#If there is like. A study that proves I am 100 percent wrong here do let me know because I am just rambling

[areus-in-a-little-cave]

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how intrusive thoughts as a concept are being misrepresented once again in the name of representing them correctly.

What I mean is that there's been a growing push to talk about the existence of very upsetting, morally reprehensible intrusive thoughts, like killing your family, in an attempt to undo the perception of intrusive thoughts as those quirky ideas you have where you wanna dye your hair at midnight. But this is still not an accurate representation or explanation of what intrusive thoughts are, and can even still be damaging to people who may have intrusive thoughts.

The simple fact is that intrusive thoughts aren't even very complicated to understand. There's really only two criteria for a thought to qualify: it is a thought that causes some form of upset, and it is unwanted/not consciously thought of. It does not have to be the idea of you doing some horrible action, nor does it have to be an action or terrible thing at all. The only things a thought must be to be an intrusive thought is intrusive and upsetting. So while killing your family can be an intrusive thought, so can dyeing your hair, so long as the thought of dyeing your hair causes you some form of upset (sadness, anger, guilt, something that makes you feel worse than before) and it is an intrusive concept you aren't trying to think about.

The idea that intrusive thoughts must be the idea of doing some negative action that causes extreme upset in you is inaccurate and could potentially lead to people not recognizing intrusive thoughts they are having, which prevents treatment. I think talking about the more shunned types of intrusive thoughts is important, but I don't think saying "those aren't actually intrusive thoughts because they're not bad enough" is a good idea. Both can be intrusive thoughts because it comes down to the individual having the thought. You can literally have intrusive thoughts about anything and I think it's important to recognize because having intrusive thoughts about something that is pretty much only upsetting to you is probably just as isolating as having intrusive thoughts that people see as reprehensible.

[itisannak]

Let the sunshine in (Calum Hood Fluff)

Summary: Calum helps his wildflower feel better after a bad grade. (Request) (Words: 1.6k)

(3rd Person's POV) Calum absolutely hates silence in his house. He used to be ok with it when living alone, but since his girlfriend moved in with him, he became a fond lover of noise in the room. (Y/N) could light up the room, give life to everything, a superpower to his opinion. But it has been up to a week now since the house has sunken in silence, deafening silence. Along with her mood, everyone else's seems to have become blue, heavy, which makes no sense to him. Even Duke seems to mirror (Y/N)'s behavior, the usually energetic puppy now looking around in sadness all day.

More than the silence, Calum hates that he doesn't know what causes her to be so sad. His lovely wildflower is wilting and he has no idea why. He has tried to make her feel better, but as many times as he tried, that many times he has failed epically. His first guess was that fans have given her crap about whatever, so he went into a deep Twitter searching, looking up her name, hashtags about her, anything really, all possible combinations. He did the same on Instagram, snooping around fan pages, tags, tagged photos, but no luck on finding anything. Like everyone else in his life, his fans seem to adore his girlfriend, which is no surprise to him. Everyone loves (Y/N), and most of all, him. Then he called Crystal, Sierra, KayKay, (Y/B/F/N), almost all of (Y/N)'s friends, in hopes they would know something he didn't. But again, no one knew anything about (Y/N)'s sudden burnout, so he felt helpless.

(Y/N) has made herself one with the bed. She has been staring at the ceiling for as long as she can remember. She can't remember the last time she showered, only that she forced herself to get into the shower cabin. Her days have been a blur for the past week. It's not that she doesn't want to get up and go back to normal, but her body seems to defy her mind. It's cozy on this bed, she is safe from failure and disappointment there, why would she want to move?

"(Y/N), baby..." Calum calls from the door of their bedroom, but she just waves at him, no response. Calum walks in slowly as if moving faster would scare her away like a hurt kitten. "Hey, honey." He greets her, sitting on the edge of their bed. He leaves the bouquet on the bedside table, before leaning down to press a kiss on her forehead. He knows flowers always cheer his wildflower up. "It is pretty dark in here. How about we let the sunshine in? There is a lovely day outside." He says softly, stroking her hair. "I don't want to." She mumbles sadly, making him sigh a little frustrated. "Baby... What is going on?" He asks, looking at her as softly as she could. "Nothing. I am fine." She replies, but that doesn't convince her boyfriend much. "(Y/N), you are not fine. What is bothering that pretty mind of yours?" He asks her again, only causing her to turn her back to him. "I'll put these in some water." He sighs defeated, getting up from the bed. He doesn't want to push her, they never had the type of relationship where they needed to push each other to open up.

She feels horrible for shutting him down, but she is scared that if he knew, he would lose all his admiration. The thing Calum always brags about his girlfriend is how smart she is, how her brain is the prettiest thing on her. So, she couldn't risk letting him down, especially after she let herself down. She passed each and every one of her classes at once, with great grades too. And now that she is a breath shy from her degree, she fucked up a whole assignment, in one of the toughest courses of her final semester. And she fucked up a lot, only scoring a dooming 33% on the whole assignment. The only way she will be able to graduate with her degree in the upcoming finals month is by getting a nearly unachievable 90% on the finals. It is futile even trying, she knows she can't do that, so she just... gives up.

Calum decides that enough is enough; he is going to do everything to get his girlfriend out of the darkness. He scrolls through his phone, finding the song he is going to blast through the house for her. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day The music blasts through his speaker, and he burst through the door, going straight for the curtains. He opens them in a swift move, letting the rays of sun glaze the room.

When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May (Y/N) is looking at Calum confused, trying to decipher what is going on. Calum picks the flowers out of the bouquet, throwing them around the room. He reaches his hand out for her to take, but she throws herself back onto the soft mattress before he could help her up. But Calum is stubborn, so he takes her hand in his and pulls her up gently. I guess you'd say, What can make me feel this way? My girl Talking 'bout my girl He sings the part at the top of his lungs, dancing around the bedroom with her. For the first time in a while, she lets out a laugh, a laugh that fills the room and his heart.

I've got so much honey the bees envy me He cradles her face, looking at her with his most charming smile. She laughs again, burying her face in his neck. I've got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees He stretches his arm out letting her unfold away from him, before twirling her back to his chest.

I guess you'd say, What can make me feel this way? My girl

Talking 'bout my girl

He swings her to the rhythm, which only makes her giggle harder. Oh, how he has missed that sound. "There she is... My wildflower. My pretty girl, my happy girl..." He comments as the song plays in the background. "You are the sweetest boy." She comments, smiling at him before bringing her head to rest on his chest. "What is happening to you, my love? You can always talk to me, you know that..." He reminds her, stroking the small of her back. "I can't..." She mumbles, forcing herself not to start crying again. "Nothing you say to me is going to make me love you less. Cross my heart and hope to die." He looks her in the eye, crossing his fingers over his heart. "Calum..." She protests. "I love you, (Y/N). I will love you after you tell me whatever it is that makes you sad, that makes you... Well, less you." He assures her. (Y/N) takes a deep breath, nodding her head before taking a step back, looking at her feet as she prepares herself to share her secret with him.

"I fucked up. Badly. I won't graduate this summer. I won't receive my degree, because I am stupid enough to fuck up the assignment of the hardest course this semester. I will fail because of that. I will fail unless I get a 90% or above on the finals. Which is impossible, because the material is harder to read than Aramaic." She finally admits, sitting down at the end of the mattress. "Baby... Why didn't you tell me earlier?" He asks her, kneeling before her. "You are always boasting about me being smart, an overachiever, an honor student. 'My girlfriend is going to graduate top of her class.' All that. I didn't want to disappoint you by telling you about my failure." She explains to him, making him sigh in realization. "First of all, you have nothing to be ashamed of. It is just a bad grade. Second, if there is anyone who can score 90%, that person is you. I've seen you working, I've seen you studying. You are a fucking boss when it comes to that. And last, but not least, you will never disappoint me. Even if you try your hardest to, you will never disappoint me." He runs his thumb over his thigh in soothing circles, trying to meet her gaze by tilting his head. "I am going to fail." She utters, tearing up. He wipes away her tears, leaning closer to kiss her cheeks. "You might. But that means nothing. You will resit the assignment, or the exam, or both, and you will be superb at it. But before that, you are going to aim for that 100%, because that's what you always do. And I will help you read for the exam. I know I can't help much, but I will be your study buddy. We are going to fight. And I promise, when you get that passing grade, I won't even say I told you so." He says cheerfully, making her smile. "I adore you." She states, covering his hands with hers. "I know, baby. I adore you too. Now, let's get you to shower, put some food in your stomach, and then make a schedule for studying." He suggests, pulling her on her feet.

Calum proved he is a man of his word. So, when she got that 100% on her finals, he didn't tell her 'I told you so'. He only smirked knowingly, and hugged his wildflower, congratulating her on proving the voices in her head absolutely wrong.

--

This story is actually inspired by me nearly fucking everything up. I did get a 30something percent on the assignment of the hardest course on my final semester and really went through a phase of giving up, but I also did get the 100% mark on the final exam, so I ended up passing the course and getting my degree with honors. I hope you enjoy this story.

My Masterlist

[citrineghost]

100 Humans on Netflix

So there’s this neat Netflix Original show called 100 Humans. I immediately got interested in it because they take this group of various humans from different backgrounds, age groups, and so on, and they use them to conduct experiments to get answers to interesting questions.

So, right away I had concerns about this show because

If you know anything about data and statistical research, you know 100 people is a very small sample size and does not breed accurate results

However, I’m very curious and wanted to see what they came up with anyway. I watched all 8 episodes and, honestly, I enjoyed watching it for the most part. However, I have a LOT of issues with the show and how it was conducted and I want to list them out here.

If you’re interested in watching 100 Humans or have already watched it, please consider the following before taking any of the show’s data as fact.

100 people is a very small sample size. This is because, the more people you have, the more weight each increment in your percentages has. With 100 people, each person represents 1 entire percent. That’s a lot. That means even a few people giving incorrect answers, having off-days, or giving ridiculous results (such as you can see in the spiders georg meme), can sway the entire result of an experiment into unreasonable territory. This is why most scientific studies attempt to get data from many hundreds or even thousands of people. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate it is to the entirety of the world.

I’ll put the rest under the cut because it gets long

The 3 hosts, who I’ll refer to as the scientists (regardless of if they actually are, because I’m not sure and don’t feel like googling it) repeatedly make false statements. For example, in one episode, they told their humans to “raise your hand if you believe you’re less bigoted than the average person here,” to which 94 people raised their hands. One of the scientists then made the statement, “If that were true, it would mean only 6% of Americans are bigoted.” This statement is entirely false. The only way to actually determine a true meaning to that would be to determine at what percentage of bigotry you are considered a real bigot. You also must consider that believing you’re more bigoted than other people in a small group, who you already have an impression of, is not necessarily indicative of how you feel you measure up to America as a whole. Anyway, I could go on and on. The only way to accurately summarize the results of that question would be to say that 44% of the humans had an inflated sense of righteousness or something of the sort.

The 3 scientists, both in person and in narration, for the sake of entertainment (if that’s what you call it) continually made “jokes” that poked fun at different groups, implied men are shit, etc. Maybe that’s fun for some people, but the kind of jokes they were making to amp up the hilarity of their host personas was genuinely just uncomfortable and made me feel even more like they couldn’t be trusted to go about unbiased research.

The scientists continually drew conclusions where the results should have been labeled inconclusive

The scientists made blanket statements about certain groups based on 1 element of research that would not stand up to further evaluation. For example, when explaining that ~93% (i think it was about that number) of Americans have access to clean, drinkable, tap water and yet some large number of single use bottled waters are sold every year, one scientist said it was because people believe bottled water is safer and cleaner than tap water. I am going to do my next survey on this to see if my own perception is flawed, but I simply don’t believe that all of the people who buy bottled water do so because they think its cleaner than “tap” (as if all tap is the same.) I know there have been studies about people drinking unlabeled bottled water and tap water and not being able to tell the difference, but this neglects to account for the fact that different houses pipes can affect the taste of the tap water running through them, people can use disposable bottles of water for certain activities or events too far away from tap for people to refill their reusable bottles easily, and so so so much more. Anyway, it just really bothers me to see “scientists” making these kinds of generalizations when they’re the ones whose results we’re supposed to trust.

The show was incredibly cisnormative. There was an entire episode based on comparing men and women that made me extremely uncomfortable with its division of people by men and women. There was the implication that all men have penises and all women have vaginas. There were implications that reproduction is a necessity in picking a partner. It was just a shitshow. There was one comment by one subject who asked, when being told to separate by men and women, “What if I’m transgender?” Obviously I can’t say for sure, but this person didn’t appear to be transgender and the sort of tone it was asked in makes me think it was literally something they asked him to say in order to get inclusivity points with the viewers and to “prove” that they’re not transphobic by having them divide up, because they said to go to the side you identify with. This whole thing is a) harmful to nb folks who would not have had a side to go to and b) completely negating the fact that the way we were socialized can have an effect on our social responses. That means that for a social experiment, a trans person could sway the results of one side due to their upbringing and the pressures society put on them before/if they don’t pass. This is all assuming they had any trans people there, which is potentially debatable.  I also take issue with this entire fucking episode because just, the amount of toxicity in proving one sex is better than the others is really gross and actually counterproductive to everything feminist and progressive. Not to mention, them implying that they’re trying to support trans people only to reinforce the notion that a trans man is inherently lesser for being a man when even prior to hatching, he would have also been force fed propaganda and societal pressure implying he’s less than for supposedly being a woman is really gross and makes me angry. The point of what I’m saying is that it’s actually not woke to hate men as a way of bringing women up because there are men who are minorities who are being hurt by the rise of aggression being directed at them for their gender. Anyway enough about that.

The tests drew false conclusions because they did not account for how minorities adapt to a world that’s not made for them. This is specifically directed at the episode where subjects were asked to match up 6 people into couples. There were 3 women and 3 men and the humans were asked to put them together into pairs. they could ask the people 1 question each but then had to match them up with only that information. The truth is, the people brought in were 3 real life couples already, which the humans didn’t know until after they matched them. The couples were m/f, m/m, and f/f. I think that’s great, but the problem is, literally none of the humans asked any of them their sexuality as their question and most people didn’t even consider they could match up same-sex people. One girl even thought that they had told her to make m/f pairings, even though they didn’t.  The scientists concluded from the experiment that the humans have a societal bias toward people, and assume they’re all straight, even if they, themselves, are not straight. I personally believe that was the wrong conclusion to draw. You could see some of the queer humans were shocked that they hadn’t considered some of the pairings might be gay. But, I don’t think it’s because they believe everyone they meet is straight, I believe this says more about what they expected from the scientists themselves. If someone is in a minority and they go to do something organized, like a set of experiments, they are going to be judging the quality and setup of the experiments by those designing them. I feel that the lack of consideration that the couples might be gay has a lot more to do with queer people having adapted to a world where queers are rarely involved or included in equal volume to the cishets. The queer humans taking part in the experiment and failing to guess gay couples shows that they have adapted to a world where they are excluded rather than a belief that every random person that they meet is straight. My point is further supported by an expert they had on the show who explained that, statistically, it was entirely likely that they were all straight and that even queers will account for being minorities by going with what’s most likely. The truth is, we are surrounded by a whole lot of straight people. It makes sense to assume only 6 people are all straight and that, if any aren’t, they may be bi.

The scientists frequently broke an already small sample size into even smaller groups. The group was very frequently broken in half, in thirds, or into sets of 10 people. These sample sizes tell us almost nothing actually conclusive. 

The experiments/tests frequently were affected by peoples abilities, unrelated to what was being tested. For example, one test that was broken down into 6 people and 6 control people competing at jenga was meant to show whether needing to pee helps or hurts your focus. first of all, sample sizes of 6 are a fucking joke. Second, this completely ignores these 6 people’s actual ability to play Jenga. If someone sucks at jenga with or without needing to pee, them losing Jenga when they need to pee says exactly fuck all about whether needing to pee affected their focus. They should have tested people’s Jenga skills beforehand, counted the amount of moves they made before the tower fell, and then did it again after hours of not peeing to compare their results. This test made no logical sense at all.

The scientists ignored the social effect of subjects knowing each other as well as duration of events during their last experiment. They were testing to see if people with last names near the end of the alphabet get a shittier deal because they go last in everything where things are done by name order. They tested this by doing a fake awards ceremony where they gave out some 30 awards to people, gauging the applause to see whether the people at the end got less hype and therefore felt worse about themselves than those in the beginning who got the fresh enthusiasm of the audience. the results showed that the applause remained fairly consistent throughout the awards. The issues with this test are numerous, but here are the three I take most issue with. 1) the people here all got to know each other very well over the week it took to make the show. People who know each other and have become friends are much more likely to cheer for each other with enthusiasm, regardless of how long it’s been. On the other hand, polite applause from a crowd at, say, a graduation, where you are applauding people you don’t know, WILL start off more raucous and grow very quiet except for individual families near the end. 2) the duration of the test was a half hour, which is not very long at all and doesn’t say much to test the limits of enthusiasm. Try testing the audience at a graduation with a couple hundred graduates that also involves the time it takes to walk all the way up to a stage a hundred feet away, accept a diploma, and then wait for the next person. These kinds of events take hours and nobody keeps up their enthusiasm that long unless they’re rooting for someone in particular. 3) this study tested only one of many many ways name order affects a person. Cheering and applause is only one factor. It does not take into account people having their resumes looked at in alphabetical order and therefore people at the beginning of the alphabet being picked before anyone ever looks at a W name’s resume. It doesn’t take into account a small child’s show and tell day being at the very end of the school year, after 6 other people have brought in the same thing they planned to. No one cares about their really cool trinket because they’ve seen a bunch like it already. This test doesn’t take into account how many end-of-the-alphabet people just get straight up told, “we ran out of time. maybe next time,” when next time doesn’t really exist. I feel genuinely bad for the girl who suggested this experiment because the scientists straight up said something akin to, “lmao her theory was bs ig /shrug” even though it was their own shitty research abilities that led to their results.

They did one experiment intending to see how many people have what it takes to be a “hero.” The request for this test was made by someone curious about the effect of adrenaline and if it really works how some people say. The scientists thought it an adequate method to determine an answer by testing their reflexes with a weird crying baby sound and then dropping a doll from above while they were distracted with answering questions. The scientists looked up before the doll dropped to indicate a direction of attention. While this does give some answers about peoples intuition, reflexes, and ability to use context clues, its entirely an unusual situation, makes no sense in reality, fails to take adrenaline into consideration literally at all, and has a lot more to do with chance. The person dropping the doll literally couldn’t even drop it in the same place from person to person. Some got it dropped into their lap and others almost out of arm’s reach. This, like a few of the other mentioned experiments, was during the last episode, which felt lazy and thrown together last minute, with very little scientific basis to any of the results. The last episode was weak and disappointing overall. 

One of the big issues I have with this show is actually their repeated use of the same group. They said at the end that they had done over 40 tests. Part of doing studies is getting varied samples of people in order to get more widespread results. Using the same 100 or less people (already a tiny sample) repeatedly is a terrible research method. You’re no longer studying humans at large. You’re studying these specific humans. You can’t take the same group with the same set of inadequacies, the same set of skills, and the same set of biases and then study them extensively and in many different ways like this. Your results are inherently skewed toward these specific people and their abilities. I expected them to at least get a new group each episode - every 5 or so studies - but no. They keep the same group all week, which makes the entire season. This is inexcusable in research imo.

The next issue is contestant familiarity. The humans all getting to know each other is great, socially, but it also destroys the legitimacy of many of the studies that involve working together or comparing yourselves and your beliefs

Many tests had issues with subject dependency. One study, meant to compare age groups and their ability to work together to complete the task of putting together a piece of ready to assemble furniture had each group with members they relied on entirely. A few people built the furniture while one person sat across the room, looking at instructions with their back to the others. They had to relay the instructions through a walkie talkie to another contestant and that other contestant had to relay it to the people they’re watching build the chair. You cannot study a group’s ability to build something with instructions by the ability of one single person to communicate. You’re testing that individual and the rest of them on two completely different capabilities. One person fails at being able to communicate and everyone else becomes unable to build the furniture. Even if everyone else in the group is more effective than all the other groups at building ready to assemble furniture, they might end up falling in last because of their shitty communicator who is literally not able to convey simple instructions. (yes, this actually happened in the test)

One test judged the subjects at their speed of getting ready, to see if men or women are faster at getting ready. While most elements of this test were just fine, the part I took issue with was that they did this test without regard to social convention. They told the subjects they were going on a field trip and to get ready by a certain time. Then, they gave them many things to get distracted by, like refreshments to pack with them, a menu to preorder lunch from, and so on.  The part that upsets me about this test is that they ignored social convention entirely, to the point that subjects were judged based on their conventional actions and expectations more than their actual speed at getting ready. The buses promptly shut their doors and left at the time they were supposed to but there was no final call to get on the buses. In general, when a group is to be taken somewhere by bus, there will be an announcement to load up and leave. You could clearly see many of the subjects were ready to go and were just standing around talking while they waited for fellow subjects to finish getting ready. I have no doubt that, if given a final call, most of them would have loaded up within a couple minutes. However, they were relying on the social convention of announcing departure and were therefore, left behind entirely (for a nonexistent field trip). These people who were left behind were counted as being late and not making the time cutoff. If one were to look at the social element of this situation, if everyone there believed there would be a warning before departure, the fact that 24 to 14 women to men were loaded onto the buses at departure doesn’t necessarily indicate the women were faster to get ready. It seems to me that it’s more likely to indicate anxiety at being late and a belief that they need not impede on anything lest they be reprimanded or have social consequences for taking too long - something women are frequently bullied for. There’s also the chance that many who boarded without final call are more introverted or antisocial. Plus, we can’t forget to include the people who have anxiety about seating. If someone is overweight, has joint pain, or has social anxiety, they will be more likely to board early to get a seat they feel comfortable in. If they had counted up all of the people socializing and waiting on the sidewalks nearby, they may have found that there were more men who were ready to board up at a moment’s notice. I’m not saying I think men are faster to get ready, I’m just saying that we can’t know based on who boarded without a final call. If people believe they will have a last minute chance to board, a large number of them will take the last few minutes to socialize with their new friends until they’re told they have to board. Therefore, this test cannot be considered conclusive without counting and including the people who were ready and not boarded as a third subset.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how sensationalist and unscientific this show is, but I just don’t have 6 more hours to contribute to digging up every single flaw with it. There’s A Lot.

My point is, if you feel like watching this show, which I don’t necessarily discourage inherently, I just beg you to go into it with a critical eye. Enjoy the fun of it and the social aspects, but please don’t rely on the information provided and please don’t spread it as fact, because it’s not.

It’s entertainment, not science.

[ohh-baekhyun]

Nothing Like Us | 02

✨ Summary: Rich, charming and undeniably good-looking, Byun Baekhyun is used to women falling on their knees for him. You are an exception though. Quiet, reserved and indifferent, you are never afraid to put him in his place if you need to. That’s probably why he is quite besotted with you. No woman has ever challenged him the way you do. Thus when he has the chance to spend three weeks under the same roof as you, he makes it his sole mission to win your heart.

✨ Genre: Arranged Marriage-ish!AU, romance, fluff, smut in future chapter.:,

You’ve been here for ten days and you’re starting to think staying here isn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Your books, and the maids keep you company when Baekhyun isn’t home. When he’s home, he’s either purposely rattling your cage to annoy you, flirt with you at every turn, or instigate the Truth or Dare game. It is true that the two of you have bonded through this game. Although lately, the questions he threw have been all over the place, ranging from trivial to inappropriate.

What’s your favorite movie? (Shrek)

Do you believe in Aliens? (Nope)

What do you like about me? (Nothing)

You were lying of course. You just didn’t want him to get a big head about it.

Do you have a Daddy kink? (What do you think?)

As for you, there were times when you put little thought into your question because you just want to get it over with, and times when you are genuinely curious about what you asked. Through this game, although silly, you get to learn so much about Baekhyun. Something serious like him giving up his career as an architect to be the heir to his father’s company, to something unimportant like how his ex-girlfriend dumped him because he pours his milk first before his cereal.

If ten days ago he was merely an acquaintance, today he has graduated to a friend. The kind you get annoyed at so often, but can’t stay mad at for long.

It is a Friday morning and you’re in the dining room all by yourself. Baekhyun has left to work after having a quick breakfast with you. It has become a daily occurence since the start of your stay here. He’ll also be back in the evening for dinner.

You take a sip of your tea and stare at your phone as the screen lights up. There’s a message from your Dad that says, ‘The lawyer will get in touch with you soon. If there’s anything you’d like to add to the contract, please don’t hesitate to let him know.’

Apparently, your Dad has summoned a lawyer to help you draft a prenuptial agreement. You don’t understand what’s the hurry. To be honest, you haven’t given much thought to what happens when three weeks are over, but you are not one to go against your Dad’s order. So with a sigh, you lift your phone off the table reply to his message with an Okay and a Thank you Dad.

Later that night, you’ve finally come up with a few demands you’d like to negotiate. You’ve typed them out in the notes section of your iPad. But now you’re debating if you should discuss about it with Baekhyun before emailing the file to your lawyer. After a moment of quiet consideration, you look for your phone to text him.

You: My room, now.

Byun.B: You think I'm your dog?

You: Can you see me in my room please? :)

Byun.B: What for?

You: There's something I want to show you.

Byun.B: You, naked?

You: Maybe.

Almost immediately, you hear the echo of his door opening and closing, followed by the sound of his footsteps, and lastly, the door to your room swing open. Baekhyun appears wearing a plain white tee and black shorts, his disheveled hair falling slightly over his eyes, they look so soft it makes you want to run your fingers through them.

His eyes found you and you giggle at the dissapoinment raining on his feature when he sees you, not naked.

Baekhyun grunts and mutters something inaudible under his breath.

"Come sit with me," you say before glancing down at your iPad. The door closes and he walks over to you.

He stops by your side, shoving his hands in the pocket of his shorts as he stares down at you. “Why did you invite me to your room?” He asks. “Please tell me we finally doing the deed? Because I am so fucking ready.”

You roll your eyes. “Why do you have to relate everything to sex?”

“If you didn’t invite me here for naughty purposes, what for then?” He asks once he is seated next to you on the ottoman.

"My father has hired a lawyer for me," you told him. "You know, to help me out with the marriage contract and stuff.”

His eyes go round like saucers. "Fuck, we're getting married for real?"

"Oh, I wouldn't hold your breath," You dismiss. His eyes narrowed at you. "But," You carry on. "If I do agree to this arrangement, there are demands that must be fulfilled." You pass him your iPad. "Take a look, I thought it'd be good to review this with you before I email it to my lawyer."

On your ipad is a list of negotiations you've typed out in bulletpoints. They’re not written in legalese but that’s not your job to mind, but the lawyer’s.

I get to finish my studies and find a job of my choosing here.

We move to a new place (preferably a villa and NOT haunted)

I want a pet pig.

He stops reading to stare blankly at you, like he thinks you are crazy.

“What? Pigs are smart okay?”

“Where do you think you're living in? FarmVille?" He says sarcastically.

"We can get a teacup pig!” You protest. “Have you seen them? They’re so small and cute.”

"There’s no such thing as teacup pigs. They are just piglets and will eventually grow into a motherfucking pig. On top of that, they stink and poop like it’s no one’s business.”

You raise your chin at him. ”How are you so sure?”

”I know someone who’s a pig breeder,” He says.

You take a moment to think before reluctantly accepting that Baekhyun is right. You can’t have a fully grown pig in the house, they easily weigh 300kg.

“Fine...I’ll cross that out,” You say, relenting.

Baekhyun notices a slight pout on your lips, and the way your face falls in dissappointment. Feeling bad for letting you down, his heart aches a little.

“Is there any other pet you’d like to have?” He asks softly before adding, “Anything that doesn’t belong on a farm...or a jungle.”

You gaze up at him with hopeful round eyes. “Can we get a kitten or a puppy then?” You ask.

Baekhyun smiles. “That we can,” He agrees before shifting his eyes back to your iPad.

In the event of extramarital affair, I have the right to leave the marriage. We get a divorce with no contest.

Baekhyun looks at you again, this time his expression unreadable. “You think I’m going to cheat on you?”

You honestly have no answer to that. Having being abandon at such a young age, you’ve grown up to be distrustful of the people around you. You grew up believing that everyone will eventually get bored and leave. Like your parents did.

“I hope you don’t take it personally,” you assure him. “I’m not saying you’re untrustworthy, it’s just, I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”

Understanding dawns on his feature and he nods. “Fair enough," He says, fixing his attention to the screen again. His lips pucker in concentration as he stares at the bulletpoints. You peer over his shoulder and watch as he taps on the edit icon on the bottom right of the screen. The keyboard appears and his fingers start moving.

In the event of extramarital affair (never going to happen), I have the right to leave the marriage. As a penalty, 100% of Byun Baekhyun’s assets will be handed over to me.

You read and re-read the part he has just edited. “Are you serious?” You look at him wide-eyed. “You’re giving me full ownership of your property?

He nods easily like it’s no big deal to him. “Anyway, whether or not I have an affair, you’ll still get fifty percent of everything I acquire from the moment you say yes.”

If he’s trying to lure you, then it is partly working. You are not going to lie, his proposal is indeed very appealing. Baekhyun’s assets are staggering, and with that much money, you could finally start up a literacy organization and open up free schools like you always wanted to.

“I’ll have my lawyer draft the prenup agreement as soon as you come up with a decision,” He says.

“Oh, okay...” You mutter, still feeling in complete disbelief.

“What’s next?” He mutters to himself, reverting his attention to the screen.

I want babies and I get to name all of them.

You’ve thought long and hard whether or not you should include that clause in the list. You know Baekhyun is going to tease you upon reading it, but you have to shove your embarrassment under the rug. You’ve always wanted kids and it is important that he is onboard with the idea before you make up your mind about the marriage.

He raised an amused brow at you, one corner of his lips curling up. “Babies huh?”

You feel your cheek heating up. “Why? Do you not want babies?”

He shakes his head and twists around to set the iPad away on the mattress behind him. When he glances back at you, you give him a quizzical stare.

“What does–” you shake your head to imitate his action earlier. “mean?”

“It means if you want babies, I’ll give you babies...But there’s a problem,” He says, folding his arms over his chest. The muscle in his biceps bulge. It's very distracting. 

Damn him.

Stop ogling! you chide yourself. Look up!  

You glance up at him. “What’s the problem?”

“How are we going to make babies if you always run everytime I come near you?” He asks. “You won’t even let me touch you.”

“I’m not going to run,” You say, averting your eyes.

“I don’t believe you.”

Feeling the need to prove him wrong, you lift your chin and will yourself to meet his eyes. “Try me.”

There is a lull of silence that caused the air to grow tense. His gaze dark, intense, hinting at something sexual. “Come sit on my lap,” he finally speaks.

Your eyes descend to his thighs and you gulp nervously. Slowly, you rise from your seat and move to stand before him. You look between him and his lap, hesitating.

Baekhyun watches you, his own heartbeat accellerating when you finally lower yourself on his lap. Once you are seated, he slid a hand over your back, resting his palm on the curve of your waist to hold you just in case you move and fall. This is the closest you two have ever been and he doesn't want to let go.

There's a stretched silence where Baekhyun continues studying your profile closely. You stare down at your fingers, your thumbs twiddling with each other.

“What now?” You say, trying to defuse the awkwardness.

“Put your arms around me, sweetheart,” he whispers slowly into your ears. Goosebumps prickle along the back of your neck at the sound his low voice. Under normal circumstances, you would be chiding him for calling your sweetheart. You don't like it, it's patronising as hell. But this is no normal circumstances, and you are too nervous to even speak. Instead, you take a long shaky breath and soldier on.

When your arms are circled around Baekhyun’s shoulders, he looks straight into your eyes. If you are any other woman in this situation, he would have pulled you in for a kiss already. But you are not just any woman. And it doesn't help that he has no fucking idea whether you're attracted to him or not. He studies you for a moment, his own gaze is twitchy, showing slight hesitation. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” He whispers.

“A little,” you voice out softly. “but not in a bad way.”

He keeps his eyes interlock with yours as he draws in a breath. “And If I touch you, will you push me away?”

“Depends where you touch,” you reply, your voice sounding small.

Looking at how tense you are, Baekhyun doesn’t know where or how to start. The last thing he wants it to scare you away with his advances, but the urge to kiss you is so fucking strong. He keeps his eyes on you. Slowly, almost tentatively, he lifts his hand and smooths his fingertips along your jawline, cupping your face. “Is this okay?” He asks, looking into your eyes.

His hand feels warm against your skin and he’s surprisingly gentle. You sigh and nod. “It’s okay.”

Baekhyun's lips tilt up into a smile, as though he is relieved. “You have such a tiny face,” he wonders as he strokes the back of his thumb over your cheek. “it fits in my hand perfectly.”

Hearing that, you scoff. “You know any guy would say something like you have such a beautiful face or eyes or things like that.”

"You know I am not like any guy,”

“You’re right,” you say with a soft smile. "I've never met anyone like you."

It is only now that you’re realizing how close your face is to his face. There’s a strange tenderness and intimacy in the way he looks at you, and to you own disbelief, you like it. You like him doting on your like this.

“If you keep staring at me like that,” He says to your semi-dazed self. You blink out of it, only to find yourself chained under the intensity of his gaze. “I’m afraid I can’t hold it much longer.”

“H-how do I stare at you?”

Gingerly, he swipes his thumb over your lower lip. “Like you want me to kiss you,” He murmurs. 

You heart misses a beat, and your pale cheek is slowly growing rosy.

Then, he is leaning closer and closer.

Your mind starts to spin like a carousel. You know the right thing to do is to push him away, tell him no. But you can't move. It's as if he has just casted a spell on you to render you paralyzed. Thus, the last thing you see before you close your eyes is how close his face is to yours, and then the light went out and you feel the softness of his lips brushing against yours. You are stiff as a board and it surprises you that he is just as tensed as you are. None of you are moving your lips. This isn't how you expected kissing Baekhyun to feel like. It almost feels like a first kiss all over again because you really don't know what to do. Do you open your mouth? Pull him closer? Or what?

A few seconds passed and Baekhyun eventually pulls away. You open your eyes to meet his eyes, but his gaze is unfathomable. Your brows pulled together into a frown as you try to decipher the look on his face. Is he dissapointed? Oh God, does he think you're a bad kisser? Must be...

"It's late," He says somewhat coldly, looking anywhere but you. "I should go now."

"Oh...Okay," You say, immediately unclasping your arms around his neck and slid off his lap. You turn your back to him once you rise to your feet, too embarrassed to face him after what has just happened.

The two of you exchange a brief goodnight without looking at each other.

And then he is gone.

Fast forward three days later...

The last few days have been hectic for Baekhyun. Ever since his father announced his retirement, Baekhyun has to step in to take over his role as the CEO of the company. Which means, more meetings, more engagements that he needs to attend. In fact he is currently on his way to his third meeting of the day. It sucks because he doesn’t get to spend time with you as much as he would like to.

Good news is, things have been progressing steadily between you two. And Baekhyun realized that for the first time since you arrived here, it felt not so much like you were arguing with him because you despised him but more like you did it because it was fun. 

However, he still doesn’t know where you stand at this point. What happens when three weeks are up? Will you pack your bag and leave, or will you stay?

Fuck.

The thought of you leaving kicks him hard in the gut. He admits he has grown to like you. A hell, hell lot. It is silly because you’ve only been here for two weeks but you’ve became the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up, and the last thing in his mind before he goes to sleep. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you’re slowly letting your guard down around him, and now he gets to see more of the real you.

He knows you had a complicated relationship with your parents. You were abandoned at a very young age and will forever be nursing a broken heart. He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain you went through, to be left behind by your own mother and have your own father sent you away. He knows all of that have left you feeling rejected, unwanted, and often, inadequate about yourself. That’s why you are always shy and reserved around everyone.

Everyone except him.

Whether you like him or not, he doesn’t know. One thing he knows is, you’re never afraid to voice out your opinion or tell him off when you need to, he guess that’s why he loves provoking you so much.

It’s only been a few days but he really missed all the playful banters and bickerings he had with you. He misses the wicked gleam in your eyes when you are firing something back at him. He misses the sweet sound of your laughter when he makes you laugh. He misses the way he feels when he makes you laugh, as if he has just won a grand prize. But more than anything, he misses you.

The last time he talked you was on the night he kissed you. And he fucking ruined everything. He had no idea what the hell happened to him. He has never been that nervous around a girl before. He is a damn good kisser and he knows that. But the moment he pressed his lips against yours, it felt as if he has never kissed all his life. Yet, it didn't stop his heartrate from going overdrive whenever he thinks about how your lips felt against his.

He could've done so much better, but there's no point dwelling on the past. All he knows is, the next time chances like that arise, he swears to kiss the hell out of you and make sure it's the best damn kiss you’ll ever have.

And that next time better be soon because time is running out between you and him. 

Next Chapter

[idemandoolong]

Always blame yourself if you want to be happy.

Everyone at some point has said to himself/herself, “Well there was nothing I could do. This wasn’t my fault.” And a lot of times, this is true. However, most times, it is not true. And the people who believe that 99 percent of the time, there was something they could have done are the ones who among are the healthiest, most educated, they have the highest income, and they live in the safest cities/neighborhoods.

Now we can all say they were lucky, they benefit from racism, sexism, classism, etc. But again, that stems from the “this isn’t my fault” mentality. People who made it to the top frequently blame themselves for any and every thing. But see, the word “blame” is what turns people off. We’ve been conditioned to think “blame” is a bad word, but it doesn’t always have to be. Words only have power if we say so.

People at the top of society are used to having a lot of responsibilities, so naturally, they hold themselves responsible for a lot. On the other hand, people in the middle and at the bottom of society are not used to having a lot of responsibility, so naturally, they figure someone else is responsible. It doesn’t matter who—as long as it’s not them.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say Person A fails an exam in school. If Person A is on his/her way to the top of society, he/she will immediately try to figure out what could’ve been done differently.

 “I didn’t pay attention in class as much as I should have.”

“I didn’t study as much as I should have.”

“I didn’t go to tutoring when I had the chance.”

“I kept procrastinating and doing other things.”

 How many of you have actually heard people say this? Very few, if any.

What do you hear instead? More commonly, you hear what Person B says:

 “This teacher doesn’t know how to teach.”

“None of this was covered in class. This isn’t fair.”

“I have other classes to study for. You can’t expect me to remember everything.”

“I have to work a lot and have a tight schedule. This is just too much.”

 Do you see the difference? Same problem, but Person A blames himself/herself, while Person B blames the teacher, other teachers, and his/her job.

Even when something happens that really isn’t Person A’s fault, he/she will still find a way to be partly responsible. Say the CEO of the company he/she works for closes down business and everyone loses their jobs and Person A is struggling financially.

 “I lost my job, but I didn’t have a Plan B.”

“I should’ve been saving money for unforeseen circumstances.”

“Had I been paying more attention, I would’ve seen this coming and could’ve prepared.”

What would Person B say?

“This is so unfair. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Don’t these people know we need jobs? They just don’t care.”

“If they had paid me more, I could’ve actually saved some money.”

 That mentality of being responsible for circumstances is what pushes people to the top, and it is what keeps them there. Because they feel responsible, they’re more likely to seek advice, think before they act, weigh all their options, research, plan for the future etc.

People who don’t feel responsible are more likely to do whatever they feel like doing at the moment.

“That person looks good. I’ll have unprotected sex with them.”

“I am so angry. I’m going to physically assault that person.”

“I don’t feel like going to work. I’m going to call out sick and go shopping.”

All three of those decisions can have dire consequences. And when those consequences happen, then what?

 “Well it was in the heat of the moment. It just happened.”

“Well they pushed me to the point of punching them.”

“Well I hate my job. If it were better, then I would’ve gone into work.”

See how those three quotes deflect personal responsibility?

Most people in lower-income communities think like this. They frequently deflect personal responsibility and blame the government, the school, their supervisor, traffic, the media, sexism, etc. Most people in higher-income communities think like Person A.  

Society has (and always will) reward people who blame themselves and hold themselves responsible, because society does not want to be blamed for a person’s actions. These self-blaming people are rewarded with money, power, and respect.

Now some things are 100% out of your control. Don’t get me wrong. But really, the amount of things that are completely out of your control pale in comparison to the amount of things you can actually change.

The difference between Person A and Person B is how they approach a circumstance they don’t like.

Most people in the world think like Person B. This is, “I am powerless, blameless, and a helpless victim. There is nothing I can do about this, and here’s why….”

Very few people in the world think like Person A. This is, “I am going to change my behavior. I am going to change my actions. I am going to change my circumstances.”

So the next time something goes wrong, think, “Was there something I could have done to prevent this? Was there something I could have done to soften this blow? Did I somehow contribute to this? Is there something I can do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?”

If you honestly, deep down believe (and can prove) the answer is no, then you have no choice but to accept the circumstance for the rest of your life. If you believe the answer is yes and you take action, then you’re well on your way to a happier life.

But if you deep down believe the answer is yes, yet you refuse to take action, then stay your broke, triflin, tired and complaining ass off my Tumblr page, goddammit.  

[silviasutton1989]

The Guest “Worthy” Ch. 6

A/N: Ok ok I just want you all to know I’m still here (if anyone has noticed any lol) I’m currently in the process of moving I will...should be moved out by next week end so I should be more active....hopefully. This is what I have for you guys so far. i edited cut added cut more then finally said f it and here it is!  

Word Count:2500

Rating: Adult Content...this is pretty tame (or not wink wink) I just don’t want to get flagged (AGAIN) so I didn’t go full out.

Summary: Candace volunteers at a shelter and surprises everyone (even herself) with a shocking revaluation. 

Catch Up on my MASTERLIST:

Liam sat in the leather chair watching as his father went on and on about something he hadn't bothered to pay attention to. His mind was on Candace. Something was up and he could feel her unhappiness, he could see it in her eyes even when she smiled. Yet any time he asked her she would say nothing was wrong.

"Son are you listening? This is very important. They hate her!"

"Who? Who hates who?" Liam finally snaps out of his thoughts to see the morning newspaper thrown in front of him.

"Cordonia...the people. OUR people hate the girl." Constantine's tone was serious but Liam could see the smug grin creeping from his cheeks. He reads the paper headline: "Royal guest bored at charity barn raise." The picture they used of Candace was far from unflattering. Her eyes off in their own world a pout fixed on her face, he had been seeing that look lately... a lot lately.

"She...it's just a bad picture it means noth--" Liam starts to read the article and quickly throws it away in the trash. 

"Son I know you love her. And I know you came here with the intentions of leaving. But..." He creeps closer to his son placing a firm hand on his shoulder. His closet form of embrace he could give. "But what if you plan to stay...what if you decide to keep your crown?"

"Father I already--"

"Yes...yes I know. But I've been watching you, at the morning meetings during our trading briefs. You enjoy this, even more than that you thrive at it!" He sighs removing his hand and walking away. "I just think that if you leave they will blame her. Do you want that?"

"No ...what should I do?"

His father turns away hiding his full smile. "Don't worry son. I know exactly what to do."

The limo doors open and soon Canadace was standing in front of a crowd. It was so different. For the 2 months she was surrounded by beautiful perfect faces in expensive dresses and now staring at her were men women and children who faces were covered in dirt and dried tears, coughing as they shivered in their wet blankets. Was this Cordonia? 

"Lady Candace, why are you here?" a reporter calls out thrusting his mic in her face.

"I ...um I'm here to help those affected Cordonia's latest flood. The monarchy would like to show their support."

"And what do you plan to do exactly?" Another reporter pushes their mic into her face. She pauses. No one had given her instructions on what exactly to do here.

" Well I...um I guess I will..." looking around for an answer.

"She will be assisting in feeding the hungry, passing out clean dry linen, and whatever Lady Candace feels she can squeeze in." She hadn't seen the man standing next to her appear. But there he was long slicked back light salt and pepper hair and a dashing smile that seemed welcoming. "Now if you all will excuse us Lady Candace has a very busy day ahead and I'm sure she would like to get started."

The dashing man lead her into the building as the reporters remained outside.

"Thanks for the help."

"Oh you are most welcome, M'Lady." he takes her hand placing a light kiss to it.

"Well, it's seems you have me quite in a disadvantage. You know who I am but I have no idea who you are."

"I am Francesco. Usually I work with the King in trade deals with Italy." He smiles as he walks her further into the building. "But with the recent flood many of Cordonia's supplies have been meager, so I took it upon myself to assist the country. Help them get back on their feet sort of speak."

"Well that's very generous of you." Candace had a feeling not to trust the welcoming man in front of her. She watched as he helped a young child who dropped their toy. Over the past few weeks she had grown to not trust the beaming smiles of nobles, and she wasn't sure but for some reason this man with all his charm, still gave her an uneasiness. 

"Oh it's a better honor to serve." He grins before leading her to a large laundry room. "Here is where the linen is washed dried and folded. You can assist here for a while then well move you to do other duties."

Candace had forgotten how satisfying it was to work. And it wasn't just the tasks that brought a smile to her face, it was the people. She met a young girl named Dorcas who wanted to go to college but the flood destroyed her parent's business, she was sure her dream would never come true. She met a man Mr. Callis who was a 5th generation fisherman, he lost his wife of 37 years due to the flood, and mainly stayed at the shelter because it was better than the unwelcoming silence of his empty home. She heard so many stories learned so many names, cared for and assisted so many that she regretted leaving . She decided to leave the shelter through the back doors hoping to avoid and more press.

"This is all working perfectly! I mean we are making millions off these saps!"

As Candace turned a corner she saw Francesco talking on his phone, he hadn't seen her and so she hid to hear more.

"Ha! and the king just keeps sending us more and more money. He doesn't even bother to look at the expenses!" He boasts "And the best part is that that all we're get money from everyone. Countries all over are just raking in the cash! We'll be millionaires before if we can just milk this thing a few more months. "  Francesco rolls with laughter not even noticing Candace walking to her limo.

She was quite her way back., not sure of what to do. But before she could come up with an answer the limo was pulling into the place grounds, where the press waited for her.

Giving the limo little time to stop and before her senses could stop her she was standing in front of a camera microphone clenched in her fist.

"Cordonian's, today I assisted  at a local shelter. That shelter's purpose is to support your survivors. I met those survivors. And it was those who have nothing that have shown me the true beauty that is Cordonia. I want them to know that I truly care. So what I'm about to say comes from love and respect for those people and this country, and I wouldn't say this if I didn't believe 100 percent for it to be true...." Candace took a deep breath. She wasn't afraid but her nerves were on end. "Those that run that shelter are running a scam!"

The press gasps all rushing closer with their microphones. 

"Italian Statesman Fransesco is nothing more than a vulture...a criminal who has been milking the Cordonian monarchy, fooling them to believe they are helping your people. But all he is doing is pocketing the money!" Candace opened her mouth to say more but strong arms grabbed her pulling her into the palace the doors shutting with a loud thud.

"Let go of me!" she struggles free as the guard releases her.

"Lady Candace you have been summoned to the king's quarters at once."

She followed the guard to a study. The second she stepped in the room Constantine eyed her. He had a way of looking furious but still with a calm smile.

"Where's Liam?" 

"Don't worry he will be in shortly. But while we wait maybe you should explain yourself? You just accused one of our biggest trade dealers of scamming us!" 

Candace straightens her spine. "I'm telling the truth."

"I don't give a damn if it's the truth or not!" Constantine spat his face turning red before taking a breath to calm himself. "I know you are new here. And being foreign, you have little understanding of monarchy protocol. But I am king! I rule this country and if something isn't straight you come to me with it! Don't get in front of a news camera and make me look like a gullible fool!"

"I wan't...I didn't mean to--"

Just then the doors opened an Liam walks in.

"I just heard. Candace I...I can't believe you just did that!" She waited to see disappointment in his eyes but there was none. Instead he smiles pulling her into a tight hug. "I always thought something was off about Francesnco."

"Well we have to prove he actually is guilty of fraud before we go parading the girl around like a hero, Liam."

"You should check your records. He was boasting about the fact that you never looked over them." 

Constantine clenches his jaw. "My men will look over them immediately."

"Good. I think Candace deserves a night out." Liam's eyes didn't leave her as he spoke " Father I'm taking the jet tonight." He leans whispering into her ear. "Candy go put on something...special." biting his bottom lip as he took a step back and watches as she walks away.

Today had certainly been a whirlwind. Candace started her day washing linen feeding the hungry to broadcasting a fraud over the local news to now flying in a private jet her hand firmly in Liam's, who just couldn't wipe this silly grin from his face. 

"Do you know if your father looked into those records?"

"I do. I was going to wait till we landed but....you were right! The man has schemed almost half a million from us and there's no telling how much he could have gotten away with before anyone would have noticed."

Candace exhaled. "I'm just glad I actually helped instead of made things worse."

"Helped? Candace you did far more then help! You saved those people...and even if my father's to prideful to admit it...you saved the monarchy." He bends to kiss her hand softly. "Take a look out of the window, we are here."

Candace eyes land on the shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower. Her mouth opens but no words flow out only shrieks.

When the plane landed Liam lead her up to the very top of the building. Awaiting them was a candlelight diner for two.

"You planned all this?" Her mouth still agape as she he lead her to her seat.

"Oh this...this was nothing just called in a few favors." He gives a sly wink before sitting down. "Besides Cordonia's hero needs to be thanked some kind of way."

"I'm no hero Liam I just ---"

"No. Stop selling yourself short Candace. I've thought Franceseco was a weasel since the day I've met him. You were with the man for 5 hours and figured out he was robbing my country. You're incredible."

"I have to say I did enjoy helping at the shelter. It helped me to see Cordonia in a new light."

"Oh so you actually like it now." Liam quirked a smile "Guess we don't have to make a rushed flight back to New York?"

"Don't get too excited." Candace chuckles looking off into the dazzling lights of Paris. "But...I really did love meeting those people...and getting to know them...and being able to make their lives better. I know it probably would have been better  for me to go to the King with Franceseco but really all I could think about was them. Helping them, protecting them."

They ate their dinner as she told him about all the people she meet. She remembered every name every story they had. Candace looked over to Liam his smile brighter than the lights before them. It was almost as if he's looking at her for the first time, as if he never really knew her until this moment. And he loved what he saw. He takes her hand leading her to the edge of the tower they look through the chain fence at the city below.

"Want to know why I brought you here?"

"Oh so you weren't just trying to woo me with your father's jet and you connects to the Effeil Tower."

"Ha Ha...no. This use to be my favorite place as a kid. I use to beg father to take me but he was always too busy. So I decided to take myself." Liam looks out into the buildings below. "Coming here made me realize exactly what it means to be King. All those people: mothers fathers children, they all depend on their leaders. To serve them to protect them so that their lives can be that much better. Up here you see more than just a view...up here you see as a royal just how many lives you affect. I learned that lesson coming up here, but I guess you...you learned what it means to be royal by actually being down there."

"I think your making a big deal out of nothing...I just--"

Her words stop as she watches Liam drop to his knee.

"Candace you are worthy of so much whether you know it or not. You are worthy of all this and so much more." She watched as his eyes danced up and down her body. He looks so proud, so happy so pleased with the woman whose waist he holds so tightly, as if he needs her to believe what he says. His hands slowly drop and find their way underneath her skirt.

She closes her eyes as she lets him touch her. It had been so long since she just shut her mind off and allowed herself to be touched. And he touched her so well, his fingertips so warm against her skin as he traces over her moist center.

Liam doesn't take his eyes off Candace. Her head tilted back eyes closed to the bight stars above her, the wind softly blowing through her dark hair. He loved her and yes he was proud of what she achieved today, but in all honesty his just wanted her to be happy. And soon he pulls the damp panties down. bows his head underneath the skirt and kisses her where he knew she needed most.

He listens as she moans his tongue focused on her clit flicking the ball of nerves till he could hear her breath hitch. He opens his mouth wider,sucking on the sensitive flesh,  using his free hand to enter her, sliding in and out giving him juice to quench his thirst. Holding her waist so tightly is the only thing keeping her shaking legs from completely giving out on her. Liam nestles himself between her thighs, loving her cries, loving her taste, loving to be the thing that made her happy and wanting it to be forever, wanting to make this exact spot he is in his home.

@agent-bossypants @andy-loves-corgis@missevabean@blackcatkita  @darley1101@jadedpixiescribbles@indiacater@umccall71@speedyoperarascalparty@findingdrake@stopforamoment@mrsdrakewalkerblog@bobasheebaby@itsmychoicebih@gardeningourmet

@hopefulmoonobject @smalltalk88 @boneandfur@cordoniansqueen @choicesbyjade @ladynonsense@jovialyouthmusic @roses0219 @carabeth @iloveliamrys@sarwin85

[peterbarron13-blog]

From A Skinny Kid To Dubai Fitness Pro - Exceptional Fitness Journey Of Peter Barron

In 2014, Peter Barron visited Dubai on holiday, fell in love with the city and never looked back. “I could see massive potential in fitness here. I knew it was the right career choice,” says the cheeky chap of his massive move to the UAE.

Barron took an extended leave of work from his medical career and set up a fitness company in Dubai. It grew— and so did his social media. Today Barron has 105k followers on Instagram and regularly posts intense workout videos to his page. Here’s how it began and the things he’s learned along the way.

Clearly you’re into fitness. When did it start?

Growing up, football was the only thing I wanted to do. I’m sure I learned to kick a ball before I could crawl! (Laughs)

I played for a semi-professional team in Ireland. When I was 17, I went on trial with a football club in the UK. I thought I worked hard enough, but I sort of failed a few fitness tests and was sent home to work on that — ironic, really. I didn’t have enough faith in myself, so I never went back.

This is actually what drove me to start studying health and fitness. I didn’t want others to make the same mistakes I had made. My dad would always say to me: hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Finally, years later, I believe him.

Now we heard teenage you wasn’t very good at listening…

I was always very skinny growing up and it never really bothered me. A few months before going to the UK foot- ball trials I knew I needed to work on my strength and fitness. I got a workout plan from a top coach and my parents converted our garage to a gym.

I was so excited, but as a 16-year-old, I completely ignored what my coach said. (Because what could he tell me that I didn’t know at 16!) I used the gym to see how much I could press. Every kid wants a big chest, right? (Laughs)

All these mistakes on my fitness journey had to happen to lead me where I am today. I tell people not to look back, and see mistakes as building blocks to achieving those goals.

We’ve seen you jogging around with a particular UAE running club. What’s that all about?

In 2016, Adidas launched their running club in Dubai. I was hired as a coach and helped the group grow to over 2,000 members by 2017. I met so many amazing people throughout the year. I’d highly recommend the group — it’s more than just a running club.

You mentioned a family death recently — right around the time we asked you to be on the cover…

Yeah. A few days before you guys reached out, my grand- dad passed away. His name was also Peter Barron. I know how proud he would have been of all of this, and that makes it extra special for me.

On a lighter note, when I was 20 I had to get surgery, and it was something that made me pretty self conscious. Right after the massive surgery, when the wound was large and fresh, I asked if it would heal or if there would be seriously rough scarring. The surgeon made a joke that stuck with me. She said: ‘It will heal fine, but let’s just say you’ll never be a cover model on a magazine.’

Of course she was a really nice woman and didn’t mean anything by it. We laughed about it, but I did leave that hospital thinking how to prove her wrong! (Laughs) I’ve not been in touch since 2010, so I’ll track her down and send her a copy. (Grins)

Sounds like you’re pretty determined. Was there ever a time when you felt less motivated?

It was hard to motivate myself after failing my fitness test when I was on trial in the UK. In my mind, my dream was over and I was going to have to settle for second best.

I spent weeks feeling down and de-motivated. Then I started to meditate to clear my mind, read motivational books and listen to podcasts from authors such as Jack Canfield, Tim Ferris, Echart Tolle and Tony Robbins.

This helped switch my mindset, teaching me to find the positive in every situation, good or bad.

Everything in life happens for a reason, and what is meant for you won’t pass you by. I live by this, so even when things seem bad I know that something better is just around the corner.

Ok, we totally agree. So is mental health a big thing for you?

Mental health is something I think is very important and something everyone should look after. If your mind is in the right place I think everything else in your life will follow.

Have you ever had a day where you wake up angry or feeling down and somehow everything that day becomes negative? You spill your coffee on your shirt, you’re late for work, and your car breaks down? This only seems to hap- pen to me when I feel negative. I’m not saying you can never feel down but it knows how to recognize and improve your mindset.

If I feel down or tired the only way for me to clear my mind is to exercise, run, play football, and lift weights, any way to release those happy hormones (endorphins). I also try to meditate or be mindful for a few minutes each day. Seriously just two minutes day done right can make a big difference.

I also try being grateful more often for everything I have in my life. Smile more, this sounds stupid but try it. Smile right now and I guarantee you will feel happier. If not, I’m sorry for wasting your time. It works for me. (Laughs)

What would you say to someone who is new to fitness?

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

No matter how much you know. Someone out there always knows more. Be open to other people’s opinion and don’t be afraid to ask for advice even if you think you know everything.

I have worked in the fitness industry for nearly 10 years and even now I will be the first person to ask another coach for advice or for their opinion. Dubai is filled with top class coaches, use this to your advantage and if you are struggling in any aspect of your journey. Ask for help. Also, make training part of your lifestyle, not a chore.

Make it something you want to do. Find a reason for why you’re doing this, like a goal. Then just get it done.

All that makes sense. So us about your diet. Are you scoffing pancakes on Saturday? Swigging protein? What?

Guys, I’m going to say something you might already know: balance. Balance is the only option that works with nutrition.

For me, after experimenting with different styles, I know that around 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day works best. It allows me to stay fit and give 100 percent at every training session. I’m more about staying fit than thinking about overall body fat percentage and weight.

I love eating pizza, burgers, and basically ‘bad food’ — but there really isn’t any such thing. Your body doesn’t know anything other than macronutrients and what the food breaks down to. Portion control is the key.

It’s all about fitting these types of food into your weekly intake while keeping an eye on your overall calories.

I’ve been using a meal prep company called Pura for the last year. This makes my life so much easier. They give me five meals a day and it basically simplifies everything, while helping me reach my goals.

Thanks, now we’re hungry. Changing topic… something surprising about you?

I have had over 50 stitches in my face throughout my life. I used to run head first at a 45degree angle as a child. I hit my head a lot, fell through a window. Almost gave my mum and dad a nervous break- down on numerous occasions… Then I was in a car crash at 17 and that was over 30 stitches in my face alone. (Laughs)

Glad you stopped that running habit. Talk to us about your pretty massive social media following.

When I started on social media, I used it to track my progress and to hold myself accountable for what I was doing in the gym. I started to create short workout videos for people to try. When I began receiving messages from people that were trying the workouts and sharing their fitness journeys with me, it really motivated me to keep working hard to get fitter and stronger— just like they were.

Social media isn’t all kittens and avo toast (although there’s plenty of that, to be hon- est). Are there any weird pressures you face because of it?

I think the pressure that can be associated with being on social media comes from the fact that we will often compare our lives to that of friends or strangers. We receive constant updates of how “perfect” their lives are and try seeking this in our own life. It can lead to us worrying that our life isn’t as exciting or that we haven’t accomplished as much as our peers.

Sometimes I get anxiety from spending too much time staring into my screen on Instagram or any other social media channels. I try to take a few days every month where I completely stay off social media and make sure to keep on top of real life interactions with friends and family. (Laughs.) Basically remember what it is like to have a proper face to face conversation!

Social media is an amazing tool but It can take over your life very easily so make sure to detox often.

What’s next? We see you working out a lot with our Gal of the Month, Zoe (instagram.com/zoehappyfit).

Yes you do! At the moment I’m focusing on creating YouTube content with Zoe. We’re looking at food, workouts, and healthy lifestyle. Check out #peterandzoe to try some of our workouts.

Blog Source URL: https://www.peterbarron13.com/from-a-skinny-kid-to-dubai-fitness-pro-exceptional-fitness-journey-of-peter-barron/

[prudencepaccard]

truly bizarre interaction that was like the intellectual equivalent of that thing at the karaoke bar

where this one guy who was part of a friend group I ended up hanging out with at a bar became progressively more deadpan hostile and competitive with me to the point that I finally returned his (explicit) challenges with a lighthearted plea for solidarity and then he claimed there was no competition but he’d LITERALLY SAID THERE WAS

it started with him asking me what my diss was on. I said “the imaginary of the bagnes metropolitains in the nineteenth century” and then used some synonyms in case he didn’t know what I meant because that happens sometimes, people only know one term so I was like “i.e., the bagnes metropolitains and the bagnes portuaires“ and he still seemed not to get it so I was like “travaux forces [hard labor]” and he was like “in what era?” and I repeated “the nineteenth century” and he seemed confused so I thought I’d address the most common source of confusion and said “not Guyana, not the colonies d’outre-mer, the bagnes metropolitains” and he was like “you mean Cayenne?” and I was like “not, precisely not that, the thing that preceded that” and he was like “Ah but that’s not travaux forces, that’s the bagne”

and I was like first of all, what, second of all I said “the bagne” first thing already but seriously what

and he was like “it’s not the same thing, travaux forces is anachronistic, we still have that today”

and I was like “but that was also a specific term used back then, a contemporary descriptive term. Along with the peine des fers. It’s in the code penal and it was used popularly. LIke you’re right that it’s not as specific as bagne but it’s not incorrect to use it interchangeably, they’re part of the same repertoire. Also I said bagne already”

and he’s like “well I didn’t hear you, sorry. And this isn’t an insult or anythiing but I’m just saying it’s wrong, French is very nuanced”

and I’m like “yes but it’s actually a very specific and correct term in this particular context. I get that there could be ambiguity potentially but since I’ve already estavlished that I’m talking about the bagne then travaux forces is a precise and apt term”

and he’s like “prisoners and bagnards aren’t the same thign”

and I’m like “yes but the word travaux forces can describe both. There’s overlap in some of the vocabulary and that’s one of the words in the middle of the Venn diagram. I get what you’re trying to say but you’re going too far”

“no, I don’t agree, you can’t use that term, it’s wrong”

“listen let me find an analogous example in English...so like, we use the term hard labor to describe actual practices today, right? but it’s still correct to say Oscar Wilde was sentenced to hard labor in the Victorian era”

“well how about the word slavery? would you use that interchangeably with travaux forces?”

“no, because it’s not juridique”

“aha see they’re three different things!”

“no they’re not that’s my point, there are two categories, travaux forces and the bagne have things in common with each other whereas slavery is in its own category”

“but they used the word slavery back then for the bagne too! [implying, I guess, that if it’s incorrect to say slavery for the bagne it’s incorrect to say travaux forces too]”

“only ona  metaphorical level, the bagne was never characterized as slavery in legal documents etc. Travaux forces is a technical term”

“hey sorry I need a smoke” and then he just ended it there

and then later he asked me how many languages I knew. I’d already complimented him on his English and been genuinely impressed that he knows/dabbles in four languages which is more than I study seriously

but he was still just...like this. I told him I was only fluent in French and English but that I’d studied Russian in college and Mandarin as a middle schooler. I was very clear I suck at Russian and have forgotten all my Mandarin. Nonetheless later he made a reference to me speaking four languages and I said I didn’t and he kind of rolled his eyes and shrugged

and eventually he just...started quizzing me on words. Like do I know what this means, do I know what this means, it was super weird and confrontaitonal. And if you know me you know I have a SERIOUS complex about Getting Credit For PRecisely What I Know No More No Less. You also know that I am quite intellectually generous and will never be the first to start a competition but I also don’t like to lose so if I’m challenged I’ll be extremely petty and not my best self. While meanwhile trying to remain as collegial and kind and generous as possible under the circumstances. it’s weird like that

so there was this mix of me desperate to prove I knew a word when I did and ALSO being super chill and genuinely not insecure if I didn’t because I’m Happy to Learn. And BOTH these reactions seemed to spur him on. I think if anything the latter annoyed him more...like punching a too-yielding surface

That second act, btw, seems to have started when he said something slangy to his friend and then said “I ebt you don’t know what that means” and I said “yes I do!” (but like in a cheerful relaxed way because I didn’t know how weird this was going to get) and it turns out that I’d misheard what they’d said, like it was a good guess. But also he misunderstood what I’d misheard and said no I actually said XYZ which as another thing I didn’t hear him say at all (let alone mishear) and which had I heard it I actually WOULD have known what it meant becuase unlike the expression I’d (actually) misheard I knew what it meant. It was “entraver que dalle” which means “understand nothing” and it’s an expression I know from the title song of the movie “Rififi” (which I love so much I bought a lead sheet of it from the 1950s off French eBay and brought it to Marie’s Crisis. Unfortunately the key’s a bit high for me though). It goes “Vous avez l’air d’entraver qu’dalle, a mon histoire quand je vous parle, du rififi...” etc. Ironically about explaining slang. Anyway I like that phrase because it’s delightfully old slang but I’d never heard it said IRL for precisely that reason. So obviously I was kinda eager to show that I knew the expression and how etc. But he was just not returning the ball at all. Like I tried to do some wordplay like “I’ve always wondered wtf the origin of that expression is, it’s so weird, like [*”translates” it laterally in French by substituting synonyms for “entraver” and “dalle”--”enchainer que pave”] it’s a strange combination of words” and he shurgged and was like “yeah but it doesn’t work like that. It’s idiosyncratic. Like “bagne”

BRO

but fellas hands down the worst part was when I was right about someting and he made me doubt myself/concede part of the point because I didn’t want to be both wrong and arrogant (you know how much I hate that). So anything I was less than 100-percent-sure-I-can-cite-sources (i.e., anything intuitive or inferential or built on a foundation of knowledge that yielded a conclusion greater than the sum of its parts) was forfeited and UGH

like at one point he used the word “decortiquer” and asked me “do you know what THAT means” and yes I absolutely do, it’s not even slang/langage courant

and he was like “WHAT”

and I was like “explain, analyze”

and he was like “no”

and I was...confused ebcause...what do you mean “no”? So I thought hm maybe I’m missing some nuance and somehow that made me totally wrong? so I continued like “well like--reduce to its elements--”

and he’s like “omg guys look I can’t even define it in French and she’s doing it in a non-native language fuck”

and it’s liek WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM I DIDN”T WANT TO EVEN PLAY THIS GAME YOU STARTED IT

like who challenges someone to a contest and then pouts because they other person won

(not that you can “win” a conversation!!! irjfiejrdfi FUCK THIS)

and possibly-showing-off-but-also-trying-to-overcompensate-because-I-don’t-know-what-he’s-doing-here I continued like “it’s from Latin ‘cortex’ which means bark [ecorce in French] so when you decortiquer something you’re stripping off the bark and exposing the heart of the tree/matter”

and he just flatly goes “no I don’t think that’s the derivation”

and I’m like “maybe not, I might be saying nonsense”

“that’s not the derivation”

“what is it? if you know, I’m curious about what the etymology really is”

“I don’t know but it’s definitely not that”

(I’m home now. googled it. and

welp.jpg)

then it just kept getting worse like he used the word “branlee” to describe what I was doing to him and then asked me if I knew what it meat and I neede dmore info so I was like “yes--wait” and he was leike “DO YOU OR DON’T KNOW” and I was like “well is it like ‘se branler’ or ‘ebranler’? same root?” and he was like “NO” and in hindsight it definitely is but whatever I DON’T MIND BEING WRONG OR LEARNING THINGS

and after he gave me a definition which made it clear he felt we were in competiton and he was losing--plus some EXTREMELY passive-aggressive “it’s a really common expression, it’s frankly surprising you don’t know it, blah blah” which I responded to with a cheerful “yeah I have a lot of lacunae then that! thanks for helping me!” and he with “yeah it’s really weird you didn’t know that” and me with “I know lol” and him with “I’m glad I could help you learn some French at least”--I finally was like “this branlee thing though, that’s really not what I’m doing! can we be solidaire instead?” (but like as nonconfrontationally as possible) and he was like “oh it’s not a competiton I’m just saying French people are like that”

well either way KNOCK IT OFF

[xtruss]

On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize For the Climate Scare

"Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem"

— Michael Shellenberger | August 1, 2020 | Anti-Empire | Quillette

On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem. I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as expert reviewer of its next assessment report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.

Here are some facts few people know:

Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”

The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”

Climate change is not making natural disasters worse

Fires have declined 25 percent around the world since 2003

The amount of land we use for meat—humankind’s biggest use of land—has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska

The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California

Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s

The Netherlands became rich, not poor while adapting to life below sea level

We produce 25 percent more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter

Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change

Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels

Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture

I know that the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.

In reality, the above facts come from the best-available scientific studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other leading scientific bodies.

Some people will, when they read this, imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.

I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into them. Over the last few years I helped save enough nuclear plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in emissions.

But until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that’s because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an “existential” threat to human civilization, and called it a “crisis.”

But mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences. And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.

I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the news media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke, Jr., a lifelong progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favor of carbon regulations. Why did they do that? Because his research proves natural disasters aren’t getting worse.

But then, last year, things spiraled out of control.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Britain’s most high-profile environmental group claimed “Climate Change Kills Children.”

The world’s most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called climate change the “greatest challenge humans have ever faced” and said it would “wipe out civilizations.” Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was “the lungs of the world,” and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off.

As a result, half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. And in January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change. Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is. I admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter. After we talked about the science she was reassured. But her friends are deeply misinformed and thus, understandably, frightened. I thus decided I had to speak out. I knew that writing a few articles wouldn’t be enough. I needed a book to properly lay out all of the evidence.

And so my formal apology for our fear-mongering comes in the form of my new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. It is based on two decades of research and three decades of environmental activism. At 400 pages, with 100 of them endnotes, Apocalypse Never covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste, species extinction, industrialization, meat, nuclear energy, and renewables.

Some highlights from the book:

Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress

The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food, particularly meat, on less land

The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium

100 percent renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5 percent to 50 percent

We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher, not lower, power densities

Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4 percent

Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did

“Free-range” beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300 percent more emissions

Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon

The colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants

Why were we all so misled?

In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial, political, and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests. Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “sustainable.” And status anxiety, depression, and hostility to modern civilization are behind much of the alarmism.

Once you realize just how badly misinformed we have been, often by people with plainly unsavory or unhealthy motivations, it is hard not to feel duped. Will Apocalypse Never make any difference? There are certainly reasons to doubt it.

The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s, and do not seem disposed to stop. The ideology behind environmental alarmism—Malthusianism—has been repeatedly debunked for 200 years and yet is more powerful than ever.

But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power. The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, COVID-19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe.

Scientific institutions including the World Health Organisation and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicization of science. Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform. Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications.

Nations are reverting openly to self-interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables. The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate alarmists would return us to.

The invitations from IPCC and Congress are signs of a growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment. Another one has been to the response to my book from climate scientists, conservationists, and environmental scholars. “Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book,” writes Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “This may be the most important book on the environment ever written,” says one of the fathers of modern climate science Tom Wigley.

“We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being ignorant of science and susceptible to confirmation bias,” wrote the former head of The Nature Conservancy, Steve McCormick. “But too often we are guilty of the same. Shellenberger offers ‘tough love:’ a challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid, self-defeating mindsets. Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging, but always well-crafted, evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘mental muscle’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful, but an attainable, future.”

That is all I hoped for in writing it. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ll agree that it’s perhaps not as strange as it seems that a lifelong environmentalist, progressive, and climate activist felt the need to speak out against the alarmism.

I further hope that you’ll accept my apology.

— Source: Quillette

[mgrotesques]

Why You Need a Family Health Guide

If you have a family, then you will want to be certain if your child does not feel well, or hurts themselves, you know what to do. Having a family health guide is the best method of doing this.

If you're picking a family health guide, then this is exactly what you will need to consider.

1. Books can prove to be an invaluable source of health information, and you will want to be able to makes that you could follow simple steps, or instructions so as to ascertain symptoms or conditions. But they are soon out of date, and you won't need to carry a large medical text book with you wherever you go.

2. Friends are a excellent source of family health information, particularly if they have children of a similar age, or who have experienced similar problems. You are aware that you will not be getting horror tales, and can rely on them to be telling you the truth. Your friends' children may not have had the exact illnesses or illnesses, which means you may have to look elsewhere for your information.

3. Your loved ones can be quite helpful, as they've had kids, and know if the illness requires medical care or not, and if you are over reacting, or not carrying the illness seriously enough.

4. Online family health guides can be immensely useful, and permit you to learn the information you want quickly. Although spending a couple of minutes on a computer, although your baby is crying might be hard, it is going to be easier than searching for a book, or trying to call your friends or loved ones.

5. As anyone can create a web site or blog, you can not always believe what you read online. Medical conditions or treatments can be submitted by anyone, and aren't necessarily accurate, or trustworthy. Who is to say the physician posting the solution is in fact a physician? You can not risk your child's health by expecting somebody who may or might not be a physician.

6. Your child's symptoms could point to a lot of conditions, and therefore it can be tough to pinpoint what might truly be the matter. It is even tougher if your child is too young to speak.

7. You will need the manual to be true, so you can be certain that the illness or symptoms can be identified. You don't need to take your infant to casualty on a busy Friday or Saturday night if you don't need to. You also don't need to leave it too late before seeking medical care if your child's condition could worsen.

8. It's critical that the family health is regularly updated. As medical advice and opinions change so frequently, particularly for babies and pregnancy, you do not need to take a chance on doing something which may affect your child.

9. You will need to have the ability to get the family health guide anytime and anyplace, and find exactly what you want when you need it. You don't wish to wait, or

10. It's crucial that you pick a reliable source for your child's health. Should you decide on a site as opposed to your GP or hospital, you will need to be aware that the advice you are given is appropriate, and given by healthcare professionals.

Now you understand why using a family health manual is critical, and what to look for when choosing a guide, you will have the ability to get the answers to the questions regarding your children's health.

If you require Family Health information, then why don't you see how subscribing to Candis Magazine can help? Having a large section dedicated to health, you will receive all of the information you want, when you want it. In addition to health, you will also find Parental Advice, interviews, healthy family recipes, knitting patterns, family package holidays, cheap family travel insurance and much more. Learn more, and subscribe online, at Candis.co.uk today. You'll be happy you did.

The Ultimate Dog Health Guide - Review

There is no feeling more helpless than having a sick dog and being unable to quickly make him better. You just watch him wallow around until you eventually arrive at the admittance that you are going to have to take him to the vet and learn what the deal is.

Unfortunately, waiting on symptoms to worsen is a sure fire way to turn a little dog health issue to a BIG one.

I've owned plenty of puppies in my life. I have also paid a good deal in veterinary health bills. I am sure I don't have to tell you that keeping your pet healthy really adds up if you are unfamiliar with home remedies for a few of the more common dog illnesses.

Fixing minor dog health problems such as diarrhea, dry skin problems, parasites, allergies, allergies, allergies etc. is actually a snap as soon as you understand what you are doing. Perhaps that is what's led you to research a dog health guide now....good idea.

Since studying the"Ultimate Dog Health Guide", I have seen my vet about 1/4 the amount that I used to. I am saving nearly 75 percent on veterinary health care for problems that I know how to fix at home.

Require a common dog health problem..."hot spots". If you're not familiar with the term,"hot spots" are sores that spring up in your dog's skin because of a minor abrasion which gets infected.

For instance: Your puppy is playing outdoors and rubs up against some branches or shrubs. The branches cause a scrape or small cut on the skin. As the wound heals, its scab gets itchy. Your dog does not know any better so that he scrapes, bites and licks in the itch. This prevents the wound from healing and also it brings on disease. The disease develops into an infinite sore on the skin, nicknamed a"hot spot".

This is a fairly common situation that occurs in most dogs lives. Up until I read the Ultimate Dog Health Guide, I did not understand how to effectively handle it. The guide led me to used home remedies to solve the matter. By applying Vaseline on the hotspot, my dog's itch was soothed.

He no longer gnawed in the sore and let it heal. There were TONS of versions and other home remedies for this issue. I only cite Vaseline here since that did the trick for me. The publication also talked about combinations of common household ingredients to soothe the skin and deter the dog licking.

This is just a small illustration of the way the Ultimate Dog Health Guide gradually saved me THOUSANDS of dollars over time. It showed me answers to common digestive problems my dogs could have. Diarrhea and Constipation were no more concerns when I learned EXACTLY how to target their house remedy alternatives.

The guide gave me the confidence to care for my dog without being completely determined by a vet.

Do not get me wrong. I am all for modern medicine. But the simple fact is 90% of the dog health issues you come across can be treated by yourself in your home. It's only a matter of getting the detailed guide to show you exactly what to do.

My favorite part of this Ultimate Dog Health Guide is the colorful, illustrated diagrams showing you each at home remedy in a detailed format. They could not have made it any easier to follow.

I remember how much trouble I was able to have giving my dogs their round worm medication. They would just spit out the pills or prevent the medicinal plungers. I would have to struggle together to make them better. The Ultimate Dog Health guide showed me the way to get my dogs to collaborate with tasks such as this.

Even things like clipping your dog's nails or brushing his teeth will be made 100 times easier with the advice of the manual.

I believe every dog owner should have the Ultimate Dog Health Guide to possess at least a benchmark for when things do go wrong - and let us face it. . .things will eventually fail.

I really like the fact that the supreme Dog Health Guide includes a money back guarantee. It gave me a lot of comfort when I purchased the item, knowing that if it did not meet its claims, I could just send it back for a complete refund.

Overall my satisfaction was a 10 out of 10. I am a big believer in self education - particularly when it revolves around improving the quality of life of your dog. I totally recommend you have some time to check out the Ultimate Dog Health guide. Your pet will thank you for it.

[dobe-and-teme]

rape isn't funny

So, since I don’t want to make a drama on the post of @vaporeonmaster, I will answer your post here, @caleidozkopie.

For anyone who is interested in the whole post, here is the link to the post I am talking about.

And a quick warning: In the following, I will talk about rape and rape jokes, so if you are uncomfortable with one of them, please don’t read.

I told you, right? If you find joking about rape okay, unfollow me immediately. But okay, since you replied to my post with such a rude and disgusting answer, I will tell you some things.

It’s important to understand the concept of boundaries in the online space. The point is, although someone’s post may move into your timeline, that doesn’t mean it was actually addressed specifically to you and demands your rebuttal. → You knew what I thought about it, and yet you replied with such a disrespectful post.

A person can feel strongly about rape and sexual assault; considering that almost 300,000 people experience some form of rape or sexual assault every year, it’s always best to err on the side of caution and assume they either had first-hand knowledge or know someone who does. It’s common courtesy to tread carefully in that case.

When a person is saying, “I don’t want to hear any jokes about rape.” it’s a very easy boundary to respect, and it’s shocking how many people feel the need to immediately storm that particular barrier in pursuit of some weird intellectual point. Is there anything more disrespectful than a person drawing a line in the sand regarding rape and someone demanding the right to step over it?

To sum up, when someone posts “rape jokes aren’t funny,” that’s not a challenge. A devil’s advocate is not needed, as if Hell were short on lawyers or something. That person is establishing a perimeter where they do not wish to have rape jokes spoken to them, and it is not anyone’s job to prove them wrong. Even if you feel they are 100% in error, they are actually allowed to be wrong within their personal space, and you owe it to people to respect their wishes in that space. It does not belong to you. 

Some people say it’s because I “just can’t take a joke,” or I need to “lighten up” and get “a better sense of humor.” My sense of humor is fine, but thanks for checking. 

In the United States, an American is sexually assaulted every two minutes, and yet people continue to think that making jokes about rape or sexual assault can be interpreted as being funny. It’s not.

Just because there is such a thing as free speech and yes, you are able to and have the ability to say anything you want and make jokes out of tragic situations and even people, it doesn’t mean that you should. It doesn’t mean that it’s right. Not every awful thing in the world needs someone to make a joke about it. 

The worst part about joking about rape and sexual assault is that there are serious consequences. Young men and women have killed themselves because of the aftermath of sexual abuse and rape. Around 33 percent of people who have been raped have suicidal thoughts and around 13 percent of rape victims will try to commit suicide.

Rape can have a severe and negative impact on survivors’ lives. Many survivors experience Rape Trauma Syndrome, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a multitude of physical, emotional, and social consequences. Rape jokes could trigger emotional distress and even flashbacks.

Some people even consider rape worse than murder, because the victim “has to live with it”.  In other words, you’re better off dead because nothing can make life better than a lack thereof after you’ve been raped. If you think about it, sexual abuse usually ruins one’s ability of enjoying sex and intimacy. Not to mention that PTSD put one in constant fear of it happening again.

It’s one thing to completely surrender yourself to someone, it’s another to have it taken. Joking about it is no different.

Here is another thing: A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?Rapists do. They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.

Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.

People who make rape jokes probably haven’t been raped. These people probably don’t even know anybody who has been raped. They don’t understand rape, because their only exposure to it is in a trivialized form used as nothing more than a comic device for a cheap laugh. How do you educate somebody so unwilling to be educated? How do you break down their years of false experience and replace it with even the basest modicum of understanding? .

Rape jokes are not funny. Rape jokes are tactless, and they are irresponsible. To you, a non-rapist, they may be just a joke. To a rapist, or a potential rapist, they’re a legitimization of their actions, under the guise of societal acceptance. To a victim, they’re a horrible reminder of an ordeal best-forgotten.

Here is something you should think about: By trying to laugh along with them, by trying to shrug it off, have you turned this into a laughing matter for the next victim as well? There are people in the world who are ashamed of themselves, because they got raped. And I’m just wondering, why? Why should someone, who got mentally and physically abused, be ashamed of themselves? The answer is easy: Because people laugh. By laughing at a rape joke, you are giving this people the feeling that what happened to them is nothing serious, nothing you should think about. You are playing it down, you are literally saying that what happened to them is not a serious matter. Rape is an act that disenfranchises someone, that makes them feel less than human. And by laughing at them, you are making them feel even more horrible. 

So please, tell me again how it is okay to tell jokes about rape.

[reactingtosomething]

Does My Sexiness Upset You? And Other Questions Spurred by SHOTS FIRED

The Setup: Between everyone’s different professional and personal commitments in two different cities, it can be hard to schedule as many Reactions as we’d like, as often as we’d like. But we all have Plenty of Opinions that don’t fit into those posts anyway, and we’d like to make sure this blog is worth your while. To that end, we’ll occasionally run solo essays. Here’s Marchae with the first, on Fox’s recently concluded miniseries Shots Fired. 

I heard about Shots Fired when it was in just an idea being kicked around and I have to say I was BEYOND EXCITED that one of my favorite writer/directors, Gina Prince-Bythewood was going to be sharing with the universe her talent on primetime TV. This is significant for several reasons: First, the show aired on the same night as three other primetime network/cable TV shows that featured predominately African-American casts. I was giddy each week as I had to choose whether to watch Greenleaf, Underground or Shots Fired!!!! The choices, the #firstworldproblems as I CHOSE who I was going to support!! Second, Prince-Bythewood, at the helm of the show’s creation, was not only taking her storylines from the headlines, but also from her own life. As a writer myself this is incredibly interesting to study, as it demonstrates the many possible sources writers might adapt into what eventually is seen on the screen. Third (and probably of greatest importance) this show tapped into my most deeply rooted fear: Living While Black and finally, forced me to contemplate the representation of the African-American female’s sexuality on screen.

To be transparent, I didn’t always have a chance to watch Shots Fired as it aired so I purchased the season pass so that I would have the privilege of rewinding when something struck me or pausing to cry or reflect when I needed to (and there were many tears). I got to relish in all the things I love about the writer/director. See, when we watch a work by Prince-Bythewood we know what we are going to get: Incredibly character driven work that will essentially prove to be a character study, work that is very naturalistic in visual aesthetic and that plays with symbolism through the use of light, color and milieu. We also know that her tone is always very rooted in reality, and that the work will almost always touch on a relevant social issues, thus providing a social commentary for the world around us. I initially thought that I would take a more creative approach to this reaction and set it up similar to the show, evaluating each hour and picking out key themes to react to - but that would be easy and I feared I would just end up recapping the show.  However, after more thought there was one thing I wanted to dig a little deeper into and challenge myself to analyze because as the kids say: I was ALL up in MY FEELINGS!

Ashe Akino, portrayed by Sanaa Lathan, has worked with Prince-Bythewood on other projects, most notably Love and Basketball. I was excited for these two to bring their magic to the screen again. This time around we get Lathan portraying an incredibly savvy hard ass cop who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth. This comes at a price for Ashe. Her personal life is in shambles, she’s watching her ex-husband re-marry and she’s at risk of losing her daughter, Kai, in a custody battle. AND as if things couldn’t get any worse for Ashe, she is suffering from PTSD and has anger issues as a result of having shot and killed someone while on duty (this is the reason the stakes are so high for Kai). I don’t know that you always like Ashe (which is fine, we don’t always have to LIKE the protagonists!!!) but you do sympathize with her and root for her all while we are asking WHY SHE’S CHOOSING TO MAKE RECKLESS CHOICES?!?! I keep turning over in my mind the way in which she uses sex as a coping mechanism and also how she uses it as a tool for blackmail (to potentially win Kai back). However, I also had to ask myself why I was okay watching this character use her sexuality in this way and so turned off by other shows in which women are expressing themselves and their emotions through their sexuality. I toiled with this as I tried to figure out how to formulate this essay.

In Shots Fired we have this strong African-American female character exhibiting what we would typically consider male behaviors. Ashe is unapologetic (at first) about sleeping with her partner’s brother. She sleeps with this man to “feel” something and maybe to feel “nothing” simultaneously (numbing her emotional pain). To her it is almost as if sex is something to do, an itch she has to scratch in order to prove she can feel something. We later see her use sex as a means of seduction, a very stereotypically feminine behavior, to blackmail her ex-husband in order to ensure he doesn’t move forward in what is shaping to become a nasty custody battle. On the one hand you are AGAIN screaming NO! GET YOUR LIFE, ASHE!! As you watch her careen down a tangled web of no-goodness (remember we want her to KEEP Kai and blackmail will surely LOSE Kai). However, I was  excited to see a single female character embody the duality of her sexuality. Ultimately, my commentary isn’t on the rightness or wrongness of her behavior, but a note on the empowerment she’s allowed to unapologetically exhibit. The masculine behaviors she’s allowed to exhibit: hitting it and quitting it and frankly not giving a care how her sexual partner felt about her walking out after being satisfied. Conversely, we see her simultaneously being fully aware of the seductive power her femininity possesses. So we’re cool right! Wrong. Something was really bugging me about this. If I was cool with the fact that Ashe had sexual power, why was I annoyed when I had watch other African-American female characters in other shows exhibiting this same kind of sexual autonomy.

So go with me because I am going down the racial representation rabbit hole for a moment. I get that everything isn’t about being black, but sometimes it is. So in this day and age we have a long list of strong black women represented on primetime television: Olivia Pope, Mary Jane, Grace Greenleaf, Nova and Charlotte Bordelon, Candace Young and the list goes on and on and on, and it is FREAKING EXCITING that we get to see all of who we are represented. However, unfortunately the number of shows I have FLAT STOPPED WATCHING goes on and on and on for one reason and one reason alone. Black women are often seen as having all of their professional life together, like all of it. They are at the top of their game, calling the shots, seeming 100 percent in control AT WORK, and it is almost as if a curtain is pulled back and we are thrusted into the personal lives of the female protagonists and it leads us down this nasty path of making bad decisions. Their stories become more about the toxic romantic relationships that continue to send them down a spiral of emotional descent. Send them straight to a place where their WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE is at risk of being in shambles because of that one man they can’t seem to get from up under. It drives me insane because then the conversation we have standing around the water cooler or copier becomes not about the woman who is taking names and kicking-ass, but instead about who she’s sleeping with. The woman is now reduced to her sexual partners (I get it, it’s what we tune in for because… TV). But TV often forgets that not only adults are tuning into primetime and that the young people are clocking the Mary Janes and the Olivia Popes and the Bordelons and the Greenleafs because they indicate possibility.

I’ll share an anecdote to further demonstrate the point. I used to work for an after school program that attracted students from a variety of schools. One of my students, at his school had participated in a Dress as Your Favorite Professional day (or something to that effect) and he came dressed as the fictional Olivia Pope. He was cute, he had a wig, high-heeled shoes and wait for it: A peplum SHOULDER PADDED blazer and STOCKINGS. While everyone else was telling him to “work it!!!” I asked why he chose the fictional Pope. His response: “Because she has all the money, her apartment is cute, her clothes are cute and she gets to sleep with the President and she gets Jake!” Missed on him was the fact that Oliva was a renowned fixer (inspired by a real life person), hired to solve problems, that she was at the top of her game at work and that neither relationship was healthy. I tried reasoning with the pre-teen by saying: “but she’s cheating with someone’s husband and she’s a wreck when the president wasn’t around!” His response: “she’s still rich and she still sleeping with the President and he’s still fine!” His affinity for Pope had nothing to do with her profession and everything to do with her relationships.  

 So to go back to the original question, what makes Ashe feel different? Ashe feels different because her sexual escapades always felt like a subplot of a subplot. We stayed focused on the work and the business of the character. There was always something bigger at stake in this story and the character stayed true to herself learning from every encounter she had with her partners. With Ashe it was never F***ing for F***’s sake there was always a means to an end no matter how inconsequential. While it may be easy to say oh it’s just TV and let it ride, enjoy the show, these character choices become more and more important in a space where representation is everything, and the African-American face/ body are so new to the primetime drama landscape.

[yoonicidal-blog]

Prison or Therapy?

I just hit 1k followers (*:・ﾟ✧) , so I thought why not write a post kind of analysing the fandom too this time? HahA don't unfollow me for calling some of you out.

Table of Contents:

Sangwoo x Prison

Yoon Bum x Therapy

Sangwoo x Therapy

Yoon Bum x Prison

Why don’t people want to see Yoon Bum go to prison?

Why don’t people want to see Sangwoo go to therapy?

Why am I not happy Yoon Bum came packaged with a diagnosis?

1. Sangwoo x Prison 

a. Would he, according to the law?

Link to Korean Criminal Laws.

Another link so you know this is the official one. 

To answer the question quickly, yes, definitely. I’m only even explaining this for the sake of formatting. Murder, unsurprisingly, is illegal in South Korea 

Article 250 (Murder, Killing Ascendant)

(1) A person who kills another shall be punished by death, or imprisonment for life or for not less than five years.

There’s a lot of things Sangwoo is guilty of and I won’t paste the explanation of all of them here but list some of the articles: 250, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268... Okay there is a lot. 

Capital punishment is legal in South Korea. Looking at some of the cases of the known 61 criminals currently on death row, I can almost completely confidently say that Sangwoo would be put on death row as well. 

The rest of Article 250 goes:

(2) A person who kills ones own or ones spouse’s lineal ascendant shall be punished by death, imprisonment for life or for not less seven years.

b. How would it go?

I made a post about this a while ago, which you can view here. I’ll summarise it here, though if you want a more thorough explanation, you can check out that post.

Summary: If he isn’t confined as a solitary inmate with no interaction allowed with other inmates, because of his good looks, mocking attitude, hate for people who think they are better than him and age, Sangwoo will inevitably suffer and probably get raped in prison. He may definitely snap and inflict violence upon another inmate, or kill him because of this, which will only pull him down further into the prison system if another inmate doesn’t kill him first.

I can also see Sangwoo trying to keep up an act of mental illness and pretend innocence, however, so he may also try to blend in and not draw attention to himself. Since I don’t know how he acts to authority beyond his control (like how he was in the army) I can’t really say which approach he would go for. 

c. Would it work? 

If all of Sangwoo’s crimes aren’t found out, and he magically gets out after a few years, he won’t act differently. Perhaps he will try to be more careful about hiding his actions, but there’s a huge possibility that the first thing he’ll do is find Bum. If Bum is the reason he got into prison, Sangwoo will definitely be holding a grudge.   

d. Should he? [Personal Opinion] 

This is a difficult question. In my opinion the prison system is infinitely flawed but there is simply not enough money and resources to treat each criminal individually. 

I won’t talk on and on about why I think prisons are never the answer for criminals (you can ask me about it if you want to know, however) but I’ll say this. Criminals become worse when they are living all together because the wrong thing they did is a social norm there, often things that they get respect and feared for. Prison is not a place for fixing things, it’s a sort of terrible limbo people who are too dangerous to live in society get quarantined in. A lot of people who get out of prison eventually return. 

However, Sangwoo is way too dangerous to live freely in society, and there is no other way to keep him from committing these crimes. 

So, should he, if this was real life? Yes. 

Do I want him to, in this story? No. 

2. Yoon Bum x Therapy

a. Would he, according to the law?

I did some research on this and came back pretty empty-handed. I think this depends on how much of the story the police finds out. If they find out Jieun’s death is caused by him, I’m not sure Yoon Bum will be declared mentally ill instead of guilty of first degree murder, however he may be declared as both. The law is usually biased like that when it comes to murder. He may, however, receive therapy in prison, but I don’t think the fact that he is mentally ill will make him escape prison time entirely. 

People who are let off are usually quite insane to the point where they can’t distinguish reality from fiction at all. Yoon Bum isn’t insane, even though he has a mental illness. He has a good enough grasp on reality, even though he is delusional. Plenty insane people are imprisoned while quite a lot of sane people plead insanity while they aren’t insane and get away with it. 

So I guess...he will get out of prison time if he has a good lawyer. Which he won’t. He can’t even pay his rent.

If prison isn’t involved:

"Four percent of the population has free access to essential psychotropic medicines. For those that pay out of pocket, the cost of antipsychotic medication is 8071 Won and the cost of antidepressant medication is 8020 Won, which is 29 percent of one day’s minimum wage. The minimum daily wage in local currency is 27,840 Won. All mental disorders are covered in social insurance schemes.” [x]

I couldn’t find a lot of information regarding insurance and how much you’d have to pay for therapy, but it seems like most hospitals have inpatients with much severe disorders such as schizophrenia instead of more mild and liveable with things like BPD. (Before you say anything, yes BPD is easier to live with compared to severe schizophrenia. Yes, I know Bum killed someone but that wasn’t something he would have thought of doing or done on his own.)

b. How would it go?

Depending on what they know, Yoon Bum would either be an inpatient or would have to show up to therapy frequently. He would need medication and if he is being properly tracked, he would be on and off therapy for either most or the remainder of his life.

c. Would it work?

Not too bad. Yoon Bum definitely has the potential to get better or at least fit better into society and lessen his stalking and obsession. He has some scars that will either never completely heal or take a long long long time to heal but he may even have a healthy relationship one day.

Of course he could have gotten better much easier if it hadn’t been for Sangwoo, since Sangwoo has definitely traumatised Yoon Bum, but it’s still not a lost cause.  

d. Should he? [Personal Opinion]

Realistically, yes. However, I wouldn’t want him to. I am curious as to how much more his sanity can break and what kind of person will emerge from inside him once he has lost everything and is not so scared for his life anymore.

3. Sangwoo x Therapy

a. Would he, according to the law?

Very unlikely that he would. His crimes are way too severe and Sangwoo can clearly distinguish reality from fiction even though he is delusional which makes him a lost cause psychopath. He would be studied, but he wouldn’t receive actual therapy intending to make him better so he can be released.   

b. How would it go?

If he went to a therapist outside of prison and told them everything, he would end up in prison as (not %100 if this is a Korean law also) therapists are meant to disclose to the police if one of their patients are thinking about attempting murder or has already murdered someone. 

If he didn’t tell them everything, whether or not the therapist will be able to understand Sangwoo’s mental illnesses depends on how well he acts and what exactly he says, though I do think that his psychopathy can sometimes be seen even when he is acting.

If he was in prison, as I stated, he would be studied but he wouldn’t receive serious therapy. 

c. Would it work?

Lost cause. Psychopathy isn’t something that is fixable since it’s about some things not developing when they should. At best, he can learn how to blend in better and he will tell you “murder is bad” but not mean it- which would honestly just make him more dangerous. If you tell him how he should be acting, he’ll just use it against you.

He thinks way too highly of himself to take your opinion on anything. In his mind, he is above the law and social norms. Therapy won’t fix him.

d. Should he? [Personal Opinion]

No. It wouldn’t matter to him one bit. If anything, it would make him more dangerous. It would be funny to see his interactions with a therapist though... I can even see him going to a therapist for shits and giggles.  

4. Yoon Bum x Prison

a. Would he, according to the law?

Yep. Murders of passion are still murders and they are punished by the criminal system of Korea. Yoon Bum technically committed the crime on his own with his own will. 

Even without the murder: 

Article 319 (Intrusion upon Habitation, Refusal to Leave):

(1) A person who intrudes upon a one's residence, guarded building, structure or ship or occupied room, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three years or by a fine not exceeding five million won.

b. How would it go?

He wouldn’t be in solitary confinement; his crimes aren’t that severe so he would be in touch with other inmates, and that would be horrible for Bum. He is very easy to push around, very frail, and he would definitely get raped and severely hurt. He would try to not draw attention to himself though, but that may prove to backfire. I don't think he would be easily letting go of Sangwoo, BUT if he did, he could easily find someone else to attach himself to in prison, and this time that person will definitely be a criminal and Yoon Bum would probably believe he is innocent. 

Yoon Bum in prison would be a disaster.  

c. Would it work?

Well, no. Yoon Bum wouldn’t have murdered someone if he hadn’t been somewhat forced to or just simply put into that situation, but he did the breaking and entering with his own will.

We can see that Yoon Bum comes in and out of this state of obsession with someone to the point of stalking, and he is aware of this but he can’t stop it. 

Here is proof that he actually knows what’s going on with him:

Yoon Bum can sometimes see that he is being unreasonable. Even then, Yoon Bum can’t control himself, not even when he can tell it’s coming. Maybe he would be more careful hiding, but then again I don’t know if he won’t get too carried away to even notice again. He perhaps has previous experience with stalking to this extent, as the dust on the keypad trick is not something he could have easily thought of by himself and his access to the internet is kind of dubious with the amount of money he has. 

d. Should he? [Personal Opinion]

No no no no no. He would suffer so much. I only want him to suffer because of Sangwoo. People in prison won’t have the same intentions as Sangwoo towards Yoon Bum and won’t have personal attachments to him.  

5. Why don’t people want to see Yoon Bum go to prison?

Yoon Bum is canonically diagnosed. I think this was so that the person reading will relate to Yoon Bum because he is the main character and the story is mostly from his POV. 

The diagnoses makes people sympathise with Yoon Bum. We %100 know that Yoon Bum has an excuse for everything he is doing and going through. So, we all ignore that he has just broken in an entered in someone’s house. Imagine how creepy it would be if someone was not only trying to break into your house, but has been trying for a few months and it’s not to steal something, it’s because they want to be close to you and go in your bed. We ignore that his obsession was to the extent that he stole a girl’s nail polish to calm him down from being away from her. Again, imagine if someone told you that touching something you touched makes them feel calm because you won’t talk to them.

If we didn’t know what was wrong with Yoon Bum, I think we have viewed him a little bit differently. 

Yoon Bum is also shown to be the one abused, he definitely has a sob story and we know much more about him than Sangwoo. Looking from the out

Hside, Yoon Bum seems to be frail and someone that needs to be taken care of because he can’t even take care of himself. He is so small and weak compared to the healthy looking Sangwoo who seems to have his life together. 

A lot of people also relate to Yoon Bum’s view of himself, his mental illness, his low confidence, lack of social skills, apparent loneliness, self-harm or abuse history. There’s also quite a lot of people who self diagnose themselves with BPD or other illnesses on tumblr and then saying stuff like “I have BPD, I always feel like I'm being annoying when talking to someone” but it’s important to keep in mind that “symptoms” like  this can be just normal things everyone experiences. However some people (before you get your pitchforks out, I’m not talking about everyone, I think you know what kind of people I’m talking about) just need an excuse. It’s poetic to be like a character in a fiction, it somehow justifies their actions and feelings or makes the person feel more special or important. It gives them an excuse to not try to make an effort to change things in their life and attempt to heal, it makes pain and being abused romantic and acceptable. It helps them deny any kind of abuse that they may be experiencing is “not as bad as it seems”, which it shouldn’t, but here we are. 

6. Why don’t people want to see Sangwoo go to therapy?

Sangwoo’s crimes are very severe. Death and murder are things people take incredibly serious for one thing. It usually blinds us to the person’s intentions behind that action because the crime is just so unacceptable. It also seems clear to us that Sangwoo won’t ever get fixed. He is the antagonist. He is the abuser. He is the representation of the person many readers of KS are trying to remove from their life or have removed before. He’s rude, unpredictable and frustrating but he has clear intentions and he is looking for his own special kind of love too much like Bum, it just so happens that Bum’s interpretation of love, however twisted, is closer to the “normal” interpretation of it. 

We also know very little about Sangwoo’s backstory, so he is still a mystery to us. We never know what he is thinking; he feels unpredictable to Yoon Bum, and we see the story from his eyes, so he is unpredictable for us too. 

There is also no official diagnosis on Sangwoo, even though we all know there is something severely wrong with him. This helps to the reader not being able to relate to him. It feels like he has no clear excuse for what he is doing. We do know of his psychopathy, but it's not official, so we can't make predictions based off of it since it can be wrong. Koogi didn’t say so, she can write over it, she can change everything with one panel while with Bum it’s just set in stone. He is already boxed in a mental illness so we expect all these things that also come with that illness. It’s kind of like, we try to figure out what's wrong with Sangwoo and the speculations go around his actions and words while what's wrong with Bum is told to us, so the speculations become more based off of that instead of what Bum actually does and says so sometimes the he gets misinterpreted.  

7. Why am I not happy Yoon Bum came packaged with a diagnosis?

I made a post about why I was happy Koogi didn’t do a lot of research on BPD before writing Yoon Bum and you can find it here. 

Summary: Yoon Bum is a person, not a mental illness. 

Koogi’s interpretation of “research” is probably not the same as yours. She probably knows more about BPD than you do. When writing a book about a mental illness, writers usually go to great lengths and talk to a lot of therapists and meet people who have that illness, they take a long time to fully understand how the mental illness works. Compared to this, she may still know quite a lot about BPD while not that much. 

@rapidratkiller has a theory that Koogi created the character and then diagnosed him, and the symptoms were the closest to BPD. I have to agree, since Koogi said in one of the specials that Yoon Bum is resembling an acquaintance- so there may be an actual person Yoon Bum was created after.

Anyway, apart from that, I feel like sometimes things get interpreted like "yeah of course Bum stays with sangwoo, he has BPD" instead of "wow I wonder why Yoon Bum decided to stay with Sangwoo, I wonder what he's actually feeling in that moment."

It cannot be ignored that Yoon Bum canonically has BPD, but sometimes it's the easy way out for some people. Connecting an analysis or a theory completely to "Yoon Bum has BPD" and not explain it throughly like "Yoon Bum has shown to do this, this and this in these chapters and these probably mean this, and that explains why he may be doing this now". 

We should look into what Yoon Bum is doing and saying while keeping in mind that he has BPD, but not letting it blind us.

[distortedfate]

"How are you?l

“How are you doing?” She asked.
And just like a little child, she was foolish enough to believe the lies and not to see behind the fake smiles and loud laughs. If only she knew the kind of pain I went through, the pain I still go through because of you, ever since she left. The day she left was the day everything ended, the day everything stopped making sense and I wish I could just rewind, not even to feel her lips on mine but to observe the way she looked at me, look at her when she looked at me rather than looking away, hold her hands more, hug her more and hold her as though I was never going to let her go. But things change and we can’t always have what we truly want. Things change, yes I know, because those looks went from me to another. As much as I hate to admit it, I truly hate it and I cannot stand seeing you with her or anyone else, I cannot stand the idea of you with someone else nor can I think or imagine me with anyone else either and I don’t want to. This is extremely painful for me to say but I don't care how much agony I go through as long as there is a smile on your face, a laugh that escapes your sweet lips and someone to love you and appreciate you as much as I do. I want to let you go, I really do, I want to move on, I really do, I just can't, I'm not ready to, it's not easy to either. Yeah I know it's been 6 months to be exact, but it feels like years since we last talked, hugged, touched, kissed or even had actual eye contact. I wish things could be different than they are now, I wish we could turn back time, but life isn't a thing show, these inventions don't exist. If that was the case there would be a machine to fix a broken heart and a troubled mind, though we aren't that advanced it. Oh how I trust wish we were, maybe then I would be able to have some peace. It is sad, pathetic even, how I still am miserable about your departure and how my feelings for you remain unchanged even after all this time. But no matter, I cannot change that either, for my heart yearns for a name it cannot receive, for our hearts were meant to stay like this, numb without the touch of a loved one. You are something. Something special, to me and special in general because you are different and I have not met anyone like you. I'm sure you have met someone like me, I'm not that special to be completely honest and you proved that by replacing me so easily. You were hard to replace, you still are. I tried to connect with other people and forget the way you did but I'm not you and that didn't work. I tried that but they weren't you so it didn't work for that reason as well. I tried replacing you with things that were dangerous to me. I tried to get high but that didn't work because you were the only thing on my mind. I tried getting buzzed all the time, I guess that works because I cannot think of anything while being in that moment. I tried increasing my daily intake of cigarettes again that didn't really work but I do it anyway. I asked for drugs, I may not have tried it yet but we'll wait and see about that. You see all these things are harmful for me, so are you, though I wish that I could quit all of these things, apart from you of course. You are the only drug I need, harmful to even look at, the danger is the feelings you give me, the danger is you. After all, we all run after things that are bad for us. We know they're bad for us but sometimes we're too blind to see it, sometimes we see it and we still chase after it. Poetry was an important part of my life, getting good grades was a good part of my life, maintains a healthy lifestyle was the main part of my life. I no longer have any words or poems to describe how hurt and agonised I am. I ran out of words trying to describe what you mean to me, I ran out of I want yous, I need yous and I love yous. But I don't mind saying it over and over again if that's what it takes. I want you, I need you and I love you. Getting good grades was a good part of my life. Funny thing is now, I spend most of my time in class day dreaming, feelings numb or feeling nothing at all. The other times that I should be studying I spend listening to depressing music and remembering you and I. After that I just cry myself to sleep or sleep with you being the last thing on my mind with the feeling of having a lump in my chest and the weight of the world on my shoulders. I know you try to take your mind off of things because she hurt you. I know you tried taking your mind off of things because I hurt you. I know you try to take your mind off things because of your family. I know you try to take your mind off of things because some of your closest friends didn't seem what you thought they were. And for that I have an opinion and a response. Do whatever you please to blow off some steam. Do whatever makes you feel better and do whatever you wish even if it may be wrong to others. What I don't want you to do is get too caught up Witt the wrong people because you tend to surround yourself with people who are fun, but these people are not home. You cannot walk into their arms, cry, open your heart to them and expect safety. Expect the worst. I know it already is tough for you to open up, I know you do open up, though I also know that you never open up 100 percent and fully. Find those who you can trust, find those who will stick with you through thick and thin and never leave your side. You deserve that because you are a loyal friend. And maybe for once, someone can be loyal to you. If you let them. Do whatever you please and surround yourself with whomever, but do me a favour. Remove yourself from people that you know aren't good for you. I could honestly write you books of how I truly feel and what I truly want. But let me tell you this and finalise everything. I did not write you all this to show off my writing skills, I did not write this for your pity or sympathy, nor did I write this for you to feel bad. I did not write this for you to feel good about yourself and be cocky because you might think that you're that amazing and hard to get over. Yes you are hard to get over but that is not the case. I wrote this to inform you that you do not deserve pain, no matter how many times you hurt me, whether it was intentional or unintentional. You do not deserve the way she is treating you, nor did you deserve the way I treated you. In a way you can say that me and her both have our excuses for the way we acted. Her excuse is being in love with somebody other than you, while my excuse was and still is that you were the first I fell for. I was sixteen, young and absolutely terrified. Terrified that I would not be what you wanted, that you would walk out and leave me, terrified of being too clingy and scaring you away, terrified that you would get bored and most importantly o was terrified of getting too attached and getting hurt again. Which was exactly what happened, even though I tried my best trying to prevent it. You deserve the the oceans and all it's mysteries, the galaxy and all it's beauty, the world and all it's polluted yet satisfying air. You deserve it all because I know you have been through a lot. A sensitive soul covered by a hard layer deserves it all and they can get it all if they look in the right places and put their trust in the right people. You are probably not reading this because I'm too much of a pussy and coward to actually send it or read it to you. In fact I'm too much of a pussy to talk to you. There are many reasons I chose to write this. 1- I know you need it, you've been feeling so alone lately, maybe you needed something to keep you company. You didn't tell me that, no one has, I just observe and notice tiny details. 2- you've been surrounding yourself around so much fakery, I thought maybe you needed that was 100 percent true, honest and came straight from the heart. Maybe you've been tired of hearing lies and fake I love yous. Here's a real one, I love you. 3- I needed to vent. I've been suffocating, trying to say these things but I couldn't and now I finally have, though it won't feel the same until I actually say this to you or actually do send it. I know I won't. 4- to entertain you. To make you feel like you are at a circus, watching the pathetic freak show who still hasn't gotten over her ex even after 6 months. 5- to entertain you in some odd twisted way. Not sure if you'll find this entertaining, you're heartless if you do find this entertaining. 6- to occupy myself and to prevent myself from going crazy about you. To conclude, I don't know, I'm sorry, I hate this and I still love you.

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/30/neil-cavuto-fox-news-trump-work-you/#click=https://t.co/Iai8i4uWpR

"Mr. President, we don't work for you. I don't work for you," Fox News host Neil Cavuto said in the closing monologue of his show. "My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you. Just report on you."

If @FoxNews hadn't fawned over and promoted Trump’s lies the last 4 years and reported on him the way a real news organization should perhaps Trump and his minions would understand you are not his mouthpiece. I guess this come to Jesus moment is better late than never.

‘We don’t work for you’: Fox News’s Neil Cavuto rebukes Trump for slamming network

By Allyson Chiu | Published August 30 at 4:43 AM | Washington Post | Posted August 30, 2019 9:50 AM ET |

Fox News host Neil Cavuto delivered a scorching rebuke on Thursday to President Trump’s recent criticismthat the cable network “isn’t working for us anymore,” and called out his tenuous relationship with the media.

“Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you,” Cavuto said in the closing monologue of “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you. Just report on you.”

The host later added: “It is called being fair and balanced, Mr. President, yet it is fair to say you’re not a fan when that balance includes stuff you don’t like to hear or facts you don’t like to have questioned.”

Cavuto’s pointed comments come on the heels of Trump’s latest broadside against Fox News. Despite the network’s reputation for favorable coverage of the president and his administration, with critics going so far as to describe it as “state TV,” Fox News has increasingly become a target of Trump’s rage. The president slammed  the network in tweets this week for “heavily promoting the Democrats,”  adding, “We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn’t working for us anymore!” The tirade appeared to be sparked by Fox News anchor Sandra Smith interviewing Xochitl Hinojosa, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, and soon prompted criticism from a handful of people  associated with the network.

On Thursday, Cavuto joined in, addressing Trump directly in a roughly four-minute segment that has since been viewed more than 170,000 times across Twitter and YouTube.

Cavuto, who has slammed Trump on his show before, kicked off his monologue by playing a clip of the president calling into a Fox News Radio program earlier in the day and expressing that he was “not happy” with the network. In recent months, Trump has gone after several Fox News personalities including host Shepard Smith, left-leaning pundit Juan Williams and contributor Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“All right, well I think the president watches Fox,” Cavuto remarked. “I also think he is getting sick of Fox, which is weird because I think he gets pretty fair coverage at Fox.”

In 2017, a Harvard report analyzing the president’s first 100 days in office found that the network was “the only news outlet in our study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall — the split was 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive.”

Cavuto noted, however, that the president had made it “clear to fact-check him is to be all but dead to him and his legion of supporters who let me know, in no uncertain terms, I am either with him totally or I am a ‘Never Trumper’ fully.”

Perhaps, the host said, it was this “Loyal on everything or not to be trusted on anything” mentality that prompted the president to once again bash Fox News on Wednesday and urge his supporters to stop watching the channel. Interpreting the president’s criticism as a suggestion that Fox News had been operating as an extension of his administration and reelection campaign, Cavuto, like other network personalities, pushed back against the notion. Trump’s tweet also drew critical responses from Fox News political analyst Brit Hume and on-air personalities Guy Benson and Howard Kurtz.

[Trump had better be careful about hate-tweeting Fox News]

“My job, Mr. President, our job here, is to keep the scores, not settle the scores,” Cavuto said Thursday, before launching into a description of his responsibility to report on the economy and trade talks regardless of whether the news is good or bad.

Then, Cavuto turned his attention to what he believed to be Trump’s biggest gripe with the media: Getting fact-checked.

“You’re only human, I get that. Who likes to be corrected?” the host said. “But you are the president. It comes with the job, just like checking what you say and do comes with my job.”

To prove his point, Cavuto began listing instances in which Trump made false or misleading statements (more than 12,000 during his presidency, according to the Fact Checker database), ranging from claims that Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 election to denying that he paid off adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. While the Fact Checker generally avoids characterizing Trump’s falsehoods as “lies,” his statements about the hush-money payment made to Daniels earned the rare label.

[President Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading claims over 928 days]

On Thursday, Cavuto also pointed out the president’s habit of contradicting himself. The host cited Trump’s praise of former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, whom he later fired and then called “dumb as a rock,” and his apparent 180 on potential support for gun background check legislation.

These moments that have been reported on aren’t fake, Cavuto said, addressing Trump, “They’re real items and you really said them.”

“Fake is when it’s wrong, Mr. President, not when it’s unpleasant,” he added.

But, Cavuto conceded that Trump was right to complain that the media, which can be “more inclined to report the bad than anything good,” hasn’t been fair to him.

“It is no surprise you’re frustrated that more aren’t in line with you and that everyone at Fox might not be in lockstep with you,” said Cavuto, before clarifying that even if there are Fox News hosts who defend Trump, it doesn’t mean that they work for him.

“Hard as it is to fathom, Mr. President, just because you’re the leader of the free world doesn’t entitle you to a free pass,” Cavuto concluded. “Unfortunately, just a free press.”

[frowncod73-blog]

The Linc - ESPN predicts Nick Foles will end up on the Jaguars

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Ten bold NFL predictions for 2019 season: Landing spots for Le’Veon, Foles - ESPN 1. The Jaguars will acquire Nick Foles, somehow, but still miss the playoffs. This is not to diminish the talents of Mr. Foles, and woe unto the rest of the AFC South if those teams let him hang in contention until mid-December. But the Jaguars team we predict Foles to be joining is not of the same caliber as the Eagles teams for which he performed his late-season and postseason magic the past two years. I believe the Eagles will work with Foles and allow him to have some say in where he ends up. I also believe they’re wary of him ending up in the NFC East with Washington or the Giants, and directing him to a faraway AFC destination like Jacksonville will be more appealing to Howie Roseman & Co. Jacksonville’s hiring of former Eagles QBs coach John DeFilippo as offensive coordinator could make the Jags appealing to Foles as well.

What the Eagles should do at linebacker - BGN If the Eagles don’t retain Hicks, they’ll need a new starting linebacker alongside Bradham. One free agent with a connection to the Eagles is Bradham’s former teammate, Preston Brown. Jim Schwartz trusted Brown enough to have the rookie start 14 games at linebacker for the Bills in 2014. He remained as a full-time in Buffalo before joining the Bengals as a free agent on a one-year, $5 million deal worth $2 million guaranteed in 2018. Cincinnati placed Brown on injured reserve in late November due to a knee injury. With the Bengals bringing in a new coaching staff, the 26-year-old Brown could be looking for a new home that offers familiarity. The Eagles might be able to get him on a one-year, “prove it” deal.

The Kist & Solak Show #76: The Sort of Super Bowl Recap - BGN Radio Michael Kist and Benjamin Solak kind of recap the Super Bowl, touching on the play of Jared Goff and the defensive gameplan from the Patriots, plus a bunch of draft talk because it’s officially the offseason! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Previewing the Eagles’ next calendar year, in stick figure form - PhillyVoice Let’s see if we can get back in the win column this year.

Carson Confirms He’s Human - Iggles Blitz I think Carson handled this situation wisely. He addressed this in a timely fashion. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t come off as holier than thou. The next year is going to be really interesting for Carson Wentz. He’s going to have a lot of pressure on him to play well and carry the team. He needs to show he can stay healthy and actually make it to the postseason. Carson also will be under a microscope when it comes to incidents. If he is seen looking frustrated at a teammate, that will lead to speculation. If he gives a coach a funny look, some will question that. If Carson and the Eagles have a terrific season in 2019, all of this nonsense will go away.

Carson Wentz opens up about controversial article, relationship with Eagles teammates - The Athletic As for his on-field performance, Wentz was the 12th-ranked quarterback in the league in the all-encompassing metrics like QBR, DVOA and ANY/A. As we’ve pointed out previously, his numbers were strikingly similar to Foles’. Wentz’s accuracy was actually better than it was in 2017, but the improvisational plays he’s accustomed to making outside of the structure of the offense were not available to him. During the interview, Wentz acknowledged that he never felt quite like himself in 2018. “It’s a process,” Wentz said. “As far as injury prevention, I felt great. I didn’t feel – I felt confident, all those things – but as far as being explosive and all those things, I never quite, and I’m not going to use it as an excuse by any means, but I watched the tape from two years ago, you watch last year, you can say I wasn’t quite there as far as mobility stuff. And that’s something I’ll keep working through. And everyone says it’s an 18-month, two-year thing to get really feeling strong again and back to normal. It’s getting better. It’s going to keep getting better. And I don’t think we’ll worry about hopefully either of these injuries going forward.”

Complete transcript of Carson Wentz’s conversation with select media - NBCSP “I heard it that morning. John (Gonoude from Eagles PR) actually sent it over to me and I was, like, I just read it and I was a little confused, I guess. It’s never obviously fun to read your name being thrown around like that, but at the end of the day, try not to stress about it too much and let the media or the perception of others dictate who I am. I know who I am, first of all. I know how I carry myself, I know I’m not perfect, I know I have flaws. So I’m not going to sit here and say it was inaccurate and completely made up, I’m not going to do that. But at the end of the day, I will say our locker room is really close. If there were guys that had issues, in hindsight, I wish we could have just talked about them. But, again, I don’t know how that all happened and everything with that. Again, it’s never fun to read, but to extent, you look at it and be like, ‘well, if someone did have this perception of me, why? What have I done wrong? What can I get better at? I realize I have my shortcomings. Yes, I can be selfish. I think we all have selfishness inside of us. There’s human elements to that, that I really look at and say, ‘well, I can get better.’ I always say I can be better on the field, off the field, how I carry myself. But I didn’t want to make it bigger than … I think everyone probably ran with it different ways and I just kind of said, ‘look, I’m just going to live my life out here and I’m going to let that kind of shape out how it may.’ Honestly, I haven’t really read what’s been happening since. Again, it’s not fun to read, but you try to take what you can from it and be better, I guess.”

Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz says his personality ‘ain’t going to change,’ and it shouldn’t - Inquirer The QB has already proven he has what it takes to thrive. Are there minor modifications he can make? Absolutely. But authenticity matters most in an NFL locker room.

Fans Encouraged To Support Second Annual Carson Wentz Softball Game - PE.com The 2nd Annual AO1 Charity Softball Game benefiting The Carson Wentz AO1 Foundation takes place on May 31 at Citizens Bank Park. Tickets go on sale through the website AO1Foundation.org on February 7. The family-friendly event begins with a home run derby at 6:30 p.m. followed by a game between members of the Eagles playing on opposing teams at 7:30 p.m.

Jay Ajayi updates progress on ACL rehab - CBS Sports Jay Ajayi is just four months removed from ACL surgery, which ended his season with the Philadelphia Eagles and hindered his opportunity for a big payday on the free agent market. Ajayi will be forced to sign a “prove it” deal in order to restore his value in 2019, a year which he likely won’t be 100 percent until October (but still should be ready for the start of the season). Spotrac has started to project market values for all the free agents out there, which Ajayi comes in at $3.6 million per season. Needless to say, Ajayi is working towards getting that contract. The Eagles running back updated his progress in his ACL rehab, jumping up on a step...three days shy of four months to the day he tore his ACL.

February All-Sleeper Team - The Draft Network RB: Elijah Holyfield, Georgia: I just got eyes on Holyfield a couple of days ago — boy, am I glad I did! Holyfield has gotten sparse attention in Draft circles that see him as the blip on the radar between Georgia’s two stud backs of the 2018 cycle — Nick Chubb and Super Bowl champion Sony Michel — and their rising junior star in D’Andre Swift. But Holyfield is a strong runner in his own right — and in this class, that’s enough to vault him to my RB2 slot, which ruffled more than a few feathers when I publicized the ranking. He carries a mid/late second-round grade off of his film, and is a fringe Top-50 player, but he offers the only bellcow profile I’ve seen in this class besides Alabama’s Josh Jacobs. He just never saw that opportunity in the Bulldog backfield. Holyfield wins with sweet feet, as he remains tethered to the ground through sharp and explosive cuts. He can string together moves, load his lower half to deliver a powerful shot, or pick up steam in a hurry when attacking the outside. His meager pass-catching usage is harrowing, but there’s no reason to believe he can’t handle more targets and catches — and for teams that don’t heavily feature their backs in the passing game, or already have a strong pass-catching back — Holyfield makes sense as the “thunder” in a 2-part backfield.

Choiceology: Season 2 Episode 7 - Schwab Seeing as it’s Super Bowl season, it seemed like a good time to revisit last year’s contest as a case study in decision making. The 2018 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles played incredibly well against the formidable New England Patriots. The game could have gone either way, but the Eagles had a secret weapon that gave them an advantage. We speak with Michael Kist from Bleeding Green Nation on the Eagles’ integration of computer models for decision making both on and off the field. You’ll hear the story of how those models were temporarily abandoned and the team struggled before re-embracing them.

Bengals hiring James Casey and Ben Martin, per report - Cincy Jungle Zac Taylor is wasting no time in finding who will be on his staff with the Bengals. Not long after Taylor was hired as the team’s next coach, Field Yates of ESPN reported that Houston Cougars tight ends coach James Casey was joining Taylor’s staff. The team is also hiring Ben Martin, an offensive line coach from Bryant University. Casey is someone you may be familiar with, as he enjoyed a productive career with the Houston Texans from 2009-12, then with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2013-14. He ended his career following a one-year stint with the Denver Broncos in 2015.

Connor Barwin release made official by Giants - Big Blue View The Giants made the release of Connor Barwin official on Monday. Barwin had said last week via social media that he would not be a Giant in 2019. Releasing the 32-year-old saves the Giants $1.5 million against the 2019 salary cap. The 10-year veteran had a career-low one sack in 2018.

The Rams Went All In to Beat the Patriots—and It Still Wasn’t Enough - The Ringer Sean McVay’s team exemplified the tenets of modern team building in their run to Super Bowl LIII. They just learned the lesson that’s defined this decade in the NFL.

It’s okay to admit that the Super Bowl wasn’t a good game - SB Nation There are those who want you to believe that Super Bowl LIII was a good game. But... was it? Or are we putting lipstick on a pig for a game that had all the drama of a Week 4 Jets-Dolphins game on a Thursday night? The praise is coming from everywhere, sources both credible in their knowledge of the game of football and not.

...

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Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2019/2/5/18211776/eagles-news-espn-predicts-nick-foles-jaguars-jacksonville-trade-free-agency-quarterback-rumors-wentz