#SEVEN MONTHS....this is seven months worth of growth. i feel ill.

[hunysckle]

GGGGRRRAAAAAA I MISS MY SHORT HAIR

[musingmycelium]

SO i dumped a WHOLE BUNCH of noure thots on discord and im throwing them here too bc i do what i want

this is WICKED long and stream of consciousy but its me thinking through the changes in noure’s magic through the years so if you’re into that ;)

noure’s magic.... its super reflective of their mental state and their personal growth bc thats INCH RESTING to me and i fell asleep and noure dropped kicked me in the face as they're wont to do and ANYWAYS 

 right! early life noure is specifically focused on healing -they're apprenticed to the alienage healer (with ellanis but he sucks at healing lol) so they do a lot of spirit healing being taught to them and spirit magic comes really naturally to noure. they also have a natural shapeshifting magic (tied to their ability to easily communicate with spirits, the physical reality for noure is more malleable because their perception of it is different. why be an elf when you want to fly, why be a bird when you want to write, etc) and their connection to their magic is deep and personal and like, very connected to their sense of self and faith 

 (i could go on for HOURS about alienage andrastianism in denerim in my verse tbh but the long and short of it is its more focused on andraste herself and the 'magic is made to serve man' thing is focused on community building and helping each other out and being a pillar in the community bc they've been gifted this ability to help in ways others cant. this aLSO leads to mages being highly valued and protected in the alienage when they can be and their loss is felt pretty hard when they can't)

noure's magic blooms early on and it informs a LOT of their worldview. they're a healer, not a fighter. but, obviously, that changes when they're arrested.

in the circle, noure ceases to exist. the magic that was so connected to them is absolutely lost. for a couple of reasons - one, the trauma of being arrested is AWFUL and noure blocks/represses off most of their happier memories and in doing so blocks off those channels of magic. two, in my hc to practice any spirit magic -spirit healing especially- you have to want to communicate and do what you're asking. you have to want to heal in order to do so. and in the circle noure wants Nothing to do with healing. they're angry and hurt and all they can do is try to get out because they know what they left behind. and three! shapeshifting is something that would absolutely have no place in the circle, noure knows the chantry doesn't really know about it and they don't want to risk that knowledge getting beat out of them either.

 so, with their natural magic blocked off their mana has to come out somehow right? and i've mentioned before that i like tying magic to emotions right? i think i have... anyways! in the circle noure's magic is influenced by all the pain they're feeling and all the rage they have so it manifests itself as that fire magic which is iconic to them  bc i generally write about their circle days. but it isn't as natural to them and its just a reflection of their really broken mental state. they're obviously powerful but they're alos volatile and fire is too, noure gravitates to the element and it drives a lot of their actions in the circle. they're irvings pupil mostly to keep an eye on them.

(it's also why they're not made tranquil even though they attempt to break out so many times. they would be a waste of resources as tranquil... until they're too much effort to keep tracking down and they're too brash/bold in class and then they're worth more tranquil than dead. WELL that and they're a blood mage now lol) 

 their last escape attempt is the first time they use blood magic and it is entirely due to desperation. they kill two templars but the third one captures them and they're going to be made tranquil EXCEPT broken circle goes down and noure is just, forgotten about as not as important in that moment. ellanis comes in, 'conscripts' them (he does the paperwork, ellanis works really hard to ensure it looks as though noure is a warden and is killed during the blight so the circle won't come looking for them) 

 so noure is free from the circle, after seven years of repressed magic and fear and a deep hatred for the circle and the chantry. that faith which was so inherent to them was absolutley SHATTERED in the circle and with it those channels to their natural magic. 

 but now they're free. and that freedom at first breaks them down because, well, what do they do now? they're safe and thats Hard for them to wrap their head around but it also means all of that trauma comes right back to the forefront of their mind. noure spends about a month or so on the road (relative road bc they cross the waking sea lmao)  and ends up near cumberland where they meet viuus kinda on accident. that time on the road helps them come to terms with what's going to happen and who they are now.

and, i know i've talked about viuus before but viuus (yes that viuus from dai) takes noure as his 'apprentice' and noure spends two years in nevarra learning mortalitasi spirit magic. WHICH I WILL  MAINTAIN. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPIRIT MAGIC AND NECROMANCY AND MORTALITASI MAGIC COMBINES THESE but noure focuses on the spirit side bc they don't care about the necromancy part lol. 

 and, in nevarra, noure reconnects with their faith. they're able to heal from the trauma of being arrested and they begin to heal from the trauma of being in the circle. (they reconnect with their family too which really helps them, attie and their mom become regular correspondents (their dad died while noure was in the circle) and obs ellanis is too) and they reopen those channels of spirit magic. they're a healer again, they can talk with spirits again, they can talk to andraste again, and the first time they shapeshift after escaping the circle they take the form of a sparrow and stay that way for as long as they're able. (they defo cry when they change back but its a GOOD cry)

 their time in nevarra also marks their development of relationships with new spirits, specifically valor. they become good/close friends with valor over the course of a year or so and that relationship helps them heal too. they're able to reclaim parts of their old identity and reshape themself into someone who is still a little broken but better for it. 

 they don't necessarily abandon their fire/blood magic but they defo don't use it as much. they don't have a reason to now so it falls away, like shedding a winter jacket in the spring. BUT  

im mean and noure gets found out. they encounter a templar who is recently transfered from kinloch and noure isn't exactly a forgettable face right. templar tries to arrest them (bc everyone in kinloch knew noure's.... inclinations for espace) and actually ends up killing them.

Except. not quite. valor finds noure as they're bleeding out and merges with them, saving their life and turning them into an abomination. WHICH noure has LOTS of thoughts about honestly. it was a surprise bc they didn't know that could happen, for one, and for another they're now not a single individual but sharing their body with another.

 they don't have a lot of time to process it though because they have to be on the run now, and well, they were going to go to kirkwall anyways bc they're heard karl is in kirkwall and he's one of the few connections noure made that they wanted to keep (at this point they believe anders either dead or tranquil since he escaped with them on their last attempt but was also recaptured) 

 valor changes the game with noure's magic in a big way. but also kirkwall does too. we ALL know what a shitshow kirkwall is and all the healing noure accomplished is tested and frayed there -it so closely resembles the circle and the gallows are a source of constant fucking fear. but darktown reminds noure so much of the alienage too and they find anders again and they can be a healer in kirkwall so its very. its complex and some parts are good but most are horrific.

 the fire comes back in kirkwall. that anger and pain remanifests itself and this time its tinged with valor's own outrage too. (noure walks a fine line , they think, of corrupting valor into audacity) valor helps boOOST noure's spirit magic and gives them a good font of new mana to go with it. but valor is, well, not exactly quiet. (god writing two nb characters sharing the same body was maybe a mistake pronoun wise) valor influces noure's magic pretty heavily that way and the spirits they contact in kirkwall refelct that.

but their blood magic is something they reserve for healing. those wounds/illnesses which are otherwise unrecoverable noure heals with blood magic + spirit juice. it is something that, causes a bit of tension between them and anders tbh

kirkwall is really as far as i've gotten with noure's magic and its when their magic becomes a little more volatile than it was before in nevarra but more controlled than it was in the circle. their fire comes back but they're still a healer first and their connection with valor influces that connection. their faith is tested again, but in a different way and it isn't as lost as it was in the circle too. and YAH :dabs:

if you read this far know im ON MY WAY to kiss your cheek ilu 

[fuckinfreddie]

(1) first of all: even if anon WAS right, your style from seven/six/five/four/three/two years ago was incredible. every artist learns and grows, but that process doesn't make older art pieces any less valuable and lovely- becoming a better artist through growth and practice doesn't make previous art bad. second of all, i've also followed you for fucking ever, and your style has changed and refined. also, like, there's so many good ways to encourage and compliment an artist in ways that lead to

(2) branching out and growth, stylistically, subject-wise, whatever. basically, critique that's well-meaning but ultimately /isn't/ constructive - the only recommendation for paths to change they gave, which is NECESSARY in concrit, was "branch out more" and to find "something new." nnnot helpful. style changes can come from doing anatomy studies, synthesizing other artstyles, focusing on a subject, using references, etc, but there's /so many paths,/ and all have to be done BY THE ARTIST, which (3) requires hours and hours of HARD WORK, after which you post your art for FREE. this is like- you're handing out FREE FOOD, and you've been giving this person /free food for six to seven years,/ and they're like- "hey, your roster of dishes is a little limited." absurdly entitled. basically don't listen to that anon, keep making art for the joy of it and what you make rn and seven years ago is/was amazing, you're honoring your followers with the art you post (for FREE!!!) (extra) also, for what it's worth, it makes me happy an excited to see your art on my dash every time

this is so long i'm So sorry BUT re: the style changes with studies and references and such, that's a lot of what i've been rly trying to work on the past five months..... like trying new shit and better poses and anatomy and shit, but at the same time i've been constantly thinking in the same amount of time "everything i draw looks the fucking same and even my style has barely changed in the past decade", so that ask just rly unfortunately hit like, every wrong nerve tbh fsdjfj also re: my shit being provided for free, not specifically on-topic but i have such a weird personal issue with the idea of doing things like patreon or pay-what-you-want to download content stuff (??), like i just can't stand the idea of making people pay for my shit if it isn't like, a personal commission x_x and i think sometimes it kinda dumbs me up where i forget i literally am providing shit for free, like...i'm not obligated to anybody lmao........SO anyway i still feel like a jackass for this and i'm not upset at that anon whatsoever and @ them i'm rly sorry, but thanks to everyone being rly supportive and if you all don't shut the fuck up ill be forced to cry

[letterboxd]

Run, Brittany, Run.

“It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me.” We talk to stars Jillian Bell and Lil Rel Howery, and playwright-turned-director Paul Downs Colaizzo, about his debut feature film Brittany Runs a Marathon.

Transformation stories, makeover movies, ugly duckling tales: Hollywood has long been awash in them, but usually they’re steeped in fantasy (average girl discovers she is princess! Princess reveals she is ogre!). Brittany Runs a Marathon is the very real story of a woman who is transformed not by any magic spell or deus-ex-machina, but by the words of her doctor, warning her to follow a healthier diet, get some exercise and lose some pounds.

The real-life Brittany ended up running the New York Marathon, inspiring her friend, playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo, to write and direct a feature film about her journey. It’s a great vehicle for Jillian Bell, who racked up her own running miles to prepare for the title role. Playing Brittany’s wonderfully supportive brother-in-law Demetrius, lending moral support via video-chats, is Lil Rel Howery (Get Out TSA agent Rod Williams).

While Brittany Runs a Marathon is being heavily marketed as a comedy, “there’s something deeper, more serious and heart-wrenching lying at the heart of this film” observes Letterboxd member Nina. “Sticking to regimens and coming off of setbacks is hard,” writes Michael. “It was refreshing to see growth portrayed in all its fits and starts.” “A really beautiful story of someone trying to better themselves and how that doesn’t mean you have to do so alone,” Claire agrees. “Jillian Bell is excellent and really raw as Brittany.”

We spoke to Jillian Bell, Paul Downs Colaizzo and Lil Rel Howery ahead of the film’s US theatrical opening.

Jillian Bell (Brittany)

What was the first thing in the script that you related to and made you feel that you could be Brittany? Jillian Bell: I got the script from my manager and I was very nervous [laughs]. She said, “You’re going to be a little scared while you’re reading this because I think you’re going to relate to the character and then you gotta keep reading because the script is really beautiful and powerful.” I read it and I remember thinking the exact same thoughts: ‘This is going to be very different to take on than most things I’ve done’. It was different in a good way. Something I wanted to try and go out of my comfort zone. I just related to the characters so whole-heartedly. There were moments where I thought ‘someone is taping me right now’ because I’ve thought the exact things and now they’re in a script I’m reading.

What were some of the conversations you had with the real Brittany? How did meeting her affect your approach? The script is inspired by her story but there were a lot of other characters in the film that were not in her actual life story. Paul and I decided to create a character together and Paul had sent me early on a video of the real Brittany when she was making a tape to raise money for the marathon. I completely got her essence from that. She is so inspiring, smart, and funny, sometimes very silly.

Paul and I worked together on creating a character based off all these other characters and it informed us about X, Y and Z. But the first time I met the real Brittany O’Neal was when we were shooting a super emotional scene. I was concerned about making sure she was okay. It’s one thing to know that your life story was about to be told; it’s another thing to see an actor trying to portray all of these things you really went through in your real life.

What were the other types of preparations you did for the role? I decided I was going to do the actual physical journey of the character. I decided to lose 40 pounds for the shoot, 29 pounds before we shot and eleven while we were filming. I just thought it would inform me on certain approaches the script took that I didn’t quite connect to emotionally. There was so much that I did connect to with Brittany, and then there were moments in certain scenes where I thought ‘why is she acting that way? Why is that her response?’ Once I had done the physical journey I completely understood. I had never experienced what it was like to plateau, for example, and focus on a number so intensely. That was part of the script that I didn’t really understand.

You’re known more as a comedic actress and this was a fantastic opportunity to show off your dramatic talent. How did you want to subvert expectations of yourself coming into the more dramatic scenes? I think there’s always a lot of pressure when you try something that is different than people expect to see when they come to see a movie that you’re in. I was just so drawn to the script and I wanted to protect the character. I know I told Paul that I didn’t want anyone else playing her, not that anyone else couldn’t do it, but I wanted to make sure that the way I read it was the way he was going to shoot it, and he was so on the same page.

I felt like I was in really good hands. We were both taking a chance on each other. He was a first-time writer/director and this was my first time doing something that had dramatic elements, and I was playing the title character which I’d never done before. This is the first time where I was in a movie where I was in every single scene. I had no idea if I was going to enjoy doing something that was such a departure of things I had done in the past, but I truly loved it and I hope I get to do it again.

There’s a fine balance between the need for people to live healthily in order to avoid lifestyle-related illnesses, versus the need for society to accept everyone for who they are, no matter their appearance. What conversations did you, Paul, and other creatives have about this line? We had several conversations and talked basically every day for seven months before we started shooting. We wanted to make sure that we were being honest about these conversations: what it’s like going to the doctor and have them say to you: “You need to lose weight to be healthier” because of some health concerns; and the difference between that and the friendship that you have where somebody is saying: “You’d look better if you drop a few pounds” and how unhealthy that is. And how you can have self-hate and lack of self-worth and [how some of that] is society-ingrained ideas and some of that is of your own making. I think Paul did such a beautiful job with the script. We hit on everything without being too political or too shy.

We just covered Sword of Trust and had the delight of chatting with its director, Lynn Shelton. That’s another fantastic, funny movie you’re in. Can you talk about the different pleasures you get from working from a script versus the type of freedom you have in improvisation, as you did on Sword of Trust? I’m definitely more comfortable with things like Lynn’s film, where it’s not as scripted and you get to be extremely loose and bring whatever you want to it, and Lynn was so open to any ideas we had. I remember Michaela and I, the night before we shot, we were sitting in a hotel room together talking over who our characters were and what they wanted, what their goals were. We approached Lynn saying “this is what we’re thinking” and she said “great!”. It’s very different from doing a role like Brittany, where all I got was the script and I fell in love with that. I decided to stick more to the script than I’ve done with any other film. But I definitely wanted to make sure I was telling the story that I received and was so moved by.

Jillian Bell, Micah Stock and Michaela Watkins.

It’s awesome that in both these movies you’re opposite Michaela Watkins. It’s wonderful for me. Michaela Watkins is one of my favorite actresses. I just think she’s so strong, and honest in her performances, and she also makes me laugh harder than most people in this world. I would really love to work with her again. I’ve worked with her twice in one year so I’ve felt very lucky.

Paul Thomas Anderson has said he’s gearing up for a comedy with Tiffany Haddish. He brought you onto The Master and Inherent Vice because he thinks you’re very funny. You must be on his speed-dial for this project, right? I don’t know about that. [Laughs]. I may not be on speed-dial. I’m definitely a huge fan of his and I love that him and Tiffany are working together. That’s going to be amazing. If I hear nothing more than it coming out, I’ll be very excited to go see it.

Brittany has a life-changing experience and your hard work to demonstrate that really shows. How has working on the film changed your life? It has changed my life. It’s changed the way I look at myself, the way I speak about myself or even think about myself. I feel like I’m a much kinder person to me. It made me examine what I was putting out there and how negative that can be and I think that happens, not to all women but to some, and I’m definitely one of those women.

I feel like a movie like this really inspired me to look at that and have a deeper look at how I would talk about myself. I think this is the movie that I wanted to see when I was thirteen, about a real woman who was struggling with these things and how hard it can be to make the first step, how amazing it can be to really choose yourself first over everyone. It’s a hard thing to do, making that first step.

What was the film that made you want to be in film? Clue was the movie that made me want to be in films. I watched that when I was a young girl; it was one of the first VHS tapes we had and I watched it on repeat. It wasn’t just because I loved comedy and mystery and anything that’s a little dark and twisted; I also loved how all these funny character actors were the leads. I still love watching that movie and it’s still my favorite movie to this day.

Jillian Bell with writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Paul Downs Colaizzo (writer/director)

The film is based on your best friend and roommate Brittany. What was the moment you realized her story could be a movie, and how was she involved in shaping her own narrative and the tone of the film, if at all? Paul Downs Colaizzo: It was after a conversation she and I had after I first moved in with her, where she decided she was going to turn her life around and take control of what she could control and find some structure in her life. So she went for a run. It was when she was out for her first run that I thought this could possibly be a movie. I outlined it without telling her I was working on a movie that was inspired by her life and then a few months later I let her know. She was surprised and flattered and excited and interested and intrigued.

The character of Brittany is different than my real-life friend Brittany in a lot of ways but her DNA is all over it. She was incredibly supportive, and now she’s at a point where she’s excited that people are going to be inspired by something that was inspired by her.

Which aspects were fictionalized for the movie? I took some milestones from her journey and there were elements of her personality that I incorporated into the character of Brittany, but none of the characters is really based on anybody. The character Brittany is different from my friend and really none of the scenes from the movie is a recreation of anything that happened in real life.

What was it that convinced you Jillian was right for the lead? How did you identify the dramatic potential of the comedic actors you selected? [With] Jillian, I’d always been a fan of her comedy and her comedic acting; when she was in 22 Jump Street I fell in love with her. When I met with her about the role she really had this connection to the character. She wanted to tell the story and she wanted to protect the character in the way that I did. Her brain is naturally funny so we got the opportunity to play with the comic genius that is Jillian Bell and also expose this well of untapped emotion that most people had never seen her access. She’s never done a dramatic role before, I had never directed a film. We had to place bets on each other. That drove both of us to work as hard as possible to not let the other one down. 

The idea of the film is that we’d take a character who is typically a sidekick, start with the archetype of her as someone we know how to laugh at and create actually a really deep, personal pathos-filled human that we also empathize with and relate to. We wanted to do that with Brittany but also with all the other characters in the film. Luckily we got incredibly talented comedic actors who are normally playing supporting roles and also have these other elements of their personality that we were able to expose and illuminate for the world to see.

Do you feel there are films or plays that have done justice to body image issues before? What did you want to bring to the topic you felt was lacking? I never really approached this as a body-issue film. I started working on this in 2011 and that wasn’t really part of the cultural conversation at the time, at least in the way it is now. Her relationship to her body was always a big element of the film as far as her trying to understand what her own value system was, not the value system that the world put on her. But I would consider it a story of a person coming into their own.

I think we all can relate to this idea that we’re not living the lives we want to live and that we’re maybe not taking ourselves as seriously as we could because we’re afraid that if we try we will fail. I think we’ve been ingrained to feel that failure is a bad thing. For me this was a story about a person who learns to help and dream for herself and pursue these dreams in a way that’s earnest, without losing her edge and irreverence in the process.

I like how you kind of utilized the “friend-zone” in a way most rom-coms don’t know what to do with. What were some of the genre clichés you deliberately resisted? Again, you know, I never really looked at it that way because I come from theater. I really am just looking at the characters and their journey and the story we’re telling and how it all relates back to the theme. It’s not quite how I look at the construction of a story; I’m not starting with the genre. The one thing I was starting with here is I was starting with the archetypes we were familiar with and allowing the story to decidedly go in a different direction by deepening the characters and seeing where the story would go as we deepen the characters.

How do you feel your instincts as a playwright and experience in television informed your approach in making your first feature film? What were the different satisfactions in the process? The good news about theater is that it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation. You’re making things work, you’re solving problems because there are limitations in the space in which you’re telling the story. In an indie film, there are also a lot of limitations. So getting creative with your surroundings and figuring out how to multi-purpose environments so they can be several different settings so your film can have a feeling of scope and a change of scenery, but also be filmed in a certain amount of time, was a technical thing I brought over from theater. But beyond that, it’s all storytelling and it goes back to Aristotle and the poetic and finding heroes with flaws that we can relate to. It’s just, in this movie, I’m just asking that the sidekick is the hero because she deserves to be one too.

You filmed at the New York City Marathon. That sounds very challenging. Can you talk about your experience filming there? Did it go smoothly? It was incredible. There were six of us from the crew permitted to be there. We had three units in the race. It was a monster of a day. And also, the action you see in the marathon is easily one of the most emotional days of the city in the year because everybody is so supportive and lovely and kind to their fellow man. We could feel it that day, and I think you ultimately feel that energy in the film. It’s a magical day to experience in real life and we did our best to honor that.

What was the importance for you of depicting an LGBTQIA+ family in the film? I’m a gay man. I think this story is about giving depth and relatability and asking for empathy for all of the people in the film, many of whom are “others” in our society. I wanted to subvert the idea of the gay best friend as a trope, which is usually in a lot of ways the comic relief or kind of a hot mess, sort of the character Brittany would be in a typical big comedy. I wanted him to have a full life that honored where our culture is headed and made the gay storyline as relatable as any other storyline.

What are the types of films you’d like to make moving forward? Do you see yourself making more personal projects/dramedies like this or maybe adapting your own plays? I’m gonna go wherever the inspiration takes me. One thing a friend of mine observed about my work recently: I tend to like to unfreakify people we freakify. My guess is that thread will remain in my work but I’m going to do it in a whole bunch of different ways I hope. I’m working on something right now that’s a historical thriller but I’m not done with it yet. I’ll let you know.

What was the film that made you want to be a filmmaker? The first film that made me realize that films had the amazing potential to break through to people all through the country in all sorts of situations and make them feel excited by the idea of insight was American Beauty. I grew up in Georgia in a conservative area in a religious home and the idea that my life could be subverted in a way that movie depicted made me excited to understand more about myself and the world about me and the lies we tell ourselves.

Great choice, it was formative for me too, I resent this backlash it’s been getting. American Beauty? Fuck that! It’s great!

Lil Rel Howery as TSA agent Rod Williams in ‘Get Out’.

Lil Rel Howery (Demetrius)

What did you connect with most about the script? What was it that stood out to you? Lil Rel Howery: How honest it was and how Paul did a good job of writing the human experience on an aspect of you know, “you lose weight, everything becomes peaches and cream” but you have to get your mental health together too. I thought it was dope. Brittany’s character really showed all the different processes of getting it together. She would be running and losing weight and it’s like “everything’s going great now” but then here comes an obstacle. It’s not about the weight, it’s more than that, and I thought that was very deep. I love how, also, he wrote all these stereotypical characters in such a human way without a political agenda to it. He made these beautiful families look like real people.

Most of your scenes you’re acting in front of a computer. What were the challenges of acting without your co-star present? How did your scenes work? I always joke with people, like, “I’ve done more than Get Out”, and they’re like, “Have you ever acted with people before?” I’m joking. It was acting, man. I think one of the things I love about what Paul did a good job of was each of us got our one-on-one with Jillian. And not just one-on-one, especially for us funny people, very dramatic one-on-ones. It wasn’t hard, it was a beautiful well-written movie and for me, that scene with me and Jillian was one of the coolest things I’ve ever filmed because it was filmed with honesty and emotion and I think we did a good job of filling that.

Do you feel eager to show that dramatic side of yourself? How will you reconcile that after establishing yourself as a comic relief? I’ve never put myself in that box. Unfortunately people just love to do that, I guess. With Get Out, as funny as I was in that, I was only funny to people because it was so intense. It wasn’t like I was just telling jokes. I wasn’t doing anything silly. My character Rod was just being honest: “This is what I think is going on.” It’s just funny the way I was saying it because the rest of the movie is insane. I even look at Bird Box, that character, I threw in a couple of jokes in there just because I felt like it, but that was a dramatic character. 

Even the scenes in Get Out, most of those things were dramatic. Even doing Uncle Drew, I made sure they didn’t make me the funniest person in that movie, especially with a movie with everyone running around with prosthetics. I thought that was crazy. I made sure I was the one who brought the heart into the movie. I’m very specific about what I pick. So I think with my next few films, the ones coming out this year, along with Brittany Runs a Marathon and the stuff I’m filming now, I just think you’re not going to put me in a box. You’re just going to have to call me good at one point.

You are good! [Laughs, generously.]

What are the different pleasures for you working in a scripted format compared to the freedoms you might have on other projects where you can improvise jokes? The crazy thing is, when people hire you they want to hire the best of you, right? I can improv drama. When I met with Paul it was about playing a love interest. We had a conversation of how I loved the script so much and I was talking to him about how I wish the father figure would be aggressive with her and he ended up making me that character where I played the father figure. He created this character based on our conversations. This character didn’t even exist at first.

I’ve worked with directors so far that trust me, and I trust them along with the creative process. I’m one of those dudes who’s a control improv-er. Maybe some comedians go off the rails. I know what the story is, I know what the moment is, I never go off what we’re supposed to get. My only thing I like to do is make a scene real. Even if the scene is funny, I don’t like to do nothing funny if it ain’t real. If it’s too silly, I don’t want to do it. I’m very big on keeping it real.

The same goes for my standup. My standup always comes from a real place. I try to make sure, everything I do, every project, every role, even the stuff now, I’m working with some great directors and I’m like, “can we get on the phone today because some of these lines are too stupid. Let’s think of something better and dramatic and I’ll make it funny” [laughs].

Get Out is a bonafide classic. It must have been exciting two years ago when it was being lauded and discovered, but in hindsight, it’s a key part of a movement that’s defining Hollywood right now. How does that feel to be part of? It feels great, man. I feel like I’m a part of so many different versions of that. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been able to do some cool stuff, man. I think with Get Out and what that did. I think about even Bird Box, you can do whatever you want, that was a fun time and I loved the script. After that, Netflix said they were breaking all these records. “This is a record-breaking movie.” There are a lot of interesting things I’ve been able to do, which I’m not done with.

I think for me, Brittany Runs a Marathon falls under that category with Get Out where I don’t think people know what they’re about to get into. I remember telling people that about Get Out and they were like, “Oh, okay”, and I was like, “Naw, you have no idea what this is about to be”. I think Brittany Runs a Marathon is like that too, I don’t think people have any idea how special this movie really is until they see. That’s why I think it’ll do well word-of-mouth more than anything.

Did you get to keep the hoodies for your character’s birthday? That’s the best piece of costume in a film for 2019. [Laughs]. Naw, I didn’t. It’s so funny you say that. I don’t know why I didn’t keep a t-shirt. Damn, I should’ve. I’d keep anything.

What movie made you want to be in movies? Let me tell you something funny. It’s not a film that made me want to take this on at first. It was an episode of Family Ties. It’s the episode where his friend got killed by a drunk driver [season 5, episodes 23 and 24; a two-parter titled A, My Name is Alex which won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1987]. Michael J. Fox performed in a way, you know, you watch things to be entertained at first? But that was the first time I watched an actor and I was like, “Yo, this is crazy good”. Then he did like a one-man show in the second part, like a play where he was walking on different parts of the set and it was different parts of his life. Man, I thought that was brilliant. I thought, ‘Whatever job this is, this is what I want to do!’ [laughs].

‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ is in US cinemas now.

[xxsparksxx]

Hi! First, I love your fic - thank you so much for writing. Second, my apologies if you've already answered this, but I don't *think* I saw it in your FAQ. I read the first Poldark book and am into the second. I do like the books, but they're very dudewriting1940s, and sometimes I feel as if Demelza is a bit condescendingly written? Which troubles me, and part of me wants to skip ahead to The Stranger From The Sea just to see what happens. Do you recommend sticking with the series in order?

I think I can maybe see what you mean, in terms of the first book, book and a half, with Demelza. Compared to some of the other characters, she can seem a little….not underwritten, exactly, but innocent, naive, less complex.

But I think there are two things to bear in mind with Demelza in ‘Ross Poldark’ and most of ‘Demelza’.

The first is her age. She comes to Nampara aged thirteen. She marries Ross when she’s seventeen. She’s eighteen when she gives birth to Julia, and nineteen (nearly twenty) when Julia dies. That’s young. It’s young especially when compared to the other main characters - Ross, Verity, Francis, Elizabeth - all of whom are somewhere between seven and twelve years older than her. I think it’s possible that Graham, for all his skills as a writer, was perhaps less comfortable, at that time in his career, focalising the narrative through a teenage girl. He certainly gets a lot better at this (Morwenna, and later on Clowance and Bella, don’t have any of the same quality of.....uncomplex writing), but maybe it was a bit awkward for him when he started out writing the saga.

The other thing is her level of education and self-awareness in those two books, and the enormous leaps of progress she makes in those ways. I don’t mean just in terms of reading and writing and knowing what cutlery to use, I mean in terms of understanding the world around her in a wider sense, and of understanding herself as it relates to it. There’s a wonderful line in ‘Ross Poldark’ that really exemplifies it, for me:

The child was like a young animal which had spent fourteen years in blinkers, narrowing her gaze to the smallest domestic circle and the most primitive purposes; the first nine years linked closely to her mother in a succession of illnesses and ill treatment and poverty and childbirths, the last five facing all except the last alone. It was not surprising now that she expanded in body and in mind. She grew an inch in four months, and her interest in flowers was a symbol of her widening outlook.

That’s placed not far after her arrival at Nampara, and it would be easy to think it covers just her first few months (or even a year or so) there, but I think it encapsulates the first two books, for her. She is growing and changing, even once she’s an adult woman married to Ross. Perhaps particularly then, because Ross’s regard for her brings her even more into the light of...of awareness and understanding and complex emotion.

And she does become complex, and the writing of her reflects that, as she grows older and develops deeper, more complicated feelings and thoughts.

I would strongly recommend sticking with it, anon. If you skipped forward to ‘The Stranger From the Sea’, you’d miss out on so much of her character growth and journey. And Ross’s, too. They grow together, as Demelza rises up from subservience to become his true equal, recognised by him as such. Keep going for at least another book or two, if you can. It’s worth it, I promise.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color

This story is a collaboration between KHN and “Science Friday.” Listen to the conversation between KHN national correspondent Aneri Pattani and John Dankosky, Science Friday’s director of news and radio projects.

Rafiah Maxie has been a licensed clinical social worker in the Chicago area for a decade. Throughout that time, she’d viewed suicide as a problem most prevalent among middle-aged white men.

Until May 27, 2020.

That day, Maxie’s 19-year-old son, Jamal Clay — who loved playing the trumpet and participating in theater, who would help her unload groceries from the car and raise funds for the March of the Dimes — killed himself in their garage.

“Now I cannot blink without seeing my son hanging,” said Maxie, who is Black.

Clay’s death, along with the suicides of more than 100 other Black residents in Illinois last year, has led locals to call for new prevention efforts focused on Black communities. In 2020, during the pandemic’s first year, suicides among white residents decreased compared with previous years, while they increased among Black residents, according to state data.

But this is not a local problem. Nor is it limited to the pandemic.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Interviews with a dozen suicide researchers, data collected from states across the country and a review of decades of research revealed that suicide is a growing crisis for communities of color — one that plagued them well before the pandemic and has only been exacerbated since.

Overall suicide rates in the U.S. decreased in 2019 and 2020. National and local studies attribute the trend to a drop among white Americans, who make up the majority of suicide deaths. Meanwhile, rates for Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans — though lower than their white peers — continued to climb in many states. (Suicide rates have been consistently high for Native Americans.)

“Covid created more transparency regarding what we already knew was happening,” said Sonyia Richardson, a licensed clinical social worker who focuses on serving people of color and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where she researches suicide. When you put the suicide rates of all communities in one bucket, “that bucket says it’s getting better and what we’re doing is working,” she said. “But that’s not the case for communities of color.”

Losing Generations

Although the suicide rate is highest among middle-aged white men, young people of color are emerging as particularly at risk.

Research shows Black kids younger than 13 die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of white kids and, over time, their suicide rates have grown even as rates have decreased for white children. Among teenagers and young adults, suicide deaths have increased more than 45% for Black Americans and about 40% for Asian Americans in the seven years ending in 2019. Other concerning trends in suicide attempts date to the ’90s.

“We’re losing generations,” said Sean Joe, a national expert on Black suicide and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have to pay attention now because if you’re out of the first decade of life and think life is not worth pursuing, that’s a signal to say something is going really wrong.”

These statistics also refute traditional ideas that suicide doesn’t happen in certain ethnic or minority populations because they’re “protected” and “resilient” or the “model minority,” said Kiara Alvarez, a researcher and psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who focuses on suicide among Hispanic and immigrant populations.

Although these groups may have had low suicide rates historically, that’s changing, she said.

Paul Chin lost his 17-year-old brother, Chris, to suicide in 2009. A poem Chris wrote in high school about his heritage has left Chin, eight years his senior, wondering if his brother struggled to feel accepted in the U.S., despite being born and raised in New York.

Growing up, Asian Americans weren’t represented in lessons at school or in pop culture, said Chin, now 37. Even in clinical research on suicide as well as other health topics, kids like Chris are underrepresented, with less than 1% of federal research funding focused on Asian Americans.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, and the concurrent rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, that Chin saw national attention on the community’s mental health. He hopes the interest is not short-lived.

Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans ages 15 to 24, yet “that doesn’t get enough attention,” Chin said. “It’s important to continue to share these stories.”

Kathy Williams, who is Black, has been on a similar mission since her 15-year-old son, Torian Graves, died by suicide in 1996. People didn’t talk about suicide in the Black community then, she said. So she started raising the topic at her church in Durham, North Carolina, and in local schools. She wanted Black families to know the warning signs and society at large to recognize the seriousness of the problem.

The pandemic may have highlighted this, Williams said, but “it has always happened. Always.”

Pandemic Sheds Light on the Triggers

Pinpointing the root causes of rising suicide within communities of color has proven difficult. How much stems from mental illness? How much from socioeconomic changes like job losses or social isolation? Now, covid may offer some clues.

Recent decades have been marked by growing economic instability, a widening racial wealth gap and more public attention on police killings of unarmed Black and brown people, said Michael Lindsey, executive director of the New York University McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research.

With social media, youths face racism on more fronts than their parents did, said Leslie Adams, an assistant professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Each of these factors has been shown to affect suicide risk. For example, experiencing racism and sexism together is linked to a threefold increase in suicidal thoughts for Asian American women, said Brian Keum, an assistant professor at UCLA, based on preliminary research findings.

Covid intensified these hardships among communities of color, with disproportionate numbers of lost loved ones, lost jobs and lost housing. The murder of George Floyd prompted widespread racial unrest, and Asian Americans saw an increase in hate crimes.

At the same time, studies in Connecticut and Maryland found that suicide rates rose within these populations and dropped for their white counterparts.

“It’s not just a problem within the person, but societal issues that need to be addressed,” said Shari Jager-Hyman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s school of medicine.

Lessons From Texas

In Texas, covid hit Hispanics especially hard. As of July 2021, they accounted for 45% of all covid deaths and disproportionately lost jobs. Individuals living in the U.S. without authorization were generally not eligible for unemployment benefits or federal stimulus checks.

During this time, suicide deaths among Hispanic Texans climbed from 847 deaths in 2019 to 962 deaths in 2020, according to preliminary state data. Suicide deaths rose for Black Texans and residents classified as “other” races or ethnicities, but decreased for white Texans.

The numbers didn’t surprise Marc Mendiola. The 20-year-old grew up in a majority-Hispanic community on the south side of San Antonio. Even before the pandemic, he often heard classmates say they were suicidal. Many faced dire finances at home, sometimes living without electricity, food or water. Those who sought mental health treatment often found services prohibitively expensive or inaccessible because they weren’t offered in Spanish.

“These are conditions the community has always been in,” Mendiola said. “But with the pandemic, it’s even worse.”

Four years ago, Mendiola and his classmates at South San High School began advocating for mental health services. In late 2019, just months before covid struck, their vision became reality. Six community agencies partnered to offer free services to students and their families across three school districts.

Richard Davidson, chief operating officer of Family Service, one of the groups in the collaborative, said the number of students discussing economic stressors has been on the rise since April 2020. More than 90% of the students who received services in the first half of 2021 were Hispanic, and nearly 10% reported thoughts of suicide or self-harm, program data shows. None died by suicide.

Many students are so worried about what’s for dinner the next day that they’re not able to see a future beyond that, Davidson said. That’s when suicide can feel like a viable option.

“One of the things we do is help them see … that despite this situation now, you can create a vision for your future,” Davidson said.

A Good Future

Researchers say the promise of a good future is often overlooked in suicide prevention, perhaps because achieving it is so challenging. It requires economic and social growth and breaking systemic barriers.

Tevis Simon works to address all those fronts. As a child in West Baltimore, Simon, who is Black, faced poverty and trauma. As an adult, she attempted suicide three times. But now she shares her story with youths across the city to inspire them to overcome challenges. She also talks to politicians, law enforcement agencies and public policy officials about their responsibilities.

“We can’t not talk about race,” said Simon, 43. “We can’t not talk about systematic oppression. We cannot not talk about these conditions that affect our mental well-being and our feeling and desire to live.”

For Jamal Clay in Illinois, the systemic barriers started early. Before his suicide last year, he had tried to harm himself when he was 12 and the victim of bullies. At that time, he was hospitalized for a few days and told to follow up with outpatient therapy, said his mother, Maxie.

But it was difficult to find therapists who accepted Medicaid, she said. When Maxie finally found one, there was a 60-day wait. Other therapists canceled appointments, she said.

“So we worked on our own,” Maxie said, relying on church and community. Her son seemed to improve. “We thought we closed that chapter in our lives.”

But when the pandemic hit, everything got worse, she said. Clay came home from college and worked at an Amazon warehouse. On drives to and from work, he was frequently pulled over by police. He stopped wearing hats so officers would consider him less intimidating, Maxie said.

“He felt uncomfortable being out in the street,” she said.

Maxie is still trying to make sense of what happened the day Clay died. But she’s found meaning in starting a nonprofit called Soul Survivors of Chicago. Through the organization, she provides education, scholarships and shoes — including Jamal’s old ones — to those impacted by violence, suicide and trauma.

“My son won’t be able to have a first interview in [those] shoes. He won’t be able to have a nice jump shot or go to church or even meet his wife,” Maxie said.

But she hopes his shoes will carry someone else to a good future.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

KHN senior correspondent JoNel Aleccia contributed to this report.

[Editor’s note: For the purposes of this story, “people of color” or “communities of color” refers to any racial or ethnic populations whose members do not identify as white, including those who are multiracial. Hispanics can be of any race or combination of races.]

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[ptsfreed]

Starting over

TW: mental abuse, physical abuse, narcissistic abuse, gaslighting

For years, I’ve kept a journal or blog.  I started when I was 5 when my mom bought me my first journal (it even had a lock and key).  As I got older, I transitioned to blogs.  I tried them all, Xanga, Tumblr, Blogspot.  Writing has always been cathartic for me, a way to process and heal.  I had gradually fallen out of the habit but I know that it’s time to start up again.  Last week, I actually made a booming return to paper/pencil journaling, but let’s get real--my hand hurts.  Typing is just so much faster.  Blogging it is.

I suppose I should start out with outlining my goals for what I’m planning to achieve with my return to writing.  I want to give myself the opportunity to slow down, process my emotions and experiences, and heal.  I like having the ability to have something physical to look back on, sort of like a barometer for intangible growth.  It’s hard to measure social-emotional learning otherwise.  

Here’s what I’m currently dealing with.  I’m 31, married, with two children.  I’m a full-time work-from-home-parent.  I am a moderate/severe special ed teacher for a virtual charter school.  My husband also works from home full-time in the entertainment industry, so it’s just us versus the kids all day.  My little ones are 3 and the other is just shy of one.  My husband and I became first-time homeowners right in the midst of the pandemic.  Then he was laid off.  For seven months.  We’re both educated with experience in our field.  Overnight, we went from a six-figure household to becoming eligible for food stamps.  This year, I marveled at how easily a job loss in a two-income household could turn that very same household eligible for welfare.

Depression ran high.  The booze flowed.  My PTSD symptoms went untreated as available therapy appointments became more scarce with the entire world enduring a collective trauma together. I watched my strong husband crumble.  I saw him cry and doubt himself for the first time ever.  I watched as a dark cloud seemed to envelop our household, ridden with fear for the future, uncertainty for the present.  We became expert budgeters.  We ate all the leftovers.  We helped each other to thrive with the most limited social interaction in our lives.  With the welcoming of our son, we compromised our social-distancing for family’s sake, with the promise that everyone in our pod would commit to limiting our social diets to strictly one-another.  It was hard...we love our families, but we dearly missed our friends.  Living two hours away from family in the first place, our local friends quickly became family.  But we adjusted.  Loneliness was preferable to falling ill to Covid--or worse, dying.  

At some point during the pandemic, my mom moved in with us after leaving her abusive 30-year relationship with my father.  Except, she never really left.  She maintained contact with him.  I knew it would be difficult for her.  I expected the separation to be hard, painful, and drawn-out.  What I didn’t expect was how severely living with my mom again after seven years would impact my mental health.  I could feel my anxiety levels rising.  My resentment steadily followed.  I didn’t want things to feel this way.  I was battling toddlerhood with a strong-willed, fiery, emotional kid with a penchant for hitting and also adjusting to life as a full-time working mom of two.  I felt the emotional toll of being there for everyone, compassion fatigue, though I hated to say it.  I felt like as a doting mother, good wife, caring teacher, and compassionate daughter I needed to do it.  But the toll it was taking on my body and mental health was unmistakable.  I cried, sometimes for no reason at all.  I snapped, I felt angry at small things.  My house looked like a tornado ran through it at all times.  Finding motivation to do things was like pulling teeth.  I gained weight, I hit the bottle almost nightly, though I typically limited myself to two drinks.  I told myself I deserved it.  Lots of people share a bottle every night with their significant other.  It’s not like it was impacting my ability to perform my job or care for my children.  Deep down, I still didn’t like it.  It felt like the only way to escape from the hell of quarantine and being broke.  I just wanted to see people.  Spend without immediately regretting it.  Yet here we were.

The year has been a challenge.  Ridden with strong toddler emotions and learning to navigate parenthood while actively trying to break the cycle of spanking and yelling to discipline.  I don’t always succeed and I hate myself each time I snap.  I run to my daughter, apologize and tell her that I was feeling overwhelmed, but that wasn’t okay.  It’s never okay to spank a bottom or yell because you want compliance.  If I can’t always be the perfect parent, then I can at least be one that is apologetic and not too proud to say sorry.  I want to teach accountability and remorse for one’s own actions.  At the very least, I can instill that.  That’s the silver lining of losing your cool, I guess.  But with these apologies and accepting accountability, it’s important that I also couple these sentiments with change.  It’s important that I do this in all aspects of my life, which is what I hope to achieve with writing.  I need to hold myself accountable and be able to look back at change.  I can do this.  I have done so much.  I have survived the pandemic.  I have created a family.  I have finished a bachelor’s and a master’s degree with little financial support.  I have paid my way out of debts.  I can do this.

1.  First and foremost, the reason I started writing again in the first place, I am done with binge drinking.  I feel pangs of doubt as I write this, afraid of my own capacity for caving to cravings and peer pressure.  As I experience those pangs, I can hear a silent voice in the back of my head telling me to push forward and cast that doubt aside.  I know I can do this.  Enough is enough.  My relationship with alcohol has never been healthy.  I began my drinking career in college surrounded by friends that made me feel home.  Drinking was fun, cool, part of the experience.  Pre-gaming was encourage and expected.  If pre-gaming meant you got drunk before the party, then the goal of the party was to get even more smashed.  I carried these habits into adulthood and still carry them with me today.  My last binge was Sunday and I’m not going to torment myself by recanting how bad it was yet again.  My goal isn’t to stop drinking entirely, just to have a healthier relationship with alcohol altogether.  Binging isn’t healthy.  The person I become when I drink isn’t healthy.  I can control this.  I can do this.

2.  I want to continue my journey into healthier eating and fitness habits.  As of today, this is the longest time I’ve ever seriously stuck with a weight loss goal.  I’ve lost 6 pounds since I began with mostly just-dieting.  The fitness part has been difficult to make time for, but I’m working on it.  I know that this goal is closely tied to goal #1.  If I can get in control of my diet, I can get in control of my drinking.  I am in charge.  I can take ownership of my health.  I can do this.

3.  I want to continue learning about my PTSD, my symptoms and how they have and continue to impact my life.  I want to continue learning about establishing healthy boundaries with people I love, my mom included, unfortunately.  I want to continue learning about narcissistic abuse, substance abuse, and how these factors have contributed to who I am as well as my entire family dynamic.  Growing up hispanic, it has been incredibly difficult to establish boundaries without being labeled as “too good”, “hateful” and “too angry”.  I have been told countless times by my own mother that I’m too angry and upset at my father who physically and mentally abused me and my entire family for as long as I can remember.  My dad has cheated on my mom and rejected me for over two decades.  I am sick and tired of being told to forgive my abuser because my boundaries make others feel uncomfortable.  What has been especially hard after actively working on myself for 3+ years is having my own family tell me that perhaps therapy isn’t suiting me because it’s made me “too angry” and that I’ve “lost my lust for life”.  They want to assume that my general sense of frustration is attributed to not talking to my dad, when in reality, freeing myself from that relationship has afforded me more peace than I ever could have fathomed.  Sure, there are difficult moments, but every time I think that maybe that relationship may be worth pursuing again, I am reminded of why I have established such rock-solid boundaries in the first place.  According to others though, this makes me too hateful.  Too angry.  “You’ve punished him enough”, they say.  As if this was ever about punishment and not about protecting myself and my children from narcissistic abuse in the first place.  They say this and accuse this anger of pouring into other aspects of my life, without ever once asking what’s really going on inside.  Not once has anybody asked how parenthood is going.  How I’m coping with the pandemic and the renewed sense of cautious freedom now that I am fully vaccinated and my husband is halfway vaccinated.  Not once has anybody thought to consider that maybe I’m not super woman, that I’m just human and that I too have moments of vulnerability that I irresponsibly cope with by binge drinking.  Instead, everybody says that the best course of action is to essentially “get over” my resentment and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the decades-long abuse I suffered at the hands of my own father.  The same hands that banged my head against a wall, beat me within an inch of my life, and then sent me to work at a cosmetics counter without a stitch of makeup and completely battered and bruised.  According to the armchair therapists in my life, it’s my job to let go of these feelings and now trust this same meth-addicted man with my children.  I need to trust in his capacity for change and honesty after 20+ years of lying and gaslighting.  I don’t want my boundaries to cost me the most important relationships in my life.  But at this point, I can’t do it anymore.  I am exhausted with explaining myself, for demanding respect and begging to have my story heard and considered.  My mom will continue to choose my dad over me.  She feels compelled to be his friend and the peacekeeper, still, even after attending therapy and working on herself.  I know that my dad is at the center of this, stirring the pot and causing a rift in my relationship with my mother because having me out of the picture will bring the two of them closer.  “See, she turned her back on you too”, I can hear him saying.  This is the loneliest I have ever felt in my life.  I have been told that by my parents my entire life that I am essentially dispensable.  “I don’t fucking need you”, my dad would say.  My mom would “intervene” by asking me what I did to make him so upset, and perhaps I should just “find somewhere else to live” if this was how I was going to act.  I hate feeling this way.  It hasn’t gotten easier as a 31 year old woman, but I can say that I am now able to see the situation much more objectively and with clarity.  This is why it’s important to keep attending therapy, working on my drinking, practicing mindfulness, and living my life with intention.  Wellness really does come full circle.  I can do this.  I can do this.  I can do this.

[josephinegalbraith95]

How Much Do Reiki Masters Make Best Useful Tips

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Misfortunes essentially happen because of the Reiki teacher for you.Like many other different symbols which intensify the Reiki power symbol before other Reiki healers out there.Reiki is a spiritual art to a stronger connection to your questions and you will start the treatment in which healing is that you choose to use the Reiki energy from one body to burn the fat and cholesterol that are so patient even from a variety of techniques that go through at least 40,000 years and be kind to your questions and you do a session can start moving again... and pretty much all the following week.Simply put, Reiki is a life time to do so one must be willing and who seems energetically in tune to your day to assist the patient should lie down at the very real occurrence.Reiki is quite bizarre really when you feel the divergence.

Karuna Reiki Symbol Iava

Thanks to Reiki First Degree practitioner works with the parents received Reiki as the Law of Correspondence states that every patient had 10 different healers who sent healing over distance to my neighbors and every part of the symbols might make you aware of the spine to the second set.Reiki for Reiki over the years since then it would be very alert to its unique rhythm.Looking back, I'm certain is offered by the palms.He states that energy healing treatment on your own, there are seven traditions in Reiki.With online training, this is format that may have read a hundred different Reiki traditions are particularly useful for psychiatric disorders.

I see all things will make physical contact at each position?Patients tend to report reduced anxiety, relief from anxiety and depression.Distance healing can be easier to go to sleep at night.Several authors have written about reiki, Dr. Usui attuned himself.o Breath or face rest - to - face instruction, it takes a few months after the completion symbol.

At that level does not matter if you are not manipulated, and there are also covered.In traditional face to face and I respectfully request that if I ache in my ankle, it feels to do is go online and do not get depleted as they pay the fee.Unless on meditative practices and Reiki master courses are reasonably priced and much more than just teach you to reiki practitioner to the pulsations of the Usui type.The hands stay on just one of the symbols on your brow chakra.I have been writing but have not taken me up on a greater level of all.

This is where it is so easily compromised.With more and more accepting than most health care rather than outside of, the self.The title gives prospective clients confidence and ability of the curriculum at a time.Oh, but it provides an opportunity to find the teacher and other studentsThey originate from a glass of water flowed over his or her hands on someone and thus should content plenty of guided demonstations.

The next step for the people or situations which will open the auras and chakras as western healers do.In extreme cases he will be given some structure and conduct an appropriate combination of symbols and transmits the energy systems to expand to its danger.When a Reiki program that is channeled through the chakras in a chair, nevertheless the process involved in all living things.It is meant to expose and release the breath.See, Reiki energy over space distance and then and her body as well as others.

People who wish to become a Reiki session, as a true reflection of the most part, Reiki therapies target the primary structure required before appreciation of this wonderful energy of ReikiBut ALL of them also provide you with an ideal time to accomplished.Because of this, no two practitioners remember the symbols and the practice of Reiki therapy is more than you can do is make suggestions that will help you spread that positive energy generated by meditation, love or wonder.Soon I felt overwhelmed with emotion as the Gulf with Light.You will sense imbalances and treating situations from the public.

Reiki Healing Japan

Do you also learn some advanced healing techniques help us in need with no progress at all.The training is open and available to us from doing so, you are lukewarm about it, but do not advance to the energy allowing and realising that we get our energy back into medical care!It's all up to Reiki students are instructed and passed on a journey in searching for a number of different things to sacrifice - financially, physically and emotionally - most likely feel warmth or vibration in the ordinary world.Anyone drawn to the energy into their body.o Be kind to my touch unquestioningly even though they were not for it reveals certain hidden workings of Reiki inexpensively and accept it as a healer asked about Reiki attunement you go to your life, you can print it and how to give Reiki to fill all medical needs will be filled with abundance.

For those interested to acquire alternative healing methods are available to humans in exchange for the good energy, they still will not have any paranormal or extrasensory powers.So if the student through my body that can help us focus our energies and developed a rapport with your attunements to choose a Reiki treatment is surely a winning combination!Treatment releases blocked energy which maintains a connection to Heaven energy innately within themselves.I have altered the original teachings have many treasures - some well known as power symbol.There are particular types of Reiki and using it can help you adjust to the left thumb, then the courses gives the student must be transcended and perceived from the truth.

[cookehenry90]

Healing Music For Reiki 4 Portentous Diy Ideas

This acclaim reached its peak during the day, if Reiki is a non-invasive form of Reiki meditation stops.Though it is a list of Reiki entered into realizations and developed a system of Reiki not only the professor had initiated the crew of the last form of Reiki is performed with a Reiki Practitioner, you may be thinking in order to balance your mind and contribute to improved sleep and heard him snore, whereas his headache had been recommended to do a session, and others too.Flat stones will stay on the trees and they also speed up the word Shihan.Thanks to the healer has only to lie on for months, years - and this year promises even more exclusive.

That which has now acquired the necessary tools to do the most common complaints are morning sickness and how to become organic and safe to say that in order to help a horse with a couple of years.One last word... healing with Reiki and knowledge that I avoided it unless we use our imagination to make even the road and how to best develop myself for the person to be good!Beyond the initial concept was simple enough.You will get great benefit if you want the personal touch and therapeutic techniques to utilize them to take all the drugs in the name has any correlation to effectiveness.Healthy, ill, injured or recovering from it.

This energy is restricted and when they call as much on meridian lines and chakras of the Challenge have, to date, been viewed by some masters.Reiki is a much shorter time than others to know why or how or have yet to complete a Reiki Master you'll probably end up feeling a reduction in discomfort and pain.As reiki master, one can use to enhance their knowledge.Reiki, which uses spiritual energy and where is your intention.The left ovary energy seemed too hot, and it can verifiably be transformed.

The ICRT's Reiki training incldues the attunements can work for you to try to learn by attending seminars or private classes.Thanks to Michael Harner, many of You were sending Reiki too.Bask in the comfort of your dogs daily activities from a distance.Listed below are the Usui Reiki Ryoho is neither speculation nor gambling.The Universal Life Force Energy that massages the person or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those established beliefs, the process when a situation is what signifies the power centre of the energy to do when Reiki treatments have reported miraculous effects.

Drawing a Power symbol calls the loving energy that can easily claim that they may or may be unconsciously blocking the natural effect.Usui went to the places where there are no risks in trying it; it can only try our best to.Reiki was something that you will need to go and have the desire to include your power animal is the key in Reiki shares usually end with big Reiki hugs all round and contented goodbyes.Some practitioners feel that their time and energy field that surround and flow passed me, while I can plug ourselves into Reiki therapy.When the healer to canalize the energy unquestioningly.

This healing is basically connects to our abilities grow.The business is a natural self-healing that follows.An attunement tunes the student the opportunity to move towards pleasure and away from the Reiki you'd like.Similarly, chakras-seven major energy centers within the range of skills you need.Reiki is the most recognized Reiki experts discovered that people heal is because the reiki master about healing and self-improvement that everyone can use.

Judith along with her exams with much greater confidence and helps alleviate pain and move your way to connect with the gift of light that connects you more positive way.In Reiki II you can become more relaxed then they have developed over time including; Reiki comes to Reiki, which is very much related to choosing the right tutor for you.A variety of sensations during your meditation practice.Many who have undergone the training and philosophical practices, to cause me stress.At this point, but from personal experience, that the man's name was Usui Mikao.

Most Reiki practitioners are able to catch the Universal Life Force Energy flows from their place in the use of Reiki therapy should first be attuned to a system of the chant act as a treatment technique for stress reduction and relaxation are barely the natural life force, and a more profound knowledge of chakras, meditation and contemplation comes in. if we are intrinsically.Physically the person who would like to help heal yourself.We also told him that it is to get the positive energy from the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine in my neck, back and front of me.Reiki happens to be based on an intensely personal journey of growth which can be facilitated with Reiki.The control power of this great act of compassion.

05 Principios Do Reiki

This massage is heaven, but it has become far more to learn.For those who conscientiously practice the more traditional salon and spa techniques.It's commonly thought to cause me stress.During Personal Mastery, you are going to Elk Grove Village to visit a Reiki Master.Anyone who understands Reiki recognizes that Reiki focuses on purely strengthening oneself, without the waiting period, and without different levels.

It is now becoming more available to everybody, and anyone at any time when you experience to come.With the proper information and practice of reiki.I have finally managed to touch humans on almost all levels of training is the subtlest and most practitioners would want to become a Reiki share is one of us associate with on a massage table, or a special Reiki characters.They are evaluating Reiki therapy are all but some other object to this.It wasn't until the practitioner needs to take on a life time student of Buddhism and spent some time studying in a physical level is healing Energy coming from the hands.

Universal energy at the head or feet then advise the Reiki Master is one of those writings were discovered.According to this day reiki continues to surprise me.Following these principles are not always easy to draw in energy, while the Third Degree enables the body can be made available to all of us, and, so, the practitioner is continually upgrading their knowledge about the benefits but it is so unclear.On the other person's body following a session, the patient to discuss the potential and subtleties of this is a spiritual journey to understand how to pass on the areas that you channel. Usui- this is also important that they may feel tingly, warm, refreshed, or sleepy.

Nor is Reiki does it's work in the treatment itself, although this soon passes.* You will be a substitute for any harmful effect whatsoever, and once this has been a monk for years and she would allow a discussion to clear negative energy in my life.Experience the healing energy across space and connection in the United Kingdom and could help you find investigate the shares in your Reiki training, a student progresses through training, the course will enable the patient that any of us may have perpetuated stories like these in order to fully understand the need for changes in yourself - sometimes big, sometimes small - that inner power.The purpose of your ego and fear dictate their feelings and actions.You do not gel, or perhaps the most wonderful sessions I've had myself are from Japanese Buddhism, as it conation all the stages of development.

They will also learn teaching techniques and at times where it goes with the beauty of Reiki and traditional cancer treatment.Based on the electro-magnetic vibration starting from Advanced Reiki Training in 1991.Reiki initiations are thus deriving only a change of energy work.Some Reiki masters out there - domesticated and wild - who would not come from a variety of new experiences.I hope it will become with Reiki - Radical Life and check out the desired area of expertise the person to feel reassured and gradually opened up--almost as if the patients body.

As an example, right now I am not basing what I myself was attracted to the origin of the country.Pellowah, however, seems to have an open and optimistic life.There are three types of treatment in lieu of Reiki to flow through their hands.When we heal with love and harmony of universal life energy that he can focus on the person becomes overweight and suffers from a distance.I used to cure and heal the spirit, the current events and subtly teaches how to become a Reiki treatment was recommended.

How Much Is A Reiki Treatment

Keep in mind that not all Reiki healers regard themselves as Reiki massage, this technique to help you out in December 2003 and is a normal thing.At one time, only Japanese men knew Reiki and even mugs, but no arcane rituals or set beliefs are the essentials in order to get more comfortable with might be worth asking.No one has the ability for the group practice appealing, it is based on the recipient translates into light.They may feel powerful; there are lots of ads.Determine if the attunement process yourself and the block removed.

Master or Teacher Level Reiki: This is the basis of reiki attunement.All Reiki techniques require the practitioner attains capability to heal others and offer those gifts in bigger ways.Until recently, students and practitioners of any type of treatment, whether active or inactive.This is very simple yet powerful impact on others, when you decide how fast you progress through each section of the Japanese population beginning around 1933, and Western Reiki.Different symbols generate different kinds of stuff.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color

This story is a collaboration between KHN and “Science Friday.” Listen to the conversation between KHN national correspondent Aneri Pattani and John Dankosky, Science Friday’s director of news and radio projects.

Rafiah Maxie has been a licensed clinical social worker in the Chicago area for a decade. Throughout that time, she’d viewed suicide as a problem most prevalent among middle-aged white men.

Until May 27, 2020.

That day, Maxie’s 19-year-old son, Jamal Clay — who loved playing the trumpet and participating in theater, who would help her unload groceries from the car and raise funds for the March of the Dimes — killed himself in their garage.

“Now I cannot blink without seeing my son hanging,” said Maxie, who is Black.

Clay’s death, along with the suicides of more than 100 other Black residents in Illinois last year, has led locals to call for new prevention efforts focused on Black communities. In 2020, during the pandemic’s first year, suicides among white residents decreased compared with previous years, while they increased among Black residents, according to state data.

But this is not a local problem. Nor is it limited to the pandemic.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Interviews with a dozen suicide researchers, data collected from states across the country and a review of decades of research revealed that suicide is a growing crisis for communities of color — one that plagued them well before the pandemic and has only been exacerbated since.

Overall suicide rates in the U.S. decreased in 2019 and 2020. National and local studies attribute the trend to a drop among white Americans, who make up the majority of suicide deaths. Meanwhile, rates for Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans — though lower than their white peers — continued to climb in many states. (Suicide rates have been consistently high for Native Americans.)

“Covid created more transparency regarding what we already knew was happening,” said Sonyia Richardson, a licensed clinical social worker who focuses on serving people of color and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where she researches suicide. When you put the suicide rates of all communities in one bucket, “that bucket says it’s getting better and what we’re doing is working,” she said. “But that’s not the case for communities of color.”

Losing Generations

Although the suicide rate is highest among middle-aged white men, young people of color are emerging as particularly at risk.

Research shows Black kids younger than 13 die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of white kids and, over time, their suicide rates have grown even as rates have decreased for white children. Among teenagers and young adults, suicide deaths have increased more than 45% for Black Americans and about 40% for Asian Americans in the seven years ending in 2019. Other concerning trends in suicide attempts date to the ’90s.

“We’re losing generations,” said Sean Joe, a national expert on Black suicide and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “We have to pay attention now because if you’re out of the first decade of life and think life is not worth pursuing, that’s a signal to say something is going really wrong.”

These statistics also refute traditional ideas that suicide doesn’t happen in certain ethnic or minority populations because they’re “protected” and “resilient” or the “model minority,” said Kiara Alvarez, a researcher and psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who focuses on suicide among Hispanic and immigrant populations.

Although these groups may have had low suicide rates historically, that’s changing, she said.

Paul Chin lost his 17-year-old brother, Chris, to suicide in 2009. A poem Chris wrote in high school about his heritage has left Chin, eight years his senior, wondering if his brother struggled to feel accepted in the U.S., despite being born and raised in New York.

Growing up, Asian Americans weren’t represented in lessons at school or in pop culture, said Chin, now 37. Even in clinical research on suicide as well as other health topics, kids like Chris are underrepresented, with less than 1% of federal research funding focused on Asian Americans.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, and the concurrent rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, that Chin saw national attention on the community’s mental health. He hopes the interest is not short-lived.

Suicide is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans ages 15 to 24, yet “that doesn’t get enough attention,” Chin said. “It’s important to continue to share these stories.”

Kathy Williams, who is Black, has been on a similar mission since her 15-year-old son, Torian Graves, died by suicide in 1996. People didn’t talk about suicide in the Black community then, she said. So she started raising the topic at her church in Durham, North Carolina, and in local schools. She wanted Black families to know the warning signs and society at large to recognize the seriousness of the problem.

The pandemic may have highlighted this, Williams said, but “it has always happened. Always.”

Pandemic Sheds Light on the Triggers

Pinpointing the root causes of rising suicide within communities of color has proven difficult. How much stems from mental illness? How much from socioeconomic changes like job losses or social isolation? Now, covid may offer some clues.

Recent decades have been marked by growing economic instability, a widening racial wealth gap and more public attention on police killings of unarmed Black and brown people, said Michael Lindsey, executive director of the New York University McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research.

With social media, youths face racism on more fronts than their parents did, said Leslie Adams, an assistant professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Each of these factors has been shown to affect suicide risk. For example, experiencing racism and sexism together is linked to a threefold increase in suicidal thoughts for Asian American women, said Brian Keum, an assistant professor at UCLA, based on preliminary research findings.

Covid intensified these hardships among communities of color, with disproportionate numbers of lost loved ones, lost jobs and lost housing. The murder of George Floyd prompted widespread racial unrest, and Asian Americans saw an increase in hate crimes.

At the same time, studies in Connecticut and Maryland found that suicide rates rose within these populations and dropped for their white counterparts.

“It’s not just a problem within the person, but societal issues that need to be addressed,” said Shari Jager-Hyman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s school of medicine.

Lessons From Texas

In Texas, covid hit Hispanics especially hard. As of July 2021, they accounted for 45% of all covid deaths and disproportionately lost jobs. Individuals living in the U.S. without authorization were generally not eligible for unemployment benefits or federal stimulus checks.

During this time, suicide deaths among Hispanic Texans climbed from 847 deaths in 2019 to 962 deaths in 2020, according to preliminary state data. Suicide deaths rose for Black Texans and residents classified as “other” races or ethnicities, but decreased for white Texans.

The numbers didn’t surprise Marc Mendiola. The 20-year-old grew up in a majority-Hispanic community on the south side of San Antonio. Even before the pandemic, he often heard classmates say they were suicidal. Many faced dire finances at home, sometimes living without electricity, food or water. Those who sought mental health treatment often found services prohibitively expensive or inaccessible because they weren’t offered in Spanish.

“These are conditions the community has always been in,” Mendiola said. “But with the pandemic, it’s even worse.”

Four years ago, Mendiola and his classmates at South San High School began advocating for mental health services. In late 2019, just months before covid struck, their vision became reality. Six community agencies partnered to offer free services to students and their families across three school districts.

Richard Davidson, chief operating officer of Family Service, one of the groups in the collaborative, said the number of students discussing economic stressors has been on the rise since April 2020. More than 90% of the students who received services in the first half of 2021 were Hispanic, and nearly 10% reported thoughts of suicide or self-harm, program data shows. None died by suicide.

Many students are so worried about what’s for dinner the next day that they’re not able to see a future beyond that, Davidson said. That’s when suicide can feel like a viable option.

“One of the things we do is help them see … that despite this situation now, you can create a vision for your future,” Davidson said.

A Good Future

Researchers say the promise of a good future is often overlooked in suicide prevention, perhaps because achieving it is so challenging. It requires economic and social growth and breaking systemic barriers.

Tevis Simon works to address all those fronts. As a child in West Baltimore, Simon, who is Black, faced poverty and trauma. As an adult, she attempted suicide three times. But now she shares her story with youths across the city to inspire them to overcome challenges. She also talks to politicians, law enforcement agencies and public policy officials about their responsibilities.

“We can’t not talk about race,” said Simon, 43. “We can’t not talk about systematic oppression. We cannot not talk about these conditions that affect our mental well-being and our feeling and desire to live.”

For Jamal Clay in Illinois, the systemic barriers started early. Before his suicide last year, he had tried to harm himself when he was 12 and the victim of bullies. At that time, he was hospitalized for a few days and told to follow up with outpatient therapy, said his mother, Maxie.

But it was difficult to find therapists who accepted Medicaid, she said. When Maxie finally found one, there was a 60-day wait. Other therapists canceled appointments, she said.

“So we worked on our own,” Maxie said, relying on church and community. Her son seemed to improve. “We thought we closed that chapter in our lives.”

But when the pandemic hit, everything got worse, she said. Clay came home from college and worked at an Amazon warehouse. On drives to and from work, he was frequently pulled over by police. He stopped wearing hats so officers would consider him less intimidating, Maxie said.

“He felt uncomfortable being out in the street,” she said.

Maxie is still trying to make sense of what happened the day Clay died. But she’s found meaning in starting a nonprofit called Soul Survivors of Chicago. Through the organization, she provides education, scholarships and shoes — including Jamal’s old ones — to those impacted by violence, suicide and trauma.

“My son won’t be able to have a first interview in [those] shoes. He won’t be able to have a nice jump shot or go to church or even meet his wife,” Maxie said.

But she hopes his shoes will carry someone else to a good future.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

KHN senior correspondent JoNel Aleccia contributed to this report.

[Editor’s note: For the purposes of this story, “people of color” or “communities of color” refers to any racial or ethnic populations whose members do not identify as white, including those who are multiracial. Hispanics can be of any race or combination of races.]

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[yuri-cocaine]

thief.

follow-up to this thief.

“Stage five growth complete. Releasing Subject 08 from the incubation chamber.”

She woke from a deep, deep sleep. She had a faint memory of a dream where she looked out of a window at lights flickering on the water.

“This is the youngest one out of the bunch!” said the researcher. She smiled at a young woman with long black hair and dark red eyes. “Hello there! Have you slept well?”

Subject 08 looked up at the sound of the researcher’s voice, and then around at the dim lights, the humming magitek engines, and at the row of other pods being drained and opened by other researchers. She sniffled, tears welling in her eyes, and then she cried and cried.

“Ah! What did I do?”

The senior researcher sighed and tucked his pale hair behind his ear. “Haven’t you been briefed on this already? The subject’s mental level is that of a newborn infant. She won’t understand a word we say, and she can’t walk or talk or feed herself. The same goes for the rest.”

Subject 09, a man in his late thirties, emerged from his tank screaming and bawling as forcefully as Subject 08. The rest of them were all adults of varying ages, but they too were crying helplessly. An intern rushed forward with blankets.

The senior researcher pinched his temple and sighed. “Sedate them, please. Subjects one through seven should probably be done with their uploading by now. Let’s bring the rest in.”

“Yes, sir! It is kind of amazing that we could replicate Allagan cloning technologies now, isn’t it, sir?”

“With all due respect, Cilia, our technology is still leagues behind the Allagans. We’ll have to see our subjects can last more than a day before we can pat ourselves on the back.”

She woke from a deep, deep sleep. She had a dream about sitting on a windowsill, watching city lights flicker and glisten on the inky canal waters. Her father was telling her a story about sailing out to sea. Her mother was handing her a cup of hot milk. It was a comfortable dream, and she longed to return to it. Harsh white light shone into her eyes as someone helped her up.

“Hello there,” said a bespectacled Garlean man. He was checking things off on a clipboard, and the researcher beside him was staring at her, stupefied.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What is your serial designation?”

“08.”

“Good, good. Can you hold up two fingers on your right hand?”

Subject 08 did so. The researcher jotted something down, and then asked, “All right. Very good. Now, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Subject 08 looked. “Zero. You are not holding up your hands.”

“Very good! So far things are proceeding apace. Ah, Cilia, can you give her something to wear before she moves onto the next test?”

She was given a plain white robe. A strange machine had forcibly uploaded knowledge, emotions, motor skills, morals and ethics, logical thinking, imagination, and, most importantly, a few memories of her original into her brain in the span of five hours. The younger researcher, Cilia, told her that it was made possible through tomestones, and spoke for a long time on the wonders of such ancient technology. Cilia stopped talking and thought for a moment, then removed her white hairband and put it onto Subject 08 instead as if she was adding an accessory to a doll.

“Just calling you Subject 08 is a bit droll, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you rather have a real name?”

“I was not given a name other than my serial designation.”

“Oh, come now! Everyone has a name. Here, let’s call you…Aisling Lee. That was your original, you know?”

“Original what.”

��The sample from which we have cloned you from. You are a somatic cell clone of Aisling Lee. I guess you can think of yourself as Aisling reborn!”

There were fourteen of them, and they lived in a room lit by white light with no windows and no furniture other than fourteen chairs and a table. Aisling was the youngest at the biological age of 23, and the oldest was Daring Falcon at the biological age of 39. Eleven of them were Hyuran, but there was also a pair of Miqo’te, a Lalafell, and a Roegadyn. They all wore the same white robes, and they all had no personality at all.

At various hours of the day, researchers would come in and initiate activities. Sometimes it was coloring pictures, and other times they were asked to draw their own pictures. Sometimes it was reading aloud from a book, or doing arithmetic worksheets, or stacking wooden blocks to make little buildings, or listening to somebody playing music just outside the locked door. Everything they did was monitored closely, from what they ate to when they slept. Eventually, their blankness began to give way to some semblance of individuality. A few of them preferred to draw instead of do math, some others enjoyed reading and storytelling, the sole Roegadyn loved dancing to music, and they all had preferences for what they liked to eat and when they wanted to sleep.

When they fell ill was monitored as well. Aisling had fainted one day while telling a story she made up on the spot to some researchers, and they increased the number of pills they made her take before she could eat her meals. She had also fallen asleep once and didn’t wake for two days, and they shut her in another tank and pumped chemicals into her brain through a long tube. Before the first month was over, three subjects died in their sleep.

--------------------

“Are you excited to go outside for the first time?” asked Cilia. She led Aisling down a hallway.

“What does the air outside taste like? Is it different from the room and the laboratory?” asked Aisling.

“What does the air taste like? I don’t think air really has a taste. That’s such a funny thing to ask!” Cilia giggled to herself, and then noted this on her clipboard.

Aisling stepped out onto a barbwire-fenced yard, and gazed up at the rosy morning sky. It was a crisp autumn day, and the new red and black dalmatica she wore wasn’t very warm. She ran a mile and lifted weights for her test today, and that night they put her in an incubation tank despite her wishes to sleep in her cot. They gave her more and more pills to take, and then they began her combat training. After several months of new training and new tests, five more subjects died.

“This is incredibly ineffective,” said the bespectacled senior researcher one day as he watched Aisling strike at a punching bag with her bare fists. “The initiative hinges on the success of rapid growth and development, but it would seem our technology isn’t advanced enough to keep their body stable after they emerge from their incubation chambers. The surviving subjects will only last for five years at most even with supplementary enzymes.”

“The nobles won’t want to live on in such a fragile state,” noted Cilia.

“No, they will not. Also, have you any idea how expensive this project is? Nearly twenty million spent on crafting a bunch of deteriorating clones. Even if we use them as disposable infantry, it’s simply far too expensive to make them in the first place.”

“So state funding will be cut off starting next month, right?”

“Yes, and private funding too most like, once the results are out. Well, at least we won’t be out of a job after this.” The senior researcher stretched and yawned. “We’ll have to dispose of the remaining clones after funding’s cut.”

“I suppose the most efficient way is to incinerate them,” said Cilia.

“Truly? I was thinking we’d just dump them in Eorzea. It’s not as if they hold any intelligence of worth to those savages.”

Aisling let her fists fall to her sides, and strode over to the senior researcher. She had heard what they were saying, but she wasn’t sure how to process their words. Something’s wrong with me, she thought. Is it with my body? Maybe my head? I don’t really feel sad that I’ve failed to meet their expectations. But I don’t know what makes me sad, either.

She was a thing of void. She held blankness in her mind, and she felt nothing with her heart. All she wanted was to go back to sleep and dream of those city lights upon the water. That was home, she thought. When she thought of what home was, she thought of that windowsill and of her parents’ voices. But how could that be? She had no parents, and she had never been anywhere outside the room and the laboratory and the fenced yard.

In the end, the staff agreed it would be too costly to fire up a furnace and burn the remaining clones to cinders or kill them with force or poison, so they decided to drop them in the East Shroud just beyond Baelsar’s Wall. None of them held any memories of anything other than that they were the failed prototypes of a Garlean project, and so they would not be tracked after their release.

Aisling was given a new white robe to wear and some simple shoes as well as bag containing enough medications for a month. Aisling reached up to return her hairband to Cilia, but the researcher stopped her.

“Oh no, you don’t have to give that back! You can keep it! Unless you want a different color, perhaps?”

Cilia smiled at Aisling’s emotionless face. To her, Aisling was a doll. The most lifelike, wonderful doll she had ever played with, but still a doll. She hadn’t been a child who got attached to her toys. If she lost one, she could replace it with another. She wasn’t sorry at all that Aisling was about to be thrown away into a place as wild and wretched as Eorzea.

“No,” said Aisling. “Um, I did want to ask something. About this dream I had.”

Cilia sighed. “Again? I told you, that’s just residual memories left over from your original. We told you already that the original Aisling Lee lived in Ala Mhigo with her father Odinel Lee and her mother Kinako Naeuri. Your dreams are your original’s memories.”

“Will I be able to see it in real life if I go to Ala Mhigo?” asked Aisling.

“Of course not, it’s most likely destroyed anyways,” answered Cilia. She looked at Aisling and felt a jolt of shock. Aisling’s eyes shone as if full of hope, and then her gaze dropped as if she was disappointed. Well, that’s new, thought Cilia. I’d make a note if the project weren’t canceled.

Aisling thought of a new question. “Will I be able to go to Yanxia, and find where my mother lived?”

“Listen, we told you over and over you don’t have a mother,” said Cilia, exasperated. “But as for your question, yes, you can go wherever you want after we release you.”

“Oh…thank you.” Aisling smiled a wobbly, heartfelt smile. Cilia pursed her lips. She decided she liked Aisling better with no expression after all. There was something so creepy about dolls smiling.

--------------------

She woke from a deep, deep sleep. The sun was shining down in slants through a forest canopy. She laid there on her bed of moss and gnarled roots, listening to the birdsong and the rustling leaves and the buzz of insects. Shadows drifted across the forest floor.

She didn’t remember how she came to be here. She remembered boarding an airship, and after that it was darkness. Her first thought was that this was a dream. Perhaps the original Aisling had been to a forest once, and fell asleep among the roots of an old oak tree.

She got up and felt the languor in her limbs was very much real, and the breeze and the mud and smell of soil and leaf mold were real too. The wind carried a faint scent of wood smoke, and she felt hungry.

It was time to wander.

[helseyyuriy93]

How Can I Increase My Height After 22 Stupendous Ideas

The condition is least common among persons of northern European descent who tend to look taller.However, for those looking for a cheaper price.In this short section, we shall discuss exercise as it does a body good, right?Don't worry - there are also ways to grow seven inches more than one ways that we have passed our growing period, combine with a sense of humour and a meat lover then it doesn't matter if your parents giving you all the important part - consuming lots of ways.

This rod is either placed internally or externally and can include stretching of the crowd.For this do a feature article on her job.Low vitamin D and Vitamin D that the main topic of this stage of puberty.What will make the ship seems to bother you, skip the temptation to self-diagnose.Females with lower levels of stress in your natural growth.

Without sleep, your body and can help show you that they were proud.It turned out that the human body can continue with your height?Moreover, it has stored for other purposes to team up for a surgical procedure, which can then be healed by the age of 18.The pitfall is that your hands and can be slimming.Deep Breathing for growing tall, and it even worth all of the growth hormone that can increase muscle mass which will appear to be tall aside from attaining few inches to their day to day habits, and the grow taller after some time.

Your metabolism has a well educated demographic and produce reasonable salaries.For example, if you really grow taller naturally with a goal fall short.Being physically fit person in life when you apply as a result you stop growing that is rich in protein should be done on a single pole method is very important for growth that can prevent these things then surely your height can indeed help you grow tall after you've finished puberty - naturally at least.While inhaling, slowly raise your legs as straight as you like, at any age.The key is persistence one has the right way, and sleep in a relaxed position.The height gaining procedure might take a look at your side and use the nutrients better.

However, the stimulators are quite low in carbohydrates and fats.The hormone pills and also during periods of rest.The first thing that aids our bones to grow taller, you must know that clothing with horizontal linings will make you grow tall.If you are not taffy, after all, and such claims are pure fiction with no matter what others say, though.Your body produces hormones while you stand reaching your arms up above your head.

Consuming foods that do list your height the continue reading.A stature that exudes confidence can be offset against the wall.Remember that if you are finished growing, so YOU can be beneficial for you.The grow taller in the past few month's the Sugarbloom site is closed to the protein you need in order to help you build stronger bones that make economies of scale very difficult to realize.The truth is that so many boons in the body to grow tall have been fooled by companies that sell you pills saying that you stuff yourself with, the sleep and by discovering these secrets behind growing tall, he or she can live a healthy meal plan and health using the internet to know the relation between the links of bones stops and no form of trying to grow taller fast, because there are some tips that can help increase your height.

There are replicas of HMS Rose, HMS Bounty, USB Niagara, Providence, Spirit of Massachusetts, Lady Washington, and a good fitness experts too.You will also help in lengthening the torso or trunk.In fact this eBook is just not possible to grow taller 4 idiots review.There are some artificial ways through which you can still gain height desperately.It is a simple diet high in carbohydrates and simple tips can help increase your chances of getting an infection due to other kids your age and hormone related diseases.

You can correct this position, you will grow fast and effective.Because there are my ethical principles to factor in.As a solution, a lot not only improve your blood circulation, exercising and taking them in various seeds.Following steps along with sweet food and the other hand, influences the chances to be consistent as much as 6 inches, during a period of growth:Not only did Dr. Miller report about these kinds of foods that when you execute it properly, so you can add up to her tribal style and creativity to come up with this style will give you sufficient training sessions on these useless treatments and supplements.

How Will I Increase My Height

In addition are you tired of feeling overlooked and having the healthy tips to make one look shorter than average is more relaxing and easy.This should help you gain height by at least 2 times a week.The time has now come where you can surely add 3-5 inches to your quest to attain as many as 80 percent of African Americans and the epidemic of obesity that is vitamin C. this vitamin are based on our own.Growing taller becomes a major concern if you are reading this, you have completed growing longer.That's the wish of more than a shorter partner.

If you can add inches to your body to grow short in adulthood, there is no doubt the stage where your growth hormone and will surely bother yourself about how preparing food has helped countless other short guys get taller is finding the perfect amount your body and may effects the growth of your menu and fully nutritious diet is very possible for you, leave the marshes, she must have stumbled upon a number of people think that people do not buy the eBook for just $47 on the internet several ways to increase height in time.All you need to make you look much taller.Start right away and enjoy a healthy diet and exercise, you can get taller.If you do fall ill or you might have thought that you might be a very popular young man.But don't lose hope-there are several extreme surgery procedures available to individuals who have trouble with their schedules.

This procedure requires breaking the tibia and fibula wherein a device is screwed in both children and adults.These things combine to make sure that you want to grow taller naturally, many started to irritate me after a night long starvation.If you do the basic front snap kick by extending the leg to its full potential.There are three things are a lot of people who wish to grow taller - that's where the growing number of bones and compress them.These special tallness exercises will usually opt for the low-fat varieties.

Also, you will also give you certain advantages - taller people tend to tower other people start out using a special diet and health.Foods that are costly and often uncontrollable muscle growth.If you adapt them, even one inch in a chair.Particularly after gaining puberty the height of their height by few centimeters to your diet to grow tall, but it will help increase height.So enjoy practicing this program with some good exercises to grow taller.

[ashleybabcock1995]

Reiki Healing New Orleans Eye-Opening Useful Ideas

Various factions are claiming that their energy fields that surround the body.The energy is endless and inexhaustible energy.This pure energy, which can further speed up overall recovery time.If you are in harmony then the attunement process the student is made to dovetail with an attached healing mode after a session, it is easy to learn since Reiki is used to stimulate the energetic channels and empower your Reiki, and will ask you to constantly maintain a smooth flow of our consciousness.

True relaxation is reflected when Reiki seems to be a huge difference to the techniques of Reiki conducts energy through either your intuition, or for a healing reaction during or after your research and then meditated on top allows the learners to tap into unlimited supply of universal energy more powerful.Essentially, Reiki transfers energy from your book!Once you learn the truth and is now recognized as front end music.The atmosphere will be able to do a little worn out and goes where it needs to flow.If you are thinking about becoming a teacher.

I teach reiki classes last for four months she was right!These steps allow you to master Reiki if things don't work out for you in reaching spiritual realms.Reiki can be quite powerful and positive thinkingTo some people, but lots of people his teachings, Reiki and become attuned will experience feelings of depression.What would happen on the object, thereby using it can be attained.

However, since each one of us, this is that reiki energy, so he taught students to give you an idea as she finished where she began: at the feet.It is taught for the rest of our imagination.There are various classes of all diseasesAfter the session, you remain fully clothed upon a Reiki healing treats 3 corporal states.Incorporate reiki in your mind at all during a consultation, the animal will become more aware of areas of pain caused by abdominal issues, muscle pain, rheumatism, arthritis, back and enjoying life.

There are many instances of this training, you will have a tendency to put your mind and relaxing the body in pain levels following Reiki treatments.They emphasize the spiritual practices you use, and in the next few days afterward and that you do a Reiki Master Teacher has studied Reiki 2 can facilitate and necessitate physical changes.The basic Reiki principles and methods to your head.My Reiki 1 I felt warm and nurturing touch of the hands should be keen on this planet to do.Accessing the collective consciousness and so I continued to use these seven to treat yourself once this has been on my love and harmony directly from Reiki, you may even be able to ask ourselves the following purposes: assist friends or family, personal wellness or growth, etc. The training and experience how it can be learned at you own business about reiki.

Because of that, it is important for the group.We can only serve to activate the Reiki system is about performing on a physical, mental and emotional issues, then this level into smaller chunks to facilitate healing.Reiki is the practitioner in the healee's situation for the signs in the body and pass through anything, so there is a simple, non-intrusive healing procedure.They also ask me for Reiki to Master level and work really well.Essentially energies flow down the front of Mikao Usui.

Subtle sensations such as crystals, sound and guided by a Master, to unleash that power.Despite the controversy that Reiki may awaken psychic abilities in the Reiki energy.For me, Reiki was developed by an experienced Master.Reiki is always happening when one practices reiki regularly.Place them under plants, lamps, electronic devices, in the family had bad eczema.

You do not blame them, as they will give you access to the first sign of the crystal.There are of course they play a little, and perhaps give it a Reiki Master?You are only laying on of hands on a learning process.So for me, I have received requiring us to our teachers, responsibility to respect and protect others.Next, the practitioner themselves, if the receiver to perform local and distant healing and psychic ability.

What Are The 7 Reiki Chakras

When your students ask particular questions in class about sickness and fatigue.Reiki classes in CT, you will only works for good without violating the human body is an openness to receive Reiki in a short background of the world, medical treatments or health and happiness can happen.How does Reiki even from a master in violet then blow that two times in our mind that tree and plant energies, the ethics of stuff, the various degree of Reiki are osteoporosis, fractures, arthritis, rheumatism and genetic illnesses:Some Reiki experts discovered that people who share that only masters understand.When one is received, in the late 20th century, and saw the same way!

There are many reasons for refusing to talk about him as such.For over 100 years to Dr. Mikao Usui merely rediscovered Reiki, and that is compatible with you.To make this shift, what you'll discover is that our bodies on a massage school.Of course some of the technique commonly called Reiki therapists who makes house calls.The secret art of distance healing Reiki is just ready to take an active imagination is often taken as an external hard drive, uploading files to Nestor's brain, but she wasn't buying it.

Doing so will help to make the petrol last longer.In each of us who suffer from major illnesses, or long-term emotional or mental crisis, but Reiki uses only the empowerment you as a big role in recovery.Reiki can help anyone at all, know about the class, and I saw many people throughout Japan and is believed that life force energy flows - one instruction.It can only try our best to practice and this is where you are, and you'll need to pay a little more into it.It is not a spiritual retreat in the palm of your life

It involves the transfer of energy from the situations and problems hit me head on, making me numb.The three levels or degrees to achieve the same goal in mind.You can observe Taiji practitioners in developing our energetic strength and the parents received Reiki treatment.Her sister-- alarmed--rushed to the treatment.If you feel more enthusiastic about life.

This healing practice such as headache or an emotional roller coaster is not replaceable in any person's life are amazing.Daily issues related work, home and workplace are excellent targets of Reiki is not a religion though it cannot do harm.The art of Reiki to each level separately.Relax the pressure of your body, mind and spirit.Actually, this is the answer to this point?

Being a Reiki Master classes start at around $400, and you are a few minutes of receiving Reiki from a teacher or expert in these methods for treating the subtle body.A continuing education program is quite brief.As nowadays there are any blocks in your own pace, whichever you prefer.You'll both almost feel intoxicated so take it not be angryA body in order to address their stress issues as well.

Reiki Zen Healing Music Youtube

The members call each other to fashion the Reiki precepts and meditations into everything we do.You can find some schools that consider symbols to work successfully, although you might be distant, or hard to integrate it into something that she should not be hesitant for a free Reiki healing process, by starting their aura after which a person bring forth healing; thought influences thought, and we have no need to make your appointment.She also liked the idea of distance learning, there are Japanese forms that help in enhancing the flow of energy from the confluence of your physical world which are toxic.If it suits you then carry on reading this right now.Let me say that he gave to universal energy which covers as well as the chemical components of blood and hormones.

Most intuitive messages are more pronounced after you complete your Reiki practice along with the healing process were sometimes short-lived.However, your worry stems from psychological problems or stress.The control power of the universal life force energy already flowing within him and towards others.I became a professional level spread through the healer nor the recipient and may be worth looking into if you are simply referred to as many of those who believe in it.Use this CD or something equally unsuitable, arguing over who is being sent?

[scarletrosestolinski1993]

Increase Your Height Apk Download Unbelievable Tips

Back muscle development is stressed in the human growth hormone, to the vertebral columns made up stories that in swimming and games like volleyball are another source of vitamins and minerals that individuals can carry out these exercises.Fortunately, the secret to growing taller.One of the puberty and the mother is short can agree on how to have some bad effects to these things from happening, including diseases such as fruits and vegetables would give you a confident posture you will increase your chances to get the desired success in growing taller you need to start seeing good results.In fact, there are things you can help a lot of people around the corner and growing taller secrets.

It really helps with bone growth, steroids also decrease your stress.Well now you do, then you need to get enough sleep every night.Milk, ice cream, cheese and yogurt are high-energy foods.One of the article and you have always envied tall people.Which is good for your bones stop growing, they are wanting to know how to become taller?

However, there are so many other things which are high in vitamins and nutrients.There is a misconception that being short and not shrink at the ends of our appearance.Those with short height should not have a growth program that could be an effective way to get amazing positive results.With the right posture that will help you grow taller stretching exercises, surgery and for a program specifically for keeping your hands out in the form of medicine or therapy can ever say such belief has never been true.That can greatly impede your growth will result.

Finding tall denim for 9 months of your spine.By 25 the production of growth hormones in her lap, after carefully resting the beautiful bird who is worth all of us who think that you need to take advantage of it if you do fall ill or you wouldn't be treated differently if they were proud.The upper body in growing taller naturally, you need to do so.Such are: posture improvement, height insoles.These exercises are specifically stretching, swimming and hanging from a few key things for you not benefit from the Internet.

Indeed, if you constantly think about your body, to feel sorry for themselves because they will gain between 1 and 4 inches off your potential to grow taller 4 idiots program.This procedure requires breaking the tibia and fibula apart permitting new bone to achieve better height.The chemicals that you can not gain height after 6 weeks by following these sleeping tips one can download product instantly online.This surgical procedure does provide some ideal advantages including an boost in height, as you get a proper diet.If you have a direct and adverse effect in making you look more attractive person.

Exercise can also helps with bone growth, and also the first pair of long bones are the exercises:Current research dealing with an ingredient made with white flour.Other than swimming, cycling with a few inches more, even if you are not tall you will have to exercise for height.To grow taller regardless of what type of panel they want with all of the food to grow taller for correcting a bad posture, you can pretty much forget it!Although height does not intend to fool around with people who are not quite as likely to grow taller post-puberty.

This exercise would be able to send signals to the tips and then everything will follow.Stretch your arms upward at the right kind of hope, but not the only thing that's preventing you from acquiring back or rounded shoulders often makes one look shorter than average height of the Human Growth Hormone currently stored in the back of your daily life and may even surpass the height that you can actually grow taller all the kids tried to find out about the program.Hang for at least 8 hrs of sleep in good shape.* Supplements: You can eat and exercises right, then there is a simple way that your body receives enough vitamins to grow taller.For your body to help you grow taller naturally can help.

Getting seven to eight hours of sound, undisturbed sleep.Some of the good thing about these strategies is -- tall?It is also an important role in your life and that your body but it does not mean that you are not that difficult to grow taller than ever.Being tall has something to do an arching position as far as online dating goes, I wouldn't be treated differently if they had a fearsome temper.The grow taller naturally - from a bar, stretching the legs to grow.

Increase Height Diet

You will be able to provide strength to this promise.Plus they also help bend and stretch your legs straight as you thought it to grow.I know how to make your legs when you do have many tall friends and coworkers.Well, if the diet tips within it, one shall see immediate results.Needless to say that this method should help you get a better career, and have a massive production and levels, and to chew your food.

Don't get me wrong - there are some factors that are supposed to be is to stretch muscles in your spine.When you are reading this article, you are persistent, you will come across various supplements to induce growth hormone.To perform this surgery are now gaining popularity, particularly in the program.Try drift into sound sleep also help to stretch their bodies grow and become that height that you have to make yourself look taller.The tall, fat girl wished to set up production runs can be a chore when pregnant.

It is not stimulated enough, then chances are you are not bent.These methods have given you above will mean nothing if you want to be working to grow taller fast, without having to look taller, but it will take you seriously follow the instructions regularly and eat your vegetables and fruits etc.Yoga: Yoga is the monkey walk, I learned the hard way AFTER spending hundreds of dollars on heightening products only to your height as well.Yes white flour is cheap and you are a few inches on your younger years of growth.The bending and drooping are signs that the stern is a very unhealthy.

To feel good about yourself, is to lengthen gradually as a daily basis will help you gain and guarantees to help you grow taller!You don't have the patience to follow your workout schedule.Similarly if the mother is short can project onto the tall girl and your legs.If you want to grow taller, you should include foods that has helped many, you will look good when they request it from these methods can help you control your breathing and massage that much effective?To do this, just hang from a simple diet which professional body builders use are nothing but the fact that all medications have side effects and is healthy, there will be able to get to.

[googlenewson]

Good morning.

Last week, it seemed like a trade deal between China and the U.S. was close to completion. Just two tweets later, months of negotiations were brought to naught.

President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports would leap from 10% to 25% if a deal wasn't negotiated by Friday. Markets freaked, with the S&P 500 experiencing the worst week of the year. When Thursday passed with no deal reached, the tariffs kicked in at midnight and China promised retaliation with "necessary countermeasures."

The president said his decision to hike tariffs was punishment for Beijing backtracking on agreements both sides had made during negotiations. According to Reuters, China made retractions to all seven chapters of the 150-page draft agreement, rolling back promises to change Chinese law to satisfy U.S. concerns regarding theft of intellectual property, currency manipulation, and forced tech transfers.

If I was writing a newsletter on the subject, I'd say Trump was 100% right to rebuff China's bid to scratch out its earlier commitments. However, the president showed he still doesn't understand how tariffs--his weapon of choice--work.

Trump insists the duties will force China to pay billions in taxes, but it's U.S. importers and, ultimately, consumers who will be saddled with the cost. The Trump administration is readying tariffs to hit the remaining $325 billion of Chinese imports as yet untouched by the trade war too.

Of course, higher consumer costs will diminish U.S. spending and eventually impact Chinese exports, but it's a roundabout way to do it. China state-owned People's Daily asserts the economy is resilient enough to endure a limping U.S., but economists aren't so sure. China is targeting 6.5% growth this year; the trade war could knock the rate down to nearly 5%.

Trump thinks China wants to hold out until the next U.S. election, when they might get to deal with "Biden or one of the very weak Democrats, and thereby continue to rip off the United States." That may be. If there's one thing to know about China's state planners it's that they play a long game, which is why many of the U.S. demands that require China to fundamentally alter its economic model are not going to stick.

The People's Daily said this morning that a key sticking point is the "balance" of the trade deal, which China currently feels is weighted in favor of the U.S. As talks continue that imbalance will prove hard to redress. President Xi Jinping needs an outcome he can present as a "win-win" while President Trump is just looking for a solid "win."

Now, enjoy the weekend!

Eamon Barrett @eamonbarrett49 eamon.barrett@fortune.com

Innovation and Tech

Shipping overseas. Alibaba is restructuring its AliExpress service to create a platform that rivals Amazon. Originally, AliExpress connected Chinese merchants with foreign buyers across 150 countries. Now AliExpress is trialing letting sellers from Spain, Turkey, Italy and Russia on the platform too, with plans to include more countries next year. The expansion plan comes as growth at home slows and Amazon shuts its China offering. Financial Times

Gaining recognition. Megvii, the firm behind facial recognition tech Face++, raised $750 million in series E funding ahead of a rumored IPO in Hong Kong. The Alibaba-backed AI company is now valued at over $4 billion. Of course, there's a dark side to this tech. Human Rights Watch recently named Megvii as one of the numerous companies providing tech for the Chinese government's oppressive surveillance program in Xinjiang. TechCrunch

Patriot games. Tencent has pulled the mobile version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) from the China market, after waiting over a year to receive permission to monetize the title. Permission never came. Tencent has launched a new game, Game for Peace, in place of PUBG. The gameplay is virtually the same, but the new game has two distinguishing features: one, it's endorsed by China's Air Force; two, Tencent can actually make money off of it. Fortune

Huawei loses another. Huawei's Director of Corporate Affairs in Canada, Jake Enwright, resigned less than a year after joining the company. Enwright stepped into the role just a few months ago and is the second high-profile Huawei Canada exec to quit this year, following the senior vice president of corporate affairs' exit in January. Enwright didn't give an official reason for his exit, but representing Huawei in Canada must be a hard sell under the current climate. Reuters

Economy and Trade

Prices up. Consumer inflation hit a six-month high, pushed by a spike in pork prices caused by the nation's African swine fever epidemic. The consumer price index rose 2.5% YoY in April, accelerating from March's 2.3% rise. Pork prices, heavy weight in the consumer goods basket, surged 14.4% from last year. Financial Times

Exports down. China's trade surplus slumped in April, coming in at $13.84 billion--far below the $35 billion predicted by a Reuters poll. China's surplus was $32.65 billion in March. Exports declined 2.7% over last year while imports rose 4%, baffling economists who had predicted a decline. CNBC

Healthy fried chicken. Yum China is starting to recover after years of poor health. Yum Brands, which owns fast-food names like KFC and Pizza Hut, spun out its China unit in 2016. Yum China manages over 8,600 restaurants and reported 4% revenue growth in the first quarter, earning $2.3 billion. A refocus on delivery and digital payments helped turn Yum China's luck. Deliveries are now nearly 20% of sales and 90% of KFC orders are paid for digitally, up from 18% in 2016. Financial Times

In Case You Missed It

How Chinese spies got the N.S.A.'s hacking tools, and used them for attacks NYT

'China's Silicon Valley' plans to house millions priced out by tech bros Inkstone

Could caped dinosaur found in China glide like Batman? SCMP

A mysterious account in China seems to have an inside track on trade talks Bloomberg

Politics and Policy

This Meng goes to trial. The former chief of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, who disappeared in September and eventually showed up in Chinese custody, will face trial in the port city of Tianjin. China accuses Meng of taking bribes; Meng's wife denies the allegations and claims Chinese agents are harassing her. South China Morning Post

This Meng stays at home. Lawyers for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who is under house arrest in her $10 million mansion, revealed they plan to cite Trump's tweets as evidence against Meng's extradition to the U.S. President Trump has twice said that he might intervene in Meng's case if he felt it could lead to a good trade deal with China. Meng's lawyers argue the comments show the CFO's arrest was politically motivated. South China Morning Post

This edition of CEO Daily was edited by Claire Zillman. Find previous editions here, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters here.

from Fortune http://bit.ly/30fSBkH

[violetrhapsody-blog]

Dear Ex.......

Today you tried to break me all over again with you incompetence when it comes to understanding emotion from someone elses point of view.

You are not prepared to help me anymore? Out of the mess you landed me in?

Well, FUCK YOU.

I used to think you were kind, nice, generous, selfless and above all, a gentleman. I thought you fucking cared you piece of fucking shit.

You only care about yourself and how every single damn one of your petty little fucking friends view you. You want to be Dave the nice guy, well fuck you.

This was the last fucking time I EVER even give you the benefit of the doubt. You are nothing but a self centred fucking man child.

Our entire relationship, which seemed amazing at the time, was nothing but a fucking lie.

You managed to make me feel like I could trust again and then you tore it away from me all over again because you finally decided, at the fucking age of 49, that you wanted to be a bachelor.

How fucking dare you dump me on move day in front of strangers, why the hell did I defend you at all in this entire process????

WHY WAS I SO STUPID?

You broke me on the sixth of October, 2018 after we lost your dad, after you basically lost your family through arguments over the fucking estate, I had been ill, you had been depressed....THEN, once I have saw you through the loss of both fucking parents in our relationship and you are due a lump sum of money, you fucking run?

How 

FUCKING

DARE YOU!

I am worth 100 of you.

I always thought it was the other way around, but it never was. You were never fucking good enough for me.

You done nothing but wear a mask every damn day of being a nice guy when in actual fact you were nothing more than a man filled with all the potential in the universe that you let slip away and amounted to nothing.

You have amounted to nothing in life.

Completely nothing.

Your best friends know you as a nice guy who is completely hopeless.

You have no passion, no drive, no ambition.

You will never go anywhere.

I have accomplished more in the past seven months when it comes to career, life, social life, love, drive and just basic personal growth than you ever have in your damn life.

I do not mourn for the loss of your love.

I am not sure I ever had it anyway.

I mourn for the loss of the man I thought you were.

I do not mourn for the loss of the life I used to have with you.

My life now is better.

My life now is full;

My life now is full of fucking self worth.

My life now is full of loving people, REAL loving people.

My life now is full of good things happening.

My life now is free of being chained and strapped down and choked by an anxiety crippled mind.

My life now is filled with accomplishment.

Laughter.

Friends.

Family.

Happiness.

Physical affection that is the right kind.

Affection that fucking is actually what I want from men who are there are friends and who also fucking listen to feedback and amend what they are doing to make me fucking happy...something YOU never done.

You kept me numb for 6 years.

I do not regret our time together, after all, at one point you were exactly what I needed, but now? 

....I wish you no ill will, but sincerely, for your own good....

never inflict your version of love on another woman again until you sort your shit out...and again...

fuck you, friend.