#chaos theory act 76

[sorakazeno]

Chaos Theory Act 76 Teaser

I don't think I featured Mamoru in a teaser scene yet. First time for everything!

As always a partial scene.

He’s worried if he confronts Usako too soon she’ll shut down. He used to being the one she always confided in. It’s tearing him apart to know she is struggling so much and he can’t do anything to help her.

Ayumi sits across from him at the table in his room. She is not as willing to bite her tongue. “So are we going to talk about it?”

Mamoru looks up from the page he has stared at for the last ten minutes. “Talk about what?”

Ayumi rolls her eyes. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Setsuna-san lately.”

Mamoru doesn’t understand what Ayumi is trying to say. “We’ve been talking about things.”

She nods her head, waiting for him to elaborate. He doesn’t. So she tries a slightly different approach. “It’s a good thing we were all there when Sailor Cosmos appeared and attacked her.” No response. “How is Sailor Pluto?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t heard from her in a few days.”

Ayumi turns her head slightly at his response. “That’s surprising considering how close you’ve become.”

Mamoru gives his sister a questioning look. “What are you trying to say?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Is she going to have to spell this out to him? “You protected Sailor Pluto from Sailor Cosmos. Heck, you even attacked her.”

“I would have protected anyone from Sailor Cosmos,” Mamoru begins to explain dismissing Ayumi’s remarks. “Usako would be upset with herself if she seriously hurt someone.”

Ayumi doesn’t believe his response. “I guess you’re lucky you just happened to access a new power at the moment.”

“Sometimes new powers surface at random times.”            

“Random…right…” Ayumi shakes her head at his remarks.

Full chapter will be posted on 10/5 with more insanity on Kinmoku.

[dearmantis]

There's no love like our love

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x wife!Reader

Summary: When the Royal Family finally turns on the Grisha, you find yourself caught in the crossfire. Alone, of course. You're always alone, it seems.

Warnings: murder, death, canonical persecution of Grisha, violence, mentioned death of children, sexual harassment, slutshaming, mentions of sex and cheating, suicidal thoughts, self hatred

Word Count: 6.6k words

Authors' Note: I DID IT! HERE IS YOUR PART TWO FOR A LOST EMBRACE! IT ONLY TOOK 76 YEARS! BUT I GOT IT DONE BEFORE THE END OF APRIL (this is also very not edited, and I'm still not a native English speaker).

Also, funfact: I cut the ending of this, just like I did with part 1. There was a whole other ending, but that was basically just a lot of fluff. I wasn't sure if people would want that from this series/twoshot specifically so I cut it. I can't tell of cutting the ending is a good or a really bad habit.

The title is from Lights are on by Tom Rosenthal!

Part 1: A lost embrace | Masterlist

The universe is filled with light. Billions of beautiful stars, all different sizes and temperatures, burning brightly and sending their energy out into the universe to bring warmth and light.

But there is even more darkness in the universe than there are stars, filling the space between the celestial bodies. An all surrounding nothingness that acts as a playing field for all of the beautiful, weird and wonderful things hiding in the endless sky. A canvas for everything else in the universe that hugs and surrounds all.

And one day, at least according to the most popular theories, the last stars will die and the universe will be entirely engulfed in darkness.

It began with a loud burst of light, and it will die quietly in shadows.

That knowledge used to bring you comfort and a feeling of belonging. The darkness became your new home, a special, safe place right next to your husband, but there is no safety and love to be found in the darkness now.

It was predictable, honestly. You should've known the second Vasily allowed the Darkling to travel Ravka to search of the Sun Summoner with only a few First Army soldiers for protection, but you simply didn't pay attention to the signs, too caught up in your own frustration and bitterness.

He didn't realise it either, it seems, because he simply left without even saying goodbye, leaving you behind to run the Little Palace in his absence. One night you fall asleep next to him, back turned towards him to visibly reject his presence, and the next morning he is gone, his side of the bed made and all of his most important belongings gone. No letter, no announcement beforehand, nothing.

Maybe his head was simply too focused on Alina to even remember that he still had a wife.

It doesn't matter anymore.

You're still awake when they come, three nights after the General left the Little Palace.

You're laying in bed, humming an old lullaby – one of the really old ones that you learned because he sometimes sings them to you when you can't sleep – while working on fixing the embroidery on the kefta of one of the younger students.

The disappearance of the Sun Summoner has led to chaos in all of Ravka, and there hasn't been a calm moment in the palace in weeks. You are forced, just like everyone else, to work until you pass out while keeping up appearances in front of the royal family. Everything needs to be immaculate despite the fact that the whole country is in a state of emergency, so you push small detail work like this into every free second of your day in hopes of doing something good.

You're so focused on your project that you don't even hear them approach your windows from the outside.

They sneak around, quietly taking out the guards until they're sure that they won't meet too much resistance, and then, suddenly, everything is very loud.

You don't remember what happens. Just flashes of memories. Little pieces that simply aren't enough to form a full picture, as if your body simply wasn't able to take it all in. Or maybe it refuses to remember.

Glass shatters, loud and unfamiliar steps echo like thunder through the halls of what was supposed to be your home, men with bad intentions are in your bedroom, in your house, in your garden.

And your husband is nowhere to be found.

The air smells like fire, panic and fear crackling in the air like electricity and the screams of the Grisha you swore to protect as if they were your own children echo through the building and outside.

Shots are fired in the distance, you're on the floor, the barrel of a gun pressed tightly against the back of your head.

There are more screams slicing through the night. You think you hear someone yelling your name, but before you can answer, one of the men who broke into your room slams their heavy gun against your head, and darkness welcomes you into it's familiar embrace.

When you finally wake it's to the sound of a gun shot ringing through the air, and though the bars of your new cage you watch through bleary eyes how one of your fellow Grisha runs away, his bright purple kefta unfortunately doing very little to hide his movements between the trees. You can't tell who it is, not in the dark.

A second shot gets fired. You see how it hits the Durast in the head, his body falling to the ground and staying there, unmoving. Nobody goes to check if he's dead or to drag him off and bury or burn his corpse. It's just left right there, next to a large ash tree.

Someone whimpers and sobs, begs for their life, but you can't take your eyes off the corpse. The way it just lays there, like it's nothing.

You haven't seen an actual battle in centuries. The Darkling is too paranoid to let you go, convinced that his enemies will target you in a fight and take you away from him. The thought alone used to turn his eyes cold and hard like ice, his whole body shaking with anger at the idea of you being in a dangerous situation. You haven't seen death like this, so fast and seemingly insignificant, in forever.

There is no triumph visible in the body language of the soldier that shot the Durast, but no shame either. A job done, nothing more. He doesn't celebrate or pat himself on the back. He just sits back down next to the fire in the middle of the camp and takes a sip of water, like the life he just took was worth less than even the life of a rabbit.

The other guards move to check the handcuffs of the others after that incident, making sure that everything works and no one is able to use their powers. Your heart races so fast it makes you dizzy, the fog in your head thickening and threatening to drag you back into unconsciousness.

It's hard to stay focused enough to take the whole situation in, but you try anyway, tearing your gaze away from the corpse. There are nine cages, including yours, one of them now empty.

The Grisha in the cages are, just like you, handcuffed with their hands far apart. Three of them are wearing their keftas - two of them being Alkemis, and you ask yourself if the Materialki were all still down in the workshops when the raid began - but the others, including you, are wearing whatever you wore to sleep that night. All of you are dirty, and you pray silently that none of them are hurt. It's hard to see with the lack of light. The cages all stand a bit too far away from the fire to truly see much.

The men who guard you, on the other hand, all look like they dressed up for a military parade. Their First Army uniforms sparkle almost, their faces clean shaven or decorated with carefully trimmed beards. This was planned. This whole raid was planned, probably for weeks, and you didn't notice. The idea most likely came up as soon as the General returned from the Fold, and no one ever picked up on it.

It feels like a relic from a time you're supposed to have left behind, a time you didn't even experience and only heard about from the Darkling and on rare occasions his mother.

The First Army doesn't hunt Grisha anymore. The king doesn't put you into cages. They just hate you, insult you, and harass you, but they don't physically harm you anymore. Yet... here you are.

Ravka isn't supposed to be like Fjerda, like Shu Han, like Kerch. The Darkling had made sure of that, worked for this one singular goal for centuries, and dedicated his whole life to it.

The thought of him makes your heart sting painfully, and you suppress the urge to worry for him, to wonder where he is and if he's safe. You have bigger issues than him right now. He's fine. There's no room for argument. He has survived wars and centuries of persecution. This won't kill him. He's probably out there somewhere, completely safe, trying to track down his sun summoner while you rot in this cage alongside the others.

After the handcuffs are checked you watch as four of the five soldiers walk to the cages of the two Alkemi, Ivanna and Ole, and pull them out, the fifth still sitting at the fire and watching the whole situation with mild interest.

You hear one of the guards make a suggestion on how to deal with them, and your stomach turns.

In your mind, you are 12 years old, hiding behind your mothers skirt. Her hand rests on your head, trying to soothe you as you watch with the other people your village how a woman gets dragged out of the cage they kept her in. You remember her face. She works as a seamstress. She gives you pretty ribbons to tie around your wrist or into your hair whenever your mother buys something from her.

The man – was he the mayor? The village head? You don't remember what he called himself – who pulled her out of the cage pushes her to the ground, right in front of a large rock, and motions for someone hiding in the crowd to come closer.

Another man steps forward, the blacksmith, in his hands the biggest hammer you have ever seen.

The woman starts screaming now, her voice breaking under the force of her violent sobs. Her body shakes horribly, and your own shaking hands dig deeper into the material of your mothers skirt.

"Please, please, I swear it. This is a misunderstanding. I did nothing wrong. I swear it. Please, just listen to me," the woman begs while the mayor grabs the thick rope attacked to her handcuffs and pulls her arms and hands to rest on the rock.

The noise the hammer made when it slammed down on her hands haunts you for centuries, just like her screams do.

Just like the screams of the Materialki probably will if you survive this when the guards push them to the ground. The only difference is that the soldiers have no large hammers to break their hands.

You can't move, can't speak, can't do anything, completely frozen in fear while the soldiers hold them down, each of them pressing an arm down onto the cold ground. The two have no chance to defend themselves.

The man at the fire finally stands up slowly, grabbing one of the rocks lining the fire to prevent forest fires, and walks over to the six people on the ground.

You watch him do it. You have to. You failed to protect your Grisha, and the least you can do is witness the horrors they have to go through because of your own mistakes.

Because you should've known. You should've known. Of course the royal family would turn on Grisha. Of course they would send the Darkling away before they raided the Little Palace. He is the last line of defence for the Grisha in this country.

You should've noticed the signs. You should've talked to the General about it, maybe even with Baghra. You should've started to prepare to evacuate the whole Palace, organized a place to hide with food and beds and water.

But you didn't. You didn't because you were too blinded by your own stupid quarrel with the Darkling. This is your fault. Every drop of blood that was shed that night, every bit of pain and suffering that your Grisha experienced, clings to you.

It's all your fault.

When the soldiers are sure that they broke every bone in Alkemis' hands, they put the cuffs back on and throw them back into their cages.

And then they walk back to the fire in the middle of the camp and begin to eat, ignoring the sobbing of the Grisha only a few metres away from them and the corpse still peacefully resting between the bushes and trees.

You wake up the next morning with aching muscles and the knowledge that you probably won't get out of this camp alive. Because as much as you would like to pretend otherwise, these people know you. If Vasily gives the command to have you killed, these men know that you're their target. And he would. You can't even blame him for it. You're the wife of the General, just as much of a symbol for the Second Army as the Darkling. Killing you would be a message to all of Ravka.

They don't treat you much differently than they treat the others, to your surprise. You get starved like the others, glared at like the others, and dehydrated like the others.

You could almost believe that they somehow don't know who you are if it wasn't for the insults.

Every Grisha gets insulted, some more creatively than the others. Especially the two Alkemi get made fun of for their broken, swollen, and discoloured hands by the soldiers, like they aren't the reason why they look like that. Other insults directed at other Grisha in the camp, on the other hand, are overused and boring, like when they asked Lena, an Inferni, where her spark is, why her fire has disappeared.

"I thought Infernis are always so hot-headed? Come on, give us a show!" One of the older men in the camp says to her on your second day awake, and it makes your skin crawl. You wish you could claw those mens eyes out, make them bleed.

But the insults they direct at you, those are personal. They prove that they know exactly who you are despite never saying your name once.

The Darklings slut. That's what you are to them.

His favourite toy. A bedwarmer. A plaything. A whore to entertain him. A distraction from the war. A thing he can let his frustrations out on.

That's who you are in their eyes. Nothing more. Certainly nothing that deserves respect or should be feared. The fact that you and the other Grisha can't use the small science makes them braver.

The worst insults are the ones they come up with after the third day in the cage, right after the soldiers get a quick visit from one of Vasilys messengers, because their words are suddenly no longer insults. They are observations and a horrible, new truth that convince you that their earlier insults are true, working hand in hand with the thoughts and fears you had before any of this even started.

"Don't look at me like that, whore. Everybody, even us fools in the First Army, know how enamoured your husband was with the sun summoner. How many times do you think he fucked her before she ran? Probably did it right behind your back in your shared bed, you stupid thing. I bet she was the last thing he thought of before the guards that accompanied him shot him in the head."

The soldiers celebrate the news of the Darklings death like they just won the wars with Fjerda and Shu Han and tore down the Fold with their bare hands, drinking alcohol and eating freshly hunted deer meat while you and the other Grisha grieve and starve. You don't allow yourself to cry like the others, but you can feel your soul rip itself apart.

You begin to lose yourself after that.

Your sanity runs through your hands like sand, your mind desperate to escape the smell of the Durasts rotting corpse that the soldiers never bothered to remove, the insults, the screams of the other Grisha when they get pulled out of their cages (one a day, always only one a day, like they're trying to drag it out), the desperate hunger that burns in your stomach, the thirst that tears your throat apart, the death of your husband: reality in all it's horrible shapes and colours.

First, you spend a few minutes caught up in a nice memory, like a short conversation in the gardens of the Little Palace, drinking tea and leaning on his shoulder while he tells you about his day. Then the daydreams get longer and take more control over you until you spend days staring at nothing, buried so deep in your own mind that you're no longer aware of what happens around you.

A small part of you hopes that they'll kill you while you're in that state, caught up in the past. Everything is better than reality, and with every second that passes when you're fully aware of your surroundings, that reality becomes more unbearable.

You love remembering the time before Alina the most. You know that her only sin is shining a light onto the lies, destruction, and rot surrounding you, but without her light, you were able to pretend.

You are good at pretending.

The light just makes it harder, and sometimes you slip up and accidentally sink into a more recent memory, your mind racing through different thoughts so fast that you're unable to stop it.

Like how the girl whose kefta you repaired that night, little Bibi, probably ended up dying without it after working so hard to prove to everyone that she earned it. And now her corpse lays somewhere in Ravka with no one to take care of it, to lay it to rest.

The kids are easily the worst thing to remember. Every time you do, it feels like the guilt eats your heart or whatever is left of it right out of your chest, ripping and tearing on the muscle like a wolf on a bone.

How many of them got out of the Palace in time and are now hiding somewhere, probably scared and alone with no one to help them and no idea how to get to other Grisha or back to their families? How many of them are stuck in cages just like you, starving and terrified of the First Army men who are only waiting to get the command to kill them? How many of them didn't even make it out of the Little Palace and died at the hand of the soldiers during the raid?

How many children were buried and burned that night?

Your husband isn't much better to remember either. The words of the First Army soldiers burn themselves into your mind like hot coals. You don't want to think about it. You've never wanted to think about something less in your entire life, but no matter what you do, the pain of losing someone you've known for almost your whole life feels like a knife stuck in your chest.

"... guards that accompanied him shot him in the head."

It's odd, really, how all consuming grief can be even if a part of you hates the person you lost. Almost surreal.

There have always been chapters of your life subtitled with "before the Darkling". There aren't supposed to be chapters subtitled "after the Darkling", not even a single one. It's wrong. It's entirely wrong. He's supposed to be a constant. Something that doesn't move, doesn't change, doesn't leave. He was supposed to be here until the end of everything.

He wasn't supposed to leave you behind. You can't do this without him. You can't lose him. This isn't right.

It's the last piece. The last drop required to convince you that giving up might not be the worst option. If they succeeded in killing the Darkling... what can truly be done anymore? What can you do? You can't free the Grisha in your camp, not with your hands cuffed so far apart from each other that your arms regularly start cramping, and a stomach so empty that it feels like your entire body is trying to collapse in on itself to fill the void. You can't convince the soldiers to free you. You can't save the children and rebuild Ravka into a safe place once more, not alone. You can't do anything on your own. You are nothing.

So why shouldn't you die? Why not join your husbands soul, wherever it may be now? What is left for you to do here? What can you do?

Death haunts your sense of smell and vision. It haunts your mind, and it haunts all of Ravka. Why not let it carry you off? Away from the pain, the suffering, the fear and grief and rot.

There is only more to come. More horrors that linger in the unpredictable future, and no one left to fix it. You certainly can't do it, Baghra - if she still lives, that is - doesn't care enough about others to even attempt to fix anything, and the sun summoner evidently can't do it either. All she can do is shine light on the evil lingering in the dark, but she's not strong or persuasive enough to improve and change the nightmares she exposes.

The Darkling could've done it. He would fight tooth and nail, drench his hands in blood and ash to free the others. He has fought his whole life, after all. He could've done it again.

But you can't. You can't take his position in this war, as much as you wish you could. You can't even get your hands out of your stupid cuffs, no matter how hard you try.

Baghra was right in the end, it seems. You really are too weak to stay at her and her sons side as their equal. You are dust, nothing more.

Now that you're here, stuck in a cage and unable to defend yourself in any way, you ask yourself once more how she and her son could've possibly survived this long. How did they not give up? What do they have that you lack?

"When the entire world hates you and wants you dead, the best thing you can do is live."

That's what she said back then, but you simply don't understand how she found the strength to keep going. You can't find it in you, no matter how much you look. Your whole life is gone. Your friends are probably all in cages or dead. Your husband is dead. Your home is gone. There is nothing left, no reason for you to continue.

Your husband would want you to keep going, a voice in the back of your mind answers, and you can feel the sharp stinging in your chest return at the thought.

You miss him. You miss him so much that it feels like you're being torn apart from the inside. And if you're really honest with yourself, you have to admit that you have been in this state for a while.

All of that anger and jealousy was just your bodies way to avoid facing the fact that you were lonely. No wonder you immediately fell back into routine like a desperate little cat when he finally gifted you some attention after Alina fled. Your entire being was begging to get him back.

And now you will never have him again because you were both too stubborn to simply talk with each other. He will never understand how much it hurt to see him obsess over someone else, and you will never know why you suddenly weren't enough for him anymore.

You will never hear his voice again, or knit him a new scarf for winter, or wash his hair for him after an exhausting day. You will never be comforted by him when you have a headache or watch the first snow of the year cover the grass outside of the Little Palace. You will never fall asleep next to him again, his arms wrapped around you and your face pressed against his chest as his heartbeat and calm breathing lull you to sleep.

He will never hug you again or surprise you with breakfast. He will never help you choose jewelry for an event again, give you his cloak when you're cold, kiss you, laugh at your horrible jokes, or moan your name into your ear, his voice raspy with love and desire while he tries to bring you to another orgasm before his own crashes down on him.

You will never do anything with him ever again.

Turning your head slightly, you stare at the soldiers sitting at the fire, eating some form of stew. You can't smell it. The stench of the decomposing body is too strong, and you wonder how the soldiers can stomach food in this environment.

You can barely breathe on some days without gagging every few seconds. It's so horrible that it drives tears into your eyes.

They talk and laugh about some servant girl, and you silently ask yourself what fate the servants of the Little Palace met. How many of them died that night? How many fled? Did any of them try to help the Grisha that might've fled? And saints, what happened to the Oprichniki?

Slowly closing your eyes again, you pray that the wind changes direction and starts blowing the smell away while you try to think of something that gives you strength.

The first thing that comes to mind is your amplifier.

You haven't thought about that day in a while, not since Alina came to the Palace and your heart and soul drowned themselves in jealousy and hate.

But it's not right to forget something so special. You should remember.

Who else in all of Ravka got proposed to, not with a ring but with a barn owl and a knife?

He has been gone for months, looking for something in West Ravka, choosing to trave through Fjerda and around the Fold to avoid going through it, and the constant worry that he would be discovered keeps you awake on some nights. He sends a letter once a month and promises you over and over that he would be back in the spring, but you still end up surprised when one of your friends drags you out of your bed in the middle of the night and ushers you towards the Generals quarters.

And when you open the doors you find him leaning against his desk, a knife next to him on the table and a barn owl sitting quietly in a cage, large eyes looking at you curiously, but you don't even see those things. Not at first, at least.

You just see him.

"You're back!"

Quickly jumping over to him, you throw your arms around him and press your face against him, a deep laugh bubbling in his chest as he moves to embrace you tightly.

"Careful, my love," he murmurs, his hands finding the back of your neck and pressing you closer to him.

You stay like that for a while, holding each other tightly while he whispers soft words into your ear.

"I'm so happy to see you. I missed you so much, little love. I hope you weren't too lonely without me," he coos, pressing a long kiss onto your head.

You're about to answer him when the bird finally makes himself known. Turning your head quickly you look at it, and the owl turns it's head to the side as if it's trying to do assess you carefully as well, it's dark eyes looking you over a few times. You feel a bit self-conscious in your night dress, but instead of shying away, you decide to let it look.

"Is that what you were looking for in West Ravka?" you ask, gazing back up at him.

"I did a lot of research over the past year, and I think this amplifier would be strong enough," he explains, his voice as soft as a feather.

"Strong enough?"

"To keep you with me. I didn't believe it at first either, but this little bird could give you forever. Time would no longer be able to take you from me. I could keep you for eternity."

Tears well up in your eyes, your hands moving to hold onto the front of his kefta as he reaches over to the knife and holds it out to you.

"You don't have to do it right now. You can get to know the owl and see if it feels right. Think about it for a while. It's a big commitment, after all." His empty hand moves up to cup your face, and the tenderness in his gaze makes your heart race. "If you chose the amplifier, I will stay with you. I will be at your side until the end of everything, I promise it. I will take care of you when you're hurt, hold you when you're sad, and laugh with you when you're happy. I will fight at your side, protect you with my life, and take care of you until I die."

Biting your lip weakly, you look up into his eyes, somehow darker than the night sky. "And if I don't choose to take the amplifier?"

"Then I'll still do all of those things. I will just have less time by your side, but I will cherish that time just as much, sweet girl."

You don't know when it happens because you start to loose track of time after the first week is over, but at some point in a random night one of the soldiers goes into the forest to get fresh water from a nearby river and doesn't return.

You're not conscious enough to notice it, and the soldiers are too caught up in their preparations for tonight's entertainment.

You don't even notice how they move through the camp, their eyes looking at each and every grisha they have, and judging who would be able to provide the most fun tonight. You just wish you were lying on the floor.

If you laid down, you could pretend that the heaviness on your chest is your husbands weight and not a heavy mountain of grief that tries to drag you down into the heart of the world.

He liked to do that. Lay on top of you to make sure that every single centimetre of you touched him in some way. You used to jokingly complain about it, but he never stopped. Every time he knew you needed comfort he would lay down on top of you, his heavy, strong body pressing you deep into the mattress while he talked, either asking questions about your day and whatever might be bothering you, or telling you about his, always carefully pressing small kisses onto your face and neck.

He must've known that his weight comforted you, made you feel safe. You've never wanted to be crushed into a mattress by him so badly in your whole life.

You don't hear it when they discuss if you're weak enough now to remove you from the cuffs. You don't even hear it when they open your cage, the old metal screeching loudly.

You don't realize that anything is wrong until one of the soldiers unlocks the cuffs and your body falls to the floor like a wet sack of flour. A loud groan leaves your mouth, your voice rough from lack of use.

The soldier grabs your ankles and drags you out of the cage, your upper body dragging over the floor. After being hung up for so long, you realise very quickly that you can't move your arms at all. The muscles start twitching as soon as you even attempt to bring them together, and a horrible, sharp tingling sensation makes itself noticeable. You bite your teeth together to stop yourself from screaming out.

A wave of panic crashes over you as soon as you fully understand what's going on, trying to kick the man dragging you closer to the fire, but none of your movements seem to really bother him.

As soon as you're close enough to the fire, someone flips you onto your stomach and buries their hand in your hair to pull your head up. Your back bends horribly, and you hiss out in pain as your eyes find those of the soldier who broke the Alkemis hands with a rock.

He doesn't say anything. He just looks at you, eyes taking in every flinch and twitch in your face.

You stay like this for a few seconds staring at each other, when he suddenly spits directly into your face, a wide grin splitting his face into two a few seconds later before he slaps you. Your head drops to the ground quickly.

"Let's get started. Markus can join us later when he's done," someone says. Three seconds later, before you have time to register what he means, you have a small knife in your back.

A blood curdling scream leaves your throat and tears well up in your eyes. You want to beg, to humiliate yourself even further and kiss their shoes in hopes of escaping this, but the last shred of pride left in you won't let you.

One of the soldiers steps onto one of your hands, twisting his shoe a bit in the process to make it hurt more. Someone else grabs your other arm and twists it behind your back until you scream out once more. This time, you scream your husbands name, unable to stop yourself in time. It's a broken, pathetic sound that echoes through the trees like a gunshot.

You know he won't come, but something about saying his name again feels almost cathartic, so you continue to scream it out with your full heart and soul. With every hit, every kick, and every stab wound, you scream the real name of the black heretic out into the endless night and beg death to bring you to him.

When the first gunshots get fired into the forest, you mistakenly assume that they're shooting at you and tightly close your eyes. Your heartbeat rushes loudly in your ears, and your mind replays the events of the first day when the Durast got shot. You can't even stand up and run. Your whole body is consumed by pain.

This is it, you think. Loud screams pierce through the air, gruelling, blood curling screams that scare you half to death.

Your mind races, trying to quickly find a last memory to remember before a bullet pierces your chest or head and kills you, something sweet and soft and perfect, like your wedding night, or your first kiss, or your-.

A loud scream rips itself out of your throat when a bullet hits you right into your leg. The man who shot it is dead seconds later, torn to shreds by darkness itself, but you don't see it, your eyes still rightly closed as you wait for the next bullet to hit you.

It never comes.

Instead someone yells your name, and you think it sounds familiar.

"Ivan!" the man screams, and a second later, someone carefully turns you onto your back and falls to their knees next to you, pulling your head up into their lap, their large hands cupping your face.

You don't want to die. You're not ready.

"My love, my love, it's me. Can you hear me?," he speaks. Fabric ruffles and something wide is dropped over your shaking, weak form, and your whole body feels warm for the first time in days. A familiar scent enters your lungs, somehow overpowering the stench of rotting corpse and fresh blood.

"Sasha?" Squinting your eyes, you look up, trying to focus on the blurry face hovering above yours. He's easy to recognize. The ink black lines over his face are unique to him, almost out of place in this world, just like him. You want to reach up and touch him, but you can't. Your muscles won't cooperate.

"I'm here, my little love. I'm right here. I found you. And I'm so proud of you. So, so proud of you. And I'm sorry," Aleksander answers. His eyes sparkle like stars, tears rolling down his face and dripping onto yours like raindrops. In the back of your mind, you realize that you've never seen him cry in front of people like this before. Only ever in private. Now his voice is almost breaking, his sobs so loud it drowns out the noise of your own hammering heartbeat. It must be a dream. He would never allow himself to show weakness like this.

Ivan appears next to him like a ghost, his hands covered in blood as he carefully lifts the thick black cloak Aleksander covered you with from your legs to look at the injuries there.

"Sasha," you rasp out again. You want him to hold you so badly, but you can barely speak. All you want is to be held by your husband.

"Right here. I'm so sorry, sweet girl. So sorry. I promised I would protect you, and I failed. I'm so sorry, I will never make that mistake again, I swear. I'll never take you for granted again. I'm so sorry for being late."

You want to respond, to calm him down, but he doesn't give you a chance to talk. He just continues with his panicked, slightly hysterical rambling, his whole body shaking under the force of his sobs.

"I'll take care of you. I'll make sure you're safe, and I will never leave your side again. No one will ever hurt you again."

His thumb strokes your cheek gently, and the love in his gaze almost feels like a punch in the gut. He looks absolutely in love and absolutely devastated as well. "I thought I lost you. I kept looking for you in every camp I found, but you were never there, and none of the soldiers would tell me where you are. I was so sure they killed you. I was so scared. I thought-"

Aleksanders voice shatters like glass, his body almost curling in on itself as he presses his forehead against yours. You recognize the breathing pattern he uses, an old trick he taught you a few years ago when you were still new to your position as the Darklings wife. He's trying to stop a panic attack from taking over.

"I'm so proud of you. You're so strong and brave, my darling girl. My lovely wife. I love you so much. You're so good, so good for me. I don't know what I would do without you. What I would do if they... I'm so sorry. I don't deserve you. I'm sorry."

He sounds broken, you notice. You've never heard him like this in your entire life. Tears flood your eyes, and you take a deep breath, more of his familiar scent entering your lungs. Rosemary and ash, with a hint of something sweet.

"I'm never going away again, I promise. I will never leave you again, sweet girl. Never again. You will never be able to get rid of me. I will bind myself to you, body and soul, until the end of everything, I swear it."

You're starting to get dizzy. Everything is so overwhelming.

"Am I dead?" You hear yourself asking, your vision dimming slowly, and you're sure you will be dragged back into unconsciousness by your body soon. Aleksander laughs, and it's oddly light and relieved, considering the context.

"No. No, you're alive. You survived. We both survived."

You smile.

Part 3: So I stayed in the darkness with you

Taglist: @savagejane1 @deadunicorn159

[no-psi-nan]

Kuniharu is cancelled and the people (well, 76 of them) have spoken...

It looks like Ms. Kaido is the winner by far! That may be partially my fault, due to a particular meta post...

Mr. Matsuzaki did well, but an equal number of people thought Kurumi should just stay single.

Interestingly enough, 4 different people suggested Kurumi have multiple partners, hell yeah! And 9 of you were ready to marry her yourselves LOL, power to the people!

Full results with the potential reasonings I offered in the survey, plus people's explanations for their choices (optional), are under the cut!

Ms. Kaido (26%)

(40s, also eliminates Shun's absentee dad, has a career she can relaunch)

Milf squad <3

Ayyyy Mrs. Kaidou x Kurumi slow burn friends to lovers supremacy!! And we never see Kaidou's dad, soooooo...

I just want to know how Kusuo and Shun would feel about being stepbrothers

They all so tempting maybe she should just have a harem by this point but Ms. Kaidou is very very tempting one from that one post but still harem by this point cuz damn they all tempting

Tbh I saw your post about Kaidou's mom divorcing her current husband and having a slow burn with Kurumi, and it just really stuck with me? Like you're right, they both deserve better than what they currently have, and they have so much potential to improve each other. Genuinely think they make a good pair. Also, I like imagining Kaido and Kusuo having to deal with the fact that they're going to be brothers. Kusuke too. Lol, poor Kaido's going to have to deal with so much chaos from now on :D

She's a milf

girlboss milf x girlboss milf

Kaido needs a soft mother figure and saiki needs a strict parent figure so it helps both

sweet wife and tsundere wife that care about their kids so much

You know, I was leaning toward a Kuboyasu because of that girl gang Kurumi theory... But Kusuo needs more younger siblings to cancel out the garbage older brother he was cursed with.

They Balance each other. Also it’s funny

Mr. Matsuzaki (13%)

(???, already parents half the school, hard worker)

Idk i just…like him. I feel like Kusuo would hate it at first but be relieved to have a father figure. Plus Kusuo has said before that he does like Mr. Matsuzaki

THE MATSUZAKI OPTION'S DRIVING ME INSANEEEEE. kusuo already likes him but he would not know how to act if he gets a crush on his mom. dear god.

Look I know a dad when I see one. Mrs. Kaido is also a good choice but 4 siblings might be too much for Saiki.

Saiki has said that he is kind to him and I think the interactions could be cool. I don't really have a specific reason tbh, it's more of a vibes thing.

I just think....good dynamic. Not gonna elaborate

i just think mr matsuzaki is cool :]

Nobody (13%)

(Kurumi is a strong independent woman who doesn't need a spouse)

Kurimi starts a feminist movement where she creates a new gang that verbally\physically *deals with* useless husbands, and we love that for her.

I was going to say that Kurumi is not strong and indipendent enough but then the scene where she cooks a boot to Kuniharu crossed my mind and erased it all. Except this, I don't think she'd get married again, seeing the strong relationship she has with Kuniharu, but she'd need a partner, do you remember the episode where she keeps buying water and water cause she wasn't coraugeous enough to say no? Exactly. Thank goodness there was Kusuo but most importantly Kuniharu.

The survey-taker (12%)

(These people want to homewreck the Saiki family personally.)

i am going to homewreck this family watch me

she already has a manchild for a husband but im hotter so

I would take excellent care of Kurumi and be a wonderful spouse to her, she will live a life of luxury and love because she deserves it. I will also gently show kusuo that it is okay to rely on parental figures and also annoy him will dad jokes. And I will put Kusuke in therapy because lord knows he needs it.

Mrs. Kuboyasu (9%)

(??? we don't know her but the thought of an ex-gangster milf reunion is compelling...)

i was gonna pick midori BUT the 'exgangster milf reunion' got to me

Midori Nendo (9%)

(32, hard worker and managed to raise a great son by herself)

midori is objectively probably the best mother (at least in the anime) in this essay i wi–

Michael, midori, or matsuzaki are responsible adults who are not insane or horrible to kids. Midori preferred atm because I want to see the horror on kusukes face when he realizes Nendo is his brother, and Nendo is naturally immune to Kusuo’s gifts. Also midori and Kurumi are already friends so MILF friends to lovers. Also I would parent those kids myself but I don’t fit into this age criteria.

I want the milfs to kiss. Also nendo and saiki as brothers sounds like his worst nightmare, and id love to see it.

The idea of nendo and saiki being adopted brothers is so funny though

Rean Kuboyasu (4%)

(36, retired gangster)

No but like Kusuo would be super worried for a hot sec because the man's an ex-gangster but then it cuts to Kurumi absolutely destroying someone over something and he'd be like actually he's probably good for her. He would hate being Aren's brother though (the guy is cool but he almost rivals Shun in dramatics)

Chono the Magician (3%)

(27yo but has made an impressive career for himself in showbiz!)

I personally think either Chono (even though he’s Midori’s ex), Midori, Micheal or Ms. Kaidou would be good candidates for Kusuo’s step-dad/step-mom. Kurumi could work as a single mom too. Any of those options are good (Chono is my personal favorite tho lolol)

Chouno's admiration of saikis skills run the risk of causing the same complex that kuniharu had but tbh I just think hed be funny. also there would be a lot of complicated dynamics with nendous family now and i just like the chaos. on a more serious note i do really like chouno, and he already knows saiki has some crazy abilities and instead of becoming useless like kuniharu or being obsessive like kuusuke, he just got better at his job and took a little inspiration. also like u said, hes pretty well off now with a successful career, unlike kuniharu who just licked shoes, so. good dad, he seems nice :)

Micheal, the Magician's Assistant (3%)

(30s, excellent father to many pigeons)

Peanuts Ueda (1%)

(early 40s probably, successful comedian)

The magician Kusuo summoned one time (1%)

(??? he do be kinda hot tho)

My sister who has watched only the first couple of episodes wanted to put in her input. Originally, she said Michael, but then I showed a picture of him and she changed her mind

Kuniharu Saiki (1%)

(nooo I actually like him 🥺)

The write-ins

Both Mr. and Mrs. Nendo

Nendous dad has made Kusuo have that eye sparkle, (when the time travel thing happend), and he spends more time with him then his own dad does even as a ghost. Even if it is just to bug him to do random stuff, that is what actual dads do so its fine!

And you cant just have Nendous dad, Ms Nendou is a part of this package. Ms Nendou is a hard working women that deserves to have not only her husband, but a sweet and loving wifey as well! She would not only care for Kusuo, I also think she would set Kuusuke right, this boy needs some help.

Obviously for this to work, that means that Nedad did not die. Honestly once I had thought of this I could not put anything other then it

Both Mr. and Mrs. Kuboyasu

I feel like Mrs. Kuboyasu is still kinda mixed up in stuff, while Mr. Kuboyasu is like “the way of the househusband”. In my mind they are secure in their marriage and would never break apart after all they have been through. However, Adding in Kurumi’s “hold my flower” would be very interesting.

A kuniharu mannequin :J

Because it would be funny as hell if Kuniharu lost against his own mannequin shfjsjfu

pros: Kurumi keeps his spouse's good looks? ig, Kuniharu gets rekt, Mannequin doesn't talk :J

cons: still looks like Kuniharu

[nastyaphrodite]

Mother Tongue - Demetria Martinez

fyi one of the most poetically written books I’ve ever read, quotes are too good to lose to time.

(will be tagged personal, but this is not personal ...)

pg. 4: and I was one of those women whose fate is to take war out of a man, or at least imagine she is doing so.

pg. 5: before his arrival the chaos of my life had no axis about which to spin, a center far from God that I asked for forgiveness in advance.

pg. 12: Everything else is remembering. Or dismembering. To create a man out of blanks that can never wound me.

pg. 15: From day one I looked for ways to graft a piece of myself onto him, to become indispensable. My gestures were perfectly timed, touching his hand, twisting my hair, excusing myself to touch up my lipstick---ordinary actions that would reverse the tides of my life as in the theories of physicists who say the dance of a butterfly can cause volcanoes to erupt.

pg 16: Love at first sight, this how I explained the urgency that would later shed its skin and reveal pure desperation. Some women fall in love in advance of knowing a man because it is much easier to love a mystery. And I needed a mystery---someone outside of ordinary time would could rescue me from an ordinary life, from my name ... a blessing that had become a curse. At age nineteen, I was looking for a man to tear apart the dry rind of that name so I could see what fruit fermented inside.

pg. 19: Yes, from the very beginning I wanted him. In that time of my life, men were mirrors that allowed me to see myself at different angles. Outside this function, they did not exist. It was a supreme selfishness, the kind that feeds on men’s attentions, a void flourishing in a void. **** In the end, I had no choice but to love him. Desire was not good enough. Love would ripen in the light of time we spent together, like an arranged marriage. Except that I was doing the arranging. And calling it fate.

pg. 20: I swear to God the moment I laid eyes on him I knew he was The One. And it can’t be a coincidence—that he arrived on the scene just as I was asking the universe whether or not there was more to life than just holding down boring jobs. I’d been so depressed. Now everything has changed. Still, I know I should slow these feelings down. Or else I’ll want to act on them—which always ruins everything. I’ve got to remember I can’t “make” anything happen beyond doing the footwork for some greater purpose that may be trying to manifest here. Maybe I’m supposed to just be his friend.

pg. 22: It’s like I’m going for longer and longer periods of time forgetting I’m depressed. Which maybe is a definition of happiness.

pg. 23: Peace. Joy. Openness to the future. How else can I describe what I’m feeling except for the big “L” word, which I don’t dare say out loud. Because it’s like yelling fire in a theater. Men flee and my girlfriends say to me, you fool.

pg. 26: Very often, when I try to remember those days, everything comes to mind except for memories of myself: what I looked like or said or felt. This is where it gets painful. You see, memory does not always serve me. It seeks images and feelings to hook on to, but at times encounters only voids. The facts are easy enough to recite. *** I fled the world, went inside, ceased to feel. You could say I fell asleep. There was no mystery to it. Quite simply, it was easier to sleep and pretend to be awake than to stay awake and pretend to be strong. *** They had words for women like me. Insane fell out of favor as did nervous breakdown. Clinically depressed was, I believe, in vogue. But ask any woman who has had times in her life when she was not all there. She will say she was asleep. And women who fall asleep and don’t know why lack a plot line; this is the secret source of their shame. So I concocted a plot of my own, orchestrating what I could until characters began to say and do things I had never imagined, me included. To prove the gods at least were interested in me, I courted disaster, set out to love a man I knew full well would go away. Falling in love was a way of pinching myself. It proved I was alive only on that thin line between drama and trauma. I handed my body over ... like a torch to help him out of his dark places. I felt no shame. I was utterly unoriginal. To love a man more than one’s self was a socially acceptable way for a woman to be insane.

pg. 32: It was like taking one last look around a hospital room where someone I loved had died. And I cried, I couldn’t stop, it was a surprise. I thought my arroyo of grief had long ago dried up, leaving only an imprint of the storm.

pg. 49: I was young, future tense came naturally to me: Iré, irás.… I will go, you will go. I have always lacked talent for living in the here and now, and back then I was easily transported into luminous, unobtainable futures.

pg. 55: Where others saw indigo, I saw blue; where others saw teal, I saw green. It’s the draining away of color that happens in a woman’s life when she can’t name her own reality. It is only now that I am able to go back and color in the pale places, creating a mural on the walls of the life I now inhabit.

pg. 59-60: The truth is, some of our tenderest moments are the ones I am least likely to remember. It has to do with what I said about sleep, how women like me sometimes flee, letting loving words or glances melt on the hot pavement of some nameless fear. So forgive me if I embellish; even a conjured memory is better than no memory at all if you would dare to give your life what the world did not, a myth, a plot. Besides, I never intended to reconstruct him from memory, just from love, which may be the only way anyone can ever hope to get at the whole truth.

pg. 61: I knew the name but not the man.

pg. 63-64: Now I have reason to improve my Spanish. I have a word and a way of life to conjugate: Quiero, quieres, quiere, queremos.… To want and to love, the same thing! God, make this thing last. Make it last. I sound crazed, I know, but with good reason. My period’s due any moment, and I have found true love. The kind that pulls all of life in one direction. It’s too much. Already, his presence in my life is helping me forget all the sadness (what was it about?) that pulled me down for so long before he came. *** The thought of being with him forever is intoxicating. But I’ve got to be careful. I’ve got to stay in the present. The minute I get hung up on the idea of forever, on what will happen tomorrow, I ruin everything.

pg. 65: But I don’t need sleep, I don’t need food, just you, I answered. I unpeeled myself from him, removed myself like a bandage. The cruelty of limits stung: the need for sleep, food, a paycheck however small. If an hour were a house one could move into for good, I would have built a wall around the 2 o���clock hour, a brick wall arrayed against the disfiguring fury of the future.

pg. 66: We opened each other up like sacred books, Spanish on one side, English on the other, truths simultaneously translated.

pg. 68-69: But I’m deceiving myself again. Lying. For a long time after (he) I continued to believe a man could touch my essence, make me whole. All that time I could have been writing, touching the fires of my being and returning to the world, purified and strong. *** You see, I was one of those women who is at her best when she wants something very badly. The mating dance, the yearning and flirting, surrenders and manipulations—I was good at that, so good at the pursuit that when I actually got what I wanted, terror appeared. Terror that wore the silly mask of disappointment.

pg. 73: The few friends I had during that spell of my life quit calling; the word must have gotten out that (I) was in love. They knew I wouldn’t come out of the house, the house I drew with crayons, a house of primary colors I called love. The first time I fell in love, friends tried to tell me it was not real. To prove them wrong, I drew a keyhole on the front door and invited them to look through to the other side. See for yourselves, I said.

pg. 76: It’s dangerous for a couple to promise to stay married until they die. It’s better to vow to stay together until the marriage dies—and to do everything in their power to keep it alive. If you don’t think of marriage as a plant, fragile and in need of attention, then you’re asking for major trouble.

pg. 77: That’s what I hate about love. Bit by bit you start to give things up. You become like a good parent. But I love him so it’s all worth it. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.

pg. 81-82: Unfortunately (or fortunately?), wounds will often start healing even if you don’t want them to, even if you would rather die quietly in the corner of a cell. The body’s will to live sometimes is greater than that of mind or spirit.

pg. 86: Do I just let things continue until they fall apart? The warmth of her flesh is all I have to make me forget. But alcohol does the same thing. Am I using her? Or is she using me each time she looks at me and loves what is not there?

pg. 87: No, I haven’t forgiven myself for being disappeared from myself any more than I have forgiven him.

pg. 88: He carved that question mark into my heart and kept watch over it until I could wake up and cry out.

pg. 89-90: Things began to happen. There were times he didn’t call, times he didn’t say I love you, nonevents that hurt in little ways, like paper cuts, but that added up. It could be these nonevents had happened all along, the normal ups and downs of relationships. But at a certain point, I began to perceive that he was pulling away from me and thinking about other things. And fear ate at my heart like battery acid. But it’s very likely that I only imagined him pulling away, imagined the whole thing. You see, the fear I am best at is always based upon a myth. *** ... assumption that to survive one sometimes must flee all that is loved. This is what terrified me. His body was branded with the equation, love equals flight.

pg. 94: You see, real love is quiet as snow, without chaos, hard to write about.

pg. 95: They were not like the white God I’d had to kill, that women like me must kill if we are to have any hope of ever finding God. Nothing replaced Him for a long time. But looking back now I can see that the growing chaos inside blazed away dead growth, clearing a space, however violently, for God to be reborn.

pg. 96-97: There were so many moments I would rather not talk about but in this dark night of remembering, they are blooming like night flowers. *** When he didn’t call, my world shriveled. Fetal position. Blistered finger pad. Or when he called and didn’t say, I love you, I shattered, then mistook a piece of me for the whole, a mistake that disfigures women’s lives time and again. But I lacked the nerve to tell him how I was feeling.

pg. 101: Now, as I write this, I can’t remember the real me. It’s terrifying, that you can love someone so much that you lose your own self in the uproar. I can’t remember the me who loves September, who loves to walk or read.

pg. 117: But every woman should have a special place inside where she can think, where no man is allowed, a place that will, you know, endure. Why do you think I took up letter writing? No man is worth falling apart over. Take it from me.

pg. 146: love could not be used like a cage to make a man stay. What if the universe now was telling me that it might take even greater love to let someone go? But I was not capable of detachment.

pg. 155: And as it is at times with bones, my heart needed to be broken and reset properly so it could carry me through life.

pg. 163: I’m tired, frightfully tired. Like snake venom, this story’s medicine had to be drawn from my own body. Maybe you won’t even read this, I don’t know. Long ago I began this tale for reasons I could not yet articulate, maybe for no reason at all. *** Promesas are as dangerous as skydiving, leaps into thin air. Nothing frightens me more than an answered prayer. And nothing taxes a body more than giving something back to God. This is why I am so tired, why I have spent this day crying in my room.

(4-2-19/4-2-19)

[selie1412-blog]

 Lets see how many Waluigi fans I can trigger with this post. Super Smash Bros Ultimate will be my first video game review. I believe everyone of there internet is familiar with this game series by now. If not, then what rock have you been living under for the past 20ish years.

The review will be split into two parts. First the review for the storyline, and then the review for the multiplayer section. It will become obvious as you continue reading. I sure hope you do so...

Spoilers of the story mode will be shown below. Proceed with caution. 

Super Smash Bros Ultimate: 

With an arsenal of 76 fighters to choose from and various assist trophies, cough Waluigi cough, from many different games and pokemon to also join in the battle the possibility for this game seems endless. Although, then Mr. Sakurai of course had to go above and beyond literally everyone’s expectations to add the spirits section which includes characters from countless other games, adding approximately 1200 new characters to the game. (I know that there is more than this, but the last hundreds is just spirits of all the fighters so I was not counting them.)

Summary: 

The World of Light story mode for Smash Ultimate takes place when a new villain, Galeem, eliminates all the fighters and brainwashes them into serving its needs - basically turning them into his puppets. This all goes along to its plans except for the precious start child, Kirby, Mr. Sakurai’s beloved creation (well other then the entire Smash series). Kirby is then faced to *read in Morgan Freeman's voice* save the entire world! Then after beating Galeem for the first time a new villian emerges from the darkness, Dharkon, who seems to hold an impressive grudge again Galeem. The two seem to be in a constant battle with the recovered fighters only watching from the sidelines as their battle takes place. 

For the multiplayer section of the game the format of it has changed drastically from Smash 3 and Smash 4 respectively Smash 3Ds and Smash Wii U. The rule section is now a mandatory passage into the game and the stage selection now comes before the character selection. The rules also can not be changed once you select them unless you back out all the from the match to change them. Multiple other features have also been implemented such as smashdown and a tournament mode. Spirits can also be used in multiplayer battle as well between friends.

Review:

I have to give some kudos (Shinichi AUGGGG!!! Sorry little fangirl episode. I apologize for the interruption.) to the story line overall. The plot was something unique and unexpected, and oddly entertaining considering the sheer lack of cutscenes and lore to go along with it. Being able to come up with a interesting storyline like it has after the Subspace Emissary is quite impressive. When watching through the Smash Directs waiting for the game to release I absolutely knew that there was going to be a new story mode to go along with this game, but I was unsure on what exactly it was going to be because the Subspace Emissary seems almost perfect. The World of Light appears to be a battle of good and evil where one can not appear without the other, yet can not survive without each other. I believe MatPat's description of the lore can be one possible interpretation of the story mode, but I also believe that there are others as well. In creating my review of this integration I did use The Game Theory’s theory for some inspiration and guidance, so I will be drawing off of that as a source. 

Galeem and Dharkon physically seem to represent light and darkness respectively, so it would be obvious that they would be enamines. Then why do they both encapture all of the fighters who are supposed to be on the good side. Why would they both do so. Well the short and simple answer of that is that, as the cut senses show that is not the point. In the aspect of Galeem and Dharakon the fighters are meaningless, they have no value. Going back to the origin of it all, the fighters are supposed to simply represent a child playing with them and bringing them to life. In a matter of light and darkness the person playing or controlling the figure decides on how that they will behave. By the fighters being abducted by Galeem and Dharkon itis a simple change of hands. I mean even Master hand, general of Galeem, and then Crazy Hand, general of Dharkon, can easily represent order and discord. Each are traits of it varios counterparts. We, the player, are simply spectators watching a match between rivals of sorts. Each side has a general, 3 captains, various amounts of sargents (being the abducted characters), and then plentiful amounts of pawns (being the Spirits themselves). This battle we witness between the two is an war between light and darkness. 

The ending of story more is only obtained through defeating both Galeem and Dharkon at the same time. This is the true ending which will set all the spirits free. If only defecting a single one then the other will destroy the world. Each which is called the bad ending. This true ending then meaning that light can not exist without darkness and then darkness can not exist without light. If simply darkness exists then the world will be thrown into chaos and discord while is only light exists then nothing would get done and everything will cease to exist. A balance is needed for harmony to happen. Throughout the final map of the game as spirits were defeated Galeem and Dharkon constantly fought for power to overtake the other. The player, not shown, represent this balancing act. The act of calming and defeating both of the large giants restored order to the world, adn allowed life to continue. Quoting Kingdom Heart, (Its a good game series lay off!) “ The closer you get to the Light, The Greater Your Shadow Becomes.” In order to maintain a balance as light grows the darkness should also grow. As the balancer in the game you are returning balance to the world that was taken out of balance when Galeem first tried to overtake Dharkon by taking all of the fighters into its own ‘hand’, and then when it was taken out by the balancer the shift in powers went over to Dharkon who’s power rose. Think of it as a see-saw, as one side rises the other sinks, but if you then release the side the rose it will then sink and the other side will rise.

(Wow! That was a lot of writing just on the lore, lol. I congratulate all who actually read through that.)

The playthrough of the story mode itself I was sadly a bit disappointed int. With The Subspace Emissary you could play multiplayer and there was even some playforming that characters could travers. I was sad when both of those features were taken out of the game. The graphics of the story mode itself was impressive though. I could see the real dedication to each aspect of the map, and how they tried to fit each portal area to a certain theme to a game. Like there was a Monster Hunter area, Bowser's Castle, Legend of Zelda, and a Castlevania. The avatar of every single character was impressive as well. I mean creating all of the sprites especially fro this one small thing was no small feat, so that trait I appreciated. I know the big theme for Smash Ultimate is, “Got to go fast” as quoted from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, but sometimes its a little nice to stop and smell the roses. Like in the story mode! I would honestly sacrifice about half of the spirit battles in spirit mode to have some fun platform levels of some sort. Even if it was just put in as minigames I would be happy. Like Hit the Target or Find the Exit from melee, or maybe even just reskining some of the platform levels from Subspace with a HD addition to it and throwing it into World of Light. Any of that would be amazing! I believe that added a lot of fun to the overall story mode itself, and it was one of the main reasons that made me actually want to replay and beat the story mode multiple times because it was something a bit different from the rest of the game. It made the story mode very unique, and it made it stand out.

As for the multiple player section there was a number of new additions and fighting formats that actually improved the overall experience and gameplay of it, but there was also some aspect that made me frustrated at. My favorite aspects by far was the implications of the smash down and tournament sections. The have finally added a tournament section, and that makes me soooooo happy! I no longer have to make homemade tournament charts!!! T^T The shashdown is also very helpful to play with people who are really only good with one person, and that one person can pretty much wipe you out no matter what you do. It adds a lot of fairness to the game which succeeds in making it a lot more fun for the people out there who are good at a lot of characters, but not really good at just one (I actually sit in between these people. I have 3 mains who I like to fight as a lot, but I am decent at pretty much everyone else in the game. Well except for Mr. Game and Watch and Olimar. My mains by the way are: Mewtwo, Ganondorf, and Lucas.)

My main drawback with the multiplayer section of the game is actually how the rule selection is set up. For tradition Smash mode you have to go through the process of first choosing your rules for the match, picking you stage, and then choosing you fighter. This is path you always have to go down when entering in the smash mode after exiting the game. if you finish a match it just takes you back to the stage selection section. The problem exists when you finish a match, but you realize you made a mistake in the rule creation. In order to fix it you first have to back all the way out of the match, then open up the select rules tab that you specifically created for this match set, then edit what you want, finally save it, and then back out after selecting it and proceeding onto the rest of the match. Now this would not be as much as a problem if you were able to set a rule tab as default, so you could enterally skip that one step and continue onto the match. Also, if you were allowed to edit the rules while inside the match selecting process such as when you are choosing you stage because you forgot to turn off the stage morph or stage hazards or you start selecting you character and realize that the match is still on time and not on stock. If these features were implemented then the rule section would only need to be opened when it was needed to create a new set of rules. I am not saying that I dislike the aspect of creating a custom set of rules to use for match because I think that is a very nice user friendly option for the players, but I do think that it need a little more work to be better. This is a new feature that just needs a few bugs worked out, and the it would be perfect.

For the fighters and the battles themselves, I have stated previously that the theme of Smash Ultimate is, “Gotta Go Fast,” so that is what everything is. The speed of all the characters have improved - making all the heavy characters now usable competitively - as well as the final smashes. This speed change has really made the game itself into the fastest, most adgil, and adaptive are the best. So it is no surprise that Sonic, Mewtwo, and Inkling has all made it into the top tiers for being if not the fastest, most adgil, and adaptive characters in the game respectively. The final smashes on most of the characters have changed in one way or another, some for the better and some for the worse.  There is now a feature also to do diagonal air doges as well which helps out considerable for air movement and combat. Also the idea of perfect shielding has been improved, so it grants the player a chance attack the opponent when their defences are down a bit. There is not really much else to say in this area.

I am not going to touch on the classic mode much or the all-star mode much because they are pretty much the same as the previous game. Classic mode you fight about 6 battles with the last being either Master Hand or both Master Hand and Crazy hand at varying levels of difficulty. All-star mode is continuous matches with short breaks in between which goes on until you fight and defect every single smash fighter. I will only say this, which I have already stated before, I missed the small platforming levels inside Classic mode. It added something different to the overall flow which was a nice change of pace and mixed up the game some. 

Overall Smash Ultimate is an amazing game that has blown not only mine but everyone elses socks off. From the vast amount of characters included to the thoughtful and in depth storyline, and all of the new features that it includes. I sincerely believe that Mr. Sakurai has outdone himself, and is in need of a well needed vacation. He has done an amazing job at trying his best at making every fan and every series present in this game feel loved. With all of that though I will be honored to give Super Smash Bros Ultimate an astounding score of a 9/10. Splitting each part up into its various categories the World of Light Story mode receives a not too shabby 8.5/10. This is because of the lack of platforming areas (tear) and for the lack of official lore or true story line which has left a lot of fans trying to actually deceivers what it means, me included (given my own interruption above). Then with the multiplayer section receiving an impressive 9.5/10. Only docking off points for the wonky rules section which could possibly be fixed in a later update. 

Once again thank you very much for reading my update. If you actually succeeded in reading all of it. I apologize it was a bit long this time around, but there was a lot of content I had to cover.  If you have any further comments or additions I may have missed please put them in the comments below or simply PM me. Again, I will state this every time, if anyone has any requests for anything they wish for me to review in the future please once again post them in the comments below or PM,

Finally, if anyone is interested you are welcome to join my discord server where we will talking about various anime, manga, video games, and other sources of media. I have posted the link below! :)

 https://discord.gg/tvBR8Jn

[jhinderer28]

246 Things Bones Has Taught Me

1. 6,7,16 are Carbon, Nitrogen and Sulfur on the Periodic Table of Elements 2. If you plan to murder someone do it on a plane right before you land in a different country 3. What it means to be a rational thinker. And that being irrational sometimes is ok 4. There is such a thing as fate 5. Everything happens eventually. But nothing happens unless first a dream 6. There’s more than one kind of family 7. How to get someone off on murder charges 8. The definition of true friendship 9. 246 ways how NOT to kill someone, because you will get caught 10. When “the�� is not the first word in the episode title, shits about to get real (ie Aliens in a Spaceship) 11. The skeletal system is the best part of the human body 12. A million little facts curtesy of Vincent Nigel Murray 13. All the words to Hot Blooded 14. Nothing good happens when the clock says 4:47 15. Everyone deserves happiness, love, laughter, friendship, purpose, and a dance 16. Very few people are scary once they have been poked in the eyes 17. Don’t ramble on and on about conspiracy theories. You never know who is really listening to you and what they might do with that information 18. People do almost anything for family (even murdering the deputy director of the FBI) 19. To appreciate Brainy Smurf 20. Never trust a Russian knife throwing act in the circus 21. You can buy weapons at the mall. But wanting a gun for the sole reason of shooting people is not a good enough reason 22. The plot to strangers on a train 23. How to save someone with compartment syndrome 24. How to make a carbon dioxide scrubber 25. If you start hallucinating cartoon characters and dead soldiers you probably have a brain tumor 26. To search for the truth even if it leads to unwanted results 27. Chasing someone may be the smartest decision you ever make and being chased may be your greatest joy 28. Diplomatic immunity is extremely inconvenient 29. Even scientists can change (and we are all glad she did) 30. To fight. Even when the odds are stacked against you 31. Sometimes you just have to dance to the music that’s playing 32. 1 Corinthians 13:4 33. We can’t change who we are (but thankfully he’s a sexy FBI agent) 34. To not be distracted by the shiny baubles, because you might miss what really matters 35. People make their lives out of chaos and hope. And love. 36. The center has to be solid because the center must hold 37. Daffodil, Daisy, and Jupiter will always hold a special meaning 38. Sometimes you have to take the brain and put it in neutral. Then take the heart and pop it into overdrive 39. There is someone for everyone, someone you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with. You just have to be open enough to see it 40. Sarcasm does not play well on the forensic platform 41. Any lock worth picking is worth kicking 42. There are mysteries I will never understand but everywhere I look I see proof that for every effect there is a corresponding cause 43. Sometimes we have to have the ability to substitute optimism for reality 44. Try to get the signal before you are living with regrets (because we are all glad she did!) 45. That doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results is the definition of insanity 46. That people are more than just psychology 47. To find someone who makes your life messy, and confusing, and unfocused, and irrational, and wonderful 48. Go to the company Christmas party; because friends don’t let friends photocopy their butts at company Christmas parties 49. To appreciate Christmas Eve day. It’s both an Eve and a day, it’s a Christmas miracle 50. That there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in science 51. To find that person who will never make you fall and who will always be there 52. Be respectful of others. You never know what scars they carry on their back. Metaphorically or literally. 53. Life is a lot more than what can be cooked up in a chemistry set. Miracles do happen. 54. Phylogenetic Systematics 55. Always play in the key of G demolished. 56. To not jump to conclusions until all the evidence is in 57. If your world gets turned upside down, give it time, it takes three days for it to turn right side up again 58. That there are burdens which allow us to fly 59. We all share in the loss of a life. No matter who it is. 60. Glug-Glug Woo-hoo! 61. Ergo, ipso facto columbo oreo. 62. Beer from Missouri goes great with leftovers 63. Love changes everything 64. All the words to “Keep on Trying” 65. There is a mystery to life 66. That Wonder Woman is better than Cat Woman 67. WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (but we are really talking about the buzzing pest) 68. Booth is Superman (he beats up bad guys and leaps over things. Not to mention he is married to Wonder Woman) 69. All organisms evolve and develop along patterns only recognized in retrospect (and thank god her life didn’t exist outside the laws of nature) 70. Sometimes you have to have absolute faith in someone 71. All pigs are now named Jasper 72. Beer hats in the bathtub solve all problems 73. Having to hire two nannies (one to watch the kid and the other to watch the first nanny) isn’t crazy it just shows how much you care about your child 74. Sometimes it’s ok to let the ice cream melt 75. The garage is an excellent place to store C4 76. Hearts can’t be broken they can only be crushed. But her heart muscle is bigger than people give her credit for 77. Inertia demands us to keep going 78. The washing machine makes for a great make out location 79. That he’s with Bones. All the way. Don’t doubt it for a second. Because she’s his standard. 80. Sometimes you have to be bad to be good. That way your frontal lobe won’t be a dried up raisin. 81. What goes on between them is just theirs 82. Shooting machine guns is a totally acceptable way to celebrate valentines day. 83. Dancing Phalanges 84. Everyone deserves a knight in standard issue FBI body armor. 85. A rubber band is a great anger management tool 86. Sometimes you have to have the guts of a gambler and take that risk. 87. Don’t judge someone before you get to know them because she’s not a cold fish and he’s not a superstitious moron. She has a soul and he has a brain 88. That it’s illegal to have premarital sex in Virginia (but that didn’t stop them) 89. When you eliminate the possible, you are left with the truth, no matter how improbable. 90. That being the best doesn’t mean being perfect 91. That a stand up crook is better than a crooked cop. Any day of the week. 92. That when two people make love they break the laws of physics, they become one. It’s a miracle. 93. That pigs in a blanket and Mac n Cheese are gods perfect food 94. Sometimes the best gift you could give someone is not a material item. (We are all glad of the gift she gave to Zach) 95. No changies. No take backs. 96. Your gut doesn’t have any special powers but listening to it every once in a while is a good idea. 97. Sequences and patterns will continue until something disrupts the pattern. 98. Everyone has a puckish side that will not be denied. 99. Up and forward are only two directions. Science should look in all directions. (She taught us all that) 100. That everyone deserves a love that is more than just 3 weeks a year 101. To never travel to New Orleans alone. 102. That the swings make for the perfect first date location. 103. How not to act at a funeral (unless translation has occurred) 104. To learn to not fight to change the past. The pain is a part of who we are. 105. That life never comes easy. But nothing of value is ever easy. 106. To never skip snack time. Or meals. Or food in general. 107. That "The Lime in the Coconut" will hold a special place in all our hearts. Because that was his jam. 108. To find that one person who will never betray you. 109. Page 187. 110. That having a high IQ is no excuse not to bathe. 111. That friends never send friends' fathers to the electric chair. 112. To never underestimate criminals with only one leg 113. That sometimes people don't need time and space. Just some time. 114. That there's nothing wrong with living in the moment; but it's good to see what the future holds 115. That infinity goes in both directions. So we all will get a second chance 116. To dive into life, be courageous. Question things. Be happy. And don't forget to laugh 117. That sometimes, love trumps logic. 118. To love everyday. 119. To never take life for granted. There are no guarantees. 120. That people lie; but bones always tell the truth 121. That loving someone, and everything around it, is worth it. 122. That there's nothing more important than having hope. 123. Meatball and peppers make the perfect sandwich. 124. That addiction is a lifelong battle. 125. Always tell your partner that you aren't really dead, you just had to fake your death to catch the bad guy 126. Don't sleep with your college professors. They may get jealous when the student surpasses the teacher. 127. How to make the best Mac n cheese (so good he wants to be alone with it). 128. That you may choose to part with old items but you will never part with the memories you created with them. 129. That the world is a lot better than we think it is. 130. Every once in awhile Pinky can stump The Brain. 131. That there is such a thing as beginners luck. 132. To take a ride on the vomet comet. 133. That babies need grills. 134. Blackmailing a federal agent, while not recommended, seemed to work out for both parties in this situation 135. That if you end up being the parent to the best car salesman (or woman) that's ok. 136. That it is totally worth it to have your own happiness completely contingent on another person. 137. That if you keep living trying to protect yourself, nothing is ever going to touch you. 138. To give yourself a chance to be happy. Even if that means moving on. 139. That my heart isn't someone's to claim, it's mine to give away 140. That character is who we are under pressure; not who you are when everything's fine. 141. That just because something's difficult, doesn't mean that I shouldn't do it. 142. That no matter the anthropological reasons, we fight to make the world a better place. 143. Don't touch the bobble head Bobby 144. All the different reasons the FBI is given jurisdiction in a murder investigation 145. Sometimes you just have to flash your boobs to get information 146. To stand up and defend your friends. 147. That aliens don't wear loafers. 148. That things don't always end up as neatly as we wanted them too. 149. That we are all born unique and our experiences mold and change us. 150. You can be a polymath without being a douche. 151. That Pluto's no longer a planet. It was demoted. 152. To leave life having given more than you've taken. 153. That love cannot be explained. It is beyond science, or religion. Beyond mind, or reason. 154. If you don't have a gun, an app will work just fine. 155. That you don't always get to pick your nicknames. 156. That living with a disability is not by any means a death sentence. 157. That it's ok to plan your own surprise birthday party. 158. To expect the unexpected. It might lead to the greatest parts of your life. 159. Never turn down the chance to conduct a science experiment. 160. That purple elephants are wrong. 161. That his "charm smile" is just a sign of respect. 162. Skalle. 163. That Kansas gets boring after awhile. 164. That someone in your corner makes all the difference. 165. To never light cigarettes in an outhouse 166. The most beautiful things in the world are sunsets, the Mona Lisa and a perfectly thrown spiral. 167. Do NOT piss off your boss. If there's a spider infestation just take care of it. 168. To take a ceramics class every once in a while. 169. Never pay for a plumber. Just get a "For Dummies" book and you're all set. 170. That partners don't say "forget it" 171. That you're never too old to laugh at "boner" 172. That "the man" buys all the office furniture. 173. That he was right, bones really are the heart of the matter. 174. To enjoy a ceramics class every once and a while. 175. To always swim with a buddy. 176. The definition of a philistine, and luddite 177. To never steal evidence from a murder victims house. 178. That sometimes the relationship that didn't work out leads you to the one that does. 179. That parents do a lot of crazy things just because they love their children. 180. That you can't just kill Agent Andy. 181. That they were never just partners. 182. The difference between being impervious and being strong. 183. That we each learn to survive in our own way. 184. Norwegian death metal 185. To appreciate the magic of the Egyptian room 186. That he will always be King of the Lab. Even if he's the only one who cares. 187. Diner eggs are simple magic. 188. Nunchucks are not toys. Seriously. 189. That your brain cannot digest breakfast burritos. 190. Never shoot an ice cream truck (even if you do offer to replace the clown). 191. To always respect the cocky belt buckle. 192. To never trust a washed up army fighter 193. To go to prom. 194. That each squintern brought something special to the team. We could never just choose one. 195. To be weary of bank vaults. 196. That if you have no other plans, racing beetles on a Friday night is totally acceptable. 197. To never be afraid to find a new passion 198. To love your work. Life is too short not to 199. Even an empiricist can have a heart. 200. That the definition of being "stupid in love" is spending $3000 for a quarter ounce of perfume. 201. That in 30, or 40, or 50 years we can all say we knew. Right from the beginning 202. That life is really just a lot of loose ends. 203. As long as a person has enough, they don't need more. 204. To never be ashamed of where you came from. 205. That happiness comes from what you already have. 206. That wanting things to work and making things work are two different things. 207. To never stop being yourself. 208. That if he flies to New Orleans just to make sure you're ok, you're not just partners 209. To appreciate Alfred Hitchcock movies 210. Never try to fit stadium seats into an elevator during a blizzard. 211. To give a piece of yourself every once in a while. 212. That getting blown up may just be a part of the job description. 213. To appreciate hospital pudding. 214. The wedding was worth the wait. 215. To appreciate Cyndi Lauper 216. Setting up a rescue at the airport is an acceptable way to get back on someone's good side 217. Female friendships before male romantic partners 218. That we are not our parents. 219. To watch out for serial killers on Craig's list 220. To go to the Louvre. 221. That we can't always save our siblings from everything. 222. Sometimes it's ok to lie your ass off to the FBI 223. The only acceptable reason to leave the hospital AMA is to save your "partner" 224. To always wear a mask when cutting into bone. 225. That life works out. 226. That 306 pages for a will is not at all excessive. 227. To let someone else drive in London. 228. That life is hard and painful, but we fight together. 229. That your boss can't be your lovely assistant. 230. That stuffed animals make great baby gifts 231. That nothing brings people together like a Christmas lung fungus. 232. Be weary of someone who takes New York action 234. A jail cell can be a perfect place for a wedding. 235. Never route against the Flyers. 236. To go to the museum more often. You never know who you'll find 237. The best conversations happen in cars. 238. To appreciate colorful socks 239. That it takes all of us. Every single one. 240. To look forward to what ever happens next. 241. That it was worth the ride. Everything about it. 242. When the network moves you into every possible time slot it can only mean they love you. 243. To love. 244. That 12 years is a long time. And a lot of magic. 245. That it's all about the cast. 246. To never doubt the little show that could. So Season 12 is it; here’s to the last 12 years and to everything that happens next!

[nothingman]

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders sit side-by-side at the front of the cafeteria, heads bent over matching yellow legal pads, taking notes in workmanlike silence. It’s April 2008 at Montpelier High School. Sanders is new to the Senate. And Warren, still a Harvard Law School professor, is his guest speaker at a series of town halls across Vermont. He gives a speech. She walks the crowd through a PowerPoint presentation. The national press ignores the event.

In 2014, they are colleagues in the Senate. Barack Obama is president. And Warren, leading the fight to push his administration on economic policy, is a progressive icon. Activist groups name her “the North Star” of the left, leader of the “Warren wing of the Democratic Party.” At one progressive conference, her face is superimposed on a lifesize cutout of Katniss Everdeen, star of the Hunger Games franchise. She is a god. By the fall of 2014, organizers form not one but two “Draft Warren” campaigns. In interviews, she is asked again and again — some 50 times before the end of that year — if she will run in 2016. Every time, she says no. People were still asking the question months later, when Sanders announced his campaign at a small press conference.

In 2018, they are both considering a run for president. Donald Trump is in the White House. Sanders, 76, is the most popular politician in America. And Warren, 69, is suddenly navigating a progressive movement that revolves daily around Sanders and his “political revolution.”

Now, people like to put another question to Warren.

“What’s the difference between you and Bernie Sanders?”

Just four years ago, no one would have even thought to ask. With the 2020 primary months away, it’s one of the questions Warren gets most.

The new and pressing reality facing the Massachusetts senator is this: Elizabeth Warren, once a singular power on the left, is now a name that people conflate with Bernie Sanders.

The question, by its very existence, reflects a remarkable shift in progressive power from 2008, when both senators appeared at their sleepy town hall in Montpelier, Vermont, to the four-year span that marked the end of the Obama administration and ushered in the Trump era. Even some of her biggest supporters in the progressive community admit that the energy around Warren isn't the same as it was four years ago, when she fashioned herself as a kind of mirror to Obama. Where he avoided confrontation, she picked big public fights on economic policy. That strategy, combined with a more tactical behind-the-scenes effort to “influence incentives,” as her team would put it, is no longer quite a natural fit in the chaos of the Trump administration — leading some progressives to ask if she missed her moment by forgoing a run in 2016.

For those on the left, the difference between Warren and Sanders has less to do with policy or ideology. Really, they say, it’s a question about progressive power — about two vastly different theories of change. It’s “the preacher vs. the teacher,” as one former Sanders adviser put it.

Now, when Warren gets the question, she has her answer ready.

“He’s a socialist,” she’ll say, “and I believe in markets.”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Warren speaks during a protest in front of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year.

If Bernie Sanders is leading a political revolution, then Elizabeth Warren is waging a different kind of fight. It’s more tactical and methodical. It’s robust, specific government regulation and oversight — on your student loans, your credit card fees, your banks. In every case, her objective is the same: to change the way Democrats think about economic policy and reshape it in the process.

In Warren’s office, she and her aides make plans in the span of months and years, not weeks. “Impact,” a word you hear a lot from the people around the senator, is a constant pursuit, achieved through a careful combination of public confrontation and private negotiation. When critics accused her of grandstanding, picking fights with bank regulators in Senate hearings — exchanges that her office would circulate in YouTube clips that garnered millions of views — Warren was energizing supporters from groups like MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which in turn grew her platform, which in turn grew her leverage.

In 2011, the strategic approach helped her create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2013, her push to expand Social Security functioned as a broader effort to shift the “Overton window” on the issue — making “chained CPI,” shorthand for a proposal opposed by progressives to change the way the government accounts for cost of living, a less tenable option among mainstream Democrats. And in 2014, Warren and her aides were already engaged in a plan to influence Hillary Clinton’s campaign early on and in private, creating pressures and incentives that might sway Clinton’s thinking on the economy — all in an effort to shape the eventual makeup of the advisers in her 2017 transition team and administration.

“He is trying to create a movement. She approaches so many of these policy issues as a good lawyer or powerful cross-examiner would."

“Her view was that people are policy,” said John Podesta, who served as Clinton’s campaign chairman and talked frequently with Warren and her team throughout the election. “To the extent that she was expressing her perspective and point of view, it was generally about people: Who would be the head of the National Economic Council? Who would be treasury secretary? Her [priority] was that we wouldn’t immediately turn to a bunch of Wall Street insiders.”

On Nov. 9, 2016, of course, Warren woke up to an administration she didn’t plan for.

In a political moment dominated by Trump on one side and Sanders on the other, how Warren now defines her own brand of politics, and to how wide an audience, is a question that will also shape the future of the progressive movement. Warren and Sanders are two enigmatic leaders who work as strategic partners toward shared policy views, but with almost opposite tactics.

“As much as people try to lump them together, they are stylistically very different,” said Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic operative who got to know Warren after her 2012 Senate run. “He is trying to create a movement. She approaches so many of these policy issues as a good lawyer or powerful cross-examiner would. She looks for ways where the laws can be improved.”

Compared to four years ago, Warren’s role in the Trump era can, even now, seem somewhat muddled. There is no Democratic administration to shape. There are none of the same major Democratic policy fights. (Under Trump, the talk of shifting the Overton window to the left has been replaced with slack-jawed outrage at the president’s rhetoric and policy agenda.)

Warren has so far stayed close to Sanders, co-hosting live-streamed town halls and Facebook discussions. Last year, she and her aides worked closely with his office to hone the details of his Medicare-for-all bill, though her name, like other co-sponsors who worked on the bill, were just part of what was perceived as his effort. And when asked about the difference between her and Sanders, it is usually only in private that she chooses to reply, “He’s a socialist, and I believe in markets.”

Still, the response is an indication of how she would differentiate herself from the Vermont senator. “I am a capitalist,” she told CNBC in an interview last month. “Come on. I believe in markets.” (Or as one former aide put it, “She believes in markets. She loves markets.”) Last week, she introduced the “Accountable Capitalism Act” to encourage corporate profit-sharing. Vox called it “a plan to save capitalism.”

Next to Sanders, though, Warren is often described as a less transformative force inside the party. “Both of them have really changed the way we think,” said New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who describes himself as a sort of student of progressive politics. “We wouldn't be here if they both hadn't done what they did.” But it was Sanders, de Blasio said, who “put such a sharp point on the fact that something entirely different was possible, including different language.”

“I really, literally, think it literally redefined American politics.”

“Both of them have really changed the way we think,” said New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. But it was Sanders who “put such a sharp point on the fact that something entirely different was possible."

Even for Republicans, Warren is not quite the same potent political foil as in 2014. “We view Sanders as the purist and Warren as his chief mascot,” said Alexandra Smith, executive director of America Rising, a Republican research group focused on the 2020 Democratic field.

In the view of progressive operatives, it’s not that the senators themselves have changed: They are still the same duo leading the Montpelier town hall 10 years ago — Sanders at the podium, Warren flipping through slides on median family income. But after Trump’s election, as one longtime progressive strategist put it recently, “it was like Warren couldn’t meet the dimensions of how giant the crisis had become. She wasn’t as big as the moment, unlike before 2016.”

“The problems have become more existential,” the strategist said.

Ahead of 2020, there are no plans to reboot the “Draft Warren” campaign — an effort that started as a grassroots Facebook page in 2013, just nine months into her first term in the Senate, before spanning two major progressive groups, MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, with full-time field staffers installed in Iowa and New Hampshire. After the draft campaign ended, much of the would-be Warren team migrated to the Sanders operation, forming new loyalties.

Four years later, “there haven’t been any conversations on 2020,” said Ilya Sheyman, the executive director of MoveOn.org’s political arm. The lead-up to 2016, Sherman said, was in part about “making sure that economic inequality was at the center of the political conversation.” Another co-founder behind the Draft Warren campaign, Charles Lenchner, said that after the first draft campaign, there’s no inherent need for a second: “The point of ‘Draft Warren’ was to say to her, ‘If you run, you have support.’ The message was received. Why do it again?”

Even Guy Saperstein, the California-based donor who provided seed money for the 2014 effort, said he now isn’t sure he would support Warren over Sanders in 2020. “I think she realizes she made a mistake,” Saperstein said of the opportunity to run against Clinton. “I wouldn't say her time has passed, but she's not quite the bright star that she was. Timing is so much in politics.”

After 2016, Warren had to rethink her role in the Trump era. What she landed on, people around the senator say, was a focus on energizing the party — leaning into the “fighter” persona she’s always embraced as a politician. (Last year, Warren followed her first memoir, A Fighting Chance, with a second political book, This Fight Is Our Fight, which catalogs the fights therein via a lengthy index entry for “fighting back,” organized into sub-entries like “value of.”)

“I think she realizes she made a mistake,” Saperstein said of the opportunity to run against Clinton. “I wouldn't say her time has passed, but she's not quite the bright star that she was."

Warren got a taste of the role during the last presidential election, when she emerged as Clinton’s best Trump antagonist on the trail. At rallies, Warren would sprint up to the podium, pump her firsts, clap her hands, jump on the balls of her feet — and call Trump names. He was a “loser,” a “bully,” a man “driven by greed and hate” who will “crush you into the dirt to get what he wants.” At turns, Warren seemed to find the spats both thrilling (the response from voters at one rally, she recalls in her book, “was like an explosion”) and ridiculous (“I started going after him on Twitter,” she writes, before adding in a parenthetical: “Good grief, that sounds lame”).

But Warren also realized the power of the platform. In her 2017 book, This Fight Is Our Fight, she includes screenshots of her own tweets to Trump, noting that at least 46 million followed the exchanges. (It’s a lesson she learned well before she arrived in Washington, in 2003, when she and her daughter appeared on Dr. Phil McGraw's syndicated talk show to promote their book, The Two-Income Trap. “I'd been fighting as hard as I could — doing research, writing papers, giving interviews," Warren writes in her first memoir. But after a few minutes on Dr. Phil’s show, speaking to an audience of about 6 million viewers, “I might have done more good than in an entire year as a professor,” she says. “Maybe that was a better way to make a difference.”)

Warren has found some success translating that role to the resistance movement that took hold after Trump’s inauguration. She turned a confrontation on the Senate floor last year into her own ubiquitous rallying cry — “Nevertheless, she persisted” — putting the word “PERSIST” across campaign bumper stickers and placards, in digital ads and new stump speech lines.

On the left, the prospect of a Warren-Sanders primary fight in 2020, with one progressive giant up against the other, is already a source of angst and apprehension and sometimes dread.

“There’s gonna be a splintering of support for candidates,” said Lenchner. “The question I'm asking is how do you cultivate maximum unity between supporters of Bernie and Warren so that they will enter the race planning and hoping to be on the same side in the final run.”

David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images

Warren raises a clenched fist as she speaks from a podium during a Clinton campaign rally at St Anselm College in 2016.

Some Bernie voters will always remember 2016 as the year that Warren betrayed a fellow progressive. During the primary, she declined to endorse Sanders, remaining neutral until Clinton had already amassed an insurmountable lead in the delegate count. At the Democratic National Convention, when she took the podium, chants of “We trusted you! We trusted you!” filled the Wells Fargo Center. “There’s a looming danger of Bernie supporters saying she's just as bad as the corporate Democrats,” Lenchner said. “She's our best hope if Bernie can't do it.”

For some progressives, Warren is a 2020 candidate who could draw a broader swath of support. The late Joel Silberman, a legendary operative on the left who passed away this month, liked to describe the Massachusetts senator as a “leading” actor and Sanders as a “character” actor. “He’s the Spencer Tracy of the movement,” Silberman said earlier this year. “She’s the Katharine Hepburn. She’s a leading player. That’s the distinction for me when I look at the two of them.”

Podesta, the former Clinton campaign chairman who founded the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress, said Warren could play better with some of the voters who backed his candidate over Sanders in 2016: “traditionally liberal Democrats,” he said. “I think Bernie’s thing plays better with younger voters, because he’s so angry. I’m not talking about being angry at Trump. I’m talking about being angry at the world. She doesn’t carry that with her.”

“They’re overlapping bell curves,” Podesta said, “but they’re not the same.”

Sometime last year, the progressive group most closely aligned with the senator, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, changed its logo: “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party” became “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren wing of American politics.”

“The question I'm asking is how do you cultivate maximum unity between supporters of Bernie and Warren so that they will enter the race planning and hoping to be on the same side in the final run."

The subtle but significant tweak, according to PCCC co-founder Adam Green, reflects a shift in the “center of gravity in American politics shifting in a more economic populist direction.” For PCCC members, he said, that movement is still most closely associated with Warren. “We’re the Warren people,” said Green. “Her credibility as a leader within the progressive movement is as high as it was four years ago, but Bernie is certainly a new major force. That’s fair.”

See the two together, and it also becomes obvious.

A few months ago, in February, Sanders walked into the Macaroni Grill near Gate K2 in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Inside, Warren was already seated at a nearby table, finishing her meal, according to a person present. When he approached to say hello, the scene turned. Passersby erupted into applause and cheers. “Progressive food fantasy!” one yelled.

A few weeks later, at a training for progressives hosted by PCCC, both senators spoke to a crowd of activists and candidates at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Organizers passed out “Elizabeth Warren wing of American Politics” t-shirts at the start of the event. But it was Sanders whom attendees chased outside the ballroom. When he moved to the courtyard behind the hotel, people crowded the double doors overlooking the patio, their faces pressed to the glass.

“Can I snap a photo?” one woman asked, staging a selfie from inside the hotel.

"I just want to look at him," another said.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Sanders earlier this year in Memphis.

For the first time since she entered politics, mapping out each step in her plans for the Senate, Elizabeth Warren is facing an uncertain strategic fork: the 2020 presidential race.

It's a possibility she's approached like any other tactical pursuit: with careful, incremental planning meant to give herself the option to run a strong campaign should she decide to get in the race. She's done the travel, speaking to Democrats in early-voting states like Nevada. She's done the party-building, setting aside $5,000 earlier this year for every state party. And she’s treated her Senate reelection this year as a staging ground for something bigger. (The sizeable campaign staff in Massachusetts, according to two people familiar with the operation, notably includes a team of researchers combing through reams of material, positive and negative, on Warren herself: "self research," as it’s called — a prerequisite for any presidential candidate.)

The prep work, at the least, is a sign that Warren is pursuing the idea of 2020 primary more seriously than she ever did in 2016. Four years ago, she says in her new memoir, “my heart wasn’t in it.” (As she tells in that book, the closest she got was a late-night conversation with her husband, Bruce Mann. They were at home in Cambridge, sitting on the couch in their bedroom under a blanket. “I asked him: Would you be okay if I ran?” she recalls. “Bruce said yes, and I smiled in the dark. I didn’t believe him, but it was the right answer. And I knew what the right answer was for me too. Talking with Bruce and asking the question out loud had settled it.”)

But for neither Warren nor Sanders is that "fantasy" partnership a major part of the other's plans for the Senate and beyond. They refer to one another as “my good friend.” It’s a warm relationship, and one that goes back more than a decade, but it is most of all a working relationship. (“You remember the people who were nice to you before you didn't matter,” one veteran Democrat said. “Elizabeth Warren was nice to him when he didn't matter.”)

If anything, their allies say, the two senators view one another as a source of validation. For Warren, Sanders’ success is proof of what she and her team told Clinton early on in 2016: that she should heed voters’ real thirst for progressive populism. And for the Vermont senator, Warren is a close partner who understand the grassroots better than most Democrats.

Four years ago, at least for Sanders, it was different.

Bill Press, a longtime Democratic strategist who hosted a series of planning meetings for Sanders and his top aides when he was weighing a primary challenge against Clinton, has said the senator’s main concern at the time was putting progressive issues “front and center.”

“And if somebody else did it, fine,” Press said in a 2016 interview with C-SPAN.

“And of course the other person at the time, everybody thought, would be Elizabeth Warren. If Elizabeth Warren had run, I'm pretty confident saying Bernie Sanders would never have run.”

Two years later, ask the question again — if one of them runs in 2020, would it be enough for the other to get out of the way? — and for people on both sides, the response is the same.

The answer, for now, is no. ●

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Warren pats Sen. Bernie Sanders on the back last year.

via BuzzFeed News

[sundaymomma-ing]

This is the day. Ten years ago on this very day I became a mother. I remember so many details from this child coming into the world. I’d love to share them all here and regale you all with the details of her birth story, but I won’t. I realize that, apart from select circles of women, sharing birth stories is like sharing vacation photos. As you can imagine, I have been reflecting on the birth of my girl. I’ve been trying to figure out how much I’ve changed over the past ten years. I wonder this morning, if 28-year-old-me would recognize now-me?

It is safe to say that I did not navigate the first ten years of mothering only to get to this place unchanged. I not only mothered my baby girl, but when she was only a year and a half old our lives were changed forever. With that change came two children that I’ve had the privilege to take part in raising. Two kids who were barely 10 and 13 when my baby was not yet two. That alone has changed me more than I knew was possible. We’ve made two more babies and a home and a life in these years and when I look back I see only good.

So in all of this, what are my take-aways from ten years of mothering kids at every stage? I made a list and I think it’s the best way to share where I’m at mentally after all this time. First off; Things I learned from labor:

In the labor and delivery room as well as in life you must advocate for yourself. Everyone else in that room, and in life, believes that they know all of the things and that they have the best for you and your child in mind. When in actuality, only you know yourself, there is no one in this world who will have to deal with your decisions or their consequences more greatly than you. And so you must tell people what you know to be best for you. You must speak actual words and put all of your belief behind them. You can not, should not, allow others to make your choices. Not in labor and not in life.

You’ll throw up a lot. Okay, so maybe I knew this before labor, but the message was really driven home in the hours preceding the births of my children. When I was first in labor I had no idea that I would vomit, no one told me this was a possibility. This seems to be the story of my life! I had no idea that so many things were even possible for me when I was young, no one told me and so I believed my small world was all there was. Had someone just spoken a few well timed words to me, my life would have been filled with different experiences. This lesson is more that life is messy, there is sadness, and brokenness that must be lived through. It’s also a reminder to me to tell someone else that while life is full of hard things, they were made to do this exact hard thing! And then do it with them, because the people who hold your hair back, they are keepers.

You are stronger than you know. Laboring to bring a child into this world is easily the most difficult yet empowering thing that I’ve ever done. In delivering my babies I learned that I am capable, I have strength. Truly. In being a mother I’ve learned that mothering will open your eyes to how you don’t stop delivering your children. It’s not a single act. I feel like the strength found in me while laboring to bring babies earth-side sustains me through the early years. How else can one explain being able to mother (sorta) well on weeks of minimal sleep because a preschooler refuses rest?

Stubbornness is, like, a really good thing. During labor my stubbornness really came out. I wanted my babies to be birthed a certain way and I was determined to make that happen, regardless of how difficult it was. I can see how this stubbornness is all encompassing. It allows you to stand on your soapbox even when no one is listening. How you’ll press through all of the really hard years. How you will keep giving your best when you feel there is no more to give. Being stubborn, determined, strong-willed has carried me through the past ten years. I don’t doubt that it will serve me well in the years of mothering I have ahead of me.

The things I’ve learned from being a mom are no less meaningful. Jumping in at the midpoint of a child’s life is not easy, but it is educational. Homeschooling littles has its own way of teaching the teacher. The lessons from the last ten years could fill a book, and perhaps one day they will. Here are the most apparent to me as I look back.

Nothing goes as planned. Not one, teeny, tiny, microscopic thing. Every time I feel I have something figured out, that thing will flip inside out and I’ll be lost again. Babies sleep, you fall exhausted to your cozy bed, the babe wakes. Littles play sweetly together, you swap the laundry, littles are bashing each other with their toys. A teenager texts to get your opinion on a moral issue she’s facing, you cautiously reply, she does not speak to you for the next three days. I don’t get it, but I do understand that I will not “get it” and that it’s okay. One day, when I feel like everything is figured out, my children will likely all be grown. Change is the constant in mothering and I suppose out there in “real life” as well. Learning to live through all of the change and chaos makes me a stronger person.

Time is sketchy. You’ve heard it; “The days are long, but the years are short.” Sometimes a week with my children lasts 4,768 hours. Yet, as I look back at specific events that have happened over the last decade, some of them seem to have happened moments ago. How is this possible? There is only one reasonable explanation, time does not move in a straight line, it flows much more like a river. I believe this firmly, it’s a theory that you will not convince me to abandon. There is no other possible reason why four weeks of my tiny sleeping fitfully seems to have lasted more like four years, but I can recall holding her just-born self in my arms (what feels like) just this morning! If nothing else, I have learned that the time is fleeting and I can not cause it to be still during the good or hurry through the hard.

Lessons must be encountered repeatedly to be learned. My children have taught me this, I feel like every time we are working on a difficult life lesson, I have to be reminded that they will need to be told this same thing a minimum of 76 times before the lesson sticks. Human children don’t seem to be able to master a concept until they have come across it multiple times and I have not yet been able to remember this either. In my mothering I am constantly reminded that I’ll be doing this again, whatever “this” may be. I read somewhere, more than once, that the things we most struggle to learn will continue to circle back to us as our struggles. Once we have learned what we need, a new challenge will present itself, but not until we are ready for it.

Stubbornness is, like, not a good thing at all. I know what I said before, but I was wrong! At least it’s not good when you mother many stubborn people who would sooner walk barefoot through the snow than put on their own shoes. When you have strong-willed children-and you don’t want to break them, you have to allow yourself to be broken a bit. This is hard, maybe harder than giving birth. Allowing your people to listen to their own internal voice, to follow what is right for them, to not give them the answers…this might just break me a lot. Some days I want to scream, some days I do. There are days though when I see that they are becoming, growing into themselves, exploring the bigger versions of who they are now, those brief glimpses make the tears worth it.

  Finally the things I’ve learned about myself as I look back over the past ten years. These are things I’ve written about; I need white space; quiet, to be well. Seeking after God is the best choice, one that I make every day. Sometimes you just need to get your hands dirty, or; why gardening is awesome. The things that you bury deep will continue to call to you. So many more. I think that the person I was ten years ago would be proud to be the person I am now. While I’ve lived through the yuck, I’ve learned a lot and knowledge is not wasted on those who will listen.

A last thought if you’ll indulge me a few more words. With a large, blended together family things are not easy. We know that we have introduced a lot of the hard into our days, there is no need to tell us. The best things have also come through this joining of people. Last night we had birthday dinner. My big kids were home, we all took time. We sat together, deliberately. We avoided our smart phones, we laughed, we talked, we ate. This is the best lesson for me, one that I never thought I’d want or need. Bringing my people together is what brings me the absolute most joy. I pray that my kids will continue to come to my table as they grow and change and become, I pray it nearly every day. Family dinner can make all of the hard seem less than, it can bring some peace. And any peace found while mothering is a blessed relief and a true joy.

    Ten This is the day. Ten years ago on this very day I became a mother. I remember so many details from this child coming into the world.

[glenmenlow]

What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly

Ford Motor Company’s resident futurist Sheryl Connelly has been forecasting consumer trends with a blend of qual and quant insights for the last few years. She uses a big global survey of consumers to inform her opinions and then shapes a trends report which the company started sharing publicly in 2012.

Let the debate begin about Connelly’s choices for the 2018 Looking Further with Ford Trends Report, her sixth annual outlook that takes the pulse of consumers, reads the economic winds and parses what it all means for marketers, and not just Ford. Her top 10 trends are a fascinating reflection of consumers’ mindsets as we adapt to the accelerating forces of cultural and political polarization, technological obsolescence and disruption and digital ubiquity.

The current mood, Connelly finds, is a general feeling of consumer anxiety, even as economies strengthen and incomes and job opportunities grow around the world: more than half (54%) of adults participating in Ford’s global study this year said that they feel more stressed than they did a year ago.

“This moment in time is unique in its anxiety and its sense of being overwhelmed,” Connelly told brandchannel. “And it’s not a specifically American point of view. The UK, India and Spain, for instance, have their own issues, too.”

But that doesn’t mean a feeling of hopelessness or paralysis, as Connelly states in her 2018 consumer outlook: “Shifting global priorities, rampant political upheaval, and a spotlight on social inequity have upended the status quo and left many disoriented. But out of the chaos and conflict, a new energy and creativity is motivating people like never before. From compassion and guilt to heightened activism, most adults believe their actions have the power to influence positive change.”

Key data points from Ford’s new global research report:

39% of adults say they do not mind sharing their personal information with companies, but 60% say they are frustrated by how much of their information has become public

76% of adults around the world say they find it creepy when companies know too much about them

52% of adults say they believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good, but 61% say they are hopeful about a future of autonomous vehicles

68% of adults say they are overwhelmed by suffering in the world today, and 51% say they feel guilty for not doing more to make the world better

81% of adults say they are concerned about the widening gap between the rich and the poor

73% of adults say they should take better care of their emotional well-being

54% of adults globally say they feel more stressed out than they did a year ago, and among 18- to 29-year-olds, that number is even higher, at 65%.

And the top 10 consumer trends coming out of the research:

The Edge of Reason: “Across the world, people are overwhelmed by the change affecting everything from politics to pop culture—and consumers are hungry for inventive ways to cope and adapt,” the report said. Case in point: 80% of U.S. adults surveyed find that people are increasingly intolerant of opposing views.

The Activist Awakening: 52% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 surveyed by Ford say they expect brands to take a stand on political issues. “Thanks to the culture of polarization, consumers are being jolted out of complacency. Individuals are debating the change we need, unafraid to topple the conventional wisdom and expectations.”

Minding the Gap: “Worldwide, the spotlight is on inequality. Activists and entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways to improve access to quality education, increase productive employment, close wage gaps and provide everyone with affordable access to basic living standards and infrastructure.”

The Compassionate Conscience: 76% of adults Ford surveyed globally believe their actions can influence positive change. “With an omnipresent news cycle, consumers are more aware of the challenges people face across the world—and more reflective of their role in society.”

Mending the Mind: “Slowly, consumer and institutions are realizing that you cannot have a healthy body unless you have a healthy mind. As such, mental health and well-being are coming to the forefront as issues that individuals, governments and companies need to address.”

Retail Therapy: “Many consumers are on the endless hunt for something new and different—and they’re rethinking how material goods and services can bring them happiness.” For instance, 66% of adults globally between the ages of 18 and 29 think that the experience of shopping is more enjoyable than the actual purchase.

Helplessly Exposed: “Big Data claims to be able to interpret our behaviors, which in theory should help consumers—yet it also can come with Big Bias. Consumers are ramping up the pressure on companies to be accountable and act responsibly.”

Technology’s Tipping Point: “Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and autonomous technology are here, integrating into our daily lives. Across the globe, humans are asking: what does the onslaught of intelligent technology mean for us as a society, and will it make a more positive impact than we thought?” Interestingly, 52% of those surveyed by Ford believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good.

Singled Out: “Are marriage and parenthood still the desired norms for happy living? More and more people are rethinking commitment and fulfillment, with more choices at their fingertips and longer life spans to consider.”

Big Plans for Big Cities: “By 2050, roughly 75% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. To capitalize on the full potential of cities—to keep them happy and healthy places to live—we must be smart and mindful about planning.”

For more insights on the data and analysis, we spoke with Connelly about what she’s seeing and what it means for consumers, Ford and other brands:

Sheryl, how would you summarize the difference between Ford’s first public trends report in 2012 and this latest research that you’re sharing?

This is our sixth annual report, but I’ve been doing it for 14 years. They’re near-term and easier to call because they’re microtrends. But this report is decidedly different from the reports that we’ve put forth in the last five years, a true reflection of where the world stands right now. In 2012, the world was still reeling from the global recession and there was a lot of uncertainty. What I found surprising was how widespread that feeling was [now].

To what extent is this current anxiety a result of feeling bombarded with political news and other people’s views across traditional and social media? 

We don’t know what anyone else is thinking because we’re so polarized that we’re unwilling to engage in debate. I made as purposeful an effort to be as balanced as possible. Some people say ‘At last world order is being restored and it’s long overdue.’ And some people feel it’s the beginning of the end and are wallowing in anxiety and discontent.

We’re overwhelmed by the changes taking place and it’s left us feeling uncertain. But three-quarters said they believe in the individual’s ability to bring out change. Engagement is at an all-time high and there’s awareness and desire to become educated in matters that are important to them. It’s really driving how we live. I’m more conversant on politics, for example, than I’ve ever been before.

Your latest research finds that a majority of adults between 18 and 29, with smaller percentages for older cohorts, believe that brands should take a stand on political issues. What should CEOs and brands do?

This is really the question. This is a difficult one. Companies that have a clear set of values are in a better position than others. Ford is an example. I don’t think of us as a very political company, but in early January when there was a move to ban some immigrants (from entering the U.S.), Ford made a statement that it goes against what we stand for.

One of the trends we identified is The Compassionate Conscience. That’s about the good work you do in a community. This calls out the trend from the past year that we’ve been witness to some horrific tragedies like the hurricanes, and the coverage made it impossible for many people not to respond to the problems of others.

How is “The Compassionate Conscience” playing out at Ford?

There’s an ongoing conversation about what kind of role do we play at a company like Ford and how we stand on those issues. For example, [Ford Executive Chairman] Bill Ford put a volunteer corps together years ago and it gives people license to step away from their day job and do community service. He amped that up with the Bill Ford Better World Challenge, (a global grant program) where he asked individuals to suggest solutions—he personally contributes to it—and a global caring month of volunteerism in September. We’re also embedding this into our culture with “30 Under 30,” asking Ford people to nominate themselves to create best-in-class community engagement initiatives. This next generation of Ford philanthropic leaders receives mentoring from our leadership team.

Let’s talk about the “Helplessly Exposed” trend—what’s going on there?

Privacy is always about give and take. I’m happy to share my information with a business as long as they’re transparent about it. Like having my credit card information on Amazon: I can be on any computer in the house and I don’t have to hunt down my credit card. But there’s risk in keeping that information somewhere on the world wide web.

There are patterns of behavior and things that we do where we’re not always mindful they’re being collected, such as algorithms on a search engine. By improving search efficiency they’re building a profile about you that biases the information you receive, and no one tells you that. That feeds into the “Edge of Reason” because that echo chamber is so loud.

“Retail Therapy” is another interesting trend as it’s more than just “treat yourself.” Can you shed more light on that?

Everyone talks about how bricks and mortar (retail) is dead and online is the key to the future. But [Apple senior vice president of retail] Angela Ahrendts says only about 35% of purchases take place online, and she believes there’s a movement afoot to bring people together and now they think of the Apple store as a space that’s a town hall or place of community and not always geared to sell something. They want to bring people together who have an affinity or shared passion or teachable point of view, such as classes about how to better use the camera on your phone. I found that fascinating.

Three other brands have a similar take on it: Restoration Hardware, which has turned showrooms into places to lounge; Nordstrom Local [where they do your nails and serve you coffee while you wait for garment alterations]; and Ford’s Hub in New York City. Another interesting thing is that it’s all about the brand experience—it’s a new way to engage.

Also not as obvious in Retail Therapy is the notion of “the hedonic treadmill”—that we all have a baseline of happiness and a natural resting state on that scale. If you win the lottery you’re never going to be as happy as you hoped, for instance. We often turn to shopping to elevate that hedonic level. I’m fascinated by that. Gamblers would have a similar kind of thing. That’s what brands are trying to do: extend that fascination people have with a new product.

For more, visit FordTrends.com — and get more insights in our Q&A series.

The post What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly appeared first on brandchannel:.

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[joejstrickl]

What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly

Ford Motor Company’s resident futurist Sheryl Connelly has been forecasting consumer trends with a blend of qual and quant insights for the last few years. She uses a big global survey of consumers to inform her opinions and then shapes a trends report which the company started sharing publicly in 2012.

Let the debate begin about Connelly’s choices for the 2018 Looking Further with Ford Trends Report, her sixth annual outlook that takes the pulse of consumers, reads the economic winds and parses what it all means for marketers, and not just Ford. Her top 10 trends are a fascinating reflection of consumers’ mindsets as we adapt to the accelerating forces of cultural and political polarization, technological obsolescence and disruption and digital ubiquity.

The current mood, Connelly finds, is a general feeling of consumer anxiety, even as economies strengthen and incomes and job opportunities grow around the world: more than half (54%) of adults participating in Ford’s global study this year said that they feel more stressed than they did a year ago.

“This moment in time is unique in its anxiety and its sense of being overwhelmed,” Connelly told brandchannel. “And it’s not a specifically American point of view. The UK, India and Spain, for instance, have their own issues, too.”

But that doesn’t mean a feeling of hopelessness or paralysis, as Connelly states in her 2018 consumer outlook: “Shifting global priorities, rampant political upheaval, and a spotlight on social inequity have upended the status quo and left many disoriented. But out of the chaos and conflict, a new energy and creativity is motivating people like never before. From compassion and guilt to heightened activism, most adults believe their actions have the power to influence positive change.”

Key data points from Ford’s new global research report:

39% of adults say they do not mind sharing their personal information with companies, but 60% say they are frustrated by how much of their information has become public

76% of adults around the world say they find it creepy when companies know too much about them

52% of adults say they believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good, but 61% say they are hopeful about a future of autonomous vehicles

68% of adults say they are overwhelmed by suffering in the world today, and 51% say they feel guilty for not doing more to make the world better

81% of adults say they are concerned about the widening gap between the rich and the poor

73% of adults say they should take better care of their emotional well-being

54% of adults globally say they feel more stressed out than they did a year ago, and among 18- to 29-year-olds, that number is even higher, at 65%.

And the top 10 consumer trends coming out of the research:

The Edge of Reason: “Across the world, people are overwhelmed by the change affecting everything from politics to pop culture—and consumers are hungry for inventive ways to cope and adapt,” the report said. Case in point: 80% of U.S. adults surveyed find that people are increasingly intolerant of opposing views.

The Activist Awakening: 52% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 surveyed by Ford say they expect brands to take a stand on political issues. “Thanks to the culture of polarization, consumers are being jolted out of complacency. Individuals are debating the change we need, unafraid to topple the conventional wisdom and expectations.”

Minding the Gap: “Worldwide, the spotlight is on inequality. Activists and entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways to improve access to quality education, increase productive employment, close wage gaps and provide everyone with affordable access to basic living standards and infrastructure.”

The Compassionate Conscience: 76% of adults Ford surveyed globally believe their actions can influence positive change. “With an omnipresent news cycle, consumers are more aware of the challenges people face across the world—and more reflective of their role in society.”

Mending the Mind: “Slowly, consumer and institutions are realizing that you cannot have a healthy body unless you have a healthy mind. As such, mental health and well-being are coming to the forefront as issues that individuals, governments and companies need to address.”

Retail Therapy: “Many consumers are on the endless hunt for something new and different—and they’re rethinking how material goods and services can bring them happiness.” For instance, 66% of adults globally between the ages of 18 and 29 think that the experience of shopping is more enjoyable than the actual purchase.

Helplessly Exposed: “Big Data claims to be able to interpret our behaviors, which in theory should help consumers—yet it also can come with Big Bias. Consumers are ramping up the pressure on companies to be accountable and act responsibly.”

Technology’s Tipping Point: “Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and autonomous technology are here, integrating into our daily lives. Across the globe, humans are asking: what does the onslaught of intelligent technology mean for us as a society, and will it make a more positive impact than we thought?” Interestingly, 52% of those surveyed by Ford believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good.

Singled Out: “Are marriage and parenthood still the desired norms for happy living? More and more people are rethinking commitment and fulfillment, with more choices at their fingertips and longer life spans to consider.”

Big Plans for Big Cities: “By 2050, roughly 75% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. To capitalize on the full potential of cities—to keep them happy and healthy places to live—we must be smart and mindful about planning.”

For more insights on the data and analysis, we spoke with Connelly about what she’s seeing and what it means for consumers, Ford and other brands:

Sheryl, how would you summarize the difference between Ford’s first public trends report in 2012 and this latest research that you’re sharing?

This is our sixth annual report, but I’ve been doing it for 14 years. They’re near-term and easier to call because they’re microtrends. But this report is decidedly different from the reports that we’ve put forth in the last five years, a true reflection of where the world stands right now. In 2012, the world was still reeling from the global recession and there was a lot of uncertainty. What I found surprising was how widespread that feeling was [now].

To what extent is this current anxiety a result of feeling bombarded with political news and other people’s views across traditional and social media? 

We don’t know what anyone else is thinking because we’re so polarized that we’re unwilling to engage in debate. I made as purposeful an effort to be as balanced as possible. Some people say ‘At last world order is being restored and it’s long overdue.’ And some people feel it’s the beginning of the end and are wallowing in anxiety and discontent.

We’re overwhelmed by the changes taking place and it’s left us feeling uncertain. But three-quarters said they believe in the individual’s ability to bring out change. Engagement is at an all-time high and there’s awareness and desire to become educated in matters that are important to them. It’s really driving how we live. I’m more conversant on politics, for example, than I’ve ever been before.

Your latest research finds that a majority of adults between 18 and 29, with smaller percentages for older cohorts, believe that brands should take a stand on political issues. What should CEOs and brands do?

This is really the question. This is a difficult one. Companies that have a clear set of values are in a better position than others. Ford is an example. I don’t think of us as a very political company, but in early January when there was a move to ban some immigrants (from entering the U.S.), Ford made a statement that it goes against what we stand for.

One of the trends we identified is The Compassionate Conscience. That’s about the good work you do in a community. This calls out the trend from the past year that we’ve been witness to some horrific tragedies like the hurricanes, and the coverage made it impossible for many people not to respond to the problems of others.

How is “The Compassionate Conscience” playing out at Ford?

There’s an ongoing conversation about what kind of role do we play at a company like Ford and how we stand on those issues. For example, [Ford Executive Chairman] Bill Ford put a volunteer corps together years ago and it gives people license to step away from their day job and do community service. He amped that up with the Bill Ford Better World Challenge, (a global grant program) where he asked individuals to suggest solutions—he personally contributes to it—and a global caring month of volunteerism in September. We’re also embedding this into our culture with “30 Under 30,” asking Ford people to nominate themselves to create best-in-class community engagement initiatives. This next generation of Ford philanthropic leaders receives mentoring from our leadership team.

Let’s talk about the “Helplessly Exposed” trend—what’s going on there?

Privacy is always about give and take. I’m happy to share my information with a business as long as they’re transparent about it. Like having my credit card information on Amazon: I can be on any computer in the house and I don’t have to hunt down my credit card. But there’s risk in keeping that information somewhere on the world wide web.

There are patterns of behavior and things that we do where we’re not always mindful they’re being collected, such as algorithms on a search engine. By improving search efficiency they’re building a profile about you that biases the information you receive, and no one tells you that. That feeds into the “Edge of Reason” because that echo chamber is so loud.

“Retail Therapy” is another interesting trend as it’s more than just “treat yourself.” Can you shed more light on that?

Everyone talks about how bricks and mortar (retail) is dead and online is the key to the future. But [Apple senior vice president of retail] Angela Ahrendts says only about 35% of purchases take place online, and she believes there’s a movement afoot to bring people together and now they think of the Apple store as a space that’s a town hall or place of community and not always geared to sell something. They want to bring people together who have an affinity or shared passion or teachable point of view, such as classes about how to better use the camera on your phone. I found that fascinating.

Three other brands have a similar take on it: Restoration Hardware, which has turned showrooms into places to lounge; Nordstrom Local [where they do your nails and serve you coffee while you wait for garment alterations]; and Ford’s Hub in New York City. Another interesting thing is that it’s all about the brand experience—it’s a new way to engage.

Also not as obvious in Retail Therapy is the notion of “the hedonic treadmill”—that we all have a baseline of happiness and a natural resting state on that scale. If you win the lottery you’re never going to be as happy as you hoped, for instance. We often turn to shopping to elevate that hedonic level. I’m fascinated by that. Gamblers would have a similar kind of thing. That’s what brands are trying to do: extend that fascination people have with a new product.

For more, visit FordTrends.com — and get more insights in our Q&A series.

The post What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly appeared first on brandchannel:.

[sorakazeno]

Chaos Theory Act 76

Little more SeiUsa wrapped in this one.

Until that lavender haired girl starts causing trouble...

If you've hated Shiori a lot so far... you haven't seen nothing yet!!! Please don't kill me for that cliffhanger.

SM Villains Week shorts start tomorrow! I wrote 5 short stories for the event. All of them take place in Chaos Theory and reveal some more about the mysterious purple haired lady, including her name! I think it took me almost a year to come up with a name for her other than "Big Bad" as I wrote in my notes.

The shorts mean Act 77 is going to be pushed back a week.

Teaser will be posted on 10/19

Full act on 10/26

Getting ready for another NaNoWriMo in November and writing another 50,000 words for this story! I've outlined Acts 78 to 83 so far. Super excited to write Act 83.

A03

Wattpad

Fanfiction.net

[markjsousa]

What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly

Ford Motor Company’s resident futurist Sheryl Connelly has been forecasting consumer trends with a blend of qual and quant insights for the last few years. She uses a big global survey of consumers to inform her opinions and then shapes a trends report which the company started sharing publicly in 2012.

Let the debate begin about Connelly’s choices for the 2018 Looking Further with Ford Trends Report, her sixth annual outlook that takes the pulse of consumers, reads the economic winds and parses what it all means for marketers, and not just Ford. Her top 10 trends are a fascinating reflection of consumers’ mindsets as we adapt to the accelerating forces of cultural and political polarization, technological obsolescence and disruption and digital ubiquity.

The current mood, Connelly finds, is a general feeling of consumer anxiety, even as economies strengthen and incomes and job opportunities grow around the world: more than half (54%) of adults participating in Ford’s global study this year said that they feel more stressed than they did a year ago.

“This moment in time is unique in its anxiety and its sense of being overwhelmed,” Connelly told brandchannel. “And it’s not a specifically American point of view. The UK, India and Spain, for instance, have their own issues, too.”

But that doesn’t mean a feeling of hopelessness or paralysis, as Connelly states in her 2018 consumer outlook: “Shifting global priorities, rampant political upheaval, and a spotlight on social inequity have upended the status quo and left many disoriented. But out of the chaos and conflict, a new energy and creativity is motivating people like never before. From compassion and guilt to heightened activism, most adults believe their actions have the power to influence positive change.”

Key data points from Ford’s new global research report:

39% of adults say they do not mind sharing their personal information with companies, but 60% say they are frustrated by how much of their information has become public

76% of adults around the world say they find it creepy when companies know too much about them

52% of adults say they believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good, but 61% say they are hopeful about a future of autonomous vehicles

68% of adults say they are overwhelmed by suffering in the world today, and 51% say they feel guilty for not doing more to make the world better

81% of adults say they are concerned about the widening gap between the rich and the poor

73% of adults say they should take better care of their emotional well-being

54% of adults globally say they feel more stressed out than they did a year ago, and among 18- to 29-year-olds, that number is even higher, at 65%.

And the top 10 consumer trends coming out of the research:

The Edge of Reason: “Across the world, people are overwhelmed by the change affecting everything from politics to pop culture—and consumers are hungry for inventive ways to cope and adapt,” the report said. Case in point: 80% of U.S. adults surveyed find that people are increasingly intolerant of opposing views.

The Activist Awakening: 52% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 surveyed by Ford say they expect brands to take a stand on political issues. “Thanks to the culture of polarization, consumers are being jolted out of complacency. Individuals are debating the change we need, unafraid to topple the conventional wisdom and expectations.”

Minding the Gap: “Worldwide, the spotlight is on inequality. Activists and entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways to improve access to quality education, increase productive employment, close wage gaps and provide everyone with affordable access to basic living standards and infrastructure.”

The Compassionate Conscience: 76% of adults Ford surveyed globally believe their actions can influence positive change. “With an omnipresent news cycle, consumers are more aware of the challenges people face across the world—and more reflective of their role in society.”

Mending the Mind: “Slowly, consumer and institutions are realizing that you cannot have a healthy body unless you have a healthy mind. As such, mental health and well-being are coming to the forefront as issues that individuals, governments and companies need to address.”

Retail Therapy: “Many consumers are on the endless hunt for something new and different—and they’re rethinking how material goods and services can bring them happiness.” For instance, 66% of adults globally between the ages of 18 and 29 think that the experience of shopping is more enjoyable than the actual purchase.

Helplessly Exposed: “Big Data claims to be able to interpret our behaviors, which in theory should help consumers—yet it also can come with Big Bias. Consumers are ramping up the pressure on companies to be accountable and act responsibly.”

Technology’s Tipping Point: “Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and autonomous technology are here, integrating into our daily lives. Across the globe, humans are asking: what does the onslaught of intelligent technology mean for us as a society, and will it make a more positive impact than we thought?” Interestingly, 52% of those surveyed by Ford believe artificial intelligence will do more harm than good.

Singled Out: “Are marriage and parenthood still the desired norms for happy living? More and more people are rethinking commitment and fulfillment, with more choices at their fingertips and longer life spans to consider.”

Big Plans for Big Cities: “By 2050, roughly 75% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. To capitalize on the full potential of cities—to keep them happy and healthy places to live—we must be smart and mindful about planning.”

For more insights on the data and analysis, we spoke with Connelly about what she’s seeing and what it means for consumers, Ford and other brands:

Sheryl, how would you summarize the difference between Ford’s first public trends report in 2012 and this latest research that you’re sharing?

This is our sixth annual report, but I’ve been doing it for 14 years. They’re near-term and easier to call because they’re microtrends. But this report is decidedly different from the reports that we’ve put forth in the last five years, a true reflection of where the world stands right now. In 2012, the world was still reeling from the global recession and there was a lot of uncertainty. What I found surprising was how widespread that feeling was [now].

To what extent is this current anxiety a result of feeling bombarded with political news and other people’s views across traditional and social media? 

We don’t know what anyone else is thinking because we’re so polarized that we’re unwilling to engage in debate. I made as purposeful an effort to be as balanced as possible. Some people say ‘At last world order is being restored and it’s long overdue.’ And some people feel it’s the beginning of the end and are wallowing in anxiety and discontent.

We’re overwhelmed by the changes taking place and it’s left us feeling uncertain. But three-quarters said they believe in the individual’s ability to bring out change. Engagement is at an all-time high and there’s awareness and desire to become educated in matters that are important to them. It’s really driving how we live. I’m more conversant on politics, for example, than I’ve ever been before.

Your latest research finds that a majority of adults between 18 and 29, with smaller percentages for older cohorts, believe that brands should take a stand on political issues. What should CEOs and brands do?

This is really the question. This is a difficult one. Companies that have a clear set of values are in a better position than others. Ford is an example. I don’t think of us as a very political company, but in early January when there was a move to ban some immigrants (from entering the U.S.), Ford made a statement that it goes against what we stand for.

One of the trends we identified is The Compassionate Conscience. That’s about the good work you do in a community. This calls out the trend from the past year that we’ve been witness to some horrific tragedies like the hurricanes, and the coverage made it impossible for many people not to respond to the problems of others.

How is “The Compassionate Conscience” playing out at Ford?

There’s an ongoing conversation about what kind of role do we play at a company like Ford and how we stand on those issues. For example, [Ford Executive Chairman] Bill Ford put a volunteer corps together years ago and it gives people license to step away from their day job and do community service. He amped that up with the Bill Ford Better World Challenge, (a global grant program) where he asked individuals to suggest solutions—he personally contributes to it—and a global caring month of volunteerism in September. We’re also embedding this into our culture with “30 Under 30,” asking Ford people to nominate themselves to create best-in-class community engagement initiatives. This next generation of Ford philanthropic leaders receives mentoring from our leadership team.

Let’s talk about the “Helplessly Exposed” trend—what’s going on there?

Privacy is always about give and take. I’m happy to share my information with a business as long as they’re transparent about it. Like having my credit card information on Amazon: I can be on any computer in the house and I don’t have to hunt down my credit card. But there’s risk in keeping that information somewhere on the world wide web.

There are patterns of behavior and things that we do where we’re not always mindful they’re being collected, such as algorithms on a search engine. By improving search efficiency they’re building a profile about you that biases the information you receive, and no one tells you that. That feeds into the “Edge of Reason” because that echo chamber is so loud.

“Retail Therapy” is another interesting trend as it’s more than just “treat yourself.” Can you shed more light on that?

Everyone talks about how bricks and mortar (retail) is dead and online is the key to the future. But [Apple senior vice president of retail] Angela Ahrendts says only about 35% of purchases take place online, and she believes there’s a movement afoot to bring people together and now they think of the Apple store as a space that’s a town hall or place of community and not always geared to sell something. They want to bring people together who have an affinity or shared passion or teachable point of view, such as classes about how to better use the camera on your phone. I found that fascinating.

Three other brands have a similar take on it: Restoration Hardware, which has turned showrooms into places to lounge; Nordstrom Local [where they do your nails and serve you coffee while you wait for garment alterations]; and Ford’s Hub in New York City. Another interesting thing is that it’s all about the brand experience—it’s a new way to engage.

Also not as obvious in Retail Therapy is the notion of “the hedonic treadmill”—that we all have a baseline of happiness and a natural resting state on that scale. If you win the lottery you’re never going to be as happy as you hoped, for instance. We often turn to shopping to elevate that hedonic level. I’m fascinated by that. Gamblers would have a similar kind of thing. That’s what brands are trying to do: extend that fascination people have with a new product.

For more, visit FordTrends.com — and get more insights in our Q&A series.

The post What’s Driving Consumers: 5 Questions With Ford’s Sheryl Connelly appeared first on brandchannel:.

[sorakazeno]

Chaos Theory

Well Act 76 is fully edited and I'm now on the second round of revisions for the villains week shorts. So many easter eggs for this arc and the two after this one. I can't wait.

Outlining the next set of chapters for NaNo in November is going well.... but I don't see how the rest of this arc will be fully outlined by the end of the year. So much I still need to have happen but I don't want to rush it too much.

These two as neighbors... definitely needed to happen. 🤣

Yes that is an actual scene from a musical.

[sorakazeno]

Chaos Theory Act 75

You'll learn more about the new Starlights in training in this chapter. The new Starlights have a lot of interesting questions...

Is Fighter going to be successful as a trainer? Or is she too distracted?

Fighter looks like ballerina here. I can't unsee it. X_X

Have you been waiting for some SeiUsa moments? ❤️ Things are looking up for them in this chapter.

Act 76 Teaser 9/28

Act 76 10/5

10/6 start of Sailor Moon Villains week featuring some shorts and sneak peaks of the insanity to come in the next couple of arcs!!!!

A03

Wattpad

Fanfiction.net

[sorakazeno]

Camp NaNo Complete

I hit my 60,000 word count goal for the month! I wrote Acts 72 - 77 in 25 days! I am not looking forward to editing but that is going to be a Tuesday problem. I need some days of not looking at this story first.

Based on how writing went this month, this will be the posting schedule.

Teasers will be the week before the new act is posted. The first one will be posted on August 3rd for Act 72.

Act 72 - August 10th

Act 73 - August 24th

Act 74 - September 7th

Act 75 - September 21th

Act 76 - October 5th

Sailor Moon Villain's Week October 6th to 12th with some shorts related the mysterious purple haired lady

Act 77 - October 26th

Time to get editing and figure how much I want to share during villains week regarding our villain for this ark before the senshi meet her.

Act 78 will be started during the next NaNoWriMo in November, marking 10 years since I started Chaos Theory. I should probably outline some more chapters too so I'm ready to write in November. There is is so much left to go with this storyline!

[sorakazeno]

Chaos Theory Act 70

Today's chapter features the full and slightly revised version of the scene in the Rare Pair Story "I Could Never Forget You."

This act features the scene that sparked this arc and the next two of Chaos Theory with a wicked cliffhanger at the very end.

Any guesses on what the cliffhanger for Act 70 means?

Teaser for Act 71 will be posted on 6/26 with a big reveal regarding the cliffhanger of this act!

Act 71 to be posted on 6/29.

Act 72 will be released some time in August as well as the teaser. I'm focusing on writing the entire month of July. Currently outlining Act 76.

A03

Fanfiction.net

Wattpad