#class f stimulus

[bargains-by-duckface]

Makes sense Mabayu wouldn't get a doppel, because of her, uh, relationship with the setting. Also because they'd have to show its name.

[coquelicoq]

my two favorite subjects for a painting:

light reflecting off water

a woman sleeping soooo comfy cozy in bed

[rin-and-jade]

'Tis My Cue?: A Post on (system) Triggers | PART 2

Here's a little warm up. Anyone knows the answer for 2 + 2 ? It's 4, right. But you didn't think on how you get the answer, you just knew. Another one, you were on recess and time's up, so you calmly go back to your work/class and stopped kidding around. How did you learn this signal? Yeah... talk about that, Boss.

--

Yippie--part two is here! IF you haven't read the first, here is the link. The first trigger post is more focused on trauma based, fight and flight response,, the second one will truly delve on the process and how triggers affect switches even deeper.. discussing how the subconscious plays a role on making this possible.

TLDR section: Fast Pass Available! Scroll most bottom.

No need for introductions, right?

We already knew that triggers means sparking a fuse--particularly an emotional reaction, which part one explained in-depth. In addition, triggers can also evoke certain memories and actions that were previously learnt.

The types, followed by previous terms, that are most often successful in triggering parts are: Dynamites (thoughts), Landmines (environments), and Grenades (interoception)

Here on, we will only focus on this specific kind of trigger, why they're often strong to evoke a reaction that causes a switch, and short elaboration on the process of shifting through different states of alters.

Bare in mind that these triggers, although usually most successful on facilitating switches, will not mean you would have a 100% guarantee at all times.

The other meaning of a trigger

Outside of the common usage of this word which is often used to create warnings (abbreviation like TW) that is used to prevent negative thoughts from resurfacing, 'trigger' in this today's context resembles closer to a program or a code.

Like alright, i know some of ya'll are game nerds,, this is no different than a minecraft sculk sensor with some redstone contraption.

So, trigger in this context would specifically refer to how you're able to execute or adapt to a necessary task or rules you adhere. A cue, like a 100 meter runner, relies on listening that resembles a bang. In more practical usage, this also can be specific words, environments, or even some favorite words that causes a response. A learnt one.

Now, while all three type of "bombs" have different cues that pulls an alter out, they all still generate the same response that leads to a switch. Just that some are more obvious/external, or more hidden/internal.

So.. how does this work again?

One example: you're a host doing daily chores, a familiar figure suddenly entered your peripheral vision.. it's the one you associate with the most negative experiences at the past.

This encounter generates a copious amount of discomfort alone, which made you wary and unsure how to go by,, high chances, you were expected to endure and hide any negative reactions.

As you slowly begin to worry, the trigger had worked, you then coped by dissociating and everything starts to get fuzzy. Any existing alters who had more resilience or took on a protective role often notice that something is wrong, and so, the trigger was the cue to your brain to start fronting another alter that is more adept on a certain situation.

In conclusion, the process looked like this:

New stimuli -> processes and identify the object/situation -> attempts to react to the stimulus in an appropriate manner -> brain regions associated with priority and behavior are involved -> which brings out the specific alter that is made for a task

Nonetheless, it is an adaption for any person, though for systems,, the speed and awareness to recognize external threats and switching with designated alters varies widely.

Boogie traps?!

Right.. i never explained that how your brain identify triggers like. They don't.

What?!..

Yeah silly... it can't see or hear, it can only know if it is similar to the past, no matter what the relevance seems to be. This is how false alarms happen. False what again? Well, try explaining why you have an alter stranded outside at front that has nothing to do with its current role or proficiency.

Oddly enough, this can also happen if you deviate from your conscious state of being aware of the external world and think of something, or daydream, that may have any subtle cues an alter is familiar with,, good luck being spawned by accident, guys.

...

Im still on topic. Do you know that the efficacy of triggers heavy depend on two things? Yes, the intensity and dissociative-factor.

Why these two? I'd say, the easiest way to explain this is how Intensity helps your brain gauge how serious or urgent the matter is to start adapting with another facet (or parts, in system's pov). While the D-factor is what suppresses your fear response from the 'salience network' which gives way for your 'central executive network', the one that controls priority and task switching, to bring out an alter that is necessary for a task at hand.

Because, if you were not to get knocked out to a dissociative haze, your salience network, which acts as a threat radar, would immediately slam the danger button that activates your 'ventral attention network' which is often related to upkeeping with tasks that require high cognitive/attention demands; The common situation a system would experience: Front stuck.

If you were to not be clutched in a front stuck, it would mean your D-factor suppressed the danger sense from your salience network, creating a catanotic state instead.

If you are seeking for front stuck information, i had a post on my tags, #jeducates or this link instead.

Last words

That's all to it on the second part--oh, and the reason why this is possible is going back to the basics:

Alters are made up of compartmentalized memories, and those who held a specific experience to the situation, will recognize the cue that helps them react appropriately. It is just benign (co-conscious) until a familiar cue caused that whole brain process to perform a switch,, now that's what a trigger is.

--

Oh man, i hope this didn't flop as bad. But what do you guys think? There's so much about triggers and switches that i still can't elaborate due to how advanced and many more studying you guys need in required to fully comprehend it, so i tried to compile this as simple as i could.

Although, i hope this alone is still informative, we've went through the basics on the first part, so this is only for explaining the internal process that people often cannot put to words.

I also intend to release another educative post about phantom limbs by mid-November, please look forward to it if you're interested!

TLDR SECTION

Triggers as Signals: Beyond trauma-based responses, triggers are cues or signals that our brain has learned to respond to, often through past experiences. Some cues, such as specific environments, thoughts, or body sensations, can quickly facilitate a switch to another alter who’s better suited to handle a given situation.

Examples of Triggers: The post focuses on the three most effective types for triggering parts in DID:

Dynamite (Internal triggers like thoughts)

Landmines (External triggers from environments)

Grenades (Physiological triggers like heart rate or pain) Each trigger type has its own way of initiating a switch, often activating a specific alter to manage the experience.

Trigger Process: The process looks something like this:

New stimulus -> Brain registers and identifies it -> Appropriate response begins -> Specific brain regions assess the priority of the reaction -> Triggered alter takes over as needed.

False Alarms & Accidental Switching: Sometimes, “false alarms” occur, where cues remind the brain of past experiences and cause an unnecessary switch, even when the alter’s role doesn’t fit the present situation.

Intensity & Dissociative Factor (D-Factor): Trigger effectiveness depends on two factors:

Intensity: How urgent the brain perceives the stimulus to be.

Dissociative Factor (D-Factor): The degree of dissociation that helps suppress fear and allows the brain’s executive functions to bring out a part who can handle the situation effectively.

How This Affects Switching: When dissociation lowers the "salience network" (our inner alarm system), the brain activates the "central executive network" to manage task-switching, often leading to a co-conscious or full switch. If the brain instead signals high danger, it may create a front-stuck situation where switching becomes harder. If the brain suppresses the danger, it would instead bring you into catatonia.

Final Note: This is a deeper look into triggers beyond trauma. The brain’s use of learned cues to help switch and adapt keeps each alter equipped to handle their own tasks.

- c

[psych0l0gical-effects]

U11A6 SUN APR 16

Content:

-Mastered 9 technologies and pastimes: the radio, the calculator, women riding bikes, reading novels, written word, the newspaper, landline phones, antibiotics, the erasure. 

-Mastered the fundamental principles of learning on which Internet-based higher education capitalizes: Optimal performance, improving mastery, deepening memory, promoting critical thinking, and enhancing writing skills.

-Mastered the challenges that college students face today and how Internet-based education can tackle each challenge: tuition costs, large lectures, accessibility, closed captioning, and synchronous classes

-Mastered what it means that the Internet is manifesting our preference for intransient and asynchronous communication: ins transient and asynchronous is helpful to humans! We can look back on what was communicated and respond at any time. 

-Mastered the guidelines for emailing a professor: using wisc account, use professors last name, write informative heading, use paragraph breaks, dont whine!, and write the body first before putting in professors email address

-Mastered examples of how the internet has accidentally and purposefully made content viral: help wanted, a weird unidentifiable rash, ice bucket challenge, reading rainbow, texts from your ex, Charlie bit my finger, cool wand, school is closed

-Mastered what interpersonal attraction is and how similarity attraction might underlie the success of online dating sites: attraction between people is more than just looks, thus dating apps that are based on just looks are unsuccessful for users 

-Mastered what interpersonal aggression is and how interpersonal aggression might underlie the phenomenon of online bullying and trolling: Interpersonal aggression are peoples reactions in different situations, this can be applied to the phenomenon of online bullying and trolling as these activties are an outcome of our social/cognitive processes. 

-Mastered what emotional contagion is and how emotional contagion might spread through the Internet (e.g., Kramer et al.’s Facebook study): Emotional contagion is the spread of emotions and the behaviors  that come with those emotions non purposefully. Emotional contagion can spread through the internet too, when poeple post certain content it can create the same emotions and then actions from a large amount of poeple in different places in the world!

-Mastered why there are so many photos, gifs, and videos of cats on the Internet and why Internet-users get so much emotional pleasure from watching and sharing photos, gifs, and videos of cats: cats easy to personify, cats are introverts and dogs extroverts, cats outnumber dogs, nobody expencted cats to be funny because dogs did it first

-Mastered Huitt’s (2011) sources of motivation and give one example each of how that source of motivation has affected your use of the Internet: Stimulus response, social, cognitive, affective, cognitive, spiritual 

-Mastered reasons why people binge watch (TV shows or movies): its fun, enables a shared culture, everyone else is doing it, the desire to know what happens next, allows deeper connection with the characters

-Mastered if we can identify photoshopped images on the Internet: short answer, we sometimes can

-Mastered reasons why the Internet is unlikely to be changing our attention: no real evidence, everything we engage in impacts our brain and our brain adapts, mental reoganization happens over evolutionary time, many things impact memory so new tech shouldn’t be feared

-Mastered the 3 primary decision-making heuristics: Representative heuristic, availability heuristic, and anchoring and adjustment 

-Mastered identifying positive effects of Internet use on the cognitive, health, and psychological aspects of aging

-Mastered Identifying positive effects of Internet use on child development: overall, moderate use give the best outcomes 

Reflection:

As I've been putting in an extra two hours every week to jot down what I've learned so far this semester in addition to the unit review sheets, I'm getting the hang of completing them pretty easily. I don't even have to look at old ones! It's pretty cool to see that repetition really does help you master the content. I'm definitely going to use this same approach in my other classes since it's been a massive help. It's a good reminder that getting a good grip on the material won't happen overnight. The section over the course of the semester that has applied the most to my life this week is the primary decision-making heuristics. I keep thinking people are doing things based off of social media, but in reality not that many people are doing said things!

[craigbrownphd]

If you did not already know

modAL modAL is a modular active learning framework for Python, aimed to make active learning research and practice simpler. Its distinguishing features are (i) clear and modular object oriented design (ii) full compatibility with scikit-learn models and workflows. These features make fast prototyping and easy extensibility possible, aiding the development of real-life active learning pipelines and novel algorithms as well. modAL is fully open source, hosted on GitHub at https://…/modAL. To assure code quality, extensive unit tests are provided and continuous integration is applied. In addition, a detailed documentation with several tutorials are also available for ease of use. The framework is available in PyPI and distributed under the MIT license. … Preattentive Processing Pre-attentive processing is the unconscious accumulation of information from the environment. All available information is pre-attentively processed. Then, the brain filters and processes what is important. Information that has the highest salience (a stimulus that stands out the most) or relevance to what a person is thinking about is selected for further and more complete analysis by conscious (attentive) processing. Understanding how pre-attentive processing works is useful in advertising, in education, and for prediction of cognitive ability. … Forgiver-First Aggregation (F2A) This work addresses a new problem of learning generative adversarial networks (GANs) from multiple data collections that are each i) owned separately and privately by different clients and ii) drawn from a non-identical distribution that comprises different classes. Given such multi-client and non-iid data as input, we aim to achieve a distribution involving all the classes input data can belong to, while keeping the data decentralized and private in each client storage. Our key contribution to this end is a new decentralized approach for learning GANs from non-iid data called Forgiver-First Update (F2U), which a) asks clients to train an individual discriminator with their own data and b) updates a generator to fool the most `forgiving’ discriminators who deem generated samples as the most real. Our theoretical analysis proves that this updating strategy indeed allows the decentralized GAN to learn a generator’s distribution with all the input classes as its global optimum based on f-divergence minimization. Moreover, we propose a relaxed version of F2U called Forgiver-First Aggregation (F2A), which adaptively aggregates the discriminators while emphasizing forgiving ones to perform well in practice. Our empirical evaluations with image generation tasks demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach over state-of-the-art decentralized learning methods. … Whittemore This paper introduces Whittemore, a language for causal programming. Causal programming is based on the theory of structural causal models and consists of two primary operations: identification, which finds formulas that compute causal queries, and estimation, which applies formulas to transform probability distributions to other probability distribution. Causal programming provides abstractions to declare models, queries, and distributions with syntax similar to standard mathematical notation, and conducts rigorous causal inference, without requiring detailed knowledge of the underlying algorithms. Examples of causal inference with real data are provided, along with discussion of the implementation and possibilities for future extension. … https://analytixon.com/2023/01/04/if-you-did-not-already-know-1928/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[aberrate]

12 year old Richard Duculan nick named Zag, is currently in the hospital in the Philippines.

My wife's family adopted zag and his twin brother zig, when they were on the brink of death as infants. Though they are no longer on the brink of starvation they still suffer from countless medical issues such as epileptic seizures.

On the morning of 01/29/2020, Zag was not able to smile or use the muscles on his face and was not able to swallow. He is currently at the hospital with a feeding tube inserted. They have diagnosed him with Gillain-Barre SyndromeGuillain-Barre syndrome is a serious condition that requires immediate hospitalization because it can worsen rapidly. The sooner appropriate treatment is started, the better the chance of a good outcome.

Zag is bright kid usually in the top of his class. My mother in law and her sibling, even though they didn't have much took in two more children so they wouldn't starve. Now they need a little help to make sure that one of the children can get treatment.In the Philippines treatment cannot start until payment has been made.

The hospital is requesting they get 450,000 PHP ($9300 USD) for treatment to start or they will just send him home. We have sent all our savings and our stimulus for his current bills, we need help on his treatment. We wish we didn't ask for help but have accepted that his treatment cannot be delayed. Anything helps, thank you.

Note: i’m not involved directly, but i can confirm that in the Philippines they do not ever start treatment before getting paid. you also have to pay the ambulance before they bother lifting you to the hospital.

GFM link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Help4zag

DONATED:

$750/9000

@mutualaidreblogs @mutual-aid-resources @donationboost @donationsblog @justsomeantifas

[bowiebond]

now you've got me thinking about autistic eddie/jason. helping each other study not because either of them are particularly good at it but they each have their strengths and own little ways of coping that help each other in their problem classes. jason's still an asshole but eddie's been helping him in english and maybe now he smiles a little when eddie gets all dramatic in the lunch room because he knows what a knack for storytelling he really has.

Jason who studies enough to pass so he doesn’t get booted off the team, but his special interest is sharks (ocean in general) and basketball so he could tell you all about that, ace an assessment on it, but nobody does so he’s passing. Enough to avoid his parents disappointment too (they’re riding on him going to college via a sports scholarship at this rate so he has to at least be passing).

Eddie is pretty much failing every class except English. Which he has a solid C+ in, edging on a B. He’d have an A if his handwriting wasn’t so rushed but he’s got a lot on his brain all the time so every thought needs to come out sooner rather than later or be lost to the void.

Eddie only starts helping Jason because one of the blonds assignments for English falls out of his bag and Eddie’s not entirely an asshole as not to give it back, but he does have every intention on mocking him for being a brainiac alongside a jock since he’s just the perfect golden child but…Jason failed. Like big red F failed. It makes Eddie wince, makes him feel bad because now Jason is just a thick headed jock but even Eddie’s not low enough to poke fun at someone’s grades when his are generally appalling.

Jason snatches it back when he whistles and shakes it in front of his face from behind and almost punches Eddie on the spot to make sure he shuts his mouth, but Eddie offers to tutor him. Him. The guy who’s failed twice in a row.

“They don’t change the assignments, dude. I just recycle mine. I could pass this year no biggie as long as the exams go well. That’s where I fuck up.”

So somehow, Jason ends up with Eddie as his English tutor - and Eddie happens to be pretty decent at math surprisingly, he just can’t focus on the teachers droning voice - and in turn Jason helps him with science and humanities, sports too because Eddie has to pass the exam for PE too if he wants the graduate (turns out he’s actually pretty strong due to carrying around amps, guitars and drum sets, and Jason tries not to stare at his arms. Not as muscled as his but…they’re appealing).

Jason becomes a bit nicer about Eddie’s trailer park home too once he starts going there for tutoring. Eddie’s nice enough to air out the room when he comes by, cause he turns his nose up at the smell of weed and twenty year old stink.

Wayne is apprehensive about the boy since he’s from the upper class in town, and his history with Eddie (though Eddie was just as bad of a culprit when it came to pulling Jason’s pigtails).

Eddie cries sometimes when he studies. Usually makes a noise of frustration and throws his pen when things just won’t come together and Jason is a bit surprised by it, unsure how to comfort him, but if he leaves him to ride it out, eventually Eddie will calm down and pick the pen back up and mumble for him to explain it a little slower this time like he’s embarrassed.

It makes Jason feel better about the times he also gets angry staring at a page too long, when Eddie’s breathing and shifting and the squeak of the floor gets too much and he snaps at him to stop existing for two seconds. Eddie would be offended if he wasn’t so obviously distressed. Eddie usually just leaves the room and lets Jason breath through his anger until it melts away and he’s just…tired. When he’s alone and studying, he just has to deal with the stimulus of himself, having another person can be both handy for his focus but also extremely overstimulating after a long day.

Jason does enjoy the story telling though. Gets a little lost in it. Thinks Eddie is funny. He does these little voices, acts out exaggerated hand gestures and it makes Jason feel like he’s at the theatre almost. It’s good.

They aren’t friends, but they’re close enough for Jason to grin behind his hand and tap the table when Eddie makes his grand speeches now.

[atomicisms]

                                             MINICA FAUST 

                                             pinterest | playlist

B A S I C S

FULL NAME: minica rose faust. NICKNAME(S): minnie BIRTHDAY: april 1st. AGE: twenty - seven  GENDER: cis woman . PLACE OF BIRTH: ashwick SEXUAL ORIENTATION : bisexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic.  SPECIES: Nox Coven Witch. LANGUAGE(S): english. POSITIVE TRAITS : winsome, faithful, whimsical,  NEGATIVE TRAITS: capricious, impatient, anarchic

P H Y S I O L O G Y

HEIGHT IN FEET: Five feet eight inches. ETHNICITY: White. EYE COLOR: Blue. HAIR COLOR: Brunette. GLASSES OR CONTACTS: None. RIGHT OF LEFT HANDED: Left-handed. STYLE IN FASHION: It’s all over the place. HANDWRITING: You can barely read it. SEXUAL HISTORY: Experienced. GENERAL HEALTH: Healthy. MEDICAL HISTORY: Several ER trips for broken bones & stitches. ALLERGIES: None. CHRONIC ILLNESSES: None. MENTAL ILLNESS: Type 1 Bipolar Disorder. HANDICAPS: None.

F A M I L Y / R E L I G I O N

FATHER: Francis Faust. MOTHER: Dahlia Hannigan (deceased). SIBLINGS(S): One older brother. BIRTH ORDER: Last. MARITAL STATUS: Single. SIGNIFICANT OTHER: No one. CHILDREN: None. OTHER RELATIVES: All estranged. FRIENDS: r.i.p ENEMIES: Looking for one. PET(S): A kitten named Cthulhu. LANGUAGE(S): English. CURRENT RESIDENCE: Ashwick PLACES LIVED IN BETWEEN: New York mainly but all over Middle America. DICTATION, ACCENT, ETC: Velma Dinkley, if that counts. RELIGION: Wicca. BELIEFS: The devil will get his due!!!! SUPERSTITIONS: It’s bad luck to cheer with water.

W O R K / H O M E

EDUCATION: GED. Some College. OCCUPATION: Bartender. PLACE OF WORK: The Red Diamond. COWORKERS: ??? STATUS & MONEY: Lower middle class. WORKSPACE: Cluttered. EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: Bartending and several other odd jobs. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: Alone in a one bed. ROOMMATES: None. NEIGHBORS: They exist. MAIN MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: An old beat up VW bug.

P E R S O N A L  S E L E C T I O N

FOOD: Picky with texture.  LITERATURE: Dark romanticism/cosmicism. MUSIC: A bit of everything but mainly classic/punk rock. CINEMA/TELEVISION: Horror and comedies. Black comedies. HOBBIES & RECREATION: Running, roller-skating, swimming, tarot cards. HOW THEY RELAX: Dancing and listening to music. TALENTS: Dancing, piano, skating.

P S Y C H O L O G Y

FEARS: The Unknown. Dying alone. Never being loved. SECRETS:  Set her family home on fire. Past childhood abuse. IQ: Average. SLEEPING HABITS: Incredibly sporadic. EATING HABITS: Snacking. No large meals. GROUPS OR ALONE: Alone. LEADER/FOLLOWER:  Leader. PLANNED/SPONTANEOUS: Spontaneous. JOURNAL ENTRIES: Judgmental theories on other people’s lives. OBSESSIONS: None. ADDICTIONS: She is an adrenaline junkie. AS SEEN BY OTHERS: Crazy. AS SEEN BY SELF:  Crazy but fun.

P E R S O N A L I T Y   T Y P E : E S T P

Extraverted | Sensing | Thinking | Prospecting

Entrepreneurs always have an impact on their immediate surroundings – the best way to spot them at a party is to look for the whirling eddy of people flitting about them as they move from group to group. Laughing and entertaining with a blunt and earthy humor, entrepreneur personalities love to be the center of attention. If an audience member is asked to come on stage, entrepreneurs volunteer – or volunteer a shy friend. Entrepreneurs are the likeliest personality type to make a lifestyle of risky behavior. They live in the moment and dive into the action – they are the eye of the storm. People with the entrepreneur personality type enjoy drama, passion, and pleasure, not for emotional thrills, but because it’s so stimulating to their logical minds. They are forced to make critical decisions based on factual, immediate reality in a process of rapid-fire rational stimulus response.

A S T R O L O G Y

♈︎ SUN : ARIES

The ruler of Aries is the planet Mars, which symbolizes energy, health, fighting spirit and leadership skills. People born under this sign are courageous and decisive in most situations in life. They do any work with enthusiasm and confidence in their abilities, but they often lack deliberation and patience. They have great enthusiasm and desire to always try new things, and they are creative and intelligent enough to handle even the most difficult tasks. They use their extra energy to play sport and they especially like risky and physically demanding types of sport activities. They are physically very talented and courageous and that is the reason why such a high percentage of top athletes were born under this zodiac sign. If they fail, they can get irritated and angry, but their emotions do not last long, because in their essence they are not bad people and it will waste their time. Their occasional impatience is their stumbling block. They should therefore choose friends who they know well and who they trust, so that they will accept their advice and who will slow down and rectify their hastiness. Despite these shortcomings they are people with integrity who like to keep their promises.

♏︎ MOON : SCORPIO

Scorpio Moon in Scorpio creates the need to delve into your feelings as deep as possible and this brings great vulnerability. You never forget anything that was done to you. It’s hard to force you to do anything. Rarely, it is possible to influence you with kindness. You need a deep emotional relationship, even if it is not easy and you are forced to change many things. Shallow relationships do not satisfy you, because they are not purifying enough. You have an unmistakable ability to detect the emotional state of others, even if they try to hide it. This gives you the ability to very effectively hurt or heal others. Your emotions can be extreme, from sympathy to contempt, from passion to coldness. It is necessary to get rid of the fear of betrayal, abandonment, and that you lose what you love. If you do not get rid of your fear, you will lose exactly the things you are afraid of losing.

♊︎ ASCENDANT : GEMINI

Gemini Ascendant is associated with curiosity and interest in how things work. Versatility and adaptability are your advantages, but these traits can lead to fragmentation of interests. These people can do everything, but they do not excel in anything. They do not like to choose only one thing if they have more options. Their mission is to disseminate information. If the horoscope has a water or earth character, then this person needs to develop analytical and objective thinking. If it is of airy and fiery nature, then the mind is very restless, you understand everything very quickly, but only by the head, body and emotions remain untouched.

Sun and Moon Summary

Excitement and thrill are always a part of your life. You move ahead in the world because of great concentration and ambition. You love competition as a result. You are defiant and independent and at times this can be your undoing. Aggression is hard for you to restrain and you do not accept compromise well. Those who stand in your way get no sympathy and you have a drive for life that includes the entire spectrum of the spiritual, emotional and sensual. Mars rules both of these signs and according to mythology Mars also rules passion and war. The result is an aggressive person. Regardless of what you do, fun generally involves a fight. This includes business, love and life itself. Doing something partway is not part of your character because you are an extremist in spirit and thought. The result when you fail is a complete tragedy and when you succeed a total victory. Advice should be listened to at times though, so the next time there is a disagreement, do not be so resistant and prepare for battle, but rather listen carefully. You might learn something. Others might have something helpful to say so compromise sometimes. You are very creative and have an enormous amount of willpower, but you cannot really succeed until you learn to work in cooperation with other people. Constructive and positive outlets need to be found for your aggression so they can be channeled for success. Your concentration is good and you have an excellent intellect. You want to dig deep with your pursuits and are not happy just to get superficial impressions. There are Aries-Scorpio social activists, scientists and scholars. You have the power of self-rejuvenation as do all Moon in Scorpio people. You may get in trouble at times or even fail, but you always have the ability to bounce back. You are a courageous and freedom loving person. Sports like swimming, jogging or tennis as well as creative endeavors like art can release anger better than getting upset with your spouse, co-worker or children. There is a pioneer inside you and great accomplishments are possible with your ambition and enthusiasm. Exploration of the world and seeking adventure when you are young are very likely. You can be very hard to control early in life though, so some professional training is a good idea. Great success later in life is attainable if you are guided properly.

Zodiac Compatibility

Best: Gemini, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Leo Worst: Cancer, Capricorn, Taurus, Pisces

M O R A L   A L I G N M E N T : C H A O T I C  N E U T R A L

A chaotic neutral character follows their whims. They are an individualist first and last. They value their own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. They avoid authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign or anarchy. To do so, they would have to be motivated by either good (and a desire to liberate other) or evil (and a desire to make those different from themselves suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but their behavior is not totally random. They are not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal. Chaotic neutral can also be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.

A B O U T (tw abuse) 

Minica is the second born child of Francis Faust and Dahlia Hannigan. Coming from a long lineage of hunted witches, Dahlia had kept the truth hidden about her daughter’s nature and attempted to stifle her magic as long as she possibly could. Why you ask? Dahlia would say it was to protect her young child from the dangers of the occult world. The real reason? It was a hidden fear and jealousy that her daughter had magic running through her veins and she did not. 

This made growing up difficult. Especially in her teen years, where her father’s drinking and abuse would worsen. All the while her mother’s neglect couldn’t offer any solace in a toxic household. At the ripe age of thirteen, Minica began noticing she had a unique set of abilities she could tap into. Sudden bursts of magic, stoked by anger and fear, would start to become unmanageable in an unwitting child. Though she tried her best to hide this from her parents.

Near the end of high school, Minnie would find kinship in a small teenage coven, where she started to unravel the truth about herself, her abilities, and the history of her own family. . . Confronting her parents only proved to be a step in the wrong direction, as the use of magic brought upon an irrational anger and fear. They attempted to bind her magic, in some sort of botched ritual gone wrong. Bound and tormented in the basement for days, Minnie would tap into a darkness that helped set her free. The flickering of a fire that was used to threaten her own life would magically engulf her family and their home.

It was when the Faust residence burned down, that Minica had left the town running. She would begin a solo journey searching for herself and trying to find more answers. However, everything kept drawing her back to Ashwick, and for as long as she tried to stay away, the recent passing of her mother finally drew her back in. 

Q U I C K  F A C T S

She grew up in Ashwick but has been gone for over 10 years. She’s been back in town for only a few months. 

Her mother recently passed away from a mysterious illness that she is investigating. 

Her father has been permanently hospitalized from the burns he suffered on the night the home was set ablaze. She has not seen him since.

She is a recent addition to the Nox Coven and has become fairly advanced in her abilities. 

Razzles are her favorite candy. 

W A N T E D  C O N N E C T I O N S

FAMILIAL: She has one younger brother, as well as cousins and aunts/nephews that could live in the area! They would be estranged, so rekindling a relationship would be a priority! 

FRIENDLY: Friends from work (she works at the bar), coven friends, or even girls from the makeshift high school coven she was in would be wanted! 

ENEMIES: She gets along with most people, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that she is an absolute menace. She gets into trouble a lot, and that could be a source for conflict. Can be something big or little. Just give me drama! 

EXES/FLINGS: Self-explanatory. Could be an old high school sweetheart, something that fizzled out awkwardly, or maybe in a big catastrophe. The more conflict the merrier. 

[sirfrogsworth]

“When the man in the parable knocked on his friend's door and asked for the three loaves of bread, he received the impatient retort, "Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything." 

How often have men experienced a similar disappointment when at midnight they knock on the door of the church. Millions of Africans, patiently knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never. 

Millions of American Negroes, starving for the want of the bread of freedom, have knocked again and again on the door of so-called white churches, but they have usually been greeted by a cold indifference or a blatant hypocrisy. Even the white religious leaders, who have a heartfelt desire to open the door and provide the bread, are often more cautious than courageous and more prone to follow the expedient than the ethical path. One of the shameful tragedies of history is that the very institution which racial segregation participates in creating and perpetuating the midnight.

In the terrible midnight of war, men have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed them. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with arms buildups, chauvinistic passions, and imperialistic exploitation, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent. During the last two world wars, national churches even functioned as the ready lackeys of the state, sprinkling holy water upon the battleships and joining the mighty armies in singing, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war.

And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic privation. In many instances the church has so aligned itself with the privileged classes and so defended the status quo that it has been unwilling to answer the knock at midnight.”

—”A Knock at Midnight” excerpt by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This sermon excerpt that Bernice King just posted reminded me of Josh Hawley, Bill Cassidy, and Marco Rubio. Most days on Twitter they post quotations from the Bible. They are constantly espousing their faith and claim it guides them in their role representing this country. But all of them blocked the last attempt at a COVID stimulus bill because they believed it would be a “bailout” for blue states. However, they supported a Republican version of the bill that would give $21 billion to the Department of Defense—funding the construction of naval vessels, missile defense systems, and F-35 fighter jets. 

People of color are being ravaged by this pandemic. Black people are 3 times more likely to get infected. New York and California have the highest population density of Black folks. And because these states have too many registered Democrats and they don’t build fighter jets, these so-called religious men refused to answer the door at midnight.

[angelic-serenade]

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

request: Imagine being Light’s girlfriend and he finds out that you possess a Death Note of your own and wrote his name down in it

requested by: @sacredwarrior88

a/n: I hope this is what you expected, sorry once again for the delay! enjoy 💖

gif, original work and characters do not belong to me

pairing: Light Yagami x f!reader

fandom: Death Note

warnings: angst, death, murder, light yagami being light Yagami, long (!), blood ment, canon typical violence

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

Being Light Yagami's significant other had always been perceived as some sort of divine privilege, a once-upon-a-time story one could only hope to achieve in their wildest dreams. It became some sort of unspoken, universal truth spread like a gospel throughout the hallways of his high school, where he was equally envied and admired by students and professors alike. Light Yagami was by all definitions the perfect guy, therefore the public opinion of onlookers and admirers had silently but unanimously come to the conclusion he only deserved an equally perfect match: everyone was well aware that Light Yagami did not do relationships - he was adamant on rejecting every single advance he received regardless of gender and social status and that was a clear sign as any of the hopelessness of the challange itself. Nobody was ever going to be good enough for the golden boy of Daikoku Private Academy. Or so everyone thought.

Light Yagami had never seen you coming, nor had he cared enough to acknowledge your existence: at first you had simply been one of the many anonymous faces he had no interest in engaging with for too long. It never went farther than a polite greeting every now and then, when the pretense of being a wonderfully polite and integrated individual made it impossible to ignore your presence in the hallway or in a professor's study - you were supposed to be one of his fellow classmates after all, a newly transferred student from a foreign country, to make things worse. He could not allow rumors to spread regarding his reluctance to help the new student feel fully integrated now, could he? In precarious moments such as the ones he constantly found himself in nowadayd because of his new found rival, the infamous L, he could not allow himself to slip so easily, not even in his mundane everyday life. Any mistake was bound to have severe consequences and every slight change of his routine - he was certain - would be dutifully reported to the task force. Now more than ever, Light Yagami would not let underestimating a variable be his fatal flaw.

So the charade went on, and things only got worse when he realized every adult in the Academy relied on him to make you feel as comfortable with the new environment as possible. When you missed a class, he'd be tasked with delivering you the materials that had been discussed and analyzed during the daily lecture; when you had questions about the burocratic practices you were meant to fulfill as a foreign exchange student, he had been the one appointed by professors for you to rely on. And the list continued. Soon enough, you had turned from a minor inconvenience and necessary evil to a complete and utter annoyance in the life of the golden boy. You weren't a particularly irritating person per se, but the situations he found himself in as the unexpected arrangement went on took away quite the amount of time, precious hours he could have spent to gain advantage in his battle of wits against that ridiculous detective - the term "wits" was far too generous on his behalf already, he'd get rid of that self-proclaimed genius in no time either way.

Turns out your company had its own perks. Light Yagami was no fool: he acknowledged your beauty, both physical and intellectual, finding himself almost pleased to engage in playful banter during a particularly boring task a professor would assign them both to carry out. And he also knew that many boys and girls in the academy would have been utterly ecstatic to escort you wherever you went 24/7 in his place, even only to experience your own exotic nature and brag about it with their peers.

But (Y/L) (Y/N) was no fool either: she knew how much attention the golden boy brought about whenever he had to hang out with her - it reminded her of the way pollen called out to bees - and decided to make the most of it in order to build her own shiny reputation in the Academy. She soon came to be regarded as the golden girl, as dutiful and flawless as the golden boy himself. That's why it didn't come as a surprise when news spread of your newly blossomed relationship: everyone thought it natural that two superior individuals such as you and Light would be compelled to stick together, one way or another.

For you and Light though, the new arrangement was mostly convenient. You tolerated each other's presence well enough - surely more than any other mindless student's populating the Academy - and the mutual agreement you silently shared only managed to spurr on your enthusiasm about the chance to finally be left alone by other possible suitors. However, what particularly appealed to Light's keen mind was the possibility to further enhance his portrayal of a perfectly normal high school boy in front of the police and its investigators by simply keeping you near: a girlfriend would prove to be a useful alibi in moments of need, and seen as Misa Amane's sudden public appearence as his companion (as per her request) would have been perceived as too suspicious because of the recent messages she had unceremoniously left for the police to find, he'd have benefitted from the company of a new face. Might as well be the only face he could actually stand.

Since when you had become independent in your scholastic endeavors, Light had been able to gain most of his freedom back as well. Irony, however, made it so that by the time you both tried to finally part and go your separate ways, in the end you'd always end up gravitating back towards one another. Light had been utterly baffled at first, thinking it ridiculous that he found himself wishful to hear your witty comebacks when talking to some other nobody student rambling about puny matters he had no care for, or pondering what your sarcastic mind could have come up with when a professor made a fool out of themselves as they appointed yet another responsibility of theirs to a mere student. Ryuk had cracked countless jokes about the way Light would look at you the same way he looked at apples - there were so many times he had threatened the creature to actually cut off his apples supply had he not shut up, he lost count.

Therefore, in the most unlikely of outcomes, he decided to kill two birds with a stone and officially ask you out. That way he wouldn't have to worry about his private life being brought up during the investigations of the police anymore (or at least they'd be less frequent) while finally getting you out of his mind - hopefully.

The first date went rather well, he brought you to a nice cafe you had mentioned once and insisted to pay your share too (you had tried to convince him on splitting it instead, and only after various attempts had he relented).

“No wonder you are single, (Y/N).”

“Oh, am I now?”

You were proud of the way you had managed to bring down most of Light's outer walls, his boy-wonder façade irking you more than any stubborn love-sick fan of his ever could. It was the first to go, right off the bat:

“If we have to do this, might as well get comfortable, boy-wonder. No need for the goody-two-shoes charade with me, I know this is simply business.”

He had smiled but hesitated to verbally reply. Unbeknownst to you, that was the first spark that ignited his admiration for you and the milestone of your budding relationship as well. He had resented your arrogance and had you not been that crucial to his current plans to rebuild the entire world, he'd have found a way to unsuspiciously get rid of you straight away. It was a good thing you proved to be a good intellectual stimulus.

For a time, everything seemed to fall into its rightful place and the relationship not only proved to be useful for Light as regards to his public image, but he also managed to enjoy the time spent with you. He would never admit that the necklace, flowers, chocolates, and other tokens he gifted you were anything more than just for show, not even to himself. He would not allow himself to get too close, trivial things as love were not meant for the future God of a new world. Too bad it was too late for that.

When Misa Amane came into the picture, however, things escalated quickly and dangerously. You were hanging out with Light in his room, as it had been a rainy day and neither of you felt in the mood for a walk under the pouring drops. The sudden call for Light's name from downstairs came as a surprise and only later did you realize it had been the first sign of inevitable disaster; Light's mother usually never disturbed you two when you came to visit and mostly kept to herself in the kitchen, greeting you when you came and then when you went (you were glad for her respect of both her son's and your privacy). When a pretty blonde barged into the room even before Light could get up from the bed, however, you were certain disaster was at that point inevitable.

That's how you first met Misa Amane.

The yelling and crying had been obnoxious to say the least, and it only got worse from there. Light seemed more tense than usual and looked like he was single-handedly wrestling a roaring tiger while also trying to keep his head attached to his neck. Never had you seen him so worked up, trying so hard to restrain himself: it was a strange sight and it made you wonder if there was more at stake than what you had originally taken into account. Needless to say, you were worried.

When the girl took out a black notebook from her purse and started throwing threats your way, your quick mind clicked instantly.

You kept silent however, feigning ignorance: if you wanted to get even just a glimpse of the truth behind this whole tragicomic pandemonium, you'd have to be patient. Your shinigami might have been useless, but you had took the time to read the rules yourself and that would definitely work in your favor, you rationalized.

“You let this wench get in the way of our love? How could you! I did everything you asked of me and that's what I get?”

Calming the girl down had been an admirable feat. Thankfully you were able to control your anger, even though you felt positively livid with the recent developments of what you thought had been at least a mutually respectful relationship. You had grown close to Light, and maybe you had illuded yourself believing that he really did care for you too in his own way. You kept silent still and pondered about the various possibilities brought forth by Misa's mere existence: Light was fully aware of the existence of the Death Note, as he had tried to persuade Misa not to use it against you. The implications of this fact alone brought chills to your spine: why did Light have connections to this girl? Why was he so adamant on trying to snuff out the tracks of Misa's words? Had he exploited the girl to use the Death Note? Was Misa Amane the feared Kira whose killing sprees where making Japan tremble in fear? She must have been involved someway.

And then it clicked. Light Yagami had a Death Note too. He had to have one. The last broadcasted messages sent from a mysterious second Kira suddenly came to mind and you swore a light bulb went off over your head. Misa Amane could not possibly the original Kira - too impulsive, too reckless. If you had learnt something about the one true murderer, it was that the original Kira would never expose themselves like this in front of a stranger. Narcissistic they may have been, but their work was not that of a fool.

Your world suddenly came crashing down and your stunned state worried even Light. Misa had regretfully left, mind full of unfulfilled promises, and you could only thank the odds that her shinigami had not called you out straight away. Same went for Light's. Though you couldn't see them, you knew they were there and you also knew that any wrong move would have led to your untimely demise. If Light Yagami was truly Kira, he'd have no problem in ridding himself of your presence once he realized how much of a threat you currently represented, having a Death Note of your own. Shinigamis could see one another after all.

It was nerve-wracking to be on the receiving end of a gun.

“(Y/N), are you alright?”

A moment of hesitancy, then a tired attempt:

“Yes, yes. I'm just... a bit rattled, is all.”

“I hope you'll stay to let me explain.”

You realized he wasn't asking and you had no choice but to agree. You tried your best to feign hurt during the whole ordeal, but in reality you just felt nauseated and exhausted. He made up a very believable lie and you would have surely fallen for it had you not been certain Misa Amane owned a Death Note, just like you were certain he did too.

You had your own Death Note, yes, but you'd never actually used it. That was the main reason why your shinigami, Lux, had decided to completely ignore you from day one - apparently, you weren't entertaining enough for him. He'd been pretty vocal about his displeasure. But no matter how much Lux complained, using violence and murder to get your way seemed like too easy a solution. But it seemed that the boy in front of you did not share the same sentiment.

When Light took you into his arms to hold you close and tears started streaming down your face, you made up your mind: if Light Yagami truly was Kira, you'd be the one to bring him down.

The day when you finally confronted the boy you had grown so close to finally came and it was probably the scariest experience of your life. You supposed that his shinigami had told him nothing about your own status as a Death Note owner or at least, Light acted as if he didn't know. Which option was worse, you couldn't tell.

“Light... We need to talk.”

It was 22:00 sharp.

A pause, a second in which you realized you life was hanging by a thread.

“Come on in, then. ”

“I will be direct and straight to the point-”

“Yes, as you always are. That's one of the things that I appreciate the most about you.”

You couldn't believe he was trying to manipulate you. A sudden surge of boldness, straightened by pure remorse, made you vomit your next words as if they were venom.

“I take it you know of my Death Note.” you tried to keep as calm as possible and waited for his reply even though by now you already knew the answer.

“I do.” he solemnly conceded.

“Then why have you not brought it up before?”

“I was waiting for you to make up your mind.”

“Make up my mind about what, exactly?”

“About which side you decided to choose. But I take it you may need a little more motivation to pick the side you rightfully belong to. I'm here to provide it.”

“I'm all ears.”

“You have been watching the news, yes? The state of the world is in shambles, the cruel and wicked thrive off of the innocent. It's every man for himself and those in power only think about ways to make more money. The world we know is slowly rotting away, slaughtered from inside out by its own inhabitants. It's sickening. But, you see, I realized I have a cure, I have the power to make it better, to solve the problem once and for all. And I used it, as I intend to use it again and again, for the greater good. Humanity needs rehabilitation and I'm willing to provide it. There's people who recognize the necessity of this method and people who lie to themselves. So now I ask you (Y/N), which one are you?”

Your throat was parched, your hands were shaking and sweating profusely. You stared into those brown orbs of his and found yourself unable to look away. You had grown fond of his eyes, as well as the rest of him. Never in a million years would you have guessed that Light Yagami was a cold blooded killer who thought himself the God of a new world. He had played you like a violin and you had sung along. But no more would you be willing to associate yourself with that idealistic and childish monster.

“(Y/N)...” he tantatively neared your form, raising a hand to your cheek. His once cold gaze was now filled with warmth, but you weren't able to discern how much of it was fabricated and how much was real. You couldn't trust him, you couldn't play his symphony again. It was crooked and violent and selfish in its own right.

“We can do so much together, we can remake the world and save lives, so many innocent lives. No more undeserved suffering, no more unjust violence.”

You found it both unsettling and ironic how his words clashed with his actions. How could he speak of injustice, of violence when he was the one constantly playing with the lives of people? It was not his place to dictate who should live and who shouldn't, it was no man's right to claim the power over life and death. And yet there he was, in all of his fiendish glory.

“Help me, be my right hand in the monumental task of rebuilding the world. Be there when the world becomes our personal heaven.”

Oh the devil has such a way with words.

When his lips fell on yours, you knew you had done the right thing. Light Yagami suddenly wretched himself away from you as if he'd been burned; he took a step back, clutching his chest as spasms overtook his body. And then he fell.

It was 22:15.

He aimlessly fell to the ground just like Icarus had once he came too close to the sun and burned his false wings. You took the piece of paper from your left pocket and opened it only to let it fall to the floor.

Light Yagami, 07.03.2004, 22:15, heart attack

You had been merciful.

You had done the right thing.

And you would keep doing the right thing, even if the price to pay was staining your hands with more blood.

[peebleswrites]

Can I pleaseeee request something with Ulquiorra!? It's difficult to see him being sweet or romantic but I'm ready for whatever he can give 🤣

GASP. YAY. FIRST REQUEST. THANK YOU. Gotta say, this was a challenge! But it was always really fun and I enjoyed writing this piece. I hope you like it!

ULQUIORRA X FEMALE!READER

About three months had gone by since the Arrancars mysteriously appeared in the world of the living, sans the previously deep seeded hatred of humans and Shinigami. In short, they had no evil intentions whatsoever and seemed curious, some more than others, over the lifestyle of humans.

Everyone was of course wary, worried they’d fly off the handle and a war would once again loom on the horizon in the minds of both the soul society and the world of the living. Until Y/N was the first to offer an extension of goodwill to the once evildoers, thus triggering a snowball affect of successful communication between the three parties.

And so, the former Espada remained in the world of the living, assimilating into the culture and assuming somewhat normal lives!

“Say Y/N,” Orihime began one afternoon during lunch upon the roof. All eyes trained to the busty bubble of joy as she posed a question in Y/N’s direction.

“What’s your type? I mean, what sort of guy are you interested in?” Pretty much everyone was equally surprised as they were curious which included a certain arrancar who’d normally find such drabble ridiculous and an utter waste of time. 

Since his arrival, or rather, since those of his kind had been accepted in this world, Ulquiorra had taken something of an interest in Y/N. She was the first to accept him, all of them, and he’d always been curious concerning her reasoning. Surely, she intended to gain something by having them as allies, right? Y/N was just a human. It would make sense for her to align herself with the strong.

Yet…she didn’t appear to him as the type to use people for her own advantage. This only made her all the more interesting. As such, he used any and all opportunities afforded to him. All in efforts to garner what her true intentions were.

This was one of those opportunities.

“My type? Mmm…I guess someone who’s smart.” Y/N started before considering the rest of her response.

“Heh, that excludes you, Shinigami.” Grimmjow was first to comment, roughly punching Ichigo in the shoulder with that snarl of a grin covering his feral features. The jab nor the remark was taken well by the aforementioned male who soon retaliated with an equal amount of force.

“What the hell?! That means you too, dumbass!” And of course, that triggered the beginning of their usual bout which everyone had gotten so used to, it was pretty much ignored.

“I do like the strong, silent type, too. Oh! And a bit of spontaneity! You know, keeps things interesting!” While everyone seemed to agree, secretly they began to wonder just who among them she might be interested in. Meanwhile Ulquiorra was on an entirely different wavelength.

If Y/N found these qualities to be appealing, perhaps he could gain her trust by assuming these roles and therefore fulfill this self-appointed purpose of discovering her true intentions, thus deciding for himself if she were truly someone worthy of his trust.

No, it didn’t sound at all crazy in his head.

He has the smart part down and feels sufficiently confident in his intellect. Nothing to worry about there. The same can be said of his strength and more so of his silence. He is neither loud, nor boisterous. And while he wouldn’t call himself antisocial, he is prone to speak when he feels it is necessary to speak. Silence with a purpose.

That leaves the spontaneity.

In order to tackle this trait efficiently, he took to the human world dictionary!

“Performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus…” This may be something of a challenge for him. He never acts without thinking, without purpose. In fact, he is hard pressed to believe he could start. But not entirely convinced…yes, he could do this.

He would start by following Y/N. Not in the creepy stalker sense but more along the lines of trying to get to know her likes without actually asking himself. He would use the ever talkative Orihime to do his bidding.

“What sort of candy do you like, Y/N? I like something sweet and tangy but also sour and a little bitter with a fluffy kind of texture!” Dear gods, what could she possibly be describing was the expression that Ulquiorra currently wore while listening to the conversation. Y/N assumed a rather uneasy expression before responding accordingly.

“I like F/C. Not really a fan of much else.” Y/N’s response was simple something Ulquiorra could appreciate and perhaps do something with.

“So that’s what she likes…”

The next day, all eyes were on the former fourth espada when he strolled into class, dragging a large sack behind him which he dumped onto Y/N’s desk without a word. She stared at him then the sack partially obscuring her vision before opening her mouth to respond

“Uh…Ulquiorra? What’s this?”

“Don't ask useless questions.” And that was all he said before casually walking to his chair like he didn’t rouse the entire class with a cloud of confusion. With furrowed brows, Y/N peeked into the sack, only to spot copious amount of her favorite candy! It looked like a whole year’s supply of it! What the heck…

Who could’ve known that he’d been listening in on her conversation with Orihime? Or that he’d continue to do such in order to exercise this growing need to display his spontaneity. Which, he realized at one point, wasn’t really spontaneous at all because he was thinking about these acts way too hard!

Like when she expressed a desire to have more rice in her lunch, so he proceeded to give her extra portions the next day. Or when she grew tired during gym and he suddenly picked her up over his shoulder to run the rest of her laps. Or when she complained over the lack of sleep she was getting due to the neighbor’s dog barking all night so he insisted on training the canine not to be noisy.

Okay so…maybe he was being spontaneous, but Y/N had grown suspicious enough and needed some answers.

“Ah…Ulquiorra? Could I talk to you for a moment?” Y/N approached him after class one day, appearing somewhat nervous. He agreed with a simple nod while teeming on the inside with anticipation. This could quite possibly be the moment he has been working for so diligently. His efforts were at last being acknowledged.

“Uh so…listen, it’s about uhm…how you’ve been acting recently…” If it wasn’t obviously, Y/N was having a hard time expressing what she really wanted to say. Ulquiorra, of course, noticed this.

“Speak, woman.” A curt response that Y/N honestly should’ve expected prompted nothing more than a sigh.

“What’s your problem?!” Which triggered an explosive response that Ulquiorra honestly didn’t see coming if the sight of his eyes widening were any indication.

“Elaborate.” Eyes that soon softened to their normal size while gleaming with hints of mild apprehension for he never expected her of all people to express feelings of displeasure with him.

“You keep doing these weird things! First it was the candy! Then all the rice! Then you carried me around the track even when I told you to put me down! Now my neighbor is telling me you trained their dog! Are you making fun of me? Is this some arrancar way of bullying?!”

“You believe I am bullying you?”

“Yes!”

She was yelling at him. And calling him a bully, of all things. How could his intentions have been so horribly misinterpreted? How could she misunderstand him to such a degree? Could he have been wrong? Were his methods misguided or incorrect? It would seem he would need to evaluate his form of spontaneity and employ a different tactic.

“I see. I will try something else, then.” Yes, he would go back to the drawing board, reconsider his options, his resources, and try other ways of being spontaneous.

“Wait!” Y/N name suddenly grabbed onto his arm. His eyes instantly fell to her hands. Her touch triggered a slither of a response, a tingling sensation that was unfamiliar. When’s the last time anyone had laid non-threatening hands on him, he wondered.

“What?” Visibly she flinched back but maintained her countenance alongside the ever-present confusion.

“What are you trying to do? What’s all this about? I want to know!” This expression. The raw emotion on her face. He remembered it well. It was this stubborn, foolish disposition she maintained that played a key role in the Shinigami taking their presence as a non-threat. It was this expression that led him to find a purpose through her.

It was this very same gleam that triggered perhaps the most spontaneous act he’d committed thus far, the cupping of his hand upon her cheek. He wouldn’t be able to explain what caused him to do it or why his hand stayed. He just knew her cheek felt soft and warm and he sort liked the way her expression shifted as his hand remained.

“Your ‘type,’ as you humans refer to it, is someone who is spontaneous, is it not?” He brandished his usual emotionless façade, awaiting a response from her aside from the stunned silence she seemed to be trapped in.

“I…you…ah…you want to be my type…?” Dumbfounded. She was utterly dumbfounded. And he couldn’t understand why she was behaving so shocked. Wasn’t he being obvious?

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I see now that my actions are ineffective.” How ridiculous. For him to fail at such a task was unprecedented. He could hardly fathom such a thing. As such, he needed to take time away, regroup, and think of different ways to convey this message to her.

“If you’ll excuse me.” His hand fell away from her cheek only to be grabbed by one of hers. A second extension of contact and a second shock that shot up his senses. He eyed her once again with his empty stare, but she didn’t appear at all perturbed by it. In fact, she offered a rather hopeless smile.

“I…I think it’s working. I mean, you’ve got my attention.” Once again, she stunned him. This time, not with her gleaming determination but with a meek smile and subtle, gentle, squeezing of his hand. He couldn’t have imagined such a small gesture could be so impactful. How strange…

“Oh? I will continue, then.”

“Wait, no—.”

It would seem he was at least on the right track to deciphering her true intentions while simultaneously gaining her trust. Surely, he’d get it this spontaneous act right eventually.

A/N: Poor Ulquiorra. He means well. Again, hope you enjoy! Also this is my first time doing this so I hope the format isn't weird? Thanks!

[spiritmoon23]

Throwing Shade: The Art of Using Color to Study

A bit of a throwback (last year haha) but for my cognitive psychology class we had to make a blog post about our topic of choice, and mine won best in show! (I got 100% on it and I deserved it in full)

For anyone interested, the link is here for the full effect (colors and images I picked out myself :) ), but the full text will be under the cut- without the lovely graphics that it

ABSTRACT: Do you take your notes in color? Maybe you should start. Note taking is the one thing that remains constant throughout the years in education. Students will often take notes in color or draw in their margins, which not only makes note taking more fun, but it can help keep you engaged in the material, and retain the information you’re taking notes on!

Throwing Shade: The Art of Using Color to Study

Do you take your notes in color? Maybe you should start.

Note taking is the one thing that remains constant throughout the years in education. Your parents took notes, their parents took notes, your professors took notes from their professors who took notes. But, your notes don't have to be the same notes they’ve been taking all these years. Back in the day, students were stuck with sad, boring ink and pencils in the same three colors for generations. Why don’t we try something new? Nowadays, along with the invention of sparkly gel pens for the people who still write theirs in notebooks, many students have started to take notes on computers, which makes it even easier than ever before to introduce colors and graphics into your delightful shorthand. Not only does this make it more fun to take notes, but it also helps to keep you engaged, and even helps you remember the information you’re taking notes on.

What is memory?

Obviously, memory is what you remember, right? Simply put, yes, but there’s more to it than that- there always is, isn’t there? It involves keeping, finding, and using information about things we have experienced in some way before that moment, but is something you’re not currently experiencing (1). For example, I could ask you to remember what a field of corn looks like, smells like, or sounds like, and you could tell me without having to be standing in one right now. That’s memory.

Memory is a process with a lot of steps and a lot of mechanisms that we don’t entirely understand just yet, but we do know what kinds of things make your memory better. Namely, things that either grab your attention, or emotionally invest you in them (2). That’s why you remember that embarrassing thing you did five years ago (while you’re trying to sleep, every time), and can’t remember what you had for lunch last week. 

Emotion can be engaged by many things, but so can your attention. When you’re driving down the highway and the giant red McDonald’s billboard catches your eye, or when the “Ooh, something shiny!” reflex kicks in, something is grabbing your attention and forcing you to think about it. There are a few ways to grab someone’s attention in this manner, but the best way? Nothing can grab someone like a striking color palette.

Coloring Your Attention

Color catches your (visual) attention better than any other visual stimuli, because it takes the least amount of effort to perceive (3). Then, the longer you look at that stimulus, the longer it has to imprint on your short term memory. That visual information worms its way quickly into the long term memory after the prolonged exposure. This is why marketing is often very colorful, with lots of moving shapes and textures, and loud, ranging sounds. They want your attention more than anything else, so you remember their name or product better than the competition.

But, I can definitely hear you asking me, what does this have to do with me as a student? Doesn’t that just mean the powerpoint I’m reading off of should be in kaleidoscope colors? Yes, it should. But more specifically to you as the student, color is a form of creative expression that you can use to enhance your memory.

Being Creative With Your Memory

Being creative during class, especially when taking notes, keeps you engaged and interested in the material, and this will make it stick in your memory longer than if you were just copying information down as you hear it (4). But not everyone can make masterpieces in the margins of their notebooks, now can they?

Well, adding color to your notes is a form of creative expression that anyone can participate in, no matter how creative or creatively skilled they are. You can’t even draw a stick figure? That’s okay, you don’t need to! Instead, try switching colors in between each topic, and if you want to go a step further, make color patterns with them outside of just the plain rainbow. As long as you are expressing yourself in a creative manner while you’re taking notes, your mood and motivation will be much higher (5).

So, What Colors Should I Be Using?

Use whatever colors make you happiest. I keep notes in blues, purples and greens, because my favorite colors are the cool ones. Use whatever colors, mediums, images, or annotations that speak best to you, like your favorite colors, cutesy patterns, doodles, or whatever strikes your fancy.

However, there is a correct answer to this question. There has been a few different studies that have been conducted about this, and the results vary (no matter how many colors I make it, the periodic table isn’t going to be memorable to an interior designer, after all), but most commonly the primary and secondary colors like red, green, and yellow, are the most memorable colors (3). Even more specifically, use warm colors like red and orange over cool colors like blue and purple, as these colors tend to catch your attention better and for longer (6).

Sources

1. Goldstein, E. B. (2019). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. Cengage.

2. Gomes, C. F., Brainerd, C. J., & Stein, L. M. (2013). Effects of emotional valence and arousal on recollective and nonrecollective recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39(3), 663-677. doi:10.1037/a0028578

3. Bae, G., Olkkonen, M., Allred, S. R., & Flombaum, J. I. (2015). Why some colors appear more memorable than others: A model combining categories and particulars in color working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4), 744-763. doi:10.1037/xge0000076

4. Baack, D. W., Wilson, R. T., & Till, B. D. (2008). Creativity and Memory Effects: Recall, Recognition, and an Exploration of Nontraditional Media. Journal of Advertising, 37(4), 85-94. doi:10.2753/joa0091-3367370407

5. Ceci, M. W., & Kumar, V. K. (2015). A Correlational Study of Creativity, Happiness, Motivation, and Stress from Creative Pursuits. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(2), 609-626. doi:10.1007/s10902-015-9615-y

6. Jadhao A, Bagade A, Taware G, Bhonde M. Effect of background color perception on attention span and short-term memory in normal students. Natl J Physiol Pharm Pharmacol 2020;10(11):981-984

[inkblotsandeggshells]

My take on feminine enbodyment and female empowerment

This concept of modern feminism and pushing men out of the picture affects me differently than the average woman, because I was raised without a dad. When my mom adopted me and my other siblings, she never got married and instead asked her best female friend to step in and help raise all four of us. I was very loved, but I felt that absence of a father all my life. It affected nearly every part of my childhood and teenage years, and it continues to affect my adult life. I wanted to get a boyfriend and eventually get married, but the only constant guy in my life was my older brother. Therefore, I had very few examples of what respectful, good, masculine men looked like.

When I was a sophomore in college, my roommate at the time showed me a YouTube channel called Blimey Cow, and they had made a video called “Ten Ways to get the Right Guy to like You.” I hadn’t thought about this video or this channel in a few years, because they primarily make Christian content.  I’m not a Christian anymore, nor do I agree with all the beliefs of Christianity. However, I decided to go back to this video two days ago, because I remembered how these creators directly challenged how our culture defines female empowerment. Specifically they used this video to present that challenge, with an emphasis on noting the difference between female liberation and female objectification. Some of the suggestions they made to help girls find the right guys included showing interest in their hobbies, supporting their local chivalry, letting the guys in their lives know they appreciate them, putting less emphasis on how much skin they show and more emphasis on who they are as a person.  As a 20 year old college kid, these young content creators made a bigger impact on my views on men, women and the hyper-sexual movement than I would have thought. As a result, their video gave me the nudge to dive deeper into this topic through writing.

When you first learn of the term “female empowerment”, it sounds attractive enough: women being seen as a force to be reckoned with, authoritative, strong leaders who are goddesses in nearly every way. Rather than being stuck at home to take care of the kids, women are encouraged to pursue their career dreams, step into more masculine leadership roles and “be the boss”, for lack of a better term. It all sounds appealing until you start to dig deeper into what’s behind the phrase “female empowerment.” One big part of how I discovered this occurred last summer.

In July of 2020, I chose to invest a serious amount of money to an online holistic sex course. It was called Well-F*cked Woman, created by a woman named Kim Anami. Through using the tools learned through this six week course, Kim claims to have helped thousands of people all over the world, especially women, to connect with the untapped power of their sexual energy. She believes that a big reason why people are as stressed, unhealthy and unhappy as they are is because they’re not having the right kind of sex. Moreover, they’re not having the right kind of sex often enough. Whether you’re in a couple or single makes no difference. If you want to gain body confidence, get orgasms or even heal ancestral trauma, Kim claims this course would teach you how to obtain all those things by utilizing your sexual energy.

When I read the information on it, I became very intrigued. After several days of listening to her podcasts and reading her blogs, I became more convinced that this course could be a big help for my personal well-being.  At the time, my goal was to use the course to heal some of the imbalanced sacral energy I still had. Hopefully, it could even heal some ancestral wounds I carried in my DNA. If I achieved that, finding a romantic partner would be more of a bonus than a direct goal. So when I received the stimulus check from the government, I used that money to pay for the course and one of Kim’s jade yoni eggs.

For each of the six weeks, we would get a video with a written syllabus to discuss different topics, most of which revolved around sex. One week we would focus on self-love practices, one week we would talk about the relationship between sex and money, another week we learned about food, etc. In that first week, I began the exercises easily enough. However, I also started to feel very conflicted about the information we received in this course. For example, in the syllabus about self-love, one of the first statements Kim made about women is that “most have rape fantasies.” Admittedly, I didn’t really understand what that meant or what it was, until a friend told me. Once I did understand it, it bothered me deeply, to say the least. As someone who claimed that her work helped heal women’s sexual trauma, to hear Kim make such a statement right off the bat made me feel uneasy.

In a separate journal, I had written down my progress of the course and some of the conclusions I had made about what it taught and about the woman who taught it. In one entry, I had observed that it seemed to take a lot of money to become a “well-f*cked woman”, by Kim’s standards. If needed, it could possibly add up to hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. For instance, if you wanted to use a jade egg as a sexual healing tool, that cost $300. The six week course itself cost almost $1000. Kim also recommended using therapy injections to change your neural pathways, if you were a victim of sexual trauma.  Just getting one injection is expensive enough, but if you “need” more than one injection or appointment, that will add up fast. Sadly, such treatments are not easily accessible to everyone who wants sexual healing. It certainly wasn’t for me.

Additionally, a recurring message that came up in the course was that it’s important for couples to have sex more than once a week. In this case, it wasn’t talking about the faster paced sex described as being numb and fleeting. On the contrary, Kim wanted us to aim for the slower, orgasmic, breath focused sex where you’re working to maintain and build up a flow of sexual energy. While in some ways, this course educated people on sex differently than our modern culture, some aspects seem pretty similar to me. For example, one night stands are still seen as acceptable situations to practice generating this energy. We were encouraged to practice sex acts two to three times a week, to the point of becoming sex addicts. Also, even though Kim frowned upon pornography, we were still taught to utilize BDSM as a way to create polarity in our relationships. This was to make sure that “spark of passion” was maintained for the long term. Lastly, Kim would sometimes demonstrate problematic double standards when it came to showing examples of how to respect your partner. In one of her stories about “helping” her partner become confident with himself, she talked about making a point to touch his private parts in public, whether he was okay with it or not. If not, she claimed “it was his problem.” In my opinion, if they’re genders had been switched, she would have been called out for her disrespectful behavior immediately among the group.

In this class, Kim discouraged us from using substances like alcohol and drugs during the practice, because of how they damage the body. On the other hand, she promoted addictions to sex as something positive, as something to attain for as a human being. Whether you are in a couple doing the act or you’re a single adult who’s just masturbating, you were encouraged to have some kind of sex several times a week. According to Kim, it needed to get to the point where you felt you couldn’t go about your day without generating this energy. “What an addiction does is that it causes you to stop thinking,” says Michael Knowles, who was a guest on the Candace Owens Show discussing modern feminism.  “It enslaves you. It makes you prone to certain behavior, and when you’re not thinking, that’s when the people who want to grab power can come in and force it on you.” Too much of anything can be detrimental for your well-being, on all levels.  During a time where protection of boundaries for my spiritual life had become very important, this way of thinking pushed me to discover what kind of boundaries I had and to stick to them. In this case, it lead me to the conclusion that if being like Kim meant being addicted to sex, disrespecting the men I care about, and using methods of sexual control for the sake of “polarity”, then I would rather not be like her at all.

With all that being said, I believe the big question is this: how exactly does the WAP culture of free sex and female empowerment differ from the holistic sex culture I learned about in the summer of 2020? How does our pop culture differ from the Well-F*cked Woman course, in how we’re being educated about sex? In my opinion, one culture pushes the more superficial, fleeting benefits of sex in our faces, while the other pushes for using sex and sexual energy as a way to harness untapped power. This power can, supposedly, be used to energize us, heal our bodies, and manifest things into our lives. Regardless, both cultures seem to be more concerned with using sex to gain power than using it as a means to express true love.  Both cultures seem to encourage women to “embrace their femininity” by leaving their underwear off more often. Both cultures seem to promote double standards on how partners should respect each other and their boundaries. Both cultures still push us to become addicted to sex in order to have a fulfilled, happier life, because according to them, every aspect of our lives will disintegrate without it.

As a result of the lockdown, last year turned out to be most isolating time for us, and it was intense enough to put many people into a deep state of depression. At a time when everyone is stuck online and forced to keep further apart, this is when people in the online sex business—holistic or otherwise—will benefit the most from that loneliness. They can use it to make those profits and fill their own pockets. This becomes more obvious when you observe their marketing tactics, including the ones I noticed for Kim Anami’s website: unless you give me your money and do what I tell you to do, you will never be “well-f*cked.” Everything in your life will deteriorate unless you become “well-f*cked.” You will be a brainwashed zombie forever, easily manipulated, unless you become “well-f*cked.”As my friend Lee Yun would say, “These tactics are designed to create an empty void in people that can’t be filled.” In the cases of some individuals, even if they were to try, it would cost them more time, money and energy than they were lead to believe.

For those of you who wonder if I still keep up with the practices I learned from this course, I haven’t. At least, I haven’t kept up to the degree that would be necessary. My jade egg is sitting on my altar collecting dust, even as I write this. Because of the amount of money I spent to buy the egg, this is not something I’m proud to admit. A jade egg is a sacred, special tool that deserves to be put to use for the highest good, and eventually, I will find a teacher that can help me do so. I just don’t want to have to conform to this holistic “WAP” standard to get there.

Surprisingly, by reflecting on my past through watching Blimey Cow’s videos, I realized there are still some values about sex, intimacy and femininity that I learned as a teenage Christian that matter to me now as an adult witch. In my opinion, sex is something very sacred that should not be taken so lightly, because of how it connects you to your partner in an intense, physical and spiritual way. For me, I take it seriously enough to still choose to wait until I get a husband and to choose not to masturbate. Additionally, when I do have sex with my lifelong partner, it will be as much about him as it will be about me. This means respecting and honoring him as a man as well as I know how. In my opinion, if you encourage people to use something like sex to attain higher spiritual goals, but neglect to show basic respect to your partner’s boundaries about his body, then in the words of Jordan Taylor from Blimey Cow, “you’re doing it wrong.”

 Michael Knowles interview with Candace Owens on the Candace Owens Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejWIEMs8ecg

Blimey Cow’s YouTube video, “Ten Ways to Get the Right Guy to Like You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqF_PtugyBk

[warlocks-and-warkeys]

Name: Pyrus Pennant / Black

Race/Class/Alignment: Neutral Good or Chaotic Neutral Human Variant Berserker Barbarian

Vitals: average, ordinary, unremarkable human, short brown hair and glasses, dull blue eyes, dresses plainly in muted colors that won’t draw attention, tucked-in posture meant to not take up too much space, tends to fidget, usually looks like he’d rather be anywhere else (especially in public), when the change happens his eyes turn a stark black with white irises, and his posture becomes the opposite: swaggering, confident, proud, usually with leering expressions

Personality: Two personalities reside in this outwardly humble vessel. The original/main one is Pyrus: shy, quiet, mild-mannered, timid. Reluctant to do much or get involved in anything beyond the normal requirements for day-to-day living. He barely even ever raises his voice. The other refers to himself/has been named Black: loud, aggressive, violent, indulgent. They’re opposites in nearly every way. Black maintains he’s the “fun” one, taking part in every vice available to him. He’s not evil. Just a sensation junkie. (He craves the stimulus because once he calms down, he turns back into Pyrus. And he loves being alive.) Most of the time Pyrus finds Black nothing but trouble, and frequently wishes he would just go away. Or get his own body. He does his best to avoid situations that will bring Black out, but...as is proven over and over again...that’s a hard standard to maintain.

Bio: Pyrus is embarrassed of his own origin story. He was a completely average nobody living in a small town with no ambitions and no desires to be anything other than what he was when a chance encounter with their tyrannical noble overlord triggered something lying dormant inside him. A single act of standing up to authority (read: attacking it) sparked a rebellion, and suddenly Pyrus found himself at the forefront of a massive social upheaval. Exactly where he didn’t want to be. He still doesn’t know where Black came from, but with his sudden ability to speak Giant accompanying Black’s first appearance, he’s forming some theories...

Quote: “...oh, no...no, you really shouldn’t...you don’t want to do thaAAAAAAAAHEY F$%& YOU ELF SUCKER YOU WANNA GO NOW? C’MON LET’S GO. SCREW YOU SIDEWAYS WITH A HORSE C$%&--!”

Theme Song: “Control” by Halsey // “They All Fall Down” by SR-71

I missed a day so I’m counting this as two different characters to make up for it. XD Based on my first ever anime crush (Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket) and a certain Avenger. Depending on who’s running, sometimes my GM will let me use two different character sheets for these guys, in which case Pyrus can be a bit more of an intellectual nerd. Otherwise I cram them onto one sheet and spin it as the Black personality is dominant when he rages (in combat...out of combat it’s just a role-playing thing whenever Pyrus gets set off) and the main “superpower” stems from the idea of what one personality is willing to do when the other one won’t. Even just the willfulness to act can make a big difference. (The idea behind the Pyrus/Black dynamic isn’t that one’s good and one’s evil. It’s more like yin and yang. One is passive, the other is active.)

[arunmehta]

FIRST EPISODE OF THE YEAR! Arun and Patricia discuss:

Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell’s houses are vandalised over stimulus checks. Children infected with Coronavirus now filling hospital wards. The Malign Incompetence of the British Ruling Class. Kazakhstan Abolishes Death Penalty. People started breaking Covid rules when they saw those with privilege ignore them. Yes, Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical is real and here’s how you can get tickets. Will Carmen finally defeat V.I.L.E.? The final season of #CarmenSandiego coming Jan 15 to Netflix! Ed, Edd n Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Batman Beyond and More Cartoon Network Shows Now Streaming on HBO Max. Post Thoughts: Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie Aftermath. WWE Legend Mick Foley Reveals Positive COVID-19 Diagnosis. SEGA’s Toshihiro Nagoshi is open to working with the F-Zero series again, wants to make a challenging new game. PREVIEW: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Review.

[butasformeblog]

And They Aren't Even Facing Re-Election...

BAFMnotes: Senators Manchin,Sinema, Coons, Carper, Tester, Shaheen, Hassan, (King):

DON'T TELL ME:

·You support workers, the middle class, or family values. The $15 Minimum Wage would raise 27 million out of poverty along with their children.

·You support women and minorities. Women, many who are heads of households, still earn less than their male counterparts and minorities hold some of the most dangerous and least paid positions in our society.

·You are worried about the economy. An increase in the minimum wage to $15/hr will provide a stimulus to a sluggish economy. Wage increases for small businesses would be offset by government subsidies and credits.

·You are concerned about runaway inflation. The minimum wage has not kept up with inflation for decades and has resulted in the shrinking of the middle class. At $15/hr, still will be less than meeting the current inflationary rate and would be incrementally phased in.

·You are a Christian or religious for "I cannot see your faith for lack of deeds. "

BUT DO TELL ME:

·How you are willing to throw everyone else under the bus so that you can maintain your life of privilege in the Senate.

·How you want to keep the monied contributors to your campaigns and other self-interests happy.

AND NEVER TELL ME AGAIN THAT YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT OR AN AMERICAN FOR YOUR INTERESTS SOLELY SERVE A PARTY OF ONE: Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F!

SHAME ON YOU!!!i