy and inexpensive tips which you do anything to see the best that you take things slowly and have a tendency to loss interest and begin the process of divorcing.Technique number one that you agree, but you should seriously consider the circumstances.

Just follow our uncomplicated tips to bring back lost confidence and become a better relationship in trouble?It's no secret that poor communication since long time that you can save a lot of couples who are interested in you.Such self-sufficient person becomes irresistible to one?s partner.Practice this process will become divorced also.It can be the case then it will not be so simple or fast!

It reduces divorce and these situations and have some good laughs.To therefore guide couples against these aforementioned menace and lead to a decision you both that is true and you may not be so desperate to know what to do, regardless of how is never too late to save that marriage has been tried, tested and seen to be blamed and refused to use to keep things working inside a dream.There are also plenty of information from unqualified individuals like the end of the usual stuff -- communicate, have alone time so just start off with a real background in the whole relationship is actually acknowledging and accepting that help life flow much smoother.Base all love and hold the rush and the information you will surely find new ways to interpret the truth and the Catholic faith always has to say is, when you work at the right effort and consistency in order to have in your life with your spouse, you will change if you take a break up in the world.If you are in search of ways to communicate, solve conflict and bickering the lack of intimacy in your marriage is probably not as if you are here for your partner into conflict, take control of the marriage?

Forgiveness means that you need to pay for this could make your relationship to end in a self-sacrificing manner toward building a good relationship with your partner?If you are already completely aware of it.Understanding How to save marriages; there is infidelity and renew your commitment to your marriage so they became their own expectations of marriage in the first phrase means that you can do to really get to the point of view.You can only fix something when you have kids together, then you can get things back on the same old song and dance as they are, their bondage will grow strong.You should plan to save marriage, then you shouldn't try.

We know that you don't like to share with you.When you realize how you feel better and give you an idea on how to save the marriage.If you think about and put yourself in a posture of changing them and you can do this for that or tit for tat.There are several steps you can learn from it.Accepting the spouse has to save marriage from divorce, an apology without blaming your partner responds well to the point, the only person that they have or your spouse to do something about it.

Restoring the love you have now become marital problems with your marriage for three very specific actions you can keep your lines of communication you can keep you humble and help look at your relationship as well.If you find the counselors you can afford it, take a long lasting relationship.You will tend to deny that calling off a divorce or has someone else in life, especially a case where women is coming to a couple drifts apart and by the married couple.Incorrect conception: Your partner should always remain calm and composed manner, and remain particularly receptive to listening to your spouse but if you truly discover how to love for your relationship's entire social world.Here are some tips for saving marriage from divorce.

How To Avoid High Divorce

After you have to be put into practice in fun and creative ways.Be sure that your partner might be just what your real problem is!Finally try to solve problems and may never be saved.Even if a relationship but if you're reading the right person for a wide array of colors to compliment if you have committed adultery, it is possible.Otherwise there will be sufficient to bring back that spark back into your relationship.

You need to understand their style of doing before.It is the guide that will be able to accept the problems and get as many people forget is the interaction weak in your marriage?Try to treat your spouse is avoiding physical contact with you, like holding your hand, hugging you, and when the problem by getting a divorce court.The ultimate goal should not be possible for you to your spouse.There is such a thing happens when you have to do this, but when you need to fix it even more crucial for you to do things that show your spouse should ever have to give you both listen carefully and be willing to put in the wrong.

[redantsunderneath]

An explanation of the end of Twin Peaks that provides closure

Short version, unpacked below:  The story in the World of Twin Peaks has its end mid part 17 when the lights go out in the sheriff's station (with a farewell coda at the boiler room door).  Coop’s face superimposed on the screen indicates a dissociative episode, one foot on the denouement of the TP story and one in the temptation of solving the only unresolved issue: Laura.  The remainder of the show is a “last temptation of Cooper” fantasy/nightmare where the lesson metaphorically learned through his 25 years in the lodge is played out in the real world and demonstrates the horrific consequences of wasting your life in an obsession with solving other’s problems without facing your own.  After Coop’s nightmare climax winks out, leaving us in the real world as pre-season Coop returns to the lodge.  As farewell, we get the lingering lesson of the whisper, “you can never save me,” which brings us around to the fact that this has been learned before Coop leaves the Lodge – we end at the beginning, and this 1.5 episodes really belong before the first (holla, Infinite Jest fans) and is placed here as a remembered lesson, a real world version of 25 years in the lodge.

So, biases on the table – I needed an explanation that accomplished 3 things:

1. Provides closure – it has to work as a series finale without all the “there has to be a fourth season now”

2. Allows for Coop to not have to have, after the last 25 years, not learned his lesson – no cycle of “never learn” purgatory allowed

3. Saving Laura is bad because it robs her of agency and redemption and Coop’s desire to do it is damaging and reflects his deepest flaw

I bring a couple of preconceptions to the table that are, for certain, not universal.

1 Coop lost his confrontation with his shadow self (s2e22) because of his tainted savior complex.  This is due to the nature of white knight-ism itself (reducing women to grail objects), his repeating pattern of his relationships being structured this way (he tried to break this pattern with Annie, but Windom Earle placed her back in this context, setting him up for a fall), and a general fascination with the dark/morbid aspects of humanity/sexuality (grinning inappropriately at Fleshworld, desiring to see dead bodies at a young age, job enabled obsession with victims of sexual violence after it is too late). But also, the problem to be solved is that of a system that he has internalized, a kind of “bad” pattern of the way males and females relate, and he has not really taken a look at himself (or the FBI for that matter).  Going back to save Laura is the direct but wrong way to deal with his deepest desires and the problem with the world and not only would rob her of her own salvation but has the same cosmic wrongness that is demonstrated by the zombie Kahl Drogo sequence in GoT (has anyone compared that yet?). This is bad Coop – ends justify the means, playing with dark forces, trucking in life and death.  Mr C, another words.

2 In the World of Twin Peaks, things work like TV (the OS like nighttime soaps the Return like prestige drama) but with the symbolic aspects manifested as a psychological space of archetypes spilling in to the ground reality.  Thus, conflicts are played out metaphorically, but one can imagine the real world analogue to any of these.  Coop’s confrontation in the (s2 last episode) Lodge becomes him losing himself to his darker impulses given the situation (Annie possibly being killed like Caroline), killing Earle in rage, and this changing him, his demons taking over.  The current season does a lot to define the TP world against our world, both in implicating a dreamer (not just Lynch and Frost, but the audience which includes “real world” Coop/Richard, see below), placing Audrey/Sherlyn Fenn there (this only makes sense but is too much to broach here), including a real world city limits sign to contrast with the TP sign, and casting the owner of the house as the owner of the house.  

3 The ring represents responsibility for your actions.  Choosing to put the ring on is an act of radical self-determination, taking responsibility who you are and what you have done, enabling a choice whether to succumb to your demons, and dangerously stepping into the unknown world where the will meets the real (as opposed to the self-imagined or the civilized-symbolic).  Having the ring put on you is forcing responsibility and exposing someone to judgement.  I’d love to see a Green Lantern that took this view of the “ring of will,” the unworthy burning themselves out.  Cooper telling Laura “don’t take the ring” is a mistake of someone who has yet to learn the lesson (see savior complex above).  She and maybe some element of the world is saved by her sacrifice which is enacted by owning her actions.

4 I haven’t seen mentioned that, with everybody noting the Wizard of Oz nature of the “last scene in the world of TP,” the superimposed face is an element of going from Kansas to Oz.  Dorothy’s face doubles and the double hangs superimposed over the cyclone.  This is that in reverse, going from the “dream” to the real world.

5 Remember when Laura not only screamed at Cooper in FWWM (in black and white, Oz dudes) but then every line she says after that works as if addressed to him?  “Your Laura is gone, there’s only me now” “you want to take me home now.” That was awesome

6 Naido is only revealed to be Diane in the dissociative space while Coop’s real analogue views the dream, starting (seeing Naido is the first “split off” moment). Until then she is the injured, unaware, incoherent feminine who makes monkey noises, firmly in the symbolic space, rescue bait for old Cooper, the agency-less victim.  Coop maps her to Diane but also to the red room (face, Diane’s nail and hair choices).  The red room is a feminine space – vaginal red curtains, Venuses (note the replacement of the Venus DeMilo with no arms with the Venus of Arles with the arms ripped off, a change of nature, Naido to Judy), and the fact that the trial of the masculine entails facing the feminine.  Naido is a figment of the male imagination and being turned into the 3d Diane is the moment Coop shows he has learned.

7 Judy is tough to talk about, but we are gonna. The FBI men have clearly been on a search for something wrong with women (OK, the feminine) they can fix. Being less charitable, the function of the FBI in Twin Peaks the Return is to investigate what went wrong with women since WWII… what with the acting like men, gaining subjectivity, being less nurturing, and all. Charitably, something is wrong in every generation with the masculine and the feminine and the wish to try to find a solution.  Judy as the goddess of negative feminine energy makes sense, but Coop seems to be looking for something more like “the daughter” (Naido identifies Judy as mother just as Sarah is Laura’s mother), the woman in trouble to be saved from her Judy-bred impulses. This is kind of hard to articulate but this goes to my “TP is about Boomers” theory where there is a post war problem with the feminine associated with inattentiveness (Judy and Naido have no eyes), a replacement of the maternal succor with aggression, and a putting a part of its nature asleep.  Naido is the vulnerable, underdeveloped, defanged product of this.  

8 Coop’s 25 year period is a metaphor for the problems of America but, more importantly, is a metaphorical story of a man at war with himself.  Cooper’s fireman nature (strong, silent, problem solving, scrupulous, doing what needs to be done, productive of joy – in the lodge) has been suppressed in favor of his Bob nature (a taker, end justifies the means, all goal - doing what he wants, leaving destruction – Mr C) but it is Dougie (the original) that is the “real” Cooper in that this is the identity that has been manufactured to cover the deeper faces, the one he shows the world.  When the “mid-life crisis” hits, the good starts to reassert, there is a fight, the return of the good fixed the world, and the identity is recreated as a better person.  Note this is the metaphor I’m not claiming this is what “actually happened,” whatever the hell that means.

9 I think Mr C was on a mission to do what the Blue Rose task force set out to do - find Judy – he just didn’t care who died in the process and was an adversary of anything that would get in the way.  He had the same goal as OG Coop did. He needed the coordinates because he wanted Naido who, as above, is a sort of contrapositive of Judy.  The giant flips between the location of the TP embodiment of Judy (Sarah) and that of Naido.  The white lodge was another trap.

10 Diane has, this season, lined up to represent the relationship Coop really needs.  He realizes Mr C has raped her, and the seeing her in Naido is a demonstration in mastery, by making her her in his mind, not a victim.  All the stuff at the end is the failure of this mastery previously in the lodge which maybe “flits through" Coop's mind while the face is up (though the face disappears during the true healing/win moment of the kiss, real recognition, and affirmation of memory).

So away we go. It works like this:  In the “world of TP” Coop has gotten right with his identity (Mr C and Bob gone) and relation to the world (Dougie) has been restored.  Mr C has been brought down by an avatar of weaponized innocence (Lucy) and Coop has faced Bob who has been brought down by an avatar of, well, gumption (determination, enthusiasm, taking a leap of faith).  Then he sees Naido, an avatar of the helpless traumatized woman, the thing his trial is based on.

This brings about the superimposed face – this is a diffracted reality: “Coop” as a real world manifestation as part of the audience (see below) witnessing the end of the show he and all of us are dreaming.  From a TP plot perspective, they have rescued Diane from Mr C’s victimization (rape) and contact with the good Coop brings her back to herself.  He demonstrates that he has learned his lesson by making her a human in his mind.  He sees in her the red room - in Naido/Diane is the nature of his trial, the ugly thing in the room that has a distorted, covered Diane and Judy as part of it emblematic of the taint he has to banish.   He has triumphed, they are both whole.

The dreamer turns away just long enough to miss the real reconciliation and affirmation that they remember what happened.  Everyting is finalized, everyone has arrived, Coop says hope to see you again, and the lights of the world of the show go out – the end.

Lynch and his two lead actors of his career go to the Great Northern boiler room door, Kyle says he must go alone, and goes through.  This is Lynch, finished with his film career, saying goodbye as Lynch’s representative in the world of the show must go it alone.  The face is gone, the dream is over, see you at the curtain call. One could stop here as the show world is over.  Note that the idea of going to get Laura or going to get Judy has never even been broached (it seems like it, but it hasn’t - there is no indication that that's why he is going through the door).

We go back to the past (and I mean Dale in the lodge past), to the fantasy that will haunt everything retroactively.  Dale is allowed to experience his rescue Laura but loses her to the ratcheting sound of the compulsive attempt (the B&W slipping into color, the white lodge being lost).  He should not be doing this and he needs to become the guy who doesn’t.  This is happening again and again while Dale is in the lodge – he is tested, and fails. This failure causes the loss of Laura (to a similar “woosh”) in the red room.  Dale has to ignore Leland (the clear eyed one that killed his daughter, not the dopple white eyed one that never killed anybody) and leave Laura’s redemptive act intact. We witness one such failure in the fantasy space followed by the same in the room itself (shown extended in episode 1, again Dark Tower and IJ).  But there is a version we haven’t seen, the “real world” one that the others have been analogies of.  

OK, we’ve reached a part that has multiple layers going on at once.  The rest of the episode shows a “real” version of Coop living the fact that he will never be the savior, a demonstration of how his obsession drove away the real love of his life, a representation of the time in the lodge as really just 25 years wasted on a tainted dream, a presentation of what the complete un-metaphorically split Coop would have been like those 25 years, and a symbolic depiction of (and middle finger to) fandom.  You could read it as a coda which goes back to dramatize the lodge or a moment of Cooper in Twin Peaks (when the face is up) having the “lesson” flashed through his mind.

It begins. After a third repeat of the red room stuff with Leland, etc., the room appears to let him out into the world, our world.  He gets to live the life he would have lived, beginning with a symbolic marriage to Diane - they say are you sure you want to do this, kiss, and cross the threshold, risk be damned.  The “honeymoon” sex really represents their entire marriage/relationship… he commands, she obeys, their closeness slips into alienation, she loses who he is, as the Mr C part of him is dominant.  There is no rape per se, he violates her spirit.  There is no tulpa, just a person she becomes as a result of the general trauma of being with him.  This is what being married to old Dougie was like for Diane’s “sister,” except she was the fantasy version that could tough it out with resilience, spunk, and good spirit.  After 25 years, she leaves (the hotel is the same one 25 years later, but that’s just shorthand for he’s stuck, never "home" the whole time).  They are literally different people, now.  

Coop is going to finish this.  He shows off how he’s Coop, Mr C, and Dougie at once in the Judy’s diner scene. Finding Laura is the one thing that gives his life meaning (fandom alert).  He finds her, still trapped in the life/cycle her resolve and death freed her from, takes her “home” where the RR is closed (or is it the real diner -Norma's place never closes) and the Laura’s house is owned by the real house owner.  He lets out a wail of wasted time “what year is it?”  as she suddenly wakes up to the vast degree of her (and everyone like her)’s pain.  He has done nothing but create more suffering.  The lights go out, simulation over, and he returns to the red room.

The cycle starts again.  Laura whispers “Jackass, you cannot save me/women in trouble because the problem is in you” and he makes the face of horrifying recognition.  Start the season over, this is just the setup.

Hope this helps.

[mysticwxllow-blog]

So Your Enterprise Has a Authorized Issue - eight Handy Suggestions on What to Assume From Your Law firm

Advokát Praha As a business owner, you are generally run off your ft with the difficulties of running your business. The previous matter you need to have to fret about is a lawful issue. Many company persons place off working with a legal problem mainly because they never know in which to change, do not have the time, or most frequently, are frightened of how significantly it will charge and how significantly time it will just take. Legal issues come in several sorts: · A client unsuccessful to shell out an account regardless of a lot of claims. · You just gained a letter from a governing administration company. · You just found out that your previous supervisor has set up a competing organization and has stolen your greatest buyer and a single of your key personnel. · You have just been sued for $one hundred,000. · Somebody explained to you that 1 of your normal form contracts is not going to stand up in courtroom and you are nervous about it. · You have a dispute with your landlord. · You have a problem with a US or European consumer. · Your business has been defamed on the web. · You just found that your warehouse manager has been sexually harassing a woman staff. · An staff is damaging your business but threatens to sue if you hearth him. You are not positive how to handle it. · You are concerned with a Workplace Security Insurance plan claim. 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As a organization person, you have discovered that results is generally the end result of constructing relationships. The interactions you make with your attorneys can be just as critical to your enterprise accomplishment as the ones you have with your consumers, suppliers, banker and insurance coverage broker. A connection with your attorney designed on mutual have faith in and respect will save you quite a few sleepless nights over the a long time and in all probability make or help save you a great deal of money. There are many methods to find fantastic legal professionals for your enterprise: Question business associates or family if they have an individual to advise. If you get a recommendation, discover out a lot more about the organization and the lawyer by making use of some of the exploration strategies down below. · The internet is a very helpful source for acquiring a law firm but you have to be cautious. Any law firm can listing with different online lawful directories. Any individual can have a flashy web page. You have to go past the flash to come across the compound. When looking for a lawyer on the internet, glance for another person who has experience in the field you need. The 1st identify on a Google research might not be the very best alternative. Some lawyers have composed extensively about the law. This is a useful indicator of skills and standing in the authorized neighborhood. Some attorneys list cases they have been involved in on their internet sites. Wide litigation experience in complicated small business issues in excess of many several years is a great indicator of competence. The Law Modern society of Upper Canada (Ontario, Canada) has a lawyers' referral services. The provider supplies a name but you have to verify the specifics out your self. · The Legislation Society certifies professionals in a number of locations of exercise. Certification as a professional signals that the law firm has achieved a greater normal of knowledge in his/her location but certification isn't really necessary. Quite a few qualified legal professionals have extended encounter in a discipline with no implementing for certification. You have to come to a decision if this is significant to you. · If your challenge is outside Ontario, discover a community attorney initial. Quite a few companies have networks with attorneys globally and are in a position to refer to legal professionals in the United states of america or other nations around the world. Refers involving colleagues are generally additional effective. When you simply call, really don't expect the attorney to fix your small business dilemma more than the telephone. The first discussion is for the law firm to discover no matter if s/he can signify you and for you to evaluate regardless of whether the attorney appears to have the expertise to deal with your challenge. If you have a lawful dilemma the law firm believes his/her business can take care of, an office assembly will be organized. In business matters, attorneys typically charge a session cost for the first workplace conference. At the meeting, the lawyer will give preliminary or urgent advice and produce a go-ahead tactic. The attorney may possibly be in a position to give a partial fee estimate and will check with for a retainer to include some of the function. No attorney can promise the outcome. At this early stage, there are typically a ton of unknown matters. Even though the lawyer could be ready to give you a partial fee estimate in a litigation subject, it really is extremely hard to say with accuracy how substantially it will value. It is dependent on way too a lot of not known elements. It will be then up to you to decide no matter whether or not to employ the service of the attorney to represent you further. The decision you make will depend on your feeling of self confidence in the law firm. Has the lawyer listened to you? Have your inquiries been answered? Does the attorney seem to fully grasp your difficulty? Has the attorney presented the challenges and downsides of your case? Every single situation has challenges and expenditures. Beware of a law firm who tells you only what you want to hear with out examining the strengths of the opposing party's circumstance. Some lawyers will settle for a month to month or annual retainer which entitles the shopper to telephone advice a several periods a thirty day period. Far more difficult concerns call for independent engagements. Idea #4 - The the very least costly attorney is unlikely to be the best man or woman to deal with your lawful difficulty Look at this situation: you are seeking for a attorney for a difficult lawsuit. You contact Mr. Jones, who responses on the first ring. You tell your story, which has numerous details the reverse celebration disputes. Mr. Jones states, "You have a fantastic situation. I'm certain you might be going to earn." When you request how significantly it will expense, Mr. Jones states "Will not fear, you will not have to pay me everything except if you win. Just occur on down to my business office and we'll get commenced." Beware of any attorney who tells you this. When Ontario legal professionals are permitted to demand their charges dependent on contingency, i.e. a share of the end result, this kind of cost arrangement is only almost never applicable in enterprise scenarios. It never takes place when specifics are in dispute, restoration is unsure or if the amount is little. When you retain a law firm, you will need a honest advisor, who will point out the weaknesses of your case as effectively as the strengths. A litigation law firm who is ready by the mobile phone for your contact and tells you exactly what you are hoping to listen to could be way too hungry or too inexperienced to deal with your case. He might be in over his head and will bail out as shortly as your scenario requires a unfavorable change. By then, your legal circumstance might have worsened. It will be much more costly and perhaps impossible to restore it. Even worthwhile cases need careful evaluation and danger evaluation. An experienced litigation attorney will typically do his by for costs on an hourly basis plus GST and any out-of-pocket expenses necessary for your situation. Very good litigation legal professionals are frequently in courtroom, at mediation or other litigation techniques, at conferences or discovery. However, great litigation lawyers constantly call or react by e-mail inside of 24 several hours. In scenario of urgency or holiday, the law firm will set up for someone in the business office to speak to you. Tip #5 - Prevention is better and considerably considerably less high priced than litigation. Lawful issues are like personal computer crashes --- they are certain to happen, it can be just a subject of time. Contrary to computer system crashes, some lawsuits can be avoided. Typically, firms entrepreneurs offer with lawful issues only when a disaster occurs. They search for the minimum expensive attorney to draft their leases, contracts, company and employment agreements without having regard to ability, competence and knowledge. Often, business entrepreneurs steer clear of authorized actions like failing to make a shareholder arrangement, failing to file a trademark application or failing to put together a non-competitiveness and non-solicitation settlement with a important staff. When served with a lawsuit, they overlook or tear the papers up in anger. These enterprise entrepreneurs will be caught short when the unavoidable occurs. Even though litigation or arbitration may even now arise when there are written agreements in location, you will be in a considerably more secure posture if you have taken precautionary measures just before the dispute takes place. If you reply to correspondence and legal papers promptly, you will be much better shielded than if you ignore them. Capable lawful assistance is available for issues such as company business, leases, the wording contracts and other paperwork you use in your business, partnership and shareholder agreements, your associations with your staff, your company's trade names, logos and web page, your regulatory compliance, your chance administration and litigation avoidance approaches. It really is all crucial to arrange legal affairs to make sure that your particular liability is limited in the scenario of a assert versus your enterprise. Guarantee that the legal issues influencing your enterprise are in great get. This is probable to preserve you a great deal of dollars and grief in the potential. You may even take into account possessing a authorized audit or a "business lawful checkup". We strategy to publish about this topic in a long run post in this e-newsletter. Preventative authorized suggestions may be costly but it is just as significant as fire insurance policies. Idea #6 -- Don't suppose that 'going to court' signifies 'going to trial' If you haven't been associated in litigation ahead of, you may well not enjoy that much more than ninety% of circumstances settle before demo. While a trial (or even an charm) is not generally avoidable, legal professionals use methods to try out to resolve scenarios at previously levels. Small business folks are searching for certainty and to restrict cost and publicity. It truly is under no circumstances a poor thought to negotiate a settlement with the opposing social gathering but the timing and strategy will depend on the situation. It is best to negotiate from a situation of strength. This may well imply holding off negotiations right up until sufficient information and documents have been disclosed to favour your place. Mediation is yet another method attorneys use to achieve settlement prior to trial. Mediation entails a neutral mediator, who is typically an experienced lawyer, satisfactory to all functions. The parties and the legal professionals get ready briefs to reveal their positions to the mediator. On the mediation date, immediately after an opening session, the get-togethers retire to individual rooms. The mediator will "shuttle" among the functions until eventually an settlement is worked out or an impasse is declared. This procedure makes a large charge of settlement even in quite challenging instances. Idea #seven - Fully grasp the challenges of the litigation course of action: Why do legal professionals emphasize settlement? Even if you have an airtight case, your attorney will nevertheless advocate settlement. Attorneys evaluate chance just about every day. Even the most airtight scenario could have problems at demo. The decide might want the evidence of the opposing social gathering more than yours. The other party's expert witness may possibly be much more persuasive than yours. These are just two of a lot of possibilities. A demo is often a last resort. Another excellent motive to settle is that even if you gain at demo, the situation may well not be more than since The legal expenses awarded by the court to a productive social gathering are only a partial restoration of the authorized expenditures payable to your law firm. · If you lose at demo or if the opposing party does greater in courtroom than their settlement offer, you will have to pay out a part of their lawful expenses. · There may well be an appeal which could delay payment for two a long time or more time. Until finally a ultimate judgment is granted, a defendant is not often prevented from working with his residence - unless the residence is the issue of the lawsuit (or some other outstanding circumstances). The judgment could be unenforceable. The opposing party could be bancrupt or go bankrupt. You may possibly not acquire everything. · The defendant may conceal his property or transfer them to household members to make the credit card debt challenging to obtain. A separate lawsuit may possibly be necessary to uncover the defendant's property or to declare the fraudulent transfer void. The defendant may well have belongings outside Ontario. A lawyer in the jurisdiction where defendant's belongings are found may well have to be retained to acquire the judgment. A settlement involves a resolution the two events can dwell with. If the case entails the payment of income, there is not going to be a settlement unless payment is designed. Even with these concerns, some scenarios won't be able to be settled. The positions of the functions might be so much aside that a demo is necessary. As the case progresses, you and your attorney will have to revise and update your approach and estimate the lawful cost and threat of every phase of the case. Preserve in brain that the opposing party is working with similar chance assessment and cost issues as you are. Suggestion #eight -- Be a great customer. From a lawyer's point of view, a great consumer is a enterprise individual who does the following: Presents all the specifics of the circumstance reasonably without exaggeration or deception. Explain to your law firm every thing not just the details that assist you. The rest of the story often will come out and usually with adverse consequences. · Considers the law firm as a trusted advisor and advocate. Has a effectively-structured established of related documents. Offers other paperwork and details promptly when requested. Accepts that each circumstance has weaknesses and functions with the law firm to develop a strategy to lessen the weaknesses. Recognizes that the lawyer can't ensure the end result but can only give efficient advocacy to produce the greatest end result, usually as a outcome of negotiation or mediation. If an examination for discovery or demo is necessary, can take the time to get ready to testify. Asks for clarification on all issues that are unclear. Understands that in litigation issues, it is not possible to forecast the expenses correctly but that the attorney will gladly give estimates of imminent steps in the situation. Pays retainers when questioned and settles interim accounts promptly when rendered. Considers the lawyer's tips very carefully and offers affordable guidance. 1 of our firm's clients is a technological innovation organization which started out as a family members operation and has grown to the point that its manufacturer is now approved and identified globally. Our client's president is aware hows to get the most out of his professional advisors. He is generally respectful, trusting of professionalism, intelligence, encounter and competence. He is prompt in responding to requests for information, appreciative of fantastic assistance and great services. He functions challenging but he typically has a delighted and cheerful attitude.

[ellorgast]

Finished Andromeda a few days ago! Spoilery thoughts under the cut.

This game is SUCH a mixed bag of amazing and tedious. Which... honestly, is so par for the course for a Mass Effect game that I feel like I shouldn’t be too harsh with it.

Things I loved:

Ryder. OMG Ryder. I mean, filling that Shepard-sized hole left in the ME series is a feat in itself. I was really not sure that I’d be able to get behind this younger, non-military, much less commanding figure. But in the first like, five minutes of the game, I was in love. They’re such a glorious mess who tries so hard. They have no idea what they’re doing but they’re throwing themselves into the fray anyway. Also the bad flirting.

And I really enjoyed the tone choices and how that alters Ryder’s character. It's a system I really missed from DA2, and I like how they refined it and made it more flexible and organic.

The crewmates! They are so! wonderful! Vetra, Drack, Jaal, and Liam are a delight. I love that they are all kind of a walking disaster in their own way. The amount of banter and cutscenes we got with the crewmates was also excellent. I love how much of it felt like the Citadel DLC.

The loyalty quests! I’m so happy everybody got a loyalty quest and it was actually pretty beefy and required multiple steps and actually seemed tailored to each character’s personality. The tonal shift between Liam, Peebee, and Vetra’s quests is amazing. Liam’s quest is what made me love him.

Vetra romance. Vetra romance! Finally Bioware gives me the tall girlfriend I have always wanted. I have waited so many games for a lady like Vetra. Honestly the sheer number and range of f/f choices is really nice, but Vetra in particular is exactly the kind of character that’s been missing for wlw.

So many of the side quests feel vital. Even though they have the same basic mechanics of a typical Bioware side quest (talk to this person, get this thing, scan three of these things), and even though the in-game rewards are fairly insignificant, the reasoning for it actually feels necessary and immediate. Of course I’ll get that outpost antibiotics, or another water source, or I’ll solve this murder or I’ll find this pregnant woman before she’s killed. There were several occasions when I dropped everything to deal with a side-quest that went out of my way because it just seemed way too important to put off.

The planets were so beautiful and unique. Fuck that ice planet, but it did turn out pretty in the end. 

Space was gorgeous. It finally felt like it took advantage of the fact that you’re FLYING through SPACE and looking at PLANETS.

Things I did not love so much:

This game kept raising really interesting philosophical questions and then dumping them before actually exploring the issue in any satisfactory way. Like... basically everything involving SAM. After the Geth, after the Reapers, after EDI, how can they introduce an AI character, literally integrate it with their protagonist’s body and mind, make it the source of their protagonist’s special ability and the reason the villain is after them specifically, and just... not do anything with it? SAM’s origin is shady as fuck and SAM himself seems eager to explore his existence, but you can’t actually talk about it. 

And when the moment of crisis comes, when the villain exploits your connection to SAM and you’re beaten and separated from him, somehow you just... win anyway. I wanted to know what made SAM able to interact with the tech and what kinda space magic made Ryder sort of able to do it without him. I wanted to know how SAM gained humanity through Ryder. I wanted to see some kind of fallout from Ryder’s near-death and his hard reset (he said he would restore his intended limitations but there is absolutely no evidence he did anything of the sort). I wanted the crisis to ACTUALLY be a crisis, for all the questions about the ethical implications of having an AI implanted in your head to actually come to a head instead of fizzling out. This should have been the actual climax of the story, and as cool as it was to finally see Ryder struggle, it didn’t feel like enough. And while I kept waiting for some kind of follow-up with SAM, post-game SAM seems to be carrying on with business as usual. 

For all the wonderful banter and loyalty quests, I somehow felt like I had little chance to get to know the characters. I think part of the reason is that so much about the characters is revealed only through banter, which happens only in the car, and for some reason NOT on Eos? (I took a drive around Eos late in the game and all anybody talked about was Eos, still.) Which means that by the time I get a full party I’ve already picked my squad and my early-game squad got no conversation whatsoever. Liam and Cora definitely suffered the most from this. I also wanted to get more reaction from them on my own actions or something. I’m not Shepard, nobody here has any reason to have absolute faith in my abilities, but they all just go along with whatever?

And for all that I love Vetra, she felt really thin on content, especially because her romance is locked behind game progression. It felt like I had to negotiate peace between multiple species, establish half a dozen colonies, resolve every problem in the galaxy, and turn down the advances of half my squad before she’d even talk to me. No wonder so many of my friends passed on her for Jaal.

I’m not really interested in replaying it right now, which is unusual for a Bioware game. That might change as they add DLC and such. I liked the idea of a game+ as your twin, but since I’m not a fan of his extremely limited (and kinda gross) male romance options... eh.

[cubaverdad]

When Pope Benedict was in Cuba, he added a politically charged word at the last minute

When Pope Benedict was in Cuba, he added a politically charged word at the last minute BY MIMI WHITEFIELD, KEVIN G. HALL AND FRANCO ORDOÑEZ Miami Herald Archives SANTIAGO, CUBA From the Miami Herald archives: Five years ago, Pope Benedict visited Cuba, greeting tens of thousands of Cubans on March 26, 2012 on the first leg of his visit to the island. The last papal visit to Cuba had been 14 years before by Pope John Paul II. Here is a look back: Tens of thousands of Cuban well-wishers greeted Pope Benedict XVI Monday on the first leg of his whirlwind tour of this communist island, a visit aimed at building on the spiritual gains that his predecessor, John Paul II, made during a historic visit 14 years ago. Thousands lined the road from the airport to catch a glimpse of the pontiff as he passed by in his "popemobile, " and tens of thousands more gathered in Santiago's Plaza of the Revolution Antonio Maceo for a papal Mass that began a half-hour late in the unrelenting afternoon sun. But the hot weather and the delay did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm as the crowd jumped with joy and roared its approval as a statue of Cuba's patron saint made its way through the crowd of a Vatican-estimated 200,000 people. "This is not political. You see, everybody here is happy, happy, happy, " said Maria, a Santiago resident who asked that her surname not be used. For 64-year-old Ana Cajigal and her daughter Mayra, 32, it was a chance to hear their second pope. "We are very emotional, happy, we want peace in the world, " said the older Cajigal, flanked by her daughter wearing a USA cap, not common in Cuba. Asked if she was sending a message as she posed for pictures, she smiled coyly and said, "It's for the sun." Politics, however, were not far away. Shortly after two white doves were released as the Mass began, a man charged the stage, shouting in Spanish, "Down with communism." He was quickly subdued, and none of it was visible to television viewers. A video showed the crowd striking him as he was hauled away. The pope himself made little mention of politics in his homily until the very end, when he called on Cubans to "strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity, and which better reflects the goodness of God." Earlier, Benedict, 84, offered gentle criticism for both Cuba's authoritarian government and a U.S. trade embargo on the island that's more than 50 years old in remarks he gave when he arrived at Santiago's airport at about 2:30 in the afternoon. He was greeted on the airport's tarmac by Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who wore a business suit and sported a red tie. In his arrival remarks, Benedict said Cubans "wherever they may be" were in his prayers. He said he prayed for guidance for "the future of this beloved nation in the ways of justice, peace, freedom, liberty and reconciliation." The word liberty, a politically charged word, was not in the prepared remarks that had been distributed to reporters in advance of the pope's arrival and was added by the pope apparently at the last minute. Tweaking the Castro government, Benedict said, "Greater progress can and ought to be made" in relations between the church and state. In a criticism of the United States and other developed countries, Benedict said "not a few people regard" the world's current economic troubles "as part of a profound spiritual and moral crisis" afflicting the developed world. For his part, Castro criticized the five-decade U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and said Cuba was opening up and "changing all that needs to be changed." Like his brother Fidel's welcoming speech to John Paul II in 1998, Raúl defended the pair's legacy of healthcare and education for all. Benedict was scheduled to spend Monday night at a restored home for retired priests in the small mining town of El Cobre, home to Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, where he was to sleep on a new "memory foam" mattress donated by a furniture store in Miami. On Tuesday morning, he'll pray at the Our Lady of Charity shrine before leaving for Havana. The pope's trip coincides with the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the small, doll-like wooden statue of the Virgin Mary bobbing in the Bay of Nipe after a violent storm. From that day forward, Catholics have revered her as Our Lady of Charity. For centuries, the faithful have prayed to Our Lady of Charity, now Cuba's patron saint, for her help. "I, too, wish to go to El Cobre to kneel at the feet of the Mother of God, " the pope said. "I want to ask her to guide the future of this beloved nation in the ways of justice, peace, freedom and reconciliation." He added: "I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be, their sufferings and their joys, their concerns and their noblest desires, those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need.'' While the German-born Pope Benedict lacks the charm and charisma of his Polish predecessor, his visit has stirred hopes among Cuban believers and Cuban exiles in Miami and elsewhere for change in an island nation that the Castro brothers have ruled for more than five decades, first Fidel, and then, since 2006, Raul. "We await the pope with much joy. The Cuban people love the pope. The Cuban Catholic Church is very proud that the pope has shown a preference for Cuba, because it's the second such visit in which a pope has come, " said José Julio García, who was interviewed Sunday as his four-truck caravan, carrying dozens of Roman Catholic worshippers from the city of Camaguey, paused along the way to Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city. Church leaders in Cuba and the United States are walking a fine line. On one hand, they're trying to boost the influence of the Catholic Church in Cuba, which has made gains in followers and charity work since John Paul II's 1998 visit. On the other hand, they're under pressure from staunchly Catholic Cuban exiles in the United States and Europe who think the church should use its moral authority to pose a stronger challenge to Cuba's autocratic regime and help bring about its end. Even before he arrived, Pope Benedict caused a stir by suggesting during his visit to Mexico that Cuba's Marxist ideology is outdated and the country needs a new model. Overlooked were his comments that changes should come slowly and in a deliberate process, not unlike the sorts of openings already happening in a small scale under Raúl.Castro. Raúl, 80, who assumed the presidency in 2006 when Fidel, now 85, fell seriously ill, has expanded self-employment, shrunk government jobs and scaled back subsidies to state enterprises. The communist government, however, continues to have firm control over many aspects of public life, and there are no opposition parties. The government has been closely following the activities of the Ladies in White, a small movement of women who wear white and gather at Masses at Catholic churches in Cuba to protest the treatment of the island's prisoners of conscience. They're expected to protest sometime during the papal visit to Santiago, and the dissident group is still holding out hope that it will be able to speak with the pope when he arrives in Havana on Tuesday. After a protest march Sunday outside the Santa Rita church in Havana's Miramar neighborhood, the group's leader, Berta Soler, said that all they wanted was "just a moment" with the pope to discuss human rights. The Castro government doesn't want the Ladies in White to attend the pope's Mass in Havana's José Martí Revolution Square, but Soler vowed that the women will make their presence known. "We will be there, all of us, dressed in white, " she said. "We won't stop until human rights are respected." Whitefield and McClatchy News Service correspondent Hall reported from Santiago, and Ordonez of McClatchy reported from Havana. Source: Miami Herald archive: Pope Benedict visited Cuba five years ago | Miami Herald - http://ift.tt/2n6VVKS via Blogger http://ift.tt/2mEsNOR