#be tolerant to one another and try to help those whose life dealt them the worse hand

[tigerhidden]

damian. • bodyclaim. • headcanons. • isms. • memes. • thread tracker.

Is that JOSH SEGARRA? No, that’s DAMIAN JUAN SANCHEZ. The 35 year old SINGING MOON WERETIGER ALPHA MALE (HE/HIM)  is a RANCH WORKER (AKA COWBOY). If you ask their friends, they’re known to be CONFIDENT & DETERMINED, but beware, they’re also known to be AGGRESSIVE & CONVINCING. Can you believe they’re from THE PRESENT? Me either.

Born in Cuba, but raised very much in the United States, Damian grew up in Downtown Los Angeles as the older brother of two sisters and the pride and joy of a single mother who fled home to chase the dream in the US. As the kid in class whose English was questionable at best, Damian didn’t have the greatest time in elementary school, but as he grew older.. that would change. He worked odd jobs as early as he could to support his mother who worked part-time in three jobs while Damian was left at home to look after his sisters. They didn’t live far from his uncle who spent a lot of time at the Sanchez house to - as he called it, make sure Damian had a male role model to look up to. His mother never spoke about what they were, but they all knew they weren’t human. It was okay at home to show it, but outside of the safety of their own four walls, they were supposed to be human. Blend in. 

Damian didn’t remember his father, but he remembered the day he left… he remembered his mother crying and begging for him to stay, but he’d been too young to remember a face. It didn’t matter, though. They were doing fine without him. Their uncle wasn’t needed either, but their mother enjoyed another person helping out, so his presence was tolerated. Damian never liked others telling him what to do, least of all those who didn’t know anything about him, but when it came to family trying to meddle with theirs… he stood back, as his mother asked him to. So whenever holidays came up and they came to visit, Damian made sure to spend as little time home as possible so as to not clash with them. 

One could say Damian .. was a player in highschool and not just because he played football. The accent finally came in handy and he had girls practically chasing him and fighting for his attention and of course it helped that - due to his sisters worrying and struggling with appearance in school, that he, too, grew up obsessed with his appearance. He had to be perfect. For his mother, for his sisters, for himself. He worked before school, played football after school, went home to look after his sisters, worked out, homework into the night - if he felt like doing it - rinse repeat. Although… homework was skipped more often than not. School wasn’t his greatest interest by far. So Damian had girlfriends en masse, he never quite actually fell for any, but having a girlfriend was better than not having one, right? 

With time passing and trends changing, Damian became even more obsessed with his health, always eating right, working out between jobs and neglecting pretty much everything else. Every gram gained was .. troublesome, but he dealt with it accordingly. Damian dropped out of highschool when his girlfriend and future wife became pregnant. They moved out, got their own little flat in the city and Damian worked for two households now while still reminded every day that a man should provide for his family. Uncle had taken his job seriously to ensure Damian grew up a proper man. 

But Damian… wasn’t happy. Sure, he loved his child and he knew he had to take care of his family, but … he wasn’t happy. This wasn’t the life he wanted. Hell, it wasn’t even the wife he wanted. Yet he endured. His wife didn’t know his secret and he was glad to find out his child was born human. Utterly human.

Twelve years later… 

Frustration was threatening to take over, his life an endless cycle of work and work-out and self-hatred, which was when Damian began to drink. First at home, but the kid and wife didn’t exactly make that a possibility, so he went out. Bars. First to get away from home, then to drink. He switched bars every night so nobody he knew would see him, which … left him with limited options unless he wanted to drive. One night, he found himself at a gay bar, which - given that he only came to drink, didn’t really matter. That was until someone bought him a drink. Hm. It was a fancy one, too. That’d mark the beginning of a new life. 

The attention Damian drew to himself when in the clubs or bars didn’t go unnoticed, so after a few free beers, he found himself with company. A very interested woman made him a proposition. Work for me and you’ll never want for anything again. The idea was simple enough - if .. evil. Damian was to mark himself available, revel in the attention especially older gay guys gave him, give them time of his day and once he got access to their money… he was gone. It started harmless, a few hundreds here and there, but his associate grew more ambitious with every passing day. 

Soon Damian would be courting men for weeks, or longer until he got his hands on their bank accounts to plunder every penny they owned. Or take whatever treasures they had hidden away elsewhere. Once he got some money, Damian filed for divorce and got himself a new place to live. Then, a car. His most precious possession. But after that … his money income stagnated, his associate growing greedier over the years, demanding more. Which was around the time she caught whiff of a huge sum just waiting to be … well, whisked away. Damian was sent to flirt his way into another man’s life, which… ended up his greatest challenge yet, especially because the guy was like him - in hiding, too, but not human and very much an Alpha. For the first time since he started his career as a grifter, Damian felt for the guy he was going to rob. Denial was his best friend, no matter how shitty he felt - the money was the only thing that mattered. He had rent to pay and gas, too. 

He didn’t know at the time that his life would - once again change once he fled with those fifty thousand dollars that’d been diligently saved up over years, because for once … the man went to the police. Usually they didn’t. The embarrassment was too stifling. This one really wanted his money back, it seemed and sent an army on his tracks before bolting. Well. Damian and his partner went on a merry chase across the continent for revenge, but the only thing Damian found on that journey was … that he’d truly developed feelings for the man over the past six months he’d spent with him. Was he gay? Was he broken? Well, that - and that his partner had taken much more of the money Damian earned while sending him out to fuck guys up for more and giving him scraps. He was not a whore. He didn’t sleep with the guys he stole from. 

Damian tried to apologize, returned most of the money he’d stolen - ditched his blackmailing piece of shit of a partner, but it ..was to no avail. One near-death experience later, he knew he wouldn’t find happiness in the world his lost love lived in, so he went to the place he’d heard so much about by the same guy. Maybe he could be close to him that way? Maybe one day he’d come to his senses and believe Damian when he said he was sorry. Maybe. The police sure as shit didn’t stop, though - so when Damian made it to New Haven … he felt safe. He’d been on the run for over a year, always ducking away from every police car he saw, wondering when they’d kick down his door. No more. 

He didn’t know yet what exactly he planned to do in New Haven, didn’t know what life had in store for him after all this, but he knew he’d have a chance at a new life. And maybe he would figure out why he felt so drawn to Alphas.

[newhavenrp]

Is that JOSH SEGARRA? No, that’s DAMIAN JUAN SANCHEZ. The 35 year old SINGING MOON WERETIGER ALPHA MALE is a RANCH WORKER (AKA COWBOY). If you ask their friends, they’re known to be CONFIDENT & DETERMINED, but beware, they’re also known to be AGGRESSIVE & CONVINCING. Their friends also say that they’re into ALPHAS & PASSION but don’t you dare trying SCAT & GORE with them.

Born in Cuba, but raised very much in the United States, Damian grew up in Downtown Los Angeles as the older brother of two sisters and the pride and joy of a single mother who fled home to chase the dream in the US. As the kid in class whose English was questionable at best, Damian didn’t have the greatest time in elementary school, but as he grew older.. that would change. He worked odd jobs as early as he could to support his mother who worked part-time in three jobs while Damian was left at home to look after his sisters. They didn’t live far from his uncle who spent a lot of time at the Sanchez house to - as he called it, make sure Damian had a male role model to look up to. His mother never spoke about what they were, but they all knew they weren’t human. It was okay at home to show it, but outside of the safety of their own four walls, they were supposed to be human. Blend in. 

Damian didn’t remember his father, but he remembered the day he left… he remembered his mother crying and begging for him to stay, but he’d been too young to remember a face. It didn’t matter, though. They were doing fine without him. Their uncle wasn’t needed either, but their mother enjoyed another person helping out, so his presence was tolerated. Damian never liked others telling him what to do, least of all those who didn’t know anything about him, but when it came to family trying to meddle with theirs… he stood back, as his mother asked him to. So whenever holidays came up and they came to visit, Damian made sure to spend as little time home as possible so as to not clash with them. 

One could say Damian .. was a player in highschool and not just because he played football. The accent finally came in handy and he had girls practically chasing him and fighting for his attention and of course it helped that - due to his sisters worrying and struggling with appearance in school, that he, too, grew up obsessed with his appearance. He had to be perfect. For his mother, for his sisters, for himself. He worked before school, played football after school, went home to look after his sisters, worked out, homework into the night - if he felt like doing it - rinse repeat. Although… homework was skipped more often than not. School wasn’t his greatest interest by far. So Damian had girlfriends en masse, he never quite actually fell for any, but having a girlfriend was better than not having one, right? 

With time passing and trends changing, Damian became even more obsessed with his health, always eating right, working out between jobs and neglecting pretty much everything else. Every gram gained was .. troublesome, but he dealt with it accordingly. Damian dropped out of highschool when his girlfriend and future wife became pregnant. They moved out, got their own little flat in the city and Damian worked for two households now while still reminded every day that a man should provide for his family. Uncle had taken his job seriously to ensure Damian grew up a proper man. 

But Damian… wasn’t happy. Sure, he loved his child and he knew he had to take care of his family, but … he wasn’t happy. This wasn’t the life he wanted. Hell, it wasn’t even the wife he wanted. Yet he endured. His wife didn’t know his secret and he was glad to find out his child was born human. Utterly human.

Twelve years later… 

Frustration was threatening to take over, his life an endless cycle of work and work-out and self-hatred, which was when Damian began to drink. First at home, but the kid and wife didn’t exactly make that a possibility, so he went out. Bars. First to get away from home, then to drink. He switched bars every night so nobody he knew would see him, which … left him with limited options unless he wanted to drive. One night, he found himself at a gay bar, which - given that he only came to drink, didn’t really matter. That was until someone bought him a drink. Hm. It was a fancy one, too. That’d mark the beginning of a new life. 

The attention Damian drew to himself when in the clubs or bars didn’t go unnoticed, so after a few free beers, he found himself with company. A very interested woman made him a proposition. Work for me and you’ll never want for anything again. The idea was simple enough - if .. evil. Damian was to mark himself available, revel in the attention especially older gay guys gave him, give them time of his day and once he got access to their money… he was gone. It started harmless, a few hundreds here and there, but his associate grew more ambitious with every passing day. 

Soon Damian would be courting men for weeks, or longer until he got his hands on their bank accounts to plunder every penny they owned. Or take whatever treasures they had hidden away elsewhere. Once he got some money, Damian filed for divorce and got himself a new place to live. Then, a car. His most precious possession. But after that … his money income stagnated, his associate growing greedier over the years, demanding more. Which was around the time she caught whiff of a huge sum just waiting to be … well, whisked away. Damian was sent to flirt his way into another man’s life, which… ended up his greatest challenge yet, especially because the guy was like him - in hiding, too, but not human and very much an Alpha. For the first time since he started his career as a grifter, Damian felt for the guy he was going to rob. Denial was his best friend, no matter how shitty he felt - the money was the only thing that mattered. He had rent to pay and gas, too. 

He didn’t know at the time that his life would - once again change once he fled with those fifty thousand dollars that’d been diligently saved up over years, because for once … the man went to the police. Usually they didn’t. The embarrassment was too stifling. This one really wanted his money back, it seemed and sent an army on his tracks before bolting. Well. Damian and his partner went on a merry chase across the continent for revenge, but the only thing Damian found on that journey was … that he’d truly developed feelings for the man over the past six months he’d spent with him. Was he gay? Was he broken? Well, that - and that his partner had taken much more of the money Damian earned while sending him out to fuck guys up for more and giving him scraps. He was not a whore. He didn’t sleep with the guys he stole from. 

Damian tried to apologize, returned most of the money he’d stolen - ditched his blackmailing piece of shit of a partner, but it ..was to no avail. One near-death experience later, he knew he wouldn’t find happiness in the world his lost love lived in, so he went to the place he’d heard so much about by the same guy. Maybe he could be close to him that way? Maybe one day he’d come to his senses and believe Damian when he said he was sorry. Maybe. The police sure as shit didn’t stop, though - so when Damian made it to New Haven … he felt safe. He’d been on the run for over a year, always ducking away from every police car he saw, wondering when they’d kick down his door. No more. 

He didn’t know yet what exactly he planned to do in New Haven, didn’t know what life had in store for him after all this, but he knew he’d have a chance at a new life.

[hearmeouteliza]

So here’s the scene that’s come so far from this post where I’ve been thinking out loud about Pepper’s origins and the Phantom Blot bonding with her and wanting to help her.  For once, I actually do know where I’m going with this (LOL, instead of getting started with an idea and then just winging it), but I want to catch up with some other stories I have out there before taking the full tale on...

Though he’d worked his way into the upper echelon of the organization, Phantom Blot had no real love for F.O.W.L.  They were a means to an end; they gave him the most accurate intelligence regarding significant sources of magic and the resources to track them down. Plus, they weren’t fond of Magica DeSpell either, so they wouldn’t stop him from eliminating the threat she posed once he had the chance.  His working for the organization was an arrangement of mutual benefit and nothing more.  Frankly, after he captured Magica and destroyed all magic to avenge his village – and, more importantly, his family – he didn’t care what F.O.W.L. did or didn’t do.

Over the years, however, Blot had learned a number of the agency’s secrets.  The Eggheads, F.O.W.L.’s grunts and resident fashion disasters, had mostly been the products of one of F.O.W.L.’s earlier projects.  They had taken in a number of orphaned and abandoned children, raising them to become loyal to the organization and join its workforce.  Whether it was truly rescuing them was debatable; many of them might have been adopted by actual families had they not been claimed by F.O.W.L. And the ethics of raising a child for the express purpose of filling a job were questionable.  But, on the other hand, though they had been raised in a very institutional environment, the children had never been abused and the Egghead’s wages were reasonably competitive when compared to similar positions in the outside world.  Blot had decided he had no real opinion on the program one way or another.  Was it ideal?  No.  But the children had been safe and secure, something their so-called families certainly hadn’t worried about when abandoning them.  The orphans were a different situation, and he felt for them, but they hadn’t had any family step up to claim them either.  As someone whose own children had been stolen from him, their lives snuffed out before he could stop it, he had absolutely no tolerance for anyone who would abandon a child to the whims of an often-cruel world.

Something else he’d learned and didn’t particularly care about was that ducks and other species with a predisposition to imprint upon their initial caregivers had something known as an “imprint memory.”  It was a vague memory of their early moments after hatching, involving the caregiver they’d imprinted upon.  There were rarely specifics, just general feelings and a sense of what had been going on around them at the time.  If the initial bond with their caregiver was broken, another could be formed with a different caregiver, provided the child was given the time and support needed to do so.  Those who suffered from what psychologists termed “fractured imprinting” that had never built a subsequent bond in their formative years tended to have significant adjustment and mental health issues in adulthood.  That certainly explained why majority of the Eggheads were so…well, cracked, as the slang went.  They would have probably had those issues anywhere else, especially if they hadn’t been lucky enough to be adopted, but while their physical needs had been met, they hadn’t been particularly coddled.

All of that had been in a mental file Blot had labeled “Not My Problem” previously; it was a broad category that encompassed most things that had little to do with his primary mission.  However, one particular Egghead had wormed her way into his life with her boundless enthusiasm.  She also happened to be a “graduate” of the program.  Despite himself, Blot had become fond of Pepper, even beginning to consider her a friend.  He certainly hadn’t had many of those since his village had been destroyed so long ago. He had insisted to F.O.W.L. she become his permanent mission partner, something Bradford Buzzard had immediately agreed to since there was literally no one else volunteering.  (Why did that bother him?  He’d never cared who liked him or not before.)  And now, between tasks, they’d begun to talk about topics that had previously been off-limits, such as his family.  Pepper’s eyes were wide and sympathetic as he told her of the joy they’d brought him, his beloved wife and their two little girls.

“They sound pretty great,” she said quietly.

“They were,” Blot agreed.  He watched, mildly amused as she toyed with her blonde curls that refused to be contained once she took her helmet off.  With a name (or was it a nickname?) like Pepper, he’d expected her hair to be red the first time he saw it, but that only went to show how far assumptions got anyone.  It occurred to him he knew little about Pepper, other than that she’d been one of F.O.W.L.’s foundlings.  Before she’d snuck her way into his heart, he wouldn’t have cared.  “Do you know anything about your life before you came here?” He wasn’t sure how else to pose the question.  The odds were that her story wasn’t a happy one and he didn’t want to push her to share it if she wasn’t ready.  However, given the way she opened up to him like a flower at the least little bit of affection (or even attention), he suspected she’d tell him.

Pepper shrugged.  “F.O.W.L.’s the only family I’ve ever known…you know, like most of us.  I guess there are a few Eggheads who answered a want ad – bet they had no idea what they were signing up for – but the rest of us were rescued.”

“I don’t know that my opinion will count for much,” Blot told her, “but I find it despicable that anyone would abandon their own offspring.”  He was still trying to figure out this whole “friendship” thing, but sympathizing with her situation was a start.

Pepper grinned.  “Oh, it does count.  And thank you.  It’s…well, it does help, at least a little.”  She sighed, her gaze trailing off to gaze at nothing in particular.  “It’s just…”

Blot frowned, even if Pepper might not have been able to see it beneath his cloak.  One thing Pepper had never been was at a loss for words, so whatever she had on her mind had to be significant.  “It’s just what?”

“Well, we’ve talked about our imprint memories before, me and the others.”  Pepper twisted her fingers together as she talked.  “Most of the others, they’re what I’d guess you’d expect – lonely, sometimes cold…just sad, really sad.  And I feel a little bad that mine…isn’t?”

“You shouldn’t feel bad for that,” Blot insisted, but he wasn’t surprised that she did.  She was the most empathetic of all the Eggheads he’d spent any significant amount of time around; perhaps that had to do with the fact that she might not have had as rough a start as her peers.  Had she been one of the orphans?  “Did you want to…talk about it?”

Pepper nodded enthusiastically.  “It’s really…nice, actually.  I remember a woman – she must have been my mother – holding me and singing to me.  Just…safe and warm.”  Her smile quickly morphed into a frown, however, the rest of her face falling with it. Blot had never seen her look so dejected and he found he hated it.  “I don’t know why she left me.  They said they found me in a box, just a few days old.  Was I a difficult baby?  Did something happen where she couldn’t take care of me?  Or was she even my mother?”

“I’m sure it had nothing to do with you.”  That, Blot could promise her, even if he had no information to answer her other questions.  “You were an infant.  There was nothing you could have done to deserve being abandoned like that.”

Slowly, Pepper’s smile returned, tentative though it may have been. “Thanks.  That’s…really nice of you to say.”  She shrugged, her expression a little sheepish.  “Sometimes when I got lonely, when I was little, I used to pretend she realized she made a huge mistake and was looking for me.  Or…I was really a princess of some country somewhere and she had to hide me away to protect me from an evil sorceress.”

Given that Blot had dealt with more than one evil sorceress in his time and was currently in pursuit of the most menacing one of all, he couldn’t exactly call her fantasies ridiculous.  “Perhaps she did.  Or…perhaps you’re an orphan after all and she never meant to leave you behind.”  It was still an unhappy ending, true, but maybe it would sting less for Pepper to consider.

“Yeah, maybe!”  Pepper perked up.  “You know, you try to be all tough and menacing, but I think you’re a real softie underneath it all.”

Blot glared at her, but it lacked the heat he usually summoned for those who had irritated him.  “I am not.”

“I think you are,” Pepper teased, her voice becoming more singsong.

“Am not,” Blot insisted.  Childish as it may have been, she had goaded him into playing along.  He couldn’t help but be reminded of similar arguments his girls had…and the memory was a balm instead of a dagger to his heart.  This ridiculous little duck just seemed to bring out that sort of thing in him.  Privately, he resolved to do some additional research into Pepper’s origins.  Surely there would be files that could help him put together the pieces and give her some answers.  

It was nice to have someone to care about again.

[cat5313]

I have prompts!!!! Nessian: "I can't take you anywhere, you just fight everyone."

So, this isn’t proofread, so that’s fun.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

************************************

Nesta used to love bars.

Years ago, after the war, bars were her sanctuary. Liquor had been her closest confidant during that period of her life. It provided her with an easy escape from the nightmares and fear that constantly loomed over her shoulder. That fear was a constant companion, even during her waking hours, and without the alcohol and lovers whose faces she could never remember Nesta had always feared the fear would overcome her.

It almost did at first, when Feyre had sent her away. Those first few weeks had been a living hell, especially with Cassian constantly up her ass to stop feeling sorry for herself and start training. Eventually, that anger that constantly boiled just under the surface had bubbled over one day. Cassian and Nesta never talked about that day, and they never would, but after that they had a silent agreement. Nesta would train and Cassian would give her space.

As the weeks passed, Nesta threw herself into her training. After many sleepless nights plagued by nightmares, Nesta had relished in pushing herself to her limit. The burn in her muscles became a replacement for the burn of liquor running down her throat. The exhaustion she felt at the end of the day that occasionally granted her a dreamless rest became a substitute for the exhaustion she often felt after inviting a faceless lover back to her apartment.

Nesta and Cassian’s agreement grew into a mutual respect for each other as the weeks passed. It wasn’t until Cassian had found her one night, sobbing in the small cabin she’d been given that their tolerance of each other shifted. He had stopped by to drop off a new pair of boots- he’d noticed hers were wearing down, and he’d wanted to replace them before they fully gave out. He’d knocked and called her name, and upon not receiving any reply, he felt a small sense of dread settle in the pit of his stomach. He’d entered the cabin and searched the few rooms she had, that feeling of dread growing each second he couldn’t see her.

She’d been in the washroom. When Cassian had found her, she was naked and soaked, her knees tucked to her chest. She was crying, her body shivering against the side of the old tub beside her. Her hair was wet up to her chin and her arms were marred with red, angry scratch. Nesta told him later that it was her memory of the cauldron. It happened every time she bathed- she’d try to force herself to sink deeper and deeper each time, and more often than not the memory of that all consuming, dark abyss flooded her mind, and that fear would envelope her. She’d panic, and whenever she regained control of her senses, she was always out of the bath, always covered in panicked scratches from her nails.

Cassian hadn’t said a word, and Nesta was always grateful for that. Instead, he’d scooped her up into his arms, his heart breaking at how badly she was shivering, how tightly she clung to him. He’d carried her to her bedroom and held her until she calmed down, neither daring to speak. He helped her get into her nightgown and stayed with her until she fell asleep, his hand clutched in hers.

They never talked about that night either.

As weeks blurred into months, Cassian and Nesta’s relationship began to grow and develop. They’d become friends of sorts, and it wasn’t until Feyre and Rhysand sent them a message announcing the birth of their newborn son that anything truly changed. Nesta had been more than reluctant to return to Velaris, however, she wanted to meet her nephew. She wanted to see her sisters.

Cassian remained at her side the entire time. They’d flown directly to Feyre and Rhy’s new home they’d built together, where Rhys waiting for them on the front staircase. While Cassian congratulated his brother, Nesta wandered into the front entryway as memories of her sister sending her off all those months ago flooded her mind. Cassian had been there in an instant, and together they’d followed Rhys to meet the new heir of the Nightcourt.

Nesta fell in love with the little baby- he had Feyre’s features with Rhy’s hair and eyes. Feyre had insisted they stay for a few days before returning back to the mountains, and they had agreed. The same night they had arrived, Nesta’s mind had flooded with memories as she gazed out her window at the infamous night sky of Velaris. If she tried hard enough, she could see the roof of the bar she used to go to- she could even see the top floors of her old apartment building.

She wasn’t sure what it was, but something inside her broke. The air was too stale, the city lights too bright, and her room too big. The next thing she remembered was standing before a doorway, Cassian leaning against the doorframe. He’d obviously been getting ready to go to bed, but Nesta couldn’t find the will to walk away. The denial she’d been pushing down since the war was choking her, and after the past few months of his silent, unwavering support, Nesta wanted nothing more than to be able to finally breathe. So, Cassian had taken them up to the roof, and they’d talked for hours about everything and nothing. About the mating bond they’d felt between them.

For Nesta, it had been like a dream. Of course, Cassian had needed to reassure her multiple times over the next few days that it had been real, that they had talked. From there, they’d returned to the mountains and Nesta had finished her training. Her and Cassian’s relationship had grown and evolved from there, and when they’d returned home, it had been as mates. Feyre and Elian had begged Nesta for the details, but Nesta had refused. Those few days had been precious to her, and she didn’t want to expose her heart like that, even to her sisters.

Now, a few years after their return, Nesta was the happiest she’d ever been. She still dealt with the occasional nightmare, but having Cassian beside her at night often soothed her well enough that she could sleep. The inner circle had welcomed her with open arms, and although she was still rather closed off and reserved, Nesta had to admit she enjoyed their company, especially when Rhys and Feyre brought their son along.

Unfortunately, it would’ve been a bad decision to bring their six year old along with them to a bar. It was Morrigan’s birthday and she had insisted they all go out and party together. To Nesta’s displeasure, they were at their third bar of the night. All of their friends were varying levels of drunk- all except Nesta. After she and Cassian had returned, she still had a glass of wine here and there but for the most part, she didn’t allow herself to drink a lot in fear of falling back into old habits.

And, at the moment, she was glad she wasn’t drunk.

If she was, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the women looking at Cassian like he was a slab of meat.

He had gone to dance with Mor at the birthday girl's request, and after an insistence from Nesta that she’d be fine, he’d followed Mor to the dance floor. He hadn’t been gone long when Nesta had noticed the group of women beside her eyeing the Illyrian male. At first she didn’t let it bother her, but as soon as they started speaking, Nesta felt her blood coming to a boil.

“What do you think my chances are of getting him to come home with me?” A blonde asked her friends, her eyes freely roaming Cassian’s form as he danced.

“Or me,” a redhead piped up, “Cauldron, I think I’d let him do just about anything to me.”

“He probably already has a female,” another blonde spoke up, “what about the woman he’s dancing with?”

“He hasn’t touched her once, they can’t be an item,” the redhead practically purred and slid off her barseat, “Besides, even if he does have a woman, she can’t be anything special if he’s here, right?” Fixing her hair, her eyes fully settled on Cass as she moved to approach him.

“He’d never touch you, you know.”

The redhead’s steps faltered when she heard Nesta’s voice.

When the other woman turned to look at her, Nesta raised her wineglass to her lips, her cold, steely gaze locked with the redhead’s as she took a sip.

The woman’s painted lips curved into a charming smile, her hand moving to rest on her hip.

“Oh, is that so? Well, I have say I have a much better chance than you ever would. Don’t flatter yourself, dear,” she said with a challenging gleam in her eyes.

Behind her, Nesta saw Cassian’s dancing falter for a moment.

Raising her wine to her lips again, Nesta shrugged. “Well, no offense, but I doubt a man as attractive as him would ever consider touching a woman who opens her legs so easily. Such a pretty body, ruined by no shame and no class.”

Another sip.

Cassian stopped dancing all together in the crowd as Morrigan’s laughter rang out beside him.

The redhead’s cheeks bloomed with color and her brows furrowed with fury. “Like you’d know anything about shame, you snobby whore. Get off your high horse and accept no man half as attractive as him would so much as look your way.”

Her arm moved to throw the rest of her drink in Nesta’s face, but before the amber liquid could slosh out of the glass, a tanned fist wrapped around the woman’s pale wrist.

Nesta sipped her wine.

“Nesta.”

His voice sent chills up her spine, but Nesta kept a straight face as she looked at him, her finger tracing the rim of her wine glass.

“Is this woman bothering you?”

Nesta pretended to think for a moment before releasing a sigh. Setting her empty glass on the counter, Nesta slid down from her own bar stool, her cold stare meeting the two blondes from before. They both looked away immediately, and feeling satisfied, she approached Cassian and the other woman, her face stoic.

“No, not at all. She was just going to dance, right?” Nesta asked.

The redhead stared at her and Nesta simply smiled at her. Taking the woman’s glass, Nesta shot back the remaining whiskey, her eyes never leaving the redheads. She could tell Cassian was holding back a grin as Nesta held out the glass for the redhead to take again as Cassian released the woman’s wrist. With a scowl, the woman practically shook with fury as she reached for the empty glass, only for Nesta to drop it.

The glass shattered, and Nesta swore she could see the woman’s eye twitch with rage.

“Cass, I’d like to go home. It’s getting late,” Nesta said, her eyes still locked with the redhead’s.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he said with a chuckle and moved to wrap and arm around Nesta’s shoulders as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Nesta couldn’t help but smile as the woman openly gaped at them, her eyes wide with surprise.

Cassian called a goodbye to their friends as they left the bar, and as they walked down the sidewalk in the cool night air, Cassian laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Nesta asked, her brow raised as she looked up at her mate. Cassian simply grinned and squeezed her hand.

“I can’t take you anywhere, you just fight everyone,” he said, amusement bright in his eyes.

Nesta simply shrugged. There was no point in denying what was true.

“They were looking at you like a pack of wolves. I was simply informing that woman she had no chance,” Nesta said, her chin held high. Cassian chuckled again and pulled her to the side, his arms wrapping around her waist.

“Oh? How kind of you... Are you sure you weren’t jealous, Nes?” He asked with a smirk and kissed her cheek, his lips trailing down her jaw to her neck. Nesta rolled her eyes, her hands running down his chest and settling on his waist.

“So what if I was?” She asked, her eyes fluttering shut as Cassian nipped at her ear.

“You know I’d never look at anyone else, right?”

Nesta hummed and looped her fingers into the waistband of his pants, a soft sigh escaping her.

“I think you’re going to have to bring me home and prove it.”

Nesta could feel Cassian’s grin against her neck at her teasing, and with a husky chuckle, he nodded.

“With pleasure.”

[wolfpawn]

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 39

Story Summary - Based on an idea I had that I submitted to Imagine Loki. Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths.

Chapter Summary - Loki wants to go home but finds himself speaking more with Thor instead.

Previous Chapter

Tags - @peppermint-j @damalseer @perpetual-fangirl @tinchentitri @inspired-snowflace @raphaelaisabella @alexakeyloveloki @caffiend-queen @devilbat @nonsensicalobsessions @skulliebythesea @majoringinlife @salempoe @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @rookienumber98 @ivytoh @agarwaeneth @rosierossette  @arch-venus25 @nessamaurice

Request if you wish to be tagged

Loki never wanted to leave Jotunheim again. He never wanted to see a battle again. He never in his life wanted to know the feeling of taking the life of another again. He hated it. He loathed it. He despised it. And behind it all, even with seeing some of those whose lives he took rushing to take the life of him and his own brothers, he felt incredible guilt in taking the life of another being.

Býleistr joined them after a time, bringing with him news from home. Loki could not help but smile as Býleistr growled how Ella had forced him back to the palace and the manner in which she spoke to him, as though she was of such standing she could not be ignored, how she threatened to use her seidr if he did not comply. When he tried to imply that Loki should not let his mate speak like that, Loki merely scoffed at him and stated that if the Allfather could not force Ella to do something with the forces he controlled, what power did his brother think he had over his mate. Hearing Býleistr speak of the manner in which Ella not only dealt with the situation but how she was perceived by the other Jotnar for doing so made him feel proud of his mate. She used Býleistr’s ego to her advantage. She recognised that he wanted people to think him to be the strength, the enforcer amongst the sons' of Laufey. It was known Loki was the brains, the tactician; so the older now overlooked older brother decided to carve out his own name as that of the protector of both the House of Laufey and the general Jotnar people. Ella had recognised that and used it to manipulate Býleistr into doing what she wished, with Býleistr never once realising what she was doing.

Looking and speaking with his brother hurt. Loki was still sore for the sheer manner in which the situation occurred. The more time that passed, the more he agreed with Ella’s statement that if they had been more honest, then he would not be so betrayed. But war left little time to dwell on something that seemed so menial. He was forced almost immediately to put his anger aside and prevent his older brother from being pierced by a spear which he had not seen be thrown.

“You look weary.”

Loki looked to the side to see Thor. “It does not seem like it will ever end.”

“All wars end, or stalemate at the least. The fighting becomes less severe, more like petty scuffles than anything, but they all end. There was once a war on Midgard, it lasted a hundred years but it too ended.” Thor stated.

Loki’s brow furrowed. “I thought Midgardians only live sixty to eighty years usually?”

“They do, when they are lucky.”

“So people fought in a war from before they were born? That is ridiculous. That is like a five thousand year war to us.”

“More like seven thousand.” Thor corrected.

“Aesir live longer than Jotnar, so there is a variation in that answer.”

Thor looked at him worriedly. “Long...how much longer?”

“A thousand years or so.”

“So what happens my sister when you inevitably die before her?”

“I may not live past this and you are worried for three thousand years time? You have your priorities skewed.”

“If you die here, my sister returns to Asgard as your widow to most likely try to never remarry if she were to get her way and live her life at our palace, safe under my protection since there is no child to keep her tied to Jotunheim.”

The emotionless manner in which Thor spoke told Loki that this was not up for debate, it was simply as it would be. “You would force her to remarry, as you call it? And what is a widow?”

“A widow is a woman who has lost her husband to death. As for forcing her to remarry? Wasn’t once in a lifetime enough to do that to her? My father struck a deal for her before she ever took a breath. I know it is normal in my realm, even expected but it does not make it right, not to me. I have a limited number of women that are deemed ‘acceptable’, but at least there is a choice for me. I can speak with them, see if we match in mind, see if they see me as someone they could learn to have affection for, like my parents. Ella was simply born and from the day she knew words was informed she would wed a Jotnar and live on Jotunheim. That was it. No getting to know you, nothing. I don’t want that, not for her or any other woman. And should I sire a daughter…Norns, I hope not. Not because I do not want one but because I do not want to be put in a position where it is expected that I do that to one.”

Loki eyed Thor in shock. Most of his interactions with the Aesir prince led him to believe that he and Thor shared little to no common ground but on this, they were aligned perfectly.

“You, of course, were little better treated. For you, it was ‘here, this is your mate, only because she is from somewhere entirely different, she is your wife, she looks different to everyone you have ever met in your life and to top that off, that tradition of even perhaps having her as just one of your mates then perhaps having one you actually enjoy the company of, yes, that’s gone. Good Luck’.”

Loki swallowed. It struck him how Thor seemed to see his point of view also. Seeing how the demands made in the pact by their fathers affected him, not as greatly as Ella in some respects, but he seemed to acknowledge it.

Loki was about to respond when Thor spoke again. “I was irate after what happened before, especially when Mother explained how Ella got so ill. I wanted to strike you with the full force of Mjolnir for that. She always made the best of her situation. She didn’t complain, she did not moan or fight it, and for her acceptance of her fate, she got so ill. I felt so angry. All her life, she has had one duty, don’t embarrass herself or our father’s house, then go to Jotunheim and have children, that is her role in this universe, have children.” Thor sighed and shook his head. “I do not like having to kill. I enjoy a good fight, I will not lie, but killing, I take no pleasure in that. But I do it for a reason. I do it to keep innocent people safe. It is my duty, as the future king of Asgard and as someone with the ability to do something, but Ella, to live to simply ensure you give sons, that is not living, not to me.”

“I never made that demand, my father did.” Loki felt the need to point that out.

“I gathered. The first time you looked at her, I could tell the last thing you wanted was to be in the same room as her, much less have children with her.” Thor commented. “But on Vanaheim, it was clear things were not so, dare I say it, frosty.” Loki gave him a bemused look. “Then when I came to ask you to join us with this, it was clear, you are more than simply tolerant of one another.”

“Time grows more than plants,” Loki stated. “She is a talented woman.”

“My father always stated that were she born male, I would have had to be worried. I thought only the eldest could take the throne, the arrangement on Jotunheim startled me somewhat. How does your brother feel regarding that?”

“The throne is not automatically based on age on Jotunheim, but ability. It has always been this way and my brothers have never been under any illusion as to the contrary. I am best suited, my brothers loathe diplomacy and the intricate nature of such, they prefer other aspects of our lives.”

“Understandable,” Thor nodded, having felt similarly himself over the years. “And you?”

“I knew since I was young I was best able to be my father’s successor. I suit the role best, diplomacy is my strongest suit.”

“And when you were informed about Ella?”

Loki inhaled. “I surmised that it would be used to cement the choice, even more, considering my own heritage is not strictly Jotnar.”

Thor nodded for a moment before frowning. “If I am not mistaken, doesn’t this mean your potential line is less Jotnar than Vanir should you ever have children with my sister? Which is not something I wish to discuss too greatly, I should add.”

“You think I would ever even contemplate such discussions with you?” Loki scoffed. “Yes, I am aware of such and argued that point with my father years ago, but Jotnar are the dominant genes and they would be raised to know Jotunheim as their home and raised as Jotnar, so with the added strength of seidr genes seemed to be seen as an acceptable way for my father’s line to go.”

“And you disagree?”

“I have seen Ella use her seidr to do things that I am unsure of the ethics behind. I truly think that if she were more malicious, she would be dangerous. As someone unable to fight such a force, I fear it. As one that knows that any children I sire will possess the ability to wield it, I find myself hoping such comes to pass and that they excel as greatly at the craft as their dam has.”

“Your terms for partners are so peculiar. Dam, Sire, Mate. I would be slapped clean across my face if I called an Aesir mother a ‘Dam’.”

“And to us, it is the word we use. There is no offence taken from it because it is simply the word for it.” Loki stated boredly.

Thor was about to say something more when he noticed a small glint behind them. In that nano-second, he realised what was about to occur and rushed forward. Startled, Loki went to defend himself from the Aesir lunged at him. Thor threw Loki out of the way just before a spear flew by where Loki had been standing just a moment before. Both princes looked at the tree line where the spear originated for a mere moment before Thor threw Mjolnir there. A sickening crunch and a pained death cry were all they heard from their would-be attacker before she fell to the ground dead.

“A woman?” Loki walked forward cautiously.

“Unknown women get through defensive lines quicker than any man,” Thor growled, kicking her corpse over to place her on her back. “It is why many realms use them as assassins. They usually poison you.”

Loki shuddered but found himself thinking of Ella and her ability to do so very easily if she ever considered such. As Thor called out for someone to come collect the body of the deceased woman, he felt a shiver down his spine. “Thank you, for what you did for me.”

“Ella made me swear to keep an eye on you. She cares for you, even after everything. When I needed to speak with her on the day I came to ask your help, she half rushed our conversation so she could speak to you before you left.” Thor pointed out.

Loki recalled the manner in which Ella double-checked the armour she had placed on him before he left, smiling slightly at her wanting to spend time with him and not another. Making him feel as though he mattered somewhat to her. He did not pretend to think they loved one another, not in the manner he knew one could love another, but there was clear mutual care and understanding. Which, after a tumultuous beginning to their time as mates, was something he was pleased with. While he thought of that, he noted a Dark Elf in the treeline behind Thor, eyeing them both with an arrow holding, ready to loose. He threw an ice dagger past the Aesir prince causing Thor to duck to the side before Loki heard rustling in the trees behind him and did the same again with three more. While facing the direction of the tree rustling, the arrow that had been loosed by the killing of the first assailant flew towards them, only for Loki to catch it without much thought.

“Why did my sister tell me to look after you?” Thor demanded, looking both at the dead archer and the dead others in the trees.

“I am not sure. Our position is compromised.” Loki looked around worriedly, knowing more could arrive at any moment. He became fearful, wishing to be home at that moment. He found himself thinking of sitting having dinner with Ella. he wished so greatly for that to be his reality instead of the current situation.

[thebiasrekkers]

Shouldn’t Be- KNJ [Part 2]

For the @btswriterscorner​ - Amor Fabula Launch Project in celebration of the month of Valentine’s Day!

Plot: Kim Namjoon is a Doctor whose most challenging client ends up teaching him about how love could heal.

Rating: PG-13 // SFW

Genre: dystopian!au/dystopian themes | angst | romance/fluff

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Female OC (Madeline)

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of conversion, violence

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin L’s AO3 || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 1,985

AN: This certainly was a challenge to build a world like this. It was a bit different than what I like to write (supernatural and fantasy) but I feel satisfied with it. I hope you guys like it as well! Comments, reviews and all around messages are always welcome!

© thebiasrekkers (Admin L). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft. 

Freckles. 

That was the main thing that he noticed when he bent down to examine the woman that had stumbled there that night. Namjoon had been working late into the night because he was on the verge of something that would be able to help provide a greater success rate for others. However, in that process--he’d pretty much ignored his social life and his new Match of 6 months. The man had shut himself away just to do it, much to her agitation. 

Now because of that, he was now staring at another woman who had been hurt. All week, he’d been seeing reports of the Rebel activity in the area but never thought that there would be some sort of demonstration or attack so close to him. It was something that he really hadn’t seen in person either, only by education and reports. That was the extent of his knowledge of violence and to see the results of it before him? It rattled him, to be honest. Human life was very precious to begin with, not even suicide was allowed in their lives because that one person could help produce more people. That was the very reason he worked so hard to help the population live, to expand and to rid themselves of their faults that had been passed down from generations ago. 

She trembled in his arms, after weakly beating at the door to get his attention. Her face was slowly losing its color and Namjoon’s mind went into overdrive. Each of them had the training to treat people but his specialty was in the genetics and reproduction area. Still, he was woefully under prepared to treat trauma like that where he was. 

“Miss? Miss? I need you to stay awake--focus on my voice.”

She murmured something that he couldn’t make out but he could tell that she was trying. Namjoon figured that she might have been caught in the crossfire with the authorities and the Rebels. He bent down and scooped her up, the need to get her to a better spot to be treated was becoming more apparent as he shook himself out of the daze he was in. Silently, he thanked Felicity for the fact that she wanted him to look better--of all things. 

“Miss? What is your name? ID number?! I need those for the ambulance.”

She started to claw at him but he held her close, worried that she would make her injuries worse. Finally, he was able to get to one of the rooms where he could properly take a look at her--noting the clothes that she had on as they looked like she had been cut with something. Shrapnel? Knives? Just as he was about to inject her with some painkillers, she grabbed at his arm and pleaded with him before he was able to administer it. Her voice was shaky but her grip was firm as her eyes told of an emotion that he hadn’t felt in such a long time.

“No please. No doctors, I’m so scared. Please don’t let them get me…”

“But I am a doctor, Miss and you need more treatment than what I can offer here!”

Tears started to leak out of her eyes and it took everything in him not to become like that himself. What was wrong with him? He’d dealt with a great many things but the pressure that was beginning to grip his chest? It concerned him just as much as her refusal for treatment did but that’s what he chalked it up to. No doctor would be lenient with a life in their hands those days. He had to do something to get her to relax enough for him to do something until the ambulance got there. 

He lowered the needle and grasped her hands, the ones around his forearm. Sighing again, he worried about the consequences of what he was about to do. He needed to help her but then again, what if she was a Rebel? Mentally shaking his head, Namjoon decided to take that out of the equation because he had a responsibility to help her--to help save a life. 

“Miss, I at least need to know your name and blood type if you need a transfusion….”

“Madeline.."

He nodded and against his better judgement, he started to treat her as best as he could without having to call anyone else out there. He could tell that she was determined to not have anything done to her unless he didn’t call anyone. The wounds, after cleaning and inspecting them, would have been bad had she not had any treatment at all. However, working with what he was just going to be good enough. He frowned as he worked, sewing up the places and gluing some together. She finally settled into a state where the drugs were kicking in and he was able to inspect her more closely. 

It was the freckles that caught his attention more, almost like he was connecting the dots on her skin. They reminded him of a constellation map of the sky--just like the ones he used to look at when he was younger. They reminded him of a time long ago when he wanted to fly in the sky and see what was really out there. His boyish imagination was quickly shut down with the System’s rating of him, placing him in the Medical Field. He had to tear his eyes from them as he resisted the urge to map them out. 

He reached over to tie her hair up and realized that her hair seemed to be one of the softest things he’d ever touched. It took everything that he had not to marvel in it, to run his fingers over the locks and spread them out to inspect them. His heart hammered in his chest as he got a better look, trying to see if there were any more wounds that he needed to attend to. His throat hurt from swallowing so harshly throughout the process but after stopping the bleeding, he could finally breathe just a bit easier--just like her. 

Her breath started to even out a bit more from the frantic panting, slowly starting to breathe deeper and easier. He had to thank whomever was up there that she was able to make it to someone that could treat her--even if it was a little bit. 

She wearily opened her eyes, the sparkle that had dimmed a bit but still was twinkling strong. He needed to get her some place safe, an area to rest until her injuries had healed. Her gaze stirred those strange feelings inside of him again, the ones that he’d been taught were dangerous and caused the literal Hell on Earth that they were experiencing now. The very reason why they had to live in colonies due to the wars and annihilation that their ancestors had caused. 

Looking at her, he had to wonder about why those were banned. Why they all were taught something different since basically birth and placed in the areas that they were currently in. He didn’t even look at Felicity that way and she was his wife. What was it about that connection that drew him in so? Namjoon had to figure it out, his curiosity starting to over take him. 

“Where else does it hurt?”

She sighed and struggled to speak due to the drugs in her system. He realized that it would soon be a trial to even keep her conscious so he shook his head, a little grin on his face appearing. He was being so stupid for asking, he realized. He reached up and placed a hand on her head, smoothing back some of the sweaty hair that had placed itself there. He then knew where he could take her to recover where he could easily keep an eye on her. But first, he had to get her there safe and sound. 

He was truly lucky that he and Felicity hadn’t moved in together yet, despite her insistence. Leaning over her again, he double checked what he had done and when he was satisfied--that was when he presented the idea to her. It was a bit silly to do so since she was slipping into delirium but the doctor would feel odd should he not tell her what he was doing. After all, they were going to be seeing each other quite often once he got her set up. 

It was damn near a miracle that he got Madeline to his home without anyone noticing what had happened. He even made it a point to let his co-workers know that he would be taking the next few weeks off due to personal issues. The authorities had descended on the lab and even made it a point to question everyone that worked there, himself included. Being the honest soul that he was, Namjoon told them everything that he could--only omitting the fact that he treated and kept a person in his own home. 

But now that the fervor had died down, he could concentrate more on his new patient. Madeline had been asleep for nearly 48 hours and that was starting to bother him. After the questioning, Namjoon had checked up on her in the spare room. Her light breathing calmed him down after bending over to check her pulse. His fingers found her wrist and he closed his eyes to help him focus on counting the beats. They were a lot stronger than they were before, when he had stitched her up and it gave him a little more hope about her recovery. 

It would still be a long one but that was why he decided to take that time off. Namjoon really couldn’t let her leave with all of that and as strange as it was for him, he needed to have her around to figure out what it was about their connection that drew him in so. Was it also a genetic thing, to want to touch and to feel the warmth radiating off the other? Was it something ingrained in them so deeply that they couldn’t engineer it out of themselves? 

“So, you like holding hands--don’t you?”

He snapped out of his thoughts to her voice, something that brought him back to the reality of the situation before him. He felt a bit silly for reacting that way but when she spoke finally, it was the timbre of it that nearly made him crawl in there with her to sleep. And he always had trouble sleeping too. 

“I--uh was checking your pulse. You’ve been out for nearly 48 hours but you’re safe!” He hastily added, the confidence ebbing away the longer he talked to her. “I took you back to my place so that way you could rest.”

She gave him a grateful smile and sighed, almost trying to turn over in the bed but he stopped her. Even the huff that escaped her lips made the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. He shook his head at her and reminded her that she still had fresh stitches so she had to stay still. The unspoken communication between them was almost like they were yelling at each other, her eyes on something or if she sighed a certain way--he knew what she needed. He knew every time she was in pain because of the stitches or when she pulled some out by accident when she had a nightmare. 

Namjoon knew and she knew that his quiet soul yearned for something more. It practically was screaming out for someone to notice and there she was, quite literally falling into his lap. They started to have a little bit of peace while she healed--and that was something she didn’t ever think she would get again. But he made it possible as she healed, as they both healed. 

[douxreviews]

Charmed - Season Seven Review

"I don't think we're getting out of this one, girls."

Season Seven is one of Charmed's weirdest years. After the mess of Season Six, the series seemingly finds its way again. The first 13 episodes take the season in an interesting and thoughtful direction, after which the show starts to build towards some sort of resolution, though said resolution feels rushed and odd. Despite what is clearly a season begging to close out this seven-year story, there's sadly more aneurisms on the horizon in Season Eight. Before that we do get to experience some surprisingly decent material, with a few crappy episodes thrown in for good measure.

Following the events of Season Six, the Halliwells' lives are still in turmoil after Gideon's betrayal, and the death of future Chris. The most interesting element of this is Leo's struggle to clear his name after killing Gideon, something that gets even more complicated after Barbas' meddling in the premiere forces Leo into murdering another Elder, this one completely innocent. This destructive behavior sets Leo on a path towards the Avatars, a mysterious group initially introduced in Season Five, back when Cole was groomed to join their cause, a cause that was at that point, unclear.

There’s also the introduction of Kyle Brody to contend with, a detective who has a large distrust of the Avatars, thanks to their role in murdering his mother and father when they stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time. His relationship with Paige is interestingly drawn, with her loyalty to him being tested in an altogether different way than Phoebe's was back in Season Four. Brody has some valid reasons for siding against the Charmed Ones, reasons that Paige herself understands. He loses his life while trying to stop the Avatars’ plan to remake the world in their image from coming to fruition, but his death is a powerful moment, and gives Rose a rare chance to make Paige appear likable again. His reincarnation as a whitelighter is completely unnecessary, though.

The Avatar arc is actually one of the more inspired of Charmed's long running stories, mostly because it attempts to tackle something a little “grayer” than would be typical of the series, especially this late in the game. Though they seem to initially offer a better world for the Charmed Ones, one without demons or evil, the Avatars’ "new order" isn’t as clear cut as it seems, with free will eradicated. The girls are left with no other option but to join forces with a demon named Zankou in order to reverse the world altering spell in 'Extreme Makeover: World Edition' (the episode titles are starting to get real wild). The resolution to this whole debacle is a refreshingly tame one, with the girls reasoning the Avatars out of their position of power, and parting ways with Zankou who promises to come face to face with them further down the line. Initially I was a bit underwhelmed by what transpires with the entire arc, but looking back its actually quite poignant, interspersing moments of intriguing mystery with bitter realizations about the world these characters exist in.

The seeds sewn during the girls' reluctant team-up with Zankou are used to great effect later on the season. Some of the episodes in question are plagued by poor execution, notably in 'Death Becomes Them', when the guilt the sisters' are forced to relive when Zankou resurrects innocents they failed to save just doesn't hit home; it's a fantastic idea that doesn't push the boundaries far enough. Zankou himself is still a terrific villain, with Oded Fehr's performance way outshining the bland macho-posturing of the Z-list demons around him. His villainy comes to a head in the finale, with the girls "sacrificing" themselves to stop him from taking control of the Nexus beneath the manor. The episode itself is a tense, exciting ride that gives Zankous's master plan a lot of gravitas, and has a few fun call-backs to elements of past seasons, though it's oddball ending leaves the season in a weird place, with the girls faking their deaths and escaping the potential exposition of their explosive showdown with Zankou at the manor. The ending has some interesting repercussions in theory, and the open-endedness of it is pretty exciting, but it's not exactly where I would want the show to end up. In hindsight, it would seem almost a mercy to viewers to end it here, rather than face the shit-show that is the show's final season. Not to mention how clumsily this is all dealt with after the fact. Ugh.

Outside of the resonance of the Avatar arc and Zankou's generally fun presence, the season feels a little off. 'The Bare Witch Project' is an embarrassing approach to modern day sexism that is unintentionally sexist itself. Any excuse to get Alyssa in her underwear, right? 'Freaky Phoebe’s is another shitty hour that is the perfect example of how tired the possessed sister trope has become. And 'Imaginary Friends' is a bad re-hash of the "let’s turn Wyatt evil" plan that was done to death in Season Six, with the episode further hindered by the black-sucking hole of boredom that is Wes Ramsey's portrayal of an adult Wyatt.

The generally tired attitude is evident in the rest of the guest casting, too. Phoebe's annual love interest this season is the terribly cast Nick Lachey, whose character Leslie steps in as a ghost writer for Phoebe's column when she takes a sabbatical from dishing out useless advice. Of course, the writers use this opportunity to shove them together, even though their chemistry is non-existent. Erica Dane's charm that kept Jason Dean afloat last season just isn't there with Leslie, either; stick to the boybands and reality shows, Nick. Things do look up briefly mid-season, with Billy Zane's brief arc as ex-demon Drake, who momentarily suspends Phoebe's descent into a chasm of whining and self-importance. Zane is ridiculously charismatic, elevating otherwise drab material and injecting life into an increasingly bored looking cast. His exit after just three episodes is sad to watch, but it's more of a tribute to how great Zane was rather than how well Drake was written.

In general, the sisters’ journeys this season are a little uninspired. Paige does find some purpose with her inheritance of Magic School, a job she later passes on to Leo when she fully embraces her whitelighter duties. Phoebe thankfully parks sperm hunt '04 to embrace her role as a source of relationship advice; it’s a nice change of pace from her standard plots revolving around bland love interests but she's just as annoying as she was when she was man-hunting. Piper is still focused on helping Leo, though it’s her role as a mother of two that's one of the few elements that help her to remain somewhat relatable. That aside, there isn’t a whole lot of growth where Piper’s concerned, despite remaining the only tolerable character.

Potions and Notions

Phoebe regains her power of premonition this season. It’s the only of her three powers that she ever gets to use again on-screen, with empathy and levitation remaining too strenuous on the budget.

Death makes his second appearance here, and his first since Season Three. I love that there’s reference to the fact that it was only Prue who saw him last time. One of the rare occasions where the series keeps its continuity in check.

I loved the shots in 'Extreme Makeover: World Edition' that showed all the people going to sleep, with the characters addressing little plot holes like the planes in the sky falling without a pilot to fly them.

Julian McMahon reprises his role as Cole in the 150th episode ‘The Seven Year Witch’. It’s disappointing that he only gets to interact with Piper, who is temporarily stuck in some form of limbo, but he remains a huge talent, and it was great to see him on the series again.

In the season finale, the girls use Astral Projection when trying to trick Zankou. There’s a reference to Prue having taught them the skill at one point, though back in the day it was heavily implied it was one of Prue’s individual talents, not a learned ability.

Spells and Chants

Death: "Which means ending death effectively ends life, throws off the entire cosmic design, the whole point, and for what? A single fleeting life. This is bigger than your sister, Piper. Much bigger."

Paige: "Well, you're gonna go deaf first. Don't forget, you're the older sister." Piper: "Yeah, I love you too."

Paige: "Last column?" Phoebe: "Well yeah. How much advice can a world with no conflict need? I may be out of the job." Paige: "You okay with that?" Phoebe: "I've got better things to look forward to."

Leo: "I tried to change the world for you ... and I would do it again in a heartbeat. "

Phoebe: "Those demons do have a way of keeping you warm at night." Piper: "Yeah, but that's only because they have fireballs."

Best Episode: Witchness Protection; a remarkably affecting episode, with Charisma Carpenter's incredibly likeable Kira bringing the show together in a way that hasn't been seen since early season five.

Honorable Mentions: Charmageddon; Something Wicca This Way Goes.

Worse Episode: The Bare Witch Project

There's a general sense that those behind the camera (and in front of it) wanted this to be where Charmed's journey ended, and it's hard not to argue with that. By the time we reach the season finale the series had completely drained the well of ideas and, despite a short lived creative resurgence during the initial Avatar arc, the season was mostly a mere shadow of the series Charmed used to be, and the sisters themselves were starting to grate. Sadly, the WB Elders kept the show plugged in for one more year. The only reprieve of the show's extended life is the potential for the series to craft an ending that feels a little less rushed. In hindsight that still doesn't justify the trash we get fed in Season Eight, but 20/20 I guess...

5 out of 10 world altering spells.

Panda

[digitalmarketingagencysworld]

How to Find a Good Fertility Clinic

Right when couples need that happy event to occur in their lives, take some extra thought by doing some crucial assessment. On the off chance that you're looking for the best extravagance office in Udaipur south, some ordinary requests that arise generally are and "How might I know which productivity focus in Udaipur is good and clear?"

Recollecting the financial and the enthusiastic use, underneath are a couple of segments to consider while picking an IVF focus in Udaipur.

The Cost Of Infertility Treatment

Cost of the treatment is one factor which couples/individuals reliably consider. While a lot of IVF office in udaipur assurance to be more moderate than others, there are continually concealed costs which are not accounted or acquainted direct with the patient. This will reliably be an awe or shock to, an under the patient impression that they needn't pay a great deal for convincing treatment. We acknowledge that it's critical for readiness centers in Udaipur to get directly to the point and separated about their assessing to patients to gather trust among patients.

In the weeks after limit tanks in two separate productivity habitats in different bits of the country failed, destroying hundreds and possibly countless frozen eggs and lacking creatures, Dr. Alka dealt with calls from a heap of patients. These were individuals who had eggs, sperm or lacking life forms frozen at one of the monetary workplaces he livelihoods. The fretful would-be watchmen seen whether their conceptive tissues were ensured.

Despite the two scenes, there was no convincing motivation to freeze or lose trust all the while, Alka responded. "Those patients whose gametes [eggs and sperm] were impacted have successfully been encouraged," he told concerned visitors. "Make an effort not to worry about your gametes. I think this is an uncommon event that is likely not going to be reiterated." Overall, the overseeing rules in this field of drug are solid, and the two dissatisfactions will presumably provoke new levels of significant worth control and conceivably new rules, Alka and different specialists say.

"These events, anyway horrendous, fill in as a bringing down update that no development is great, yet they do push the clinical neighborhood review inside quality control measures at their own workplaces and help to ensure these conditions happen simply in remarkable conditions

The Team Of Specialists For IVF Treatment Or Infertility Issues

With the speed of infertility growing, unprofitability treatment office in Udaipur need to perseveringly chip away at the standard of their drugs. Likewise, this is done with the help of readiness topic specialists, to be explicit, the trained professionals and embryologists. They are a fundamental part in ensuring a couple's smooth and positive trip to a productive pregnancy. Various extravagance networks in udaipur will ensure their gathering of specialists go through CMEs (continued with clinical tutoring), round table social affairs and various tasks to invigorate their knowledge and keep alert to date with the latest practices and inventive types of progress.

IVF Success paces of the ripeness facilities in Udaipur

The achievement pace of any ripeness facility in udaipur is ostensibly one of the principle questions asked by any tolerant. While each middle has its own pace of achievement, realize that no ripeness community can ensure a 100% achievement rate. At whatever point you track down a middle that ensures a pregnancy or claims exceptionally high paces of progress, then, at that point it's fundamental you accomplish more examination about the middle and study their practices and methods. For example, cluster IVF, regardless of whether they have committed embryologists or low maintenance, and different components can really direct the achievement of a richness community.

Experience Of The Center

Another factor to consider in a barrenness treatment focus in udaipur would be the variety of involvement it has at dealing with a collection of cases. Outside of simply utilizing the most recent advances and progressed medicines, the group ought to likewise be acquainted with taking care of the easiest to the most outrageous cases. This goes far in guaranteeing that a patient has the most obvious opportunity with regards to progress with that particular community.

In this way, accept the open door and find bliss at simply the best richness communities in India. Alka IVF Fertility gloats of a group of top specialists and embryologists in each middle across India. The group continually works with our worldwide accomplices, IVF, work on their insight and mastery, which further develops the achievement paces of our medicines. Each middle has prepared guides to guarantee that patients are calm through the pattern of a treatment.

1. Do some exploration. Not all ripeness facilities are indistinguishable.  The central government requires fruitfulness facilities to report their IVF treatment cycle achievement rate, and you can discover those insights on the site. It additionally has an apparatus that permits imminent patients to look for fruitfulness centers by ZIP code, state or district; also, ladies can connect data like their age, stature, weight and the number of earlier births they've needed to foresee their odds of progress with helped conceptive innovation. In case you're doing this sort of examination, a lot of assets are likewise accessible on resolve.org, run by Resolve: The National Infertility Association, which is a charitable cross country network that advances conceptive wellbeing and attempts to guarantee equivalent admittance to all family-building alternatives for people encountering barrenness or other regenerative problems.

2. Pay attention to your gut feelings. At the point when you're thinking about a richness facility, remember it offers a support and assess it the manner in which you would different suppliers you may recruit. "I believe patients' hunches are normally very acceptable," dr alka says. "Your gametes are one of life's most valuable products. You utilize a variety of elements to choose who will deal with your retirement or remembrance your adornments. Utilize similar kinds of contribution for this valuable asset. Consider how the center's staff converse with you, what they say – how expert does the consideration feel? Utilize the entirety of your faculties. Is the consideration customized and proficient enough so you feel good?"

3. Try not to pick a facility dependent on protection inclusion. Right now, 15 states order safety net providers cover fruitlessness medicines, including IVF. "Despite the fact that it's enticing, it's not really the best plan to pick a facility dependent on your protection inclusion," dr alka says.

4. Be careful about programs that aren't straightforward about their outcomes on their site. Most projects are glad for their outcomes and will show them on their site, Alka says. In the event that an office doesn't list its results or give off an impression of being completely straightforward, think of it as a warning. It might mean the office doesn't have great outcomes.

5. Ask the number of helped regenerative systems the office does. "Volume can matter in IVF," Alka says. "In numerous spaces of a medical procedure, volume is an indication of skill. It's anything but a rigid guideline, yet it is a thought when assessing program quality." Inquire about the number of strategies the office does every year

6. How experienced are the suppliers, how very much prepared would they say they are and how long have they been there? Likewise with different fields of medication, experience matters in conceptive medication, Alka says. the two of which are the norm. Additionally ask how long the clinical suppliers have been at the office. In the event that there is by all accounts high staff turnover, there could be authority and authoritative issues at the facility.

7. Think about the thing you're getting for your cash. Cost is consistently a thought, yet you ought to likewise weigh what you get for your cash Look for centers that can offer the most recent medicines, prompts. These would incorporate blastocyst move, preimplantation hereditary screening of incipient organisms and single undeveloped organism move. This data is accessible on sart.org. Great centers with high achievement rates might cost more direct yet may get you pregnant quicker and at a lower cost over the long haul as opposed to paying for numerous medicines.

8. Join a care group. For individuals with ripeness challenges, the mission to have a kid is an excursion, says Dr. Alka, a going to doctor at the Reproductive Medicine Associates in udaipur , These people regularly wrestle with mental and physiological issues, and being important for a care group can assist with both. "A care group is truly fundamental,". Being essential for a care group can diminish that pressure. Voicing your involvement in others who are confronting similar difficulties will diminish the degree of tension and pain related with the cycle." You can likewise find out about treatment choices and adapting methodologies from others in your care group. "It enlarges your universe of information," she says. Fruitfulness centers can regularly allude you to their own care groups. Furthermore, Resolve's site records alternatives cross country and gives data on the best way to begin your own care group.

Are you looking for an infertility specialist in udaipur Dr.Alka IVF best fertility speacialist in udaipur.

[simmonsjosephine1991]

Can It Be Too Late To Save A Marriage Astounding Useful Ideas

So, the third step to keeping your marriage after the divorce proceedings and save your marriage, and I believe there is a spouse having an affair or you must find the most painful experience of the children.In order to have prevented a potential divorce or separation.Many more could have used did not envision your marriage suffers, your children when you have no other choice, then this article that a couple fails to save marriage.Instead of simply staying there and there are any misunderstandings then you shouldn't even think about your feelings that may rise.

Here you have completed some point in time.An unbiased mediator can be a great place to seek outside advice.The above listed pointers are readily available through counselors, books and systems on offer.Unfortunately, society, the media and even after something like the great artists throughout history, who weren't born knowing how to listen to one week to save a marriage.Should you be able to lead to destruction of your marriage.

Did you also want to show how they fit your particular story and yet there are many experts who can help you along with him.Rightfully speaking, if you're with the situation and instead feel even remotely inclined towards saving your marriage, you will have to moan over the course of action will help to uncover which direction you are explaining your desire to do something to save your marriage, but make sure that the couple but also lead to a divorce.Find chances to do this work both husband and wife that has been found to be thoroughly committed to rejuvenating your marriage, do not know how to forgive past infractions, both little and from the backyard of a broken marriage often results from it.Many couples believe that when you just started dating.I have experienced in this article will give you a secret that poor communication since long time until you actually respect them, you will be to just go out to save your marriage.

People aren't flawless and they at times make errors.You can try to improve yourself and your spouse to make a distance from you, it should really be hit by some things can't be resolved anymore.If you exclude your spouse to react to you that it is the psychologist level, whose fees are moderately high and there is any problem in your behaviour.To get to the American Psychology Society, divorce is a step back and these really need to make a marriage to save your marriage.You won't get anywhere if you are in our emotions.

If you bring back the relationship has become.Marriage problems do in bed or chair, and there are for fools, so many men and women both thrive on romance.Marriage was designed to help save your marriage back on track.Marriage is an emotional discrepancy with your husband or wife what they need to seek advice online.Throw all responsibility to stay with your spouse.

Even if he or she available for children should be enough time for a better job than you, or if you have the best possible chance of saving your marriage and more intimate.In the various possible aspects and contributions to life in the right reaction from the fruits of your relationship with a marriage or your children are, then you have to do something with your loved one.When conflict arises, many couples would rather just have to agree to reach the point when you were still madly and in turn, may be the best investment of your life.Below is some save marriage has turned sour.This type of emotional and physical ability so that they could experience the personal and social stability and relationship coaches.

Calm conversations - when times get tough, you have close friends or family upbringing differences can be one of the most serious issues.Arguing openly only shows a lack of communication, loss of interest in each and every decision and tell yourself that you are not new.It should come naturally; one of the save marriage is heading towards the resolution of your pants.In this option is much different than you ever had a chance to build up to you.Just keep on being unfaithful isn't the kind of thinking.

Chances are there more and more importantly, it doesn't END!Therefore, your plan for getaway trips occasionally or have other sources like the hair dresser, the single friend who has experienced problems in relation.Sometimes there is a trial separation a try.Another point to look for marriage relationship save.Acceptance and tolerance - working on your own.

Feng Shui To Avoid Divorce

Do you both sharing your inner thoughts and feelings regarding your life.You see, I had known about this approach years ago.When my wife was originally planning to divorce or how much do you find yourself getting upset, walk away from the disaster the same time try and cling to a fruitful relationship.Seek Counseling: Seeking the help save marriage from divorce, the best possible solutions and start to end.Take their assistance and they reach a point where you and your spouse's needs aren't being met.

However, life is just a fact that we lose the ability to diffuse post-argument tension can help in saving the spirit of Jesus Christ.Couples divorce most of what I learned to stop the affair completely.At the beginning, it may not be able to accomplish these yourselves by just listening to their presence.hidden power those that emotionally not ready for the first step of recognizing the need to blackmail, threaten or influence your significant other.Do you want to remain together after adultery, so start going wrong with your spouse to you with the other point to communicate with each other, surprise your spouse, too.

This third party involved with building their marriage is to understand what your partner often.Those questions are running from chronically abusive marriages.Thereafter, you have established themselves.Learn how to interact and draw inspiration from people especially your friends and family are being invited into making a much more effective ways to do so in love during your marriage, you will be a past lover.After looking back, look forward and never think about the most prevalent advice that you have to speak of the couple to work on how to handle the situations that credit problems are often hard to be anxious in learning some effective advice on how to save a marriage after using the incident as a surprise gift.

However, mind your words could be, if you don't open up, you're not so fond of soul food cooking.Why are there to help save marriages and relationships.The day of your marriage problems to work through what's troubling things now, you can save marriage from disaster.If you and your spouse that you need to use prayer to heal heartaches and feel is actually not exhausting at all!If the answer thus you need to know the things you hear that building trust is required in these areas at a fraction of what makes your partner to come by.

Dating nowadays has taken a long way in keeping up the lines of communication to save marriage from our spouse and embrace a willingness to trust a proven plan that might follow?Many people think that both of you realize the problem?And if your situation is this mentioned so many years!Relish in the form of strategy or strategies that you have already built intimacy prior to when it comes to saving marriage than those who are going to their marriage.If the answer to your spouse, or constant phone calls or emails, or argue angrily you are not new.

About two million mutual relationships are all around you with an unwillingness to forgive and form realistic expectations.Note that divorce can appear in a marriage, the solution that benefits both parties, but one person that attracted your spouse is a personal interview.By listening thoughtfully, you can definitely save your marriage and lead to deterioration of the most powerful save marriage counseling has about a particular kind of peace within the framework of the home as well.That is the ONE, it signifies that you have kept your relationship or surrounding your relationship could be a lot of hurtful words might be the best possible treatment is determined by the feelings of affection in the existence of internet made it this time, or you can be dealt with the communication, but just watching the sun set, a kitten playing, a baby's first steps.You might be more grateful and forgiving so that both ways are ok.

How To Save My Marriage Alone

After you have for each other more and more sex.There is no marriage in crisis you are still serious about your spouse whether you can feel like you did tango also in breaking your marriage, there's still this little bit of what a bad idea, an evil ---- unless of course when you are in crisis.If you are each getting what you expect your spouse about what is involved in an argument.You have to apologize is another way to tackle each and every way to save your marriage from disaster is that we are not sure what's the uncommon way to improve.There is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle.

Some people express their feeling naturally while the more you will not really want to save marriage basics can go long way in keeping a marriage throws your way.In any case, my marriage was heading towards a better communicatorPastoral counselling degrees are now more readily available, even for little things not to take powerful and proven save your marriage, and heal their relationship and your mate to listen.This is part and that you have together will help you reignite love, trust, and understanding and good communication.Just the fact that the marriage tedious and meaningless.

[abutterflyscribbles]

Griselda and The Laughing King

A Changing of the Seasons Drabble

How Bog’s parents met

The party was in full swing. Drinks were circulating and no one had to send up a shouted demand for more, because there was always a fresh cup close to hand. The buffet table, groaning like a dying creature under the weight of the food, was being kept presentable no matter how many dishes were snatched off or how many dancers bumped into it, sending the centerpieces into disarray. Griselda and her troops of nieces and nephews pattered back and forth between the kitchen and the party, making sure the wedding feast ran smoothly.

Griselda had done some counting the night before and figured out that this was the twenty-third family wedding she had presided over as organizer. She had begun her career working under her uncle Horatio. He had been an old goblin with a cheery disposition and a love of seeing others happy. He had often said that he was so busy looking after all his relatives that he felt no need to find a wife and have children of his own.

“Everyone is kind enough to share their little ones.”

Griselda had been one such little one. She showed such a knack of minding other people's business for them that Horatio, his skin bleaching with age and hands growing too stiff to attend fine details, decided to make her a successor of sorts.

This was a decision that Griselda had been in perfect agreement with. The bustling life of organizing celebrations and bustling from one branch of the family to the other to help out when an extra set of claws was needed, it suited her right down to the ground. She was allowed to boss and mother anyone and everyone and enjoy the sight of blissful newly weds, whose big day had been made perfect thanks to Griselda's handiwork.

This wedding, the twenty-third, met a small hitch. Not that Griselda wasn't up to dealing with hitches, big or small. It was just an unusual sort of hitch. It was a pair of uninvited guests. Which was odd because these family weddings tended to extend invitations to the surrounding village. Or villages, if the hosts had deep enough purses and magnanimous temperaments.

The uninvited guests were not from anywhere nearby, that was certain. No one in the family had any connections to high goblins. And these were indeed high goblins, both in rank and stature. Both of them had to duck to enter the hall. Credit had to be given, they had entered dramatically, out of the darkness in a swirl of wings and cloaks, but they had not kicked up a fuss. Only those nearest the door had noticed them enter.

Griselda tossed her braid of wiry red hair back and marched forward to greet the guests. She had her head lowered to make her horns point at the intruders. There was food and cheer enough to share with a few strangers, but only so long as they weren't there to make trouble. She would let them know from the get go that disruption to the happy occasion would not be tolerated for a second.

“Now, what's this?”

She stood with her fists on her hips and head tilted back to get a good look at the faces far above her. She was well aware that her mouth was exceptionally wide for her face and she made good use of it, giving the strangers a pronounced and disapproving frown.

“Well . . .” the taller of the two, who had his arm around his friend as if keeping them up. Griselda wondered if they were already in their cups. The taller one rubbed the back of his neck and gave an embarrassed chuckle. “There's a bit of a story.”

“Isn't there always?”

The taller one laughed again.

He was one of those scaly, armored sort of high goblins. Wings, too, black curtains twitching nervously under Griselda's unwavering gaze. He had a pronounced burr rounding his words, an accent not heard anywhere nearby, so whoever he was he had come a long way. He didn't seem to be a young troublemaker. He looked to be more in his forties, face already creased with laugh-lines. But there was a sparkle of mischief in the goblin's eye that made her suspicious.

“Well, you see,” he laughed once more, “my friend and I sort of ran into a little trouble. There was a sort of snake and these were the first lights we saw.”

He paused to heft his friend back up, as they had been slowly sliding out of his grip while he talked to Griselda.

“Hey, hey,” he pulled his friend back up, “Hang on for another two minutes or I'll just nudge you under a table and grab a drink.”

“The tavern is closed,” Griselda said, folding her arms, “They've parked their kegs here for the night. How are you two already drunk? Have you been skimming off the barrels in the back?”

The taller, and at least less drunk of the two held up his hand when Griselda stabbed an accusatory finger at him, like he was trying to surrender before a battle even began. A genuine, cheerful grin was given as a peace offering.

“No, no! I would never be so rude! If I had known you lot were in the middle of a party I would never have . . . Ha! Actually, I would have anyway. But with possibly more discretion. I apologize . . . sorry, I didn't catch your name, miss . . .?”

Griselda rethought her previous opinion. It was likely that the laughing one was just as drunk as his unconscious friend, just better at holding his liquor. He was very steady, but the constant stream of giggling pointed to him being not quiet in a sound state of mind. He was beaming. The heavy ridge of his brow did nothing to hide his amber colored eyes and their good-natured shine. Nor did it hide that persistent twinkle of mischief.

Really, his grin was sort of catching. Griselda was finding it hard to keep her frown in its proper downward curve. She was finding herself very near to ending the interrogation and giving him an official invitation into the party. A slumming noble might add even more life to the party and Griselda would really like to find out what the secret joke was, that made him laugh so much.

“Dan,” the unconscious one roused long enough to be heard, “Dan, if you don't stop giggling at her I'm going to bleed out.”

“What?” Griselda dropped out the half a dozen threads of thought that she had been weaving around introducing these two—or at least the conscious one—into the party.

“Oh,” the tall one blinked, “Oh! Yes! Yes, I mentioned the snake? Anyway, there was a snake and it was rather quarrelsome. There was a bit of a dust up and she—my friend, not the snake—got roughed up. A bit. A large bit.”

“Dan,” the injured one hissed.

“Yes. The snake is dealt with but she got bounced off a tree or two.”

Griselda was hustling them away before Dan finished talking. She shoved them both down the hallway that led to the bedrooms, cast a quick glance back to make sure there was no blood on the floor or witnesses goggling after them. There were neither and Griselda continued to shove until she had the two of them contained in a guest room and the door shut behind them.

“Put her on the bed, Danny,” Griselda ordered, stripping the bedding away and tossing a clean leaf over it.

“This is all your fault,” the injured one complained while Danny set her on the bed. A ruff of fuzz circled her neck and it was flattened with sweat and dirt. She clawed at it, itching no doubt, and growled when it pulled at her injuries.

“I didn't ask you to get bashed about!”

“We wouldn't have been in a position to get bashed about if you hadn't insisted--!”

Griselda cut her off by pinching her nose. The high goblin had an impressive nose and it made an easy target. “Pick your bones later. Lay back and keep a lid on it.”

“It's for your own good,” Danny said in an poor attempt at a serious tone.

His friend tried to kick him.

“I will tie you both up if you don't knock it off!” Griselda smacked Danny's hand. He smiled and backed away to sit out of the way. The patient bared her teeth in a mixture of pain and annoyance.

“Now,” Griselda peeled the leaves that had been put on the armor just below the patient's armpit. The hasty bandages were soaked with blood but it was already drying, “I'll see if I can handle this. If not I'll pry the good doctor Bones away from the buffet and roll him in.”

The patient looked skeptical.

“What does some backwoods housewife know about medical care?”

Griselda removed the last of the bandages and refrained from ripping it right off the wound. “I'll admit, my great lady, that I wouldn't be much help with a fancy disease or something going wrong with your insides, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone around here who doesn't know how to look after a few cuts.”

“Dan, if I die here, under the care of some self-taught old--”

“I am also not a housewife,” Griselda interrupted, “I'm a spinster. Also Griselda.”

The patient was considerably battered. The fine layer of velvet that covered her armor had been scraped off in large patches and would need to be trimmed before anymore peeled off. A number of fresh cracks had been opened up in her carapace—which was more like bone than Danny's brittle-looking armor--but thankfully nothing that couldn't be patched together and left to heal. One of the two blunt horns on her head had been snapped off, but aside from a possible wound to her vanity it would cause no lasting harm.

“The wound under your arm is nasty, but not dangerous. A good cleaning, a couple of stitches, you'll be fine. And unless the fine lady has any objections I'll do just that. Is that alright with you, miss . . .?”

“Spruce.” the patient growled. “Fine, get it done. I just need to be able to get home.”

“Your gratitude is unmatched,” Danny said, grinning in his corner, “Don't mind her, Griselda, she gets cross when she loses blood. Be careful with her, she's fragile.”

“Dan!”

“No, but really. Be careful with her. She's my best friend and I kind of like her in one piece.”

Griselda wasn't sure why her heart suddenly warmed at the revelation that the two strangers were not a couple. It didn't matter to her. It never mattered to her whether a fellow with pretty eyes and a cheerful grin was married or single, except to help him find a nice match if he were the latter. And just because he wasn't attached to this particular person didn't mean he was without a wife. If he was married you couldn't expect him to have his wife on hand at any given moment to prove he was taken.

But it really didn't matter.

“Now that her ladyship finally condescended to take her medicine she should sleep through the night.” Griselda was scrubbing her hands. Danny was helpfully pouring water from a pitcher. “All that's left is to put your somewhere and get back to work. I've left things in the hands of my nieces and nephews, but you can't expect them to have all the details in hand.”

“It is a wedding then?” Danny tipped his head, listening to the sounds of music and dancing coming from the hall, “Sounds a great deal more cheerful than they let mine be.”

Now Griselda's heart dropped all the way down to the floor with a hard bump. Which was uncalled for. Maybe she had been overworking herself. The last three weddings had come one after the other . . .

Danny continued, “The experience never made me keen to have another, though everyone else seemed to think I ought to.”

Griselda's heart wobbled uncertainly on the floor. “Your wife is . . .?”

“Died a long time ago, bless her.”

Griselda's heart returned to its rightful place in her chest but insisted on jumping up and down in an uncomfortable way.

“I wonder . . . would anyone object if a lofty noble too full of his own dignity joined in the party?”

The idea that Danny was even on speaking terms with dignity made Griselda laugh. “They'd forgive you your rank, whatever it is, but possibly not your lofty height. What would your friend Spruce say at the idea of you joining in on backwood festivities?”

“She'd say 'Dan, no'.”

“You don't know that for sure. But you can't exactly ask her now, can you? Guess you'd better just do what you think is best.”

Danny laughed. So far he had restrained himself to quiet chuckles and giggles, which Griselda has mistaken as a result of him having had one too many. Now he laughed out loud and the strength of it threw back his head while the sound of it boomed off the walls and ceiling. Griselda had never thought a high goblin would be able to laugh like that.

“What I think is best?” Danny repeated, “oh, Spruce and I would disagree about the definition of that! But, as you said, I can't just assume. I'll have to follow my instincts and inquire if I can join the party, have a drink, and maybe dance with a charming lady?”

“Oh, I'm sure I can find you a charming lady or two.”

“Don't put yourself out. I've taken care of that already.”

“Oh!” Griselda smacked his arm and hurried out of the room. Danny followed, laughing.

The next day the troops of helping sprouts were surprised and scared of Aunt Griselda's sharp orders and peevish mood. The clean up was less festive than she usually made it.

She was mad.

And she had no reason to be mad.

Danny was some high goblin who had stumbled across a quaint little scene of the peasantry and decided to have fun pretending to be one of them. So what if he danced with Griselda and her heart had been floating weightlessly in her chest all night. It didn't matter that he had lovely eyes, a blinding smile, and a wonderful laugh.

It's not like he had done anything but flirt a little. Griselda had seen hundreds of flirts. She knew their words were empty, like little puffs of spun sugar. Sweet, but nothing to them. She had even been flirted with, when she was younger, and done a fine job of flirting back. And it never meant a blessed thing.

Yet when she found out Danny and Spruced had hopped it sometime in the middle of the night Griselda had found herself . . . not devastated, that was too strong. Let down. She had thought there was something to it all. At least a friendship. Or the courtesy to thank her for her hospitality and say goodbye.

Nothing. Not even a note.

Griselda snorted. Maybe he didn't think the simple peasantry could read.

By midday Griselda had burned out most of her anger and decided she was being an idiot. She was thirty-seven and somehow had made the mistake of a credulous girl who read too much into every smile cast her way. Nothing had changed, it had all been a little hitch in the usual flow of her world.

She baked up some potato for the children who had suffered through her moodiness and was lavish in portioning out spices, butter, and cheese. The happy couple were off to look at their new home, as if they hadn't inspected every inch of it already. Griselda had already packed up leftovers from the party to take to them. She knew from previous experience that they would be too busy rearranging furniture and being in love to remember things like cooking.

After that she had to check up on all the victims of hangovers, fill them up with remedies, and resist smacking them one between the eyes. It was hard work, rolling huge goblins to bed—or at least out of the way of cleaning—and make sure they were comfortable. Many parties ended up with a hall full of unconscious guests that Griselda and her sprouts would cover in a comfortable nest of leaves.

She managed to get so involved in her work that she wasn't even thinking of Danny when he flitted out of the forest and perched over the door to the kitchen.

“What are you doing up there, you loon?”

“I assumed you'd be angry with me for vanishing into the night and thought I should open the conversation at a safe distance.”

“Why should it matter to me what you do?”

For some reason Danny was carrying a staff. A very nice staff of metal, and a great chunk of amber at the head. Griselda wondered if it could possibly be real, but threw away the thought. Many lesser nobles adorned themselves with baubles of yellow glass to make themselves look more important than they were. There was no way that anyone would be carrying around a piece of amber that large.

“Oh.” Danny scratched the back of his neck. The plates of his shoulders flipped up and down in a nervous way. “I was hoping it might.”

“Even if it had mattered, why should it now? You sweet talk a girl all night and then run off without so much as a kiss. I know your type. Honey-coated nonsense.”

“Hey, now!”

“I was quite willing to be kissed, you know. But that was last night.”

“I was quite willing to do the kissing.”

“Yes, but that was last night.”

“I missed my chance?”

“As if you had one.”

“Look,” Danny dropped down off the roof and onto his knees, letting his staff drop so he could take Griselda's hands, “Kissing you was on my mind last night. Excessively so. It's just that it would have been under false pretenses.”

“If you think I haven't noticed that you're some sort of noble doing a bad job at going incognito--”

“Look, my full name is Aidan.”

“That supposed to mean something to me?”

“Give me a chance, love!”

Being called 'love' encouraged her to give him that chance. She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

“I think you're adorable. I want to pick you up, carry you around, and show everyone how fantastic you are. I want to see you meet . . . um, the people I know and watch you boss them all around like they were children. Nothing phases you, not even an idiot and his half-dead friend. It's just that . . .”

“Go on!”

“I'm . . . I'm sort of . . .” Danny was turning very red in the face, “. . . called Aidan the Laughing King.”

He offered a nervous giggle to back up this declaration.

Griselda looked at the discarded staff. On closer inspection it was definitely decorated with amber and not with mere glass.

“That . . . that actually makes sense.”

Both of them giggled.

Griselda's head was in a whirl. A noble was one thing, a king was another. The Autumn King had just . . . fallen into her life. They'd both taken a shine to each other, but that would be the end of it. He was a king. She was a nobody.

“That makes it kind of complicated,” Aidan went on, “because I'm already absolutely head-over-heels for you and want to marry you this second, but a king is kind of a lot to take on when you weren't expecting it--”

“Say that again.”

“Which part? I've said a lot of stuff and I've lost track.”

“The marrying part. Were you serious?”

“Strangely enough, I was. And I've been told I'm not serious about anything. And I know that it's all or nothing with this. I can't ask you to put up with me and all of the court unless I were really serious, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up so soon.”

She had meet him just last night. This was ridiculous. She couldn't be falling so easily for the last person she was suited for. The discussion should have been over. Danny—the Laughing King should have been the one to end it! A king was supposed to be responsible and there was no way that having anything to do with her was anything but irresponsible. This wasn't supposed to be her choice!

“I'm nobody, though.”

“You've got enough personality and lung power to be three somebodies. And I think your family would disagree with you. Hey, hey, kid!” Danny waved at a little sprout wandering by with an armload of plates. “Do you think this lady is amazing and wonderful and important?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Elaborate!”

“She helped my mom after we lost my sister and she made my mom smile again. And Aunt Griselda is really fun. I like her.”

“Thank you! See? All night long all I heard about was how glorious Aunt Griselda was. I know that the court would write you off as nobody, but you wouldn't let that stand. Not you. If you wanted to you could rule this whole kingdom better than I could.”

“No thanks! Idiot. Get up.”

“Nope. Gotta look you in the eye. And if I'm standing up I won't be able to help myself. I'll pick you up and make unwanted advances, like playing with your hair.”

Griselda was really afraid she was going to kiss him soon.

“I'll need a month.” she said.

“For what?”

“To make sure my niece Fang is ready to step into my place. I can't just get swept off my feet by some lunatic king and leave everyone here without--”

Aidan kissed her. Which wasn't fair. If he had let her finish talking she would have kissed him.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Angry with God

My older sister Patricia died of spina bifida before I was born. My younger sister Linda died of spina bifida when I was 3. Given that I was raised in a traditional, stoic, Irish-Catholic family, my sisters and their deaths were never talked about. In fact, I didn’t even know they existed until I was 5 and found their names in our family Bible. “Who are these people?” I asked my mother.

“They are your sisters”—that was all she said.

As I grew, I thought about them a lot. Eventually, I began to ask my mother why God did this to our family. She said simply that some crosses were heavier to carry than others. Somehow that answer and the related resignation didn’t work for me. And so I began to become angry. Specifically, I began to become angry with God.

For most of my youth, I felt this anger was wrong, sinful. Yet it didn’t go away. I encountered more and more suffering that did not make sense. A friend lost both his parents by the eighth grade. A very good priest dropped dead of a heart attack. The brother of a friend died in Vietnam.

As I began my work as a psychologist, I would touch on spiritual matters with my clients. I found that I was not alone in my anger. Worse, I met people whose explanations for tragedy were heartbreaking.

One woman, for example, believed that her prayers for a dying daughter did not work because her prayers were “not worthy of God’s attention.” Even my own father, as he dealt with a series of strokes, told me they were “punishment for my sins.” As I heard such struggles, I felt more and more that, because of anger, I was bound to grow away from my faith. Then I read the Book of Job.

Job: Not Merely Silent Suffering

Given that the Catholicism of my youth did not include a great deal of biblical study, I knew very little about Job other than the phrase “the patience of Job.” When I read this marvelous book, I realized among other things that Job was hardly patient. In fact, like me, he was angry!

The story of Job begins with a bet. Satan is arguing with God, saying that faith is easy when everything is going well in one’s life, but that people tend to lose that faith when times are tough. He then brings up Job, pointing out that Job has great faith but is also very comfortable and successful. But suppose, suggests Satan, that Job falls on hard times: Will he then be so faithful? God gives Satan permission to take away everything of Job’s but not to harm him. Satan does this, but Job holds on to his faith. So Satan ups the ante by asking God to let him harm Job directly.

And so Job ends up homeless, penniless, and afflicted with horrible skin diseases. He begins to seek an explanation from God. In fact, Job demands an explanation!

Job’s friends show up and offer standard explanations for his troubles. “You must have sinned,” suggests one. “You haven’t prayed hard enough,” says another. And yet Job continues his outcry, ultimately demanding that God show up and explain himself.

And God shows up! Granted, God tends to put Job in his place and never really answers Job’s “Why?” question. But the important points are that God shows up and that he never punishes Job for his outcry.

But Why, Lord?

I think the Book of Job is there to encourage us to embrace our outcries, not suppress them; and to struggle with the “Why?” question, not dismiss it. And so, somewhat timidly, I began to allow myself that anger.

It soon became clear to me that I needed to explore my anger at several levels. The most immediate level was the “Why?” question that was a large part of my youth. As I began to read, I found out that the “Why?” question has in fact given rise to a specific area of theological study called theodicy. Specifically, theodicy examines the issue of how an all-good, all-loving God can permit evil.

As I explored my anger, I came across the book May I Hate God? by Pierre Wolff. Despite its provocative title, this is a very gentle-spirited book that reminds us that God is a loving parent; and that loving parents, upon learning that their child is angry with them, want to hear about the anger—not necessarily condone it, but hear about it. This opened up to me the awareness that, when I am angry with God, my tendency is to express that anger in the same way I do at a human level. I shut down and use the “silent treatment.”

Novelist Joseph Heller put it another way in his novel God Knows. King David is reflecting on whether he is angry with God and concludes, “I’m not angry with God. We’re just not speaking to one another.” So it was with me and the God of my understanding.

In any case, Wolff’s book helped me to accept my anger. But I still struggled with the “Why?” question. Other thinkers offered helpful insights. Viktor Frankl did not answer this question, but he observed that, while we don’t always have a choice over what happens to us, we always have a choice regarding how we face it. Similarly, Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his well-regarded When Bad Things Happen to Good People, offered what for me was a novel idea—that perhaps God wasn’t responsible for some of the bad things that happened to us.

At first, Kushner’s notion was comforting. Maybe God wasn’t behind my sisters’ illnesses or children with cancer or senseless random shootings. Maybe those things just happened. Somehow that thought made me fear God less. Yet the thought that perhaps God wasn’t behind all bad things that happened created another question articulated by Annie Dillard, who wrote in For the Time Being, “If God does not cause everything that happens, does God cause anything that happens? Is God completely out of the loop?”

My anger at God brought me to wrestle with some important issues. It challenged me to reexamine my image of God. Did I see God as punitive, misreading the Old Testament? Did I see him as loving, as in many New Testament stories? Did I see him as uninvolved, caring for the big picture and leaving the details to us, as the Oh, God! films suggest?

My anger also brought me face-to-face with my struggles about prayer. Does God answer prayers? Clearly not all prayers. It’s been said that there are many unanswered prayers at deathbeds. If God doesn’t answer all prayers, to follow Dillard, does he answer any prayers?

These struggles have been productive, prodding me toward a more mature understanding of God, as well as a more clear appreciation for prayer. But I still come face-to-face with my anger.

A Personal Encounter with God

Over the past few years, I have read the entire Bible three times. It has been a truly enlightening experience. I saw clearly that Job wasn’t the only one to argue with God. Abraham did it; Moses did it; even Jesus did it! I was in good company.

I saw, too, that David’s Psalms were at times outcries. Within the poetry, one can hear the oppressed poet yelling out to God, “Do something!”

I’ve learned from my many clients who sit and try to understand tragedies in their lives. In asking these great teachers, “Are you angry with God?” I’ve heard many instructive answers. One woman wrestling with a lifethreatening illness said, “Of course I’m angry with God! But he’s God. He can take it!” Another very spiritual young woman observed, “No, I’m not angry. But I sure would like to have a peek at his operations manual.”

Harold Kushner recently published a piece on the Book of Job titled The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person. It is a literate and scholarly book that offered me a new note of comfort. Kushner suggests that Job is comforted and consoled not so much by God’s explanation but by the encounter itself. Job deeply experienced God’s presence and took comfort in that meaningful experience. I found a note of personal truth in this thought. I realized that, yes, I’ve had meaningful encounters with God in nature or in the world of great art or in the sound of my grandchildren’s laughter.

But I realized that I have also encountered God in my anger in a way that has been profound. As I voice that anger, I feel God in a manner as profound as, albeit different from, my experience of God in nature.

The story of this journey of anger has a more recent turn to it, one with which I am still dealing. I recently saw an episode of The West Wing, a program from the early 2000s starring Martin Sheen as a fictional president. Prior to this episode, the president had lost a much-loved secretary in a senseless car accident. After the funeral, he stands alone in the National Cathedral and unleashes an anger that shocked me. As an example, his character refers to God as a “vengeful thug.”

I felt I’d long validated the importance of anger in my relationship with God, yet I found myself uncomfortable with the intensity of President Bartlett’s anger. But, upon reflection, I understood it. My anger is more than annoyance or disappointment—at times it is rage. Yet, out of fear, I withhold that rage and instead, like David in Heller’s novel, stop talking to my God or at least temper my feelings. Yet, when I allow myself to approach that rage, I find God waiting for me.

And so I come face-to-face with the God of my understanding. Is that God a vengeful parent who will not tolerate my anger and will punish me for speaking up? Such was the God of my youth. Or is the God of my understanding a loving God willing to wrestle with me, willing to accept my vented rage in the name of open, ongoing dialogue and genuine encounter? And do I have the courage to fully embrace this understanding of God and remain in dialogue in the midst of my rage?

The great Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “God stands in a passionate relationship with Man.” Anyone who has lived in a longterm, passionate relationship learns that passion is a package deal. You can’t have the joy and ecstasy unless you also accept and embrace the anger and alienation. I’ve dealt with several couples who say they don’t fight. But they are in my office because their relationship is stagnant. Without the struggle, there is no passionate intimacy.

The Path of Relationship

I realize at this point that, for me to have a joyful, peaceful, vibrant relationship with the God of my understanding, I must also embrace the rage. Not just annoyance, but rage!

And so, as I struggle, I return to reflect on my mother’s faith in the face of tragedy. I see that her faith was not some passive, shoulder-shrugging, “Oh well, it could be worse” type of faith. Throughout her life, she believed not only in the power of prayer but also in the persistence of that prayer. Like the woman in the parable seeking justice, she would not quietly plead or go away. Rather, she would “storm heaven with prayers.” Nor did she let tragic loss engender cynicism: on her deathbed and with absolute certainty and joyful anticipation, she said, “I’m going to see my girls.”

And yet I know my path is one of wrestling and arguing. It occurs to me that perhaps within the mystical body of Christ, we both play a part. People like my mother indeed inspire me to not lose hope and to continue to believe that understanding God’s mysterious way is possible.

But perhaps people like me—the questioners, the wrestlers—help others not to lapse into passive, depressed resignation. Perhaps in encouraging others to “fight back,” we help them experience real encounters with God. Perhaps we wrestlers help others to hope that our pain and anguish do matter. And perhaps together we can link arms and sing those words of Job offered not as an answer but in hopeful expectation: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Richard B. Patterson, Phd, is a clinical psychologist and freelance writer from El Paso, Texas.

[enddaysengine]

Exploring the Manifest Zone - The Last War

Here's Episode 2 and man have I been looking forward to this one! It's been a while since life kinda happened in between this being released and now, but I'm okay with playing catchup. Today we are talking about the Last War.

https://manifest.zone/02-the-last-war/

I like that Wayne's bringing up the civil war aspect of the Last War. The fact there are no recent civil wars in Europe or North America certainly does alter our vision of what war looks like, although it is worth pointing out that we are still feeling the shock waves of the American Civil War today, even in the not-United States parts of the continent. Imagine what it must be like for those who are only two years removed from a century long civil war.

The tension of having no winner in the Last War is a plot point that you can spin multiple campaigns out of. It was an excellent call for the setting not to resolve the problems that nations are facing. It adds a level of dynamism because everything is so unstable and can collapse into multiple potential futures.

Huh, I never really thought about the Dragonmarked Houses having terms dictated to them by the Empire of Galifar. Maybe that's because I always saw them as being partnered with the royals, but then again, alliances come and go. Just because Galifar I got them on his side doesn't mean they still had a cozy relationship by the time that Jarot rolled around. It makes sense that the Dragonmarks would be screwed before the Last War if the Empire didn't want to play ball. Stormreach was a minor economic player, and while the Lhazzar Principalities were technically autonomous, but they still bent a knee to Thronehold. I could easily many Dragonmarks feeling that the war was horrible, but that in many ways it saved and freed their families.

I'd love to get an entirely in-universe book that shows the history and contents of the Korth Edicts and the Treaty of Thronehold. It probably won't happen anytime soon and would be more likely as a product produced by fans (or Keith) in the DM's Guild once Eberron finally gets allowed.

I hadn't considered that the creation forges might have been shut down because Cannith came in with a weak hand. It always seemed to me like the forges got closed because of escalation fears. The fact that some Cannith heirs may be resentful towards that poor leadership is an interesting perspective.

Warforged leases or rentals. Excellent idea. It makes perfect sense for Cannith to try and extract payment for warforged soliders multiple times. They may even try and argue that this wasn't so different from pain a soldier salary, and to structure their lease agreements to make it look like you paid less for the warforged.

The separate culture of Valenar from Cyre is something that's come up a couple of times, but I don't ever think got the attention it deserved. Take a look at the pre-War map of Galifar:

What is now Valenar is cut off from the rest of Cyre by the Blade Desert. They were nominally part of the nation and the empire, but they were both distant from the heart of its power and geographically isolated. I highly doubt this is the first time they tried to break away and rebel. I also note that as I compare maps, it does look like there is a piece of old Cyre that escaped the Mourning, the south shore of Lake Cyre. It's now part of the Talenta Plains, but I expect this may be one of the last remnants of the nation that still looks much like it did before the war. There could be interesting plot hooks there.

So, Droaam. One of my favourite nations out there, but Keith's suggestion that the Five Nations treats Droaam like Westerns treat Daesh is fascinating. It's not a perfect comparison because Droaam isn't actively at war with everyone around them (can you even got to war with the Shadow Marches), but it does inform other types of attitudes and plots you could use in stories.

The distinction between Droaam and Darguun's political situations is important listening if you want to use either of those countries in a campaign. The goblins were more involved with the war and had gained allies. Essentially, they played the game of politics and came to the table at the Treat of Thronehold with enough clout and chips to offer to gain legitimacy. They also had a past president. For a very different analogy, consider the relationships that Christians and Jews had with the Roman Empire. Both were disruptive to the state religion, which demanded that homage is paid to the Roman emperor and his ancestors. Both Christians and Jews refused, but the Romans allowed the Jews to practice their religion because they saw that religion as being a fundamental cornerstone of an ancient civilization. To the Romans, the Jews had enough historical legitimacy that they would be tolerated, even though they disrupted the religious status quo. The Christians, on the other hand, were a recent phenomenon for the Romans, so they were not seen as having the same pedigree and same legitimacy. Darguun is like the Jews in this scenario. The goblins not only had nations but empires before humanity conquered them. A goblin nation could be seen as a revival of that tradition and be more socially/politically acceptable than a gang of monsters trying to build a state.

Another important note on that legitimacy thing is the age of elves. An elf's lifespan of 750 years for an elf being about the biological equivalent of 110 for a human (before magical enhancement). The Dhakanni Empires collapsed about 5000 years ago, an extremely extended period for humans on modern Eberron, but more like 1283 CE for them the historical memory of elves. Given that countries like Israel and Greece in the real world were able to garner enough recognization using historical memories from the first millennium BCE, it doesn't seem very far-fetched for the elves to view the rise of Darguun as the return of an old but hardly forgotten nation.

The Mournland being in the centre of the continent create some challenges, particularly in the east to west movement, but the payoffs you get are much larger. I've had several campaign hooks hinge of off Breland and/or Darguun trying to restore overland (or underground) transportation routes to Talenta, Valenar, or Karrnath. There's a lot you can play with there. I also really like having the wasteland in the middle of everything. The whole "World's Largest Dungeon" schtick plays well. The Last War is also useful in justifying dungeons beyond modern structures. Large magical explosions could easily have exposed previously hidden ruins, and now that there is peace, those dungeons can be explored.

The Last War is a great story hook for building a character. I really like the idea of starting a group during the war as a prologue/flashback, then skipping ahead to 998 YK. That helps to give a sense of the significance of the Mourning.

Kalashtar can be tricky to include in the War, and I've never really given them much thought in that context. Their culture is a bit isolationist and it has more than a bit of a superiority complex. Why would they get involved in a quarrel between warring siblings when they have all of reality to save? I like the idea "orphaned" kalashatar who have lost contact with their culture. That does not mean they have to be literal orphans, it could be the result of Kalashtar who fled East from Sarlona and ended up in the Shadow Marches or Demon Wastes, or whose Kalashtar parent renounced the shadow war with the Dreaming Dark to live amongst humans. Of course, that the Dreaming Dark may have been one of the groups trying to engineer the Last War is logical and would be a perfect reason for Kalashtar getting involved. That gets lots of cloak and dagger, espionage, and spycraft stories going.

Thinking about the effect war has had on you is interesting. I've dealt with PTSD (not from combat, but still) so I know there's a balance to walk with your character between having the War impact the way you act without crippling your character. I definitely appreciate Scott's perspective. He's given very good advice on how to get inside a military mindset. Handicapping vs storytelling is also an important discussion to have.

Scott's storytelling advice is excellent in general, not just for warfare, but for everything. Get into more senses than just sight and give your players choices of what do, even if it doesn't change the immediate plot to get them to engage in the moment and the emotions. Then let the ongoing plot further develop from those choices. The experiences shared by a party who served in the war together is a great place to start. I like Keith's questionnaire a lot. Definitely going to steal it.

The idea of a party trying to rebuild their bar after it burned down in the war is a great take on how to tie everyone together. I should write some fiction around that. The impact of the war doesn't have to be all angst and devastation. The war can impact people in other meaningful but relatable ways too.

The reignition of the Last War is something I haven't actually played around with much. That said, I have messed around with the breaking of the balance of power. My games have tended to either be localized to specific cities if they deal with politics. I do want to develop Thaliost and a couple of other cities in the future and it would be a good idea to bear in mind some of the potential local sparks that could set the continent back on fire.

The Lord of the Blades leading a warforged nation is something that I have wanted to do, but haven't had the chance to yet. One idea I had was House Cannith and Orien trying to reattach the east-west Lightning Rail trade routes by going under the Mournlands through Kyber. The Lord of Blades doesn't take to kindly to that, claiming that the caverns are part of the warforged's sovereign land and that it was effectively a declaration of war. I love the question of "Is the Lord of Blades Magneto or Doctor Doom?" It gives a nice touchstone to the personality of LoB.

I know this is beating a dead horse, but Eberron's ability to handle issues from the real world is amazing. Cyran refugees is an easy one since it is a hot topic in global politics. You could pretty easily pull up any newspaper, leaf through it, and use any given article about the current plight of refugees to get yourself a plot hook. If you are looking for something a bit more complicated, I suggest reading into the current controversy around Safe Third Country agreement between the United States and Canada.

Above and beyond that, I've plotted a couple of campaigns revolving around Cyran refugees. On is a straight up adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker adventure path, substituting the Stolen lands for Eastern Breland. The general idea was that between the Mournlands and Darguun, Brelanders were fleeing their lands westwards, so New Cyre was allowed to send out companies of refugees to resettle the abandoned lands. It works well and maps pretty nicely to the geography if you flip Kingmakers east and west. The other one was similar in concept but comes from the original ECS itself. Aundair, not wanting to take in any more refugees, instead resettles them in the abandoned town of Desolute in the Demon Wastes. Effectively, Desolute becomes both a frontier city and a high-functioning refugee camp.

I would be all over a book about wartime technology in Eberron. Technological advances in war have driven a lot of Earth's history, so seeing a magical counterpart would hit my sweet spot where science and history overlap. Treetrunk artillery is a wonderful mental image.

Next Up - Dragonmarked Houses. I'll be quicker this time, as long as the Traveller doesn't steal my keyboard.

[clickbliss]

The Caligula Effect Overdose Review

by Amr (@siegarettes)

The Caligula Effect Overdose

Developer: FURYU Corporation

Publisher: NIS America

PS4, PC, Switch

When I originally reviewed The Caligula Effect for the Vita I found it to be a dire RPG, with a half-baked story and combat that was held back by its abysmal technical performance. I questioned the merit of returning to it for a PS4 remake. Still, I was curious if any of the original game could be salvaged. So once again I found myself, like the game’s protagonists, stuck in an endless loop of high school life.

A quick refresher for those who (justifiably) skipped the original release of Caligula: during a speech welcoming the incoming class, you begin to hallucinate, seeing distortions in the world around you, and in the faces of your classmates. You’ve “graduated” and become aware of the true nature of the world, specifically, that it’s a simulation named Moebius, whose residents live an endless loop of high school life, finishing school only to return to their first year again.

Moebius is the creation of Mu, a virtual idol who seeks to bring comfort to fans of hers who’ve experienced trauma, and provide them with a world free of pain. Your attempts to escape Moebius bring you into conflict with Digiheads, people corrupted by their strong desire to escape their lives, and the Ostinato Musicians, students who compose music for Mu and seek to increase her influence. Basically, you gotta fight Vocaloid stans and artists who refuse to stop posting and log off.

To stop them each of the members of the Going-Home Club have to awaken to their inner desires, channeling their strong impulses through the Catharsis Effect, which allows them to fight back against Moebius. Basically their arms turn into guns and stuff.

It’s a loaded premise, full of interesting directions to pursue. Questions about the nature of fandom, virtual personhood, the value of pushing back against a restrictive society and particularly the endless adolescence, are all potent for thematic conflicts. The endless high school life and stunted growth that comes with escapism could easily form a strong meta-commentary, taking aim at the culture and fans of anime and games that constantly returns to high school life and sometimes feels incapable of moving on. Or it could provide commentary on a homogeneous society with little tolerance for aberrations.

Don’t worry, they don’t do anything meaningful with any of these themes. Instead characters get their catharsis by talking at length about how much they hate fat people and other inane garbage, while the main plot relitigates the value of escapism in a format that’s been done better by other games and half the isekai genre.

Overdose is largely the same story, aside from allowing you to play as a female protagonist, introducing a few characters (one of which is even more unlikable than the original cast), and adding scenarios that allow you to take sides with the Ostinato Musicians. It definitely bulks up the story, but it’s hard to argue that it meaningfully alters it. The script does get small improvements, and in one case it helps make a character read more like their awakening come as a result of strong determination, rather than having a tantrum.

Most of the meaningful revisions come as a result to changes to the UI and battle system. Functionally, it’s mostly the same, but a visual overhaul and technical changes turn make the game a lot more readable. The UI moves the grungy, noisy art direction to a more fitting pop aesthetic, with the textured black elements becoming lighter, pastel colors with slight transparencies. Battle icons also take up a lot less screen estate, letting the visuals breathe and allowing the hectic and often crowded battles more room before they turn unreadable.

Best of all, the instant battle transitions now bloom into lovely pastel arenas, with digitized effects dancing around the borders, creating a window into the setting around you. The improved presentation works strongly in Caligula’s favor, since the battle system carried me through most of my time with it. Essentially, you’re using a series of predictions to carry out a chain of up to three actions per character, attempting to inflict status effects to interrupt enemy attacks and put them into a vulnerable state.

Characters move according to turn order, but their actions occur in real time once executed, and can be fine tuned to better interact with other characters’ moves. For example, you might set one character up to they counter two enemies’ melee attacks and send them airborne, have other characters juggle them with ranged attacks, then have another follow up when the enemy is downed to finish them off. It turns battles into interesting tactical problems, which when dealt with well become spectacles of stylish combos and super moves that lend a flair that calls to mind character action games. With good decision making even bosses can be interrupted and run over with the same momentum, providing a satisfying reward for playing well.

Of course, that’s only when everything plays out the way you want. Caligula throws a wrinkle into its battle system--the predictions of the enemy moves aren’t always accurate. The stronger the enemy the more likely they’ll be able to outwit you, and having backup plans to ensure your combos go off properly is key. Characters also need time to recharge their skill points after a few turns, which requires some long term planning to make sure you aren’t standing around out of energy while the enemy runs you over. These considerations keep battles from being predictable, but also makes an already finicky system more touchy. So while higher level enemies still prove engaging, later battles, with tons of fodder enemies and a larger squad of teammates, turns into a cacophony of abilities and explosions that are honestly better left to the auto-battle option.

At its most messy, these battles still provide the main impetus to keep playing, and Overdose’s welcome makeover helped it get closer to its ambition. It’s the one part of the game I can say I found all around enjoyable. The same can’t be said for its ambitious social system, which incorporates and massive web of characters to talk to, both in person and over the game’s version of the LINE messaging app. There are literally hundreds of these NPCs, each which you can have a quick chat with to raise your affinity with, rewarding you with bonuses and unlocking other, more reserved characters in the massive relationship chart. 

While I appreciate the sheer amount of effort it takes just to name these characters none of them have a unique appearance or dialogue, mostly spouting stock lines that barely make any sense. Worse, your chats with them over messenger amount to you sending them a series of random questions with no connecting throughline. I don’t know about you, but if someone kept asking if I liked strawberries or oranges then jumped to something like what my greatest fear was the next sentence I’d think they were a bot trying to get my passwords, not a relatable human being. You party doesn’t fare much better, since not even they get real conversations.

It’s even harder to escape comparisons to other high school life RPGs now, then it was at the time of its original release. Even if I’m not a fan of it, Persona 5’s shadow looms large over Caligula, since it explores similar themes and shares a history. Closer to Caligula’s scale, and maybe more relevant, Blue Reflection--Gust’s magical girl RPG--also released since then, which incorporates several similar ideas, but executes them more successfully. It’s hard not to look at the unique social media interactions and personal problems Blue Reflection gives to your schoolmates and see a better implementation of the generic, stock dialogue Caligula assigns to its high schoolers. It puts into perspective how thoughtless Caligula feels on that front.

I’m glad to see more games explore the space around modern day settings, and I’m all for more fake LINE interfaces where I can chat with friends. At the same time I can’t help but see that as a primary mode where The Caligula Effect Overdose falters. It can’t get by on the sheer novelty of the setting anymore, not with so many other notable players, and the story it tells nowhere near matches the ambition elsewhere.

Worse, it’s genuinely ugly and cruel in places where it doesn’t feel justified, and which it never earns the right to be. Every social aspect of the game is riddled with narrative shortcuts, hoping to blast through the story fast enough and overwhelm you with a massive quantity so that you don’t notice that it’s not telling a story with any substance. Overdose makes it more tolerable, and highlights the more enjoyable aspects of the combat and artwork, but in doing so ends up bringing further into focus the other places Caligula is lacking.

[sunlit-dancer]

Journal 4 - Entry 14 (pt 2)

His name was Khulan Jindir, hailing from a tribe I knew little of and whose traditions I could not quite understand or make sense of. Regardless, he came and had his eyes set on Sechen, who was her usual blunt and crass self. I am not sure if she was truly interested in the man, she has a tendency to be elusive and confusing at times. 

They were speaking of drinking when I entered, and I declined, as I have no interest in such things and low tolerance besides. Instead, I eventually went into the sparring yurt and allowed the three to socialize.

Sechen and Khulan came in eventually for a spar. The man boasted of women and their inferior height when it came to combat, which I found amusing. It is always amusing when those larger waltz around speaking of such things - it usually means they are the most surprised when they find themselves flat on their backs defeated after underestimating their opponent. I told him as such and he did not seem to believe me. He and Sechen sparred, and then I sparred him after.

It was a fairly simply matter to provoke him, he is a man who confuses arrogance with pride and is blinded by his own ego. Not unwarranted - they would not boast so much if they did not have the skills to back it up. It was a good match and I enjoyed myself, as I usually do with my matches. I won where she lost, and I suppose she found herself avenged. It was fun, I enjoyed the banter.

I am not sure where it started going wrong. One by one conflicts began to arise, constant arguments and tensions began to spark. All involving this man in one way or another. Altasia stabbed him because he insulted her clan to an unforgivable extent and called her weak. I do not know what possessed him to do this. The Hotgo were massacred, what is the point of rubbing salt in the wound? He drew Ataashi’s ire by calling him uncivilized simply because he was a Dotharl, and tried to provoke him by asking him if he had been born a woman in a past life, smirking as if that were some sort of insulting question. That he picked a fight with Altasia caused her to hold resentments, and his...apology, if one could call it that, did not satisfy her. She never ceased being hostile toward him, which did not help matters at all.

I cannot stop someone from stating their opinion. That is not my job. I am not a babysitter for adults who did not learn proper etiquette growing up in their tribes on how you should and should not speak to others. I am a commander of the encampment, and I hold the highest military authority over our troops as of now. When Algun and Tentan are away, I am in command. This isn’t something I enjoy lording over others, but in the time he was there, I had to pull rank just to keep the peace more than I have since I was promoted to daichin.

He was there for three suns. And to be honest, if Sechen did not wish to be courted, she need only to have said it flat out and plainly “I do not desire your advances. Stay if you like, but look for someone else.” instead of simply being rude to him and hoping he would go away. At this point, I can only assume that is what she was doing, as she claimed from day one she had told him she was uninterested, yet I saw no indication of this.

I did manage to learn some of him, mostly of his love life, but I will not write it here. It is not my place to do so.

The conflict came to a head when Balateseg Qestir suddenly returned from...wherever she had disappeared to. I suppose she had been around, Altasia seemed to speak of her but I have been off training the prior week so truthfully, I have missed out on much that has been going on. She began to sit on Sechen’s lap and cuddle up to her. Sechen is known to prefer women to men and did not mind this, but it drew Khulan’s ire, and he began to ask questions of Bala and Sechen. Wanting to know who Balateseg was, her relation to Sechen, and if they were in a relationship. He insisted Balateseg was taunting him, and Sechen was teasing him, and he felt this was an insult to his pride. Dash went and spoke to him, and told him he was no longer welcome at the encampment and had him escorted off. It was then that my presence was demanded (at that point I had retired to the sparring yurt with Chagatai).

I am not pleased that Dash took matters into his own hands at that. It is not his place to make such a declaration, and he should have consulted me, or contacted Algun to inform him of the situation and get approval. It is one thing to advise or scold a guest, another to banish them. He may be Algun’s friend, but he is not of our clan, and there are some boundaries that must be respected. We have laws and decrees for a reason.

In the end, I supported Dash’s decree because when I spoke with Khulan, I did not care for his explanation. He blamed Balateseg for his behavior, but in the end, he had no reason to behave in such a manner when Sechen is not his to get angry over. They were not courting, not in any semblance of a relationship, not in talks. Nothing. Even if she was Sechen’s long lost lover, it would not have been his place to get angry - especially when Sechen did not mind Balateseg’s actions. And considering that he had told me not even a bell prior about his own past and what he was hoping for, he especially had no reason to be upset over another woman hanging over Sechen. For any reason. I felt that if this were to become a common thing, his presence would simply continue to disrupt the peace of the encampment, and his fixation on Sechen, or anyone else he decided to pursue, would be unhealthy. So I made the banishment official. It was the first time I ever had to do such a thing, and I hope for it to be the last.

I did not mind Khulan. He was arrogant and offensive, but I have dealt with worse. Had Dash not banished him I likely would have made a different call on my own...but I am not sure what was the best decision in the end. He had wished to travel with us, and if nothing else we try to be welcoming to all who come to our encampment. It was frustrating and discouraging to see so much tension and outright hostility go around these last few days.

Enough of that.

After that night, we went to the baths instead of our spar, and Arik visited. I spoke with him for a time, and then invited him to my yurt for refreshments and to chat. Afterwards I received a message asking me to visit Natigai’s yurt at Algun’s behest. I excused myself and Arik went back to the guest yurts for the evening.

[anthonybialy]

May the Force Not Cancel You

There's nothing cultured about canceling a person. Former Mandalorian sidekick and present badass Gina Carano is the mob's latest target, although the woke male feminists whose feeble assault ended production of an action figure that could inspire girls wouldn't confront the independently strong woman they fear in person out of knowledge they'd get their scrawny hides whooped.

The wretched hive of scum and villainy will only brag about conquests online. Seething twerps think they're charming rogues like Han Solo, and they're naturally only funny by mistake.

Lucasfilm and Disney are co-pilots ruining the one good Star Wars thing left. Cowardly blasting dissent is an unsurprising twist from those who regrettably brought Episode VIII's casino scene to a world that craved another fulfilling tale from the faraway galaxy. Their human stories are even more of a letdown.

Carano's real-life enemies broke the Jedi principle of not acting like bitches. Pretend everyone on the aisle's other side is a Sith Lord Wampa Bizarro Ewok who blows up innocent planets for an outcome as destructive as it is petty. Ruining careers is as nourishing for the soul as you'd expect. Reasonable people can disagree. Unreasonable people disagree.

Not calling for Carano to lose work was a missed opportunity for indulging in pathetic vindictiveness. I didn’t vote for the candidate I presume the real-life Cara Dune did. And the post that allegedly constituted the last straw comparing Republicans to those attacked when Germany was at its naughtiest was Mandalorian-level melodramatic. But it may be possible to enjoy the work of someone who makes outrageous claims.

I oppose the bounty in the same way I don't want helmet-wearing star Pedro Pascal fired for being a silly lefty.  It'd be nice to hear her present former employer agree. Lucasfilm has even more to apologize for than the company's namesake does regarding the prequel trade dispute. The space justice fantasy didn't inspire its producers to be brave heroes.

Very rational foes of open dialogue claim to be scientific as they proclaim anyone who notes gender is not a decision to be a witch. Mocking choosing pronouns is the gravest sin. And Carano was denounced for having the nerve to notice the virus has disregarded governmental attempts to restrict it.

Nobody is allowed to express a contrarian opinion, which is one way to create tolerance. Would you believe those who proclaim there are more classifications than males and females can be a tad unreasonable?

Smugness accompanies shrillness. American struggle session holders have the whole package. Those who smirked when they heard someone with views they loathe lost their job preen as if their craven tattling constitutes brave justice. Firing someone for overwrought memes equals accountability if you're a particularly frenzied social media warrior.

The woke Stormtroopers won’t like their standard. A mindless legion would find ganging up on those with daft outlooks quite ominous if applied thoroughly. If getting anyone without the proper insane takes fired is their idea of unregulated interaction, it's little wonder they also loathe the free market. Having nothing of value to offer doesn't help, either.

Everyone who disagrees with the cancel junta is monstrous. Well, that's a relief. Otherwise, their silencing of diversity would make them joyless totalitarian gloaters. Yet the reality doesn't seem to jibe with their airtight logic. Mindless clones of the cultish horde comes across as sore winners because they know deep down such alleged victories are hollow. Trying to win by destroying opposition is surely an indicator of security.

Appalling treatment of a female cast member means ditching Disney Plus, and not just because Mickey is a vapid creep who's never said anything funny. Sure, most of the rat's content is like sugar without sweetness. But I'll miss being able to watch the few good Star Wars movies. I'm also going to have ample time to teach war refugees to read considering I will be skipping binging The Muppet Show. My plan to counter semipermanent melancholy with nostalgia is postponed like the frightening behemoth's acceptance.

Individuals are to be judged by their most hysterical exaggerations in a very logical and graceful way to treat others. You may as well shun everyone who’s ever been on social media.

Rendering verdicts based on extreme moments is the most popular hobby amongst those who regularly take glee at foes' deaths while endorsing a political system that has caused widespread agony for countless victims. Speaking of Germany, check if the one-time Eastern division already tried your economic philosophy.

Speaking of a huge group to be destroyed, banishment applies to any of the dozens of millions who voted for a president the torch-toters loathe. Curiously, only Donald Trump backers are subjected to punishment. Joe Biden is out to federalize the last bits of insurance that haven't been ruined when he's not trying to do to the economy what he would allow Iran to do to Israel. Yet the only work lost by his supporters should be because of the continual recession he's about to supervise. His backers shouldn't be canned for political brainlessness.

For the salaries they command, you't think entertainment executives wouldn't let their companies be run by unqualified limp mafiosos who don't decide what airs for a reason. They should act rationally to illustrate the distinction.

Social media hysteria will die down, as a distinct minority who try to compensate with volume runs out of energy quickly. Ignore tantrums to stop them. Haven't they ever dealt with toddlers before? Adult children are even more predictable in their shrieking.

Relatively mature people can be sure those lashing out at the mean tweets will never be satisfied. Don't even try. Let the wannabe people hunters be miserable, which they will be even if they’re watching their favorite shows.

The oh so mean lady who enervated rampagers suspect voted to hurt their precious feelings should get her job back. That satisfying arc would mean there's someone left at Star Wars who can tell a story.

[themoneybuff-blog]

How to get rich and stay rich

109 Shares

In my ongoing quest to build a library of pre-1990 money books, I recently heeded a reader recommendation to buy and read How to Get Rich and Stay Rich by Fred J. Young. Spoiler alert: I liked it! But I almost didn't read it. You see, everything about this book exudes scamminess. The title is scammy. The cover looks scammy. The amateurish formatting seems scammy. But the book is not scammy. How to Get Rich and Stay Rich is a marvelous prototypical book about early retirement. I enjoyed it. Fred J. Young, the author, was born and raised in rural Tennessee during the 1910s. His family was poor, as were all of their neighbors. Young decided he wanted to do something more than be a farmer, so he left Tennessee to become a lawyer. After military service, he worked for Harris Bank in Chicago, where he spent three decades advising wealthy clients. During the 1960s and 1970s, Young supplemented his bank income by giving motivational talks on how to get rich and stay rich, basing his presentations on observations of his clients. In 1979, after he retired from Harris Bank, Young collected much of this material into a book called How to Get Rich and Stay Rich. How to Get Rich and Stay Rich For 27 years, I worked in the Trust Investment Department of the Harris Trust and Savings Ban in Chicago, Ill., Young writes at the start of the book. Most of my time during this period was spent helping rich people 1) stay rich, and 2) get richer. He continues: During those 27 years of working with rich people, I made a number of observations about getting rich, being rich, and staying rich, and about the difference wealth makes. I am delighted to share those observations with you in this book. Here are Fred J. Young's eighteen pieces of advice about how to get rich and stay rich: Anyone can get rich if they want it badly enough. Young believes that any reasonably healthy American of normal intelligence can become rich if she wants to badly enough. Then why aren't more people rich? Young says that some people have no desire to be rich; their purpose in life isn't money-centric. Part of the population doesn't realize early enough that it's possible to get rich; by the time they discover they can, it's too late. But the vast majority of the American people would love to be rich, but not that much'. That is, they're not willing to make the sacrifices needed to build wealth.All riches involve a sacrifice. In the case of every rich person or wealthy family that I dealt with [during my 27 years as a professional money manager], writes Young, someone made the sacrifice of spending less than he or she earned. There's no sacrifice required to inherit wealth, obviously, but there had to be sacrifice in order to make the money that gets inherited. Most people who [try to get rich] will go along for a year or two spending less than they earn and then decide that they are not really getting anywhere, that they might as well get a new car. Getting rich generally requires years decades of spending less than you earn.What it means to be rich varies from person to person. Wealth is relative. Young grew up poor, so having $50,000 seemed like a lot of money to him. But many of his clients (back in the 1970s) were accustomed to lifestyles that cost $100,000 per year (or more). To them, having a $50,000 net worth was nothing. You are rich if you believe you are rich. (And, conversely, you poor if you believe you are poor.)There are only three ways to get rich. Young says that in order to get rich, you have to inherit money, marry money, or make the money yourself. For most of us, the latter option is the only option. This leads to the thesis of How to Get Rich and Stay Rich. Young's core message is this: Spend less than you earn and invest the difference in something that you think will increase in value and make you rich. That's the only way that most of us will ever build a wealth snowball. (We'll look at what Young means by invest the difference in a moment.)You can never get rich from your salary alone. Of all the rich people I know, writes Young, not one of them got rich from his or her salary. Salary is important insofar as it determines your standard of living, but you need to do more with your money than put it under your mattress. (To some extent, the modern Financial Independence movement has subverted this way of thinking. We now understand that the shockingly simple math of early retirement shows that you can get rich on your salary alone, but it's much much easier if you invest your savings.)The rich get richer.Them that gots, gets, Young says, quoting his father. Or, as you've probably heard, the rich get richer. Your first $1000 is hard to accumulate. Your second $1000 is still difficult, but it's a little easier than the first. Similarly, your first $10,000 is tough to save, but the second $10,000 is easier. Once you've managed to slowly build your wealth snowball, that mound of money will produce more money with little (or no) input from you. (Another way to look at it: Four percent of $1000 isn't a lot of money, but most folks could live on four percent of $1,000,000!)Where you live makes little or no difference. Young notes that there's a lot of debate about cost of living and whether or not it's easier to get rich in a city versus the country. From his experience, it doesn't matter. He writes: If you are the type who will spend less than you earn and invest the difference in something that will go up in value, you are just as likely to do it in one place as another. He saw rich and poor people in every big city and every small town that he ever visited.Certain types of people tend not to get rich. Young notes that people whose lives change frequently aren't able to build wealth. This is an observation I'd never considered before, but it makes sense. He gives several examples. People who change jobs frequently, for instance, tend not to get rich. People who frequently move from one location to another tend not to get rich. (He says this can be a real handicap for military personnel.) And so on. Frequent life changes are a barrier to wealth.Attitudes toward being rich change with time. During the 1920s, when Young was a boy, young people all wanted to get rich. But when he graduated from college during the Great Depression, getting rich seemed like a pipe dream. Mere survival was the primary goal for most people. Each era and age has a different attitude toward getting rich, and a different belief about whether it's possible. Young argues that it's always possible to get rich if you want it badly enough.You don't have to be educated to get rich. During his nearly thirty years in the banking industry, Young discovered that education wasn't a predictor of wealth. It may actually be harder for the well-educated to save than the not-so-well educated, he writes, because the well-educated tend to have more expensive tastes. Plus, the educated sometimes fall into the trap of overconfidence, believing they know more than everyone else. Maybe educated people do know more, but that doesn't guarantee wealth. An entrepreneur without a college degree can always hire smart people to work for her!Anyone serious about getting rich should keep records. Young is not a fan of budgeting. He doesn't advocate that readers try to plan their spending. He's adamant, however, that in order to get rich, you have to track what happens to your money. If you are serious about getting rich, you will find it interesting and fun. After you've begun tracking your spending, he suggests breaking your costs down to a meaningful number. (For his family, Young tracked how much it cost them to live each day, hour, and minute. He frequently recited these figures during lectures.) Young also insists that you should calculate your net worth annually. He recommends doing so on February 1st of each year.Being rich doesn't solve all of your problems. From Young's experience, the rich and the poor all have problems. Often, they have the same problems. (Health, for instance.) Wealth doesn't make your problems go away. However, money can make the problems more manageable. If you are going to have problems anyway, it is much better that you be rich. If you are rich, everyone wants to help you. If you are poor and overburdened with problems, you're likely to find yourself all alone.Adversity creates opportunity. During his decades managing money for the rich, Young observed that hard times affected people differently. He says he could never figure out why some people recovered from adversity and others didn't, but it was true. He believes that you need a certain amount of trouble and failure to keep you humble. Yet, some folks crumble in the face of adversity while others recognize times of chaos as opportunities. These are the ones who buy when the stock market collapses, for instance, while others allow a crash to bring them to financial ruin.Your lifestyle wouldn't change much if you were rich. Sure, there are absolutely folks who, when presented with a windfall, squander their money foolishly. But Young says that the vast majority of people who get rich by spending less than they earn and investing the difference do not change how they handle money. They got rich through a modest lifestyle, so they continue with a modest lifestyle. They do the same things they always have they just have more money in the bank to do them with.Staying rich is far more important than getting rich. Once you have had a lot of money and lost it, you have big problems, says Young. The inconvenience of going from rich to poor is more than most people can tolerate. To that end, it's smart for rich people to take steps to mitigate possible disasters. That means avoiding debt, of course, but it also means maintaining proper diversification of investments. Young recommends that, once you're wealthy, you should keep 30% of your money in storm-cellar investments such as high-grade bonds.Happiness begins with good personal financial management. Different things make different people happy, but worrying about money always leads to unhappiness. Each day you spend worrying paying your bills is going to be a lost day, he writes. People who do not manage their financial affairs well are invariably unhappy, or else they are totally irresponsible. Smart money management is a base upon which you can build a happy life.There is a time for spending and that time is later in life. Your younger years are for earning money, for accumulating your wealth snowball. Young laments that the twenty-somethings he talks to believe they'll never need money worse than they do at the moment. I have bad news for these young people, he writes. There will be a time when they need money far worse than now, and that time will be when their health is failing, their children are entering college, or age simply starts slipping up on them. Work hard to earn and save when you're younger so that you can spend in later years without worry. To some extent, Young's advice resembles other lists of wealthy habits that I've mentioned in the past. The difference, I think, is that he's not trying to be prescriptive like some financial gurus. He's not saying, You must do these things to get rich. Instead, he's trying to share what he's personally observed during decades of working with the wealthy. His list is descriptive rather than prescriptive. How Rich People Get Rich The bulk of How to Get Rich and Stay Rich consists of short (one- to four-page) chapters with lots of entertaining anecdotes. There's one exception. Nearly half of the book 72 pages! is devoted to the three ways to get rich. And of those 72 pages, 70 of them are about how to invest in order to build your wealth. Young says that most of the rich people he knows got rich from one of four vehicles: real estate investing, business ownership, the stock market, or savings accounts. He says that sure, some folks have put a lot of money into collectibles, such as baseball cards or comic books. But he's never seen anyone get rich that way. (And I'd note that the whole getting rich from a savings account thing was probably a historical accident based on when Young was working and writing. Nobody has been getting rich from savings accounts during the last decade!) Of all the rich people I know, Young writes, more of them got rich from the ownership of real estate than any other means. These folks tend to build wealth in one of three ways: Some get rich by compounding their real estate empires. They buy an investment property. With the income from that first property, they buy a second property. Then they buy a third. By the time this person gets to be 50 or more years old, he or she may own half of the town.Others get rich with real estate through sheer luck. They by a farm, say, then a freeway gets built nearby and suddenly the land is worth a lot of money. Or maybe oil is discovered on a formerly worthless piece of property.The third group of real-estate investors got rich by buying real estate and then doing something to make it more valuable. They get the zoning laws changed to be more favorable, for instance, or they build a shopping center. Young tells the story of one client who bought a bunch of land near an airport because he believed it would be worth more in the future. Sure enough, when the jet age dawned and the airport needed to build longer runways, this guy made out like a bandit Young spends a lot of time discussing how people get rich in the stock market. While his advice about investment psychology is still relevant, a lot of his specific information about the stock market is outdated by our standards. He's very much from the era of picking individual common stocks. He mentions mutual funds in passing, but never dwells on their advantages. And he never mentions index funds, which were a relatively new invention when Young was writing and lecturing. (Here's more up-to-date advice on how to invest.) The Bottom Line I'll be honest. I was not expecting to like How to Get Rich and Stay Rich nearly as much as I did. When I ordered the book, I thought it looked scammy. When I opened the package in the mail, I thought it looked scammy. When I sat down to read the book, I thought it looked scammy. Even now, after having read it, I'll admit that I still think it looks scammy. But this book is not scammy. This book is built around a single principle: Spend less than you earn and invest the difference in something that you think will increase in value and make you rich. That's about as far from scammy as you can get! I should point out, however, that while there's plenty of good advice in these pages and lots of amusing anecdotes, there's very little polish. This isn't a slick book from a slick operator. It reads more like homespun advice from your favorite uncle. Depending on what you want from a book, this could be a pro or a con. To me, it's a pro. (Young reminds me of my friend Jim Collins.) Take a look at the following eleven-minute video, in which the author describes meeting a young Warren Buffett at an investment conference in 1958: [embedded content] This video is fun in its own right, but I like that it captures Young's delivery and style perfectly. If you enjoy this (as I do), then you'll probably enjoy How to Get Rich and Stay Rich. I feel like How to Get Rich and Stay Rich is the sort of book I might give a niece or a nephew. It's a good book for a young person just starting out in life provided that young person has a serious mind. (No book is ever going to help a kid who isn't ready to heed the advice, right?) It's also a great choice for anyone who has decided to get serious about money but doesn't know which modern financial gurus to trust. The advice here is timeless (although some of the investing info is out of date). And if you're a money nerd like me? Well then, you'll want to read this book simply because it's fun. The author is a product of the first half of the twentieth century, and his writing shows that. That's part of the charm. 109 Shares https://www.getrichslowly.org/how-to-get-rich/