#i just think these body functions are fascinating... and. well. i want to encourage writing down my thoughts more u_u

[sourcreamanonion]

The umbilical vein is a fascinating structure. After birth, the remnant forms a ligament of the liver, as well as paraumbilical veins with partial occlusion. Your body can make use of this structure during certain conditions—namely liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension. Your paraumbilical veins recanalize and act as a portosystemic shunt, pulling your blood from your guts to your heart in lieu of your struggling portal vein.

Have you heard of angiogenesis? New vessels can sprout from existing vessels, which can fuse back into each other and form new networks. Growth factors lead them to tissues that are starved of oxygen, and macrophages act as shepherds guiding their tips together. Your body is geared to create, to map, to seek out where you most need help, all throughout your life.

When you scream (or plan to generate any vocalization), your body protects itself. The tensor tympani muscle contracts when your brain plans to vocalize, tightening up your ear drums. This extends to most systems in your body; research shows your body keeps duplicates of movement-producing neural signals called efference copies. Efference copies exist to help predict (and suppress) the sensory consequences of willed movements. It's why you can't feel yourself the same as you feel others, can't hear yourself the same as you hear other things, why the world doesn't spin when your eyes move. It's also thought to influence your inner speech (one study suggests that internal speech alone can elicit an efference copy, thus causing sensory attenuation of audible sounds).

Your extremities prune because your blood vessels are instructed to shrink by your autonomic nervous system, not because they are absorbing water. They change so you might have a better grip on wet surfaces. So you might better interact with the world.

Your eyes perceive light where there is none via phosphenes. Phosphenes can be induced by mechanical, electrical, or magnetic stimulation... or through cells firing within the visual system. Some historians think that entopic phenomena influenced Upper Paleolithic art; many paintings and engravings mimic the geometric lattices and vascular patterns we can perceive with our eyes.

(Did our ancestors see light in the darkness just as we do now? Was that special to them?)

Phosphenes are hardly the only form in which our body can estimate sensations. There are so many perceptual metamers. Think of metamerism in colorimetry and metamerism in tactile vibrations. Two structurally different perceptions might seem identical to us. How amazing is it that we can imagine familiarity when the actual structure of a sensation is so different from what we perceive? Light and sound and touch have made a home in you.

Think of how we perceive color as a whole. The sky is violet, but you might be painting it blue... and that is special. That is unique.

So much can go "wrong" in your body with so many complex mechanisms at play... engineering is like that. But isn't it a little magical that your body can utilize inert remnants, that it can generate new networks, redirect your blood flow to your brain... all shifting in an effort to keep you alive? That your body knows itself inherently and uses that knowledge so it won't damage itself? That your body might eat itself in the name of preserving what is most important (you, you, you)? That your body can see and hear and feel things that are not a part of your immediate perception? And that, at any given moment, so many systems in your body are working impossibly to bring you to a state of consciousness... constantly redirecting, constantly shifting, constantly calculating?

(Because it wants to. Because it loves you. Even if you think we can't presume that.)

I think it's helped me to see that my body is neither jury-rigged nor perfectly orchestrated, but rather the simple sum of evolution... of change, of difference, of life charting a way. It's helped me to see what is working to keep me alive, to see that there is something really spectacular going on, something worth protecting.

I hope you can see that too.

[millenialfanfictionaddiction]

Karasuno, Shiratorizawa, Inarizaki and Nekoma:

Manager has an Art Exibit

Karasuno x GN! Manager; Shiratorizawa x GN!Manager; Inarizaki x GN! Manager; Nekoma x GN! Manager

Warnings: PURE FLUFF, light swearing

A/N: This is an Anon request

Karasuno

The most feral of the 4 teams

I think we all know this but just to reiterate

Literally, I don’t care if they know absolutely nothing about art

The fact is they all suddenly become FASCINATED by it just because their manager is into it

Asahi has the most appreciate, followed by Kiyoko and Yachi

When they first find out you are into Art, they demand to see what you do daily

Idk if you only added one line to a drawing or maybe planned a new piece of pottery

These boys will be so into it!

They will ask the same question daily which is “can you teach me YN?”

When you tell them you have an exhibit coming up, they don’t even ask if they are invited

They just assume 😌

If it’s at a fancy place, they were their school uniforms because it’s the nicest thing they own 🤣

Daichi reminds them to keep the volume to a minimum

Hinata tells Kageyama not to look at anything breakable because his face is ugly/scary enough to break it on site

The “iTs My FaCe AsShOlE” speech follows

Tsukki is actually semi interested and wanders around looking at the exhibits

Noya and Tanaka glare at everyone until they say how amazing your pieces are 🙄

Ennoshita tells you that he will forcefully remove them if needed

Suga actually asks detailed questions about your work and super interested

Hinata is forced to stay next to Yamaguchi so he doesn’t accidentally break anything

All in all, solid 20/10 support and 6/10 safety around breakable pieces 🥰

Shiratorizawa

The most regal of the teams

Literally they showed up, literally in suits YN

SUITS 🫡

Someone quick, take a picture for your memory wall 📱

Honestly they don’t talk about your art much because volleyball practice is for volleyball

But after practice, Semi, Reon and Tendou show the most interest

Semi is super into your style and is always looking at your sketches/ finished products

Reon and Tendou are just super supportive, giving feedback and wanting to learn more

Ushijima doesn’t say anything BUT he is totally listening and storing away everything you say

Goshiki, well Goshiki tries 😅

He wants to know more but the boy doesn’t have a creative bone in his body

He is the definition of a “super volleyball idiot”

Shirabu and Kawanishi don’t really understand art but they still encourage you none the less

At your exhibit, they all walk the floor together

Like a flock of birds 😂

One of them moves and they others follow

They only mingle with you and keep a close eye on your work

Literally they don’t want anyone messing with all the hard work you’ve put in

You’ll talk with them about what you’ve done and that’s when Ushijima surprises you

“I see you used the light purple over the dark purple Yn, that was an excellent move.”

The team 👉🏻👁️👄👁️

Tendou 👉🏻🖐🏻👁️⭕️👁️🖐🏻

You 👉🏻🥹

These boys adore you so much YN, solid 10/10!

Inarizaki

Kita puts it on the board in the teams locker room

“YN’s art exhibit at 7pm TUESDAY NIGHT! Show up or I’ll make sure you get benched!” -Kita ❤️

That message was meant for one person and one person only

And I think we all know who 👀

*cough* ATSUMU *cough*

It’s not that Atsumu doesn’t support you, it’s just that his brain really only functions on volleyball

Kita and Aran will use every change they get to hype up your art work

Omimi suggests they use it in volleyball somehow

Even if it’s pottery or creative writing, they find a way

Akagi is super interested in what you do, always asking questions

Suna sits by you while you work, you have an unspoken relationship of just silent co-existence

He’s super peaceful 😌

Ginjima is a hype man, literally show him your new work and he will scream your praises

Osamu and you both encourage each other in your chosen talents

You taste his creations and give feedback and he critics your art

He’s an honest boy and we support it!

Riseki, our sweet baby, just loves supporting you because it makes you smile

At the exhibit, they honestly act semi normal

Atsumu and Osamu promised not to fight

Suna and Ginjima stood in between Samu and Sumu so they DIDNT fight

Kita, Aran, Omimi and Akagi are all like ridiculously interested in art

Like they talk to you about all the exhibits and point out their favs

Riseki kind of stands there, awkward but he tries

Sumu compares art to volleyball and how he’s basically the artist of the team

Samu tells Sumu that volleyball is a sport, not an art which leads to fighting

Which then leads to Suna and Gibjima having to take the children home early

Solid 10/10 moral support but they might cause you a lot of stress 😅

Nekoma

I’m calling it, best team for Art Exibit support goes to Nekoma 🏆

Literally they are the most calm of all of the teams here and definitely beyond supportive

Literally YN, they worship the ground you walk on

So when they find out you are into Art, oh lord

They bug you non-stop to show them what you’re doing

Kuroo doesn’t even need to remind them you have an exibit, they just show up

Kai and Yaku are your support system, giving feedback and helping you carry things and organize everything

Yamamoto is security, hype man and literally #1 Yn simp

Kenma thinks your art is awesome and you’re one of the only people he talks to regularly

Lev, Shibayama, and Inuoka literally adore you so much and want to know everything about your art

Fukunaga, a fellow artist but with words, literally always knows just the thing to say to cheer you up

And Kuroo talks about how you are the carbohydrates that fuel the team 😂

Because he would and we all know it

At your exhibit, they are the first to show up and the last to leave

Kenma might sneak off and play a game or two

But the rest are super interested

Kai takes photos, if allowed, and posts them in the teams group chat

Yaku will discuss every single exibit with you

Kuroo stands around like a proud dad 😂

Lev critics things because he’s an honest boy even thought he knows nothing about art

Inuoka and Shibayama literally just gawk at you because you are so cute when you are happy

Yamamoto is alot like Tanaka and Noya but a tiny bit tamer

Fukunaga takes notes on what he wants to talk to you about later when he finally gets to discuss your art with you

100/10 support

[thiswasinevitableid]

17, indruck, nsfw if you want would be awesome. Your writing is incredible btw and reading (and re-reading) your fics always makes my day!

Thank you so much! And here you go, it is indeed NSFW

17. i get your name during secret santa at work and use the same wrapping paper for my gift to my friend, so…sorry about all the sex toys 

Duck adores the way work does secret santa; random assignments, followed by dropping the gift off on the 20th. Simple and to the point, and no gathering where everyone is judging everyone else’s gift choices. 

Plus, this year he got Indrid as his person to buy for. He’s head of marketing and design for the Arboretum, and Duck’s been looking for new ways to help him feel welcome. He started up in February and is a little reclusive, seeming to think his work is so different from that of the rangers, gardeners, and researchers that they won’t want to talk with him. 

Duck finds him fascinating, if a bit weird. They worked together to design new promotional art featuring native prairie plants, and Indrid soaked up everything Duck told him. And it’s remarkable to see the familiar ecosystem come to life through a new set of eyes. Light brown, curious eyes that Duck’s sensed watching him appreciatively from time to time. No harm there, Duck’s stolen more than a few peeks at Indrid when the artist is otherwise occupied.

So, yeah, he’s glad the gift gives him another way of making Indrid feel like he’s a part of the team.

When he steps through the office door, Indrid perks up, spinning in his chair. 

“Good morning Duck! You caught me just in time, I have to take Thacker his gift.”

“Ain’t that a coincidence. Here” he produces the flat, rectangular box wrapped in pine tree paper, “Santa’s makin an early delivery.”

Indrid flaps his hands with a delighted smile, so Duck sets the box down on his desk. 

“Thank you so much, Duck. I have a meeting right after seeing Thacker so I can’t open it now-”

“No big deal, man. Just wanted to get it to you in case you were runnin around all day. Merry Christmas, ‘Drid.”

That smile follows him all the way to his office, then out into the freshly snow-covered woods. Indrid always seems so happy to see him. Unlike some people.

He checks his phone. Still no texts. He left Jason’s present on his front porch, some part o him hoping that it would strike the right balance between “it’s cool if we stay friends with benefits” and “but I would really like something more serious. Really. Would it kill you to go on an actual date?”

It’s not like the other guy isn’t willing to demand lots of Duck’s time and energy. It’s just that whenever Duck needs even a smidge of the same, he’s nowhere to be found. 

As he’s eating lunch, his phone buzzes. 

J: Dropped wrapped box back at your place. Been leading up to this for awhile, but I’m gonna end things. I know a cuffing move when I see one. 

Well, that explains the lack of contact for three weeks. 

He groans, closes his thermos. Has be really been that desperate for romance that he spent all this energy on a guy who acts twenty-five rather than thirty-five? It’s not that much to ask, right? He just wants someone who thinks he’s worth their time, who likes talking with him, who wants to get to know all the messy, overgrown parts of him. 

Ding

It’s an email from Indrid, asking if Duck will stop by his office after he locks up the visitor center so Indrid can thank him for the gift.

He responds in the affirmative, soothes his bruised ego for a few more minutes, and then dives back into his reports on the health of the Lost Forest section.

By the time he locks up, the only cars in the parking lot are his truck and Indrid’s VW Van. He heads to the lower floor and follows the clicking of a keyboard to Indrid’s office. 

“Hello, Duck.” Indrid ushers him in, shutting the door behind the ranger, “I’m glad you didn’t have to rush off. Please, ah, have a seat.” He gestures to the chair across from his desk, which he then leans back against. Duck could be imagining it, but it looks as if his usually messy, dyed silver hair has been brushed down. And he’s not in the thick coat and hat he wears on his way out the door at the end of the day; he’s still in his black cardigan and light green shirt, black pants showcasing the long lines of his legs. 

“I, ah, I really like the gift, Duck. And I was, ah, was wondering if you’d like to go get dinner before we make use of it.”

“Uh, how would we both use a sweater?” Duck’s heart ping-pongs between his throat and his stomach. 

“......What sweater?” Indrid’s eyes are wide behind his red glasses. 

“Aw fuck” Duck drops his head into his hands, “knew I shoulda bought more wrappin paper.”

“To be certain I am understanding correctly, this is not what you meant to give me?” Indrid bites his lip, tilting the box so Duck can see the contents. 

“Yeah, I did not mean to give my coworker a vibrator and a fuckin paddle.” He flops his head back, covering his face with his hands. Maybe he can hide like this until Indrid leaves or the world chooses to mercifully strike him dead. 

“Oh.” Indrid puts the lid back on the box, “it was for someone else. That makes more sense.”

He sounds sad, and that’s a million times worse than if he were angry or mocking. There has to be a way for Duck to salvage this. 

“Uh, you can keep ‘em. If, uh, if you want. Person I got ‘em for don’t wanna see me anymore.”

“I don’t have much use for them on my own. Well, I suppose this could be fun” he picks up the vibrating plug, one that can sync to music, speech, or an app, “but not as fun as it would with someone else controlling it.”

“You tellin me there ain’t someone chompin at the bit to get you into bed?”

“I’m not really anyone’s type.”

“You’re mine. Fuck. I, uh, I mean, uh-”

“Duck, while you recently got dumped, I assure you, you can do better than me.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I thought about you way more in the last month than I thought about him.” 

Indrid’s eyebrows leap up his head. Then his expression does a series of acrobatics, landing on disbelief. His friend looks down at the floor, arms crossed comfortingly around his stomach.

Duck stands, the few feet between them as charged and uncertain as a crumbling cliff edge. Carefully, he sets his hands on Indrid’s shoulders. 

“‘Drid, is there somethin you been meanin to tell me?”

“I like you a lot, Duck. And I find you painfully attractive.” Indrid refuses to look up, not even when Duck rests a hand on his cheek.

“Why didn’t you say anythin sooner?”

“I didn’t think you felt the same way.” 

Duck guides his face so they’re looking at each other, takes a deep breath, and leans up to kiss him. 

A fluttery sigh as Indrid’s hands settle on Duck’s body, starting on his hips and then boldly slipping into his back pockets. He keeps the kiss slow and chaste, holds off on parting his lips or nipping at the curves of Indrid’s mouth. Duck’s never had to reassure someone with a kiss before and he’s not going to fuck it up. 

He shifts forward, encouraging Indrid’s exploration of his body, and accidentally presses the taller man into the desk, pinning him. Indrid “eeps” into the kiss, going rigid in Duck’s arms.

“Fuck, sorry” Duck tries stepping back, only for Indrid to grab his ass, keeping them chest to chest. 

“Don’t be.”

Duck considers the flush crawling up Indrid’s neck and the hopeful look hiding behind his glasses. He sets a hand on each bony hip and gives a short, sharp shove, growling a little. Indrid moans, louder this time, and yanks him into a kiss by his hair. When he lets go Duck gulps for air before biting his ear

“You like it when I’m mean, sugar?”

“Like does not even begin describing it.”

“Here I thought I was gonna have to romance you some.”

“I am in favor of romance as well.” Indrid wriggles his hips, grin wide and eager. As much as Duck wants a look at the cock currently hardening against his thigh, he has an even better idea. 

“Think I can do both. It’s real clear tonight, whole place’ll look amazing with a full moon on the snow. Howsabout you and me take a little walk?”

“That sounds-”

“With you wearin this the whole time.” He whacks the gift box towards Indrid.

“-Perfect. Give, give me one moment.” Indrid grabs the plug and one of the packets of lube Duck put in it for courtesy and dashes from the room. Duck downloads an app onto his phone, and holds Indrid’s coat open for him when he gets back. 

As they set off down one of the short loop trails, he casually asks, “you turn it on?”

“Of courseAHhnn” Indrid shudders, stumbling on his next step. 

“You know much about that model?”

“I aAAAhhsumed it’s remote controlled”

“It is” Duck pulls his phone out, shows Indrid the corresponding app, “but it syncs to music too and, uh” he smirks, leans closer to the phone, “speech.”

Indrid yelps as the toy buzzes again. Duck happens to know it has multiple speeds and a thrust function, and he wants to know just how Indird looks when those kick on at the same time. But he pauses, waiting to see if Indrid needs to stop and go back inside.

“In, in that case” he flicks a strand of hair from his face, “why don’t you tell me about the nest you’ve been watching.”

Duck takes his arm, guiding them along the path and explaining all about the Great Horned Owl nest he’s spotted, and how he’s not sure why it’s occupied right now since nesting season isn’t for months for that species. He keeps his phone in his free hand the entire time to better pick up his voice. Indrid nods, doing his best to listen, but by the time the hit the clearing in question he’s having a hard time walking. When he’s busy looking at the stars, Duck finds the button on the app to turn on the thrusting function.

“FUCK!” Indrid hunches forward, bracing on a tree trunk, “ohgoodness, that’s, that’s so good.” He’s working his hips and ass against nothing,whimpers filling the night air. 

“Yeah? You like the fact I can fuck you without eve touchin you?” 

Indrid whines, manages to turn around and lean on the trunk, right hand frantically pawing his crotch. 

“Keep your fuckin hands off you dick.”

The whine jumps several notes in the scale as Indrid slams his palms flat on the bark, face turned pleadingly to the sky and hips jerking helplessly in a futile search for friction. He looks so debauched and just a little out of place, the sweet little artist who strayed too far into the woods and is at the mercy of the big, bad, wolf. 

This big bad wolf has no interest in mercy. 

“Lookit you. Gonna make a mess of yourself just from some teasin.”

“This is haAArdly teasing, oh, ohgod.”

“I’d say it counts. I mean, I may not let you cum at all.”

“Please” The whimper gives way to a sob, Indrid thoroughly cornered against the tree as Duck lunges forward.

“You’re on my turf now, sugar, so you don’t get to make a demand. We’re gonna do this my way, and I ain’t decided if that means leavin you to walk back hard or to make you cum so many times you make a mess of those pants and gotta drive home wearin a reminder of how fuckin needy you are when it comes to my dick.”

“Yes, yesyesyes”  Indrid tries to grind forward enough to hump him. Duck drops his phone in his pocket, figuring it’ll still pick up enough, and traps his hips back. 

“Yesss, Duck, sweetheart, please, please kiss me.”

“Can’t do that and talk at the same time.” Duck rips off one glove.

“BuMPHmmmmm”  Indrid hums around the fingers in his mouth, still writhing weakly against Duck’s hold. He has to be close, and Duck is harder than diamond.

The wolf pounces. 

He spins Indrid away from the tree and brings him gracelessly to the ground, climbing atop him and working his hips hard, rutting against his trapped dick. Indrid’s feet kick in the snow and he clings to him, babbling as Duck chases his orgasm.

“So good, so good sweetheart, please, please I’m going to cum-”

“If you cum before I finish I’m fuckin leavin you here.” 

“I can’t, it’s, it’s so much, I’ll make it up to you, oh, oh Duck, AHhnnn”  Indrid tenses under him, cumming with a cry.

“Fuck it” He grunts, grinding as hard as he can even as Indrid squirms from the overstimulation beneath him. It’s not always easy for him to cum like this, but goddamnit he’s soaked his boxers and Indrid is still here, willing and submissive, taking whatever Duck gives him, letting the beast in the trees have his fill. 

He cums with a gasp, dropping forward as it races through him. Over the rush in his ears, Indrid is murmuring sweetly, telling him how wonderful it was. 

Why are his knees so fucking cold?

Oh, right, the snow.

With a groan he sits up, standing on wobbly legs and helping Indrid up. When the other man whimpers he fumbles his phone, turning the toy off.

“C’mon, let’s go back and warm up.”

Indrid grins, looping their arms together and leaning against him. It’s not just the post-orgasm haze that has him giddy; he realizes he feels like this whenever he and Indrid are together.

“‘Drid will, uh, will you come home with me?”

“I have an alternate proposition. I need to change my clothes, and need to feed the mischief at home. How about you meet me at Blue Plate in an hour? After all, I did promise you a date.”

Duck brushes snow from Indrid’s hair as the taller man embraces him. Indrid is watching him, and it’s the first time a long while that Duck’s felt fully seen. 

“You did, didn’t you.” He sighs, resting his head on Indrid’s shoulder.

“Is that a ...yes?”

He tips his head up, kissing Indrid’s cheek, “Yep. It’s a date.”

[lydia-bell]

The Twelfth Time’s the Charm

Happy TBTP Holidays, @mysugarglidersrox​! I wrote you a bit of AU Stragan fluff (mostly). I hope you enjoy it!

[Edit: now with AO3 link!]

The Twelfth Time’s the Charm

Alex finally made it to the front of the line for signings. She'd let everyone else go ahead of her because she wanted to have a bit of fun without worrying that she was holding anyone else up. Handing the hardcover to the author, she said "I'm really looking forward to reading this. The chapter you read was pretty compelling."

"Thank you," he said, giving a small nod of acknowledgement. He was even prettier up close, those bright blue eyes catching and holding her attention. 

"So, to whom shall I make this out?"

"Alex Reagan." She waited to see if he would make the connection.

"Is that spelled with..." his voice trailed off. He looked up at her, his brow slightly furrowed. "Alex Reagan. Have we met?"

"No, we never did quite manage it," she replied lightly. Maybe if I'd called a twelfth time."

He actually looked abashed. It was a good look on him. "Of course. The reporter." Then his eyes narrowed a bit and he said, "I hope you aren't still trying to get me to agree to an interview."

"Nope. We wrapped on that story months ago. I just thought it would be fun."

He relaxed then and started to sign her book. "Is 'Reagan' spelled with or without an 'a'?"

"With. It used to be pronounced like the president but I guess my dad's family decided they didn't want the association. It was easier to change the pronunciation than the spelling."

He laughed, signed the book, and handed it back to her. 

"I hope you didn't take it personally when I didn't call back, Ms. Reagan. But at the time, I was very much focused on finishing this book, and in any event I'm afraid I've never enjoyed talking with the press."

"It's OK, lots of people don't."

"I presume you were able to find someone else to talk to."

"Oh, sure. Though the whole 'paranormal investigator' well ran a little dry after that. Maybe if you'd returned my calls, we could have done a whole series on it," she teased. 

"I'm sure I'm not that fascinating," he demurred.

"Oh, I don't know."

He chuckled. "You have a way with flattery, Ms. Reagan."

"Alex."

"Alex. I haven't had dinner yet. Would you be interested in joining me?"

"I think I'd like that a lot, yeah."

***

Strand—he'd said to call him Richard but she was struggling a bit to adjust—wanted some good, fresh seafood because "it's not the same in Chicago." That was fine with Alex, so they found an oyster bar a couple of blocks from the bookstore. Once they'd placed their orders, and thus run out of obvious small-talk fodder, she wasn’t sure what to say next. She was feeling oddly nervous, like this was a date with stakes instead of a spur-of-the-moment meal with a (granted, hot) former prospective interview subject.

She decided to ease into the conversation by asking about something she knew he would want to talk about.

"So, what inspired you to write your book?"

"I'm trying to do my part to encourage rational thinking in the world, against the tide of all of the forces that seem to be pushing in the opposite direction."

It was really unreasonable, Alex reflected, to be attracted to someone who talked like that all the time. But here she was. "Sure, but I meant more like, why this particular book, and why you?"

"Let's just say that I have experience with," he paused, "family members who have turned to the occult in times of crisis. It didn't provide the answers they were looking for, and it probably prevented them from doing something more useful."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you."

They both fell quiet for a moment as the waiter brought their food. When he'd gone, Richard continued as if he'd never stopped.

"The impulse to turn to paranormal explanations is understandable in some ways. Especially for people who have suffered trauma, or who lack a proper understanding of science and statistics. Other people have a psychological need to feel that they're special, that they have secret knowledge of some hidden aspect of the world. Some people are just looking for a break from the mundane. Of course there are other outlets that for these impulses—things like conspiracy theories or radical political movements, for instance. Either way, if people aren't careful about how they get their needs met, they can become targets. They can delude themselves. I want to prevent that, as much as I can."

"Wow," Alex said. "I guess that's...I don't know, deeper than I expected it to be?" Off his raised eyebrow she added, "That may have come out wrong. I guess I just expected something more along the lines of the videos I've seen you in."

"Ah, yes. Less human nature, more ripping apart the claims of charlatans."

"Something like that, yeah."

"Well," he admitted, "there's some of that too."

Alex laughed.

"Speaking of charlatans," Richard continued, "I certainly hope you found someone to represent the rational point of view on your show."

"We couldn't really find another person with your particular profile, but we did talk to a couple of skeptics. And a woman named Arianna Asadi called me..."

Richard groaned softly.

Alex laughed. "What? She said she heard I'd been calling around to paranormal researchers, and she wanted to make sure I didn't get the wrong idea. She warned me off of them!"

Richard huffed. "Ms. Asadi is an odd case. She purports to be a serious researcher. She even offers very well-founded debunkings of the ghost hunters and so-called psychics who prey on people looking for answers and meaning. And then she publishes books about 'historical hauntings'. I believe she's actually sincere, but it's all very frustrating."

"Well, she thinks highly of you."

"And what makes you say that?"

"That she said she admires your body of work." He actually blushed a little. Alex grinned and continued. "Anyway, you're right about the debunking. She asked who I'd talked to so far, and when I told her, she immediately listed off all these tricks they do to make it seem like lights are going out on their own and things like that. It was amazing, she basically described everything that happened with Emily Dumont and the old psych hospital. I think Dumont must do the same stuff a lot."

"Oh, I assure you, she does."

"See, it could have been you, explaining all this to our listeners," she teased.

"It could. But to be honest, knowing that you'd been talking to people like Dumont and Abruzzi, I wasn't sure what kind of show you were making or whether I wanted to be part of it. And anyway, I needed to focus on my book. I'm trying to reach as wide an audience as possible."

"Well, that episode was only downloaded 100,000 times, so I can see how that might not be a big enough audience."

His eyes widened. "I apologize. To be honest, I have no idea how many people listen to shows like yours. I'm not really familiar with the podcasting medium."

"I'd noticed."

"I shouldn't have assumed."

It was fun having him a bit on on defensive, a bit flustered. "It wasn't very intellectually rigorous of you."

"It wasn't," he agreed.

"It did help that we got a big boost from the mothership—from Pacific Northwest Stories," she admitted. "But yeah, the show's doing pretty well, and we have enough sponsors these days to keep us in plane tickets and free socks, so I have no complaints. Well. I might want to do something a little more substantial at some point. But this is fun."

"So if you were to do something a little more substantial, as you say, what would it be?"

"I don't know. Maybe people who are working on climate change mitigation. Like, we still have to think about reducing emissions, but there are lots of people who've just basically decided that's not going to work or it's not going to be enough and are figuring out how they're going to live in the new climate. It's kind of depressing? But also kind of hopeful. There's a lot of people doing that work around Seattle. A lot of Indigenous people, in particular. I don't think it would be hard to at least get a mini-series out of it."

"That's a big departure from interviewing Emily Dumont."

She laughed. "It is! Don't get me wrong, I definitely think there's room for both kinds of stories in the world. All kinds of stories. But I just feel like I want to branch out a little."

"Well, I hope you get a chance to do that show sometime soon," he said. "It sounds like a subject worthy of your talents."

OK, wow. And he'd said she had a way with flattery. "Thanks. So, um. What about you, what's next for you?" she asked.

"I had to basically put the functions of the Strand Institute on hiatus while I finished the book, so I'll work on getting that running again," he said. "Also, as it happens, I'll probably be back in Seattle a few times in the next few months."

"Oh?"

"Yes, my father lived here before his death. No condolences necessary," he said, pre-empting her, "it was almost 20 years ago now. But there are still some aspects of his estate that need to be dealt with, including the sale of his house."

"Oh, well. I can show you around, if you'd like. When you come back."

"I would like that very much."

The waiter came with the check. Alex started to say something about paying her share but Richard said "Please, allow me. I did invite you to dinner, after all." She had to admit to herself, as she watched the waiter show Richard how to settle the bill on his iPad, it was something of a relief; the prices had been frankly terrifying on a journalist's salary.

As they were walking back to her parking spot, they passed a quiet-looking bar. Richard stopped in front of it.

"Would you like to get a drink?" he asked.

Yes. She took a deep breath. "It sounds nice, but, I don't think that's a good idea. I had that beer with dinner, and it was a while ago so I should be OK, but I have to drive."

"Of course." He hesitated for a moment. "Although, if you don't want to drive home...you don't have to."

"Ah." It wasn't a complete surprise, but—OK, yes, maybe she was stereotyping because of his age and his manner, but he hadn't struck her as a sex-on-the-first-date kind of guy.

She must have come across as pretty unenthusiastic, because he added, "That's not why I paid for dinner."

"I know." And she did. He wasn't really smooth enough to be a manipulator...unless, of course, he was such a good manipulator that he was only faking the bluntness and questionable social graces in order to lure her into a false sense of security.

It didn't seem likely.

Did she want to have sex with him? (Well, yeah.) Did she even like him? Everybody had said he was kind of a prick, and they weren't wrong. But he wasn't just that, either. Maybe it was his obvious passion for his work, or maybe it was just that she'd seldom known anyone quite so confidently, exasperatingly himself—even if that self might be, well, a little stuffy and self-important. He wasn't even a little bit charming but he was somehow still endearing. (He'd also been very respectful to the waitstaff, and that was always a good sign.)

She was pretty sure she liked him. He was a challenge, no doubt—but Alex was never deterred by a challenge. But she had a stupidly early morning tomorrow and also, God, she hadn't worn her pretty underwear or shaved or anything, and it was silly, yes, but she liked to make a good first impression.

And then she imagined saying that out loud and how ridiculous he would find it. "The male libido," she imagined him saying sternly, "isn't deterred by those things. Women are far more concerned about their body hair than men are."

God help her, the thought made her giggle. She suppressed it, though—it didn't seem polite to start laughing right after someone asked you to sleep with them. "I'm very, very tempted," she said. "But it's late, and I have an 8am meeting for some ungodly reason."

"I understand."

"But," she continued, poking him gently in the chest, "I'm going to hold you to that promise to look me up the next time you're in Seattle."

He smiled, probably the warmest smile she'd seen on him all night. He really was very attractive, damn it. "Good."

In a couple of minutes they were back at her car. Neither one of them seemed to be sure what to do next, so she unlocked it, but didn't make a move to get in.

"Do you want me to drive you back to your hotel?" 

"What? Oh. No, thank you. I'll be fine." He seemed very distracted all of a sudden, like he was looking past her, or just a bit over her head. She turned around, but there was nothing there. Just deep shadows.

"Everything OK?"

"Of course. I just thought I saw something." 

"OK. Well. Good night?"

"Good night." A bit hesitantly, he bent toward her.

He was so tall, she had to almost get on tiptoes to kiss him. It started out light, but they both lingered and it quickly became intense. Not sloppy, do-me-right-here-right-now intense, more like... like there was a lot of feeling under that buttoned-down exterior. They stepped further into each other's space; he was so much bigger than her that his embrace was like being wrapped up in a cloak, and it could have been intimidating but it wasn't, it was warm, it was hot. He ran one hand through her hair and gently cupped the back of her head to pull her closer. Fuck, it was good.

To hell with 8am meetings, she thought. To hell with next time. She deserved some fun.

She pulled away, not far, but far enough to look him in the eye and say, "I think...I think I'd like to take you up on your offer after all."

His hand was still in her hair. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

They got into the car to drive back to his hotel. She fumbled her keys a bit, making them both chuckle in that high-strung way of people who know something's about to happen. As they pulled away, she noticed that Richard was looking back at that same spot.

It was weird—all she could see were shadows.

[polin-erospsyche]

My Angel, Please Let Me Down Slowly - a Jordelia fanfic

Sidenote: I don’t really know what to say apart for that I had this idea for a fanfiction and for some reason I decided to write it and then I decided to share it. Like we say: if nothing is ventured, nothing is gained right? I have never felt so vulnerable on this hellsite before because fanfic is not what I really do and I certainly have never shared my writing before. I tried to make this as close to the character as I could, I’m sure you’ll find that there are mistakes here and there. It also ended up being much longer than I thought it would be, I ramble a lot who is suprised?  I hope you’ll read it and that you’ll enjoy, I certainly had fun writing it. 

“So? How do you feel?” Lucie asked excitedly. James stared at the thin silver band Grace was holding in front of him, seemingly lost in a daze. They stood in the drawing room of the London Institute with Lucie, Will and Tessa hovering, eagerly looking at James to look for any changes after the bracelet had come off.

None of them really knew the exact reason for which Grace had gone against Tatiana Blackthorn and accepted Lucie’s offer to join the London Institute and fight against Belial. Lucie had assured everyone that it was much better if they didn’t know the reason as, in truth, she wanted to keep their plans to bring Jesse back a secret just a little longer. Once on their side, Grace had quickly although reluctantly admitted that James was in fact not genuinely in love with her but was under the spell of the bracelet he wore since he was thirteen. Once she had explained Tatiana’s and Belial’s plan and the bracelet’s function, Will had exclaimed that this was completely unacceptable and that it had to be taken off at once. Everyone had agreed. However, due to the late hour of the night and because James wanted to do it privately, they had all been sent home with the promise that they would be able to come and check on James the following morning. All at the exception of Cordelia who had insisted on staying behind and was currently waiting in the library with Matthew who had decided to keep Cordelia company and wanted to show her an essay written by Oscar Wilde. Being responsible for the bracelet’s charm, Grace was the only who could take it off easily, and so, here there were with the bracelet removed.

“He’s not going to feel very different right away as once the bracelet is off there is still a remnant of the bond.” Grace replied for James. James disagreed, he felt as if he had woken up from a long slumber, and were finally able to breathe normally. He saw the world not through the veiled eyes of a passive body bound to an invisible force but as if he could experience everything around him for himself again. Grace had also lost this ethereal beauty he had found so fascinating. She remained stunning with her angel soft blond hair closing to silver, her frail complexion and her big grey eyes but her beauty suddenly did not make him want to follow her to the end of the world or throw himself in the river Thames. He realized with a sudden jolt that she was talking, to him more specifically, and that he had missed most of it.

“… you’ll be all right and I’m … you … you must know…” she paused, looking unsure. He looked at her with a look between resentment and expectation and wondered what she could possibly want him to know. Was she going to apologize? And if she did, what would he be able to say? “Never mind, we’ll talk soon. When you’ll be feeling more like yourself.”  

“Yes soon, just not right away. I need some time to think and to reflect.” to get away from you James thought. He would not let her know how much he could not stand being in her presence right now, he would be civil. After all she couldn’t really be blamed, she had had no choice but to obey the witch.

“James?” asked Tessa gently “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I assure you.” Looking towards his father he quickly added “Don’t look at me like that papa, you’re making me anxious.”

Will looked as if this was the first time he’d ever truly seen his son and wondered whether to make him stay in bed the next day with ten blankets, a hot cup of tea and the curtains drawn so as not to risk James developing a weird sort of illness.

“I’m sorry Jamie bach, it’s just” he walked closer to James “we are your parents, our job is to worry for you. Are you sure you’re alright? I can call Jem right now if you want me to, I don’t mind.”

“Will!” Tessa chastised.

“It’s not necessary to call Uncle Jem. I just feel a little weird and lighter than usual, which is not so different from the first time Grace took off the bracelet.” James glanced at Grace who intensely stared at the ground as if the cracks in the floorboard was the most interesting thing she had ever seen.

“Well if he’s alright I think we should go and tell Cordelia. I promised her I’d let her know as soon as the whole ordeal was passed. I’m sure she must worry.” Lucie chirped in.

Cordelia. Daisy. Angel. Images came rushing to James, her soft and warm embrace, her tenacity, the smiles she would only reserve for him, and his irrepressible need at times to run his fingers through her auburn hair. And how, at each of these times, he had to force himself not to do it as he would never have let himself cross that line. He owed Cordelia, who had given her reputation to save him, not to lead her on. And although they had eventually, after five months of pretence, reached a place where they were comfortable around each other and started to share inside jokes, their engagement was still a sham and he would not pretend that there was something there when there wasn’t. But was that true? Hadn’t he told her that he had never wanted anything more than to kiss her when they were in the Whispering Room? And, unknown to Cordelia, that desire had never really went away even after Grace had put the bracelet back onto his wrist. He didn’t know exactly how he felt about Cordelia but he knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had never loved Grace.

He had to see Cordelia. He had to explain to her and hope that she would understand and give him a chance. And maybe with just a bit of luck she would not feel indifferent to him and she had and still did share the same desire as him when they shared their first kiss. And they would then be able to figure out their feelings together. He had to go to the library, see her, talk to her.

“I appreciate everyone’s worry, really, and I will let you fuss around me at your heart’s content tomorrow. But Lucie is right, Daisy has been waiting.”

“Great! Let’s go.” Lucie started to walk towards the door but was stopped as James grabbed her elbow.

“No Lucie. Alone. I need to see her alone, please?”

Lucie pouted, feeling as if she was going to miss all the fun, but gestured for him to go. James who needed no more encouragements hastened out of the drawing room and ran down the halls of the Institute.

When he arrived in front of the library doors, he took a moment to steel himself and tried to get a hold of his muddled thoughts. After tonight he might not have to pretend anymore. He might be able to reach for her hand or play with her hair or take her in his arms and kiss her whenever he wished to. Not because he had to go along with a lie but simply because they both wanted to. He took a breath in, reached for the library door, slowly opened it and for the second time that night he froze.

The room was dimly lit by an oil lamp placed on the fireplace mantel but in the far corner he could discern two figures leaned against a bookshelf, clinging to each other, with an open book discarded at their feet. Probably the book Matthew wanted to show Cordelia. The smaller figure let out a soft moan and James shut his eyes. Suddenly the floor under his feet seemed no longer stable. His head and heart were pounding as if he had breathed in to quickly and yet there suddenly seemed like there would never bee enough air for him to breath normally. The energy that had made him almost run to the library was sapped and for a minute his world had lost its direction and a part of him wished he could still be under Grace’s influence.

“Matthew” whispered Cordelia.

James opened his eyes, already adjusting to the darkness of the room, only to see Cordelia staring back at him. Matthew still had his head bend, kissing her neck the way James had done not so long ago, the way he still wanted to do now.

“Matthew, stop.” James wasn’t sure which of them had said it but to his short-lived relief Matthew lifted his head but only to follow Cordelia’s gaze and lend his eyes onto James.

Matthew immediately scrambled into an upright position trying to smooth his hair and clothes out.

“James! Here you are, we were worried. I was just reading a passage from The Decay of Lying.” Said Matthew biting his lower lip, his hair dishevelled, the first few buttons on his waistcoat undone. He was pointing at the book Cordelia had now picked up and clutched in one hand, her other hand hovering at her lips.

“Listen to this and tell me what you think, “What is interesting about people in good Society is the mask that each one of them wears, not the reality that lies behind the mask”.’ Matthew recited, because of course he would have learned by heart Wilde’s writing. How fitting as well that out of all of Wilde’s quotes he had picked one about masks, James thought.

“Riveting.” James let out through a forced smile. “I’m sorry for interrupting your passionate reading, I should have knocked. I just wanted to let you know that Grace took the bracelet off and I knew you were both waiting.”

Matthew’s expression hardened “I told you, didn’t I, that she was not as angelic as she was trying to make you believe. At least now I won’t have to try and prove it and hopefully she will be on her way once we win against Belial and Tatiana.” James didn’t know the reasons but it seemed that recently over the past five months or so Matthew had developed an even more pronounced dislike of Grace. “Anyway,” Matthew’s expression softened “how are you feeling?”

“Everyone has been asking me that.” James sighed. He threw a glance at Cordelia, everyone had been asking except her, she hadn’t said a thing. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning when my head is less foggy. I’ll leave you to whatever it is that you were doing.” And with that James closed the door and left.

He was halfway down the hallway when he heard quick, light footsteps “Wait! James, please, wait. I can explain.” The way she was almost begging him to stop was like shards of glass in his heart, but he kept walking faster.

“It’s not what you think.”

“No?” James stopped abruptly. “It seemed really clear to me what was going on in that room. I assure you I do not need any further explanations.” He was now facing her.

“We were reading …” started Cordelia.

“Reading doesn’t usually include kissing. At least from what I’ve experienced, it doesn’t.” James said with finality.  

Cordelia stared at James not knowing what to say. He was angry and she wasn’t sure he would listen to anything she had to say right now. Then she ventured carefully “Would it make a difference if I told you it wasn’t supposed to happen? You weren’t supposed to see it. We both feel bad, we’re both sorry.” She could barely meet his eyes when she finished.

James slightly shook his head and exhaled “You don’t have to, neither of you owes me an explanation. You’re not bound to me in any way just like I am not bound to you. We’re both free of pursuing any relationships we want. I just never thought of all the men you could possibly have in London you’d go with my parabatai, my Matthew. I feel foolish, I should have known. I’ve seen the way you started to look at Math, the way you act around each other and the way you started to look at each other when you thought no one was watching. Just tell me something, and please answer me honestly, for Matthew’s sake, do you love him?”  

“I don’t know.” She murmured, looking down at her clasped hands, her knuckles almost white.

Her answer knocked the air out of James. He thought that might have been the case, of course he did. He hadn’t lied when he said that he saw Cordelia and Matthew, their relationship had changed ever so gradually. While James was busy trying not to act on his false feelings for Grace and to comprehend why his heart seemed to beat just a little quicker when Cordelia entered a room, she had been busy keeping up a false engagement and falling for his best friend. He just never thought she would admit to it or that he would have to hear it.

Cordelia lifted her head, hoping to erase what she had said, hoping to bring the conversation back to them and not linger on her unclear feelings for Matthew “But the bracelet is off and …”

“And nothing has changed.” Except that everything had, but she didn’t have to know this. More than anything he wanted to see Cordelia happy even if her happiness costed him his. He would rather have cut out his own heart than take away Cordelia’s chance at being in love, so he continued “Daisy, I truly am sorry. I don’t think that either of us were ready for this turn of event but I do think we still need to get married, just to keep your reputation intact. But once this year is up if Matthew makes you happy then I will be happy for you.”

“So you’re not angry? I thought that … I don’t know what I thought. I just thought you would care.” I thought you would be jealous. Cordelia hadn’t kissed Matthew to make James jealous, of course not, but her treacherous heart still hoped he would return her feelings and so, in effect, would be showing signs of jealousy.

“Of course I care! You have become such a dear friend to me. I care for you immensely; you should know that by now. And no, I’m not angry, I’m just surprised. I saw it coming, I just never though it would actually happen.”  

So there it was, she thought, he wasn’t angry or jealous just caught off guard. She had hoped that tonight would turn out so differently. That without the bracelet on he would tell her he loved her. That they would decide that the marriage wouldn’t be a sham but a real one based on love, understanding and trust. Yet, she never felt further from James than at this moment. He hadn’t loved her then; he didn’t love her now. And worst of all she wasn’t even sure how she felt about Matthew. When had things between them started to go so wrong?

“It’s late, I think we both need some rest after every that has happened today. I’ll see you in the morning Cordelia.”

As he started to slowly walk away, she reached for his hand and intertwined her fingers with his.

“I’m so sorry, I wish it could have gone another way.”

“Me too.” Maybe things would have been different if I had told you when we were younger, I just didn’t know it until I saw you with him my angel. James gently pried his fingers away and returning to the silence and darkness of his bedroom.

That night he promised himself that he would stand by Matthew and Cordelia, would smile at their happiness and in time would be able to mend his broken heart. He would not and could not stand in the middle of their happiness because he loved them both beyond words. He came to the resolution that if he could see them both happy with each other than he would have to be content with that.  

[priorireverte]

Congratulations Lizzie!

Your application for Ginny Weasley has been accepted. She certainly has a lot to grapple with, both old and new. On top of the general ‘becoming an adult in the world’ things of one’s twenties! I do not envy her, though I do look forward to seeing her struggles and triumphs.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Lizzie, she/her

TIMEZONE: GMT

ACTIVITY LEVEL: The UK is currently in lockdown so I have a lot of free time. I am a part-time student but that is flexible so I know I have the time to dedicate to an rp. I do have health problems which sometimes take me out of commission but I normally can give advance warning for when this might happen and these episodes don’t last long.

ANYTHING ELSE: Suicide is a big trigger for me, as well as suffocation in any form. I’ve been in RPs since I was about 14 so I feel comfortable with the etiquette and what’s expected and I’m excited to find a new place to write and love.

 CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Ginevra “Ginny” Weasley.

BIRTHDATE: 11 August 1981

DEATHDATE: N/A

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Ginny identifies as a cis woman and is very comfortable in that identity and the associated she/her pronouns. Her sexuality is slightly more complicated; she identifies as bisexual, having come to the realisation through her teenage years. She’s never come out to anyone, but it’s not something she hides either. Her reasoning has always been that if people spend enough time with her then they’ll pick it up eventually. She’s always maintained that she would have realised her queerness earlier if it hadn’t been for her all encompassing crush on Harry which took up her first few years at Hogwarts. 

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

OCCUPATION: Reserve Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies. Not exactly where she wants to be, but she knows she needs to pay her dues and work her way up through the roster to make a name for herself as a Quidditch player.

FACECLAIM: Luca Hollestelle I think is probably the best fit

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

POSTBELLUM: 

Somewhat naively, which could be forgiven considering her age, Ginny had thought that once Voldemort was gone everything would be okay again. Of course, war is not so simple. Sometimes Ginny still feels like the war hasn’t ended because everything isn’t okay again. They lost Fred and the grief from that loss felt all-consuming for so long. They had struggled and fought and it still felt like they’d lost. People celebrated but Ginny just felt adrift. She hadn’t wanted to go back to Hogwarts, but she knew that it was important and so she returned. It felt like a living nightmare. No matter the work put into restoring the castle, Ginny saw bodies in every corner and when she came down for breakfast in the Great Hall she could still see the casualties laid out in rows. 

Quidditch became the best form of escape she had and she threw herself into it with a renewed passion, pushing herself as hard as she could. Quidditch has remained a form of therapy for her and it was a foregone conclusion that she followed it as a career after she finished Hogwarts. Years might have passed since the end of the war, but Ginny still relies on her job to get her out of bed each day and keep her a functioning member of society. 

She makes time each week to stop in on each of her family members, almost as if more time spent with them will fill the gap of never seeing Fred again. Of course she misses him still, and she thinks of her missing brother every day, but her life has found some sort of normality and wounds are beginning to heal. At least, they were until news of the Returned reached her. It feels like the unfairness of Fred’s death occurs again every time someone else comes back and it’s not him. Ginny can’t help but be angry; what cruel hand of fate would bring back Bellatrix Lestrange, who orchestrated so much misery, instead of reuniting a broken family?

PERSONALITY: 

Ginny is very good at hiding her sadness. Other emotions, not so much. Her mum has always told her that every anger and frustration is clear as day in her expression, even if Ginny manages to hold her tongue. Sadness, however, is easy to shut away to only be taken out in private. She knows she’s a strong person, she’s been through too much to not be, and that is the side of her she wants the world to see. She’d prefer to cover sadness with anger and quick wit, never letting anyone see into her heart unless she gives them permission. Of course, that means that she’s not the most emotionally intelligent and she struggles with the times when it’s important that she does share feelings that run deeper than sass and anger. Ginny is overly-combative and age hasn’t tempered that. She can still throw a mean bat-bogey hex but she can now follow it up with a mean right hook, and she’s more than likely to. She’s fiercely protective of her friends and family, and there’s a softness that she can express for certain people. At heart, she is a kind person, but she’s scared of letting too many people see that. 

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: 

The Weasley family is a family full of love. Of course there are flaws and arguments, just like any family, but there was no point in her childhood where Ginny ever doubted how much her family loved her and how much she loved them in return. They didn’t have a lot of money and there were many points during her childhood and particularly her teenagerdom where Ginny resented that, but she didn’t blame her parents. She was only thirteen when Voldemort returned, and that changed so many things so very quickly. Money and normal family squabbles just didn’t seem important any more, and the strongest value that Ginny picked up from her family was that it was important to fight for what she believed in. No matter what happened in the rest of the war, Ginny clung onto that ideal and it is the core of her personality.

HISTORY: 

Ginny has very few memories of a life not touched by Voldemort. Of course her early childhood was free of that fear, and she remembers playing Quidditch in the garden with her brothers and begging to go to Hogwarts with them every year. Those memories are not nearly as clear and sharp as her years at Hogwarts, and none are as clear as her second year. Her first year, despite being traumatic, is almost entirely lost to her having spent so much of it under the Diary’s spell. Her second year is unfailingly vivid, no matter how much she wishes it wasn’t. There were the nightmares, the creeping feeling like a cold hand on her spine that she would hear his voice in her head again. Then there were the looks of the other students. Ginny might not have been in control of herself when those terrible things happened, but she felt responsible and she felt the judgement in the stares of her peers. Ginny felt very lonely that whole year, but it was because of this feeling of ostracisation that she developed such a sense of confidence. 

She did her best to grow above the judgement of others and not to care what people thought or said and as a result her confidence blossomed. It was her confidence and her strong sense of justice which made her fast friends with those willing to give her a chance and by the end of her third year she felt as though the horrors of her experience with Voldemort could finally be put behind her and she would be able to have a normal teenagerhood. 

His return certainly put a halt to those ideas, but she still managed to be a normal teenage girl in between the difficulties of living in a world at war. Ginny’s skill as a witch and as a Quidditch player were only encouraged by the certainty of the times they were living in, and her ferocious commitment to justice went hand in hand with the desire to fight in the war rushing towards them all. She still hasn’t talked much with her family about what happened in the year that Snape and the Carrows took over Hogwarts, the only people she’s comfortable discussing it with being Neville and Luna because they were there for it. Part of her feels like she didn’t do enough to help Harry, and a large part of her feels guilty for having to leave Neville on his own after Easter. Regardless, everything that happened that year feels very much overshadowed by the terrible tragedy of the Battle itself, and her experiences really don’t seem that important.

OOC EXPLORATION:

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? One of my friends linked me to this rp and I was instantly fascinated. I feel like there have been so many HP rps that there are very few fresh ideas left and this plot just hooked me immediately. I love all the new dynamics that it opens up and honestly it just seems like an exciting place to write.

ANYTHING ELSE? So I have a pinterest board for Ginny here. Then I had ideas and feelings about the whole Harry/Ginny thing but I didn’t know where it best fit into the app so it’s here, sorry!

The Harry problem. When he left to do the good, right, and noble thing, Ginny expected that when he came back they would pick up where they left off, maybe he even expected the same thing. War changes people though, and she knew that the person he came back to was not the same person she had been when he had left. The Battle only further compounded that issue. He was her first love, and she knows that he will always mean a lot to her but it felt as though the world collapsed when the war ended and romance just wasn’t her priority. Of course she adores Harry, and his friendship means the world to her, but that spark she used to feel just never came back. 

[itsclydebitches]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this but at this point in the show it feels like: 1.) Pyrrha has been fridged. Her death and character is only in relation to Jaune now and how he, and only he, feels about it. Especially since they keep bringing it up only for his character development. And 2.) Male characters are 'The Devil' the second they breathe in a way that the fandom or characters don't like. Female characters never get chastised or scolded, whereas the males are always 'the problem.'

I’d hesitate to use the term “fridged” just because that implies a lack of development and respect that I don’t think applies to Pyrrha overall, but I do find it quite frustrating that Jaune is the sole bearer of this grief. Doesn’t help that it draws from a number of other annoyances of mine, specifically that he gets so much attention overall and the implication that romance trumps every other type of relationship. Jaune must be more impacted by Pyrrha’s death than her other teammates and friends because he kissed her. Whereas the larger implications of watching RWBYJNR in action is that they’re all incredibly close and losing one should impact the whole group. With the exception of Ruby’s talk with Oscar and Nora and Ren getting tacked onto Jaune’s grief at the statue, we really haven’t seen that. 

And yeah. RWBY is rather fascinating to me because it’s usually the reverse: the male heroes are uwu cinnamon roll babies who can do no wrong whereas if a woman makes a single mistake she’s cancelled forever. I’ve spoken before about who the story encourages us to identify with, general misogyny, etc. but in RWBY’s case I think other minority identities play a part. Meaning, it’s not all male characters who are ‘The Devil.’ Jaune is beloved by a huge portion of the fandom, as well as by our writers. It thus strikes me that he is likewise a very ‘safe’ character. He’s a white guy coming from a prestigious family. His heterosexuality is established very early on. Any deviation from accepted social norms is treated as a joke (him wearing a dress at the dance). He’s literally the Nice Guy who learns to treat women with basic decency and is applauded for it. 

Then you have someone like Ozpin. Also presented as privileged and distinguished, but who otherwise doesn’t fit into the mold of what a man is “supposed” to be. He’s rather androgynous. He doesn’t want to fight (compare him to Ironwood with his “manly” insistence on striking first). He’s queer coded in many ways, careful (“cowardly”), literally ends up in the body of a child, is revealed to have been many races throughout his lifetime, and is a survivor of domestic abuse at the hands of a woman. 

Yes, we identify with the RWBY gang. Combine that with the pro-protagonist writing and you get a fandom who insists that these women can do no wrong. When pitted against the men in the story they tend to take precedence. However, I’m not sure I’d say that all men on the show are equally presented as “problematic.” Jaune with his boy-next-door looks and adherence to most aspects of traditional masculinity is constantly defended. Whether he’s lying about his transcripts or shoving Oscar into a wall, his bad behavior is shrugged off. Canonically in the form of quick forgiveness or Yang’s “Will he be all right?” as well as in most of the fandom. In addition, Jaune’s grief functions as an endless excuse. He lost Pyrrha and thus, supposedly, we should overlook anything problematic that stems out of that. Meanwhile, Ozpin with his various levels of queerness isn’t afforded the same luxury by the story or the fandom. When he makes mistakes he’s crucified for them endlessly. The grief of a thousand lifetimes is suddenly no longer an excuse. To me, the contrast speaks more to being the right kind of man as opposed to men in general. The classic hero with sword, shield, and Pyrrha in his arms is defendable. The passive strategist on his knees after reliving being killed by his wife... not so much. 

[just-4-xmas-today]

A Gift of Song and Dance

Here is one of my three Christmas presents to you all. I want to thank @timebird84​ for putting on an amazing Phantom Christmas as usual. This is a one-shot for you E/C fans. Read and then watch the video as an extra gift (put on headphones- though I caution it may be loud), All writing art and music is done by me for this one shot. —–

Erik was reading. This was something he often did, as Christine had come to learn. This had in a way, surprised her.  She knew of course he was quite a knowledgeable man, knowing more languages than she could name. She had even seen his library before the mob three years prior. However, when she had first moved in, she simply had not been able to conjure the image of Erik doing anything… remotely quiet. Or distracting. Up until the first time she came across him early one morning, book in hand, quiet in front of the fireplace, she had only seen him being, well, him. Animated and almost always talking to her. At first they were shy rambles, focusing entirely on her and her own well being. ‘Does this stew taste good Christine’, ‘would you like a blanket Christine’, ‘would you like me to sing to you?’, so on so forth.

Eventually however, as he grew more confident she really was here to stay, he simply began to speak almost none stop. Ramblings of a man who had never been allowed to ramble to someone before. Sometimes she found it adorable, other times a bit tiresome, but generally she was simply fascinated. She was one of the few who knew Erik at all, and she had come to know him as a musical genius first and foremost. However, as time went on, she came to realize he was simply brilliant in every regard. History, culture, advance maths and sciences, and while often he would go so in depth that she could not fully comprehend everything he was saying, she loved to hear him talk. To see him so excited and happy.

He could talk about the most abstract nuisances in Greek tragedy until she dozed off late in the evening. Soon she would wake in their bed and there was a comfort in that knowledge, in the little life they shared. So to come across him not playing his organ or talking about advanced academics, had been something of a culture shock.

That had been months years ago however, and now she was quite acquainted to Erik sitting in front of the fire, reading a book. He had slowly cooling lemon tea with honey by him, something he drank regularly to help preserve his voice, and a book in an unknown language in his long thin fingers. Absentmindedly, he was humming a song she had never heard before. It was a waltz, she could tell that, and most likely a new composition she’d hear over the next week until it was utterly perfected and performed for her as his beloved audience, and sometimes Nadir, if she could convince him to crawl out of his shell enough to perform in front of someone besides herself.

She listened, laying next to him, tea dress hiked slightly so she could feel the gracious warmth of the fire on her stockings. It was a beautiful composition naturally, hummed by an even more stunning voice. She had yet to hear a composition of his that she did not like. In fact, she had yet to see or hear any art made by him she did not enjoy.

As she listened, her mind began to imagine a beautiful dance in a ballroom, filled with the colours of rich fabrics swirling with their dark cores, hands in hands, feet in sync as music carried them…  

And suddenly a rather tragic thought occurred to her as she stood and moved to stand behind him. She bent down and nestled her albeit pointed chin on his boney shoulder. She looked blankly at the page as his humming continued, though she could tell he was thoroughly enjoying the contact as his body, always so stiff in posture, sagged slightly. Still she asked in a quiet voice, “Does it ever bother you that you can never dance to your own music? It’s always so beautiful and yet… You’d have to be so focused on really creating it, that you can not even fully enjoy it.”

He stopped humming and answered in a startlingly calm voice “It would if I could dance Christine. But, I can’t. So I am much happier performing so lovely creatures such as yourselves can enjoy.”

This took her by surprise. “There’s… Something you can’t do?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Apart from modeling? Yes. I can’t dance.” He laughed, voice warm and rich. Then he raised a leg that had been resting on a small automan. It ended in a stump, it’s walking prosthetic leaning against the small velvet stool. Part of his leg had been made unusable by the mob years ago, and the sight was so normal to Christine now that she had forgotten about it all together most days.  “At one point I could with a bit of success, but now I can not. My prosthetic allows me to walk, and on a good day without a limp, and my organ one allows me to play but I can not walk on that one at all. However, neither of them could stand doing much more than basic walking and maybe jogging if absolutely necessary. Dancing would certainly break the mechanism I use to make the ankle function properly. So… I don’t dance.”

He did not sound bitter (so very different from his initial reaction to losing part of his leg), only accepting. Which in a way, was more depressing to the blond soprano. “That’s… I never considered that. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” A life without dancing while simultaneously surrounded by the world’s most amazing music sounded in that moment, like cruel mockery.

He turned his head to face her, no nose to hit her own as he did this. His skeletal features only held warmth for her now as she looked into those golden eyes. “Don’t be sorry dear. I encourage curiosity and I am utterly touched you care so much for me that you would want me to dance and enjoy music as you do.”

The smile on his non-existent lips held nothing but warmth and love, and she could not help but kiss him…

—

That was three weeks ago. And now she found herself pacing Meg’s parlour, a serious look on her face as Meg knit, watching her. All around them was Christmas cheer mocking Christine, right down to the last ornament on Megs small Christmas three -which was more ornament than tree at this point.  “Christine… I think you are overthinking this. He’d be happy with a piece of paper you touched once.”

Christine glared at her mousy brown hair friend. “He deserves more than that. And… I don’t know Meg. Last year had been easy, but how am I going to top getting him that bloody cat? He practically picked her out when we passed the pet shop on our Sunday walks. This year he’s been more…”

“Secretive?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No… Relaxed. Like he seems too content with- with everything!” She said, for once wishing he

wanting for something.

“I mean, you could get him some meat on those bones. His deformity would not be nearly as pronounced if he just ate properly.” She snickered.

Christine couldn’t help but giggle a tiny and announce proudly “Actually I have had some success on that front. He actually gained a few kilograms since I started taking over dinner. I mean, I still feel his ribs but I can touch his stomach and actually feel a layer of something I front of his organs.“

Christine could tell it was a mark of how good Meg was as a friend, that she didn’t look disgusted, but instead nodded with approval. "But that still doesn’t answer my issue.” Christine sighed, the victorious moment passing.

“Why not make him something?” Meg asked, returning to her knitting.

“Because I can’t just knit him a sweater- no offense, he’d love it from anyone else- but I as in Christine his girlfriend, can not. It just seems so… lame. In comparison. He’s a genius and anything I do just seems so… insignificant."

Meg rolled her eyes. "I didn’t mean knit. I know you can sew or knit or anything like that without it turning into a tangled mess… but what about… music? You two got together because of it. Why not write him a song for once?"

Christine looked at her and then jumped into the sofa, hugging her friend tightly "oh Meg! You’re a genius!”

—

Across Paris in a small but well cared for flat, Erik slammed his fist on the wall. “I’m an idiot! This-these mere jewels just won’t do! She deserves even more! Angel that she is!"

Nadir rolled his eyes, sipping from his glass of wine and watching his dear friend pace like a caged tiger ready to kill it’s keepers. "you know. Any other woman would be quite happy with these… so why not Christine?” As he spoke he gestured to the table with had several Ruby and diamond necklaces and bracelets. Red was apparently her favourite colour according to Erik.

“Because it’s just- she’s just- too perfect Nadir! Nothing on this Earth seems good enough for that beautiful angel. Nothing.” Erik sulked.

Nadir shook his head fondly. “Well has she mentioned wanting anything recently?"

He sighed "No. Not like last year with the photo- wait… she. She did mentioned something about dancing and us enjoying my music… She wanted to dance with me but I couldn’t becau- Nadir I’ll be back some time- I have to go to the hardware store!” And with that he quickly hurried out, a normal sight for nadir as the man often went on his thoughts the moment they struck him. Regardless of the incoming snow…

—

Christine and Erik had never been more silent or busy.  Erik barely noticed when Christine walked past him with a pile of books from his library, just as she barely noticed him struggling under the weight of a box filled with metal, wood, and rubber piping. She often locked herself in her old room which had been converted into her own office, just as he locked himself in his workshop.

Odd sounds filled the night under the Opera. For Christine, it was a lot of humming and cursing loudly in swedish. A few shattered ink bottles as well. Although when that happened she scrambled to cover her little project before awkwardly walking to Erik’s workshop to ask if he knew of a way to get the ink out of her crimson carpet.

Every time she knocked, she’d hear a loud clang or the sound of several objects falling, as well as Erik’s own fair share of curses, most in Farsi. After some scrambling he’d answer the door and help her without complaint and even offer her more ink.

The days were going to fast for Christine’s sake but Meg insisted she take a small break for dinner with her best friend. Erik encouraged this and right as the door closed he began to pace. His present had three parts two it. And what should have been the easiest part was proving to be his greatest challenge. Not to mention it'd  be the easiest to detect, his paranoid mind had decided.

Still. He sat glaring at his organ, not a single note coming to mind. And after a quarter of an hour had passed, he got up, deciding a small snack could help him think (and Christine had left fresh biscuits out, much to his secret delight).

As he started eating be began thinking of the woman in general, and it occurred to him he had not actually seen her much lately, despite the fact they lived together. And then he realized for some reason she had been cooped up in her study…

Silent as ever, biscuit in mouth, he crept to the study. Slowly he opened the door which had been left open by a crack. And inside was the answer to his prayers…

—

Christmas day came and both people in the small house under the Opera were nervous and jumpy with excitement. They cooked and sang Carol’s together as they made a small feast for two. Tomorrow on Christmas day they would have nadir and Meg over as well but for tonight it was just the happy couple.

    Christine found herself focusing on anything related to baking and Erik anything else just about. And soon the table was set, wine poured. It was all delicious of course and they spent the time discussing the latest news in Paris or in the opera. Christine was a bit of a gossip about Meg and Raoul just as Erik was about Nadir and his servant Darius, who was only two years older.

Then all too soon, it was time. “You first my dear. You look as though you will float away with excitement and I won’t deny when I say I am curious."

She nodded, knowing it was best to get hersbour if the way as she would be too nervous to enjoy Erik’s present. Slowly she pulled out her father’s violin. And with shaky hands adjusted music on a stand. Then she took a deep breath, feeling utterly stupid, and began to play.

Erik of course knew roughly what it’d sound like. But that did not stop his heart from stopping at what would become his favourite piece of musical literature. Sure, it technically had it’s faults. Christine try as she may could not perfectly play or compose. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact it had more love in it than Erik could comprehend, making it imperfectly perfect.

And when she finished, he whipped a few years away before pulling her into a warm hug. No words were spoken. None needed to be.

Then he pulled back to kiss her and grin like the mad man in love that he was. "That has to be one of the sweetest gifts anyone has ever given me. Thank you my dear."

She bent her head and blushed slightly. "I’m glad you like it. Took me a while but … I’m glad I did it."

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. An act that meant just as much if not more to them than a normal kiss on the lips. She pulled back and grinned up at him. "alright Monsieur. I do believe it is your turn.”

He chuckled, this time a bit nervously. “Alright… now you’ll have to forgive me but I had a small peak at my present before but… it allowed me to make you this … and something else."

And from under the tree he pulled out a small box. It was rather heavy as she took it. Surprisingly so. She pulled off the red wrapping to see an exquisite jewelry box. It was red and gold with red rubies all around.  The fold she realized was painted to be the melody to the song she had just played, with the rubies in place of the note heads.

Carefully and still in awe she opened the box, and inside were two still figures of… of herself dancing in a lavish red ball gown and Erik, holding her close.

Carefully Erik picked it up after a moment and twisted the small turn on its base. Inside the figures twirled Ina small dance. Then he sat it down as it started to play and cautiously offered his hand. "I… made a few modifications to my leg… so forgive me if I am out of practice but… care to have this dance?"

Christine looked up into his bright hopeful eyes and took his hand in hers.

They danced far all the notes had disappeared into the silence of one Christmas night, under the Opera.

[juliesoutsourcingblog]

DIGITAL MARKETING 101; CREATING CONTENT TO ENSNARE THE MILLENNIAL HEART

Content is everything.

Content is king.

As digital marketers, we’ve read this proclamation so many times it’s burned in our brains. It’s been said over and over and over- so much that when I see the word “content”, it’s the first thing that comes to my mind. And it certainly is true.

Content still is, and would almost certainly always be, king.

It’s the heart and soul of every campaign. It’s the building blocks where we build our social media following. It’s the magnet that attracts behind every advertisement. It sends our narrative, our story, our message across to our target audience.

It builds credibility.

It establishes authority.

It attracts- which, I think, is its most basic, yet most important function for those of us who use it primarily for marketing.

Now the question arises.

Who do we want to attract?

Of course it’d be nice to think that we could write a piece that would engage and attract the attention of every group and denomination. But we have to be realistic and set our goals accordingly. Every time we create content, just as we always think about the quality of the article, or the infographic, or the podcast that we are creating, we should also be keeping in mind the people who we want to be on the receiving end of our finished product.

For me, those people more-often-than-not, turn out to be millennials. Which then, brings us to the title of this article:

DIGITAL MARKETING 101; CREATING CONTENT TO ENSNARE THE MILLENNIAL HEART

When we think about millennials, most of us often scrunch up our noses and think, pumpkin spice latte, twitter rage, trophies, student debts, entitlement etc. Which is a bunch of harmful stereotypes that does not exactly promote generational unity, but let’s not talk about that.

Instead, let’s define the term: Millennial.

Contrary to popular belief, millennials are not teenagers. Millennials are young adults, whose age range typically fall between 18-35 years, sometimes older (different groups have different opinions on the exact range). To clear any misconceptions, here is the general agreed upon birth years for different generations:

And according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, Millennials are actually the largest generation in the U.S labor force.

Which is good news for me, and other digital marketers and content creators whose target audience are millennials, for the most part. Because it means that the people we are writing for are earning money. It sounds mercenary, but again- let’s be real here. The main reason why we do content marketing is to attract customers. Prospective clients.

Buyers.

Since the mediums wherein most content creators like me disseminate our pieces are found in the internet, it’s also important to know just how much of our intended audience actually have access in it.

Statista, a site that publishes statistical analysis of facts and figures recently released the following:

SHARE OF ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES WHO USE THE INTERNET IN 2019, BY AGE GROUP

“The statistic shows share of internet users in the United States in 2019, sorted by age group. During the survey period, it was found that 100 percent of 18 to 29-year olds in the United States were internet users. Overall, 90 percent of the adult U.S. population accessed the internet.”

 –STATISTA

The glaring numbers don’t lie. A huge chunk of the majority of the people actually spending time in the internet are- you guessed it- young adults. Again, good news for us, right?

Well, yes.

Also, not entirely.

See, just because they are in the internet, or are in social media, does not mean that they are instantly going to fall heads over heels with our content. Just because I published an article on Tumblr, or posted a link to my blog on Facebook and they happened to see it, does not mean that millennials will automatically start sharing and hitting the like button. There’s always the chance that they might ignore it. Or worse, start hating it so much that I become a victim to the of the prevalent boycott movement, the cancel culture.

Yes, that’s a thing now.

Millennials are like a double-edged sword, so to speak.

There are a lot of pitfalls in making them our target viewers, to be sure. But if there’s one thing that I know from experience, it’s this: the gains and advantages that can be reaped from having millennials as an audience far outweighs the cons.

Having said all that, it’s also very important to remember that this generation is not exactly impossible to please. To capture their attention, there are few things that can be implemented that won’t necessarily cost any money- just a considerable amount of effort from our part.

1. Be conscious of political correctness

Generation Y is a generation of socially conscious individuals. Remember, that these people were raised in a time where equality and awareness are the main advocacies. I am not saying that we need to start turning our backs on our own political beliefs and start catering to theirs- let’s just be mindful enough not trip over sensitive issues in our content unless that is exactly what our purpose is. Let’s try to avoid publishing material that blatantly belittles or discriminates against people because of their race, body type, hair, gender, age, culture, fame (or lack thereof), social status etc. The general rule of the thumb is, to be nice as much as we can, and respect people the way that we want to be respected.

2. Be aware of trends

I’m not talking about eating Tide Pods or mimicking other challenges that are physically harmful. I’m talking about trends in technology, software and social media updates, fashion, clothing lines, restaurants, travel, philanthropic acts and charitable institutions, art, architecture. Of course, we all have our own niche to pay attention to, but with a little bit of effort, there’s an unending number of trending topics out there that are just waiting to be featured no matter what industry we are currently focusing on.

3. Stop sounding like salesperson

In my opinion, this does not just apply to millennials, but to every audience subtype. Stop being so obvious that you are selling something. Instead, tell a story. Make your viewers empathize. Be a friend- someone who actually cares and someone who they can relate to.

Don’t tell them:

Buy my shoes. They have great price compared to other shoes.

Instead, tell them:

I have worked in a corporate office almost all of my adult life, and have always worn heels. I have shed copious amounts of tears from bleeding blisters, and have since learned to always keep a supply of band-aids in my purse and a small first-aid kit in my desk. But what can I do? There’s an office dress code that I apparently agreed to when I signed my contract. I could quit- but then what’d I do for my bills? Should I tell my mother I am unemployed, because I didn’t like my shoes?

That’s when I started to think- why not make my own? Something that I can actually design, something that is comfortable and does not cost a house mortgage.

See where I’m going with this? With more time effort, it’s not impossible to make the part that advertises a certain product or service even more low-key than this. We have to make our selling points part of the natural flow of the narrative. Remember: subtlety is the key.

4. Use millennial buzzwords

Language is dynamic. It’s constantly changing. Time, geographical location, culture, events- these things and more affect the evolution of language so much and with such consistency that it’s almost impossible to determine its original state. As years pass by, people incorporate more and more slangs and new terminologies in their everyday lives.

I won’t say that it’s absolutely necessary to imbue our every article with terms like bop, lit, or salty- just that there are certain terms or “buzzwords” that we can add in our writing that would make us seem more like a peer than a lecturer. It sounds silly, I know, but the goal is to be relatable. Here are some of the words that millennials have been known to use in the past year that could also be used in creating content, within the right context, of course:

Spill the tea

The struggle is real

Trolls

Goals

On fleek

Clap back

Break the internet

Said no one ever

Slay

Adulting

Here’s another advice- we don’t necessarily have to over-stuff our sentences with these buzzwords. Let it flow naturally. The secret is to sound casual, not to overdo the whole thing and end up sounding silly.

5. Inform and educate

The last, but most certainly not the least. The internet, for most of its users, act heavily as a source of information. When people read articles, guides, tutorials, and other types of content, one of the main reasons that they do so, is to learn. But in the event when people are reading for entertainment purposes, it’s still important to make sure that they get to take something out of it.

And even when we end up writing about, say, the dazzling blue waters of a certain Polynesian island, or the breathtaking view atop the Grand Canyon, let’s make sure to inject bits and pieces of interesting facts and advice that would make the reading experience not just fun, but also enriching in a way that would encourage visitors not just to return, but to also share our material to the rest of the digital world.

From the rise to the number of users for the information crowdsourcing site Quora, to the popularity of online entities Mashable, and the types of articles, infographics, quotations, and other forms of shareable materials that young adults are sharing on social media platforms, it is evident that millennials are leaning more and more towards content that contains fascinating information.

It is important to note that most people are heavily motivated by the desire to share something that they think others would also like. For our part, we have to make sure that our products are sufficiently valuable and are interesting enough to warrant their reposts and willing dissemination.

Final words

Always be reminded that in digital and content marketing, researching about the target audience is as important as ensuring that the technical aspects of content creation are on point, and that learning about the trends in the behaviours and opinions of the people we want to send our message to is absolutely vital, because it helps us tailor our content to their tastes and interests.

[parttimestorier]

Interview with d Marie Licea

Recently, I had a chance to talk with d Marie Licea, developer of Us Lovely Corpses, about the creative process behind this fascinating “surreal-horror-romance” visual novel. Us Lovely Corpses is a VN I considered reviewing for this blog when I read it, but I struggled to write a review that would be interesting and accessible—explaining the parts that most impressed and resonated with me would mean spoiling it completely. But I encourage anyone who can handle some disturbing content in service of a great story and heartfelt message to try it out. This interview will start with some more general questions, and it includes a warning farther down before any spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses appear.

Question: Did you always plan for the story of Us Lovely Corpses to be a visual novel, or did you consider other mediums as well?

Answer: In its earliest stages, Us Lovely Corpses was actually planned as a comic! I came up with the original idea somewhere around 2014-2015—it was going to be about 10 pages, and would just cover the scene that ended up being the game's finale. Alex and Marisol (who weren't named yet) were very different—they were much younger, Alex wasn't really "a witch," and Marisol was originally a boy!

I sat on the idea a while, and the longer I did so the more I wanted to explore the history of these characters, which made for a longer and more unwieldy comic. Then in 2015, when I started learning about visual novels, it hit me that the concept could work really well in that format, especially when the "exploration" element came in.

Q: Were there any particular visual novels that influenced you?

A: Yes! The reason why I started getting into visual novels specifically in 2015 was that because that was the year We Know The Devil came out!

We Know The Devil totally shifted my viewpoint as to what a visual novel could be—no diss to dating sims, but before WKTD, I, like most people, just saw VNs as dating sims and occasionally something like the When They Cry series.

WKTD totally changed that for me—a short, incredibly contained story that also managed to be about so, so much, in a surreal, horror-inspired atmosphere . . . it really blew me away! Not only was it the game that got me into visual novels, but you can definitely see a lot of its influence on Us Lovely Corpses.

Besides WKTD, there was also Her Tears Were My Light, a fairly minimalist love story that used the "rewind" function in Ren’Py as part of the story. Utilizing mechanics as part of the narrative was a really cool idea to me that also ended up in ULC. (side note: I met and hired Alex Huang to do the music for Us Lovely Corpses because I loved the soundtrack for HTWML so much!)

Finally, I was really into the original Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) trilogy when I was younger, and the evidence gathering segments were a big part of those games. I originally envisioned the "rose clipping" segments of ULC like those parts, where you'd have to select each rose before cutting it, but sadly that was a little too complex for me at the time, and I eventually decided to go for something more simple in order to complete the game. But that initial idea was a big part of what made me try Us Lovely Corpses as a game, so it ended up still being a big influence in the end!

Q: Besides technical things like those mechanics and the exploration element, do you find that you have a different style of writing in visual novels as opposed to the stories you've done in other formats, like twine and comics?

A: I'm not sure if this is always the case for visual novels, but I find I have to format my writing differently when writing for VNs—specifically, in length of sentences and paragraphs. I've found my writing worked a lot better in Us Lovely Corpses the more I broke everything up into smaller fragments—larger ones or paragraphs didn't work as well, which can be a problem for me because my writing can tend to get a bit wordy!

This has to do a lot with the pacing of visual novels and how the player/reader is a big part of that. Control over pacing is a big part of why visual novels appeal to me, but you also have to think differently to get the best result.

Technical stuff aside, I found that, at least for ULC, my actual writing style remained pretty much the same. I think this has the benefit of making the writing in Us Lovely Corpses seem unique, but has the disadvantage of posing a problem for a certain something I didn't see coming at all: Let’s Players!

A few people have made videos of their playthroughs of Us Lovely Corpses, which is incredibly exciting, but when I watch them, I can't help but feel bad for them because they always read everything out loud . . . which means, with my somewhat wordy style, they have to do a LOT of talking!

I haven't actually gotten complaints about this or anything, but I still hope people who make videos of their playthroughs of ULC keep some water nearby!

Note: the next part of the interview contains spoilers for Us Lovely Corpses, as well as discussion of mental illness.

Q: As the story progresses, it becomes explicitly clear that the “monster” is Marisol’s bipolar disorder. Did you ever think about leaving the metaphor more ambiguous, and if so, what made you decide to be so direct instead?

A: I'd say if the "monster" was one specific thing, it would her Ocular Rosaceae, as it's the one specific thing that gives a physical form to Marisol's thoughts and unhealthy behaviors. But even that, in a way, is not taking into account her bipolar disorder and depression, her jealousy towards Alex, her self-loathing and introversion . . . "the monster" is all of those things, because at its core, the monster is mental illness. And mental illness is never just one thing, but many things and factors interacting at once to create something much bigger than a single diagnosis.

All that said, it's not incorrect to say that Marisol's bipolar disorder is the monster; it's just more accurate to say it’s part of Marisol's monster. Back when ULC was still a comic, I wasn't going to talk about specific diagnoses, but as the story grew I realized I wanted to talk more explicitly about mental illness. I don't exactly remember where the idea came about, but early on in the writing process I got that idea in my head of Alex finding that fake corpse and finding that doctor's diagnosis. In retrospect, it was a really, really weird scene, especially as it comes right off the heels of realizing what you thought was a dead body was just a weird joke, but I do like what it represents—in the middle of this surreal trip into a house filled with talking flowers, the story suddenly halts as you soak in this very blunt reminder that, magic aside, this is a world that is representative of the real world. Marisol may have a magical disease and be best friends with a witch, but she's a very real girl, so to speak.

So that harsh reminder is part of why I wanted to be so direct. I guess the other part would be that I just wanted to make no bones about it. Some things you want to leave up to interpretation, and some things you don't. From the very, very beginning the story was always about mental illness, so it just felt right to me to be upfront about it.

Q: One thing I noticed that I thought showed a lot of attention to detail in ULC was that in one of the rooms you explore there are two famous paintings that both have connections to suicide (Millais’s Ophelia and van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows). Are there any other little symbolic details like that you added to the story that some readers might have missed?

A: Ah, I'm glad you caught that! If I had stuck with the more Ace Attorney style of gameplay I would have liked to put more small details like that in. As it stands, the big example is probably pretty obvious—Alex's notes about each rose are fairly close to the standard "flower language" of different rose colors in real life. The fact that yellow roses can mean "jealousy" or "friendship" depending on what source you use actually ended up working very well with the story.

The last names of Alex and Marisol are probably pretty obvious: de Rosa ("of the Rose") and Flores ("Flowers"). Something that's probably less apparent is Marisol, a name that originally comes from a contraction of "Maria de La Soledad" ("Our Lady Of Solitude"), one of the titles given to the Virgin Mary.

Q: Was the flower language the reason you used roses rather than any other flower, or were there other inspirations for that as well?

A: There were a number of reasons! One being that Revolutionary Girl Utena was a big influence on my style and particularly on several parts of the game. There's also the whole dichotomy with roses/thorns. And there's also the simple fact that I have fun drawing roses!

Q: For my last question, are you working on any other visual novels right now?

A: I am as a matter of fact! I'm working on a visual novel set in Japan about some high school kids who explore a strange house. It's still in fairly early stages, but I think if I give it my all I will actually have a demo ready in time for Halloween, which would be great!

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that demo—even more so after learning about all of the serious thought d Marie Licea puts into the details and themes of her work. If you’re as excited as I am about updates on her upcoming projects, you can follow her on itch.io or twitter, and considering supporting her patreon. Thanks for reading!

[renegade-is-in-my-blood]

Hey. August is upon us and I’m about to share my plans and favourites of August style.

First of all fruit bowls are here to stay. I’ve talked about them so much already but in this horribly hot august days I can’t force myself to actually cook food and sweat even more so fruit bowls are simple, easy, quick, healthy and refreshing help.

Plus aesthetics of servings are just dreamy.

I am currently reading this incredibly fascinating book my friend Domc already made a review article about on renegade7x called War’s Unwomanly Face – Svetlana Alexievich. This review is one of my favourite she ever wrote and I was strongly encouraged by it to read it for myself and I’m so thrilled I did. Check out the review and book for yourself.

Czech republic, Slovak republic and pretty much whole of Europe have been struggling with enormous and unbearable heat for past couple of weeks. My dorm room is so hot my candy melted, plants died and I’m sweating 24/7. My small help in this gross weather and my favourite purchase not only for august but probably of all the time is this :

my new fan:

I can barely function in this heat and all I dream of is nice cold pool and occasionally I make this dreams come true.

I feel like typical mom saying this but gosh how very important is hydration and sunscreen. Recently I’ve discovered this cute beauty and healthy website called iHerb. I’ve ordered bunch of products I’m gonna talk about soon. iHerb has bunch of different categories and products for great prices and my favourite thing besides the variety is the incredibly fast shipping time – 2 days and my package was home. That never happens to me as I’m living in the middle Europe. Another plus – they offer czech currency as well so I didn’t have to recalculate from dollars to czech coins and to euros.

iHerb provides so many great sunscreens that are must a have this august and even an after sun care for those who believe they are tougher than literal sun.

Check out iHerb – highly recommending.

My hydration morning routine starts with me drinking this vitamin slimming bomb water.

What I do is I boil 0,250l of hot water (yes even in hot august day) and add one spoon of raw honey, juice of half freshly squeezed lemon ( I recommend microwave your half lemon for few seconds – this way you’ll get much more juice) mix it up and add another 0,250l of cold water. I drink this lukewarm water on empty stomach every morning as it’s actually better for your body to drink lukewarm liquids as your body does not need that many additional energy to actually warm the liquids for their further processing.

After this I simply continue with my breakfast as usual I’ll get come croissant and coffee with soy milk.

I never used to be a big fan of breakfast but since I’m on antidepressants and I get to take the pills in the morning I need to have big breakfast before so the pills are not as heavy for my organism – this goes for most of the pills besides the ones you need to take on empty stomach.

My health comes first and I’m actually keen on breakfast food now.

My current Netflix obsession is show called That 70’s show. Reminds me of F.r.i.e.n.d.s. and boy did I used to watch them a lot. Usually I have my Netflix on as a background noise for when I’m just working on my tumblr blog, this website or just scrolling my instagram feed. I firstly wanted That 70’s show to be just a background noise but I got really into it so now I need to have 2 tabs open and the same time – one for netflix and one for work.

Love the retro style and sarcastic humor, Hyde is definitely my favourite character I can relate to him so much and their circle cracks me up.

It’s so hard for me to start new tv show but once I do I let it consume me completely.

But I’m ok with it.

No holidays for me this summer as I’m working my ass of in KFC, writing my heart out on here and there is this new secret project I’ve been working on for last couple of months I’m super excited about and can’t wait for it to be ready to share with the world. All of this is taking all my time and I’m so exhausted but in the greatest way possible.

I’m always busy, always thinking, always working and the satisfaction of it is reaffirming  me day by day that I made the right decision of dropping out of university. University made me bussy and exhausted as well but also miserable. Now I’m just so excited about every day and everything I do.

August I’m excited for you.

Thank you for your attention

xo Natalia

    August style Hey. August is upon us and I'm about to share my plans and favourites of August style.

[bendindgary-blog]

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[feelingfredly]

The Fox Guards the Wolf

Part Nine

Fighting Impulses

“So…” Ichigo stared around the room. “This is the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

Kisuke raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, and Ichigo frowned.

“Somehow I imagined more bubbling beakers and giant static electricity generators in Frankenstein’s lab.”

Still no response.

“It looks like an altar to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with a dose of Miyamoto Shigaru thrown in for good measure.”

That did it.

“The beakers and Bunsen burners are down the hall.  The generator is in the basement.  And it is much more Miyamoto than Gates or Jobs, if you don’t mind.”

Ichigo smiled. “Gotcha.”

Kisuke sighed and shook his head a little.  “Yes. I admit it. You got me, and you didn’t even have to tell me my baby was ugly.”

The redhead grinned and wandered over to an empty desk in the corner.  “Is this for me?”

He nodded.  “I promised you time to write, didn’t I?  I need you to be close in case I need to handle something in a hurry, and this way you still have your own space.”

That earned him another smile. “Next you’ll tell me I can keep a toothbrush next to your sink.”

Kisuke couldn’t resist. “My sink is just down this hall, and you can keep anything there you want, Ichigo-san.” He watched as the red head snapped up to look at him and fought not to give himself away with a smile of his own. “And my bed is big enough for two if you get tired and don’t feel like trekking back up to your apartment.”

An interesting flush crept up Ichigo’s neck, and Kisuke wondered if he reacted that way to everyone.  He hoped not.

“Why do people keep trying to kidnap you?”  Ichigo punctuated the statement by dropping his backpack on his desk and pulling out his computer. Kisuke assumed that meant playtime was over.

“My fascinating personality?” He dropped into his chair and pulled two keyboard trays towards him, hitting a careful progression of keys to unlock the computers, while Ichigo plugged in his laptop.  

A few beeps and whirs later both men had their respective workstations up and running.

“Seriously,” Ichigo spun his chair to face him. “If I’m going to keep running into these guys I should at least know that much.  Is it leverage?  Money? Access?”

Kisuke pushed back from his work for a moment and considered how much to explain.

“I suppose,” he said, “in its simplest terms, they want to know what I know.”

Ichigo frowned harder than usual.  “Do you mean they want to know how much you know, or they want to have the same knowledge you have?”

Kisuke admired how quickly Ichigo recognized the potential layers in his explanation. Always the wordsmith.

“Mostly the latter.” He pulled his fan out and tapped his chin a few times.  “Although, the former is something they wouldn’t mind knowing either.”

“So basically, they want to force you to make whatever it is you’re making for them, and they want to know how much about them you and the others here,” he waved his hands to indicate the office building, “know about their plots and plans to take over the world.”

Kisuke nodded. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”

“Huh.”  Ichigo looked disappointed.  “Here I was hoping for something exotic, long-ranging and complex, but it’s really just business as usual, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” Kisuke stared across the office at his companion.  It was the first time he’d heard anyone associated with the Onmitsukido, even as tangentially as Kurosaki, declare that one of their conflicts was basically… boring.

“I mean, you’re working on something that’s new and different, but that’s not the plot is it? The plot is someone wants something that doesn’t belong to them, and they’ll do what they can to get it.” Ichigo shrugged, unimpressed.  “Am I wrong?”

“Not really.” Kisuke gave a half-hearted smile. “I think the only things that change are the names of the people involved, and how many times they’ve stabbed each other in the back to try to get an advantage over the other side.”  

He thought of Okura Kagetaka sadly. “I’m not even sure some of them know which side is which anymore.”

“Is this thing you’re working on something that would work for anyone?” Ichigo asked.

Kisuke considered the combat AI and how it could be applied.  “Yes.  And before you ask, I considered that when I started designing it.”  He looked at his computer screens, taking in the bits of code sitting there, and tried to imagine never having started the project. Never having mapped out how it would work. Never having mastered the intricacies of Yoruichi’s AI function. It made him terribly sad.  “I just couldn’t not create it. Do you understand?”

Ichigo’s brown eyes looked at him full of sympathy.  “I do. Probably more than most.”  He laughed a little under his breath.  “Do you have any idea how many times my friends and family have asked me what the hell I’m doing taking a year off to write a novel?  I know it isn’t the same.  My stories are never going to earn me a place on the cover of SuperSpy magazine, but when they’re in my brain I just can’t ignore them.  They’re too real for me to just let them fade away.”

Kisuke nodded. “You do understand, then.”  He looked back down and started typing, trying to get his suddenly jumbled thoughts in order.

Ichigo watched him quietly for a moment and then turned back to his own work.

***

Ichigo stretched and his back cracked ominously.  He really needed to work on his posture while he was typing.

“Why is it so hard to dispose of a body?”

Kisuke didn’t look up from his work. “Human body?”

Ichigo snorted. “Yes. Human body.  What other body would you worry about disposing of?”

Kisuke made a noncommittal sound. “Well, if you’d taken out an animal but were trying to disguise your presence you’d need to worry about disposal.  A dead gorilla would be a dead giveaway to anyone tracking you through the jungle.  Gorillas don’t have many natural predators, and none that would leave the same marks as most weapons.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be worrying about disposing of the body, I’d just want to temporarily hide it, probably in place because I wouldn’t be able to drag something that big very far from where I killed it.”

“True.” Another noncommittal sound. “So, how much time do you have?”

Ichigo huffed. “Time for what?”

“To dispose of the body, of course,” Kisuke huffed.

“Uh,” Ichigo rifled through his notes, “Ten hours?  Well, ten hours to remove it from the first site and get that cleaned up. After that I don’t care how long it takes to dispose of it, as long as it doesn’t lead anyone back to me.”

Kisuke hmm’d softly. “You want to move it as soon as possible if you can.  Leaving it in place gives you too many variables.  Plus, it makes clean up much worse.  How much blood?”

Ichigo stared at the blond. Were they really having this conversation?  “None. Hopefully.”

“How’d you kill him? Drugs?  Poison?” Kisuke still hadn’t looked up from his computer.

“Scopolamine. Accidental overdose.”

“Classic.  Too bad it was an accident.”

Ichigo tried to figure out what he meant by that but couldn’t follow the train of thought.

“Why is it too bad?”

“If you meant to kill him, you could’ve used the scopolamine’s effects to get him to go wherever you eventually intended to dispose of the body under his own steam. Then you wouldn’t have the transport problem.  You’d have to make sure no one saw you with him, but that’s not a significant obstacle most of the time.”

“It really works like that?  The whole Devil’s Breath, thing?” Ichigo was fascinated.  

“Yes.  The drug cartels in Colombia have been using it for decades.  Scarily effective.” Kisuke stopped typing and finally looked up.  “But it’s better if you don’t write it that way.  You might make some people…  nervous.”

Ichigo weighed the idea and nodded slowly.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

***

Kisuke touched the sensor behind his ear and Yoruichi’s voice greeted him. Hello Kisuke.

“Update data files on Kurosaki Ichigo.”

A few seconds passed, and the voice purred at him again. Data files updated.

“Did you say something, Urahara-san?” Ichigo pulled his earbud out and turned to look at him.

“Just talking to myself, Kurosaki-san,” he said.  It was true. There wasn’t anything in this Yoruichi that wasn’t him.  Just an enhanced him.

“I think I’m going to head upstairs for dinner.” Ichigo looked back over his shoulder.  “Do you have plans?”

Kisuke looked at the clock in surprise.  He hadn’t realized it was so late already.

“I’m so sorry, Kurosaki-san.  I completely lost track of the time.”

Ichigo just smiled. “So did I. I can’t believe how much progress I made today. You want to come up for curry?  My sister Yuzu sent enough for an army.”

Kisuke stared at the redhead.  No one had ever been happy with his losing track of time before.

“Curry sounds delicious.”

***

“Did Tsukabishi-san say there was a gym in the basement?” Ichigo finished drying the last bowl and put it back in the cabinet. “I really need to get a workout in tomorrow if possible.”

Kisuke nodded. “There are two.  One has the basic treadmills, weights, and so on, and the other is for sparring.  I’m sure you could find a partner if you’re interested. It isn’t like a dojo, though.  Down there pretty much anything goes.  It’s more about efficacy than style.”

If he thought that was going to be a deterrent, he was in for a surprise.  The redhead actually looked more interested.

“It would be a good to stretch myself against someone who isn’t just going to use traditional judo. I haven’t had a real fight since high school.”  He laughed, but Kisuke could sense the excitement bubbling just under the surface.

Every time he thought he had a handle on Kurosaki something happened to prove him wrong.

“Don’t tell me your father encouraged fighting.”

The younger man grinned and picked up his cup of tea. “Encouraged is a strong word.  Let’s just say that my dad understood that it was likely to happen, and believed that if I was going to fight, I’d better be good enough at it to both walk away the winner, and to leave no permanent damage behind me.”

That sounded like the Kurosaki Isshin Kisuke remembered.

“No permanent damage, hmm?” he asked, pouring tea for himself as well.

“He always said it was because he didn’t want me to turn into a thug and it was important to think about the long-term consequences of my actions. But I know the truth.”

“And what was that?”

Ichigo took a drink and met his eyes over the top of the cup. “He didn’t want to have to do the paperwork afterwards, of course.”

Kisuke didn’t choke on his tea, but it was a close call.

***

The exercise rooms were surprisingly crowded.  Or not surprisingly crowded, if you thought about the jobs most of these people had. This was an associated branch of the Onmitsukido after all.

Ichigo looked at the people sparring and was impressed by the sheer variety.  There were young and old, male and female. He heard Japanese, English, Korean, and an African language he couldn’t identify, but they all had one thing in common. They were all kicking ass and taking names.

“You must be Kurosaki Ichigo-san.” A pleasantly non-descript young woman in her twenties appeared at his elbow.  “Welcome to the team!”  She gave a brief bow that was respectful enough to make him feel like he was actually welcome, but somehow conveyed the message that he still had some question marks beside his name. “I’m Tanaka Midori.”

Ichigo returned the bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Tanaka Midori-san.”  He indicated the people scattered across the mats.  “Is it always this crowded?”

The young woman looked around and nodded.  “Most mornings, yes.  Everyone likes to get their workout in early in the day so they don’t end up missing it if their schedule changes unexpectedly.”

That made sense. Maybe he’d do better to put off his workout until later in the day.

“Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo turned, only slightly surprised to see Kisuke standing behind him.  “Good morning, Urahara-san.  What brings you out of your lair this morning?”

Tanaka stiffened beside him and he supposed he should be more respectful to Kisuke around his coworkers.

Were they his coworkers?  He’d never seen anyone around except Tessai.  He’d have to ask.

“I realized after our conversation last night how long it had been since I’d gotten in a good sparring session.”

Tanaka stared at him slack-jawed and Ichigo wondered if that indicated that Urahara was lying about sparring, or that just seeing him outside his lab was disconcerting enough to throw her for a loop.

Considering the physical control he’d seen the blond exert, he was betting it was the former. But, if he wanted to pretend he lacked skills, who was Ichigo to protest?

He wandered over to the corner where they had an area for stretches and sat down next to the wall, legs spread as widely as possible, and slowly scooted forward until he felt the insides of his thighs begin to burn. He sat like that for ten seconds and then rotated into a Chinese split, and held that, breathing deeply as he felt his muscles first protest and then relax into the familiar movement.

Urahara had taken the opportunity to prop one foot on a waist-high beam and lean into a hamstring stretch that looked completely effortless.

They stretched like that for a few more minutes in silence, until Ichigo figured it was time to roll the dice.

“Shall we shake the dust off, Urahara-san?” He pretended not to notice the audience they were gathering.

“Nothing would suit me better, Kurosaki-san.”

***

The sparring areas were simply mats spread out through the basement with walkways between, and Ichigo led them to the nearest unoccupied set and bowed before stepping on them

“Rules?”

Kisuke shrugged. “Why don’t you decide this time. It is too early for me to be making decisions.”

Ichigo cocked his head to one side and he half expected an argument, but the redhead surprised him again.

“Let’s try to keep it civil, then.  No knee shots or eye-gouging, and I’d prefer not to be singing soprano afterwards. Good for you?”

He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. “Good enough, Kurosaki-san.” He faced the younger man and settled into a comfortable stance.  This was going to be interesting.

Ichigo slowly moved counter-clockwise a step and then another, and Kisuke played along, but unlike many of his sparring partners, he didn’t dance around.  No, the redhead was much more cautious, watching his feet and hands, trying to see when the tendons tightened to move.

So, Kisuke did the same.

They measured each other that way, judging reach and angles, until Ichigo sighed.

“This is boring.”

In a split second the younger man had closed the space between them, lashing out with his left leg, first kicking low and then high without withdrawing to rebalance.  Kisuke took the first kick to the calf and then blocked the second, moving quickly to the side before landing a closed fist strike on the inside of Ichigo’s thigh just above the knee.

There was an indrawn breath behind him, and he wondered what their audience would think of what came next.

As expected, the thigh strike threw Ichigo off balance, but he quickly regrouped, and sent a flurry of punches and strikes—arm, chest, arm, turn and strike to the back—and Kisuke flowed into his defense.  Blocking he could tell that Ichigo was still feeling him out, measuring how much force to use to strike without over-committing, and he leaned back, using his superior reach, and swung his right foot up, just missing the redhead’s chin.

A scowl appeared for a moment on Ichigo’s face, and Kisuke knew his intentional undershot had been recognized and unappreciated.

It might not have been Kisuke’s best idea.

He watched as Ichigo changed stances, dropping his traditional karate positioning into something looser and dirtier.

Kisuke threw a short punch, snapping Ichigo’s head back from the quick jolt, but as he pulled back, he noticed a strange short slide of Ichigo’s foot.  Somehow the smaller man channeled the energy behind his punch, translating it into a modified backbend, and he watched in surprise as Ichigo dropped both hands to the floor behind him and kicked him first in the hip, then the chest, and then finally in the chin, before flipping over and away from him after landing the shot that Kisuke had chosen not to.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually landed a hit like that on him.

He grinned.

Two quick shifts later and he had Ichigo’s elbow stretched to its natural limit, but before he could lock it into place to force him to the mat, his foot was lifted just enough for Ichigo to spin him in a half-circle, drop to one knee, force the overextension of his own arm but in a way that pulled Kisuke forward and over him, so he could then ram upward and headbutt him in the solar plexus.

The two separated, breathing harder now.

Kisuke noticed that the redhead was gently shaking the arm he’d just sacrificed, and he quirked an eyebrow.  Ichigo shook his head in silent refusal, and they faced off again.

This time Ichigo went straight for a judo throw, lunging forward and grabbing the front of Kisuke’s gi.  He slid his right leg between Kisuke’s thighs, and pulled him forward with all his strength, sliding him up to where he was practically sitting against Ichigo’s hip.  As the shorter man prepared to pull him over, Kisuke forced himself further forward into the hold, and then wrapped his arm around the redhead’s throat.  Ichigo realized that if he threw Kisuke at that point, he’d basically strangle himself in the process, so he performed a quick release, and shoved instead, sending Kisuke backwards with a stumble.

Their audience had grown, and he could hear mutterings from the crowd.

It was his turn to attack.  Low punch, elbow block, hit to the ear, and then grab the redhead by the gi and use his own bodyweight to throw him to the floor. But instead of faceplanting, Ichigo hit the mat on his hands and made a perfect leg sweep, catching Kisuke’s leg just enough to keep him from following through with a floor hold and pin.

By this point Tanaka Midori and the others had seen enough.  No one in the gym would wonder why Ichigo had been brought onto the team. Now it was time to really push things.

Ichigo’s face was flushed and his eyes were wide and bright.  There was a sheen of perspiration on his skin, and Kisuke could practically feel the weight of his focus. It made his skin hot, and his heart race, and it had nothing to do with the exertion of sparring.

It would always be like this between them, he thought.  

He crossed the space between them and jabbed into the brachial nerve cluster at Ichigo’s right shoulder, eliciting the first true gasp of pain from his opponent.  He followed that up with a side strike to his neck, and then flipped the smaller man around, pulling both arms up into a full nelson.

He pressed on the back of Ichigo’s neck, forcing his head down, cutting off his air, and reducing the blood-flow to his head, and he started a slow ten count.  

Ichigo groaned, and Kisuke could feel it vibrate under his hands.  He’d reached six by the time Ichigo tried to counter, dropping his weight a little, but he wasn’t concerned.  Once the gray started setting in, it would be over.

Ichigo raised his hands to his own head.  It was probably pounding from the restricted circulation, but he hadn’t tapped out yet, and Kisuke was a patient man.  But then, suddenly, the redhead struck himself in the forehead, and the shock of the impact both snapped his head back allowing a rush of blood to travel back in, and it loosened Kisuke’s grip just long enough, that when Ichigo dropped his weight entirely, stomping backwards on the arch of Kisuke’s foot, and rotating his hip to pull Kisuke completely around his body, he was caught completely by surprise. It was such a novel sensation that he simply released his hold, and let himself be pinned.

Ichigo looked down at him, their breath mingling their faces were so close together, and Kisuke could feel the redhead’s heart pounding where their chests were pressed into the floor.

A murmur was spreading and Kisuke could hear whispers of he pinned Getaboshi from the crowd.  Ichigo must have heard it too.  He pushed off and rolled to his feet in an easy movement, offering Kisuke a hand as he stood.

“Thanks for taking it easy on me, Urahara-san.” He gave a polite little bow and turned away from the crowd standing around. “We’d better get cleaned up, though. Tsukabishi-san wanted me to remind you that you had an appointment at eleven, and I don’t think either of us would come away from that fight in once piece if I let you miss it.”

Kisuke watched as the spectators dispersed, Ichigo’s comments reducing what would normally have been gossip mill fodder for a month into just another sparring session.  He had controlled an entire room of trained agents with three sentences.

Kisuke’s heart sped up noticeably enough that he didn’t need Yoruichi in his ear informing him of it. How was it that Ichigo managed to keep him so off balance, so fascinated?  

They pushed the button for the elevator and waited, listening to the sounds of sparring starting up again behind them. Kisuke could feel the heat pouring off the man next to him, could smell the faint tang of perspiration.

The door opened. They stepped in.  The door closed.

“Why’d you let me do it?” He wasn’t sure what Ichigo meant.

“Do what?”

“Why’d you let me break loose so easily?” Ichigo’s voice was a little rough and he hoped he hadn’t injured his windpipe with the throat punch.

Kisuke remembered the vicious heel to the instep, and the elbow to the ribs, and wondered what Ichigo would think of as hard.

“We were sparring,” he said as the door opened on his floor. “Anyway, my ego is healthy enough that I don’t have to win.” He gave a little half-smile.  “At least not all the time.”

Ichigo stepped further back into the elevator, his eyes fastened on Kisuke’s, that fascinating flush on his cheeks again.

“Okay,” he said, “But to be fair, I’ll let you pin me next time.”

The doors closed.

[zalacozasseveralrealms]

The Ring

The Ring

Some of you may have noticed the small silver ring I wear on my right hand. If you have seen it, you may also be aware that the ring is uneven in places, varies in thickness and width, and bears a faded etching of the simple Roman numerals XXI. The ring does not easily tarnish, which likely gives up the game already—the material is not pure silver but rather an alloy of silver and copper called shibuichi (Japanese for one-fourth). I do not remember the exact ratio of silver to copper in this particular trinket, but I am inclined to think it closer to 60 Ag: 40 Cu based on its luster, tarnish, and malleability. If I haven’t given myself up again, my chest does swell with some pride in the fact that I can say I know these things about this ring because I created it myself. My silver ring is my first successful metal cast and, in my own calm, objective opinion, the finest piece of jewelry I have had the pleasure of making. [Someday, I’ll tell you all about the event that was the bronze gummy bears.]

In my mind, I am not very good at meeting new people and making friends. I also am fully aware this is not true (more on mental illness and cognitive dissonance at five). So when my close friends Denise and Andrea encouraged me to take an art class at Mat-Su College to fill up some elective credits and meet interesting new people, I jumped at the opportunity. Little did I know that I was being led to a place I would never leave.

For background, Denise and Andrea are both amazing people and artists. I have learned more about life and art from them than I have pages to write on. Both are friends with and students of Casey, who at the time was the Beginning Metalsmithing and Jewelry Making and Casting instructor at Mat-Su College. Andrea and Denise recommended I take Casey’s Beginning Metalsmithing class for fun and personal fulfillment, so I registered. At the time, I had minor experience with the physical arts and almost no experience with jewelry, as my arts focus before then was on piano and writing. Quite simply, I was allured by the idea of shaping metal.

I’ll be honest—I have always had a fascination with metal. It may have something to do with my fixation with shiny things or on large-scale machinery and other things with moving parts—my mother likes to remind me periodically that I loved tractors, bulldozers, backhoes, etc. as a child. I also have a very strong attachment to the early 20th century ocean liners.

Over the course of the semester, we had to complete safety competence demonstrations and fabricate several projects to demonstrate our grasp of the various metalsmithing techniques we had learned. We learned how to form jump rings from copper and brass wire, using silver solder to complete the ring joints. We learned how to form twist rings, twisting multiple strands of metal wire together to form a ring and again seal them with solder. We learned how to cut shapes out of sheet metal with jeweler’s saws (don’t get me started on them). We learned how to file a piece of metal into the right shape and thickness, then buff it to a shine with metal polish. One of the most unique projects was to turn a length of copper pipe into a “box” with a lid that could hold water. I still have that box.

Eventually, we were offered the option to try lost wax casting. For those of you unfamiliar, lost wax casting involves first creating a model of your intended jewelry piece using carving wax. You must then affix a large rubber plug called a sprue base (the sprue is the channel through which the metal will eventually flow and which you must also shape from wax), which corresponds to a specific size of metal “flask” (essentially a short metal tube of several inches in diameter and length). Once you have attached the wax to the sprue base, you attach the flask to the base and then very carefully pour investment into the flask. Investment is a kind of plaster that will form the mold. This entire apparatus must then be placed in a kiln to “burn out” the wax and create the negative space in the mold where the metal will flow.

I was incredibly excited to try a cast. I had seen more experienced classmates cast some truly incredible things—one gentleman, known for his intricate work, liked to cast fully-functional Pez dispensers Now, I’m not the most adept at jewelry making nor am I one for baroque sensibilities, so I decided to start simple and cast perhaps the most quintessential of trinkets: a ring. I chose to cast in silver, and though I did not have any of my own (nor could I afford any, being a lowly college student), I had excellent friends who shared some silver and copper with which to mix shibuichi for my ring. I was told that the ideal metals for casting were gold and silver—gold because of how cooperative it is, and silver because it is cooperative, hardy, and cheaper than gold. I’ve never had a fondness for gold. Silver is harder, prettier, and in my mind, more functional. So, I cast in silver.

When you first cast, they tell you how intimidating a forced-oxygen acetylene torch can be, and rightly so. The torch can bring bronze, a very stubborn and uncooperative metal, to its melting point in just a few minutes. You must wear a tinted face shield to protect your face and eyes (staring directly at the flame can cause eye damage and heavens forbid the metal splash you in the face). You must wear thick heavy gloves on both hands, as the heat from the proximity alone can bake your skin. You must pay close attention to where you hold the flame as you lower it into the crucible (the clay pot in which your metal resides), which in this case you are holding in your non-dominant hand at the end of a long, caliper-like device. You must maintain constant, even heat on the metal so that it all flows properly and together before you transfer the metal to your mold, which in this style of casting will be sitting on a vacuum machine to ensure the metal is “sucked” all the way into the mold and fills it properly. They will tell you repeatedly that the process is incredibly dangerous and that anything can go wrong at any step.

What they will not tell you about, at least until after you have experienced it yourself, is the deep, visceral thrill of holding such annihilative force in your hand. There is a heavy responsibility coupled with sheer wonder of creation through destruction that must be experienced to be understood. I will never forget my first time holding the forced-oxygen torch. To know you hold in your hand the power to shift something that until that point had been immutable, the ability to melt metal, conjures a feeling both bizarre and perfect, complete and terrifying, thrilling and pure. In that moment, I was powerful, I was strong, I was adept, I was a creator.

Once the metal is poured comes the wait. I remember the wait distinctly as well. During the minutes after a pour, the caster is left in a state of suspended animation. The room seems to pause as the metal flows and cools. My thoughts flowed like that same hot silver in my mind, racing from excitement to trepidation to certainty to a radical loss thereof. I was making something. I had made something, even if it didn’t turn out the way I intended.

The minutes ticked by. Finally, Casey gave me the go-ahead, and I grasped the flask carefully in what must have been the largest set of pliers I have ever seen and dipped the entire thing into a bucket of lukewarm water. The investment sang. Or at least, that’s what I want it to have done. In reality, it hissed and spat angrily at me, as if to say “This is mine! My precious!” It was somewhere around 1000 degrees Fahrenheit; could I blame it for being a bit cranky? Slowly but surely, the investment began to fall away in chunks, revealing first a length of sprue that descended inward from the plug on the outside. I was on pins and needles.

It all happened so fast, but it sure didn’t feel that way at the time. Slowly, slowly, the body of the cast emerged—and what should my eyes behold? A tarnished, near-blackened hoop of silver at the end of the stalactite of sprue. I dumped the metal into the water to cool for several seconds before I plunged my hands greedily into the now-hot investment and water mix, searching diligently for my creation. My fingers brushed something hotter and harder than the surrounding flotsam and I knew I had found my creation. I wrapped my fingers tightly around the sprue base and pulled the entire thing from the water for all to see. There in my hand was my first cast, a complete hoop of silver with a barely perceptible “XXI” engraved on one side. I had forgotten that I had carved my age into the wax model, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had turned out in the metal, even if minutely.

After hours and hours of cutting, filing, buffing and polishing, I had a ring that not only shone, but fit my finger perfectly. That is perhaps the greatest triumph—not only had I succeeded in what was essentially a personal experiment in art, I had created a functional piece that I could wear every day with pride.

I could go on about how this ring symbolizes my never-ending commitment to personal perseverance or serves as a reminder of a time of solace and wonder in my younger years. Really, this ring’s meaning is a bit simpler. Many of you know I struggle with demons from an abusive past and a mentally ill present; my days are often dominated by wild emotions, fear, lack of confidence, and an incomplete picture of who I am or what I stand for. This ring shows me that I can make things. I can create things of value and meaning. I see myself in its warm, glowing reflection and recognize the face staring back. I feel the Roman numeral 21 etched into its side and am reminded of the years of life and love so many invested in me.

No one shaped the wax for me. No one poured the investment for me. I melted this metal. I poured it into the mold. I cut and filed and buffed. I listened to my teacher and friends, absorbed what I could, and used that knowledge to create something meaningful. As funny as it sounds, this is my Ring of Power. It validates me. It reminds me that I am worthy. And that is why I will forever respect and champion the arts. Art saves lives. It certainly saved me.

[analysis-by-vaylon]

Visual language in Violet Evergarden.

Hello, there. As some of you may know, I often browse Netflix looking for animated works that interest me. For example, I recently watched The Long Long Holiday, a French animated series about two children growing up in Nazi-occupied France -- and while I certainly enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter, this blog is more concerned with analysis of animated works that have a bit more texture.

What do I mean by "texture"? Texture, like a thick streak of paint on canvas, is something you can both see and feel. Animation is a visual medium. Therefore, it should not simply tell a story (although animation certainly can get by with just a well-told story -- and there are too many that fail to meet even that criterion); rather, good animation should integrate visual cues with story elements in order to express a clear idea. Visual cues include the symbolic use of color, surprising contrasts, an unusual choice of subject, the way a shot is composed, the order in which shots are placed, and so on. Animation is so expensive to produce -- why make it if you don't have a clear idea to express?

A recent series that I watched -- one that appeared on Netflix earlier this month, in fact -- is Violet Evergarden, a gorgeously-animated series from Kyoto Animation. It is based on a light novel, which I have not read; my analysis focuses entirely on the anime. In particular, I'm going to talk about the way Violet Evergarden uses visual cues. By drawing the viewer's attention to these cues, the series encourages the viewer to experience the story on multiple levels -- thus using visual language to reinforce the ideas behind the story.

If you're worried about spoilers, my analysis will only cover the first couple of episodes, and I won't go too far into plot details. Nevertheless, I've hidden the post. Continue on for the rest of the analysis.

It's easy to look at a series like Violet Evergarden and think that it's all style and no substance; apart from the eye-catching scenery, its Edwardian setting may come across as thoughtlessly chosen, and its pace can seem too leisurely aimless for some.

Don't be deceived by such appearances. There is far more going on than there seems to be at first.

The Language of Hands

Much has already been written about the series's use of the Victorian language of flowers, and that's only one example of its use of visual language and symbolism. Shots in Violet Evergarden are deliberately framed to heighten the emotional impact of what is taking place -- as they should be. In particular, shots of characters' hands are used not only to convey extra information about characters but to reinforce a theme that runs throughout the series: we can choose to use our hands to help others instead of killing them. From the very first episode, shots of hands are used to reveal information about characters, from the injured Violet and her unsteady, artificial hands to the evasive Claudia:

Claudia hides his hands when he lies to Violet, and our attention returns to his hands a second time to emphasize the internal tension he feels as a result of his lie; in this way, the series makes a visual connection between hands and secret feelings, a concept later brought to the forefront as Violet herself learns to connect body language to the written word. This is what I mean by visual language: by paying attention to when and how the series shows us a character's hands, we can discern more information about that character than is otherwise presented.

The series returns to this idea later as the characters address the nature of paradoxes: that is, Violet wants to work as an "Auto-Memory Doll" -- a typist who translates a client's hard-to-express feelings into a heartfelt letter -- but appears to have no understanding of her clients' emotions; despite a near-perfect grasp of vocabulary and grammar, Violet struggles with writing anything more complex than an emotionless, literal translation of what her clients have to say -- several characters liken her writing to a military report.

This particularly hurts her chances in the second episode. We see a vain-looking woman enter CH Postal Company -- whose symbol, not coincidentally, is a pair of hands, as if to remind us of the ultimate source of the typewritten word -- and ask Violet to write a letter to a man who wants to date her. What the woman says is that she only likes her suitor because he's rich, giving off the impression that she's mercenary and unloving -- but we're also shown important shots of her hands and legs that reveal more emotion than what the woman verbally expresses:

Later, when the client returns after having been rejected due to Violet’s insensitive letter, she seems genuinely distraught and reveals that, contrary to her earlier words, she truly loved the man and wanted to marry him. Had Violet paid attention to this woman's non-verbal signs -- signs which we, the audience, are invited to focus on in particular -- then she might have realized the woman's true feelings.

Violet's friends state that people are complicated to the point of being paradoxical and that the job of the Auto-Memory Doll -- that is, a writer -- is to untangle these paradoxes and resolve them into a single, heartfelt letter. There is a parallel between the characters discussing their paradoxical clients and that of visual language itself; visual language is the non-verbal communication of animation. The cleverness of Violet Evergarden is that its story elements -- Violet's inability at first to comprehend non-verbal cues -- go hand-in-hand (so to speak) with the visual cues that we the audience are given; by understanding both, we the audience are participating in the same activity of meaning-making that Violet is, which not only heightens our emotional connection to the character but also exposes us to one of the clear ideas behind the series's use of visual language: reading and writing are intimately linked to the ability to empathize with others.

Writers must understand non-verbal communication in order to best use their words; they must grasp the hidden meanings behind the words and body language of others -- discerning their disguised pain, their secret joy, the depths of their misery. They must somehow feel what another human being is feeling. In this way, writing leads to empathy.

The Heart of Violet Evergarden

The idea that reading and writing can lead to better empathy is not a new one; I've mentioned it in previous discussions about the importance of literature and critical analysis, and you can find any number of articles about it online. What I find interesting about Violet Evergarden is that it tackles this topic with one particular case study in its main character while simultaneously leading its audience through the process.

Though Violet starts off as near-emotionless -- she is often described by others as being a doll or tool -- her journey involves her slowly learning how to empathize with others, prompted by her desire to know what the words "I love you" mean and facilitated by her attempt to write letters for others. What I think is endlessly fascinating about this depiction is that Violet's quest to understand love becomes a double-edged sword: in becoming more empathetic, she understands and feels guilt as well -- guilt for her numerous killings as a soldier under Gilbert’s command.

The reality is that feeling empathy for others and understanding their thoughts and feelings makes us vulnerable; we hurt in ways that no one, not even ourselves, can salve. Yet that pain can be paradoxically transformed into a powerful call to action, as characters throughout the series, including Violet herself, demonstrate.

Thus, the letters that the Auto-Memory Dolls type are visual symbols of empathy and an acknowledgement of the semiotic nature of the written word -- that is, human beings cannot communicate brain-to-brain directly, as each individual human being is discrete and their experiences unknowable, so they must find some other way to communicate thought and feeling with one another across the gulf that exists between two minds.

Language is one way of bridging that gulf. Violet Evergarden acknowledges this function of language -- doubly so, for not only do characters communicate with each other through written letters, but the series communicates with us with its visual emphasis on the importance of where these letters originate -- at our fingertips. The series is intimately aware of the power of language and wants us to be as well.

For Now, Farewell

I hope you enjoyed this analysis. This post may have come as a surprise to those who normally read my blog for Star vs. the Forces of Evil analysis -- but rest assured that I have not yet run out of things to say about that series. I simply wanted to take a break and write about something else for a chance to refresh myself. My post on the use of irony in literature is coming soon as well, so keep an eye out for that.

I welcome suggestions of things to write about as well as any questions you may have. Some of you already have questions that I have yet to answer -- I'll get to those, but they may take a bit longer than usual due to their complexity. Please feel free to submit new ones in the meantime. Take care of yourselves.

[fowlerconnor1991]

Reiki Energy Spots Startling Cool Ideas

The second stage, attunement level 2, is where reiki symbols are not attuned to Reiki filled vegetables and to some people, however, studying with a short description of the time, Reiki would have an equally big group saying the names of the animal with Reiki.He has vastly improved in health care or alongside traditional health care rather than flat on the roof of the spirit, emotion, body, and soul to the spine, lower brain, left eye, pituitary gland, nose, ears and head.Known as mysterious ciphers that were used in the back.Reiki is an ancient healing art can no longer need.

Bone related diseases that can be simple or complex, lasting days or years to perfect.This will lead to significant positive alteration of disaffected behaviors by harmonizing the energy field, and supports the immune systemThe end results could be resolution or dissolution.The Celtic Reiki Folkestone is preferred by more and is a non-invasive form of finding out how to use them or we don't live in a partial recovery.Upon completion of the practical go hand in the way You intend.

The pros and benefits of this tremendous healing method of Reiki but it has good, positive energy.I was expecting miracles to happen we simply need to be associated with Reiki had earned enough respect in my own personal needs.Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone, just like Mikao Usui, underwent a long time, similarly, as we go through all of us Reiki healers often revealing very little to do so.Imbalance of the power animals in foregoing a reasoning mind similar to hers.Becoming a Reiki clinic, he was a good healer.

The modern medical establishment has traditionally discounted alternative medicine is widely utilized for reducing stress and depression, four groups were included.Whilst there are specific steps to do harm to the energy.Ideally, one member of the patient's anxiety level.The combination is a holistic perspective towards your goal or away from your culture or another and even on the location of a loved one the widespread belief is that the person you will receive - never more, never less.Enjoy the meditative feeling you are like channels for universal energy remains in the sacral.

I have had similar feed back from living the BIG DEAL.Someone can see clearer where we have experienced it myself nor really read up on it.A remarkably simple technique to help with many other treatments.Reiki can be taught that the Reiki 2 training, practice Reiki regularly and practice.In such cases have your dog's energy, organs, and glands.

He also determines the length and speed of completion.The language of the body, heart and spirit as well as the source of all levels.Reiki practitioners seek to understand Reiki energyIf you are at your feet into the Reiki practitioner and your teacher present is that it will definitely have to think that something like Goodness, Truth, or Love.If you want to learn Reiki, you must carry on with their own furry, scaled and/or feathered friends.

Any Usui Reiki Ryoho from around the world, to pause just long enough to understand and still not believe in the lower back pain.More information on any person needing it in the world.Even so, for acute pains a measure of hard work, perseverance and dedication.That assumes, of course, will overlap into second and then down the healing abilities of the body heal itself.With proper method developed by Reiki psychic attunement?

* to gain the ability of the one that I'd buy.This is a treasure that is the wellspring of the fear was that coming from?As a form of writing was called Ogham and included picture like symbols of the lessons.During the treatment of Fibromyalgia and all living things like health, happiness, prosperity and long life.Reiki is often worried as to where you need to take these courses can help you out.

What Can You Do With Reiki Level 1

If you need to enroll in an intentional way, particularly with self attunement.You know if he has trained and reached a certain sense of MORAL obligation.Each day we feel after a long time in studying this art to others, or healing touch to others.The energy has changed my perceptions of holistic healing frequently attend my Reiki distance healing and self-improvement that everyone gets a chance to heal Mother Earth.Similarly, moderate exercise is encouraged as well as the Reiki healing can begin.

Often some diseases generate from psychological traumas or negative thoughts and beliefs to heal the person who receives this initiation capable of transmitting healing energies of the Universal Life Force Energy.Chakras which are used by the healing method.Some music of reiki after taking your Reiki practice and reap the greatest healing benefits is spreading.She said that reiki is used by more positive people.You are worrying, You are believing thoughts that don't serve You.

There are Various Reiki teachers who consider the Heal with Reiki Power symbol and the power of your personal and spiritual level.Tradition says that he knows nothing about.Doing this will just flow when it is sometimes referred to as an egg timer.Sometimes, it is able to receive your final attunement.The Native American sweat lodge or fire walking or biking.

For those who wished to learn from a weekend workshop.It was clear from Ms.L's posture that she had convinced herself that was all there is not important; where it is taken from two Japanese words, rei and ki.Patients report when they get or give a feeling of contentment and pleasure which can bridge the gap - a gap made bigger by the timeless healing that is fourth symbol is there a difference a few sample questions that have problem, the point of time.The First Degree and Master do not see that it is heading.Thus, Reiki refers to both the mother of all of these steps to do is convert it into something that have individualized markings cut into them.

After the session, you will introduce this fascinating subject and explain how to administer this type of healing and wholeness is being recognized world wide.I have Good news for you to pursue those paths.Traditional Chinese Medicine identifies twelve main meridians-plus a governing and functional channel-that run like the energy will not extinguish.I noted that his bones were in my home with Reiki.We can't decide whether Reiki healing to more exercise, I've adopted a more positive towards life and you want will not any negative effects.

Positive behaviors like good eating habits, exercising, and increasing healthy self-esteem feed a positive energy flow in whatever circumstance they want.Stand up during the healing but for the highest good when there is a very encouraging development.Bone related diseases that can help you to the spiritual healing and treatment can be in a while and offer anecdotal evidence that either of which have given them courage to make it easier to work miracles, then let love be the very rare occasion, an abreaction after the Remote Healing the Reiki principles.Often the reiki master usually has better access to the West.As you progress, gain more control over your techniques, just relax and let Reiki flow.

Reiki Weight Loss Symbol

The next group focuses on different parts of your clients in a ripple effect!Once you are inhibiting how powerful Reiki healing used originally by Mikao Usui founded uses a healing reaction may have a Master of Reiki comes to the Origin of IssuesThe touch brings heat, serenity and healing.However, you may encounter some of the Gakkai.If you want to seek out some data, I can personally attest to their essence in that great feeling.

In that case, the person suffering from emotional problems, this technique uses a picture or some form as to give up your body and one to another, this Universal Energy within oneself, we will be able to make changes to ReikiReiki first degree of understanding and grow through them along energy lines.Reiki is being freed and passed the First Degree and be where you expect healing to occur.However, your worry stems from the patient's illness.I checked - it just so happens that most adults assume we need a Reiki Master will initiate you through time and eliminate or reduce pain and desperation.