#not enabling every bad thing they do and then attacking anyone who criticizes them

[sapphic-agent]

It's insane the number of times Rachel is excused on the glee sub. Going back to the whole crackhouse incident with Sunshine and how they love to excuse it on there, there really is no excuse for what Rachel done. I've seen the glee sub say that it's just a throwaway joke and that it wouldn't have been as funny or the "joke" wouldn't have landed if Sunshine was sent to some place like the grocery store. Um, no. I re-watched that episode recently and Rachel's entire attitude and behavior towards Sunshine was horrible.

Firstly, starting with the scene in the bathroom where she speaks to Sunshine in a condescending way because Sunshine couldn't hear her with her earphones in, and automatically assuming that she doesn't understand/speak English because she's not from America. Secondly, paying Azimo to slushie herself, Mercedes and Kurt (attempting to bring Kurtcedes into her scheme without them knowing her motives and having the embarrassment of being slushied too - although she didn't go through with this. Mercedes even remarks that she's awful for planning this) in front of Sunshine so she can be scared of joining Glee club. Thirdly, telling Kurtcedes they will get even less what they already get if Sunshine were to join, and claiming to care about them when again she's just being selfish and thinking about herself. Lastly, feigning innocence about Sunshine's whereabouts when she doesn't show for her audition (knowing the entire time that she sent her to a place of potential harm) and lying to the entire Glee club she claims to love.

It's clear as daylight that Rachel wanted to ostracize Sunshine from the glee club before she even was a part of it. But sure the crackhouse incident was just supposed to be a joke...

When I was active on Glee subreddit, it was wild to me, the way people jumped through hoops defending Rachel's actions while simultaneously hating on Santana (who is my favorite) for the smallest of things she said/done - many which included the humor that existed within the universe of Glee. It. Was. Exhausting.

You're 100% correct.

This is supposed to be a big part of Rachel's character development. Everyone calls her out for it, even Schue and Finn, and it has real consequences for the NDs. The audience isn't supposed to be defending her. Her arc in season 2 was resonating with the fact that her ego hurts the people around her and trying to fix it by treating those around her with more compassion and respect. You literally cannot excuse it as a joke because that takes away from her entire arc.

Rachel at her core is as manipulative and selfish as Quinn and Santana. But because she gets "bullied," her actions are swept under the rug (which makes no sense if you think about it because Quinn was raised by oppressive religious parents and Santana was a closeted lesbian who grew up in a homophobic environment, not to mention how Sue treats the Cheerios. Both of them had harder lives than Rachel and they get none of the excuses she does).

And honestly, I don't care if you hate either of those characters, that's your opinion. But you cannot judge them harsher than you do Rachel. The Glee Subreddit needs to learn some goddamn media literacy.

Rachel fans don't actually want Rachel to grow and develop as a character. They see her as a poor victim who has the right to act the way she does and deserves to get everything she wants in the end no matter how horribly she acts. What a miserable way to engage with a fictional character you claim to be your favorite

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the Sacklers rigged the game

Two quotes to ponder as you read “Purdue’s Poison Pill,” Adam Levitin’s forthcoming Texas Law Review paper:

“Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.” (W. Guthrie)

“Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.” (H. Balzac) (paraphrase)

Some background. Purdue was/is the pharmaceutical company that deliberately kickstarted the opioid crisis by deceptive, aggressive marketing of its drug Oxycontin, amassing a fortune so vast that it made its owners, the Sackler family, richer than the Rockefellers.

Many companies are implicated in the opioid crisis, but Purdue played a larger and more singular role in an epidemic that has killed more Americans than the Vietnam war: Purdue, alone among the pharma companies, is almost exclusively devoted to selling opioids.

And Purdue is also uniquely associated with a single family, the Sacklers, whose family dynasty betrays a multigenerational genius for innovating in crime and sleaze.

The founder of the family fortune, Arthur Sackler, invented modern drug marketing with his campaigns for benzos like Valium, kickstarting an addiction crisis that burned for decades and is still with us today.

His kids, while not inventing the art of reputation laundering through elite philanthropy, did more to advance this practice than anyone since the robber barons whose names grace institutions like Carnegie-Mellon University.

The Sackler name became synonymous not with the cynical creation of a mass death drug epidemic and a media strategy that blamed the victims as “criminal addicts” — rather, “Sackler” was associated with museums from the Met to the Louvre.

Handing out crumbs from their vast trove of blood-money was just one half of the Sacklers’ reputation-laundering. The other half used a phalanx of vicious attack-lawyers who’d threaten anyone who criticized them in public (I personally got one of these).

The Sacklers could not have attained their high body count nor their vast bank-balances without the help of elite legal enablers, both the specialists from discreet boutique firms and the rank-and-file of the great white-shoe firms.

I’m not one to take cheap shots at lawyers. Lawyers are often superheroes, defending the powerless against the powerful. But the law has a bullying problem, a sadistic cadre of brilliant people who live to crush their opponents.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#devils

To see the sadism at work, look no further than the K-shaped world of bankruptcy: for the wealthy, bankruptcy is the sport of kings, a way to skip out on consequences. For the poor, bankruptcy is an anchor — or a noose.

When working people are saddled with debts — even debts they did not themselves amass — they are hounded by petty, vindictive monsters who deluge them with calls and emails and threats.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

But it’s very different for the wealthy. Community Hospital Systems is one of the largest hospital chains in America, thanks to the $7.6b worth of debt it acquired along with 80+ hospitals, which it is running into the ground.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#health-usury

CHS raked in hundreds of millions in interest-free forgivable loans, stimulus and other public subsidies and paid out millions from that to its execs for “performance bonuses.”

It also leads the industry in suing its indigent patients, some for as little as $201.

Debt and bankruptcy are key to private equity’s playbook, especially the most destructive forms of financial engineering, like “club deal” leveraged buyouts that turn productive businesses into bankrupt husks while the PE firms pocket billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

For mere mortals — those of us who can’t afford to hire legal enablers to work the system — bankruptcy is a mystery. If you know someone who went bankrupt, chances are they had their lives destroyed. How can bankruptcy be a gift, rather than a curse?

Purdue Pharma presents a maddening case-study in the corrupt benefits of bankruptcy. When it was announced in March, many were outraged to learn that the Sacklers were going to walk away with billions, while their victims got stiffed.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/31/vaccine-for-the-global-south/#claims-extinguished

Levitin’s paper uses the Purdue bankruptcy as a jumping-off point to explain how this can be — how corporate bankruptcy “megacases” have become a sham that subverts the very purpose of bankruptcy: to allow orderly payments to creditors while preserving good businesses.

Levitin identifies three pathologies corrupting the US bankruptcy system.

First is “coercive restructuring techniques” that allow debtors and senior creditors to tie bankruptcy judges’ hands and those of other creditors, overriding bankruptcy law itself.

These techniques — “DIP financing agreements,” “Stalking Horse bidder protections,” “Hurry-up agreements,” etc — are esoteric, though Levitin does a good job of explaining each.

More significant than their underlying rules is their effect.

That effect? Thousands of Oxy survivors and families of Oxycontin victims lost their right to sue the Sacklers and Purdue pharma because of these techniques. In return, the Sacklers surrendered about a third of the billions they reaped.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy/sacklers-reaped-up-to-13-billion-from-oxycontin-maker-u-s-states-say-idUSKBN1WJ19V

Depriving the victims of the Sacklers’ drug empire of the right to sue doesn’t just leave the Sacklers with billions; it also means that no official record will be produced detailing the Sacklers’ complicity in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Levitin: “The single most important question in the most socially important chapter 11 case in history will be determined through a process that does not comport with basic notions of due process.”

The Sacklers are not unique beneficiaries of “coercive restructuring techniques.” The rise of “prepack” and 24-hour “drive through” bankruptcies have turned judges into rubberstampers of private agreements between debtors and their cronies, with no look-in for victims.

It in these proceedings that the law descends into self-parody, more Marx Brothers than casebook. Levitin highlights the Feb ’21 “drive-through” bankruptcy of Belk Department Stores, where the judge was told that failing to accede to the private deal would risk 17,000 jobs.

The trustees representing Belk’s non-crony creditors were railroaded through this “agreement,” upon notice consisting of an “unintelligible” one-page, one-paragraph release opening with “a 630-word sentence with 92commas and five parentheticals.”

Sackler lawyers were geniuses at this game, securing judicial approval of a deal where the Sacklers’ personal liability to the Feds went from $4.5b to $225m. The judge heard no evidence about whether the Sacklers’ voluntary payout was even close to their liabilities.

The corruption of bankruptcy is bad enough, as the creditors for finance criminals are often small firms and workers’ pension.

The Sacklers’ case is far worse: they don’t owe billions in unpaid loans — they owe criminal and civil liability for the lives they destroyed.

The next area of corruption that Levitin takes up is the inadequacy of the appeals process for bankruptcy settlements. This, too, is complex, but it has a simple outcome: once a judge agrees to a settlement, it’s virtually impossible to appeal it.

In those rare instances where people do win appeals, they are still denied justice, because the appellate courts typically find that it’s too late to remedy the lower courts’ decisions.

That makes the business of “coercive restructuring techniques” (in which judges rubber-stamp corrupt arrangements between debtors and their cronies) even more important, since any ruling from a bankruptcy judge is apt to be final.

The third and most important corrupt element of elite bankruptcy that Levitin describes is the ability for debtors’ lawyers to pick which judge will rule on their case, a phenomena that means that only three judges hear nearly every major bankruptcy case in America.

“[In 2020] 39% of large public company bankruptcy filings ended up before Judge David Jones in Houston. 57% of the large company cases ended up before either Jones or two other judges, Marvin Isgur in Houston and Robert Drain in White Plains.”

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2021/05/judge-shopping-in-bankruptcy.html

In other words, elite law firms have figured out how to “hack” the bankruptcy process so they can choose from among three judges. And these three judges weren’t picked at random — rather, they competed to bring these “megacases” to their courts.

This competition is visible in how these judges rule — in ways that are favorable to cronyistic arrangements between debtors and their favored, deep-pocketed creditors — and in the public statements the judges themselves have made, going on the record admitting it.

Levitin cites the groundbreaking work of Harvard/UCLA law prof Lynn LoPucki on why judges want to dominate bankruptcy megacases. LoPucki points out hearing these cases definitely increases “post-judicial employment opportunities” — but says the true motives are more complex.

Levitin, summarizing LoPucki: “[it’s more] in the nature of personal aggrandizement and celebrity and ability to indirectly channel to the local bankruptcy bar.. The judge is the star and the ringmaster of a megacase — very appealing to certain personalities”

Obviously, not every judge wants these things, but the ones that do are of a type — “willing and eager to cater to debtors to attract business…[an] assurance to debtors that…these judges will not transfer out cases with improper venue or rule against the debtor…”

Forum-shopping in bankruptcy is not new, but it has accelerated and mutated.

Once, the game was to transfer cases to Delaware and the Southern District of New York.

It’s why the LA Dodgers went bankrupt in Delaware, why Detroit’s iconic General Motors and Texas’s own Enron got their cases heard in the SDNY.

The bankruptcy courts have long been in on this game, allowing the flimsiest of pretences to locate a case in a favorable venue.

For example, GM argued that it was a New York company on the basis that it owned a single Chevy dealership in Harlem.

Other companies simple open an office in a preferred jurisdiction for a few months before filing for bankruptcy there.

Lately, the venue of choice for dirty bankruptcies is in Texas (if only Enron could have held on for a couple more decades!). Only two Houston judges hear bankruptcy cases, and any bankruptcy lawyer who gets on their bad side risks ending their career.

Once a court becomes a national center for complex bankruptcies, the bankruptcy bar works to ensure that only favorable judges hear cases there, punishing a district by seeking other venues when a judge goes “rogue.” The fix is in from the start.

Purdue did not want to have its case heard in Texas. Instead, it manipulated the system so that it could argue in front of SDNY Judge Robert D Drain.

It was a good call, as Drain is notoriously generous with granting “third-party releases,” which would allow the Sacklers to escape their debts to the victims and survivors of their Oxy-pushing.

Once Drain agreed to the restructuring, he ensured that the victims would never get their day in court, and no evidence — from medical examiners, auditors, and medical professionals who received kickbacks for every patient they addicted — would be entered into the record.

Drain is also notoriously hostile to independent examiners, “an independent third-party appointed by the court to investigate ‘fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct, mismanagement, or irregularity…by current or former management of the debtor.”

But getting the case in front of Drain took some heroic maneuvering by the Sacklers’ lawyers. Levitin tracks each step of a Byzantine plan that somehow allowed a company that gave its address in Connecticut to have its case heard in New York.

The key to getting in front of Judge Drain appears to involve literally hacking the system, by putting a Westchester County location in the machine-readable metadata for its filing in the federal Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system.

CM/ECF does not parse the text of the PDF that it receives from lawyers; only the metadata is parsed. The company listed a White Plains, NY address in this metadata, even though it had never conducted business there.

Purdue seems to have opened this office 192 days earlier for the sole purpose of getting its bankruptcy in front of Judge Drain (they were eligible for Westchester County jurisdiction 180 days after opening the office).

Their lawyers even went so far as to pre-caption the case filing with “RDD” — for “Robert D Drain” — knowing that all complex bankruptcies in Westchester County were Drain’s to hear.

The fact that the Sacklers were able to choose their judge — a judge who was notorious for his policies that abetted elite impunity in bankruptcy — is nakedly corrupt.

This move is how the Sacklers are walking away from corporate mass murder with a giant fortune. The art galleries have started to remove their names from their buildings, but they’ll have a lot of money to keep themselves warm even if they’re shunned in polite society.

A couple weeks ago, a Texas judge ruled against the NRA, denying its bankruptcy, on the grounds that it was a flimsy pretence designed to escape liability in New York, where it was incorporated.

https://apnews.com/article/nra-bankruptcy-dismissed-a281b888b64d391374f24539a820d60f

For many of us, the NRA bankruptcy was a kind of puzzle. We went from glad that the NRA was bankrupt to glad that they WEREN’T, because for dark money orgs like the NRA, bankruptcy isn’t a punishment, it’s a way to escape justice.

The NRA case is evidence that the corruption of the bankruptcy system isn’t yet complete. That’s no reason to assume everything is fine. The Sacklers are developing a playbook that will be used to escape other elite crimes with vast fortunes intact.

Image: Geographer (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Sackler_Gallery.jpg

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[tundrainafrica]

i know i sent the same ask to other blogs but it bothers me that people claim levihan is an abusive ship. this is because levi used to knock out hange to bathe them. which is def not ok, don’t get me wrong.

but they also gloss over the ass beating he gave eren and the fact that he threatened to break both of erwins legs in order for him to not go to shiganshina. it’s like they are insinuating that levi is abusive. and while he is too rough, he definitely did not do any of these things to cause harm at all.

he wants to take care of them. he saved eren, he knew erwin was in no position to fight. hange is often too busy or deep in their research. forgetting to eat sleep and bathe isn’t healthy for them. or probably refusing to do any of those things because that’s time they could be spending in their lab. so levi does some cleaning up. i’m in no way justifying the way in which he does things, but i’m pretty sure levi cares for hange enough to keep them clean.

if he found hange repulsive he would not spend so much time with them even. and levi was forced to be violent in his youth from living in the slums. he lived in filth so he probably has some sort of ptsd from that. he wants to keep the environment clean and healthy. i’m sure with time he will learn to be more gentle. we have seen him become softer in the manga.

but it makes me angry that they throw around the word abusive so easily when levi is one of the kindest people in the snk universe.

Hello Anon!

Sorry for only getting to this now. 

Here’s one thing I noticed about the people who actually go all the way as to point all these flaws of Levihan --- they point it out because they’re shipping Levi with someone else or they’re shipping Hange with someone else.

Sure, I mentioned it before, I have lots of friends and family who watch AOT and don’t ship Levihan but none of them have ever mentioned the ‘abusiveness’ of the ship. Like literally I get everything from ‘Hange is ugly’ to ‘their height difference is just blah.’ 

(And antis, if you just don’t like Levihan’s relationship and you feel like it’s attacking your ship, instead of screaming ‘homophobic’ or ‘abuse enablers,’ just say ‘Hange is ugly’ or ‘their height difference is ugly’ and just go. Stop turning every attack on our ship to a social issue? Cause like literally there are way more problematic ships out there like wah people actually ship Sam and Dean Winchester together.)

But to bring virtue signaling into the equation? Antis must have some hidden agenda (aka another ship) and which non Levihan Levi ships are the most vocal? I’ll leave you to go to twitter and to do the research yourself. .

Anyway...

From what I know, an argument of a lot of the antis who actually bitch about the abusiveness of Levihan bring up the ‘Levi knocks out Hange to bathe her’ thing. 

Honestly for me, sure knocking someone out to bathe them in real life is one thing. And in real life, I personally cannot see any situation where the absolutely right thing to do is to hurt someone physically (except maybe self defense) but I recognize that people hurt others in anger, people break stuff in anger and does that automatically make those people bad? No.

Every single one of us has been an asshole once, whether physically, emotionally or verbally or in any other sense. Every single one of us has done something others would have considered inexcusable and because of that, close minded virtue signalling will never fly for me, regardless of what background the person who is doing ti comes from.

Because the most authentic and purposeful type of preaching doesn’t come from a place of ‘You’re wrong’ it comes from a place of ‘tell me why you did that so we can discuss this together.’ If the person isn’t listening to you or your side then they’re not preaching right. The world is too complex for any side to be completely in the right.

And I digress. 

But I’m sure as an audience, we have suspended disbelief multiple times while watching TV shows already, most of us have actually seen someone slap their boyfriend or have seen someone punch someone out of anger but instead of screaming ‘AH ABUSE’ most of us would actually go ‘OOOOOOOOHHHH’ and if we think the guy or the girl deserved it, sometimes we wouldn’t even call it abuse.  

And that’s how naturally inclined people are to making double standards.

And if these same people who are calling Levihan an abusive ship are shipping Levi with other people….

You’re right to point out that Levi did give Eren a worse beating and Levi actually threatened to break Erwin’s legs before they left for Shiganshina and that does not count as abuse?

Or if those same people who are calling Levihan an abusive ship are the same people who would cheer just watching anyone get hurt....

So that means that the antis are so conveniently taking whatever they can, virtue signalling their way into invalidating our ship. Which doesn’t hold if they can’t really practice what they preach or keep it consistent in all grounds. 

Besides Levi and Hange are both battle hardened soldiers. They’re both incredibly healthy human beings. And I’m sure they actually don’t think too much about getting bruised up here and there knowing were Levi grew up and knowing they go into expeditions and they experience much worse things there. 

And on top of that, I’m sure the knocks her out to bathe her thing was played for lolz. 

And if Hange hated it, if she herself had considered it abuse for Levi to do it, I’m sure Hange would have acted on it long ago. Arguably, Hange is Levi’s superior after all. And if the antis are gonna scream ‘It’s stockholm syndrome. Hange just accepts it and it’s unhealthy’ 

Really? If anyone was a sub in their relationship, I’d put it at Levi tbh.  

The point is I don’t think any argument to the ‘abusiveness’ of Levihan actually holds if the shippers are so easily going to dismiss Levi threatening to break Erwin’s legs or Levi beating up Eren. At the same time, I don’t think it holds either if these same people who are criticizing abuse in this type of setting are cheering for violence and abuse in any other type of setting.

People bring up social issues and accuse people of being assholes all the time and if they’re not going out of their way to research what other sides exist to a problem, I’m convinced that more than half the time they’re conveniently pointing things out to fuel some other hidden agenda inside them. 

This is common practice in ship wars. People find anything bad to say about any ship. And I just hate seeing people bring up shit like social issues into the shipping war. 

“If you don’t ship them you’re homophobic.” “If you don’t ship them, you’re transphobic.” “If you ship them, you’re an enabler.” 

Because when has shipping preferences ever determined whether someone is a good person or not? People ship for different reasons? Not everyone ships with a ‘THIS IS MY DREAM RELATIONSHIP’ scenario in mind. Like people ship because they like enemies to lovers dynamics. People ship because they like contemplating the complexities of relationships. Peoples ship and they celebrate their problematic ships because they want to explore the complexities of the issues that govern such material. 

People forget that in the end, what we ship is really just preferences. And I do not think it reflects much on how the person is. People can have the most problematic kinks and still be the kindest people. 

Because in the end it’s awareness of one’s surroundings, it’s empathy, discipline, good control of emotions, openness and the ability to discern whatever information comes our way which makes us good people. And in the end, it’s our own efforts everyday to be a better and kinder person which makes us good people, not the opinion of some stranger on the internet who decided that we were bad just because we ship a ship they don’t like. 

Anyway, I think I went overboard with this answer anon but I hope this makes you realize things about antis.

[blackxkatt]

I need this out and I don’t know where else to put it because if I put it anywhere where people might see, I’m giving more ammunition to the idea that I’m just some monster or something, and I'm tired of having to hedge every bit of opening up about this with, "I know I fucked up, too". It's time for me to be able to tell my story without diminishing my own experiences.

I used to vent to the void on tumblr a lot so I figure this is a good place to do so. Writing out stuff like this is a good therapy technique, and I don’t hurt anyone this way. Okay here goes

My relationship with Becky was awful. In hindsight, I should have ended it so much sooner than I did, but I kept trying to force it because I wanted it to work. We were awful for each other. We made each other worse people. It needed to end.

I did everything I could thing of to make the break up smooth for her. I avoided Easter so that I wasn’t marring a holiday. I asked Tanner to cancel D&D for the day (little did I know, I was canceling that game forever) so that she’d have a week until we had to exist in the same space again, even virtually. I drove to her house, so she wouldn't have to deal with a drive before or after. I knew she had therapy the next day, so that she’d have time to process and professional help soon. I didn’t bring up anything either of us did and didn’t bring up any blame. I said we were just incompatible, because we were. I told her I understood if she didn’t want to be friends -- she said she did. I said if that changes, just let me know. I held her while she cried, walked her dog with her, and went home.

Over the next week, she began to escalate attacks towards me with no warning. On the morning of our D&D game, 2 hours before we had to coexist in front of our friends, she sent me a list of grievances during our relationship and demanded an apology for them, to help her healing. I wanted to be done with this, I had thought that the break up meant we could finally be done with it. I apologized regardless, because I knew I wasn’t perfect and had admitted when I’d fucked up before in the relationship, but not for all of it because some of it plainly wasn’t true. I asked if I could respond and ask for an apology for my own healing. She said no, she didn’t care, and that she wouldn’t let me make it all about myself.

She demanded Tanner message her practically every second of every day, elsewise she’d melt down that he was spending time with me instead of her, when we live together. She literally got pissed off that I visited his Animal Crossing island before her. Tanner couldn’t even mention me neutrally without her going on a tirade about how awful I am and how he shouldn’t defend me, let alone mention that I was hurt, too.

Eventually, she blocked me. I had spent the entire time keeping the door open and trying to maintain a friendship, both because I didn’t want to lose that, and for Tanner’s sake, and meanwhile she was nuking the bridge. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t see myself being metamours with someone who so clearly and actively hated me.

Tanner, on advice from a counselor, sat us both down to talk about our abusive tendencies and how this was affecting him. The first thing she did was give me the most disgusted look when she walked in. She nodded vigorously during the entire bit where Tanner raised his issues with my behavior.

Almost all of what Tanner talked to me about were things we’d worked on in the past, that I’d been fine on, that I’d backslid on since dating Becky. Others we’d discussed before and he’d been fine with, but had changed since. The rest, he later apologized for, because he realized he was being abusive in those expectations and hadn’t been concerned with fairness at the time. Almost all of what he brought up wasn't new, because Tanner and I have checked in with each other and worked on our relationship for almost 7 years.

Meanwhile, Becky continued to be abusive to him, in the same ways she had been to me, amped up to 1000. And I had to sit and let it happen. I left my own house for hours at a time for them to have dates. I canceled or moved my own plans for her. I had a festering wound I was hoping would heal, because Becky continued to insist to me that we’d forgive each other some day, but I was the only one working towards it, while she cursed me at every opportunity.

This all culminated in her calling Tanner one day, during our date, to demand that he choose between us. To try to convince him to be monogamous with her. To tell him how awful I am and that she can’t believe he would choose me. To guilt him for daring to do so, even though she’d forced the choice.

I beat myself up, like I was the reason for the break up. But I wasn’t. Even if I wasn’t in the picture, she was abusive and had continued to be without pause. It was her own jealousy and refusal to heal that ended their relationship. I know that now. But it took awhile for my anger to set in. It did once I found out she messaged him more times after that to try to convince him, once again, to leave me, and once again getting upset with him when he wouldn’t.

I waited for a while before asking Tanner if he was alright with me cutting Becky out, since after those instances, I didn’t see our relationship being positive again, at least not for quite awhile, and I’d spent months swallowing my pain for the sake of their relationship and couldn’t do it anymore. That was when I found out, from him, that Becky had already cut me out with no intention to recover. She had remained in all of our group chats, so that was news to me. It was power I was not willing to let her hold over me any longer, pretending she was the bigger person for being silent in the chats but not leaving them. I won’t be made into a monster for defining and defending my boundaries for the first time since the break up. It was unfair of her to remain in every single chat when she’d made it clear she was cutting us, or at least me, out, forcing me to face that trigger every day, giving me almost to reprieve or space to vent about my own pain. I asked friends to remove her from those shared chats, and they did, and I refuse to be made into a villain for being the one to cut the last of the bridge she’d torched. The last one is the d&d game that wasn’t destroyed with our relationship, and it’s the last thorn in my wound keeping me from healing, but Tanner and I are both scared that group will fall apart, too, if she’s removed, due to reactions in another chat she was removed from. So, I have to continue to swallow that, for who knows how long.

Now that that story is out, I’m going to list what I can about my and Becky’s relationship -- her abuse, her gaslighting, making sense of it all and getting out what she never let me.

-A lot of our problems stemmed from the fact that I didn’t react how she wanted. She would be abusive or demanding, and instead of reacting like Tanner, who would submit for the sake of keeping the peace, I would push back, either calmly or not so calmly due to it triggering me. Both elicited negative responses. We triggered each other this way often.

-She was racist to me. She weaponized the exact racism I told her I had experienced from almost every white person I’d ever known, even my loved ones. She promised she never would and then did exactly it, armed with the knowledge of how to shut me down. She told me I *was* aggressive, actually, that she’d surveyed my friends and they all agreed that I was aggressive, and by insisting that I wasn’t, by defending myself, I was gaslighting her. Oh, and she only used the word aggressive because that was the word I’d used, not that she actually thought I was aggressive. Why did I think she thought I was aggressive? That was my own fault. I constantly made myself smaller for her, like I had for so many racist people in my life. I could no longer be all of me anymore.

-She insisted I was incapable of calm discussion (see the racism above), that I deserved her anger and brought it upon myself because it was the only way I listened. Never once in our relationship did she ever say, “can we talk about this?” or anything along those lines, which I would have responded to (and have in other relationships). It was always blowing up out of nowhere because I said the slight wrong thing or didn’t say the right thing or because she’d misunderstood me.

-On misunderstanding, she admitted that she constantly misread me and misunderstood my words due to her  past trauma and expectation of negativity. Once upon a time, she told me that if she took what I said in the most positive light, she understood me finally. Yet, later in our relationship, she started insisting that every misunderstanding was my fault, that all poor communication was on me, that I was an anomaly, that I somehow experienced less emotions than other people. When I would refuse any of these accusations or point out what I had actually said, she told me I lacked critical thinking or was gaslighting her.

-Tanner said something that made so many of our problems click: Becky didn’t want a relationship, she wanted codependence. Something she admitted she struggled with, something her family struggles with, and yet I never put it together. She wanted all of our attention, all of the time. Every triad date we had was centered on her. My healthy independence was a threat to her. She insisted I was lying if I didn’t have some deep issue to discuss with her every day. She insisted I was lying when I promised her I wasn’t hiding my life from her, that I just sincerely didn’t have any crisis or something to discuss. My refusal to enable any of her bad habits or abusive behaviors upset her. When we broke up, and she could no longer guarantee all emotional energy was given to her, she spiraled.

-Of many things we’d previously discussed and she said she understood, group chats take less energy for me to participate in, and I was always happy to interact with her in group chats if I couldn’t handle a 1 on 1 chat. Eventually, I was scared to interact in group chats, post online, show any presence that I wasn’t busy or asleep, because she would become upset with me for not messaging her individually.

-The biggest red flag I ignored, one that terrified me so much I told no one about it until I was considering the break up, was when she asked me to choose between herself and my best friend. When I told her I couldn’t do that and was uncomfortable that she’d even asked, she got upset, and I ended up comforting her instead of addressing it any further. And without even realizing it, I began to feel anxious and guilty whenever I interacted with Dan. I would fear even mentioning them to her, because it inevitably resulted in her jealousy. I began to interact with them less (notice a pattern? Interacting with my best friend less, interacting with my group chats less, interacting online in general less...)

-Every concern I brought up ended the same way: she’d say I was gaslighting her, or she’d get upset and I would have to comfort her.

-She was never polyamorous; this is obvious in hindsight. She was a monogamous person who happened to form a crush on two polyamorous people. She would consistently try to persuade me away from polyamory and into maintaining a closed triad, and would get upset with me when I expressed that wasn’t what I wanted. She’d often remind me that she’d be extremely jealous of anyone I ever dated and that they couldn’t be as important as her.

-She said she understood it would take Tanner and I time to feel as close to her as we do with each other. Yet, she was constantly jealous of us and became more and more angry as time went on. She seemed to expect a timescale of months to level out a 7 year relationship with a 7 month one, when it would have taken years.

-Along with codependence, she was looking for a therapist in her SOs. She would have a new breakdown to discuss daily, and a myriad of untreated phobias and illnesses. She’d consistently complain about her therapist; when I made suggestions to tell her therapists her concerns or get a new one, she’d brush it off or insist it wasn’t that bad. If Tanner or I didn’t enable her phobias, she’d get upset with us. We could neither make plans for just us two(though she hates being left out) nor bring her (she hates crowds and spontaneous plans). She’d say she’d come, we’d just have to deal with her crying the whole time. I’d express that we want her to have fun, not suffer, and she’d say she’d suffer either way. We were guilted out of most plans.

-Most of the end of our relationship, that finally made me realize we needed to break up, was a slow change that I’m not sure how it happened. At some point, Becky stopped seeing me; she only saw what fit her preconceived notions of me. She made assumptions about me, my thoughts, my character, who I was. She made up situations in her head and got angry at me for them out of nowhere, with no communication, and the one time she did listen that she'd made up the situation (because Tanner told her), she spiraled into self-hatred, not an apology. She twisted everything I said into some kind of attack against her and insisted every clarification, explanation, or evidence was an excuse. When I would point any of this out, that some of what she said was just plain untrue, she’d once again insist I was gaslighting her. I was trapped. She refused to see the changes I made for her, and was coming up with her own reality of our relationship. Nothing I did mattered anymore; even Tanner told me he saw it. He told me that I had done a lot of work but he didn’t see the same improvement on her end, and that she needed to meet me in the middle if we were going to work. But she only saw the monster she’d made me. I couldn’t continue to date someone who was so committed to misunderstanding me. This is why I only apologized for most of what she said in her list of grievances -- because some was simply untrue. I never lied to her, I never gave her half-apologies -- never in my life have I given anyone an “I’m sorry you feel that way” apology. I apologized for things that didn’t even merit apology. I regressed and backslid on so much healing I had done. She mentally sent me back to high school, convinced me I was who I was as a child, when that was completely untrue. So much of the relationship had become this perfect trap -- where it was damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I ended it because I couldn’t live like that anymore, and I wanted our friendship back. We were awful romantic partners, but such good friends. Not anymore, I guess.

-Every trauma I ever did confide in her, she eventually weaponized against me. She'd recreate every one, or bring them up to silence me. She'd use every moment of vulnerability to further convince me I was an inherently awful person and push me to back slide and regress into trauma I'd grown beyond. Any questioning was met with, yup, I'm gaslighting her or lack introspection.

-She said I never showed interest in her, and I still don't know where that came from. We'd talk about life goals, the world, our ideas. I told her I loved seeing her creative projects and that progress. I read her fan fiction and bragged about it. I don't know when she stopped seeing it, when she stopped seeing me. I introduced her to all of my friends, integrated her into all of my friend groups, because I thought I was building a future with her. But now I'm the villain because she wanted to hold my social life and the friends I'd introduced her to hostage.

-One comment that stuck with me was that she said we weren't even dating, just friends who kissed. She said it again in our last argument before we broke up. I literally didn't know what to do to prove to her that I cared about her, to make her believe me when I said she was my girlfriend. I even came out to my parents about her to try to prove it and it wasn't enough. I got to the point where I almost finally had sex with her just because she wanted it, just to see if that would finally be enough for her to believe me. I'm very glad I didn't.

-She was consistently passive aggressive. She would always say something was fine, then clearly be upset when I'd do it. I'd have to press for there to be any chance of her admitting she didn't like it. There were clear "correct" answers to all of her questions and suggestions, and whenever I refused to acquiesce, it would become an argument.

-Intentions don't matter and all that, but they do. They do, because that's shorthand. She'd constantly use that as a shield, telling me my intentions didn't matter, when at a certain point, she had to be responsible for refusing to hear me. And while intentions don't matter, I never intentionally hurt her, but she intentionally hurt me several times, almost never apologized for it, and in fact insisted to me that I deserved it and had brought it upon myself.

-And I defended her. I continued to defend her for so long, from so many people. I knew she had trauma, and I knew she was in an environment that wasn’t suited to her healing. I convinced myself that I just had to endure until post-pandemic, or until she moved out, or until she got medication she could take, or, or ,or-- and Dan gave me the wake up call that if I was walking on eggshells with her, the environment we were in would only change where I was walking on eggshells with her. Tanner gave me the wake up call that we aren’t even sure she *wants* to leave that house with her family, because of that toxic codependence.

-I’m still terrified of how quickly she turned on me. How quickly she made me a monster. Our break up didn’t have any villains; break ups don’t always need villains. But like a light switch flipping, she turned hatred upon me. She told me that she doesn’t feel empathy and only performs goodness because of a moral code she made for herself, but I never considered what it would be like if she designated me an enemy in that moral code.

Some of this I realized towards the end of our relationship. Some of this I realized after. I’ll add to this post whenever I need to as I parse out more, or remember what I’ve forgotten to add.

I’m not the monster she made me in her story. I’m not responsible for her version of me anymore. I won’t be made to feel guilty or like a villain for finally enforcing my boundaries. I’m still angry that I can’t be open about all of this without continuing to fall into this trap she’s made, of me being awful and hateful instead of abused and rightfully angry. But Tanner and I are the happiest we’ve been in a year. I deeply regret that relationship, but I’m so happy now that I’m out of it, even if it didn’t end how I’d hoped. And I think that says I made the right decision.

[otterskin]

I didn't like the LOKI show, no matter how hard I try, and it's messing with me.

My mother died at the end of December. A lot of other bad things happened as well, like the severe brain injury of my father.

I didn't cry. There was so much to do. I did it. And even then, when there was nothing left to do, I didn't cry.

I found distractions.

Today I went to see the Green Knight after a tough week at a new job that had me leave my father in another province even though he still needs help. I was trying to get back to the life I'd dropped.

I loved the Green Knight. The Arthurian Legends are as dear to me as Norse Mythology, and my copy of them had the Green Knight on the cover. The film was truly excellent, evoking the feel of the story whole still doing something unique and very A24. I cried at one point, like I did when watching the first THOR, because of how much it meant to see something I'd loved since the very first years of my existence finally make it to the big screen and be...right. It's own thing, it's own artistic product, but right.

Then I opened a tab in a browser and saw I had some messages on a website I comment on. It was just some minor criticism of the LOKI show I'd posted beneath an article and how it handled certain things.

I was downvoted. Berated. Hated. Lumped in the ad hominem twitter users who attacked the director and writer (I'd never, ever!) Told I was biphobic because I wanted to see more of a queer lens (I even addressed how difficult it is for bi people in queer cinema and society in general in my criticisms of the romance, but even that wasn't good enough - just disliking it was 'bad'.) I was told I just wanted my 'fanfic' made (I never made any laundrylist of plot points I demanded). I was accused of being a begrudged shipper (ha! If anything I'm an anti-shipper). I was told that I should love the show, it was awesome, and I was bad for not thinking so.

And I started to cry.

I don't cry. Only at movies. Not at real life. I didn't cry at my grandparents's funerals, I didn't cry when I was left with the body of my mother in the hospital room and my brother cried on my shoulder. I didn't cry when working through my dad's severe new disabilities as I realized how much he had lost. I didn't cry while realizing how messy my parents' finances were. I didn't cry when my mother's friends called me in the middle of the night and cried into the phone. I didn't cry when saying goodbye to my dog and going back to a rundown apartment with a terrible smell so I could go to work in a dark room for hours at a time.

But now I'm crying and writing this.

I've realized why. During everything, I looked forward to the LOKI show. The first THOR is deeply nostalgic to me and I watched it often in my first year of Uni when I was away from home. It tied in thematically to what I was going for. Thor 2 came out before I went on exchange, and while I disliked it overall, talking about it was a welcome distraction from my anxieties. Thor 3 was nerve-wracking, but it also came out during my first major job which I was struggling with, and I saw it so many times in theatres...it was such a huge comfort.

Looking forward to LOKI wasn't just a distraction. It was like a promise. A promise that I'd make it till then and see it and maybe it'd give me some comfort.

That's on me. That's a personal thing. It's an unreasonable expectation.

But I needed it, all the same.

Then it came out.

I tried. I really tried to like it, to forgive it, but the problems are things I've criticized for too long in so many other things. I always try to be respectful about, I never go ad hominem and attack the creators, only critique their work and I always mentioned what I liked but...

I didn't like it.

I have no urge to rewatch it.

And the Green Knight...the Green Knight was everything I wanted and needed it to be. It didn't let me down, though I've been anticipating it about as long as the LOKI show. They're very different, obviously, but in my heart they share the same compartment.

And after a very trying day...I realized how badly I needed to rewatch a Loki show I liked. But I can't even enjoy THOR or Thor:Ragnarok anymore. It's like everything I did like has been poisoned.

This thing that got me through immense pain is causing me pain. I don't want to be toxic. I'm sure it's in me. I try so hard not to wallow in disappointment, but to not even be allowed to talk about my problems without being lumped in with abusive online monsters...

I can't do it. I just can't.

This is supposed to be an escape, not another trial.

I needed the LOKI show to be good, so I could come out of the dark into the light, or at least walk through the night with a lantern ahead of me. And instead it was just more darkness, and it's not even entirely its own fault. It's the online discourse. It's the uncalled for harassment of Herron and Waldron. It's the taunting jabs at people who didn't have a good time as if we're all jerks. It's having people roll their eyes when you point out things that made you uncomfortable in the story, it's feeling slightly gaslit when you find something gross that the story intended to be gross and then being told it's not gross, actually.

I'm sorry. I don't want to cause pain. I just...

I needed it to be good. And unlike Thor 3, which delivered me respite in a dark time...it let me down. Worse, it's hurt me.

I said I don't cry, only at the movies. Something about them lets me cry in a way nothing else does. I can't cry at a funeral, but I can cry in a movie theatre at the drop of a hat. It's a release valve, a way for me to process things.

I think I was waiting for LOKI to give me permission to cry. To give me something that could release this pain in me. And instead, it just gave me more.

I never should have given it that power. I didn't want to. But I had to, to get through this.

I'm putting away the few THOR pieces of tat I have. I feel foolish. I always knew it was a capitalist piece of art, chucked from creator to creator with no creative shepherd, which in itself was stressful.

The fandom is no sanctuary for me either, since I'm primarily interested in the family dynamics and I'm sick of 'Odin is an ABUSIVE MONSTER' stories or even unrelated fics and posts just dropping in hate for him that's not at all canon but seems to be very popular to the point where people think it is. Especially since I often read these stories when I need to think of home and my father. Or, most pleasantly of all, when I get called an abuser or abuser-enabler because I say I like Odin as a character. I also can't really bear to deal with anything to do with Sylvie, whom I had high hopes for as someone who wants more female tricksters, but instead I got this...this Mary Sue that's very hard to criticize without being yelled at. I swear I'm coming at her writing as a feminist and I don't hate anyone, I don't, I just...sigh. She's just personally frustrating to me and not being able to discuss it without being called names sucks.

Not to mention I'm asexual, and I always struggle with romance in media being pushed as the 'ultimate relationship more important than any other'. Part of the reason I liked THOR so much was that romance was not the main feature of THOR and definitely not THOR 3 (while my disliked Dark World was all about it, and so is LOKI). And when I criticize the romance, I get called a prude (guilty, I guess), a troll, or, my favourite, just 'a hater'.

I don't want to hate. Who wants that poison in their veins? I'm here because the Thor series HELPED me because I LOVED it. And now I look at the things I used to love and I...don't, anymore.

So much is asked of me right now. I can't willingly invite this painful thing to sit on my chest as well, especially since the world is already shoving it into my face without my doing anything, in ads, in news, in everything.

I suppose that's why I've leaned even more into Odin lately. He was untouched by the LOKI series (though not the Simpson special, which worries me). He's a trickster, he's queer, he's nuanced, he's 'misunderstood' (that old cliche, but he's misunderstood and misrepresented by the people always yelling about how this or that character is misunderstood, which amuses me, except when it gets to me), and he's in many ways free to make my own.

I still have some stuff I'm going to publish that's practically finished. Finnesang has a lot more written for it but needs some major sit-down time for re-writes and edits. Lokabrenna is practically done, just needs tweaks and Beta. I'll be here a little longer.

But I think I'm going to have to step back for now and put my passions into other things.

I will be back. After all, after Thor 2 came Thor 3. Maybe Love and Thunder will right the ship and Thor can still be awesome, and maybe eventually a creative I love will come to work on the franchise. Really, that's the key for me - I loved Branagh before THOR, and loved Waititi before Thor, and disliked Waldron's work (though I gave him every benefit of the doubt and hoped and prayed to be wrong - sadly, it was what I expected.)

But...if LOKI season 2 is more of this, more romantic tropes I hate and Loki being an afterthought in his own show and his family being devalued for new characters...I can't do it. I can't watch something I used to love just throw that all away for something I dislike.

My tears are finally drying. I wrote a lot of this while the screen was blurry, so I hope there's no grammar or typo too embarrasing. I'm not sure I have the strength to re-read it. Sorry for the rant. It helped me feel better.

Thank you all. I hope I feel differently someday.

[wirewitchviolet]

How not to Write a Campaign

I have been playing RPGs for a very long time. Back in the day, I avoided any and all pre-written adventures of any sort because my limited experience with them was... just frankly terrible. Weird inconsistencies in tone, unfair encounter setups, too many assumptions about PCs’ motives and actions, etc. Then much later I discovered a group of writers who actually got it, wrote things perfectly in line with how my friends like a game to go, and we’ve been all in on those for a decade and change. But I just finished running a ROUGH one, and I want something good to come of it.

I don’t want to make this a specific review, because... I’m in the industry, I know the people who wrote this campaign, I can guess at some of the problems involved, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or reputation, so let me just refer to the offending prewritten campaign here as the Amnesia Campaign. It’s for a big fantasy RPG, it riffs of a particular author’s work, you can probably guess what it is from that, but, I’m trying.

The first problem I need to bring up with the Amnesia Campaign is that it just commits the cardinal sin of long term RPG campaign writing- The mustache-twirling villain who always manages to escape from the PCs at the last minute. I cannot convey just how important it is that you never, ever do this. The worst sort of example is when you plan around the PCs actually confronting your villain multiple times, and failing to kill them, which is a terrible idea because there really is no way to ever stack the deck and account for every contingency to make an unwinnable fight, or even one where escape is always possible, and especially if you’re publishing adventures, some number of groups will kill the villain too early, either shorting things out or forcing a handwave to keep an ineffectual villain in play and pretend they’re still a threat.

The Amnesia Campaign doesn’t quite go there. Having an actual chance to go toe to toe with the villain is reserved for the very end, but it does use another variant, where no matter what happens, the PCs arrive just after the villain they’re chasing has left. Now... there’s a way you can make that work. If you have a villain who cannot be reached in practical fashion, and can launch attacks anywhere within a huge region, you can build a whole campaign out of characters reacting to the aftermath of evil actions they could not be expected to even learn about until the villain has left the scene. Here, meanwhile, we have a villain with a big elaborate plot that requires traveling all over the world gathering things, based on research he does at the very start which the PCs can, and indeed are expected to do, quickly pick up on these research notes, and basically know everything the villain plans to do from nearly the start of a very long campaign. And... frankly, the villain has no real edge to keep him believably one step ahead. He is a mildly wealthy man hiring goons, mundane forms of transportation, and having to negotiate and fight his way through to various sub-objectives needed for his plan, and it is at least strongly implied that he doesn’t have a lot of lead time. When presented with a scenario about someone needing to be chased down and stopped, PCs can pretty reliably be counted on to constantly be rushing forward, coming up with clever ways to accomplish what they need to in less time, and cut down if not completely nullify their travel time. But, like with battles the villain somehow keeps escaping from, I am forced to continuously state to my players in running this that no, somehow even after avoiding this whole side quest by reading the mind of the person with important information, and directly teleporting to where the villain left for by riverboat, he somehow beat them there, and once again, just left. It’s frustrating, and implausible. We end up with a villain who seems overwhelmingly outmatched, but keeps succeeding because... well, he has plot armor so we’re railroading this.

Admittedly, having a good villain when writing a full campaign in advance can be tricky. The safe and tested formula is generally to start off with minions of your main villain, starting with some who don’t even know who they’re ultimately working for, gradually build up to who’s calling the shots and to what end, have a big side trip to prepare for the final confrontation not directly involving the villains, than cap it with a big showdown. If the PCs know who the main villain is from the very start and where to find them, it becomes hard to rationalize anything between. Sometimes you can pull it off if they’re leading an army or ruling a country, but even then, you want to work up a food chain to them.

A similar problem, which crops up a bit towards the end of the Amnesia Campaign, is making too many assumptions about how the PCs react, and who they befriend. In RPG writing, you need to make as few assumptions as possible about the specifics of what the PCs will do in any situation. You can count on the real broad strokes. The party will investigate the situation described in the adventure, they’ll explore the area, find the villains, fight them, win, learn something to keep the larger plot growing, but that’s it. You can’t assume they’re going to team up with this NPC, enter this room from that direction, or otherwise reenact what you’d imagine you’d do in their place, or what happened in your test play of your adventure. This is particularly important when you include a little sidequest unconnected to their primary goal, or you’re presenting an open-ended investigation.

Ideally, you just have a sensible location, have some villains in it with clear goals and personalities laid out, and you scatter around some things to enable various clever tricks if players think to try them, without mandating any of them. Mention where windows are, and chandeliers, and holes just too small for the average human to fit through, but don’t, as part of the Amnesia Campaign does, invest heavily in the assumption that the PCs will start investigating a sewer system when investigating how a cult gets around a city and go sparse on other possible clues. Also don’t waste adventure background note space on thousands of years of history at the expense of what the actual current problem in the area is and who or what is behind it.

The next problem is one that, were I the average consumer just buying this book would bother me a hell of a lot more than it does as someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Put mildly... you do not want to play a rogue in the Amnesia Campaign. Nor do you want to play a swashbuckler, a critical-hit focused character of any stripe, really any class out of the... roughly 25% of all classes who rely on knowledge of where to make a hit count the most to do the full amount of damage with their attacks, because practically everything is immune.

Now, again. I partly understand how this happens. We have several different authors writing different chapters of the campaign, simultaneously, in pretty unforgiving crunchy conditions, with just a rough outline to go off. Nobody really has a chance to confirm notes and say “hey, did your chapter totally invalidate one of the foundational character archetypes, because I was thinking of doing that and having two of those back to back would be a bit much.” And while the publisher of the Amnesia Campaign does throw out little booklets of tips for players on what sort of character concepts will/won’t work, they’re not written last, so this sort of tip is missing there too. On the other hand, it’s a huge problem within nearly any given chapter just on its own. If you’re making the call on what all monsters to include in a multi-level stretch of a campaign, you should generally avoid choosing nothing but monsters immune to one of the most common bread and butter class features. And honestly, given how the subject matter naturally lends to the deployment of a particular monster type, erring on the side of assuming everyone else is heavily deploying them wouldn’t be a bad assumption for any author to make.

This though, unlike the rest of my gripes, is ultimately a high level problem that needs a high level solution. When you’re publishing a whole campaign, and you’re doing it in a game where several foundational character concepts kinda live or die based on things like whether things are properly harmed by particular flavors of damage, or whether a decent percentage of enemies fall under a certain classification, that really shouldn’t be a double-blind. Coordinating to get all authors to use a decent spread, or include outline notes like “it’d make sense for about half the enemies in this chapter to be fire elemental themed in various ways, but keep a good variety otherwise,” and/or trying to get a rough handle on emergent themes to adjust for/warn about in player-facing pitch material. Even the best-written campaigns are prone to rude awakenings or hilarious reductions in challenge as turns out, say, going all in on cold damage does indeed pay off for the one with Fire in the title.

Meanwhile, on the other side of that coin, more or less, huge swaths of the Amnesia Campaign really just completely break down by failing to account for some basic standard issue capabilities of a typical party. Particularly the fact that past a certain point, you need to account for the fact that the PCs are almost certainly capable of flight. It’s a thing that happens. If you are really keen on writing adventures where local warlords are chilling out on the open-air rooftop patios of their otherwise heavily fortified fortresses, or melee-oriented monsters plan an ambush in a canyon in a vast wasteland, or a dangerous leapfrog between a series of elevated platforms over something dangerous, you want to make those low-level adventures, or else a typical party, possibly even accidentally, will just completely circumvent the whole thing. There is a whole lot of that in the back of the Amnesia Campaign. My group... literally skipped giant swaths. Heck, there was a whole side quest in the last book where the PCs are rewarded with the location of a giant obelisk which I had to cut because... it was in the middle of a big open outdoor space, and they flew over the city on the way in. They definitely had a view over those hedges.

This sort of dovetails into the next issue, consistently escalating threats. The whole fantasy RPG gimmick is that at level 1, you’re a helpless peasant barely capable of doing anything remarkable, and by level 20 you’re literally punching gods in the face and have more money in your pocket than everyone else in your home country combined (with the obvious exception of the other people in your party). Now, mechanically, balancing around that is a very easy math problem. Characters of level X are meant to deal with threats of level Y, either pull a Y level monster out of the book, or slap levels on something lower to bring it to that point, or spread that out over more enemies, then they drop Z amount of fancy loot. Easiest thing in the world. But you also need things to fit together thematically. You can absolutely throw fighter levels onto the local chicken-stealing goblins to make them mechanically as threatening as a demigod bursting through from another plane of reality, but when a group of characters is at a level where they can be expected to handle the former, it’s just plain weird for them to end up dealing with the latter. Like, yes, these particular goblins have 200 HP instead of the usual 4, so the local town guard can’t handle them, but that should never be true of chicken-stealing goblins. You don’t get that tough stealing chickens, and once you’ve gotten that tough, you should have your sights set a good deal higher than that. At least be stealing rocs or something.

The 4th chapter of the Amnesia Campaign is a particularly blatant example of not getting this, featuring a large number of “please be aware the party can fly at this level” moments mentioned above, and also just demanding the PCs deal with problems that really are beneath them at that point. Seeking out local guides, impressing petty local warlords, getting challenged by giants they must impress to rest safely when crossing a huge desert. These are... not appropriate speed bumps at a point in the narrative where the party is traveling to a location where they are going to literally fight a god, weakened or otherwise. The whole setup would be wonderful as the first chapter of a campaign, but that far in, it just doesn’t work. Particularly when the actual opening of the Amnesia Campaign sets the tension very high right off the bat, with extradimensional threats, shapeshifters, an evil cult, things that typically come later as things start to escalate.

This isn’t to say you can’t mix things up a little. Dealing with threats well below a party’s capabilities can be really nice as a chance to just sort of flex, and get some perspective on how much more capable they’ve grown over time, but you have to do it in a low-tension point of the narrative, and a little self-awareness about it doesn’t hurt.

Finally, while I really kinda hate modern wealth-by-level assumptions, they are baked into the design of the game, so if you’re running with it, you really need to make sure you’re really giving the players something they can use. The Amnesia Campaign really leans heavy on treasure being weird oddities that may be of value to a collector... while also being set, generally, in places so totally removed from civilization that shopping trips aren’t really practical. Much less those needing the party to really find the right sort of buyer.

Really, you want to give out entirely practical loot (really hard to do without knowing the party makeup, but variety can work), big piles of cash/sellables along with sufficiently large cities along the way for viable shopping, or raw materials suitable for crafting plus ample time to really do something with them.

Anyway, hopefully this has come across more as practical constructive advice for anyone writing a campaign, either as a printed product or just for your home game, not just me tearing into the Amnesia Campaign at length.

[themarriageplace321]

Do you know how to hear feedback with grace?

There was a time when I couldn’t hear criticism.

I was easily offended and very defensive.

When someone tried to tell me I was wrong or had hurt them in some way, I would immediately justify my actions, minimize them or dispute the facts.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe I had flaws. I would frequently admit to being very flawed. You can sound very noble as you paint yourself with broad strokes of imperfection but the grit is in the details.

I could put someone else under a microscope but wanted to keep my own specific transgressions at a distance. Even just writing this makes me feel, well, yuck.

I was so defensive because I had a very fragile sense of my own worth.

When someone gave me tough criticism, I sank into despair.

I easily dropped into toxic shame-that place where I felt worthless and broken. To avoid feeling so badly, I avoided honest feedback.

I didn’t realize then how self-indulgent it is to go to toxic shame.

Think about it: if someone tells you something about yourself you don’t like, and you sink into despair, you still aren’t holding yourself accountable. You are beating yourself up but not changing anything.

In essence, you are sending out the message that you are too fragile for the truth. You are either expecting those around you to soothe you and minimize your actions or enabling them to avoid confronting you. Or both.

Married couples who can’t take criticism land in my office all the time.

Couples dance these same steps over and over. I see it in my office. Charles and Mindy are a particular couple I have in mind. (Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.)

Charles is a bully. He is big and loud.

When something doesn’t go the way he thinks it should, he yells and curses until his family caves.

Mindy is scared of Charles. Not physically-as far as I know, he has never raised his hand to anyone. But his yelling is just as intimidating to his family.

Charles is like a lot of bullies. He is very charming and playful when he isn’t raging. He comes across like a big, lovable teddy bear-until he shows his claws.

And this is how he justifies his bad behavior. Since only his family sees this other side of him, he is well liked by everyone. He often reasons that his family is overly sensitive because he has no problems with anyone else.

Standing up to a bully

After working with Mindy, she was finally able to stand up to Charles. She stopped letting him have his way and when he would yell, she would set limits on how much she was exposed to that behavior. This infuriated Charles even more. He said he felt attacked and that Mindy was controlling him!

When Mindy told him he was a bully and why, instead of looking at his behavior and feeling remorse, he pouted. He moped around the house for days. He gave everyone the silent treatment.

He took every opportunity to let everyone know that he was apparently a big, bad ogre. Sometimes he appeared to get it and would cry and ask her why she stayed with him if he was so bad. He did everything but actually change his actions.

See the self-indulgence? When you wrong someone, true remorse says, “I’m so sorry. What can I do to make you feel better?” Charles is saying “If what you say is true, I’m a terrible person. What can you do to make me feel better?”

Defensiveness breeds shamelessness.

Giving and receiving feedback increases intimacy in such a powerful way. I cannot underestimate the importance.

Charles and Mindy will never have a truly intimate relationship until Charles can hear what Mindy is trying to tell him AND he holds himself accountable for it.

Right now, Mindy is willing to wait and see if Charles can let go of his defense mechanisms and allow himself to be vulnerable, and if he will accept her vulnerability. I don’t know how long she will wait in this holding pattern.

Charles is on borrowed time but it doesn’t have to be that way. He is risking losing everything he holds dear just because he will not hear the truth.

Are you married to someone who can’t take criticism?

If you are married to someone who cannot hear the truth, I feel particularly bad for you. That’s a tough situation. But you aren’t stuck. Mindy is learning how to set limits on bad behavior.

There is more conflict, but Mindy is getting stronger each day. One day, I believe Charles will have to face the truth or face living alone. But Mindy is more at peace today than any other time in her marriage. Only she can decide if that is good enough.

You need to be able to hear feedback to keep you grounded. Otherwise, you will become shameless.

Shameless people are obnoxious, intrusive, immature people.

The first person who comes to mind when I think of shameless is Donald Trump. He offends in outrageous ways. Whether you love or hate him, you know he is offensive. He needs someone in his life who is willing to tell him the truth and set loving limits on his outrageous behavior.

How a therapist learned to receive criticism and feedback

I learned how to hear criticism and it completely changed my life. It taught me how to be more relational to others, including towards my husband. It also taught me how to be more relational to myself! I no longer dip into toxic shame on a regular basis. I have learned to accept that I am imperfect and it is ok to be imperfect.

I learned how to give feedback in my therapy training, but I didn’t learn how to receive it until a therapist confronted me. It was ugly. But it was also life-changing.

How to give feedback well

When giving feedback, always ask if someone is willing and ready to hear your opinion. Never force your feedback on anyone.

Once they are ready for it, state your feedback without a lot of emotion. It’s so much easier to hear tough criticism if you aren’t angry when you speak your truth. Just state the facts and do so without judgement.

And no name calling, please! Not if you want to give the person on the receiving end even a remote chance of hearing you.

How to receive feedback well

When receiving feedback, fight the urge to defend, minimize or rationalize. Just hear them.

Then run it through 3 filters:

Is it true?

Is it untrue?

Is it questionable?

If it is questionable, find out more information. Ask for examples. Once I have more information, I then have ask myself again if it is true or untrue.

If it is true, make amends if you can and be gentle with yourself. You are human and you are going to mess up.

If it is untrue, step back emotionally. Do not try and convince the feedback giver they are mistaken. They are allowed their perspective. When I experience this, I detach my emotions and I also detach from convincing the other person it is untrue. They are allowed their own opinion and perspective. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.

If the person giving the feedback has been hurt by your actions or attitude because they misunderstood or misinterpreted the situation, gently let them know you had no intention to hurt them.

Staying accountable with new skills

I never want to go back to the self-indulged ducking and dodging that kept me blind to how others saw me. To make sure I don’t go back, I have people in my life who hold me accountable.

When I hear, “Are you open to some feedback?” I view it as a gift. Even though what I’m about to hear may be painful, seeing how someone else is viewing me is priceless. When I hear feedback, I go through the process I described above. I ask myself, “Is it true? Is it untrue? Is it questionable?”

Instead of being defensive, I brace myself and hang on for the deep dive in the intimacy pool. I listen for the truth in what they are telling me, and I remind myself it is ok to be imperfect.

I make amends when and where I can and I resolve to do it better next time. Then I thank God for putting people in my life who will tell me the truth.

This process keeps me grounded. It keeps me from being shameless. It keeps me relational so that the people in my life feel closer to me. I’m willing to hear their truth.

As a result, I feel stronger and more secure. My relationships are closer and more intimate. And now, I am very adept at appropriately giving honest feedback to others. And that’s a gift too! Because I am no longer putting up with bad behavior or building resentment toward others.

Are you defensive when it comes to criticism?

If you are the person who is defensive, I know how you feel. It can be scary to admit you have an ugly side. But guess what? Everyone has an ugly side. Not looking at it only allows your ugly to get uglier.

Be brave. Clean yourself up. Wash off the shamelessness. When your family sees who you really are, chances are they will love you more not less.

They may stay where they are now because they are afraid or intimidated, but that isn’t love and intimacy. And somewhere inside of you, you know that. It feels cheap because it is​ cheap.

Come out from behind your wall and see if they love you more. It is possible you will be rejected. But that’s why intimacy is so messy and scary and real. It is unpredictable and involves other flawed human beings. All you can do is show up as your best self. But the reward is worth the risk.

I promise.

There’s help for learning how to manage criticism and grow intimacy in relationships

We can help if you or someone you are in relationship with can’t hear the truth.

Our coaches and counselors are trained in telling you the things about yourself that others see but don’t feel safe to tell you. We do this with compassion and without judgment-and then we will hold you accountable. That’s our gift to you.

Learn more at https://themarriageplace.com

[things2mustdo]

“White people are terrible,” “I have white privilege,” and “most of the world’s problems are caused by white people” are three general statements countless social justice warriors and their enablers agree with. Yet they are all based on the severest distortion of reality. You or I should no more apologize for being white than an African-American should for being black.

Just as many blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities are made more pliable by the media and the establishment by being told they are eternal victims, white people are made more pliable by agreeing that they need to always feel guilty. Using an SJW “anti-racism” that feels awfully like the leftist version of a Nazi book about hereditary, white people supposedly inherit the evil deeds of dead dudes who owned slaves prior to the Civil War or arrived on a foreign continent in a year like 1492 or 1788.

The establishment-enforced guilt is even greater for those directly descended from such people, but even culturally and genetically unrelated individuals like Polish- and Italian-Americans, whose ancestors pretty much all arrived after periods like the slavery era, are held accountable, too. Why? Even if we ridiculously assumed we can find descendants “guilty” of their ancestry, the white guilt thesis is like putting all of Harlem’s young black men in 2016 under house arrest because 20 of them were involved in a vicious street brawl… in 1937.

Provided you adhere to our creed, neomasculinity and the Return Of Kings community form the broadest functional church you will find. We do not care where you come from, so long as you support our goal of a return to masculine societies that emphasize community-building and do not apologize for taking pride in their own cultures. ROK readers who are black, white, Asian or something else are all equal in this regard.

Here are just three of many reasons why I will not hate or feel guilty about my skin tone.

1. I’m the descendant of victims myself because many of my ancestors were from oppressed ethnic and religious groups

Look at those privileged starving Irish!

Are you heavily Irish-blooded, like me? Italian? Polish? Ukrainian? Were your ancestors Catholics living in heavily Protestant areas, or perhaps Huguenots who had to flee persecutory France?

It’s funny how SJWs prance on about white privilege when over half of all whites who emigrated to America, Canada or Australia, from the Puritans to Yugoslavian Civil War refugees, came because the civilian government or monarchy representing another ethnicity or religion essentially chased them out, had killed their family members, or wanted them dead, too. Many of the white groups who did take the journey, particularly the Italians or Irish, were then subjected to quotas and mistreatment in places like New York for years.

A great deal of my ancestors were Catholics in Prussia and other Protestant parts of northern Germany. This section of my family tree is replete with persecutions, including one great-great-great-great grandfather who lost sight in one eye and movement in his arm after being brutally assaulted by a Prussian policeman. His crime? Being an ethnic German leaving a Catholic church on Sunday in the 1800s. Catholic churches were only for “subhuman” Poles. Catholic Prussians were seen as traitors who belonged in Bavaria, prison, or dead. He ended up eking out an existence as a tailor with one good arm, after both he and his brother were repeatedly refused admission to the civil service for their faith.

In addition, I had Irish immigrant forebears whose fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters died as a result of the Potato Famine. One of these ancestors, the eldest child in his family, was working in Dublin to make money for the family when, in the space of three months, he received news that his parents, all his sisters, and all but one of his brothers had died from starvation, malnutrition, or diseases related to them.

When my aunt did the genealogy over three years, she counted 37 family members in one corner of an Irish county who died from starvation or starvation-related illness in 13 months. The famine was predicted and even aggravated by the British. Considering the squalor into which the occupiers had driven the Irish Catholics, the whole ordeal was fundamentally caused by them, too. With only an extra mouth to feed, this great-great-great grandfather of mine took his barely school-aged brother with him to Australia two months later. What role did these two have in oppressing others, white or non-white, that I should feel shame about today?

Look further back into my family tree and you find German, Dutch and Swiss Jews, many of whom were shunted around various locations within Europe, depending on what limited patience local authorities had for yarmulke-wearers at the time.

With this lineage, what exactly do I have to apologize for, aside from my supposedly very, very privileged, at best lower middle-class English forebears from drab West London and grim Yorkshire? Most of them never saw a dark person, let alone mistreated one. To boot, the vast majority lived poor, thankless lives without clean sanitation, abundant food, or anything close to job security. And these are the stations in life, through no fault of their own, that 95% of your ancestors reached as well.

2. Minorities and other non-whites frequently treated and still treat each other far worse than white people did

Rwandan genocide, anyone?

From the pre-Columbian Central and South American peoples to the Rwandan genocide, non-whites have very often treated one another even more abysmally than whites have treated them. European technology may have amplified the number of indigenous and other deaths in places like the Americas, but raw hatred, aggression, and the continuity of violence can be found in even greater quantities in non-white historical squabbles.

Europeans have also been incorrectly blamed for things like infectious diseases, despite the scientific work of antiseptic procedure pioneer Ignaz Semmelweiss being years, sometimes even centuries away. Meanwhile, non-whites have been allowed to kill non-whites without serious condemnation from SJWs.

For example, critics of the Iraq War and the attempted rebuilding of post-Saddam Iraq have said that the whole country is based on a fiction that dates back to the European post-World War I mandate systems. In other words, if Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs inhabit the same country, they kill each other! Whilst it is appetizing for SJWs to blame the big, bad British and French for this, it is far from the truth. Kurds and Arabs have been butchering each other for countless centuries. The greatest Muslim figure of all the Crusades, Saladin, was consistently mistrusted because of his Kurdish origins. Similarly, intra-Arab or Arab-Iranian Sunni-Shia violence is age-old and has little if anything to do with Europeans.

Last year, Rock Thompson wrote a superb piece about the hypocrisy of attacking Columbus Day in the Americas. His work exposed the double standards of many Native American and also Central and South American tribes, who pretend their ancestors were routinely peaceful when, in fact, they regularly engaged in deplorable acts of gratuitous violence, including human sacrifices and the sadistic mutilation of enemies who were not so ethnically different. The conquistadors and Puritans are falsely seen as the harbingers of cultural and racial genocide in the Americas. Local indigenous tribes, however, were already hunting each other down for sport well before the tall ships arrived.

3. White-majority countries make the humanitarian world go round

A tent city the Saudis refused to make available for fellow Arab Syrian refugees.

Whenever you find an aid program for starving Africans, war-torn Arabs, or other suffering people, chances are that a number of white Westerners are behind it. Even if they’re not all white, they invariably come from white-majority and/or white-founded Western countries, or are funded by them. All to assuage the guilt of white people living in 2016 who feel the need to apologize for a European colonial regime that replaced almost always far more brutal indigenous ones.

Western countries also welcome non-whites in droves, both as immigrants and as “refugees.” The recent Syrian crisis is a testament to this (over-)generosity. While Saudi Arabia refused to accommodate fellow Arab Syrians in their already-constructed tent city, used normally for the Haj Priligrimage, Germany and other European states bore the brunt of those fleeing, including through the open door policies of leaders like Angela Merkel.

In general terms, white people care more about the developmental outcomes of non-whites. Wealthy non-white countries like Japan and Korea have perfected a system of meticulously keeping their populations pure and rejecting the asylum claims of over 99% of claimed refugees. This asymmetrical state of affairs is ironic when Japan’s own history of colonisation, notably the Rape of Nanking, is taken into consideration.

White guilt is also very profitable for certain establishment figures and zealous entertainers. It’s why twats like Bono and Bob Geldof get up every morning, after all. And, far from sucking the world dry, white folks have repeatedly tried to make it better. Very often this generosity is taken to an extreme, but the point of white-majority countries acting and non-white countries stalling or ignoring remains valid.

[lava-pops]

Various mine craft monsters and how I feel about them, in order of how long I ranted about them

I have strong opinions and time on my hands, and so I will subject you to the entire fucking essay. Please understand that in an unobserved, socially distant singleplayer state, and wielding god-like powers, some less palatable aspects of my personality have emerged. Rest assured the end credits told me I played the game well.

Slimes: I fucking love slimes. They don’t do anything particularly amazing but the fact that they exist delights me.

Phantoms: Beauty. Beau-ty. Fucking love these guys. All glowing like. Majestic. 10/10. Gorgeous night sky. Delight of the heights. Need 100x more of them.

Blazes: Love. The drama. The decadence. The burning ethereality. The alien geometry. The wicked Fortress. Fuck me up.

Zombies: I’ve accepted them. Sometimes you’re just going to get attacked by zombies. They used to be you. So you need to be more understanding. Mild stress and disgust mixed with grief and concern, but if there are more than one zombie, emotions are cancelled out by adrenaline and sheer bloodlust.

End Dragon: Fuckin sick!!!!!! What a beautiful creature. I just wish I could spawn a bunch of them, and baby dragons, and unleash them on the world. I’m still disturbed by how it eats Endermen. It could also eat them in a less bloodcurdling way, but I’m not complaining.

Ghasts: Morbid fascination. I find them really interesting. It’s interesting how huge they are and their odd little noises. Don’t judge me but I like to spawn them inside walls so I can hear them all screaming at once. It just sounds weird okay. I think I might do that with my sound up and see what my roommates think of it. Really makes you feel like you’re in Hell.

Wither: I don’t really mind the Wither at all, just because it helps me make places look authentically exploded. This would be a different story in Survival. I would probably shit myself at that doom sounding gong, then be so upset it literally ripped limbs from trees just to hurl pieces of itself at a pig until it was dead that I would quit the game and finally keep Minecraft uninstalled for more than 24 hours.

Creepers: I have cursed these aggressively many times and on my blog and really, I don’t hate them. Rather, I am in awe of them and the bottomless well of terror they have shown me I am capable of feeling in a split second. I’m in awe of the way they have demonstrated to me the brutality of nature. When I see one I hear the Metal Gear yeet sound, but there is no bloodlust here. I am but a prey animal who knows how to run. And sometimes I don’t know how. Sometimes... I just watch.

Vexes: Get it!!!!! Kill it!!!!!! *Fly swatter sounds* These horrible little mosquito bitches!!!!!! I love the wings and how it can phase through things, except without the murderous intent. During a sleep-deprived chaotic rampage, I was amazed to find that after all the mobs that had fought the Wither, this one was actually doing damage to it. How did I feel as I watched the Wither succumb to an eternally rising swarm of Vexes? I’m not really sure on that one. It was kind of like watching something die horribly on the nature channel.

Witches: I love them in a critical way. I totally vibe with them. I sometimes fantasize about living in a hut in a swamp alone with my ominous cat. However, my feelings were really hurt when they helped the Illagers attack my swamp village. It’s like, why would you hurt a Villager? Just why? If you have a functioning brain -- Zombies and Skeletons don’t have that -- how could you? On the one hand, I love how they use Minecraft First Aid on themselves, but it’s fucking stressful in a fight. It’s like, STOP DRINKING THAT STUFF!!!! I DON’T KNOW HOW HEALTHY YOU ARE!!!!! *knocks McDonalds cup out of your hands*

Drowned: Blessed. Listen. They’re so pretty and blue. One of the head motherfucker ones with the trident ruined everything, shoved me out of my boat just to fight, knocked my stuff over everywhere, hurt my cat and fucked my wife, and also I died and searched for my devastated livelihood in vain for three days, but I love that there are mini Poseidons everywhere. They’re basically mermaids to me. I don’t mind if they kill me a bit. I trust the ocean to be vaguely threatening to step into. And you know the guys with the little shells? Really. So pretty. They have everything... ancient little houses... magma... treasure.

Skeletons: Whereas Creepers activate my primal prey animal instincts, Skeletons just really offend me. I feel like every time they give me that shady squint and shoot their arrows because they won’t face a move I call Raw Mutton Persistence, they are saying, “Bitch.” They have faces that beg to be slapped. What kind of skeleton doesn’t grin? Be grateful for your bones. The fact that I am not galaxy-brained enough to have diamond bling and usually don’t last long enough to actually slap them leaves me with all sorts of simmering resentment that violently surfaces when I see them in Creative Mode. I think the most distinctive flash of indignation I have experienced at their hands, or rather, their shitty little bitch arrows, was when one followed me into the water and still tried to shoot me as their arrow went super slow in a pathetic downward arc. What is your fucking problem?!!! 

Illagers: Malevolence. Vengeance. They are certainly fascinating, compelling, and realistic, but god damn I hate these guys. They can eat my entire ass. I made a blue wool sculpture Illager style on top of their Outpost in the shape of a dick and balls and made a waterfall pour out the tip of it, and then I zoomed out feeling both smug and bad about myself. In fact if there’s a war crime you can use against an Illager, I’ve done it in Creative Mode at 3am in a quarantine-enabled inner void, hoping I’m not going to hear about it in the afterlife. Have I always hated them? Perhaps. You must understand that back in the day, when they first went grunting pompously around my swamp, I had no idea what the fuck I was looking at. I just knew it had to catch these hands. I didn’t know what a Raid was either and thought Minecraft had just become sort of intense for a little while. But I will always remember when they were standing under my Giant Wharf Prismarine Vaguely Religious Rectangular Condos shooting at my adorable Villager with his precious leaf hat (all of my Villagers are gay men) sitting in a boat not hurting anyone and I’m still mad, bro. They shall know my wrath

[fursasaida]

Do you have any advice for someone who loves learning and reading about all kinds of stuff but isn't academically trained to understand lots of things? Tbh, I'm curious about everything but I feel stupid when I read things I don't understand right away. It's like I lack critical thinking which makes me endlessly sad because that's something I'd like to develop but idk how. It feels like I passively absorb info, and even the things I understand, I tend to forget or don't know how to articulate :(

I think it would help if I had a concrete example or some more details about what exactly you’re struggling with, but I can offer some general thoughts. (I’m procrastinating on some research by answering this, so it got long. If anything needs clarifying, feel free to come back and let me know.)

“I feel stupid when I read things I don’t understand right away.”

I think it’s very important to understand that being smart or being stupid are phrases so broad they barely mean anything. Understanding a text right away means you have certain skills and knowledge that enable you to do that. It says nothing about your potential to develop those skills and that knowledge base.  I am very good at understanding texts, which means people say that I am “smart” because that skill is valued in a particular way. If you asked me to plow a field I would suddenly be “too stupid” to do it, because I do not have the skills and knowledge. But I could learn them!

And for that matter, even if you never become someone who “gets” texts right away, so what? A lot of people could stand to slow down, if you ask me.

This brings me directly to:

“It’s like I lack critical thinking”

That feeling of running into a wall is actually one of the best tools you could have for thinking critically. Many, many, many people who easily understand academic/analytical writing fail to question what they read, precisely because they can just sort of gulp it down. If you are getting snagged on what someone is saying, it’s not because you are incapable of grasping the Expert Truth they are conveying; it’s because on some level you disagree, or don’t share the worldview that underlies their thinking. (Or also, and this option is not always given enough credence, because they’re a bad writer. [Coughs in Donna Haraway’s direction])

This is true even, or especially, if what’s snagging you is that you don’t understand what they’re saying. This is because in their writing they have assumed their readers share a lot of contextual knowledge and assumptions. That’s not bad in itself; if everybody stopped to fully explain every single term, connection, and assertion in everything they wrote, shit would be impossible. But I want to emphasize that if you happen to fall outside the bounds of those assumptions, it not only does not mean you are stupid, it means you are especially well equipped to question and criticize them--so long as you do the work to understand them, in good faith.

(I add that last corollary because there is a problem where people don’t bother to understand where things are coming from before attacking them, and that’s not useful to anyone. But clearly you are not one of these people. I’d like to encourage you to consider these “I don’t get it” moments not as reasons to give up but as a genuinely good starting point for developing the critical skills you so badly want to have.)

An author makes a statement. The statement doesn’t make sense to you. Why not? Are there words you don’t know? Look them up. Look up their etymology, or examples of their being used in sentences, if you need more than the definition is giving you. Is it the content of the statement itself? Then clearly the author and you are coming at whatever the subject is with different background information and assumptions. (This is still true if it’s a subject you know nothing about! That’s a prime example of coming at it with different assumptions. The author assumes a lot of things about the world that you don’t, because you haven’t learned them.) The important question is not What’s wrong with me that I don’t share this author’s assumptions? Rather, the question is Can I figure out what is behind this author’s statement? And once you arrive at some idea about the answer to that, the task is not necessarily to bring yourself into agreement with it, but to decide whether you think it makes sense or not.

This is where an example would be helpful, because “figure out what the underlying assumptions are” is very vague and I’m sure you’re sitting here like, “Oh, sure, just like that.” So, to start with: The things that pull you up short are the things you should ask questions about. What is it in my understanding of the world that makes this statement not make sense? (One way to look at this is: is there a different but related statement that does make sense to me? What’s different between the two, and why does it make such a difference to me?) What would I have to believe, or assume, for the statement to make sense to me? Why did this person mention this example and not those, and can I interpret this choice as something that makes sense to me? Or as a clue that reveals something about where this text is coming from?

And to be clear, when I say “underlying assumptions,” I don’t mean that this only/always means sussing out bias or prejudice in the usual way those words are used. I also mean the things that author learned in their field before writing the text, which you have not. Like, a lot of what I write now depends on the assumption that there is a difference between “absolute space” and “place.” You might have to read up on that a bit to know what I’m saying at a given moment because you aren’t specialized in what I’m specialized in. You might then decide you think this distinction is bollocks! Reading up on it isn’t necessarily just to get you to agree with me. It’s to get you to where you can make an informed decision about agreeing or not.

Often the biggest assumptions lie in the simplest statements. I’m reading about the Cold War a lot right now. If someone says, for example, “The Cold War was the dominant structure of international politics between 1945 and 1989,” this seems very obvious and straightforward. It’s a basic statement of what most people mean when they refer to “the Cold War” at all. It’s “a historical fact,” a piece of information for those interested in history to “absorb.” But there are a lot of questions worth asking about this! Are we sure there was only one, singular (“the”) Cold War? Was it really “the dominant structure” for everyone, everywhere, that whole time? What is a “structure” and what makes one “dominant”? Are we completely sure about those start and end dates, and do they apply everywhere?

Now one can imagine that if I were to ask all these questions of someone who referred to the Cold War this way in a dinner conversation or something, I might appear very ignorant--or “stupid.” But being critical means not accepting things at face value. I may know perfectly well exactly what this person is referring to, but if I want to question the assumptions built into that reference, I have to ask about things that are “obvious” or “well known.”

The good news is that when you’re reading a text, you don’t have to worry about other people at the table judging you. It sounds like right now you are doing that to yourself, and I would very much like to encourage you not to. Having “dumb” questions is being critical. The only difference between “I don’t understand this sentence about the Cold War” and “I have a critique of this sentence about the Cold War” is that in the first case, I have questions about the sentence; in the second case, I have developed answers to my own questions about the sentence. But both of them involve looking at the sentence and saying “this doesn’t add up to me.”

Criticism is a process. Developing expertise does mean getting to a point that you don’t need to do extensive research every time you read or criticize something, but there will always be new things you don’t understand and have to put in the work to be able to critique. The vast majority of ~inspiration~ among academics, if you read/listen to them talking about their research projects, comes out of bumping up against something they don’t understand and just not being satisfied until they could account for it. That could be anything from the way the word “democracy” was used in the Iran-Contra hearings to the everyday social fact that women are routinely expected to have longer hair than men in much of the United States.

So. You are actually in a great place to get better at this, because everybody who is seriously and honestly trying to be critical has to start from making the obvious not-obvious--from not understanding something.

That brings me to the last thing I want to address:

“It feels like I passively absorb info, and even the things I understand, I tend to forget or don't know how to articulate.”

Criticism, or just--learning--isn’t just a process; as what I was saying about academics above already suggests, it’s a project. This is not only true of academics. Plenty of people who aren’t academics do research or study things on their own just because they’re interested. But the kernel of that interest is a desire to understand something, whether it’s for a practical purpose or not. Maybe you’re teaching yourself to sew and having a lot of trouble with a particular stitch, and you want to figure out if that stitch is standard because it’s actually the most functional or if there’s some other reason, which would mean you could use something different. Or maybe you just really want to know what’s up with sea turtles. Either way, there is something you want.

I think if you identify specific questions about or interests in the world and pursue those, you will have an easier time building these skills and retaining information. (This doesn’t mean you have to give up your general curiosity! Just that at any given time, you are focusing on a few specific things.) Information sticks with us because it’s useful somehow. If your goal isn’t just “know things” but “figure out this thing, specifically” then information about that thing has an actual use for you. So think about something that you’ve had a lot of trouble understanding and that you want to understand--not because you feel like you’re supposed to, or because you feel ashamed that you don’t, but because you want answers to your questions. Your project is now satisfying that curiosity.

I find the more I think about a question I have, the more I start to see information that’s applicable to it popping out of the world all around me, everywhere, even when I’m not actively “working on it.” And I remember those things because they are not just “information.” They are of significance to something I am trying to do, which is answer the question. And that question is not assigned to me by anyone else, not even the author of a text I don’t understand. I can only assign it to myself (I have to want to understand that text!).

And you can support this with the way you read! Reading is interactive (yes, even when it’s just you and a page and you’re not making any noise). The more you approach it that way, the more you will retain of what you read--even if you end up disagreeing with it--because you are not trying to be a container for information to fill, which is absolutely bound to leak. Instead you are looking for things that are useful to you, which may or may not be findable in the text you are currently reading. You are not a receiver. You are a spelunker.

So what does it mean to read interactively? It can mean almost anything. For people like me, it often means a lot of making notes, annotations, and so on (the physical act of annotating a text does a lot to help me retain things, for example). I have files upon files of notes and quotes and outlines from different research projects. I write out paragraphs of musings to try to articulate how my questions are shifting as I learn, or what exactly the thing I’m struggling with is. (You mentioned struggling to articulate; writing things out for yourself is one way to practice at this. So is bouncing things off a friend, which I also do a lot.) But it doesn’t have to look like this.

If you are pursuing an interest, then ultimately what you’re doing ought to be pleasurable. (I don’t mean that it should make you jump for joy every second, but the feeling of making progress toward a goal, even if a particular step is unpleasant, is still pleasurable.) If “taking notes” for you looks like drawing, then great. I once outlined a paper by drawing it as a floor plan for a two-story house. I make research playlists that I consider to be functionally identical to syllabi. I have tagged collections on this tumblr that represent some of my thinking through one set of questions or another. What I’m trying to get at is that in working to answer your own questions, you are not just abstractly trying to “understand” something, which miraculously happens or doesn’t depending on whether your mind is ~good enough~ to receive the Content. You are interacting with statements, pieces of information, images, texts, etc., which you are collecting and arranging and rearranging in order to try to reach a place where you’re satisfied. All of that is part of the process of “understanding,” and if you’re genuinely interested in that process, then the work involved shouldn’t feel like homework. So the literal things you do as part of it don’t have to be similar to schoolwork, if those kinds of things are boring or painful or just unhelpful to you. Do whatever! You’re in charge!

So, to summarize all of this: I think the first thing you need to do is think of yourself not as ignorant, stupid, or uneducated, but as someone who is actively wanting and trying to engage and learn about the world. This is admirable! This is exciting! Thus your goal is not to “absorb” information to make up some deficit, or to become some other, “smarter” person who would understand things the first time you look at them. Your goal is simply to answer your own questions about the world. From that point of view, not-understanding is not a problem. It’s necessary. It’s where the questions come from. If you have to answer a lot of sub-questions along the way--if it takes you weeks to really get what a single essay is saying--this does not say anything bad about you. It just means you’re doing the damn thing. But in order to succeed at it, you do need to have some motivation; it needs to mean something to you. (One of the biggest tricks the devil ever pulled was the idea that inquiry could ever possibly be impersonal.) And whatever that personal meaning is is good enough, I promise.

[charminglatina]

Birthday Profiles Of Riverdale Actors Based On The Secret Language Of Birthdays Concept! (Part VII)

What Is Secret Language?

The Secret Language scientific personality and relationship reports have proven to be over 90% accurate after 21 years in use by millions of people in a dozen languages worldwide. Our data comes from Gary Goldschneider’s 40-year empirical study of the life stories of more than 20,000 people, analyzed by date of birth. Gary looked at 50 people born on your birthday and found the personality traits held in common by 45 of them. Then he created personality profiles from those traits for each day, week, month, season and year and further combined those profile names into the ultimate distillation of your personality - your Secret Language Name.

The Personality Periods

The forty-eight personality periods, made up of twelve cusps and thirty six weeks, are units between six and nine days in length. Personology predicts the personality characteristics of anyone born within these dates. In other words, those born in the same period will share certain predictable character traits. While this may not completely represent every individual, it is sufficient to provide an understanding of his or her basic energies. Extrapolating from the personology periods, it is possible to predict the nature of the relationship between any two people. Thus, The Secret Language Of Relationships combines each period of the year with itself and every other period to predict the nature of the resulting relationship. For example, a person born on March 31 falls into the Aries I period. This is the Week of the Child which symbolizes the freshness and openness of early childhood and of the spring season (lasting from March 25 to April 1). People born during this time are characterized by a childlike, enthusiastic orientation. This in contrast to a person born on November 10, who would be a Scorpio II (encompassing November 3 to 11). Born in the fall, which is symbolically likened to middle age, this week takes Depth as its central symbol. Thus, it becomes possible to consider the theoretical implications of an Aries I-Scorpio II relationship.

The Fourty-Eight Periods & Cusps

1. Pisces-Aries Cusp (Mar 19-Mar 24) – The Cusp Of Rebirth/Renewal

2. Aries I (Mar 25-Apr 02) – The Week Of The Child

3. Aries II (Apr 03-Apr 10) – The Week Of The Star

4. Aries III (Apr 11-Apr 18) – The Week Of The Pioneer

5. Aries-Taurus Cusp (Apr 19-Apr 24) – The Cusp Of Power

6. Taurus I (Apr 25-May 02) – The Week Of Manifestation

7. Taurus II (May 03-May 10) – The Week Of The Teacher

8. Taurus III (May 11-May 18) – The Week Of The Natural

9. Taurus-Gemini Cusp (May 19-May 24) – The Cusp Of Energy

10. Gemini I (May 25-Jun 01) – The Week Of Freedom

11. Gemini II (Jun 02-Jun 10) – The Week Of New Language

12. Gemini III (Jun 11-Jun 18) – The Week Of The Seeker

13. Gemini-Cancer Cusp (Jun 19-Jun 24) – The Cusp Of Magic

14. Cancer I (Jun 25-Jul 02) – The Week Of The Empath

15. Cancer II (Jul 03-Jul 10) – The Week Of The Unconventional

16. Cancer III (Jul 11-Jul 18) – The Week Of The Persuader

17. Cancer-Leo Cusp (Jul 19-Jul 25) – The Cusp Of Oscillation

18. Leo I (Jul 26-Aug 02) – The Week Of Authority

19. Leo II (Aug 03-Aug 10) – The Week Of Balanced Strength

20. Leo III (Aug 11-Aug 18) – The Week Of Leadership

21. Leo-Virgo Cusp (Aug 19-Aug 25)  – The Cusp Of Exposure

22. Virgo I (Aug 26-Sept 02) – The Week Of System Builders

23. Virgo II (Sept 03-Sept 10) – The Week Of The Enigma

24. Virgo III (Sept 11-Sept 18) – The Week Of The Literalist

25. Virgo-Libra Cusp (Sept 19-Sept 24) – The Cusp Of Beauty

26. Libra I (Sept 25-Oct 01) – The Week Of The Perfectionist

27. Libra II (Oct 02-Oct 10) – The Week Of Society

28. Libra III (Oct 11-Oct 18) – The Week Of Theater

29. Libra-Scorpio Cusp (Oct 19-Oct 25) – The Cusp Of Drama & Criticism

30. Scorpio I (Oct 26-Nov 02) – The Week Of Intensity

31. Scorpio II (Nov 03–Nov 11) – The Week Of Depth

32. Scorpio III (Nov 12–Nov 18) – The Week Of Charm

33. Scorpio-Sagittarius Cusp (Nov 19–Nov 24) – The Cusp Of Revolution

34. Sagittarius I (Nov 25–Dec 02) – The Week Of Independence

35. Sagittarius II (Dec 03–-Dec 10) – The Week Of The Originator

36. Sagittarius III (Dec 11-Dec 18) – The Week Of The Titan

37. Sagittarius-Capricorn Cusp (Dec 19-Dec 25) – The Cusp Of Prophecy

38. Capricorn I (Dec 26-Jan 02) – The Week Of The Ruler

39. Capricorn II (Jan 03- Jan 09) – The Week Of Determination

40. Capricorn III (Jan 10-Jan 16) – The Week Of Dominance

41. Capricorn-Aquarius Cusp (Jan 17-Jan 22) – The Cusp Of Mystery & Imagination

42. Aquarius I (Jan 23-Jan 30) – The Week Of Genius

43. Aquarius II (Jan 31-Feb 07) – The Week Of Youth & Ease

44. Aquarius III (Feb 08-Feb 15) – The Week Of Acceptance

45. Aquarius-Pisces Cusp (Feb 16-Feb 22) – The Cusp Of Sensitivity

46. Pisces I (Feb 23-Mar 02) – The Week Of Spirit

47. Pisces II (Mar 03-Mar 10) – The Week Of The Loner

48. Pisces III  (Mar 11-Mar 18) – The Week Of Dancers & Dreamers

Birthday Profiles Featured:

37. Drew Ray Tanner (2/12 – Aquarius III) 38. Tiera Skovbye (5/6 – Taurus II) 39. Chad Michael Murray (8/24 – Leo-Virgo Cusp) 40. Rob Raco (11/26 – Sagittarius I) 41. Tommy Martinez (3/20 – Pisces-Aries Cusp) 42. Zoe De Grand Maison (5/3 – Taurus II)

#37. Drew Ray Tanner (Birthday: Feb. 12, 1992 – The Day Of The Unifier; Personality Period: Aquarius III – Feb. 8 to Feb. 15 – The Week Of Acceptance; Place Of Birth: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)

The theme of acceptance runs strong in the lives of those born during the Week of Acceptance. Some of them are hardheaded and not particularly open to unusual ideas and people but become increasingly tolerant as the years go by. Others are overly accepting from an early age and allow themselves to be unduly manipulated or influenced by stronger, more selfish types. The challenge for these people is to remain open to the world while at the same time retaining the ability to be selective in screening out harmful influences. Having dealt with some of their own prejudices, they often become champions of the underdog. They despise intolerance and unfair treatment in any form. They also react instinctively against those who put on airs, or pretend to be something they are not. Poking holes in other people’s balloons is often their specialty, and if they carry this tendency to an extreme, they can be extremely cutting and hurtful. The reasons for this behavior may be found in a low self-image, perhaps reflecting negative parental attitudes expressed toward them in childhood. Their anger is sudden and explosive but rarely lasts for long. Friends and family usually realize that it is often better for all concerned if they can get their aggression and dissatisfaction out in one go rather than letting it simmer inside. These resourceful individuals are rarely at a loss for new ideas. Perhaps because they get themselves into difficult or challenging situations so often, they learn early on how to extricate themselves from dilemmas. That they often create and solve their own problems makes them like two mythological figures rolled into one: Daedalus, who created the labyrinth, and Ariadne, who showed Theseus how to get out of it. In a basic sense, these folks are their own worst enemy. Rarely at rest for long, they love activity and movement. Their liveliness is an extremely positive trait as far as their friends are concerned, and they are often sought out for their attractiveness, unusual demeanor and colorful language. The downside of their character is more often felt by their families than by their associates, for it is in the daily task of living with others that their greatest problems often arise. They may be constantly annoyed with family members, and because they do not rate high in self-awareness, they may fail to see perhaps it is actually they who are the annoying ones. Easily affected by what others say and do, a bad remark or look can easily set them on the wrong foot for a few hours or even ruin their whole day. They are particularly vulnerable to personal attack. They can stand any amount of criticism of their unusual ideas and, in fact, defend themselves well but may fly apart when dealing with people who can push their emotional buttons. Learning to be less vulnerable to ad hominem arguments, and to laugh off the negativity of others, whether it is intentional or not, is important if they are to maintain their psychic balance. Humor, irony and wit often appear in abundance in them. These are among the mechanisms by which they are able to survive in an often difficult and hostile world. Another method they may use is the making of silent promises to themselves not to make the same mistake again, or to better their lives through positive action. Making plans and resolutions of all sorts for the future enables them to get through trying times. Above all, they know that no matter how bad things get, tomorrow is another day. In this respect, they view the future as potentially positive and self-renewing. In the present, on the other hand, they may get into a hopeless state in which they believe that everything has gone wrong. Friends stand by helpless while they complain about their own deficiencies, and about the unfair treatment they receive from the world. If they have negative attitudes about themselves, these can involve feelings of shame that may be focused on their bodies or on mistakes they feel they have made. Such attitudes are empowered by guilt. Yet although they may blame themselves constantly, they can rarely hear reproach from others without a strong defensive reaction, perhaps involving a reciprocal attack on the accuser. Learning to listen to the suggestions of concerned family members may be almost impossible for them; it is easier for them to take advice from friends, or even strangers. People born during the Week of Acceptance may be extremely affectionate to others and may crave love themselves. Love is apparently hard for them to find, however, since they are constantly in search of it. They are rarely able to find the right person for themselves before the age of thirty, if at all. Their needs often demand a wide range of partners, associates, mates or friends. They are not easily satisfied and often bored. Their need for attention may run high, and the danger here is that they become the eternal butterfly, flitting from one delicious flower to the next. Their non-attachment is not in itself a negative trait—­on the contrary, it is a lesson that all of us have to learn sooner or later. For them, however, the lessons that need to be learned are those of constancy, consistency, application and dedication.

February 12 people display a marked ability to unify disparate elements in their environment. Whether bringing together a troubled family, healing a rift between friends or demonstrating leadership to resolve disputes in organizations, they can often be found bridging the gaps between people. Does this make them team players? Not exactly. Those born on this day usually assess a given situation from their own standpoint and if they have the authority to do so chart the course for the group. It is less in their nature to build consensus. However, this is not to imply that they ignore or undervalue what others think. It is just that they often feel that they have already assimilated most points of view and come to a conclusion as to the best course of action. Having reached such a determination, they are then highly influential in persuading others to follow their lead. February 12 people are many-sided individuals with varied talents and therefore an added challenge for them is to unite the disparate facets of their own personality. Too often their versatility works against them and subverts their purpose in organizing their career and personal concerns. Furthermore, their stubbornness once they have made up their mind and a refusal to change course can create difficulties. Faced with problems they may just try to ram their way through rather than seek compromise. Because they so often think in absolute terms, it can be difficult for February 12 people to relativate. Yet this is precisely what they must do if they wish to perceive the truth of a given situation. Although they may wish to remain faithful to their original ethical principles, they must also learn the importance of changing to meet new circumstances and listening carefully to well-thought-out suggestions and observations made along the way by co-workers or associates.  Not uncommonly February 12 people grow comfortable with one codified point of view which becomes a framework or working philosophy for them that directs their thinking. However, if they can bring themselves to periodically examine this outlook, to see if it has stood the test of time, they will strengthen their ideas and divest them of many illusions and misconceptions. The most highly evolved of February 12 people eventually discard those theories that cease to function for them. Undoubtedly, the efforts of February 12 people to bring people together can do much good. However, letting things change, grow or even fall apart of their own accord is sometimes a more appropriate response. Just walking away or quitting goes against the grain for most February 12 people, but they may come to realize that the greatest courage can sometimes be demonstrated in following the path of nonaction. Those born on February 12 have a talent for integration; they have the ability to marshal all the available information, evaluate opposing viewpoints and then bring everything and everyone together in a united front. Nothing matters more to them than the status quo and if need be they will boldly and courageously defend it. This makes them highly valued in both their professional and their personal lives.People born on this day like to see themselves in the role of peacekeeper, pointing others in the right direction; that direction is, of course, the one they believe to be correct. This isn’t to say that they are stubborn and inflexible, but they possess the tendency to ignore what others think and to believe that the best course of action is always their own. It is important for them to recognize the importance of consensus and to understand that although their ability to see and evaluate the bigger picture more than qualifies them to take the lead, great leadership is not about dictatorship but about motivating others in the direction you want them to go.As well as being able to unite others and see the way forward with singleminded tenacity, people born on this day have a host of other talents, including confidence, originality and creativity. They do need to be careful that their talents don’t cause them to squander their energies in many different directions. Until their late thirties there are opportunities for them to develop greater self-awareness, but in their forties and beyond there is a focus on personal integration and purpose; in many ways, this is when these people really come into their own.People with a February 12 birthday have strong convictions and a pro-gressive instinct, both of which have been developed through their powers of original thought, and high moral and ethical standards. They have the courage and charisma to lead and inspire others, and more often than not others will find them living out their mission to make the world a better and more peaceful place. Although people born on February 12 have no trouble falling in love, they do need to be careful that their work and goals do not eclipse their relationships or that they take them for granted. They prefer to get involved with people who are mentally stimulating and who are interested in self-improvement, as well as having a good time. Their detached exterior can make it hard for them to open up but once they are able to do that they are sensitive, loyal and (when they aren’t working too hard) fun-loving partners. People born on this day are often creatures of routine when it comes to their health, diet and exercise, and although this means they are generally in good health the downside is that experimenting a little can give them more energy and more fun. It is important for them to try out a wide variety of nutritious foods rather than sticking with old-time favorites and to experiment with different types of exercise instead of sticking with one. When they are feeling stressed or anxious instead of alcohol or chocolate they should try a warm bath with a few drops of their favorite aromatherapy essential oil to soothe frayed nerves. They would also benefit from meditation and breathing techniques to focus their energy and thoughts. These people may well consider politics or social reform as their chosen career. Whatever they choose, they are bound to become the head of something along the way, perhaps the principal of a school or a group leader. Their good people skills and business sense may also draw them toward management careers. Other career choices that might work include counseling, publishing, advertising, accountancy, science, or invention. Anthropology and archaeology, as well as careers in writing or the arts, may also appeal. The life path of people born on this day is to learn to beware of their tendency to dismiss viewpoints differing from their own. Once they have learned to be more open-minded, their destiny is to create harmony in any environment in which they find themselves. People born specifically on the 12th of February are believed to possess an outgoing, magnetic friendly personality. Your water bearer eccentricity is mixed with lots of charm and an zany sense of humor that gives you an advantage with social skills. The ruling planet in astrological terms for this particular day is Jupiter creating your expressive and affectionate nature. If you have this birthday you are endowed with heaps of positivity and enthusiasm. You are independent and intelligent with leadership qualities but are also incredibly supportive of others. This is due to your high levels of understanding, tact and cooperativeness. These pleasant fortes show your character in its best light. Your supportiveness makes you more of a people person than most other Aquarians. Individuals with a February the twelfth birthday tend to acquire their wisdom through experience and are not particularly keen on accepting advice. Career choices are usually straightforward to a person born on the twelfth of February as you are versatile and flexible. Even though you have high intelligence and are capable of most tasks you are not overly ambitious, so your work options are more likely to depend on hours and pay. You will generally prefer working in small environments rather than large ones. Finances are not one of your strongest points and you will sometimes lack confidence in your ability to balance your budget. However you are not known to be frivolous with your money and have the patience to save up for things that you really want. As an Aquarian, the person born on the twelfth day of February has a generous helping of the usual aloofness concerning personal relationships. Despite this emotionally detached cautious cover you secretly yearn for a passionate and intellectual intimacy with someone special. Although you are not too talkative or open about feelings you can be physically very demonstrative, caring and thoughtful. Your accommodating kind nature and positive approach to life makes you a wonderful reliable partner. In long term soul mate partnerships you are extremely loyal and devoted but will be especially intolerant of restrictions on your freedom. You may still need to retain a little of your independence when romantically attached as you like to be in full control of your emotions. The right partner will understand this necessity of yours and be willing to work around it together. Minor health problems experienced by those born on February 12th are not usually caused by you neglecting your body's needs. You are naturally full of enthusiastic energy and bright enough to make the connection between keeping healthy and looking and feeling good. Individuals with this particular birth date are often fussy about their appearance and keep in trim without needing any encouragement. You may also be as meticulous with your food and are likely to have certain likes and dislikes possibly stemming from childhood. You should perhaps try and include lots of fruit and vegetables in your diet. Noticeable strengths in your character are in your indiscriminate, conceptual thought processes and your highly protective manner. These qualities and your self-controlled, optimistic and focused state of mind will take you anywhere you want to go in life. The main personality weakness for those born on February 12th is your tendency to be unnecessarily stubborn and unyielding in some situations. Another of your weaknesses is that you will occasionally be tempted to gossip or be too nosy. Your curiosity is well meant but sometimes unwelcome so you may need to learn to think a bit more before you speak. Being born on the 12th of February usually makes you very intuitive and competent in utilizing this gift positively for life aspirations. You do not need many motivating goals to steer you in the right directions and so you are unlikely to make any definite planned route to success. Your observance and alertness help you follow the familiarity of previous experiences and guide you towards your hopes and aims for the future. Any dreams of achievement you have appear to be closer to reach once you gain added confidence in your abilities and are able to gauge your limitations a bit more accurately. As you were born on the twelfth day of the month the figures in your birth date total Three, so this is your Root number. This numerical reference to your birthday has the keyword 'Innovation' and highlights your abstract advanced thinking. In the Major Arcana deck the Tarot card closely linked to your birthday is the 12th, depicting the Hanged Man. This could identify your thoughtfulness but also your reluctance to listen to the suggestions of others. The lucky gemstone denoted for February the twelfth birthdays is the purple Amethyst rumored to bring its wearers good health and increased wealth. Aquarius star sign personalities are thought to be considerably influenced by the cosmic rays of the planet Uranus. The actual day you were born on, the twelfth of February is astrologically governed by the celestial body Jupiter. Therefore it is the combination of these 2 planetary influences that determine your unique set of traits and pronenesses. Your charming, easygoing attitude and helpfulness gives you a high degree of sociableness. Your subjective expressiveness is one of your stronger points allowing you to easily and quickly communicate your ideas. If you can conquer your negative characteristic of stubbornness and be a touch more self confident progress in life should be easier. A final fitting thought especially for people born on February the 12th is to always try to retain your open-mindedness. By being receptive and impartial you will keep your unique free spirit, be more productive and not be affected by the influences of others.

#38. Tiera Skovbye (Birthday: May 6, 1995 – The Day Of Materialized Fantasy; Personality Period: Taurus II – May 3 to May 10 – The Week Of The Teacher; Place Of Birth: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Those born during the Week of the Teacher are mainly involved in the development of ideas and techniques. No matter what their vocation or avocation, they have a message to share. Verbalizing their ideas and observations, generating discussion, and leading by example are all favorite activities of theirs. It can be said that they have a calling for imparting information and, more importantly, presenting it in a manner that others can understand. It is not surprising that they have a strong need for teacher-student–type interactions. They intuitively sense that teacher and student are two sides of the same coin, and that this coin is one they wish to invest in their future. They generally do well enough at school, but fare best as students or teachers in one-on-one learning or small group situations such as in dance, music, sports and the visual arts. For them, being a good student is the first step toward becoming a good teacher. They also know the value of learning on one’s own and, instead of binding students to them, will encourage them to teach themselves. They are movers and shakers, and, since they rarely deal with flighty or superficial topics, they are capable of influencing others. Part of the key to this lies in the fact that they live so much of their lives in the realm of ideas, of ideologies. Excellent entrepreneurs, they can set up both businesses and families without an excessive need to dominate or impose an inflexible structure on those with whom they live and work. They do, however, often establish lines that should not be crossed. These people are very interested in the living conditions of those around them, and particularly in social groups that are foreign to them. How and where others live, work, play, eat, worship, vote and exercise has enormous fascination for these people, who also tend side with the underdog and to feel all forms of unfairness and discrimination keenly. Not surprisingly, interracial or cross-cultural relationships are common. Similarly, older Week of the Teacher folks may be attracted to younger people and younger ones to those much older than themselves. The moral stance of the these individuals is usually strong, even unyielding. They have firm ideas about right and wrong, which they do not hesitate to express. Although you probably wouldn’t call them straitlaced, they may exhibit prudish or even puritanical tendencies, particularly when young. And such early tendencies, even though outgrown, may surface in times of stress when they are adults, much to the surprise of those who know them as free-thinkers. The area in which the ethical orientation of these people is most unequivocal is their insistence on fairness. One might say, in fact, that they are obsessed with injustice, prejudice and discrimination in all forms. Their reaction to any form of racism is scathing, uncompromising and immediate. Actually, anger may erupt suddenly in almost any area of their lives, and they must learn how to handle their upset feelings in healthy ways without suppressing them. Physical activity, whether sports, dance, music, or fitness training, comes naturally to these folks, yet they do not convey the impression of being earthy, sensuous types. They generally create a strong first impression, and make a heavy impact on their environment, but this may be due more to their mental qualities than to their physical ones. Even those of a small or average body type often project an image far greater than their actual size on first meeting. Although excellent bosses, parents and teachers, they are not always the easiest people to be involved with day-to-day as mate, lover or friend. Demanding and critical, they make their dislikes known sharply and incisively, often alienating or insulting those of a softer or more sensitive disposition. Their insistence that people be hard and tough, able to take the truth in a straight dose, is not everyone’s cup of tea. When they become happier and more comfortable with themselves, and as they grow older, many of their critical characteristics will mellow or even disappear. With their love of beauty and their great charm and personal magnetism, these individuals often have a host of admirers. They are not really comfortable with a great deal of attention, however, and do not like finding themselves imprisoned in a social circle of their own making. At such times they have little choice but to withdraw into a more isolated existence. The more successful of them therefore learn to control their own attractive powers and to create fewer problems for themselves. Those who relate best to those born during the Week of the Teacher in personal relationships are those who understand their need to be left alone rather than being fussed over or spoiled. These folks prefer their mates to show their enthusiasm for the relationship simply by upholding their share of it rather than by displays of gratitude or affection. In intimate situations, they can be extremely passionate, but in their everyday routine they insist on a certain distance. They prefer romance to sentimentality, but like a realistic and frank approach to love and sex even better. They do not generally react well to others’ requests for attention or affection, even when those others are intimates; anything that looks like pleading or begging usually turns them off completely. They like their partners to be strong and dignified above all.

Those born on May 6 seem to be in touch with how fantasy, imagination and the unconscious work. This understanding generally manifests in one of two ways: in being sympathetic, even empathic with others or in embodying the fantasies of others, in essence, being a star. The teachers, counselors, and sympathetic parents of the first type are expert in guiding people through difficult times and helping them to understand their motivations; the star type is obsessed with the realizing of dreams, daring to live out fantasies that most people keep bottled up. This tapping in to the imaginative process is a special gift and must be managed wisely. If May 6 people use this talent amorally or without a goal, they may wind up manipulating the lives of others for their own benefit or forcing themselves into a career or marriage that was never meant to be. The most successful May 6 people are those who recognize their limitations and are able to treat both their goals and those of others objectively and ethically. May 6 people often experience difficult or traumatic childhoods, which they manage to overcome with great courage and tenacity. These difficulties can lend them insights into life which people with more normal upbringings or less sensitivity may never know. If those born on this day utilize such insight with compassion and empathy, they will be truly valuable individuals to society. It is often the case that May 6 people are of great service to others while still remaining the victims of their own private sufferings, which they usually hide from the world. Because they are so sensitive, and perhaps driven by the workings of destructive unconscious drives, those born on this day are particularly prone to emotional instability as well as to physical discomforts and pain. The theme of repeatedly striving to overcome obstacles is a constant in the lives of many May 6 people. In an effort to control their destinies, they may become unduly compulsive, structuring every moment of their time as if they are afraid that if they don’t, things will fly apart somehow. A seemingly efficient and reasonable lifestyle may thus be hiding a volcano of seething emotions of which May 6 people themselves are not always aware. On the other hand, those born on May 6 are most understanding of the irrationality of others, having a kind of sixth sense for it. They can be depended upon in difficult emotional situations for their wisdom and courage. Often they will take the side of the underdog or victim, whose psyche they understand only too well. Attractive people born on this day must sometimes guard against those they seek to help falling in love with or idolizing them. Although such attention can be gratifying to the ego, it only slows down a May 6 person’s own process of self-realization. The highly imaginative and intuitive people born on May 6 are often acutely sensitive to the feelings, dreams and hopes of others, especially those less fortunate. Fascinated by the human psyche and keen to learn what it is that motivates and inspires others, they often feel compelled to pass their wisdom on to others. If they aren’t guiding and directing others, they will be inspiring them by living out dreams and fantasies that most of us repress.As well as being finely tuned to the feelings of others, they are highly sensitive themselves; this can lead to misunderstandings and hurts that really aren’t necessary. They should learn to be objective in their dealings with others; otherwise they will experience insecurity, uncertainty and disappointment. Between the ages of fifteen and forty-five there is an emphasis on communication and the exchange of ideas, so they should not take everything so personally. After the age of forty-five these people focus more on emotional closeness, family and security.Their interest in human nature can take them beyond social interaction and business to a deep desire to do something meaningful in the world. This may involve fighting for a cause in the world and will stop them feeling unfulfilled. The most common block to their progress is a lack of faith in their own abilities; this can trigger sudden changes of mood and bouts of indecision. Being prone to excessive highs and lows, they need to turn the understanding they have of unpredictable behavior in others upon themselves. If they can do this, they will see that much of their emotional instability stems from their lack of self-belief.Their self-doubt may also result in their taking a secondary role rather than making full use of their creative potential. They do, however, respond extremely well to advice and encouragement; reading self-help books or biographies about people they admire will help them gain control of their lives. They should remember that every step they take toward fulfilling their ambitions and dreams works to inspire and motivate others. People born on May 6 are unwilling to commit to a relationship unless they feel it has the potential to be a perfect union. This means that they may spend many years searching and waiting, but when they finally find their soul mate they are at their happiest and their best, because love and giving to others is a strong motivating force in their lives. People born on this day tend to suffer from a lack of self-confidence and they need to find ways to build their self-esteem. Food is a passion, so they should keep an eye on what they are eating and make sure that they do not seek refuge in comfort eating. Listening to their hunger signals, and putting their knife and fork down between mouthfuls, will help them feel more in control. Regular exercise is also essential, not just because it will boost their immune system and sense of well-being but also because it can help them cope with excessive worry. Wearing, surrounding themselves with or meditating on the color orange will boost their self-esteem and encourage them to feel more positive, as will mind-training therapies such as cognitive development therapy or hypnotherapy. People born on this day will often find career fulfillment in the medical, psychiatric or caring professions but they may also be well suited to politics and the arts, both areas in which they can use their sensitivity and desire to help or inspire others. Whatever career they choose, be it public affairs, caring or the world of entertainment, their natural psychological skills will be of great assistance. The life path of people born on this day is to learn to believe in themselves. Once they have developed greater self-confidence, their destiny is to direct their prodigious energy toward the progression of others, be that in a practical or an inspirational way. People born specifically on the 6th of May are envisioned to be charming, warm and cooperative with the typical bull placidity and determination. Venus is the ruling astrological planet dominant for this particular day and also the zodiac sign of Taurus, intensifying your levels of curiosity and intuition. If you have this birthday a highly sociable, diplomatic, outgoing temperament is bestowed upon you along with a dislike of being or feeling alone. Your natural eloquence often assists you to be able to talk your way in and out of situations and instinctively seek the balance you crave. You have stylish tastes that are usually reflected in your choices of home and dress sense. Entertaining and bringing others together are things you are inclined to enjoy and be good at. Individuals with a May the sixth birthday possess a wonderful imagination, are capable of recognizing their limitations and tend to usually look at everything fairly objectively. Job choices can sometimes be far from easy to a person born on the sixth of May as conventional career options rarely seem to appeal to you. Although you are usually fully aware of your best abilities this does not prevent you from being attracted to work that is rather specialized or unusual. Financially you are prone to be once in a while frivolous or under estimate the expense of something you desire. You are quite impulsive over bargains and willing to pay for quality but it can occasionally cause fluctuations in your finances. Sensible budgeting should allow for your small extravagances. For a Taurus, the person born on the sixth day of May is typically stubborn but with a high degree of patience and emotional understanding. When it comes to love and romance you can be hesitant to make the first move but fall in love deeply and ordinarily flourish within the security and stability of a long term relationship. You need a loving partnership that is very evenly balanced physically and mentally with plenty of common interests and ambitions. Someone that is as loyal and committed as you are who ignites your sensual passion and is on the same intellectual level is perfect. Your belief in soul mates and true love helps you put your indecisiveness aside if you feel you have met your destined partner. You can be possessive and inflexible at times but loathe arguments so will frequently be the one who initiates making up and restoring harmony. Physical healthiness experienced by those born on May 6th appears to be easily disturbed by nutritional deficiencies. You are disposed to have a healthy appetite but a tendency to have your favorite meals and eat too much of the same thing sometimes leaving you short of something. You can in addition be susceptible to coughs and colds so eating a wider range of foods could help you avoid succumbing to viruses. People born on this day may find that their mental health, general sense of well being and self esteem is also noticeably improved by consuming food types known to boost mood and concentration. Your main strengths of character are noticeable in your unique mix of charm, warmth and cooperation gaining you many friends and admirers. Your other major fortes of sensitivity, astuteness and diplomacy help you normally approach everything impartially and make you a fabulous mediator. The personality weaknesses for those born on May 6th expose your changeable emotions, seemingly more frequent if you have worries. This negativity can surface as self indulgent and pitying behavior causing you to also be much grumpier and uncharacteristically sulky. Not letting anxieties build can reduce this negative trait. Being born on the 6th of May gifts you with an intense appreciation for beauty courtesy of Venus's double influence. This perception may add a touch of idealism and fantasy to your dreams but you attempt to keep these sleep induced wishes separate from important life objectives. Your need to be taken seriously sees you setting realistic goals for desired personal and professional achievements. Helping others to realize their potential can often be more rewarding to you than your own accomplishments. All your wished for aspirations are hardly ever selfish or entirely materialistic. As you were born on the sixth day of the month your birth date figure of Six is also your Root number. This numerical reference to your birthday has the keyword 'Social' emphasizing your responsiveness to others and fondness of company. The 6th Tarot card in the Major Arcana characterizing the Lovers is closely linked to your birthday. It strongly reflects your penchant for the aesthetic and requirement for closeness and companionship. The gem imagined luckiest for May the sixth birthdays is Turquoise, it is thought to mystically attract positivity and happiness into your life. The probable favorable and unfavorable thoughts and actions of all Taurus personalities are believed influenced astrologically by Venus. As this celestial body also rules the actual day you were born, the sixth of May, it is doubly influential on your possible nature. Your easygoing sociability and fine mediation skills accentuate your superb command of language. This talent and your insistence on fairness let you interact with almost everyone and be understood plainly. Your calm intuitiveness is an excellent guide if you listen to and trust your inner voice. If you can manage to steady your emotions and pay more attention to your dietary needs it could stop anxieties building. A well meant thought for people born on May the 6th is to consider waiting for others to ask for your assistance instead of offering and do not be fearful of asking for help yourself. 

#39. Chad Michael Murray (Birthday: Aug. 24, 1981 – The Day Of Astute Examination; Personality Period: Leo-Virgo Cusp – Aug. 19 to Aug. 25 – The Cusp Of Exposure; Place Of Birth: Buffalo, New York, United States)

Those born during the Week of Exposure are an interesting blend of introvert and extrovert. These people combine practical, earthy qualities with more intuitive, fiery traits, producing quietly inspired individuals who keep their light within. Some of them give a muted, almost nondescript first impression while concealing more flamboyant tendencies; others come across as exhibitionistic but are actually sensitive, private types. They may hide certain personal qualities, or facts about themselves, for years, but their inner flamboyance will break out periodically in even the most introverted of them when one day they reveal themselves to the world, in full awareness of what they are doing. Many of them will come to realize that self-concealment is futile—the more they try to hide, the more the world seems to take notice of them. By aiming to be more transparent, letting others see what they really are instead of hiding, they will even out some of their swings between introverted and extroverted behavior. Such individuals who are born in unremarkable surroundings, or at the bottom of the social ladder, can be late starters in the struggle to move up in the world. Even once they get going, it is only through tremendous tenacity and willpower that they can maintain their momentum. Indeed, many can succumb to their worst fear, a life of boredom and mediocrity. Their belief in themselves is often inversely proportionate to the world’s belief in them; just when they are gaining self-confidence, in other words, others take less notice of them. While applause is not crucial to these people—who do not need attention in the same way as others—no matter how quiet or self-contained they may be, they have a burning sense of their own worth. It is characteristic of them not to reveal the truth about themselves or show their real inner feelings until they get to where they are headed, socially or professionally. In fact, this desire to divulge, to show, can be the fuel that powers their drive toward a goal. Those who do reach the top and have carried lifelong secrets are prone to be found out, but usually through their own statements and behavior. This tendency can be viewed as a strange blend of narcissism and masochism, of self-indulgence and punishment. These people are often outstanding observers and judges of character. They know how to watch, silently, without drawing attention to themselves. Further, they are often good at recording their impressions in thought or word, and at expressing them later after long periods of rethinking. Their associates and co-workers will often come to depend on their memory, judgment and objectivity. When able to achieve emotional stability, they can be dependable and reliable friends. These individuals who use concealment and revelation alternately, as weapons or as ploys to get their way, must come to realize the childishness and nonproductivity of such games. Often the solution to such problems comes when they meet just one person, or a very few, who can accept them exactly as they are; through acceptance, love and trust, they can eliminate the need for hide-and-seek. Emotional immaturity may plague them until they fully accept the challenges of growing up. People who like mysteries and detective work will like these folks, and those who take the trouble to understand them will be richly rewarded. Although they do not deeply need appreciation, kudos or flattery, they do cry out for understanding. This silent call is heard only by those sensitive enough to take notice of them, on a deep level. Trust is obviously a big issue for them: their friends must be trustworthy enough to keep their secrets, and their lovers must be trusted to be faithful. These people do not easily attach their passion and affection to someone. If betrayed by a friend or lover, they may suffer emotional collapse. Characteristically, they form long-lasting relationships with those who first penetrate their shield of mystery. Those who can accept them fully revealed, continuing to like them even after they show more of themselves, will become their closest, lifelong friends and partners. They may not make the best parents or the best children. Their private nature can make intergenerational sharing difficult or impossible. There may well be a family member, however, a cousin or sibling, to whom they periodically open their hearts and with whom they share their secret worlds. Such peers are valuable role models for possible mates later in life; indeed, these people may often cast their life partners in the role of brothers and sisters. Although usually far too self-centered, secretive and unattached to sacrifice themselves for family life, they can be counted on to discharge their obligations in the daily living situation, as long as the demands placed on them are not excessive.

Those born on August 24 have the urge to untangle mysteries that capture their interest. All the dark, misunderstood or uncharted areas of human knowledge attract them. Not only students of the human condition, those born on this day often pursue objective knowledge for its own sake, whether philosophical or scientific, material or theoretical. Their never-ending quest for information and details which can help them make sense of life and enrich their world takes them far and wide. Unraveling complexity is something that comes naturally to August 24 people. Puzzles of all types, paradoxes and riddles are their forte. To say that they themselves are sometimes difficult to follow is an understatement. They can practically disappear in a labyrinth of thoughts, a maze of intricate ideas. But though those born on this day may be difficult to pin down or understand, they themselves rarely feel lost. Unfortunately, August 24 people are often unaware that they, in fact, are just as complex as the demands of their work, areas of investigation or creations; they generally see themselves as simple and direct. This can create problems for those intimately involved with them. Their family members, friends and lovers may often feel at a loss to fathom their motivations, true emotions and needs. Yet, when accused of obfuscation, complicating an issue or evading questions, August 24 people often react with bewilderment and denial. In order to uncover the truth, it is possible that an August 24 person will not only dig into books and human character, but also literally dig into the earth, peer into the woods, search the skies and plumb the depths of the seas to explore the wonders of nature. On vacation, most August 24 people like nothing better than to explore something completely new to them. Their hobbies and perhaps their careers reflect this desire for discovery. August 24 people can make good parents, so great is the interest they show in their children’s development. They must make an effort, however, to allow for the privacy and living space that every individual needs. This means that they must curb their tendency to overanalyze their children’s behavior and perhaps overstructure their lives. August 24 people would do well to simplify their own lives as much as possible, and avoid much of the endless complexity which they not only discover but so often themselves create. They must also make an effort to cause a minimum of interference in the life around them; their relationships will markedly improve if they remember to sometimes leave friends and loved ones to their own devices. People born on August 24 are blessed with a sharp and questioning mind that is at its best when untangling mysteries, uncovering the truth or making new discoveries. They don’t like to take anything at face value, and even the opinions of experts or their most trusted friends will not stop them searching through the evidence to catch what others might have missed and to discover their version of the truth.Their questioning mind makes them hard to manipulate, and people may rely heavily on them for advice and insight. Indeed, they often have a reputation for being someone whose opinion and approval others can trust. They could be said to mistrust anything or anyone that appears simple or straightforward, so strong is their belief that hidden complexities lie beneath the surface. Paradoxically, although their self-image is of being very simple and direct, what they do not realize is that they are just as complex as the subjects of their investigation, if not more so. Although they never miss the facts, they can have a tendency to miss out in their observations what is subtle or unspoken, and their accuracy and creativity would be enhanced if they learned to develop their intuition.Until the age of twenty-nine there is an emphasis in their lives on practicality and efficiency, but after the age of thirty there is a turning point when they may focus on relationships and opportunities to develop their latent creative potential. They need to take advantage of these opportunities, using sharp-witted intellectual skills and their creative potential, as these will boost their chances of success professionally and personally.Throughout their lives, intense inner forces may cause them to alternate between extremes of uncertainty and a sense of being special. If they can cultivate positive thinking, trust their deeper intuition and learn to manage worry positively, these gifted and astute discoverers, who leave no stone unturned in their quest for knowledge, have the potential to enrich the lives of others with the fruits of their observations. People born on August 24 are always interested in new people and new places, and they struggle with routine in relationships. However, when relationships are based on mutual affinity they are usually successful. The right partner will be someone who knows how to inspire trust in them, teaching them to listen to their hearts as much as their minds. People born on this day have a fascination with the world about them; as long as they don’t become self-critical, they will probably be working or thinking in some capacity for all their lives. As far as diet is concerned, people born on this day need to make sure they don’t get so absorbed in their work or studies that they forget the importance of good nutrition. They also need to exercise regularly, preferably in the outdoors, so they get all the mood-boost-ing benefits of sunshine. Hypochondria can be a real concern, so it is important that they don’t get overly concerned about their health and maintain a relaxed attitude. It is recommended that they spend more time with family and friends, and have more fun. Wearing, meditating on and surrounding themselves with the color orange will encourage them to love life as much as they love studying it. These people are naturally drawn to the arts, music, painting, writing, and music, but they are also gifted and astute psychologists, therapists and commentators on human behavior and all aspects of the natural world. Other career choices that might appeal include education, lecturing, commerce, research, science, health care, and real estate. The life path of people born on this day is to learn to observe less and feel more. Once they have balanced their urge for discovery with their psychological need to get involved, their destiny is to inform, enlighten and enrich the lives of others with their surprising and insightful observations. People born specifically on the 24th of August are destined to possess a charming and sociable temperament but more tactful and diplomatic than other Virgo's. The ruling astrological planet allocated for this particular day is Venus making you refined with a love of anything beautiful and an enjoyment of sharing. If you have this birthday a practical self sufficient outside hides a quite fragile and dependant inside. You are usually rather agreeable, great at compromise and tend to do all you can to avoid an argument. Naturally friendly, helpful and considerate you are likely to have good manners and although you will brood for a while on a problem you will then attempt to solve it. Individuals with an August the twenty fourth birthday are generous and creative but may have a slight lack of confidence too. Your cool yet sensitive emotions can sometimes make you appear a tad detached and cloak your strong cravings for acceptance, attention, warmth and affection. Suitable career choices can be difficult to find to a person born on the twenty fourth of August. This is often a result of not having enough faith in your abilities so you could require advice and encouragement from others to help you decide. Your practicality, friendliness and creativity are useful assets in any workplace or chosen profession. Despite your desire for generosity it is rare for you to try and live beyond your means financially. You are ordinarily cautiously careful with finances guiding you to be able to put money aside when you can for unexpected expenses and future plans. For a Virgo, the person born on the twenty fourth day of August is typically a bit of a perfectionist concerning romance with somewhat idealistic expectations of a partner. You are inclined to love very deeply but find showing it openly to loved ones hard so it can often take time to contemplate entering into a long term commitment. An intellectual rapport and shared memories and interests with someone special who you felt strongly destined to meet help you form a close emotional bond. Once settled in a soul mate relationship it will commonly become top of your list of priorities and your amenable nature and dislike of disagreements helps keep a loving partnership harmonious. Your hidden passions come alive in the bedroom where you are likely to be flirtatious and playful in addition to being aroused by slow seduction in romantic atmospheres. The usual healthy constitution experienced by those born on August 24th is usually kept fairly consistent by your bodily vigilance. You are prone to be a touch overly concerned with healthiness with tendencies to monitor yourself a bit too much or overreact to minor symptoms. Your great concern for your health guides you to ordinarily eat healthily and take regular exercise. People born on this day may take excellent care of themselves but should remember to not let problems build and never slack on sleeping hours. Getting adequate sleep is especially important for your physical and mental well being. Your main strengths of character are probably recognized within your charm, tact and diplomacy as these qualities compliment your fondness to share. Your observant, investigative manner and proclivity for thoroughness are secondary fortes reflected in your approach allowing you a clear detailed view of everything around you. The personality weaknesses for those born on August 24th occur in many instances if you let yourself become overtired. These negative characteristics can cause you to be occasionally analytical or critical in your judgments, cold emotionally or susceptible to grumpiness. Being born on the 24th of August makes you as a rule slightly unconfident regarding the setting and achievement of goals. You may need to build plenty of belief in your abilities and a boost to your morale before you feel ready to tackle any sort of challenge. Once you commence a worthwhile aim if you run into difficulties you are prepared to find workarounds and solutions to help you achieve an objective. Your dreams are often focused on your striving to be and feel accepted and loved as in these favorable circumstances your selfconfidence soars and there is not much you cannot accomplish. As you were born on the twenty fourth day of the month the two and four in your birth date equate to a Root number of Six. This numerical reference to your birthday has the keyword 'Social' highlighting your usual affable, warm consideration for others and emotional dependence. In the Major Arcana Tarot deck the 6th mystic card illustrating the Lovers is associated with your birthday. This represents your desires for perfection, harmony, reassurance and closeness. The lucky gemstone for August the twenty fourth birthdays is Turquoise, wear it for the promise of calmness and the absorption of negativity. Astrologically, the planet Mercury is believed the primary influence on the probabilities of Virgo personalities. The actual day you were born on, the twenty fourth of August, is governed over by the celestial body Venus's authority. Therefore these 2 planets and their combined influences are thought to determine the originality of your thinking and methods of doing things. Your charismatic refinement, thoughtfulness, flexibility and pleasant mannerisms are a useful blend of virtues that can help you get your own way. Your giving spirit and sensitivity emotionally should greatly assist you to gain the approval and endearment you generally crave. If you can manage to get adequate rest it could prevent your occasional moody criticism and coldness. An ending thought for people born on August the 24th is to try and remember that your observations are not always welcomed or appreciated on every occasion.

#40. Rob Raco (Birthday: Nov. 26, 1989 – The Day Of Distinctive Manner; Personality Period: Sagittarius I – Nov. 25 to Dec. 2 – The Week Of Independence; Place Of Birth: Windsor, Ontario, Canada)

Those born during the Week of Independence are hard to control. In many ways the most independent people of the year, they must feel free to act on their impulses and intuition. People who try to exercise power over them in personal relationships are in for a rough ride. When these people respect their spouse or living partner, they will cooperate, sharing their feelings and dividing the chores. When they feel that their respect has not been earned, though, or when it is lost, expect constant conflict and strife. Honor and trust are high on their list of priorities; without these, they feel, life ceases to have meaning and reverts to the law of the jungle. These individuals have a thing about fairness, expecting it not only of themselves but of others, too. Their nurturing side is particularly evident in their relations with animals, small children and the less fortunate members of society; they simply will not tolerate mistreatment of the dependent or helpless in their presence. They often act impulsively to protect the defenseless, without a thought for their own safety. They try to project an air of self-assurance and confidence, but behind this facade there often lurks a sensitive and even insecure individual. This becomes quickly evident when they are put under stress, either through negative criticism or through some challenge to their character. In such situations they can easily and instantaneously fly off the handle, drowning those around them with their anger. Those alert enough to see the storm clouds gathering will try to avoid unleashing their emotional thunderbolts. These people have enormous willpower. Their loyalty is a matter not only of principle or of emotion but of stubbornness; sticking to their guns is a character trait. In fact, they very often get their way, simply because they allow no other possibility. Anyone deeply involved with them is likely to know their highly competitive nature since they feel winning is essential. Learning to submit, and to accept defeat graciously, is not usually possible for these dynamic individuals. Those few who do learn this lesson may have succeeded in meeting their greatest challenge, and thereby gain a high degree of maturity. At times they can be unreasonable, but they are usually open to discussion. Actually, these quick, witty individuals thoroughly enjoy verbal repartee and debate. This can become a problem if they reach a subject that sticks in their craw, when they can easily become contentious and argumentative. Friends know what subjects to avoid and how to smooth over rough spots through playfulness, but those meeting them for the first time are sometimes taken aback by their forthrightness and their at times outrageous observations and proposals. Many have a greater need to give than to receive. Their generosity is directly related to their feelings of self-worth and self-esteem, for they have a need to see themselves as caring rather than needy people. There are also those who are not at all bashful about stating their demands, and who will not object to being served by others. Both character types, however, will often occupy an indispensable position in their family: shouldering substantial responsibilities, but on their own terms, is extremely important to them. They generally have only one or two people—whether friend, mate, co-worker or family member—with whom they feel close enough to share their innermost thoughts. The bond between these people and their parents or their children is extremely deep, and may be considered a true friendship. Such soulmates know them as highly ethical individuals who value integrity and character more than anything else, except, perhaps, their freedom.  If they feel betrayed by a family member or close friend they can go through untold agonies of evaluation, judgment or rejection. In these struggles, assessing the intentions of the person in question is usually of great importance. Those who want to spend time with them usually have to be able to keep up: their friends and lovers must share the fast pace they set, whether in sports, travel, work or hobbies. A special person for them, however, may also be someone who sticks close to home or place of business. They have an acute need for stability; an individual who is always there to return to may prove to be the anchor in their lives. Although most would be capable of living alone, and in fact are well suited to it, they will generally make a firm decision to be a person’s spouse or living partner and then continue in that role, even if they outgrow the need for it. Those born during the Week of Independence are ardent and unconstrained in their emotional expression, particularly in the sexual arena. They make the intensity of their energy fully apparent to their partners, who will remember vividly the full-bodied encounters in which these types engage. They take pride in their sexual desirability or prowess, often exhibiting quiet confidence in their ability to satisfy their partners. They are extremely giving of their feelings but demand a great deal in return.

Those born on November 26 display a peculiarly distinctive manner when doing most things. Hardly cut from a standard mold, those born on this day stand apart from their fellow human beings. Their ideas tend toward the philosophical and expansive, but at the same time manifest a markedly pragmatic, down-to-earth streak. Highly focused on accomplishment and achievement, November 26 people nonetheless view their own creative work or personal development as being more important than all the honors and rewards the world has to offer. Some born on this day even come to see living itself as a creative endeavor, and thus deeply value the wealth of everyday experience. Yet at the same time their minds soar with the most fanciful and romantic of ideas. Since it is impossible for November 26 people to give up either the practical or the imaginative sides of their personality, they must attempt a synthesis of the two. This seeming contradiction can occupy a great part of their energy for many years, but if they can find a way to reconcile these sides there is no end to the accomplishments they are capable of achieving. Usually the key to this synthesis is life experience, but until this synthesis occurs those born on this day may find themselves swinging back and forth every few years from basically logical, pragmatic endeavors to more fanciful ones. A measure of success may be achieved on either side of the spectrum, but a vaguely dissatisfied feeling that part of their potential is being wasted will persist. For November 26 people, relationships with lovers can be problematical, primarily because their individualism and love of freedom often outweighs their need for a permanent mate. Many born on November 26 are alternately ardent and cool, unable or unwilling to make a lasting commitment. Usually they value friends of the same sex more highly than lovers, and are not only more faithful to these friends but also capable of greater intimacy with them as well. Ultimately, however, they themselves are usually the ones who do the rejecting in relationships, sometimes out of a kind of “first strike” mentality where they sense rejection coming and act on impulse. Thus they can be dangerous people with whom to be involved. Needless to say, November 26 people can be reticent about marriage or taking on the responsibilities of children. Those who choose to remain single may be unhappy from time to time going through life on their own, but feel that this is better than getting tied down in an unalterably permanent situation. This type of November 26 person likes to flaunt his/her individuality, and finds it difficult when social mores become too oppressive. Yet at the same time, emotionally committed or not, most November 26 people move well in society, once they figure out what it is they really want to do and integrate the disparate elements of their personalities. The free-thinking individuals born on November 26 would appear to have the world at their feet. Not only are they charismatic and intelligent, they are also creative, multi-talented and capable of excelling in just about any profession they choose.Despite their incredible versatility, they may have felt from an early age that they were somehow different or removed from their fellow human begins. Part of the problem is that because they have so many talents and such an inquisitive mind, too many paths are open to them so choosing one becomes a daunting task. They may also struggle to reconcile their practical, logical orientation with the part of them that is highly creative and imaginative. At various points in their life they will lurch between these two extremes, but happiness and fulfillment can only be found when they are able to balance the two.As success-orientated people, when they are not working toward a goal they can feel restless and unsatisfied, so the sooner they decide on a path in life and set themselves targets to achieve the better. If they don’t do this, indecision, anxiety and uncertainty will submerge their huge potential.Up to the age of twenty-five there may be a lot of experimentation regard ing their career, as they focus on adventure, creativity and opportunity; but after the age of twenty-six they start to become more practical, goal orientated and realistic in their aims. This is a positive development, as long as they make sure they don’t lose touch with their imagination and creative fire. Another turning point occurs at the age of fifty-six when expressing their individuality takes center stage. Hopefully, however, they will have realized far earlier in life that the key to their success is to celebrate and make full use of their uniqueness rather than try to hide it. They have been right all along; there is and never will be anybody quite like them with their unique talents, original perspective, and courage and determination to prove everyone wrong by achieving their fantastic aims. When it comes to affairs of the heart, people born on November 26 can have problems because they like their own company and are unwilling to sacrifice their freedom. They are capable of forming close relationships but these tend to be with their friends rather than lovers. But when they do find someone who captures their heart, they have it within them to make dutiful and devoted partners. People born on this day tend to be vigorous and athletic, and they rarely suffer long from illnesses. They can, however, over-indulge in food and drink from time to time, and they may also be prone to accidents and injuries resulting from sports or risky activities. From a psychological perspective, the biggest risk to their emotional health is their tendency to withdraw or to isolate themselves from others, and making an effort to stay in touch with friends and family will benefit them enormously. As far as diet is concerned, they need to increase their intake of vegetables and fruit to boost their digestion. Moderate to vigorous exercise is recommended to help keep their weight down and their immune system strong. Wearing, meditating on or surrounding themselves with the color orange will encourage them to be warmer and more spontaneous when in the company of others. People born on this day have a meticulous approach to their work and will excel in careers that are research-based. Possible work options include education, philosophy, writing, engineering, IT, and the world of video game creation and toy manufacturing or design. The life path of people born on this day is to find a way to reconcile the disparate parts of their personality by looking within themselves. Once they are more balanced in their outlook and approach, their destiny is to make an outstanding contribution to humanity. People born specifically on the 26th of November are presumed to be practical, charming and capable with the Sagittarian typicalities of a level head and heaps of optimism. The ruling astrological planet for this particular day is Saturn making you likely to be very hard working and determined with a restless enthusiasm for travel. If you have this birthday your warmhearted independent spirit usually has high standards and although prone to blow hot and cold emotionally you are predicted to be a great listener. Quite focused, honest, thoughtful and pleasant you will also be fairly sociable despite a touch of modest shyness. Individuals with a November the twenty sixth birthday are naturally creative with a love of natural landscapes but they can stubbornly insist on doing everything their own way. You may be more realistic, cautious and patient than other Archer's but you tend to be a bit more nervous and easily stressed too. You are inclined to be highly persuasive yet sometimes too blunt and critical. Preferred career choice is usually an easy straightforward decision to a person born on the twenty sixth of November. Your likelihood for possessing lots of academic talent means you will always be striving to increase your wisdom therefore any job that involves this will be a popular preference. An occupation involving regular travelling is likely to be a secondary suitable option. Your strong practicality, focus and determination are useful assets for this and any other sort of work. Financially you should fare well as you are aim to be disciplined with money, effective at budgeting and unlikely to borrow rather than save for large purchases. For a Sagittarius, the person born on the twenty sixth day of November is typically deeply loving, trusting and emotive concerning affairs of the heart. Passionate and demonstrative you need a supportive expressive partner who will happily put an equal amount of time and devotion into your love partnership. Someone special who is busy and lively with similar interests and lets you have your freedom without getting jealous or bored is ideal. Quicker and more willing to settle down in a long term relationship than others in your zodiac group, you are normally wonderfully loyal, frank and committed to a soul mate, regarding them as your best friend. Your responsible tolerant temperament has plenty of patience and a passion for romance helping make relationships happy and successful. Even though you may prefer to take the lead you also crave harmony so you will rarely be overly suspicious or argumentative. Great discipline and care of their physical and mental energies can usually help improve the general well being experienced by those born on November 26th. Your overall health state is often strongly linked to and affected by your level of happiness. Balanced periods of regular exercise and relaxation are especially good for maintaining vitality and keeping stress to a minimum. Your lower back, legs and knees could be weak points in an otherwise generally robust constitution. People born on this day should consider keeping diet varied and interesting if they wish to avoid slipping into bad eating habits that can greatly impact on usual healthiness. Your main strengths of character are displayed in your free-spirited calm, charm and dependability, perfectly complementing your warm heart and independence. Other positives are seen in your mix of realism, caution and honesty helping you differentiate between favorable and unfavorable paths. The personality weaknesses for those born on November 26th are usually prompted by an upset or misfortune as well as simply not getting your own way. These specific instances can activate your pronenesses for stubborn bluntness and criticism. Along with this expected negative cooling of your emotions you will commonly act in an indecisive and inconsistent manner. Being born on the 26th of November means you are likely to utilize lots of your common sense and efficiency in addition to working really hard in order to realize a desired goal. In spite of mainly achievable ambitions in your professional life you also have a tendency to occasionally have a few unrealistic aspirations too. Dreams appear to be mostly concentrated on those you love and the fulfilling of your personal wishes for stability and yearnings for contentment. As you were born on the twenty sixth day of the month the two and six in your birth date add up to a Root number of Eight. This numerical reference to your birthday has the keyword 'Leader' relating to your enhanced persuasiveness and ability to gently guide and motivate others. In the mystical Major Arcana Tarot deck the 8th card depicting Courage is often associated with your birthday. This possibly reflects your sense of responsibility and predilections for order and balance. The luckiest gemstone for November the twenty sixth birthdays is a Black Pearl, wear one for a possible increase in intuition and wealth plus the blocking of negativity. Astrologically the planet Jupiter's dominance is conjectured to be a major influence on the probabilities of all Sagittarius personalities. The actual day you were born on, the twenty sixth of November is governed by Saturn's power changing some of your anticipated representative traits. Your predicted competence, positivism and attentive listening enhance your pleasantness and maturity. Your talent for creativity and love of the beauty of nature make any journeys you take have the prospect of being an amazing experience. If you are able to conquer overreactions to distress, disturbance or mishap you should become calmer and nicer than usual. A concluding advisory thought for people born on November the 26th is to follow your heart to your destiny and try to make a bit more effort into getting along well with others.

#41. Tommy Martinez (Birthday: Mar. 20, 1992 – The Day Of The Labyrinth; Personality Period: Pisces-Aries Cusp – Mar. 19 to Mar. 24 – The Cusp Of Rebirth/Renewal; Place Of Birth: Venezuela)

Those born during the Week of Renewal are unusually direct in their approach to life, and their outspokenness can make them alternately admired or misunderstood. These are basic, elemental individuals. The puzzling thing about them is that although they themselves think that they see things in a simple and unclouded way, those who know them well often describe them as unrealistic dreamers, unable to get a handle on the harsh realities of the world. They outwardly present a dynamic directness that often belies a sensitive, emotionally complex, even troubled inner life. Thus they are doers as well as dreamers and have a no-nonsense, “what you see is what you get” attitude that actually tells only part of the story. Misunderstandings about them abound. Out of the purest motives possible, for example, they may make a generous offer, perhaps of time or money. Yet before you know it, they are being accused of acting holier-than-thou, or of behaving condescendingly when those on the receiving end feel resentment. Meanwhile, they feel bewildered and hurt. Such scenarios are not uncommon in their lives. As a matter of fact, the more simply and directly they behave, the more others misread their intentions. This directness inevitably arouses antagonism. However, those who are unwise enough to oppose them directly will quickly regret it. In addition, because of their quickness in grasping concepts and, often, in implementing their intuitive hunches, they may encounter resistance from those who move more slowly. Such a response has little effect on them, only arousing their impatience. Thus, particularly in group endeavors they must learn to curb their impetuosity, to listen to the often helpful suggestions of others, to slow their tempo and come into synch with the group rhythm. Ultimately, they must learn to weigh alternatives carefully before speaking or acting. Once they accomplish this, their logic can be remarkably persuasive and their thoroughness compelling. Although their effect on people should teach them that something about their own behavior is amiss, they generally refuse to change. They cannot really see any fault in what they do since, in their view, they are acting out of pure intentions. In the end, they often do get their way, whether by forging ahead without letup or by just sticking to their guns until the other party gives in Dealing with failure can be particularly difficult. Since outright failure is not really in their vocabulary, when confronted with unavoidable defeat they are often baffled and bewildered. But their defense mechanisms in this respect are superb, and they are often spared defeat simply by their refusal to recognize it. They are not usually so unrealistic as to mistake losing for winning, but they do often view losing as just a partial setback on the way to a victory only temporarily postponed. Others can learn, however, how to deal with them successfully. One of the main rules is not to dig too deeply into their motives or to urge them to explain themselves. Another is not to try to analyze their personalities, or even to push them toward self-analysis. Yet those who use example rather than precept in encouraging them gently to be more objective about themselves can meet with success. This is not to say that they can’t learn from their own mistakes, simply that they must from time to time be encouraged to do so. Another, even simpler route to getting along with them is just to do what they say, at least for the time being. If you can come up with a better idea later, they will be prepared to listen, but rarely if ever in their first burst of enthusiasm. It is important to recognize how important impulses, hunches, and first actions are to these individuals. Blunting or negating their intuitions with advice and alternative suggestions can easily alienate them forever. Rarely, however, will anyone succeed in breaking their spirit or damping their forward movement for long. In relationships, they can be faithful partners, although their faithfulness may be more emotional than literal. They can love deeply and passionately, in other words, giving a great deal of attention to their love object, but at the same time they are not always monogamous; their intuitive, fiery side is always vulnerable to some exciting new prospect that suddenly appears. Their partner is generally the one expected to play the more stable, long-suffering role. Not that they themselves demand monogamy from their mate; actually, in many cases, a relationship that is more open on both sides suits them better, since it allays any guilt they might feel about their own indiscretions. Those born during the Week of Renewal generally function better as parents than they did as children, feeling more loyalty and responsibility to their offspring than they did to their elders when they were younger. Family can have surprisingly strong meaning for these highly independent souls, but family in the larger sense, including friends and associates as well as kin.

March 20 is a highly symbolic day, when considered as the last day of winter and the end of the astrological year. People born on this day possess certain unusual gifts as well as special problems. For example, they are in many ways the most highly evolved creatures of the year, when the zodiac is considered as a map of the evolution of the human being. On the other hand, they may find it difficult to start certain important endeavors and to leave the past behind. It can take them a very long time to make crucial decisions, particularly those involving big changes in their lives. The expansive qualities and sometimes unfounded optimism of March 20 people can land them in hot water. While their dreaminess lends them magnetic charm, it also makes them prone to unreality in their outlook. However, if those born on this day manage to find their true calling and life partner they will be protected from much that can go wrong. March 20 talents are generally both numerous and diverse. Therefore those born on this day may flounder for a while, fishing around for the right path to take. They can also be overly influenced by those in higher positions and somewhat inclined toward hero worship, often at the expense of their own ego. Their romanticism, a product of a vivid imagination, can perhaps lead them astray in this respect. By overvaluing the one they worship they tend to unconsciously undervalue themselves. This can lead to a lack of self-confidence of which they themselves may be unaware. March 20 people must also beware of falling into depressions, which no amount of admiration (either for others or from others) will help. On the other hand, solid friends and loved ones who can keep them on track are of great importance. Ultimately, working toward greater self-assertiveness is the key to March 20 people avoiding these states. Those born on this day are often drawn to psychic phenomena. They may have great talents in this area, but should be extremely careful not to let themselves go overboard. Such excesses could lead to an abandonment of reality which would be devastating not only to themselves but also to loved ones. If they can put these talents to use in moderation, they will achieve success in life. Sensitivity to music and art are pronounced in March 20 people who may be particularly drawn to vocal expression. Singing, for example, can make an excellent hobby or even profession for those with musical talent. Attention to the feelings of others makes those born on this day fine interpreters of their fellow human beings’ work but also good counselors to whom people come to seek advice. In this they should remain objective if possible, for their opinion carries weight and tends to impact heavily on clients, co-workers or friends. People born on March 20 were born on the last day of the Zodiac wheel, and in many ways they are the most insightful and fully evolved individuals of the year. They possess such a wealth of gifts that it is hard to pinpoint one, but underneath their versatility lies their great compassion for others, a gift that can bring them great rewards, but at a price.Those born on this day can feel overwhelmed by their feelings for others and therefore prone to depression and feelings of helplessness. They are also natural optimists, believing in the basic goodness of people, with a talent for boosting morale and getting people to work together. The danger for these people is that they can become confused to the point of indecision when they empathize too strongly with others’ emotions.Although they should never repress their sensitivity—it is one of the greatest assets—they should strive to become emotionally stronger. Until the age of thirty, if they don’t learn to protect themselves, others will sometimes try to take advantage of their vulnerability and generosity. After thirty-one they have the potential for greater emotional stability; this is when they become more effective instruments for good. After the age of sixty-one they are more interested in communication and the exchange of ideas.There is a deep longing within these people to make the world a better place. There may be many changes of direction as they experiment with different roles, and their experiences will help them discover who they really are and what they really want from their lives. Once they do settle on a goal, often to improve the lives of others in some way, they will achieve their dreams because they are both practical and idealistic. They will also find that the older they get, the more confident they become. In their later years they will draw on their rich experience of life to become a wise elder with a wealth of invaluable advice to offer the next generation. People born on March 20 can have problems distinguishing between loyalty and love and they may as a result stay in a passionless relationship out of a sense of duty. This reveals the maturity and strength of their character, but they do need to remember that their first responsibility should be to their own happiness. They should ask themselves who is really benefiting if they remain in a place from which love has departed. People born on this day tend to live in their head and to neglect their physical needs, so it is important for them to place more emphasis on the physical. They should make sure they eat a healthy diet rich in nutritious and tasty whole foods, fruits and vegetables and, instead of bolting down their food with their minds on something else, take the time to really taste the subtle flavors and amazing textures that all good foods possess. Moderate to mild exercise, preferably outdoors so they get plenty of sunshine and fresh air, is also recommended. Wearing, meditating on or surrounding themselves with the color blue will help them stay cool when all those around them are losing their heads. These people often make excellent counselors, psychologists, advisors, consultants, managers, coaches, diplomats, and teachers. Their sensitivity for what is going on around them may also find expression in the world of art, music, drama, writing, and dance as well as photography, design and moviemaking. They also excel in any career which involves dealing with the public. The life path of people born on this day is to find out what they really want. Once they know in which direction they should be heading, their destiny is to help others overcome challenges and reach their full potential. People born specifically on the 20th of March are believed to be intensively creative and cooperative and much more independent than other Piscean fish. The astrological planet that rules this particular day marking the end of the Pisces zodiac group on the cusp of Aries is the Moon. If you have this birthday your optimism is generally high and you are bestowed with numerous talents and a purposeful practicality. Intuitive and compassionate you seem to naturally sense when others need your help or advice. You are full of fun and charm and will be spontaneous when you are allowed to be, but you can also sometimes be restless due to your independence and love of variety. Friendly, imaginative and sensitive you have a fairly well balanced view of the world and will get along with almost everyone. Individuals with a March the twentieth birthday are usually quite idealistic yet realistic, they are flexible and able to compromise easily. Ideal work choices to a person born on the twentieth of March are those that allow you to utilize your natural creativity. You are multi talented with a strong attunement to other people's feelings and seek occupations where your best attributes can be helpful. Finances are important if you have this particular birth date but you tend to not have much interest towards careful money budgeting. Your spontaneity often encourages you to live for the moment resulting in careless management of personal finances. You appear to fare better when a partner agrees to take care of financial responsibilities. As a Pisces, the person born on the twentieth day of March is typically a tad shy and unconfident concerning romance. You are also untypically keen to take the lead when it comes to love and intimacy. On the surface your self-contradictory mix of considerate and insensitive can come across as complex but underneath lies a fragile heart that craves and affection and emotional unity. You are deeply loving, attentive and passionate with a soul mate that you both trust and respect. With all your imagination and sensitivity you are a true romantic and will ordinarily expect love to last forever. In a long term relationship you can be immensely supportive and totally devoted but soon disappointed if a partner does not live up to your standards and expectations. If a loving partnership hits troubles you will find it extremely difficult to walk away. Health complications experienced by those born on March 20th are sometimes a consequence of deficiencies in your food or fluid intake. You usually require lots of protein and calcium in your diet as muscles and bones are likely to be weak areas physically. Drinking the recommended daily amount of water is in addition especially essential for your overall healthiness. You are prone to soon become dehydrated and could suffer from fluctuations in energy if you do not drink enough. Light to moderate exercise could be beneficial for your skin and healthy in keeping your mood light and optimistic. The most noticeable strengths in your character are probably within your logical, versatile and receptive nature. This purpose driven set of qualities make you a go-getter with flexibility whose cooperation with others gets you far in life. The main personality weakness for those born on March 20th highlights the paradoxical side to your temperament. Uncertainty of yourself and your abilities can prompt you to be once in a while unrealistic with ideas and thoughts, indifferent or indecisive. These negative tendencies show up more frequently when you are feeling insecure, tired or over anxious. Being born on the 20th of March gives you a longing to be different and a passion to do something worthwhile. This perspective is usually what you base your life plans on and arms you with the drive you need to pursue your objectives. Goal setting is something that you do on a regular basis for use in fulfilling professional and private hopes and ambitions. Your vivid dreams can every now and then be a distraction from planned courses of action as you commonly take note of their possible meanings. Guided by a blend of your dreaming and desired aims you strive to be levelheaded and in control of your destiny. As you were born on the twentieth day of the month your birth date equalizes to a Root number of Two. This numerical reference to your birthday has the associated keyword 'Harmony' highlighting your cooperativeness and need for balance in your life. In Tarot the 20th card in the Major Arcana symbolizing Judgment is closely linked to your birthday. This identifies your perceptiveness, versatility and logic. The gem considered luckiest for March the twentieth birthdays is imagined to be a Pearl. Wearing this precious stone can enhance memory, induce calm and attract love and prosperity. The celestial body Neptune is astrologically the most influential authority involved in the formation of Piscean personalities. The actual day you were born on, the twentieth of March is cosmically ruled by the Moon creating your high sensitivity and receptiveness. The joint influences of these 2 planets are the determinants responsible for your original disposition. Your cheery attitude and helpfulness make you a great friend to have around. Your fine combination of artistic and practical comes in very useful. The impulsiveness you possess sways you to follow your natural instincts and be in the right places at times to take advantage of opportunities. Build self confidence and believe in your skills and you can go further than you expect. A final thought meaningful to people born on March the 20th is to always try to remain calm and fully in touch with your senses.

#42. Zoe De Grand Maison (Birthday: May 3, 1995 – The Day Of The Social Realist; Personality Period: Taurus II – May 3 to May 10 – The Week Of The Teacher; Place Of Birth: Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

Those born during the Week of the Teacher are mainly involved in the development of ideas and techniques. No matter what their vocation or avocation, they have a message to share. Verbalizing their ideas and observations, generating discussion, and leading by example are all favorite activities of theirs. It can be said that they have a calling for imparting information and, more importantly, presenting it in a manner that others can understand. It is not surprising that they have a strong need for teacher-student–type interactions. They intuitively sense that teacher and student are two sides of the same coin, and that this coin is one they wish to invest in their future. They generally do well enough at school, but fare best as students or teachers in one-on-one learning or small group situations such as in dance, music, sports and the visual arts. For them, being a good student is the first step toward becoming a good teacher. They also know the value of learning on one’s own and, instead of binding students to them, will encourage them to teach themselves. They are movers and shakers, and, since they rarely deal with flighty or superficial topics, they are capable of influencing others. Part of the key to this lies in the fact that they live so much of their lives in the realm of ideas, of ideologies. Excellent entrepreneurs, they can set up both businesses and families without an excessive need to dominate or impose an inflexible structure on those with whom they live and work. They do, however, often establish lines that should not be crossed. These people are very interested in the living conditions of those around them, and particularly in social groups that are foreign to them. How and where others live, work, play, eat, worship, vote and exercise has enormous fascination for these people, who also tend side with the underdog and to feel all forms of unfairness and discrimination keenly. Not surprisingly, interracial or cross-cultural relationships are common. Similarly, older Week of the Teacher folks may be attracted to younger people and younger ones to those much older than themselves. The moral stance of the these individuals is usually strong, even unyielding. They have firm ideas about right and wrong, which they do not hesitate to express. Although you probably wouldn’t call them straitlaced, they may exhibit prudish or even puritanical tendencies, particularly when young. And such early tendencies, even though outgrown, may surface in times of stress when they are adults, much to the surprise of those who know them as free-thinkers. The area in which the ethical orientation of these people is most unequivocal is their insistence on fairness. One might say, in fact, that they are obsessed with injustice, prejudice and discrimination in all forms. Their reaction to any form of racism is scathing, uncompromising and immediate. Actually, anger may erupt suddenly in almost any area of their lives, and they must learn how to handle their upset feelings in healthy ways without suppressing them. Physical activity, whether sports, dance, music, or fitness training, comes naturally to these folks, yet they do not convey the impression of being earthy, sensuous types. They generally create a strong first impression, and make a heavy impact on their environment, but this may be due more to their mental qualities than to their physical ones. Even those of a small or average body type often project an image far greater than their actual size on first meeting. Although excellent bosses, parents and teachers, they are not always the easiest people to be involved with day-to-day as mate, lover or friend. Demanding and critical, they make their dislikes known sharply and incisively, often alienating or insulting those of a softer or more sensitive disposition. Their insistence that people be hard and tough, able to take the truth in a straight dose, is not everyone’s cup of tea. When they become happier and more comfortable with themselves, and as they grow older, many of their critical characteristics will mellow or even disappear. With their love of beauty and their great charm and personal magnetism, these individuals often have a host of admirers. They are not really comfortable with a great deal of attention, however, and do not like finding themselves imprisoned in a social circle of their own making. At such times they have little choice but to withdraw into a more isolated existence. The more successful of them therefore learn to control their own attractive powers and to create fewer problems for themselves. Those who relate best to those born during the Week of the Teacher in personal relationships are those who understand their need to be left alone rather than being fussed over or spoiled. These folks prefer their mates to show their enthusiasm for the relationship simply by upholding their share of it rather than by displays of gratitude or affection. In intimate situations, they can be extremely passionate, but in their everyday routine they insist on a certain distance. They prefer romance to sentimentality, but like a realistic and frank approach to love and sex even better. They do not generally react well to others’ requests for attention or affection, even when those others are intimates; anything that looks like pleading or begging usually turns them off completely. They like their partners to be strong and dignified above all.

Those born on May 3 have much to teach others about the workings of society. They not only display an insight into group psychology but also have the ability to assume leadership or be a spokesperson. They have a voice that is heard above the crowd, whether speaking or writing. Moreover, they have a talent for charming and entertaining, using very sophisticated techniques to keep their audiences interested in them. They know how to use emotion as well as logic to this end. May 3 people are pragmatic realists whose wit strikes hard and deep. As family members they may be depended on in times of trouble to make important decisions or give much-needed advice. Hard-headed, practical thinkers, they will rarely be caught heading off in flights of fancy. With their feet on the ground, they seek the most effective way of solving problems. May 3 people also have a knack for making people laugh, coming up with the most comic comparisons and clever comments. This greatly enhances their prestige within any group. They can, however, go too far and indulge in biting satire or sarcasm which sometimes lands them in trouble. May 3 people make very valuable counselors, mediators and arbitrators. Their commercial insight is very sharp regarding consumer motivation and psychology, hence they also perform well as marketing analysts and business managers. In private life, May 3 people must be careful of making too many demands on their spouses and children. When single, they paradoxically may be too passive in their relationships, perhaps postponing the decisive action needed to insure success in love. Moreover, less highly evolved individuals born on this day are also capable of coupling this kind of indecisiveness with an inability to sense the right moment at which to make financial or business decisions, a fatal combination May 3 people must remember to invest enough of their energy in maintaining close friendships. Those born on this day will make good friends if their human understanding and insights concerning the workings of society extend to the personal level. They must never forget the importance of simple daily acts of kindness. An ever-present danger for May 3 people is that they will be taken up with big ideas and social schemes, but forget to tend to their own nest. The true challenge to them comes not in their career, but in the everyday events of life. Here they will either pass or fail according to their very own social precepts regarding others. May 3 people have a tremendous amount to teach in the social sphere; the question is, can they benefit from their own knowledge? People born on May 3 are not just well-organized; they are spectacularly efficient. Their houses and offices are often tidy, and their natural charm and politeness earn them many friends and admirers.The lives of these people reflect their efficient approach; they are often the ones others count on to keep things running smoothly, both at home and at work. Slow but steady improvements are a feature of their lives rather than sudden changes of fortune. In their teenage years they may feel restricted in some way but any setbacks they experience pave the way for two good things: determination and patience. As long as they keep pushing steadily forward, life will reward them with success and happiness.Between the ages of eighteen and forty-eight there will be a big need to communicate; this can be an extremely positive time for them if they allow their natural potential to blossom and don’t smother it with routine or fear of change. After the age of forty-nine they will feel an increased need for emotional security. Again this can be extremely positive if they accept the fact that feelings can’t be categorized and controlled.Stubborn and strong willed, these people may find themselves in conflict with less systematic individuals. They may judge people and situations harshly and they need to avoid becoming rigid, negative or demanding in their objectivity. They also have a tendency to worry too much and work too hard to prove themselves or their ability. Fortunately, they are perceptive individuals and their lives will improve if they can occasionally take an honest look at themselves, their behavior and the effect they have on others.Above all, people born on this day are valued by others for their rare gift of objective insight and their ability to organize and lead with spectacular efficiency. They have much to teach others and as long as they remember to curb their tendency to detach emotionally—especially when it comes to those closest to them—and to listen to their heart as well as their head, they have the potential to make their big dreams of reform and progress a reality. Others are attracted to people born on May 3 for the pleasantness they create but they can have great difficulty committing themselves to one person; this is a result of their tendency to judge with their head rather than their heart. When they do fall in love, however, they fall deeply, and give their heart and soul. They are attracted to individuals whom they can mold or organize but will feel happier with someone who can encourage them to unwind. People born on this day are worriers and it is important for them to find ways to manage their negativity. There is also a hedonistic side to their nature and they need to avoid going to extremes when it comes to diet. Overeating could be a problem, as could their number of sexual partners. They should eat a healthy, balanced diet and avoid any kind of excess, especially when it comes to sugar, saturated fat and alcohol. Exercise will also be extremely beneficial; solitary pursuits such as jogging, cycling and hiking will appeal, particularly when they find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of worry. A physical routine that soothes their mind as well as their body, such as yoga, will work wonders. Carrying a small titanium quartz crystal will help them pull themselves together when they feel “all over the place.” These people have the necessary emotional detachment to become excellent counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists. Their ability to think coolly and logically equips them well for careers in politics and business, in particular banking, real estate and commerce. Scientific research and law may also appeal, and their affinity with nature could lead them to careers in agriculture and horticulture. Alternatively they may choose to develop their creativity in writing, interior design and decorating. The life path of people born on this day is to avoid over-analyzing relationships, as this will restrict their happiness. Once they have learned to get in touch with their feelings, their destiny is to help others maximize their strengths. People born specifically on the 3rd of May are assumed to be intelligent, forward looking and intuitive with plenty of the typical bull friendliness. Jupiter is the ruling astrological planet for this particular day influencing you to be highly articulate and determined. If you have this birthday a persistent, practical and optimistic nature is bestowed on you along with excellent communication and creative skills. You are usually responsible and compassionate with a large helping of common sense and inclined to put others before yourself. Your placidity and capable quite confident temperament also has heaps of patience. Individuals with a May the third birthday are ordinarily warmhearted, sociable and fairly approachable with a talent for having inventive and futuristic ideas. You are a free spirit who loves being outdoors and the beauty of natural things. On the negative side you can on occasion be self indulgent, inflexible or blunt. Career choices to a person born on the third of May are usually straightforward as you will have a vague idea of what kind of work you will enjoy. You are in addition likely to be inadvertently motivated towards certain professions by family members. Your high level of responsibility and articulation sees you capable of following any occupation path. You tend to consider other factors beside money when deciding on the perfect job. An instinctive affinity with numbers and your intelligence makes you normally undaunted by financial matters and so adept with finances and budgeting. For a Taurus, the person born on the third day of May is typically naturally affectionate, direct and enthusiastic about romance. You are often the most charismatic and sexually open minded of all your zodiac sign. Very witty and romantic with a warm sincere heart you can like to take the lead but are usually happiest in a relationship where both of you have equal say. Good communication is an essential requirement of yours when seeking a soul mate as you dislike arguing making it rare for you to initiate them. An emotional bond is as a rule just as important to you as a physical connection. Your touch of originality makes you a sensual, playful bedmate who gives without regard for your own needs and will put a partner first. Although you can be a bit detached emotionally, once you commit to a love partnership you are generous, protective and devoted. Vitality drops experienced by those born on May 3rd are often a consequence of a slip in your usual healthy habits. If you are working hard or have additional worries you could be prone to lapse in your everyday health routines easily disturbing the balance. Keeping your diet nutritious and your body supple is the easiest way to hold on to your looks and the spring in your step. This common sense attitude is approached best by eating healthily and finding a form of exercise that you enjoy. Long walks and stretching are two activities that you may find especially effective and enjoyable. Your main strengths of character are usually revealed in the clever charming insightfulness you seem to radiate. These pleasant and friendly mannerisms and your secondary positive forte of creativity appear to filter through into everything you do. The personality weaknesses for those born on May 3rd can often put in an appearance out of the blue as provocations are commonly difficult to pinpoint. These negative tendencies are focused on your proneness to occasional outbursts of stubborn bluntness, procrastination and self indulgence. Discovering the triggers is the key to combating these less favorable traits. Being born on the 3rd of May often makes you particularly proficient at intuitively anticipating future events. As well as this gift of perceptiveness you will also rely on your logic and these combined approaches frequently allow you to be guided in the direction of success. When an opportunity to fulfill a goal presents itself you will quickly assess and make great use of its advantages. You are likely to have many desired dreams and ambitious goals but you generally like to keep them to yourself and insist on waiting until the time feels right to attempt to realize them. As you were born on the third day of the month your birth date qualifies for a Root number of Three. This numerical reference to your birthday has the keyword 'Innovation' recognizing your abundance of persistence and optimism. The 3rd card in the Major Arcana Tarot featuring the Empress is adjoined to your birthday. This association symbolizes your intelligence and the originality of your thoughts and expressions. The lucky gem to be worn for May the third birthdays is believed to be a sparkly Amethyst. Wear it to help you make decisions, increase wealth and drive away surrounding negativity. The personalities of Taurus individuals born in either April or May are imagined to be astrologically influenced by the planet Venus. The actual day you were born on, the third of May is governed by the celestial body Jupiter's powerful authority. So the probabilities of your characteristics are decided by the joined forces of this pair of planets. Your intuition, articulation and versatility can propel you as far in life as you wish to go. Your patient delightful disposition is brimming with compassion and openness making you a fabulous person to know. If you are able to learn to be more flexible and remember to think before you speak it should turn out beneficial. A finishing thought relevant to people born on May the 3rd concerns your slight detachment of emotions. It could be to your advantage to be less hesitant or emotionally distant concerning affairs of the heart.

[h3l10tr0p3]

Headcanon: Deku, the Serial Shipper

Contains- Mentions of sexual activities, established relationship - Bakudeku; Crack pairings- TodoIna, JiroMomo, UraTsuyu, UraTenya, DenkiSero, Kirimina, platonic Kiribaku etc.

(Beware- Long post)

Jesus Christ, I just had this HC and now I gotta spill, otherwise I won't be able to sleep tonight. Here's another annoying Long Post for y'all)

Deku, as a Pro Hero and Katsuki's Duo Partner, has a pretty hectic life since the media are crazy bloodhounds, the villains are a pain in the ass, interacting with fans becomes exhausting at times, and the critics are demons wailing for his blood.

Yeah, very hectic. And on top of that, there's very little time to relax. Most of the days he sneaks some solace in the gym, if he can buy more time he likes to read and immerse himself in his notebooks and research. Fighting Katsuki to blow some steam is a last resort to shed off weeks of frustration and only reserved for off-days or desperate times - because something like that inevitably devolves into gratuitous rough sex or worse, day-long fuck-a-thon. Not that Deku doesn't enjoy it, he simply doesn't have the time to indulge and he knows Kacchan doesn't either, so they try to keep their hands off each other unless the occassion begs for much-needed violent release.

But sometimes, you just want instant relief. Sometimes Deku just wants to kick back and relax like a normal person, go on the internet, without everyone hounding him for a piece of his mind.

So he does.

Under Anonymity.

Et viola @allmight9000 comes alive on several media platforms including Tumblr and Twitter. At first, Deku masquerades around as a hardcore All Might fan fighting anyone who dares to diss the retired Symbol of Peace . But since his retirement, his popularity has gone cold, not many heated debates take place around him anymore and as sad as this makes Deku, he decides to discover new venues.

Now, Deku knows there's this dark void of fanfiction lurking on the net and there's no escape from it should he ever set foot into it. He is also aware of the dark things that beckon him from the sewers like Pennywise the Dancing Clown (eg. All Might/Endeavour, Hawks/Endeavour, All Might Bowl, All Might/ Hero Harem, All Might/Midnight, All Might/Aizawa/Present Mic and so on), things he should rightfully keep a safe distance from. But this is fucking Deku we are talking about- ofcourse he dares to dip his foot into the murk of fanfiction.

For science, he thinks, and takes the plunge.

It all goes downhill from there.

One day, Katsuki comes back from his shift to find Deku face-planted into the sofa, he hasn't eaten lunch, hasn't bathed and is claiming trauma, repeatedly insisting that he has sinned and he is going to hell for it, then he shakily holds up a 367k word fic of Villain Might/Endeavour. Katsuki has to slap him back to his senses. Later that night, Deku calls up Toshinori and asks him for forgiveness, when Toshinori asks him worriedly, 'For what?', Deku assures him he DOES NOT wanna know.

After obsessively going through various tropes and completing every Enemies to Lovers / Mutual Pining / Unrequited Love fic there is (and there is a lot, Deku hates himself every day for it), waiting torturous weeks for dead authors to rise from the ashes for a teeny tiny update, Deku finally gives up his small lake of unfulfilling All Might ships (because frankly it's hard to find a fic that suits his tastes and convincingly fleshes out a love story around a man who has pointedly avoided romance for the better part of his LIFE or a find a fic which is COMPLETE) and sets out into the sea of Ships.

Bad Idea.

Very VERY Bad Idea.

(We know it, he knows it. Katsuki is the only one who is blessedly oblivious because he chooses not to wade into Deku's mental shit and compromise his own sanity.)

Strangely, Deku has come to take an odd satisfaction of returning to fan mentality of shipping two people without restraints (rarely more than two)-it's simple, senseless, easy. It gives his head a break from all the overanalyzing it does and gives him a small dose of endorphins when he cant work out, eat out or fuck out the frustration. He was adverse to it first, since these are strangers trying to ship two random people (people he is friends with), and it was unsettling to find so many people shipping them when they've BARELY had any interaction in canon real life! What's the premise of shipping them at all? He just didn't find any allure to it back then. So he kept his reads under fluff and under mature ratings because he feels uncomfortable reading smut about his friends.

But Deku had a 'Oh my God they were ROOMMATES' moment when Jirou and Momo announce that they are dating to the U.A. Alumni, that too after reading a really fluffy Creati/Earphone Jack fic which accurately referenced their public sightings together and spun it into plot-points quite masterfully. ( the author did a real good job on it) And the most horrifying thing about the fic, Deku finds, is the fact that NO ONE, not even the AUTHOR knows how correct they were in their estimates! No one except Deku.

That realization shakes the foundations of Deku's beliefs and morality as he wonders how many fics out there , sfw or smut, requited or unrequited love, enemies to lovers or lovers to strangers, fluff or smut have come so so close to the truth, been so damn close - like an alternate course of their love-story? and WHY IS NO ONE GIVING IT MORE KUDOS?

This is how Deku ends up being the most irredeemable Shipper of the universe- with a mission in hand:

To curate proof of all valid ships and to supply aforesaid proof of it to the world (as subtly as he can of course, so as to not compromise his own identity or the privacy of the Shipped.)

He begins to scour through the net for paparazzi photos, indulges in gossip, pries out information of who is dating whom from his Hero contacts, authenticates it, creates folders and subfolders of photographic 'proof' (they are just teasers really) and whenever anyone writes a fic that comes anywhere close to the real thing he makes sure to tag them in his tumblr/twitter post with photos which basically pour gasoline over their fiery passion to continue dreaming and writing fics around those Ships. Like:

You wrote a fic of Fluffy Iron Fist x Real Steel? Here you go- an obscure pic of them leaving her apartment together

Uravity x Ingenium and Uravity x Froppy? A love triangle that could possibly end in heartbreak?!! Damn, sistah, who knows? (She's confused too, imho) So here you go- Uravity getting tipsy with Froppy and Uravity snuggling to Ingenium under the rain.

One-shot of Chargebolt x Cellophane getting frisky in an alley? Honey, I gotchu. Here's a pic of them arriving at a villain scene together with dishevelled clothes.

All Might x Endeavour Slow Burn? My dear friend- here's a picture of the Symbol of peace roasting marshmallows with Shouto on flaming Endeavour merch. Please don't make me block you.

All Might x Midnight? Here's a pic of my mom, me and my Dad AllMight. Midnight, Who binch?

Celsius (Shouto) x Gale Force Stripper AU? Oh, hey, look I'm totally that one lucky guy who was in the right place at the right time, okay? I dont know these guys personally, OKAY? Not. At. All. But I have some Opinions™ about your fic? and pics to support it. Just wanna show you that maybe...i mean...MAAYYYYYYBEEEE...the stripper is Galeforce, not Celsius? Yeah? Don't worry though, You're doing good. Love the slow build, keep up the good work!

Deku becomes a sensational fic-writer-enabler and often gives inspiration to writers who are looking to write for a new fandom. Deku's got their backs.

He sinks so deep into this Shipping business that one day Katsuki catches wind of it. It was becoming painful to keep ignoring Deku's descent into madness. Katsuki was okay with it as long as the nerd did his job well and fucked him even better (which Katsuki will never admit to enjoying, even at gun point. Pull the trigger, you coward). So, yeah, Katsuki could have accepted all of Deku's weird stalkerish behaviours (even if they weren't fixated on him all the time anymore and the 'Kacchan, sugoi!' comments had plummeted drastically....who needs the shitnerd to validate his worth, right?! Right...it didn't make him pissed AT ALL. because admitting that would mean he enjoyed it, WHICH HE DID NOT, MIND YOU)

What Katsuki couldn't accept was Deku accidentally using his official Hero twitter handle to post a very platonic (but in the eyes of rabid fans- borderline homoerotic) pictures of him and Eijirou and posted it as #Ground_Riot. The fucking flood of Zeku-haters and pro-GroundRioters had the comments section on FIRE. The post goes VIRAL.

Deku, fucking DEKU, the man who is secretly ENGAGED to him, is promoting GroundRiot like NO ONE's business and HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HE DID WRONG.

Katsuki finds Deku happily puttering around their shared apartment completely oblivious to the PR hell that has been licking at his heels. He immediately attacks Deku's account and is completely gobsmacked. Lo and fucking behold- every fifth picture in his blog is fucking GROUND RIOT.

Not just that, apparently, THIS MAN, his fucking FIANCE, is not only a renowned peacemaker in inane Ship wars, but is hailed as a Soothsayer of Ships for always correctly prophecizing "Ships that will Sail into the fucking Sunset', he is basically some minor god in the Hero fandom who is extorting excitement out of fic writers and fans alike so that 'the crime of incomplete fics' can be eradicated once and for all. And Deku's fucking commited to it.

(perhaps more commited to Ground Riot than his own betrothal because there isn't A SINGLE POST of ZEKU on his blog)

There's even a post where he answers an ask from anonymous. The question: "Are you also anti-Zeku? I have never seen you post anything related to that ship. Is it because you think it won't Sail?" And Deku answers shortly how he isn't explicitly Anti-Zeku, but doesn't like the idea of reading fanfics of that ship. He clearly witholds his opinion if the ship will sail or not. Katsuki also finds the chat which started all this shit.

Chat-

Hey! @allmight9000. I wanted to write a GroundRiot fic? Could you give me some inspiration?

Aww, sure! It's my favourite Ship tbh. I love GroundRiot. I have a whole gigabyte of inspirations in my laptop. I'll send you some when I get back home, okay?

Yup!!! I am actually a hardcore Zeku fan. But recently my friends got me into Ground Riot and I am addicted!! But Zeku will always have a special place in my heart <3

I see. :)

Do you wanna try it out? I know you mentioned you don't like it. But I know some REALLY good fics.

No thank you ^_^ I make it a point to not read those fics. I just can't visualize it working, you know?

Oh...np. Each to their own. But I really hope one day you try reading some if you can?

I don't think so ...😅...uh...but..Any preferences for your inspiration though? or genre youre interested in?

Fluffff!!

Haha, okay! Look out for the new post on my twitter!

YASSS!! Love ya!

You too!

Katsuki sees red, he's about to flip his shit when he decides to give Deku one LAST fucking chance to explain WHY THE FUCK is he promoting Ground Riot when he should be shipping Zeku and demands of him if he really wants their Fucking Ship To Sail Or Not.

Deku gets defensive and says of course he does. Katsuki asks why he has been trying to push him onto Eijirou all this time if he wasnt serious about it. Deku doesnt want to answer. Then Katsuki gets fruatrated and asks WHY the fuck didnt he post Zeku.

"Because I don't want to support it"

"We are literally fucking engaged, you moron. What the FUCK do you mean you don't support it?!"

"I support Us, Kacchan! I just don't wanna support Zeku-shippers! Those two things are different!"

"WHy dont you wanna support them?! tHere is No Difference!"

"There is! I am not obligated to do anything for you. But if I admit to shipping Zeku out loud to the shippers, then I'm obligated to post pictures of us and I know that if I start posting that then my blog will literally be a flood of just Us all over!!"

"What is WRONG with that?!!"

"WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ENGAGED IN SECRET! NO ONE IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW! you said it yourself! That you don't like the useless yapping of reporters about your love-life where it isn't their business!"

"YEAH? WELL FUCK THAT!"

And Katsuki whips out his phone, takes a selfie of french kissing the hell out of Deku and immediately posts in on his twitter. Deku has hardly reeled back from that intense kiss when he realizes what Katsuki has done and he practically explodes in shame.

"Kacchan!! Our secret!"

"Your fucking fault, Deku. If I have to deal with the shitty extras at all, it better be for the right Ship, you dumbass. I'll punt you straight to China if I hear Ground Riot from your mouth ever again...capiche?"

"But I like Ground Riot...It's a valid ship, Kacchan. You cant diss on it just like that. It has wonderful scope, and the fluff in this ship is AMAZING. I think I have a soft spot for Uke!GZ and Soft!GZ now... and it is a really mutually productive ship unlike- hrmff!", Katsuki shuts him up with a smack to his mouth and sheds his shirt.

"Shut your mouth and strip, shitnerd. I'll fuck the Ground Riot out of you. Also, let's make this fucking clear that if you mention ANYTHING that goes anywhere near Eijirou's dick,ass, balls or mouth", Katsuki shivers, "then I'll wreck your dick, ass, balls and mouth. Remember that. Now STRIP"

"But what about platonically? That's a solid ship, right? Right, Kacchan? Also It doesn't mention Eijirou's- fuck!!!"

Deku gets wrecked thoroughly.

(Let's observe one moment of silence for his Shipping ass 🙏)

(r.i.p. Deku)

Katsuki later asks him why Deku doesn't read Zeku fics either, cause pretending to not like it to weasel out of obligation is fine, but it doesn't explain why he refuses fo read any either.

"A fic, especially the ones that I like, always are these perfect little stories which always have a happy ending. Can't help it, I'm weak to it, Kacchan- it's why I read fics at all, you know? For the rush of happiness and feels! It's always written with the intention that it will be perfect! And it is. But it doesn't come close to the real thing. There can be fics out there that come really close to what we really have though - but I refuse to accept that any fic could be better than the imperfectly perfect things I have with you, Kacchan. No matter what anyone insists, what I have with you is perfect to me. You are perfect to me. And that's all that matters."

Katsuki calls him an incorrigible sap and turns away to hide a violent flush that turns him red like a stop sign.

Omake:

Katsuki's #Zeku goes Viral too. But at this point no one understands what is going on or WHY. Because GZ appears to be a Zeku shipper when Deku is a GroundRiot shipper. Confusion abounds. Zac Efron memes agonize over Both ships, Captain America Japan Civil War Memes make a comeback. And for some reason, Deku keeps posting Ground Riot afterwards too and everytime he does, the next day he is seen limping.

"Did you have a hardtime with Zero-san at training yesterday?"

Before Deku can answer the one who asks him that, Eijirou comes up, winks and answers in his stead, "Very hard", and runs away to Mina's side before Deku has a shame-filled meltdown.

(The Ground Riot thing stops only when Mina and Eijirou get finally married.)

[fair-fae]

In an ideal world, calling light to someone’s harmful behaviors wouldn’t result in angry people latching onto it as an excuse to spew hate at the accused. Sadly, this is far from an ideal world, but it’s the harmful behavior and the hateful attacks that are an issue, and not transparency being brought to behaviors that will likely hurt people. Threats, personal attacks, slurs, doxxing, leaking unrelated personal info, suicide baiting, anon hate, lies and slander--these are all absolutely abhorrent. I do not condone them, I do not participate in them, and I do not associate with anyone who I know does. Conflating raising awareness of abusers and holding them and their enablers accountable with these vile actions is at best ignorant, and at worst a malicious attempt to undermine victims and those supporting them. Asking for accountability, genuine apologies, and changed behavior is not an attempt to make someone kill themselves or run them out of any community and I very sincerely hope that these things are not what anyone is referring to with those claims because it could be not further from the truth. “Call outs” can serve a purpose and that is just an objective fact. When someone has a pattern of behaviors so harmful, so long-standing, and that so many people have been burned by, sometimes the most logical thing to do is warn the community at large. Equating any and every “call out,” any time a victim steps forward, any time someone is concerned with something people should be rightfully concerned about with “bullying” and “witch hunts” and “crusades” and “defamation” and imagined criminal activity is dangerous, either accidentally or intentionally. You are undermining victims, you are depriving them of a voice, you are cutting off potential future victims from information that could have helped them dodge the bullet, you are telling past victims of abuse and concerned bystanders that their safety and worries do not matter as much as your discomfort at seeing something unpleasant on your dash or being upset that your friend’s actions had consequences for them. Victims are not hurt just by abusers. They are hurt by enablers. They are hurt by people and systems who turn away from them when they ask for help. They are hurt by people who try to shut them down when they try to speak up. They are hurt when their attempts to reach out are met with insults and attacks. They are hurt when they are slandered to gaslight them, isolate them, and discredit their stories. Acting like it’s only acceptable for victims to be upset with their abusers and not all those who worsened, aided in, prolonged, or complicated their abuse and that no one but the abuser needs to take responsibility, apologize, and re-evaluate their thoughts and actions is absolutely foolish. In most cases of abuse, more than one person dropped the ball. And I do have to wonder, how many people would be able to avoid abuse entirely or escape it more quickly if their abuser did not have help? Crazy, slutty, thirsty, dramatic, confused, petty. These are words used to gaslight victims and make their stories seem less believable. But more than that, these are accusations women face every day in their lives in a society that normalizes this sort of dismissal and degradation of women and their experiences. It’s okay to abstain from judgment until you have seen proof something. Please understand, automatically insinuating a woman is a liar or somehow incorrect or malicious is not abstaining from judgment. You are taking a side, you’re just not taking the one that you think is being expected of you. If you need proof someone is abusive despite multiple testimonies, then why shouldn’t you need proof these women are being disingenuous before jumping to that conclusion? The problem was never waiting for screenshots. The problem was being more eager to tear down victims (especially women) than to listen to them. Politely brushing off women to their faces and then slandering them behind their backs does not create an environment where women feel comfortable divulging details and collecting screenshots for you. It does not create an environment where they feel like they can continue to come to you privately with their concerns and criticisms. It does not make them feel like they can talk to you about their problems. They did try to address things quietly and privately, both times. It didn’t work. How many times must victims talk at a wall before you acknowledge they made an attempt? I could talk more about enabling and censorship and how much more power it grants abusers and strips from victims but tbh that would be a whole tl;dr post of its own. So instead, on some personal notes? I tag my posts “discourse” so that anything controversial, opinionated, sensitive, long-winded, or negative can be blocked by anyone who doesn’t want to see it. Not to proclaim “THIS IS MINE HOLY DISCOURSE, READ IT AND AGREE WITH IT, PEONS” or... whatever exactly is being alleged there. It’s solely for your blacklisting pleasure. 

As for hurt feelings? I genuinely mean it when I say it, and I do not feel bad for it and will not apologize for it. If acknowledging enabling as a thing and expecting those responsible to, well, take responsibility hurts your feelings? Good. They deserve to be hurt and I hope you will learn something from it. That is not on me. I am not so insecure or idealistic I expect everyone to like me and everything I say or do. People will disagree, people will even be upset sometimes, that’s life, that’s reality. I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that “enabling abuse is bad” was too spicy of a take for some people. And I wonder, for all your concern about feelings, did you care about the feelings of the victims of both men? The feelings of those let down by G&G’s officers? Did you care when you personally might have reopened those wounds when you denied their failings, protected them, and praised them? Did you care when the victims were undermined when someone proudly proclaimed that she told Kale off so they could have, too, if they weren’t so pitiful! Or did you give her a pat on the back because she was arguing for your side? Did you care about feelings when someone made a post calling people “sociopaths” and throwing around all kinds of personal insults, or did you applaud it and reblog it because it was an argument in your favor? Did you care about feelings when G&G couldn’t issue an apology without trying again to discredit one of the victims who had come forward? That’s the thing about toxic positivity. All the peace and love and happiness and open-mindedness? It only ever seems to apply when you want it to, when it’s your friend, when it’s something you agree with. Otherwise, it goes out the window, or better yet, it’s just a tool to get your way. “Don’t say that, because it makes me unhappy. Don’t do that, because I think it’s mean.” There’s no thought given to anyone else, their wants, their needs. It becomes nothing more than a means to force your will and control the narrative.

Sometimes in life your friends screw up and they gotta deal with that, and you do, too. Just because someone is good to you doesn’t mean they weren’t bad to someone else. Everyone is capable of both. That doesn’t mean you have to stop being their friend. In those times is when they need your love and support the most. However, love and support isn’t denying their flaws and mistakes and failings. It’s not shielding them from the consequences of their actions. It’s not attacking people who are justly critical of them. It’s not coddling them and making excuses for them. It’s helping them improve, helping them learn things, being honest with them with they’ve screwed up. It’s doing all of that no matter how hard it might be and being there for them despite it.

[aunti-christ-ine]

Exclusive: Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online Despite Official Denials

The top voting machine company in the country insists that its election systems are never connected to the internet. But researchers found 35 of the systems have been connected to the internet for months and possibly years, including in some swing states. 

By Kim Zetter  Aug 8 2019, 1:55pm

For years, U.S. election officials and voting machine vendors have insisted that critical election systems are never connected to the internet and therefore can’t be hacked.

But a group of election security experts have found what they believe to be nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states connected to the internet over the last year, including some in critical swing states. These include systems in nine Wisconsin counties, in four Michigan counties, and in seven Florida counties — all states that are perennial battlegrounds in presidential elections.

Some of the systems have been online for a year and possibly longer. Some of them disappeared from the internet after the researchers notified an information-sharing group for election officials last year. But at least 19 of the systems, including one in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, were still connected to the internet this week, the researchers told  Motherboard.

The researchers and Motherboard have been able to verify that at least some of the systems in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Florida are in fact election systems. The rest are still unconfirmed, but the fact that some of them appeared to quickly drop offline after the researchers reported them suggests their findings are on the mark.

“We ... discovered that at least some jurisdictions were not aware that their systems were online,” said Kevin Skoglund, an independent security consultant who conducted the research with nine others, all of them long-time security professionals and academics with expertise in election security. Skoglund is also part of an advisory group, not associated with the research, that is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop new cybersecurity standards for voting machines. “In some cases, [the vendor was] in charge [of installing the systems] and there was no oversight. Election officials were publicly saying that their systems were never connected to the internet because they didn't know differently."

The systems the researchers found are made by Election Systems & Software, the top voting machine company in the country. They are used to receive encrypted vote totals transmitted via modem from ES&S voting machines on election night, in order to get rapid results that media use to call races, even though the results aren’t final.

Generally, votes are stored on memory cards inside the voting machines at polling places. After an election, poll workers remove these and drive them to county election offices. But some counties want to get their results faster, so they use wireless modems, either embedded in the voting machines or externally connected to them, to transmit the votes electronically. The system that receives these votes, called an SFTP server, is connected to the internet behind a Cisco firewall.

For security reasons, the SFTP server and firewall are only supposed to be connected to the internet for a couple of minutes before an election to test the transmission, and then for long enough after an election to transmit the votes. But the researchers found some of the systems connected to the internet for months at a time, and year-round for others, making them vulnerable to hackers. 

Hacking the firewall and SFTP server would allow an attacker to potentially intercept the results as they’re transmitted and send fake results to the FTP server, depending on how securely the ES&S system authenticates the data. Although the election results that are transmitted via modem are unofficial — official votes are taken directly from the voting machine memory cards when they arrive at county offices — a significant discrepancy between the unofficial tallies and the official ones would create mistrust in the election results and confusion about which ones were accurate. 

But Motherboard has learned that connected to the firewalls are even more critical backend systems — the election-reporting module that tabulates the unofficial votes as well as the official ones, and the election-management system that is used in some counties to program voting machines before elections. The researchers said that gaining access through the firewall to these systems could potentially allow a hacker to alter official election results or subvert the election-management system to distribute malware to voting machines through the USB flash drives that pass between this system and the voting machines.

*

Online, the researchers can only see the firewalls configured in front of these systems and cannot see anything behind them — a federal law makes it illegal for them to probe beyond the firewall. But ES&S documents posted online in various counties show that these critical backend systems are connected to the firewall, and ES&S also confirmed to Motherboard that this is the correct architecture in counties that want to transmit results electronically. 

ES&S has long insisted that election-management systems are air-gapped — that is, not connected to the internet or connected to any other system that is connected to the internet — and the company insists to Motherboard that the diagram it provided isn’t showing them connected to the internet.

“There’s nothing connected to the firewall that is exposed to the internet,” Gary Weber, vice president of software development and engineering for ES&S, told Motherboard. “Our [election-management system] is not pingable or addressable from the public internet.” This makes them invisible to bad actors or unauthorized users, he said.

But Skoglund said this “misrepresents the facts.” Anyone who finds the firewall online also finds the election-management system connected to it.

“It is not air-gapped. The EMS is connected to the internet but is behind a firewall,” Skoglund said. “The firewall configuration [that determines what can go in and out of the firewall]… is the only thing that segments the EMS from the internet.”

And misconfigured firewalls are one of the most common ways hackers penetrate supposedly protected systems. The recent massive hack of sensitive Capital One customer data is a prime example of a breach enabled by a poorly configured firewall.

“If they did everything correctly [with the ES&S systems] as they say they do, there is no danger,” Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, told Motherboard. “These are all secure technologies that if [configured] correctly work just fine. It’s just that we have no faith that they are done correctly. And the fact that [election officials are] saying they aren’t on the internet and yet they are on the internet shows us that we have every reason to distrust them.”

Even proper configurations won’t secure a firewall if the firewall software itself has security vulnerabilities that allow intruders to bypass all the authentication checks, whitelisting rules, and other security parameters set in the firewall’s configuration file.

“If this system hasn’t been patched and has a critical vulnerability… you may be able to subvert any kind of security scheme that you’ve put in place,” Skoglund told Motherboard.

While no one is suggesting that any of these systems have been manipulated or hacked, the findings highlight how little local and federal election officials understand how these critical election systems are really configured and connected, and the extent to which they are beholden to what the vendors tell them.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said the findings are “yet another damning indictment of the profiteering election vendors, who care more about the bottom line than protecting our democracy.” It’s also an indictment, he said, “of the notion that important cybersecurity decisions should be left entirely to county election offices, many of whom do not employ a single cybersecurity specialist.”

“Not only should ballot tallying systems not be connected to the internet, they shouldn’t be anywhere near the internet,” he added.

Wyden said two pieces of federal election security legislation that have stalled on Capitol Hill due to Republican leaders — the SAFE Act and a Wyden bill called the PAVE Act — would effectively ban transmission of votes via modem and prohibit connecting any election-reporting or election-management system to the internet or to a telecommunications network at any time.

The ES&S firewalls are configured to only allow authenticated systems to connect and pass data through the firewall to the SFTP server; they also block outbound connections to the internet from systems behind the firewall. Authenticated systems include modem-enabled voting machines at voting precincts, or a computer at regional transmission sites. But even these authenticated systems, armed with passwords to communicate with the SFTP server, can only communicate with that server and cannot reach past this to the critical backend systems, according to ES&S. The passwords for the voting machines to communicate with the SFTP server are generated by the election-management system and passed to the voting machines on a USB flash drive when the systems are programmed before each election, and the passwords are also stored on the SFTP server to authenticate the machines.

The two backend systems — the reporting system that tabulates votes and the election-management system — sit on a local area network, which is connected to the Cisco firewall through a switch. The switch doesn’t provide additional security; it simply acts as a traffic cop to direct incoming data to the right system. To collect the encrypted votes the voting machines have deposited on the SFTP server, the backend reporting system reaches through the firewall to query the server every few minutes. If new files have arrived, the reporting system grabs those, decrypts them to read the votes inside, then tabulates them.

At least this is how the configuration in the diagram ES&S provided Motherboard works. But a different diagram the company submitted last year to Travis County, Texas, as part of a contract proposal, and which is available online, shows the reporting system and election-management system directly connected to the SFTP server through the switch, and all of them are connected to the firewall. This would mean the backend reporting system could bypass the firewall to reach the SFTP server directly, a less secure configuration. Weber of ES&S told Motherboard the Travis diagram is incorrect.

The backend systems in the ES&S configuration are only protected if the firewall rules ES&S has set up for controlling traffic are configured correctly, if the firewalls have no unpatched software vulnerabilities that would let an intruder bypass those protections to install malware on the SFTP server and the critical backend systems, and if the firewalls are also consistently maintained and monitored for rogue connections.

Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons to be concerned about the security of the firewalls and SFTP servers.

ES&S installs and configures the firewalls for the “majority” of its customers, the company told Motherboard. Counties then take over the maintenance or contract it out to a third party, which may even be ES&S in some cases.

Last year, the Cisco firewalls in Wisconsin failed to receive a patch for a critical vulnerability until six months after the vulnerability had been made public and the patch was released, Motherboard has learned. Patch delays aren’t unusual in states that require their election systems to be state certified as well as federally certified — a patch that needs to be applied to a certified system generally has to be reviewed for compliance with the certification requirements before it can be applied. But six months is a long time, and this means the systems were vulnerable to attack during a lengthy period before the 2018 midterm elections.

Another maintenance issue involves slow software upgrades. The researchers on Skoglund’s team discovered that seven of the SFTP servers on the ES&S systems they found are using outdated Cerberus FTP Server 6.0 software that the software maker stopped supporting in January 2017. This means that for the last two and a half years, the maker of that software has not updated it, and going forward will not produce patches if any vulnerabilities in the software are found. The current version is 10.0, and despite the fact that it has been available since November 2018, none of the ES&S SFTP servers the researchers found online are running it.

Not every ES&S backend election system is connected to the internet, because not every county opts to transmit election results. There are more than 33,000 ES&S DS200 optical scan machines with modems in use across eleven states and the District of Columbia. But ES&S told Motherboard it doesn’t know how many of its customers currently transmit results.

What’s not generally known by the public about ES&S election systems is that the company’s entire configuration for transmitting election results — from the modem to the SFTP server — is not certified by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which oversees the testing and certification of voting equipment at the federal level. ES&S voting machines are tested and certified, but the transmission configuration isn’t. The labs test them for functionality to make sure they transmit votes, and that’s it. In marketing literature, ES&S highlights the certified parts of its election system in blue and labels them "EAC Certified Configuration." The uncertified part is highlighted in white and labeled "Extended Configuration."

Weber told Motherboard that instead of federal certification, his company has focused on working with officials in states that allow modem transmission to test and certify the configuration under their own state certification programs. He said this includes a security assessment of the configuration. Asked which states do these security assessments, he cited Wisconsin, Florida, and Minnesota. But someone familiar with Wisconsin’s certification testing, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Motherboard it doesn’t include a security assessment of the modem transmissions and configuration.

Hunting Election Systems 

The researchers began looking for connected systems in July of 2018 after seeing repeated comments from state and local election officials as well as federal officials with the Election Assistance Commission, that voting machines and backend election systems are never connected to the internet.

Although these officials acknowledge that many voting machines use modems to transmit election results over cellular networks and landline connections, they have long insisted that modem transmissions don’t involve the internet.  A New York Times story I wrote last year, however, showed that the modem transmissions do pass through the internet, and even an ES&S document that the company supplied to Rhode Island in 2015 calls the modem transmission of votes an “internet” transmission. A document for modem transmissions from voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems — another top voting machine company in the country — similarly discusses TCP-IP and SSL, both protocols used for internet traffic.

“The configurations show TCP-IP configuration and ‘SSL Optional,’ making it clear that at least the vendors know their systems are connecting through the internet, even if their election official customers do not realize it or continue to insist to the public that the systems are not connected to the internet,” Skoglund said.

Knowing the vote transmissions are going over the internet, the researchers decided to see if they could find the backend internet-connected systems that receive the transmitted votes. They discovered a method of searching for connected ES&S systems after one of their group stumbled across the IP address for an ES&S firewall in Rhode Island in a publicly available document.

After combing through other documents for ES&S systems published online, and finding technical specifications that show the systems use Cisco ASA 5500 series firewalls, and Cerberus FTP software and Cisco AnyConnect VPN for the vote transmissions, they used a specialized search engine called Censys to find connected systems that matched this configuration combination. Censys scans the internet weekly for connected devices and catalogues information about them, including their IP address, in a database. Their search led them to 35 connected systems over the last year, though Skoglund notes that there may actually be more ES&S systems connected to the internet that are not visible to Censys scans, since administrators can configure their connected devices to block automated scans. This doesn’t mean, however, that someone can’t still find the systems online.

When examining the ownership records for the IP addresses of the connected systems, at least four of them were registered to county governments in Michigan and Florida. This helped bolster the researchers’ belief that what they had found were county election systems. The other IP addresses were harder to trace, however, since they were registered to large internet service providers, and not the ISP customers using them.

The researchers found one or two systems online in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Iowa. The Nebraska system, they surmise, is probably a demo or test system for ES&S, which has its headquarters in Omaha. They also found two systems in Canada, where ES&S has field offices and customers, that may also be demo or test systems.

Although only one system was found online in Rhode Island, this one was particularly problematic, the researchers note. Rhode Island, unlike other states, conducts its elections from a centralized office at the state Board of Elections, instead of farming out election administration to each county or jurisdiction. The election reporting system the researchers found online, therefore, was the reporting system for the entire state.

One of the most dense states for online election systems was Florida, where the researchers found a number of connected systems that they believe belong to Bradford, Charlotte, Flagler, Wakulla, Miami-Dade, and Pasco counties, and one other county they’re unable to identity from the IP address.

Florida is known for its knuckle-biting elections. Trump won the state by just 1.2 percentage points in 2016, and in 2018 the state had senate and gubernatorial races that were too close to call on election night. Miami-Dade county in particular, with 1.4 million registered voters, is one of the most intensely watched counties in federal elections — it was using ES&S machines with embedded modems in the 2016 elections.

None of this implies that the election systems in Miami-Dade or any other Florida county were manipulated in the 2016 elections. But the findings highlight what is at stake with critical election systems online.

Any election system connected to the internet creates potential vulnerabilities for elections. But the nine systems in Wisconsin and four in Michigan that the researchers found raise particular red flags since these were two states among three where Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein sought a recount of the 2016 presidential votes. All three states, which included Pennsylvania, produced results that were contrary to election polls and prior state voting trends. Although there was no specific evidence suggesting the election systems had been manipulated, a recount could have helped provide assurance to the public that this wasn’t the case. A court, however, halted the Michigan recount after it began, and a Pennsylvania court declined to hear Stein’s case for a recount in that state.

Wisconsin’s recount was completed, but some counties that used optical scan machines didn’t do a true recount — they simply ran the paper ballots through the optical-scan machines a second time, instead of manually comparing them against the digital tallies to uncover discrepancies. If any problems existed in the scanner software to produce incorrect results during the first scan, they would reproduce the same incorrect results in the re-scan.

The researchers repeated their searches of the Censys database periodically to see when systems dropped out of visibility or new ones popped up online. This allowed them to see the systems connected for long periods of time, contrary to assertions by election officials that the systems for transmitting results only remain connected for a few minutes after elections. Some of the systems do pop up online only around election times, but they tend to remain online about a month before disappearing, not a few minutes.

“Rhode Island is one that kind of comes on and goes off,” Skoglund said. “They don’t stay on year round. But others do.”

Motherboard asked Errata Security CEO Graham, who created an internet-scanning tool called Masscan, to independently verify the methodology the researchers used to find the systems, and he confirmed that the method was sound, using the search parameters the researchers provided. Like the researchers, though, he was unable to explore further without breaking the law, so he could only see the firewalls and not what is behind them. An independent election security expert named Harri Hursti, who consults with election districts and helps run the annual Voting Machine Hacking Village at the Def Con security conference, also verified the methodology for Motherboard without being told how to find the systems. Hursti in fact told Motherboard that many other election systems are online that the researchers’ particular search parameters missed.

The researchers didn’t single out ES&S election systems for their hunt. They also attempted to search for connected systems for the other top two voting machine vendors in the country — Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic. But Skoglund said the configuration footprints for these systems are less distinctive than ES&S’s footprint, resulting in the team finding thousands of systems that were clearly not election infrastructure.

Although the researchers have not been able to confirm with elections officials in every state that all of the firewalls they spotted are connected to ES&S systems, they were able to verify enough of them that Skoglund says he feels confident their list is reliable. And all of the systems the researchers found share a configuration footprint that, as far as they can tell, is unique to ES&S systems. Furthermore, the IP addresses for the firewalls of the non-confirmed systems all appear to be in counties that also use ES&S voting machines, according to a crosscheck against a web tool operated by Verified Voting, a nonprofit that tracks voting machine use around the country. Although resolving IP addresses to precise geographical location is difficult to do, the researchers were able to pinpoint the addresses they found to a specific city or region in all cases except four of the systems.

ES&S did not dispute that the firewalls the researchers found are ES&S systems; the company said it had no way of knowing one way or the other. Motherboard offered to provide the company with the IP addresses the researchers found for the firewalls, but the company said in an email that it doesn’t store customer IP addresses and therefore wouldn’t be able to tell if the systems belong to its clients.

Because the researchers only began looking for the systems last year, it’s not known how long they’ve been online, but it’s likely that some have been connected to the internet for years, going back to whenever a county first began to use modems to transmit election results.

ES&S has been selling systems with modems to transmit results for more than a decade. Wisconsin approved the use of its current ES&S DS200 optical scan voting machines, with modem transmission capability, in September 2015, but its previous generation of ES&S optical scan machines also used modems for transmitting results. It’s not clear if they used the same firewall and backend configuration.

Although election security experts oppose electronically transmitting votes at all, if a county is going to do it, the equipment set up to receive the results should not be connected to the internet when the system is not being used. It serves no other purpose than to receive results.

“While the [reporting systems] are secure, ES&S recommends that they only be connected to the internet when they are being tested or in use in order to minimize possible threats,” a statement sent to Motherboard from ES&S and the Wisconsin Election Commission says.

But Hursti told Motherboard it makes little difference how long election systems are connected; any connectivity at all opens them to potential attacks.

“For a skillful, motivated attacker, it doesn’t matter much if [the system is connected] two minutes or a whole year. But for a less skilled fool, less motivated attacker, the fact that they are there for a year, it lowers the bar,” he told Motherboard. “It actually buries the bar under the ground to carry out attacks with less skill. [And] you have a way longer time when the hack can be carried out and the evidence of the attacks [hidden]. What you are describing is a bad behavior amplified by sloppiness and complete negligence of security.”

A more skilled and motivated hacker — such as a Russia-backed nation-state hacker — could potentially compromise the firewall or SFTP server and plant malware that gets delivered to each voting machine that communicates with the server, Skoglund and Hursti said. This is similar to what security professionals refer to as a “watering hole” attack, named after predatory animals who lie in wait at watering holes for prey to arrive to drink.

And if hackers could push malware to the voting machines from the SFTP server, the malware could potentially reconfigure the modem on those machines to make them dial out to a system the attackers own, while preventing any evidence of these calls from showing up on the system’s log. This would give attackers time to subvert the machines for subsequent elections.

Findings Reported and Confirmed 

The researchers reported the firewall IP addresses in August 2018 to the national Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) — a 24-hour watch center funded by the Department of Homeland Security and operated by the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit established to develop and promote best practices in cybersecurity. The EI-ISAC provides election officials with security threat information and warnings, and told the researchers they would pass the information to where it needed to go, but the researchers never got any follow-up from the EI-ISAC.

A spokesperson for the group would not tell Motherboard if the information was disseminated to the affected counties, but the researchers did see some county systems disappear from the internet. The Department of Homeland Security, which has been working with states and counties since 2016 to secure their election infrastructures, also declined to speak with Motherboard about the researchers’ findings.

The fact that half of the systems were still online last week, however, highlights how new efforts by the federal government and information-sharing groups to warn election officials about known threats and vulnerabilities don’t work if the message doesn’t get to the people who can actually take the systems offline or if local election officials simply don’t act on the information they receive. Last year the researchers gave four IP addresses to the EI-ISAC that the researchers confirmed were connected to election infrastructure in Michigan and Florida.

“The two in Florida were taken offline in the following week or two,” Skoglund said. But the systems in two Michigan counties, Kalamazoo and Roscommon, were still online this week. A third Michigan system is also online, though the researchers are unable to pinpoint the county in which the IP address is located.

Similarly, they reported half a dozen IP addresses to Tony Bridges, election security lead at the Wisconsin Election Commission, for connected systems in Outagamie, Dodge, Milwaukee, St. Croix, Columbia, and Waukesha counties. But despite initial friendly communication, Skoglund said they never received a response.

Bridges told Motherboard he did act on the information he received, advising all of the counties to disconnect their systems when not in use for elections. He was surprised to learn last week from Motherboard that there were still systems online. He contacted the counties again, and Skoglund’s group could see that all off them dropped off except Milwaukee County’s system and another county they had not reported to Bridges last year, Eau Claire County.

The director of elections in Milwaukee County told Skoglund this week that their system was online for a special election next week. Skoglund told Motherboard that when he told her the system had actually been online since September 2018, she said she only learned last week that the systems should not be connected to the internet between elections.

Skoglund has also witnessed another problems as systems dropped offline after his group’s disclosure to a county; some IT workers are simply turning off the SFTP server or switching it to standby mode so traffic can’t come into it. But as long as the firewall is online, the backend systems are still connected to the internet and can be found. And if the AnyConnect VPN is still enabled, this also provides a potential pathway into those backend systems.

Skoglund said he’s concerned that no one is monitoring all of these systems once they’re online, and that counties are trusting the configuration instructions ES&S gives them, or trusting ES&S to configure the systems securely for them, and are then ignoring the systems once they’re set up.

“When a corporation sets up a firewall and a VPN … there is someone who is applying patches and monitoring logs … and really actively ensuring the security of the device to make sure it doesn’t become a vulnerability,” Skoglund said. “That’s a real question with election infrastructure. Who manages this hardware after it’s deployed? And what oversight is there?”   ✜  

          ~*~*~  

  Source: Motherboard  

[mostlysignssomeportents]

EU Commission Decides To Mock The Public; Insists Fears About EU Copyright Directive Are All Myths

On Thursday, the European Commission posted -- on its official Medium page -- an astoundingly juvenile and obnoxious post, lashing out at those who have complained that Articles 11 and 13 in the EU Copyright Directive will be destructive. The post was snide and condescending, and suggested that most of the opposition was fake and "astroturfed" and that anyone who really believed that the EU Copyright Directive was a problem was brainwashed by Google and Facebook. It was... quite a post. On Friday evening, I wrote up a (mostly) line-by-line response to its utter nonsense and planned to post it this week once people were back in the office to review it. However, on Saturday, after widespread criticism, the EU Commission "removed" the post without an apology -- but with the standard cop out of someone who did something bad but can't admit it:

We have removed this article as it has been understood in a way that doesn’t reflect the Commission’s position.

"... it has been understood..." Not "we wrote an insulting, misleading and condescending article that we shouldn't have posted." Not, "we're sorry that we lashed out at the public we're supposed to represent." No, it's all your fault in that you "misunderstood" our obnoxious, snide remarks to be both obnoxious and snide.

Given that so many people missed it and that I already had this post written with much of the original quoted -- what follows is my original post.

This is quite incredible. Earlier this year, we wrote about the Legislative Affairs Committee of the EU Parliament putting out a "Q and A" page about the EU Copyright Directive that was so full of wrong that it was insulting. However, now it appears that the EU Commission has decided to one up its colleagues in the Parliament by posting an article to Medium of all places (one of the many sites that will be massively harmed by the Directive) insisting that you're all fools for thinking that anything bad might happen, and that it's all the fault of Google/Facebook. Thankfully, for at least the time being, I am free to quote large parts of their article and respond to it without having to "buy a license" from the Commission, so let's take advantage of that remaining bit of freedom.

Take this test: Type in ‘EU Copyright Directive’ into the search box in Youtube. The majority of results in the top 20 will be passionately against it. Here’s some of the headlines, if you’re not sure:

‘Shocking update on the Copyright Directive.’ ‘Today Europe lost the Internet’ ‘How the new copyright laws will destroy the internet’ ‘Censorship machines’, ‘EU to end the internet’ or ‘Europe to ban all memes’

Of course, we know from recent elections and referendums that simple memorable slogans — however untrue or unobtainable — can go a long way to winning over hearts, minds and voters. And so it was, that the wholly inaccurate phrases ‘ link taxes ’ and ‘ censorship machines ’ started to be part of the campaign against the proposed Copyright Directive. Never let the truth get in the way of a catchy slogan.

Note the opening here is dripping with condescension, suggesting that even though basically everyone is not only against this law, but speaking out against it, they're all just silly fools, tricked by a slogan. Note that this does not respond to any of the massive problems many, many experts have raised about the approach in the Copyright Directive -- especially on Articles 11 and 13. It just sneers about what it says are inaccurate phrases (spoiler alert: those phrases are not inaccurate).

The idea behind the Directive is to bring copyright rules into the 21st century. The current rules are very analogue and designed for the world before the web. Things have changed. Search and social media platforms largely define the way we enjoy content today, but their market dominance has now tilted the balance in their favour and away from those who design and create original things.

This is hogwash. The "laws" they are trying to change include things like the EU's E-Commerce Directive that was (oh, look at that) passed in the 21st Century, when the web was already around and thriving. Second, the idea that search and social media platforms have "tilted the balance... away from those who design and create original things" is ludicrous. As we've shown for years, the internet has given a massive boost to content creation -- enabling more creation in nearly every single category. It has made it easier to create, produce, release, distribute, share, build a fan base and to make money than at any time in history. The internet has enabled more people than ever before in history to not just create, but to make money from their creations.

If you want to know who it's tilted the playing field against, it's the legacy gatekeepers: the old record labels, movie studios and publishers, who used to operate in an oligopolistic world, with little competition, where they could demand all of the rights from creators in exchange for a small chance of success -- and if success came, those gatekeepers would still suck up nearly all of the rewards. Can anyone tell me if Return of the Jedi is profitable yet? Has Lyle Lovett's record label paid him a dime yet? Meanwhile, artists who are embracing the internet are finding that it can pay off massively.

The world of Article 11 and 13 is a move towards going back to the old system. To force artists and creators into the arms of a small group of gatekeepers who decide if you can even post your content online at all, let alone try to make money from it. For the EU Commission to repeat a completely made up myth that artists are somehow worse off today is not just revisionist history bullshit, it's insulting.

As it stands, big internet platforms such as Facebook or Google make a lot of money from ads that appear on their sites alongside copyrighted material such as music or clips. The more people view, the more money platforms can earn from those adverts.

Very little of the content appearing on Facebook and Google is infringing. Yes, both sites will send a lot of traffic to content elsewhere, and make money on ads from that service, but that's different. Meanwhile, both Google and Facebook have spent many millions of dollars on automated filters to block out infringing content (or to allow copyright holders to monetize that content). So if the idea is to attack those companies with a new law requiring such filters, how does this law "improve" anything?

Answer: it does not. The new law is designed to ramp up the liability even higher -- such that when such filters fail (and they always fail because it is impossible to get right), the fines will be catastrophic. As such, the entire point of Articles 11 and 13 is to be so ridiculous and so draconian, that Google and Facebook would have no choice but to pay up to avoid getting hit with tons of lawsuits. It's an extortionate plan, put together by the EU bureaucrats, to favor legacy gatekeepers.

Just as Google and Facebook are being rewarded financially for all their hard work in producing amazing software, clever algorithms and exciting designs, we think authors, film-makers, journalists and musicians should also be rewarded for their endeavours too. At the moment the balance of power in who gets paid for such royalties resides overwhelmingly with the big Californian companies — who are worth around $1 Trillion.

This implies -- totally falsely -- that "authors, film makers, journalists and musicians" are not being rewarded today for their endeavors. They are. Some successfully. Some unsuccessfully. Demanding that EVERY INTERNET COMPANY that hosts content (not just Google and Facebook) cough up massive sums of money to gatekeepers (who have a history of not paying actual creators) doesn't seem like a smart path forward. It sounds like an utterly corrupt one.

The Copyright Directive is an attempt to create a level playing field where everyone can gain from the amazing options that the new technologies offer. Musicians, artists, video producers and the whole creative sector will benefit by having a fairer negotiating position.

"Everyone can gain"? By making platforms no longer work? By making it impossible to post and share content? By forcing small companies out of business? By killing off the ways in which many independent creators now earn their livings? The EU Commission is so bizarrely disconnected from reality.

Journalists and online publications will have more money to keep on financing quality research and news. Despite what you might read, the Copyright directive supports a free press and could enable journalists to get some money when their articles are shared online. Good journalism costs money and without a free press there is no democracy.

Remember, Article 11 has already been tried in both Germany and Spain, and failed in both places. It did not lead to more money for journalists or publications. It did not help support a free press. It actually harmed a free press. How the EU Commission can just push out blatant lies without people laughing at them is beyond me.

Fair remuneration for and from the platforms and a fairer market place is what we want. We cannot achieve a real European digital single market which makes us all better off, if copyrighted material is misused or poorly remunerated. Because if creative people don’t get paid, they can’t afford to be creative. No Mon = No Fun

Define "fair"? Is it "fair" that Return of the Jedi never made a profit and people who were supposed to share in its profits never did so? Is it fair that Lyle Lovett never received any royalties? It does seem fair that artists who build up a strong fan base, like Amanda Palmer, are able to earn a really nice living supported by her fans. It will be too bad when the platforms that helped her do so -- like Patreon and Kickstarter -- find that they are unworkable under Article 13. That seems... unfair. And again, right now more artists than ever before are getting paid. And that's happening because of the internet that Article 13 will fundamentally change.

And, uh, "no mon = no fun"? Isn't this the same damn post where the EU Commission itself was mocking "slogans"? But let's be clear here: there is currently both more "mon" and more "fun" based on literally every single study of the market place today. The internet has enabled wild creativity -- but also tremendous remuneration. The real problem that the EU Commission has is that this is now being spread around much further, and the old gatekeepers with their strong lobbying relationships aren't able to capture as much of it.

The EU Copyright Directive is corrupt cronyism at its worst.

Just like everyone else, the EU loves culture, cinema, art and music. We have no intention in restricting young people’s access to all these wonderful things on- or offline. Oh and by the way, no matter what some people (and paid-for campaigns) may tell you, you will never be prevented from having a laugh online. WE ARE NOT BANNING MEMES. On the contrary, there will be a guarantee that platforms respect your right to self-expression. That includes pastiche, critique and parody.

They keep saying this and it is nonsense. They demand filters -- and then say that platforms will have to "nerd harder" to figure out how not to use those filters to block memes. What they ignore (purposefully, because this has been explained in great detail) is that no filter can understand the context to recognize what is a "meme" or what is parody. Indeed, popular memes have been at the center of multiple copyright cases.

Nonetheless, it appears as if the largest search and video platforms in the world are afraid of regulation — despite having overwhelming dominance on the internet.

This might be the only accurate statement in this whole damn article. They may very well be afraid of regulation. And maybe for good reasons -- because such regulation will massively and fundamentally change the very nature of the internet -- not just for themselves, but for everyone else as well. That's the concern.

Furthermore, there is ample evidence from respected sources, here and here and perhaps here or here or indeed here that ‘Big Technology’ has even ‘created’ grassroots campaigns against the Copyright Directive in order to make it look and sound as if the EU is acting against the ‘will of the people’.

This is the absolute most disgusting part of this. In one paragraph -- much of it linking to a group of people known for (a) being paid by competitors to Google or (b) conspiracy-theory levels of insanity regarding the internet -- the European Commission simply brushes away millions of citizens and their views. While it's entirely possible that the big internet companies are pushing their viewpoint here, the above paragraph is overly inflated nonsense. The public is going crazy about this, in large part because of nonsense like this that is being put out, where it is clear that the bureaucrats in Brussels don't know (a) how the internet works, (b) what this law will actually do, or (c) what the public is actually saying.

Over at Change.org there's a petition protesting this with nearly 5 million signatures, making it the largest petition in Change.org's entire history. You don't fake that. People are angry. And with good reason, when the bureaucrats, who are supposed to represent their interests, are spewing utter nonsense along these lines.

And the most incredible part? Right after totally dismissing the views of the vast majority of the public, these numbskulls state the following:

That’s another myth. Unlike Google and Facebook, the EU is answerable to the public and to democratically elected politicians.

Answerable to the public? You just pretended the views of the public weren't legitimate. You ignored the largest petition in history. You are not representing the interests of the public, but rather a very small legacy industry which failed to adapt. The whole thing is completely disgusting.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190215/18005841607/eu-commission-decides-to-mock-public-insists-fears-about-eu-copyright-directive-are-all-myths.shtml

[sophibeans]

Etrian Odyssey Nexus class descriptions

A brief, spoiler-free explanation of what each class wants to do and how to use them in a party.

Hero- Frontline Damage and Utility A well-rounded frontliner, Hero's primary gimmick is that skills have a chance to create an "afterimage" in the open 6th party slot, who repeats the skill next turn. Their skills cover most bases, with area, single-target, and all three elements, as well as some shield skills that reduce damage to the party for a turn. A superb DPS with tons of versatility, though they need a bit of build-around to get the best damage possible. Greatest strength is breadth of options, as Hero is one of the best classes to have in nearly every situation. Closest thing to a weakness is that they're somewhat SP hungry- think carefully about whether you’d rather have shield or sword techniques. Pairs best with any strong party that leaves an open spot on the frontlines, since you want the afterimages to be in melee range and need lots of damage to charge up the Hero’s strongest attack.. Also can put out a little bit of off-healing and solid damage reduction, making it easier to get by with less dedicated supports such as Harbinger and Survivalist.

Protector- Defensive Support A defensive support that works on either line, Protector is the class that best reduces incoming damage. Taunts, direct cover, flat damage reduction or even nullification, attack debuffs, every trick in the book from past games is here to improve survivability and give the rest of your party more room to breathe. Can function in frontline for increased aggro or backline to reduce damage taken. Greatest strength is the unique niche of making the party way, way harder to kill. Greatest weakness is limited contribution outside of that, though at least their new counter move chips in on damage somewhat. Pairs wonderfully with squishy damage-dealers such as Nightseeker and Shogun, and allows less dedicated healers such as War Magus or Harbinger to fit the bill.

Medic- Primary Healer Surprising nobody, Medic is the single best healer class in the game, with every kind of healing, revival and curative one could ask for, as well as a get-out-of-jail-free Force Break that fully cures and revives everyone. Would you believe they can deal reasonable damage with hammers, too? Fun tools such as overhealing and multicasting healing allow for a significant degree of creativity. Greatest strength is being the best at getting the party out of bad situations. Greatest weakness is chugging through TP real quick, but realistically a smart player won’t be too worried. Every DPS loves to have a Medic on deck, but due to practically being a defensive support, stacking Medic with another healer is definitely overkill- just one other support should be more than enough.

Survivalist- Backline Damage/Defensive Support/Labyrinth Utility This class is interesting in the best of ways. Out-of-combat utility such as a revive, inventory space increase and gathering is nice. General archery skills give multitarget coverage and access to fire, as well as fairly standard damage-dealing. Where these guys stand out is their dodge utility; their blinding arrow, force boost and accuracy debuff combine to potentially nullify incoming threats, and Hazy Arrow- which you can only use after dodging- is tied for the strongest attack skill in the game. They also can play around with turn order, giving an ally instant priority on the turn order. Greatest strength is widely varied utility. Greatest weakness is middling damage unless you get lucky, and the risk involved in dodge-tanking. Pairs well with inaccurate, slow, or squishy classes such as Gunner and Imperial, and few parties would turn down a little extra damage.

Ronin- Frontline Versatile Damage If you ask me, Ronin is the most interesting it's ever been. Glass cannon katana-wielders by default, they can use Upper Stance to boost damage and lay down single-target skills, Clear Stance to bolster their damage and infliction rates when they use binding or petrifying cuts, or Drawing Stance to improve speed, accuracy and evasion for multitarget damage... or Force Boost to do all three! Using skills during matching stances will grant critical hits, providing some serious value. As the class with the highest Strength in the game, Ronin are superb damage dealers, but ironically are unambiguously the best inflictors thanks to Clear Stance. Greatest strength is awesome damage and the option to build towards a specific direction. Greatest weakness is squishiness, though if you’re careful that shouldn’t be crippling. Loves any and every kind of support.

War Magus- Frontline Healing/Offensive Support Healers with a twist, War Magi have good (no longer insane) damage output, with skills that apply strong secondary effects against targets with ailments, such as debuffs and binds. Bring a dedicated inflictor along with to combo with them! As for their healing, they pack numerous proactive options to block ailments and heal damage, including heal skills that trigger at the start and end of the turn. Greatest strength is extreme versatility, with more to do than other healers. Greatest weakness is lack of specialization- neither their healing nor debuffs nor offenses are as good as more dedicated units, and that’s assuming you even stick the ailment. Pairs best with an ailment inflictor such as Ninja or Nightseeker, enables Harbinger and Pugilist, and enjoys having a non-healing support such as Survivalist or Protector to help out.

Highlander- Focused Frontline Damage Back into the simpler classes, Highlander is a spearfighting berserker class, with powerful attacks and huge strength buffs that cost a chunk of HP and other moves that can restore HP. They also sport mild utility, with anti-status effects and a pseudo-counterattack when they lose HP. Overall, if paired with a decent supprt base, capable of pumping out great damage. Greatest strength is an easy-to-execute way to get excellent value in the form of damage. Greatest weakness is the ever-present chance of getting themselves into kill range with their HP loss. Pairs awesome with other frontline DPS such as Ronin or Imperial due to a row-target attack buff, and enjoys defensive support, particularly healing.

Gunner- Versatile Backline Damage Gunner is probably the most well-rounded of the backline DPS, with all three binds (and huge infliction rates), all three elements (with great damage), and a unique gimmick centered around accurate attacks that reduce evasion and inaccurate attacks that do loads of damage. Heck, they even have a healing move if you're desperate. If you aren't sure who to add and have an open spot on your backline, why not toss in a Gunner? Greatest strength is being one of the most effective "self-sufficient" DPS. Greatest weakness is that most high-value plays Gunners can do are unreliable due to poor accuracy or lowering your defense. Fits into basically every team, but pairs well with ailment inflictors like Nightseeker or Arcanist, since blinded or paralyzed enemies can’t dodge.

Sovereign- Buffing/Healing Support Another support class, Sovereigns are dedicated buffers that make your team deal more damage, take less damage, and all sorts of other tricks. Notably, they have a number of sustain-based healing abilities and can purge buffs and debuffs for more substantial healing. Also of note is Final Decree, a huge one-turn multiplier to outgoing and incoming damage that requires the Sovereign to purge three buffs from themselves. Greatest strength is that Sovereign can (theoretically) handle every imaginable aspect of support all on their own to carry a team. Greatest weakness is that doing so means keeping a lot of plates spinning, and spinning them can run you dry on TP quick. Pairs well with high-power DPS to enable, preferably all on the same line. For instance, a frontline of Ronin+Landsknecht+Highlander. Buffs of the same type stack additively, by the way, if you’re thinking of running more buffs and debuffs alongside a Sov.

Ninja- Backline Debilitating Support Here's another odd one. Ninja can use melee weapons from the backline with full power, have all sorts of status infliction moves, and have dodge-tanking abilities to attract and avoid enemy attacks. Is it a DPS? Is it an ailment inflictor? Is it a defensive support? Its greatest strength is that it can be two of the above at once, and will basically always go first to slap enemies with a hard disable or eliminate a priority target- or even pass an item to someone who needs it! Its greatest weakness is it may not be as good as just running more dedicated units in those roles. Pairs well with anyone who likes ailments and dislikes taking hits (Nightseeker and Shogun spring to mind). Note that Clone isn’t nearly as good as EO3, so completely ignoring it is perfectly valid.

Zodiac- Backline Elemental Damage The dedicated blaster caster. Zodiac get access to fire, ice and lightning right off the bat, and have strong area of effect moves to burn down random encounters. Elemental weaknesses are slightly stronger in this game than in past EOs (no more x1.25 weaknesses), so take note. Also, the base damage on their skills is less than you might expect, so picking up Charge moves to power up is key. Greatest strength is elemental access and consistently high area damage. Greatest weakness is churning through TP astonishingly quickly and, surprisingly, fairly mediocre damage output, especially against weakness-less targets. Pairs well with supports such as Survivalist to draw enemy attacks away or Sovereign to buff the Zodiac’s damage.

Farmer- Debilitating/Resource Management Support Ladies and gentlemen, Farmer is an actual class now. Outside of bosses, they’ll mostly act as inflictors and labyrinth support, giving you extra EXP, items and money while putting enemies to sleep. Unlike before, they can contribute wonderfully to boss fights with their Force Boost, which double-casts all items for free (including status-inflicting items, damage-dealing items, TP-restoring items...) and a Force Break that restores your entire party’s Force to full with a chance to repair broken gauges. Greatest strength is how much easier they make life during day-to-day exploration. Greatest weakness is abysmal stats and how much they struggle to contribute if you don’t come packing an item supply, which means their early game suuuucks. Pairs well with anyone who really wants TP, relies heavily on Force, or likes to see disabled enemies- Hero and Imperial spring to mind, but who doesn’t like an easier time in the exploration phase?

Shogun- Damage/Offensive Support Shogun can either act as dual-wielding katana masters on the frontline, or strategic commanders dispensing buffs and coordinating team attacks from the backline. Perhaps a mix of both! Dual-wielding and no access to armor means they desperately want a defensive support to help out, and they probably want at least one big frontline DPS to enable, but with the right party they can enable some great stuff. Notable for having the strongest attack buff in the game in Great Warrior. Greatest strength is big damage and enabling fun party builds. Greatest weakness is the fact that I cannot overstate how squishy these guys are for frontliners. Pairs well alongside a strong set of frontline attackers, and whatever kind of defensive support you can find- fittingly enough, Ronin and Ninja are great examples. Good at setting up for Landsknecht, too.

Landsknecht- Versatile Frontline Damage The bread-and-butter melee DPS, Landies gain access to sword, rapier, and shield-bash skills, as well as Links: an elemental attack that then hits again every time an ally hits the same target this turn. They also sport a number of abilities to play with turn order, with ways to enable going first and skills that reward you for going first. Greatest strength is pure simple power (for non-linkers) or the strong elemental damage (for linkers). As for weaknesses, Linksknechts really need a party built around enabling them by hitting enemies as many times as possible and need to juggle two self-buffs. Meanwhile, non-Linkers are pretty much the “baseline DPS”, with no real weaknesses (but not as high peaks as other options.) Fits wonderfully into any team, since everyone likes a tough, powerful frontline attacker. Worth noting that the only DPS that don’t have a strong multi-hit attack to Link off of are Highlander and Imperial, while Shogun and Pugilist have the greatest focus on multi-hits. [Disclaimer: This ain’t EO4, and Links are no longer busted OP. If you build a party that sets off a lot of links and nothing else you’re gonna be disappointed.]

Nightseeker- Frontline Ailment-based Damage Speaking of good damage, Nightseekers have Throw skills to inflict enemies with ailments, and gain huge buffs to damage against disabled foes. Though they have poor defense, their Shadow Cloak ability can temporarily block incoming attacks. Greatest strength is that they can pump out huge damage with little specialization and only a turn of prep. Greatest weakness is inconsistency, between the chance of ailments not sticking and their low defense. Pairs well with a good defender such as Protector and maybe ailment inflictors such as Arcanist, though depending on your build your Nightseeker may want to solely inflict ailments themselves to build up stacks of Foul Mastery. (Consider Nightseeker as a subclass for any of your DPS if you already have a strong inflictor.)

Arcanist- Backline Disabling/Healing Support And here's another disabler. Arcanists apply Circle spells, lasting effects that repeatedly try to inflict ailments or binds on enemies that the Arcanist can dispel early for a powerful effect. The first such effects are all-party heals and revives, making them good supports. They also put out good damage with the dismiss attack spells. Greatest strength is their strong disables and incredible healing numbers to keep momentum in your favor. Greatest weakness is running out of stuff to do once you’ve set up, as well as high TP costs. Note that Circles have relatively low infliction rates to balance their over-time effect, too. Capable of healing reasonably well for most teams, but especially loves to work with allies who can get value off of ailments and binds such as Nightseeker or War Magus.

Imperial- Frontline Burst Damage If you like to see big numbers, do I have a class for you. Imperials overheat their mechanical swords to deal hundreds if not thousands of damage, then chain together combo skills to reduce the cooldown timer and prepare for the next burst. For best results, lay down as many buffs as you can to get some real fun cooking. Greatest strength is their apocalyptically high damage numbers, and not unreasonable damage while on cooldown. As for weaknesses, they're incredibly slow, expend huge chunks of TP from a tiny pool, and take double damage on the turn they're using their big damage skills. Be wary. Pairs great with Survivalist to make them faster, Protector to cover their defenses, or (god forbid) Farmer to keep their TP and Force meters topped off.

Pugilist- Frontline Debilitating Support Barrage Pugilists return from EO5 to apply binds, deal damage and hit as many times as possible in a turn. Each attack has a chance to lead into another, with binds tacked on for good measure. Fully bound enemies, in turn, take massive damage from their finisher, Leading Blow. Please note that these guys are NOT the same as EO5 Pugs- Impact Pugilist goodies have migrated to Highlander, and moves like One-Two Punch got nerfed in damage but buffed in infliction rates. Greatest strength is being far and away the best in the game at hogtying enemies. Greatest weakness is a dearth of options in multi-target fights, and thoroughly mediocre damage. Loves to pair with anyone who wants their prey debilitated, such as Gunner or Imperial, and makes a great Link activator for Landsknecht.

Harbinger- Debuff/Healing Support The final returning class, Deathguard Harbingers act as debuffing supports, lowering enemy attack, defense, and notably ailment and bind resistance. As they apply stacks of the Miasma Armor stance, they can remove it to heal and revive the party, and block incoming ailments. They can do reasonable damage on a fully debuffed target, too, although if you want Deathbringer Harbinger you may want to use Nightseeker instead. Greatest strength is the mixture of healing, damage and debuffs becoming more than the sum of their parts. Greatest weakness is that you need to juggle a lot of timers and getting thrown off hurts your effectiveness. Pairs wonderfully with anyone who wants to stick ailments or binds, but fits into most parties that don’t already have a dedicated buffer, since buffs and debuffs stack additively and thus aren’t great in saturation.