#one element being the specific use of the phrase “kid” instead of child

[artbyblastweave]

I find this one from The Onion really interesting because half the gag here is that they're usually more complicated than this. I laughed out loud at this, but there's a level on which this isn't really a good joke in a vacuum. "Our political enemy eats children" is not, like, a complicated or novel swing to take. It's not outside the overton/poe window for an actual accusation someone might make for real about a politician. And if this came from a non-Onion, Onion-inspired satire site, it would feel like they were badly grasping at straws.

But I didn't encounter this in a vacuum- I encountered this while scrolling, where this is juxtaposed against a bunch of articles that are dependent on wordplay or "spot-the-imposter" elements inserted into otherwise plausible headlines. For me, the naked, straightforward over-the-top libel hits like a truck when I've primed myself to have to think about the headline for a second. This feels like the digital analogue to something that I remember the printed editions used to let them do; when you've got a physical layout on paper, you can wedge in some hammerblow gags like this as tertiary headlines in the sidebar, made more impactful because of how something so brazen is downplayed in its placement.

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

Parent Manipulation Part 2 - Originally posted in 2005 OnTheEmmis.com, a Meehan Program Survivor Website and Discussion Forum. (ICECAP is the former incorporation of enthusiastic sobriety programs, it has since dissolved due to the effectiveness of OnTheEmmis.com)

So what’s the harm?

Well, it’s a dishonest way to make a living, for starters, and that is the very least of the harm done to people.

Let’s start by looking at the staff.

ICECAP has several lines for the skeptic who attempts to question the professionalism and integrity of their general staff.

“I may not be a doctor, but I’ve had my face in the ground long enough to know what the dirt looks like” is the sort of catch-phrase one may encounter when asking about ICECAP staff qualifications. The idea is one borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous, that only a drunk can help another drunk. AA has been widely successful in rehabilitating alcoholics based on this principal, in which the catalyst is that one’s experiences lends him/her the ability to identify with the ‘alcoholic who still suffers��.

Further, the staff of ICECAP claims to function therapeutically from the platform of Alcoholics Anonymous principals and spiritual conditioning. The reason for all of this is so the ICECAP staff and methodology has a credible ‘foundation’ to justify its hiring and facilitation of non professional counselors. In short, AA is a household name, and is widely recognized as something that works. ICECAP uses this fact as a springboard for its operations.

The big problem with that idea is that ICECAP programs are not in any way similar to, affiliated with, kind of like, or even remotely in any way like AA. Alcoholics Anonymous is a non-profit self-help environment which has many safeguards cemented into its foundations that prevent any sort of ‘ego’ or for-profit interests from plaguing its members. Specifically, what AA refers to as ‘The Twelve Traditions’ are rigidly adhered to and aggressively enforced as guidelines to keep the AA name from anything that would divert the program from its primary purpose. The only similarity between ICECAP and AA is that they both have their members often form in a circle at the beginning and at the end of their meetings. Beyond that the two are apples and oranges.

Anyone who spends more than six months in both programs can easily see the canyon of differences that separate the two programs. The truth is, ICECAP drops the name of AA when it is convenient for them to do so, and rarely if ever gives the program any real credence.

“We are not AA, we are not trying to be AA, and we don’t play by the same rules as AA” (-direct quote- Michael C. Stonebraker, director and board member of ICECAP).

Ask ANY graduate from ICECAP, and they will tell you that a common dilemma that nearly every graduate experiences after leaving ICECAP and moving on to AA is that they are troubled with the inherent differences between the two groups philosophy’s for recovery. After years of ICECAP meetings, they are confronted with having to adjust to an entirely different program. In fact, most would say you are not off the mark if you suggested that it would have made just as much sense for them to graduate ICECAP into a monastery, or a school for lion tamers; instead of AA. They all have about the same in common: nothing.

Shouldn’t a program that claims to operate out of AA’s principals lend an easier transition to its clients from its rooms to AA itself?

I am painting this picture to illustrate that there is really nothing holding much water in ICECAP’s claim that its staff has credibility to function with kids from ideas that it ‘borrows’ from AA. To whatever extent a particular staff member of ICECAP attends or postures themselves as AA members, they do not deliver the principals of AA in a therapeutic manner to their clientele.

So what does that leave them with? Not much. The average ICECAP counselor is a high school drop out with no college or accredited training whatsoever. If asked for their credentials, they will respond with an array of phrases and ideas, all of which are meant to lead one away from any real answer. They will suggest with confidence and bravado that since they ‘come from the same place’ as their clients, they have an ‘edge’ in dealing with them the rest of the ‘professional’ community doesn’t. All of this can be very convincing to a parent, especially since their child seems to have taken so well to the given staff member. Again, this is ICECAP using the ‘unorthodox is better’ angle to begin the process of manipulation.

If long hair, dated language, concert t-shirts, a pretty face and a proletarian understanding of AA principals were all it took to rehabilitate a drug addict, then the world would be free of drug addiction tomorrow. The problem is that that is pretty much the only thing the average ICECAP counselor has going for him/her in terms of professionalism. They are funny and good looking. They know how to say ‘dude’ without looking like an old nerd. Kids love them and worship them. But they are INEPT AT ASSISTING THEM TO RECOVER FROM REAL DRUG ADDICTION!

So what then, does the average ICECAP counselor provide for a kid, if not sound professional guidance into the world of recovery?

Here are some of my observations on ICECAP provisions:

Kids in ICECAP are subjected to enormous pressure to take on the identity of a ‘dope fiend’. The ‘dope fiend’ model is constantly being illustrated to newcomers by staff and group members. It begins with traits that a lot of teens possess…rebellious action/ideation, foul language, ‘shock value’ expressionism, etc. But the irresponsible thing that ICECAP does with kids is that it sets them up to feel inadequate if they do not measure up to the complete profile of ICECAP’s ‘dope fiend’. The reason that this is such a bad idea is because the majority of ICECAP clientele are NOT ‘dope fiends’. If your kid is in ICECAP for any period of time, you will see a mental, physical and emotional change in them. Most parents (especially the ones who have invested thousands of dollars into this) view this as a good thing. If the changes in the child were not for the worst, I would agree with them. However, these changes include almost invariably the following:

Separation from school/education/career

Increased use of tobacco. Non-smokers will be encouraged to take up smoking (bizarre, but true).

The decline of a coherent or educated vocabulary. This is no joke. There is a rigid ‘dummied up’ dialect spoken by every member of ICECAP.

The encouragement of illegal behavior (curfew violations, trespassing, vandalism, underage smoking, etc.).

Limited exposure to outside influences. Music, films, books, clothes, sources of education, hairstyles, jewelry, where you get a cup of coffee, tattoos, leisure activities and more are all mandated by ICECAP doctrine.

Maladjusted/confused sexual behavior (more on this later)

One dimensional thinking/ apparent inability or unwillingness to think diversely or with any complexity.

Extremely narrow elements of thoughts applied to a very wide range of ‘life factors’, or; every problem life presents seems to have the same two or three things as an answer/rationale.

Constant fear of being ‘fucked up’, or ‘spiritually bankrupt’. ‘Negative’ actions by other people are consistently the result of these things.

Inconsistent/erratic emotional responses to seemingly normal situations.

Why would a kid willingly subject themselves to this?

The hook for teens is fairly obvious: Their parents leave them alone, they no longer have to go to school, they are allowed to smoke cigarettes, swear, and die their hair indigo blue if they want to, and there is usually a large enough pool of attractive peers to make the whole idea of ICECAP treatment not sound so bad.

Ask any current group member, and they will tell you that they do not feel controlled…that it is their choice to attend ICECAP. They will defend their positions with feverish resolve. They will claim moral high ground and a better way of life as what motivates them to ‘keep coming back’. Tell them that they are brainwashed, and they will respond by saying ‘well, maybe my brain could use a little washing…considering how sick I was’. Tell them they live their life in a ‘bubble’, and they will respond by saying ‘if this is a bubble, than I’m glad I’m in it…compared to the sick world I was a part of before!’

Two things are happening here: First, the child is offered nearly unlimited freedom, which in most cases is like a dream come true to them. What fifteen year old would turn that down? Second, instead of providing competent therapy or treatment, each kid is given this ‘dope fiend’ model, and as long as they adhere to this model, than they are ‘ok’. Everything that made Johnny ‘Johnny’ will be whittled away as he progresses through the ranks of ICECAP. He will attribute the changes to ‘getting rid of old behavior’, or ‘changing old tapes’, when in fact he is being herded and molded in a way that only a program facilitated by foolish, irresponsible amateurs can handle.

The sickest thing about this to me is the way they are manipulated by ICECAP into such devotion. The adolescent is such an impressionable creature, and everything that can possibly be used to woo them is carefully applied by ICECAP.

In Bob Meehan’s book, ‘Beyond the Yellow Brick Road’, there is a chapter called ‘The Teenage Psyche’. This is another decent chapter in this book. I’d encourage anyone to read it, because it perfectly illustrates what I am saying. If there is one thing that Meehan certainly has his finger on the pulse of, it’s what will attract a teenager. The ‘dope fiend’ model in which Meehan’s programs are forced to operate out of because of their gross lack of sound professional tools combined with the fact that ICECAP targets kids who are NOT ‘dope fiends’ creates a crippling environment for teenagers who would have otherwise just gone on with life.

Why would Meehan build his programs on such weak foundations professionally? To me that’s simple: Cheap labor. It’s not so hard morally to build a staff out of a bunch of negligent weirdoes like Mike Weiland, when your real aim has nothing to do with helping kids in the first place.

I believe that Bob Meehan has had two objectives from the very beginning. One was to satisfy his enormous ego, which he had never been able to accomplish prior to these programs. More importantly and certainly more dangerously, he wants money. It is no coincidence that every single person on the ICECAP payroll has been farmed from the group. These kids spend years trying to live up to those they believe (because they are told) are the most spiritually evolved humans on the planet (staff), and then picked to become the next generation of over-worked, under-paid servants of Bob Meehan’s empire.

Who pays the price? You, and more importantly…your kid.

And what of the rare occasion that a true addict walks through the doors of ICECAP?

It’s even worse for them. Many of them die.

[monkeymindscream]

What are your thoughts on Krinkle?

Random question, but I can work with it.

A couple years ago I made a post talking about how Krinkle was my least favorite character in the show. I’ve since written for him a fair bit, and have come to realize he is really fun to write.

Like - y’know how actors will talk about how much fun it is to play a villain, because they get to do things they wouldn’t normally get to when playing a hero? It’s kind of like that. When things happen with other characters, their responses need to be within certain parameters of logic. All that goes out the window with Krinkle. Something can happen and instead of moving from point A to conclusion B, Krinkle can jump all the way to point XIII. The plot he’s following will always be four steps to the left of whatever the main cast is doing, because he willfully exists in a narrative all his own. That is immensely entertaining to write, and to date the pieces I’ve written from his perspective are among the things I view least critically of my work. I’ve become paradoxically fond of him as a result.

...to a degree. I unfortunately still find it really difficult to sympathize with him at all. Frankly I find it difficult to understand how anyone could sympathize with him. Him specifically, I mean; I can completely understand feeling sympathetic/bad about the position he ends up in. But towards him personally as a character? Ehhhhhhhhh...

Something I realized while pondering how to phrase this whole thing was I never really interpreted Krinkle as a depiction of mental illness. I mean that’s absolutely what he ended up being, and regrettably not an especially flattering one at that. Which I mean - early 2000s, what can ya do besides try to be better moving forward? But anyway yeah even as a young kid watching the show for the first time, I always saw Krinkle as more of an exaggerated parody of a crazy fan, not a crazy person. Primarily because he was exhibiting traits I’d seen around forums and in fanfics at the time, just cranked up to 11. 

For example, his first appearance sees him attempting a very popular method fanfic writers would use to get their OCs on the Team. Specifically the Team would be in trouble, the OC would swoop in to help, and BAM now they’re a Hyperforce member. Plus his entire second appearance is basically one giant spoof of a self-insert fanfic as a whole: The aforementioned insert takes the main character’s place on for no reason, the insert has all of the same powers of the main plus a lot they don’t, they have a tragic backstory, the whole world (and plot) is centered around them and their whims, all that. 

That’s how most of Krinkle’s plans play out, honestly - he tries to apply fanfic logic to his actual life, and then gets angry when his leading actors don’t stick to his script. And his actions seem too... how to put this - pointed? from the writers’ end to not have been intentional. Which is why I don’t think he was supposed to be a stereotype of mental illness, but rather a playful jab at the fandom. 

He turned into a stereotype of mental illness anyway (showing him in a padded room certainly didn’t help), but for what it’s worth I don’t think it was the goal. Which calls forth a separate conversation regarding writer intent vs. fan interpretation, but that’s a whole thing just on its own. So I’ll drop this point here. 

Going back to me not personally feeling any sympathy for him - I openly acknowledge that’s maybe a little weird considering how ardently I’ve played devil’s advocate to some of the other villains from this show, but hear me out.  The others are often SO over the top and Saturday morning cartoon supervillain-y that I have an exceedingly difficult time feeling a genuine emotional response to their actions beyond “mm. bad. don’t do that.” Moreover, the worst of what the other villains do would be rendered impossible if the fantastical elements of the show were removed, which again makes it hard to feel especially offended by them.

Krinkle, though? All else stripped away, a considerable chunk of what Krinkle does is still both very possible and very unsettling. You can connect a lot of his behaviors to real-life stalkers. And it gets really hard for me to reconcile this stuff with the kids’ show he’s in, sometimes. What I’m trying to say is sometimes he feels a little too... real, for me, I guess.

Further muddling my opinion on Krinkle is that - whenever I see him being discussed - I get unreasonably defensive on the Team’s behalf. It always seems to swing back around to how badly they handled the situation. For example there was one comment I saw on A Man Called Krinkle on YouTube years ago (like I’m talking "if you wanted to upload the episodes you had to split them into three parts” YEARS ago) where someone basically said how sorry they felt for Krinkle, and was berating the Team for putting him on Ranger 7.

Ohhhhohoho y’all-

So, first issue I take with this, just straight off the cuff: What the hell was the Team supposed to have done differently? Kept him around, tried to fix his issues themselves? Visited him at Ranger 7, fed into his delusions to make him feel better, perhaps? Does this person expect real life stalking victims to make an active effort to help their stalkers get well, too? 

Also- ALSO: The Team is comprised of five (canonically somewhat socially-isolated) monkeys and a freshly thirteen-year-old child. The “adults” in the situation’s response to their first leader going ‘round the bend was “PUT HIM TO SLEEP FOREVER,” presumably because they just didn’t know what else to do. How could any of them possibly know what to do with some rando who had mental health issues clearly beyond what they were capable of helping? One who - I’d like to remind everyone - broke into their home, took them hostage, attempted to force them to unwittingly kill the kid they’d adopted, and then tried to commit murder-suicide?

(I realize that this is swiftly turning into me just getting feisty about this one comment from a minimum of 14 years ago. Look at me care.)

Also... this might just be me interpreting things wrong, but Krinkle kinda, sorta... doesn’t seem to want any help? Or acknowledge that his actions are in the wrong at all? Because okay, he claims he built his own “perfect world”  because he was sick of humanity (and wherein everything has his face and his every whim is immediately catered to; don’t try to tell me that shit don’t mean anything). And to even get the chance to build that world, he had to forcefully take over the facility that was conceivably trying to help him get better. That feels... pretty indicative of how much (or little, rather) he must’ve cared about improving. Which, if this is accurate, means that Krinkle was actively choosing to continue risking harm to other people and putting his needs and wants over theirs.

So um. Those are my thoughts, I guess? I think it’s interesting to explore his psyche but I really, really dislike him as a person. Obviously if you do like him/feel sorry for him/disagree with me on any count that’s completely fine. You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion. But yeah, that’s personally where I stand.

[lostinthewinterwood]

AU Exchange 2020

Hey friend!

Looks like this letter’ll be going out on time, for once in my life.  This one’s very long; there’ll be a list of fandoms after the general info so you can hop around and not get bogged down in the details that don’t matter for what you’re going to be writing.

Treats in any medium are welcome, my other exchange letters are here, and at the bottom there’ll be tags for each fandom I’ve requested, if you want to see whether I’ve requested them before and what I’ve said about them.  Good luck, have fun, and thanks for writing for me!

 General DNW non/dub-con; non-canonical major character death; heavy angst; hurt no comfort; graphic depictions of deliberate and methodical self-harm*; graphic depictions of suicide; smut; gore; grimdark; complete downer endings; character bashing; incest; cringe comedy; a/b/o; mpreg; graphic eye trauma; graphic and/or permanent hand trauma; issuefic; unrequested identity headcanons; a focus on unrequested romantic relationships**. *I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. however, something like cutting would not be appreciated. **canonical levels of canonical ships are perfectly fine; background non-canon ships that I haven’t dnw’d are okay too (unless otherwise specified—see below for fandom-specific notes).

  General Likes

– I really like plotty fics

– Secret identity and disguise shenanigans, the more layers to them and more absurdity the better.

– Crossdressing for whatever reason and gender disguises, also for whatever reason.

– A focus on family and/or friendship, especially characters realizing they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are, and just generally characters who like each other and enjoy spending time together

– Found family; families of choice

– Character studies

– Worldbuilding

- explorations of how whatever AU you pick to write affects the characters and/or plot, and the ways in which it doesn’t

  Other General Notes:

If there’s an AU I’d especially like to see on its own, without any other AU in combination with it, I’ll mention it—outside of that, feel free to combine the AUs as you see fit.

All the times that the Dragon Rider au is one I asked for, I’ve framed it in my prompts as a sports story thing—while that would definitely be great, don’t feel pressured to make it be like that; it’s just where my prompting muse is at right now, so if you want to take it in another direction go right ahead.

  Fandoms in Order of Appearance:

Hanging Out with a Gamer Girl

Harry Potter

Mother of Learning (x2)

Day Break Illusion (x2)

  Hanging Out with a Gamer Girl (Manga)  

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Terazaki Kaoru (HOwaGG)

·        Ousaka Nanami (HOwaGG)

·        Group: Terazaki Kaoru & Ousaka Shouko (HOwaGG)

·        Group: Terazaki Kaoru & Ousaka Nanami (HOwaGG)

 Fandom-specific dnw: sexualization of Kaoru’s crossdressing, romance between Kaoru and Nanami beyond light shiptease à la canon (unless the AU chosen is a romantic fairytale, in which case go right ahead), full justification of Kaoru’s fears re: Nanami’s dad, heavy gender dysphoria.

 Overall I love these kids and their friendship, and I also love how much Shouko feels like a mom to Kaoru even though he isn’t hers, even though he’s keeping secrets from her—he doesn’t seem to have that much parental support overall.

Whatever AU you pick, I’d appreciate that being preserved.

  ·        ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

·        All: East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion

·        All: Fairytale Fusion

·        ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

·        ALL: Magic is a part of everyday life

·        ALL: Magical Girl Fusion

·        ALL: Magical Realism

·        ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

 For this set of tags, I’d love to see something that fuses the AU elements to canon, or replaces canon elements with them—maybe instead of gamers, the kids are magical girls!  Or maybe there’s just magical elements wound seamlessly into their lives, or they instead live in a fairytale world, or…

Basically, this is my more generic magic!au set.

  ·        ALL: Characters met as children

·        ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

·        ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

·        ALL: Mute Canon Characters

·        HOwaGG: trans girl Terazaki Kaoru

 These are the generally mundane AUs—if one or both of the kids is disabled in some way, how does that affect them?  If they’ve known each other longer than they have in canon, or used to know each other—how does that affect them?  If Kaoru is a trans girl, is that something that she knows before their canon meeting, and maybe that’s a point at which she’s already begun transitioning?  Or does the crossdressing give her a revelation?

  ·        ALL: Daemon AU

·        ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

 I like daemon!aus a lot, though I’m not very good at writing them myself—if this world has daemons, what are the kids’?  Are they fully settled yet, or not quite?  Most people have daemons opposite to their sex—is it obvious that Kaoru’s daemon is female, and if so, does that pique Shouko’s interest?  Does his daemon get him recognized by people who know Kaoru-the-boy even when he’s out looking like a girl?

  ·        ALL: Dragon Rider AU

·        All: Figure skating AU

 Sports aus!  One mundane, one distinctly less so… what’s it like, if they’re dragon riders? Is it a whole other world, or just our world +dragons?  If it’s figure skating, what kind of skating do they do?  Singles?  Pairs? Ice dance?  Are they just casual about it or competitive?

  ·        ALL: Platonic Soulmate AU

·        ALL: Soulmates - Soulmate Mark Appears At First Touch

·        ALL: Soulmates Share Scars

 These are probably my three favorite kinds of soulmate AUs—run with them!  Tell me about the kids and their dynamic and the world they inhabit, with soulmates thrown into the mix!

     Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling   

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Percy Weasley (HP - JKR)

 Fandom-specific dnw: non-canon ships.

 I’ve phrased this so broadly because it’s generally better safe than sorry on these things—essentially what I especially don’t want is non-canon ships between people on opposite sides of the war, e.g. drarry, harry/Voldemort, etc. If you want to toss in background, idk, Pansy/Daphne or something, or relationships between various Ministry people, that I don’t mind.

 ·        ALL: Underground Resistance

·        HP: Percy Weasley is a spy for the Order of the Phoenix during the war

·        ALL: Character Is a Secretly a Spy for the Other Side

 There’s really one thing I want here—spy!Percy!  He spends so much of the war in the Ministry, surrounded by Death Eaters and their accomplices and enablers, to all appearances the black sheep of the Weasley family and not much of a threat.  Now, this could be genuine… but it could also be him playing them; I want to see a world where he, at some point—maybe after he chooses to stay with the ministry instead of his family, maybe before—decides to be a spy for the Order et al.

What are the risks?  What can he accomplish?  Can he help people beyond simply passing out information, perhaps with seemingly-inconsequential little acts?

     Mother of Learning - nobody103   

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Kirielle Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

 request-specific dnw: physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family, significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction, romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian.

 ·        All: Character has a secret identity

·        All: Identity Porn

·        ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self

·        MoL: Kirielle as a Branded One

 I’m fascinated by the idea of Kirielle somehow getting wrapped up in the time loop—what’s it like to live years and years of your life while your body stays nine?  What does she do, what does she learn?  Are Zach and Zorian still Branded Ones, or is she taking one or both of their places?

If you go with this, I’d rather not have her gate!soul erased—either let her escape, or don’t go far enough to need to address it, please.

The identity bits here are mostly leaning on the idea that, with her only being nine, Kiri would need some kind of identity obfuscation to do half of what Zach and Zorian do in canon, so…

  ·        ALL: Daemon AU

·        ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

 Nothing particularly profound here—but! Daemons! How does this affect things? Is Kiri happier with someone to talk to who isn’t her siblings or parents or village children that her parents mightn’t approve of?  I’d imagine her daemon hasn’t settled yet—what forms does it like?

  ·        All: Changeling AU

·        ALL: Fairy Tale AU

·        All: Fairytale Fusion

·        All: Historical Fantasy AU

·        ALL: Magical Realism

·        ALL: Nature Magic

 The setting and/or mood change AUs—give me Kirielle-the-faerie child, or Kiri in a fairytale, or shift the setting more historical and into our world, or change the nature of the magic—the canonical magic system is fairly hard as magic systems go, which works well for the story as it is, but I also really like softer magics.  What about a world where there’s simply small everyday magics present, or where Kiri has an affinity for green growing things quite beyond the natural?

  ·        ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

 How does Kiri’s life change, if she’s born deaf or becomes deaf?  How does her role as Cikan Kazinski’s only daughter change?  Does Eldemar have a Deaf community?

This could play into her desire to go to Cyoria, too—I wouldn’t expect Cirin to have much in the way of resources or community, but maybe Cyoria does; maybe that’s why she wants so badly to go.

  ·        ALL: Finding Peace/An End to the War

·        ALL: Legal Drama

·        ALL: Magical environment/species conservation scientist au

·        ALL: Magical horticulturists

 This set is more likely future!fic than anything else—Kirielle’s growing up into a country on the brink of war; what’s she going to do when she gets older?  Maybe she’ll be involved in that, or with the law—or maybe she goes to school and learns to be a mage, and then goes on to a career as a conservationist or horticulturist.

    Mother of Learning - nobody103   

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Zorian Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

·        Zach Noveda (Mother of Learning)

 request-specific dnw: physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family, significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction, romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian (unless in a romantic fairytale au).

 ·        All: Changeling AU

·        All: Fairytale Fusion

·        ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

·        ALL: High Fantasy AU

·        All: Historical Fantasy AU

·        ALL: Magical Realism

·        ALL: Nature Magic

 Again, setting and/or mood changes—turn one or both of these two into a changeling child, or push them into a different setting, or change their world to feel a little more magical than it does in canon.

  ·        All: Character has a secret identity

·        ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

·        ALL: Legal Drama

·        ALL: Magical environment/species conservation scientist au

·        ALL: Magical horticulturists

·        ALL: Role Swap AU

 This set is a combination of probably-post-canon things and things that could slide into the canon timeline—what if one or both of them went to more effort to construct a second identity, either in the loop or out of it, for anyone’s benefit?  What if one or both of them was deaf—if you go here, it’d be interesting if you combined it with deaf!Kirielle too.  A role swap—what if Zorian got there earlier and the angels didn’t think him unworthy, and Zach wound up his tagalong instead?

And the other three are basically what-ifs for the post-canon world—there’s Zach’s court case to be dealt with, and these two are both skilled enough to do basically whatever they want to, if it’s to do with magic.  Why not become a conservationist or horticulturist?

  ·        ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

·        All: Figure skating AU

·        ALL: Regency AU

·        All: Robin Hood Fusion

·        ALL: Spies & Secret Agents

·        ALL: University AU

 This is a whole grab bag of different AUs—they’re all fairly self-explanatory I think, though I will say that you shouldn’t feel pressured to keep the overtly mundane-seeming AUs mundane, if you don’t want too—I’d like the mundane versions of course!  But there’s plenty of interesting things you could explore with, e.g., magic!figure skating, so.  Go wild.

  ·        All: Tam Lin Fusion

 In a weird way, MoL already has its characters in the roles they need to be in for a Tam Lin fusion, though the structure is of course very different–what is Zach if not a sacrifice against Panaxeth’s release? What is Zorian if not the one who fights nigh-impossible odds to save him from that fate?  I’d love to see a fic that goes into this.

    幻影ヲ駆ケル太陽 il sole penetra le illusioni | Day Break Illusion   

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Tsukuyomi Luna (Day Break Illusion)

·        Taiyou Akari (Day Break Illusion)

·        Shirokane Ginka (Day Break Illusion)

·        Hoshikawa Seira (Day Break Illusion)

·        Group: Tsukuyomi Luna & Tsukuyomi Serena (Day Break Illusion)

·        Group: Hoshikawa Seira & Shirokane Ginka & Taiyou Akari & Tsukuyomi Luna

 fandom-specific dnw: heavy gender dysphoria.

 ·        All: a character is transgender (binary)

·        ALL: Alternate First Meetings

·        All: Character has a secret identity

·        ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

·        ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

·        ALL: Street Rats

 This is basically the AUs of mundane level things; the broad strokes of canon are perfectly compliant with any of these, or at least they could be. What changes, if you go for any of the AUs listed above? What stays the same?

  ·        All: Changeling AU

·        ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

·        ALL: Daemon AU

·        All: Fairytale Fusion

·        ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

·        ALL: Magical Realism

·        ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

·        All: with the right postage you can send letters anywhere anywhen

 Different flavors of fantasy—for the changelings, is the character we know from canon the stolen child, or their faerie replacement?  Are their daemons affected by them fighting the daemonia; what happens to a daemon when the human is consumed by a daemonia?  How do their powers and battles work in a world that’s more overtly magical? For the last—who/where/when would they send letters to?  Would Akari send one back in time to Fuyuna, Luna to her sister, Seira to her friend? Forward to their future selves? How does this affect the timeline; do you have to be careful, lest you irrevocably change things, or are future-letters already set and immutable?  Is this common or rare—what’s the price to send a letter through time?

  ·        ALL: Character Journeys To The Underworld to Rescue Their Dead Friend

·        All: Journey to the Underworld to Resurrect Loved One

 Who are they rescuing?  How are they going about the rescue?  Are they bringing back Fuyuna?  Seira’s friend?  Luna’s sister, if it turns out she’s dead not just vanished some other way?  Ginka herself, if we suppose that she died in the annihilation rather than going to battle elsewhere?

If a Daemonia’s victim is resurrected, does everyone remember them again? Either way, what are the consequences of bringing back a person who’d been erased?

  ·        ALL: Dragon Rider AU

·        ALL: Fencing AU

·        All: Figure skating AU

 Sports aus!  Two mundane, one not.  I’d love to see the kids in some kind of competitive something—are they teammates? Competitors? Is Sefiro Fiore a sports organization in this world, or are they both athletes and tarot users?

  ·        DBI: Daemonia hosts aren't erased from the timeline when killed

 So, one of the generally convenient things in this world—even if it’s not a particularly nice thing—is that none of the characters ever have to deal with the fallout of the deaths they cause; the daemonia’s victims are erased.  Ret-gone, if you will.  But what if they weren’t?  What would the effect of that be; how would that change things?

    幻影ヲ駆ケル太陽 il sole penetra le illusioni | Day Break Illusion   

·        Fanfiction (Medium)

·        Group: Hanayume & Lymro & Mama Nagataki & Taiyou Akari (Day Break Illusion)

·        Group: Hanayume & Lymro & Mama Nagataki (Day Break Illusion)

 fandom-specific dnw: heavy gender dysphoria.

 ·        All: a character is transgender (binary)

·        ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

·        ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

·        ALL: Found Family

 So, again, this is the more mundane aus—add these in!! tell me how they affect things, or how they don’t affect them!

Found family is… kinda canon? But there isn’t really much focus on that aspect in canon so I’d love some more here.

  ·        All: Changeling AU

·        ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

·        All: Fairytale Fusion

·        ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

·        All: Historical Fantasy AU

·        ALL: Magic is a part of everyday life

·        ALL: Magical Realism

·        ALL: Regency AU (no homophobia)

·        ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

·        All: with the right postage you can send letters anywhere anywhen

 And these are the magic and/or setting AUs!  How do these elements change their lives; what stays the same regardless?

See my previous set of Day Break Illusion requests for my thoughts on the letters tag.

  ·        ALL: Daemon AU

·        ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

 Just—daemons!  What are theirs?  For Hanayume—what gender is her daemon?  I’m sorry I’m running out of things to say at this point…

  ·        ALL: Dragon Rider AU

·        ALL: Fencing AU

·        All: Figure skating AU

 So, in canon, Hanayume, Lymro, and Mama Nagataki are kind of Akari’s fortune-teller aunts/mentors; if we change it so that Akari’s thing is fencing or figure skating or dragon-riding, why not bring her aunts along for the ride as her mentors in that sport, or, if we’re not including Akari—competitors themselves, perhaps, or maybe generally teachers?

   If you made it all the way down here—first of all, wow, this letter was way too long so good on you for making it—second of all—thank you again for writing for me!! Good luck!!

[spaindry63-blog]

What is creating Frustration In Grownups?

Sophie Christensen started out writing health-related articles throughout 1976 and his work has seemed in diverse publications which include professional newspapers, Birds and also Blooms” publication, poetry collections and kids books. Manifestation Magic By Alexander Wilson Since per the 2009 evaluation published within the American Academy of Pediatrics' Pediatrics in Evaluate, ” about 29 per-cent of young children with ADHD who receive ongoing treatment with stimulant medication possess significant get to sleep disturbances. Whilst the girl has not necessarily reported sharpened, stabbing or even burning sounds, her indicators fall below the Foreign Association regarding that Study of Soreness definition connected with pain, in addition to she generally used phrases such as 'hurt', 'cramp' and 'aching'. My write-up on often the Self-Growth, Limitations to Manifestation - Concern of Flexibility further looks at this dread. Also, while LRE is usually recognized since element of the phenomenology associated with near-death expertise, its symptoms in often the general people and in other situation is nonetheless to be able to get researched. Manifestation develops on quite a few different quantities: physical marque such as foods, clothes, vehicles, and homes; emotional indications such because joy, tranquility, anger, ache, resentment in addition to regrets; in addition to relational marque such seeing that a internal mate, some sort of parent-child romantic relationship, a profession or perhaps a devotional path. This specific book evaluation is element of a series which covers the actual topic regarding Law involving Attraction The standard Guidebook to Law of Interest is Karim Hajee Around the past a couple of decades Karim Hajee possesses become training his amazing Creating Power System which has really helped lots of individuals transform their hails from methods they certainly not thought likely. That technique Of Allowing Typically the Manifestation For you to Follow Your own Internal Faith Is usually The Real Process Of Co-Creation. Often the Quantum Manifestation structure, as specifically taught by Yacht club Jacobi, a good Energy Charity donor, teaches people the platform demonstrating how to be able to manifest prosperity through consuming actions involving good to others which creates some sort of new construction of sixth dimensional living where all of one desires one can possess through marque instead involving thought the low vibration through the cash structure that has been recently applied as the enslavement podium on human race. Because outlined through a new 2007 review in The particular American Log of Scientific Nutrition, greater folate content in often the absence regarding precancerous lesions on the skin - regarding example digestive tract polyps -- can prevent tumor advancement and intestines and pancreatic cancers. Often the Ah” introspection specifically movements the inspiring energies observed in the sex chakra, located around the part of often the love-making organs, right up into the actual third vision chakra, situated regarding the a pair of eyes along with eyebrows. That would look counter-intuitive, although meditation excursions can possibly be just since noisy” as a football game. Often the goal of introspection is showed as getting in order to be ready to even now the imagination. However, much seeing that a growtaller4idiots review website suggested, this sort of a possibility is basically very sleek. The mother were surveyed regarding their babies' crying habits and all their own historical past of migraine, along with those results were examined to create sure the actual reported moping and crying did certainly fit often the clinical classification of colic. Also, any recent overview reported that left-handers seem to be to end up being a little over-represented amongst people having intellectual disabilities. The Wonders throughout their coaching that blend in using the the synergistic instruction of dole manifestation should certainly be discovered here till I in the morning submitted to ending these diffusion. In Depth Review Of Manifestation Magic Thus rather when compared with manifesting exactly what you would likely like, you actually are manifesting an unsuccessful manifestation. Experts actuality saying for you to the damaging you have got no energy to have me back”In this electricity of dedication; a person can effortlessly state NO to help outside profane appearances which often will affect us when we are generally not aware and scary. I could add which the majority connected with us most likely don't particularly like the part involving the current expression equation which presents itself to demand hard perform, perseverance, suffering and compromise. The conviction along with the guide review is actually to talk to the readers mind the ideas and idée book reporter experienced when researching the actual content, throughout this approach explaining the actual reader what exact which means the author presumed to transmit, or even what does the reporter experienced while during the reading.

[plasticgardenicons]

Poetry Tag Game

thank you @adamantseal and @scourge-of-the-eighth-sea for tagging me in this game.  

When did you start to write poetry?

I was young.  It’s a little hazy now, but I’m sure I was around 9 or 10 years old.  I know that by the time I was in high school it had a firm grip on me. After my daughter was born (my first child) I put it down for a good 10 years.  I let it all lay fallow.  I found tumblr.  It reminded me that I had a garden to tend.  The rest, as they say, is history.  

Do you write poetic prose, free verse or use set forms?

I prefer free verse though I’ve dabbled in pretty much all the forms.  I like using the cut-up method a lot as it reveals images and connections that are always surprise and inspire me!  In the end, I let the poem guide me as to form.

Name 3 main themes you explore in your poetry:

Relationships, time, unspoken communication

Name 3 things that inspire you:

The Texas sky, trees, woodworking

Name 3 elements of nature most often mentioned in your poetry:

Stars, the sea, the sky

Name 3 words you love:

Combustion, soliloquy, crepuscular

Name 3 words you hate:

Nice, trousers, shouldn’t

Do you have a preferred time of day for writing?

(question from @september-stardust)

Over the years I’ve realized my writing times are cyclical.  There are phases where I am more attuned to hearing and making connections between words in the morning, other phases where I’m more attuned at night.  I’ve stopped trying to be very rigid about specific time and instead holding myself accountable to being open and responsive to the natural flow.

Do you ever run out of words to write?

(question from @lexiklecksi)

All the time.  

Does your writing ever make you feel vulnerable, if so why?

(question from @asorcererpoet)

Like a naked mole rat.  But so do my kids, and my wife, and my work, and good friends, and prayer-- anything or anyone that puts you in a situation where you need to go beyond your ego and all the things you think you know, and settle into uncertainty, as Keats said, without any irritable reaching for answers (or something like that); or to silently and in total awareness acknowledge the presence of an other.  I think Martin Buber called that the I and thou relationship.

What is your process for self-editing?

(question from @adamantseal)

Three phases: 1st phase, vomit it all out onto the paper, everything (even if it’s cut-up.  Everything stays). 2nd phase: make connections between words and phrases and things and ideas, pair and chisel away anything that takes away from those connections, 3rd phase: read aloud, snip around the edges, trust it to go out and find its way in the world.  If I can’t get the poem right after these three attempts, I put it away and let it be.

Add one question of your own to this list:

Do you have a poem that’s eluded you?  That, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t write?

Do you have any other social media where you showcase your poetry?

Nope.  I have a love/hate relationship with social media.  I’m just now surfacing from the hate back into cautious love.  Tumblr is about all I could manage.

Come up with a prompt and tag a Tumblr poet who you want to inspire:  

Your love is everything or just an atmospheric discharge

@madeofsaltwater

Tag 3 Tumblr poets who you want to get to know better:

@alexeaed, @uschi-the-listener, @en-la-casademiamor

[penniesforthestorm]

On Jane, Part 1

In Which I Yell About One of My Favorite Books

What do we talk about when we talk about Jane Eyre? After nearly 175 years, this novel remains lodged in the popular consciousness, enough that most people have at least a baseline familiarity with the story. An orphaned young woman, with little knowledge of the outside world, becomes employed at a mysterious mansion, and falls in love with the owner, who is harboring a Deep Dark Secret. Misty moors, bumps in the night, cruel relatives, an angelic child who dies of tuberculosis, a brooding anti-hero: so far, so Gothic. It’s been adapted and interpreted by the likes of Orson Welles and Franco Zeffirelli, referenced by C.S. Lewis, and been thoroughly dissected by hordes of scholars.

            But I want to talk about it some more. Be forewarned: I’m not coming at this from any kind of ‘academic’ perspective. I’m not an expert on anything (though I have been told I shoot a pretty good game of pool, and my baked goods have lately been in demand at family gatherings). I am a Person Who Likes Things, and likes writing about those things, so that’s what I’m going to do.

            One final caveat: if you have not read this book, this may not be the greatest introduction, as I’m going to spoil the heck out of it and also be discussing it from the perspective of someone who has read it many times. But I’m not going to stop you; I trust your judgment. To quote Rik Mayall in Blackadder: “Let’s dooooo it!”

             Right. So, who exactly is Jane Eyre? In the opening pages of the book, we get a vivid portrait of our protagonist. When we meet her, she is ten years old, orphaned, and living a miserable life with her wealthy, widowed aunt and cousins. She is subjected to bullying of both the physical and emotional variety, treated as less than a servant because she is a ‘dependent’. But little Jane is a feisty creature: she fights back against her wicked cousin John, dealing him a well-deserved punch to the nose. She is roundly punished for this, locked in the bedroom where her uncle died, and she broods on the fact that his unquiet ghost might just visit her.

A visitor does come, in the form of the local doctor, called in after Jane faints from fear. For likely the first time in Jane’s life, someone listens to her, and takes her seriously. He suggests that Jane be sent to school, and her aunt is seemingly only too happy to be rid of her, though not before calling in the headmaster of her school of choice and putting a flea in his ear about Jane’s ‘deceitful nature’. In return, Jane boldly informs her aunt that she knows her dead uncle would disapprove of her treatment, and calls the older woman a liar to her face—which, honestly, is pretty hardcore for any ten-year-old.

This is something that I think people tend to miss about Jane, and often the reason why adaptations of her story feel miscast. Her appearance, throughout the book, is described as petite and unremarkable, her manner quiet and shy. But Jane is not fragile—no little porcelain doll. Her inner spirit is as bright and hard as a diamond.

Consider her in contrast to the first friend she makes at school: the gentle, but doomed Helen Burns. Helen is thirteen—nearly a grown-up in Jane’s eyes. And crucially, she sees and acknowledges Jane in a way that no one else has, taking Jane under her wing and trying to give her some guidance.

But Helen is already ill when we meet her, and, though she doesn’t say it explicitly right away, she knows that she is dying. Consequently, her mind, genius though it is, is turned away from the world—she dismisses her own intellectual prowess and cautions Jane against over-valuing human attachment. It’s cruel, because if her flame had been allowed to burn, it would have blazed, but instead, it’s snuffed out in the space of a few pages.

Helen is undoubtedly good, and her love for Jane is clear, but both the reader and the young Jane understand that her ascetic detachment is no way to live. After Helen’s death, the narrative skips ahead to Jane at the age of eighteen, now teaching at the school she passed through. And Jane wants to get out and see the world. Though the school itself has improved from the miserable place it used to be, it’s still a stifling atmosphere, and Jane wants to change her situation.

This, I think, is one of the most important elements of the book: Jane’s journey to control her own destiny. At the beginning, she is utterly at the mercy of authority figures, and though she makes some stabs at independence, she is largely acted-upon—things happen to her. But now, here she is, taking action and advertising herself as a governess. Soon enough, she is called to Thornfield Hall.

A word about the job of ‘governess’ is necessary here. For a woman in Jane’s position at that time: educated, but no family ties or sponsor of any other kind, being a governess was one of the most respectable things she could be doing (outside of marriage). Jane’s specific situation is an excellent one: only one child to look after, room and board provided, and a salary of 30 shillings a year. (I don’t know the conversion into modern figures, but consider this: in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit makes 15, and he’s got a wife and six kids to take care of, and they’re squeaking by. Jane isn’t exactly going to get rich, but in theory, she’ll at least be able to lay some aside.)

This new position brings three brand-new figures into Jane’s life. The first is the kindly housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, who takes an immediate liking to Jane and makes an effort to secure Jane’s comfort. The second is Adele Varens, Jane’s charge. Adele is the daughter of a Parisian dancer, and though her situation is much easier than Jane’s was at that age, Jane sympathizes with her, because she’s in a foreign place, utterly dependent on the ‘kindness and charity of strangers’. The third, of course, is Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester, master of the house and probable father of Adele. When Jane arrives at Thornfield, Rochester is away, but soon enough, the two of them meet, in a moment that, to me, represents another step on Jane’s path to self-determination.

Jane sees Rochester on the road to Thornfield on a winter evening, when his horse slips on ice. She offers aid, and it’s grudgingly accepted by this gruff stranger. As far as Rochester knows at first, Jane could be a visitor to any of the nearby houses, or someone’s daughter—again, he is able to see her without context. Likewise, Jane is undaunted by any fear of ‘impropriety’ toward her boss—he’s just a man who needs help, and no one else is there to do it. So she steps forward, laying the foundation for everything that will come after.

I have come to the conclusion that I’m going to need to split this into three parts; I hope you’ll all stay tuned. Before I go, let me say one more thing: during my most recent re-read of this book, one thing that leaped out at me was the beauty of the prose itself. Yes, the language is flowery and elaborate, and there’s a ton of rumination, but if you’re patient, you’ll find plenty of gorgeous phrases. Like Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Bronte was devoted to the land itself—in her case, the moors and ancient woods of Yorkshire. The countryside is just as much a character as any of the humans, rendered with vivid life, and tracking the seasons through the progression of the story is a fascinating experiment. I guess that’s all for now, but come back for Parts 2 and 3 if you like what you’ve read so far!

[ejsponge61]

Kendrick Lamar’s FEAR.

          Since he released his first studio album in 2011, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth has been one of the most celebrated artists in all hip hop. While many contemporary rap artists make songs about the usual topics of sex, drugs, and violence, Kendrick has always tried to have his music deliver deeper messages. In 2012, he imbedded Christian themes and used unique techniques to tell the story of Good Kid, m.A.A.d City, which introduced him to mainstream success. In 2015, he used historical African imagery and references to modern pop culture to tell the story of To Pimp a Butterfly, which is widely considered a classic in the genre. His dense lyrics encourage greater interpretation, which has led to the overwhelming reaction to his latest release, DAMN. This album is by far his least straightforward, which has led to several theories on what the tracks could mean. However, once the lyrics themselves are analyzed, the deeper message is not so obtuse. Now, while I would love to breakdown the entire album, I don’t think anyone would want the pages of this paper to reach double digits. So, instead, I will use the longest track, FEAR., to speak to the album as a whole. But first, allow me to quickly summarize the preceding tracks.

           The track is the twelfth of fourteen, and it serves as the climax of the entire album. In the first track, “BLOOD.”, Kendrick delivers a monologue, in which he is shot by a blind woman while trying to aid her. “DNA.” Tackles both the positive and negative aspects of his being and eventually serves to highlight the fact that these aspects are found in everyone. “YAH.” goes into his family relationships and how they motivate him in his music. “ELEMENT.” highlights Kendrick’s confidence and unwillingness to let people alter his path in life. “FEEL.” serves as the antithesis of “ELEMENT.”, in that it shows, despite his image of being the savior of hip hop, he still desires support from family, friends and fans. “LOYALTY.” describes how he greatly desires faithfulness in his inner circle, while still feeling that God should be to whom one is most loyal. “PRIDE.” and “HUMBLE.” both discuss his struggle to set aside his pride, and how being humble would maybe allow him to better serve mankind. “LUST.” speaks to the reliance on and desire of worldly possessions by not only people he sees, but himself, and how those desire goes against the wishes of God. “LOVE.” is about his ability to love others, and in some cases, specifically about his love for his longtime girlfriend Whitney Alford. And finally, ”XXX.” is about the violence he would see daily during his childhood and adolescence in Compton and how, with his new broadened world view, he believes some of that violence is created by those of higher social and political power.

           Now, the biggest of Lamar’s worldly emotions is “FEAR.”, which he goes into in detail on this track. The song begins with the following phrase.

“Why God, why God do I gotta suffer?

Pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle

Why God, why God do I gotta bleed?

Every stone thrown at you restin' at my feet

Why God, why God do I gotta suffer?

Earth is no more, won't you burn this muh’fucka?”

          This is one of dozens of religious references made on the album, however this one is filled with much more despair than others. In all the preceding tracks, he discusses his issues and here, he admits he’s not sure why he is chosen to suffer. Also, with the line “Every stone thrown at you restin” at my feet” he is referencing the view of him by many as a savior, or even prophet. In his prior album, To Pimp a Butterfly, he has named himself a prophet on the final track, “Mortal Man”. Because he delivers the message of God, he feels that any criticism of God is one thrown at him as well, hence the stones thrown at God resting at his own feet. After this phrase is heard, the same phrase is then played in reverse as to lead into the first verse of the song, where Lamar is seven years old.

           In this verse, he begins nearly every line with “I beat yo ass”, followed by something a young kid would likely do. These lines, all being from the perspective of his mother, are meant to highlight how instead of calmly correcting a young Lamar’s mistakes, she instead wields fear as a constant threat. The repetitious use of “I beat yo ass” here serves to highlight how, while initially terrifying, the shock of the violence fades away and eventually becomes normal. It also highlights how the same aggressive response is used for things trivial and minor, from acting out in school to just watching TV too loud. However, in some instances, Lamar does test the boundaries of his mother. The line “Better not hear ’bout you humpin' on Keisha's daughter” implies that something similar, or maybe this very act, has occurred before. This leads to the last lines of the verse: “Seven years old, think you run this house by yourself? Nigga, you gon' fear me if you don't fear no one else.” Here Lamar’s mother calls out his maturity, but strikes his confidence back down as she desires herself to be in control solely. This leads to the fear he has of disappointing his family and elders, one that sticks with him to this day. After the chorus, which emphasizes how he wishes fear was easy to overcome, the second verse begins.

           Here, Kendrick returns to speaking from his own perspective, except he has aged a few years and is now seventeen. This goes another one of his biggest fears, death. Having a fear of death is by no means rare, but in his exposure to the violence of Compton has led to this fear being more to the forefront of his mind. This verse, once again, uses repetition to hammer home just how prominent this fear is. The phrase “I’ll prolly die” begins almost every line, and after it, he lists another way he could possibly perish. These possible outcomes are ones he’s seen firsthand in Compton. “I'll prolly die from witnesses leavin' me falsed accused” speaks to how he could easily be blamed for crime that he didn’t commit, simply because he may fit the profile of a suspect.  “Or maybe die because these smokers are more than desperate” speaks to how those addicted to crack, and other hardcore drugs, will do anything for money to feed their addiction, including murder. “I'll prolly die tryna buy weed at the apartments” speaks to how the most innocent of interactions to them could easily turn into a life changing event when interference of the police. Specifically, he has a few lines about the possibility of death by police brutality:

                       “I'll prolly die from one of these bats and blue badges

Body slammed on black and white paint, my bones snappin'”

          Kendrick might have been a child during the Rodney King riots in L.A., but incidents like that have clearly stuck with him. In addition to his general fear of dying, he also fears that he’ll “die anonymous” or “die with promises”, meaning he fears that he’ll either die without having left any significant mark on human history or without delivering on the promises he made in life. Then, he reveals that his real fear is not death but that he is not in control of his own life. The final line of the verse, “All worries in a hurry, I wish I controlled things”, illustrates this, and then leads into the final verse of the song.

           In this verse, Kendrick winds the clock forward once again and is now 27, two years away from his current age. He finally ditches the repetitive structure to more clearly speak on his final fear: losing his success. At the age of 27, he released the aforementioned To Pimp a Butterfly. It was likely the most successful period he had ever seen, with him being able to work with him winning his first Grammys for the project. However, this even did not fill him with confidence, but instead shocked him and made him more concerned of losing all that success. Because he has reached heights higher than he had ever foreseen, he questions why would God allow this to happen.

                       “All this money, is God playin' a joke on me?

Is it for the moment, and will he see me as Job?

Take it from me and leave me worse than I was before?”

          Job is a biblical character who was a prosperous man who followed the word of God devoutly. However, God tested him by taking away his wealth and family and inflicting him with disease, only to give his prosperity and health back once he stayed faithful. Lamar questions if his is God’s plan for him, which would justify his fear of losing his wealth. Also, he interesting has a few lines referencing a 2015 controversy between music artist Rihanna and one of her former accountants. After Rihanna sued this accountant over a $9 million loss from that year, they agreed to settle the case for $10 million, only for him to go missing before paying the total. Kendrick uses this example to show just how his own funds could vanish if just one of his accountants was to behave similarly. It’s also funny he’d use Rihanna as an example, as she if featured in the earlier track, “LOYALTY.” At the end of this verse he, once again reveals that his biggest fear is not just that he will lose all he has gained, but that it will come about due to the public misinterpreting his music. Lines like “How they look at me reflect on myself, my family, my city” and “What they hear from me would make 'em highlight my simplest lines.” speaks to how he worries about his perception. And in the final verse, he wraps up the topics of the entire album.

            He lists even more fears here, but now he is using the titles from other tracks on the album in his lines:

“I'm talkin' fear, fear of losin' loyalty from pride

'Cause my DNA won't let me involve in the light of God

I'm talkin' fear, fear that my humbleness is gone

I'm talkin' fear, fear that love ain't livin' here no more

I'm talkin' fear, fear that it's wickedness or weakness

Fear, whatever it is, both is distinctive

Fear, what happens on Earth stays on Earth

And I can't take these feelings with me, so hopefully they disperse”

          Incorporating all these themes heard elsewhere on the album allows up to find the meaning of the album itself. Near the end of that quote, he claims he can’t take these feelings with him. Where could it be going if it’s not earth? The answer is Heaven. In the first track, “BLOOD.”, he is murdered, and all the songs leading to this one are him wrestling with his problems that have led to his fears. And in this track, it culminates in him coming to terms with fear itself, all in order to disperse all of these worldly emotions and leave them on Earth, as they have no place in God’s domain. The following track, “GOD.”, further validates this theory as he now know “what God feel like”, a feeling he could only know by seeing him firsthand.

           DAMN. is one of Kendrick Lamar’s most dense and experimental projects to date. However, despite its initial absence of a straightforward plot, there is just enough here to create a larger framework. And the track, “FEAR.” does the most to help aid in the creation of that framework.

[themillsdaughter]

the world ends today (and I’ll be dancing with you)

Summary: It's like they are stuck in a cycle. Where they hurt and they miss and they long for and they heal. They keep going in circles. Eventually, someone breaks the tendency. Kara never imagined that it would be Cat. And she never imagined that watching someone float away was not as painful as being pushed out.

Chapter one:  our laws fall fighting (tied up and silent)

If she were to be honest, she’d say she was tired.

If she were to be honest, she’d say that the red and blue and yellow grow incredibly dull when the weeks she doesn’t see that specific tone of green stretch into months.

If she were to be honest, she’d say that some days she wishes she could just lie down and feel Astra’s fingers running through her hair, a soft brush of nails periodically against her scalp.

But she doesn’t have the privilege to be honest in that way.

So she keeps her tiredness to herself and keeps putting on her Supergirl suit every single morning, keeps trying to push past Snapper’s critics and slip to his good graces.

She thinks she manages it, after delivering a particularly tough article about the life inside the infamous alien prison that almost blew people’s minds. Literally.

Kara talked to that professor-slash-one-time-drug-dealer she once saved.

He mentioned her aunt twice, about how the woman was a presence acutely felt around the prisoners, and she spent the next minute trying to shake away the knot in her throat and the iron weighting her heart down.

But she keeps on going.

Despite missing Astra and despite having Mon-El to worry about and despite James always mentioning he has a video conference with Ms. Grant, Kara never finding a good enough excuse to be in the room while that happens, never finding a good enough excuse to check on the person who inspires her.

She keeps going.

She keeps helping the D.E.O capture fugitives and keeps getting herself into near death situations with bad guys.

Kara Danvers may be tired and may admit it if she was honest, but she keeps living her life as if things are okay.

And, for a couple of months she doesn’t even have time to wonder about that part inside of her that seems to be curling into itself. She doesn’t have time because Alex and Maggie hit this really tough patch in their relationship and Kara may feel a lot of things, but she puts it aside when her sister needs her.

When it’s been a year since she’d heard that phrase, that little something that soothed her heart, that little something that reassured her that she'd see that person again, when it’s been a year since she’d last seen that specific shade of green, they find Jeremiah.

The man is almost beaten to a pulp, tossed in a corner by what they later identify as one of Cadmus metahumans.

In that point, when they find the man and Alex’s heartbeat becomes erratic and dangerous, Kara is honestly, truly afraid of what may happen to her sister if they lose him once again.

Things are complicated, after that.

Eliza comes over, means to stay as close to her husband as she can, and Kara makes room for her foster mother just as the woman had done when a certain thirteen-year-old blonde from outer space needed shelter.

Kara tries to reassure her family that everything will turn out fine (even though she feels desperation slowly, but firmly, clinging itself to her stomach).

She tries to reassure her family while running around town in search for stories and the people trying to destroy alien life on Earth.

And when she stops and realizes it, another three months have gone by.

Jeremiah woke from his coma after two and Maggie moved in with Alex after two and a half.

And then, when it’s been so long that her uniform is almost colorless to her, when she is stepping out of a restaurant’s bathroom (that gives her easy access through an open window and a loose vent duct where she can hide spare clothes) she spots a specific tone of yellow. Cut in a specific length and atop a specific body.

When it’s been so long since she’s seen that woman, Kara’s eyes find Cat.

Her boss, her friend (are they friends still?) sits in a stool, her upper body twisted to look behind her, at the arcade in the corner of the room. And when Kara moves her gaze ahead, to where that specific tone of green must be set on, she sees Carter.

Notices immediately how the boy has grown.

Notices immediately how he has a little girl in his lap as he plays on the car-driving interactive machine.

Kara isn’t affected by the elements. And she’s pretty sure that the day is pleasant enough for people to put on loose dresses and shorts. But her chest still flutters.

When Cat turns around, a minute later, eyes drawn to the phone lying on the table, Kara knows that she needs to leave.

She knows it, because if Cat wanted them to meet, wanted people to know she was in town, Kara is sure the woman would have found a way.

Thankfully, of course, the arcade is right next to the exit.

Thankfully, of course, something makes Carter look up, see her, call her name.

Thankfully, of course, her heart is too big and too soft towards the boy for her to pretend she doesn’t listen.

She indulges herself, because she’s allowed to be selfish, once in a while, and lets her lips turn up, up, up, until she’s full out grinning at him.

He stands from the machine, comes closer to her.

“I can’t believe we’d run into you here, of all places.”

Kara tilts her head slightly. She doesn’t understand the innuendo.

“It’s mom’s favorite secret restaurant.” He explains, the girl he is currently supporting on his hip hiding her little face against his neck. “Don’t tell her I told you.”

“Your secret's safe with me.” She pauses, lets her grin morph into a fonder smile. “I didn’t know you guys were back from… England, was it?”

“Yep.” Carter fixes his hold on the girl and it seems such a grown-up act for him that she wonders if she’ll have to stop thinking about him as a boy. “Got in a couple of days ago.”

“Well, it’s really good to see you.”

And then she acts like a proper adult and looks into his eyes pointedly before shifting her gaze to the child in his arms.

“Oh, this is Abby, my sister.” His smile gets so wide that Kara is afraid, for half a second, that his cheeks won’t be able to contain it.

The girl, Abby, looks at her with dark, dark, dark, brown eyes and everything that Kara had been feeling, the tiredness, seems to come into focus.

“We met her when we were in London.”

She notes how he doesn’t use the word adopt, she notes how she immediately knows that Cat has adopted a daughter, not because it is the logical association, but because she catches the signs, the little things all over the child that directly point out Cat Grant as her parent.

The sparkly clip adorning the hairband keeping the girl’s tight curls in place, the perfectly pressed, perfectly fitted violet polka dot dress and its matching, white shorts.

She knows Cat has adopted a daughter and Kara is so very tired and so very something, that she wants to fly out of the place and sleep for hours and hours and hours.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she waves at the little girl.

“Hi, Abby. I’m Kara.”

“She’s mom’s friend.” Carter whispers and does he mean it? Or is it just a simpler introduction than mom’s former assistant?

Abby waves back and Kara is tired, but she still feels the urge to caress the little violet-clad back. She doesn't.

“Speaking of her.” Carter says, starting to turn towards the booth where his mother still sits. “Did you see her? I’m sure she’d be glad to catch up with you. I mean, she wouldn’t, with most people, but I’m pretty sure she would, with you.”

“Actually, could you apologize to her for me? I’m in a bit of a rush.” She turns her smile into a regretful one, into one that the boy (teen?) would buy. “Running after some intel for an ongoing article.”

“Ah- alright, I guess.” He frowns, seems to study her for a moment and he’d never reminded her so much of his mother as he does, then.

“I’m truly sorry, kid.” She checks her phone, pretends to read something, so it’d seem like an important text. “I really have to go.”

“It was good seeing you, Kara.” He still looks at her with that soft frown as she starts backing away and she feels heavier, turning her back to the duo in that instant, than she’d felt while carrying Fort Rozz into space.

She is sure she truly needs to rest when she doesn’t hear the steps approaching.

When she’s practically alone in Catco and she doesn’t keep at least one ear out for people coming closer to her.

She is sure she needs to rest when a voice hits her and she’s startled.

“This building doesn’t change, does it?”

She is sure she needs to rest when she looks up from her papers and meets that specific tone of green.

“Ms. Grant. I- I. Hi.” Kara smiles. Forces herself to keep it friendly, not the unprotected one she truly wishes to give the woman.

“You met Carter today.”

“Uhm, yes, yes, I did. Did he explain why I couldn’t stay? I’m sorry I couldn’t, but Snapper needed this crazy article STAT and I-”

“Oh, Kara.”

Cat sighs and Kara stops talking. Because her heart gives a tug and the woman is right in front of her, those green eyes are staring back into her and she’s so tired, so so so tired.

“I did miss your rambles.”

It is said with a tight press of lips and when Cat lifts two fingers, fixes Kara’s collar, like that one time, so many months prior, she feels the sting behind her eyes and the desperation in her stomach and the weight in her heart more acutely than she had in such a long, long time.

But then the moment is gone and the woman is turning towards the table in front of them, is leaning forward slightly to look at the scrambled pages and photos.

“What is this one about?”

“There’s been some rumors about some illegal deals between some of National City’s and Metropolis’ governors. Snapper was a bit reluctant on running it, so we’re trying to circle around it for a few editions, see the reaction, before hitting the spot.”

Cat hums in understanding, picking up one of the papers.

Kara watches as the woman runs her eyes through the lines quickly, changing sheets not even ten seconds later.

“And you’re not sure on which story to run first?”

“No, no, we are.” She reaches over across the table and across the woman’s arm to retrieve the only page that doesn’t have anything atop it. “This one” She hands it over and tries not to think of how nostalgic it feels, to discuss Catco’s stories with the company owner. “it’s about a few historical buildings being knocked down in order to build a new department for City Hall.”

Cat nods, but soon sets everything down and stands upward again.

“Did you meet Abby?”

Kara knows that the woman knows she did.

Kara sees the little girl’s soft face, pressed against Carter’s neck.

“She seems pretty amazing.”

“She is.”

Her lungs inflate at that, at how the woman’s whole face seems to come alive at the mention of the girl.

“How- how did you…?”

“How did I adopt her?”

“How did you become her mom.”

Cat smiles because of the phrase and Kara is so deeply tired, remembers the hug they shared over a year ago and thinks that it may feel like resting, if they shared another one again.

“You know how Catco helps a few businesses around each branch?”

Kara nods and tries to pay attention to the words instead of the soft spark on the woman’s eyes.

“The last time I went to England, I came in contact with an orphanage run by a few nuns.” Cat sits on a stool and Kara follows suit because it's hard not to. “They were good people with few investors, so I put them on the list. When I decided to take my leave of absence, I- I needed to go, Kara, I needed to see new places. And Carter’s school had an exchange program with another school over at Yorkshire, so things fell into place.”

Kara reminds herself to breathe, to focus on Cat, to focus on the voice that has been absent from her environment long enough for her to almost forget the warmth it usually got while speaking about Carter.

“I went to visit that orphanage while Carter spent the weekend with his father.”

“Carter’s dad moved?”

“A while before I left.” The woman sitting beside her dismisses it with a wave of her hand and Kara locks the subject away. “Anyhow, I went to visit the place and Abby was there. And she was such a bright soul, I just-” Cat takes a deep breath, smiles fondly. “She was my daughter, as simple as that.”

“And was Carter okay with it? With another kid coming to live with you? My sister and I- she's my best friend, but I know not every foster siblings get along so well.”

“He was the one to suggest it. That I should adopt her.” The blonde meets Kara’s eyes once more and it is grounding, that look. “So I did. We stayed six extra months there so the process could be finalized and then we came home.”

home.

home.

home home home

they came home

Kara stands up.

“I’ll be right back.”

And then she walks away.

Walks away from the person who cuts through her crap and who she had missed so acutely.

She walks away from Cat, into a bathroom down the corridor because Cat had come home with progress in her heart and a daughter at her hip and Kara had never left, but had never felt more stuck.

She feels her chest shaking and her eyes stinging and she bites her lips not to cry aloud.

She allows the tears to fall, but only silently.

She should be happier.

She should be so freaking happy because her sister is happy and her foster parents are relatively happy and her foster dad is alive.

Astra is dead and her mom and dad are dead.

Her planet is dead and there is an organization trying to make this a dead place for alien life, too.

She allows herself five minutes.

Five minutes to weep over the things she does not have courage enough to absorb and deal with.

But Cat Grant is a couple of doors down and one does not leave Cat Grant waiting.

When she walks back into the office, the table is organized.

Stacks of papers neatly in line, the chosen article in the middle, alone, perfectly visible.

Cat is still sitting on the same stool.

“Ms. Grant, you didn’t have to.”

“Well, I might as well do something while I waited for you to stop crying.”

Kara sucks in a breath and lets her gaze drop and her head lower a bit.

“I wasn’t. Crying. I wasn’t.”

“In which a year goes by and you’re still a bad liar.”

“Ms. Grant-”

“Look, before I- before I left, I wasn’t good with people I cared about, Kara. I was awful, in fact. But I wanted to find new challenges and this, trying to trust more and help, this is my new challenge. So have a bit of faith in me, okay?”

She looks up again. Because she is allowed to be selfish, once in awhile and Cat, amazing and understanding and right there, is offering something she has been needing since the woman left.

“Everything is just- complicated, I guess.”

And then there is the pinching behind her eyelids and she finds herself sitting beside the woman once more, fingers fidgeting in her lap and throat tight.

“And I really, really could have used your help in a lot of things.”

Then there is silence and she closes her eyes, feels the pinching turning into more tears and she feels so weird, but so deeply grateful for being able to open herself up like this, like Kara, not like the Girl of Steel with her colorfully dull uniform.

Then she hears things shuffling and then, then she feels arms around her and it is so so so comforting, so so so automatic, to fall into the embrace, to take deep breaths and smell Cat all around her.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around, Kara.”

It’s a whisper and she shivers and bites her lips and nods, hugging the woman tighter.

“We’re going to uncomplicate things, alright?”

She nods again and she was right.

She was right.

Hugging Cat, feeling the woman’s arms around her, so willingly firm and secure, it takes a bit of the tiredness from within her, is a bit better than ten hours of sleep.

Having Cat around is like a breath of fresh air.

Not only because Kara had missed her so much (albeit that’s part of the reason).

Cat is different.

Not completely, of course. She still almost bites Kara’s head off while they talk on the phone one morning, but the woman apologizes a couple of seconds later, over the dead silence that usually followed Cat’s sharp tones.

Cat apologizes and Kara feels her heart beating against her ribcage.

Cat is different.

She stopped drinking coffee, she informs once over message. She bought a pair of sweatpants after twenty years, even though she only puts it on when the children are in bed.

She sits on her living room floor every night, after Carter has done his homework, so they can both go through family photo albums with Abby.

Having the woman around, with her new-found willingness to small smiles and soft touches, has Kara being able to go to bed and actually falling asleep for hours on end.

Of course, Cat doesn’t come back to work. Not on the first few weeks of her return.

She pops into the office every day, always in the afternoon and for half an hour tops.

“Leave them on the tip of their toes.” She whispers to Kara one day while the boss leans over the younger woman’s work. “So once that elevator opens at eight AM, they know it’s on.”

They share a smirk and later that day, Kara asks the alien spitting acid all around town to stop. She asks. Politely.

It doesn’t work, of course, and she ends up knocking him out with a blow to the head, but she tries.

And that means a lot.

Means enough for Alex to smile brightly at her when she flies into the D.E.O. and enough for her to be able to look Eliza in the eyes when she arrives at her apartment.

It’s just her luck, surely, that two days later she runs into Lillian Luthor and the wall Cat’s presence had started to build around Kara comes crumbling down.

She manages to struggle off two of Cadmus’ ultra-agents before she is able to escape.

“They are getting stronger, Alex. A lot stronger.” She says, lying in the sunbed and trying to wrap her head around what she’d seen. “They had Kryptonite embedded in their bodies. Touching them was already so hard.”

“But Hank got rid of all Kryptonite, Superman-”

And then her sister gets this angry look and excuses herself. Kara makes enough effort to catch a word out of Alex’s conversation outside the room.

Red-K.

Red-K.

Red-K.

Shit shit shit

Max Lord.

They should have imagined he would find his way into the situation eventually.

When she’s well enough, though, her sister tells her to go home. Says that Cadmus will still have kryptonite-soldiers come morning and there was no use for Supergirl if she wasn’t well rested.

But the thought of going to her apartment, facing Eliza and Jeremiah is too much. The thought of seeing the man who had been stuck with that organization for so long, it breaks her heart.

So she flies around.

Knows that it isn’t wise, knows that she really should rest, because her bones scream for to do so, but, still, she flies.

She takes in the noises of the city until they are mingled enough to almost sound like a song. Takes in the landscape and the smells (pollution aside).

And she also knows that it isn’t wise of her to take a loop around Cat’s building, knows that she is indulging too much in something that she can’t have, but, still, she flies.

Kara is in time to see the ritual her boss had described.

Cat sits on her living room floor, Abby on her lap and Carter to her side, each of the older Grants holding one end of what looks like a hardcover book.

And she must linger for too long, because Carter looks up suddenly, just like he did that day in the restaurant, and catches her observing.

She’s far enough away to rush out of sight, but then again, her heart is too soft and too big towards the teen for her to do so.

Carter stands in a jump, rushes to the balcony.

“Supergirl! Supergirl!”

He calls her, and she answers.

She gets closer and by that point Abby is beside him, little head just in level with the medium-height railing. Cat has a soft smirk on her lips, but the woman still stays seated on her rug.

“Uhm… I’m sorry, but are you the boy who helped with the train and the bomb?”

He smiles.

Wider.

Almost as wide as when he’d introduced his sister.

“Yes! Yes- er, yes.”

She laughs, and she thinks he’d bounce on his feet if he was alone.

“Thank you, for that day. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did without your backup.”

Carter seems to levitate. She wonders if he’d feel the same way, if he knew of her failures as much as he knows about her triumphs.

“And who would have thought you’d be related to the woman who named me?”

Cat approaches them at that statement, eyes on Kara, arms crossed, same smirk on her face.

“Leadership must be on our DNA.” Cat says and Carter rolls his eyes.

His mother’s son, sure enough.

Kara lowers herself in the air a bit, until she’s at eye level with Abby.

“And what’s your name, sweetheart?”

The girl’s curls are loose, now, framing her small face in all directions and her dark skin glows even more against the moon.

Abby gives her a quirky grin and Kara restrains herself not to frown, on that second, because how come this child is not related to Cat Grant?

“We already met, silly.”

The voice is thin, a bit raspy and her accent is prominent, even at such a young age, but the sentence still makes Kara’s stomach drop. Still makes her almost certain that her flying power is out and she is indeed freefalling towards the ground.

Of course it’d take a unknown child two seconds to see through her costume.

Of course the Queen of All Media would be somehow in with it as well.

“What are you talking about? Of course you didn’t.” Carter is looking at his sister with doubt on his brow.

“I’m sure she meant she knows you from the news.” Cat says, picking her daughter up and kissing the round cheek. “But this is my daughter, Supergirl.”

“Nice- Nice to meet you.”

She smiles and says goodbye a couple of seconds later, patting Carter on the shoulder as another thank you before rushing off.

When she does fly through her apartment’s window, it is late enough for her foster parents to be asleep and for her to slip in unnoticed.

Kara takes a shower, puts on her pajamas and, for the first time in some weeks, doesn’t sleep.

And then her phone beeps around two A.M and she wishes for the mattress to swallow her whole.

2:07:46 A.M

Cat Grant

Care to explain why my daughter thinks Supergirl wears glasses and is called Kara?

She breathes, but isn’t entirely sure that it makes a difference.

2:10:05 A.M

Kara Danvers

I’m not sure what you mean, Miss Grant.

2:10:34 A.M

Cat Grant

Are you saying Abby is lying?

2:13:21 A.M

Kara Danvers

No, Miss Grant. I just don’t know what it means.

2:13:56 A.M

Cat Grant

Nothing. It means nothing. Goodnight, Kara.

Kara keeps breathing and her lungs keep feeling like they are in flames.

She wishes she could just tell.

Or just disappear at once.

Maybe the D.E.O has a machine for that last one.

A.N.: I’ve been posting this one over at AO3 and ff.net for a while now, but I thought I’d start posting it here as well. There are two more chapters on the previously mentioned pages if you want to check them out before I post chap. 2 over here.

(fic title is a translation from the song Dançando by Agridoce, a Brazilian band. chapter title from Run, Run, Run (the version with Kelly Clarkson and John Legend).)

[tl-notes]

Gabriel Dropout Episode 4 Notes

These guidebooks (しおり shiori) are primarily associated with school trips, such as field trips (at all ages) or those overnight trips middle and high school students do. However, they’re sometimes made for personal (or work) group vacations as well, often by whoever’s in charge of organizing the event. It will generally contain a schedule and various other bits of useful/relevant information about the trip, basically a glorified pamphlet or printout. It’s also common to give them a title, as seen here, to kind of represent the trip.

All that said, you gotta be pretty fired up about the trip to actually go out of your way to make these things yourself, so there’s definitely an element of “aww, she’s so excited” intended here.

The 思ひ出 (omoide, memories) in the title is usually written 思い出; in modern Japanese ひ is the hiragana for hi, and い is for i, but in classical Japanese it wasn’t quite so clear-cut. In “normal” usage nowadays it would pretty much always be い, but you can use the ひ for stuff like this to make it more emotional/old-fashioned. For example, it’s used in the Japanese title for the Studio Ghibli film Only Yesterday (おもひでぽろぽろ).

The phrase she uses in the Japanese is “charisma demon” (well, akuma 悪魔). “Charisma” as a loan word when paired with a noun like that basically means charismatic + star power; someone who’s so good at being whatever [noun] is they’ve gotten some level of acclaim for it. An example would be a “charisma beautician,” someone who’s highly skilled and has some fame for working on celebrities or something.

It’s not very commonly used with professions that would generally require charisma and lead to stardom by default, like an actor or something.

When using it to refer to yourself, it’s like proclaiming yourself a star; not exactly the best of manners even when true.

It’s not shown in the typeset subs, but she actually misspells the word (i.e. writes the wrong kanji, 行 instead of 業; both can be pronounced gyou) and has to cross it out and rewrite.

The original line here is “do bananas count as snacks?” (バナナはおやつに含まれますか？). This is in reference to a rule on school field trips that you can only bring (usually) 300 yen worth of snacks. Schools typically enforce this rule to keep kids from bringing a bunch of junk food or whatever and spoiling their lunch by eating it on the bus/train, and also to maintain a sense of equality among students with different home environments.

The banana question is an oyakusoku question somebody always asks when the teacher is explaining the trip. Nowadays, it’s generally a thing asked as a joke about trying to find a way around the snack cap. However, back in the 50s/60s it was a serious question.

Prior to that, bananas were fairly hard to come by in Japan and largely considered a bit of a luxury food, but by the 60s they were becoming somewhat more accessible to the average person (but still maintained their status as a fancy treat). Since school trips are kind of a rare and special event, it wasn’t uncommon for parents to want to send something special (i.e. a banana) for the kid to eat on it. So you’d always have at least one kid who would ask whether that banana would be included as part of their snack limit, or part of their lunch (which generally you’d bring from home).

That might make more sense if you consider that Japanese lunch boxes tend to be pretty thin and tightly packed to begin with. Even if the parent intended the banana to be part of the lunch as sort of a dessert (as fruits tend to be thought of), it wouldn’t fit in the lunch box and would have to be carried separately—like the snacks.

Vignette, of course, anticipated the question coming up and included it in the guide booklet.

She doesn’t actually use baby-talk here, but she does use the –ageru grammar point. Ageru means (several things but in this case) to give something. By attaching it to the end of another verb it becomes you doing that verb for somebody, with a nuance of doing it as a favor for them—which, depending on context, can be pretty condescending.

Satania uses that sort of language a lot when in Future-Ruler-of-Hell mode.

Specifically she says playing in the sand, not a general “out of the water.” Doesn’t really matter, but it foreshadows how serious she is about building that sandcastle later.

Here she says “umi no ie” (海の家), which literally is like “ocean house,” but actually refers to small scale restaurants on the beach that are generally only open seasonally. If you’ve seen a beach episode of an anime you’ve almost certainly seen one before.

As mentioned in an earlier episode note, the mai (舞) here is used for a verb that basically means descend with grace (舞い降りる), a la an angel descending from heaven or big fluffy snowflakes falling (it also means dance or float/hover). Ten (天) represents heaven.

西区 (Nishi-ku) is basically “western district,” which is appropriate enough, considering.

“Arara” is something people say when something bad/disappointing happens (usually when they are watching it happen to other people). “Machi” is just “town,” a common part of many place names.

Another example of oyakusoku. As soon as somebody is shown to have worn their swimsuit under their clothes, you know there will be some forgotten underwear joke coming up.

This looks like the torii at Miyajima, though there’s no bridge like that there.

Edit: It turns out this is Bentenjima, another fairly touristy place with a torii that is partially underwater during high tide.

As you can, the "-tenjima" part of the name is the same, the just swapped out the Ben for Mai. Benten, by the way, is an important goddess in Japan, and one of the seven lucky gods.

Guess what she says here?

Oyakusoku.

The little shrine on the left there is a common sight on the roadsides of Japan. The statues are generally of Jizou (or Ojizou-san/-sama as they are often called), the Japanese incarnation of a major bodhisattva. He’s a pretty cool guy who basically considers all life his responsibility and is mega kind and watches over everybody, and in Japan, especially children. There’s probably some connection between his shrines/statues being on all the roads and the fact that most kids in Japan walk to school unattended.

The red hat and bib are offerings put on them in prayer that one’s own children will grow up healthy and safe.

There’s also a famous folk tale regarding the hat. A kind old man travelled to town to try to sell five straw hats he and his wife had made, so he could buy some rice cakes for them to eat on New Year’s. Unfortunately nobody was buying though, so he left to return home. As he made his way back, he saw six Jizou statues being covered by the falling snow. Feeling bad for them, he wiped off the snow and gave the straw hats to five of the six, and his own cloth cap to the sixth. Later that night, the Jizou came to life and visited the old couple’s home, bringing with them a huge supply of rice as a gift.

There are several different versions, and this is a pretty summarized take on it, but that’s the gist.

You may be familiar with the “tadaima/okaeri“ tradition of greetings for when someone returns home. This is basically a similar deal except for when it’s a guest arriving, instead of someone who lives there: you say irasshai, they say ojama shimasu (though there are of course variant options for each).  In practice they’re just ritualized greetings, like “come on in” and “thanks for having me,” but in literal terms ojama shimasu basically means “I’m going to get in the way/cause you trouble.”

So Gabs is basically saying “I’m being a pain” repeatedly.

I saw a lot of people a little confused about this exchange, so just for clarity’s sake.

It basically boils down to:

Gaben: “Come on, surely you saw this coming.”

Vine: “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Garb: “Right? Now settle down and let me see your homework like a good girl.”

Viggo: “Wait, why are you acting like I’m the one being a child here!?”

The actual line here is “sasuga Vigne.” Sasuga is a super common word in conversational Japanese, that basically means “as expected [of someone/something].” Often it’s used as a compliment along the lines of “that’s our boy/girl!”, kind of a combination “wow you did it!” and “but we knew you would because you’re great!”

It doesn’t have to be complimentary though, it can be used in a sort of “there they go again…” way as well, or anything in between. Here, it’s basically like “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Ironically, of all the places to squeeze an idiom or joke into the translation, this is one where it would have actually matched the Japanese.

The word she (doesn’t) use here is “naruhodo“, which is basically just “oh, I see/understand/get it.” It’s also Phoenix Wright’s Japanese name, eyy Naruhodo-kun.

What Gub says here instead is “naru~,” like she’s too lazy to finish saying the word.

This is a common(ish) way to compliment a girl’s looks, especially from one woman to another. Particularly someone who leans toward “cute” and who keeps their appearance neat (as in like, hair not wild, etc.).

Not everyone particularly enjoys it though, you can find people online asking “why do people say I look like a doll, are they calling me emotionless?” In theory though it’s purely a compliment.

The saying she uses here is “困った時はお互い様 (komatta toki wa otagai-sama).” It’s used when you’re helping out somebody in trouble and they thank you/apologize for being a burden, and basically means like “oh, you’d do the same for me” or “don’t worry about it, people gotta help each other out” (but not so informal-sounding).

A friend in need is a friend indeed, by my understanding of the phrase, is a little different. The “friend in need” part of it means a friend who is still your friend in your time of need, with the idea being “if somebody sticks with you through the hard times they must be a real friend.” So for Gabu to be using it when she’s helping out Vigneto kind of implies “yeah I’m your real friend,” which is not quite the original intent.

[whatsgodgottodowithreligion-blog]

Behind Blue Eyes

As anyone who has read my book, What’s GOD Got To Do With It? knows, I am an abuse survivor. While I don’t go into specific detail about that inside those pages, I have dealt with and struggled with the ramifications of this abuse (physical, verbal, sexual) for the majority of my adult life. In fact, one of the more painful sidebars that came with my decision to not self-medicate with alcohol in 1995 was that I had to address the post-traumatic stress this abuse was plaguing me with, even after years of therapy which allowed me to see clearly the emotional and psychological impact this had on me as an adult.

For years, I wondered (or rather, looked for a logical explanation) as to why, out of seven offspring, my Dad was particularly mean and cruel to me - why he seemed to single me out for a lot of his rage and anger from as early on as I can remember. One day, during my teens, a seemingly innocent trip down memory lane served to provide that missing piece of the puzzle. My brothers, sister and me were looking at photos in the family album, taken during our younger years. I remember looking at a picture of me taken in kindergarten, all happy and smiles (thanks to the photographer telling me corny jokes while he shot the images) in my houndstooth blazer, white dress shirt and tie, when my sister remarked “You think that’s a cute picture of you - you should’ve seen yourself as a baby.......you had the cutest blue eyes!”

Now I know, there’s a common belief that all kids are born with blue eyes (and most eye color changes in the weeks after birth), but apparently, that blue eye gene did not show up in the six siblings which preceded me, nor in my kid brother who was born a year later. What’s more, it was several months before my eye color did indeed change from blue to brown. This would seem like a minuscule and trivial detail, except for one thing: my Dad, who was a simple Southern man with less than a fifth grade education (he had to drop out of school to tend chores on his grandmother’s farm after his birth mother abandoned him) was not educated enough to understand the dynamics of recessive gene traits. Put another way - if you were a country bumpkin, and five of your kids had your eye color, but the sixth child came out with blue eyes, what would you likely conclude?

Unlike anyone else in my family, I realized the conclusion that my Dad had to have drawn was completely logical, in absence of any evidence refuting it - that is, that I was not his biological son. Worse, it meant that he was staring into the eyes of his wife’s adulterous behavior. Nevermind the fact that my Dad wasn’t exactly faithful to my mom, he had to be worried that if anyone noticed the discrepancy in eye color, they too, would draw the conclusion that ‘his woman’ was a two-timing whore. To this day, I’m not entirely sure he ever believed that I was ‘of his loins’, a fact reinforced by the multiple times he said “You’re no son of mine!” to me, and only to me, even as a brown-eyed teenager and adult.

This meant that even within the family dynamic I was born into, I was left with the feeling that I was different - that I was not like my other siblings. Indeed, not only that, but that I did not belong, that I was an intruder, or in the eyes of my father, I represented a significant threat to his manhood, and by extension, his self concept. So before I ever learned that my skin color would be looked upon with the same level of distrust and suspicion, I was subjected to unjust ostracizing in an environment where I should have felt loved, appreciated and protected.

In elementary school,  I always looked forward to “career day” - when adults of various professions would come in and talk to us about the jobs they did, why they did them, and what they enjoyed about them. This included, without fail, a visit from both a fireman and a policeman. At least in my day, kids (especially boys) looked up to both cops and firemen as heroes - brave guys who risked their lives to save others, keep the communities they served safe and protected, and got to wear cool uniforms that elicited both admiration, awe and respect. The message (or should I say slogan) that we were told repeatedly was “Remember kids - the policeman is your friend. So always be polite and respectful, and always obey what an officer tells you to do.”

And so, while I had my sights set on riding a red fire engine and having a cute Dalmatian by my side, I did believe what I was told, and learned to respect the police, and had the mindset that the policeman was indeed a friend I could trust and turn to. But something happened along the way between the ages of sixteen and onward that sent a very distinct counter-message that while I may believe the policeman was my friend, he had an entirely different view of me.

The first significant episode happened to me when I was in my twenties: I was hanging out in the lobby of a movie theatre, talking with my friend Howard, when suddenly, three cops burst in with steadfast intent. While standing there with my friend, the three cops suddenly advanced on us (or more accurately, advanced upon me), and proceeded to throw me up against the wall dividing the lobby seats, with two of the officers frisking me while the other stood by. No advance warnings were given, nor was there any explanation as to why I was being ‘singled out’ over my white companion beside me. I calmly and respectfully asked (repeatedly) what I did wrong, and why I was being searched - the one answer I got was “Be quiet” as they continued patting me down, in search of what I had no idea. A few minutes into this episode, an elderly woman entered the theatre - she noticed what was going on, and noticed me being frisked. It was only until the woman remarked to the cops “No.....that’s not him” that the cops stopped their frisking/detaining of me and let me go. They then proceeded to exit the theatre with the old lady in tow.

Without explaining why they did what they did. Without so much as an apology for frisking “the wrong man.” I was humiliated in front of my friend, and had my dignity stripped from me, but I did not deserve any apology in their eyes. When I have recalled this episode in the past, many folks responded (or should I say rationalized) this intrusion with, “Well, they were just doing their job.” An unidentified black man likely snatched an old white lady’s purse, so the police went into the first place they surmised he would likely hide, and decided to frisk whatever black males they encountered inside the premises. Seems perfectly logical to me. What doesn’t seem logical is the fact that we, as a society act as if the police can never be wrong, never make a mistake, or ever have anything to be apologetic for. That demoralizing episode became a rude awakening to me that 1. The policeman is not my friend - he considers me an adversary/suspect guilty until proven innocent, and 2. I can be as respectful and compliant as I was taught to be in school, but I would still be treated as a second-class citizen, and should expect as much whenever I am in the presence of law enforcement.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about racial bias, police brutality and excessive, deadly force. Those who protest the disparity in how blacks and whites are treated by police are all too often met with derision and criticism. When the Black Lives Matter movement began as a response to unexplained instances of why unarmed black men were being shot to death by policemen who suffered no outside investigations or repercussions, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was rebutted with “Blue Lives Matter” - as if the two were somehow in conflict with each other. Whatever I may think about the radicalization within BLM, or how their message has become distorted by the extremist voices coming from inside that protest group, the fact is it’s hard to believe that black lives really do matter in the eyes of many, though not all in law enforcement.

But even more disturbing than that is the emergence of black conservative voices who seek to justify racial profiling and excessive force as being necessary elements in the ever-increasing dangerousness of being a cop these days. To rationalize the death of an unarmed black man being shot in the back and killed by a policeman with “Well, he shouldn’t have been running away” or “If he wasn’t guilty of something, he would have listened and obeyed orders” is sad and distorted enough coming from the mouths of clueless Caucasians, but to have black conservatives echo the same sentiments is chilling. When San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to “take a knee” during the National Anthem as a sign of silent protest, the blowback was disproportionately hostile: hearing people like CRTV’s Dineen Borelli and The Blacksphere’s Kevin Jackson (above) attack Kaepernick for his righteous anger over racism and police brutality I find particularly disturbing. Jackson has gone one step further: producing a documentary entitled Bleeding Blue: Behind The Badge, Under The Gun, whose objective is to shed light on both how dangerous it is for cops out there on the street, and how the “leftist media” continues to fan the flames of racial discord, instead of holding the black community accountable for the lawless criminals that are being coddled as “victims of their environment.”

No one would argue that the police have it tough out there, and that being a policeman is one of the most dangerous occupations one could have, but it was tough being a cop when I was in grade school - so what exactly has changed? More criminals with guns? Stronger narcotics on the streets and in the veins of those committing crimes? Public apathy? I’m not sure that things have changed in terms of danger to policemen as much as our 24/7, as-it-happens news cycle has been feeding us a daily diet of crime and punishment. When the average white person watches the news, and sees the majority of crimes being committed by blacks - specifically black men, what underlying message is implanted inside their minds? If racial bias exists within society (which it does), it must certainly manifest itself among police officers - but officers are (or should be) trained to discern what is reasonable suspicion and what is a knee-jerk reaction to the presence of black men on their beat.

And when excessive force is used, there needs to be accountability, period. Every time a cop is caught on camera using excessive, unnecessary force (which results in the death of a black man), and an internal review exonerates the policeman of any wrongdoing, you are reinforcing the idea that black lives do not matter. Black conservatives want to cloak themselves in the misguided belief that only “thugs” have deadly encounters with police, and so whatever fate befalls them is justified and of their own making. This conveniently ignores the fact that there are countless incidents where armed white men brandishing deadly weapons manage to be peacefully apprehended by law enforcement, and do not result in the use of excessive force or the death of a suspect. So why is it okay for an unarmed man to be shot in the back and killed? How can one watch videos on the news or Youtube of unarmed black men being shot like wild dogs and not feel a tinge of horror? Why do we hold the police to a higher standard, even when that trust is betrayed by their actions? Why no outrage over the increased militarization (and combat mindset) of law enforcement, which perpetuates an “us versus them” mentality, presuming all suspects guilty without benefit of due process?

Finally, how did we get to a place where respect for law enforcement means looking the other way when rouge cops act more like vigilantes than peace officers? Frank Serpico was more than the subject of a 1973 Sidney Lumet film starring Al Pacino: he was a living, breathing embodiment of a “good cop.’ When Serpico witnessed corruption and law breaking among his fellow officers, he did not look the other way - he spoke up. You would think all good cops would have his back and support his efforts to expose the bad apples inside the NYPD, but you’d be dead wrong. The “blue wall of silence” was erected almost immediately, and Serpico was subjected to retaliatory behavior, both from his superiors and from fellow cops on the force. During his testimony before the Mayor Lindsay-appointed Knapp Commission in 1971, Serpico said:

“The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist, in which an honest police officer can act... without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. Police corruption cannot exist unless it is at least tolerated. Therefore, the most important result that can come from these hearings... is a conviction by police officers that the department will change.”

Serpico retired from the force a month after receiving The Medal Of Honor in June of 1972, and has been an outspoken advocate for police accountability to this day. Serpico’s bravery is, unfortunately, eclipsed by the fact that such courage is rarely acknowledged or validated by the world in which we live - indeed, the “blue wall of silence” continues to infect police departments across America, where good cops look the other way, when they should be speaking out. Even when a fellow officer uses excessive force; even when an officer taunts or harasses a suspect, barely containing their racially-motivated contempt. Even when an officer ramps up a situation to a deadly conclusion, that should have been de-escalated to a peaceful apprehension of the suspect. Even when a shooting is not justified, under any circumstances, given the particular circumstances of that incident.

When my Dad would beat me, he’d often yell, “You need to respect me, boy!” Sometimes, I would have the temerity to respond, “That respect has to be earned”, either internally or out loud. Blind respect to authority serves no one, especially if such authority is misapplied, abused or otherwise diminished by a lack of compassion, fairness or justice. Black conservatives and self-righteous white folk can look upon all suspects as “guilty as charged” (as the majority of comment threads on social media platforms would suggest), and psychologically distance themselves from  the criminal ‘other’, but the presumption of innocence and the tenets of due process are vital parts of a civilized society. In his book, The Divide, investigative journalist Matt Tiabbi exposed the fact that cops in New York City were arresting young black males for “jaywalking” as a way to preemptively instill them into the criminal justice system - the presumption being that sooner or later they’d end up breaking some significant law, and that this tactic was an effective way of streamlining that process. Were all males, regardless of race being arrested in this manner? No. 

Sometimes, I think about how different the world would be if I could view it from a ‘lighter perspective’ - alas, such daydreaming is futile. Like it or not, God brought me into the world as a brown-skinned black man, and this world has separate and unequal guidelines on how I should be perceived and treated. Black conservatives can delude themselves into thinking such prejudice or brutality only comes to those “who deserve it”, but from personal experience. I know better. “No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man” better than I.

[ariannewhitlam9-blog]

Indications Of Spiritual Awakening

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[prixmiumarchive]

This is super personal specific-to-me feelings about the shortly-after-the-opening scene of Part 3 of Crisis On Earth X. Putting it beneath a read more because discussions of homophobia and parents and family and all the bundle of mess that goes with that. Also, you know, Nazi-mention.

I have a lot more to say about this crossover event, and I might say it later. Over all, my general opinion is mostly-favorable in spite of some criticisms I read of the genera concept prior to watching that made me dread it. I don’t have a mostly-favorable opinion because the whole thing was easy to watch but because it wasn’t always easy to watch. I can see why somebody would abstain from watching it. However, I refuse to believe that portrayal = endorsement.

The thing I wanted to make a post about for some catharsis before I go to sleep is the scene between Sara and Nazi!Quentin when the Earth 1 heroes find themselves in the prison yard on Earth X. I don’t even want to look it up on YouTube in order to give you reference because it is just creeping and crawling all over me. It’s like the second or third significant bit of conversation for the Earth 1 heroes in that sequence, though.

Nazi!Quentin comes out and sees Sara. For some reason he seems a bit dense about doppelgangers. He uses the phrase “looks just like” as if it’s some kind of mild coincidence. That’s a different thing, though. Rather than recognizing Sara as a version of his daughter, he looks at her and remarks on her blonde hair, blue eyes -- “Nordic perfection” -- and asks why she would align herself with the “unpure.” [sic] 

Sara’s response is because “Because I like men. And I like women.”

Nazi!Quentin’s response (per this transcript because I can’t watch it again in isolation right now) is: “You know, I had a daughter who looked just like you, with similar compulsions. And I expunged that filth from my family line forever.“

And I am just still-shaken by this days and days later. I liked this event in part because it didn’t tend to pull punches where it might have in a way that would have trivialized its own concept. I think that if you have a critique for it, on would have to go with the idea that this is a concept that shouldn’t have even been broached right now.

With regard to this one exchange, though, as a bisexual person I am just really troubled. This show whose Earth 1 Quentin adores his daughters in a very pure, appropriately-fatherly way has a Nazi counterpart who literally killed (or allowed the systematic murder of) his daughter for the crime of being attracted to women. 

Especially given that Sara and Alex are allowed to have a positive, consensual, but ultimately casual sexual relationship early in the crossover event that allowed them to bond but not in a forever-true-love-romantic kind of way, the contrast is just so jarring. And I guess the reason it is bothering me so much is because I often want to share fandom-y things I’m super-passionate about with my parents. I’m in my 20s but still live at home. If you are my age and manage to not do so, I am in awe and wonder how you do it. However, in recent years, I have stopped sharing much of my fandom-stuff, even in small chunks, with my family. There are several reasons for this. Working exacerbating my introversion. Aging itself. There is also the fact that I think prior to my graduation from college/move back home, my parents felt more inclined to indulge my interests because they knew I was alone and lonely and didn’t have anyone to share my stuff with in person. That is still true, but somehow with me living back here, it matters less to them.

Anyway, since I very acutely got back into DCTV and have been working my way through things when I am able, I have been wanting to share some part of it with my parents. However, I find that I am more guarded with sharing my media with my parents than I was five years ago. More to the point, I thought about sharing the Crisis on Earth X crossover with my mom because it’s got campy elements but deals with a serious topic in a fantastical way, but every time I seriously thought about asking, suddenly, and with a cold, sick kind of feeling I would decide not to. I decided not to not because of Nazis or violence or references to other things my parents might not agree with morally. There are lots of things we can mutually watch-but-not-condone. Instead, it was because of Sara and Alex’s encounter (in the most TV-14 franchise ever about this kind of thing -- tasteful and never graphic and staying well within their bounds but using their allotted space and leeway) in the first episode.

I don’t want to show my mom because while we watched J. Edgar in theaters with neither of us anticipating that there would be a m/m relationship in it because I guess we just sort of missed that bit of history and she came away “sympathetic even though she disagreed,” I just didn’t want to watch the look of revulsion on her face. All the disapproval would have been mild, disappointed, reluctant, with a what-is-becoming-mainstream-is-terrible-for-our-kids kind of vibe.

I’m bisexual and my parents will never know unless I fall deeply in love with another woman. Simply because I cannot bear to watch as my life, in their eyes, slowly becomes about what went wrong in my mind. Whose fault it is. How to fix it. And so, this bit just really troubles me because while I love both my parents and consider myself to have a decent relationship with them -- especially considering the horrors I know that could be even in my listening to the lives of others -- I know that there is a huge part of me that I hide for my own safety. it is a very minor, comfort kind of safety. However, the other day, I had a conversation with my mom about racism and she, unprompted, actually expressed the notion that she agreed that everyone learned prejudices with or without being hatefully or deliberately racist. She acknowledged the need to self-examine, self-educate, and improve as a white person toward people of color. I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised that she had arrived to this kind of articulation of something on her own. However, I just wish that the same applied to LGBT issues. 

That scene is sticking to me in a way I can’t get rid of because I don’t blame my parents for what they were taught. I don’t hate them. Even if I came out to them today, they wouldn’t hate or reject me. However, it is the insidious nature of homophobia and hate that has its roots in so, so deep. It is the slow slip from middle-of-the-road to violent conservatism that “moderate” reasonable people never, ever see. It is the inevitability of there being a short, short path from simple disapproval and refusal to understand to the very notion that a parent could reject, ostracize, or punish a child for the kinds of people they are inclined to love.

I don’t know that this post was useful at all, but it was just some thought-expulsion I had to do. You are entitled to view this show or my own life and my own choices through your own lens, but I have mine. And right now, they’re kind of cloudy with a sort of lingering regret. I’m glad that I can look on TV and see women kissing women and men kissing men without it being so scandalous, so fetishized, but the gulf that is placing between me and my family ever knowing what it is that give me joy, in life or in fiction, is dizzying.

[attendantdesign-blog]

New Post has been published on Attendantdesign

New Post has been published on https://attendantdesign.com/do-pets-really-benefit-childrens-health/

Do pets really benefit children's health

Extensive range of small studies has these days been suggesting that children who very own or engage with a pet have higher bodily and mental fitness. But the largest take a look at of its type so far now disproves this hypothesis. The new observer changed into performed through researchers at RAND employer, a nonprofit think tank and part of RAND Health, which is an independent health policy research application.

The new studies bring superior statistical gear together with double robust regression

analyses to the have a look at of this subject matter, which the scientists used to account for other factors that may have an impact on a toddler’s health instead of puppy possession, such as family income.

Additionally, to the authors’ information, that is the most important statistical study to analyze the link between kid’s fitness and own family puppy ownership.

The first author of the look at is Jeremy N. V. Miles, and Layla Parast, a statistician at RAND, is the corresponding creator for this research.

Existing studies may be biased Numerous small research – referenced by way of Miles and colleagues – have recommended that owning a pet might also improve the fitness and psychological nicely-being of kids.

However, maximum of those research, say the researchers, have been the problem to 2 important flaws: first of all, they did not well account for the so-called selection bias or the problem of confounding – this is, elements consisting of family profits that can bias the consequences.

Statistically, a strategy to this trouble is applying “propensity rankings” – an approach that is typically used to allow researchers to calculate the opportunity that someone, as an example, might be treated in another way primarily based on bias-inducing traits such as age or gender.

But, the researchers stated, few of the studies analyzing pets’ effect at the health of children have used propensity rankings.

  A hyperlink between pets and pediatric health? Miles and colleagues analyzed statistics from 2,236 families that owned both a canine or a cat and as compared them with 2,955 families that did not have a puppy.

The researchers acquired the statistics from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey – a large, populace-primarily based, random-digit dialed survey of families.

Pets offer ‘specific’ aid to humans with mental contamination Pets offer ‘specific’ support to human beings with intellectual contamination A massive examine investigates how a puppy can affect the mental well-being of its proprietors. READ NOW The survey collected data approximately the fitness status and health-associated and psychological behaviors of the families interviewed. Despite the truth that the survey became achieved in greater recent years, the 2003 survey became the simplest one which contained a question approximately cat and canine ownership.

Miles and co-workers narrowed down their studies to families that had at the least one child between five and eleven years vintage.

Questions assessed with the aid of the researchers protected inquiries about the overall health and well-being of the child,

whether the kid had received an interest deficit hyperactivity ailment (ADHD) prognosis, and questions on whether or not or not the determine had any worries approximately the mood, feelings, and conduct of the child.

  In terms of the statistical analysis, the researchers used ��survey-weighted linear and logistic regression analyses” with puppy ownership as the principal variable. Survey weighting is often used when statisticians ought to estimate regression models based on survey information.

The authors give an explanation for that rather than maximum statistical research, which uses the maximum of the to be had control variables to adjust for viable confounding factors, the current take a look at using an extra superior statistical device referred to as double robust regression.

This technique used propensity ratings and weighted the regression fashions so that “those with a puppy have been compared with those without a puppy on all to be had confounding elements in the statistics.”

Overall, the scientists accounted for more than one hundred confounding factors that would affect the outcomes, consisting of profits, language competencies, and the kind of housing they lived in.

  Study reveals no widespread hyperlink The take a look at discovered that, as expected, youngsters in families that owned a puppy were in higher health and tended to be extra physically lively than youngsters in households with out a puppy.

Furthermore, children in pet-proudly benefit owning families health pets

were much more likely to have ADHD, however, their mother and father had been much less likely to be worried approximately their mood, emotions, conduct, and capacity to examine.

However, after the researchers adjusted the findings using the double-strong method and together with propensity scores, the link between pet possession and kid’s health turned into no longer statistically vast.

These results are extra dependable than the ones of preceding studies, the scientists say because their examine is the biggest of its type so far.

“We could not locate evidence that children from families with dogs or cats are better off both in phrases of their mental well-being or their bodily health […] Everyone on the studies group changed into surprised – all of us have or grew up with dogs and cats. We had essentially assumed from our personal reviews that there was a connection.” Layla Parast The maximum correct take a look at for whether or not or no longer pet ownership improves children’s health, the authors say, could be an ordeal wherein families are randomly assigned a pet and manage families aren’t. Such a randomized trial might need to comply with-up at the family’s fitness for 10 to fifteen years, the authors say, and this isn’t financially possible.

[beingmad2017-blog]

Unique Training For Schools and Education Reform?

New Post has been published on https://beingmad.org/schools-training-education/

Unique Training For Schools and Education Reform?

I preserve in thoughts 20 plus years within the past at the same time as I was getting my graduate diploma in Unique Education and a pal of mine getting his degree in essential Education instructed me that his father, a college foremost, he that I in all likelihood shouldn’t waste my time getting a master in Precise education best high schools. a friend of mine said that Special Schooling in Faculties might be subsequently fading out of public Training. I used to be nearly finished with my masters at this thing so I figured I would take my possibilities with it, besides what different choice did I’ve anyways at that component?

Learning

I have been given a unique Schooling job and taught for approximately 10 365 days.

There were quite some u.S.and downs over those 10 years, and eventually, I decided that I desired an exchange so I got certified and converted to school statistics. At this factor in my profession, I remembered what my pal had said a decade in the past and wondered if I was earlier of the curve on Schools now not wanting Special education best high schools teachers, although it modified into 10 years later. I wondered if my process has become now secure in my new-discovered domestic within the data branch.

Nicely, I cherished coaching history, however, existence has its very own humorous methods that aren’t aligned with us and what we need, so after a decade of coaching records I, in my opinion, were given a primary beauty Training on price range cuts and my pastime have become removed. Thankfully, I landed on my fat back in Special Schooling, accept as true with it or now not.

It’s been extra than a long time given that my old graduate school buddy instructed me that the need for Specific Training teachers became disappearing. All through the preceding, a long term my pal had long gone from graduate faculty to simple faculty teacher to assistant predominant to foremost, similar to his father had executed. I had long past from graduate college to big education best high schools instructor to history teacher to returned to essential Education instructor, like no individual else that I understand had completed. And accept as true with it or now not there has been still a set of Precise education best high schools jobs to be had after I landed there for the 2nd time. As a depend upon of fact, there was honestly masses of jobs there due to the fact there is a shortage of Special Schooling instructors in forty-nine out of our 50 states. consider that… many years after I used to be advised that Unique education best high schools become going away, and I discover that they nonetheless can not appear to get sufficient Special Schooling instructors.

Rapid-ahead some greater years to nowadays and there can be a brand new and thrilling twist affecting Precise Education known as full inclusion.

Now inclusion isn’t a brand new detail to our schools. As a remember of truth, inclusion has a prolonged thrilling document in our schools.

Six a long time inside the beyond there was the Exquisite Court Case of Brown v. Board of Schooling. In 1954 the new regulation of the land has become included schools for all races. 4 a few years within the past the floor-breaking law of People with Disabilities Training Act (Concept) began to take the effect and help make certain that more than six million college students with disabilities have the proper to a unfastened and appropriate Schooling, which means that they too get to be included in with the overall Training populace.

To help these occur colleges create a Planning and site Group (PPT) that meet and speak a pupil’s Character education best high schools Application (IEP) and then place the pupil in the right academic setting based totally on the scholar’s goals and the law. The location moreover wants to be the least restrictive surroundings (LRE). I will, however, recollect my university professor describing the least restrictive environment in a quick tale that one might not bring a gadget gun to take care of a fly. As a substitute, one would simply bring a fly-swatter to attend to a fly. In different phrases, if a kid’s disability may be treated inside the network school, then the child would now not want to be dispatched throughout the town or even to some other city’s Unique faculty.

today, many schools are trying to enhance on this inclusion version and least restrictive environment with the aid of the usage of going from an eager on a full-inclusion model.

colleges in the Special L. A. university District have moved a huge majority in their college students out of their Special Schooling facilities inside the remaining 3 years and into network college work in which they’ll be completely incorporated into non-compulsory instructions like physical Schooling, gardening, and cooking. they’re additionally incorporated into normal vital drift academic classes as Well, however, it’s far commonly no longer to the same diploma as electives.

Michigan faculties say that want to break down the partitions amongst well-known Training and Unique Education developing a device in which college students gets extra help once they need it, and that help does not need to be in a separate Special Training classroom.

Some university districts in Portland, Oregon are a hint similarly alongside than the l. A. Faculties which may be genuinely bringing Special Schooling students again from Special Colleges and Michigan faculties which can be certainly beginning to attempt the complete integration of its college students and doing away with the maximum of the Precise Training lecture rooms.

Being a piece further along in the system Portland makes an exciting case look at. Some of the parents who initially supported the Idea of integrating Precise Education university students into regular Training school rooms in Portland are actually worried about how the Portland Public middle school work is doing it. Portland is aiming for whole inclusion with the aid of the twelve months 2020. however, A number of the teachers in Portland are saying, “Glaringly the Specific Schooling university college students are going to fail and they’ll be going to behave out due to the reality we are not meeting their desires… If there can be no longer the proper manual there, that is now not acceptable, not most effective for the child, however for the general Schooling trainer as Well.”

A Portland discerns stated, “I would Instead have my infant enjoy a hit than for them to be ‘university-equipped’.” She further states, “I want my kids to be appropriate, Well-rounded humans that make the arena a higher location. I do not assume they always want to go to the college to do that. I anticipate that children are People, and even as we stop treating them as People, there may be a hassle.” Unluckily, many dads and mother and instructors have left the Portland university District, and much greater are fantasizing about it due to the truth they feel the overall inclusion version isn’t running there how they pictured it would.

How tons have to school paintings combine the Specific Education fine high Colleges students is the burning question of the hour.

Faculties

In my personal experience Some integration isn’t always most effective possible, however, it is a need to. With a few assist, A number of the Unique Training university students can be in the everyday Training lecture rooms.

A few years in the past I even had a non-talking paraplegic boy in a wheelchair who became on a respiration respirator sitting in my ordinary Training social studies elegance. Each day his paraprofessional and his nurse rolled him into and sat with him. He continually smiled on the tales I knowledgeable of Alexander the Superb marching all through eleven,000 miles of territory and conquering heaps of the identified global at that factor. through the manner, Alexander the Brilliant also practiced his non-public version of inclusion by way of encouraging kindness to the conquered and galvanizing his infantrymen to marry the captured territory’s girls as a manner to create an enduring peace.

different crucial elements to remember in Precise faculty work inclusion is the plenty wanted socialization and the saving of cash integration gives. Youngsters research from one-of-a-kind children and money now not spent on Unique Education is probably spent on popular Schooling, right? Hmm…

In case you observed, I started out a chunk in advance that many Unique Education university college students may be protected, but, I did no longer say all or even most must be included. There are only a few college students which might be going to dispose of too much of the trainer’s time and attention from one-of-a-kind students, which include, inside the case of university students with severe conduct issues. while we put intense behavior problems in normal education best high schools lessons it’s far simply outright unfair to all the different Children in there. Similar instances may be made for one-of-a-kind excessive disabilities to that name for an excessive amount off of the precept circulates trainer’s Character time and interest.

Howdy, I am no longer saying to in no way try out an infant with a severe disability in a preferred Schooling putting. but what I’m announcing is that middle Faculties want to have a higher gadget of tracking the one’s placements and be capable of rapidly eliminate college students that are not working out, and are taking treasured getting to know time far far away from other college students. Moreover, faculties need to do this without shaming the instructor due to the fact the trainer complained that the scholar wasn’t a great suit and modified into disrupting the education best high schools getting to know device of the opportunity college students. Leaving a toddler in an besides the factored placement isn’t always accurate for any of the events concerned. Period.

During the last two a long time I’ve worked with extra Unique Schooling university students than I am capable of keep in mind as a Unique Training trainer and a regular Schooling excellent excessive faculty’s instructor teaching inclusion instructions. I have determined to become surprisingly bendy and affected person and as a result, have had Some of the toughest and maximum needy youngsters located in my classes. I have labored miracles with these Kids through the years and that I understand that I’m now not the most effective teacher available doing this. There are various extra available much like me. however, what I worry approximately is that due to the fact teachers are so dedicated and pulling off everyday miracles within the classroom, districts, community leaders, and flesh-presser may be pushing too difficult for the whole inclusion version wondering that the academics will just determine it out. Installing vicinity teachers and university college students for failure is by no means a good Concept.

Moreover, I am hoping it is without a doubt no longer the money that they will be in search of to keep even as pushing this full-inclusion version forward due to the fact what we ought to, in reality, be looking to save is our youngsters. As Fredrick Douglas stated, “it is easier to construct sturdy youngsters than to repair broken men.” No matter how the economic education best high schools pie is sliced, the lowest line is that the pie is simply too small and our Particular Training instructors and our Specific Schooling students should not be made to pay for this.

similarly, I have been a teacher for too lengthy to not be at the least a bit skeptical once I listen the bosses say that the motive they are pushing for the entire inclusion version is due to the reality socialization is so essential. I am aware of it’s essential. however, I moreover apprehend that too many human beings are setting their hats on that socialization excuse in preference to Schooling our Special wishes college students and offering them what they really want. I’ve seen Unique education best high schools best high schools students whose abilities nice allow them to attract pics sitting in honors lessons. there may be no real socialization taking location here. It just does now not make sense.

Nicely, sooner or later coming full circle. It’ll be interesting to see wherein this full inclusion element goes.

The wise ones may not permit their Special Faculties Training teachers to cross or put off their Schooling rooms. And for the faculties districts that do, I trust that it may not take lengthy before they understand the mistake they made and begin hiring Unique Unique Training teachers returned for Schools. To my pal and his now ex-fundamental father from all of the ones years ago who notion Special Faculties changed into going away, Properly, we’re now not there yet, and to tell you the truth, I don’t expect we ever are probably.

[obviouslyjohn-blog1]

Narrator explanation.  

From Erniedabernie on Reddit

TLDR: Ajay finds Sherlock for help and gives him USB and information on 'amo' Sherlock reads USB, asks mycroft to question 'amo', and concludes Mary is the traitor Sherlock goes to Mary with this info, but gets double-crossed Mary seeks Ajay out to kill him Sherlock/John catches up to Mary, but cannot save Ajay Sherlock gets into a fight with Mary. John cannot handle the situation, sees that his wife has killed and is fighting with his best friend, shoots at Mary John is distraught, after killing his wife because of Sherlock, blames himself and Sherlock, gets angry Sherlock covers for John making up most of this episode, giving an alternate ending. I am going to try my best to explain this episode, specifically the sequence of events. I don't think I know everything and I don't think the show has given enough clues to understand everything but this is just a theory that can explain quite a few 'inconsistencies' or 'puzzles' within this episode. Here are some assumptions that I made to explain this episode: What is shown on screen does not mean it is true Just because scenes are shown in their order does not mean it happened in that order Now we begin asking questions that I feel are worth answering, and that the show has lied. Who betrayed AGRA? Who killed Mary Watson? Who killed Ajay? It's difficult to find a place to start so let's start off with the events in Tbilisi. The question here is who betrayed the operation/AGRA? The show says that it is 'the secretary Vivian Norbury'. I believe this person probably does not even exist, and it is a made up person by Sherlock (more on this later). I believe that Mary is the actual traitor for the following reasons: Ajay is convinced that Mary is the traitor 'the English-woman' Mary is thought to be the only surviving member of AGRA. If 'Amo' wanted to overthrow AGRA, any surviving members will have a grudge against 'Amo'. It makes more sense if the surviving member is the traitor and tries to disappear/live another life after getting paid off If the terrorists were warned by 'Amo' they wouldn't get ambushed in the first place. It makes more sense that the actual plan was for Mary to extract the ambassador, and then for her to kill off her team, and leave with the ambassador to deliver to whoever paid Mary. If the terrorists had the ambassador she would get re-detained. This was not shown so she is most likely dead, and that would only happen if someone else were to kill her. If you were to believe Mary = Moran theory, the person recruiting Mary would be Moriarty. This only strengthens the theory but it is not necessary to believe that Mary is the traitor of AGRA The next step after believing that Mary betrayed AGRA would be believing that Norbury is not real. There could only be one traitor. I don't think I can prove Norbury isn't real, but I have a few reasons believing that she is fake: She quotes Moriarty 'Why does anyone do anything?'. Only two people know of this sentence and that is Sherlock and Moriarty himself. She is not Moriarty in a wig. She tells the story of the merchant, which only Mycroft/Sherlock knows. Yes she could coincidentally know this story too, but seeing as Sherlock opened the episode talking about this, it's likely that these are words coming from Sherlock too. Many shots within this scene imposes Mary onto Norbury, suggesting that Mary is Norbury, i.e. the traitor http://puu.sh/tc3xP/63b25ede11.jpg Mary getting shot scene is very dramatic and very like the movies. This is in direct contrast with the last episode where Molly says 'getting shot isn't like in the movies, where there is a big spurt of blood everywhere'. This really convinces me that this scene is fake. By believing this scene is fake it opens a few questions. Who shot Mary if Norbury didn't? Who made up this story and for what reason? Following this train of thought it could only be Sherlock who is making this story up. This story being the sequence of events that lead to Mary getting shot by Norbury. Why did Sherlock make a whole story up about who shot Mary then? Either he shot Mary or he is covering for someone else i.e. John. I know this touches on the whole alibi theory going around but I don't think that is the whole story. We know that Sherlock is absolutely fine with shooting someone and living with the consequences, but he may cover for his friend by lying about it. This does point to John shooting Mary. But why? I think we need to explain Ajay's story first. So Ajay's story pans out as escaping torture, comes back to London to try and find Mary and kill her because of vengeance. However this feels very unlikely. Many present scenes on Ajay show that he is drinking, scared, in a hoodie, more like he is trying to hide more than trying to find mary. There is also this scene where he is shown to be bloody in his own room (http://puu.sh/tc4KH/541efe968d.jpg) which doesn't correlate to any scenes even after his fight with Sherlock (http://puu.sh/tc52K/d4c86ac3aa.jpg). There's also the scene where Sherlock finds Mary in Morocco off a tracking device. This scene is riddled with inconsistencies and I also believe it's not real for several reasons Random gunman shoots down Ajay (probably a fake character) Kid returns with tea several hours later (another fake character) The use of the phrase 'you know i'll kill you Ajay you know I will', which is much more firm and reminiscent of Mary about to shoot sherlock 'take one step closer and I will shoot you'. This echos the traitor/liar side of Mary The sudden train passing causing light to flood the room (http://puu.sh/tc5lF/674e291859.jpg). This does not correlate to this shot of the city (http://puu.sh/tc5tW/96fd82c542.jpg). However a previous shot of Ajay's london room has light flooding in periodically (http://puu.sh/tc4FF/0e0a30a86a.jpg) This causes me to think that Mary was trying to hunt down Ajay and eliminate him so that the secret dies with him, and this actually happens within Ajay's room. This also means that Ajay never tried to find Mary and kill her, but he came to london to find Sherlock and asked for his help. He had given Sherlock all the information he has including his USB in hopes of bringing Mary to Justice. However Sherlock first asks mycroft to investigate Lady smallwood, and after believing that Smallwood is innocent tries to outsmart Mary instead, where he gets double crossed, and the USB stolen from him. Sherlock and John tracks Mary down but they are too late. What would Mary do in this situation? Kill Sherlock and John. Her Cover is fully blown. We know that Sherlock was in a fight (http://puu.sh/tc6wd/569cb32825.jpg) but if we believe that the fight with Ajay is made up since Ajay went to him benevolently, then the fight is most likely with Mary. This shot of John finding a pistol on the floor (http://puu.sh/tc6je/a48f4056c3.jpg) is probably the moment he decided to shoot Mary. In the (fake) scene in morocco, Ajay had his gun, Mary had her gun, where did this third gun come from? If we were to go with this version where Mary had shot Ajay already, then Ajay's gun would be on the floor, and John would have found it during Sherlock's fight with Mary (which I'm theorizing happened) This causes John to go into a emotional turmoil having shot his own wife to protect Sherlock. Sherlock would then need a story to cover John shooting Mary, possibly due to guilt, since this could have been avoided if Sherlock didn't try to outsmart Mary. This correlates to the final scene where he tells Mrs Hudson to say 'Norbury' whenever she feels he's being cocky, and Norbury being the code-word to the real story. This is where Sherlock begins to tell the story of the six thatchers (which he had already solved once before as shown in John's blog http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/19december). Some details such as coincidences of the boy having a seizure just as the dad approaches the car, then a robber coincidentally crashing their car onto the boys car can be explained by Sherlock's imcomplete narration. It can also explain how both Lestrade and Watson doesn't have any recollection to his previous six thatchers case. Important detail is that Mary within his version of the story is not actually shown to have any contact with anyone apart from John and Sherlock. The skype call made by Mary can be forged if someone where to question this story. The using of the hacker is possibly to allow some modifications to some online documents to fit Sherlock's story if need be, and 'owing Sherlock a favour' can translate to saying he saw Mary that day. The story about Watson cheating is probably a detail Sherlock added to show that John is loyal to his wife. Nothing happened between the two apart from some texts. Yes Sherlock could have not added the story altogether but it probably makes more sense to him to believe cheating exists in many relationships as he manages to deduce many of those, and to not include any element of cheating would be more suspicious. The bedroom talk about the exorcist and the antichrist - I cannot explain, it could possibly be Sherlock talking about the devil child because parents probably won't talk about their own kids like so, but if there's a better explanation please let me know. I think I covered a large chunk of the episode. Please discuss if you think there are some errors or improvements, but I'm quite certain about the chain of events. The main question now is who is Sherlock telling this story to, which I think is best left for when the next episode comes out. Until then, discuss away!