#i think people fail to recognize that most people experience age regression

[tiny-merkitty]

"impure regression" it's therapy, impurity came free with your xbox

[amazingphilza]

maniac :: cc!tommy x reader

angst (?) , platonic (?) , gender neutral ! ib: conan gray’s maniac

this is satire & note that i write the reader to be a few months younger than tommy (besides that, i think it is fully inclusive !)

synopsis : you put all your hard work towards a useless crush. with no expectation for reciprocated feelings in the first place, it still all ends in a bittersweet slap to reality.

you grew up with minecraft and it was an understatement to say it was part of your childhood

even years later, you still maintained interested in the game

it wasn’t just a simple video game, the community inspired you to do many things

you aspired to be like the creators you watched at a young age like sky, dantdm, cupquake, stampy, and many more

making people happy and entertained was a dream

and when minecraft slowly began trending again in 2019, you started making your own content whenever you felt like it out of fun

you never got much views but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless

but it wasn’t until the first minecraft monday you decided to push a bit more with your hobbies and worked hard to make it somewhere

however balancing your passions with school wasn’t the easiest

given, you were still only around 15 and your content wasn’t even that good

with not much of a goal or plan with your youtube channel, you fell out of interest eventually

you loved minecraft but you always a rocky relationship with it; getting back into it for a few months then pretending it never really existed for another few

besides the occasional videos you watched in your pass time, you didn’t stay that updated

then lockdown happened

it changed everything and even got you regressing back to old interests

soon enough you were back to minecraft

there was so much to catch up on

hermitcraft season 7 just started, there was minecraft championships, and smp earth and smp live, and so much more to look forward to watching

you were a bit late on both of the smps but your interest peaked specially towards smp earth and it didn’t stop you from watching the past videos

you first gravitated towards a certain youtuber’s videos first since you remember stumbling onto his videos before from your recommended page; wilbur soot

besides recognizing him from his you laugh you lose series and making parody-type of songs, you didn’t know much

however with a few clicks, you had binge watched his smp earth series effortlessly

you found yourself falling down the endless hole, finding more creators to watch through wilbur

one in particular caught your eye in an interesting way

tommyinnit

my god, how can someone be so annoying and pushy in these videos? like shut up already

and to find out he was barely months older than you frustrated you

you just wanted to be better in some way

if someone like him could be popular, why can’t you? yelling at others and causing problems didn’t seem that hard

and so you went back to working hard on your previously failed youtube channel but this time with a goal; be better than tommyinnit

it was a weird aspiration in your head but it worked

he was your age and successful, why need a better motivator?

tommy wasn’t the sole reason why you strive to make content since you truly did want to create videos to entertain people like the youtubers you originally grew up watching

and with the amount of free time you had, you thoroughly analyzed his content; what was the most popular, how he streamed, edited his videos, everything

you just completely studied the algorithm in general

along the way, tommy’s personality grew on you

tommy was undoubtedly a very loud and energetic person but you became fond of his ambitions

you understood why he was popular at such a young age; he was a natural entertainer

your spite towards the boy turned into a hope

a hope to be at par with him someday and even be mutuals

and it was like your dreams were suddenly manifested into existence

you gained a large following in the early months of lockdown and even was recognized to be apart of minecraft championships

it felt like yesterday that you were just watching your favorite youtubers livestream the same competition

and now you were situation in a team to play yourself for the first time instead of being a viewer for once

not to mention, with tommyinnit as a teammate

how did you manage to get so lucky?

under the excitement, you felt beyond never nervous waiting in the empty discord call for your team to join you to practice the mini-games

in the middle of gathering your thoughts together, you heard a sound from discord signaling someone joined the call

“uh, hello?”

you heard the familiar british accent you spent hours listening to from countless streams and videos

“h-hi! i’m y/n, how are you?”

you hoped tommy couldn’t hear the strain in your voice due to fighting your nerves, but you quietly celebrated that you didn’t freeze up altogether

“oh i’m good, thank you. and i’m tommy by the way, this is the first time we’re speaking, yeah?”

“yep! it’s nice to meet you”

“yeah, i’ve seen your name around the timeline a few times, you seem cool”

oh my god what?

“thanks! um i actually really enjoy your content not gonna lie”

“oh wow, good shit!”

and the conversation smoothly went on, bouncing back and forth between you two before your other two teammates joined the call

once everyone was situated, you decided to start streaming since it was your first mcc and you wanted a vod of you practicing to look at later on as a memory

your chat immediately noticed how much you were enjoying yourself, especially after all the short stories of talking about who inspired you in the past

the smile plastered on your face never left

after stream and your other teammates went offline, it was you and tommy left in the call once together again

“it was nice talking to you tommy! and the practice was really fun, i cant wait for the actual competition!”

“yeah definitely, we’ll for sure place high”

“hopefully. it’s my first time and i hope i don’t cost us the dub”

“nah, you think so? i mean rt and plumbella are also our team mates so you know, it’s all for fun in the end”

you knew tommy was implying the teamwork wasn’t going to be the best compared to the other teams but at least in the end you’ve both made a new friend

“yeah you’re right!”

“anyway it’s getting late imma hop off”

“okay tommy, talk to you soon?”

“yep!”

“alright byee”

“bye!”

the moment he left the call, you felt a sense of relief before a small wave of sadness took over

you wanted to continue talking to tommy but you knew you had other responsibilities to tend to

for the rest of the day, you couldn’t stop thinking of the call and mcc practice

the funny jokes, singing random songs, screaming for no reason, everything

it even kept you awake until the early morning

you buried your head in a pillow and screamed into it after realization hit

y/n no

no no no no no no no

you tried to recall anything that remotely related your other teammates which you remembered that didn’t include tommy

even if it was a few hours ago, you couldn’t pin point something specific

no

i must just be forgetful, right?

what the hell did rt and plumbella even say that whole call?

you vividly remembered everything with tommy and it was clear to you why

surely not

with putting a hand on your chest above your heart, you confirmed that you couldn’t lie to yourself based on the rapid speed

you liked tommy for a good while but it hadn’t clicked to you until now

eventually you fell asleep due to exhaustion but that’s to say you didn’t do so without imagining spending more time with tommy

ever since that day, time went by in a flash

your team didn’t do the best in mcc but it had been a while since then to have that as a concern

sadly you and tommy didn’t talk as often as you hoped but that didn’t make you have less feelings for him

on some days you felt bad since you thought you didn’t know enough about him to even be allowed to crush on him

it was a bit unprofessional but you were nearly 16, it’s normal to have these little crushes right?

eventually time came to rescue when tommy asked you if you wanted to accompany him in the dream smp

undoubtedly, you said yes

and for the few months during summer, it was where you two became even closer than before

however, once both of you two had to go back and attend school, it was harder to catch up with each other

even on calls together off stream, the occasional snapchat notification going off irked you in a way you couldn’t explain

only winter break was the small pause on your disappointment

but even then, it was a slow but steady hill of repressed sadness and frustration until early spring of the following year

you had hoped 2021 would be better than last year but after scrolling through twitter one day and seeing stans making rumors about how tommy had a crush on one of his classmates gave you the same pain you felt when school started last fall

you dreaded to look over at tommy’s most recent story time stream vod where all the gossip arose from; it was him stumbling over his words with the mention of a girl during a certain part

jealousy wasn’t the right word to describe the way you felt

you would never go out of your way to make tommy reciprocate the feelings you had for him

and if he liked someone else the way you saw him, you wouldn’t mind

having a crush is ecstatic, and if he has someone like that too, you should be happy

right?

you tried

what finally broke you was seeing a tiktok a few weeks later of tommy in college with eryn and another girl talking

you didn’t know how she looked like or anything but you wanted to sob

good for him

she didn’t even say much in the video and you dont know enough about tommy’s personal life to jump to conclusions like this

you knew you were acting irrational and you couldn’t be upset at tommy for something he couldn’t control

if anything, you never directly showed interest in him

you didn’t want to in the first place

it was a bad idea from the start

you looked back at the past year and all your intentions

what kind of sick fanfiction did you think you were living?

becoming a content creator, hoping to blow up, just to talk to a big youtuber you had a crush on?

oh my god

y/n what is wrong with you?

listen to yourself, y/n

you need to get some help

whether tommy was dating or even just had interest someone was none of your business

you had to move on no matter what it was and be good and supportive friend

it was dreadful to get over a stupid crush like this but after so much work you put in, you gave some sympathy for yourself

in a friend perspective, you were happy with whatever tommy did and was satisfied your friendship together, but you hadn’t realized how much you gambled from the beginning

and just for a crush?

you couldn’t comprehend how far you gone because you fancied someone

it wasn’t like anyone could get famous and become a popular content creator either

and now with you being on the dream smp along with a successful youtube channel at 16? you were grateful something pushed you enough to work this hard

but you’d never forget the fact everything that lead up to this point was a crush on no other than tommyinnit which first spurred from complete spite

“who’s the one better off now?” your thoughts mocked you from the complete irony

sigh

y/n, you maniac

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Incubus”

Incubus is a special type of metahuman that can enter people’s mind and the only one known to possess such abilities is Y/N. Captured by an underground agency and forced to obey orders, she has a new task today: to get inside The Joker’s head and find out where he stashed half a billion dollars after he pulled what everybody calls “the heist of the century”.

“Regression will begin shortly,” one of the doctors announces on the intercom. “Prepare for countdown.”

You lay on the cold metal table next to the Joker’s body: he’s medicated into a dreamless sleep, ready to have you purge his mind for the answer to the burning question: where did he stash half a billion dollars?

After being arrested two weeks ago, The King of Gotham refused to speak and disclose any information to the authorities; they tried everything: drugs, blackmail, best intimidation tactics and psychologists without success.

J didn’t crack.

Fed up with the puzzling mystery, CIA decided to use the top secret research facility operating under the grid where the infamous Incubus is held prisoner.

“A few reminders,” the flat voice echoes in the sealed laboratory. “Do not attempt to elude us, we have your little girl! If you aim to play us we’ll revoke visiting time.”

You blankly stare at the ceiling, upset they repeat the same rules when you’re forced to use your powers; the 15 minutes you’re allowed to spend with Mia on Saturdays is all you live for since they incarcerated both of you six months ago.

How you wish you could kill them but they found a solution to prevent you from rebelling.

“Please note that in case you plan to get inside our brains and compel us to stop breathing, your daughter will die. Confirm acknowledgement.”

“Confirm,” you bitterly reply because it hurts to have your child endangered; you could end them right this moment if it wasn’t for her.

Unfortunately, they found a way to subdue your terrific ability: the crew assigned to project Incubus carries portable heart monitoring devices 24/7; they resemble wrist watches and if just one individual’s pulse deactivates, it will set of the explosive in Mia’s collar. The 5 years old has no clue that what she believes to be a cute necklace is actually a device meant to eradicate her.

“Countdown to regression,” the clinician reports and the speakers carry his words around the room. “Five, four, three, two, one. Initiate!”

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

You walk in the darkness, surprised you didn’t bump into memories yet: usually that’s the first thing you stumble upon when invading a person’s subconscious. He’s been under your spell for 10 minutes now and the void proves his twisted mind is probably worse than anyone thinks: The Clown is lost in the maze of his own insanity.

A couple more steps and you finally distinguish four doors ahead which means you’ll be able to analyze The Joker’s recollections.  

First Door

The little boy cries in the middle of the room and you slowly approach, wondering if you should interfere or just observe. But tears fall from those innocent blue eyes and the fact that he’s maybe your daughter’s age makes you decide.

“Why are you crying?” you kneel by the young Joker and he wipes his face with the sleeves of his raggedy shirt:

“My mommy died.”

“Did she? I’m sorry… Do you miss her?” you manipulate the conversation since warping his thoughts might lead to your quest: discovering where the money is.

“U-hum,” he nods and asks. “I don’t like it at the orphanage, I want to go home…”

“Perhaps I can help,” you pull him in your arms and he whispers:

“Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare,” Y/N sadly concludes because it doesn’t bring her joy to distort an already broken mind, nevertheless she‘s here bearing a clear purpose. “It’s ok,” you hold the child and soothe him. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

The little boy whimpers, clinging to the stranger showing him kindness then vanishes in thin air: you got rid of a painful memory and replaced it with a nicer one.

Now The Joker will remember that someone comforted him when in reality it never happened.

Second Door

The young man is standing in front of the burning cottage while the firefighters are struggling to put out the blaze. He’s covered in ashes and his lips are barely moving; you can hardly discern what he keeps on repeating:

“They’re still inside… they’re still inside…”

The 24 years old Joker is numb and all you can conclude he seemed so different back in the day.

“Who’s inside?” you inquire and he glimpses your way without realizes he’s in shock.

“My wife and son. I couldn’t save them… I didn’t make it to the second level, the flames were too strong…”

You bend over and grab the blanket resting at his feet, placing it around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry they’re gone, you did everything you could.”

He glares at the Incubus for a split moment before disappearing: you just lift the burden of a horrifying experience and now The Joker will remember that someone offered consolation when in reality it never happened.

Third Door

The man is sitting on the floor with his back against the padded wall, tightly confined inside his straight jacket. He keeps screaming, then maniacally laughing and sobbing in the same time while straining to escape the garment.

“Calm down,” you slide near him. “You’ll hurt yourself if you continue.”

The 27 years old tries to articulate a couple of coherent sounds before reprising his yelling.

“Stop squirming,” you cup his face and make him pay attention. “Look at me. Relax,” you caress his cheeks. “Deep breaths, ok?” you plead with the madman. “Sssttt, it’s fine…” Y/N stares in his eyes and the shouting gradually dies out. “There you go,” you brush your forehead on J’s prior to him fading away: you switched a terrible incident into better conclusion by mimicking sympathy when in reality it never happened.  

Fourth Door

You’re surprised to notice The Joker talking to shadows: a woman and a little girl judging by their silhouettes; he resembles the most wanted criminal lying 10 inches apart from you in the secured establishment pushing you to accomplish their instructions.

A recent memory? Does it mean he has another family?...

You want to come closer and the sight of the contours disappearing is intriguing; The Clown rubs his temples and you can tell he’s distressed.

“What’s going on?” you dig in his brain for responses.

“They took my Queen and my Princess!” he grinds his teeth with resentment.

“Do you know where they are?”

“Yes,” J grumbles and evaporates saying a baffling phrase: ”I have to find the perfect plan in order to reclaim what’s mine!”

So weird the memory dispersed before you misled the truth in your favor … What the heck is going on?!...

The Cell

No rooms left and you stroll in the murkiness again, angry your scheme didn’t lead towards a better result: oddly enough The King of Gotham failed to unveil extra hints that could have aid you in discovering where the fortune he snatched is.

“Hello sugar,” the raspy intonation halts you in your tracks.

Y/N detects the heavy bars forming this square shaped cell containing what she suspects to be a version of The Joker; it’s difficult to restrain her astonishment since she’s witnessing a rare phenomenon: nothing less than a mind prison.

Jackpot! If he buried something deep inside and locked it even from himself it could mean you reached your destination.

“It’s nice to have visitors,” the eerie apparition chuckles. “It gets lonely.”

“I bet,” you pout. “Why don’t you break free?”

He kicks the bars, enraged he has to explain:

“I’m sure a superior creature such as the lady joining me knows a mind prison can only be opened from the outside!”

He’s self-aware! This is absolutely unbelievable: humans are never conscious within the deepest layers of their psyche.

“You are correct: you can only open it from the outside,” you agree. “What’s your name?”

“Joker. What’s yours?”

“Y/N.”

“Duh, I know,” he snickers and lets his tattooed arms hang loose outside the bars. “You have a kid, right?”

He sees your doubt and his gratification builds up to new highs.

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“How do you know it’s a she?!” you counterattack with a quiz.

Damn, this whole charade is getting more and more fascinating by the second!

“I know soooooo many things,” the entity yawns. “For example I’m sure you wonder how I ended up in here.”

No sign you would deny his rambling thus he enlightens the riddle:

“Some are born with certain “gifts”, some develop them after a traumatic experience. I’m the lucky recipient of the latest, although I was locked in here from day one. If I had someone shatter the seal and by someone I mean you,” he points his finger at the smirking Y/N, “I could help you run from the place you hate. Tell me I’m wrong, but aren’t you trapped also?”

“You’re sneaky, I’ll give you that,” you laugh at his attempts to influence your actions.

“And you’re too powerful not to realize what’s going on! Snap out of it!!!” he hisses. “Are you single sugar?” the anger building up makes Y/N frown.

“None of your business!”

“Humor me, I beg,” he emphasizes the words.

“Yes,” you scoff and his demeanor doesn’t lower your guard.

“Are you 100% certain you’re not married?”

“What’s this nonsense?!” you sneer at the stupid conversation.

“Maybe you don’t remember because you created your own mind prison where you chained crucial data in order to protect the ones you love after you were captured. What’s your daughter’s name?” he sulks and you grumble.

“Mia.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am; do you think I don’t know my child’s name?”

“And you think I don’t recognize my own wife standing in front of me??!!!!” he snaps at your hesitation. “Set me free! Set me free and I’ll show you! I can get inside your mind and unlock your cage: you’ll remember everything!”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?!” you growl at the absurd sentences: like his devious tactic would work on you!

“I’m talking to the Incubus, am I not?”

Your mouth opens in amazement since there is no way in hell he could know that.

“Do I have your attention now?” the beast reprimands. “Good! Here’s what you deliberately forgot: nobody knows that we’re married, it’s better that way; yet a woman with your capabilities is bound to attract unwanted attention anyway. When we got together, we had a deal: you’ll never get inside my head and you consented. No? Doesn’t ring a bell?...” he cracks his joints. “After they took you and Emma from me…”

“Who’s Emma?” you interrupt, more and more convinced there’s something fishy happening inside The Joker’s subconscious.

“Our daughter, her name is not Mia, you just replaced it after you were both kidnapped in order to sever all connections with the past. Can’t blame you: it’s a great strategy given the circumstances: create a mind prison, hide everything connected to protect me and her. Last thing you needed was for them to find out we are actually acquainted in the most intimate way. That would have been a disaster! Do you know why I stole half a billion dollars and let them catch me? I knew that if I do that they’ll use everything possible under the sun to make me spill the beans. When all fails, won’t they flaunt the last ace in their sleeve? That’s how I got here sugar, it was the ultimate goal. I can’t function without my girls so I came to get them!”

“Listen here,” your menacing attitude takes over. “Who do you take me for?! Your fictional tale is starting to piss me off so I advise you to quit before I make your neurons crumble to pieces!”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it,” the feral beast sniffs the air. “You always kept your end of the bargain and never got in here before to poke the past. I respect that, sugar. Now I had no choice besides letting you in.”

“Stop it! Stop your lies!! You’re nothing more than a projection of The Joker’s mind!”

“Ahhhh,” the evil grin flourishes behind the silver teeth. “I am so much more than that. Do you want to get out of this facility? I suggest you set me free and I will prove I’m telling the truth!”

“Bullshit! What can you do anyway?! I can kill everyone and run, but my daughter will die!”

“Not if I help: you can make them stop breathing and I could keep the hearts beating until we get the key that unlocks Emma’s collar! It’s a dual team mission.”

“Her name is Mia! How do you know about the collar?!” the dumbfounded Y/N mumbles.

“Weren’t you listening? I know a lot of things!”

“Even if we assume you aren’t lying, how will you keep their hearts beating?!”

“Set me free and I’ll show you! SET. ME. FREE!!!!!! Or we are fucking doomed! Set me free!” he punches the bars. “Set me free and I’ll open your mind prison! You’ll realize each word I uttered is genuine! You’ll remember all of it! SET! ME! FREE!!! What do you have to lose, huh? Nothing! Do it!! Do it!!!!”

“How could you get inside my mind?! I’m a metahuman!”

“Goddamnit! SET ME FREE AND I’ll SHOW YOU!!!!! Do you want your daughter to perish in this place?! Do you???!!!”

You definitely are beyond skeptical; still… at least he’s correct about this: you have nothing to lose; you approach with caution and part the bars enough for the trapped entity to squeeze outside.

“Thank you honey,” he clumsily bows and before you can react he snatches in his arms and kisses you.

Y/N feels this electrifying sensation taking over, stupefied to understand what it means: she just unleashed another Incubus. And she always thought she was the only one!

You gasp for air and open your eyes, processing all the recovered memories rushing through your brain: your own mind prison was opened as promised.

You tilt your head to look at The Clown and he grabs your hand, panting:

“Are you ready sugar?”

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

People keep falling to the ground, each step bringing you closer to your freedom. Emma’s face is buried in your neck as you jump over corpses on the way out of the underground laboratory:

“No peeking!” The Joker scolds and her little hands hold you tighter while obeying.

“Ok daddy.”

“Don’t be scared,” you kiss her cheek and continue the rampage towards the exit.

Screams intensify around the three detainees escaping their faith: the adults can’t afford any weakness or grant mercy to the ones that showed them none.

In the end, what is more terrifying than one Incubus that could plunge the world into complete darkness?

The answer is simple: two of them.

 Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Wattpad and AO3 under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[justalittlelitnerd]

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

“First rule of book club?” They finished in unison. “You don’t talk about book club.” What. The. Fuck 

So I’ve been wanting to read this book since before it came out, but just wasn’t in the place to buy it so when I got an email from Amazon saying the Kindle version was on sale for $3 I wasn’t going to pass up the chance. And I’m glad I waited until it was on sale because I was just a little bit disappointed. For the most part, I think it’s once again a case of failing to manage my expectations. If I had gone into this book thinking it was simply a cute rom-com about a failing marriage than I think I would have enjoyed it well enough. But this book was so well talked about I expected something more. 

The book club was funnier than I expected with all the men being characters in their own rights and I loved that it presented the opportunity for them to tackle toxic masculinity, gender roles, and feminism. I thought it was interesting that Gavin had a stutter that he was super insecure about because it felt like a twist on the standard athlete romance since he lacked a certain confidence that is usually synonymous with competing in the major leagues. 

Additionally, I’m not sure if the twins were absolutely necessary to the story. For the most part they felt like a plot driver because the pregnancy is the reason they got married so quickly in the first place and arguably why they’re marriage lasted as long as it did (though three years really doesn’t feel long enough for the issues they had but whatever) and part of why they’re keen to save their relationship. I think it would have been better if the girls were a little older so they could feel more engaging, but I’m also biased because I’m not a fan of children (specifically toddlers) in romance books. I can see the appeal of babies because they’re cutesy and older kids because they can interact with the adults and provide some comedy, but toddlers are just an awkward age in my opinion.

Finally, the fucking sister pissed me off. I understand Thea and Liv had a lot of childhood issues between their parent’s divorce and general lack of love and guidance, but the fact that Liv turns so quickly on Gavin and doesn’t support her sister when she decides to give him a chance. It started to feel like Thea was going to have to choose between her husband/family and her sister and that wasn’t the kind of energy I needed in my romance book especially in the age of Corona. Of course, it being a romance book in the end it all works out. 

Basically, I would recommend this book as a fun romance read about an awkward man trying to save his marriage, but just know what your in for.

Keep reading for some fun and often insightful quotes!      

“All spouses become strangers to each other at some point in a marriage,” Del said. “All human beings are a work in progress, and we don’t all change at the same pace. Who knows how many people have gotten divorced simply because they failed to recognize that what they thought were insurmountable problems were actually just temporary phases?”

The need to hit something surged again like a bad case of Twitter rage.

“Men are idiots. We complain that women are so mysterious and shit, and we never know what they want. We fuck up our relationships because we convince ourselves that it’s too hard to figure them out. But the real problem is with us. We think we’re not supposed to feel things and cry and express ourselves. We expect women to do all the emotional labor in a relationship and then act confused when they give up on us.”

“Romance novels are primarily written by women for women, and they’re entirely about how they want to be treated and what they want out of life and in a relationship. We read them to be more comfortable expressing ourselves and to look at things from their perspective.”

“Modern romance novelists use the patriarchal society of old British aristocracy to explore the gender-based limitations placed on women today in both the professional and personal spheres. That shit is feminist as fuck.”

If a man wants to leave you, wave goodbye and lock the doors. You’ve got better things to do than chase a lost cause.

The backlash against the PSL is a perfect example of how toxic masculinity permeates even the most mundane things in life. If masses of women like something, our society automatically begins to mock them. Just like romance novels. If women like them, they must be a joke, right?

“You don’t wink.” “That’s not true.” “It absolutely is true. A woman remembers every time a man winks at her, because we love winking. It’s like catnip. Wink at us, and we roll over and start purring. You haven’t winked at me in a long time.” “Then I’m an idiot.” Gavin slowly lowered his gaze to lips. “Because I wouldn’t mind hearing you purr.”

Thea blinked several times and tore her gaze away from Gavin, who was studying her again like he did during the theater. Like he did on Saturday. As if seeing her for the first time. Maybe he was. It had been years since she felt like he saw her at all.

She had changed into a pair of sweatpants and his old Huntsville Rockets minor league sweatshirt, the one she’d claimed shortly after they started dating. He’d lost all coherent thought the first time he saw her in it. Something regressively possessive stole over him, as if he’d claimed her. Officially. With a sweatshirt.

“It means that whatever happened to your wife before she met you plays a role in who she is today,” Malcolm said. “We are all the sum total of our experiences at any given time, and our reactions to things are shaped by them. Just like in romance novels. Whatever a character went through before the start of the book will eventually determine how they react to things that happen in the book.” “But we’re talking about my real life here. Not a book.” “Same principles apply,” Malcolm said. “That’s why fiction resonates with people. It speaks to universal truths.”

“‘More than anything, she feared that she would awaken some morning and realize her entire life had passed her by,’” he read. “‘That at some point, she had become less than. Less than w-w-what she used to imagine. Less than w-wh-what she used to hope for. Nothing more than a silent accessory to a man. Nothing more than her own mother, a passive face at a glittering table.’”

"The point of all this is to court her, Gavin. Not seduce her.” “What’s the difference?” Mack snorted again. “It’s a fucking miracle you got married at all.” Gavin flipped him off. “The difference,” Malcolm said, “is to make her want you, not prove how much you want her.”

“Something has changed. What is it?” He offered to deal with Dad for me. He kissed me and made me want to forget everything bad. He made pancakes with the girls. Thea shook her head. “Nothing.”

"We women must steal our power where we can, and in the world of the ton, that power is sadly limited to the reduction of other women.”

“I do not require compliments, my lord. I’m well aware of my own attractiveness, which, of course, no lady is supposed to admit, but such is the world. English society seems to rest upon the requirement that women are pitted against each other until we all emerge envious of the other.”

“If there was a website where strange men posted thousands of pictures of you, yeah, I w-wouldn’t get used to it.” “That’s different. I’m not famous like you are.” “You’re the most important person in the w-w-world to me, so I beg to differ.”

“But we must find a way to produce and enjoy content that celebrates the fierceness of women without, at the same time, belittling a woman’s ability to decipher fact from fiction.”

[littleonabudget]

Self-Care Saturday 💖 Lifesaver Tips For When Things Get Bad - From Someone Who Gets It

When you have mental illness, it can be hard to get out of bed, much less shower, brush your teeth, and do the laundry. I’ve been there. I know how you want to stay in bed and just ignore everything. But taking care of yourself is important. These are all tips I’ve personally used that have helped me in the past. These aren’t age-regressor specific for the most part, so everyone can do these :)

I’ll be posting some more tips next week as well, so stay tuned for that!

1) Get some perfume or cologne. And chewing gum.

We’ve all had days where we don’t feel like showering. And brushing teeth? Not happening. While that’s fine if you live alone and don’t need to go anywhere, people will notice body odor if you end up having to go out.

Perfume or cologne can help cover that. You don’t want to completely overdo it, but make sure you spray more than you normally would. I usually do armpits, crotch region, and most importantly, your hair. If you haven’t washed your bedding in a while, your hair will most likely be the biggest issue. Some mint gum will help cover bad breath if you haven’t brushed teeth.

2) Get Amazon Prime.

There’s a good reason half the U.S has Prime. For those of us with mental illness, it can be a godsend. Can’t go to go to the store for the necessities? Prime Pantry has you covered. You can do all your shopping online, and have your day-to-day essentials delivered to your door. (Did I mention free two-day shipping?)

It’s only $10.99 per month, or you can get an entire year for $99. If you’re a student, you can try prime free for 6 months, and after that, you’ll be upgraded to Prime for 50% off. If you’re not a student, you can also try Prime free for 30 days.

The thing I like about prime is that I can order canned food & snacks that have little to no prep time. No energy for cooking? No problem! Just pop some canned ravioli in the microwave and you have a meal.

3) Keep a clean outfit set aside.

You never know when something unexpected may come up, and you don’t want to be caught in clothes you’ve been wearing for 3 days with unknown stains on them. Keep a fresh, clean outfit set aside for “emergencies”. If you think you need more than one, then keep more than one set aside.

4) Don’t worry about changing clothes, but DO worry about underwear.

This is especially true for women, but also important for men. For girls, you can go a few days with the same underwear if you wear a liner. I usually do two liners (one stuck on the panty normally, the other wrapped around the center to hold the first one in place) If you’re like me and laundry is the last thing you want to do when depressed, something you can try is keeping a bit of detergent in your bathroom, and when you go to the bathroom, fill up the sink and swish your underwear around a bit. Rinse well, and you’re good to go. If you’re getting acne on your butt, this is probably due to wearing the same undies, so this can help :)

5) Have the energy to shower? Great! Brush your teeth at the same time.

Dental hygiene is really important, but it’s one of the hardest things for me when I’m depressed. While the best thing for your teeth is to brush, floss, and mouthwash twice a day, it’s way too overwhelming to do when things get bad. Just stick some toothpaste on your brush before you get in the shower and you’re good to go!

6) If you can’t live up to others expectations, that’s okay.

It doesn’t matter what other people expect of you. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. If you fail them, so what? If you push yourself too hard, you’re failing YOU. And if they push you too hard.... They’re failing you.

Not everyone understands mental illness, and it’s usually because they’ve never been through it. So how is it fair for them to place expectations on you if they don’t even understand what you’re going through?

7) Learn to recognize when things are getting bad again.

For me, I know things are starting to get bad when I start avoiding people more than usual and when I start getting anxious thoughts about weather or not people like me (and I don’t even care about that kind of stuff!) I also loose interest in things, which is one of the first early warning signs.

Everyone is different, but start taking notice of how you feel day-to-day. Start a mood journal, or chart your moods. I made one you can feel free to use. You can modify it to fit your needs, and print it off if you wish.

8) Relax. Breathe. Take a warm bath to relax (with the added bonus of being clean after.)

I’ve always loved baths for self-care. You’re guaranteed some alone time you can use to de-stress and let your thoughts go. Lay back and let your head go under the water, and just float.

If you’ve never used bath bombs, you HAVE to try them! My go-to bath bombs are this lavender-scented set. Lavender is so soothing. It’ll relax you instantly.

Try putting some some soft music with your bath. I find classical soothing, but listen to whatever you prefer. Get a playlist going before you get in the bath, and make sure there’s no songs that’ll trigger you during your relaxation time.

For age regressors, you can also take this time alone to regress. Get out your bath toys. You can color in the bathtub if you have washable crayons (this is super fun, by the way!) Just have a good time being little :) 

You can set up some cartoons on your phone or tablet to watch/listen to while you play. If you want to know where you can watch Disney & Disney Pixar movies for free online, I have a post about that here.

9) For women who notice they tend to get depressed at a certain time in their cycle, consider birth control. Some Planned Parenthood centers offer free birth control pills, shots, implants, and IUD’s.

I used to notice I’d get depressed during the last few days of my period, and would remain depressed for about 2 weeks. I started birth control, and I notice it helped my moods even out. It didn’t eliminate the depression or anxiety, but it evened out how extreme it would get. I chose the shot, because I was worried about forgetting the pills, and with the shot, you just go in for a new dose every 3 months.

If you don’t have access to a Planned Parenthood center and would like to try the pills, prjktruby is a great resource. They’ll ship the birth control to you. This is great if your parents won’t take you to get birth control or you don’t want them to know you’re on birth control. You’ll want to be sure you get to the package before they do, though. Mine was shipped in a package that said CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT OPEN in big, red letters.

Prjktruby has 7 different brands of birth control. If you don’t know which you should choose, you can take a quiz that recommends one. If you want to research them individually to pick your own, you can do that, too. Each pack of pills has 3 active weeks and 1 placebo week. During your placebo week, you’ll get your period. If you want to avoid getting your period, you can throw out your pack after taking your last active pill and start day 1 of the next pack. This is what I did.

A warning, though- birth control can CAUSE depression, or cause it to worsen. This was unfortunately the case for me, so be aware of that and stop taking them if you notice this.

10) Just can’t do it, even stuff on this list? That’s fine! Do what you can, and accept what you can’t do.

What you’re going through thousands of other people experience. You’re not alone. There are so many of us struggling to do simple day-to-day stuff. It’s okay. You’re not a failure, you’re not broken, and YOU ARE IMPORTANT.

Take care of yourself lovelies 💖

[giancarlonicoli]

December 13, 2019

Scott Galloway

@profgalloway

5-min read

The Dunning-Kruger effect posits that dumb people are too stupid to know they are dumb. They are not perplexed by difficult situations but overconfident — not knowing what they don’t know. As few people believe they are stupid, or a bad driver, a more relatable component of Dunning-Kruger is incorrectly believing one area of skill translates to another.

I suffer massively from this. I’m smarter than your average bear when it comes to marketing, so I’ve come to believe that makes me an expert on pretty much anything. I don’t know much about physics but constantly reference Galileo despite knowing little besides the fact that he dared challenge the church.

There is evidence of this all over the marketplace. Great P/E guys believe they would make great VCs and vice versa. Hedge fund managers believe two years of above-market returns means they are also great operators. To disabuse anybody of this notion, take them to a Sears. Billionaires running for president, actors starting skincare lines, and tech CEOs founding media firms. Being rich also naturally makes you a great film producer.

Masayoshi Son created $64 billion in shareholder value, mostly through deft acquisitions. Mr. Son can also boast of perhaps the best venture investment in history, $20 million into Alibaba that became $100 billion. That investment is tantamount to Michael Jordan hitting a grand slam on his first at bat wearing a Birmingham Barons hat.

Mr. Son has mistaken luck in venture investing for the ability to responsibly allocate billions based on a gut feeling. The size of SoftBank investments, relative to the diligence, now looks stupid, if not negligent. A writedown on an investment in a dog-walking app may have been avoided had someone in the SoftBank diligence team taken the time to discover they were investing $300 million in … a dog-walking app.

Conflating luck and talent is dangerous. As I get older, I’m struck by how big a part luck played in my life, and how much I mistook it for skill, well into my forties. The Pareto principle shows that even if competence is evenly distributed, 80% of effects stem from 20% of the causes.

Not recognizing your blessings feeds into the dark side of capitalism and meritocracy: the notion that success is a choice, and that those who haven’t achieved success are not unlucky, but unworthy. This leads to regressive policies that further reward the perceived winners and punish the perceived losers based on income level. The most recent example of our belief that poor people are guilty: The US now has the fourth-lowest tax rate in the world, and billionaires have the lowest tax rate of any cohort.

First Base

I constantly humblebrag that I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary. But truth is I was born on third base. My parents got me to first base before I was born, immigrating to the US. This took courage, desire, and a dose of selfishness. Both left families that needed them. My mom left London when her two youngest siblings were still in an orphanage.

In Europe I’d make much less money being an entrepreneur and challenging institutions. In China I’d likely be in jail. Having one of my companies fail would have bankrupted me in Europe, as the tolerance for risk or failure is scant. I have no idea what would have happened in China. In the US, a tolerance for failure meant a lifestyle my parents couldn’t have imagined crossing the Atlantic on a steamship in 1961.

Second Base

I have some talent and have worked really hard, but mostly my success is due to being born in the right place at the right time, and being a white heterosexual male. Coming of professional age as a white male in the nineties was the greatest economic arbitrage in history. Today’s 54-to-70-year-olds saw the Dow Jones increase an average of 445% from 25-40, their prime working years. For other ages, it doubles at most.

Economic liberalization (globalization, technology, market deregulation) coupled with social norms that clung to the past meant 31% of America (white males) were given license over a lion’s share of the spoils. In nineties San Francisco, I raised over $100 million for my start-ups. I didn’t know a single woman under 40 who raised more than a million. And it seemed normal. Even today, white men hold 65% of elected offices despite being 31% of the population.

Third Base

Rich, fabulous people are the ideal billboards for luxury brands. Our nation’s best universities have adopted the same strategy. Universities are no longer nonprofits, but the highest-gross-margin luxury brands in the world. Another trait of a luxury brand is the illusion of scarcity. Over the last 30 years, the number of applicants to Stanford has tripled, while the size of the freshman class has remained static. Harvard and Stanford have become finishing school for the global wealthy.

In the class of 2013 in the Ivy League, five of the eight colleges (Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn, and Brown) had more students from the top 1% of the income scale than the bottom 60%.

Fast and Slow Thinking

According to @thetweetofgod, intelligence looks in the mirror and sees ignorance; ignorance looks in the mirror and sees intelligence. The sectors that have enjoyed the greatest prosperity spread across increasingly few people — technology and finance — have created an unprecedented level of arrogance among people born on third base.

When we feel threatened, we are more prone to see each other as an enemy, rather than someone who has a different opinion. We want to dismiss and fight the whole person, rather than just what they said. From primeval times, our brains have been set up to identify “enemy” or “one of us,” that simple binary distinction. Do I trust them as a person or are they not “one of us.” When we are in our more evolved, slow thinking mode (Daniel Kahneman), we evaluate arguments. When we are in our knee-jerk, threatened fast thinking, we decide the person is our enemy and argue from our amygdala, not our forebrain.

When we are threatened, we are also less empathic. Altruistic behavior decreases in times of greater income inequality. The rich are more generous in times of lesser inequality and less generous when inequality grows more extreme. When the poor need our help more, we are less likely to offer it, because we don’t see the poor as one of us. They become “them.”

Michael Lewis writes, “The problem is caused by the inequality itself: it triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.”

Old Age

My dad is not doing well. We think it’s dementia, but it’s more just that he’s 89. He has never asked me for much, but he needs me now. I don’t do as much for him as I did for my mom at the end of her life, as I don’t feel the same goodwill toward him — my mother raised me. It’s easier to be generous with him when I look at his life. He was physically abused by his father and had no education. Despite this, his courage and wits (immigrating to America) put his son and daughter on first base.

Life is so rich,

P.S. Last week I wrote a letter asking the board of Twitter to replace Jack Dorsey. On Wednesday, Mr. Dorsey announced Twitter is possibly moving to an open standard. This is a good strategy. However, assigning five developers to a project with no timeline feels like big-tech delay and obfuscation (“we’re working on it”) and reflects an unwillingness to make the requisite investment of time and resources in open APIs. His other actions confirm he isn’t willing to make the requisite investment of time and resources in Twitter.

[20qs20somethings]

Chase, 28

1. Can you use three to five words to describe our generation?  Misunderstood, Neglected, Ambitious, Narrow-Minded, Active

2. What’s your relationship with social media like? It’s love hate I think like most people. I perfectly curate my life on it and I know that everyone else perfectly curates their life to be a perfect museum exhibit and it can be nerve wracking. I tend to be funny on social media as a way of dealing with things and I get a lot of my validation strangely from people liking and giving me positive comments on my posts because it means I’ve impacted them or made them laugh. 

3. Where has our generation failed and where have we succeeded? I think our generation and the generation that follows us has succeeded in understanding groups of people en masse in ways that earlier generations have and cannot. I think one place where the generation fails is the reaction individuals have when they meet people or interact with people who have a different viewpoint, a more traditional viewpoint on some things, or lack the capacity and experience to fully understand social justice or what the issue may be. I think millennials tend to overreact instead of trying to have a conversation that’s productive and able to bring the person they’re talking to closer to their viewpoint or at least to a mutual understanding.

4. Who or what is your biggest motivator in life? Internal ambition to succeed. Something intrinsic that was fostered by my mother. Even though my parents are divorced, I grew up in a very loving environment before and after in which they supported my brother and I. So I think that helped foster a really great sense of wanting to accomplish things and I was sort of the golden child of my church and school which does lend itself to a lot of self imposed stress so though that motivates me, i think it hinders me in a lot of ways too because I don’t handle those failures well. 

5. Do you believe in love? Yeah, I believe in different types of love. Platonic love, the people that bring joy to your life. Familial love, I very much love my family. Romantic love, I have not particularly had that experience, but I’ve had a lot of unrequited love. So I do believe in love, I believe it is a powerful and sometimes destructive force. 

6. What’s something you think people assume of you based on your internet persona? That I have my life together. That I’m a happy person naturally, that I have nothing but successes when in reality, I have constant internal doubt and I’m very self conscious about things and sometimes I sprinkle posts with a little bit of that. Maybe some people pick up on it, maybe some people have. But I think the major misconception that people really buy into my social media persona is who I am. Some of it is me, but it is perfectly curated for maximum likes.

7. What’s one thing you want people to know about you? That I live in a state of conflicted feelings. I was born and raised in Kentucky in a very pretty conservative place. I never felt regressed or oppressed. I grew up in church and I never had a reason like some other millennials, in particular gay millennials, have to sort of reject religion because the best people I ever knew that cared for me the most was my church family so I never fully rejected that or those values that have shifted my viewpoints and philosophies and theological perceptions of religion. 

At the same time, I live in an urban environment that is diverse in thought, religion, I’m part of an LGBTQ community that doesn’t accept that I’ve held on to a lot of things I grew up with. Add that to the fact that I’m a moderate republican operative and it’s not great for the dating life. It also creates conflict because I don’t know exactly where I fit into the LGBT community. There are people who support it and there are those who lay into me, particularly now that Donald Trump is President. For some reason, even though I didn't vote for him, they think I have to own him, own his policies, and his presidency which I do not. 

8. Fill in the blank: “Happiness is _______” Ephemeral for me. I’m not naturally happy and I have to work very hard for that. I think happiness requires a base of contentment and if you’re not content with things, you can’t build off of that into feeling fully happy and in a happy mood. I’d say ephemeral because it’s in this fast paced, ever changing dynamic of the society that we live in. It’s easy for something to come and knock you out of a good, happy state.

9. Do you think you’re represented in things you consume in media? (TV, Movies, Books, etc.) Well I identify in several different ways. I think LGBT, yeah there’s always going to be complaints that there isn’t enough positive representation in media, but in comparison to 10 years ago, it’s only growing and stories are being told. As someone from Appalachia, no. I think if you look at a lot of shows on television, you don’t have those Roseanne’s anymore, you don’t have shows that focus on a blue collar perspective anymore. On the whole, I would say yeah, I am a white male so I am well represented. 

10. Who or what brings you the greatest joy in your life? Moment’s where I’m with people that I enjoy, doing something I enjoy, laughing, making them laugh and having a bonding moment whether with family or friends that people enjoy engaging in.

11. How did you feel after November 8th? I was very conflicted. I like, most people had resigned myself that Hillary was going to win and I was more comfortable with her in a leadership position than the person that was the nominee of my own party. I am not a Donald Trump republican and in many ways, the party, and what he represents is diametrically opposed to many of the ideas that I came into my political own believing. I was very conflicted, I was happy we retained congress, sad that one of my favorite members lost her reelection campaign. 

I’ve still been conflicted this whole time because there’s this sensible part of me that feels like I’m being told that I have to participate in the public flogging of the President, his supporters, and his ideas to be considered a kind compassionate human being. On the other side, the political, professional side of me is like, “I can’t do that because is that disloyal to party?” I have my conversations with my own friends about what he’s doing wrong with pretty much everything. But there is a pressure to feel like I have to own him and his policies.

12. What are your thoughts on marriage? I’d like to be married. I think marriage is a covenant, a promise that you make to another person and to God that you will become one unit, one individual. Do I think you need to be married to be happy? No, but I think that’s up to everyone. I think marriage is very important, it’s important to find the right person and to develop techniques to solve your problems and work through issues. I sometimes wonder, it’s been very difficult for me to find people to date or fall in love with and see myself getting married with. I almost wonder if that’s because I’m supposed to be waiting to find the right person that’s going to be able to have that same concept of marriage.

13. What do you want out of this life? That happiness that I said was ephemeral. I want to be content I want to recognize my blessings because I sometimes forget that.

14. What would you say is your biggest character flaw? There’s quite a few. I think it’s definitely being self conscious to the point of over compensation. So I want people to like me I want to be a people pleaser and I try to do that on social media and if somebody says something to me that makes me think that they don’t like me or they're upset with me, it sticks with me for weeks. Again, I overcompensate by trying to be the fun guy at the party so that everyone will like me. Impatience as well in my career and my romantic life. 

15. How do you want to be remembered? As someone who made people laugh. As someone who hopefully made people feel good about themselves, who was kind. Someone who was creative, thoughtful, and I do hope my memory lasts beyond my death through some accomplishment, even if its a footnote of a footnote in history books.

16. What are qualities that you value? Kindness, compassion, good humor, hard work, thoughtfulness

17. How would you describe what it’s like to navigate your 20s? Exhausting. I think it’s a time when you want to have fun, especially if you’re single. But it’s also a time where you want to be serious and further your career and those can be difficult things to balance. It’s a chaotic time. I think that’s true for many generations. The 20s is when a generation is in that time period, is when they’re most judged by older generations because they’re trying to adjust, adapt, and figure their shit out. It’s unfair for baby boomers who have bankrupted America to be like “millennials are lazy.” Bitch, you bought things you can’t pay for. 

18. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far? I’m in the process of learning how to not let stress and anxiety overpower me. That everything will be fine and turn out right if I don’t meet my goals and I struggle with that on a daily basis and how to cope with those emotions. Beyond that, I think trying to learn patience and realizing that patience is needed. 

I think everyone thinks that when they come out of college that they’re going to hit the ground running that you’re gonna go one hurdle after another. I think it’s really interesting because after college is the first time when you have an open ended life. Up until that point, there’s always something on the horizon when you finish high school, you know the next year you’re going to college, you know you’ll do an internship, you’ll know you go back to school. When you’re out of college, you’re like know what? There’s no natural thing coming at me from the horizon except age and I’ve got to go out and figure it out and that can be daunting for people.

19. What are you scared of? Being alone. Not finding love to not find someone I love and care for. 

20. What is the best piece of advice you want to leave the world with? Just smile more, laugh more, because at the end of the day that’s what’s gonna make your day worth it, it’s those happy moments.

[accuhunt]

Ideas of Love and Life from the Tribes of Chhattisgarh.

Ideas I gathered on sexual freedom, relationships, food and sustainability, while spending time with the tribes of Chhattisgarh.

“Woh log peeche chhooth gaye (they got left behind).”

“They have a special status because [economic] development didn’t reach them.“

These were words I heard again and again in Chhattisgarh, referring to the many indigenous tribes in the state.

Many of them traditionally lived in mud and bamboo houses in the forest. Often cultivating a small patch of land, burning it and moving every few years. Many wore nothing but a rag around their waste, multiple tattoos, combs in their hair and handmade ornaments. They lived off the land, worshipped nature, practiced animist rituals and survived on minimal possessions. The forest and local healers catered to their medical needs.

And yet, they are considered backward because money and modern comforts hold little importance in their off-the-grid lives.

Also read: The Last Surviving Indigenous Cave Dwellers of Sri Lanka

Many conversations were lost in translation at the local haats but laughter knows no language.

I was lucky to spend a couple of weeks with the amazing folks from Bastar Tribal Homestay and Bhoramdeo Jungle Retreat – who work closely with the tribes of Chhattisgarh. That gave me a chance to meet and engage with tribal elders, craftsmen, healers, cattle herders, anganwadi teachers and social workers.

Here are some life lessons I gleaned from the various tribes of Chhattisgarh:

In this post:

The freedom to experiment with sexuality and choose a life partner in a ‘ghotul’

A farm-to-table diet featuring millets, moringa, mahua and more superfoods

A rational approach to live-in relationships, ‘dowry’ and divorce

If we take the cow’s milk, what will happen to the calf?

A sustainable life through nomadism, barefoot living and upcycling

A village can raise a kid, literally

Have you gathered any fascinating ideas of love and life on your travels?

The freedom to experiment with sexuality and choose a life partner in a ‘ghotul’

Together for so long that they’ve forgotten how long.

“The message of the ghotul—that youth must be served, that freedom and happiness are more to be treasured than any material gain, that friendliness and sympathy, hospitality and unity are of the first importance, and above all that human love—and its physical expression—is beautiful, clean and precious, is typically Indian.”

So wrote Verrier Elwin of the controversial ghotul of the Muria and Gond tribes in Central India. His insightful books, written from his perspective as an anthropologist and ethnologist, document tribal life and customs that are slowly being eroded.

One such custom is that of the ghotul – a sort of commune that functions after nightfall, whose members are young (unmarried) teenagers. Legend has it that the first of its kind was built by their celebrated ancestor Lingo.

Within its physical confines, the members are taught both, the social responsibilities of the tribe: music, dance, respecting elders, tribal traditions, bonding over natural brews, cooking. And the individual, consensual exploration of one’s sexuality, with one or multiple partners, with or without emotional attachment. Most importantly, without judgement.

On the other hand, in the regressive contemporary society of India, even public displays of affection – let alone pre-marital sex – are considered taboo.

Many families will disown their daughters for choosing to be in a consensual relationship. But wouldn’t hesitate to forcibly marry them off to a complete stranger, whose demands she must pander to even on their first night together.

Although ghotuls were an essential part of life for the Muriya and Gond tribes of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, many have been shut down on suspicion of naxal activities. Others have fallen prey to the influences of ‘modern’ society, ‘urban’ education and religion.

I was amused to read a Gond social worker report that in one ghotul, the evening now begins with a recitation of the gayatri mantra!

Perhaps it’s time to look past our dogmatic religions, whatever they may be, and learn from the so called ‘backward’ people, the original dwellers of this land.

I’m sure we can learn a thing or three about social interaction, sexual freedom, gender equality and the right to choose who to love.

Also read: How Travelling Changed My Perspective on Getting Married and Having Kids

A farm-to-table diet featuring millets, moringa, mahua and more superfoods

Corns adorn the ceiling in traditional Gond houses.

Long before the green revolution transformed indigenous diets in India, the tribes of Chhattisgarh cultivated and consumed foods that are now globally recognized as superfoods.

In a village of the Baiga tribe in the Kawardha region, cut off from the road by a river, I met a woman brewing mahua liquor under a stunning old mahua tree. It was just after breakfast, but she insisted I try it. With a spoon carved from wood, she poured some into a leaf folded into a cup – a hot, bitter, woody taste that I never quite acquired!

Although mahua is blamed for alcoholism among the tribes now, it was once dried and made into mahua rotis or laddoos – packed with abundant energy!

From various elders in Bastar and Kawardha, I gathered that the traditional diet once consisted of kodo millet, moringa and legumes – all high on the nutritional quotient.

In the local haats (tribal markets), I saw root veggies like alookanda, varieties of beans, and snacks made with pumpkin – none of which I could recognize from our regular diets. In the harsh summer, instead of water, many tribes drink paich – a nutritious drink made by soaking rice or millet.

At a Gond village home, we feasted on kandul lentils – grown in the forest. Once cultivated, they are dried, packed up in sihadi leaves, stitched together with sihadi ropes and can last upto two years!

On a hike, we spotted chidchidi, the seeds of which have a hallucinogenic effect that convinces your mind that you’re not hungry for days.

Unfortunately like in most of India, the indigenous diet of Central India too is fast being replaced by rice and wheat. Leading to malnutrition, poor growth among children and health complications among adults.

As we aspire to healthier lifestyles, perhaps the tribes of Chhattisgarh could help us dig out the sustainable superfoods they once embraced.

Also read: Chhattigarh: Tribal Life, Motorcycle Adventures and a Lingering Sadness

A rational approach to live-in relationships, ‘dowry’ and divorce

A ring for every wedding attended; a rough gauge of age among some tribes of Chhattisgarh!

When it comes to marriage, the ideas of compulsion and dowry drive me crazy.

In India, people in their late twenties and early thirties are considered ticking time-bombs who must not miss the marriage window.

It’s bad enough that married women are expected to dissociate from their house / family and join their husband’s. As an earning member of the family, or even as a member who contributes to household chores, that’s a loss to the woman’s family. But in our grand patriarchal scheme of things, it’s the woman’s family that must also pay dowry to the man’s – for taking their “burden” off.

Make no mistake, the practice of dowry, though now illegal, continues in urban and rural India. Modern, forward-thinking families in the cities may refrain from using the term itself, but many still expect the woman to bring with her expensive household “gifts”.

I’ve witnessed that first-hand twice in my extended family.

On the other hand, the tribes of Chhattisgarh who seemingly “got left behind” in the race for modernity, possess far more practical views on relationships.

It’s socially acceptable – and infact the norm in many communities – for a couple to live together without formally being married. If they are driven by love and compatible with each other, what’s the need for a formal ceremony, a legal document or a dedicated celebration to endorse their commitment?

When a couple does decide to marry, the “dowry” works in reverse. Since the woman’s family is losing an earning / contributing member, the man’s must compensate their loss – usually by footing the bill of the celebration or with the much-desired Mahua liquor.

In the Baiga tribe, the rules of divorce are simple too. First, it’s socially understandable for a couple to choose that they no longer want to be together. Second, if the woman initiates the separation, her new companion must compensate the old one for the expenses he bore for the wedding or Mahua.

Practical, honest and not two-faced like our “modern” society, right?

Also read: Can Responsible Tourism in India Challenge Patriarchy?

If we take the cow’s milk, what will happen to the calf?

Instead of milk or water, people drink paich – made by soaking rice or millet in water.

I vividly remember the first conversation I had with my host from Bastar Tribal Homestay when I met him at the bus stop, after a long ride from Raipur.

Over the phone, I had mentioned to him that I don’t consume any animal products. Now even before we made small talk, he told me that the tribes of Chhattisgarh don’t consume milk either!

Why? It’s never been part of their diet. Even though they rear cows to get manure (cow dung) for their fields, they have no idea how to separate them from the calves and take their milk. They worry that if they took the cow’s milk, what would happen to the calf?

Turned out, my host had worked with the veterinary department in the past, on a scheme to distribute cows to poor households in Bastar, hoping they would earn money off the milk. The scheme failed badly, for no one knew how to or was willing to milk the cows!

This is easy to observe in the tribal haats too, where I didn’t spot a single product made of milk.

The tribes that were once nomadic hunter-gatherers still hunt and consume meat. Goats and other animals are still sacrificed at their festivals. Infact, even human sacrifices were common till after India’s independence. Rumor has it that unwelcome visitors in the area were often captured and sacrificed!

In the “modern” world, we’ve moved towards horrific ways of raising, mass producing, enslaving and genetically altering animals for meat, milk and eggs. But I felt reassured that atleast India’s ancient wisdom recognizes that a cow’s milk is for her calf, just like a human mother’s milk is for her baby.

Also read: How to Travel as a Vegan and Find Incredible Food Anywhere in the World

A sustainable life through nomadism, barefoot living and upcycling

A glimpse of life in a Gond village deep in the forests of Bastar.

Minimalism, zero waste, upcycling and detoxing have become buzzwords globally. But for the tribes of Chhattisgarh, they’ve long been a way of life.

My hosts at Bhoramdeo Jungle Retreat shared an intriguing story of a local shaman. While staying at his house with some of their guests, the shaman advised that the guests be dropped off to an airport and my hosts return home immediately, abandoning their plans to stay in Raipur for a couple of days. An earthquake was on its way, the shaman said.

My hosts brushed him off, but somehow ended up abandoning their plans to stay in Raipur anyway.

Surprisingly enough, the earthquake shook the earth just as the shaman had predicted. They rushed back to his house to ask how he knew. The shaman pointed to his bare feet, and said the earth had told him.

We can discredit ancient ways of connecting with nature, but the truth is we are constantly chasing them in fancier ways. We burn big holes in our pockets at detox retreats where we can walk barefoot and feel connected to earth.

My host often joked that for many tribes, “the forest is mother, the tiger is brother!” For centuries, they’ve lived off the forest, cultivating small patches of land, then burning it and moving on, giving it a chance to heal back into a forest. Even as hunters, they hunted for survival, not for the pleasure of taste.

In Bastar, I spent an afternoon observing craftsmen who specialise in bell metal crafts, passed down from one generation to another. Designated “other backward castes”, I was surprised to learn that these craftsmen upcycle used metal (from kitchen ware, appliances etc) in a long painstaking process, to create incredible ornaments.

Natural upcycling is common in everyday life too. The sargi shrub is used to brush teeth, its leaves to make plates and its seeds to wash clothes. Beds are made from strong sihadi ropes. And gulal for holi is made by boiling flame of the forest flowers!

Instead of reinventing the entire wheel in practicing urban sustainability, we’d be better off learning from our not-so-backward past.

Also read: Sustainable Living Ideas to Embrace in the New “Normal“

A village can raise a kid, literally

Sometimes it really takes a village to raise a kid.

In India (and perhaps elsewhere), when couples have problems in their marital life, having a kid is often recommended as the solution. In a separation or divorce situation, society looks down upon the parents, especially the mother, for raising their child in a “broken” home.

Unfortunately, the toxicity of many home environments slips notice.

Which is why, I was amazed to hear from my hosts in Kawardha how the Baiga tribe of Chhattisgarh sorts out such complex situations without legal recourse.

If a couple with a kid choose to separate, the woman has the first right to decide if she wants to raise the kid. If she decides that single parenthood isn’t for her, the man gets to choose if it’s for him.

If neither parent wants to take on the responsibility, the community assigns a guardian to raise the child until the age of fifteen, with the rest of the village chipping in. More importantly, the woman can choose to leave without any stigma.

Perhaps as parents, you’d think that’s a bit brutal. But who’s to say that a child raised in a toxic household, by a parent who doesn’t feel up to the task, will have a better life than one raised with love by an entire village?

Have you gathered any fascinating ideas of love and life on your travels?

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[doesitreallywork]

Find all the info you could ever want on The Manifestation Millionaire inside this post – we reviewed exactly what you can find inside and expect from it!

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The Manifestation Millionaire Review – Does It Really Work?

Are you running into difficulties occasionally as you lead your everyday life? May you by coincidence have had the examining idea …? ‘Why is it that I am unable to acquire the accomplishments I want a lot?’

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It is a kind of program whose growth was with everyone, despite their battle, age or the negative thoughts in their minds, in mind. What you can require to the financial institution is that this is a program is mosting likely to have your failing changed right to success.

  The Manifestation Millionaire is a program that will certainly aid you in finding the missing out on trick to opening up every door that brings about your joy. Upon your application of this program in the life you are living, you are mosting likely to witness the removal of your failings as your fears vanish entirely.

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What Truly Is The Manifestation Millionaire?

This item, The Manifestation Millionaire, is amongst the when in a life time possibilities you never ever want to lose out on. It is an advanced item where the most convenient of means of triggering your mind and also making it much more able to obtain health, health and wellness as well as riches are exposed.

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What The Manifestation Millionaire benefits from is the power that is well within us. A power that was placed inside us by God our Designer. It after that makes an effort at awakening the really inactive signals that are the precursors of success in addition to satisfaction.

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Simply image achievement of the promo in your job terminal that you have actually desired for several years currently. That SUV or cars … the lass you have actually constantly appreciated. All this … you absolutely should have. This no more needs to be simply yet a desire you have. You can see it come to be fact.

A circumstance wherein life-enhancing innovation are extra routine contrasted to the errors as well as failings. This right below is an item that will essentially trigger every little thing in the entire globe to flex to your support. You are mosting likely to be changed right into a magnet, bring in every great that is around you.

Is The Digital book A Fraud Or The Real Bargain?

It is essential that you obtain it right. This publication is not a kind of a timeless self-help message. It is even more of a collection of powerful psychological programs methods and also techniques that are mosting likely to have the impulse of earning money promoted.

At the end of it, it resolves a cognitive behavior modification variation that is dressmaker made. In this circumstances, this is the adjustment of your method of assuming in addition to your mindset in the direction of cash.

Approaches which are rather comparable have actually had the ability to aid individuals in their millions to handle anxiety, anxiousness, quiting a range of vices along with resolving a variety of various other disorders. This certain PDF, uses comparable methods in the excitement of your mind in the direction of the need of ending up being as well as remaining abundant.

Largely, this is with going across the portal in the direction of the 1% of people that envision rather and also make wide range on their own.

Specifically Exactly How Does The Program Job?

You could currently obtained a mean just how the performance of the program is produced. Yet allow us go a little bit deeper right into it to make sure that you recognize simply what you are purchasing …

The programs is mosting likely to show you in a detailed way exactly how the favorable mind signals can be triggered. These signals, if you may not know, are the ones that are accountable for the degree of self-confidence you have. You must confess uncertainty has impeded you from achievement of numerous objectives, is that not real?

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Symptom Millionaire is not a simple remedy altering the mind pattern. It is way even more than that. The techniques as well as strategies that are advanced in the program are specifically made to far better every tap of your life. This is along with essentially drawing in the globe’s ‘concealed prizes.’

With making use of techniques like ‘portal leaping’ you have the capability of actioning in the steps of fantastic individuals such as the similarity Oprah, Madonna or perhaps Steve Jobs.

This program comes as the most convenient ways of delighting in a pleased course to the life suggested for you and also the accomplishment of your life objectives via majoring your concentrate on your very own self. Via the improvement of your attitude, you have the capacity of coming to be healthier, richer, a lot more serene, even more experienced in your job, much better in bed, simply to discuss however a couple of.

Adhering to detailed knowing of exactly how to get rid of any type of point standing on your means to real joy, you are mosting likely to recognize an entirely brand-new cosmos that lays in advance of you.

You can utilize this item in the expansion of your perspectives as well as opening your mind to websites of health and wellness and also riches that you never ever understood remained in presence. The Manifestation Millionaire functioning accuracy is mathematical, transforming your life from the within out as well as assisting utilize your mind’s real power.

What You Receive from The Item

Learn what are mirror nerve cells and also just how they can be utilized to obtain the ‘portal leaping’ experience.

Effective techniques as well as suggestions on transforming your means of believing together with exactly how your self-esteem can be escalated.

Actions on the upkeep of high degree of inspiration.

Discover every missing out on web link of the typical regulation of destination as well as have actually the procedure finished quicker providing outcomes that are much more purposeful.

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Bonuses

On your acquisition of the e-book, you do not reach win just the primary item. There are 4 complimentary going along with bonuses. The complying with are the 4 important overviews that you obtain as bonuses;

The Manifestation Mastermind

The 5 Min Inspiration Supercharge Digital Book Collection

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Final Verdict

The Manifestation Millionaire lacks an uncertainty amongst one of the most fascinating program on monetary training that you can discover presently. It is an item that Darren Regan fairly well developed though a number of principles might appear a little bit ‘available’ in mind.

Pros

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– There are various favorable evaluations on the item revealing simply exactly how reliable it truly is.

– A 60-day refund warranty is offered for you simply in situation on purchasing the item it does not satisfy the assumptions you have from undergoing testimonials.

Cons

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– The PDF will just show reliable if you prepare to entirely commit on your own to the specific point of view.

– The anticipated outcomes do not transpire quickly. You need to provide time to it for you to understand your wanted end result.

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The post The Manifestation Millionaire Review – Does It Really Work? appeared first on Does It Really Work?.

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[theconservativebrief]

When The Joshua Tree turned 30, U2 hit the road for a special anniversary tour and played the whole damn album 50 times start to finish.

There will never be such a revival for Zooropa.

July 5 is the 25th anniversary of the smallest album from the world’s biggest band. Maybe you’ve never heard of it; maybe you have and want to forget it. But you should listen to it. Because it’s every bit the masterpiece that The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby were, even if it sounds nothing like them: a weird but heartfelt meditation of humanity on the verge of the technological revolution that is still remaking our world today.

Zooropa also teaches us something about U2, a band that increasingly flirts with self-parody these days. It still strains to live up to that self-given moniker — “the best band in the world” — but its recent output fails to inspire. They’ve invaded our iPhones. Their latest record came and went without much fanfare. They’re still selling out concerts, but critical reception has become middling. Even for longtime fans like myself, U2 isn’t so much a source of wonder as it is a fact of life. They’re as novel as air.

That’s what makes Zooropa such a revelation in retrospect. U2 had hit its creative and commercial peak with 1987’s The Joshua Tree, faced the backlash from 1988’s Rattle and Hum (the archetype album of U2 being simply too much), and then regained its stride with 1991’s Achtung Baby. They had nowhere left to go and nothing left to prove.

So they made this strange little album with few pretenses and a modest agenda: what it’s like to be a person in this changing world. The band members themselves have called it an “interlude,” a sentiment that seems totally at odds with U2 as we think about them today. U2 doesn’t do small. They sell out football stadiums to play their 10-times platinum album from 30 years ago, reliving the glory years one more time.

But they did small once. That is Zooropa’s stroke of genius.

“I never thought of Zooropa as anything more than an interlude,” said U2 guitarist The Edge, who received his first production credit on the album, in Neil McCormick’s 2009 history U2 by U2. That seems to more or less sums up the band’s feelings toward their oddest production: it was an experiment, even a fun one, but “this is something we don’t necessarily care to do anymore,” the guitarist and co-band leader said.

Once in a while, the album receives some favorable retrospectives — here’s a semi-iconic piece by Rob Harvilla in Spin for its 20th anniversary, an occasion also commemorated by Stereogum — but it’s mostly an afterthought in the U2 pantheon. Boy was a promising first album, War made them stars, The Joshua Tree became one of the biggest records in history, and Achtung Baby wasn’t far behind it.

It was at that moment, during U2’s frenzied, glitzy, and overamped tour for Achtung Baby, that Zooropa was born. The story is that it started out as an EP, but the band eventually fleshed it out into a full 10-track, 50-minute album that they completed by flying back and forth from their shows to their studios in Dublin. The word “mad” gets used a lot by the band and its associates to describe this period.

Zooropa was released on July 5, 1993, and then it just sort of … disappeared. It sold merely 2 million copies — a steep fall from Achtung Baby’s 8 million or The Joshua Tree’s 10 — and its singles mostly failed to chart on mainstream radio.

But for a group that thinks of itself first and foremost as a live band, U2’s near-erasure of Zooropa from its set lists is the most telling indicator of the album’s legacy. The first single, “Numb,” hasn’t been played live since December 10, 1993, in Tokyo. “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” — the “one legit, fairly conventional all-time U2 classic” on the album, as Harvilla put it — is the only song to be played more than 100 times in concert. For context, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is the clubhouse leader with more than 1,000 plays, and five different songs from Pop, the band’s vastly inferior 1997 release, have gotten at least 100 turns over the years. (Hat tip to the meticulous u2gigs.com for this data.)

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Even on the band’s current Experience + Innocence tour — during which U2 has eliminated songs from The Joshua Tree from its set list, following the 2017 roadshow dedicated to that album, and thereby taken several mainstays out of the rotation — not a single Zooropa track has made an appearance yet. Not one snippet for its 25th birthday.

The myth of Achtung Baby was that U2 finally embraced alternative and electronic music after driving the American roots act straight into the ground on Rattle & Hum, an impressive reinvention propelled by radio-friendly hits like “One” and “Mysterious Ways.”

I came here not to besmirch Achtung Baby, but the truth is that album was still very identifiably U2. Maybe a little more jaded, maybe a little more adventurous, but there is a clear line from “With or Without You” to “One.” The guitar licks are clean, Bono is a little moodier but he’s still crooning, and every track still sounds like it was made to be played outdoors in front of 30,000 people.

But on Zooropa, U2 — the stadium-packing, diamond-selling, chart-topping band that had taken over the world — was nowhere to be found.

The album’s first two minutes — an indistinct fade-in of muffled radio voices, before a melancholy piano melody sets in with pulsing bass behind — pass before we hear anything that sounds even remotely like U2. Bono, famed war protester and AIDS activist, beams into the album from outer space with a few lines straight out of a second-rate Don Draper meeting: “What do you want? Be all that you can be. Fly the friendly skies. Eat to get slimmer.” Throughout the album, Bono sounds both alien and inescapably human.

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The next song is a love ballad to a woman on TV, powered by a toy piano that sounds exactly like that, and the tone is set. With the exception of the lovelorn and familiar “Stay,” there is really no comfort to be found.

On “Numb,” the Edge drones out a series of “Don’t” commands over a distorted guitar that conjures turning gears and we never hear Bono at all, except for his “Fat Lady” voice in the background. “I feel numb/too much is not enough,” he cries. It might as well be the band’s thesis statement on Zooropa, distorting the overwhelming and guileless emotion that had defined U2 up to that point in their careers into something more detached and postmodern.

In fact, the whole album is like a retcon of familiar U2 tropes. The wailing “Tomorrow” on 1981’s October was Bono’s anguished, affecting cry for the mother he lost so young. He returns to the same subject here on “Lemon,” and we instead are greeted by the Fat Lady again while The Edge and Brian Eno chant in a monotone through the chorus. “Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car” must be U2’s weirdest song about heroin, another of Bono’s favorite subjects, a tale of dependency played over upbeat industrial noise rock.

The album ends with Bono stepping offstage — and what could be less U2 than that — to give Johnny Cash the microphone for “The Wanderer.” That’s right: Johnny Cash closes the U2 record best classified as experimental electronica —not the gospel and roots-influenced Joshua Tree or Rattle & Hum — singing atomic apocalyptic imagery over a muffled bass that somehow still approximates a country twang.

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Finally, Zooropa appropriately ends on a joke or a warning or both: an alarm pulsates and cuts out abruptly.

But it all … works. There really isn’t a band better positioned to meditate on the excesses of the dawning internet age than U2, which turned earnest excess into an art form during its rise to fame.

“I feel that they are one of the few rock bands even attempting to hint at a world which will continue past the next great wall — the year 2000,” David Bowie said after Zooropa came out, according to U2 biographer Bill Flanagan. So in its own way, the album remains as resonant as anything they’ve ever produced.

U2 seems content to regress these days. Its last two albums have been characterized by a thematic return to the youth of the band’s members, and especially its lead singer. They haven’t totally lost sight of this period, though, even if Zooropa isn’t making it onto their set lists. U2’s latest tour marked the return of one of Bono’s most outrageous stage characters, a glam impersonation of the devil who first appeared on the early 1990s tour that birthed Zooropa,

There’s something identifiable in that character in our ridiculous times, and Zooropa is plump with thematic material that seems as relevant now as it did in 1993. They hit it all here: soulless capitalism, digital infatuation masquerading as true love, the hopeless apathy that feels so familiar in the era of Trump. “Some days you wake up in the army/And some days it’s the enemy,” Bono reminds us, about as far from the righteous anger that electrified War as he would ever get.

But it feels earned, in a world just escaping from the Cold War and only just beginning to understand the new age, the digital age, that it was entering. These guys saw it and they recognized it, even if they were as perplexed as anyone about what you were supposed to do about it. Their only real conclusion is to do the same thing you did before: You miss your mom, you get mad at your dad, you fall in love, you get high, sometimes you wonder what the point of all this really is. But you don’t give up. You keep living. It just sounds a little bit different.

That acceptance comes right near the end of the album. After the drone of “Numb,” the operatics of “Lemon,” and the detached sarcasm on “Some Days Are Better Than Others,” we find the serenity of “The First Time.”

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Over a gentle guitar — a spiritual sequel to “Running To Stand Still” in its sound — Bono finds peace in losing faith. The prodigal son comes home again, the father hands over the keys to his kingdom, and the son … throws them away. The song’s softly triumphant climax is the only real emotional catharsis, and it is beautifully understated.

Part of Zooropa’s appeal is its novelty: U2 making the least U2 album of their career. They overplayed this hand a few years later on Pop — got a little too self-aware, a little too confident that they could make any kind of sound work for them — and they would spend years overcompensating for it. They would retreat to safer spaces in the 2000s: sincerity and soaring riffs and shout-along choruses meant to be sung by thousands of fans. You no longer listen to a new U2 album hoping to be surprised. You just hope there’s a good hook or two.

U2 has never been more U2 than they are now, but, for a flitting moment, on Zooropa, they broke free from all the constraints that come with being themselves. This is a beautiful and discordant, sweet and angry piece of music, out of body and out of time. Spin magazine wrote that the album “freed U2 from itself.” But they didn’t know what to do with that freedom. They didn’t know where to go.

They are the wandering protagonist in the atomic wasteland that Bono wrote and Cash sang about on Zooropa’s final song. Even after the apocalypse, U2 still can’t find what it’s looking for.

Original Source -> The unexpected resonance of Zooropa, U2’s least-remembered album, 25 years later

via The Conservative Brief

[lillieminaya51-blog]

Vanished Orlando Full Listing

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To recognize how the country has come to this pass-- to an impasse where the blend white + Christian is having strongly regressive and also probably dangerous (if Trump is chosen) consequences for United States democracy-- Jones suggests that you need to keep an eye on 2 interlinked pieces of info: to begin with, the White Christian Approach is actually a from the Southern Tactic which took white colored evangelical Southern electors to the Republican party in wents; and also 2nd, the vote-casting from Barack Obama has unleashed severe reaction that is being actually driven by the White Christian Technique far more compared to a lot of political commentators discover-- and also by White Christian fond memories for a perfect time (the 1950s) where white Religious (particularly straight white Christian men) were actually culturally leading, as well as women, Black Americans, as well as gay individuals understood their spots and also always kept to them.|2017 was our fifth full year of procedure from our Sweetheart Purpose. 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The upcoming time while I was offering on the road at our normal Thursday 5 pm supper getaway, a couple of different folks approached me that it was our Buddy Mojo which had actually been attacked outside the Lovemaking Below trailer at 11:10 pm Monday night which witnesses were able to drive cops to the suspect which was actually arrested shortly later on. I do certainly not assume an abrupt decrease in allotment prices, but much more a laterally trading variety as valuations mesmerize. Because of this, Visa is actually a hold at present amounts. This is actually even with purchases and EPS growth on a quarter over fourth manner and outstanding success metrics. If our company can easily use a few of the development drivers that folks are actually worthwhile portions from Nvidia for (we could) at a lesser rate, it makes good sense for our company to do therefore. Because of that, I strongly recommend that individuals start to analyze other, much cheaper manner ins which they can participate in the driverless auto fad, and others. Our experts've got a loss from about 200,000 clients yet I have to anxiety that that is an advancement that concerns especially the first quarter. There are periodic disruptions moving southward in to the circulation east of the uppermost level ridge of higher pressure that will deliver some periodic precipitation, and in some areas, snowfall. I was nannying at the moment for an incredibly cool, broad-minded household and within the day when the kids went to college I would certainly most likely to Susanne's residence and examine layouts. Corning's management crew, with an assist off Mr. Market, is actually delivering a higher earnings return, plus steady dividend growth and also payouts, and also satisfactory returns on funding, equity, as well as assets. Development in Center NOI just before residential or commercial property monitoring is actually anticipated to become approximately 4.4%. Our projections of Center NOI as well as stabilized FFO development for 2018 presume 4th one-fourth 2017 results will be consistent with our explained assistance. 42 For scholarly work with the freedom and usefulness from areas in Center Eastern politics, see Ze'ev Maoz, Regional Safety in the Middle East: Past, Future and also existing ( Pdx, OR: Frank Cass, 1997), and also Pinar Bilgin, Regional Protection in the center East: A Critical Standpoint( New York City: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005). 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