#might be frustrating. but also that... the way it would broaden her ability to experience things and be really present in her own life

[commsroom]

Happy belated birthday! Just wanted to hop in again saying I love your posts about Wolf 359. They’re all so good.

I’m on a relisten again and am at the end of season 3. And I’m thinking about how fascinating it is that Hera remembered the Thanksgiving with her at the table physically. And in a post if yours I read recently or you posted recently you talked about Hera getting a human body and I think that scene kinda hints at maybe wanting to be physically there? Idk.

If you’re up for it you can share your thoughts on this. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and leave you with some of my Wolf 359 thoughts.

Sending you good vibes over the internet.

thank you; you're always so sweet!! 💙

we're absolutely on the same wavelength here, too!! that scene in particular is a big reason why i feel like hera would want a body - what it says about her self-perception, sense of physicality (even without experience to contextualize it), and... as a result, that she experiences physical loneliness. and, notably, that all of those things are subconscious framing in what she misremembers. i've posted about that scene before here, and in my... way too long essay about hera here, which i'll try to paraphrase a bit. and in other places, too, probably! i think about it a lot.

so: i think there's a big difference between existing differently (which can be isolating in itself, but... through lack of understanding) and feeling like she's always being kept away from the others - somewhere else, physically. she clearly conceptualizes herself in that space as within the hephaestus, separate from it and the systems she runs, the same as everyone else. that's the difference between "other people need to change their attitudes" and... well, other people still need to change their attitudes, but there is also something fundamental about her circumstances that she's unhappy with and needs to change.

(and, obviously, like... because you know i see hera as a trans woman, i think some of the parallels you could make to medical transition are pretty clear in that framing, too.)

minkowski says “you weren’t here with us [...] we were over here, and you were over there” but minkowski would never actually say that - from her perspective, hera was as there with them as she's ever been. but if hera doesn't feel that way - if - like the sound design suggests - she's always hearing their voices the way they hear hers... if she's always felt that she's somewhere else... then it's hard for me to imagine there's a way to resolve that without giving her the autonomy to physically interact with the others, to be seen the way she sees herself - and that's something i think is really highlighted in the finale, too.

[kanmom51]

Very few people are lucky enough to live in circumstances where they can "speak the truth from their mouths", as that anon put it, at least not without serious repurcussions. Imagine if we only believed people were LGBTQ if they openly declared it. I guess there would hardly be any people in history who were LGBTQ then. Aren't the flaws in this thinking obvious? I've never told my boss or my evangelical neighbor I am lgbt. Does that mean I am not out-out? I am not hiding my gf. My mouth is just not saying it. People can be out to different people at different times. It's all about safety and comfort.

Covert systems of gay coded signalling were developed throughout periods of history so that LGBT people could express themselves. Sometimes it meant being able to identify with other lgbt people or straight allies. Coming out can be a luxury. It is also a way we lgbt people are othered by society. Having to come out implies being assumed as heterosexual until you indicate you aren't. That places being lgbt as something outside of what is normal. I really hope that people can broaden their minds about the gay experience and what it means to be 'out'. The act of coming out, while it can be healing and liberating, wouldn't exist if lgbt people were on equal footing. The mandate to "say it from your mouth" who you are dealing with romantically or sexually is based in archaic power structures. This is my issue with the "don't assume sexuality" stans. Sometimes, as I believe is the case with Jimin and Jungkook, you are being invited to assume.

There is such a thing as gay cultural heritage. Our stories, messaging and histories have often had to be packaged in ways that fly under the radar of those who reject or hurt us. Tolerance and freedom does not develop in all societies at the same rate or in a linear way.

I understand that people want to protect vulnerable groups and that being LGBTQ in many places makes you very vulnerable. But there is also a point where we listen and look at what someone is choosing to share and might learn something beautiful about them.

Beautifully said anon.

The "we can't assume their sexuality" or "I don't want to assume their sexuality", so I will close my eyes and not see what's right in front of me. I constantly have this argument with my bi daughter, she actually drives me crazy with this, and I don't know how to get through to her on this. It is so frustrating. She's bi, she thinks she's woke and at the same time she is blinded by her own 'wokeness'. She's like: "if they don't come out and say it I am not going to assume their sexuality".

I try to explain to her how lucky she is living in a family and society that accepts her for who she is, but they aren't as lucky, that they can't come out and say it, as much as they would want to. That just as important as it was to her to be able to be herself, show her true self to the world, not hide, they want that too but just can't. That they are constantly signalling it, wanting to show it, want us to see them, their true selves, and yes, that they want and need to know that they are loved and supported for their true selves. I think the I'm getting through to the wall but not to her.

So, what I have learnt from that is that this unwillingness to see JM&JK can come not only from homophobia or heteronormativity but over wokeness too. This idea that "I will not assume anyone's sexuality, not heterosexuals nor gay". I think this is happening in the over woke societies, those that no longer have the need to hide their sexuality. They lack the understanding and sometimes sadly lack the empathy, for the struggles those of the LGBTQ+ community go through living in the more conservative societies.

Maybe being a little older, growing up in a society that didn't accept LGBTQ+, going through the change in how they were perceived, seeing their struggles, seeing how it once was and how it is now (in a now more open and accepting society), maybe that gave me more of a perspective, an ability to understand and sympathise with those that are still struggling, idk.

Sorry for this long ass rant. Just felt the need to share.

[semi-imaginary-place]

three houses blogging 7

So I’m playing maddening again and I forgot to grab the knowledge gem in the sothis paralogue. rip

Remember when i made claude a brawler? Well now im paying for it in hunting by daybreak where he cant use fists on a wyvrn.  Problem was i didnt have any bow abilites so his avo dropped like 30 points.

My “canon” recruits

VW: Shamir, Cyril, Felix, Sylvain, Linhardt, Dorothea, Petra, Hanneman, Flayn, Setheth

CF: Manuela, Hanneman, Sylvain, Felix, Mercedes, Marianne, Lysithea

AM: Ferdinand, Caspar, Bernadetta, Catherine, Gilbert, Lorenz

SS: idk all of them?

A quick comparison of the cavalier units Ferdinand, Sylvain, and Lorenz. All three are from some of the most powerful families in their countries if not the continent. They’re all kinda entitled bastards and they all start off still stuck in the mindset of nobility. You can really see this in part 1 Lorenz and Ferdinand where they’re obnoxious about their “noble obligations”. 

With Sylvain its more that he resents the crest-nobility systems but has resigned himself to suffer under it, he doesn’t think he can escape and thus takes out his frustration on women and himself. With the women he pursues, Sylvain sets himself up for failure. First is that he sets up for himself a reputation of unreliability partly as a rebellion against the expectations his family has set for him. His family expects him to be the perfect noble and thus Sylvain downplays his competency whether that be his intelligence or martial prowess. He pretends to be the vapid noble with nothing in his head. Next, Sylvain advertises himself first with his family name and crest and second with his body, thus attracting people who want him for these superficial characteristics. He then can accuse them of only wanting him for these things, shutting down any possibility of there being anything more and driving people away. The cheating also acts as a means to drive people away. He then can take that as evidence that people only want him for his family, crest, etc. Its a self fulfilling prophecy of self destruction and emotional self harm. Sylvain has essentially shut down his ability to form new relationships. (i need to write that sylvain essay)

By comparison Lorenz also disrespects women (by refusing to take a “no”) but why he does so is vastly different. Lorenz never fully questions and turns away from the nobility system the way Ferdinand and Sylvain can. His rebellion is against the selfishness of his father because Lorenz under all the noble bullshit is actually a decent guy. Count Gloucester cares only about House Gloucester, its reputation and prosperity. To the ends of House Gloucester he is willing to assassinate rivals and kill any merchant that brings that rival prosperity, and take any side such as the Empire’s to ensure Gloucester’s survival. Lorenz disagrees thinks those in power must consider everyone, not just their own benefit. Lorenz is the game’s strongest supporter of the Alliance as a governing system. He genuinely values a non-monarchy. Lorenz puts what he believes are his noble duties above his own preferences. For example praying because that its what a noble should do instead of because he’s religious or actually believes in the Goddess. This extends to his attempts at dating. At the start of the game, Lorenz’s perspective is that it is his duty to ensure the prosperity of his house and this include a strong crest bloodline and someone in the role of “wife” that will benefit House Gloucester. Stuck in this mindset he totally disregards the women he’s pursuing. He grows out of this with help from his supports.

Ferdiand has one of the stronger character arcs in the game (but nothing will top Marianne) where he starts off incredibly naive and ignorant about anything outside the life of a Fodlan noble, hits existential crisis will Edelgard’s war, and rebuilds himself from there. Throughout the entirety of the game he actively tries to broaden his horizons and improve himself. Ferdinand’s relentless optimism really is admirable. As in Petra’s support shows, he starts off assuming Fodlan weapons and armor are the best (its Fodlan exceptionalism) because the books he read only talked about Fodland weaponry and spoke from a Fodlan perspective. Ferdinand believes in destiny, in purpose as shown in his Marianne supports. He’s written this narrative for himself as the esteemed scion on Aegir destined for greatness, where he will surpass Edelgard as her rival, and reform Adrestia and the nobility. But discrepancies keep cropping up, he can’t beat Edelgard in combat, Edelgard start a revolution while at the Academy and ascends as emperor, his noble title and assets are taken and his family disgraced. Ferdinand turns his frustration and loss inwards and uses it as fuel to shape a new path for himself.

the chad ignatz vs. the virgin lorenz

A supports that shouldn’t exist:

Claude and Ingrid. this feels like a B support that just keeps dragging on

Linhardt and Annette. a lot of linhardt’s supports take a sudden romantic turn in the A support. am i the only one that finds it weird?

They should have another support:

Hilda and Annette ! support. They are SO cute together. imagine them doing each other’s makeup!

Sylvain and Dimtiri A support

Sylvain and Ignatz B support. i just want more Sylvain ok

Byleth and Jeralt. no dad support? heresy

Balthus and Manuela. they can be disasters together

Balthus and Holst. I just want  holst

Raphael and all the blue lions (Felix, Sylvain, Dedue, Ashe, Merdeces, Annette)

all the church people will all the other church people

So a lot of people see AM as Dimitri’s journey on recovering from trauma and while that’s not a terrible interpretation-- I think a narrative about living through trauma and the slow decades long healing would be excellent --azure moon botches the execution and I'd argue that's not the authorial intent here. (a rare case where I like fandom interpretation better than what is canon). but hold on i need to back up.  So Japan's had these cycles of xenophobia and... fanaticism??? with foreign culture and at several points absorbed a lot of chinese culture. One greatly influential work was the Romance of the Three Kingdoms which cemented in the japanese consciousness the narrative that... hmmm how to say it.... unification is how things should be... that unification is what makes a good ending. Some people pointed out parallels beforehand, but the an interview with the developers confirmed that 3H was heavily inspired by Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I don't exactly expect a nuanced and sensitive discussion of mental health from any jrpg i play (or any game really) and that mostly applies to 3H as well, sylvain's self destructive tendencies are glorified as loyalty in his byleth s support. Bernadetta's trauma is used to up her moe factor (to great success given how high up she is on the popularity polls), i tallied the number of abusive families each of the students some time ago and the sheer number of female students with tragic or abusive backgrounds makes me suspect it was done for drama.  Azure moon was never quite meant to be a story about the the real life effects of actual trauma, which is why its so wonderful that so many people could create their own interpretations of azure moon that reflected their experiences. What it was meant to be was a story of the rightful king reclaiming his throne to the backdrop of how the past can weigh you down and affect the present. Its related to the concept of mandate of heaven in that when the rightful ruler is absent (no dimitri), the country is in shambles, people are starving, war rages, everyone suffers, etc. but with the ascension of the rightful king everything flourishes, the people are happy, faerghus has a bright future etc. If you look at it rationally a lot of what the blue lions suffered under is systematic. Faerghus is basically a death cult glorifying dying in battle and sacrifice such that children are trained to fight as soon as they can walk (ingrid and felix byleth supports), children are used as soldiers (dimitri and felix), martial training rules their lives above all else (dimitri-annette supports), religious fervor fueling all this etc. But in Azure Moon, non of theses systems (nobility, crest, chivalry, church, etc.) are critiqued or dismantled and it leaves the cast of the blue lions hanging. If anything, under a new charismatic archbishop (byleth) some of them might strengthen, and the only empowerment of the people comes from the top down (dimitri allowing greater participation in government) rather than the people raising themselves up. On another note, despite many cutscenes in part one about dimitri finding out how sketchy Arundel and and Patricia are, nothing is done with that in part 2 and there is no resolution to the Agarthan problem. But back to what I was saying Dimtiri’s life is controlled by the death’s of his family and Glen, Felix puts it best in that Dimtiri strings tombstones around his neck. So the aftermath of Rodrigue’s death and Byleth’s pep talk act as the turning point for AM. Dimtiri stops rejecting the throne and is welcomed as king to a joyful crowd, he is instantly forgiven by everyone (despite wandering around as a murdering beast for the last 5 years, not doing anything to help faerhgus, and torturing people), because of course he is, via the mandate of heaven now the the proper king is on the throne everything goes right. And I hate that narrative. The game frames dimitri accepting his role as king as incredibly positive from the cheering crowd to the support of all the other characters. AM tries to tie a political position to an emotional narrative and i don’t like it. (I also just don’t like dimitri on a personal level, he’s meh, and combined with this is why AM is my least favorite route).

My favorite supports: Claude+Shamir B, Linhard+Lysithea A, Sylvain+Felix A+, Hubert+Hanneman B, all of Petra+Claude.

long long ago .  humanity was ruled over by god kings, the nabateas/children of the goddess/dragons who saw it as their divine right and duty to rule, protect, and watch over humanity. But some of the humans wanted self rule, they saw the nabateans as tyrants imposing their will over another species, and they wanted freedom. "Humans should be able to decide their own path" they cried. The progenitor goddess Sothis had fallen into a long slumber after her efforts and her children ruled in the belief that she would one day return to rule them and they they were simply holding the spot for her. It is unknown if sothis was actually dead at this point or in a regenerative coma. Nemesis was either hired as a mercenary/thief to steal Sothis's remains, or the location was purposefully leaked to him. After stealing the Goddesses' body, the humans crafted her body into the sword of the creator and her heart became its crest stone.  Nemesis then led the invasion of Nabatea and killed the nabateans using a weapon made of their goddess and progenitor's body. The bodies of the nabateans were made into more weapons and given to the 10 elites as weapons in the war against the remaining nabateans and their human allies. Nemesis was then raised as a figurehead of the war, a symbol of the Liberation of humanity from grasp of the dragons. Humanity saw him as their savior king and the 10 elites as heroes liberating them from the dragons. Seiros founded the Church, raised an opposing army and the War of Heroes begins. Seiros eventually defeated the human resistance army and its remnants fled underground becoming the Agarthans. Church became a governing body in Fodlan as the remaining Nabateans again awaited the day Sothis would return to rule them (and one failed attempt at resurrecting her). The Agarthans attempted to preserve what technology they had left and continued to develop Heroes Relic technology eventually creating artificial heroes relics such as Aymr.  It is unlikely that Nemesis was ever the brains behind the operation, just another cog in the machine. The Nemesis you fight in game is either a zombie preserved in a cryostasis pod for millennia or a clone. it is unclear.  The nabateans had seen themselves as as benevolent rulers, like parents fostering children. (you can see where this gets patronizing). So some of them like rhea saw humanity's rebellion as a betrayal

Edelgard is probably the best character in the game even if on a personal level, I don't like her too much. By which i mean she's the character that adds the most to the game from her character writing to her role in the story.  Edelgard is straightforward and stubborn. She has her opinion and not only will she not change it, she'll dig her heels in and double down on it.  She's committed... but that bites both ways. Allowing her to accomplish much, but keeping her from changing her course in the face of new information and circumstances. Inflexible.  yeah edelgard likes to be in control. its the if you want something done right you've got to do it yourself mentality. She believes herself to be the right person for the job and because of the stubbornness i mentioned earlier will not back down no matter what even if that means massive loses and her death. on non CF routes Edelgard provides an excellent counterpoint to byleth and the church, its really well done

both caspar and ferdinand would get into a bar fight. nnnnnn ferdinand tries to be a prim proper noble but he's a hotblooded shounen hero at heart. like how he chase linhardt all around the campus. i don't think ferdinand could see a fight and not think hey i should stop this and end up getting involved. like caspar he's got a strong sense of what's "right" or "what should be done" which is why he hits existential crisis in the war. Ferdinand (kinda like edelgard really) had written himself this narrative of his life, that he was edelgard's rival, that he would ascend to Prime minister and do it better than anyone before him, that he would correct the misdeeds of his father and bring glory to the aegir name, that HE not edelgard would be the one who brought Adrestia into a shinning new future. And edelgard (not out of spite or anything, it was nothing personal) brought that ll crashing down. And ferdinand doesn't know what to do with himself, what is up and what is down, what it just and right and what isn't.

i like how each route does its own thing. GD/VW is a mystery about what is really happening. BE/CF is a political thriller and has a kinda sinister tone. BL/AM is more character driven about the personal costs. a good example of this is the mutiny in the mists chapter. for gd, it introduces the mystery of heroes relics, in be it introduces the injustice of the church, bl: it sucks to be ashe. Silver Snow gives us Byleth's seach for identity set to the backdrop of the morality of the church. this is one thing i don't like about blue lions. white clouds sets up how arundel is very sketchy and the flame emperor is working with an evil third party, but then azure moon completely drops that. Compare this to golden deer part one introducing the mysteries of the relic weapons, the connections between relics, demonic beasts, crests, the children of the goddess, and church and in verdant wind that pays off as you go into depth about those things. meet up to 5 children of the goddess and the creators of the relic weapons. CF also continues what it started in white clouds by killing the head of the church. cf and ss are mirrors of each other so you need both to understand rhea and edelgard.

also interesting note remember how after jeralt dies each lord has a couple unique scenes? the advice each of them gives you is the same thing they repeated to themself to get through their trauma. Claude dealt with trauma by never letting his enemies know they had hurt them, don't give them that power over you mentality. Put on a smile and face the day, you must. Edelgard dealt with trauma by hardening herself and focusing all her energy into a goal, pick yourself up and be productive, moping around does nothing and helps no one, do something about it. Dimitri I remember the least well, one half of it was a just point me in the direction of your enemies and i will help you rip them to shreds, and i don't remember the other half. I do remember he tries to goad byleth into taking vengeance, which made me very uncomfortable the other thing i remember is that they all kinda had a point, but none of it might have been what byleth needed to hear. How they react to Jeralt’s death is another point of foiling for Claude and Edelgard, both try to do something productive, while Dimitri commiserates and grieves with you.

honestly i think raphael had some of the best advice for grief. i mean... if all you can bring yourself to do is the small stuff then take things one step at a time, take care of your body. exercise really does help your mental health. its like i keep yelling at people, raphael is probably the most emotionally mature of the students, he's grounded. If i had to choose someone to mentor dimitri, I'd choose raphael. which is why I am so disappointed in their support. Raphael is such a good boy, endlessly compassionate and wanting the best for everyone, the heart of a golden retriever.  and the devs are a bunch of cowards who won't let me s support him with male byleth. like so many characters are pretty means to him at various points and he doesn't take it personally, just takes it and tries to help them through whatever they're going through. a good boy

on a side note intsys disproportionately gives shitty tragic backstories to their female characters and it feels icky. i went and counted the number of terrible things female characters have been through compared to the male cast (i have that list... somewhere...)... and a way higher percent of female characters were tortured/kidnapped/forced into marriages/abused/etc. compared to the percent of male character with tragic backstories

jeritza ... .... certainly is a character. a shame that i like his character design but that I don't like him. he and hubert are in a single elimination tournament to determine who gets to walk away with the title of Edgiest FE3H Character. "death knight" or shinigami kishi   and wears black spikey armor and says shit like "this dance of damnation!". he's a decent unit, but a bit underwhelming compared to when he's an enemy. i suppose it would be game breaking if he had that dodge and crit as a player unit... and he's a not a bad unit... i found him to be quite good really... but it just cna't compare

an excellent character. One of the things I like about her as a character is that her character archetype is quite rare and its refreshing to see it done well. Right? so in jrpgs over the years a lot of tropes and archetypes have accumulated. And Edelgard adds so much to the story as the main antagonist for most routes, as a foil to byleth and rhea. a counterpoint to the church. Its real good. and then you get to join her for one route??? Love it. As a person, i can appreciate how raw she is as a person. As with all the lords her character development is excellent. When you meet her at the beginning its all serious business all the time. She takes everything seriously and she's trying very hard to be taken seriously. No chill what so ever in part 1. But by part 2 she's just tired. edelgard is very human. flawed. and whether her actions were "right" is up to a lot of debate, but she cares a lot (i personally think its was wrong to start a continent wide war). i think a lot of people in the West have forgotten how utterly horrific wars are. and yes she's pig headedly stubborn. the break not bend type

I really like bernadetta and caspars supports. Dorothea aggressively trying to befriend petra is great. and I did not expect ferdinand and hubert's supports to go like that but they're also really good. I think the ferdinand/hubert supports are another one that has multiple versions (b? a?) depending on when you get it in the game

I'm one of the few who likes the split route structure haha. it has its drawbacks yeah like how splitting up content means a good chunk of people will only play one route and judge the whole game based on that one route (and get angry on the internet about it  ). But i really liked being able to follow the different factions around (fe3h still need a rewrite, but i love the concept). the complex multifaceted ways the same event can affect different people. You need to play cf and one other route at least to get a basic understanding of whats going on in three houese

interesting thing is that the battle dialogue is also route locked. Like I went dialogue hunting last route in vw and got nothing. attacked dimtiri and sylvain with felix and ingrid and got nothing. Attacked edelgard with petra and ferdinand and got nothing on both maps annette and mercedes also got nothing. while i know in other routes all of them do get dialogue

What you get out of rhea in the last chapter of vw is likely accurate to the best of rhea's knowledge. Rhea knows she's dying here and likely dies soon after the game ends and nemesis is coming so she has little reason to lie. that doesn't mean what she says is true just that she has little reason to lie The church acts to maintain power and influence and shelter the nabateans who head the church by obscuring information on them. Contrast this with edelgard who got the truth of the church from her father but viewed it using the lens of the agarthans. The agarthans saw rhea and the nabateans as tyrants oppressing humanity and their views influenced edelgard. They aren’t wrong…. But there’s more to it than that (seteth’s supports)

so for some of the npcs, the ages from the datamine are more age of appearance or what age a stranger would think they'd be at first glance.this is why Sothis is listed as 9, jeralt as 45, seteth as 26, rhea as 28, and cornelia as 30 eventhough all these characters are older than that

Why Dont Ashe And Yuri Have A Support Chain. They Even Both Love Cooking And Set Up Inns In Some Of Their Endings!!!! AND LET HAPI AND CLAUDE GO STARGAZING TOGETHER

[getoffthesoapbox]

[VKM Spec] Snail Crawling With VKM 12

Well, well, well. Color me surprised. Hino managed to right the ship’s course to avoid the iceberg after all. It seems we’re back in business, if at a snail’s pace, and a wide variety of options have opened up for us. 

This chapter isn’t perfect, and it’s nowhere near the caliber of VKM 7 or 8, but it’s a good deal better than the previous three chapters, which were a nightmare. Depending on where Hino goes from here, VKM 9-11 may be reframed in a way that they become bearable upon a reread. Or they may not. Who knows.

(Raws and translations can be found here thanks to @alldempretties.)

A New Voice Speaks

A new point of interest jumps out immediately on the first page of the chapter. A mysterious new narrator, speaking in the past tense, describes for us a summary of Kaname’s early time with Ren and Ai. This new narrator makes a few assertions that seem to foreshadow future events: 

Ai’s and Ren’s stories are filtered, out of consideration for Kaname.

The reality of their lives was surely much harsher than they let on.

What’s interesting about this is that we know Yuuki filtered stories for Ai, and now here is Ai filtering stories for Kaname. And as we know from Ai, filtered stories lead to hurt and revelation. This is foreshadowing for Kaname to begin searching for his memories, despite it perhaps not being in his best interests (much as Yuuki and Ai before him). 

We yet again see that taking people’s memories from them and not giving them the full benefit of their experience is ultimately wrong for them, and that it leads to a lot of trouble.

This new narrator seems to be a person outside of Kaname, Yuuki, Zero, Ren or Ai. This person describes Kaname as “him” and Ren and Ai as “her children,” as if the narrator is telling a story about them to someone. What’s interesting is that this narrator disappears from the initial scene only to reappear at the end of the chapter when the new war is foreshadowed. 

This new narrator is likely a character we haven’t met yet, one from the future after Kaname has gotten his life together. My bet is on either his future wife or his future child, who is recounting to her children the story of her father. This is intriguing, because it means the fates of Ai and Ren are now up in the air as much as all the other characters. 

All in all, it’s a very interesting device Hino’s making use of here to both remind us where we were with RenAi and Kaname(it’s been 8 months since we’ve seen the three of them in real time), as well as hint that there may be someone new appearing in Kaname’s future.

Mounting Consternation

The first scene with Kaname and the kids is remarkably sparse on detail or new information. What it does have is promising, however.

First, this is the first scene we’ve seen where Hino hasn’t written the characters and the scenario to be cloying and sentimental. We’re moving forward from pandering to the pathos of Kaname’s return and his pining for a woman he doesn’t know and allowing him to broaden his horizons and see the world anew.

This leads to some very interesting events. First, this fresh Kaname is actually interested in the people and life around him, and is capable of being moved by the happiness of others. He’s also helpful with no ulterior motives, and he clearly wants to make himself useful in this new world. This new Kaname, as a blank slate, is free of all the pathologies of his former two lives. As a human, he carries no dark secrets any longer that would harm the people around him, and thus now he can at last begin forming true attachments to people in a healthy way. 

But the sight of all this cheerful bustle is dampened by Ren’s revelation that this is one of the few countries where coexistence is possible. Kaname begins to sense there is a deeper, darker story at play that the kids are carefully filtering for him. Ren, of course, seems the most likely to want Kaname to face the reality, but Ai and Yuuki wanted him to live free of care. It will be Ren who likely is Kaname’s guide toward regaining what he lost.

Ren’s words nag at Kaname throughout the scene, and ultimately cause it to end where it does: in Kaname at last admitting the first strain of frustration with Yuuki for what she has done to him, and what she has taken from him. This is the first moment when Kaname is, at last, beginning to separate from Yuuki, and likely this momentum will pick up until he begins breaking into his memories and discovering the truth. This is honestly a great way to begin the process of Kaname becoming his own person and recovering from the unhealthy attachment he had to Yuuki--thus giving him, at last, the ability to move forward and find his own happiness like Yuuki wanted for him, and as she found with the love of her life, Zero. 

The fact that Kaname is now beginning to be openly frustrated with Yuuki’s decision rather than merely idealizing her as he was in previous chapters is a great parallel to Yuuki’s own frustration with Kaname back in arc 1 of the original series. Kaname’s at last going to find out how hard it is to live without memories, and with the shoe on the other foot, he may at last begin to understand why he could never connect with Yuuki, and why he was wrong to do what he did during the original series. Perhaps this will at last lead to him feeling some regret for the lessons he didn’t learn, and vowing to do better this time with the gift she (and many others) gave him. 

On top of all this, there is a new theme of “sacrifice” that was hinted at in VKM 10 and now is in full force. Candles represent the sacrifices countless people make in order to ensure a better future--and Kaname was not part of that. Likely the greatest sacrifices of all will come from the man who is so mysteriously “absent” from the future chapters--Kiryuu Zero, the very one who had to clean up Kaname’s mess in all the areas of his life to begin with. The fact that Kaname’s wish to know about the sacrifices cuts right to Aidou’s cure failing is clear foreshadowing that the person who makes the “sacrifice” is someone Yuuki has hidden from Kaname. All signs point toward Zero, especially with Yuuki’s wish for his smile to continue on from VKM 10. We shall see as it unfolds.

Fledgling Despair Spiral

As I anticipated previously, Aidou’s attempts at the cure are failing. This chapter isn’t clear as to whether or not he has access to Kaien’s gene samples, but given that Kaien is off running around the world, it ultimately doesn’t matter. If he has the genes, they’re not working in the tests. If he doesn’t have the genes, then it makes it more likely that he’ll have to move on to another subject if Kaien doesn’t get back soon enough--leaving us open for the Zero cure.

Aidou’s scene rides on the back of Kaname’s foreshadowing (or backshadowing in this case fufu) of the sacrifices and effort made in the past to make the happier future possible. Aidou’s one of the people whose effort and sacrifice is part of that future, but he surely will not be the only one, and the one to make the bigger sacrifice is likely whoever it is who ultimately will be the source of the cure. 

Interestingly, Aidou intended to do his experiments on convicted criminals. It’s a bit shady to say the least, but hey, at least he’s not using animals. ;) Fortunately old man Muraki steps up to the plate to take on the challenge, only to have his arthritis cured instead of becoming human, fufu. At least the cure was a failure in a marketable way? ;) The lab can keep running if they sell that variant!

While ruminating on his failure, Aidou is drawn into a memory of an earlier time with Yori. Their interactions when Yori is older were too cute for words. He calls her “Madame” and picks on her, it’s so adorable. I’m not this pairing’s biggest fan, but even I found this scene endearing.

Yori gets Aidou to talk about his worries and asks him why he started his research in the first place. Aidou reveals some rather telling things: he’s afraid of what even he might do should there ever come a day when the anti-vampire weapons are directed toward him. He wants to give vampires and humans more options than merely killing each other. 

Yori reassures him that humans are no different from vampires (she’s very like Ichiru sometimes) and that there are always going to be bad apples, but he’s not one of them. The reverie leaves him thinking that she’s the one who brings out his good sides.

As he awakens, a dark thought slips out of his mouth--why not hurry it all up and just eradicate humanity instead by turning them all into vampires? Although he quickly cancels the thought, this does much to establish where his mindset is right now--he’s beginning the fall to despair that Kaname had after he lost the Hooded Woman. We’re in the very early stages of that fall for Aidou. It starts with small thoughts, it starts with exhaustion, it starts with grief, it starts with loneliness, and soon it snowballs into a raging furnace of despair. 

Aidou’s likely suicidal too. If he wants to “hurry things up,” that means he doesn’t want to live anymore. His research is his main goal in life--if he loses that, he’ll have nothing. This puts him in a dark place, and it’s a nice parallel to Kaname, which I’ll explore more in the next section. For now I leave you in momentary suspense. =P

Heartfelt Wish

I cannot believe how much Hino packed into this scene between Zero and Aidou. Goodness. But first, I must say how delighted my Zedou heart is by Zero and Aidou’s interactions this chapter! Zero’s reaction to Aidou’s heartfelt declaration was stunning, and it’s wonderful to see how deeply Aidou cares about Zero, despite his protests. But more on that in a minute.

An interesting parallel is set up by the first scene, yet again contrasting the difference between Zero and Kaname. Zero’s being heckled by the vampires--they call him demon and say he’s a murderer (despite the vampire on his shoulder being alive and well) as he marches through the street to deliver this particular prisoner body bag to Aidou’s door. The scene parallels Kaname’s past where the humans kicked him out of town. The difference, of course, is that Zero doesn’t give two shits for what those vampires think of him, while Kaname wanted to be liked. Zero’s an independent person whose sense of self worth doesn’t depend on other people, where as Kaname has a drive to be admired and appreciated by others. This gives Zero an edge in withstanding pressure that Kaname never had.

Aidou��s shocked by the state Zero’s in, but Zero just matter-of-factly listens to him and starts to move on. Aidou can’t let Zero go like that, and he begs him to come talk to him (OMG seriously these two are so cute, my shipper heart is full; Aidou’s totally a male Yuuki). 

The first thing Zero does when he sits down with Aidou is check in on Aidou like the wonderful, endearing person he is. Zero is always so interested in the welfare of others, and he patiently invites Aidou to complain to him, which Aidou immediately does until he realizes he’s getting caught up in Zero’s pace, haha! Aidou shakes himself out and asks Zero if he’s getting into more trouble than usual. Zero nonchalantly says things have gotten better actually, but it’s just a bit harder to deal with the vampires now because they have a new rule of catching perpetrators alive and allowing them to stand trial. 

What’s interesting about this scene is that Aidou clearly is just not having any of Zero’s shit. He even goes so far as to indulge in a melodramatic sigh, lol. Zero’s a little perplexed by the theatrics, but Aidou soon reveals what he’s really thinking: he asks Zero if he’s properly looking after himself. 

These two panels just slay me. The subtext. First of all, the last person to have demanded Zero take care of himself was Yuuki back in Night 73! So Aidou’s phrasing probably really hits home for Zero, because it’s nearly identical to Yuuki’s. Moreover, Zero’s astounded reaction implies that no one has been concerned for his safety in years. This means it’s likely even Yuuki is no longer asking him to look after himself, nor is Ai. Everyone takes his strength for granted now, and yet here is Aidou, offering him all this care and concern, and it moves Zero. 

Zero is so confounded that his first reaction is to pretend to be grossed out, because he’s just so unused to people worrying about him. Aidou immediately gets defensive and tries to cover up how much he actually cares by saying Yuuki and Yori would be sad (yet another slip up on his part and a sign he’s falling into despair because he has forgotten for a second time that Yori’s dead).

Aidou then reminds Zero that he’s more likely to die than Yuuki, and that he should stay by her side for a long time. Zero, touched by Aidou’s sincerity, clams up. This section is interesting, because it potentially hints at a few things:

Zero may be worried that he won’t be able to stay with Yuuki forever because their relationship isn’t going so well right now in general and he’s beginning to fear she really doesn’t love him and that the person she loves is actually Kaname instead.

Zero may not be intending to stay near Yuuki forever by this point (more on this later).

Zero may have other worries about something that’s going on in the past or present that we don’t yet know (I know this is vague, but it’s part of a theory I have that I want to deal with in a separate post since it’s a mammoth in its own right).

Instead of responding directly to Aidou, Zero thanks him for his concern with the sweetest, kindest smile because regardless of his relationship with Yuuki, Aidou reaching out to him and wishing him well moves him to appreciation. The other mysteries of Zero’s heart will remain locked for now, until future chapters.

Aidou’s wish for Zero to live a long life by Yuuki’s side has some potentially explosive implications for the future, given his own potential fall toward despair. If I’m right about the Zero cure theory, then Aidou will basically be placed in the same position Kaname was during the original series--here is a young man who is potentially the key to the cure. If Aidou (and Kaname before him) sacrifices this one person, they can save so many more people. Not only that, Aidou, like Kaname, has an ulterior motive for wanting the cure completed--both of them wanted to die to be with their beloveds and end their loneliness. The parallel is going to be striking when it appears, and it’s going to give Aidou a legitimate conflict of interest, especially given his own personal wish for Zero to live on with Yuuki. Aidou will likely be torn between his own wish of completing the cure as soon as possible and returning to his beloved and his other wish of wanting Yuuki to at last find her happiness with Zero. Who knows what fun things could come out of such a decision?

The best part of it is that unlike with Kaname, Aidou actually does care about Zero as a person and so his conflict of interest will be much more compelling should it take place.

Stagnation and Regression

We transition from the Zedou scene to Yuuki via Yuuki’s butterfly. The implication here is that Yuuki is spying on Zero, for unknown reasons which the chapter only illuminates via subtext. For now, it’s simply interesting that Zero is under surveillance, and much like Kaname before her, this is not for Zero’s protection--this is legitimate spying. The reasons for the spying we’ll get into during the last section.

Yuuki’s so busy spying on Zero that she’s not paying attention to the conversation she’s supposed to be having with Rima and Ruka. Rima, being the adorable pushy thing she is, goes after Yuuki for spacing out. Ruka tries to mitigate the damage, but Rima won’t be swayed. Rima asks Yuuki what’s going on with her and Zero.

Interestingly, Yuuki pretends not to know what Rima means and talks about Kaien and Ai. She confirms Ai’s back in bed (likely because what’s about to go down with Zeki would traumatize Ai, so Hino wants her safely tucked away), and she mentions that Kaien left a strange message after recovering (though his disease seems terminal, probably a slow terminal like a cancer or something). Kaien seems to be on the hunt for something, though whether it really is related to Juri or if that’s just what he’s saying to throw Yuuki off the scent, only future chapters will reveal (it may potentially be he’s looking for something at Zero’s request, who knows). 

Yuuki then tries to cut the conversation about herself off, but Rima is determined to get her love gossip and she specifically asks about Zero. Yuuki deflects again, saying they’ve gone back to their original arrangement of living in separate houses, implying that they’ve gone back to before the “official” declaration from VKM 9. (Fufu, I feel vindicated--I knew they weren’t going to last after VKM 10. Likely Zero gave some variant of my Let’s Be Friends route theory, though perhaps not formally. Clearly he left the door open for things to change in the future. This also makes it more likely that he didn’t go through with biting her in VKM 10.) She also throws out a distraction tactic of Zero being weaker to alcohol than she is (likely ‘cause she’s a pureblood, lol, can’t imagine they get drunk easily otherwise they’d probably all be drunks since their lives are so miserable). 

Rima’s not amused by this and insists on getting the scoop on why things aren’t progressing. Ruka steps in to mitigate some of the damage, and she asks if Zeki are intending to eventually go official. Yuuki looks down and says that whether they do or not, she’s not sure much will change about their relationship. 

Rather than pursuing Yuuki on what she means here, Ruka offers Yuuki an easy way out of talking further--she says it’s hard to move forward with someone you’ve known for a long time. However, if you look at the expressions she and Yuuki make after this statement, it’s clear they’re not on the same page. Ruka’s little smile and soft sigh as she looks into the distance with lightly glazed eyes indicate she’s thinking of a person she’s fond of (Kain) who she’s happily considering moving forward with. Yuuki, on the other hand, looks down, her brows drawn in, a small, sad smile on her face. Yuuki’s reaction implies that for her there’s actual fear about her situation with Zero, and that she’s not nearly as confident that their relationship will remain unchanged as her words might imply.

She closes the conversation  out with an interesting line. She says Zero’s her family and her partner, and that them being together is so natural no one can change it. This line calls back directly to Kaname’s own words in Night 93, that they’re meant to be together. It also is a callback to Kaname’s entire trajectory in VK, and to Yuuki’s own guilt over that trajectory. Kaname tried to change the outcome of Zeki and he failed. He could not separate them, no matter how hard he tried. And if he couldn’t separate them, there is no one who can other than one person: Zero himself. The very person Yuuki seems to fear is planning to leave at last. 

The girls accept her statement and offer a little solidarity before the three part ways. Yuuki’s reaction once she leaves them is quite telling--she has a small downcast smile, clearly appreciative of the girls’ support, but still struggling with her own own worries and concerns.

Catastrophe Strikes

I won’t dwell too much on the Ruka/Kain section. But basically, the gist of it is that Ruka goes to meet Kain, and wherever they were meeting gets blown up (probably a restaurant). The explosion makes Ruka realize she needs to get moving with Kain, and she gets him to swear to marry her.

Now I’m probably going against the grain here, but I don’t think Yuuki saw this scene--she seems to arrive right after it ends and just as the paperboy type is beginning to scream about the vampire king. So I don’t think the Ruka confession has anything to do with Yuuki’s actions this chapter. What I do think the scene is intended to do is to be yet another parallel to Zeki--all the “true” couples get married first, then have sex and kids. So this is more reassurance for the readers that Zeki will be getting married in the future, as all the side couples do, as well as telling us the proper order of the relationships, which makes it less likely Zeki will be having sex before marriage (proper order). 

Other than that, I don’t think the Ruka/Kain scene is much more than fanservice for that couple. The big component is the arrival of a new antagonist, who is hiding behind the nom de plume of “Vampire King” (Kaname’s title). Our friendly unknown narrator from the future seems to be under the impression that it was some shit disturber trying to rile up sentiment against the vampires, using the name as a scapegoat. The new villain may actually be a human (as foreshadowed by Yori’s comment during Aidou’s memory). Interesting implications for the future, that’s for sure!

More than Friends, Less than Lovers

The highlight of this chapter is, of course, the final scene, as Hino fully intended. The best part of this scene is that it is the first Zero and Yuuki scene since VKM began that has nothing to do with anyone’s feelings for Kaname. We’re finally moving toward Zero and Yuuki dealing with their issues, which I always suspected were far more numerous than just boo-hooing over a man Yuuki doesn’t even love romantically.

There is a lot packed into these few pages, and a lot of implication for previous and future chapters. I’ll break it down as best I can, but some of it will have to be saved for a future post.

First the scene in general, and then we’ll get into Zero and Yuuki’s respective potential head spaces.

The scene starts out with Yuuki telling Zero about her day, and then Zero gets ready to leave (likely to go home). Yuuki stops him and asks him to sleep with her every now and then. The two of them hold hands awkwardly in bed. Zero then says an interesting line about how it’s not that he doesn’t want to do this exactly, but.... and Yuuki agrees. This appears to be a snippet or continuation from a previous conversation.

Their body language here is quite interesting. Yuuki is neutral, with her eyes closed, facing the ceiling, a faint blush on her cheeks (I don’t think she’s having maidenly shyness--the blush indicates some kind of repressed emotion). Zero, on the other hand, is clearly uncomfortable, and his head is turned away from her in an awkward way that stretches his neck. 

Some time passes, and Yuuki starts a conversation with Zero. The scene then transitions to parallel two previous chapters: the train scene from Night 87 and the post-coital scene with Kaname from Night 90. Yuuki turns in bed and looks at Zero. Interestingly, in sleep, Zero naturally turns toward Yuuki and his body language becomes more open and relaxed. So whatever is going on during his waking moments leaves when he sleeps. 

As in Night 90, Yuuki looks at Zero’s sleeping face as she did Kaname’s before. And as before, she touches his face tenderly (only in the Kaname scenario she was considering turning him but stops when he wakes up). Zero doesn’t wake to her touch, and she looks at him with concern. Her expression here is quite interesting, as it is asking him a question of some kind. 

The scene switches to parallel Night 87 and, just as before, Yuuki finds Zero sleeping peacefully next to her as he did on the train. And this time, instead of just attacking Zero and offering her throat, she bites herself, drinks her own blood, and forcefeeds it to him while he’s asleep.

Of course, he wakes, because someone’s shoving liquid down his throat, lol.

As to what this scene will lead to, who knows. But here’re my thoughts on each of the characters’ head spaces, and where I think the the scene will go from here:

Yuuki’s insecurities

Yuuki’s behavior in this chapter is full of anxiety, which implies quite a few things about Zeki’s relationship. We can be sure from her conversation with Ruka and Rima that Zero is the one responsible for the current halt in their progress, because Yuuki seems uncomfortable with it, despite her assertions to the contrary. We can also assume that whatever Zero said to halt the relationship, it was enough to get Yuuki to go along with it but not enough to help her understand. She doesn’t know what Zero’s thinking, and that makes her anxious and activates her abandonment fears.

We can also assume that Zero hasn’t been drinking from Yuuki since they got together, if not before (I suspect he hasn’t been drinking from her for years at this point, but for now we’ll just assume that it’s only been since they went official). The reason we can assume this is because Yuuki’s spying on him and is bothered by what she hears at Aidou’s place. Now, Aidou doesn’t say anything that should be particularly bothersome--he just tells Zero to take care of himself. What he does say, though, is that Zero’s been getting into trouble. So this means Zero’s likely been losing blood, which means he should be needing replacements from Yuuki. Yuuki may have been consoling herself with thinking that Zero didn’t need her blood simply because he hadn’t been getting injured lately, but now she has it confirmed that he does need it but for some reason isn’t taking it from her. This also will contribute to heightening her insecurities.

On top of this, we then have the scene where they sleep together. Zero falls asleep quickly and seems relatively unconcerned about Yuuki’s presence. If she’s already concerned about him not needing her blood, this will only add to those concerns because as with the train station scene in Night 87, he’s “unmoved” by her and doesn’t seem to want her. (For some reason she’s never understood that Zero has self-control of steel lol.)

All this leads to an inevitable conclusion: maybe Zero doesn’t really love her. Maybe he’s tired of her. Maybe he’s thinking of leaving her. But for some reason she can’t bring herself to ask him why he won’t drink from her, so instead she resorts to her old train station tactic of forcing him to move. I suspect her blood kiss here at the end of the chapter is a test for him--what will he do. 

The good thing about all this is that Yuuki’s finally being proactive and starting to show us, the readers, that she is actually serious about moving forward with Zero and she does want him as a man in her life. Given her behavior in VKM 9-10, that was in question for the reader, but now we have it confirmed that more must have been going on and that, whatever she’s going through, her desire for Zero has not diminished. She also seems to want more passion from Zero, and so come hell or high water she’s going to get it one way or another lol.

Zero’s reticence

On the other hand, Zero’s side of the story is much more nuanced I think. I do believe we will now be shut out of Zero’s head as far as his thoughts (I think VKM 9 was the end of Zero-the-narrator and now he will become the mystery man, the goal to obtain for Yuuki and Kaname’s narratives). However, VKM 9 sets the stage for the reader to guess what’s going on in Zero’s head.

Given what we get this chapter, we can assume a few things:

Zero didn’t bite Yuuki in VKM 10.

Zero came up with some excuse to call off their moving forward that didn’t require them officially breaking up, but rather just resetting to before their official status.

Zero may be using work as an excuse to spend less time with Yuuki.

Zero may not be intending to live with Yuuki forever, as Aidou wishes, given that his response to Aidou is rather vague.

Zero clearly is the one holding back on them sleeping together, for reasons he hasn’t stated.

Yuuki doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on in his head.

It’s possible too that Zero wasn’t actually asleep at the end of the chapter, but given how his body language works, I think he did fall asleep (he’s probably legitimately exhausted from chasing criminals all day). Regardless, there’s a clear parallel between him in this chapter and Kaname from Night 90. Like Kaname in Night 91, next chapter Zero will likely put the kibosh on Yuuki’s activity and maybe give us more insight into why their relationship is where it is right now. 

The nice thing about this scenario is now Zero’s back to being the unattainable one for Yuuki. He’s a mystery she has to unravel, rather than a doormat she can step on. Yuuki is always at her best when she’s actively pursuing Zero. If Zero has begun looking for a new way to revive Kaname without requiring the loss of the forge, he’s definitely going to want to keep that from Yuuki for now. But the way Zero reacted to Aidou makes me think he’s already lost hope in his own life with Yuuki and that he may feel the only way to really make things right is to get Kaname back for her. This also makes it more likely that Zero will be open to the cure, or alternatively to giving his heart to Kaname when they test the cure and it fails. 

Marching Forward

From here, I see Hino beginning to ramp up the angst between Zero and Yuuki. Likely Yuuki’s new journey to figure out what Zero’s hiding from her will parallel Kaname’s journey to find out what Yuuki’s hidden from him. What they both find will likely change their perspectives entirely. I do believe we’ll now be able to see into Yuuki’s and Kaname’s heads, while we’ll be locked out from Zero’s. This allows Zero to become the narrative goal for Yuuki--obtaining him and her happy ending becomes the end goal of her story, rather than dying with Kaname (as has been implied by previous chapters).

The simplest trajectory I see for now (there is a more complicated, interesting potential one which I’ll detail in a different post), is that Yuuki and Zero just have a simple misunderstanding--due to the M/S bond, Zero is under the impression Yuuki will never be happy without Kaname, and Yuuki, due to her fears of potentially Zero falling out of love with her, thinks she’s losing him because he never truly loved her in the first place. The climax point for this trajectory will be likely around the Zero cure and Yuuki potentially losing Zero in order to regain Kaname, forcing her to finally fess up about all her true feelings she has trapped in her little box from VKM 7. 

All in all, though, I’m glad to see Hino finally acknowledging Zeki’s got problems outside of Yuuki’s feelings for Kaname. Plus the Zero cure is more likely now with Aidou continuing to fail. ;) I’m looking forward to next issue’s chapter now, and although my love for this story isn’t completely recovered, I now feel more hopeful that I’ll be able to love these characters again once more in the future. =) 

Until next time!

[abhishekkumar226-blog]

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A Story of Compassion

Among so much disheartening news these days, once in a while there is a bright spot of news that is truly heart-warming.  Such was the case when I read about, and watched on video 21-year-old Naomi Osaka’s act of kindness and compassion toward 15 year old Coco Gauff at the U.S. Open. After losing in the third round at the U.S. Open, Coco was on the sidelines completely defeated and unsuccessfully trying to fight back tears. Naomi immediately went over to her in this moment of suffering and offered kind words to her, and then invited her to be part of the post-match interview (which is usually only for the victors). During that interview, Naomi became teary as she spoke to Coco’s parents in the audience, recalling being at the same training facility as Coco, and acknowledging Coco’s hard work, and how both they (the parents) and Coco are “amazing.”

Surprising Benefits of Compassion

Interestingly, by expressing compassion, not only does the recipient of the compassion benefit, but so too, does the one giving compassion. Some of these many benefits to the person expressing compassion include reduced levels of cellular inflammation, increased perceptions of happiness and an experience of pleasure, a buffering effect against stress, an increase in longevity, a broadening ability to see a wider perspective outside of oneself, and increasing feelings of social connection (which in and of itself has major implications for health and well-being).

Empathy Versus Compassion

Whereas empathy involves putting yourself in another’s shoes and feeling the suffering of others, compassion goes further and involves a genuine wish or act to alleviate another’s suffering, and to be with another in their suffering.  This was the case with Naomi Osaka. She could have walked off the court and in her own mind recalled what it was like to publicly lose at the U.S. Open (as had happened to her the year prior), and felt in her body what she imagined that Coco Gauff might be feeling, by remembering or imagining the pain of such a moment.  But instead, she went further and reached out in such a genuinely compassionate way, in a moment that Coco will likely never forget, and in a way that likely changed Coco’s experience of her own suffering. Such moments are truly precious and we all have the capacity to offer them. In fact, the impact of doing so may be more far-reaching than you realize.

I still vividly remember such an act of compassion when I was 15. It was at my mother’s funeral, and I recall we were pulling into the driveway of the temple where the funeral service was being held.  My mom had died tragically in a car accident, and it was a time of intense grief and suffering for my family and I. As I looked up through my tears I saw three of my friends from my dance class walking into the sanctuary to be at the funeral.  I had no idea they were coming, and I certainly hadn’t expected them to be there. The fact that they had taken time from their own lives to be with me during this darkest time, to be present with me in my pain, was something I never forgot.

Sometimes, because seeing another person suffering is difficult, we might shy away from opportunities to reach out.  At other times, we might feel helpless because we are not sure how we can make a difference. Other times, people may feel uncertain about how to express compassion.

Where Can We Start?

In these circumstances, where can we start? One place to begin is to look for opportunities for small acts of kindness in ordinary places.  Sometimes something as simple as a smile, a warm gaze, or a small gesture can go a long way. I remember a time when my kids were younger and my son was having a meltdown in the grocery store.  In that moment of frustration and embarrassment for me, someone walking by gave me a friendly smile and an understanding glance as they told me that it wasn’t long ago they too had experienced similar struggles with their child.  That simple gesture went a long way to help relieve my own angst and embarrassment, and to let me know I was not alone. Recently I was in NYC on the subway and a homeless man who had just come on board spoke to everyone in the passenger car, explaining his family’s plight and asking for money.  It was as painful to listen to his story as it was to watch, as every single person in that car looked the other way, as if he wasn’t there. I felt my own inclination to do the same, then fought that urge and turned toward him, looked him in the eyes, and told him that I’m sorry that I had nothing to give him (as I truly didn’t have a single bit of cash on me) but that I wished him and his family well.  I’m not sure that my words made any difference, but I at least wanted to give him an experience of a human connection, as I would have wished for if I were in his shoes.

Another way that we can cultivate compassion is through the meditation practice of loving-kindness.  It turns out that compassion, while innate, is also something that can be taught, learned and practiced. In one study researchers found that two weeks of compassion training (involving listening to a 30 minute guided audio meditation) led to more altruistic behavior and brain changes (greater activation in the parts of the brain involved with empathy, emotional regulation and positive emotions when viewing pictures of human suffering), than for those in the control group. The meditation used in the study involved participants repeating the following phrases: “May you have happiness. May you be free from suffering. May you experience joy and ease.” Participants were first asked to picture someone close to them, wishing them these words in a time they have suffered; then they focused on sending themselves these words as they recalled a time that they have suffered; then they sent such feelings of compassion to a stranger, and finally they imagined sending these words toward someone that they have experienced some difficulty with in their life. 

There are many variations of this meditation practice, but the idea is that phrases of compassion are repeated, sent to oneself and/or others, and become the object of attention throughout the meditation. Try it out and notice the positive feelings that emerge from doing this even if for only a few minutes.

Practicing compassion need not take long or add time to one’s day, but it can have big pay-off, both for the recipient as well as for the one offering compassion. Make it a point to find a small way of engaging in an act of compassion this week, and notice the positivity that is generated by doing so.

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/34GHcfO via theshiningmind.com

[christianeberly-blog]

10 Ways To Right away Start Marketing educator.

Smart

On a range of 1 to 10, exactly how delighted do you obtain regarding awakening on Sunday morning to share exactly what God has offered you with your youngsters? They might have believed that a loud, mad voice would certainly put the trainees in position and urge them to take note and find out. Several of these teachers are new and also are not knowledgeable about the should ask for pupil responses. Do not forget to give appreciation and also credit scores to the instructor who led you to this expertise when you find out something brand-new and also find that you can properly place it right into practice. From exactly what I spoke with a pal she's doing far better and also will be back the first week of following see here now month. Simply put, when I began as a special ed instructor my iep papers were five pages long, hand composed. Professional educators have actually found out that just how they begin the year off will determine the success of their classes for the entire academic year. Just what many people don't understand is that the instructor interview committee is not just interviewing for one position at one specific quality level. So forget about your shyness and place your all right into communicating in Spanish with your course friends as well as your educator. As this program has actually been developed very carefully, it can be extremely helpful for any sort of instructors who wish to live or already stay in this state. Today marks the yahrzeit of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, Chabad agents to Mumbai that were murdered during the terrorist attacks in December 2008. When in the classroom connecting with the students, the instructor will certainly have the ability to observe the various discovering designs of the pupils and also will certainly have the ability to better prepare for the future. Having this qualities and also a master's level will certainly open up various doors for flute teacher job. Even though the task of instructors in this circumstance may be more tough as well as complicated, they still should perform and meet the criteria that have actually been put into location. In addition to the details rules and also regulations pertaining to modern in education, educators should be experienceded in the battles that multicultural students deal with. To do this, you should determine the typical inquiries asked by many guitar educators that will restrict you and stop you from becoming successful. Not doing every little thing you've prepared is not necessarily a poor thing, but in my experience the little bits planned for completion are virtually always one of the most critical bits of the lesson, the pay off, the raison d'etre, the heart of the lesson. I become part of a team of blog writers that will certainly be blogging concerning this book every week until we copulate through it. Crafts will certainly last a long time as well as the educator can decorate his or her desk with them to remind themselves that she's liked and doing an excellent work. Another fantastic present that you can offer your instructors are turkey, pork or any kind of food that they could serve in their table come Vacation. SYA is a finest yoga exercise institute or a leading yoga exercise school to find out yoga educator training in Rishikesh with spiritual yoga exercise masters in India.

educator Is Bound Making An Impact In Your Business.

If you actually such as young kids enough to want to be with them all day, our following point in taking into consideration the question raised in the very first paragraph is to determine. I had actually just recently reviewed Xenophon, as well, because that's just what excellent educators do. They always seek to broaden their data base. As long as u depend on the educator u r embracing and also they trust u then wat the hell?! Again, various educators have different assumptions, be it pencil or pen or whatever. I make certain each trainee has made some on day one as it obtains them even more inspired ... plus I require them to have a little money when I present the financial institution as well as checks which they pay a little charge for. Teacher must feel when there is a need to be strict or when mildness will bring even more outcomes. One manner in which instructors can use world maps that are empty to obtain kids functioning is to send residence a video game to be had fun with moms and dads called andquot; name that countryandquot;. Usually online choices are more economical also, so whether the instructor or the area is paying, loan is conserved. Ill-mannered experiences continue between white managers and also educators of shade and also white administrators and also white instructors with trainees of shade. While I value that, according to regional Sacramento newspapers, she graduated from Harvard, she does not have an education and learning degree, has never ever held a mentor placement as well as evidently does not desire to possess a California instructor credential.

The A - Z Overview Of educator.

Such fantastic duty ought to not be neglected and much of knowledge in sociology, psychology and also history of human nature should be consisted of in teachers educating programmes. As a whole, the very best means for a teacher to learn how you can come close to modern education is with a training program, whether it be on-line or face to face. You might obtain frustrated but you need to never invest your whole day working on your computer. The children responded well to her, yet the human teacher believes she still has a lengthy way to go to replace him. Many thanks for sharing that center. I actually took pleasure in analysis that as well as it actually does make you completely value and also aware of what it requires an instructor. Whether you have any enthusiasm for mentor or any other aspect of education, you will not enjoy pertaining to work each day if you don't love kids. In teaching reading especially, it is very important for an educator to be able to recognize just what a pupil is battling with and also how you can help the student improve.

[ncmagroup]

By Brian Massey

  Here are fourteen persuasive writing techniques that will trigger a response from your visitors.

Have you ever wondered why nobody is responding to your offers?

Why do people read your landing pages and then leave?

Why do people see your ads and keep scrolling?

You have a great product. You are offering an in-demand service. So why does nobody seem to be interested?

The answer boils down to psychology. Simply put, you aren’t being persuasive. You aren’t managing to trigger that little thing in your visitors’ brains that snaps them to attention, gets the heart rate pumping, and compels them to keep reading.

Today, we’re giving you a handful of tools that marketers and advertisers have been using for decades to captivate audiences and compel a response.

  1. Focus on resonating with emotional problems.

Everyone has problems, and your product or service is designed to help people solve one or more of those problems.

A lot of businesses simply dive into explaining their solutions. One of the most powerful persuasion techniques, however, is to start by resonating with your readers around the emotional problems they are facing. When people see someone describing something “painful” they are experiencing, it pulls them in and prepares them to buy into the solution.

Another word for this is “empathy”. People want to feel like you empathize with their problems and that it drives the mission of your business.

US President Barack Obama once said this about empathy:

“You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.”

That’s how empathy works. When you put yourself in your readers’ shoes and let them know you understand what they’re going through, they’ll be more inclined to listen to you. When you resonate with them on their problems, they will resonate with you on your solutions.

For instance, let’s say you want to write copy to sell a tool that solves the problem of content managers having to host their marketing tools on several different platforms. You could make your copy all about that problem and then introduce your tool in the end.

Here’s a great example:

In this example from Entrepreneur Alliance, the product is a monthly subscription to a group where real entrepreneurs help each other out. As you can see in the copy above, which appears just below the fold, the company quickly addresses some of the common pain points many new entrepreneurs experience when trying to get started. They also address the frustration people feel when they are constantly assaulted by new people trying to sell them something.

If you are reading this copy and you too have experienced this frustration, then you are far more likely to be intrigued and even compelled by the solution that the Entrepreneur Alliance then proposes to you.

Of course, in order to legitimately resonate with your audience’s pain points, you have to first understand your audience.

Understanding Your Audience

Michael Port offers the FESP model for understanding an audience that you will perform for or write for:

How does the world look to your audience Financially?

How does the world look to your audience Emotionally?

How does the world look to your audience Spiritually?

How does the world look to your audience Physically?

In our example above, the marketing person may see the world like this:

Financially, she’s spending too much on multiple tools.

Emotionally, she’s struggling to manage a “Mississippi of tasks.”

Spiritually, she feels obligated to deliver value from these expensive tools.

Physically, she struggles with the stress of managing content effectively.

This FESP copy should speak to her needs right out of the gate.

In the context of a landing page, it’s usually best to dive into these needs and problems using your value proposition or immediately following your value proposition.

2. Incorporate facts, data, and other analytical information.

While point #1 is very emotionally driven, selling isn’t all about emotion.

Certain segments of your audience might be more analytical.

Certain products or services aren’t geared towards emotional problems.

Even when you can utilize emotion, backing it with hard data strengthens the pitch.

One of the best ways to sell is to demonstrate “irrefutable” evidence that your solution is the best possible option for the prospective customer.

Legendary advertising creative director William Bernbach once said, “The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.” In the digital age, “truth” looks like facts, statistics, case studies, etc.

We employ this in our own marketing here at Conversion Sciences. We can talk about our experience and expertise all day long and even resonate with the problems our clients have dealt with, but at the end of the day, what prospective clients really want to know is:

Have you had success with past clients?

Aka do you have the track record to prove you will succeed with my business?

Since we drive an average conversion lift of 15 to 25% with our clients and have a 90% retention rate, we like to include that information in our copy whenever possible.

This is about as soft as it gets in terms of analytics, but since it is true, it serves as a powerful signal to clients considering our services, demonstrating that we aren’t just talking about AB testing. We are actually getting results.

Do the same in your own copy as often as possible.

3. Demonstrate social proof at key junctures.

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.

In other words, monkey see, monkey do.

When we are making a decision, we want to know that other people consider it to be the right decision. Who are these “other” people?

Specific people we respect

People who are in a similar situation to us

Large quantities of random strangers

In 2017, social proof often takes the form of influencer recommendations, customer testimonials, and social share count.

For example, CoSchedule asks visitors to click TRY IT FOR FREE on their homepage. Visitors are then taken to a page that contains a testimonial and highlights the company’s most recognizable customers.

Be specific in your case studies and testimonials.

Customer stories and testimonials have been shown to improve sales online. Customer stories work best when they are specific. See how Unbounce does it on of their pages:

Testimonials are more compelling with details.

The best customer stories and testimonials will offer the customer name, company, title and a picture. When appropriate, add the city and state of the speaker as well. Also, consider things like age when appropriate.

Favor testimonials that avoid judgments, like, “We loved working with this company!” Instead, focus on a specific result. The more specific your numbers are, the more believable they are.

These stories answer the question, “What did people like me experience?”

4. Use tone to add emotion and keep things interesting.

What does it mean to use one’s tone in writing? Basically, it means writing like you would talk in real life. Your tone can breathe life into your copy. It can make your writing a lot less boring for prospects to read.

David Ogilvy once said “Tell the truth but make truth fascinating. You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.”

When I asked Sam Hurley (founder of OPTIM-EYEZ) to share his number one advice on persuasive writing techniques, he said, “It has to betone. A sentence that equates to the same meaning can be written in 10 different ways…Each variation will evoke 10 unique reactions — and the difference can ultimately mean conversion or exit.”

In other words, you can rewrite a sentence in several different ways using your tone to effectively pass your message across to prospects and make it sink in their minds.

Take this post from Derek Halpern, for instance:

The tone is as important as meaning.

See what did he do there?

Derek used three different sentences to ask just one question: “Do people read long sales pages?” Why? He wanted to sound like a normal person in his tone; not a company trying to sell something.

If he was going to ask the same question in a real-life setting, he wouldn’t just ask Do people read long pages? would he?

No, he’d naturally ask follow-up questions just like he did in the example above. And those (follow-up) questions will mean the same thing as the original query. But they’ll make his message sink in his readers’ minds.

Your tone is important. It helps you talk like a fellow human being, not a business trying to make sales. It helps you build trust. And because your readers are also humans, they can very well relate with your tone when they see it in your copy.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”― Robert Frost

In other words, people react according to what they see in your copy. If they see you shedding tears, they’d be moved to tears. If you crack jokes, they’ll laugh (or at least give you a smile). And so forth. That’s how it works.

Be careful with your tone.

Can anyone actually insult their prospects (or readers) deliberately? I’d love to answer that question with a no, but it happens. I recently found this while doing research for one of my clients:

Does it really pay to call your prospects mediocre?

This form saying I’m a mediocre content marketer if I don’t sign up for the whitepaper. It that true?

But does that slur really convert better than being polite? Did it get me converted? Heck, no! I actually got pissed off! I don’t know about you, but I cringe when I see Calls to Action like this.

There are several polite words that you can use to persuade people to do something. This CTA, for example, got Career Advice 261 sign-ups within 24 hours from a single guest post on The Muse:

This button copy is probably too safe. “Submit” is a tone-deaf word.

Yet, it contains no word that could potentially insult anyone.

5. Take time to bring up and cover objections.

You should never begin writing copy with a pre-determined word count. It doesn’t matter if your copy ends at 400 or 3000 words. What matters is that you say everything that needs to be said.

More specifically, what matters is that you cover all the key objections.

An objection is an argument that tends to come up from the customer’s end to justify saying “No” to your pitch.

For example:

If you are selling me a productivity app and I say, “Well, I don’t think I need an app to be productive,” that’s an objection. If I ask, “Why would I pay for an app when there are 30 other productivity apps that are free?” that’s an objection.

In an interpersonal sales meeting, the power of the objection goes to whoever brings it up first. If I ask you about all the free apps and then you respond, it tends to sound like you’re justifying a problem. Since I brought up the objection, and I think I’m pretty smart, I give it more weight than your response.

On the other hand, if you bring up the objection first, you win. If you introduce the cost and then immediately begin talking about how free productivity apps either utilize distracting advertising or have a low budget and thus numerous technical problems, both of which defeat the purpose of a productivity app, suddenly that potential objection has now become a selling point.

With online copy, the customer never speaks, so you have time to address as many objections as you feel is necessary. There may be just a few or there may be numerous objections that need to be covered. The important thing is that you give yourself time to cover them all.

6. Draw attention to your points with rhetorical questions.

Rhetorical questions draw attention. They’re not meant to be answered, which means that they shouldn’t have an answer. If your question can easily be answered with a “yes” or “no”, it won’t invite the visitor to read on.

Instead, pose questions that make the reader think, “What does this mean?” or, “How will you do that?”

What if we had one single solution that can perform all these functions?

Life would become extremely easy for content marketers, right?

We had a significant increase in leads for one of our addiction center clients using the rhetorical question, “Are you ready to stop lying? We can help.”

Of course, I didn’t expect answers to them. But if you’re a content marketer, you were probably answering those questions in your mind, agreeing to my point of view that an all-in-one tool is the best option for content marketers.

That’s how rhetorical questions work. They pull attention, get readers’ attention and lure them to keep reading your copy.

7. Use hyperbole to communicate value.

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration to make your point to readers. Hyperbole should be used carefully. If you claim to be the biggest, best, or leader, your persuasive copy must deliver proof very quickly.

For example, take Contently:

Really? Does the world’s best content marketing actually run on Contently?

There are certainly other companies out there that get more ROI from content marketing than Contently’s customers. But, their exaggeration is immediately backed up with the logos of some of the biggest companies in the world, the implication being that they use Contently to run their content marketing.

Another example here is Campaign Monitor���s “Send email your customers can’t ignore”.

The headline makes us ask, “How do you do that?”

In this case, the hyperbolic claim makes the reader ask, “How do you do that?” Will all customers read your emails just because you sent them using Campaign Monitor? Probably not.

Unfortunately, the hyperbole isn’t backed up by proof. Only more claims are offered. This page goes on to invite the visitor to watch a video to get the proof.

The link between the hyperbolic claim and the proof is stretched thin, requiring the visitor to watch a demo.

The longer the distance between your hyperbole and the proof, the more tenuous your persuasive argument becomes.

But you get the message they’re trying to pass across, right? Campaign Monitor helps you send emails that get opened and replied.

8. Open your first paragraph with a hook.

Once readers move past your headline, the next phase they’ll be meeting with is your opening paragraph. It tells them if they should keep reading your copy or head out to somewhere else.

There are a couple of ways to create a hook in your copy. You could start with a question like this one:

That very first line (After all, that’s the dream, right?) will spring up a question in the mind of most readers. They’ll start wondering what the dream might be. And they know they have to keep reading to find out. That’s the hook right there.

Another way to create a hook would be starting out with an eye-catching phrase. This could be anything that has the potential of making your readers pay attention. For example:

9. Start small and utilize escalating agreements.

Avoid hitting the nail on the at once­­––especially when you’re writing on a complex topic or for an audience that’s pretty tough to persuade. Begin by beating about the bush a little and give your readers simple valid points to agree on before they get to the complex parts of your copy.

This will help you persuade them to read your copy with ease no matter how complex the topic is and have them nodding their heads in agreement as they read on.

For example, calculating the Net Present Value of a sum of money is mostly a complex topics for folks who aren’t finance-savvy. I mean, it was pretty much a really tough topic for me in my first year studying finance in University. But see how the guys at Maths Is Fun made it look so simple by implementing escalating agreements:

See how they start their exegesis with a set of simple, valid opening sentences that virtually anyone would agree with? Notice that when readers agree that money now is more valuable than money, later on, they’ll mostly move to the next line because they agreed with the previous sentence? That’s escalating agreements work. And that’s how to use it to persuade readers.

 10. It’s OK to use technical details.

Part of resonating with an audience is speaking in their language. When you use relevant jargon or communicate in technical terms only your target segment understands, you help position yourself as an authority in your space and build a community of people who use the same terminologies as you.

So how do you write with simplicity and still use jargon to show that you are a guru?

See how Apple uses a mix of both waffles and plainness in their copy for iPhone 7:

“iPhone 7 dramatically improves the most important aspects of the iPhone experience. It introduces advanced new camera systems. The best performance and battery life ever in an iPhone. Immersive stereo speakers. The brightest, most colorful iPhone display. Splash and water resistance. And it looks every bit as powerful as it is. This is iPhone 7.”

Notice how all that contains no single jargon even though the copy is about a technical product? Yes, that’s simplicity. Virtually anyone would understand it.

Now see how they used technical terminology on the same page––after enticing readers with jargon-less copy:

Apple’s use of jargon to build credibility.

Now some readers might not know what an optical image or f/1.8 aperture means. That’s certain. But they’re most likely going to stay with the copy because it’s interesting to read and not stuffed with too much technical mumbo-jumbo.

Veteran copywriter Robert Bly said the following in a recent newsletter:

“…almost without exception, virtually every successful direct response promotion is written in clear, concise, conversational copy. It’s the style used by John Forde … Clayton Makepeace … Richard Armstrong…Ivan Levison…Paul Hollingshead …Steve Slaunwhite…and just about every top six- and seven-figure copywriter I know. Why? Because it is plain English that virtually always gets the best response — proving that when it comes to communicating, simple writing is the best writing.”

11. Use short and to-the-point statements.

Short, concise statements can be memorable, fun and persuasive. They help to reduce cognitive overload, the need for an excessive amount of mental effort to understand things.

See how the folks at Fiftythree do it on their jobs page:

It’s difficult to condense messages into persuasive bites, but it can be very rewarding.

Copy doesn’t have to be wordy all the time. Just straight to the point and you’d have passed your message across in a split second.

12. Focus your headline on the biggest benefit you’re offering.

Irrespective of how many benefits your offerings can provide, you need to figure out what your biggest benefit is and make your headline focus on. Too many websites “bury the lead.” This means that the most powerful point of the page is relegated to a subhead or the body of the copy.

A typical example here would be SumoMe. They offer several tools but the biggest benefit they provide is traffic and customers:

SumoMe doesn’t “bury the lead.”

Traffic and customers are what SumoMe’s prospects care about the most, so they put that in their homepage headline. David Ogilvy once said this about headlines:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”

13. Tell stories.

There has been a great deal written about stories. This is because they are proving to be so effective. Stories suck people’s attention into your copy. They make even the busiest people pay attention to whatever you’ve got to say or sell.

As an example, see how MAG International uses the art of storytelling to describe the havoc that landmines wreck:

  Stories quickly help the reader relate to a situation.

Stories are most effective when:

Readers don’t know about the problem.

Readers may know about the problem but haven’t considered finding a solution.

Stories may not be effective for readers that are frequent buyers or are very familiar with your solution to their problem.

14. Flaunt your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Of all these persuasive writing techniques, this one is the most effective in our tests. Your unique selling proposition (USP), could be anything that entices visitors to stay and read. It can be that you have low prices, superior quality or anything helps your readers rationalize reading on. For an e-commerce company, the USP includes your positioning, return policy, shipping policy and guarantees.

First, your selling proposition often doesn’t necessarily need to be unique. It just needs to be communicated. Rug Perfection offers hand-made rugs made of natural materials. They offer free shipping and pay shipping for returns as well. Would you know that from the copy on their website?

Rug perfection doesn’t flaunt its unique value proposition, such as its fantastic shipping and return policy.

Your USP doesn’t have to be complex. Persuasive writers are able to summarize your place in the market in just a few words. This is true of Kissmetrics.

Kissmetrics clearly defines their unique position in the market by referencing a competitor.

If calling out your competitor like Kissmetrics seems a little too aggressive for you, you can simply flaunt your unique value without mentioning any rival’s name. See how GoDaddy displays their unique 1-month free trial on their homepage:

The free trial is unique to the hosting industry.

There’s virtually no other web host provider that allows a month free trial. So that’s a USP for GoDaddy.

Start Using These Persuasive Writing Techniques

People are getting smarter year-by-year. Each time we want to shop for anything online, we mostly prefer to check out a number of options and choose who we’d like to do business with.

So a smart move you can (and should) make now is to ensure your web copy and content is focused on enticing, engaging and ultimately persuading prospects to pay attention to your brand and offerings.

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

14 Persuasive Writing Techniques That Trigger A Response By Brian Massey Here are fourteen persuasive writing techniques that will trigger a response from your visitors.

[isaacscrawford]

Health + Design, Refactored

By ANDY ORAM

Health care providers love to vaunt the unique and subtle needs of patients. How many ads have you heard from cancer centers or health clinics touting their flexibility and showing grateful, tear-flecked patients?

But key aspects of our health care systems turn out to be rigid and heartless in practice. Despite the compassion of individual staff, our organizations tell patients in dozens of ways that they are widgets on an assembly line:

We force patients to come early for every appointment and fill out the same paperwork each time with information they have given before.

Patients traverse long, crowded corridors from one station to another, asking at each station for information they don’t get and never knowing how long each stop will take or how many more stations remain on their Kafkaesque journey.

Patients rush to undergo batteries of mysterious tests, sometimes repeatedly, only to wait long periods to hear the results.

We refer them to specialists who, it turns out, can’t see them, or who issue contradictory opinions without coordination.

After frustrating and unsuccessful attempts to learn the costs of procedures in advance, they receive cascades of arcane bills and watch their funds bleed out to charges that bear little relation to their experience in the clinic or hospital.

More fundamentally, our field has stuck to a cycle of diagnosis and treatment that leads to people suffering through death in a welter of tubes and IVs, while 28% of all Medicare costs are incurred in the last six months of life. Pharmacologist Jay Gupta claims that nearly 50% of all seniors in the US take a medication that is not clinically necessary. This is expensive, debases their health, and leads to greater risks of adverse reactions.

These are the sorts of conditions that the unique conference on health IT and design, HxRefactored, confronts each year. The focus is on getting organizations to change their operations, with health IT in a supporting role. Over time, the conference has de-emphasized technology–although sessions on such topics as blockchains, wearables, and interoperability are still popular–and has boosted its approach to health care systems and larger communities. HxRefactored is held jointly by Health 2.0, now operating under the umbrella of HIMSS, and the design firm Mad*Pow.

The overarching question: whither technology?

Attending the sessions of this conference, I pondered the effects on patient/doctor relationships of automation and artificial intelligence, expected to be a 6.6 billion dollar market in health care by 2021 (page 2 of PDF). Will they devolve control to patients and help them practice self-care, or will they reinforce the tendency by health care institutions to manipulate patients as widgets? There is a real risk that the large, well-funded institutions investing in automation will fit it into their familiar philosophies of control. The technologies may simply reduce the costs of doing things the current way, without involving the patient further or pushing health care past current horizons.

Feeding my concern over the purpose of technology was the presence of several companies who have found a viable business model by occupying niches in a bad system: for instance, optimizing one aspect of finding a doctor in the maze of providers, or optimizing one aspect of a broken and wasteful billing system. I appreciate the critical importance of finding a place for yourself in the system, but the cleverness of these entrepreneurs worries me in two ways: first, that they profit from health care anarchy instead of fixing it, and second, that their business models may evaporate if saner health care systems come into play.

I hope that Mad*Pow’s recently launched Center for Health Experience Design follows through on conference goals and consistently champions the rights, responsibilities, and needs of patients, doctors, and communities. The opening keynote by Mad*Pow founder Amy Cueva touched on all the right themes, with such statements as “collaboration is the new innovation” and “worldwide, people are struggling to be heard in health care systems.” I will raise questions of control by patients, doctors, and communities throughout this article.

Conference themes

The expanding scope for design was laid out by Cueva. Classic design used to restrict itself to a single object (such as a Wiener Werkstätte teapot or the classic Eames chair), but the newer human-centered design invites in the users of a system to inform the design.

(Of course, many designers historically have raised their eyes beyond the object–just visit a home architected by control freak Frank Lloyd Wright–but for a long time they were outliers. As an unfortunate representative of the norm, consider the notorious Tilted Arc by Richard Serra, a striking artistic statement designed in 1981 with a total disregard for its effects on people and the environment in which it was set.)

Going further, purpose-centered design considers the object’s environment and how people interact with it, potentially rerouting an organization to meet its goals. If classic design focused on making a single web page beautiful and easy to read, human-centered and purpose-centered design would define the service offered by the site and how visitors can navigate through its pages to achieve their goals. Health care design can employ psychologists, teachers, technologists, and others.

Empowering patients

Although hospitals (and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) conduct patient surveys, I can’t find data on whether they use these surveys to good benefit. If hospitals do listen, can surveys improve anything more significant than the selection of TV channels?

A more intense, and perhaps more productive, effort is the Human Theater Project started by two medical residents, Omar Ishaq and Saad Mir, who described it in an HxRefactored keynote. These doctors lead patients to describe their stresses and experiences, capturing results on video. They claim that patients who participated have better outcomes and survival rates, while the professionals who viewed the videos showed increased empathy.

Payaal Patel, in the panel on the “Patient experience of the future,” said that researchers need to talk to patients to find out what really concerns them. For instance, a person who has trouble using her hands will be worried about how she can brush her teeth–a question that probably wouldn’t come up in a normal clinical setting. Too often, Patel said, we collect data only on deficits and disabilities, leading patients to feel depressed about their conditions and to overlook the strengths they possess that can improve their lives.

Researchers in health care, including pharmaceutical companies, are learning the benefits of listening to patients. If they design trials around topics that patients care about, more will sign up for the trials and persist to the end.

Ultimately, to fix the health care system, it must engage patients on a daily basis in caring for themselves better than they are doing now, and technology will play a key role. Particularly intriguing, to me, are opportunities for new data sources to break the stranglehold that health care institutions have maintained on patient data. These new data sources may well democratize the health care system simply because they run ahead of EHR vendors’ abilities to trap the data, and of hospitals abilities to monetize it. If a Fitbit can produce key insights into your health, maybe you can build a personal health care system around them. HIE of One is an example of an open source personal health record that allows the patient to share data flexibly with many caretakers.

New data sources came up during the session “Breaking down the silos,” ostensibly a technical session about interoperable software, but with intriguing forays into how to help health care systems evolve. Sumit Nagpal, co-founder and CEO of LumiraDx, started his argument with the observation that we need to reduce health care costs by moving treatment into lower-cost settings, notably the home. We need large care teams including the patient, the family, and various professionals, all sharing a care plan. And we need to focus on prevention and wellness. Nagpal was not afraid to say, “individuals have to be accountable.” But a holistic treatment plan based on prevention requires a lot of data that current EHRs don’t hold.

Holistic treatment also brings diagnosis and treatment closer to the patient. Modern equipment allows much testing to be done in the home, a drug store, or even an ambulance, rather than the lab or doctor’s office. Environmental sensors and social media monitoring can contribute to a 360-degree view of the patient. Predictive analytics can remind the patient to take her medications, keep her appointments, and so forth.

Another element of Nagpal’s proposal is a broadened consent policy, so that patients can share data with numerous caregivers without extra paperwork. He did not explore how this system might interact with segmented records, which would let patients restrict the kinds of information their providers can see.

Keynoter Robin Farmanfarmaian said that 70% of routine doctor visits could be done remotely. (The hedge-word “routine” here is ambiguous and probably significant.) She mentioned, as an example of bringing health care into the home, that patients with neurological problems could take tests as often as once a week, and that the tests could be gamified to make them appealing.

Research on telehealth is encouraging, but sometimes ambiguous. Although patients seem to like virtual visits, other data suggests that they might not reduce health care costs because virtual visits sometimes encourage patients to overuse their doctors.

Even insurers–favored targets for public invective–are evolving toward holistic, prevention-based care. These efforts were laid out in the session “Navigating the health system.” As Robin Gasco, from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts said, “We won’t fix health care with an app or a portal–we must straighten out the system.” This Blue Cross/Blue Shield pioneered bundled payments when most payers were just talking the talk.

Insurers in general are becoming alert to the financial distress caused by rising premiums and deductibles. Understanding the financial as well as clinical effects of treatment may actually be good for patients. However, innovation here may require patients to trust insurers with more personal data than they have in the past. Insurers are also large, slow-moving institutions that can take years to move an idea from a concept into the mainstream.

Empowering doctors

We now know that more and more doctors hate their work. Alarming numbers are quitting the profession–you can tell that by reading the KevinMD blog for a couple weeks–or at least opting out of the government’s safety net programs. Can technology lift the burdens of regulation and insurance from doctors instead of worsening them? Can the clinical experience be redesigned to favor doctors?

Danny van Leeuwen of Health Hats, whom I met through the Society for Participatory Medicine, told me of a company called Herald Health that gives doctors control over system alerts. The innovation that makes this different from standard EHRs is the control given to the individual physician. When the vendor, the clinic, or the hospital determine what alerts are delivered, they tend not to be appropriate for the doctor’s workflow. Whether or not the imposed alerts are important, they tend to get ignored. Better to let doctors define alerts themselves and share the ones they like with other doctors, who can then choose whether to adopt them.

Empowering communities

Ever since running water was introduced into cities–and perhaps even earlier–the biggest gains in public health have come through, well, public health. Simple interventions could make a huge difference, such as housing the homeless or providing deliveries of fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods known to be food deserts.

Some modern efforts in public health were highlighted by Olga Elizarova and Samantha Dempsey in a keynote and panel. They pointed out that you can miss racial and economic disparities if you look at the city or state level. Data must be more fine-grained, highlighting differences between neighborhoods.

Education provides a crucial example of community-based intervention. There have always been expensive private schools that offer intensive one-on-one coaching and individualized learning plans. But some organizations, such as the Harlem Children’s Zone and the Northside Achievement Zone of Minneapolis (described by director Andre Dukes) apply these principles to at-risk children in deeply underprivileged areas. Such organizations bring in professionals to counsel parents and children alike. They partner with organizations that can provide evidence of successful interventions. The motto of the Northside Achievement Zone is “Every child can and will attend college.”

Like Gasco, whom I quoted earlier, Elizarova and Dempsey said their solutions don’t use apps. Our health problems are complex and embedded in communities, so the solutions must take communities into account. Furthermore, changes in housing, education, etc. take a long time and don’t offer fast, Silicon-Valley style returns on investment. Finally, designers who want to help communities need to recognize their own biases, coming as they usually do from privileged backgrounds relative to whom they’re collaborating with.

Like home-based treatment plans, public health plans require a lot of data. Traditional healthcare data is not enough. HxRefactored squeezed a lot into two days. Some major catches, such as Aneesh Chopra and Bakul Patel (Associate Director of Digital Health for the FDA), offered keynotes. Attendees can take many lessons away from the conference–this article has focused on those that touch on empowerment throughout the system.

Article source:The Health Care Blog