#like I get the physical aspect and the law part and even the gun training. but I don't want to be a police officer 😭

[casiavium]

why are national park rangers police officers. Why if I wanted to be a park ranger would I need police law enforcement training.

[antoine-roquentin]

The popular conception of chivalry, as a moral code guiding the behavior of honorable knights, is flat-out, laughably wrong. That’s a creation of 19th-century authors like Walter Scott, and the popular fantasy authors (basically up until George R.R. Martin) who built on their worldview in the 20th.

In reality, chivalry was all about one particular version of Guys Being Dudes. Chivalry could refer to a few different things, but the most common meaning was simply battlefield deeds, executed with some style. This, what knights referred to as “prowess,” was at the core of the broader ideology of chivalry: raw, bloody, physical performance, violence done effectively and to an agreed-upon aesthetic standard. The second major concern of chivalry, honor, grew directly out of the first. Honor wasn’t an abstract concept to medieval knights; it was a possession, a recognition of their particular status and place in the social hierarchy, which they were well within their rights to violently defend and assert through their prowess. Piety was the icing on the cake, but no knight really doubted that God approved of their actions.

An oral culture, passed around during training sessions and drinking bouts and feasts and military campaigns, produced this culture and inculcated new knights into it. A whole universe of texts, the kinds of things knights read or had read to them, sent the same message, like this 12th-century poem called Girart de Vienne:

When I see the whinnying war-steeds plunge

With worthy knights into a battle’s crush,

And see their spears and cutting blades well struck,

There is nothing on earth I love so much!

These were dudes who loved getting after it, and for them, getting after it meant blood-soaked deeds on the battlefield. It’s not that there was nothing more to it - sure, there were some bits about romance and ladies, debates about religiosity and moral actions, exhortations to do better - but the core was always physical, male violence. And it obviously wasn’t for everyone: Knights were members of a hereditary military aristocracy, and their possession of chivalry was what set them apart from dirty peasants.

Two aspects neatly parallel modern Bro Culture: first, the emphasis on physicality and the body, and how that provided both a sense of the self and secured social status; and second, the restricted, bubble-like world that produced and emphasized it, with its fictional and real heroes, its stories about great deeds, its values, and its models to be emulated. Your average knight would absolutely identify with and appreciate this impossibly toxic meathead sentiment:

Obviously, there are pieces that don’t neatly parallel, the biggest ones being the hereditary and explicitly military nature of chivalry. You don’t have to be a soldier to be a Bro, though it doesn’t hurt. And - much more important - you aren’t born into being a Bro; you become one, by doing worthy deeds of prowess.

That’s a quintessentially American value: the idea that anybody can make something of themselves if they work hard enough, move enough weight, run fast enough, practice enough to shoot a tight grouping, make the right sacrifices. The physical meritocracy (and its potential rewards of fame and fortune) is open to anyone willing to do whatever it takes to climb the ladder. Even the least intellectually gifted meathead can make something of himself if he does the workouts, takes the right gear, and builds his audience on YouTube and Instagram. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and smash that follow button.

In a moment of stagnant social mobility, rising inequality, and incredible uncertainty around the future, this strongly visual message of self-betterment and improving one’s socioeconomic status through literal sweat can resonate deeply. It’s all within the individual’s control, if they simply work enough - an antidote to all that uncertainty, everything that’s so obviously beyond an individual’s control and reckoning, no matter how misleading and incomplete the formula actually is.

That’s especially appealing to the many millions of American men who don’t have college degrees (many more of them than women, given the gendered trends in undergraduate enrollment) who are effectively locked out of professional-managerial culture and its straightforward path into the comfortable upper-middle class. Accomplishment through physical prowess is thus a means of building both a sense of self and community.

The connections to this particular moment in American culture and history go much deeper than that, though. This whole edifice of Bro Culture grows out of the broader rise of influencers, performative self-branding through social media, and the construction of identity through consumption.

With the right protein powder, shilled by your favorite strongman, you too can deadlift 800 pounds, or at least tell yourself you’ll get there someday. With the right brand of CBD tincture, which sponsors your favorite Crossfit athlete, you won’t feel that burning pain in your rotator cuff after you clean and jerk too much weight with suboptimal technique. By religiously listening to the right Bro-approved entrepreneurship podcast, hosted by some guy who happened to get booked on the Joe Rogan Experience during a slow week, you too can buy a McMansion in an affordable suburb.

Much of what happens in Bro Culture is driven by lifestyle consumption: ads for sunglasses on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast, brand partnerships between supplement companies and YouTube stars, tactical holsters for concealed-carry that an ex-Marine with a million Instagram followers wants you to buy. It’s self-actualization through sponsor codes.

The tactical lifestyle craze, a natural outgrowth of this particular slice of Bro Culture, is the logical endpoint of all this. It’s where entrepreneurial late capitalism and influencer trends meet imperial wars, the militarization of the police, and the emergence of Gun Guys as a default protected class within American society. You’re not a Crossfitter anymore; you’re a “tactical athlete,” doing varied types of interval, cardio, and strength training so you can be a more effective soldier or cop or firefighter or whatever, or you just want to feel like you could be one. The physical training is only part of this, since you can prominently declare your tactical affiliations with a variety of lifestyle products, ranging from coffee mugs to American flag stickers for your car to, naturally, firearms....

Just as much as its coffee, whose quality I can’t speak to, Black Rifle Coffee Company is selling the tactical lifestyle. They offer a staggering variety of T-shirts, hoodies, hats, mugs, thermoses, and stickers, many of them prominently branded with the eponymous “black rifle” of the brand. There are a lot of American flags and pieces of law-enforcement and military iconography, signifiers of the in-groups to whom the consumers of BRCC’s products belong, want to belong, or for whom they want to signal their support. BRCC has explicitly labeled itself as a coffee company for conservatives, an active participant in the culture wars. If you don’t like Starbucks and its effete, refugee-supporting, liberal tendencies, buy some Black Rifle product instead. If you like Trump, you’ll be at home with BRCC. Don Jr. endorsed them.

After the picture of Rittenhouse in the Black Rifle Coffee Company shirt appeared, its founder Evan Hafer quickly disavowed the youthful shooter. Even for an explicitly MAGA coffee company, supporting a teenaged AR enthusiast with blood on his hands was a bridge too far. But Rittenhouse had already been shaped by the world BRCC and its fellow-travelers have made. He got the message, loud and clear: You too can become a hero, or at least dress and drink coffee like one, by purchasing the right products, watching the right videos, and following the same Extended Bro Culture influencers. Don’t forget to like and subscribe.

The Veteran-owned piece of BRCC’s appeal isn’t a coincidence. They’re selling a position in the culture wars, a sense of belonging, but also a particular vision of what it means to be American, a man, and an American man. A staggering number of this part of Bro Culture’s key figures are veterans. Jocko Willink, perhaps the best known (and least openly political) of the bunch, was a Navy SEAL officer; he was actually the commanding officer of the famous sniper Chris Kyle during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006.

After retiring, Willink turned his SEAL experience into a career as a leadership consultant, motivational speaker, media personality, and energy drink salesman. His intensity, built on his military service, is legendary: His exhortations to do hard things regularly, to live by a code, and take responsibility for oneself, resonate with millions of people. And Willink is far from the only one to do so, turning overseas service in imperial wars, especially as a special forces operator, into a key component of his entrepreneurial appeal. This isn’t a judgement on his military service; it’s a statement of fact. Being an undeniable badass is a the core part of why Jocko Willink is a quintessential Bro Hero.

Imperial wars overseas always come home eventually, and they do so in complex ways. The fact that millions of people listen to Jocko Willink, buy Black Rifle Coffee Company merchandise, and dabble in more extreme fringes is a product of decades spent elevating not just military service writ large but violent combat overseas against ill-defined Others. For every Jocko Willink, there’s an Eddie Gallagher, the SEAL who was convicted of and then recently pardoned for war crimes after becoming a cause célèbre for large swathes of the online right.

If these are the heroes Bro Culture puts forth - special operators accustomed to high-intensity, high-volume fighting overseas, who then develop enormous media platforms - it’s obvious what message Kyle Rittenhouse and the innumerable police officers, tactical fitness enthusiasts, and more run-of-the-mill viewers and listeners will take. Millions of people listen to Joe Rogan when he talks to Jocko Willink, Tim Kennedy (the Green Beret and MMA fighter and increasingly open right-wing figure), or Cameron Hanes (who advocated for Eddie Gallagher’s release). They’re warriors. Joe Rogan isn’t a soldier, but he’s a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a former competitive kickboxer, a bowhunter, and a firearms enthusiast. If these are the people at the core of Bro Culture, a culture that directly touches tens of millions of American men, then there are bound to be knock-on effects. If they’re constantly telling their listeners to be ready, to be tactical, to be prepared to fight and to be good at it, that means something.

This is why I think Bro Culture, or at least its extended reaches, deserve more scrutiny and attention. The code of American manhood that’s developing out of this social-media melting pot has some aspects that bear watching: A love of firearms centered on tactical usefulness (for use in what context, exactly?), a vision of muscular physicality, self-defense as a personal obligation, an unquestioning hero-worship of military culture, and far too often, a deep suspicion of people who don’t subscribe to this precise view of being a guy. Support the Troops, and if you don’t, you’re not really a man at all. If cops - quintessential subjects of Bro Culture - are told that they need to be bigger and stronger and quicker on the draw, that they’re basically Troops, and that the targets of violence deserve what they get, what’s the likely outcome of tense interactions between police and the people they’re supposed to serve?

[alarawriting]

52 Project #6: Birds

(I am not 100% positive that this is a story per se, but it’s as much of a story as China Mieville’s “The New Death” and other such “new weird” stories, so... here you go.)

***

One day all the men in the world woke up to find that they had been turned into birds.

It began in New Zealand, where a day is first born on the planet Earth. By the time that women were waking and going into hysterics because the men and older boys in their lives had all turned into birds, the men of Central Asia, India, and the middle of Russia had already gone to bed. It was late enough in Europe that many men were getting ready for bed; a large number of them missed the warnings. Not that the warnings helped; men who tried to stay awake all night stayed human, but sooner or later, they all had to sleep.

In Western Europe and the Americas, there was an idea that maybe if someone would keep waking a man up, he wouldn’t turn into a bird, so many women kept watch by their husbands’ bedsides. It didn’t help. No one was able to see the transformation; they’d blink and a human lying in bed would suddenly be a bird. Even with high speed cameras, it proved impossible to catch the transformation. One frame, human man; next frame, bird. And they were many different kinds of birds – pigeons and roosters and peacocks, ostriches and starlings and falcons, flamingos and penguins and seagulls. Practically every kind of bird you can imagine, including some extinct birds – at least two men became dodos and one became a passenger pigeon.

Fortunately, it turned out that the birds could still talk, and sounded exactly like the men they used to be. This was helpful when linking birds to their former identities, because of course, none of them matched the pictures on their ID cards. It took a little bit longer to convince everyone, closer to a week, but eventually it was proven that the birds all retained every aspect of their former intelligence and personality.

Birds argued that this meant nothing should change significantly; birds could still go to work at their old jobs. This was true of birds who worked in banks and in IT and in management, for the most part, but any jobs that required physical strength, dexterity, or simply having a human-sized body? Birds couldn’t do those jobs. So for a while there was a severe shortage of plumbers, electricians, construction workers, garbage collectors, and bus drivers. Some New York city pigeons argued that if people with no legs could drive cars, surely adaptive equipment could be built to let pigeons drive the buses, but it was easier to get women to do the job than to build such equipment. Birds either lost their jobs entirely in those kinds of industries, or were kept on the payroll to teach women how to do what they had been doing when they were men.

For a while it was thought that there were occasional anomalies – men who didn’t turn into birds, women who did – and this gave people some idea that the situation could be reversed, but this proved to be a false hope. To a man, everyone who didn’t turn into a bird was not in fact a man; anyone with a penis who didn’t turn into a bird was either a trans woman or a nonbinary person. Likewise, trans men did turn into birds – male ones. All the birds were physiologically male even if they had seemed to be women when they were human. This was a stressful situation to be sure, since all the trans women had just been forcibly outed, but on the other hand, it was fairly good evidence for their contention that yes, they really were women, that whatever force had transformed the men hadn’t touched them.

After an initial difficult adjustment period, birds who’d been men were soon flying, or in the case of penguins, swimming. Some domestic geese and roosters, too heavy to fly, hit the gym to train their wings and lose weight. Personal trainers who were now birds devised regimens that other birds could follow, to strengthen their wings, and personal trainers who were still women helped birds to do the regimens, since there weren’t yet gym machines designed for birds. Birds discovered, to general happiness on their part, that whatever special ability the bird they had transformed into had, they now had it. So pigeons could always find their way home, and roosters could crow. Roosters in fact were very, very fond of crowing. Owls could see very well in the dark and eagles could see tremendous distances and parrots could imitate any sound they heard and pelicans could stuff their beak full of whatever they wanted to carry.

In addition, the birds they’d become seemed to have some connection to the personality they’d had as men. Men who’d thought there was no place like home became pigeons. Men who’d been models or actors who’d loved to show off their handsome bodies became peacocks. Men who were short and aggressive and always on the go became hummingbirds. The species was usually appropriate to the location as well; birds of wild, native species always turned out to be living in the area that species was native to. Temperature and environment seemed to also be a factor; the only men who turned into penguins had been living in cold places, near water. Since the entire Southern Hemisphere was having winter at the time, this might have resulted in a disproportionate number of penguins in Africa and South America, but it was more common for birds who weren’t penguins, who’d loved Polar Bear Challenges and skiing and cold weather sports, to regret the fact that they weren’t penguins because it was too hot for penguins where they lived when the change came, than for penguins to regret their penguin identity.

This was all quite nice and a boon for the birds, whose lives had been so very disrupted by their transformation, and many argued that in fact they had the far better deal than the women who’d gotten to keep their humanity; they had their intelligence and their speech but they could also fly. How awesome was that? Women generally responded to such comments either with amused tolerance, or with an obscene gesture that involved the use of an opposable thumb, because of course that was the main thing the birds had lost. Many bird talons were very dexterous and had opposable thumbs, but they were feet, and the birds couldn’t use them for the same tasks that had been easy for hands. Deaf birds were devastated; by losing their hands, they’d lost speech. They could type notes to their wives or mothers or other birds in their life, but it wasn’t the same. Groups of deaf people, both birds and women, gathered to discuss and work out signs that birds could make, but this was essentially telling birds that they needed to learn an entirely new language to translate their own into.

Plus, there were certain biological realities that had upended the order of things that humans had grown to expect. Now, aside from a few ostriches, cassowaries, emus and other very large birds, every human woman was bigger than most of the birds. Birds who’d been abusive men found themselves in cages, and when policewomen and policebirds came to do wellness checks and investigate why a certain bird hadn’t been seen in a long time, those cages often ended up in closets or the basement or the attic, and were never found by the police.

It wasn’t all that suspicious. Many birds, especially ones who’d lost their jobs, had decided to give up on running the human rat race, and had abandoned their human families and flown off with a flock of like-minded birds, usually of similar species. Why not? Birds could forage for food on their own – they didn’t need to go grocery shopping. Why did they need money, or jobs? They could live like the wild birds did!

A lot of these came back, injured by predators or far too thin, because they didn’t know nearly as much about getting the available food as the never-human birds did.

Many birds died in the early days – cancer patients couldn’t get chemo that would work on birds, but they still had cancer. Men who’d needed open heart surgery became birds too small for anyone to safely operate on. Also, there weren’t nearly enough trained bird doctors. Most veterinarians knew dogs and cats; bird specialties were rare. And obviously, human doctors knew nothing about birds. So there was a massive shortage of doctors who could do anything about the problems birds suffered, and half of the few doctors there were, were birds themselves.

Birds who were vets with a specialty in birds were shadowed by women who were vets, and sometimes women who were human doctors, trying to learn all they could about care for birds. Women and birds in veterinary colleges elected to learn about birds, and the same professors who taught bird specialties to veterinarians were called in to teach med students. Most countries allocated huge amounts of money to getting bird doctors trained up and ready as soon as possible.

The balance of power shifted. In the United States, several female senators argued that birds had no business being allowed to make laws for humans. What if all they did was vote for free birdseed and the extermination of cats? The bird senators argued that the United States was now a country for both humans and birds, and needed to be represented by both. The women pointed out that there were far, far too few women for that to make sense; birds should represent birds and women should represent women, and since every senator here had been voted for by humans, and now only women were humans, all the existing seats in the Senate should be taken by women, and birds could go have their own Senate. Some human senators from states where gun rights were important showed up to the senate exercising their Second Amendment rights to carry weapons… which, of course, birds could not do. In response, a falcon insisted on reading the entire script of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds into the senatorial record. In the end it was decided that the states would vote on a constitutional amendment to set aside one seat per state for a bird and one for a woman, and in the meantime, a lot of senatorial birds got female aides or proteges to speak for them in the Senate, so anything the bird wanted to say went through the human first.

Many other countries went through similar experiences. In countries where women had been virtually or entirely shut out of power completely, birds found that their expertise in rule was not desired, thank you, and many, many birds found themselves in birdcages. Large numbers of women objected to this, arguing that if it was the will of God for women to rule, God would have already allowed this. Other women retorted that what better evidence did you need that God wanted women to run things than that God had turned all the men into birds? More egalitarian countries generally had more peaceful agreements between women and birds as to how to split up leadership roles.

The President of the United States – the new one; the old one had been tragically killed when he’d transformed into a house wren, a very small bird with a very loud mouth, and the First Lady had accidentally rolled over on him in the middle of the night – agreed to abdicate in favor of the Speaker of the House, who was a woman, if the House would pass an emergency resolution that there would be a new election as soon as possible and that birds and women should both be explicitly authorized to vote for any candidate of either type, bird or woman. Birds were suddenly very much in favor of gun control, and while many women had been in favor of total freedom to use guns, more women in general favored gun control as well, so the United States finally got sensible gun laws.

In Great Britain there was a kerfluffle – Queen Elizabeth was ancient and her heir was a bird. It was argued that birds, no longer being human, could not possibly still be part of the royal bloodline. Birds, of course, argued against this proposition, and women in Great Britain didn’t generally have guns. They did, however, have rocks. It turned out that the remarkable human ability to throw rocks was now a problem for birds. Her Majesty ended the conflict by demanding that Parliament pass an emergency amendment allowing birds to serve as King so long as there was a woman of sufficient rank and bloodline standing as his Queen.

Of course, all of this was going to be moot very soon if humanity didn’t confront the elephant in the room – sex and reproduction.

The sperm banks were going to deplete within a generation. Trans women and nonbinary people born with penises could make a great deal of money selling sperm, if they still had the equipment to make it with, because women still wanted children. Immediately after the change it had seemed that perhaps the human race would be spared after this generation, because baby boys hadn’t transformed – boys as old as 4 had remained human. However, within two weeks, the news went around the globe that a little boy had just turned into a bird, and it continued to be the case that as boys aged, they would transform into birds too. The population of humans who still had testicles that worked was very, very small, and scientists warned that there would be unacceptably high risks of massive interbreeding if every cis woman who wanted a baby was buying sperm from a trans woman. Fertility experts worked day and night on finding a way to either cause a somatic cell in vitro to undergo meiosis, or to permit two eggs to be merged into a viable zygote.

Birds had lost all sexual interest in human woman. Many birds still had lingering romantic feelings for the women they had loved, but it wasn’t sexual. Instead, they were sexually attracted to other birds of their species. The gay and bi birds were widely considered to have gotten the best of it, since while many male-male couples were broken up by the two birds being of different species, at least some got to be two birds of the same kind, and they could continue to be lovers. And some couples made it work even when they were different species of bird. Obviously, nearly every single heterosexual couple – with a few kinky exceptions – lost their sex lives completely. Birds who’d been straight men would mate with never-human birds, and while many women, and some birds, argued that this was bestiality and it was repulsive and should be against the law, most birds felt that it was necessary. What other options did they have?

Meanwhile the sex industry was turned upside down. Prostitutes and porn stars and other sex workers suddenly had no clients interested in what they had to sell. But they knew the truth – human women were horny, and desperate for sexual contact with human men, which could no longer happen. Straight-up porn of the wham bam thank you ma’am type was not appealing to most women; whether having been raised to think Good Girls Don’t, or having some biological predilection, none could say, but the truth remained that women wanted their porn in context, with men who had strong emotional bonds with the people they were ostensibly fucking. Lesbians had no trouble finding porn in the new world, but it was heterosexual women who were starved for sexual attention, and they were the new big market.

Different strategies for creating porn with men in it were used. Some dead men or former men were resurrected on film by the miracles of CGI. Women with strap-ons could be rotoscoped into handsome men. The biggest new market, however, was animation. Birds still sounded like men – their voices tended to be tinny, lacking the full timbre of a human voice, but this could be fixed by a good sound mixer – so voice acting became a very popular profession for birds. Some birds went into doing phone sex; they weren’t interested in human women anymore but they were interested in fat paychecks, and they remembered what it had been like well enough to act.

Similar transformations encompassed Hollywood and in fact the entire entertainment industry. Rock stars who’d been famed for their voices could still sing, but they couldn’t play guitar, or keyboards – some birds managed to keep up with drums – so birds who could sing ended up making albums with women who could play instruments, and the stars who’d been famous for their virtuoso skills with their instruments… either went into singing also, learned how to program synthesizers to sound like the instruments they’d once played, or took advantage of their ability to mimic noises to be their own instrument, singing like a bird instead of like a human. Or left music entirely. Theatre, for the most part, dressed up women to play the parts of men, although some more avant-garde productions kept birds in some important roles. Movies and TV became dominated by CGI and traditional or computer-assisted animation, although some television shows set in supposedly modern times just rolled with it and incorporated the bird transformation into their storylines, so they could keep their bird actors.

Things settled down after it had been a year or so since the transformation. Birds still worked in entertainment and in professions where their minds were their greatest assets – writers, professors, researchers, programmers – and in most countries, were guaranteed all the legal rights they’d had as humans, though some countries had adopted new rules regarding bird representation in their government. Women did everything else. This left a lot of unemployed birds – they couldn’t all do phone sex – and many of these either opted out of the human race, joining in flocks of like-minded birds, or they stayed in their homes all day, surfed YouTube, and played video games with controllers that had been designed for birds.

It was around that time when scientists made a tremendous breakthrough. Sperm from birds, if collected rather than deposited into another bird’s cloaca, would, after two or three days in a refrigerator, spontaneously transform into human sperm. The human race was saved. Birds still didn’t have any sexual interest in human women, but many birds were definitely interested in the ability to father human children; their bird children were ordinary never-human birds, unable to speak. Fortunately, birds who’d been romantically interested in women back when they were men were often still romantically interested in women, and women found that they were entirely capable of falling in love with birds. For sexual release, birds needed to be with birds and women usually turned either to vibrators or to women (or sometimes nonbinary people with penises, but many of those felt uncomfortable in relationships with average women, feeling that most women saw them as men even though they weren’t), but women could pet birds, and birds could preen women’s hair, and birds and women could still join finances and households and raise children together.

The killing of birds was outlawed almost everywhere, since how could you tell the difference between a never-human bird and a bird who was just tongue-tied? Some argued that the killing of female birds should still be okay, but others pointed out that birds could father never-human female birds, and that even though their children couldn’t talk and had animal intelligence, they still loved them. The poultry industry was devastated. People discovered that lizards tasted just like chicken, and soon breeding lizards for food was a new norm. Unfertilized eggs were still considered edible, so hens were still raised for eggs, but never-human roosters were often dumped in the woods because they couldn’t be killed and they weren’t useful to egg producing farms. They usually ended up feeding some creature who wasn’t a human. Sometimes those creatures were formerly human birds of prey like falcons or eagles, who knew it was illegal to feed on other birds, but knew they’d probably get away with it because no one cared about the never-human roosters except some animal rights activists. Roosters who had been human were not legally allowed near the egg farms; no one wanted them to mate with hens and perhaps produce rooster chicks who’d eventually be abandoned in the woods. It was, however, perfectly legal for a rooster to buy hens and keep them in a coop at his home, as long as he understood that he had the obligation to protect and provide for any offspring from such a union.

Eggs being breakable by rooster beaks, very few roosters actually ended up having to support chicks of their own.

Before long, things had settled down into a new normal. “People” now consisted of human women (and non-binary people, but they were a small enough part of the whole that sadly, people kept forgetting they existed) and talking birds. In addition to having a birthday, boys got to celebrate their bird-day, the anniversary of their bird transformation, and All Birds’ Day – the anniversary of the day the world changed -- was an international holiday. Girls and non-binary children – basically, all the kids who remained human – would study “humanity” between the ages of five and seven in preparation for their “confirmation”, an official recognition of their human status. While humanities, plural, had once meant the study of art, literature, history and languages, “humanity” was a class aimed at children that focused on human history (with rather more emphasis on the contributions of women than their parents remembered from their schooldays), and at teaching skills that were specific to being human, or at least, to not being birds. Throwing balls. Playing musical instruments. Endurance running. In rural areas, shooting a gun. In coastal areas, swimming. This wasn’t technically unique to humans – penguins could swim underwater, and many birds could swim on the surface – but it was true that most birds couldn’t do it. Sometime between a human child’s seventh and eighth birthdays, they would usually have their confirmation ceremony, affirmatively declaring their humanity, and then they’d get to celebrate their “human-day” like the boys got bird-days.

This was done as late as it was because of the trans boys. Most trans boys didn’t change as young as the cis boys, but almost all of them had changed by the age of seven. A rare few wouldn’t change until they were teenagers; this was thought to be the result of the hormones of puberty hitting the brain and finalizing the child’s gender. This didn’t happen the other way around; birds had much shorter childhoods than humans, so little boys would always change into adolescent birds. The lifespan of formerly-human birds seemed to equal to the lifespan of humans, not the species they’d turned into – at least, so far, although at this point no one could yet tell if maybe the parrots might have been shortchanged a bit -- but the boys got through adolescence and into physical adulthood long before their skills at navigating civilization were solid. High speed cameras left focused on apparent boys successfully, once or twice, caught a moment where a child became a bird and then immediately turned back into a human, and after this they were always certain that whatever they were, they weren’t boys, even if they’d seemed to identify as boys previously. So trans girls and nonbinary children with penises were never birds for longer than half a second, because when they changed into birds, the hormones that finalized their gender were already present and said that they weren’t male. However, these cases were very, very rare – in general, a child of seven was either a bird or a human and would remain so for the rest of their lives.

It was somewhat more than two years after the transformation when a new phenomenon was discovered. Fledgling birds would wander into cities or other human settlements, go to sleep on the ground even if they were a bird species that normally roosted up high, and then they’d turn into toddler girls. Invariably, when it was possible to figure out where they’d come from, it turned out they were the result of formerly-human birds mating with the female offspring of other formerly-human birds, so in a sense, these birds were three-quarters human to start with. It didn’t seem to happen to all of them – in a clutch of four eggs, all of which hatched female, maybe one would be strongly attracted to humans, and the ground, and would then turn into a human child. Generally, when birds saw female fledglings on the ground near human habitation, they would bring it to the attention of women, who would often scoop up the bird and keep her in a human crib for a while. If she didn’t change, she’d eventually fly off. These bird-girls didn’t know human speech, obviously, when they first transformed, but they caught up and were usually fully verbal to the expected level for their development after a year or so. They tended to be more independent than human children of the same apparent age, but also very sociable, craving the presence of humans. Some longed to fly and begged their adopted mothers for hang gliders and zip lines; some were very happy with being grounded. Egg-clutch-sisters of the human bird-girls remained non-human birds, unable to talk, but were often far more intelligent than their species would normally suggest, as were their brothers.

Humans worried about what might be happening out in wilderness where humans rarely went, and where a fledgling bird would have a hard time finding a human habitation, but no one ever found a child, alive or dead, in those circumstances. Perhaps whatever compelled the bird-girls to seek the ground and the presence of humans wouldn’t allow them to transform if they couldn’t find those things.

Life returned to normal. Bird boys went to school beside human girls. (And nonbinary children. They weren’t common, but they existed in large enough numbers that there was usually at least one in a normal-sized school at any given time.) Boys who couldn’t find a profession that was open to birds that they would enjoy would graduate and then, often, fly off to spend a few years in semi-wild flocks of formerly human birds. Very few girls ever had trouble finding a job, given that all the jobs that birds could no longer do fell on them. Both were encouraged to get a good education to ensure they could get a job they actually wanted.

It was very useful for humans and birds to live together, if the bird wanted to live as part of civilization and have access to internet, television and refrigerators for their bird food. Birds and humans could pool their income, raise children together, and compensate for each other’s species-based inabilities; among the things birds could do that humans could not were environmentally friendly bug extermination (many birds loved to eat bugs, and with human intelligence, it wasn’t hard for them to seek out and destroy anthills and wasp nests), alerts for potential dangers (bird hearing and eyesight were often better than human, and prey birds, with eyes on either side of their heads, could see a wider range than humans with their stereoscopic vision), and early detection of noxious gas (when a bird in your house complains that he’s dizzy, you grab him and run.) And of course there were many, many things that the women could do with their height, strength and opposable thumbs, that the birds could not. Because of these advantages, and because birds and humans could be romantically attracted to each other, birds and humans began to date, just as they had when the birds were men, but without any expectation that they would have sex (aside from formerly mentioned extremely kinky couples.)

Birds who resented the lack of opposable thumbs or human size learned to pilot robot drones that had such things; humans who resented the lack of flight took up ballooning, small aircraft piloting, hang gliding, bungee jumping, and every other thing that humans had always done to get as close to flight as they could. Oddly enough, almost everyone was happy with what they were. Little boys would eagerly share with their preschool playmates what sort of bird they hoped to be, but whatever they got, they usually found they were satisfied; little girls might initially be upset that their playmates got to be birds and they didn’t, but by a girl’s confirmation she’d been taught all the advantages of being human and usually thought it best that that was what she was. Birds and humans might be somewhat resentful of the other’s abilities, but in the end most of them agreed they wouldn’t really want it any other way.

Aside from the deaf birds, who had to completely reinvent sign language for talons and wings, accommodating disabled humans’ needs became much, much easier in a world where companies and governments had to accommodate birds of various sizes, abilities and needs; at least usually the disabled humans were roughly within the same size and shape range, in comparison to the diversity of birds. Racism remained, but was much harder to act on; while white women often continued to be racist to black women, they couldn’t tell what race a given bird had been unless his accent or his speech patterns gave it away, and birds mostly got over racism because they were too busy being prejudiced against other bird species. The idea of discriminating between humans on grounds so tiny as skin tone and hair consistency became ridiculous when you could be a chicken and have to deal with other roosters ranging from tiny gamecocks to giant Oshamu roosters, not to mention, every other bird in the world that humans had turned into. Religions had turned weird because they all had to take into account the concept of a God who’d turned all the men into birds; birds tended to think that God was probably a bird, and women tended to think that God was probably a human and either female or genderless, so most religions split in at least two, notwithstanding the ones that had multiple schisms because birds of different species all wanted to imagine a God that favored their species. Polytheism came back.

Sometimes there were still wars, flocks of birds viciously pecking and slashing at each other in the air while women on the ground shot at each other, and at birds wearing the enemy colors. It didn’t happen as often as it used to, though. Terrorism continued, and even got worse at times, because security measures designed for humans couldn’t keep birds out, but the disaffected young men who had no jobs and no futures, that had usually supplied the backbone of any terrorist movement, just weren’t there anymore. They were out flying in flocks with their friends, enjoying the freedom of the air and hunting for food. And environmentalism became a deadly serious issue; birds were more likely to be negatively impacted by any drastic change to the environment, so most of them were strongly in favor of reigning in the excesses of capitalism and cleaning up the planet. Who wanted to fly in a cloud of smog?

All in all, it was surprising how much better the world built by birds and humans, working together, was than the world that had been before. It was far from perfect, and there were many new problems that hadn’t previously existed – women’s near-universal sexual frustration, birds being unable to get jobs, the high cost of having children in a world where artificial insemination was the only means by which all but a tiny number of the women could get pregnant, plus the phenomenon of birds having ridiculous prejudices against other birds, as well as many others. But other problems that had plagued humanity for centuries turned out to be very easy to solve once all the men were birds. And so the people of Earth stopped looking for a cure; they were happier in the world where half of them were birds than they had been before, overall.

[rogue-hammer]

ELDAR PART 2: #5 EXODITES You know that army everyone says their going to do, and then you never see anyone doing it? You know that concept that seems kind of bizarre and niche, but is always kind of fun when you think about it? Lets cut the bull, do you know about the Exodites? Yeah you know the ones I mean. The Eldar who where smart enough from the get go to realize that shit was gonna hit that fan. And by hit we mean, the shit was a dirty nuclear bomb, and the fan was spinning at Mach 10, and no one within a 1 million light year radius of it was going to not get shit on them? The Eldar that if they had a proper army dex, would probably be Toughness 4, Strength 5 and could break an Aspect warrior over their knee? Well fear not, because the Chaos Druid is here to tell you how it may be possible to have these “Salt of the Earth” Style Eldar as a force. -First off, the lore. The Exodites as we all know, where those Eldar who, at the time before the fall realized what was going to happen, and after trying to tell the rest of their race that the liberal agenda was a bad idea, went fuck it and took off for the distant Eastern fringe of the galaxy. Abandoning much of what their race had achieved, these highly attuned seer like Eldar went and settled many a wild and dangerous world. You could say they where Mountain Men of their race. Minus the Buckskins. When establishing a concept for your army, it should be important to note these sorts of things, and mayhap research our own real world history, looking for those who left behind more advanced surroundings to wander the wilds and tame or become a part of their new surroundings. Besides, whats not to like when coming up with a how did your army tame mutha fuck’n dinosaurs for an army concept than to read about people who did much the same thing? 

-How to represent it? This is the big hurdle to Exodites. GW never did give these backwoods space elves a codex of their own (sometimes I wonder if they where meant to be a mirror to wood elves from WHF) and so you have to be able to work a little bit of magic to bring them to the table. There are two ways of doing this: 1: Use a community created and tested Codex. This one is pretty simple. There are loads of communities on the net who enjoy making non-official but professional quality dexs that never existed, or that did and got left behind. This can be a good place to start if your unsure what exact kinds of units and characters you want to try and represent on the table. 2: Do a “Counts as army.” While this may seem a bit less interesting than going out in search of a quality fan made dex, believe it or not, counts as armies and models are some of the funnest challenges in the hobby. After all, who says you have to stick to one area? When it comes to a race as wide spread as the eldar, you can use all kinds of lists to represent your Exodites. From IA books, to the various inner factions and old codexes, you have a wealth of pre-made stats and rosters for your army, and it may even inspire you to create a Home Brew Dex of your own for use with friends and fellow Exodite fans, it can even be a group project!

-Modeling. Ah yes the next big hurdle in your quest to make this awesome idea come to life. But lucky for us, in this day and age of vast miniatures Renaissance, your never short on companies who produce all sorts of models for use in creating your own flavor of Exodites. Even the GW ranges can be put together via the various universes and factions to give rise to a unique and conversion heavy Exodite host. It’s these kind of armies that GW once upon a time used to really try and get their community interested in. Your own imagination is the only limit when making a fully converted army, and since everyone likes Dinosaurs, dragons, and laser guns, well, who isn;t going to have plenty of models ripe for bits fodder and base construction? 

-So then next, whats your theme? After all, Exodites can be as various as their craftworld kin. They don’t all have to be from the same sort of planet, or even have the same sort of unit arrangement. Think first to yourself, what wild and possibly feral world has my army tamed and guards as their own? Are they Jungle style folk, Eldar survivalists of the deepest jungle worlds know to the galaxy who could give catachans are run for their money? Taming giant lizard like creatures and avian like Dinosaurs for use in war, while using mainly Stealth and Guerrilla style tactics against invaders, blending seamlessly into the Jungle foliage to strike while using the elements of their home world to wear down an enemy, Maybe they are a desert folk. Having traversed the sands of a barren wasteland planet in the style of Dune. (Dune….Eldar. Ok I may have to do this now) and have grown hardy and strong from the unforgiving conditions. Training and using burrowing and dangerous desert creatures such as serpentine lizards, Scorpion and draconic scalies of fire and ash to their use. Able to blend in and traverse the known ways of the sands to out maneuver and flank their foes foolish enough to come after them (and now I also want to watch Lawrence of Arabia). An alpine people would also not be a far stretch. After all we have seen plenty of Jungle Exodite concepts. So what about their Highlands dwelling kin? Eldar who live off the rock and timber of a giant temperate and sub arctic worlds. Strong of limb and able to survive the cold and wild temperaments of their chosen homes. Going into battle atop heavy plated and massive dino/prehistoric mammal like hybrids, battering their foes aside by ferocity and strength much like our own history’s hardy people of the mountains regions. Truly when creating an Exodite army, any hardy and primal like folk of our own world can serve as an excellent source for theme and character.

-And that leads us to story. Yet another thing that can have infinite possibilities based off your own imagination. Are your Exodites of the first migrations away from their Stellar Empire? The ancient and proud ones who fled the fall of their doomed race and have since held onto life and world for thousands upon thousands of years? Are you a young and newly aspiring tribe of Exodite travelers, having only just now in recent years and light of galactic events decided it best to leave the constraining confines of a Craftword and forge a new and hard destiny for yourself? Are you a sanctuary to Outcasts and those who have been forced or chosen to leave their homes in the Craftworld or even the Dark City. Do you dream of rising once again to dominance, or have you accepted the humble life of survivors and exiles. Are your Exodites proud warrior like people, given over to tribal customs of battle, honor and glory in combat? Or have you attempted to become a peaceful and conservative folk, only drawing a blade when pressed by outside forces. Do you count many of the ancient seers among your ranks, or do the physically strongest and most warlike lead you? Have you shunned all forms of technology or do you harbor much of your ancient relics and tech for use to give you an edge over your environment and enemies? Again, the sky is literally the limit with the number of ways you can forge your own unique brand of Exodites. That is, at the end of the day the fun of non-official, but canonical armies. #6 CORSAIRS Everyone’s thinking it I’m just say’n it. Pirates! Ah yes, corsairs. Eldar Corsairs no less. A throw back to the original concept of these ancient Space Elves from the Rogue Trader era, where the Eldar, much like Orks, and even Chaos were cast in a more “Raider, Pirate, Freebooter” light than as giant interstellar empires of their own. And if I may be frank, my favorite style of all Eldar. Corsairs are in a league of their own when it comes to lore and the table top. If Craftworld Eldar are the Boomer parents, and the Dark Eldar are the teen goth phase kids, while the Exodites are the redneck uncle you visit during summer vacation, then the corsairs are that cool older sibling who always seems to have a few rings in his ear, rocks out to old style metal music and owns some sort of sup’d up car you love riding in. Over the years the Corsairs have had many attempts at army lists and most have fallen by the way side with each passing edition. So what is a pirate to do? Break out your Space Rum and lets find out. 

-Find your inner Outcast. This is the best place to start. Of all the Eldar sub factions, Corsairs are considered the Outcast. Too liberal minded and self serving for the Craftworlds, not into back stabbing, court intrigue and BDSM which counts the Dark Eldar out, and still too fucking full of themselves to go and play salt of the earth farmer with the Exodites. In all things the Corsair is the embodiment of the classic pirate trope. Those who live outside law and country. Content to ply the stars and do as they wish, when they wish, and save their own skin above all else. This type of “Sandbox” mindset can be used to create an eldar force with limitless background, style and character possibilities.

-What sort of pirate be ye? That’s your next question. Being Self sufficient and serving, Corsairs fit just about any niche you can think of when it comes to reaver like style. This also means they can be found just about anywhere, with just about anyone. Are your Corsairs a club for eldar only? Or have they allied to other even more unscrupulous characters? Corsairs can be found raiding alongside the likes of Rogue Traders, other alien species, and even among chaos warbands and Ork freebootas! And the reasons are just as varied. Are your pirates proud Corsair Princes/Princess’, plying the stars on an ambitious mission of their own? Are they fallen from grace renegades who have or will fall in with any dirty crowd? Are they the ruler of a pirate kingdom all their own, or do they sail the stars in a single infamous vessel like pirate stories of old, ravaging and stealing as they desire? Are they survivors of a larger group of CW Eldar, hiding amongst Exodites and teaching them the old ways of your people while trying to accumulate enough power and followers to rebuild what was lost? The options are almost limitless when forging a narrative for your Corsair warband.

-What is your goal? In the end, many a Corsair is an individualistic character. Shunning the Narrow dogmatic path of the Craftworlds, and refusing to become a corrupted sadist like the Drukari, they live a life of self fulfillment and ambition. So what motivates your band of pirates? Do they seek a sporting challenge as arrogant reavers of the stars? Are they after the ancient glory of their Race’s past when they ruled over the galaxy? Maybe perhaps they are altruistic, and ally themselves with whoever they foresee being a benefit to the galactic order of things. Fame and fortune? Women and wine? A warrior code dedicated to Khaine, or another esoteric group of reavers worshiping the many faded or forgotten gods of the past? Nefarious allegiance to chaos, or maybe a darker order of things. Maybe perhaps just indulging your own hedonistic desires without care to share them with others. Again, a corsair can have many a goal, which makes for all sorts of unique concepts regarding your army.

-Models models models. Ah yes, models, and what to use for your physical army on the table? Fortunately we live in a time where not only is there quite an expansive range of Eldar style models, both official and third party, but there are other factions with models that can be used to further augment your Corsair warband. The options are many. Maybe you use a combination of CW and Dark eldar models to achieve a rough reaver/noble look.  You can also dip into the Human side of models, utilizing Necromunda and RT faction models to give your eldar a much more grounded and space faring/gang like look. Even fantasy Elven ranges can be used to boost a more primal look to your Eldar, or perhaps Out of the way factions like Mechanicus and Warcry warbands can be augmented with Eldar models to produce some very unique Tech mash ups or tribal like appearances. Not to mention older far more grim looking GW models from Ebay can be used to add a spice of old to your model ranges. However you choose to do it, make sure your models are cut apart from straight up CW or Dark Eldar style figures. After all, your above that kind of crap. 

-Now we come to the final question, how do we play this army? As I mentioned before, there are older Corsair lists under official publishing one can use, as well as no doubt a bevy of fan made content. Like the Exodites, the Corsairs can easily be used as a counts as force, with even more options as you can pull from a number of different books in order to create homebrew allies and piratical alliances with your army. Once you have down how to create a list, its time to ask, how will yours be a unique pirate band? The cornerstone of any crew of pirates is Speed. After all, no need to hang around and risk your own neck am I right? This luckily is the Eldar’s forte, and can be done in numerous ways without too much overlap. On one hand, taking advantage of Eldar Air power is an awesome idea for Corsairs. Not only have they used in pass incarnations many of the powerful aircraft of the Eldar race, including the feared Void Dragon, other smaller editions have been made of time such as the handy Wasp, and fast moving Jump pack corsairs. Building off this concept, corsairs can utilise the various armies of the Eldar to kick into high gear. Between the DE and CW books, there is a wealth of fast moving raider vessels, teleporting and deep striking units, as well as high initiative and deadly close combat infantry. Depending on your list and homebrew rules, you may even have options to add other races in for flavor, such as Ork Meatshields…..I mean Ork allies that are very useful and cared about. Human RTs that can use various codex designs to function as an extra bulwark of strength and toughness and even Chaos elements if your feeling like you need the warp on your side. Maybe your corsairs favor Jetbike and light attack craft tactics and are made up almost completely of such units, along with jump infantry to help support your already fearsome maneuverability. There’s even ways to create an Eldar Corsair force that deploys almost exclusively from Deepstrike, entering the table at any point, ready to strike the enemy’s weak spot or run circles around their more cumbersome units. Always remember the enemy can;t hit back if they never see you coming, or are too slow to catch you!

It can be said, if the Exodites are a Modeling enthusiast’s dream, then the Corsairs are Narrative army creator’s playground. Enjoy Pillaging the stars fellow pirates! I can only hope this lengthy entry has given some of you new perspective or even just revivied old ideas on how to create and Eldar army of unique or simply enjoyable design. Sometimes I do feel as if Eldar are bottlenecked into repetative lists and story styles that leave little to customize, and rarely seem to fire the imagination. So really, these Pointy Eared ones arn’t just simple ELVES IN SPACE. There is little limit to what one can make of so many different aspects of this once great and powerful race.

As Always, Happy Hobbying!

[bi-outta-cordonia]

I wish I could say that I’m intoxicated right now but I’m super not. Also take into consideration that most of this rambling is heavily predicated on people’s TRR MCs being married to Liam.

Anyway, theory time:

It’s been long explained that TRM is vessel that connects TCaTF and TRR/TRH and the historical aspects that influence aspects of both stories. Cordonia’s origins as a nation starts with the unification of the Five Kingdoms and the current history of Cordonia is set by the events of the 1600s that make up the crux of TRM’s story. It’s very likely that the book we are playing is the book that explains Liam’s immediate family history and is traced to our MC, who is probably going to end up Queen of Cordonia. With that being said, there’s a likely chance that Liam is going to be blood related to the MC of the book.

This is important. 

So... Today....

The chapter of TRM opens with MC screaming while a burning tent collapses on top of her. She has that narrative moment of closing her eyes, opening them--and realizing that she hasn’t been hurt. A sort of magical barrier thinly surrounds her, thwarting the blaze and keeping her from becoming harmed. Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time that some odd power of sorts has protected her. While she was climbing the ladder to get onto Hunter’s yacht, the wind catches and she winds up clinging to it for life. By all accounts, she should have died or been hurt on two separate occasions, but she winds up walking away from both situations unharmed. 

We’ve seen the magical connection between TRM and TCaTF. While the magic of TCaTF was far more open and involved in the day to day aspects of life, within the Cordonia of 1600, only nobles posses magical items that emit obscure and very niched magical properties--such as a comb that gives a person perfect hair, cleans stains from dresses, or forges the perfect outfit from thin air. These house charms seem more like novelties of status than of anything particularly useful in a manner exceeding practical use. It’s a status symbol.

It’s been said on numerous occasion that the incredible magic of the Five Kingdoms era has been lost, both in the most modern version of Cordonia and in the version set in the 1600s. And yet...

TRM MC is capable of some form of magic. On two occasions, she has been imbued with a power that has specifically protected her from harm. Two occasions she has been faced with circumstances that should’ve killed her and twice, this form of hard magic has surged up and protected her from said harm. Now, the theory that TRM MC is actually Queen Kendra’s blood daughter is still up in the air for me until we start seeing some actual hard proof, but let’s jut focus on the fact that TRM MC is capable of a form of magic that keeps her from being harmed. 

Liam. He’s a Crown Prince--the Crown Prince of Cordonia. 

Throughout much of Liam’s life, danger has always lurked right around the corner. Assassination attempts were a part of his childhood enough to the point that he was specifically trained to protect himself in situations where someone was trying to make an attempt on his life. As the prince, he had the King’s Guard and, as the King of Cordonia, he has them and the years he’s spent training in various disciplines, self-defense tactics, and weapons training to keep him safe. Danger has very much fallen unto Liam in various situations. 

So here’s the part of this where the rambling starts making sense as I, completely sober, say this with my chest--

There is still magic in Cordonia.

And Liam possesses some of it. 

TCaTF depicts Cordonia before it became Cordonia, when it was the Five Kingdoms and Queen Kenna united it. TRM depicts Cordonia in a more modern time frame that eventually gives birth to the version of Cordonia we know in the modern day. Assuming that the TRM MC is possibly the birth daughter of Queen Kendra, or somehow related to Kenna nonetheless, and assuming that the MC of this book is one of Liam’s blood related ancestors, I believe that this magical power that she possesses may have been passed on to him through the blood and he now possesses a very latent and subtle version of this power. 

My evidence: literally look at the trajectory of Liam’s life. 

At some point in his younger years, an assassination attempt was made on him and his family by way of the Nevrakises. They, along with their allies, attempted to stage a coup and eliminate the royal family so that they could inherit control of Cordonia through the ancient law that existed between their house and the house of the Crown. Their attempt failed, the assumption being that the King’s Guard and Constantine’s vigilance may well have kept the family from facing any further harm. The coup was dismantled, the Duke and Duchess of Lythikos were executed, and Liam went on living alongside his family. 

Later, another assassination attempt was made on Liam’s life when he was in either his late teens or early twenties. He survived this attempt as well though it left him shaken. So far, this is twice that he’s been attacked. 

The next time that an attempt is made on Liam’s life is during the Homecoming Ball when he’s introducing his nation to his future queen. The lights cut, when they cut back on, assassins with weapons ranging from guns to knives have overrun the ballroom and Liam has to defend himself while his guard scrambles to get him to safety. 

See. Guns. The Sons Earth possess weapons that can harm people from long ranges. Ignoring the fact that PB didn’t want to deal with widespread murder and whatnot, say that the attackers were in fact shooting at Liam. How could they miss that many shots at a man who was locked in once place while his guards fought to get to him? How could he dodge that many bullets coming at him? 

Maybe. Just maybe. He didn’t have to. 

Because his blood is the blood of TRM MC, the potential blood of Queen Kendra, and the blood of Queen Kenna even further back. A subtle buzz of the magic could be passed off as nothing more than adrenaline and the build up of energy as he fights. But maybe some of the attackers were dumbfounded at how none of their bullets touched him. Maybe some of them traded strange looks as they realized that shots that should’ve definitely connected and killed him were straight missing him.

Liam is ushered into safety eventually as the King’s Guard reaches him and he lives to rule another day. 

The second time he is put in immediate danger happens during the Costume Ball. Liam is standing in the ballroom conversing with his father, brother, and his fiancé. Things seem to be fine until a serious of explosions rock the palace and sends patrons screaming. Another bomb goes off, sending chunks of the building hurtling towards him. By all accounts, he would’ve been crushed under the debris. 

But he gets shoved to the side. And the debris instead falls on top of Constantine. 

Constantine has not always been a good husband, father, or king, but what he was was devoted to his family. We read the scene as a father devoted to protecting his child, which it was. If there was any moment that Constantine would’ve seen the only choices as being saving Liam over saving himself, he would’ve chosen saving Liam very easily. But what if...

What if part of Liam’s shield works like a geas. Magic still exists in some form in Cordonia but with the passage of time, it has weakened considerably. It would’ve been in its strongest form during Kenna’s reign, held left overs in regards to what remained during the 1600s, but in its modern iteration it has adapted to the lack of either energy or other magic it can pull from. Perhaps this shield adapted other qualities, such as a geas to help it perform its duty to the blood it courses through. 

In that it provides very distinct, subliminal message that may compel people and have them assist in the performance of his duties. Perhaps the shield is strong enough to protect it from smaller versions of harm, manipulate outcomes so that certain death inducing events do not happen. And maybe, it can also compel people to provide assistance in ways that it is not powerful enough to do so--such as a pillar or large piece of debris hurtling towards him. 

That perhaps the shield did in fact protect Liam and did so using his father as a vessel to achieve this. 

The next time that Liam is explicitly attacked is when he goes to retrieve his wife, who has been kidnapped by Anton. The ensuing fight has him outnumbered and outgunned. He walks away from it with hardly a scratch on him, both a testament to his fighting prowess but also possibly the work of the shield. 

We see how it works in the physical sense and in ways that are far more psychological in nature, such as through the work of geas. 

So let’s throw another dart at the board-- MC got into a car accident as a fully pregnant woman. 

Remember that homage to the tragic death of Princess Diana? The fact that the car was run off the road and MC, who by all accounts could’ve been seriously injured or could’ve been forced to deliver her child early walked away with only but a few scratches?

Well. If that child is Liam’s...

Perhaps the fact that MC walked away completely unharmed had less to do with Bastien and more to do with the child. As Liam’s blood, potentially the blood related descendant of TRM MC who possesses the shield, TRM MC potentially being Kendra’s actual daughter, and Kendra herself being Kenna’s descendant, perhaps the magic inside the child has passed from father to baby and they too are capable of invoking the shield at such an early age. 

Magic existing in subtle aspects of modern Cordonia is a possibility and, theoretically, Liam could have it but it works in a way that it has been forced to adapt to as a result of magic diminishing over time. Perhaps it isn’t as prominent as it was in Kenna’s day, or as it does with TRM MC, but it is there. It is more subtle than at the height of its true power but just enough that it provides enough protection to its host as it sees fit. 

Anyway, it’s gonna be funny when TRM MC is revealed to not be related to Kenna or Kendra at all and I look foolish for this lol

[allegrafitzgerald]

BASICS

Name: Allegra Genevieve Fitzgerald

Gender & pronouns: nonbinary, they/them and she/her

Species: wereworlf

Age: 27, October 28th

PERSONALITY

Traits: resourceful, cautious, cynical, organized, wary

Moral alignment / MBTI / enneagram: lawful neutral /  istj /  8

Values: order, loyalty, compassion

Flaws: unforgiving, pride, envy

TLDR

Just to jumpstart plotting: Allegra is relatively (a few months) new to town. A wolf that was bitten at 18 and shunned by her family of hunters. She doesn’t trust anyone, doesn’t want to do anything other than survive, and Blackrock’s her best bet for that. Secretive and closed off, craving stability and secretly longing for a home! Very similar to my original take on Allegra from when I was here briefly at the start, but with minor adjustments

HISTORY

TW: Minor Violence, Suicide references

You are Allegra Fitzgerald, the first daughter of Richard and Emilia Fitzgerald, both prominent members of their social circles. They are sure, they are confident, they are icons. You are to be the same when you’re of age. And so, they teach you. They teach you to read and write, they teach you how to speak and how to listen. Tutors and teachers are brought in. You sing, you write, you dance. You also learn archery. A funny thing for someone so light and airy, but your parents insist on it and no questions their word.

Despite the oddity of the bow and arrow placed in your small hands, you think that this is your favorite of your lessons. You don’t know why but it feels right when you pull the string taut, arrow notched and carefully aimed. You feel like you were born for this. One day, you’re certain, your aim will be true every time.

Your parents take a lot of trips when you are young, leaving you alone with nannies or with friends. When you are older, around fifteen, you find out why. Your parents are not the benevolent socialites they always made themselves out to be. They are hunters. At first, you were confused, but they continued to explain. Werewolves, apparently, existed. Your parents were heroes to humankind still, defending others from monsters that could tear them limb from limb.

You are to be just like them, an heir to a monster-hunting throne.

You do not object. 

You learned young that you’re meant to be the person your parents are trying to shape you to be. There’s no room for disobedience, for questioning their edicts. The idea of rebelling has never occurred to you. 

But you’re still training, three years later, when, the unthinkable happens. You are in the woods, not too far astray from your parents and their fellow hunters. It is the first time your parents brought you on a hunt with them, the first time you’re expected to truly do your part. You might have been dawdling a little, nervous and wondering if this is right,  but a beast rushes out of the woods and the next thing you know you are on your back. There is a wound to your middle, rough and tearing. You cry for your parents, but when they come, you don’t recognize the looks on their face. It’s disgust. It’s hatred. It’s because of you.

They give you a gun and tell you to do what needs to be done.

Then they leave you.

Had one of them been in your shoes, things would have ended differently. But you? You hesitate instead. You can’t kill yourself for the betterment of humanity.

Instead, you run.

You run and you run and you run.

You find home in the mountains, cold enough year round that you can be a wolf full time. It’s easier that way. You don’t have to think about your family, you don’t have to think about their abandonment. All that matters is hunt, eat, and rest. That becomes your cycle. Hunt. Eat. Rest. There is nothing more to you.

You are, at  your core, a wolf.

You’ve lost count of the years in your wandering. You stay near those mountains, but sometimes you like to stretch your limbs, pace the woods and explore. You avoid humans. They make you think, which is something you refuse to do. 

But sometimes you wander too close to town, catch sight of families and even your wolf starts to long for that. You can only be a lone wolf for so long before something snaps, and one day, you shifted back.

This exploring comes back to bite you. One day, you are only minding yourself, when you feel the sharp sting of a bullet grazing your side. Hunters, like your family had been, like you were supposed to be. They found you. So you do what you do best. You run. 

It is safer to hide in plain sight, so against everything in you screaming to do the opposite, you follow your instincts and find a town. You’re human again for the first time in a decade.

You hate this.

You were not meant to be human, not since you were eighteen, not since your family turned you away.

Blackrock is name that tugs at your memories, ones you’ve carefully buried in the years you’ve been a wolf. It’s familiar because it’s where Spruce is, the only person from your old life that feels anything close to safe. It’s a risk, still, but you arrive in town half off instinct, desperate to survive in this world.

Desperate to live. 

Blackrock is what you expected. You  keep yourself as isolated as you can, distrusting any kindness that you encounter. People aren’t good. You learned that the hard way already.

You do not want to be a part of this pack. It feels wrong. It’s not right. You are jealous of them all, these people, these wolves, who have close ties with others. They have family. You don’t have that, not anymore. You were cursed with a bite, and with just one moment in the wrong place at the wrong time, everything was stolen from you. Of all the paths your life could have gone, of all the choices you could have made, this wouldn’t have been the one you picked for yourself. But there’s safety in numbers, so you ended up here. They don’t know much about you, they don’t know your past or your family. You are just a wolf who needs a safe place to rest.

DEVELOPMENT

So obviously this is a minor rework of Allegra from when I was previously in Shiver, and the long-term plan for Allegra is the same-that eventually she will come to terms with the fact that, just because her family rejected her and didn’t want her, not everyone will. She could come to admire, maybe even love, this new pack that has allowed her a safe haven. However, that won’t come soon, and I think the added dynamics with Spruce and Reed will build on that struggle to find peace, to make herself a home here. Even once she does find her place within the pack, she is always going to have a sense of paranoia to her, a sense that maybe being alone and by herself in the woods will be better than --- than this. She still has a sinking feeling that she needs to run.

She isn’t as grounded as she likes to present herself to be, too skittish the second anyone gets in her space. Not even close to her-just close enough for her to perceive them as a threat. As she slowly starts to let members of the pack in, her defenses are slowly going to calm down for those few people. She’ll likely never be one to go for physical contact, but eventually she won’t tense if someone is within an arm’s length of her.

CONNECTIONS

[ ZACH ] seems to want something from me, why else would they be this kind? I don’t trust it ( Allegra hasn’t known kindness in far too many years, and they can’t accept anyone doing anything out of the goodness of their heart )

My past is the past, it shouldn’t matter to anyone here. So why does [ OPEN ] ask so many questions ( They were supposed to be a hunter. Allegra might never have killed a wolf, but that was the path they were on and they’re scared of how that will impact things with the pack if it gets out. This person is pushing, asking too many questions, making them scared they’ll have to run again )

Something about [ SOLA ] makes me feel at ease. I don’t understand why, but I’m drawn to them. I’ll do my best to avoid them. ( Friend or family or loved one, it does’t matter. Allegra has only had themselves since the moment they were bitten, and they didn’t have much prior to that to begin with. Closed off she might be, Allegra wants to let this person in, they just don’t know where to start )

[ OPEN ] doesn’t know how to mind their business, and it’ll come back to bite them one day ( Allegra is going to fight someone, wound too tightly to relax and finally snapping )

I was young when I turned, and I never got to experience some aspects of my humanity while I was living as a wolf. [ OPEN ] is part of that ( Allegra spent almost a decade after turning 18 as a wolf, and it turns out that hooking up is fun and good and the only form of contact that doens’t immediately set them on edge )

[the-albums-album]

#138 - “Bayou Country” by Creedence Clearwater Revival

YEAR: 1969

GENRE: Southern Rock

M SAID: “the singles tend to be the singles for a reason, and the rest of the album will not necessarily be up to the same quality...”

J SAID: “John Fogerty has here played a guitar chord so powerful it rent the very fabric of spacetime”

LISTEN TO: “Proud Mary”

M writes…

So prior to listening to this, the sum total of my Creedence experience was pretty much limited to a singles compilation, so I’d heard a couple of the tracks on here, and I thought I liked them, in general? Listening to Bayou Country, more than anything else, has reminded me that the singles tend to be the singles for a reason, and the rest of the album will not necessarily be up to the same quality.

The album’s problems are more apparent on Side One, kicked off by ‘Born on the Bayou’, which, sure, has a nice swampy guitar riff, but never really goes anywhere with it, just sticking with the same riff and occasional flourishes throughout the entire song. The song’s only other selling point is the down-home bayou charm of John Fogerty’s lyrics, which honestly lose some of their mystique when you remember that this is a bunch of white guys from the San Francisco Bay. ‘Bootleg’ follows, and is best described as “also a CCR song” (I honestly struggle to remember it even now), and then the side ends in the interminable morass of ‘Graveyard Train’, an eight-minute exercise in self-indulgence that really exemplifies all the worst aspects of blues music. It’s chugging, uninteresting, muddy, really really long, and really the only good thing I can say about it is that it has a harmonica break. (I’m a sucker for a harmonica.)

So at about this point, I was thinking “Do I just not like blues or Southern rock now? Is this good, but just a genre I’ve grown apart from?” and then, along comes Side Two, which, while not perfect, goes a long way to redeeming the album. ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’ is a great tune - but then, it’s a Little Richard cover, so it’s kind of hard to give them a lot of props for that - and ‘Penthouse Pauper’ is a great little blues tune, with a folk-song-like structure that makes it feel like - unlike many tracks on this album - it actually has some intent about where it’s going and what it’s doing. And then, of course, we come to the runaway success story of the record, in ‘Proud Mary’ – sure, certain covers of it might be ubiquitous these days, but this is the original (and, in your writer’s opinion, best) version, and it sees the musical skills of the whole band at the top of their game, with top-notch guitar riffs and excellent vocals – basically, I’m not going to mince words here, it’s a great song. After that, we come to another eight-minute side-ending jam session in the form of ‘Keep on Chooglin’’, and it almost feels like a victory lap after the big single preceding it, and I can honestly give them a pass for that. The riffs are clean, everyone’s playing with a bit more joy than they were at the end of the first side, and everyone gets to show off some great solos, concluded with an archetypal Big Rock Ending. Plus, again, harmonica solo.

J writes…

I, like M, know a lot of Creedence’s singles, but very little of their other works. And it turns out, I’ve probably listened… to… the good stuff? Like this is fine, but really not stellar - I get the feeling that this is the album that allowed CCR to work out what their sound was and move forward from there. Indeed, I can easily think of a dozen bands that would list this album as an influence - but just because something is a classic, doesn't necessarily mean that it’s good. Hell, the Ford Model T is a classic, but I wouldn’t want to drive it down the A1. I’ve always been a fan of ‘Proud Mary’, and it’s a banger, but it’s become one of those songs where I’ve heard it so much (by both CCR and others) that I’m finding it hard to be objective. Is it a good song because it is, or just because it’s part of my life? Either way, you can decide for yourself below, because it’s CLEARLY the high point of a more ponderous and noodly album than I’d normally listen to. In fact, I would most likely recommend any of the slew of albums that came later in the Southern rock genre than this - I know Lynyrd Skynyrd’s waiting on this list somewhere, and Queens of the Stone Age, and Guns n Roses, and...

This is probably not the most detailed album cover I’ve done so far, but it’s certainly the most awkward - the typical “band jam” picture would have been fine, but apparently John Fogerty has here played a guitar chord so powerful it rent the very fabric of spacetime. This damaging of the fundamental laws of physics was fortunately captured on film and preserved for posterity, and forty years later I tried to recreate this effect with permanent markers… I think I managed? Please make the next one an easier one! I’m relishing the challenge, but still!

[leam1983]

On Reason

TL;DR: gun talk. If it's too sensitive a topic in these times, feel free to move on ahead.

Because I know a few American natives and expats, my parents and Francophone friends assume I can sort of bridge the gap between American and Canadian sensibilities. In some ways, they're right. I've introduced colleagues who'd only given lip service to bands like Rush or Arcade Fire to their greater repertoire, and opened their eyes to the wide, wonderful, greasy and flavorful world waiting outside of Deep-Fried Everything. Trust me, if we've got poutine, there's means of whipping something warm, comforting and tasty that wouldn't involve frying batter while still sending your GP into anxiety attacks.

And then, there's gun control.

My American colleagues don't get our reticence towards leadspitters, and we don't get their eagerness towards them. The closest I get to pointed interest is catching the guy from England's Royal Armory as he breaks down FPS weapons on YouTube - and even then, you get the sense that it's more of a respect for the mechanics of the object, a measure of reverence for the laws of physics it happens to exploit to achieve its goal - that of either deterring someone from posing a threat, or definitively ending said threat. Still, neither of us butt heads on the subject. Our respective flavors of bemusement coexist somewhere deep underneath a solid foundation of civility, mutual respect and friendship.

My parents ask me why I can't position myself or other talking heads as arbitrators of truth, as if I could just "wake up" the American expats at work. I can't, because Canada wasn't founded on the exact same principles as the United States. Our enemy never was some darker-skinned Other occupying land we sought to grab, not when we simply up and took the natives' lands in egregious excesses that are still demanding reparation centuries later. We never were in a position where we had to claw our way West; not when diseased blankets and an overbearing Catholic assimilation did the job for us. Our enemy never was the government, because of a weird gubernatorial and cultural morass that's partly rooted in the fact that even the Frenchest of all Frenchies has an incredibly English attitude, in regards to governance. We keep our heads down, we struggle to work up the urge to make demands with anything more heavy-handed than picketing, and the idea of fixing the System with AR-15 bursts strikes us as being more disruptive than reparative. We enjoy the idea that we're tight-knit across provinces, which generally makes even Bible-thumpers from the Prairies hesitate, when it comes to taking an arsenal up to Rideau Hall's doorstep.

In some ways, there's something freeing to the idea of traipsing up to the Powers That Be and demanding truth, justice and equality at gunpoint. It's a nice fantasy, sure, but for most of us up North of the border, that's all it really is. There's miles and miles of red tape and social conventions making it difficult for most of us to even consider that kind of train of thought.

You could also argue that the Republicans are adept at twisting one part of an objective truth to suit their supporting lobbies; which is that mental health matters. Each province has its help and crisis lines, most turnpike hospitals have psych wards designed to handle everything from homelessness spiralling into psychosis to general emotional distress; and there's at least the possibility of finding a State-sponsored therapist. It isn't a great one and waiting times are immense, but it's there. In some ways, private-sector answers like our own Olive clinics or America's BetterHelp might be a better fit for occasional use or sudden spikes in severity.

There's also cultural conceits. I like guns for the technical aspects that underpin their mechanism, I enjoy a nicely-assembled and well-oiled deer-hunting rifle as much as any other guy who's grown up watching some of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. What I don't get, however, is their fetishization. Guns can be works of art, from my perspective, or even be preserved as historical milestones, but I'm leagues and miles removed from an old fellow Weapons History buff I used to know, who treated his trips to the shooting range with a particular kind of childlike glee I never really got.

Mind you, he didn't shoot mere guns on the daily; his focus was mortars, AA batteries, bazookas, and basically everything else that massively screams area denial more than active suppression. If it could turn an expanse into a blasted heath you'd be hard-pressed to want to plant and till anything in, he was interested. In the meantime, I never missed a collab between Pointe-à-Callière and, say, Japan's Ministry of Culture, for a temporary showing of Boshin Wars-contemporary full samurai sets, with a tertiary focus on early bamboo-hewn teppo mortars. The Japanese warlords' first few long-range rifles acted as game-changers, and were treated with all the respect customary to, say, the massive cavalry-based kyudo bows.

Going from this to, say "Whoa, man, this rifle's designed for non-NATO rounds and turns anything organic into a pulpy mush! Awesome!" is, um - it's something, let's say. In some ways, I get it. He appreciates power, I appreciate precision and craftsmanship. I love a gun that doesn't look like a black slab of military-industrial flexing, and consequently tend to skew towards previous-century ordnance; to the kind of little plinkers you would've found clutched by Noir detectives on black-and-white celluloid. They weren't effective at killing at medium or long ranges, but damn if those Art Deco lines weren't something.

One of my expat colleagues got it, the other one said I didn't have it in me to appreciate a "good show of strength". I kept mum on the subject.

What does it say about your levels of confidence when you feel pressured to value absolute overkill at the expense of everything else? Doesn't it paint a picture of relative insecurity? After Putin, I'm sort of wary of anyone who wants to wave their weapons around willy-nilly. We're not Warhammer 40K's Orks, we're human beings. There should be more to our dynamics than just saying "look at my piece and obey, because you should be afraid of what my piece can do to your fleshy bits".

That's not politics, that's repression. It's not debate or discussion, it's oppression. Which is why it won't surprise anyone if I mention that we Canadians just don't understand why Americans so readily accept Defense Sector money for their electoral campaigns. Last year saw Canada's General Dynamics sell ordnance to Saudi Arabia, and the contract leaking out caused a massive kerfuffle at the Federal level. The exact same thing would make Americans shrug. Just another Tuesday, right?

For all these reasons, I can't openly judge my expat colleagues. I can, however, stare at the news out of Uvalde with a mixture of bemusement, regret, seething frustration, and the sudden desire to put at least a symbolic act in, by tossing out my grandfather's old hunting rifle. I've never used it, I'll never use it, I never want to use it - but I kept it out of sentimentality, to remember the man it belonged to.

[aion-rsa]

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 7 Review: Three Dreams Denied

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 7

The Simpsons season 32, episode 7 carves the turkey a little thin for a pre-Thanksgiving offering. “Three Dreams Denied” has all the makings of a full and funny meal for the whole family. But a half hour later, you wish there was more stuffing. The ballooning game hunters even miss the flying turkey in the opening gag, which ends with the couch so exasperated she tells the family to sleep on the bed.

Comic Book Guy’s “Comicalusa” experience is a wild ride from the moment the patronizing pilot taunts his passengers with Superman sightings. The owner of Springfield’s only comic book store then sets about doing what he was born to do, paying the mockery forward on every aspect of the things he loves most. Who was the Joker, he asks, before dismissively concluding none of them.

If only someday people like him could make fun of people like him for working at a real comic book organization — not DC, but a real one — he would be transported to a superheroic fate. This week’s featured Springfield resident’s question, the best question ever asked at a comic book convention, is quite good — Superman-origin-story good: Are comic book mythologies the new religion, and if so, shouldn’t comic books be tax-free? He earns a celebratory pretzel for that.

Comic Book Guy’s dream costume should be standard issue at any convention, it allows him to alternate bites between a choice of beverages, fries, hot dogs, and tacos, which loom large in his legend. A Krustyburger 100-taco-for-$100-weekend is the stuff of Doctor Who marathons, and here he is riding escalators with the Who’s Who of Doctor Who. But Comic Book Guy’s real dream is to work at Marvel — to be plucked out of a crowd of complaining fanboys and lord over the fate of the Avengers.

“Comicalusa” is Burning Man for nerds, twice removed because Burning Man is also really just for nerds. Here he is with his idols, creative geniuses who have all blocked him on Twitter. And Comic Book Guy freezes up. It really is unlike him not to at least give an impromptu ultimate nerd variation. He had two steps to get it together when he stepped into third position. It feels, though it’s not said, like self-sabotage. It is sad that Comic Book Guy is ultimately saddled with the “worst question ever” title, but it is a worthy comeuppance for the man’s whole back-storied attitude.

This isn’t Comic Book Guy’s first humiliation at the hands of his, for lack of a better word, peers. He’s been outclassed by competitors, guest panelists, wise-ass kids and people he’s actually trained. He ultimately is redeemed by the only person who could never outclass him because he barely knows the meaning of class, or homework or the difference between arts ‘n crafts glue and oatmeal.

Ralph Wiggum, coming off a loss for first triangle to an empty chair, is like a sticky-fingered Baby Yoda, offering inscrutable answers to Comic Book Guy’s universe. It is really a very subversively touching scene because what Ralph brings back up in Comic Book Guy is the bile which he malevolently bestows on kids just like Ralph on tap.

Lisa’s crush is presented quite musically. She gushes in the key of Eeee. But the fight for first chair is best played in a minor key, regardless of the seemingly meat-free-sweetness of her blue-eyed boy. But Blake’s (Ben Platt) adorable blue contact lenses are as fake as the vegan BLT he was bragging about.

For a final insult, his four-note honk in competition for the first chair saxophone part is a deliberately humiliating bad run which is only marginally better than Lisa’s. We don’t actually even know if he can play. He seems like he might be such an evil little boy that he will continue to throw hot dog water on anyone who dares to out-reed him, whether he can play or not. Lisa, whose love of the music can inspire mall stores to close for jazz appreciation, is addicted to playing for free.

Surprisingly this subplot has the most satisfying payoff, even though it’s the only one Lisa estimates cannot be fixed. The song that plays during the closing coda is an inspired variation on the song “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” from Annie Get Your Gun. It says so much more and ends with a big whoop. It is a highlight.

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We all know how much trouble the voice actors have been to the networks when it comes to The Simpsons, and the writers have some fun with it through Bart’s introduction to the game. “Who knew it was so easy to become a working actor?” the young vocalist says admiringly as he rakes in more money in one day than Homer does in a year. This isn’t the first time the boy has out-earned his father; it happens at least once a season.

While Comic Book Guy is away at the convention, he leaves the store in the hands of a veteran voice actor. The guy’s got a great repertoire from Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future to Scratchy from the “Itchy and Scratchy” cartoons. When he seals the deal with a classic, the rules of Cider House, Bart is floored enough to admit if he knew what that was he’d be even more impressed.

This is such a perfectly Bart line that it cements the character and leads to the chance to mock the network’s treatment of The Simpsons. Homer doesn’t believe a check from Warner Bros. Animation is any good. Bart is still getting his head around how any show which takes longer than a day to do a cartoon is trying to milk their studio dry.

Bart’s gender neutrality could have been mined for more comic possibilities. The mini-arc of him getting beaten up for playing a girl to proving how rad it is to be a unicorn-riding action figure who kills every adult on his show hits all the proper notes, but will it get him on a float on Pride Day? His accent is inconsistent, and his hetero normative tendencies freak out the bullies.

Fight as they often do, Lisa and Bart share some of the warmest moments of the series. Whether hugging as co-losers in hockey games or gaping in awe as Homer gets something right, they work best as a unit. When Lisa tells Bart he’s brave and should be proud of what he’s doing, it registers, but it feels more like he appreciated the dangerous aspects of playing a badass Queen.

The episode has its share of quick sight gags. It opens with Bart stuffing a chocolate bar into the cryogenic-plastic covering of a priceless comic. Martin Prince can be found shoved in the Springfield Elementary trophy case towards the beginning, and again hanging on a clothesline. When Comic Book Guy sees the opportunity to snatch and sell the rare, unopened, Radioactive Man toy he covers up his shrieks of pleasure by chortling into unsold Hulk hands. Good thing his girlfriend isn’t there to see that. The music teacher has to drown out the discordant cacophony of his band with noise canceling headphones and fistfuls of CBD gummies. The bum-not bug zapper is also an inspired visual.

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The Simpsons are always self-referential, but it gets very subliminal in “Three Dreams Denied.” Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa, made a guest appearance on last week’s episode, “Podcast News.” She was very adamant about not mentioning the voice she’s most known for. This week, Bart is playing a voiceover actor. I’m sure Professor Frink could come up with some reason this somehow flays the laws of animation physics. This is probably why the episode falls short. No one episode of The Simpsons can handle the voiceover click-track continuum, smooth jazz and the ultimate question to ask at Comicalusa. It’s just too much.

In the past, The Simpsons could have borne the extra weight. They’ve always had cross plots, subplots and occasional mini-arcs which play out under the radar. Each of the three stories are strong, funny and have the pathos or peril needed to make them great. In that sense, “Three Dreams Denied” is very much operating in The Simpsons early mode. While the journey flies by without too many bumps, the episode lives up to its title.

The post The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 7 Review: Three Dreams Denied appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[sublimeperfectionland]

New Moon of the Dark Kingdom Chapter Hundred and Fifteen - The Impossible Children

Zoisite and Kunzite have found true love, but when some old friends, a vengeful god, and a pair of evil twins are gunning for the Shitennou all at once, life is not going to be easy

[Scene: Neffy's mansion during a divination with the Celestial Seeress Astraea.]

Kunzite: They must have gotten the drop on him. Snuck up and used the element of surprise to take him out before he even knew they were there.

Astraea: No. They did not. They challenged the Death Phantom to a fight, and then held their own against him until they drew the weapon they created and ultimately defeated him.

Jeddy: But how could they defend themselves when their power levels are so low?

Beryl: That's an excellent question. Astraea, show us everything that happened after those two... whatever-they-are...arrived at the hotel.

[The Shitennou look up as the ceiling shows the Heltry twins appear out of thin air into the ballroom where Zoi's friends and family are trapped. As the mayhem unfolds, the twins look at one another and shrug. Then they hold hands and their eyes glow pink and then white. A shimmering bubble seems to engulf the room. Slows, all movement in the room slows, as if the air is congealing into jello.]

[Beryl watches with a look of utter dismay]

Neffy: This is bad.

Beryl: They are somehow able to create pocket dimensions that can distort time. If they manage to trap us in one of these pocket dimensions, it will be as if time has stopped,so we would be completely at their mercy.

Kunzite: [watches them walk past the now immobilized humans] Especially since they seem to be immune to its effects.

[They phase right through the wall and into where Zoisite is being burned at the stake, while Neffy tries in vain to free him. Kunzite's eyes glisten with pain at the sight of it.]

The twins wait until Neffy is gone before revealing themselves, with a wave of Eleanor's hand, Zoi is engulfed in flames.]

Kunzite: What happened there?

Astraea: She teleported Zoisite Midori back to his bedroom. The flames were purely decorative, presumably summoned for misdirection.

Neffy: Interesting. Why did she go to all that trouble to spare Wifey-boy, when she could have easily just let him die?

Jeddy: You could ask the same about why they spared the humans in the ballroom.

Neffy: Except the humans are hapless civilians, and Zoi is an enemy combatant in a war against Metalia.

Jeddy: They probably didn't know Zoi is a Shitennou. I mean, how would they? It's not like Zoi was around during our glory days.

Astraea: They know he is a Shitennou. They have referred to him several times as a Shitennou in conversation.

Neffy: Then shouldn't they have gotten rid of Kunzite's yippity little lapdog when they had the chance? [under his breath] I know I would have.

Beryl: You do make an interesting point. Astraea. Show us everything you know about them! In chronological order from their first appearance in the Earthly Realm to the present time

Astraea: That would take months.

Beryl: Then summarize! Tell me anything that you think might be of interest to me, and I will decide what I want to see.

Astraea: Very well, Daughter of Chaos. They materialized on the Moon, one thousand years ago, and stole the Silver Crystal-

Beryl: Yes, yes, we already saw that. Get to the parts I don't already know.

Astraea: They created a portal using Dark Magic, and went through it, vanishing from existence.

Jeddy: Where did they go?

Astraea: I can not say with certainty, but their next sighting was in Malibu, California in 1991, where they materialized wearing the same attire and holding the Silver Crystal. They fed, bathed, altered their appearance, and then created another portal, which they vanished through before appearing in Hen Tie, in September of this year. And it is in Hen Tie they have remained, this entire time.

Jeddy: You said they fed? What did they feed on? Or would I rather not know?

Astraea: They ate fried chicken. And Mashed potatoes. With gravy.

Jeddy: [wide eyed] Fried chicken? Where did they get the fried chicken?

Astraea: From a cardboard bucket. From a restaurant called KFC, which had recently changed it's name from 'Kentucky Fried Chicken'-

Beryl: That hardly matters!

Neffy: The hell it doesn't. They doesn't sound like any Dark Energy creature I've ever heard of. They steal the most powerful artifact in existence then go home and pig out on junk food? Are you sure these aren't actual human teenagers?

Beryl: Don't be stupid! How could a pair of paltry humans summon enough dark energy to create a door that would take them 1000 years into the future?

Jeddy: That's what I want to know! Kunzite's studied time travel for centuries, and he can't mess around in time like this. And he is a hell of a lot more powerful than they are!

Kunzite: Not everything is about study and power levels. Knowledge, training, and discipline also come into play...and the fact that their Aspects are 'Physics' and 'Music' doesn't hurt either.

Jeddy: Oh?

Kunzite: The Laws of Physics are building blocks of the universe. A person with sufficient skill in dark magic and a intuitive gift for physics is better prepared to harness the forces of reality.

Neffy: [under his breath] Sounds like the boy got the short end of the stick on that one.

Kunzite: Not at all. Music is the intuitive ability to harness sound waves and use them to manipulate thoughts and emotions...In other words, she can control 'things' while he can control 'people'...And while he might lack his sister's knowledge, I'm willing to bet he is leagues ahead of her when it comes to insight... These two...working together ...without conflict...

Beryl: Should still not be powerful enough to defeat a minor god of chaos! Much less destroy one! A shield made of cardboard cannot stop a high caliber bullet! No matter how well constructed it is!

Neffy: Actually-

[Beryl gives him a stern look and he goes quiet and makes a zipping motion across his lips]

Beryl: If the Silver Crystal is not a factor then someone is helping them! Someone grotesquely powerful! Astraea, who are they working for?

[turkiyeecom]

How Police Brutality Can Function as Terrorism

Photo: @megoconnor13/twitter Video was made public over the weekend showing Phoenix police officers threatening to shoot members of a black family, which included a child and a toddler. The incident occurred on May 27, when the 4-year-old daughter of Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper allegedly stole a doll from a Family Dollar store. (NPR reports that the child’s parents were unaware of the alleged theft.) Officers followed the family — Ames and Harper, who was pregnant, and their two daughters, ages 4 and 1 — to an apartment complex where the family’s babysitter lived. Officers are seen on cell-phone video shouting at the four to exit their vehicle. One is heard yelling, “Get your fucking hands up” and “I’m gonna put a fucking cap in you,” while another voice — perhaps of the same officer — is heard threatening, “You’re gonna get fucking shot.” The profane tirades turn physical when one officer handcuffs Ames and another tries to yank the toddler from Harper’s arms. The officer with Ames shoves the 22-year-old father against a police vehicle, kicks his legs until Ames falls to one knee, and thrusts his elbow into Ames’s back. The officer with Harper is seen shouting and pointing in her face and pulling on the arm in which she is carrying her 1-year-old baby. He eventually permits the pregnant woman to hand her children to a bystander before arresting her. None of the family members is armed. The confrontation has prompted a $10 million civil-rights lawsuit and apologies from Phoenix’s mayor and chief of police. According to the suit, the 1-year-old was injured when the officer tried to wrench her from her mother; the 4-year-old has been experiencing nightmares and wetting the bed out of distress ever since. As far as accountability, Mayor Kate Gallego has scheduled a public forum where residents can voice their concerns about the incident and called for quicker implementation of body cameras across the Phoenix Police Department — an odd solution given that visual evidence was not lacking here. Aside from that, it is possible that no further legal or administrative recourse will be forthcoming. Officers routinely skate for killing people. Why would black Phoenicians expect them to be held accountable for merely threatening to kill? Official accountability aside, the fear and mistrust sown in black communities via such incidents and the resulting mental-health downsides are well documented. The Phoenix debacle is further evidence that many officers’ interactions with black children in particular are rooted in intimidation and violence, with far-reaching side effects. By most definitions, the brutality applied disproportionately against black people by police across the United States is not “terrorism,” in a technical sense, only because it is permitted by law. That said, it serves a similar end: ensuring that its targets and their communities live in a state of constant stress, mistrust, and fear, practically from the cradle to the grave. By most measures, Ames and Harper are lucky to be alive. The wealth of instances where similar interactions have ended with an unarmed black person dead at the hands of police hints at how easily the encounter could have turned fatal. The fear generated by this possibility is not a matter of probability. Like most Americans, black people are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, or even violence committed domestically or on the streets than at the hands of a police officer. But the peculiar nature of law enforcement’s relationship to black communities is what makes it so laden with fear. With the exception of Native Americans — who make up a much smaller share of the general population — black people are the most likely racial demographic to be harassed, brutalized, or killed by police in a given year. This can be attributed in part to the relationship’s long-standing function: During the lynching era — roughly the end of Reconstruction to the end of Jim Crow — the primary job of law enforcement, when it came to black Americans, was to contain them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy by enforcing laws designed to criminalize them, while ensuring that white people were not punished for murdering them or robbing them of their land and labor. When black people fled the South en masse during the Great Migration to escape this treatment, the cities and towns to which they fled in the North, West, and Midwest greeted them with a presumption of innate criminality, a presumption driven in part by crime statistics that reflected the extent to which the most trivial aspects of their lives — including riding an empty freight train or “speaking loudly in the presence of white women” — had been transformed into crimes in the South. Police were used to corral new black residents into ghettos depressed by poverty and molded by desperation and limited avenues for mobility. Yet remarkably, the structural ills that were imposed on the black sections of these municipalities were cast as products of their residents’ own pathologies. To this day, many Americans remain convinced that the harsh policing that dogs black communities is a necessary response to something inherently wrong with black people. For those on the receiving end, the result is a state of terror. Terrorism works by convincing its targets that they are always being hunted — no matter where they are or what they are doing, their lives are out of their hands. Its aim is victory through fear. And what better way to ensure that people live in fear than to demonstrate that even the most minor transgressions — a 4-year-old’s supposed theft of a doll from a Family Dollar store — can result in their public execution? And, perhaps as troubling, that nobody will be held accountable for said execution because it is an expression of the public will? The psychological fallout is demonstrated in the data: According to a 2014 study conducted by public-health researchers at Harvard and Boston University, incidents of lethal police violence precipitate a spike in what black adult respondents consider to be “poor mental health days” not just among people close to those victimized but their communities more broadly, judging by metrics established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The impact is racially asymmetrical: “Mental health impacts were not observed among white respondents and resulted only from police killings of unarmed black Americans,” the study reads. For black children, such negative interactions can be formative. A 2018 survey of research on the subject compiled in The Future of Children, a journal of the policy-research partnership between Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Brookings Institution, found that many black youth in Chicago view police as “a constant, inescapable, and unwelcome presence” in their lives. Interactions are marked frequently by officers exerting their dominance in the form of offensive questions and degrading directives, causing black children to feel powerless. As a result, by the time they turn 18, many of these youth have a bleak but well-earned outlook on policing: According to a 2014 survey by the Black Youth Project and the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, more than half of black people between ages 18 and 34 have experienced police violence or harassment or know someone who has. (Thirty-three percent of white respondents and 25 percent of Latino respondents had.) Fewer than half of black respondents said they trust the police, compared to 60 percent of Latinos and 72 percent of whites. It remains incredible, given this documented mistreatment of so many black children by the police, that pundits and politicians continue to attribute negative disparities to some innate black defect — often located in the black family. Broken black homes are blamed for crime in black communities, with scant or ancillary mention of imposed poverty, the ills of segregation, or the role the state plays in rupturing said families using the criminal-justice system. Police violence is dismissed as subordinate to intraracial violence, or “black-on-black” crime — a phenomenon endemic, to varying degrees, within every racial group — as if the two were separate and distinct phenomena rather than twin products of racist policy. If these pundits are correct, then the May 27 incident in Phoenix might be cast as reasonable treatment for a 4-year-old alleged shoplifter, her pregnant mother, father, and 1-year-old sister. But if — as history and the evidence suggest — black families can more accurately be described as victims of violence than its root cause, then the Phoenix police, buoyed by the public will, were culpable in not just an overreaction but an act of terror. How Police Brutality Can Function as Terrorism 22 mins ago Trump the peacenik Facing twin challenges in the Persian Gulf, President Donald Trump said in an interview with TIME Monday that he might take military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but cast doubt on going to war to protect international oil supplies.“I would certainly go over nuclear weapons,” the president said when asked what moves would lead him to consider going to war with Iran, “and I would keep the other a question mark.”Just hours earlier, Iran announced an escalation of its nuclear program, saying that within 10 days it will breach the limit on its stockpile of enriched uranium that was set under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.Last week, U.S. officials blamed Iran for attacks against Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. 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[hyrulehb]

How Do You Stay Awake?

The evening started normally enough, Kou relaxing in Kei’s room at the base, then tranquilizer darts got involved. Now the two young ajin are forced to try and stay awake until the drug runs its course. Slow dancing wasn’t on the list of suggestions, but that’s what happened and then it evolved into even more.

Tags: language, sex, needles I guess, KouKei, fluff and a speckling of angst maybe? Happy endings. Takes place before the final battle and lost of the Gulf team.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

A soft, contented sigh left Kou’s lips as he felt a hand moving slowly through his hair. Nails gently scraping into his scalp just enough to send a shiver of satisfied pleasure rolling down his spine. The fingers would crest to the edge of his hairline where it melded seamlessly with the skin of his forehead before trailing backwards over the back of his cranium and ending at the base of his skull. The wrist would turn and up the hand would travel again. The greatest part was when the fingers would slide and press on the sides of his head, creeping up behind his ears slipped back down again.

Fuck, this was the best. He could probably fall asleep right there. It was astounding to think that the person giving such great massage was such a scumbag half the time. Still he loved him all the same, these quiet peaceful moments were rare and far between lately in their lives. Right now, they had retreated into the dark-haired ajin’s room. Sure, they got up to some naughty business, they WERE teenagers after all, hormones with a limited selection for an outlet were a thing as well. But more often than not, they ended up like this. Cuddling in some way, usually with Kou dazing off into space while Kei read from his tablet or some tome that looked like it could reduce the more athletic boy’s brains to mush by just opening the first page.

At the moment, Kou was leaned against the side of Kei’s bed and the shorter boy laid on top of it. One of Kei’s hands was obviously occupied with the light locks, but the other Kou hadn’t the slightest idea of what he could be doing with it. Kou could hear the intellect fiddling around with something, but honestly, he couldn’t drag himself out of his state of bliss to care enough to investigate.

He probably should have cared, after all, since when it’s connected with Kei, an unknown aspect usually came back to bite him in the ass.

Well, to be fair, it wasn’t in his ass this time. No, a sharp pain radiated from the right side of his neck. His only warning had been the soft sound of Kei shuffling around on the blankets, the rubs along his head never pausing in their hypnotic rhythm.

The feeling had unfortunately become a familiar one, the source coming from ajin and humans alike. Instincts kicked in, fight or flight, live or die, there was no thinking, just moving. Kou’s body surged forward on its hands and knees, the movements slightly clumsy as his limbs started to feel heavy and numb. He’d only traveled a few feet away from the bed before he fell on his side, the pain of his head bouncing against the hardwood floor making him yelp and clench his eyes shut in pain.

When he looked at the bed again, the light-haired teenager was surprised by what he saw, okay, maybe he really shouldn’t have been. But how was one supposed to react when they saw their lover casually sitting cross legged on the bed with a bored expression and a syringe in their hand.

“What. The. Fuck. Kei?! What was in that?”

“You know, azaperone, combelen, domosedan, dormicum, dero-“ The other’s casual listing was cut off as Kou growled out, hand pressed against the small wound on his neck. It was probably bleeding more than it was supposed to because he had jerked away so suddenly. Hell, he was probably lucky that the needle hadn’t broken off inside of his flesh. The light-haired teenager shuddered at the idea of a long thin piece of metal just sticking awkwardly halfway in and out of his throat. “Wha-What are you doing? You know that means absolutely nothing to me, just tell me what it does!”

“If you actually read the report I gave you yesterday you would know that those are all drugs inside of what makes tranquilizer darts.” There Kei went again, twisting the situation so that suddenly Kou was somehow at fault and not the male that had literally just stabbed and injected his lover with…. Wait what?

“Why the hell would you do that?! Are you trying to put me to sleep for some sick kick?” Kou’s mind was whirling, trying to make logic out of this mess, but even now he could feel his limbs becoming heavier. He hated this feeling, becoming powerless to even move himself an inch. It brought back horrible echoes of his first death.

“Geeze, you’re so fucking loud,” Kei grumbled back, there was a small black case next to him that Kou hadn’t noticed before. His fingers moved quickly, picking up a new syringe and filling it from the same vial he had used on his companion. There was no hesitation in his movements as he lifted the needle up and against the flesh of his own neck. He knew he had to avoid the jugular vein, despite how tiny the pinprick would be, an opening in such a major highway for his blood would be a catastrophe. Dying would eliminate the whole purpose of doing this. A steady thumb felt its way over the plunger and as the metal slid into flesh, he pressed down.

“Whoa…” The word left Kou’s lips in a soft breath, he still couldn’t get over how easily the shorter ajin could bring harm and even death upon himself. Even after subjecting himself to an endless cycle of death by hanging until Kei decided to come let him down, slicing and abusing himself always made him feel sick. While Kei accepted his lot, and had faith in his abilities as an immortal, Kou could never let go of that sense of doubt. That maybe… just maybe, they wouldn’t come back this time.

Pushing away those thoughts for now, the broader ajin grumbled out, hand still pressed against his neck as he watched Kei take the needle out of himself and put the medical supplies away, “Okay, so why did you inject both of us?”

“It’s training.” He rolled his eyes as he got the expected ‘HAAAAA?!’ from the ajin he once saw as only another threat to his obtainment of a quiet life. Now, it was so very strange, Kei couldn’t imagine after all of this finally settled down and there would no longer be any fighting or hiding, that Kou would be absent from his side. No, the lighter-haired teen had made himself quite comfortable in Kei’s life and was attached to his side. ‘Kind of like a disgusting growth.’ Of course, he thought that with the utmost tender of emotions that his frigid heart could provide.

“What is the biggest weakness that an ajin has?”

“Umm dying in a way that takes us a long time to come back?” Kou was speaking from experience with that one, after all, death by suffocation took a few minutes and most of the time, it took an ajin the same amount of time to reanimate as it did for them to die. Though there were also other factors involved like missing limbs, snapped bones, weakened internal structures, and yada yada… Kou had stopped listening to Ogura’s explanation halfway through.  

Honestly, Kei was surprised and more than a little impressed with Kou’s answer, having expected him to answer something idiotic like ‘dying’. Then again, the brunet was proving to be a better learner through experience rather than through text or listening. He wasn’t exactly sure how to physically introduce the periodic table or advanced history, math, or other more theoretic subjects; the laws of physics were easy enough though. Kou had an unfortunate pension for dying by means of extreme heights.

“While that is a problem, there are ways to counterattack it. Such as doing things that would hasten death,” A quick gunshot to the head or cutting major arteries and veins to bleed out were the examples that came to mind. Sure, there would be cases where they wouldn’t be able to accelerate their deaths, such as in the case where they were pinned down or didn’t have any tools available for their use. Though even a pencil could be deadly… with enough force and determination.

“Knocking an ajin unconscious is where our greatest flaw lies, my IBM, when it’s not being an asshole can sometimes appear even while I’m out. It’s not very reliable though.” God, why did his IBM also have to be included on the list of dumbasses in his life, even if it did say things that made Kei think and perhaps even feel regret, that didn’t mean its sass was appreciated.

“Quiz time, how have you and I almost been captured the most?” Kei could see Kou filtering through his memories with a grimace, but his answer was quick, “Darts.”

“Exactly,” Kei affirmed, leaned back on his hands, the drugs, even in their lower dosage were brutal. His limbs felt like they had cement blocks attached to them and his eyelids felt like they had magnets attached to each lid. It was a struggle, but talking was helping to keep him awake, “The darts that most governments use to take down ajin are basically the same, per my research, so if we can build up a tolerance for it we should be safe from an attack from any source.”

“You really don’t have a shred of faith in humanity, do you?” Kou groused, still it made sense, they had been using those dart guns themselves in preparation for a battle against Sato when he, no doubt, reared his head again.

“I’m a realist,” was the articulated answer as he set the medical bag into his bedside drawer, Kei had stolen the supplies, however he had also been put in charge of keeping an inventory of them, so it was easy to fudge the numbers. The darts were ready made so a few vials and syringes wouldn’t be missed. He laid awake too many nights wondering how he could protect himself since the day he discovered that he was inhuman.

That reminded Kei and he glanced over to where his lover was sitting, the taller boy’s shoulders weaving slightly as he tried to keep upright, “By the way, we can’t drink any coffee or take any stimulants, that would defeat the purpose of trying to build up a resistance to it.”

“You got to be kidding me, I already feel like I could drink a café dry and I still wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open,” Kou whined as he forced himself to his feet, pacing the length of the room. It was helping, so was the start he got when he finally removed his hand from his neck and saw how it was painted bright red. “Fuck, you couldn’t have warned me at least?! I could have ripped my throat open!”

“You would have come back anyway,” Kei countered, he wished the other would stop, the back and forth movement was making the dark-haired ajin feel even more exhausted as it seemed to have an almost hypnotizing affect. Rolling his eyes as he heard Kou snip back, “It still hurt!”

“Oh, grow up, it was just a small prick.”

“I know what you are, but what am I?” Kou smirked as he got a flabbergasted look in response, a small rush of pride running through him as he knew that he had managed to catch the other teen off-guard. However, his expression quickly shifted to one of annoyance once more as Kei criticized him, “What are you, eight?”

It must be nice, living with a much more carefree and open personality like Kou, Kei mused to himself as he watched the other fume. The other ajin’s cheeks heating up in a mixture of anger and embarrassment as he crossed his arms over his chest. As if that would somehow make a physical barrier against Kei’s snark.

The seconds ticked by and Kei’s head was starting to lull backwards until Kou’s voice reached him, “Hey… Hey, wake up! This was your dumb idea to begin with, you can’t fall asleep first!” Kei conceded, opening his eyes once more, unsure of when he had closed them. He was still sitting up, but his arms felt like jelly. Kei remembered then that he had decided to do this with Kou for two reasons, one was the hope that they could keep each other awake, and two, he wanted to try and protect the other ajin that had stolen his icicle of a heart. So often, it felt like Kou’s warmth was about to make him crumble.

The intellect wasn’t doing this to just strengthen Tosaki’s forces, if he was then he would have invited Izumi to join them to build up her tolerance as well. No, this was going to be their failsafe. If the white-haired man and his crew turned on them during or after all this was over, Kou and Kei would have a means to escape capture. It was the same case with the female ajin, if they managed to tranquilizer her, then she’d be out of commission while they would still be going strong.

Kei doubted that Kou would connect all these hidden dots though, but that was fine. It was Kei’s job to worry and plot for the worst, not the trusting and warm Kou.

“So how are we going to stay awake? Just sitting here isn’t really helping,” Kou griped while stepping into Kei’s attached bathroom. Wetting down a towel so he could wipe the blood away from his neck and hand, groaning as he saw the dark red stain on the collar of his hoodie. Looks like he’d have to get it washed for the third time this week. Both Kei and Kou had learned how to get bloodstains out of clothing since the need was so great. Usually though, it was the lighter-haired ajin who had his clothing and skin suffer the most.

“Chess, go over the plans and yesterday’s meeting?” Maybe being productive was the answer, Kei hated wasting time. Though the time he spent alone with Kou wasn’t exactly purposeless, it was grounding and practically therapeutic for Kei. To know that the other was still there, alive and in his arms. It was a much-needed break for both of their sanities after being pelted with orders for harsh training and seeing news report after news report of horrors being committed both around the world, and in Japan in relation to both ajin and Sato.

“Do you want to put me to sleep faster?” Kou accused, stopping in front of the bed with a small pout, then there was a gleam in his eye as he leaned forward, catching pale pink lips with his own. “I can think of something fun we can do to keep ourselves awake.”

Kou was elated when he felt the intellect responding positively, the kisses were soft and chaste. However, it was when Kou pressed his tongue against the seam of the other ajin’s lips that he received a sharp smack to the back of his head. Drawing back with a pained yelp, Kou’s muddy red eyes glared into the matching pair of his partner’s, “Ow, what the hell, babe?”

Those stupid pet-names, Kei hated them and he hated the way that they made his stomach do these odd twists inside of him. Yeah, he totally hated them with a passion.

“What usually happens after we have sex, Kou?”

It was so weird that someone could ask that question without a blush and with a completely monotone voice. Still Kou racked his brain for an answer, replying lamely as he knew it wasn’t the one that Kei was searching for, “Umm, we cuddle for a few hours and are happy?”

There was another smack to his shoulder this time as Kei corrected, “Wrong, you snuggle, I get crushed to you like some overstuffed teddy-bear. The important part of the answer is that we usually pass out. I always try to fall asleep before you because you snore like a freaking Hokkaido bear. We are trying to stay awake remember?”

“I don’t snore!”

“I’ll record the evidence next time,” Kei amended, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. He stretched his arms over his head, hoping the action would help wake him up. Pushing a hand against Kou’s chest to get him to back up a little. Kei muttered while moving towards the laptop on his desk, “How about we listen to some really awful, loud music. That might help keep us awake. I got some music from Ogura that he said is called ‘American screamo’.”

“That… just sounds awful,” Kou laughed, but maybe that would make the stupid tranquilizer be forgotten. He shadowed the shorter boy, curious about what the English song might sound like. Both of them were sluggish in their movements, shoulders weaving slightly and their balance had gone to shit. More than once Kei almost ended up faceplanting into the carpet when the taller ajin would bump into his back on accident.

Kou only gave a cheeky smile and laugh whenever the other would send a glare back at him. It was Kei’s fault he was acting as graceful as a drunk elephant so he only had himself to blame really.

Then again, Kou was hardly a ballerina normally.

A click to the laptop resulted in the opposite of what Kei had intended, soft classical music flowing out of the speakers and the dark-haired ajin felt his cheeks heating up. There was nothing to be ashamed of, after all, Kei had discovered the theory that listening to classical music helped to focus the brain and encouraged critical thinking was true. Still, the sweet notes were probably seen as lame and outdated to the other teenager behind him.

“Shit, I need to change the CD, hold on.” Where had be last seen the case that Ogura had chucked at his head during dinner one night? Kei had managed to catch it at least, meaning he didn’t have to regrow an eye or something stupid like that. Though the researcher would probably have watched that with interest while spewing some lame apology and puffing out smoke.

Turning on his heel Kei stumbled, it felt like his body had a fifth of its normal reaction time, like the world was moving in horrid slow motion. At the same time, it seemed like it would also speed up with a jerk when his body finally did move, the synapses in his brain firing rapidly but the message was slowed down by the traffic jam inside his nerves and muscles caused by the tranquilizer. The rush was like being able to break through the barrier before having to slow back down rapidly to avoid crashing into another.

Disorientating to say the least.

Kei never made it to bookshelf however, as a warm hand caught his hip and another interlaced with the fingers of his left hand. A tug and the dark-haired ajin was stumbling into a broader chest. Blinking in confusion he looked up to see the grinning face of Kou as he declared, “It’s cool, I think I know what to do with this music.”

“What are you talking about? Let go already,” Kei’s demand was sharp, but his body wasn’t following through with the protest. Instead, in its sleepy state, leaning closer to that familiar source of comfort and warmth.

“Come on, just relax.” The taller boy hushed, the softness of his voice startling Kei and he could feel himself letting go of his desire to push away. One thin brow arching up as he silently questioned what Kou was plotting.

Kei didn’t have to wonder for long as Kou lifted their intertwined hands higher and to the side, while Kou’s other hand had moved to slide further along the intellect’s lower back, both supporting him and holding him closer. Then Kou started to sway gently with the music, taking one step to the left and making Kei unsteadily follow him. Then a step backwards, causing the cynical ajin to bang his head against the other’s solid chest when he tripped forward slightly. Kei caught on and groaned as he tried to tug himself free of his lover’s tight hold, they were slow dancing. A lethargic, clumsy semblance of it at least, but still doing it.

Cheeks feeling horribly hot Kei grumbled as Kou tried to spin them around, stepping on the raven’s toes when he did so. Hissing Kei had to return the favor, making sure to put his whole weight onto Kou’s as the lighter-haired immortal yelped in pain. However, to Kou’s credit his grip didn’t loosen, instead making them continue to do a bastardized version of a box step waltz. Giving in, Kei moved to brace his free hand on Kou’s shoulder to help him stay balanced.

“How do you even know how to do this?” complained Kei as he tried not to make sense of the pattern that Kou was making. It seemed completely random, because, of course, it was. Putting his trust in Kou to move and lead them was something that his mind rebelled against and made the dance even more sloppy.

“Believe it or not, I’m a big fan of romantic comedy movies, you’d be surprised how often they manage to stick something like this in there.” Came the answer with a grin, Kei was glad that this time, Kou was the one that was blushing at the admission. The other really did look adorable, but Kei would rather die than ever admit that, so instead he muttered, “God, you’re so lame.”

“You know… I’m really trying to be romantic you asshole.” Kou snarled back, his embarrassment turning to anger and as the music took a slight crescendo he moved to follow his instincts. Dipping the other ajin low and grunting in slight pain as, in a moment of panic and fear of being dropped Kei moved his free arm that had been resting against Kou’s chest to wrap around the taller boy’s neck.

“If you stop trying to bend my spine the wrong way, you might actually succeed,” Kei snipped back, both almost losing their footing and they tried to straighten back up after the dip. Instead of answering, Kou’s lips found themselves against Kei’s. Stealing a quick kiss as he spoke, muddy red eyes meeting a matching pair. “You’re having fun, admit it.”

“I am, and I hate it.”

Kou was laughing loudly at that, spinning them faster though each time they threatened to topple over with the drugs still coursing through their systems. The brunet’s mirth was contagious and Kei found himself chuckling softly as well as Kou managed to dip him once more without getting a vice grip around his throat.

Normally, Kou would have gotten the clawed fingers of Kei’s ghost ripping through him multiple times by now, but it seemed that the tranquilizer had a thankfully calming effect on the IBM. Still the taller ajin kept his ears out for any crackling hiss that would be his only warning of the monster appearing.

The CD continued to play, song after song, the pair managed to come up with some kind of style that would fit it. A faster paced, jazzy piece had Kou trying to kick his heels up, and one ill-fated jump had the ajin kissing the hardwood floors. Scrambling back to his feet with a groan as he wiped the blood from his nose on his sleeve. A classical tango brought out Kei’s teasing side, using Kou as an anchor as he swung his hips and let Kou spin him about. Even if the action made him feel sick when they finally slowed back down into another waltz. They probably looked like drunk, idiotic teenagers, but with the door locked, they had the privacy to act how they wished.

As the laptop finally fell silent as a result of the last song reaching its end, the pair stood there. Panting slightly and soft smiles on both of their lips as Kou pressed his forehead against Kei’s. For a few moments, they stood in silence, enjoying the presence of the other and the assurance that each was there. Alone in moments like these, Kou noticed that Kei seemed to almost always being touching him in one way. Maybe it was his own way of making sure Kou wasn’t going to just disappear.

Humming softly as he realized how much energy was buzzing in his veins. “How long were the tranquilizers supposed to work anyway?”

“I’m guessing that they should have worked their way through our systems by now.” Kei mused as he glanced at the clock on his nightstand. He had started them out with a very small dose and planned that as the days continued to up it more and more. The body revived with a same amount of muscle it had before it died and the same ideal physical condition. Under that idea, their tranquilizer tolerance would remain despite resetting.

“Which means we can totally do it now!”

“Dumbass, there you go thinking with your dick again.” Kei grumbled, but let himself be pulled towards the bed. Already he could feel his body heating up as Kou pulled off his hoodie and shimmied out of his jeans, calling over his shoulder as he tossed the clothing to one corner of the room, “Come on, it’s not like you’re complaining.”

No, Kei supposed he wasn’t, as he let his head be tilted upwards so that his lips could meld with those of the other ajin and his back hit the mattress unsure of how he had come to shed his own clothing so fast. He really, really wasn’t complaining.

Kou moved to settle himself to be crouching over the smaller form on the bed, a smile on his face and eyes warm with love and lust. Kei felt his cheeks reddening again, how could Kou let himself be seen by ANYONE with such an expression on his face? It was so embarrassing and Kei looked away. But a gentle hand on his chin turned the colder ajin’s head back to face him, lips enveloping his own as Kou’s other hand started to trace the familiar dips and curves of Kei’s lean frame.

Sometimes, the pair would dive into sex, being rough and quick, each touch searing and demanding as it searched for pleasure. Other times, it was slow and sweet, sensually cheesy like one of those horrid romance novels that Kei had awkwardly caught his mother reading.

It seemed that this time, it was going to be the latter situation. As Kou kissed Kei, probing for entrance and letting their tongues meet. They had done this so many times now, but each time there was always a little hesitation. That fear of rejection from both parties. Forms warming whenever they received acceptance instead.

Kou knelt between the other ajin’s thighs, the kisses he lavished were to the Kei’s lips, cheeks and forehead, peppering him with the affection that the cold boy secretly craved. It was so strange, how the naïve ajin could make the intellect feel like his body was crumbling into a million pieces, just waiting to be put back together again by Kou’s skilled hands. Blue collar worker like him, labor came naturally to Kou. In this case, it was a cliché ‘labor of love’.

The thought had Kei’s face flushing as the other placed a kiss to side of his neck. The feeling of lips, tongue and teeth making the ajin tremble and toes curl as pleasure rolled over him in waves. Then Kou’s bites became a little rougher, the sucks across his throat growing just subtly more possessive as Kei’s fingers scratched down Kou’s back. Leaving bright red lines in their wake that threatened to draw blood but didn’t. At least not yet.

The blissful fog tried to shroud Kei’s mind, another nip brought him slightly out of it though, eyes narrowing as he tugged at Kou’s hair, “Oi, we talked about leaving marks! I don’t want to kill myself just so I don’t have to die of embarrassment from the others seeing me covered in hickies.”

“Or you could wear a sweater or scarf,” Kou countered, wincing as he felt Kei twist his fingers and pull harder. Shit, if only he had a hair pulling kink this wouldn’t be a problem. Instead he turned his sucks into soft kisses once more as Kei hissed before letting go of the short locks. “It’s the middle of summer you idiot… In Tokyo!”

Any additional harsh retorts were silenced as Kou ran his fingers along Kei’s ribs, it wasn’t a tickling motion, he would have punched him if it had been. The fingers would drag their nails lightly when they traveled downwards. Starting where the dark-haired ajin’s back rested against the bed and drawing inward. Following the trail of the other’s ribs over his sides and towards the middle of Kei’s chest. Then the hands would turn, only the smooth pads of his fingers being felt as they moved back towards their starting point.

This process continued a few more times, Kou also gracing Kei’s chest with kisses and then the hands traveled lower. A soft moan leaving Kei’s lips as he felt a warm hand wrapping around his member. The touch and friction was good as Kou ground his hips against him. Both panting softly as neither wanted to play around any longer. Kei reached over into the nightstand, tossing the small bottle to the brunet as he warned, “Warm it up first or you’re going to have my foot up your ass.”

“Don’t worry, I got you, babe,” Kou answered breathlessly, sitting up straight as he popped the cap off and poured some of the clear liquid into his palm. Swirling it around until it was no longer cold and a mood killer. Kei could be so picky about the temperature sometimes, then again Kou couldn’t sleep unless it was cold in his room.

Those stupid pet names again: babe, honey, baby, doll, and so many others that Kou would call him always made Kei flush. It was embarrassing and if Kou even dared to call him one of them in front of the others he would probably disembowel him. At the same time, he didn’t hate the name calling, not that he’d ever admit it. Still such affectionate terms shouldn’t be used for him, scum would be more accurate in Kei’s eyes.

His musing was cut short as he felt a finger circling his entrance. Kei’s eyes snapped up to meet Kou’s, whose bushy brows were pinched together as he waited for permission. A nod and the finger slide inside. The feeling was still so odd and automatically Kei’s body tensed up, but just as quickly he forced himself to relax once more. It was even easier to do so when the other ajin had his free hand return to stroking and pumping his dick.

It was Kou, and it was safe. The brunet knew how to do these kinds of things, much to Kei’s relief and embarrassment.

Eyes staring at the ceiling as he felt Kou add another finger, scissoring and stretching him out with practiced efficiency. Another finger was added and the stretching continued, Kei counting back in his head as Kou made sure that things would be as comfortable as possible for him. There were two reasons that the athletic ajin always took such care, one, he loved him of course. The other… he didn’t want his dick ripped off by Kei’s stab happy ghost.

Drawing his fingers out, Kou leaned forward to meet Kei’s waiting lips in a kiss, not needing to see to prepare himself and Kei moved his legs to wrap around Kou’s waist. Then the larger ajin was pressing forward, Kei’s arm immediately clawed at Kou’s back as he tried to adjust and accept the feeling of being invaded. Both of them moaning into the kiss as Kou’s thighs pressed against Kei’s ass.

“Fuck, Kei how is that you always feel so good?” Kou breathed out, whole body shivering as he stayed rooted where he was, buried deep in his lover. There went Kou spouting off nonsense that made Kei want to cover his face with his hands, but instead they remained on the other’s shoulders. Breathing coming in short pants. “Just shut up and move already.”

Who was Kou to disobey when Kei asked so nicely? Drawing himself back before thrusting back forward again, feeling Kei’s hips lifting to meet him. While they didn’t see eye to eye a lot of the time, they managed to reach a perfect rhythm like this. A change in angle made Kei let out a keen, shit there it was. Sure, the dark-haired boy understood the science behind that little magic spot inside of him that made him see stars. The little bundle of nerves that fired pleasure through him when pressure was put against it.

Wanting to be a doctor he always paid more attention to health class and did his own research. But being an ajin and with Kou made him more acquainted with the body than he ever thought possible.

Knowledge and boring facts didn’t make the experience any less intense as Kei moaned. It was during sex that it seemed that Kou and Kei also switched roles, the usually stoic ajin flushing and crying out in pleasure while Kou would grit his teeth and moan softly as he drove his hips back and forth.

Kei’s head fell back as he felt a warm hand once again wrap around his member, pumping in time with Kou’s thrusts. They weren’t going to last long, that much was obvious as he raked his nails down the lighter boy’s back once more. The tranquilizers were definitely long gone as each felt the tight tension in their bodies growing yet more taunt.

“Babe, you ready?”

“Hah, what the fuck do you think?” Kei gasped out, shuddering as he felt Kou scrape his teeth against his throat once more. The smaller ajin digging his heels into the small of his companion’s back in an attempt to bring him deeper somehow.

Then Kei felt that taunt string inside him finally snap, coming with a gasp as his muscles clenched in reaction making Kou moan as he thrust in just a few more times before following the other teenager off the peak of pleasure.

With a puff, Kou collapsed on top of his lover, panting to drink in sweet air like it was water. Kei groaned as he pushed at the taller ajin’s shoulder, basically getting crushed, “Heavy, get off me. Now who’s ruining the romance?”

A small snort was Kei’s only answer as Kou rolled off to the side, though not before peppering the other’s eyelids and cheeks with a few short kisses. Both of their bodies were shivering in the aftershocks. Kei grimaced slightly, he wanted to clean up and knew he’d have to change his sheets later, but he felt too boneless to care at the moment. An arm wrapped across Kei’s torso, a worn, but happy voice asking teasingly.

“So, I’m allowed to cuddle you or not?”

A kick to his shin was his answer, making Kou curse before feeling Kei curl closer to him. With Kei’s head on his shoulder, this was how both ajin fell asleep.

Happy Valentine’s day again, @origami10 helped me edit this so I could get out as soon as possible. Hope you enjoyed it, if you did please tell me so!

[realestatereviewswoodburymn]

Offenders are increasingly using social media sites to track their victim, as agents and also other well-intentioned workers leave internet trails on areas like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While trying to advertise properties and also make sales, representatives and others announce their Open Houses, Model House occasions, and areas allowing prospective wrongdoers understand exactly where they are and at what times. Burglars, killers, and also stalkers can target realty people and workers' tasks and even burglarize their residences when they are away, thanks to the information gotten from social media sites. These points contribute to security threats and threat genuine estate experts as well as other workers: Fulfilling and connecting with complete strangers Satisfying in isolated places Satisfying at strange or evening hours Satisfying at left, unlocked, or unsecured residential or commercial properties Meeting others while alone Exist Genuine On-the-Job Life-and-Death Dangers for Real Estate Agents as well as Others? Law enforcement, armed forces members, logging and steel employees, building and construction, and various other high-risk tasks have anticipated risks. However various other professions and also jobs also incur threats, as well as some are not normally anticipated. Regrettably, the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Stats reports that 5,147 employees lost their lives on the job in 2017. Usually, about 14 work deaths take place every day they report. Sadly annually, there are always at the very least a couple of homicide fatalities amongst real estate representatives. Statisticians have discovered that homicides among those associated with property are increasing sharply for about 1.7 million real estate professionals. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals about 50 property folks pass away every year in the U.S., over each of the past 4 years alone. ABC News emphasizes that murders of realty professionals have gotten on the increase. If you are a real estate specialist, it is important for you to comprehend the threats of normal property tasks, learn more about Real estate agent security, as well as recognize what you can do to safeguard on your own. Your broker as well as real estate business need to have existing safety protocols, treatments, and training in position. Other job and also tasks must have similar safeguards in position. What is a "Real estate professional?". A "REAL ESTATE AGENT ® "is a federally registered collective membership mark which determines a realty professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS ® and registers for its strict Code of Ethics. They have conducted numerous objective researches to assist Real estate professionals with security on the job. And also I intend to share some of their safety ideas and also methods. Secret Findings from the 2018 National Association of Realtors (NAR) Safety And Security Study. A 2018 NAR Safety and security Research study was sent to 53,681 Real estate professional members, and 3,049 reacted; a 5.7% reaction rate. At the 95% Self-confidence Degree, the margin of error is plus-or-minus 1.77%. According to the 2018 NAR research, just 46% of Realtors claimed their workplace brokerage had common security procedures for agents. 27% of Realtors in the 2018 research claimed they did not know if their broker agent had agent safety treatments. One-in-three Real Estate Agents (33% in 2018) claimed they had experienced a scenario that made them be afraid for their safety and security or personal info. 41% of women property professionals said they experienced a personal security scenario, while 20% of males did. Break-in and assault were several of the usual scenarios. Locations of personal safety situations experienced by Realtors:. Suburb-- 35%. Metro-Urban area-- 32%. Rural area-- 33%. Town area-- 29%. 45% of female as well as 40% of male Real estate agents picked to carry an individual defense weapon in 2018. Self-Defense tools brought by Real estate professional men and females in 2018:. Pepper Spray: 24% Women; 4% Man. Firearm: 12% Women; 19% Male. Penknife: 6% Female; 9% Male. Taser: 7% lady; 2% Male. Baton or Club: 2% Female; 4% Man. Noise Maker: 4% Women; 0% Male. One of the most typical self-defense weapons brought by Realtors in 2018 were:. Pepper Spray-- 16%. Firearm-- 15%. Prefer Not to Claim-- 8%. Swiss army knife-- 7%. Taser-- 5%. Baton or Club-- 3%. Battery-Operated Sound Maker-- 2%. Safety and security Pointer:. Bear in mind that a mobile phone or smart device app permits you to get in touch with the authorities or a marked call when you remain in danger with a place. This may supply a general complacency. Yet, they will certainly NOT rapidly save you neither avoid harm to you. Like a flashlight allows you to see your assaulter and also highlight on your own to the assailant, however offers you little security. It does, however, serve a helpful general function. Like a cellphone or app which merely reports and also tracks a crime or imminent one as well as does not quickly solve your issue with direct action that can "conserve your bacon.". Reports suggest that the ordinary reaction time to an emergency situation police telephone call is about 10 minutes, but this varies a whole lot, as well as in some areas, it is much longer. As well as most assaults more than quickly in 90 seconds or so. My basic mathematics tells me that you can be killed or seriously harmed a lot of times in that 8.5 minutes time spread, prior to police or assistance gets here. Consider what your various other prompt alternatives versus opponents are? 47% of Realtors researched in 2018 used a mobile phone safety app to track locations and to notify colleagues in emergencies. This is up from 44% in 2017. Lots of Realtors detailed alerting a spouse, friend, or member of the family of their place before revealing a home. 56% of female Realtors used a safety app or alert treatment in 2018, contrasted to 35% of male Real estate professionals. Choosing a Self-Defense Tool for Realtors and Others. Sadly, only 45% of ladies as well as 40% of men realty specialists chose to carry any type of protection tool or tool, as reported by this 2018 NAR Security Research Study, down from previous years. I guess that other individuals from numerous various occupations and also jobs also do not bring any form of a self-defense weapon. For certain, the risks as well as risks have actually not been lowered nowadays, as well as in this author's point of view, more real estate experts and others ought to bring some self-defense tool or device. The risks as well as dangers are evident, as presented above. However, there is no universal approval of this idea of a protection weapon, e.g., college districts with the option of permitting managers or instructors to lug pistols, also to secure pupils as well as with specified limitations. Sadly, once more, I have observed as well as found firsthand that a huge majority of realty experts, school administrators, and also others do not lug any individual protection tool. Additionally, I note that lots of who do use a tool select their self-defense tool or tool based almost exclusively on feelings, subjectivity, expense aspects, and what their family and friends members think is proper and also what they suggest. Some have also told me they do not intend to spend the money on a gun and instruction on exactly how to utilize it, even though they accept the idea of the correct use a self-defense weapon. This makes me question their priorities and also the decision-making process. It seems to me that the typical option procedure is not objectively-based, not based upon complete and fact-based study, nor logically and also logically sound, for the most part. Goal: Quit the Risk, Protect Life, Prevent Great Bodily Injury. For me as a skilled pistol instructor and experienced armed forces as well as noncombatant self-defense professional, and school manager over several years, I instantly think about a hand gun as an effective tool to quit the risk (not to eliminate) and to protect my life as well as the lives of my liked ones. Bear in mind that to use some protection tools, like pepper spray, a baton or club, swiss army knife, and stun weapon, you should be really close to your enemy. This proximity enhances your risks. Obviously, a gun is a last resort to be utilized just when a life is intimidated and in danger or to prevent excellent physical harm. It is not to always be made use of to protect building, as using fatal pressure to defend real estate is seldom warranted. Use a handgun is very situational, depends upon numerous existing and also specific elements and also the regulation. And, of course, state laws and jurisdictions vary considerably regarding this, so examine your own. Use Your Weapon for Protection. One must fore mostly leave or pull back from the deadly-force experience if whatsoever possible to do so safely as a private, rather than assume the role of law enforcer or a savior to right all wrongs to benefit humankind or to save the globe. De-escalate instead of rise scenarios. Once again, the particular scenario, your state and also administrative legislators , and also the existing variables significantly impact actions. Making use of a handgun needs to not be deemed a sign of your strength or weak point, power, or self-defense skills or capacities. It ought to not be sported neither used by you to boldly launch actions to intimidate an opponent neither to intimidate someone. It is a protection tool. As well as it is not a sign of weak point if you choose not to use it. This is a really individual choice, and also each person must choose for themselves what is the best individual security device or weapon for scenarios. As well as they ought to be prepared as well as not think twice to make use of whatever they select to utilize, provided certain circumstances. For examp

Offenders are increasingly using social media sites to track their victim, as agents and also other well-intentioned workers leave internet trails on areas like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. While trying to advertise properties and also make sales, representatives and others announce their Open Houses, Model House occasions, and areas allowing prospective wrongdoers understand exactly where they are and at what times. Burglars, killers, and also stalkers can target realty people and workers' tasks and even burglarize their residences when they are away, thanks to the information gotten from social media sites. These points contribute to security threats and threat genuine estate experts as well as other workers: Fulfilling and connecting with complete strangers Satisfying in isolated places Satisfying at strange or evening hours Satisfying at left, unlocked, or unsecured residential or commercial properties Meeting others while alone Exist Genuine On-the-Job Life-and-Death Dangers for Real Estate Agents as well as Others? Law enforcement, armed forces members, logging and steel employees, building and construction, and various other high-risk tasks have anticipated risks. However various other professions and also jobs also incur threats, as well as some are not normally anticipated. Regrettably, the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Stats reports that 5,147 employees lost their lives on the job in 2017. Usually, about 14 work deaths take place every day they report. Sadly annually, there are always at the very least a couple of homicide fatalities amongst real estate representatives. Statisticians have discovered that homicides among those associated with property are increasing sharply for about 1.7 million real estate professionals. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals about 50 property folks pass away every year in the U.S., over each of the past 4 years alone. ABC News emphasizes that murders of realty professionals have gotten on the increase. If you are a real estate specialist, it is important for you to comprehend the threats of normal property tasks, learn more about Real estate agent security, as well as recognize what you can do to safeguard on your own. Your broker as well as real estate business need to have existing safety protocols, treatments, and training in position. Other job and also tasks must have similar safeguards in position. What is a "Real estate professional?". A "REAL ESTATE AGENT ® "is a federally registered collective membership mark which determines a realty professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS ® and registers for its strict Code of Ethics. They have conducted numerous objective researches to assist Real estate professionals with security on the job. And also I intend to share some of their safety ideas and also methods. Secret Findings from the 2018 National Association of Realtors (NAR) Safety And Security Study. A 2018 NAR Safety and security Research study was sent to 53,681 Real estate professional members, and 3,049 reacted; a 5.7% reaction rate. At the 95% Self-confidence Degree, the margin of error is plus-or-minus 1.77%. According to the 2018 NAR research, just 46% of Realtors claimed their workplace brokerage had common security procedures for agents. 27% of Realtors in the 2018 research claimed they did not know if their broker agent had agent safety treatments. One-in-three Real Estate Agents (33% in 2018) claimed they had experienced a scenario that made them be afraid for their safety and security or personal info. 41% of women property professionals said they experienced a personal security scenario, while 20% of males did. Break-in and assault were several of the usual scenarios. Locations of personal safety situations experienced by Realtors:. Suburb-- 35%. Metro-Urban area-- 32%. Rural area-- 33%. Town area-- 29%. 45% of female as well as 40% of male Real estate agents picked to carry an individual defense weapon in 2018. Self-Defense tools brought by Real estate professional men and females in 2018:. Pepper Spray: 24% Women; 4% Man. Firearm: 12% Women; 19% Male. Penknife: 6% Female; 9% Male. Taser: 7% lady; 2% Male. Baton or Club: 2% Female; 4% Man. Noise Maker: 4% Women; 0% Male. One of the most typical self-defense weapons brought by Realtors in 2018 were:. Pepper Spray-- 16%. Firearm-- 15%. Prefer Not to Claim-- 8%. Swiss army knife-- 7%. Taser-- 5%. Baton or Club-- 3%. Battery-Operated Sound Maker-- 2%. Safety and security Pointer:. Bear in mind that a mobile phone or smart device app permits you to get in touch with the authorities or a marked call when you remain in danger with a place. This may supply a general complacency. Yet, they will certainly NOT rapidly save you neither avoid harm to you. Like a flashlight allows you to see your assaulter and also highlight on your own to the assailant, however offers you little security. It does, however, serve a helpful general function. Like a cellphone or app which merely reports and also tracks a crime or imminent one as well as does not quickly solve your issue with direct action that can "conserve your bacon.". Reports suggest that the ordinary reaction time to an emergency situation police telephone call is about 10 minutes, but this varies a whole lot, as well as in some areas, it is much longer. As well as most assaults more than quickly in 90 seconds or so. My basic mathematics tells me that you can be killed or seriously harmed a lot of times in that 8.5 minutes time spread, prior to police or assistance gets here. Consider what your various other prompt alternatives versus opponents are? 47% of Realtors researched in 2018 used a mobile phone safety app to track locations and to notify colleagues in emergencies. This is up from 44% in 2017. Lots of Realtors detailed alerting a spouse, friend, or member of the family of their place before revealing a home. 56% of female Realtors used a safety app or alert treatment in 2018, contrasted to 35% of male Real estate professionals. Choosing a Self-Defense Tool for Realtors and Others. Sadly, only 45% of ladies as well as 40% of men realty specialists chose to carry any type of protection tool or tool, as reported by this 2018 NAR Security Research Study, down from previous years. I guess that other individuals from numerous various occupations and also jobs also do not bring any form of a self-defense weapon. For certain, the risks as well as risks have actually not been lowered nowadays, as well as in this author's point of view, more real estate experts and others ought to bring some self-defense tool or device. The risks as well as dangers are evident, as presented above. However, there is no universal approval of this idea of a protection weapon, e.g., college districts with the option of permitting managers or instructors to lug pistols, also to secure pupils as well as with specified limitations. Sadly, once more, I have observed as well as found firsthand that a huge majority of realty experts, school administrators, and also others do not lug any individual protection tool. Additionally, I note that lots of who do use a tool select their self-defense tool or tool based almost exclusively on feelings, subjectivity, expense aspects, and what their family and friends members think is proper and also what they suggest. Some have also told me they do not intend to spend the money on a gun and instruction on exactly how to utilize it, even though they accept the idea of the correct use a self-defense weapon. This makes me question their priorities and also the decision-making process. It seems to me that the typical option procedure is not objectively-based, not based upon complete and fact-based study, nor logically and also logically sound, for the most part. Goal: Quit the Risk, Protect Life, Prevent Great Bodily Injury. For me as a skilled pistol instructor and experienced armed forces as well as noncombatant self-defense professional, and school manager over several years, I instantly think about a hand gun as an effective tool to quit the risk (not to eliminate) and to protect my life as well as the lives of my liked ones. Bear in mind that to use some protection tools, like pepper spray, a baton or club, swiss army knife, and stun weapon, you should be really close to your enemy. This proximity enhances your risks. Obviously, a gun is a last resort to be utilized just when a life is intimidated and in danger or to prevent excellent physical harm. It is not to always be made use of to protect building, as using fatal pressure to defend real estate is seldom warranted. Use a handgun is very situational, depends upon numerous existing and also specific elements and also the regulation. And, of course, state laws and jurisdictions vary considerably regarding this, so examine your own. Use Your Weapon for Protection. One must fore mostly leave or pull back from the deadly-force experience if whatsoever possible to do so safely as a private, rather than assume the role of law enforcer or a savior to right all wrongs to benefit humankind or to save the globe. De-escalate instead of rise scenarios. Once again, the particular scenario, your state and also administrative legislators , and also the existing variables significantly impact actions. Making use of a handgun needs to not be deemed a sign of your strength or weak point, power, or self-defense skills or capacities. It ought to not be sported neither used by you to boldly launch actions to intimidate an opponent neither to intimidate someone. It is a protection tool. As well as it is not a sign of weak point if you choose not to use it. This is a really individual choice, and also each person must choose for themselves what is the best individual security device or weapon for scenarios. As well as they ought to be prepared as well as not think twice to make use of whatever they select to utilize, provided certain circumstances. For examp

[dramaruth7-blog]

Cyntoia Brown Was Granted Clemency by Tennessee's Governor

Updated on January 7, 2019:

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has granted executive clemency to Cyntoia Brown with less than two weeks left in office. According to a statement released by the governor’s office, after having served 15 years in prison, Brown will be released to parole supervision on August 7, 2019.

“This decision comes after careful consideration of what is a tragic and complex case,” Haslam said. “Cyntoia Brown committed, by her own admission, a horrific crime at the age of 16. Yet, imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh, especially in light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life. Transformation should be accompanied by hope. So, I am commuting Ms. Brown’s sentence, subject to certain conditions.”

Haslam went on to say, “While we have spent a considerable amount of time studying and implementing sentencing and criminal justice reform in our state, there is more work to be done,” Haslam said. “I am hopeful serious consideration of additional reforms will continue, especially with respect to the sentencing of juveniles.”

In a statement released by Brown, she thanked Governor Haslam for his "act of mercy in giving me a second chance".

”I will do everything I can to justify your faith in me,” she said. “I am committed to live the rest of my life helping others, especially young people. My hope is to help other young girls avoid ending up where I have been.”

Previously on December 12, 2018...

In 2004, Cyntoia Brown was 16 years old when she was sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of a man she alleged had solicited her for sex, as CNN reported. On Thursday, December 6, the Tennessee Supreme Court said that defendants convicted of first-degree murder after July 1,1995, must serve five decades before they are eligible for parole — meaning Cyntoia won’t be eligible for parole until she is 68 years old. That has folks seeking an executive intervention in the form of clemency from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam

Brown made headlines due to the specifics of her case — part of which includes the fact that she was a juvenile when sentenced but tried as an adult. She has argued that her sentence is unconstitutional, citing a 2012 ruling that declared a life sentence without parole for juveniles was unconstitutional. That ruling came about after Brown’s case gained national recognition with the 2011 release of the PBS documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story, a film about the complexities of her case.

In response to Brown’s argument, the Tennessee Supreme Court released a statement saying "under state law, a life sentence is a determinate sentence of 60 years. However, the 60-year sentence can be reduced by up to 15 percent, or 9 years, by earning various sentence credits." According to the Tennessee code, those credits include recognition for good behavior or participation in educational or vocational training programs. Brown has earned some of those credits due to her “model” behavior as a prisoner — she has received her associate’s degree, is working on her bachelor's, and consults on an unpaid basis for the juvenile justice system.

But now the court says that her sentence isn’t unconstitutional because she will have the possibility of parole — it just won’t be until she serves at least 51 years.

CNN reported that at a clemency hearing in May, the Tennessee Board of Parole couldn’t come to an agreement on a recommendation to Governor Haslam — two members voted to grant clemency, two voted to deny it, and two voted to make her eligible for parole after 25 years.

On Monday, Haslam said he was still deciding whether or not to grant clemency to Brown. "We are reviewing every aspect of it, just like we are with several other ... similar cases," he said. Haslam has until January 19, when he leaves office, to decide how he will handle the case.

Online, activists have been encouraging people to get in touch with Haslam about the case by contacting his office by phone or email.

As reported by CNN, a 2014 petition seeking an appeal in case said Brown met a 24-year-old named “Cut Throat,” who physically and sexually abused her and forced her into sex work, after she ran away from her adoptive parents’ house in an effort to escape an abusive home. On August 6, 2004, she was solicited for sex by 43-year-old Johnny Mitchell Allen. According to court documents, Brown told investigators that after taking her to his home, Allen showed her his guns. She told investigators that she shot him in self-defense, when she thought he was reaching for a gun to kill her.

Her lawyers say she was a sex-trafficking victim who killed Allen because she feared for her life, while prosecutors say she killed him with intent to rob him.

"Cyntoia's sentence is wholly disproportionate for a 16-year-old girl, and therefore unconstitutional," said Marsha Levick, deputy director and chief counsel for Juvenile Law Center. "With a life sentence and a chance for parole only after 51 years of incarceration, the court has sentenced Cyntoia to die in prison. Moreover this sentence was mandatory and thus imposed without any consideration of Cyntoia's background, childhood, or other distinctive developmental attributes."

Editor's Note: The January 7 update to this story was updated with quotes from Cyntoia Brown's statement following its publication.

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Source: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/cyntoia-brown-facing-51-years-prison-tennessee-governor-bill-haslam-clemency

[recentanimenews]

RWBY: 13 Powers We Want to See

Throughout the world of Remnant in RWBY, the huntsmen and huntresses who protect humanity from the creatures of Grimm train beyond normal human ability so that they can survive against the monsters trying to destroy humanity’s few remaining safe havens.

Through their training and with the help of others, they unlock their “aura,” a kind of life energy that both protects them and can be used against the Grimm. Defensively, aura acts as a shield by absorbing damage, and as a healing agent, curing wounds much faster than they would normally heal.

Offensively, the aura is called a semblance, and there is almost no predicting what happens. It is unique for each person, with some gaining super speed, others the ability to make after images, and still others illusions or reflections in the air.

RWBY has not tapped all of the potential of semblances, so here are some ideas for some that may be interesting if they popped up in future seasons.

Grimm Control

Outside of Salem, the leader of the faction of antagonists, no one has shown any ability to control the Grimm, likely due to humanity being from the god of light and the Grimm being from the god of dark. However, if the Maidens were able to inherit some magic from their parents, then there isn’t much reason why the same could not hold true for future generations of other descendents.

The show already seems to be hinting at old fairy tales being grounded in reality and continuing to the present day, so a human with a touch of the dark god’s power isn’t too far outside the realm of possibility. It would even potentially create more emotional stakes for Salem, giving her something to do instead of just standing around most of the time. For the sake of balance, this power could be limited to controlling a single Grimm at a time, and perhaps the larger the creature, the less control the character would have over it.

Flight

Basically every huntsmen and huntresses can almost fly just by shooting down and jumping really high (did I mention how insane the physics in this show are?), but the only person who has shown a true ability to fly is Cinder Fall, and even then it looks more like she is floating on the hot air created by her fire rather than freely flying. It’s a simple ability, but would be a welcome addition. In terms of combat ability, it could be interesting for scouting and reconnaissance-type missions, especially if combined with the next idea. Admittedly though, it’s not the most engaging semblance to look at, which might hold it back from being a good fit for the show.

Squad Sight

Most of the combat in RWBY takes place in fairly close quarters. Across a town square is about the longest distance that people tend to fight, which is especially odd when the main character uses a sniper rifle, even if it is also a scythe. If either someone could stay far away and see through their allies’ eyes or their allies could see through theirs, their teamwork could open up some interesting possibilities. Close quarters fight that also included sniper battles at the same time, extreme long distance sniping while the rest of the team looks for who is spying on them, silently revealing the enemy location to the team for an ambush. It is an ability that all but requires two full teams to be fighting, and most of the recent combat has been relegated to 1-on-1 or team on Grimm, but that also means that this semblance would be both a change of pace for the fighting and the compositions of the fight.

Electricity

Sure, we have Nora able to charge up with lightning and become immensely strong, but thus far no one has shown electricity powers akin to Miles Moralis, a.k.a. Spiderman from the Ultimate universe and protagonist of Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse. It could even work as a subversion of the normal weapon sensibilities in the show, since instead of a gun attached to some other weapon, the character with an electricity semblance could work more like a Monk character from Dungeons and Dragons, using just their bare hands, albeit with palms like tasers.

Summonable Tattoos

On the other side of the spectrum, this character could fit in perfectly with the types of weapons the rest of the cast has. Instead of gauntlets with shotguns, short swords with uzis, or gunchucks though (yes, all of those seriously exist in RWBY), this person could have all of the above tattooed somewhere on them, and then pull them out one at a time, creating both an infinite supply of weapons and an interesting fighting style that would change as different weapons came in to play, much like what we saw when Velvet used her semblance, only the weapons wouldn’t be holograms and would probably be more reusable. For the sake of rule of cool, the show would likely not delve too much in to how realistically possible such an ability would be, likely chalking it up to the same or a similar process as Weiss’s summoning glyphs.

Weather/Terrain Attunement

For all of the creativity RWBY puts in to fight choreography, there isn’t a lot of variance in the actual fight locations or weather. It’s almost always in some variant of a cityscape, with recent developments allowing for more town-scale fights, but without taking much advantage of the surrounding forested areas. The basic form of this semblance is just a ball of aura. No special powers or anything. Maybe it’ll hurt if the character threw it at or punched a Grimm with it, but nothing too special. The interesting part would come from the ball taking on properties of whatever environment it was in, like becoming something resembling a Hadoken by taking on fire properties in a desert, or becoming a water whip in the rain. This would both create a character whose exact abilities could remain a mystery for a while and open up the fights to a wider variety of arenas.

Animal Powers

This would likely make the most sense for a faunus character, for pretty self-evident reasons. An ability that boils down to bringing out different aspects of different animals in rapid succession makes sense for the people who have animal features already. However, if it actually happened, the character could cause some interesting changes in Remnant. Throughout the show, we have mainly seen faunus either trying to integrate peacefully in to the kingdoms, stay by themselves in Menagerie or lash out violently due to being oppressed. This would likely be a character that regardless of what side they take would probably do so while fully embracing their differences from non-faunus humans, potentially creating a new faction to the conflict in the process. In terms of combat ability, it could also be really cool to see different animal features coming out and then fading back in quick succession to adapt to a fast fight, especially if the circumstances require rare or unique animals so that people can learn while being entertained, like with Killing Bites.

Telepathy

This works along the same lines as the squad sight / flight combo from earlier. It works more as a scouting power or with allies in the fight, but could cause interesting situations. If an entire team of people don’t need to say a word because they are communicating telepathically, that opens the door for a completely silent fight or something resembling sealth combatants in a show known for its over the top noise and action. Depending on the specifics of how the telepathy work, it could also be used offensively in combat, since drilling in to a person’s brain with annoying thoughts and sounds could cause them to lose focus on the fight. If the telepathy allows for mind reading, then it becomes much more dangerous, as the character could much more easily steal information like bank account numbers or the secrets that the main cast is trying to keep under wraps.

Semblance Mimic

We have seen an ability adjacent to this, but not this specific ability. Velvet appeared to be able to make short-lived versions of people’s weapons, akin to Shirou Emiya’s Trace ability from the Fate franchise, but no one has yet copied someone’s semblance. Like with the tattoo ability, this would allow for dramatic shifts in fighting style during the middle of combat, leading to more exciting choreography, and would also raise interesting questions about the nature of semblances and the soul that the show has already touched on.

Aura Leech

In some ways the opposite of Juane’s semblance. Instead of the character using their aura to boost others’, their aura sucks away everyone else’s. While this leaves the enemy weaker, it also means that whoever has this ability doesn’t have one of the more offensively-oriented semblances, and so still needs to be able to beat their opponent in combat, their opponent is just weakened. This semblance could also benefit from being a passive, like Qrow’s bad luck. Instead of the person actively choosing who to leech from, they just continually take aura from everyone around them, whether they want to or not. This also ties back in to the narrative thread of whether a person shapes their semblance or the other way around.

Blink

With as fast and frenetic the action tries to be, it’s more surprising that there hasn’t been some kind of short range teleport-type ability yet. Sure, Ruby can move extremely quickly, but she also leave a trail of rose petals in her wake if she is getting serious. Good choreography with this ability could lead to it almost looking like there are multiples of the same person, or them vanishing right in front of someone’s eyes. It’s an ability that sounds decent in theory, but with the right storyboarding and animation could be gorgeous and astounding to watch in action.

1-Second Precognition

This is pretty much Spider Man’s spidey sense. At almost all times, this character has the ability to know exactly what is about to happen near them, up to about a second in advance. Ignoring for a moment how many laws of physics this power breaks just by existing, the person can then choose whether to act on what they know or not. If they act, then they can dodge just about any attack or danger with ease, but their semblance short circuits for a few seconds as all of reality adjusts to the fact that someone acted on knowledge that should have been impossible to know. In other words, the balance to this power is that it whenever it is used, it needs to be rebooted, so only works once every five seconds or so.

Family Memory

Basically think of the Avatar State from Avatar: The Last Airbender, but with less of an immediate god mode and more of a gradual increase in power as the person trains by going back in to their own family history and studying their past generations, then passing on the semblance to their children and allowing the ability to grow even stronger by adding another generation to the learning. We have only seen an inheritable semblance once in the series so far, and for the Schnees it is clearly a metaphor for them inheriting power and their strict upbringing leading to rigid discipline both in life and in training. This semblance opens up a parallel narrative, since instead of inheriting power and responsibility, this character is inheriting a family legacy and they need to choose whether to embrace it, studying even the darker moments of their family’s past, or leave their past and all of the knowledge it contains behind. It also potentially touches on the new plot points being revealed, since this is a character with limited time travel abilities. For the sake of dramatic tension, it would probably be balanced so that the further back someone goes, the harder it is to get back to their own time, so almost no one goes all the way back, but those that do learn about how the world was before Ozpin and Salem.

Those were my 13 ideas for potential semblances that might work in both the world of Remnant and the narrative of  RWBY overall. If any of them are ever officially implemented, they could make for some interesting stories and great fights, especially if the characters get to bounce off of the already existing powers and fighting styles.

Do you agree or disagree with my thought process? Do you have any other semblances you want to see show up in the show’s future? Let me know in the comments!

  ---

Kevin Matyi is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. He's been watching anime for as long as he can remember, and his favorite shows tend to be shonen and other action series.

    By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[owningtoday]

Pick a place to start. NOW!

This post addresses violence in the U.S. It is not a “gun control” post though I do find it odd that we register our homes, vehicles, work places, schools, doctors’ offices, businesses, etc. but we refuse to even identify who owns what firearms much less require training and insurance like we do with driving BUT that is not what this post is about - really.

The party currently in charge wants to talk about mental health and I think that is GREAT! Let’s talk about mental health but then we need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH.

Let’s talk about the fact that over the past 3 years alone the reimbursement rate for licensed psychologists has decreased 30-60% depending on the insurance company. That is a decrease in income of 30-60% for those with a PhD or PsyD and a license to practice psychology at the highest level. The insurance companies have not decreased the reimbursement rates as much for providers with only a Masters degree and a license. What that ultimately means is that access to more highly trained and specialized providers is significantly limited. Insurance companies are forcing more highly trained and specialized therapists out of the plans thus limiting access to them by the people who need them.

Let’s talk about the fact insurance companies limit the number of sessions an individual can have and this number is in no way tied to the treatment plan created by the licensed professional.

Let’s talk about the fact there are professions within the mental health world that require absolutely no regulation whatsoever and the terms that are protected were hard won for some reason. Here’s how confusing that can be for someone seeking assistance. The term “Psychologist” is protected - you have to meet certain criteria of education and licensure to call yourself a “Psychologist”. “Psychotherapist” is NOT a protected term - anyone can hang their shingle with this term and start seeing people for money without any training or regulation including carrying malpractice insurance if they should harm their client in anyway. Don’t even get me started on “Life Coaches”!

Let’s talk about the fact you can turn in a physician’s note to your employer or school for an “excused absence” but the same is not always true for a psychologist’s note. For example, let’s say you have to have treatment for a physical diagnosis - let’s say cancer - that requires you to miss work on a regular basis for a certain amount of time. Your employer is, for the most part, required to accept this. The same is not true for seeking treatment for a mental diagnosis - let’s say an anxiety disorder - that requires you to miss work on a regular basis for a certain amount of time.

Let’s talk about the fact that in 1980, President Reagan discarded a proposal to continue funding for federal community mental health centers and hospitals. This was a severe cut to access to mental health treatment and resulted in a significant increase in the homeless population in the United States. Prior to that, while governor of California, he passed a law that abolished involuntary hospitalization for those suffering with mental illness. This resulted in more than half of those in the hospital for mental illness being released into the community with little more than a “good luck”.

I could go on (and on and on) but let’s pick a place to start. These are not even terribly complex  issues to address. Pick a place to start and DO IT!

Regulate the insurance companies and require them to cover the treatment of mental health as deemed appropriate by the highest credentialed and licensed mental health provider and pay a decent reimbursement so that professional can afford to continue taking that insurance.

Refuse to allow the insurance companies to deny treatment to anyone who has met the requirements of having that insurance (i.e., paying their premium on time).

Regulate the terms associated with the mental health profession to make it easier for someone to access a qualified and licensed professional and more difficult for charlatans and poorly trained individuals to provide ‘treatment’; impose severe sanctions against those who hold themselves out as mental health providers without the proper license.

Require companies to allow their employees to participate in mental health treatment as long as they can perform their required duties.

Let’s provide for the many people who need more significant and longer term care/hospitalization without road blocks.

Here is a (small) start. See below to read the differences between the several types of mental health providers in the state of Florida. Check out your state’s Department of Health site for specifics though the differences are generally small.

Classifications of the Florida Licensed Mental Health Professionals

PSYCHOLOGY The practice of psychology includes: Psychological testing in the evaluation or assessment of personal characteristics such as intelligence, personality, abilities, interests, aptitudes, and neuropsychological functioning; All forms of psychotherapy; Psychoeducational evaluation, remediation, and consultation; Use of psychological methods to diagnose prevent and treat mental, emotional, or psychological disorders, as well as the psychological aspects of physical illness, accident, injury, or disability in individuals, couples, families or groups. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Psychology)

PSYCHOLOGIST: In the State of Florida, a Licensed Psychologist must have a doctoral degree in psychology (Ph.D., Psy.D. or Ed.D.) from an accredited college or university; have completed a one year pre-doctoral internship and a one year post-doctoral residency; and have met licensure requirements which include passing both the National and the State of Florida licensing examinations. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Psychology)

BOARD CERTIFICATION: The American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) offers board certification, also known as Diplomate status, in several specialty areas. The ABPP was developed to provide a credentialing mechanism to test competency in these specialty areas. The areas of specialty certification are: Behavioral Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Counseling Psychology, Family Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Group Psychology, Health Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Psychoanalysis Psychology, Rehabilitation Psychology and School Psychology. (Source: American Board of Professional Psychology)

Ph.D.: Traditionally trained Ph.D. psychologists have a Doctor of Philosophy degree with an emphasis on training in the behavioral sciences. Clinical Ph.D. programs teach the full spectrum of psychological sciences, including the fundamentals of psychology practice. Conducting research is is generally emphasized and completion of a research dissertation is typically required.

Psy.D: Psy.D. Psychologists have a Doctor of Psychology degree and are trained in the behavioral sciences. Clinical Psy.D. programs teach the full spectrum of psychological sciences, including research. Strong emphasis is placed on learning to apply the skills learned, through more structured course sequences and more practical training and experience. Completion of a research dissertation may or may not be required.

Ed.D: Ed.D. Psychologists have a Doctor of Education degree with an emphasis on life-long learning and development as it relates to school and related agencies. Ed.D. psychologists share a common core of knowledge and skill competencies related to psychological foundations which are typically applied to one of two areas of emphasis – school psychology or counseling psychology. Completion of a research dissertation is also typically required.

SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

The practice of school psychology includes: The rendering to an individual, group, organization, government agency, or the public, psychoeducational developmental, and vocational assessment; Evaluation and interpretation of intelligence, aptitudes, interests, academic achievement, adjustment, and motivations or other attributes that relate to learning, educational, or adjustment needs; Short-term situation-oriented counseling for the amelioration or prevention of learning and adjustment problems; Consultation, which include psychoeducational, developmental, and vocational assistance or direct educational services related to learning problems and adjustments to those problems; Development of programs; Acting as a catalyst for teacher involvement in adaptations and innovations; and Facilitating the psychoeducational development of individual families or groups. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Psychology)

School Psychologist: In the Stte of Florida, a School Psychologist must have a minimum of a Master’s degree from an accredited school and has received specialized training in child development and learning and behavior disorders. Licensure is not a requirement although a school psychologist may elect to seek licensure. To become licensed, a school psychologist must have received a doctorate, specialist or master’s degree from a program primarily psychological in nature, have had a minimum of three years of experience as a school psychologist – two of which must be supervised by a licensed school psychologist – and have met other licensure requirements. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Psychology)

CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK The practice of clinical social work is defined as the use of scientific and applied knowledge, theories, and methods for the purpose of describing, preventing, and treating undesired behavior and enhancing mental health and human development. It is based on the person-in-situation perspective and includes methods of a psychological nature to evaluate, assess, diagnose, treat, and prevent emotional and mental disorders or dysfunctions in individual, couple, marital, family or group behavior. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker: In the State of Florida, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker must have a minimum of a Master’s degree in Social Work from an accredited graduate school, have completed a supervised clinical practicum and have met all licensure requirements. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling) MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY The practice of marriage and family therapy is defined as the use of scientific and applied marriage and family theories, methods and procedures for the purpose of describing, evaluating, and modifying marital, family and individual behavior within the context of marital and family systems. It includes using methods of a psychological nature to evaluate, assess, diagnose and prevent emotional and/or mental disorders or dysfunctions. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling)

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists: In the State of Florida, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist must have a minimum of a Master’s degree from an accredited graduate school with a major emphasis in marriage and family therapy, or a closely related field; have completed a supervised clinical practicum and have met all licensure requirements. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling)

MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING

The practice of mental health counseling is defined as the use of scientific and applied behavioral science theories, methods and techniques for the purpose of describing, preventing and treating undesired behavior and enhancing mental health and human development. It is based on the person-in-situation perspective and includes methods of a psychological nature to evaluate, assess, diagnose and treat emotional and mental dysfunctions or disorders. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling)

Licensed Mental Health Counselor: In the State of Florida, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor must have a minimum of a Master’s degree from an accredited graduate school with a major related to the practice of mental health, counseling, have completed a supervised clinical practicum and have met all licensure requirements. (Source: State of Florida, Department of Health, Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling)

OTHER DISCIPLINES

Psychiatrist: A physician who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and study of mental illnesses and substance use disorders; In addition to having met all of the requirements for a medical degree, has completed a residency in psychiatry; May prescribe medications to assist in the amelioration of symptoms; Has met all requirements for licensure in the State of Florida. Psychiatric Nurse: A registered nurse, usually with a Master’s degree, who has received training in psychiatry and who specializes in the application of psychiatric principles in caring for patients with mental and emotional disorders; Has met all requirements for licensure in the State of Florida.

Nurse Practitioner (Psychiatric): A registered nurse with a minimum of a Master’s degree who has received special training to assume and expanded role in providing medical care; Specializes in the application of psychiatric principles in caring for patients with mental and emotional disorders; May prescribe some medications under the supervision of a physician; Has met all requirements for licensure in the State of Florida.