#I was just talking about ides of march did that manifest here

[completeoveranalysis]

[3]

OOH YES Fai and Kurogane are on edge now! While it was fun before and they were happy to flirt in the face of it all, now Lava Lamp is in extreme danger and They’re Not Enjoying That. Fai is now visibly (stressed? Upset? furious?) while he fights, and Kurogane is actually calling out his attack names again. And from that first panel we can see that they’re trying to get to him. They’re trying to save him from Syaoran now, so the endless clones are much more of a problem than they were even before. 

OOP!

HAVE YOU SEEN THAT EXPRESSION ON KUROGANE BEFORE?

THE FUN LEVELS ARE PLUMMETING EVEN FURTHER

I UH

A STAB?

Clamp really said You’re going to get stabbed in the chest and it’s going to be gorgeous.

[ask-the-crimson-king]

More Stuff from Betrayer

[While on the topic, I want to show the various humans out there a very interesting scene out of Betrayer.

Two, technically, but one that's a bit longer than the other. Image IDs will be provided at the end of the post, cause there's going to be a LOT.

Some interesting insights into how Lorgar views Chaos and a bit about the Emperor as well. I always find this scene to be fascinating, especially since he's borrowed the astropathic choir of the Conquerer to listen to worlds dying across Ultramar while he muses on this.

And then there's when Angron walks up.

Some interesting, albeit a bit morbid, banter between brothers. I do like how Angron even greets Lorgar on the way in, and Lorgar is just standing there stunned. The insights into how Angron views the Devourers is also neat, and it is to be expected at this point. Lorgar trying to argue for them and trying to get Angron to stop ignoring them outright is another neat touch.

The two begin talking of Ultramar, and Lorgar reveals that Nuceria is going to be the capstone for his ritual. Angron asks why, and the following is said:

I like this passage for a few reasons. Firstly, how Angron "dreams" has always been something of interest to me. Because I doubt he ever really gets much rest and respite. Here we get some insight into this, although this also was already expressed a bit earlier. This passage also leads into Angron's recollection of the Night of the Wolf, but I wanted to focus on this.

Lorgar and Angron's "bond" is something that's always intrigued me. It definitely feels more one-sided, with Lorgar seeking for brotherhood that isn't really there, but there are a few moments to make it feel a bit more genuine. However, there is still something missing from these interactions. I can't really describe it other than a barrier between two primarchs who will never see eye-to-eye. Lorgar does, to his credit, try to be understanding and patient throughout, but I can also definitely feel his annoyance coming through at certain places.

In a way, I can almost feel a similar sort of vibe to how Magnus interacts with some of his brothers. Namely with Perturabo in one of the opening chapters of his primarch novel. However, the bond between those two is still very different from the one Angron has with Lorgar; those two actually do have a deep connection, while these two don't. There's a misunderstanding and underestimation coming from both sides in certain aspects; Lorgar in almost sounding condescending to Angron, and Angron still thinking Lorgar a weakling.

TL;DR, Betrayer good.

Image IDs below the cut:

Image ID 1 & 2: A scene from Betrayer where Lorgar is standing and listening to worlds burn. It reads:

Serving as conductor for an astrological orchestra was more taxing than he’d dreamed, though his blunter, more militant brothers would struggle to grasp the finer points of his efforts. Exhaustion left him wondering, even if only briefly, whether absolute peace would create a stellar song as divinely inspired as absolute war. Fate had played its hand and Chaos was destined to swallow all creation whether or not Horus and Lorgar raged against the Imperial war machine, but if what if they’d stayed loyal to the Emperor? What then? Would the Great Crusade have shaped a serene funeral dirge, to play behind the veil as humanity died in a defenceless harrowing?

Therein lay the fatal flaw. The Emperor’s way was compliance, not peace. The two were as repellent to one another as opposing lodestones. It didn’t matter what enlightenment the Imperium stamped out in its conquering crusade when obedience was all its lords desired. It didn’t matter what wars were fought from now into eternity. The Legiones Astartes would always march, for they were born to do so. There would always be war; even if the Great Crusade had been allowed to reach the galaxy’s every edge, there would never be peace. Discontent would seethe. Populations would rebel. Worlds would rise up. Human nature eventually sent men and women questing for the truth, and tyrants always fell to the truth.

No peace. Only war.

Lorgar felt his blood run cold. Only war. Those were words to echo into eternity.

He didn’t trust the Ten Thousand Futures the way Erebus claimed to. Too many possibilities forked from every decision made by every living thing. What use was prophecy when all it offered was what might happen? Lorgar was not so devoid of imagination that he needed the warp’s twisting guesswork to show him that. Anyone with an iota of vision could imagine what might happen. Genius lay in engineering events according to one’s own goals, not in blindly heeding the laughter of mad gods.

More than that, Lorgar sought to keep one thing in mind above all else. The gods were powerful, without doubt, but they were fickle beings. Each worked against its own kin more often than not, spilling conflicting prophecies into their prophets’ minds. Perhaps they weren’t even sentient in the way a mortal mind could encompass. They seemed as much the manifestations of primal emotion as they did individual essences.

But no, there was a wide gulf between hearing them and heeding them. Gods lied, just like men. Gods deceived and clashed and sought to advance their own dominions over their rivals’. Lorgar trusted none of their prophecies.

Image ID 3-5: A series of screenshots from Betrayer. Angron comes into the scene. It reads:

Angron entered the basilica, armoured in his usual stylised bronze and ceramite and with two oversized chainswords strapped to his back. He even wasted time with a greeting, raising his hand in the first time Lorgar could ever remember such a gesture from his broken brother. The Word Bearer tried not to let his amazement show at his brother’s new consideration.

‘Lotara says you stole her astropathic choir.’ Angron’s lipless smile was a ghastly thing indeed. ‘I see that she may have been correct.’

‘Stole is a strong word. “Appropriated” seems much less ignoble.’ Lorgar spared a glance for the skies above the cathedral, as the Lex ripped onwards towards Nuceria.

‘What do you need them for?’ Angron asked. His wounds from being buried alive had already faded to scrunched scar tissue pebbling his flesh, just another host of scarring to overlay the last.

The Devourers lurked behind him, stomping into the cathedral without the primarch sparing them a glance. To be one of Angron’s bodyguards was no honour, despite how fiercely the World Eaters’ champions had fought for it in the first, optimistic years. Angron ignored them no matter where they went, never once fighting alongside them in battle. In their Terminator plate, they’d never managed to keep up with their liege lord, and they were as prone to losing control as any other World Eater, meaning any hope of them fighting as an organised pack was a forlorn one at best.

Lorgar watched the Devourers – those warriors who’d spent a century learning to swallow their pride and pretend they weren’t ignored – speaking amongst themselves at the basilica’s entrance.

‘Hail,’ he greeted them. They seemed uneasy at being addressed, offering hesitant and wordless bows.

Angron snorted at his brother acknowledging them. ‘Bodyguards,’ he said. ‘Even their name annoys me. “Devourers”, as if I’d named them myself – as if they were the Legion’s finest.’

‘Their intentions are pure,’ Lorgar pointed out. ‘They seek to honour you. It’s not their fault you leave them behind in every battle.’

‘They’re not even the Legion’s fiercest fighters, any more. That rogue Delvarus refuses to challenge for a place in their ranks. Khârn laughed when I asked him if he’d ever considered it. And do you know Bloodspitter?’

‘I know Bloodspitter,’ Lorgar replied. Everyone knew Bloodspitter.

‘He beat one of them in the pits, and carved his name into the poor bastard’s armour with a combat knife.’

Lorgar forced a smile. ‘Yes. Delightful.’

Angron’s face wrenched again, at the mercy of misfiring muscles. ‘What primarch ever needed guarding by lesser men?’

‘Ferrus,’ Lorgar said softly. ‘Vulkan.’

Angron laughed, the sound rich and true, yet harsh as a bitter wind. ‘It’s good to hear you joke about those weaklings. I was getting bored of you mourning them.’

It was no joke, but Lorgar had no desire to shatter his brother’s fragile good humour. ‘I only mourn the dead,’ Lorgar conceded. ‘I don’t mourn Vulkan.’

‘He’s as good as dead.’ The World Eater smiled again. ‘I’m sure he wishes he were. Now, what are you doing with Lotara’s choir?’

‘Listening to them sing of other worlds and other wars.’

Angron stared, unimpressed. ‘Specifics,’ he said, ‘while I have the patience to hear such details.’

‘Just listen,’ Lorgar replied.

Angron did as he was bid. After a minute or more had passed, he nodded once. ‘You’re listening to the Five Hundred Worlds burning.’

‘Something like that. These are the voices of the freshly dead, and those soon to join them. The mortis-moments of random souls, elsewhere in Ultramar, as our fleets ravage their worlds.’

‘Morbid, priest. Even for you.’

‘We’re inflicting this destruction on them. We mustn’t consider ourselves distant from it. It may not be our hands holding the bolters and blades, but we are still the architects of this annihilation. It’s our place to listen to it, to remember the martyred dead, and to meditate on all we’ve wrought.’

‘I wish you well with it,’ said Angron. ‘But why steal Lotara’s choir? What happened to yours?’

‘They died.’

It was Angron’s turn to be surprised. ‘How did they die?’

‘Screaming.’ Lorgar showed no emotion at all. ‘What brings you here, brother?’

Image ID 6 & 7: Two screenshots from later in the previous scene, when Angron asks 'Why Nuceria?'. It reads:

‘The metaphysics are complicated,’ said Lorgar.

That had Angron growling. ‘I may not have wasted days in debate with you and Magnus inside our father’s Palace, but the Nails haven’t left me an absolute fool. I asked the question, Lorgar. You answer it. And do so without lying, if you can manage such a feat.’

The Word Bearer met his brother’s eyes, and the rarely-seen palette of emotions within their depths. Pain was there in abundance, but so was the frustration of living with a misfiring mind, and the savagery that transcended anger itself. Angron was a creature that had come to make his hatred a blade to be used in battle. He’d weaponised his own emotions, where most living beings were slaves to theirs. Lorgar couldn’t help but admire the strength in that.

‘We’re going to Nuceria,’ he said, ‘because of you. Because of the Nails.’

Angron stared, and his silence beckoned for his brother to continue.

‘They’re killing you,’ Lorgar admitted. ‘Faster than I thought. Faster than anyone realised. The rate of degeneration has accelerated even in the last few months. Your implants were never designed for a primarch’s brain matter. Your physiology is trying to heal the damage as the Nails bite deeper, but it’s a game of pushing and pulling, with both sides evenly matched.’

Angron took this with an impassive shrug. ‘Guesswork.’

‘I can see souls and hear the music of creation,’ Lorgar smiled. ‘In comparison, this is nothing. The Twelfth Legion’s archives are comprehensive enough, you know. Your behaviour tells the rest of the tale, along with the pain I sense radiating from you each and every time we meet. Your entire brain is remapped and rewired, slaved to the implants’ impulses. Tell me, when was the last time you dreamed?’

‘I don’t dream.’ The answer was immediate, almost fiercely fast. ‘I’ve never dreamed.’

Lorgar’s gentle eyes caught the warp’s kaleidoscopic light as he tilted his head. ‘Now you’re lying, brother.’

‘It’s no lie.’ Angron’s thick fingers twitched and curled, closing around the ghosts of weapons. ‘The Nails scarcely let me sleep. How would I dream?’

Lorgar didn’t miss the rising tension in his brother’s body language – the veins in his temples rising from scarred skin, the feral hunch of the shoulders, no different from a hunting cat drawing into a crouch before it struck.

‘You once told me the Nails stole your slumber,’ Lorgar conceded, ‘but you also said they let you dream.’

Angron took a step closer. He started to say ‘I meant…’ but Lorgar’s earthy glare stopped him cold.

‘They give you a serenity and peace you can find nowhere else. Humans, legionaries, primarchs… everything alive must sleep, must rest, must allow its brain a period of respite. The remapping of your mind denies you this. You don’t dream with your eyes closed. You dream with your eyes open, chasing the rush of whatever peace the Nails can give you.’ Lorgar met Angron’s eyes again. ‘Don’t insult us both by denying it. You slaver and murmur when you kill, mumbling about chasing serenity and how close it feels. I’ve heard you. I’ve looked into your heart and soul when you’re lost to the Nails. Your sons, with their crude copies of your implants, have their minds rewritten to feel joy only in adrenaline’s kiss. Those lesser implants cause pain because they scrape the nerves raw, thus your World Eaters kill because it gladdens their reforged hearts, and ceases the pain knifing into their muscles. Your Butcher’s Nails are a more sinister and predatory design, ruining all cognition, stealing any peace. They are killing you, gladiator. And you ask why I’m taking you back to Nuceria? Is it not obvious?’

End Image ID.]

[alfredosauce50]

Island Escapade [Ex-con! 2p! America x reader x Denmark] 07

Island Escapade - 07 - She's my collar Wordcount: 2, 877 The reader is referred to as she/her.

"Mathias is missing."

"Save your jokes for dinnertime, Allen. It would've been better to laugh in front of him." You snorted. Without sparing him so little as a glance, you leaned forward to crush a few cloves of garlic under the blade of a knife. He stood at your side with his eyes narrowed into a troubled glare—you could brush me off every other time, just not today.

"I'm not kidding, dollface." He set down the missing man's phone on the countertop in a light clunk. "He's been gone since noon. Dude went awol the second he finished eating. And it's nearly seven."

You lifted your gaze to the device, then to him. It wasn't the first time he did something like this, but now that he mentioned it, his cloud of worry seemed to float right over.

"... Hm. That's weird." Giving your hands a quick wipe, you marched out to the porch overlooking the surrounding beaches. Allen appeared from behind. "You don't think he went to someone else's house, do you? It's getting dark... And the rain's setting in."

"He's not stupid enough to not bring an umbrella, right?" He asked.

One of your eyes narrowed in thought. "Doubt it." Redirecting your line of vision to a spot on the fencing, your words manifested into reality when you saw that your umbrella was untouched. Immediately, you frowned. "What on Earth could he be up to?" The other shrugged with his lips pursed together.

"Maybe he's trying to get your attention by making you worry."

You cracked your neck. "Well, he always was one for theatrics. He'll probably come back soaking head to toe to be dramatic."

You couldn't put it past him to do something like that. Again.

"Ouch." Allen chuckled, following you back inside. "You do this every time he runs off?"

"Yeah, because I'm usually right." Mathias was either straightforward and demanding or didn't say anything at all. Like being dramatic.

There was no compromise whatsoever, but you doubted he knew what the word meant. The man had the communication skills of an egg. "But if he proves me wrong, we have something to be scared of."

Making your way back to the kitchen, you scraped up the chopped-up vegetables and dropped them into a frypan for a satisfying sizzle. Despite your silence, the worry was visibly setting in your downcast eyes. Even he could see it, but he never brought it up until it was time to eat—the last and ultimate test.

If he was late he might as well have been dead.

He never missed dinner or any meal for that matter. And yet, there you sat, halfway through your stirfry. Allen already finished his, now watching you with his cheek resting on his hand. "... You good?"

His brows were slightly furrowed.

You kept your head down to prod around your plate absentmindedly.

"Yeah... He’ll turn up."

As the minutes droned by without him, the plate next to yours grew colder and colder. What was once hot and piping had cooled off and hardened. The generous serving of what you made—double of what you had—was no longer as appetizing as it used to be.

"Listen. He's not showing up."

He watched you glance up slowly. What he blurted was disheartening, but he couldn't take how depressed you looked.

"... You're wrong. He always shows up." You murmured faintly, unable to return his steely gaze. As you continued, your trust in your own words completely disintegrated.

"It doesn't matter how late it is."

Your stubbornness was just a front. Allen saw right through it. Digging his hands through his dark maroon hair, creases formed between his eyes as he hesitated to continue. But he had to do what had to be done. "Sorry, it had to be me, doll."

He raised an index to point at himself. "Look me in the eye and tell me he's gonna show up." You didn't budge. "That's what I thought. And what did you say his bedtime was? Nine. It's nearly eight."

A brief silence fell as you both shared the same thought.

Mathias was like a kid.

Allen felt worse to know you used to date him. Even now, he could see you worrying yourself to death, but you made no effort to admit it.

"Look, if you’re scared, then you’re scared. But he’s a hardy guy, ain’t he? If I can fit into his clothes, then he’s got a good chance of surviving without eating his veggies for the night."

There it was—the glimmer of hope in your eyes as you lit up to what he said. It was exactly what you needed to hear. The comfort you couldn't bring yourself to ask for. After all, Mathias's absence impacted the atmosphere more than you and Allen cared to confess.

But for you, it hurt more than you could fathom.

A few hours later, there was still no sign of him appearing. You were patient, however, and continued to sit in the living room. But desperate was the better word as you fixated on the door. Where was he? Was he okay? The muffled sound of a toothbrush stopped, which was followed by the hum of the faucet turning on.

Out walked Allen in his pyjamas. His underwear. You had long given up on telling Mathias to not do it. And you were too exhausted for Allen's antics. "You should get some sleep, doll. We'll sort this out tomorrow." The couch dipped to your right. "Or do I gotta sit here all night too?"

You bit your lip for a deep frown.

"No, you go to sleep. I'm not letting you do this because my stupid ex can't look after himself." A sigh fell from your lips. "You're not responsible for anything, and I wouldn't be able to sleep, anyway."

He rose a brow. "Okay, fine. But who said you had to be responsible?"

"Me."

Allen clicked his tongue. "I know you care about him, but I have to be frank." He turned to you with a softened gaze. "There's nothing you can do but wait til' morning. We can look for him when we can actually see."

Why did he have to put it like he was already dead?

You practically launched yourself into his arms, much to his surprise. Tightening your coils around him, it didn't take long for you to feel his strong arms around you. He wasn't used to being appreciated, but damn, did it feel good. "Aw, haw haw. Gimme some. Let's hug it out."

"If he comes back alive, I'm gonna kill him." Your voice was no higher than a whisper to stop it from cracking. When you realized what you were doing, bile rose in your throat.

"You can kill him all you want when he gets back, and he will." Allen pet your hair softly. Given the height difference, he could rest his chin on the top of your head. "Don’t cry over that dumbass. He doesn’t deserve it."

"But you don’t understand—" Pulling away to rub away some stray tears, the effort ended up in vain as more streamed down your face. "—we were still fighting today."

His eyes drooped in sympathy as you finally spilled. "Why did he have to fucking disappear when I was already ignoring him? He was trying to talk to me for days but I never even looked at him...!"

You sucked in a sharp breath to hold back a sob, then to replace it with a laugh. "About how good his cereal was, or how bad the weather was—or, or a funny video or something just as stupid."

All Allen could do was dab tissues over your face, so he huffed out a soft sigh. Hearing it only made bottling everything in harder. And it showed in the tremble that seized your body.

"C’mon... Don’t be like that." He pulled you in again, unable to bear the sight. Hearing it was bad enough.

God, were you a mess.

He’d never say it out loud, but it turned him on more than anything. Hugging you tighter as the warmth flurried more in his chest, he felt something wet spread over his tank. You were so vulnerable, and to be here when you needed someone—he never felt closer to you than now.

"I'll be however I wanna be. This is just how it's always been with him." You admitted bitterly through a glare. "He pulls something, but I'm the one who ends up feeling bad. I can’t win arguments! And you have no idea how many times it’s happened."

Never had he witnessed such raw honesty and ugly emotions from you. Allen just never imagined Mathias to be the cause of it. But then again, you had a history with him he was never privy to.

For just a moment, he felt like crying too.

"You gotta stop beating yourself up. Shit happens. But I promise he'll show up. I got a feeling we aren't getting rid of him this easily."

You sniffed. "You really think so?"

"I know so."

The next morning, you were awakened by the buzz of your phone. Rummaging under your pillow to find the source of those obnoxious vibrations, you pulled out the device to find yourself staring at the line, "No caller ID" across your screen. With little hesitation, you answered it. Inside, you prayed and prayed it was who you thought it was.

"... Hello?"

"(F/N)! It's me!" The voice piped. "Gah, thank god you picked up!"

Your heart soared as you sprung up.

"Mathias?! Is that you?"

"Who else could it be, kæreste? Of course, it's me! I just wanted to let you know I'm okay! A little lost, but okay!" He spoke breathlessly. Now, the Danish pet name and unnecessary amount of shouting? You couldn't mistake it for anyone else.

Immediately, a huge wave of relief washed over you. But it was short-lived.

The fear burned away into a livid kind of fury.

"What the fuck, Mat? I was worried to death!" You screamed. You could practically imagine him holding the phone away while cringing at the volume. But it was merely a taste of his own medicine.

He laughed. "Sorry, sorry. It's a long story, but I promise to tell you everything."

"Sorry? I thought you died!" A few knocks sounded on your door. Sliding yourself off the bed, you unlocked it without a second thought. In walked a disgruntled Allen with his face scrunched up.

He was never a morning person, but today was a special occasion.

"I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to worry you, I swear!"

You scowled, putting him on speaker. "Then you better start talking."

A weight settled on your head—your companion decided it to be a perfect resting place for the meantime while he listened in. He then wrapped himself around you. As tired as he was, he still managed a wide, floaty smile. So he was right, wasn't he? Rather than crying over the dumb Dane, you were about to give him the lecturing of a lifetime.

So rather than telling Allen off, you let him do as he pleased. You even held onto his arm that found its place on your waist.

"Uhh, so... I'm kinda stranded."

You expected him to say, on a random island on the Spanish archipelago. Maybe he had gone out for a swim to sulk by his lonesome after you forgave Allen. It was understandable, considering he was genuinely convinced he was trying something. And because he broke safety protocols, he managed to get swept away without anyone realizing it. How he didn't drown was beyond you.

Little did you know, he took swept up to a whole other level.

"Well, spit it out! The faster you tell us where you are, the easier it'll be for you, me, and the coast guard."

Mathias 'uhhed' again.

"... Erm... I think I'm in New York?"

New York.

The Big Apple.

It was where Allen was supposed to be—his home. How did they end up switching places?

If you could, you would have gone on and on about how impossible he was. Even Allen was shocked at how red you were as you shrieked into the speaker. Unfortunately, the displaced man was borrowing a phone from a random passerby on the street, so he had to hang up. Before he did, you relayed to him that you were breaking up with him twice out of spite. It didn't really make sense, but it incited a huge reaction from Mathias nonetheless.

Wha~at! But you already broke up with me! You can't break up with me again! He'd pleaded. But he was wrong. Anything he humored you on, you could use against him. And that included made-up dating culture. He deserved that, at least.

It wasn't just the random location he wound up in that troubled you, even if he was across the North Atlantic Ocean. It was how he ended up there in the first place. Apparently, he decided to do some vigilante work and sneak onto the ferry that stole the turtle eggs. But he wasn't Batman.

He was Mathias.

So he was stranded in a foreign country with no money. And like Allen said, it was strangely hard to get rid of him. Before the call ended, you told him to go to the Spanish consulate for help. He didn't even realize he could do that. So Allen was right. How he wasn't dead was beyond you! Fucking around with animal smugglers, then actually considering sleeping outside on the streets of New York?

He'd be killed faster than he could say Ferrari.

The next day around noon, Mathias glided in on a yacht accompanied by Antonio. Inhaling the fresh salt of the Mediterranean waters, he giddily stepped down onto the pier. How he missed this smell. Before he could get far, the rapid thudding of your footsteps came charging at him at unprecedented speed.

"Mat!"

There were bags under his eyes, but the sight of you running at him was the greatest injection of energy he could ever ask for. "(F/N)!" Outstretching his arms just in time to catch you, he stumbled back from the sheer force of the collision. "Hey! Did you miss me?"

"Fuck you...! I always thought you were stupid, but not that stupid!" You exasperated in the hug. Mathias responded by holding you tighter and nuzzling into your neck. He could listen to you scold him forever, but the opportunity to breathe you in was rarer than a blue moon. "What did you think you could accomplish, huh? You’re not special! We were gonna call the cops, you idiot! You weren’t supposed to trespass and try and save the day!"

He sighed contentedly. "Mm, I’m sorry. I only ever meant to go in for a quick look. But I had to hide when people came. So I hid for like..." His voice was low with huskiness, a sure fire sign he was fatigued. "Half a day. In an empty crate. I stole one of the labels and shipped myself out so they wouldn’t find me."

Pulling away with a huff, you reached up to cup his cheeks. There was untold fondness in how you held him, even if your words didn’t reflect it. "Just shut up and take nap. I’ve had enough of your idiocy." You flickered your sad eyes over his roughed up features. There were more bruises than you could bear, and it broke your heart to see them.

Mathias picked up rather quickly for once, so he gave both your hands a reassuring squeeze. Then, he gleamed. "Don’t worry! I heal super fast! And even faster if you kiss it better," The blonde winked.

If it weren’t for the bruises, you would have pushed his face away. "I would have given you a punch, but it looks like you were punished enough."

He began to walk with you back to your house.

"Oh? So are you saying you’re not mad at me anymore?" He chimed hopefully.

You shot him a glare. "Far from it. I was gonna have your ass on the couch, but I’ll be nice since you spent a night in a box." Mathias’s smile widened, but you were pleased to say he was jumping the gun. "You can sleep in my bed. But I won’t be using it."

He pouted.

"You’d rather sleep on the couch than with me?"

"No, I’d rather sleep in a different room than you." Grinning at that, you ascended the small flight of stairs to your front porch. Allen just walked outside to greet you both. Speak of the devil. "I’ll be crashing this guy’s room."

"Wait, you are?" The said guy blinked.

Mathias’s jaw dropped. You’ve never seen him this horrified in his life. "What? No way! You—you can’t!"

You hummed delightfully. "My house, my rules. Don’t like them, you’re free to leave. You have a home to go back to, you know?"

"I think I’ll stay." His cheeks blew up in discontent.

Allen shared your mischievous grin. "Heh. It must suck being a loser all the time. But I can’t really say anything when I can’t relate." He shrugged.

"Hey! I’m not!"

[jessgartner]

2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics. 

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020: 

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all. 

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes. 

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.” 

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented. 

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids. 

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold 

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day. 

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year. 

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me. 

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad: 

Travel down 70% 

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35% 

Gifts and donations up 200% 

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category) 

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens. 

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC. 

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love. 

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village. 

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.” 

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold 

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places. 

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors. 

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard. 

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic. 

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it. 

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will. 

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins. 

I want to shake with joy. 

If you’d like to receive the (shorter) monthly Life Olympics, subscribe here. 

[theurbanologist]

Neon Green In The Permanent Collection

As I look down at one, two, three, four and more neon green arrows on the floor, a man  dressed in a two-sizes too small chartreuse polo and madras shorts blusters at me from behind his Sponge Bob face mask:

“Boy, this is a brave new world with all of these arrows right?  Go here, stand there, wait for this, don’t do this and do that.”

Pause.

“Do you think these arrows will become part of the permanent collection?”

I’m back at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood for a 2PM timed ticket entry. It’s the first museum I’ve set foot in since early March when I breezed into the nearby Museum of Fine Arts to consider their selection of refined piano-fortes. 

This chartreuse-clad man is also the first person I’ve talked to in a museum since that time, though really it feels like he’s talking at me just to talk, which hey—haven’t we all done that during These Times? 

You know, talked to people even for a moment through a face mask, maybe just to get a snipped of a conversation in, even if it’s really just a fauxservation, or a conversation that’s a bit like a representation of a conversation, not the actual give and take of an actual conversation. 

I first heard tell of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1992 shortly before I took a solo trip around the United States via Amtrak. A family friend in Seattle told me “Oh, you must see Isabella Stewart Gardner when you visit Boston.” She dropped the “the” thereby giving me the impression that I must simply visit this woman with three names. 

How would I find her in the Hub of the Universe? Look her up in the Yellow Pages, call out her name in Boston Common, the Public Garden, along the Esplanade, or maybe just approach strangers on the street? I really had no idea and quite frankly, my own background did not find myself traipsing through social situations featuring people who went by three names, especially those names that bespoke a certain fine pedigree. 

I decide to consult my secular travel bible for more particulars on this Isabella Stewart Gardner, namely the 1991 Let’s Go: USA travel guide. Written by bright young things at Harvard, this chunky doorstop of a book promised a complete guide to all 50 states, with information about hostels, museums, parks, and other amusements. 

I turned to page 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, and aha, there it was on page 137, a complete description for my consideration:

“A few hundred yards from the MFA stands the beautiful Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 The Fenway. The eccentric “Mrs. Jack” Gardner built the small Venetian-style palace to distract her from her grief at the loss of her only child; in the process she scandalized Boston with her excesses, but eventually built a superb art collection. Unfortunately, thieves depleted the artistic coffers in 1989, taking a few Rembrandts, Degas, and other masterworks. A stunning courtyard and century-old architectural fragments remain.”

Less than 100 words in that terse introduction to Mrs. Jack and I was hooked, that’s for sure. 

Nothing like existed this in Seattle, that far-flung north and west outpost with not a single Wealthy Person’s House Turned Art Museum that you could tour and gaze upon Old Masters that so elegantly found themselves located near a brilliantly constructed Emerald Necklace imagined by a World Famous Park Designer. 

I could not wait to see it, oh please, make July 1992 arrive faster, I thought way back when in May 1992. 

July 1992 did eventually arrive, coming immediately after June 1992, and I found myself depositing my bags at the American Youth Hostel on nearby Hemenway Street. Hurrying over to the Gardner Museum, I made it inside before it closed, hurrying around to find the entrance——would I make it tho?

Would there be a student discount? 

Could I use my student ID from James A. Garfield High School to obtain such a discount? 

I had many questions as I pulled up to the Main Entrance, covered in the type of sweat that you really only get wandering around a Large Eastern Seaboard City. It felt like a type of grimy film that was simply impossible to obtain via in a most rigorous walk along Seattle’s waterfront in the tail end of July. 

There was only 45 minutes left and oh, would they let me in, would they, would they?

An older man at the entrance said “Welcome to the Gardner. Let’s see, are you a student at Latin?”

Student at Latin? 

I was in a fact, a student OF Latin at James A. Garfield High School and I had even procured several Junior Classical League medals for my elaborate knowledge of first and second declension adjectives. 

But what was this AT Latin? The Latin Quarter? A Latin American forward cultural immersion program for precious youth? All I could think about was my own grimy covering, sweaty sweat, and what did I even remember to bring my—

“You’re a high school student and it’s close to closing time, so you can go in for free.”

I was inside and off the hook.

My time passed quickly and I distinctly remember spending time peering closely at Anders Zorn’s painting, “The Omnibus”. Oh those Parisians packed close on a late nineteenth century mass transit manifestation, how brilliant! Again, this felt so impossibly cosmopolitan compared to my own every-day bus rides back and forth to school in Seattle. 

How ho hum.  

It was a truly welcome contrast, presented to me in in a beautiful frame, composed with oil on canvas and wait—I was the only one standing before it, just taking it all in at my leisure. 

And to this day, I still think of that man’s kindness for letting a sweaty teenager from Seattle pass into this marvelous edifice.

Wherever you are, I thank you.  

[anarchistettin]

[c&vd from behind the paywall]: The lockdown has produced a disparity between the old script of grievance and a sickness that can wreak destruction on anyone.

By

MATTHEW SITMAN

May 21, 2020

Last week, First Things editor R.R. Reno, a prominent Catholic intellectual who backed Donald Trump for president, let the world know he’d had enough of the effete conformists following public-health guidelines in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Sharing a photo on Twitter of Trump saluting World War II veterans, none of them wearing masks, he declared, “They’re men, not cowards. Masks=enforced cowardice.”

The reaction from critics was swift and punishing, as they noted the emerging wisdom that masks may be one of the most effective measures in preventing the spread of Covid-19. But Reno decided to tweet through it in a typo-laden tirade. “The mask culture if fear driven. Masks+cowardice,” he wrote. “It’s a regime dominate by fear of infection and fear of causing of infection. Both are species of cowardice.” Other, similarly garbled tweets followed, but one of them serves as an especially telling summary of his position: “Now we know who want to cower in place. By all means rage against those who want to live.”

The outburst was no aberration. Since March, he’s produced a string of commentary doubting the severity of the pandemic and lamenting the measures taken to combat it—particularly the temporary closures of churches. It’s not as deadly as we feared, he’s said, and for those under 35, perhaps little more worrisome than the flu—a statement that blithely ignores all that we still don’t know about Covid-19, from the long-term effects it might cause in even healthy young adults to the sudden spike in a Kawasaki-like disease in children. No matter. Reno renders his verdict: “The science increasingly shows that the measures we have taken in the last few weeks have been both harmful—with freedoms lost, money spent, livelihoods destroyed—and pointless,” he wrote.

It’s not just that Reno can sound at times like a coronavirus truther. He is also convinced that our pandemic response stems from a deeper civilizational malaise, one that prioritizes the fleeting material world over the everlasting life that awaits our souls after death. In a missive published in March, Reno declared, “There are many things more precious than life,” and castigated political leaders, especially New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for leading “an ill-conceived crusade against human finitude and the dolorous reality of death.”

Reno is not alone on the Christian intellectual right in framing the shutdown as part of a grand narrative of spiritual decay. His colleague Matthew Schmitz wrote that, in valuing “health above all, we subordinate the spiritual to the temporal,” adding, “Unless religious leaders reopen the churches, they will appear to value earthly above eternal life.” National Review writer Alexandra DeSanctis caught flak on Twitter for writing, “It’s fascinating to see how the cultural loss of belief in God and eternity so often manifests in an outsized fear of death as the ultimate evil. Human life is beautiful and precious and good, but life on earth isn’t our ultimate end.”

The latter prompted a lot of jokes about the literal death cults forming on the right, but there is something more at work here. Writing in Providence magazine, Jason E. Vickers described this death-embracing cohort as possessing a “bitter remnant mindset,” and acting “as though they are the last Christians in America.” It’s a worldview shot through with grievances against the corrupt, decadent societies of the West, and it’s shared by otherwise very different factions on the right. Followers of Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option might seek to build intentional communities and withdraw from modern society, while Christian nationalists long for the political power to defeat it—but they have the same enemies.

For all Reno’s paeans to courage, the pandemic has shown us, in starker terms than before, the extent to which modern conservatism is driven by resentment of a seemingly hostile, terrifying world. Not all conservatives have succumbed to this impulse during the pandemic, of course. But those who have reveal the ways in which the pandemic is being shoehorned into a familiar culture war.

Let’s return to the example of Reno, since he manages to encompass both the raging id of the anti-lockdown protesters and the philosophical justifications of their actions that have appeared in the conservative press. One of his “Coronavirus Diary” entries begins with him visiting an emergency room in an outer-borough hospital. He can’t say more, though, because “the present conditions of public health hysteria” mean his host “might lose his job if higher-ups found out I penetrated the ‘no visitors’ cordon sanitaire.” Reno notes that, after cases of COVID-19 flooded the hospital in late March and early April, the doctor says they had since plummeted—a development Reno passes over as a happy mystery, never connecting it to the stay-at-home orders and economic shutdown that he has called “pointless” and “cowering.”

Reno also mentions that he’s been worshipping at an “underground” church, borrowing the language Christians have used for those persecuted by Communist regimes in China or, during the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain. A sense of persecution hangs heavy over the article, as does the characterization of himself as a righteous dissenter.

Then the diary entry becomes surreal. Reno describes a long bike ride on a recent weekend, during which a Dunkin Donuts worker refuses to serve him because he isn’t wearing a mask. He ends up on Staten Island, and needs to take the ferry back—which also requires a mask. “Providentially,” he writes, “I found a mask in a gutter just before reaching the Staten Island Ferry, allowing me to board and steam back to Manhattan.”

What comes next comes as no surprise: Reno takes an antibody test, and the results show he had contracted the virus. Like the ending of certain novels, it transforms all that came before it. Was he wearing a mask in the hospital, or at his “underground” church? He doesn’t say. Reno doesn’t seem troubled that, even if he never had significant symptoms, he could have been spreading the virus to others. He doesn’t realize that wearing a mask is not a commentary on his own courage or virility, but a simple way to show concern and care for others who might be especially vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.

There’s little point in looking for sense or reason in Reno’s ramblings. The language of courage and cowardice can’t really be debated—it is pure emotion. The point is not to grapple with the reality of a complex, overwhelming situation that changes every day, about which there can be genuine debates, but to reinscribe it in affective terms. What becomes decisive is not the cogency or persuasiveness of a policy response to a public-health crisis, but whether or not you’re cowering in fear or bravely resisting the conformity imposed by dreaded, elite experts. Wearing a mask, or not, floats up to the realm of the purely symbolic. It is a way of brushing aside difficult questions for dramatic rhetoric about civilizational decline.

If Reno and others make this sort of argument in a religious key, others on the right render it in supposedly class terms. Patrick Deneen took to Twitter last month to say that the divide over the shutdown did not simply reflect your position on Trump, but might reveal “more fundamental differences between elites and masses,” sharing Christopher Lasch’s observation in Revolt of the Elites that “young professionals” are health-obsessed exercisers and dieters attempting to attain eternal beauty and live forever, while “ordinary people” just “accept the body’s decay.”

More recently, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, citing no evidence, regretted the “class divide between those who are hard-line on lockdowns and those who are pushing back.” The former consist of the professionals who make up the “overclass,” with the latter are “normal people” who are fatalistic about life, and therefore itching to open up the economy—a “generalization” she offers “based on a lifetime of experience and observation.”

Once again, all this only serves to twist debates over when and how to reopen the economy into a battle between supposed elites and ordinary folks who have not only been ignored and left behind, but also ridiculed. This just hasn’t been the case so far, and Reno, Deneen, and Noonan are making it up as they go along. The latest polling continues to find, as described in a recent Washington Post article, “that there just aren’t meaningful divisions along class or education lines on these questions.” There certainly isn’t a rugged, death-defying, God-fearing working class straining against the complacency of prissy white-collar overlords. Imagining that’s the case, however, is less challenging than talking about what actually will help workers: hazard pay, paycheck protections, paid medical leave, proper safety equipment, and robust testing. It’s grievance-mongering all the way down.

The writer Sam Adler-Bell has described the “mutable dynamism” of conservative politics, a term that captures the way the search for fresh enemies can stoke these passions. It explains why conservatives respond to novel situations with a tried-and-true mash-up of elite bashing and performative victimhood. But Americans’ reserve of patience and good will so far shows the glaring mismatch between the old script of grievance and a sickness that can wreak destruction on anyone.

Reno’s embarrassing pandemic punditry is finally the predictable consequence of the way he compromised himself by endorsing Trump, then taking up the mantle of “national conservatism.” G.K. Chesterton, a writer well-known to First Things editors, once wrote, “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” To view Trump as a useful wrecking ball, or a flawed vessel for an otherwise sound nationalism, with his critics being the real problem, is to be set adrift morally and intellectually. You take your bearings less from what you believe than what you oppose; if it provokes cosmopolitan elites, then there must be some value to it.

On Monday, after having deleted both his tweets about masks and his Twitter account, Reno published an apology at First Things. “I used over-heated rhetoric and false analogies,” he wrote. “It was wrong for me to impugn the intentions and motives of others, for which I apologize.” He should be taken at his word—but what the episode reveals about the intellectual right isn’t limited to a few late-night tweets.

Matthew Sitman is an editor at Commonweal.

@MatthewSitman 

[sealerpuff]

LoL ok this is a long story, but hear me out. i just did a prophy for a patient and after i finished, she said she had a question about the medical history forms. She wanted to know why it asked about venereal diseases and what that has to do with someone's mouth. So i explained that we still need a full picture of your health since everything's interrelated and that sometimes venereal diseases can have oral manifestations. And she's like, well i'm not going to tell you about that, that's private. And I've never had any sores in my mouth or anything like that. And i'm thinking, is this bitch trying to tell me she has a venereal disease that she doesn't want to tell me about??...so i'm like, ok well that's up to you, we still treat everyone the same, infection control wise. So of course, i wrote about this in the treatment notes because it pertains to her med hx and i have to! Then after I leave the room, the bitch rifles through her chart. Cut to five minutes later. I'm doing an exam with a child next door. She marches into the room and is like, "i have a question." And i give her this look like, bitch are you nuts? So i'm like, alright, i'll be there. When she left, i apologized to the kid and i tried to communicate with my eyes that some adults are mad crazy and I'd really rather stay in there with him. So then i walked back into her room to see her perusing her tx notes and she's like, I don't like what you wrote here, it makes me uncomfortable. I'm like, ok, well, i just wrote we talked about, but it's your chart, so you want me to revise anything? And of course she did, so she had me cross out some stuff (as if it fuckin matters, i can still see it) and write in some stuff emphasizing that she's never had any oral evidence of a venereal disease. Lmao at this point, i'm about a 1000% sure that she has a venereal disease that she wants to hide from us for some reason. But i'm like, ok, i'm gonna still leave these tx notes out in case you wanted me to add anything else. Then i left and the RDA took over to polish.... Cut to 15 minutes later. The receptionist is like, doctor, i have to talk to you about this patient. And i'm like, oh geez, i already know who it is, you don't even have to tell me. Apparently, after she had gotten her teeth polished, she put up a fuss because she doesn't like that we have a photocopy of her ID. And they're like, we NEED that to prevent identity theft and insurance fraud, otherwise anyone could walk in and pretend they're you and get dental care under your name! And she's like NO, i'm taking this out of my chart. And they're like, if we can't confirm your identification, then we can't see you. And she just fuckin bounced. So I tell my receptionist, thank god! Good freakin riddance. The moral of the story is, A) Don't walk into other people's treatment rooms! B) Be honest about your medical history with your dentist. C) Enigmatic clues about your medical history are not appreciated and can lead to misunderstanding and/or an irreversible case of deadness. Please be straightforward.

[letitrainathousandflames]

As a late-diagnosed Autistic, I think it’ll be nice to share this wonderful piece I just found (it’s short, too, only two pages long) on masking and burnout.

If you’re autistic, this might help you understand your process and how to deal with burnout. And if you’re not autistic, maybe it might help you understand it and be a good ally to your friends on the spectrum! :)

Images’ IDs for accessibility/easier reading below the cut:

[ID: Five screenshots of a PDF file that reads:

“Autistic burnout, explained”, by Sarah Deweerdt, 30 march 2020

‘Autistic burnout’ is the intense physical, mental or emotional exhaustion, often accompanied by a loss of skills, that some adults with autism experience. Many autistic people say it results mainly from the cumulative effect of having to navigate a world that is designed for neurotypical people.

Burnout may especially affect autistic adults who have strong cognitive and language abilities and are working or going to school with neurotypical people.

Here we describe the emerging picture of this phenomenon, how autistic adults might be able to recover from burnout and how to prevent it from occurring.

What is the experience of autistic burnout like?

Like many aspects of autism, burnout varies greatly from person to person. Some autistic people experience it as an overwhelming sense of physical exhaustion. They may have more difficulty managing their emotions than usual and be prone to outbursts of sadness or anger. Burnout may manifest as intense anxiety or contribute to depression or suicidal behavior. It may involve an increase in autism traits such as repetitive behaviors, increased sensitivity to sensory input or difficulty with change.

Burnout can sometimes result in a loss of skills: An autistic woman who usually has strong verbal abilities may, for example, suddenly find herself unable to talk.

How did the concept of burnout arise?

Few studies have formally investigated autistic burnout. Autism researchers have only become aware of burnout as a phenomenon over the past five years or so. They have learned about it directly through discussions with autistic participants in person or online.

The concept reflects the growing self-advocacy movement in the autism community, which has led to an increasing focus among researchers on adults with autism and their inner experiences. But it’s not entirely new: Some researchers point out that children with autism can have meltdowns or lose skills when overwhelmed by the demands of a difficult environment.

What causes burnout?

Burnout is often a consequence of camouflaging, or masking, a strategy in which autistic people mimic neurotypical behavior by using scripts for small talk, forcing themselves to make eye contact or suppressing repetitive behaviors. These strategies can help autistic people in their jobs and relationships but require immense effort.

It can also result from sensory overstimulation, such as a noisy bus commute; executive function demands such as having to juggle too many tasks at once; or stress associated with change.

How do autistic people recover from burnout?

That depends on the person and on what burnout is like for them. A first step is for autistic people to remove themselves from the situation that triggered the burnout. This could be as simple as going back to a hotel room to rest alone after a day of unpredictable social interactions at a conference. Others may need longer to recover. Some autistic people have described burnout that is so severe its effects have persisted for years. Burnout may occur more frequently and be more difficult to recover from as people get older.

Is it possible to prevent burnout?

A key strategy for preventing burnout is self-knowledge. Autistic people can learn over time which situations are most likely to trigger burnout for them. They can also watch for signs that they are getting close to burnout: Some autistic people describe feeling disconnected from their bodies or experiencing tunnel vision in this state.

Armed with this awareness, they can develop strategies to avoid burnout, such as leaving a social event early or planning a recovery day after a trip before returning to work. They can also ask for accommodations that make it easier for them to avoid burnout, such as preboarding an airplane or working from home part of the time.]

(I’m not experienced with writing image IDs, if I did anything wrong please correct me.)

[dazzledbybooks]

An enchanted tale of intrigue where a duke's daughter is the only survivor of a magical curse. When Ekata's brother is finally named heir, there will be nothing to keep her at home in Kylma Above with her murderous family. Not her books or science experiments, not her family's icy castle atop a frozen lake, not even the tantalizingly close Kylma Below, a mesmerizing underwater kingdom that provides her family with magic. But just as escape is within reach, her parents and twelve siblings fall under a strange sleeping sickness. In the space of a single night, Ekata inherits the title of duke, her brother's warrior bride, and ever-encroaching challengers from without—and within—her own ministry. Nothing has prepared Ekata for diplomacy, for war, for love...or for a crown she has never wanted. If Kylma Above is to survive, Ekata must seize her family's power. And if Ekata is to survive, she must quickly decide how she will wield it. Part Sleeping Beauty, part Anastasia, with a thrilling political mystery, The Winter Duke is a spellbinding story about choosing what's right in the face of danger. The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Release Date: March 3rd 2020 Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT, Queer, Magic, Retellings, Romance Links: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46734428-the-winter-duke Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PHbsAy B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-winter-duke-claire-eliza-bartlett/1132404574?ean=9780316417341 iTunes: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/the-winter-duke/id1472133922 Bookdepository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Winter-Duke-Claire-Eliza-Bartlett/9780316417341?ref=grid-view&qid=1576273869932&sr=1-1 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-winter-duke-2 Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Winter_Duke.html?id=TxFoxwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y Review: The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett is different. I wish I could come up with a better word but this is all I got.  The world is split into two parts. Kylma Above and the Kylma Below. Our featured family lives in an ice palace.  Ekata is our main characters and she is more interested in medicine rather than her families politics. All she really wants to do is go off to school. Then everything goes wrong and unplanned during her brother’s “Brideshow.” This is a ceremony where he chooses his future spouse. The whole family ends up in some form of sleeping sickness except for Ekata. Ekata now has to play the part of the Grand Duke. She ends up eloping with of her brother’s would be brides named Inkar. Inkar is a warrior from a lesser kingdom. These two women are now off to figure out what is going on in the palace. I found that the world building is pretty amazing. I thought it was very thought out and was planned for the reader to feel like they were immersed in the world. The Duke title is unisex so that no matter who inherits the title it will be the same no matter the person’s gender. I wish Ekata was a bit stronger in the beginning. I thought she was being pushed around way too much. I would have loved to see her be a bit stronger. I definitely think my favorite was the underwater kingdom. It was definitely the best world building to me. The plot was very slow. I really wish that it moved along faster.  Excerpt: Original post: https://www.thenovl.com/blog/2019/7/2/cover-reveal-the-winter-duke-by-claire-eliza-bartlett  CHAPTER ONE The night could be worse, considering. The likelihood of a public death was low. All the same, I kept my opulent coat buttoned up, despite how my neck itched in it. The more layers I had between me and my sister Velosha, the better. Last week she’d nicked our brother Kevro’s arm with a poisoned stiletto at Wintertide mass, and I wasn’t about to let her try her tricks on me. “Ekata,” she whispered. I pretended not to hear. My favorite tutor said that other people’s siblings were noisy, argumentative telltales. My siblings tried to murder one another. But not this night. Tonight we had a strict no-murder policy. Tonight we had a brideshow, and the world was watching us. And nothing said get out of here like an unstable, bloodthirsty family. I should know. I’d been begging my father for the chance to leave from the moment I was old enough to take a place at a university. He’d promised that when the brideshow was finally over, I’d be free to do it. Provided I lived so long. The brideshow candidates stood on the long, narrow balcony that ran around the Great Hall. Fifteen people who thought that marrying into our family was a good idea. Some of them giggled with one another. Some observed the floor, pointing out their delegates to the candidates next to them. More than one looked tired of waiting. A pretty girl with a dark ponytail and an emerald-and-gold riding suit covered a yawn with her hand, earning a laugh from the girl next to her. Her arms were bare, tan from the kiss of a foreign sun. A bold choice for a palace made of ice. But something about her seemed bold. When she caught me watching her, she raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of it all. Her mouth twitched into a lazy smile. My stomach lurched. I flushed, looking away before I could cause a scene. I wasn’t there to create an international incident, and she was here for my brother, not me. Mother had sent written invitations to twenty empires, duchies, and kingdoms. Fifteen of the invitations had been answered with delegations, who now stood on the floor of the Great Hall and waited for the festivities to finally begin. Most eligible royals would be interested in a deal with Kylma Above and access to trade with the prosperous duchy Below. Kylma Below was the only source of distillable magic in the world, which meant that our cold, tiny country on a frozen lake commanded policy alongside kingdoms a hundred times our size. Even so, it surprised me that fifteen people could be interested in Lyosha. That, more than anything, was a clear indication they’d never met him. The restlessness was infectious. We’d been waiting for my father, mother, and brother for half an hour, and up on the royal dais, we didn’t talk. I glanced back at my maid, Aino; she lifted her chin, and I did the same. Aino had never steered me wrong at a social function. A door on the side of the Great Hall opened, but it was only Prime Minister Eirhan. He’d been prime minister longer than I’d been alive, and his oily demeanor left me with a sour taste every time I had to speak with him. That was happily rare; I preferred the study of bones and trees and the denizens Below to the study of politics. Eirhan spoke to a guard next to the door. The guard, dressed in ceremonial silver and blue, struck his iron-tipped halberd on the ground. The guards lining the hall took up the movement, creating the iron tempo that announced my father. The hall went dark, and whispering began. A dark hall heralded magic, for magic did not work well with fire. The candles burned low in their sconces, reflected like diamonds by the ice walls. Light descended from above, instead, in round pearls that fell like feathers. They glittered as they drifted, shimmering blue one moment, orange the next, clumping together like the thick pollen that blew in from the mountains during what passed for summer in Kylma Above. There was a great intake of breath from the hall, and I tilted my face up to catch some of the pearls as they fell. My father was the only man in the world Above who could refine magic and control how it manifested, and it never failed to mesmerize. It was his declaration of wealth, his declaration of power, and it reminded the rest of us what magic could do, if we only had the imagination for it. The pearls turned into flower petals, filling the air with a sweet scent. Rosaeus brumalis, I thought, breathing in the faint smell of winter roses, the only kind that grew here. Before they kissed our faces, they burst apart again, showering us with needled points. I covered my face with my sleeves. A few of the delegates shouted. A crack shook the palace walls, and dark wings snapped above us. An enormous eagle winged around the top of the dome, golden eyes flashing in the dark. Its cry made my ears throb, and its wingbeat nearly blew me into Velosha. The eagle pulled its wings in and hurtled to the ground. Delegates stumbled out of its way, and even I, who’d seen his displays at least twice a year, flinched. With a screech, the eagle raked its talons across the floor, leaving deep gouges that would stay long after the bird had disappeared. The power of magic: It was temporary, but the effects were permanent. And only my father had the secret to it. I hated him for that more than I hated him for other things. The eagle launched back into the air, knocking over the nearest delegates, and sped toward the ceiling. I was certain it would slow down or disappear—but instead, it crashed through the dome. Ice shattered and plummeted toward us. We ducked again, but the ice slowed and spun, turning into snowflakes that dusted our shoulders like sugar. Wind howled through the cracked dome, but winter roses grew over the cracks, smoothing the wall; ice climbed toward the starred sky. The hole became smaller and smaller until the last of the roses knit together, leaving us with our ice dome and sealing us off from the elements once more. Light flared. The room became golden and warm. The show was over, and the grand duke stood before us. Everyone knelt. That was Father’s grand trick for our guests. Show them the power of magic—its constructive, destructive, and transformative glory. Because magic was our most exported resource, Father wanted the wealthy delegates to imagine what they could do with it. They could impress kings. They could bring down city walls. With the correctly refined pearl, they could change the world. My father’s very presence demanded silence. I’d feared him for almost as long as I could remember. Where he walked, the air seemed thin and sparse, as if his broad shoulders and fur coat pushed it out of a room. As if it tangled in his snow-and-stone beard or got bitten off by his sharp teeth when he smiled. As if his brown eyes could pin it down. Mother stood next to him in a dress of white doeskin. She and I shared the same pale hair and skin, the same gray eyes, the same pointed chin and nose. I hadn’t managed to inherit her elegance, but I made up for it by being less abhorrent. And on Father’s other side stood Lyosha—eldest brother, heir-elect, and groom for the brideshow—who had Father’s height and dark hair and pale skin, but still looked like a weasel in a coat. Unlike the rest of us, he wore the brown-and-white wool that was spun from the shaggy goats we kept at the base of the mountains, eschewing the bright colors and fine-spun cottons that could be purchased from abroad. Lyosha liked to consider himself a man of the people—provided the people wanted nothing from him. My father motioned for the hall to rise. I straightened reflexively. As Father began his welcome speech, I kept my hands clasped in front of me; I knew if Lyosha caught any of us fidgeting, he’d have harsh words and harsher actions forlater. As subtly as I could, I let my eyes and mind wander over the motifs on the walls. They told the story of the duchies—the duchy Above, and the duchy Below. Our duchy, which sat on a frozen lake, and the land that thrived beneath the ice. More than anything, I wanted to see what truly lay Below. But I would never get the chance. Only Father was allowed to enter that realm. I focused next on a hunting scene with a former grand duke and a cornered bear. I recalled bones, starting with the bear’s nose. Nasal, premaxilla, maxilla. When ground, stabilizer for liquids that tend to curdle. Incisors, canines. Amulets for strength with no demonstrable benefit. I was nearing the ilium when the patter of applause interrupted me. The speech was over. I joined in, lifting my chin so that I could look properly impressed. Father offered Mother his arm, and she took it with barely a sneer. They stepped down from the dais together. The brideshow had formally begun. Prime Minister Eirhan came forward and bowed perfunctorily before murmuring something in Father’s ear. Father nodded coldly to the Kylmian ministers, who clustered off to the side. It was no secret that Father and Lyosha fought over the ministers; they fought over everything. Lyosha couldn’t mount a successful coup without the majority of the ministers on his side, but Mother’s support lent him strength; a coup had been rumored for years. My maid Aino had been predicting it once a night for weeks. After all, it was the traditional way for Kylmian children to inherit the dukedom. Poor Aino had taken to double-locking my door each night, and she spent hours fretting right inside it. As though I’d be the first one slaughtered in a coup. It doesn’t matter anyway. The coup wouldn’t take place in the next five days, and after that, I’d be down south at the university, where the world was civilized and people didn’t kill their relatives as a matter of course. As the brideshow candidates filed down from the balcony, the first of the guests began to greet my father. King Sigis of Drysiak approached first, and I slunk behind Velosha. Sigis was an observer, not a delegate, but in my opinion, he was more of a royal pain than anything else. He’d oiled his golden beard to catch the lamplight, and aside from a scarlet-and-diamond pin that signified his own colors, he wore our family blue. He’d fostered with us for five years, learning to swagger like Father and manufacture “accidents” leading to broken legs and broken skulls among more than one sibling. Father favored Sigis over any natural-born child of his own, and he had taught him the worst of his tricks. Maybe it was the cruelty they had in common. The Gods knew arrogance was something we all shared. Sigis embraced Father, and Father clapped him hard on the back. “Welcome, as always.” “As always, I am honored to be welcome,” Sigis said. I didn’t snort at that. I didn’t want to attract attention. But Sigis’s politeness was always an act. He always made me think of a bear—except he lacked the bear’s manners. “I was surprised by the size of the magic display.” “It’s only the preliminary night,” Father said. “I’ve saved a more impressive show for when the rest of the delegates arrive.” Sigis’s eyes glinted strangely. “I look forward to it.” As he moved away, Father leaned over to speak in Mother’s ear. “I could have gotten him to stand up in the brideshow.” “Sigis doesn’t like boys,” she replied out of the side of her mouth. Lucky boys, I thought. Father rolled his shoulders. “I could have done it.” “Maybe you should have given him a daughter when you had the chance.” Mother sneered. Father shot her a murderous look in response. How those two stayed in the same room long enough to make thirteen children, I’ll never guess. My dress itched in a number of awkward places, and the noise that bounced off the ice walls threatened to give me a headache. But I had to stay until each of the brideshow guests had been greeted and we’d been dismissed from our formal duties. I curtsied to the first candidate, a blushing, stuttering boy. He muttered a name too soft for me to hear, though I ought to have known it from the crest on his shoulder, a wheel flanked by rearing horses. Father and Mother treated him courteously; Lyosha dismissed him with a curled lip. I didn’t know much about the candidates, but I did know this: My parents and my brother each had a favorite, and it wasn’t the same person. “Show respect,” said Father as the boy retreated. His voice was soft—dangerous. Lyosha’s lip curled. “Why? Omsara is a paupers’ kingdom. We don’t need them.” “The point of the brideshow is to strengthen friendships, not create rifts,” Father said. “I asked you to think about that when you started considering your choices.” The next candidate came up, a girl who was graceful and tall, brown-skinned and wide-eyed, and dressed in a white-and-green shift dress. It looked loose and free compared with the tight bodices we wore under our coats. She dipped a curtsy to each of us, smiling. I stifled a sigh as I curtsied back and pressed her hand. This was going to take hours. I could be spending the time packing, or studying, or making my university portfolio. Maybe I could persuade Aino to claim I was ill. Anything would be better than pretending I cared about a brother who thought I’d be more convenient dead and about the poor person who was about to marry him. I spotted Farhod, my alchemy tutor. Like me, he tried to eschew major functions; unlike me, he usually had more success. I rolled my eyes for his benefit. He shook his head reproachfully. His dark, wide eyes were uniquely suited to disapproval. “I like her,” Lyosha said as the snowdrop girl retreated. “She can be considered.” “Not so obviously, my love,” Mother warned him. “Everyone needs to start off on equal footing.” “They’re not equal,” Lyosha replied. “And I don’t see the point in wasting my time.” “Then perhaps I should select a different heir,” Father replied. “Being grand duke is a balance, not a life of doing whatever suits you, and when.” Lyosha stiffened, as though he’d been hit by a blast of cold wind. Rage gathered around him like lightning waiting to ground on something. “The future of the duchy is mine. My choice. I don’t have to run it as inefficiently as you have.” The next candidate faltered. Father motioned them forward with a gracious sweep of his hand, but I couldn’t blame them for moving with reluctance. They introduced themselves in a hurry and retreated as soon as they could. “Come now.” Mother touched Lyosha’s shoulder, on Father’s side for the first time in years. “There are many considerations to be met. We can’t afford to offend anyone before we know what they’re offering for the marriage.” Lyosha sulked. “You just don’t like her because she’s not your choice.” “We talked about this,” Father said. Lyosha spoke in a voice not quite low enough, not quite practiced enough to reach only our ears. “You talked about this. You didn’t bother to ask.” “This is a political endeavor—” Father began. Lyosha’s voice rose. “I have my politics. I make my choices.” A small circle of space began to grow around us. “And if I can’t make my own choice, I’ll make no choice.” “You are jeopardizing years of statecraft,” Father growled. “The duchy doesn’t need fat, old men deciding statecraft,” Lyosha hissed. “And neither do I.” His words slid through the air like a red sword. The brideshow candidates stared. The tan, dark-haired girl in the emerald-and-gold riding suit no longer smiled. Lyosha’s anger crackled, so palpable I could almost see it. “This isn’t your brideshow,” he choked out. “This isn’t your duchy,” Father replied. He sounded almost contemplative. “And the more you try to take it, the more I think it never should be.” The whole hall was silent for a breath, waiting for Lyosha’s lightning to finally ground. “The brideshow’s off,” Lyosha called, his voice bouncing off the hard ice walls. Noise rippled across the hall. Father grabbed for Lyosha’s arm, but Lyosha had spun on his heel and was already striding through the candidates, who scattered and regrouped like a herd of animals. Father clapped his hands. In response, the guards around the hall slammed their halberds against the ground with a crack. In the silence that followed, he said in an impossibly calm voice, “The brideshow will resume tomorrow. Please enjoy yourselves.” By the time he was finished, most of the foreign delegates had begun to shout. “Excellent,” Velosha murmured beside me, and I shuddered. If Lyosha lost the title of heir-elect, she’d look to win it through a process of elimination—specifically, by eliminating her sibling rivals. Half the court ministers disappeared; the rest decided to settle the matter by arguing at the top of their lungs. A hand gripped my elbow and yanked me sideways. Aino. She was supposed to stand at the edge of the hall as a lesser lady, but she’d squeezed her way over to me. “Come on,” she said, pulling me toward a side door. She elbowed past the minister of the People, and I tripped over the minister of trade’s robe. He stumbled past me, steadying himself by putting a hand on top of my head for balance. Had it been a normal night, I would have confronted him for his rudeness. Aino dragged me past anxious servants to the corridor, barely letting me get my feet under me. The flickering lamps set into the walls caught the red in her auburn hair, and her knuckles were white around my arm. We hurried past officials and servants who rushed the other way, alarmed, no doubt, by the noise. “Slow down,” I protested, tripping over the heavy hem of my coat. Aino didn’t answer. “Aino,” I squeaked as she wrenched me around a corner, nearly dislocating my shoulder. The iron grips on the bottoms of my shoes dug into the ice. She didn’t slow down until we reached the royal wing and passed beyond the guards there. We scurried down corridors carved with the scenes of my family—grand dukes battling with enemies, treating with the duchy Below, choosing brides from their own brideshows. Winter roses twined above us, their ice petals stretching at a two-thirds bloom. Aino dug out a key and unlocked my door with trembling fingers. Then she shoved me inside. The fire was out. The ice walls of my rooms glowed blue-white in moonlight that streamed through thin windowpanes. Aino dumped firewood into the metal basin that served as the fireplace, then started the fire with dry moss and a flint. The fire basin sat on a thick stone shelf to protect the ice floor beneath, and white and blue tiles lined its chimney. A bearskin rug lay in front of the fire, and I sat in the oak chair there, shifting a blanket to one side. I slid my feet out of my wooden shoes and dug my socks into the rug. A tightness began to uncoil in me. No siblings to murder me, no Father or Mother to examine me, balancing my usefulness and irrelevance against my potential as a threat. I pulled diamond-studded pins from my hair, which has Mother’s paleness but not its curl. My rooms always meant safety to me, but not to Aino. She locked the door, slid the bolt, and heaved a chair from next to the door until it blocked the handle. Then she went to lock the door to the servants’ corridor. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Making sure no one separates your head from your neck in whatever happens tonight.” Aino’s braid had come undone, and she pinned it back up with thin-lipped determination. “This is a coup, and Lyosha and your father are in the middle of it. You don’t have to be. How packed are you?” “Fairly packed.” My trunk sat in a corner of the room, stuffed with all the things I thought I’d need at the university—clothes, books, sketches of the biology of Above, a few plates with detail on flora from Below sent up as a sample and gift to Farhod. I was still working on copying his dissection report, a recent—and generous—gift from the duchy Below to expand our academic knowledge. “Good. We’ll set out tonight, and we won’t come back until one of them is grand duke and one of them is dead.” No one could boss me around like Aino could. She was more of a mother to me than Mother. She was shorter and slimmer than our family, with wide blue eyes that always looked alarmed and a nose made for poking into my business. She knew the intrigues of Lyosha and my parents before I did, and she made sure I was always well dressed for events of the court, well versed in what to say, and well protected from the worst of my family’s wrath. She tasted my coffee every morning and ran her fingers along the seams of my new clothes to check for razors my siblings might have slipped in. Worrying for my safety lined her mouth and forehead and streaked her hair with gray before its time. In the weeks before, she’d looked more and more worn out as she updated me on which minister backed which family member and how many siblings were trying to get involved in the imminent coup. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I cared less for Lyosha’s political ambitions than I did for a vial of wolf urine. At least I could learn something interesting from wolf urine. And as long as my chief interests were the flora and fauna of Above and Below, I doubted any ministers or ambitious family members cared about me. All the same: “I can’t leave yet.” Even if I had no interest in the duchy, I had a duty. Our family was Kylma Above, and we had responsibilities to uphold. Father had stipulated that I could go south when the brideshow was over, not before. If I violated his order, he might find some way to prevent me from going to the university at all. I went over to my desk, skipping across the floor in my wool socks. “What are you doing?” Aino asked. “I might as well get some work done.” I pulled my technical drawings from the middle drawer of the desk. I was copying Minister Farhod’s, and I had to finish them before I went south. They’d be part of my university portfolio and application. Farhod had warned me that gaining admittance was hard, even for the daughter of a grand duke—but detailed dissection notes of a creature never seen before was sure to catch their attention. “You ought to rest.” Aino checked the door, then paced back to the fire, dispersing the logs with a poker. “We shouldn’t have lit this. What if someone realizes you’re here?” I rolled my eyes as I lit the little candle under my frozen inkwell. Aino was back to her favorite hobby: fretting. “No one can see me, and no one’s going to care. Fetch my robe, won’t you?” She stomped off, muttering about ungrateful brats and coups and heads. I was restless, too, and opened the window next to my desk, leaning out to let the cold air sting my cheeks. The palace was quieter than usual. Maybe we really were on the cusp of a coup. Or maybe the brideshow was canceled, and nobody wanted to celebrate. From here, I could just see the bridal tower, and I wondered if the candidates had retreated to it. The girl in the riding suit didn’t seem like the type to retreat from anything. A lone figure hurried across a decorative wall, and four stories beneath me lay the thick ice sheet that separated Above and Below. I wanted to crack that ice so badly that it split my heart to think about it. Beneath that ice swam undulating bodies with serpentine legs, vague shapes I could nearly recognize when I walked on the lake’s frozen surface. The duchy Below was our closest ally and our dearest friend. It was the only political matter I had any interest in. It was the greatest thing Father had denied me—and denied me, and denied me. Aino draped my robe around my shoulders. “Shut the window,” she said, reaching past me to do it herself. I pulled my head inside. “No one’s going to shoot me from the palace walls.” “Honestly, Ekata. If there is one night my worrying might save your life, it’s tonight.” She cinched the robe around my waist. “You’ve never been the sweet, obedient type. Humor me.” “I’ll keep the doors and windows locked.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes again. “But don’t call for a sled. And let me work for a few hours before bed. There’s nothing unsafe about sitting at my desk.” “You can work for half an hour, then I’m dousing the fire. And if anyone knocks, say nothing. You’re not here.” I shook my head and tucked my chin to hide a smile. “All right.” I didn’t hide it well enough. “Don’t treat this like a joke, my lady,” Aino snapped. She only used my lady when she was really cross. “I’m concerned about your life, and all you can think of is livers and cross sections.” She curled her lip at the sheet on my desk on which Minister Farhod had painstakingly drawn a number of internal organs in a hand so fine they still seemed to glisten. I licked the nib of my pen. “Aino, relax,” I said. “The kitchen boy’s more politically involved than I am. Whatever occurs tonight, it’s hardly going to concern us.” As it happened, I was wrong. About the Author: I am a writer and tour guide in Copenhagen, Denmark. Though I originally come from Colorado, I left the US when I was eighteen and I haven’t lived there since. More permanent stops on my travels have included Switzerland, Wales and Denmark. The arrival of a Danish husband has somewhat cemented my living situation, but I get my travel in smaller doses these days. I like to write fantasy, mostly, though I dabble in soft sci-fi. My short stories are more adult, my novels more YA. I’ve studied history, archaeology, and writing. I like to take my inspiration from historical events, and the more unknown and inspiring the event, the better. I am represented by Kurestin Armada of P.S. Literary. To keep up with what strange things I’m researching and writing, you can sign up for my newsletter here. I send out a short newsletter once a month. Links: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17293691.Claire_Eliza_Bartlett Website: https://authorclaire.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bartlebett Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bartlebett/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bartlebett/ Giveaway: Prize: Win (1) of (2) finished copies of THE WINTER DUKE by Claire Eliza Bartlett (US Only) Starts: 3rd March 2020 Ends: 18th March 2020 a Rafflecopter giveaway Tour Schedule: http://fantasticflyingbookclub.blogspot.com/2020/01/tour-schedule-winter-duke-by-claire.html March 3rd The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club - Welcome Post March 4th L.M. Durand - Guest Post Belle's Archive - Review + Favourite Quotes Utopia State of Mind - Review + Favourite Quotes Libri Draconis - Review The Everlasting Library - Review + Favourite Quotes March 5th Bibliobibuli YA - Interview Whispers & Wonder - Review The.magicalpages - Review + Favourite Quotes Caitsbooks - Review + Dream Cast + Favourite Quotes @onemused - Review March 6th NovelKnight - Guest Post Booked J - Review + Playlist + Favourite Quotes The Reading Chemist - Review Dazzled by Books - Review The art of living - Review March 7th Ya It’s Lit - Review + Favourite Quotes @womanon - Review The Layaway Dragon - Review + Favourite Quotes Inky Moments - Review + Dream Cast Magical Reads - Review + Playlist March 8th Moonlight Rendezvous - Review + Favourite Quotes Sometimes Leelynn Reads - Review + Playlist Ink & Myths - Review + Favourite Quotes Morgan Vega - Review + Favourite Quotes Enthralled Bookworm - Review + Favourite Quotes March 9th Kait Plus Books - Interview The Reading Corner for All - Review + Favourite Quotes Frayed Books - Review Your Words My Ink - Review + Dream Cast Confessions of a YA Reader - Review + Favourite Quotes

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[dieellendie-blog]

dont worry the tooth isnt lost

Its easier for me to deal with all this, if that person you created me as, was true,

so i think what you thought, say what you said and im doing all you said id do.

If that justifies an ending, guess ive got nothing left to lose

ive been hungover for a month now and im fucking anything that moves.

And in the middle of all this.

I met somebody.

Maybe you wasn’t so wrong afterall. Maybe you sensed it. You always said I’d fall for a another, another who was ‘better’. That was your fear. I told you that nobody would ever be ‘better’ than you and it was impossible. Now I wonder what you meant as better and maybe you were right. Is better encouraging somebody to be themselves? Is better finding joy in the person somebody is? Is better encouraging somebody to excert all you told me hide? The parts of me you had me push down, hide and bury? Is better setting a fucking fire inside of someone and making them feel like oxygen is heroin? Is better throwing a tornado to somebodys feet and inhaling exhilerance that surrounds a conversation?Is better the brush of a hand smashing through every single cell that exists in somebody and knocking them to the floor? Is better meeting someone who just instantly makes you want to settle down, enjoy a quiet life that as long as they are in, is filled with more laughter and happiness than any country, city or repeititve night out? A life where even washing dishes with them is an adventure in itself. Maybe I did meet somebody better. But I have as much chance of her being mine as I did of ever gaining your trust.

So much time has passed that her face is a blur. Every thought is an idea of her. Thoughts are hazy. We barely speak but I connect her name with nothing but perfection. The things she said, the way we laughed. It is turning into white noise and a hot and cold confusion of desire or fate. Let down or wonder. A force so strong, part of a story that isnt over...or a force so strong it was simply the chapter that helped me forget you. Am I simply maximising her by a thousand to justify any reasoning for your exit and creating somebody so great, you being gone isn’t so bad? Or is that how great she actually is?

I can’t remember.

Cant decide.

Does it even matter?

What did we even speak about, what did we laugh about. The memory of our substance and our best days has faded. And all I have is a mind that doesn’t recall details, but tells me it was perfection with her.

Her.

I don’t know if this perfect idea I have of her is real or a creation I have evolved to blur my reality. If she is so perfect, then you were so wrong. But if she is so perfect why is this impossible? Why am here when she cries and why is she there when I do? Is she somebody I have made and emphasised, a daydream I constructed to take my mind off crisis? Do I ever want to see her again and distort this literal idea of perfection that soothes me. Every single day. Comforts me and makes me remember how good it can feel to be alive. Or, is she perfect. Perfect temporary diversion or perfect for me?  Even though memories fade, words no longer spoken, laughter no longer shared. My brain tells me. Reminds me. Every second with her was perfect. I did meet somebody better.

I used to be able to close my eyes, build your face in the dark,

Every bone, every freckle, every line and every mark.

I suppose it’s like you died, but why don’t I feel sad?

Guess I come acustomed to just enjoying the time we had.

Another time, another place...

or a pile of lies and a fucking waste.

New morning, new headache, another girl lies in my bed,

better than lying and analyzing, the past and what you said.

A boring act of NOTHING, simply passes my time

black out all these wonderings, convince the world im doing fine.

Gain no physical joy, guess its just something for me to do,

actually the best sex i had lately, was when i thought of you

These actions are redundant, I fake pleasure just to be,

trade it all for that bangkok table and your leg against my knee

A violent swirl in my stomach, thighs are shaking, I cant breathe

And its just another tale, where the girl in question has to leave

Fight for what you want or let existence dictate your ways?

everybody wants the easy option. talks the talk but never stays.

finding contentment in romantisicm, did I craft our story myself?

Just a diversion of my thoughts and another story for my shelf?

Manifesting all your perfection, just a vision in my head?

or do I dream of Sundays, waking entangled in your bed

Don’t risk time together, look back fondly at our days,

A drunken March exchange and a perfect month of haze.

Sometimes all I want is to just know what you are thinking.

Or are you my finest battle, stop at nothing, make you mine

bad luck

heads fucked.

just learn where to draw the line.

[musescore-com]

MuseScorer of the month: Mike Magatagan

Yes, this project was supposed to be closed in December 2017, but as we’ve discovered more and more great composers and arrangers on MuseScore who really deserve to be featured, we decided to relaunch “MuseScorer of the month”! So, please meet Mike Magatagan - the MuseScorer of March 2018.

Mike is a software engineer by trade, living in Arizona (USA) with his wonderful and musically talented family. His kids can play all kinds of saxophones, and his wife plays handbells.

“Basically, I’m a computer geek who loves to solve problems. I have been developing software for the last 25+ years but have recently rekindled my love of music. I am relearning the piano and my first love - the pipe organ. I recently rediscovered the Viola (which I played for about 7 years in my youth) after about 35+ years.” That’s what he says about his musicianship.

Mike makes wonderful arrangements of baroque music for strings and other ensembles. Here is an interview with Mike Magatagan (M.M.) conducted by our staff member Alexander T. (A.T.):

A.T.: Why baroque? I mean, why did you choose that particular style/period for making scores?

M.M.: Baroque is a very meaningful genre for me. It just makes sense mathematically, stylistically and rhythmically. It is complex but not pretentious. I love the fluidity and forcefulness; it seems to cross so many arbitrary genre lines and gives so much insight into the development of other music forms.

A.T.: I’ve noticed that you uploaded a lot of great arrangements mostly for strings during this March. How did you manage to make such a large amount of scores (more than 40) during just one month and what was your purpose/motivation for making them?

M.M.: There is no magic here. I do have thousands of scores, consisting of arrangements, transcriptions and original compositions online at MuseScore.com, and I have several thousands of scores on my local computer that I have not yet published. This body of work is the culmination of many (many) years of effort using other (not MuseScore) music notation software. Since I discovered MuseScore (and the online site), I made it a goal to share at least one score a day and I have continued ever since. I didn’t initially develop scores for strings mainly because of the weak and cartoonish string SoundFont used by early versions of MuseScore. MuseScore’s sound quality has come a long way and feels more realistic in its depth and warmth. I favor strings probably from my early youth, when I played Violin and later Viola in a youth symphony. Many of my friends are string players, and I receive a disproportionate number of requests for string arrangements.

A.T.: Have you ever performed yourself, alone or with some ensemble, the arrangements you’ve made?

M.M.: This is a great question! Many of my arrangements were made just for me or for me in conjunction with my Church. My composition “Hallowed be Thy Name” was created specifically for a Church special-music ensemble where I played Piano and others played flute. Many of My Viola (2-part) pieces were created for myself (on Viola) and others on Harp or Piano. I intentionally “dumbed-down” the Viola to match my proficiency at that particular time in my learning timeline. MuseScore is an invaluable resource to allow a budding performer to practice alongside simulated instruments/orchestras. I use this capability often!

A.T.: Nice to hear that. What about some other musical groups playing your scores?

M.M.: I receive requests for arrangements daily. Competing projects don’t allow me to support all the requests but I have a special place in my heart for Church groups, school groups, non-profit support groups that provide music to hospitals, senior centers, etc… I have created mainly Piano, Organ, Handbell, and small ensemble (string quartet/quintet, woodwind & brass) arrangements for these groups. I don’t do this for profit and I have never accepted a cent for my work. Music belongs to the world, and I like to believe I am a willing participant in that co-op.

A.T.: Oh, I see, sounds great! Here is another question: you were talking about “many years of effort using other music notation software” before discovering MuseScore. So what made you stop searching for software and stick to MuseScore?

M.M.: When I first discovered MuseScore (I believe it was 1.2 or 1.3), it was as if a door opened and what was once difficult, became painless. Namely the ease with which I could pen a note and hear the effect. Having an online resource like MuseScore.com allowed me to share my creations with others in a way that I wanted it to be heard, and receive feedback in a collaborative way.

A.T.: Wow. It’s a great pleasure for the MuseScore staff members to know that. Ok…now, could you please tell me something about your composing/arranging workflow?

M.M.: My workflow is rather mechanical and is therefore easier to schedule and accomplish. The overall sound is of utmost importance to me, and I try never to sacrifice timbre for ease of performance or for specific instrumentation. I use a MIDI keyboard as well as the IMSLP (and other) paper sources. I believe I am able to notate in MuseScore rather quickly now, and have discovered many shortcuts in the software (keyboard, plug-ins,…) that facilitate rapid entry. Once a score is entered into MuseScore, I use my ear to (hopefully) validate the score, and then I begin on the arrangement. The unusual aspect about myself is that no matter how music is played, I hear something different; a voice becomes an instrument, a subtle melody becomes a solo part, a subdued rhythm becomes a main theme. I always hear something different in a piece and I try to expose what I hear. MuseScore is the tool that allows me to do that in a way that others can experience.

A.T.:Thanks for sharing your experience, Mike. And, concerning sharing, our traditional “MuseScorer of the month question” for you is: what have you shared on MuseScore.com that you’re most proud of ?

M.M.: Strangely enough, the pieces that I love the most or reflect the most effort on my part, are typically the least listened or favorited by others! People love what people love and sometimes the first few notes, if not immediately captivating, result in a miss. I have created some works that I enjoy as much as others do. Of note is my “Point of No Return” for Flute & Harp, a “Debussyesque” manifestation that I carried in my head for quite some time. MuseScore allowed me to hear it and tweak it in interesting ways:

“Point Of No Return” by Mike Magatagan

The three other scores I’d like to put a spotlight on are:

“Hallowed be Thy Name” for Piano & Flutes,

“Toccata & Fugue in D Minor” (BWV 565) for String Quintet, and

“Dixit Dominus” (HWV 232) for Winds & Strings.

Mike Magatagan has completed his goal to create an arrangement and/or transcription of every single composition of J.S. Bach and has published many (but not all yet) of those works on the MuseScore online site. He is currently working on arrangements of G.F. Handel and has been publishing them as well at the request of a follower. Mike has also been recently “driven to rearrange pieces specifically aimed at highlighting the warm compassionate tone of the viola.” Check out his MuseScore page for his arrangements and original compositions, and watch for our next MuseScorer of the month in May!

P.S. Here are two Mike's arrangements posted in March, which I particularly like (both pieces were composed by G.F.Handel).

Yours, Alexander T.