#Obviously the frequency of names will depend on where you live

[the-pirate-captain]

Catholic names that are making a comeback in my area:

Cecilia

Thaddeus

Benedict

Augustine

Jerome

Tried and true Catholic staples that exist in overabundance, helped along by being very popular amongst secular families as well:

Mary/Maria/Marie .... l mean, duh

Joseph .... obviously

Michael

David

Anthony

Cla(i)r(e) .... spellings may vary but the frequency of this name doesn't

Matthew

John

Catherine .... too many spellings to list

Catholic names that aren't as common as the staples but no one is surprised when they see it:

Luke

Faith/Hope/Grace

Dominic

Thomas

Margaret

James

Monica

An(n)(e/a)

Joshua

Elizabeth

Peter

Paul

John Paul

Theresa

Catholic names that *should* make a comeback:

Cosmas .... listen, you'll name your kid Damien but not Cosmas? Cowards.

Angelo .... the combined patrons of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael plus it sounds nice

Miriam/Moira/Moriah .... still Mary, but with linguistic variety

Felicity .... it's such a pretty name, plus she's in the canon of saints

Josiah .... very underutilized, currently

Honorable mention:

Noah .... everyone has a friend whose brother is named Noah

Bonus: really obscure Catholic names for people I've met that were given to them by their very brave and devout parents:

Anselm

Ignatius

Perpetua

Fulton

Magdalene

Cyprian

[yuugen-benni]

REQUEST SWEEPING INNN🛩🛩

Helloo!!! — author-san! How have you been? I hope your year has been well because 2023 has come to an end! Oh, and I'd also like to add, happy new year! ⤵️

[✉️.] A LETTER FROM ANNON? — Dear Author-san, I wish you all the best this year, for the stories you write and those that will come after! And I don't think i've said it enough, but I'll tell you time and time again - I really love the content you put out and the little things (all others) you write! I don't think half of my year would be complete without your stories to accompany my stash of heart-wrenching stories I collected all over throughout this year! — and ofcourse, I'd be happy to see your stories this year too. Lets make a memorable year this time! (Oh- but please take your time, stories go through love and care too and I hope you don't feel pressured by this! I enjoy any content you put out! <3) — FROM ANNON. 🖊 happy new year.

[📃.] REQUEST! — Could I request for BSD characters? Where—If they would ever have an s/o, would they call them with pet names or no? If yes, what pet name?

—TYT & Thank you in advance, author-san! 🎆 ◝(๑꒪່౪̮꒪່๑)◜ 🎆

''Romantic, Sweet, Quirky or none ?''

A/N: ANON I LAVA YOU. I loved your message and thank you for all the support you gave me together with my other followers. I only got here to this day because of people like you who send me such beautiful things. Happy new year, I hope the universe blesses you and everyone who reads my posts. XOXO <3

Romantic - Fukuzawa, Kunikida, Katai, Hirotsu, Koyo, Sigma, Odasaku, Tecchou

Classic pet names are their favorites because they are simple but loving and not embarrassing - for those who are always victims of teasing -. Pet names like these are normal for most couples, but I guarantee that their form and intonation when they call you bring a fuzzy feeling inside your chest.

Some on the list are: Dear, Love/Lover, Darling, (my) Beloved, Heart or Sweetheart

The frequency will depend on where you two are, especially if you are their co-worker. In moments of intimacy or simply when the two of you are alone, in a quiet evening, the chance is 100%

Sweet - Yosano, Atsushi, Tanazaki, Gin, Higuchi, Kenji, Teruko

They like pet names that make your heart melt every day. They're creative and cute, especially when that nickname references things they/you love! In other words, they are created just for you.

Some on the list are: Babe/baby, Honey, sweetie

Bunny (By Gin because she loves cuddling with her s/o), Sunshine or Sunflower (By Kenji, do I need to explain?), Butterfly (By Yosano obviously), Bear (By Teruko, she's so tiny)

Frequency? 24/7

Quirky - Dazai, Ranpo, Chuuya, Tachihara, Mark Twain, Nikolai, Fitzerald

Provocative as hell, which is why they choose pet names that express that side of them. These nicknames range from embarrassing to ones that make you feel good - and that's their ambitions.

Some on the list: Hot Stuff, Pumpkin head, Muffin, Goat, Boo, Butt or Bun, Lolipop (We know, you know, Ranpo know), Bug

They call you these names at any time, whether to make you blush or laugh - then in front of your friends/family they turn into your handsome devil. If they want your attention, you can hear them moan all the pet names they have for you, I wish you luck.

None - Ango, Akutagawa, Fyodor, Mushitarou, Bram

It's nothing personal, but… You know. They are quite stubborn in admitting that they like to be all nice to you, which means they don't call you affectionately. But there's always a loophole in the law, right? Then there are times when they accidentally slip out pet names like ''Darling'' and ''Beatiful'' OR they call you in a sarcastic way - But we're already used to living off crumbs -.

either way, they love you. Without a doubt.

[guys-in-distress-database]

The GID Awards: Anime

For our first category, let us examine what is quite possibly my favourite medium for GID: anime.

I am a fan of animation as a medium for GID because you can askew realism for style. While I appreciate realism in my bondage, style often wins for me because of my aesthetic preferences for thin gags and light restraints. Compared to other animation styles, anime delivers on that preference and I am all here for it.

There's also something to be said about how bondage is very prevalent in Japanese history and culture, so anime tends to be more bondage-heavy than western animation.

With all that said, my selection for anime should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this blog for a while:

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan is one of those series where you can clearly tell that the creator has an interest in bondage. Not only because of the frequency, but how well-thought out the scenes are. It wins major points from me on the writing front with its attention to detail, namely that captive titan shifters are almost always gagged (with the few exceptions being justified by the rules of the magic system). As I've explained several times, titan shifters transform by hurting themselves, meaning that they need to be cleave or bit gagged to prevent them from biting their tongues.

The detail in each bondage scene is also fantastic. Generally speaking, the scenes are long, with Eren's second kidnapping lasting around 4-5 episodes (depending on where you consider the start of the scene). The restraints are well drawn and the gags look effective, which is nice to see in anime where thin gags are the norm (even though I do like thin gags).

Obviously the most frequent victim is protagonist Eren Jaeger because of his role as a living macguffin desired by multiple parties. He is kidnapped twice in the series and restrained on two more occasions. But Eren is just the tip of the iceberg. With the exception of Connie, Reiner and Bertholdt, every other major male character has had at least one bondage scene. This frequency, combined with the detail, makes Attack on Titan my choice for the best of anime GID!

Honourable Mentions

Some other notable anime contenders that I considered for this award:

Banana Fish (for sheer number of scenes and variety in restraints)

The Lost Village (for one fantastic scene with struggling, gagged noises and great tension)

Nabari no Ou (because it's a personal favourite)

[selfindulgenttiger]

Childhood Clues

I was discussing with someone today the fact that, to be diagnosed with autism as an adult, you have to have shown signs in early childhood. Depending who you ask, that's before age 6, age 8, age 11, or age 18. With so many people (women most often) being diagnosed as adults, some people are questioning the frequency of diagnosis. (Untreated C-PTSD and PTSD symptoms can manifest very similarly to autism.) That started me reflecting on my own childhood behavior and what clues were missed or dismissed. I wanted to catalogue them (because I'm autistic and that's what we do with information). This is stuff from early childhood to pre-teen years. Category A: Deficits in social communication and social interaction

This area of the diagnostic criteria is the hardest for me to judge, because you don't really see your own deficits in this area. If you don't understand what the social rules are, you don't see how you are breaking them. What I can say is that I never made friends easily, and I wasn't particularly bothered by that until I was old enough to realize I was perceived as weird because of it. From second through fourth grade, I don't remember having a friend. I typically spent recess walking in a circle around my favorite tree, which I enjoyed. I was the outsider everywhere. I didn't make friends in Brownies, I didn't make friends in my performing arts classes, I was even "the weird kid" among the gifted kids. Another part of this is your nonverbal communication. There are literally dozens of photos of me with a flat affect from early childhood. Smiling never came naturally to my face. And I assume there was something off about my eye contact and general manners, because I remember my dad explicitly teaching me to make eye contact, smile, use people's names, and express warmth. (He had read it in a book, so obviously this was novel information to Dad, too, that he felt compelled to share.)

Category B: Repetitive behaviors and restricted interests.

This? Not so hard to spot. I knew I was different in this way. I just didn't understand that it meant something. The first point is basically stimming. Where to begin? Lifelong constant knuckle-cracking. Nail, cuticle, and lip biting till I'd bleed. Knee-bouncing. Echolalia in the form of this high-pitched screech sound I enjoyed making, and singing the same songs again and again and again and again. (I still sing them when I'm really stressed.) My interests were definitely what they mean by "restricted interests" which is basically what we'd call "obsessed" in the lay vernacular. Like I became obsessed with mice from around 7-12. I accumulated 41 mouse stuffed toys that I did not play with but arranged in a tableau. I wanted pet mice, even though they're very short-lived compared to other pets and I'd have total meltdowns when one died. I would talk my parents into getting me another and tell them I'd be able to handle it this time, but I never could. (I also collected Weebles, Barbies, Smurfs, and Cabbage Patch Kids, but no other stuffed animals. Most kids have a mixture of different stuffed animals, but I only wanted mice. I didn't actually really play with the other toys either. I just liked having collections and creating tableaux.) Star Trek was such a fixation from elementary school on. Every year they'd have a 3-day Labor Day weekend marathon on one of our local stations. I would try to stay up for all three days. One year, on day three, I yanked the phone out of the wall for having the temerity to keep ringing during a favorite episode. I had all 79 episode titles and descriptions memorized. I sneakily studied my uncle's copy of the technical manual for the Enterprise, even though he didn't want me touching it because it was collectible. One of the greatest disappointments of my young life was not convincing my parents to take me to the convention. I never played soccer or particularly liked soccer, but I went to all the Strikers games with my dad. He would buy me a program and I would memorize the roster of every team. Then when he'd say "great play by number 12" I would tell him all that person's stats. I didn't love the game, but boy, did I love the stats.

Another thing that falls under this category is sensory sensitivities. I had the stereotypical autistic girl hypersensitivity issues (which for the record are screaming when your hair gets brushed, rejecting blue jeans and socks because of the seams, and complaining about the sound of electricity in the walls or bugs walking). But I also have my own oddball ones, like rejecting shoes. I had to have the tips of three toes reattached before age 10 because I wouldn't even wear shoes when riding a bike or walking outdoors. My poor parents had to take me to the ER so many times. (I still cannot bring myself to keep my shoes on any more than is strictly necessary.)

I also rejected any clothing that was textured (so no corduroy in the 70s) or had heavy seams (no jeans even at the height of the Gloria Vanderbilt trend). I would steal my dad's work shirts because they were smooth. For several years, I went to school in scrubs I got at a yard sale. (Scrubs. In middle school. You can guess how that went.) And finally, of course, the overstimulation issue. I had a meltdown and ended up fighting with my mom or crying at every holiday gathering ever. I ran away from my own 10th birthday party and hid for half an hour because my grandmother was going to give me a kiss. My mother loathed taking me on vacation because I invariably got super excited and then overstimulated and then had a meltdown. By the time I was a teenager, she swore she'd never take me again.

When I look back, yeah, it was very clearly there but no one knew what it was. I just seemed like an unruly, melodramatic, weird kid. (And maybe not all the weird in my family.)

[struwwelzeter]

For a variety of reasons, I got into a bit of a rabbit hole about Richard's guitars, and my brain went "oh I know someone who will probably have opinions on this" so essentially, if you feel like it, pretty please talk RZK guitars to me? Favourite? Retired one that needs to come back? (Though I probably already know the answer, that fancy black one?)

Allrighty, buckle up because this is gonna be long. After much consideration I have decided to split it up in two parts because I don’t think I can make it fit into one post that is still vaguely tumblr appropriate, and I really wanted to do it some sort of justice. I still feel like I don’t. But oh well. Full disclaimer, I am NOT a guitarist, but I lived with a few, two of my best friends are pro players and I’m a sponge so I kind of soaked some bits and pieces up over the last 15 years. But in case any lost guitar hero finds this and disagrees with me over the finer points of tone wood: I know honey, I oversimplified, and I am wrong. I tried? 💜 for easier read I formatted everything specific to Richard’s guitars normally and anything general about electric guitars in cursive.

My main sources besides watching about a 100 a month of guitar tube videos (that is youtube for guitarists) with my ex, my main sources will be this interview and this.

Richard Z. Kruspe (of Rammstein and Emigrate)’s Guitars - In Order of Appearance, Part 1/2

Diamant (Les Paul Style)

“I traded the acoustic for a guitar called Diamant, which was like a Les Paul version in East Germany.” - RZK

Now I’m skipping the acoustic he started out with, because it’s basically impossible to know what that was, and go straight into the electric. Now presumably, it would have been something like this, a soviet build Les Paul rip off. The irony is that these still go for several thousands up on reverb today for being historical and collectors pieces. The thing is, that while anything east build might have used cheaper materials, I would assume this thing isn’t worse than any of the beginner/intermediate models sold today, if not better, and kids all over the world do decent stiff with those.

Something general about electric guitars is that you don’t really so much play the guitar, you play an entire system. The instrument doesn’t make the sound, it only influences it. You play a guitar - but you even more so play the amp. Which makes this a bit tricky, because an e-guitar is a slab of wood and a copper coil, and amps are way more complex. You can make the exact same guitar sound so many ways. Still - there are tendencies. The fact how and why and to which degree the shape and wood of a solid body (a guitar without a hollow wood piece) influences the sound is highly debated and can get a bit esoteric sounding to sane people non-guitarists, but there are some differences in how the general set up and build of the guitar changes things, and tendencies how they are traditionally outfitted. Les Paul style guitars are normally humbucker guitars, Stratocasters and Telecasters normally are outfitted with single coils. Usually a guitarist can switch - between using the bridge, the neck, or both (or more) pick ups and depending on where the pick up is located they pick up different frequencies, different aspects of the sound. Humbuckers produce a richer, deeper or fuller sound than single coils. Very roughly speaking, think the Stones vs. Metallica.

Fender Stratocaster

“Then in East Germany, we had this imagination to get one of the great guitars, to me it was always the Fender Stratocaster because it was the Jimi Hendrix guitar. I didn’t know anything about pickups or humbuckers or whatever. So there was this guy that I met in a café in my old hometown and he was buying all these books because he could get all the books out through customs and he would store them in my apartment. So we became kind of acquainted. He would come over and pick up the books. So one time he came over and I asked him if he could get me a guitar and bring it over. In East Germany, if you exchange money from East to West it would be like 1 East mark and 20 West mark. SO everything I had, I changed it to West Mark and I gave him the money and I gave him the money and asked him to please buy me a Fender Stratocaster. I gave him the money and I didn’t hear anything for like three months, nothing. I wasn’t able to call because we didn’t have phones and stuff like that – it was a different time. So I thought fuck, I gave him 1400 west mark and now he’s gone and never coming back. [...] Then my imagination was so high, I thought the guitar would just play by itself and I wouldn’t really have to do anything, which I found out was bullshit. I was really happy that I had the guitar but it wasn’t really the sound that I had in mind.” - RZK

The first time I heard that story, I literally went “no, no, no, don’t be stupid, don’t give him your money, you won’t even like that guitar, stupid, lost dumbass.” I can not, for the life of me, imagine him play anything other than humbuckers. He apparently does use single coils for some things today again in the studio, but still, it’s so obviously wrong. He did play one again sometime during the late 90s, but I couldn’t find anything on the pick ups he used with that, but can hardly imagine he kept the original, unless he needed it for a specific sound maybe in one or two songs. I get it though. For many, many people the Fender Stratocaster is THE guitar. Jimi Hendrix is the main reason for that, but it’s also the countless idols that picked it up after him for the same reason, people who ended up plastered on the walls of angsty teenagers in their own right. This totally has to do with the whole amp thing aswell. You see your idol play that type of guitar ... but it’s not even half of the sound, and it won’t sound the same. Maybe probably they changed the pick ups, they have an effect rig, the spend hours fiddling with the knobs on an amp you can never afford. It’s never the same. Which is why ...

Fender Telecaster Black Gold

Then I had a guitar that I was very fond of. It was an older black and gold telecaster – there weren’t very many of them made at that point. I put a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck SH-4 in there, like a humbucker. I remember it was like my beauty guitar and I needed someone to put that pickup in and I was with Paul and he had more experience with that stuff than me so he would get out a hammer and a chisel and he start banging away on it and I was like ‘Fuck! Fuck! Don’t do that!’ but we put the thing in there and it was one of my favorite guitars” - RZK

... this one first didn’t really make sense for me for him. It’s even more a classic single coil guitar than the Strat is, and it only really started making sense for me when I learned he Paul indeed put a Humbucker in there. It’s a stunningly beautiful guitar, and weirdly non-modern for him. I don’t know why and this is completely instinctual on my part, but I find it fitting he played it during that time after the wall came down, which seems to have been a rough time for him generally, it seems like a somehow super emotional guitar, this relic. Telecasters were some of the first electrics ever build, it’s such a pioneer, but it’s also one that alot of punk bands used, possibly because they were old and cheap in the 70s and noisy and people customized it and put other pick ups in. The whole putting a chisel to it and adding a humbucker into it is such a “I’m gonna make whatever I have fit for me, and I’ll love it” move. If you look at it, a double coil pick up is really something you have to force to go in there, you really have to break it open. There is also this:

“... and then I think I had to sell it because I needed drugs or something. I was really sad that I sold it because I was at a very low point in my life.” - RZK

If I would get the chance to do one thing only for him to thank him for his music, I would go back in time to that Richard who is just sad about selling that guitar and hug him, and tell him he doesn’t need to worry, because they will name guitars after him in the future. It breaks my heart so fucking much. But of course, it’s what opens the doors to what happens next, which is ...

ESP 901

“That led me to my very first convention in Frankfurt. With guitars, it is like with women, you have to fall in love. Sometimes you get a guitar and you fall in love later but there has to be some sort of connection with it. So I was walking around that convention and I saw that guitar hanging at the ESP stand. It was a 901 ESP Sunburst and I was looking at it because it was such a beauty. And I was walking around for hours – they probably thought I was some weird guy who wants to steal the guitar. I bought that guitar and that’s how I got connected with ESP.” -RZK

He might have fallen for it because it is pretty, but it did come with a ESP double humbucker set up, with an added condensator to muffle up the sound, although not yet an active one (more on that later). It was a 90s metal guitar, one of those things marketed to the Metallica generation, something loud and heavy and full. Also, and this is where I will put in another general insert, there is something else about the choice of electric guitars that we haven’t talked about yet.

Now, I’ve discussed that you can push or pull the sound of a electric quite far in one or the other direction with what pick ups you use, what effects, what amps. But what this ignores is that especially standing up a guitar is a really shitty asymmetrical piece of equipment. And what that does to your body is that it needs to fit you, your hands, and your playing style. Some people prefer it chunky, others like sender. Guitarists, especially the 80s shredders, like to talk about a “fast neck”, which is another one of those things that get slightly esoteric, but which usually means a slimmer neck and slightly bigger frets, that need less way for your fingers to press until the string gets stopped. Someone who plays very bendy blues might dislike that and prefer something to dig in their fingers more down to the fretboard to get more control over how they bend the string. There are different neck profiles, there are different neck lengths, and all of it contributes to how comfortable someone might find their guitar.

I am mentioning this, because until today, Richard’s guitars are build very similarly to that ESP 901. His Eclipse Model is a tad different (again, more on that later), but the one he uses the most, the RZK I, has the same neck scale, similar frets, and that comfortable ESP slender neck. Even the shape seems to be inspired by turning it upside down. He has said in interviews that he hasn’t got very strong hands, and it makes perfect sense to me. I bought my own electric (again, more on that later) purely because I wanted to own one and not even so much because I ever had any real ambitions of learning to play it, but my friends at the time (10 years ago now) forced me to try out alot (!) of models (despite me knowing what I wanted), and the only guitars that I tried that had slimmer necks were Ibanez guitars, which in turn were wider. Ironically Frankfurt is my hometown, so the place to try a lot of different models is That exact convention Richard went to, and I haven’t skipped a Musikmesse in the last 15 years. I was at atleast one were Richard was too (I just didn’t care at the time, yikes), and it somehow greatly pleases me he found “his” guitar at that particular convention. Things have changed in recent years, but electric guitars always were in Hall 4.01, with ESP being left of center in the middle, and I don’t know, I can just see him walking in circles around it, and it makes me so emotional for him because it’s what musicians do at that place. It’s really loud, everyone is playing, there is someone better noodling around at every corner, and it can be quite an intimidating setting I think. And every year you see that one kid coming back and back again to that same stand, staring at that one guitar until they finally work up the nerve and ask to try it (or the staff takes pity on them and offer). And it’s the same everytime, they think “oh god they must think I am crazy” but really, nobody does. Everyone in that hall who owns a heart knows what those dreams are made of, and all it maybe does inspire is a “oh god, I hope that one makes it”. I digress. I think it’s more common now to look for different neck styles and companies started caring about it, but especially coming from Fender and Gibson guitars, that neck is honestly just very, very nice for weaker hands.

This is where I will stop, because it makes a good moment for a break and this post is honestly getting too out of hand otherwise. There will be a part 2 - where Richard starts using active pick ups, starts playing my favorite guitar in the whole wide world (and stops playing it), and finally, set up his own signature.

This is him with that 901 though: when he must have had it pretty much brandnew, while he used it, and right before he sold it.

[bananaink]

Oh hey in your merman au can aizawa and the others understand the humans and vise versa or do they kinda have to mime things out like in that previous ask where you said hizashi gave eri prosthetic fins how exactly would he communicate that to her and aizawa without having aizawa rip his hands off for trying to touch her

It’s kind of like meeting a new, intelligent species and figuring out how to communicate with each other.

In my Au mer-people communicate mostly by high frequencies (like dolphins, whales) and body language. Their eye-sight is very good (at least the ones living close to the surface) and their voices very loud if they want to (like deaf cats crying for treats). Humans obviously aren’t made for clicks and whines and whistling (and constant screaming), so they can’t communicate like that. But only because we can’t understand them doesn't mean they are dumb - so there is some research about mer-people communication and behavior and how to get basic things across.

Most of that research depends heavily on the cooperation of the mer-person and they tend to be very closed off and shy. Also, a vast majority of the research has come from working with captive mer-people which is not really representative because of the different outcomes. (some mer only tried to get the treats at the end of the tests or actively sabotage the research by changing every answer - which pointed to high intelligence).

Izuku and his team is not the first to try and establish some kind of relationship with a wild mer, but they are one of the first to actually succeed in teaching Aizawa a way to communicate so they can understand each other. Aizawa is only interested in keeping the humans away from his place but Eri is very eager to learn and keeps asking to meet with Izuku and Mirio - they are so fun! And bright! So many pretty things to see and eat! You should try them!

And he cant say no, not when they proved themselves to be actually good and nice, Eri won’t let him get away with ‘these people are noisy and dangerous’ anymore. Especially when she sees him dunk Hizashi under the water all the time and only getting a spluttered complain in return.

Well, long story short, they basically settle for sign language and it takes a looong while for some cultural differences to make sense. But they manage and in the end Eri even tries to get her voice to squeak Izukus and Mirios name :’D

Izuku, gently holding a squeaking Eri under her arms while Hizashi straps her fins on, cries at the first “Izu, Izu, Izu” :’D

[naturesgender]

Do you have any neat rat facts to share? :0

SCREECHED OUT LOUD WHEN I SAW THIS ASK. YOU BET YOUR ASS I'VE GOT SOME NEAT RAT FACTS MY FRIEND

ok ok ok SO

- adult rats can fit through a hole the size of a quarter!!

- rats laugh!! we can't hear it cause it's at too high a frequency but they laugh!! they laugh when you tickle them!!! you can't tell me that's not the cutest thing

- rats have been taught to play hide and seek and they squeal with joy when they are found! they like to play!

- they're incredibly smart and they need big cages and playmates and lots of toys and enrichment in order to live happy lives, that's why we always got our boys in pairs! they're super social they just need friends :'))

- they have also been taught to drive tiny cars!! and it's been proven to lower their stress levels! if you look it up you'll find a video it's the cutest fucking thing in the whole world

- when they're happy, they make a little chittering sound by rubbing their teeth together!! it's called bruxing and it's a very nice sound, i can imitate it and sometimes i find myself making that sound when i'm petting my dog (wrote my dad there for a minute. hoo boy) or feeding my tortoise and i have to be like "wait a minute you're not a rat you don't know what that means"

- they also do this thing called boggling when they're happy, which is where their eyes kind of,, expand? not really but that's what it looks like kind of? their eyes pop in and out a bit (not so much that it's creepy it just makes them look wide-eyed and adorable) and you can see the little blue rim that all rats have around their eyes that's usually hidden

- there's a species of rat in africa called the gambian pouched rat, also known as the giant african pouched rat, that can sniff out bombs!!! these guys are probably the biggest species of rat, they can get anywhere from 20 to 34 inches long from the tips of their noses to the tips of their tails! rats' tails are as long as their bodies so their actual body is only about half that, but they're still like. 3 times heavier than fancy rats, which are the rats we've domesticated! rats are super smart and have super good noses, just like dogs, but because these guys are only like 3 pounds, they don't set the mines off by accident like Ever, so they're super handy!! in 2002 a male gambian pouched rat named magawa won a PDSA gold medal, which is the highest award given to animals for bravery :')) i am so proud of him

- rats are super clean despite rumors to the contrary! they spend tons of time washing themselves just like cats do

- you can train rats and teach them tricks just like dogs!! tons of adorable videos on youtube of rats coming when their names are called and playing tiny rat basketball and doing little spins and tiny rat obstacle courses :')) i tried this with onyx and opal but they were not having it lmao, they were already adults and i as a student did not have the time to devote to rat-training, plus i've heard that female rats are more receptive to training than male rats (in that females tend to be more active and adventurous whereas males tend to be more laid-back and cuddly) which is super interesting and i'd love to learn more about the science behind that!!!

- their favorite snacks (i mean it obviously depends for every rat but these are a classic) are little yogurt drops called yogies :'))))

in conclusion. rats my fucking beloveds

[syxjaewon]

part 1 ; had we but world enough and time

when the call comes in, jaewon is in the piloting seat on the right side of serenity’s bridge, the day slow and dark, the sky spotted with stars and void, all the verse spread before him like a plate, open and waiting and smooth, clear sailing between worlds as far as he knows, a job already in haul, a mission already half finished. it’s a smuggling run, a simple point-a-to-point-b type of trade, but it’ll be a substantial enough payout to get them to the next phase of their profession, and they’ll be delivering it to higgin’s moon, which is usually steady enough with work that they shouldn’t need to travel again to hunt for errands. they’ve had a slew of dependable business lately, nothing too fancy, but with jaewon being most of his own crew at the moment, he doesn’t want to let on to dealers that they’re running a little thin.

he doesn’t even currently have a pilot, most of serenity’s flight determined by autopilot features, except during check up times, mornings, afternoons, and after dinner, when jaewon comes up here to inspect everything, make sure it’s all running smoothly, maybe give the auto-run a little break. she’s not used to flying so long on her own and he doesn’t want to wear her down too soon, doesn’t want her to forget too easily that she’s not abandoned out here, that she’s still in good hands, that she still has his heart. old machines, ones like these, need care and precision and regular tuning, old machines like these need reminding that they still belong to someone, or they’ll rust, they’ll fade, they’ll die.

space is too cold for either of them not to check in on each other once in a while.

when the call comes in, jaewon is cruising serenity, relaxed and informal, staring off into the distance like he’s sleeping with his eyes open, and the sound of cutting buzzes jolts him out of his trance like a lightning bolt, immediately leaning up and frowning over the console. the call blips in and out, pieces of words, something shattering, something screaming, the fuzz of static deafening and rattling through the speakers. he fiddles with a few of the controls, lighting up the booster, shifting around the frequencies.

“are you-- for the--- iver side---- at, can yo--- his---”

his face darkens as he begins catching words, hearing the tone, hearing the voice, recognizing it just a bit, just enough to raise his blood pressure, enough to focus all his attention on this transmission, flipping on the autopilot once more so he has better reign over the other controls.

“rat---” the sound fizzes and shudders, the screen glitching through white noise before finally bringing in a picture, messy and disastrous, the image of a man with a death-grip on his console, wide eyes, bare teeth, sparks and warning lights crashing all around behind him. “rat!”

“saito?”

jaewon doesn’t speak much about his past, his history buried deep in the lining of his stomach, in the threads of his skin, in the pupils of his eyes; he doesn’t brand his experiences across his face for the verse to read and pick from, every curious gaze licking and pulling him apart; he doesn’t give anyone under stars or suns first dibs about the horrors he’s witnessed or the hells he’s climbed out of. those who know him, know that he is a mountain, built upwards towards the sky by his own hands, stone by stone, coal by coal, the whole of him a creature of kept secrets and sewn lips, of teeth that keep words locked tight behind them. for all that he burns, he burns alone.

but saito is everywhere in that history, as littered throughout jaewon’s memory as vera, the two of them a pair of pseudo parents jaewon hadn’t ever imagined he’d get as a child, but whereas vera was a mother who taught him how to read, how to captain, how to live, how to breathe, how to fly, saito was as vallurian as he was, and therefore much less verbal with his input, much less apparent with his influence.

saito was a firm character in jaewon’s upbringing, able to weather any storm brought by vera or her crew, able to handle the constant missteps and hazards a smuggling pirate ship often amasses; he was vera’s first mate and the archetype jaewon followed for what a vallurian offworld could look like. he taught jaewon how to fight like a vallurian, how to stand like one, how to run towards dangers instead of flickering between them, instead of snarling his way through them, instead of slipping around them, his atmosphere shifting gradually from a thief in the alleys to the heir of his heritage. saito taught him that it didn’t matter if he was an orphan, it didn’t matter if his family had or hadn’t abandoned him next to a dumpster, no name, no age, no memory, all of valluria had raised him instead, all of the universe was inside him, everything he ever needed, he already had.

when he thinks of saito kyoji, he thinks of him with three blades strapped across his back, burly and stronger than a god, walking at the right hand of vera blackhound as they stream through the stars together.

not like this, not in a ship that’s falling apart behind him, not with panic and determination in his gaze, not with something tugging and desperate in his tone. “jaewon! can you hear me?”

“i hear you,” he responds back. “what the hell? where are you?”

“i’m on a ship called ‘the emerald dragon,’ i’ve been hailing out as many sos as i can and i saw the firefly, can you get to me?”

jaewon makes quick work of opening up the ship’s range, tracking the signal from somewhere behind them, out towards the cygni contra system, a group of partially formed asteroids in a belt formation, the mining operations there making it difficult to locate the other vessel pinpointedly. alarms scream and flash through the transmission and saito’s ship crashes into something, making the older man curse and struggle with his controls.

“i’m an hour away if i really push it, can you hold on?”

saito’s systems tell him they’ve been hit. “not much.”

“fuck.” jaewon leaves the line open but pushes away from it in a hurry, reaching for the comm and connecting it down to the engine room, where he hopes henry is hiding out at this hour, still busy with his list of repairs he intends on doing now that he’s back. he’s not going to like this. “henry, i’m about to raw-drive serenity into the cygni contra system, i need you to direct as much energy into the engine as possible, shut everything unnecessary down.”

“what?” henry doesn’t sound amused. “why?”

but jaewon doesn’t answer him, doesn’t feel like he should need to, hanging up the comm immediately and shifting back to the handles of the ship as he shuts off the autopilot and kicks on the brakes, the thrusters rumbling and growling beneath him as they turn. he tilts the yoke wheel to a hard left, which always bugs out the artificial gravity unit, the velocity pulling at him forward and sideways, something falling and crashing behind him loudly enough to make him wince, but not loudly enough to make him stop.

in the transmitter, saito fuzzes in and out, his ship obviously crashing, obviously falling to pieces, obviously obliterating itself through the tangle of asteroids, and jaewon grits his teeth in frustration, in need, in fury, as he turns his ship in the opposite direction and punches serenity’s blaze-through, kicking the ship into a higher gear. again the gravity module shivers and takes a minute to right itself.

“saito, why the hell are you in an asteroid belt? you know the cygni contra system is--”

“i know,” saito snaps, just as stressed, if not more, than his protege. “it’s volatile. but it was our only shot at ditching the tail on us.”

“you’re being tracked?”

“jaewon, its--- they’re--- from the---”

“saito?” jaewon tries, glares, his eyes dodging between the screen on the console and the window up above him, all the stars and planets so frustratingly large and far away that it doesn’t seem like they’re traveling hardly at all. he knows serenity is moving, he knows she’s flying at top speed, at a hard pace, pedal to metal, but the illusion is enough to gnaw on his insides, to sink heavy into his gut like a stone. “you’re breaking up, can you hear me? saito!”

“i’m--- for the--- at?--- time---”

“fuck.”

“what’s going on?” harper’s voice rings in through the bridge door, alert and worried, maybe a little angry and ready for anything, but jaewon can’t stand to look back at her right now, can’t stand to look at anything other than the two pillars of his life still alive, the two things left in jaewon’s sphere that he still has who have raised him-- saito and the sky.

his lips are pulled back, his jaw clenching, his hands white-knuckled around the yoke, burning through serenity’s fuel like they’re made of it, like they’ll never run out. “saito! can you hear me?”

“with the-- give you--- boy--”

harper leans over the console, careful not to get in jaewon’s way, but wanting to see what it is he’s seeing, what it is he’s hearing, recognizing the situation too clearly, either from jaewon’s expression or from the way saito flickers in and out, the image of him blurry but catastrophic. “can we get to him in time?”

an hour. an hour out, flying like this, an hour flying with their wings outstretched, with their arms pitching forward, bending forward, inclining forward, and he knows serenity won’t like this, won’t thank him for this, won’t recover easily after this, but he also knows she can survive it. he knows she can hold fast and stay true, and fly steady, even if she’s churning, even if she’s scorching, even if she’s angry about it.

he locks his fears and his doubts and his hesitations behind his teeth, where they cannot get out, where they cannot breach the space around him. “saito, if you can hear me, i’ll get there. i’ll make it. i’m coming.”

“aewon--- uctions--- put it--- on---”

and then the screen cuts completely to black.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Can you please have Lotor and the paladins watch Into the Spiderverse and/or Star Wars? I'd love to hear his reactions to Earth's theories of multiple dimensions and space travel before it was known to be possible. (As well as the "I am your father" plot twist!)

Movie Time With TSLLotor – Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Edition

“No.” Lotor’s slit eyes widened as he stared at the screen.His jaw dropped slightly. And then he raised his hand to the holographicinterface to pause Star Wars: EmpireStrikes Back. “No, that is not possible.”

Pidge sat next to him. She pushed her finger against his jawto click his fangs shut. “It totally is.”

Lotor blinked. “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father?” he askedincredulously. “The hero is the son of the villain?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”

The prince’s elfin ears pulled back, his face tight in a mixof delight and validation. “The hero is the sonof the villain. They both use this…same force that flows through all, butyet Skywalker uses it for good.”

“Yeah, cause he’s still the good guy,” Pidge said with ashrug. “Doesn’t matter where he came from.”

To Lotor’s left, one Princess Allura still sat in horror,her hands covering her mouth, her beautiful eyes wide. “Ngh,” she squeaked,still staring at Luke’s missing hand. “Keith, you didn’t tell me there wasgoing to be dismemberment.”  

On the floor, one Keith lay on his side, delightedlymunching on popcorn. “It’s not like it shows much. I mean, this was the 1980s. Specialeffects were still kinda bad.”

Allura looked down and lightly nudged Keith with her foot indisapproval. “But I like Luke,” shewhined. “And his own father just cut off his hand—that is so cruel andterrible.”

“…It’s awesome,” Keith argued.

“It’s terrible,” she retorted right back, her white browsknitting together. “Honestly, Keith, where is your sense of empathy?”

His lips stretched as he turned to stare up at her. “Takinga nap.”

“Obviously.” And then she tossed some popcorn at him, whichhe jerked to the side and caught it with his mouth.

Allura’s elfin ears flicked in interest of his reflexes, andso she did it again, tossing a popcorn kernel at him, which he caught onceagain in his mouth, crunching down on the popcorn in satisfaction. His eyesglinted merrily.

That managed to garner the attention of Kosmo, who ploddedover to sniff Keith’s face. Then he licked the boy’s mouth in interest of thepopcorn salt. Keith sputtered out a noise between a laugh and a gag as heraised up his hand to gently push Kosmo’s muzzle away. The space wolf lickedhis cheek in response, wagging his tail.

Allura giggled at the sight and turned to Lotor.

The man was still puzzling over the movie’s various aspects,murmuring to Pidge in awe and surprise, “—Particularly advanced for a culturehaving traveled off-planet only several decaphoebs before, capturing not onlythe power but also the mundane quality of space travel. It is so very rare forcivilizations not to worship or otherwise present space travel as a means of obtaininggodhood.”

The girl shrugged. “I mean, our rocket that got us to themoon, the Saturn V, was said to be made of parts from the lowest bidder, andeven the astronauts got tired of talking about the moon after a couple ofdecades. As a species, I’d say we get bored pretty easily. The new wears offfast, you know?”

Lotor raised his hand to point at her. “That is preciselywhat I mean. Contextualization of advancement. Most early civilizations likeyour own would worship space travel in a spiritual sense, and yet even yourlanguage about real events—like your Saturn V and first trip to Earth’s moon—delegatessuch to the realm of the everyday. The exponential learning curve of humans,and your emotional response as a species, is quite fascinating.”

“You saying we’re freaks or something?”

“Just…strangely aware. Even the concept of the Force is surprisingto me. It is rudimentary in description,” Lotor continued, brows knitted togetherin thoughtfulness, “but particularly reminiscent of quintessence—down to itsability to be manipulated by people of all moral alignments. Tell me, does this…StarWars represent humanity’s reigning philosophy of the essence of life?”

Pidge pushed up her glasses in pride. “Actually, the ideabehind the Force is very old. Even early humans believed there was somethingthat tied all living beings together. The names for it changed—ancient humanscalled it the fifth element. Medieval scholars even called it quintessence fora time.”

Lotor’s head tilted in interest. “And what do humans call itnow?”

“Our most equivalent theory would be dark matter—but westill can’t really do anything with it like you or Allura can.”

The prince looked down at his own fingers and allowed themto spark to life with a slight glow of purple. “Dark matter seems to suggest apeculiar obscurity, but it is quite visible to me.”  

Pidge dared to grab onto one of his hands, inspecting theglow his fingertips with a scientific curiosity. “They say dark matter is acollection of stars that haven’t ignited or they’ve already exploded, leaving pocketsof energy across the universe. Somehow, you and Allura tap into that unignitedenergy and manifest it for yourself.” Her thin brows furrowed. “But the energyisn’t hot like a star, and I’m not sure how you…channel it.”

Lotor’s voice lifted in delight of a lecture, his eyesbright and face glowing with the awe of human entertainment, which allowed forsons of villains to be heroes. “It is all a matter of being attuned tosurrounding frequencies. But your movie would suggest that quintessencemanifests itself on a spectrum aligned to some moral perception. Blue for good.Red for evil. In truth, the color depends on the frequency or concentration ofthe energy.” He turned to Allura, who was watching them with great curiosity. “Princess,can you help me demonstrate this?”

“Of course,” she murmured happily. She snapped her fingers,and within her palm manifested a glowing light, the same color as Lotor’s. “Purpleis of a high concentration and frequency—only trained alchemists or those withinnate ability can manifest such. There is no moral alignment for it, although Galran-minedquintessence takes on this spectrum per the attempts to gatherless-concentrated quintessence into something more.” Her hand turned, and theglow suddenly turned red. “This color, as I’m sure you know, Pidge, has a lower,more enduring frequency and so is found most readily in planets.” Then Allura’s hand twitched as she narrowed her eyes. The color of her fingertipsbegan to glow blue. “This is of a similar frequency. And the highest frequencyappears as pure black, which is the totality of all quintessence spectrumsabsorbed within the power itself.” Her full lips twitched in a sad way as theglow died about her fingertips. “But I will not show you here, for I do notwish to draw attention from those who would sense its power.”

Her words were a thinly veiled reference to the witch Haggar.

Her eyes flickered to Lotor’s, and he searched her.

Pidge cut between them. “Wait, wait,” she said, narrowingher eyes. “Pure quintessence is black?” Her lips stretched. “As in, dark matter?”

Lotor did not look away from Allura, his voice distant evenas he managed a twitch of his lips. “Perhaps human theories are not so far fromthe truth, then.” The glow died from his hands as well. “Though I will admit, Ihave never been able to attempt such a concentration.”

“Perhaps one day,” Allura murmured softly, “I could show youhow to achieve manifesting black quintessence.”

The prince smiled at her, his eyes glimmering. “I would lovefor you to show me the darkness, princess.” And then his smile stretchedfarther. “As long as it does not require becoming a Sith lord.”

Keith raised his hand. “Siths are cooler than Jedi, just saying.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “No way. The Jedi are so much moreawesome. Also, they have green light sabers.”

“And Siths have red,” Keith argued lightly. “Why do you thinkI like them?”  

Allura giggled. Then she turned to Lotor and murmured, “I donot believe you will have to become a Sith lord to achieve mastery ofquintessence.”

“Then what must I become, princess?”

“My padawan,” she giggled, reaching up to pat his head.

Lotor’s face-faulted, then huffed in a mix of misery andgreat amusement. Here he was, ten-thousand years old and still an apprentice. “Oneday,” he said, voice straining, “I hope to become your equal.”  

The words inspired a bloom of a blush upon Allura’s face asher fingers slipped from his hair, which was soft against her skin. “I would verymuch like that.”  

He smoothed down his hair where she had displaced it. “And ifyou were to teach me, I would assure you that I would use such knowledge responsiblyas well, even though I am the son of your enemy.” He tilted his chin to the moviescreen. “None of this dark-side domination.”  

She lightly grabbed onto his hand and squeezed his largepalm. “You are not your parents, as I am not mine.”

His long, clawed fingers squeeze against her own to reciprocatethe touch. His sharp cheeks flushed in a manner similar to Allura’s—an awe atbeing near a kindred spirit.

“…Hey, can you guys stop flirting,” Keith cut in with a deadpan,“so can we finish the movie?”

[womeninpodcasting-blog]

Podcasting Research

When we live in a world of side hustles, accountability seems to be further and further from reach than ever. Who should be held responsible for gender discrimination in the podast business? Should it be the platforms that the programs are on, the individuals who run the podcast, or is it even possible to seek justice? Podcasts featuring women are not being showcased as much as men’s, and we must encourage women to follow their podcasting dreams through female leadership.

In most industries, it is rare to have an almost even split audience between genders. According to the Nielson and Edison studies, the percentage of podcast listeners between female and male are 48 percent and 52 percent respectively (Whitner). Sadly, this does not reflect the percentage of podcasts that feature women. Robin Kinnie, a prominent female podcast producer, conducted a study earlier this year and found that women only host 22 percent of podcasts (Kinnie). Statistics are pretty easy to come across, but the reasons behind them required more digging. Since podcasting is still a brand new entity to the world, there has only been a handful of sources documenting the issue regarding women in podcasts. With that being said, I had to discover these issues myself, and the sexist acts towards women in podcasts are happening right in front of our faces.

On the front page of Spotify’s, “Spotify Podcasting”, it’s stated that “Spotify was designed to help artists get discovered [...]” (Spotify), this is the sentence that inspired me to start fact-checking. Do they help the minority get discovered, or do they just promote the programs that generate the most revenue for them? I feel like you know where this is going.  

Now that I had a deeper understanding of some numbers, I went “undercover” in order to figure out why they were so low. To minimize suggested podcasts catered to my own Spotify account, I made a completely random email and signed up for Spotify. I then looked towards three podcast categories that related to the industries that women seemed to face some of the biggest adversity: business, music and comedy. Entering the business section of podcast seemed hopeful from the beginning, as the banner picture showcased a woman working on a computer, sleek and eye catching. 

Sadly, out of the top twenty business podcasts on the front page, zero of them featured a sole female host. Only three of the top twenty podcasts had a recurring female host alongside their male co-host (Spotify). On top of this, none of the podcasts featuring women showed a female as their picture, while twelve of the male-run programs featured both their picture and their name. Did Spotify actively choose to set their banner to a female to try and “balance” their decision to promote mostly men? 

Both the music and comedy sections were just as disappointing, each having only three of the top 20 suggested podcasts even featuring a female co-host, let alone a solely female-driven podcast. These findings left me disappointed and dumbfounded, and lead me to wonder about the cause. Since podcasting is a relatively new, the buzz about gender inequality within it is very minimal. I decided to look towards listeners’ reviews of podcasts to see if there was a difference between how they rated and talked about female hosted podcasts versus male. 

I was able to find (after a lot of searching in the library), an article in a magazine that has given dedicated space to talk about culture, race, sexuality, and other pressing topics in today’s society. This article was written by Nicholas Quah, and titled “10 Essential Conversational Podcasts That Shaped The Genre”. Out of the ten podcasts, Quah focuses on programs run by both men and women equally. With nothing but praise, he describes some of the male featured podcasts (both featuring white males might I add) as “[...] probing and revealing, collaborative and investigative, comprehensive and singular”, and another as “[...] one of the more interesting and innovative podcast creators in the business” (Quah). 

When describing female-driven podcasts, he describes a program run by two African American females as a “[...] rich space for sharp, compelling, and revelatory feats of cultural criticism”, and an “[...] exploration of all the things in our lives that we usually feel uncomfortable discussing” (Quah). The reviews of both the male and female podcasts were uplifting, inviting, and offered fair thoughts without bringing gender into the conversation. 

So, when the podcasts are out, they seem to get an overall same sort of treatment when it comes to reviews. Although fair in the research I’ve found, there is no doubt that there are people in the world that are very quick to switch a podcast simply because it features females. I then began to think about the responsibility of the mediums where podcasts live, and the roles they must take on when having hundreds of millions of listeners. Should companies such as Spotify and Apple Music be held liable for emotional and monetary damage based off of gender inequality in podcasting?

In a section of an Equal Rights Advocates pamphlet, gender inequality could include “[...] anguish, stress, anxiety, pain and suffering, loss of sleep, damage to your reputation, and loss of enjoyment of life resulting from discrimination” (Equal Rights Advocates). I’m certain countless women experience some, if not all of these, even simply due to the lack of representation as mentioned above, or from negative reviews based off of their gender. I don’t think that Spotify or Apple Music should be held fully liable for these damages, but they absolutely should take more measures to fairly represent women in podcasting. But even after looking out for those who do make that journey into podcasting, I was still hung up on why there are a lack of women. I went to Amazon to look into some books that people would read when starting a podcast, and right off the bat, it gave off some issues. 

With the authors of almost all of the top podcasting books on Amazon being male, it seemed a little intimidating and could be worrisome for some women to continue or follow their podcasting ventures. Mike Migas, the producer of a very popular podcast called “Casefile: True Crime”, is the author of one of the top podcasting books on Amazon. He began talking about why certain men, become famous radio hosts/podcasters, because of their “powerful and charismatic” voices (Migas 22), not even a mention about female podcasters. He then goes off on long tangents about the minute details of the frequencies the human ear can pick up, and putting across this falsely given pompous attitude.

In a lot of sections throughout this book, he comes across as pretty stern and “This is how it works, there’s no other way because we’re successful”. He also goes into a lot of meaningless details, in my opinion, to fill a book with pages that could be written in a quick Buzzfeed article. Another book, “Podcasting For Dummies: 3rd Edition” was the top selling book on podcasting on Amazon. In the author’s Tomasi and Morris’ “Getting The Right Gadgets” chapter, they begin to explain the specifics of the electrical equipment needed to get a podcast rolling. With their use of technical terms such as “Omnidirectional”,  “shock mounted microphone”, and “condenser microphone” (Morris, Tomasi 33), seems like it could scare people away from podcasting. 

I believe that the lack of female voices (quite literally) in the podcasting world is due to the fact that a lot of women feel intimidated and don’t feel as if their voices are respected. This could also stem from women being treated throughout history as having low intelligence and being incapable of doing things on their own (a statement that is disgusting and I hate that has happened in our world). We put so much pressure on the women who do actually end up making podcasts, and since it seems to be very few of them, if they’re not wildly successful, people are quick to blame gender. As a society, we need to encourage women to bring their ideas to life, and not only in the podcast world.

But only so much can be done by individuals who support women in podcasts, the companies that act as a home for podcasts must step up and address the issue as well. We cannot wait for Women’s History Month to get the world to care about these issues. In the same token, we have to find a way as a society to stop labeling and dividing accomplishments and projects to “female fronted” or “male leader”. Doing so forces people into deciding on whether on not to support them based off of gender alone. 

As there are over 73 million women listening to at least one podcast every week in the United States alone (Whitner), there are obviously a large amount of women wanting to learn and to be inspired. Liam Neiyemer, nicknamed ‘The Podfather’, addresses the issue perfectly in his article about sexism in podcasting, “The future and growth of podcasting depends on more female producers, hosts and storytellers in the industry”. We must lean on strong females that are going against criticism and following through with what they want to accomplish, and hope that females all over the world are inspired by their actions. 

Citations

Edison Research. “Women Podcast Listeners: Closing the Listening Gender Gap.” Edison Research, Edison Research, 22 Jan. 2019, www.edisonresearch.com/women-podcast-listeners-closing-the-listening-gender-gap/.

“Gender Discrimination at Work.” Equal Rights Advocates.

Kinnie, Robin. “The Growth of Women in Podcasting.” Podcast Business Journal, 26 Feb. 2019, podcastbusinessjournal.com/the-growth-of-women-in-podcasting/.

Migas, Mike. How to Start a Podcast: Practical Tips from the Producer of Casefile: True Crime Podcast. Independent, 2018.

Morris, Tee, and Chuck Tomasi. Podcasting For Dummies, 3rd Edition. For Dummies; 3 Edition, 2017.

Niemeyer, Liam. “Podfather Reviews: Sexism in Podcasting and What Needs to Change.” The Post, 16 Apr. 2018, www.thepostathens.com/article/2018/04/sexism-podcasting-stereotyping.

Quah, Nicholas. “10 Essential Conversation Podcasts That Shaped the Genre.” Vulture, 4 Oct. 2019.

“Spotify for Podcasters.” Spotify for Podcasters, podcasters.spotify.com/#targetText=Spotify%20has%20over%20200%20million,since%20the%20start%20of%202019.

Whitner, Gavin. “Podcast Statistics (2019) – Newest Available Data + Infographic.” Music Oomph, 5 Sept. 2019, musicoomph.com/podcast-statistics/.

[howtohero]

#249 The Death of Your Nemesis

(Note: This is Part Two of a three part story. Part One. Part Three.)

Uh. Ok, so your nemesis has died. The person you’ve gone head to head with for years and years. The enemy of yours who, without fail, always strives to make things as personal as possible, is gone... Good! You’ll be better off, and the world will be better off with them. You can finally dedicate your time to dealing with more systemic ills in your neighborhood. No longer will you have to alienate everyone you love because there’s always the slim chance that on any given day your nemesis could discover who you are and take vengeance on your friends and family. When your nemesis dies, that’s a reason to party. You’re free of them! Forever! Huzzah! You may not have been able to kill them due to some complicated moral code that only allows you to kill their henchmen, but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate their demise!

(Oooooook buddy, why don’t sit this one out. You’re going through a lot right now.)

I’m fine! Why shouldn’t I be fine! My nemesis, Dr. Brainwave, a convicted supervillain who was living, rent-free, in my basement, is dead. I’m free of him. I’m doing great!

(All right, totally. We can all see that you’re handling this with dignity and poise. Why don’t you let me deal with this one.)

Well I suppose I have been training you as my apprentice so that you could one day write blog posts on your own...

(Sure, that’s what our relationship is. So why don’t you go outside, take a breather, and let me handle today’s entry.

What the man says is true. Dr. Brainwave is dead and I guess, technically speaking, he was our nemesis. He’s threatened our lives more times than we count. {We are notoriously bad counters though.} He’s destroyed our home, our place of work, our garden filled with one-of-a-kind miracle veggies. {Immortality radishes, vampiric celery, tasty kale.} And yet, he’s always been there, and I think we kind of just assumed he always would be. You see, a nemesis is not just another supervillain that you’ve got to fight with alarming frequency. They’re a major part of your life. Oftentimes your nemesis will know you better than anybody else in your social circle. Sure, they only took the time to get to know you on this deep level so that they could inflict all manner of psychological torture upon you, but still, it’s kind of nice that they invested that time in you.

A superhero’s relationship with their nemesis is always going to be complicated. You’ll usually see them more than you see your family. You’ll see them at their highest {when they believe that they’ve killed you} and at their lowest {surprisingly enough, after they’ve succeeded in killing you and find their life to be devoid of all meaning and purpose} you’ll occasionally find yourself fighting alongside them and yeah, in some twisted way, you’re going to form a kind of meaningful relationship with them. So what are you even supposed to do when they’ve died? Granted, you’re not as fanatically dependent on them for your continued existence and purpose as they are on you. There will always be crimes to stop and evil to vanquish. But any superhero would be hard-pressed to deny that their lives would be a little bit emptier without their nemesis. Perhaps that’s the real reason why so few superheroes actually kill their nemeses.

If you feel like you need to mourn the passing of your nemesis, that’s ok. You should allow yourself to space to do that. Do something that they would’ve loved. Hold a {vacant} bridge hostage, kick a {robot, stuffed, already dead} puppy into the sun, burn yourself in effigy! If you’re worried about getting attacked by other supervillains if you attend a funeral or memorial service for your nemesis don’t worry! Supervillains usually are not friends with one another. That funeral is gonna be hella empty. You can go there with no problem. Besides, supervillain funerals have been poorly attended ever since Lady Richter used her “funeral” as an opportunity to drop many of her fellow supervillains into a bottomless chasm. Ever since then, supervillains have had a hard time believing that any of their colleagues are actually dead. If any other supervillains attend your nemesis’ funeral, they’ll be lugging around giant ladders in case a bottomless chasm opens up beneath them, and they will be too exhausted to fight you.

The whole How To Hero crew {me, Parentheses Guy, Zach, Lawyer Guy, Dr. Brainwave’s Greatest Shame, Diego A. Wayghosts, Todd The Bomb-Disposal Bot} attended Dr. Brainwave’s funeral and, lo and behold, the only other person in attendance was Dr. Brainwave’s other nemesis, Professor Brain-Scrambler. {There was also, of course, a large contingent of mutant alligators.} He actually spoke quiet beautifully about his mad scientist colleague, after which we pulled him over to the side and told him that he was a hack and that he could suck it, in line with Dr. Brainwave’s final wishes. All in all it was a very emotional 2 am-4 am. {Supervillain funerals almost exclusively take place during this time which is colloquially known as “the witching hour.”} The funeral home was a bit cold, and I would say it was definitely haunted, but overall, it was a pretty solid funeral I’d say. 

Once you’ve spent some mourning the loss of an important and ever-present figure in your life, there is some housekeeping that you need to do. Reach out to your nemesis’ loved ones and express your condolences. The last thing you want is for their loved ones to vow revenge on you and beginning the cycle anew. If you can, talk with their loved ones, estranged family members, sidekicks, or unholy creations and make them understand that you were not responsible for the death of their loved ones. The quicker you do this the better. Blaming a superhero for the death of a loved one is 17th most common supervillain origin story. {number 68 is having your coal company run out of business by windmill farms but number 33 will blow your mind.} In our case, we sat down with Dr. Brainwave’s legions of mutant alligators and several hours of teeth baring and jaw snapping, a fragile peace agreement was forged. {The alligators for their part, behaved remarkably well. Not a single bared tooth or snapped jaw among them!}

Once that is taken care of you must attend to the rest of your nemesis’ personal affects. Their goons will be directionless, and this is a great time to many of them off the board. Have your friends in law enforcement scoop them up before they can find employment under a different supervillain. Or, if you really wanna get wild, invent a new identity for yourself, pose as a new supervillain, take control of your nemesis’ cronies, and then have them perform tasks that seem like crimes, but actually good deeds. Stuff like, “this old woman is an ancient evil spirt, help her cross the street” or “this is my territory now, nobody else is allowed to commit a crime here. If you see another villain doing crimes here, stop them!” Arrange operations against your nemesis’ lairs and begin systemically dismantling their operation. Since they were your nemesis you have the unique advantage of knowing where they’re likely to have kept most of their really cool stuff. And remember, in the souvenir game, it is first come, first serve. So lead the operation against their main fortress or stronghold yourself and claim all of those spleen-discombobulators and parasite helmets for yourself! For us, that just meant going into our own basement and, honestly, reclaiming a lot of stuff we thought we’d lost! We also blew up all of Dr. Brainwave’s stuff, as per his last will and testament. [Hi, again, a hastily scrawled note scratched into a chalkboard that says “destroy all of my Earthly things in the same manner in which I died” is not a will.] Well, we did it! And it was awesome! We didn’t even need to buy any explosives, it’s astounding how much of his stuff was already made out of bombs! {You know what? It’s actually pretty alarming how many explosives there were just under our house this entire time.})

Wait, how many bombs were there?

(I thought I told you to take the day off because you were being weird!)

You’re being weird! How many bombs did you find in Dr. Brainwave’s room?

(I don’t know, probably around 660. What do you think Curly?)

{I’d say around 664, maybe 665.}

Oh you have got to be kidding me.

(See, you’re being weird again. Buhbye! Now, any real superhero can’t exactly be without a nemesis. People will start to talk. “Oh yeah, that guy? He’s not really very superheroic, he doesn’t even have one evil person whose sole purpose in life is to destroy them. Poor guy.” So you need to find a new nemesis! {We recommend reading our advice for finding your first nemesis.} Try calling up all of your old enemies and see if they’d be interested in engaging in an eternal struggle between good and evil with you. Or, just go through the supervillain phonebook and pick a name that kind of seems like an inverse of your own name. {Or, if it’s still too soon for you to even think about replacing your dear departed nemesis, just prank call about of villains until you’re all cheered up.} Without Dr. Brainwave gone, we’ve obviously needed to start looking for a new supervillain correspondent... and, well... I guess just take a look at some of the auditions we’ve received.

Al “Da Boss” Marconi: “Ayyyy, da best way to save da world is to stab a twerp right between the eyes and laugh as he bleeds out on the pavement!” {Factually incorrect.}

Dr. Python: “So this job comes with a free room right? My last roommate turned out to be Ultiman so obviously that wasn’t going to work out and I kind of very badly need a new place to live.” {Seems to believe that living with Ultiman is a bad idea because he is a superhero but living with us is fine. Which leads us to believe he either doesn’t really get who we are, or does not respect us.}

Giorgio the Evil Mime: “...” {This guy was Zach’s top choice, but he is clearly grieving and not in his right mind. He seems to have forgotten that our supervillain correspondent needs to be able to speak and make intrusive comments on our blog posts.}

As you can see, we have been having some trouble, but luckily we’ve got interviews with Jhonny McBarn-Burner, Mustard Man and the dreaded Karalaxus who is actually a very pleasant guy once you agree to give up your free will and join his horde of mindless zombies. So hopefully one of those guys pans out.)

Stop everything! We don’t need a new supervillain correspondent. (Dude, for real, you need to take a break. You’re going a bit cuckoo you know?) No, I’m serious, and your face is a bit cuckoo actually so how about you step the heck off.  (Rude.) We don’t need to replace Brainwave, because I don’t think he’s actually gone {What are you saying! Wait, did we actually all die in the explosion? Was he the only to survive? Is he mourning us? Which of us did he mourn the most? Me?} No, I believe that he’s dead. But I also believe that he died on purpose. (Well sure, we all saw him unrepentant supervillainously sacrifice himself so that we could live!) I don’t think he sacrificed himself at all actually. I think he planned on dying, and that he planned on benefitting from it in a way that none of us could have foreseen.  (Ok, you’re gonna have to walk us through that.) Ok, so remember when we went through Brainwave’s stuff, we found a grand total of 665 bombs right?  (I guess?) {We are notoriously bad at counting.} True, but I think we got it right this time. I think that there were only 665 explosive devices in Brainwave’s lair/our basement. [Only?] Yes only! What kind of fanatical supervillain builds so many explosives but stops before hitting 666! The devil’s number! I think he did have 666 bombs, until he mailed one to our office! (Wait, what? You think Brainwave sent us that bomb? That seems like a stretch.) Oh? Does it? The most evil person that we are acquainted with sent us a bomb? That seem awfully farfetched to you? (Well, when you put it like that...) And he was wearing rocket boots the whole time! We could’ve strapped the bomb to one of his rockets and launched it through the skylight without him having to carry it! {That reminds me, our landlord called and said that we definitely lost our security deposit because of that skylight.} (Ah DANG IT!!!!) I think that he waited until the timer was low to reveal that he was wearing rocket boots so he could make his sacrifice play. And hey, he knew that the time on the bomb was displaying the wrong time and yet he knew exactly when the bomb was actually going to go off. That isn’t suspicious to any of you??? (Look, if I made a big deal about everything I found suspicious our coworkers we’d never get anything done!) {Is this about my outstanding deal with the devil?} (No, actually.) And Parenthesis Guy, you even said that the funeral home seemed haunted during the funeral! What if that was Dr. Brainwave! What if he devised this whole scenario so he could die and become a ghost!  (Why would he do that? And doesn’t this all seem a little convoluted.) Yeah, dude, he’s a supervillain! Something the rest of you seemed to have lost sight of. Of course he would come up with an absurdly complicated plan to become a ghost. From a supervillain’s perspective, being a ghost would be way better than being a frail old human with the physique of a scientist.  (I don’t know man, I’m just not seeing it.) What! It makes total sense. He freaks us out with a bomb. Classic supervillain move. He puts us on an emotional rollercoaster by making us think he sacrificed himself to save us, causing us to question everything we thought we knew about the sort of person he was. All while shedding his physical form in order to commit crimes as a ghost. It’s a classic Brainwave move!  (I think maybe you should lie down buddy. You’re starting to go a bit crazy. And not in a fun way like the rest of us.) {Yeah when you make us look like the sane ones you’ve gotta throw in the towel man.} Yeah. Yeah ok, maybe you’re right. (Yeah, maybe we’re right. Let’s call it day, we’ve still gotta go feed the mutant alligators.) You guys go ahead I’ll catch up. {Ok, remember to put on your armor before you enter the alligator pen this time.} Yeah, yeah I’ll remember. All right Brainwave, the others are gone. I know you’re here.

<Uch fine. You got me.> You absolute bas- <Listen, you’re right. I’m every name you’re about to call me. But can we do this later? Right now, I need your help.>

[freelancesumandas]

Who gets the house in a Texas divorce?

Houston Family Law Lawyers: We’ve all heard the tried and true sayings regarding a home. It’s the most important purchase you will ever make, some will say. It’s an investment in your future, others will opine. Whatever it is that you think about your home the fact is that it is a major investment and it is important. There’s another element that you will need to take into consideration and that is the emotional elements that surround the purchase of and enjoyment of a personal residence.

Your home is where the memories, good and bad, that your family created live and remain. The decision of what will happen to your home as a result of a divorce is not one that can be arrived at without a great deal of contemplation and likely negotiation with your spouse. If you have children then this decision becomes even more important and likely more emotionally driven. That is usually a bad combination for a divorce that requires you to have nerves of steel while maintaining a certain degree of objectivity in your negotiations.

Ultimately your case has its own unique set of facts and circumstances that would be taken into consideration by a judge if you and your spouse cannot agree on what is to happen with your home. As I mentioned a moment ago a lot will depend on whether or not you and your spouse have children. In the event that you do the next step in the equation will be the judge making a determination to see if one of you or your spouse can actually afford the monthly mortgage payment on a single income.

The most important issue regarding your children is likely the most important issue regarding who gets the family home in the event that either you or your spouse can pay themortgage. Whichever parent is awarded the right by the judge to determine the primary residence of your children, that will obviously give that parent a huge leg up in being able to remain in the home. The reason for this is that the judge will want to ensure that your children have some stability and consistency in their lives in the midst of all the change and upheaval as a result of your divorce.

In the event that neither you nor your spouse can afford the mortgage payments it is almost assured that the judge will order the house to be sold and the profits split in some manner between you and your spouse. This equity will likely be community property and if so then the factors that we discussed yesterday in our blog post will be applied here as well to determine what share you receive as a result of the sale of the home and what share your spouse receives.

An alternative to the set up that I laid out for you all is the following: the judge awards the parent with the right to determine the primary residence of your children the home until your children graduate from high school or any other date that he or she believes is fair. After that date the house will be put on the market for sale and the proceeds from the sale split according to a breakdown set forth by the judge. This allows for some stability for your children, while ensuring that both parents share in the benefit of the sale of the home.

Spousal Maintenance examined

Whether you are in a position to expect to receive spousal maintenance in your divorce, or you are worried about the possibility of having to pay spousal maintenance in the divorce you should pay attention to this subject.

Spousal maintenance is money that is paid from one spouse to the other for daily living expenses when the receiving spouse cannot meet the minimal, basic standards for living on their own. This could be because he or she is disabled, has a lack of education or simply has not worked in many years and needs to transition back into the workforce.

I’ve used this example before when discussing how a judge can split up community property in a divorce but I believe it bears repeating in this context as well. Suppose that you are a physician who has been in practice for a few years and earns $250,000 a year. Your spouse has been a homemaker since your marriage began and has only a high school education. On top of these factors she worked part time as a waitress while you were in medical school in order to pay for your schooling and to support the household.

Your paying spousal maintenance to your ex-spouse is not only justified, it will likely be determined, because she will now have to find a full time job to support herself after being out of work for many years, but also because she helped you in your career path by paying for your school with her income. You can look at the spousal maintenance payments as sort of like a payment of “Debt” that you are crediting back to her.

How frequently is spousal maintenance ordered in Texas divorces?

Family Law Attorneys Houston: Not all that frequently, from my experience. First of all, judges do not like to award spousal maintenance unless it is necessary in terms of fairness and survival to do so. A second reason why spousal maintenance is not as common nowadays is because both you and your spouse likely work and earn similar wages. More women are graduating from college from men and this has been the case for sometime. So, if you’re a man your wife likely has just as much of an education to her credit as you do- if not more.

Child Custody in Texas divorces

We’ve reached a point where property and money issues have been gone over with a fine tooth comb, or at least a comb that is close to being finely toothed. Now we can jump into subject matter that is truly important for many of you going through a divorce, namely child custody determinations.

The term “Child custody” does not actually appear at all in the Texas family code. Much of what we consider to make up child custody- time with your child, where your child lives primarily, rights and duties to your child- are broken down into conservatorship, possession, access and visitation orders. Custody is a term that lawyers and clients alike utilize with frequency so I will do so in this section. Just know that your divorce decree probably won’t have the word “custody” show up anywhere.

Child custody is comprised up of many rights and duties to your child. Will you or your spouse gain the right to determine the primary residence of your child? How will you and your ex-spouse make decisions regarding educational, medical and psychiatric matters? These are the types of important subjects that will fall under the banner of child custody?

Will the wife in your divorce have an advantage when it comes to custody issues?

This is a concern that fathers raise with me a great deal. If you are a dad you can breathe a little easier knowing that there is not specific advantage within the laws on divorce that provides your wife with a leg up when it comes to your kids. In fact, judges are not supposed to presume or assume that your wife will be a better parent in terms of future prospects of raising your child. If your case makes it to a trial then you both will need to present evidence that will show the judge why you should be the parent who gets to have the kids live with you primarily. It is largely a merit based decision, though fathers often put themselves at a disadvantage in this regard. We will start tomorrow’s blog post by discussing this in greater detail.

Questions about family law and divorce? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC

Family Lawyers in Houston: Our office has licensed family law attorneys ready and able to meet with you six days a week to discuss your family law matter. Please contact us today so that we can address any questions you have in a comfortable and pressure free environment ... Continue Reading

[bryanfaganlaw]

Who gets the house in a Texas divorce?

If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, Who gets the house in a Texas divorce? with the great process!

Spring Divorce Lawyers: We’ve all heard the tried and true sayings regarding a home. It’s the most important purchase you will ever make, some will say. It’s an investment in your future, others will opine. Whatever it is that you think about your home the fact is that it is a major investment and it is important. There’s another element that you will need to take into consideration and that is the emotional elements that surround the purchase of and enjoyment of a personal residence.

Your home is where the memories, good and bad, that your family created live and remain. The decision of what will happen to your home as a result of a divorce is not one that can be arrived at without a great deal of contemplation and likely negotiation with your spouse. If you have children then this decision becomes even more important and likely more emotionally driven. That is usually a bad combination for a divorce that requires you to have nerves of steel while maintaining a certain degree of objectivity in your negotiations.

Ultimately your case has its own unique set of facts and circumstances that would be taken into consideration by a judge if you and your spouse cannot agree on what is to happen with your home. As I mentioned a moment ago a lot will depend on whether or not you and your spouse have children. In the event that you do the next step in the equation will be the judge making a determination to see if one of you or your spouse can actually afford the monthly mortgage payment on a single income.

The most important issue regarding your children is likely the most important issue regarding who gets the family home in the event that either you or your spouse can pay themortgage. Whichever parent is awarded the right by the judge to determine the primary residence of your children, that will obviously give that parent a huge leg up in being able to remain in the home. The reason for this is that the judge will want to ensure that your children have some stability and consistency in their lives in the midst of all the change and upheaval as a result of your divorce.

In the event that neither you nor your spouse can afford the mortgage payments it is almost assured that the judge will order the house to be sold and the profits split in some manner between you and your spouse. This equity will likely be community property and if so then the factors that we discussed yesterday in our blog post will be applied here as well to determine what share you receive as a result of the sale of the home and what share your spouse receives.

An alternative to the set up that I laid out for you all is the following: the judge awards the parent with the right to determine the primary residence of your children the home until your children graduate from high school or any other date that he or she believes is fair. After that date the house will be put on the market for sale and the proceeds from the sale split according to a breakdown set forth by the judge. This allows for some stability for your children, while ensuring that both parents share in the benefit of the sale of the home.

Spousal Maintenance examined

Divorce Lawyer in Spring TX: Whether you are in a position to expect to receive spousal maintenance in your divorce, or you are worried about the possibility of having to pay spousal maintenance in the divorce you should pay attention to this subject.

Spousal maintenance is money that is paid from one spouse to the other for daily living expenses when the receiving spouse cannot meet the minimal, basic standards for living on their own. This could be because he or she is disabled, has a lack of education or simply has not worked in many years and needs to transition back into the workforce.

I’ve used this example before when discussing how a judge can split up community property in a divorce but I believe it bears repeating in this context as well. Suppose that you are a physician who has been in practice for a few years and earns $250,000 a year. Your spouse has been a homemaker since your marriage began and has only a high school education. On top of these factors she worked part time as a waitress while you were in medical school in order to pay for your schooling and to support the household.

Your paying spousal maintenance to your ex-spouse is not only justified, it will likely be determined, because she will now have to find a full time job to support herself after being out of work for many years, but also because she helped you in your career path by paying for your school with her income. You can look at the spousal maintenance payments as sort of like a payment of “Debt” that you are crediting back to her.

How frequently is spousal maintenance ordered in Texas divorces?

Spring TX Divorce Lawyer: Not all that frequently, from my experience. First of all, judges do not like to award spousal maintenance unless it is necessary in terms of fairness and survival to do so. A second reason why spousal maintenance is not as common nowadays is because both you and your spouse likely work and earn similar wages. More women are graduating from college from men and this has been the case for sometime. So, if you’re a man your wife likely has just as much of an education to her credit as you do- if not more.

Child Custody in Texas divorces

We’ve reached a point where property and money issues have been gone over with a fine tooth comb, or at least a comb that is close to being finely toothed. Now we can jump into subject matter that is truly important for many of you going through a divorce, namely child custody determinations.

The term “Child custody” does not actually appear at all in the Texas family code. Much of what we consider to make up child custody- time with your child, where your child lives primarily, rights and duties to your child- are broken down into conservatorship, possession, access and visitation orders. Custody is a term that lawyers and clients alike utilize with frequency so I will do so in this section. Just know that your divorce decree probably won’t have the word “custody” show up anywhere.

Child custody is comprised up of many rights and duties to your child. Will you or your spouse gain the right to determine the primary residence of your child? How will you and your ex-spouse make decisions regarding educational, medical and psychiatric matters? These are the types of important subjects that will fall under the banner of child custody?

Will the wife in your divorce have an advantage when it comes to custody issues?

Spring Divorce Lawyer: This is a concern that fathers raise with me a great deal. If you are a dad you can breathe a little easier knowing that there is not specific advantage within the laws on divorce that provides your wife with a leg up when it comes to your kids. In fact, judges are not supposed to presume or assume that your wife will be a better parent in terms of future prospects of raising your child. If your case makes it to a trial then you both will need to present evidence that will show the judge why you should be the parent who gets to have the kids live with you primarily. It is largely a merit based decision, though fathers often put themselves at a disadvantage in this regard. We will start tomorrow’s blog post by discussing this in greater detail.

Questions about family law and divorce? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC

Our office has licensed family law attorneys ready and able to meet with you six days a week to discuss your family law matter. Please contact us today so that we can address any questions you have in a comfortable and pressure free environment ... Continue Reading

[wildflower8281]

Receiving Gifts

The moment of receiving gifts is such an interesting chance to observe humanity!

How do you receive gifts?! What are your feelings around receiving gifts from people?

Do you love it or avoid & dread it? Do you burst with gratitude or is that moment maybe extremely uncomfortable or awkward for you? Or are you somewhere in between, depending on the person, the occasion, the gift?

The way we receive gifts reflects so much about us!

The way we receive gifts manifests:

Our beliefs around worthiness and our comfortability in knowing we deserve good things

How we have cultivated our energy of gratitude & receiving in general

Our comfort with expressing emotions

Our ability to receive in other realms of our life, namely receiving pleasure, love, opportunities, wealth and all manner of amazing gifts from the Universe.

In many cases our familial or cultural upbringing regarding gift-giving and how to receive gifts, the meaning of gift-giving, etc.

Following the Thread of Receivership to your Core Beliefs

So much of the energy around an awkward receiving revolves around the person feeling uncomfortable because there is a deeply seated belief that they are not worthy of gifts of love, time, service, goodness.

Also, most likely, they had no model of gracious receiving/worthiness in their lives to watch.

On the outside, it may just always feel uncomfortable & awkward, but if we focus and follow that thread, it will lead to some answers that can be unraveled, loosened up and opened to make the moment of receiving actually a moment of great joy and ease!

Whenever I have encountered a person in my life who receives gifts/compliments/love very uncomfortably, I have realized that it is very linked to their understanding of Love and Self-Worth. Like intimately tied to it. 

Their stories & beliefs regarding self-worth is unique to each of them. The Medicine & Magic is in following the thread to the origin and then being brave enough to unravel it, let it go and claim a new story, create a new story around their worthiness…. 

The stories of worthiness and love may come from what parents have said or modeled, they may just come from our society that values hard work and does not value play & rest, thereby making being the receiver the more uncomfortable position for many, assented to unconsciously.  How many of us have bought into the cultural story that in order to rest/play/receive, we must work hard first?! We must do/prove/produce before being worthy of the gifts of play/rest/leisure/luxury/love. So many of us think that is just “how it is,” but it’s actually just a cultural story that we can choose to buy into or not. 

What following the thread of  Receivership does for us is land us to our core beliefs about our worthiness, about what we believe to be true about simply our existence. Not our work, not our looks, not what we have done with our lives….About simply US BEING HERE.

Do you believe that you are worthy of love and gifts just because You Are? 

Because You Are You? Because You Are Here?

Can you just relax and receive goodness, compliments, love from others and simply say Thank you?

If not, follow that thread, My Friend!

Why not? What makes it uncomfortable? Keep following that thread and you will arrive right to the heart of it - which is You and Your Core Beliefs about Yourself.

Why People Don’t Go There

People don’t go there because it means they can’t blame anyone else anymore.

Many people just avoid exploring this thread because addressing the awkward uncomfortable-ness means going to the core of who they are, what they believe about who they are and, wait for it,

Taking Responsibility for their beliefs about their worthiness, meaning it’s not anyone else’s fault anymore. But rather we take responsibility for how we feel at any moment, for what we believe about ourselves and for what we feel and believe even about past events in our lives. Things we may have formerly said, This happened To Me, are upleveled into This happened AND this is how I’m choosing to view it and feel about it!

People don’t go here because it means they can no longer blame someone else, or Life, or God, for how they feel and what they believe about their value & the identity they have formed around old stories... 

It means facing the Truth that we have assented to stories and meanings that are not true and were of low vibrational energy for years. It means releasing the attachment we have to our identities around these low vibe stories, which for many can feel extremely uncomfortable. 

We get comfy and cozy with the energies that we vibe each day, even if they are low. We create identities around our unworthiness, our anxiety, our inability to be competent or lovable or free. Insert preferred adjective. Whatever the story - if it’s been playing for decades, it will feel comfortable and familiar to us. It’s easy for our brains to loop it and it’s the frequency our bodies have become accustomed to.

Stepping out of that energy and opening into something new feels scary.

Note that this is just the brain wanting you to stay where it’s familiar and easy. 

In order to expose ourselves to greater Joy, Happiness and Freedom, we need to step into those places and unravel, and then recalibrate newness.

Ooops. Welcome to the Inner Journey. Where Light is Shed on the Darkness. And re-scripting our stories means unraveling everything we’ve formerly accepted to be true.

For those who prefer to stay where it’s familiar, they will remain in the awkwardness of their energy and the Universe will not deliver more glorious and wonderful gifts because She sees that they do not know how to receive well, and are not in a stance of open receivership. She sees that they are uncomfortable receiving and also are not cultivating the energy of gratitude for all things, always.  For these people, receiving gifts, pleasure, compliments, opportunities will be sparse, uncomfortable and always have a weird tinge of lack & not-worthy surrounding them. 

The Truth is that Just By Being You, You Are Worthy of All Goodness & Beauty The Universe Has to Offer. When we step into this Truth and Radiate it, the Universe Loves showering us with gifts in all realms of our lives! 

The Universe Treats Us How We Treat Ourselves!

The Art of Receiving Graciously

Many of us probably learned gift-receiving behaviors through our family and cultural experiences growing up: holidays and birthday parties mostly. So, depending on the energy of our families, we learned any number of ways/behaviors around receiving gifts.

My immediate family was always very expressive, gracious & affectionate, and so I learned to be happy, grateful, to hug and express joy at receiving gifts most of the time. I’m sure there were times as a kid when I may have stated, “This isn’t what I wanted” or “I already have this” but overall, receiving was an exciting time, buzzing with joy and anticipation. 

Later in life, in the convent actually, I learned a further lesson about receiving. It seems as we mature into adulthood, it becomes harder for us to receive help, favors, gifts of time or service, etc. We get a little proud or independent or just begin to filter our emotions more, due to societal mores. When I was in the convent, we learned a wonderful concept regarding how to receive: Receiving a gift is an act of charity (love.)

Instead of pulling away, becoming stoic or refusing a gift/compliment/favor/service, we were taught that receiving that small act of love from someone else in a stance of graciousness is actually a gift back to the Giver, in the moment. It is actually an act of Love to receive graciously.

Think of Jesus (or any high vibrational human you prefer honestly.)

Firstly, he was always in a stance of receivership, always welcoming, always open and grateful - to others, to children, to life. Arms Open, Welcoming All Gifts into His Field. 

Stance of Receivership!

Secondly,  how would he receive gifts, any gifts? To him, it wouldn’t really matter what the gift was (time, service, words, food, art, a purchase) but rather he would focus his gratitude on the Giver and on the thoughtfulness, the time, the energy that person spent in preparing, seeking and sharing this gift. 

Think of the ‘sinful woman’ who used her own tears, her precious oils and her own hair to wash his feet. Unlike most people, he received her in tender gratitude and noted to everyone at the table the time, energy and precious resources she utilized in carrying out this gift and act of service. Jesus would receive all things with grace and love, in the moment returning the love back to the Giver. A Full Circle. Love & Gratitude. Welcoming & Thanking.

This understanding helped me to become an even better Receiver, because I learned that it wasn’t about the gift or about me, but more about the Giver & more about Energy. The art of receiving graciously is in itself a Gift in return.

That to receive graciously is to drop the resistance we might feel towards 

if we are worthy and

whether or not we actually want the gift,  

and it simply opens channels of love energy between Receiver & Giver, where Abundance and Joy dwell always.

Stance of Receivership Always

Once we open and cultivate this stance of receivership, this openness to gifts, knowing we are worthy and living in gratitude, the Universe quite obviously opens the floodgates and pours forth blessings and gifts, so get ready!

(*A Note on Service/Generosity - This post is focused on Receiving, but it goes without saying that this goes hand-in-hand with the Energy of Generosity/Service. I think the majority of us are more comfortable with serving/giving/working/offering value than we are comfortable receiving it, so I’m not focusing on generosity/service/giving here. But they are like yin and yang. We cannot be in a Stance of Receivership only, obviously as that is selfish and the Universe feels that. There is an energetic chasm between Selfishness and Generous Receivership. The energy is vastly different. To be in a true Stance of Receivership implies Gratitude and the intention to use the gifts to further extend the high vibrational frequencies of love, joy, gratitude by continuing the giving/service/gifting outwards.Receiving graciously implies you are open to allow the Flow of Abundance through you and back into the Universe.)

The more I have consciously fostered this Energy of Receivership & Gratitude, the more abundance, work & travel opportunities, beautiful spaces, plentiful chunks of leisure time, amazing foods & drinks and fun experiences have been ushered my way. 

It means being open to not only material gifts like on holidays, but also receiving new opportunities for wealth, for travel or amazing experiences. It means being open to new levels of pleasure & sensations in our bodies, with ourselves and with Lovers. It means being open to new insights in our hearts and minds, tapping into truths and dimensions of ourselves where the world opens up and further shows us Her Beauty, Her Wildness, Her Magic! There are Infinite Means of Abundance that the Universe can usher into our experience, if we simply believe we are worthy of them all!

Remember, the Universe treats us how we treat ourselves. 

Know you are worthy, lovable and deserve all good things just by being You. 

Make this your Belief System and watch the Gifts of all kinds start rolling in! 

Stance of Receivership!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

(Photos: Unsplash)

[lexiseigneur]

Chapter fifteen: Betrayal and bargaining

They drove through the night, only stopping to fill their gas tanks. Quinlan did not protest as their numbers afforded them safety and also because Lexi no longer needed protection. Both Raul and Gus slept in the back seats. Lexi had taken the wheel and Quinlan, tired from the events of the day, sat with his eyes closed. In the silence of the car and of his mind, he pondered. The day he had shoved that needle in Lexi’s neck now appeared very different. It mattered very little what his intentions had been. His silhouette still overlapped with the horrible man as they both held onto a struggling Lexi. It was repugnant. Quinlan growled lowly in self-hatred.

“Quinlan…please.”

For the third time since silence had settled in the vehicle, Lexi had to remind him to keep his feelings from overflowing into the Bond. She reached for his hand and squeezed.

“Perhaps I should drive. It would distract me from unpalatable thoughts.”

“Would you rather answer a few questions for me? If that is not distraction enough, we’ll switch.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Why did you call Gus a Sun Hunter?”

“Do you recall that I told you I associated with the Ancients?”

Lexi nodded.

“For thousands of years, they used both sapient Strigoi and humans. Those who could walk in the daylight to do their bidding were called Sun Hunters. Gus is the only survivor of this cast of elite warriors. Their name will die with him.”

“Can we trust him if he worked for the Ancients?”

“He had little choice. My student, Vaun, had chosen him and would not have taken no for an answer.”

“Your student?”

Lexi smiled and glanced in his direction.

“I taught most of those Strigoi, yes. Vaun was one of them and the one who taught Gus.”

Out of the blue, she chuckled.

“I fail to see how this could be amusing to you.”

“Gus is you grand-student?”

What a silly thought. She glanced again and this time her musical laugh rang clear. Quinlan loved that sound. He relaxed.

“So you guys worked together for the Ancients?”

“He might have but I never worked for them. The Ancients and I had a common goal and we used each other.”

Just like Lexi and Quinlan had when they had met for the first time. That seemed so very long ago.

“I mean, you never told me about him, only those who died in the blast.”

“He had left the fight before that event. In fact, he had already attempted to remove himself from the unfolding war when I found him.”

“You dragged him back, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

He remembered that day. Seeing the Sun Hunter kiss a beautiful young woman and calling his name. Using her as a motivation, he had convinced Augustin to rejoin the cause. To protect her from the Master’s shadow, he had persuaded him to give her up. What a hypocrite he now was. Quinlan shared that memory but strived to keep his self-disgust out of it.

“Good God, Quinlan.”

She grinned and shook her head.

“Have you ever met any of your allies…hum…nicely?”

“Humans tend to react negatively to my appearance.”

Her face fell.

“To our appearance, now.”

Quinlan leaned and tucked a wavy strand behind her ear. The stripes on her temple waned within the white roots of her hair. This was not a hardship he could spare her.

“Yes. To both of us.”

“I don’t think they were very scared today though.”

“Augustin would have told them what to expect.”

She scratched at her eyebrow which had also turned colorless.

“You’re right.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“They might get a little worried because I’m getting thirsty and their smells and sounds don’t help.”

Quinlan was tired but he had drunk the last bag just a few hours ago.

“Can you manage for the moment? Maybe we can hunt on the way.”

“I’m sure I would be able to last several days without a meal if need be. As long as we don’t need to fight or run.”

Quinlan lowered his window and smelled the cold night air. With some luck, they would encounter animals on their way.

The city sounds and smells seeped into the SUV. They would reach their destination shortly. Unfortunately, Quinlan had not succeeded in locating the scent of animal prey. He too started to feel the burn of thirst creeping. Gus was driving again and his radio beeped. A low voice came out of the crackling speaker.

“Arturo is in place. It’s clear. Drive in.”

Just like that, they were smuggled into Manhattan. The Sun Hunter relaxed perceptibly.

“You guys have some food to spare? Maybe a few Partnership bars?” ssked Lexi.

Quinlan stared at her, bemused.

“What the fuck? Are you joking?” replied Gus.

“No. But if you don’t have food to spare I’ll manage without.”

“Are you serious?”  asked Quinlan.

“Yes. Our differences lie deeper than what meets the eye.”

“Oh.”

He scowled. It was idiotic to be bothered by such an insignificant distinction between them, but he was. During the fleeting moments they still had, he wanted to share everything with her and for her to do the same. This aspect of human nature would remain forever closed to him.

“Ok…we’ve got some food but I thought…Quinlan, you too?”

“Only women Dhampir can eat human food.”

Lexi said that with such conviction that the cousins did not question it. Then Quinlan remembered that to their knowledge she was the only female Dhampir. He repressed a smile.

“And only female Dhampir need shampoo or is that a wig?”

Lexi laughed out loud and that sound made him want to purr.

“No, it’s real.”

The two of them then chatted about their dinner and the sleeping accommodation they would be granted. Quinlan was unsure how he felt at the ease with which Lexi could talk with that man. No…he did not care about that per se. He simply did not want to share her. The end was too near.

“It’s a good idea if not everyone inside sees you. I’ve only brought my brothers to get you but I don’t exactly trust all the men in there.”

“How do you suggest we accomplish that?” asked Quinlan.

“You can access my flat from the roof. Then tomorrow, we’ll find you another spot to stay.”

The radio beeped again.

“Gus! They aren’t fucking answering. Something is wrong.”

“Puta madre…”

“What’s going on?” asked Raul. His eyes were wide with worry.

This one was not a warrior. Quinlan could tell by the way that issue had sent his heart into frantic thumping. The Sun Hunter ignored his cousin and spoke into the radio after adjusting its frequency.

“What are you guys playing at? We’re almost at the gate! I can see the guards at the fucking window.”

There was static then a deeply unpleasant voice spoke.

“Hey, Gus…You thought you could go on a wild goose chase and I would keep the place for you? Turn away before we start shooting.”

“Creem, have you lost your mind?”

“You snooze you lose, asshole.”

The Dhampir sighed at this inconvenient turn of events. It seemed like Augustin had underestimated the treachery of the associates he had left in charge of the business.

“We might have to help him regain control over his black market. The plan depends on his connections and we do not want loose ends threatening everything.”

“Yes. This obviously happened because of his absence. We are somewhat responsible.”

Gus swore and barked orders into the radio. They turned around and the four cars parked several blocks away.

“That puto is going to eat his shiny teeth,” said Gus with a disgusted face. He struck the wheel once in anger.

“We believe we can be of assistance,” said Quinlan.

“They’re expecting us to try something right now. Most of us haven’t slept in days. We need to regroup.”

“Can we reach Red Hook safely from here?” asked the Dhampir.

Gus glanced at him then at the other cars and their occupants. The man felt responsible for their lives, Quinlan was certain of it.

“What’s in Red Hook?”

“A safe place. At least it still was when I left it more than a year ago. This is our nearest option.”

“I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice right now. Maybe you should drive. I’ll tell the others to follow.”

“That’s where the doctor died, is it not?”

Her thoughts were imbued with a hint of grief.

“It is.”

“Is his body still…?”

“No.”

Quinlan had not taken the time to bury the man but he had not left it there either. His final resting place was the Red Hook Channel. Now that this information unsettled Lexi, he regretted his thoughtlessness. The Dhampir took the wheel and they departed.

The street was dark and deserted when they arrived. The building stood like a monument to his late owner. Like the exterminator had been, it was oversized, square and practical. Quinlan searched his metal trunk and at the very bottom, he found his collection of keys. One of them unlocked the fortified door and silently, the men walked inside. Quinlan and Lexi unloaded the SUV and brought their precious cargo to safety. Once the heavy latch closed behind the last of their small troop, there was a perceptible wave a relief. They had been driving for more than a day before reaching New York and all were exhausted. The space inside was large, all concrete and metal with clutter that must have once been organized. Already, some of the men explored. Someone in an adjoining room yelled “Dibs on that bed!”. But the Sun Hunter did not appear inclined to rest. Because of his actions, his men were deprived of the safety he had been building for a year. Quinlan thought that the Sun Hunter ought to be proud. For weeks, those men had followed him faithfully. Even now, not a single complaint had been uttered despite the precariousness of their situation.

“Quinlan? Lexi? Let’s talk,” he said and immediately walked to a glass and metal table in the center of the open space. Lexi’s brow furrowed slightly. Quinlan perceived her guilt when he focused. The man gathered papers and pencils then drew a detailed map of the facility which had been stolen from him.

“Here, you can only get buzzed in and at all times, there will be two guards with automatic weapons pointed at the gate.”

Straight to the point. The Dhampir appreciated it.

“That is of course if Creem even continued with the protocols in place.”

Gu’s jaw tensed and Lexi’s guilt grew deeper.

“The man is ambitious but he is a moron.”

“Lexi. This is not our fault. Augustin is an intelligent man and I doubt this blindsided him. Before we arrived here, he knew the men he had left behind could not be completely trusted. He also knew where his priorities lied. Killing the Master is more important to him than his business.”

Her hazel eyes glanced up at him briefly and she nodded.

“There is a door on the roof and it’s not usually guarded because there is no way to climb up from the street. That’s your access point. There are UV lamps just inside but you guys can power through, right?”

“Child’s play,” replied Quinlan.

“How many men are inside?” asked Lexi.

“About fifteen. I doubt that changed much.”

Quinlan snorted at the prospect. At least they might be somewhat useful for them.

“Do you care about those men? About them dying quickly?” he asked.

“No. Those cutthroat bitches can die crying.”

Quinlan reached for Lexi’s small hand.

“We should attempt to feed during that assault.”

“What? But…”

He could taste her fear. She was terrified of inflicting that kind of suffering.

“You have not done it yet but we cannot steal blood within the city limits without attracting attention.”

Her eyes rose to him and her lips disappeared into a fine line. Gus stared through this silent exchange and Quinlan was surprised to see concern for Lexi on his face.

“Can you excuse us for a moment?” said the Dhampir.

Gus nodded and walked away to talk to his men. The couple locked themselves inside the master bedroom under the spiral stairs. In there, everything was just as cluttered. The bed was undone. Lexi’s fear had already subsided and now there was resolve on her face.

“Show me,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“How you do it. How it feels. I want to know.”

He approached her, hungry for physical closeness. Then Quinlan selected a memory carefully. It was also in the heat of battle. That day, he had fed to regain strength.

The warrior skewered a centurion and turned to Quinlan. The Dhampir smacked him on the head with the hilt of his sword to stun him. With an expression of mild surprise, the man hit the muddy ground. Quinlan leaned over the body. It smelled of sweat and adrenaline. The thirst burned his throat and each breath was painful because of it. The stinger closed around the thick neck. Small muscles inside the appendage adjusted the position of the bone to align with a usable artery. Once a proper vessel was found, the knife-life structure pierced the flesh. The stinger made a seal around the wound and the blood poured inside of it. Muscles pumped the liquid to his throat and the burning faded slowly. Pressure had to be controlled to avoid breaking the seal. Powerful muscles adjusted it carefully with each contraction. The last pumpings of the stinger were the strongest ones, as they coincided with the dying beats of the victim’s heart. The appendage retracted and satisfaction cursed through his entire body.

Lexi shuddered in his arms.

“I will do it. I can do it. I even considered it when the SUVs arrived and I thought the men wanted to hurt you.”

Quinlan purred at that admission.

“I love it when you are…fierce.”

Lexi’s cheeks adopted a lovely alabaster shade. Quinlan nuzzled them and his purr grew louder. He wanted more time away from humans. Away from everything.

“When we get there…to the volcano…if we were not followed and there is time...”

“Yes?”

“Maybe we can wait…just the two of us. No humans, no mission.”

The woman was tempted. Her resolve wavered for the briefest of moments.

“If we do that, we will never finish this. I know it. We cannot put ourselves in a situation where giving up would be so easy. I don’t trust myself.”

“Why must you be so reasonable?”

Lexi’s laughter resonated in the room. He knew the words had reminded her of a cold day by a river.

“One hour. My reward for finishing a lifelong mission. Is that reasonable?”

The woman continued smiling for a moment but then, slowly, starting with her eyebrows, her face contorted in pain. She cried even as he kissed and held her.

“One hour. Not a second longer. Or I won’t be able to finish this.”

“Yes. Not a second longer.”

Smells of cooked food filled the space when they returned to talk to Gus. The men had eaten in record times. Around the table, they stood as their leader explained how the Dhampir would start the assault. He described the layout of the different rooms further as well as a few words on the different people they would encounter inside. In particular, he emphasized Creem’s appearance. The man in question sported silver teeth and would likely stand out because of it.

“You guys should just do as much damage as possible before they realize what’s happening. Then you will have buzz us in. We’ll finish them.”

A corpulent bearded man in a knitted cap and a dark-skinned lanky one exchanged looks. Quinlan did not appreciate their vaguely masked sneers.

“Yeah, I totally believe the tall one can do that but the small…huh…woman?” said the bearded man.

He had smirked while pronouncing the last word. As if Lexi was not worthy of that title. Quinlan was instantly submerged by the desire to relieve him of his head. But he restrained himself because they needed all the help they could get. Lexi jumped on the table, ran its length and stood above the man. Sheets of papers had flown off the table in her wake and her machete brushed the tip of his nose. A guttural growl resonated from her chest and filled the sudden silence.

“I am not bound by the limitations of your kind, human,” he said with a low voice.

Shivers ran down Quinlan’s spine and the desire for violence vanished. He grinned at the distraught face of that foolish man.

“Ok, let’s calm down here. You two have the same methods, heh?” said Gus while scratching his temple with a finger.

Gus seemed particularly tired in that instant. The Dhampir raised a brow and recalled how he had snapped the neck of a man more than a year ago, in this very city and also in front of the Sun Hunter.

“Not exactly, Mister Elizalde. He is still alive, is he not?”

Lexi sprinted back to his side, scowling. She grimaced and touched her throat.

“I should not have done that,” she shared.

“You ain’t gonna give a speech, Lexi? To motivate the troops?” Asked Gus.

“No, that’s not my style. I am going to assume that everyone here is smart enough to realize that we all share the same goal. I will also assume that we will all do everythingthat is necessary to achieve it. None of you are children who need to be convinced to do their duty.”

All the men nodded gravely, even the one standing at the very end of the table and discretely rubbing his nose.

“Besides, I doubt you’d have selected men unable to understand this from the start.”

She smiled and the Hunter flashed white teeth back at her.

“Is this flattery necessary?”

“I was about to maim one of his friends. After he crossed the country to find you and lost his business because of that. Kind words are the least I can do.”

“We can proceed tomorrow during the sunlight hours. Humans tend to relax during that time,” announced Quinlan to the room.

“What he said!” confirmed Gus. “Let’s get some rest, cabrones.”

He amicably patted the back of the corpulent man as they turned away.

Quinlan brought his trunk and the jamming devices to the bedroom. He trusted no one but Lexi around the machines. Eventually, he would have to let the humans have them but not yet. Everything in good time. His companion was in the shower, humming softly to herself. He put his possessions back in order. The trunk had been a mess. After locking the heavy bedroom door, he undressed and joined her.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Reconciliation: Graced Opportunities

One of my greatest joys as a priest is to be an instrument of God’s mercy to people in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (See below for meaning of the Sacrament of Reconciliation). Some people tell me they leave freer and with a lighter heart after hearing, “Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I’m surprised more people don’t use the opportunity for forgiveness and grace.I hope they don’t stay away because of memories of harsh confessors or dark, scary confessionals. Reconciliation rooms I know today have priests who are welcoming and kind.

[Sacrament of Reconciliation:

Three things are required for a sin to be mortal: serious matter, full consent, and full knowledge (cf. CCC 1858-1859).

Serious matter means what has been done is just that — serious. It’s something with real consequences; it matters in my life with God and the Church. Our Church helps us by pointing out certain activities that are serious matters — usually significant violations of the 10 Commandments.

Full consent, the second requirement, means that we freely chose to do it. Doing anything with full freedom is rare because we are weak human beings who often think we are more free than we really are. Things like fear, peer pressure, laziness, addiction, ignorance, pride, and immaturity, often interfere with being truly free.

The same goes with full knowledge. Here we must ask: Did I truly understand and appreciate the ramifications and seriousness of what I did? Did I know it was wrong and fully grasp its sinfulness and its consequences for my life with God, self, and others?

Now here’s the most important thing to remember: To the degree that I was free or had knowledge of what I was doing, I am responsible for sinning. So I may have done something seriously wrong, but it may not be a serious or mortal sin. It is sinful and should be rooted out of our lives, but may not be mortally so.

Our loving God understands our human weakness. That is one reason he became human. He is calling us to full life with his Church and with himself.

Explain mortal sin and venial sin. What’s the difference?

A comment stating that “I’m terrified that I don’t know the difference between mortal and venial sins” came to me via our website. I’d like to address this issue, and hopefully put that person’s mind at ease, by looking at sin as a breach in relationships. This is consistent with what our Church teaches about the effects of Baptism, which states that, by Baptism, we are made children of God and brothers of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. Thus, our first sacramental encounter sets us firmly within a familial bond with God and the Church, who is called our mother.

Like all familial relationships, our life with God and the Church can be enhanced or weakened by our actions and attitudes; it can be built up or torn down. Loving, supportive activities strengthen the bond between us; hateful and unsupportive acts break it down. And that is what sin is—a breakdown in relationships which can be slight (venial) or very serious (mortal) depending on what is done and why it is done.

What determines the severity of a behavior involves freedom and knowledge, for something very serious could be done without it being a mortal sin and vice versa. For example, someone could take another’s life. Was it an accident, and therefore incurs no guilt or sin? Or was it intentional? (Even our court systems distinguish among various degrees of guilt in the case of death.) What is done and why it is done are essential questions.

Therefore, it is impossible to give a list of mortal sins. One can give a list of serious behaviors that have the potential for being mortally sinful if performed with sufficient knowledge and freedom, but they are not automatically serious sins. The deeper questions are what effect did it have on our relationship with God, self, and others? And did we both know and appreciate those effects?

How do we know if what we did was venially or mortally sinful? Through prayerful reflection, we look at the seriousness of the behavior, the degree of freedom we enjoyed at the time, and whether we truly appreciated the moral value of the behavior remembering that we are often less free and appreciative than we sometimes think we are. It may not be as easy to commit a mortal sin as we think it is.

The good news is that God is an all-forgiving and all-loving God. As Jesus told us, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:16).

What should I confess?

A viewer writes concerning the Sacrament of Reconciliation: “I don’t know how much I should tell the priest. How detailed are we supposed to be?” At a retreat for priests from around the world given by Pope Francis in Rome — a retreat I was privileged to attend — the Holy Father told us that we are not to ask a lot of questions, lest people think we are being nosy. Good advice from a true pastor!

The requirement in canon law is to confess our grave sins by number and species (cf. CIC, can. 988). One commentator explains that this is intended to give a heads up to the priest as to the nature and frequency of a particular sin so that he can appreciate the situation and give appropriate counsel. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of exact numbers and detailed description of the sinful act. Requiring that would fit into the Pope’s definition of being nosy.

As a confessor, I can say that having a general idea of penitents’ behavior is helpful for assisting them in their spiritual growth. What is not helpful is when a penitent purposefully fudges on details so that the priest has no idea what he/she is talking about. We need to be honest and straightforward so that the confessor knows what we did and can help us grow beyond that particular form of sinful behavior.

For example, it is not helpful to say that I stole money. What would be helpful, and consistent with the requirement of canon law, would be to say “I stole a thousand dollars once, because my family was starving” or “I stole a thousand dollars over a long period of time because that made it easier to not get caught.” Very different situations where number and species are very relevant for the priest to be pastorally helpful.

Finally, knowing what we do and how often we do it can by an eye-opening experience for us as we try to honestly turn to our God in true repentance. An examination of conscience can be a truly helpful practice.

How can one eliminate sins that are committed and confessed over and over? I believe that we have all faced this frustration at one time or another.

I will begin my answer with a reminder that no one overcomes sins by himself or herself. Whether we are victorious over a habit of sin has less to do with our willpower than with God’s grace. It is God who conquers sin, not us. Having said that, I will immediately add that we must cooperate with God’s grace in the process. God does not force anything on us. Rather, he invites us to accept his gifts — one of which is victory over sin.

Whether we suffer from a habit of sin or appear to conquer it has more to do with God than with us. Ours is to pray, avoid the occasions that could lead us into this sin, and trust in God’s loving mercy.

So why does God allow us to wallow in a sinful pattern? Not knowing the mind of God, I can only take stabs at an answer. But I am reminded of Saint Paul’s statement that, when asking to be freed from a “thorn in his side,” God responded that “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). In other words, in Saint Paul’s weakness and inability to overcome this evil, he was strong in God’s grace. He knew very well that it was not his own good intentions or willpower that was at work.

As a confessor, I have found that each of us has one area of weakness where we often fail even when we have the best of intentions. Maybe God allows us to recognize our weakness in this one area so that we don’t get cocky and pat ourselves on the back for good achievement. It keeps us humble and recognizing that we need God’s mercy.

If we must confess the same sin year after year, remember that God is allowing this evil for his own purpose. We just need to keep doing our part to pray, avoid those occasions that can lead us into sin, and trust in God’s mercy. Remember that the command to be as perfect as our heavenly Father is a call to conform ourselves to Christ in his obedience to the Father’s will. Such conformity will allow the grace of God to conquer sin within us.

Why can’t I confess my sins directly to God? Why involve a priest?

The Book of Genesis relates that God shared authority with human beings by having them rule over the animals. The Book of Exodus tells of God working through the ministry of Moses to liberate the people. The prophets were men who mediated between God and human beings. Jesus sent his disciples out to share in his ministry of healing and preaching.

God could obviously have done a better job than Adam and Eve, Moses, the prophets, the disciples, or any one of us. But love allows God to share with humans — even knowing that we will mess up. God chose to make certain people mediators of his love and grace for the good of the entire community so that humans would have a share in his ministry.

In each of the sacraments, God’s grace — for it is really his grace that is at the heart of every sacrament—comes to us mediated through people and things. That’s just the way God set it up because of his love for us.

So, too, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. God forgives through the ministry of a priest. And this gives the sacrament a very warm and human aspect as we hear the words of absolution pronounced officially and authoritatively by a priest who not only represents Christ, but the whole Church. We are human beings with senses and emotions. The mediation of God’s graces speaks to our need to hear and sense his words of forgiveness.

How important is this sacrament in my daily faith journey?

Since we are required to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation only when we are conscious of having committed a mortal sin (cf. CCC, 1457), the sacrament could, theoretically, play a very minimal role in our spiritual life. But that would be very minimalistic to say the least.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church strongly encourages more frequent celebration of the sacrament, stating that even confession of our less serious sins leads to positive effects. It lists the following: confession helps us form our consciences, helps us resist temptation, allows us to experience the healing touch of Christ, and helps us progress in the life of the Spirit (cf. CCC, 1458).

Frequent use of the sacrament also helps us stay attuned to our spiritual lives. The more frequently we become aware of the condition of our life with God, self, and others, the better grip we have on both the progress and lack of progress in our spiritual life. It offers a good barometer of how we are doing.

Making the Sacrament of Reconciliation a vibrant part of one’s spiritual life — especially if it hasn’t been such in quite a while — basically just requires the decision to begin again. Most priests would be willing to help someone back into the swing of things, knowing that the first time back could be a bit awkward.]

Pope Francis once told those gathered in St. Peter’s Square not to be afraid or ashamed to go to confession. You will not “encounter a severe judge there, but the immensely merciful Father. When we go to confession, we feel a bit ashamed. That happens to all of us, but we must remember this shame is a grace that prepares us for the embrace of the Father, who always forgives and always forgives everything.”

We know that confession is not the only way our sins are forgiven. When we are truly contrite and ask, God is ready to forgive. Every Mass begins with the whole community asking for forgiveness.

Why go to confession? I can list five reasons why I go.

1. I meet Jesus there. In the words of Pope Francis, again, “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth….” After his resurrection and ascension, the risen Jesus works through the Church. In the Sacrament of Penance, Jesus acts through the visible priest who is empowered to forgive sins in his name.

2. My examination of conscience serves as a reality check on whether I am being honest with myself and with God, and taking responsibility for my actions.

3. I profit from the objectivity and advice of the priest.

4. The Seal of Confession gives me the absolute assurance that what I say will not be repeated to anyone else.

5. “The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being,” Pope Saint John Paul II said. As a priest, I have been hearing confessions for over 50 years. Before I was ordained, I remember a priest-teacher telling me, “You will realize many people are much holier than you are.” I find that is very true. Only mortal sins need to be confessed, but the Church recommends confessing “everyday faults” (venial sins) like envy, pride, or impatience. Doing so helps form our conscience and alerts us to harmful tendencies. Both saints and sinners profit from the sacrament.

As a confessor, I respect the conscience of those confessing. Even if people are struggling with sin, I tell them that God sees their good will and walks with them in their struggle.

Saint Augustine of Hippo said, “Whoever confesses his sin is already working with God.” The penitents’ focus is their sins. My focus is God’s love and mercy. To use the metaphor of Pope Francis, the Church is like a field hospital. Spiritual wounds are cared for — for those willing to come.

By: Jeremy Harrington, OFM,