#it is not a left vs right issue. it is a top vs bottom issue.

[sallymew4]

a comment under one of Ben Shapiro’s latest videos that i like

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2024 | Day 9: Empty Rescue

his and mine are the same | @cascigarette Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1,510 Main Tags/Warnings: Post Canon Fix-It, Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Alcohol, First Kiss, Newly Human Castiel, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester Use their Words Summary: Dean rescues Cas from the Empty. They end up having to talk about that final confession.

Two lesbians, two bicons, and their cat walk into super turbohell | @nuttysaladtree Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,038 Main Tags/Warnings: crossover with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the Empty, Fix-it, first kiss Summary: And they bury one person and zero gays. 15x20 "Carry On" finale fix-it that Castiel deserves. Mentioned Bow/Glimmer. Sam Winchester shows up, too, as well as the OTP Dean x pie. Melog is best kitty, and good riddance to the Empty/Shadow/Cosmic Entity and Horde Prime.

sometimes you just don't know the answer (wait for me) | @cassiecasyl Rating: General Word Count: 7,992 Main Tags/Warnings: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s15e18 Despair - Castiel's Confession Scene, Grief/Mourning, Album: evermore (Taylor Swift), Grieving Dean Winchester, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Alternate Ending, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Reunion, Castiel in the Empty (Supernatural), Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Angst, Hope vs. Despair, Love Confessions, Angst with a Happy Ending, Inspired by Hadestown, Song: Doubt Comes In, The Fates (Hadestown) Cameo, First Kiss, Reunions, Epic Love Summary: As Dean grieves, Jack tells them of an old story, one that has been told and sung over and over again anyway. Two lovers challenge the universe to escape death. They walk the long way home, but the one in front is not allowed to turn around for the whole way. Every entity of grand power knows this, for the pact has to be respected were it ever to be attempted again. Of course, Dean goes to find Castiel, because if anyone can do this, it's them.

Can't Stop Lovin' You | @teeparadigm67 Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 9,512 Main Tags/Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Castiel is Saved from the Empty, First Kiss, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Happy Ending, Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Dean Winchester Saves Castiel from the Empty Summary: On paper, the plan seemed simple. Jack opens the portal between the worlds. Dean walks into the Empty and makes it loud enough to wake the dead. Drag Cas’s feathery ass out of there. Simple, right? Cloaked in Cas’s grace, tape deck in hand with Van Halen blasting out its little speaker, he plans to bring the angel home and tell Cas all the things left unspoken between them for all these years. Now they have a chance, he can’t throw this all away. The only problem is, the Empty has other ideas. It doesn't stop Dean however, it’s his turn to be the one who drags Cas out of perdition. Inspired by: Van Halen - Can't Stop Lovin' You

Bring Me To Life | @Taymarpigeon Rating: Explicit Word Count: 10,960 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-Canon Fix-It, Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gratuitous Smut, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Dean Winchester Calls Castiel "Angel", Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Castiel (Supernatural), Interrupting Sam Winchester Summary: In 2008 Dean Winchester met a man who changed everything; he says a man, Castiel Angel of the Lord was so much more than a man and not just because of the whole halo and wings thing. November 5th 2020 Castiel sacrificed himself to save Dean and by extension the world, but not before turning the hunter's life upside down one last time. In 2025 Dean was... moving on, let's put it that way. He hadn't forgotten Cas, spending the past five years trying to be all the things the Angel said he was in that teary goodbye. He put one foot in front of the other, day by day, because as Frank Devereaux once said: 'that's what you do'. This life only ends one way for most hunters though and Dean was no exception. Skip four months into the future and he's back, only this time he's done playing by the rules, done pretending his life didn't end with Cas that day in the dungeon. He's done. Time to do what he should have from the beginning...

stay | @thisisapaige Rating: Explicit Word Count: 15,073 Main Tags/Warnings: Fix-It, Post-Canon, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Light Angst, Happy Ending Summary: Standing on the bridge beside his brother, Dean looks around. Something’s wrong. Because this Heaven, this place Dean supposedly deserves, just seems so... empty.

The Little Issue with the Mission to Perdition | @amaranthhiding Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 16,460 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Universe, Post-Ep 15x19, Jack and Amara Try Fixing Things Together But Make Everything Worse (at first), Amara is Part of Team Free Will, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Major Character Death, Angst with Happy Ending, First Kiss, DCRB 2023 Summary: Chuck is defeated and his power now belongs to Jack and Amara. They struggle with adjusting to their newly-shared existence, and with big questions such as, how can (almost) all-powerful beings avoid becoming what Chuck was? What even is all that power good for when it doesn't allow Jack to save someone from the Empty who absolutely deserves being saved? Who thought it was a good idea to hand all that power to two beings who, together, have spent less years on Earth than the average human child? ...And why is there suddenly black goo everywhere?

Until the Moss Had Reached Our Lips | @alulangel Rating: Mature Word Count: 20,543 Main Tags/Warnings: Fix-It, Everybody Lives, Lake House, Saved from the Empty, Groundhog Day Loop, Castiel’s True Form, Castiel’s handprint, Creepy forests, Inappropriate use of pie Summary: After everything with Chuck went down, Dean thought he deserved some time off. Not a retirement, just a break. A little cabin by a lake. Fishing. Baking. Time to process and reflect. Except he doesn't remember exactly how he got there. And he doesn't know why he can't leave. And there's something about the woods around the cabin, creeping closer and closer and closer every day...

one working part | @mittensmorgul Rating: Explicit Word Count: 40,051 Main Tags/Warnings: Inspired by It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Episode Fix-It: s15e19 Inherit the Earth (Supernatural) Angst and Fluff and Smut POV Alternating Not Canon Compliant with Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth (Supernatural), Human Castiel Summary: Wherein they actually inherit the earth. Again. Because I will never be done retelling the end of their story in more sensible and satisfying ways. This time, via the power of a classic holiday film... with a slightly demonic twist.

Empty Earth (WIP) | @amaranthhiding Rating: No Rating Word Count: 102,437 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-15x18, Epic, Plotty, Angel True Forms, Consensual Possession, Enochian, Apocalypse, Rebellion in Hell, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Witch!Sam, Destiel and Samwena, Jack & his three fathers, Crowley & Jack Summary: After Castiel's confession, Dean carries a spark of hope telling him this can't be the end. This spark is the strongest weapon for Dean, Sam and Jack in this final war. The enemy is God. The battlefield is an Earth devoid of humans, a Hell in rebellion against its queen, and a Heaven betrayed by its creator. And the stakes are everything and everyone they have ever cared about.

[bitchkay]

omg hi, i saw one of your posts where you were talking abt guy and fenn making out in canon and omg i NEED to know when it happened LMAO bc i just started playing cod like a week ago and am still on knights route, so i still havent seen these two being fruity asf

Its mostly fenn being fenn for the most part

Fenn has been quite tame lately in events and stories but I also say that very loosely cus the innuendos will not stop💀💀

From what I see Fenn isn't nearly as "close" with the other princes then he is with Guy, like he teases all of them, touches here and here, a seductive gaze perhaps, and sure Guy might tell him off, push him away, reprimand him but he lets him get away with a little too much especially when theres nawt else to witness

Although the princes fangirls would go crazy for that shit

And have

Now you mentioned you've only read Knights route(excellent choice btw) so spoiler warning for Guys consort path

In guys route, Fenn proposes having a kissing contest to see whose the better kisser, and Guy entertains it for like a long time💀 like MC in the back is like 0.o are they for real gonna kiss, they dont but they create so much tension in that scene it actually has you disappointed💀💀 like I think Fenn has his arms around Guys shoulders and like the way they're speaking to each other👁 and they get close enough for lips to actually touch before Guys like "perhaps another time" or some shit, and MC? girl she's flabbergasted😭 like nah that couldn't have been a joke cus Guy doesn't know how to joke that😭😭 she's like are you and Fenn close? Guys like no💀

Spoiler warning for Fenns consort path

Something kinda similar happens in Fenns route where Fenn is flirting with Guy and he just kinda let's it slide, he's more dismissive yeah but even when Fenn drapes himself over Guys body he just kinda let's it happen💀 I forget exactly what happened in that scene but I'm going to reread Fenns path soon so I'll probably edit this post

Fenn also has a thing for Red eyes, it's one of the reasons Fenn was so drawn to MC in the first place because the first woman he ever loved was a groomer an Avarian with red eyes

There are many sequences of Fenn complimenting the other Avarian characters for their eyes, the battle sequences at the top of my head, turn on the effects when you go to do battles, doesn't matter if its event battle or regular battle, and the sequences will appear with the character whose route your currently reading in the top right and your opponent in the bottom left, the characters will usually say a word or two before your left to tap tap tap, there are like standard regular lines they'll say but there are like pairing specific ones that appears every once in a while, example Guy vs the headmaster, guy will say "I must best you" or something like that(I forgot exactly what) and the headmaster will say "Peace Master Avari" regardless of whether your playing Guy or the headmaster, it just changes who says it first, Tino vs Lynt is, Tino has "oh no... young master..." and Lynt says "I prefer your bread" its specific to the pairing, but I forgot whether its Guy or Jasper but if you're playing Fenns path(or Guy or Jasper) and your opponent is one of them(or Fenn) he'll say "I really like your eyes"

Edit: I found the sequences, it fenn and Jasper, Fenn says "I rather like your eyes" and Jasper says "i delight in the hunt" idk guys that sounds homo erotic😳 they were flirting there

Into event spoilers

Every one and they mom knows how I talk about that crave event like I think the dev's were just having a bit of fun nah cus I think they wanted them to kiss more than anyone else💀💀💀, in the event Craving Conjured theres the drug or potion running around called crave and in Guys route, Guy happens to ingest some and its pretty much an aphrodisiac, the issue is Guy is MC are having relationship problems, they're fighting so Guy doesn't want to go to her to you know bang it out cus he thinks he's right(he's not) and MC who doesn't know he's ingested crave just sees him bedridden and is worried about him but Guy still pushes her away, Guy is wrong btw, they were fighting about Guys lack of verbal communication and MC is pretty much like I'm not like Jasper I dont know how you feel all the time unless you tell me and I cant know what you want from me unless you ask and Guys stubborn ass is like but you should know though and MCs like how the hell am I supposed to know, anyway they like stop talking for a bit, Guy has crave, is extremely horny, and since him and MC are fighting he's like I'm finna tough this out😈(he can't) and guess what sounds like a better option to him? Fenn. Instead of telling your gf that you've been hit with horny juice and you need to fuck, which is probably what she wants you to do cus she want you to communicate what you want, instead you're like I'm gonna screw Fenn instead cus she's mad at me💀💀 no cus MC is like she's ready to talk to him she doesn't wanna be fighting with him for this long, and Jasper's like bet he's in his room and takes her there, and bruh they walk into Guys bedroom to see Guy and Fenn making out in his room in his bed, still very much clothed but very much disheveled, their jaws are on the floor cus they not paying no mind at first then Fenn pipes up like hey bestie as much as I'm loving this your girlfriend is here I think you dont need me anymore, and Guys like shut the fuck up and starts kissing his neck💀💀 MC is flabbergasted, like she's contemplating giving them privacy cus am I supposed to be seeing this????????? Fenn eventually escapes but then guess what, Guy hops onto Jasper next and MCs like oh come on really, you wanna make out with everyone except me rn🤨🤨 eventually she's the only person in the room and Guy still pushes her away but MCs like no I'm not leaving until we fix things, I can help you with your little problem but you have to tell me exactly what you want

And then MC tops him theres some filler and that's the end

Might I also add that Fenns the one that gave Guy crave, and Guy knowingly took it, it did it to himself

Now perhaps I maybe exaggerating the details but if you can find a recording of this event on youtube, you'll understand

Also Guy does not like girls, he just likes MC

Fenn likes everybody, boy, girl, both, or neither he don't discriminate🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

No but fr I remember there was one time somebody asked Guy what kind of girls he like and he's like why would I ever persue a woman and I'm like damn that's kinda gay wanna rephrase that

And then it was never talked about ever again but I think there's some truth to it cus one Guy has more chemistry with most of the Male characters in the game more than any woman and two despite his birth mom and step moms being generally nice and sweet(not Rahm💀) he was pretty raised to be weary of women cus all they want is power and to use him and as a result just hasn't taken an interest in woman like at all UNTIL MC(at his big age) and most of the actual relationships he has whether it platonic, familial, romantic, or anything has been with men, like bro thinks about men so much, he couldn't even fathom being with a woman until MC came along

So yeah Guy does not like girls, he just likes MC

they named him guy cus he likes men

[laugtherhyena]

So, what's up with Udon comics Karin?

Recently i got a hold of physical copies of the Sakura ganbaru manga and after reading through the whole thing i decided to organize this character analysis of sorts where I'll be comparing this awful iteration of the character to her versions from the game's canon and the manga where she originated from in order to highlight where the Udon comics completely missed the mark when it came to portraying her.

First off, who is Karin?

She's the sole heir to the Kanzuki Zaibatsu which is one of the biggest and wealthiest business organizations in the Street fighter world. She has an incredibly strict father and has been trained pretty much since birth to become what he considers a worthy heir, being set to live by their motto that's something along the lines of “In all things be victorious”.

Karin is very obviously SF’s version of the ojou girl character trope, she's filthy rich, snobbish, mean and has a condescending attitude from her mannerisms to her laughs. These are traits present in all of her iterations, however, there's one key element about Karin that completely flew over the heads of the udon comic writers;

Karin is not spoiled, she is proud.

At age 15 this girl was on her way to becoming the leader of one of the biggest business conglomerates of the world while also being proficient in several different fighting styles, remaining undefeated for god knows how long. Karin is good at what she does and she knows it, she's proud of her accomplishments and that's exactly why she acts the way she does.

Her attitude was never solely out of her fortune and status, it always came off as being mostly out of her own merit.

Meanwhile, in the Udon comics Karin is portrayed as a huge spoiled brat. They essentially removed every aspect that made her a rounded likable character and amplified all of her worst traits, a complete disservice to a character that in her proper characterization feels almost like a spin on the standard ojou girl archetype.

As research for this post I tried to find the first time she appeared in the story and as far as I'm aware that was on Street fighter issue 8 in a small backup/extra comic. In it, her initial fight with Sakura has already happened and Karin is after her for a rematch, Sakura is running late for school but Karin corners her so they can have their match, she beats her up fairly quickly and then runs off.

While appearing at the most inconvenient times is not out of character for her (Example: in Sakura ganbaru she breaks into Sakura's house at night by smashing her window solely so she could invite her to this fighting event she'll be hosting) one thing that stood out to me is how Karin talks about their previous fight.

She says that she only lost because of a fluke in their previous fight, implying that she would have won otherwise. And this is something that gets shown again and again in her later, major, appearances in the series; Street fighter legends Sakura (top left) and Street fighter Sakura vs Karin (Bottom left + right)

Karin seems to genuinely believe that there's no way she could lose to Sakura, and if she did, then there must have been some kind of casualty during the match that prevented her from whining, foul play involved on Sakura's part or she straight up says that the fight in which she was bested by her doesn't count for whatever reason.

This inability to accept defeat not only paints her as a whiny sore loser, but shows a clear misunderstanding on the writer’s part on the reason why Karin goes after Sakura.

She's not after this rematch because she refuses to accept that Sakura could win or even because she hates this girl, she just wants to prove herself as the better fighter to uphold her family's motto of being the winner at everything. In both the game's canon and in Sakura ganbaru she accepted that she was bested and worked towards growing stronger so that she could defeat Sakura in a rematch.

That's literally it, but for some reason the Udon comic writers seem to think that Karin has some sort of obsessive vendetta against Sakura and just can't stand her. In Street fighter legends Sakura she breaks a tv just because she saw Sakura being praised on it and in the prologue of this short series she's seen destroying several punching bags with Sakura's picture on it and makes one of her employees dress as her for them to fight.

(I'm sure there's a version of these with more dialogue but i couldn't find it in english :[)

This is downright atrocious because Karin NEVER hated Sakura. Her infatuation for her (because you really can't call it an obsession) came from a place of genuine admiration for her skills.

In Sakura ganbaru she orders her butler to give her a full resume about Sakura's life just because she saw her fighting from afar and was impressed by her skills, even calling her a “special commoner” when the butler asks her why she's so set on wanting to fight a girl like her. And in Alpha 3, Karin straight up tells Sakura that she admires her.

Hell, even after winning against Sakura in a match, Karin proclaims her as the better fighter. A level of humility that's almost nonexistent in her Udon comics counterpart.

Because yes, Karin can be nice. We see this first-hand in Alpha 3 where after losing to R.Mika in a fight she tells her hasn't studied enough about pro-wrestling (admitting that she had underestimated her fighting style) and even offers to sponsor Mika's wrestling career.

Later on in Street fighter V she pays Birdie to be her bodyguard and pretty much lets him lay around her mansion doing nothing all day after finding out Shadaloo was after him.

Something similar to these acts of kindness on her part happens in Legends Sakura, where she lets her employee keep the trophy of the hot dog eating competition they were in. But the thing is; they have made Karin such a bitch in these comics that this act, which would be in character for her game counterpart, feels out of character in this because she's just so mean and victory focused all the time.

And speaking of victories, another thing this characterization of her gets wrong is her approach to them. Udon comics Karin will go above and beyond in order to achieve a victory, it doesn't matter if it's unfair for her opponent, all that she cares about is if she scores that win.

In Legends Sakura she challenges Karin to a hot dog eating competition since she wasn't feeling like fighting her physically, Karin cheats in it by shoving the food down her employee’s throat under the table, when Sakura and her friends out her as a cheater she quickly changed the challenge into a fighting match even tho Sakura has eaten like 30 hot dogs by now and is in no condition to fight her.

And in Sakura vs Karin, where the two are competing in a game tournament, Karin buys the company that made the game and adds herself as a character on it. Something Sakura was previously not aware of and as such had no chance of knowing how to play well against the new character.

This is wild to me because it's quite literally the exact opposite of how Karin acts in her other iterations. She strives for a fair fight because otherwise her subsequent victory on it will be meaningless, after all, there's no merit in winning against someone when you've got an unfair advantage over them.

Even when she had the perfect opportunity to give herself an advantage, manga Karin still strived to keep things fair. After her initial loss against Sakura, she organizes a tournament around the district that's essentially a battle royale with several fighters of the region. She made this whole event with the sole purpose of challenging Sakura by the end of it since she expected her to defeat all the other opponents.

As the organizer, she could absolutely have abstained from joining the tournament herself and stand there high and mighty as the final challenge for the whole thing, but not only did she actively participate on the tournament, Karin strived to defeat more people than Sakura because she saw that as a way to redeem herself after losing to her a few days back.

She is so set in winning this tournament that she refused to even stop for a moment and get her injuries treated.

Cheating legitimately feels like something Karin would frown upon so to see her doing it more than once in the Udon comics feels like the pinnacle of character assassination.

Another thing that stood out to me is that even after being outed as a cheater during that hot dog eating competition, that not only had an immense live audience but was also being televised, Karin faces absolutely no repressions for it. Meanwhile in the manga Karin's father makes her undergo a series of trials in which she fights an eagle while balancing on a tightrope over a ravine, a bear in a waterfall, and a lion otherwise he would basically disown her.

All of this because she lost twice, first to Sakura and later to Ken during the tournament.

And speaking of Sakura, they messed up her and Karin's relationship so badly in the Udon comics that it's only when the two of them are adults that they become friends. Meanwhile, in both Alpha 3 and Sakura ganbaru volume 1 they're left on a good note with each other right after their stories wrap up and implied to have become friends in the following entries of the series.

In Street fighter IV this is done via Sakura's win quotes and in volume 2 by Sakura sending Karin a souvenir from her travels.

By the time we see them as adults in Street fighter V we are shown that yes, they are friends! And seemingly have been for quite a while now.

This is honestly kinda sad to me because we learn first hand that Udon comics Karin had no friends growing up and it seems like this lack of positive figures in her life, Sakura specially, stunted her growth as a person since it's also only when she's an adult that she comes to the realization that fighting it's not about winning or losing, but the moment of the battle, and that some defeats are more valuable than victories since it's from our failures that we can learn to grown stronger.

Something that both the manga and game  versions of Karin discovered much sooner, truly showcasing how Udon’s version of her is always 5 steps behind the others.

[cuephrase]

10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 25, 26, 27, and 28 for the comics ask game! (feel free to break up or just the ones you want to)

coming from this ask game

i'm going to skip 26 + 27 because when i tried to do it i realized a) certain art styles have grown on me and b) i was hard-pressed to find a comic that fit bc i don't collect books i don't enjoy, unless i'm getting it purely for the variant cover...at which point i like neither the writing nor the interior art lmao. sorry!!

10. The prettiest cover

from top to bottom, left to right Red Hood: Outlaw (2016) #27, Batman (2016) #150, Tim Drake: Robin #10, Nightwing (2016) #94

-est's are sooooo hard for me, and i'm so indecisive, and there's so many art styles...so i picked these four lmao. i have so many pretty covers okay, i tried.

this picture does not do it justice, but the red hood issue is foiled and i just love it. foil is fun in general, but i feel like it makes the blood more...bloody? wow i'm so eloquent. IT'S COOL IMO OKAY. not that this is shocking to anyone, but i am v obsessed with pink...the batman cover is pink. but also!! bruce is smiling. and the motion of the cape feels so lush. it just makes me happy. um. so. the tim cover. listen. the color palette is pretty, i love the early dawn + his bright colors. also. he's pretty. NEXT. i adore this nightwing cover. it's so soft, like it kinda looks like it was done with, crap idk my art mediums, oil pastels? the texture is so smooth. plus, i love like the scene and all the details, like it's just so satisfying.

i'm realizing i may have defined 'prettiest' strangely. oh well.

11. The ugliest cover

Teen Titans (2011) #18

ngl i probably have uglier covers but like WTF why does his face look like that. (the struggle here was that i either buy covers i like or the cover is completely irrelevant, so then i was neutral about like...pretty much every book i bought for content not cover lmao.)

12. Your favorite comic you have

Robin (1993) #10, 13, 46, 156

just for you, i did the tim drake edition version of this question hehe. hang on, lemme compose myself so i can be mostly normal about these comics. *muffled screaming* alright!!

first!! ROBIN!DICK AN ROBIN!TIM ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! with jason-haunting-the-narrative angst?! to die for. then we have tim being robin to dick's batman, so fun, with a healthy serving of bruce and dick angst and they actually communicate a bit. so frickin good. i've talked before about how much i love love love #46, and that has not changed- i revisted it recently and *oh my godddddd*. tim struggling with robin vs. tim drake, and then utterly failing despite his best efforts when he was already questioning if he even makes a difference? fuck yes. sorry. and then!! super-depressed!timbo talking a would-be jumper into not jumping and then calling dick? words cannot express the sheer !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i feel about these issues. this is me trying to be normal about them, that's how bad it is. as with the previous answer to 12, i have pages of these comics eternally memorized.

13. Your least favorite comic you have (and why you originally grabbed it!)

Red Hood: The Hill

allow me to explain my comic buying method. first of all, i try to buy only comics i've read + liked, unless i like the cover or it's a current release. so this is a little bit recency bias, but also current stuff is pretty much the only thing i'll be buying blind for the story itself.

i picked up this mini bc it was marketed as a jason run. HA. you could completely cut him from the story and like. so little would change. his only relevance was marketing. the story itself was also like, super boring to me, but in the spirit of fairness + acknowledging bias, i was enticed by a jason story and not given one. so. if i'd come to the run expecting an oc + batman i might've had a very different experience.

if this had been out on dcui, i would not have picked this run up. maybe the dan mora covers if i saw them when digging through boxes. but purely for the covers.

17. comic you picked up just for the cover art

Batman (2016) #50, Nightwing #81, Task Force Z #8, Robins #3

have not read the issue yet, bc i have not kicked off my Big Batman Read Through, but i am fairly certain it will upset me when i get to it lmao. i have a soft spot for sketch covers, i think they're so neat. plus this one is so evocative. technically, the nightwing cover may not count bc i'm sort of collecting all of nightwing, but at the time i bought it purely for the cover. the graffiti is fun, dick + tim + milkshakes = cute!! i enjoyed task force z, but not enough to buy the run, however when i saw this cover i had to get it. idk how to express it but the composition tickles my brain in the best way. ugh so cool. MARCUS TO TIM?!?!?! HELLO?! WHAT MORE NEED I SAY?!

25. The comic with the coolest variant cover

Nightwing (2016) #107, Red Hood: Outlaw #35, Batman and Robin (2023) #1, Tim Drake: Robin #2

i do not yet have the comic(s) with the coolest variant covers i want, so i decided to do a cover for each robin! dammit tim and damian are in the wrong order. dick through the ages by dan mora? amazing. just. so cool. so fun. enjoy the atmosphere on the red hood one + his reflection being in a puddle of blood, very classy. dami and bruce just look so 🥹🥹🥹. love the lighting/composition. and now is when i joke that i almost just did all the dan mora tribute covers lmao. very much love them all, but the dick and tim cover is my fave. like. it's just so sweet. the brothers. the homage. the !!!!!!!!!! of it all. gah i love them sm fr

28. A run you have completely collected (trades, singles, or mix!)

Red Robin (2009)

it has literally just occured to me that i could have also done TT's nightwing run but...eh. much prouder of this!! this is the first run/title that i decided to collect completely and it was so much fun hunting the issues down. man, i felt so accomplished when i brought #25 home. and i got it for a steal too, so like bonus happy points 💅🏼

brief story time, so i picked this up fairly early on into my comics collecting when i was really trying to be very, very selective. i think i maybe was looking specifically for #17, where bruce is back and tim gets a hug, and the vendor had that one + a bunch of others and i was geeking out a little bit showing diff panels to my spouse and they were like, "so we're getting them all, cool." "no, it's fine-" "dude. your whole face is so lit up right now." i lost (won?) that argument. it is still so mind-blowing to me how supportive they are of the things that bring me joy. completely antithetical to my upbringing. anyways!! so yeah, this is also the run that spurred me to collect the way i do today. i tried to be more restrained. i was ✨enabled✨

tysm for the ask!! i had such a blast answering, i hope you enjoy the answers!!

[smilesrobotlover]

I need to know about your Link OCs! Can you give me a brief summary of them all? Or a fun fact for each? Who’s the cinnamon rolls vs the ones who would kill you in a heartbeat? I must know 👀

Hehe since you asked… UwU I’ll explain top to bottom from that one image

Fluffy is the predecessor to Cursed. It’s no secret anymore cuz it was sorta revealed in the comic already if you remember what he looks like but he’s also Cursed’s grandfather :) Idk what he did specifically I’m still tryna figure it out but I know some major things he did was that he rescued the young prince since some evil (possibly Vaati) kidnapped him for his divine magic. Typically it’s a princess with the goddesses blood in her veins but I’m like… there had to be a dude right? It would be exceptionally rare but that prince had the power of the goddesses :) and fluffy also tried to protect Ordon from the tyrant king who tried to force Ordonians to submit to his will. There would’ve been some intense bloodshed but there was a bright light and all the Ordonians disappeared. So ordon is a ghost town. Where’d they go? 🤔 when his oldest son Taril was like, 10-14 he left mysteriously and never returned.

Then Cursed I can’t talk about much cuz his story is being explored in @thecurseofdemisecomic which I haven’t worked on in a hot second and I need motivation again cuz it’s kinda dying unfortunately. I’m not even done with arc one 😭😭 but you can read some of it there. If ya want :) the main premise is that Ganondorf is actively hunting down the hero of Hyrule. Only issue, the hero always appears from the most random spots ever. So he’s hard to find

Malakan is… confusing to me. He’s Cursed’s successor and idk what to do anymore with it. It was gonna be called the Curse of Hylia but truthfully the lore for that doesn’t fit the lore I had anymore. I feel like Hylia is truly gone, living on through Zelda, so idk what’s going on there. But the art I made was cute lol. Anyways yeah idk what to do with him, he’s just hangin out. He’s also Cursed’s like, great grandson? Mayhaps? But yeah, he was like, bffs with Ganondorf and Zelda. It was one of those ;)

Moon is my son and my baby. His whole story I almost made a comic for but nothing has happened yet. Basically hes from the dark timeline to TCOD where the hero was murdered and the master sword gone. The world fought back for a long while, but without the master sword, the world inevitably was nearly destroyed, with Demise winning (in this Demise and Ganondorf started working together). The world was a barren wasteland and slavery was common. Moon was a slave and he was thrown into a pit after he fought back against the slavers to protect someone. The golden three returned to Hyrule to salvage what they could, Farore, being the goddess of the life, wanting to save it entirely. Because of Moon’s courage, she sent him the Triforce of course before being cursed into a little bunny. Demise couldn’t kill her but he sure as heck humiliated her with that form. Moon finds a zelda and after discovering his Triforce of courage (zelda having the Triforce of wisdom), she sent him to find the shards of the Triforce of power, which was shattered when she tried to defeat the evil. Moon finds Farore and they search for the shards, eventually restoring Hyrule with the Triforce. Idk what specifically happens after that but he meets Groose, he gets magic, and it’s fun :) Moon is deaf but he never learned how to communicate, like ever, so it was a rocky road for him until he learned sign language. He’s also Skord Link’s direct ancestor UwU idk why but that happened. That’s why Sky kinda looks like him! It was an accident but I leaned into it!

Then Real. He’s a fun kiddo. Basically his story is that he’s some kid who moved to Hyrule after his father passed away, and the supposed hero of Hyrule went searching for the master sword with his help. But Real ended up being the one to draw the sword and having the hero’s spirit. The fake hero did not like this and was raised to believe he was the true hero, so let’s just say he did some bad things. He took Real to try to steal his Triforce of courage cuz he believed that would get him the master sword, and Real was able to escape. He meets Beck (or Linebeck the 87th ;)) and is able to convince him to help him. They run away from “Fake” despite the many tricks he throws their way ( he pretends he’s Real’s father at some point but Beck knew that his father died. Also Fake is like, 18 years old lmao). Idk what happens after that. Beck has a son that supposedly died by a creature that steals force (but he doesn’t) and it possibly takes Beck and there’s this whole thing. Idk the ending is messy but that’s the gist of it! I actually did a whumptober with Beck and Real! Fun times! Also Real loses his eye 😔

And then Flower… oh my baby Flower. He’s such a good boy and has such a gentle soul. This is in Moon’s timeline. Because the death of the hero caused so much destruction, the royal family started searching for the hero to protect him. But it got a little extreme and Flower was forcefully taken as a baby (this leads into Real’s story with the royal family taking the wrong baby). He was raised by the sages, specifically the Sage of light named Kaeru, who is a terrible and abusive person. Flower loves animals and has a blue cuccoo named Nitrogen thanks to the folks on discord and he meets a friendly Moblin too. Zelda in this is really pushed by Kaeru and he’s noticeably exhausted. There’s no big plot, it’s just Flower hangin out. I also have a whumptober fic with him and Zelda lol. I love him

And then they’re not here but there’s also Rayne and Mushroom!

Rayne is the hero in the villain squad au! He has an older brother and is seen as a failure :D And Mushroom is a random child who was raised by a Goron! Idk how else to explain them, mushroom is so silly.

[ribbonpasta]

Hi! I saw your tags on the living alone vs with others post.

As I badly need to save myself (for top surgery) I only recently had to figure out how to save more money myself:

1) Make a budget. What money do you have, what has to be set aside for fixed expenses per month (in my case rent, insurances, water, power, etc), what amounts can you use for particular topics (in my case for example food, household stuff, going out, clothes, entertainment). Once you have those, how much money is left, and how much of that can you actually save vs what should remain for free use.

2) Make a separate account for saving. I unfortunately only know abour how to best do that in Germany, but your bank might be able to tell you if there is an option for an additional account for savings that's free or very low in cost. For me, it also helps making separate pools in the saving account to know circa how much money I have saved for what. It's all in one account, but I keep tabs on that myself.

3) Try to always always do bookkeeping about your money. What comes in, what goes out and for what. That also helps a LOT with setting up a budget because it helps you tell realistically how much you spend on what. If you don't do bookkeeping yet, it can make sense to do one or two months of bookkeeping ahead, and after that create your budget based on the experiences from your bookkeeping.

4) I absolutely understand the frustration with already having to spend your savings right away because something came up. My own main issue there is my car because of unforseen repairs. However, part of having a budget is both knowing where those unforseen expenses happen so often that they should actually be a fixed item in your budget.

5) Last but not least - if you are budgeting specifically to get your own place, try to figure out what a place you would want costs, and see how that fits in your budget, because rent is a monthly expense, and therefore should best be treated as such. If a place costs X amount per month, is that an expense you can afford *per month*? If no, maybe there is an option for a little bit cheaper housing (either by cutting down a bit on e.g. size, or by getting a housemate)?

That's what I could think of from the top of my head. Might well be that you already know most of this but I saw your tags and thought maybe any of this might be of help.

J i am so so grateful for this reply, thank you. I've been budgeting and keeping track of everything so thats a first step i'm taking just to see how much exactly I can put aside and I've been doing exactly that.

I'm following everything you said, and mostly its just frustrating cause its taking longer than I'd ideally want to... I just feel very rushed to do the thing ya know

I really appreciate you for replying to me, really does mean a lot. Thank you from the bottom of my soul.

[feekins]

no purple highlighter today bc no spoons, but here are my thoughts and things and whatever translation weirdness I find as I re-read ch 2 of Trigun Maximum vol 7!

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and the Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

o hello, painfully accurate depiction of a panic attack 🥲

(also more nuance with the Overhaul's "There's only us")

again, nuance! ty, Overhaul!

idr whether or not someone's already talked about this, but...this has me thinking back to that panel in Trigun Maximum vol 2 ch 4 - where Wolfwood has Vash holding a gun to his head, and Vash says (quoting the Overhaul) "No matter what you do...you give up all hope so easily."

like...obviously, Vash has been there. but it's hitting me especially hard this read-through that Rem has likely been there, too.

(also, it's interesting to note Dark Horse's passive wording in "let go of everything" VS the Overhaul's more active "throw away everything")

I like the way the Overhaul handles the "flow" of these speech bubbles - it feels very natural to how someone might speak (in English, I mean - I imagine this is another place where Dark Horse went with a more literal translation). I also find the Overhaul's wording choice of "kept having"...idk, more compelling? 😮

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

"nothing had happened" VS "nothing was wrong" - same general idea, but given the context...again, the Overhaul's is more compelling to me here. same with them using "I felt like"

this part, too - hitting particularly hard rn 🥺

(for the past several months, I've been dealing with p bad depression, struggling to come to terms with/overcome deeply-ingrained past trauma + trust issues + fear of the future/uncertainty, so...this re-read couldn't have come at a better time)

also, Dark Horse's translation has "Even if you're in darkness now" - idk why that sticks out to me;;;;;

I like how the Overhaul uses "throw away" again - nice consistency with what Rem says to Vash as she's holding the knife back. and I REALLY love the Overhaul's translation of that last panel! aaaaa the nuance of "[the world]'s not just full of worthless people" 🥹

"looks like" VS "I must have"

and you've gotta wonder - did Knives hear any of Vash and Rem's conversation? or was he truly out cold up until this moment?

[rhapsodybenny]

I procrastinated by putting WAY too much effort into determining whether this logo is valid for a Facebook comment. So I might as well get a bit more out of that effort and share my thoughts elsewhere:

The "correct" answer: TB12. Set of characters also visible that would need to be excluded by a set of rules to claim the correct answer is the "only" answer: P, 3, 7, L (and also technically I/l vs. 1, but there are plenty of good logos where a straight line could be any of those, so I'll let it slide).

I don't think ordering is an issue. The order is pretty clearly "Stuff that touches the top from left to right, then stuff that touches the bottom from left to right." So the problem is to cull the all inclusive 7TPB31L2 down to TB12. (7 before T, PB before 3, and 1 before L ordered left to right by bounding box centers, and P before B ordered because P's weighted center is above B's.)

My thinking for the processing of different rule sets: They have to provide guidelines for "extracting" a proposed letter from the logo, and judge whether that letter should be included.

First, rule choices for judging proposed letters:

Letter quality: 1) Letters have to look good. No weird shapes, no nontraditional extra bits clinging on. 2) Letters can't have extra bits, but they can have weird shapes. So for example, if you just lift out pieces as-is (without splitting), T extends off to the right at the top and curves down, but it doesn't branch off anywhere, so that's okay. But P doesn't work because a branch comes along at the bottom-right of its curve. (I don't think a 3 is possible. I feel extra bits count as weird shapes, so an inversion of the above rule doesn't work. And relaxing both means not excluding anything.)

I considered a topography rule (judging whether and where pieces connect), but it didn't produce any productive results. It'd serve to judge connections between the left and right sections, and since the bottom-left of B, the most dubious connection, needs to work for a successful result, there's no reason to evaluate such a rule.

And now rule choices for extracting letters, which I'm calling "chopping": A) No chopping allowed. You can only extract all of a piece, or none of it. B) You can chop, but only in straight lines. Only affects letter-quality 1 when comparing to C. C) You can chop, split, and cut existing pieces with whatever lines/curves you like. So, let's check the results of all 6 possible combinations: 1A: 1L2. 1B: 7TB31L2. 1C: 7TPB31L2. 2A: T31L2. 2B/C: 7TPB31L2.

None of these produce the desired result of TB12. The shortest one that *includes* the correct answer is 1B, requiring good-looking letters with straight-line chopping only. That produces 7TB31L2. The extra letters in that are 73L. By being REALLY strict with letter-quality 1 (and forgiving to a frankly hypocritical degree of the bottom-left joining of B), you could strike out 3 for not having a curve on the top to match the bottom, and L for being too squat (or, if you were to chop part of the bottom line off to fix the aspect ratio (and add a dash more hypocrisy for still including 1), being too small compared to the others). But there's just no getting rid of 7. 7 looks way too good compared to B. So no, I don't think this logo works. At its absolute best, it says 7TB12.

EDIT: Someone also said R. I'm not going to bother editing my analysis to introduce it, as regardless of the outcome, the best it could hope for would be getting included by ruleset 1B, only to be eliminated by a similar level of strictness to L.

[horrorhorizon]

Image ids: 7 images of black text on a light green background. Images 2-7 have "why schools are so difficult for autistic people ?" In small text at the top with answers listed as a small text with a picture over it. The pictures are in various art styles with various amounts of detail. Bottom left hand corner has a watermark "@nerodivergent_lou"

Image 1: "why schools are so difficult for autistic people?" Takes up the whole image

Image 2:Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Being bullied-picture of person in blue shaking while a person in purple is yelling at them.

Feeling different- picture of black does not equal sign

Facing discrimination-4 stick figures holding hands. 3 are black. The second one is red.

Being isolated/ not fitting in-person dressed in blue with long wavy brown hair sitting in fetal position with a scribble bubble over their head

Having to mask autistic traits-person in a pink shirt with a black sock bun holding up a white mask to conceal their face

Our communication being seen as rude-speech bubble

Image 3:Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Learning in a way which doesn't work for us- an open hardcover book

Slow processing speed-green turtle

Difficulty organising homework/ books- pencil scribbling on lined paper

Struggling with perfectionism- Arrow right through middle of a bullseye

Coping with change e.g. supply teachers or moving classes- a teacher with a light brown bun wearing a cardigan over a white shirt, a mauve pencil skirt, and non distinct brown shoes. They're standing next to a brown desk containing 2 hardcover books and an apple stacked ontop of eachother and in front of a green chalk board with 6 white stars

Unstructured time-white drawing with black outlines of an analog clock and a cup and saucer.

Image 4:Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Difficulty initiating tasks-clipboard with 3 lines. On the left of the limes are a check box with a green check in each of them

Lots of crowds-drawing of 5 people with minimal features appearing to be talking

Sensory issues with school uniform-a smiling child with 2 brown buns, a blue long sleeved top, a grey skirt, white socks and black shoes

Difficulty remembering information- very cartoon esq picture of a brain with limbs, a face, and glasses. A dumbbell is in each hand

Having an uneven/ spiky skills set-cartoon drawing of a hedgehog standing on 2 feet

Rules which are unclear-paper saying rules in red text on to. Several lines are on the paper representing text with 3 red check marks on the left side

Image 5:Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Strong smells e.g. food, cleaning products- cartoon drawing of a blue bottle with a yellow label and white lid. The label sa says "clean" in red text

Chaotic environment-black squiggles

Bright lights- cartoon light bulb

Not having time to rest-3 blue Zs

Not understanding non literal communication- a different cartoon brain with limbs frozen in a block of ice

Fine motor skills difficulty-a hand holding a pencil

Image 6:Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Co-ordination difficulties in PE- person in yellow t-short and blue shorts falling

Loud noises- old fashioned school bell (from like the 80s and not the physical bell that teachers rang). The bell is red, the base is yellow

Not having our safe food at school-blue chips bag

Difficulty focusing- magnifying glass

Lots of demands- two white scrolls with black lines

Exam pressure-3 white papers on top of eachother with black and blue scribbles representing text. On the top paper "exam" in black, "A+" in red, and on the left 1 2 3 with a red check mark next to them are visible

Image 7: Why are schools so difficult for autistic people?

Having our needs dismissed- red X

Myths about autism being spread- green speech bubble "FACTS" red speech bubble "MYTHS" blue circle ontop "vs". Reads as facts vs myths

Being picked on to answer questions- red question mark

Difficulty regulating emotions- cartoon thermometer

Bright coloured display- a very cluttered image of a teachers desk in front of a green chalk board with welcome written on it. Leaves, cards, inkwell and quill, apple, globe, bell, rullers, scissors, books, and pencils are visible.

Anxiety- person seated with their hands clutching their had they are wearing a blue top, grey pants, and black shoes. They have shoulder length black hair. Surrounding this person are various images representing negativity. These include rain clouds, black squiggles, question marks, exclamation points, and speech bubbles with illegible text.

End ids

Autism & School

Neurodivergent_lou

[thisiskayle]

How Many?

How many societal problems actually get solved? Out of sight, out of mind. We pay attention to societal issues when they're in the headlines for a few days at a time, and onto the next one.

I fell in love with the song Mr. Rager a decade ago, I didn't believe it to be foreshadowing for western culture. We're in a constant 24 hour cycle of rage-bait, but we've demobilized ourselves to work towards a solution.

Collectively we can't focus on an issue past the point of rage. We're addicted to it; and companies capitalize on it. We're hamsters on the wheel, being toyed with, while true atrocities are misrepresented or swept under the rug.

COVID lockdowns made us forget how to act as a society, and how to act selflessly in the face of adversity. Narcissistic tendencies; fear of judgment; fear of failure; goldfish attention spans - a recipe for the destruction of the society our forefathers have built.

If I had a solution I'd offer one, but we can't solve problems we don't know exist.

There isn't a good reason for this level of division - we're all closer to the same than we are different. But that doesn't sell. You won't see headlines of politicians compromising for what's best for everyone. Instead, we see gotcha moments, rage-inducing headlines, and stoked fears causing wider division.

People use the term "sheeple" to insult others, not realizing they themselves have been conned and grifted. People call each other "nazis" not realizing they're creating the us vs. them mentality.

I'd ask what happened to standing up right; but politicians and the faces of media capitalize on invoking fear and anger within us, hyperbolizing the truth to get a reaction.

And we put up with it. We put trust into these people and institutions, and they pull the wool over our eyes.

We've been duped into believing it's a left vs right issue, when the entire time it's been a top vs bottom issue.

The wealth gap increases, quality of life decreases; anger increases, progress decreases. People decry mass media, only to jump to unqualified rage-baiters whose livelihood depends on your anger and reaction, but they don't actually want to solve anything. If issues were solved, they'd be out of a job. If we finally realized we're being toyed with my mass media, multinational corporations, and politicians (or a simplified version - GREED), we'd have a fighting chance to turn this ship around.

Society is resilient, it's true - but that doesn't mean we should work harder and get less in return. That doesn't mean our public institutions should crumble because of fear-mongering.

We're ripping the very fabric of western society that made it the envy of the world, one headline, podcast, and tiktok at a time.

Make of this what you will. We're all guilty.

Yes, I'm talking about you too.

[projectcubicle1]

5 Inventory Solutions for Small Businesses

5 Inventory Solutions for Small Businesses

Inventory management is more than just counting products on a shelf; it's a foundational element of successful small business operations. This process promises customers timely delivery and ensures that a business holds a balanced stock to meet the ever-changing demands. However, navigating inventory isn't always a smooth process. In fact, 26.3% of businesses have found themselves grappling with challenges in maintaining inventory or sourcing the necessary supplies, be it locally or internationally. Such roadblocks can lead to a myriad of issues, from stunted growth to losing the trust of loyal customers. When inventory is managed efficiently, businesses can forecast future needs more accurately and devise strategies accordingly. This proactive approach means no customer is left disappointed due to a lack of stock, and businesses aren't left with surplus products eating into their finances. The bottom line? Effective inventory management results in satisfied customers, increased profitability, and a business that's primed for growth. So, if you’re a small business owner seeking inventory solutions, read on to get insights and discover tools to tackle these prevalent inventory challenges head-on.

Integrating Inventory Management with Other Business Systems

Before we get lost in the nitty-gritty of inventory, we need to step back and look at the big picture. It’s not just about tracking items but connecting this tracking with other business tools like checkout systems, online selling platforms, and accounting software. When all these parts come together, it helps your business run smoothly and keeps your records straight. This connection between different parts also makes various business processes simpler and sets the stage for good inventory management. A very important part of this is thinking about where to store items, especially for businesses that don’t have a lot of warehouse space. Choosing a storage place close by means you can get to your stock quickly, avoiding delays when sending out orders. For businesses based in districts such as Etobicoke, Ontario, for example, researching and securing Etobicoke self-storage solutions becomes crucial. Finding a reliable partner in managing your inventory storage not only guarantees secure and timely access to your stock but also forms a cornerstone in building an efficient and integrated inventory management system.

Manual vs. Automated Inventory Systems

Many small businesses used to rely on just pen and paper for their inventory. That sounds easy and straightforward, but as businesses expanded, the challenges grew too. Writing down every item can become overwhelming, and mistakes will inevitably creep in. But with automated inventory systems, it's like having a reliable sidekick. This will help you stay on top of everything, giving you a heads-up when you need to restock and even hinting at future needs. Switching to automation means fewer mix-ups, extra time on your hands, and being always ready to provide customers with what they want.

Finding The Right Inventory Tool for Small Businesses

The market is brimming with inventory tools specially made for small businesses. If you're searching for the right one, here's a tip: make sure it has real-time tracking. With time-tracking you'll always be in the loop about your stock levels, without any guesswork. Then, there's forecasting. A top-notch tool will help you peek into the future, suggesting what you might need based on what you've sold before. And of course, make sure the tool works well with your other systems, whether it's your checkout counter system or your online sales platform. With the right tool, handling your inventory becomes a lot easier.

The Rise of Just-In-Time Inventory

Lately, the just-in-time inventory method has become a big hit, especially with smaller businesses. The idea of JIT inventory is pretty straightforward—have on hand what you need, right when you need it. No more, no less. This minimizes storage costs and reduces the risk of stockouts. Adopting a JIT approach requires a clear understanding of your business's demand cycles and strong relationships with suppliers to ensure timely deliveries. While it might be a shift from traditional inventory practices, the benefits in cost savings and efficiency are undeniable.

Periodic Audits and Regular Stock Checks

Even with the most sophisticated automated systems, regular stock checks are crucial. This practice ensures the accuracy of the system and catches any discrepancies. Setting aside time for periodic audits can highlight patterns of loss, whether it is from theft, damage, or other inefficiencies.  An effective inventory audit involves physically counting all items and comparing the count with system records. By making this a routine practice, businesses can maintain the integrity of their stock data and address issues proactively.

Conclusion

In the dynamic world of small business operations, inventory management is not just a function—it's a strategy. Efficient inventory management ensures that businesses remain agile, responsive, and profitable. Getting the right tools and methods under your belt can turn that mountain of inventory work into a walk in the park. It's not just about stocking products, but making sure you've got the right amount ready when customers come knocking. Investing in this area makes all the difference. Every small business aiming for future growth and customer satisfaction should prioritize effective inventory solutions. Read the full article

[sheena-is-a-punk-rocker]

Figured I'd chime in with some dental advice as an RDA who works in peds (I don't have kids myself but I see teeny tiny babies all day every day)

1) babies can either get teeth earlier than six months, right around the six month mark, or after and all three are normal! Once they start getting teeth take a finger brush and swipe it five times across the upper teeth and and five times across the lower teeth. You can get front and back in one swipe

2) if you nurse your baby to sleep or can't get in with a toothbrush it is SUPER important that you take a wet washcloth and swipe it over their top teeth. Bottom teeth are protected by the tongue, top teeth aren't. We don't want those milk sugars sitting on the teeth all night. Cavities can and will start this early

3) night time brush is the most important one! If you can only get in there once a day, make it a night time brush!

4) we do recommend fluoride toothpaste even this young! What's important is the amount you're using. Tiny dry rice grain sized amount for babies and toddlers until they're spitting on their own (usually between ages 3-4). What you wanna do is rub the toothpaste into the bristles so there's no gel left it's just foam and then brush their teeth with that. That way anything they end up swallowing won't upset their tummy or cause any issues

5) you can put the finger brush in the freezer and let them chew on it to help with teething

6) canines wre objectively the worst teeth for teething. They have the longest roots and they're the sharpest. They typically come in after the first molars so if they're even fussier than usual when those teeth come in that's why!

7) do NOT use orajel or anything else marketed as a gel/ointment for teething. They can overdose on that really easily and it's just not worth it

8) short handled toothbrushes for them to play with! You can get some that are double handled and it's really good for kids who want to brush by themselves. You grab one end, they grab the other end so they feel like they have some independence but you have all the control. Longer handled toothbrushes are for parents to use only. They can puncture their palate really easily if they play with it on their own

9) lip and tongue ties are REALLY easy for pediatricians to miss! Even lactation consultants miss them all the time! If you think your baby has a lip or tongue tie you can get a second opinion from your dentist. We see babies as little as like a few days old at my office and there's almost always instant improvement once the lip and/or tongue tie is released

10) lip ties can also make brushing super uncomfortable so if your baby doesn't like brushing or is curling their lip when you brush those middle two teeth on the top, that might be why

11) lip and tongue ties are easier to treat when your child is younger vs when they're older. The tissue gets more fibrous the older they get. The tissue can either be cut with a scalpel which is what pediatric ENTs will do, or it can be treated with a laser. Not all pediatric dentists offer this but it's an option to look into! The laser procedure takes less than 2 minutes and your baby is awake the entire time and in your arms. We did four of them this morning alone at my office

12) pacifier use and thumb sucking really only becomes a problem once your child is closer to 3 or 4 so don't stress if they don't wanna give up the habit. Before age 4 those changes to the palate that are made by the thumb or pacifier will usually self correct

13) snacks that are really good for their teeth are cut up apples with the skins on, nuts, and cut up cheese. The apples and nuts will slough off all that plaque that accumulates on the teeth and the cut up cheese has a protein in it called casein that we call a forcefield for the teeth. It protects against that plaque

14) things to avoid are really sticky things like dried fruit and gummy fruit snacks. Those get stuck in the grooves of those back teeth and make them more prone to cavities. Plain chocolate and plain ice cream are things you can give them that are better for their teeth! Just have them drink some warm water afterwards to melt it off their teeth

seeing a lot of videos that are like “I didn’t know babies couldn’t have water” so here’s an incomplete list of things you need to know before having a baby

- the obvious, they can’t have water bc milk is incredibly high in water already so excess water leads to over hydration

- babies cannot have honey until 1

- if ur breastfeeding your kid and saving excess milk, make sure you label what you pumped in the morning vs at night bc your body produces different melatonin levels throughout the day and giving your baby daytime milk at night can make them more alert and fuck up their sleep schedule

- idk why ppl keep saying this but swaddling your babies or getting them those baby straight jacket things is not abuse. It chills them out cuz it reminds them of the womb

- babies have a dandruff like buildup on their head called cradle cap, and it’s very easy to deal with and remove with just some baby shampoo, a gentle scrub brush (MADE FOR BABIES!!) and a comb. It does need to be removed tho cuz it can be very painful after a while. This can also continue to happen late into toddlerhood it’s normal

- you have to clean out the creases of your baby’s skin and hands and feet they WILL collect dust😭😭

- you cannot bathe your baby until their umbilical cord naturally falls off. Use a warm damp rag until then

- tummy time is actually very important

- your baby might have a misshapen head at first (not all the time but sometimes) this will either sort itself out or they’ll need a corrective helmet ask your doctor

- I wouldn’t recommend having your baby leave the house very much until they’re at least 6 months old, especially if they’re born near cold and flu season cuz the common cold can kill a newborn

- you’re not an awful horrible person for having postpartum depression and it’s always a million times better to let your baby cry a few minutes longer than normal while you regain your composure than to freak out and give ur kid shaken baby syndrome

- you’re not an awful horrible person for giving your baby formula milk either

- don’t put shoes on your baby it’ll compromise their toe box and balance

- babies put every single thing in their mouths

- the easiest way to burp a baby is to hold them straight up (spine straight) and hold their head a bit higher

- always support their head they barely have necks

- if your baby fights away food, fights tummy time, vomits every single time you burp them, is gaining or losing an unreasonable amount of weight at a time, wheezes after eating, or goes red after eating, chances are they’re probably allergic to the type of milk they’re eating (again ask a doctor but these are just some signs it’s not just colic)

- they will wobble a lot when learning to do things but you gotta fight the urge to help them every single time cuz they gotta learn

- they’re not always spitting out baby food cuz they don’t like it they just don’t know how to eat. Like they don’t know how to push food down they only know how to stick their tongue out so be patient

- babies craniums are broken up into three parts at first that later fuse together, this is to help make birthing easier but it results in a small EXTREMELY sensitive spot in the top of their head that has no protection. This puts their brain at a high risk. Always protect their soft spot

- read to your baby!! Get cute bright colorful sensory books with sight words and read them to your baby it makes such a huge difference in their educational growth and will help them acquire a love for reading early on. And talk to them never shut up just say whatever comes to mind all the time this will strengthen their vocabulary growth also.

- babies poop like a lot. A lot. an unreasonable amount. Bring back up clothes and more diapers than you think

- no pillows or stuffies in the crib and only use a muslin blanket unless it’s especially cold to prevent suffocation

- babies kick reflexively until they’re out of their newborn scrunch (they stay womb shaped for a while) and if your baby is crying and pushing at the swaddle try letting them flail around for a minute

- consoling your baby is not spoiling them ! They need comfort and they will learn to self soothe on their own

- singing lullabies actually works, they can recognize your voice a consistent place of comfort from the womb and the cadence of lullabies is literally engineered to create a calm headspace

- for the love of god do not get boring ass beige toys. Colors are important for their neurological development

- babies are very responsive to praise from a young age so be as supportive of them as you can

- babies get constipated a lot and you have to do like tummy massages to help ease their pain the easiest way is to lay them on their backs and hold one foot in each hand, kick their feet like bicycles, scrunch up, and then stretch their legs out

- holding them on your hip too much will not cause bow legged-ness if your baby is bow legged that was always gonna happen

- they drool so so much and you have to get bibs for them so they don’t get chest eczema

- don’t use scented products on their skin cuz their skin is sooo much thinner than ours

- when your baby first starts sitting on their own never walk away from them without setting up a nest of pillows and blankets around them. Even minor head trauma can mess them up sometimes

- this one is kinda morbid and scary but sometimes babies just die out of nowhere and it’s no one’s fault or anything it’s called sudden infantile death syndrome(SIDS) and it’s about 1.3k deaths on average per year in America so not super common but still very real. 90% of these deaths happen during the first four months however edit: apparently it’s bc of an enzyme deficiency which at the very least you can take steps to try and prevent

- smoking and drinking during pregnancy WILL affect your baby and your breast milk and also might contribute to SIDS cases

- babies sometimes have a big red mark on them somewhere called a stork bite immediately after birth but typically it goes away

- babies can’t see very well for a while after birth and they’re VERY wobbly so they’ll typically bonk their head into your chest and face a lot while trying to support themselves

- female babies might have smth similar to a period the first few days after birth, this is because of the hormone transfer that happens during the birthing process and the days leading up to it

- male babies get random erections for the first few days after birth(hormone transfer again) literally do not be weird about this it’s a baby

- things like weaning your baby onto solid foods, potty training, weaning off pacifiers etc, can actually be directed by the baby and will happen naturally will minimal guidance from the parent(some guidance is still necessary) although I would do individual research into baby led weaning for food to prevent choking

- get those chewy feeding pouches to help with weaning

- the most random things will scare the hell out of your baby don’t take it personal 😭

- baby carriers are life savers (tulas are one of my favorites)

- once babies hit toddlerhood they’re tougher than you think, and a lot of their reaction is based on YOURS. they’re always going to be looking to you for how to react to a situation. Remain calm and if they’re ok they’ll calm down but if they’re genuinely hurt they’ll keep crying

- babies will most likely get ridiculously attached to an inanimate object and you have to keep this thing intact at all costs until they’re old enough to abandon it or they will throw a FIT. I got a lemur plushie from a zoo once and every single one of the kids has bonded their soul with it until about 6 years old and once a month I have to stitch him back up

- don’t compare yourself to other parents. Maybe your kid isnt getting grass fed wild caught north Atlantic cheerios but at least they’re fed. If your kid is alive and healthy and happy you’re doing a good job

- you will need 3 car seats, an infant seat, a grow with me toddler seat, and a booster seat

- getting a good diaper bag is a MUST

- the hair a baby is born with will most likely all fall out or they’ll get a bald spot on the back of their head where they sleep cuz their hair is so fragile and thin but once it grows back it grows back thick

- get like 20 muslin blankets so you always have a backup when the main ones are covered in spit up

- the babies grip IS stronger than yours (keep your hair up and keep pets away best you can)

- your best bet for your teething baby is a pacifier you can put your finger in so you can massage their gums and some chewing toys numbing cream can be dangerous and should be used sparingly

- go ahead and come to terms with the fact you’re gonna have to use a Frida Baby to manually remove snot

- babies can get hair and thread wrapped around their toes and fingers that can cut off their circulation try to make a habit of checking

- don’t hit your kid please it’s nothing but trauma and fucked up coping mechanisms from there pls empathize with your child they’re a person too

- be careful not to pull too hard on their arms and legs(like during play or holding their hand while they walk) and NEVER pick them up by their hands this will very easily cause dislocation

- they might have a little tooth like callous on their lip from their pacifier. This does not hurt them and it will go away but it may hurt during breastfeeding

- breastfeeding will make your boobs different sizes

Yeag that’s all I can think of rn but yk i Will add as I remember stuff ppl are also adding things I forgot in the tags in case you’d like to look thru that as well <3

[calacuspr]

Calacus Monthly Hit & Miss – Karen Carney & Jordan Henderson

Every month we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the last few weeks.

HIT - KAREN CARNEY

Eyebrows may have been raised when Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries appointed former England international Karen Carney as Chair of the Future of Women's Football Review for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in September 2022.

Since retiring from playing in 2019, Carney had quickly established herself as a prominent voice in both the men’s and women’s game through her excellent punditry work for the likes of Sky Sports and ITV.

At the same time, while she had impressed with her knowledge and passion for the game on television, Carney had never previously entered the political realm.

Although she had been awarded an MBE for services to football in the New Year’s Honours List of 2017, Carney was, and still is, a very different figurehead to Tracey Crouch, the Member of Parliament who was the vanguard of the fan-led review into English football which was published in November 2021 after the European Super League debacle, for example.

In September, Carney was invited to participate at the UEFA Football Board in Geneva to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the women’s game across the whole of Europe.

So, how had the former Lioness so successfully transitioned from commentator to campaigner?

The answer is simple: clear, consistent and honest communication.

Though she lacked hands-on political experience before taking on this role, Carney was certainly no stranger to public scrutiny.

She had taken the decision to deactivate her Twitter account in December 2020 after the official Leeds United FC account instigated a ‘pile-on’ of sexist abuse in response to Carney’s wholly reasonable assessment that the Covid-19 pandemic had actually helped Leeds to regroup and secure promotion from the Championship the previous season, while she was working on Amazon Prime’s coverage of the Premier League

In addition, less than three weeks before her leadership of the review was announced, Carney inadvertently found herself embroiled in another sexism storm as she was sitting alongside Liverpool legend Graeme Souness when he described football as a “man’s game” live on Sky Sports in the post-match analysis of a fixture between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.

These personal experiences left Carney in no doubt of the gravity of the challenge that she faced. In fact, from the very beginning, she publicly admitted that she had questioned whether she was the right person to be at the forefront of the review.

But, in taking on the challenge, her commitment to making it a success was immediately evident for all to see.

Her insistence that the review would “leave no stone unturned” set a clear precedent for the task at hand.

“I want the women’s game to be the best,” Carney stated in February. “I don’t want to put a label on where it could be. A lot of people have told me: ‘Don’t settle. Don’t settle, keep pushing.’”

Her passion and ambition was undeniable, and she combined this with the views of a panel of experts, including former Lionesses head coach Hope Powell and former men’s international Ian Wright, to assist her in the research at both the elite and grassroots level of the English game.

This bottom-up approach broadened the reach of the review. At a time when the women’s national team were making headline after headline, there remained significant issues in terms of facilities and accessibility further down the pyramid.

Carney herself highlighted this issue at the time of the publication of the report in July. She wrote an article in The Guardian newspaper suggesting that the women’s game was akin to “Instagram vs reality” when you scratch beneath the top level.

A clear example of this disparity came earlier in the year when Lewes FC faced Manchester United in their first-ever FA Cup Quarter-Final. The Women’s Championship club wrote an open letter to Carney ahead of the tie, calling for her to recommend the equalisation of the FA Cup prize fund between men and women.

The letter read: “Our progress in this season’s FA Cup has earned us £45,000 in prize money, incomparable to the £450,000 our male counterparts would have earned… Therefore, we ask that your recommendations address the gender inequality in English football’s greatest prize.”

Carney’s ‘Raising the Bar’ review was published a week before the start of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, which highlighted the potential of the women’s game to be a “billion-pound industry.”

A key suggestion was also that the men’s FA Cup prize money should be redirected to the women’s teams, showing that Carney was not just talking a good game, but listening to the opinions of stakeholders and implementing them into her recommendations.

Carney told Sky Sports: “Players in the [second-tier] Championship are still on £5,000 and working three or four jobs – so when you play quality opposition the level of competitiveness isn’t there.

“The minimum standards, the facilities are not good enough,” she continued. “Female players are being treated as second-class citizens. That’s not my opinion, that what was told for me throughout this whole review.

“So there’s still some real big foundations that we need to fix. The Lionesses in the top part of the pyramid is thriving but the pipeline, the academy deficit, it’s 88 million [£] for boys, 3.25 [£ million] for girls.”

Carney’s messaging throughout the past 12 months has been grounded and relatable whilst remaining ambitious about the positive impact that her findings could have on the development of women’s football, culminating in a comprehensive and poignant 128-page report that has been greeted with widespread praise.

Senior organisations like the Football Association and the Football Supporters’ Association immediately welcomed the findings of the review.

Maheta Molango, CEO of the Professional Footballers’ Association, described the review as “a brave, ambitious and detailed plan for the future of the women’s game.”

The Guardian columnist and women’s football author Suzanne Wrack noted the “sharp and thorough” nature of the review and insisted that it must not be ignored.

The clarity of the ten strategic recommendations makes it difficult to believe that Carney’s efforts can be ignored by senior sports executives and politicians alike.

Her invitation to speak with UEFA is hopefully proof that this is just the first step towards improving the women’s game both at home and abroad.

At the Football Board in Geneva, Carney said: “Everything is moving really fast but we have to build the sport on a solid foundation. Today has been getting people together to understand that there are so many countries and everyone is at different parts in their evolution of women’s football, so to understand and hear everyone’s side is really important because we all want the same thing.”

Again, her message remains the same. Great strides forward have been taken, but the authorities are not in a position to pat themselves on the back or rest on their laurels.

“Everyone’s got a responsibility,” Carney stressed after the review was published. “Government do, clubs do, sponsors. Everyone has a responsibility to help with the investment of the women’s game.”

The timing of the review’s findings is apt. English women’s football finds itself at a decisive juncture with the current broadcast agreement between the Women’s Super League (WSL) and the BBC and Sky expiring at the end of the 2023/24 season.

A new deal will need to be struck, and with financial investment being so fundamental to enacting the changes that Carney has recommended, to continue the growth of the women’s game it is essential that the WSL latches onto the tide of positivity and popularity created by the success of the Lionesses in recent times.

Despite all of her success thus far, Carney certainly isn’t preparing to slow down her efforts now.

MISS – JORDAN HENDERSON

It’s a sad fact of professional football that not a single Premier League player has come out as gay or a member of the LGBTQ+ community

Not since former Nottingham Forest striker Justin Fashanu came out in 1990, before tragically taking his life at the age of just 37, has a top-flight professional player in England felt comfortable enough to do the same.

And with the current state of the game, is that at all surprising?

It’s almost two years since Josh Cavallo came out in Australia, facing abuse for his sexuality on a sadly regular basis.

Meanwhile, FIFA, despite its claims of promoting the world’s game, chose to stage the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison.

A report from Human Rights Watch documented cases of Qatari security forces arbitrarily arresting LGBTQ+ people and subjecting them to “ill-treatment in detention.”

The Premier League has promoted sexual diversity with its annual Rainbow Laces campaign in collaboration with Stonewall to highlight the importance of inclusivity and understanding in society.

In Jordan Henderson, an England international and former captain of Liverpool, the LGBTQ+ community thought they had a high profile ally, who was regularly vocal about his support for Rainbow Laces.

“This campaign is important if there are still supporters out there who don’t feel they can be themselves or, even worse, have to hide who they are for fear of getting abuse or being discriminated against.

“I’m a parent, a husband, a son and a brother and the idea that anyone I love and care about wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable coming to watch me play if they were part of the LGBT community makes me wonder what world we live in,” he said in an interview with The Athletic from 2019.

“As long as even one supporter questions whether they are welcome or can enjoy football because of their sexuality, the campaign is important. It sends the message: you are welcome, we are on your side and the small minded idiots who make you feel uncomfortable have no place in football. Simple as that.

“In this day and age that anyone would make another person feel uncomfortable or unwelcome because of their sexuality is mind-blowing. I can’t get my head round it … this is a place for everyone and it’s up to all of us — players and supporters alike — to get that message across as powerfully and as often as we can.”

In his Liverpool FC matchday programme notes back in November 2021, Henderson reinforced the same message. He wrote: “Before I’m a footballer, I’m a parent, a husband, a son, a brother and a friend to the people in my life who matter so much to me. The idea that any of them would feel excluded from playing or attending a football match, simply for being and identifying as who they are, blows my mind.

“The idea they’d have to hide from it to be accepted? But that’s exactly how too many members of the LGBT+ community feel. We know this because they tell us. So we should listen, support them and work to make it better.

“I don’t feel worthy of being classed as an ally on this subject, but I am incredibly proud to be regarded as one. Improving knowledge and understanding is important.

That’s why the Rainbow Laces campaign is important – not least on our club’s own Community Day – because it gives space for those who do have a proper understanding to help us all learn.”

So, even with the Saudi Pro League, backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, signing up high profile players on big wages over the summer, it still came as a shock when news broke that Henderson was set to agree a move to Al-Ettifaq for a reported £700,000 per week.

Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ fan group Kop Outs released a statement in response to the potential transfer, saying that they hoped that Henderson would “prove to be a man of his word”.

In a thread shared to social media the group said: “Kop Outs have valued the allyship shown by Jordan Henderson.

“We are appalled and concerned that anyone might consider working for a sportswashing operation for a regime where women & LGBT+ people are oppressed and that regularly tops the world death sentence table.

“When someone’s made a fortune, should money tempt them to go to work? Maybe they should be asking themselves those questions.

“We hope that Jordan Henderson proves to be a man of his word and stays true to the values of our club, which so far he has been an absolute embodiment of.”

It isn’t difficult to conclude that the Saudi Pro League is sportswashing, a political project to garner some respectability in the shadow of lamentable human rights and intolerance.

By agreeing the move, Henderson went from being considered an honourable and decent sportsman to just another mercenary selling his soul for riches.

In the announcement video, the club made no attempt to disguise the cultural discrimination, censoring his rainbow armband during a montage of his career highlights.

Stonewall’s director of external affairs Robbie de Santos hopes the attention the move has attracted will help shine further light on Saudi Arabia: “I was shocked but not surprised at such blatant erasure of the LGBTQ+ community through that and it shines a light on just how systematic the Saudi authorities and the prevailing culture is, eliminating and eradicating the visibility of our community there.

"We can’t deny the reality of lives for the LGBTQ+ community in Saudi Arabia, and we hope that Henderson continues his work to build towards a world where sport is everybody's game."

No wonder former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger tweeted his shock at Henderson’s move to the Middle East: "So Jordan Henderson finally gets his move to Saudi Arabia.

"Fair play to him, he can play wherever he wants to play. Curious to know though how the new brand JH will look like. The old one is dead!

"I did believe for a while that his support for the LGBT+ community would be genuine. Silly me…”

Henderson’s hypocrisy in moving to Saudi Arabia has undone all the great work he had previously done as an LGBTQ+ ally, and the lack of comment for some weeks gave rise to more assumptions that he had sold his soul for the money.

In a tweet ahead of joining the England squad for their September internationals, Henderson said: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the hospitality of the hosts, the enthusiasm of the fans, the exciting league and the irreplaceable sense of victory. Next is better Great win, looking forward to meeting up with the boys now.” It’s hard to imagine that he wrote what felt like a propaganda post by himself.

When Henderson was called up by England coach Gareth Southgate, Joe White, the co-chair of Pride in Football and founder of Three Lions Pride, believes Henderson will be shunned by some fans.

“I don’t think it will go hostile because ultimately we want England to do as well as possible but I do think that, say he came on as a substitute, where before there would be a lot of cheering, particularly from our group at Three Lions Pride, I think there will just be silence now .

“It may well be that there comes a joint message from the LGBT fans in the stadium who may well turn their backs on him coming onto the pitch in the same way he turned his back on us by going to Saudi.

“I don’t think he can regain the trust purely because he’s now living in a country where it’s illegal to be LGBT, where the local LGBT community have to hide and live in fear of arrest, of state-sanctioned abuse.”

In early September, Henderson finally spoke out in a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic which was full of contradictions and fanciful comments that made a mockery of his reputation as a wise head on young shoulders.

He recalled a visit in Qatar - undoubtedly sanitised for the sake of the players - which saw him question the concerns about human rights he had previously been concerned about.

He said: “We had a meeting with the FA about human rights, about the issues around the stadiums. I think it might have been Amnesty who had sent the images and stuff. And then, half an hour later, I go into a press conference or some media and I’ve commented on that situation.

“I was like, ‘Well, it was quite shocking and horrendous”’ and that was quite hard for us to see. But then when I went to Qatar and we had the experience we had at the World Cup, you get to meet the workers there and it was totally different.”

Perhaps Stonewall’s de Santos will see his wishes granted if Henderson’s comments can be taken at face value.

Henderson revealed that he was prepared for a backlash: “I can understand the frustration. I can understand the anger. I get it. All I can say around that is that I’m sorry that they feel like that. My intention was never, ever to hurt anyone. My intention has always been to help causes and communities where I felt like they have asked for my help.

"I do care about different causes that I've been involved in, and different communities… I do care. And for people to criticise and say that I'd turned my back on them really, really hurt me.

"All I can say is that I apologise, I'm sorry that I've made them feel that way. But I haven't changed as a person.

"I've gone above and beyond to help [the LGBTQ+ community]. I've worn the laces. I've worn the armband. I've spoken to people in that community to try to use my profile to help them. That's all I've ever tried to do.

"When I hear stuff like, 'You've turned your back on us', that hurts me. I do care. I have family and friends in the LGBTQ+ community."

“When I was making the decision, the way that I tried to look at it was I felt as though, by myself not going, we can all bury our heads in the sand and criticise different cultures and different countries from afar. But then nothing’s going to happen. Nothing’s going to change.”

He goes on in the interview to admit that he would consider wearing the rainbow laces in Saudi, although he then hints that it wouldn’t be appropriate: “I wouldn’t rule that [wearing rainbow laces] out. But at the same time, what I wouldn’t do is disrespect the religion and culture in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“If we’re all saying everybody can be who they want to be and everybody is inclusive, then we’ll have to respect that. We’ll have to respect everyone. And by doing something like that, if that did disrespect the religion, then no, I’m not going to do that. But if the opportunity comes where I can do it and it doesn’t, then yeah, because that’s my values.”

We could be waiting a long time, one suspects, with his interview dismissed by Kop Outs founder Paul Amann, who said: “I was very surprised that he thinks he can take the ‘oh sorry if people feel that way’ sort of approach. It doesn’t feel like any genuine sense of an apology.

“It almost speaks of a white saviour complex for Henderson to think that he’s going to be the individual that will result in change for that regime.

“His contribution as a player is untouchable. He’s captained Liverpool to everything that could be won. His behaviour as a human being is that’s the thing that has been trashed. I would not be happy to celebrate his legacy personally and I don’t think many Kop Outs would be happy because of what he’s done.”

There is often a debate about why high profile sports people are seen as role models and that they should not be held to the same standards as politicians, for instance.

But that misses the point, especially with the influence and platform that elite sports people have to reach, in many cases, far bigger audiences, avoiding the opportunity really stand up for the cause.

By positioning himself as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, Henderson had a responsibility to maintain that solidarity, both for his own reputation but more importantly for those affected by causes that athletes like Henderson have chosen to support.

The abandonment of his supposed principles has not just damaged Henderson’s reputation, but has also broken down the trust of the community in the support from other players, with everyone now conditioned to expect that player support will be taken away if it no longer becomes suitable or convenient for them.

Henderson still has an opportunity to right this wrong, and any public support of the LGBTQ+ community now has the potential to be even more powerful given that he would be doing it from Saudi Arabia.

Based on his recent messaging, however, it feels hard to believe that will ever happen.

[treasurecoastslidingdoors]

Replacing Sliding Door Rollers

Replace Worn Sliding Door Rollers for Smooth Gliding Operation

Over time, the rollers on sliding patio and balcony doors can deteriorate, stick, or break entirely. Worn rollers prevent doors from sliding smoothly and sealing properly when closed. Replacing damaged rollers is key to restoring proper functioning and ease of use. This article covers signs you need new rollers, DIY vs professional replacement, costs, and more.

Knowing When Sliding Door Rollers Need Replacement

Sliding door rollers let doors glide left and right along floor or wall-mounted tracks. Signs it's time for new rollers include:

Grinding or squeaking noises when operating doors

Visibly cracked, broken, or missing rollers

Doors not sliding smoothly or getting stuck

Doors are off track, sagging, or hard to move

Gaps along edges allowing air/water intrusion

Any of these issues likely indicate worn rollers needing replacement to restore smooth gliding.

DIY vs Professional Sliding Door Roller Replacement

You have two options for repairing worn sliding door rollers:

DIY Replacement: With proper tools and parts, homeowners can replace rollers themselves. However, the rollers must be precisely realigned which can be tricky. It's easy to accidentally get doors more off track.

Professional Replacement: Hiring a certified sliding door technician is advisable for most. They have the expertise to thoroughly assess issues, adjust doors properly, and ensure optimal functioning after repair. Well worth the cost.

Replacement Frequency for Sliding Door Rollers

With regular use, sliding door rollers typically need replacement every 5-8 years. Any signs of sagging, sticking, or grinding sounds means it's time. Rollers on frequently used doors may need replacing more often. Inspect regularly and replace rollers at first indication of issues.

The Process of Replacing Sliding Door Rollers

Replacing worn rollers involves:

Carefully removing door from track

Taking out old roller assemblies

Installing new roller hardware in the same slots

Rehanging and testing slide motion

Adjusting new rollers until even, smooth gliding

Proper realignment is crucial to avoid further problems. Professional technicians have specialized skills and tools to complete roller replacement properly.

For residents of Port St. Lucie, FL, Treasure Coast Sliding Door Repair offers professional sliding door roller replacement services, including:

Thoroughly inspecting door systems to identify underlying issues

Using only top quality replacement roller hardware specific to your door

Precisely rehanging and adjusting doors for smooth, even operation

Testing operation and fixing any additional minor issues spotted

Providing warranties on labor and parts for peace of mind

With over 10 years of experience, they can expertly get your sliding patio doors gliding like new again.

The Bottom Line on Sliding Door Roller Replacement

While costs vary based on factors like door size and technician fees, expect to pay an average of $150 - $300. Treasure Coast Sliding Door Repair provides upfront estimates so you know exactly what to expect.

For over 10 years, they have provided excellent sliding door repairs in Port St. Lucie and surrounding areas. Their expertise ensures:

Proper door operation after repairs

Use of only the highest quality replacement parts

Precise adjustments for perfect functioning

Warranties for peace of mind

For sliding door roller replacement performed right at a fair price, call (772) 207-4146. Get your sliding patio doors gliding smoothly again!

[inspiring-vacations1]

Exploring Kimberley: Top Destinations And Must-See Attractions

If you want to see these prehistoric beasts in their native habitat and take in some stunning views at the same time, then we have just the best list of experience tours to Kakadu for you! Here are top destinations:

Hartley's Crocodile Adventures

Hartley's Crocodile Adventures is one of the most popular attractions in Kimberley, and with good reason. It's a great place to see crocodiles--and not just any old crocs, but some big ones! You can look down into their mouths, take pictures with them (if you're brave enough), and even swim with them if you'd like.

If that doesn't sound like fun enough already, there are plenty of other activities on offer here too: canoe rides downriver through mangroves; guided tours through the park; and even overnight camping trips where you can stay in tents right next to a lake full of crocs all day long!

Augrabies Falls National Park

Augrabies Falls National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of South Africa's most visited parks. The park is located in the Northern Cape province, about 150 kilometers from Kimberley. It's a great place to go if you want to see some of South Africa's most impressive natural wonders, including beautiful waterfalls and rugged mountain landscapes. 

There are many different activities you can do at Augrabies Falls National Park including hiking or mountain biking along trails that lead through lush forested areas where monkeys can often be spotted climbing trees or swinging from branches above your head!

There are also several campsites available within the park so if you're looking for somewhere unique where everyone in your family can enjoy nature together without having too much trouble getting there then this might just be what they've been waiting for!

The Kimberley Lift-Off Skyslide

The Kimberley Lift-Off Skyslide is a unique experience, offering an adrenaline-fueled ride that's perfect for the whole family.

What is it? The skyslide is a glass slide that takes you from the top of a building in downtown Banff, Alberta down to street level in just over two minutes (it takes less than a minute to reach the bottom). It's completely enclosed and safe--and there's no need to worry about getting wet!

How long is it? At 1,117 feet long (or 335 meters), this attraction will give you plenty of time to take in all of its beauty as you ride down from one end of Banff Avenue towards Lake Minnewanka below.

Height restrictions? Riders must be at least 48 inches tall and able to fit into their seat belt comfortably; however, children under 13 years old must be accompanied by an adult who meets these requirements as well. There are no weight restrictions on riders over 13 years old but anyone weighing more than 250 pounds may not be able to participate due to safety reasons related specifically with weight distribution during high speeds along curves on certain parts of this track surface structure where riders could potentially lose control if excessive amounts were added onto either side causing imbalance issues between left side vs right side steering inputs which would lead into unsafe conditions.

We hope you enjoyed our list of tours to Kimberley’s top attractions. If you're planning a trip, we suggest starting with these must-see attractions and then exploring from there!

Source URL: https://sites.google.com/view/top-kimberley-destination/