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renaissanceclassics · 8 months ago

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Up From Slavery - Intro: Part 1

of 18 parts. Sylllabus, Preface & Intro

Up from Slavery is the 1921 autobiography of Booker T. Washington sharing his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to help black people learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and Native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students.

Preface

This volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles, dealing with incidents in my life, which were published consecutively in the Outlook. While they were appearing in that magazine I was constantly surprised at the number of requests which came to me from all parts of the country, asking that the articles be permanently preserved in book form. I am most grateful to the Outlook for permission to gratify these requests.

I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment. My regret is that what I have attempted to do has been done so imperfectly. The greater part of my time and strength is required for the executive work connected with the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and in securing the money necessary for the support of the institution. Much of what I have said has been written on board trains, or at hotels or railroad stations while I have been waiting for trains, or during the moments that I could spare from my work while at Tuskegee. Without the painstaking and generous assistance of Mr. Max Bennett Thrasher I could not have succeeded in any satisfactory degree.

Introduction

The details of Mr. Washington's early life, as frankly set down in "Up from Slavery," do not give quite a whole view of his education. He had the training that a coloured youth receives at Hampton, which, indeed, the autobiography does explain. But the reader does not get his intellectual pedigree, for Mr. Washington himself, perhaps, does not as clearly understand it as another man might. The truth is he had a training during the most impressionable period of his life that was very extraordinary, such a training as few men of his generation have had. To see its full meaning one must start in the Hawaiian Islands half a century or more ago.* There Samuel Armstrong, a youth of missionary parents, earned enough money to pay his expenses at an American college. Equipped with this small sum and the earnestness that the undertaking implied, he came to Williams College when Dr. Mark Hopkins was president. Williams College had many good things for youth in that day, as it has in this, but the greatest was the strong personality of its famous president. Every student does not profit by a great teacher; but perhaps no young man ever came under the influence of Dr. Hopkins, whose whole nature was so ripe for profit by such an experience as young Armstrong. He lived in the family of President Hopkins, and thus had a training that was wholly out of the common; and this training had much to do with the development of his own strong character, whose originality and force we are only beginning to appreciate. * For this interesting view of Mr. Washington's education, I am indebted to Robert C. Ogden, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hampton Institute and the intimate friend of General Armstrong during the whole period of his educational work.

In turn, Samuel Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, took up his work as a trainer of youth. He had very raw material, and doubtless most of his pupils failed to get the greatest lessons from him; but, as he had been a peculiarly receptive pupil of Dr. Hopkins, so Booker Washington became a peculiarly receptive pupil of his. To the formation of Mr. Washington's character, then, went the missionary zeal of New England, influenced by one of the strongest personalities in modern education, and the wide-reaching moral earnestness of General Armstrong himself. These influences are easily recognizable in Mr. Washington to-day by men who knew Dr. Hopkins and General Armstrong.

I got the cue to Mr. Washington's character from a very simple incident many years ago. I had never seen him, and I knew little about him, except that he was the head of a school at Tuskegee, Alabama. I had occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as "The Rev. Booker T. Washington." In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a clergyman. But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: "I have no claim to 'Rev.'" I knew most of the coloured men who at that time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had not heard of the head of an important coloured school who was not a preacher. "A new kind of man in the coloured world," I said to myself—"a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one." I wrote him an apology for mistaking him for a preacher.

The first time that I went to Tuskegee I was asked to make an address to the school on Sunday evening. I sat upon the platform of the large chapel and looked forth on a thousand coloured faces, and the choir of a hundred or more behind me sang a familiar religious melody, and the whole company joined in the chorus with unction. I was the only white man under the roof, and the scene and the songs made an impression on me that I shall never forget. Mr. Washington arose and asked them to sing one after another of the old melodies that I had heard all my life; but I had never before heard them sung by a thousand voices nor by the voices of educated Negroes. I had associated them with the Negro of the past, not with the Negro who was struggling upward. They brought to my mind the plantation, the cabin, the slave, not the freedman in quest of education. But on the plantation and in the cabin they had never been sung as these thousand students sang them. I saw again all the old plantations that I had ever seen; the whole history of the Negro ran through my mind; and the inexpressible pathos of his life found expression in these songs as I had never before felt it.

And the future? These were the ambitious youths of the race, at work with an earnestness that put to shame the conventional student life of most educational institutions. Another song rolled up along the rafters. And as soon as silence came, I found myself in front of this extraordinary mass of faces, thinking not of them, but of that long and unhappy chapter in our country's history which followed the one great structural mistake of the Fathers of the Republic; thinking of the one continuous great problem that generations of statesmen had wrangled over, and a million men fought about, and that had so dwarfed the mass of English men in the Southern States as to hold them back a hundred years behind their fellows in every other part of the world—in England, in Australia, and in the Northern and Western States; I was thinking of this dark shadow that had oppressed every large-minded statesman from Jefferson to Lincoln. These thousand young men and women about me were victims of it. I, too, was an innocent victim of it. The whole Republic was a victim of that fundamental error of importing Africa into America. I held firmly to the first article of my faith that the Republic must stand fast by the principle of a fair ballot; but I recalled the wretched mess that Reconstruction had made of it; I recalled the low level of public life in all the "black" States. Every effort of philanthropy seemed to have miscarried, every effort at correcting abuses seemed of doubtful value, and the race friction seemed to become severer. Here was the century-old problem in all its pathos seated singing before me. Who were the more to be pitied—these innocent victims of an ancient wrong, or I and men like me, who had inherited the problem? I had long ago thrown aside illusions and theories, and was willing to meet the facts face to face, and to do whatever in God's name a man might do towards saving the next generation from such a burden. But I felt the weight of twenty well-nigh hopeless years of thought and reading and observation; for the old difficulties remained and new ones had sprung up. Then I saw clearly that the way out of a century of blunders had been made by this man who stood beside me and was introducing me to this audience. Before me was the material he had used. All about me was the indisputable evidence that he had found the natural line of development. He had shown the way. Time and patience and encouragement and work would do the rest.

It was then more clearly than ever before that I understood the patriotic significance of Mr. Washington's work. It is this conception of it and of him that I have ever since carried with me. It is on this that his claim to our gratitude rests.

To teach the Negro to read, whether English, or Greek, or Hebrew, butters no parsnips. To make the Negro work, that is what his master did in one way and hunger has done in another; yet both these left Southern life where they found it. But to teach the Negro to do skilful work, as men of all the races that have risen have worked,—responsible work, which IS education and character; and most of all when Negroes so teach Negroes to do this that they will teach others with a missionary zeal that puts all ordinary philanthropic efforts to shame,—this is to change the whole economic basis of life and the whole character of a people.

The plan itself is not a new one. It was worked out at Hampton Institute, but it was done at Hampton by white men. The plan had, in fact, been many times theoretically laid down by thoughtful students of Southern life. Handicrafts were taught in the days of slavery on most well-managed plantations. But Tuskegee is, nevertheless, a brand-new chapter in the history of the Negro, and in the history of the knottiest problem we have ever faced. It not only makes "a carpenter of a man; it makes a man of a carpenter." In one sense, therefore, it is of greater value than any other institution for the training of men and women that we have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of which it may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a large area of our national life.

To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance—that is one thing. For a white man to work it out—that too, is an easy thing. For a coloured man to work it out in the South, where, in its constructive period, he was necessarily misunderstood by his own people as well as by the whites, and where he had to adjust it at every step to the strained race relations—that is so very different and more difficult a thing that the man who did it put the country under lasting obligations to him.

It was not and is not a mere educational task. Anybody could teach boys trades and give them an elementary education. Such tasks have been done since the beginning of civilization. But this task had to be done with the rawest of raw material, done within the civilization of the dominant race, and so done as not to run across race lines and social lines that are the strongest forces in the community. It had to be done for the benefit of the whole community. It had to be done, moreover, without local help, in the face of the direst poverty, done by begging, and done in spite of the ignorance of one race and the prejudice of the other.

No man living had a harder task, and a task that called for more wisdom to do it right. The true measure of Mr. Washington's success is, then, not his teaching the pupils of Tuskegee, nor even gaining the support of philanthropic persons at a distance, but this—that every Southern white man of character and of wisdom has been won to a cordial recognition of the value of the work, even men who held and still hold to the conviction that a mere book education for the Southern blacks under present conditions is a positive evil. This is a demonstration of the efficiency of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea that stands like the demonstration of the value of democratic institutions themselves—a demonstration made so clear in spite of the greatest odds that it is no longer open to argument.

Consider the change that has come in twenty years in the discussion of the Negro problem. Two or three decades ago social philosophers and statisticians and well-meaning philanthropists were still talking and writing about the deportation of the Negroes, or about their settlement within some restricted area, or about their settling in all parts of the Union, or about their decline through their neglect of their children, or about their rapid multiplication till they should expel the whites from the South—of every sort of nonsense under heaven. All this has given place to the simple plan of an indefinite extension among the neglected classes of both races of the Hampton-Tuskegee system of training. The "problem" in one sense has disappeared. The future will have for the South swift or slow development of its masses and of its soil in proportion to the swift or slow development of this kind of training. This change of view is a true measure of Mr. Washington's work.

The literature of the Negro in America is colossal, from political oratory through abolitionism to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Cotton is King"—a vast mass of books which many men have read to the waste of good years (and I among them); but the only books that I have read a second time or ever care again to read in the whole list (most of them by tiresome and unbalanced "reformers") are "Uncle Remus" and "Up from Slavery"; for these are the great literature of the subject. One has all the best of the past, the other foreshadows a better future; and the men who wrote them are the only men who have written of the subject with that perfect frankness and perfect knowledge and perfect poise whose other name is genius.

Mr. Washington has won a world-wide fame at an early age. His story of his own life already has the distinction of translation into more languages, I think, than any other American book; and I suppose that he has as large a personal acquaintance among men of influence as any private citizen now living.

His own teaching at Tuskegee is unique. He lectures to his advanced students on the art of right living, not out of text-books, but straight out of life. Then he sends them into the country to visit Negro families. Such a student will come back with a minute report of the way in which the family that he has seen lives, what their earnings are, what they do well and what they do ill; and he will explain how they might live better. He constructs a definite plan for the betterment of that particular family out of the resources that they have. Such a student, if he be bright, will profit more by an experience like this than he could profit by all the books on sociology and economics that ever were written. I talked with a boy at Tuskegee who had made such a study as this, and I could not keep from contrasting his knowledge and enthusiasm with what I heard in a class room at a Negro university in one of the Southern cities, which is conducted on the idea that a college course will save the soul. Here the class was reciting a lesson from an abstruse text-book on economics, reciting it by rote, with so obvious a failure to assimilate it that the waste of labour was pitiful.

I asked Mr. Washington years ago what he regarded as the most important result of his work, and he replied:

"I do not know which to put first, the effect of Tuskegee's work on the Negro, or the effect on the attitude of the white man to the Negro."

The race divergence under the system of miseducation was fast getting wider. Under the influence of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea the races are coming into a closer sympathy and into an honourable and helpful relation. As the Negro becomes economically independent, he becomes a responsible part of the Southern life; and the whites so recognize him. And this must be so from the nature of things. There is nothing artificial about it. It is development in a perfectly natural way. And the Southern whites not only so recognize it, but they are imitating it in the teaching of the neglected masses of their own race. It has thus come about that the school is taking a more direct and helpful hold on life in the South than anywhere else in the country. Education is not a thing apart from life—not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct teaching how to live and how to work.

To say that Mr. Washington has won the gratitude of all thoughtful Southern white men, is to say that he has worked with the highest practical wisdom at a large constructive task; for no plan for the up-building of the freedman could succeed that ran counter to Southern opinion. To win the support of Southern opinion and to shape it was a necessary part of the task; and in this he has so well succeeded that the South has a sincere and high regard for him. He once said to me that he recalled the day, and remembered it thankfully, when he grew large enough to regard a Southern white man as he regarded a Northern one. It is well for our common country that the day is come when he and his work are regarded as highly in the South as in any other part of the Union. I think that no man of our generation has a more noteworthy achievement to his credit than this; and it is an achievement of moral earnestness of the strong character of a man who has done a great national service.

Walter H. Page.

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scentedchildnacho · 9 months ago

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Uhm yea I liked the lecture with the hare Krishnas a woman who is a practitioner arrived to show me conduct expectations.....trainer.....so good wanting to help master and now I can just be a lay person....

You have to want to get into something so it balances back to realistic conduct expectations

You have to be kind of strong spoken and big voiced and if I think about meditation I think about knitting and then I can't really yell the San skrit tongue tied

Well it's more for the young men packers to be free from packing meat so serial killers do need strong influences in women

Hudson Bay company it's more so indigenous men can be free from their labor

Yea I'm going to stop by my friends temple till I do enough learning from master to not have to have this logic mentality problem me anymore

I do have an unconscious logic problem

He asked me my favorite place to go....I just said cities I like going to cities to learn to do economics better.....cities use to be way better and rural use to be really sad though... Like small town or rural poor use to be what was really sad and cities nice lots of people so lots of trade lots to occupy people....and help them and now cities have become such horrible rural sprawl and nothing progresses

Its me so i notice a new Christianity think it can save itself with marijuana kids and they are just corrupt people afraid of having to lose payments

Its marijuana although some may be Christians the secular cannot be converted it's secularism

That's me about really annoying rural people their drug kids forever psychedelics never stops harassing people with mass murder drug wars

The Methodist pastor kept blaming police for night stalking so last night he admitted it's his ownership of the church that hires police to remove sleepers it's that we he said just don't want to so

Because they kept making statements about what police do or not do and I was like you can't really know about a foreign occupation ....its police no one knows what language they actually speak or who they are their an occupying no one

Im from the states no one would pay me to go disturb others.....that's baltics to Fred Hampton foriegn people paid them to call Fred a terrorist and murder him

And that's no one police doesn't like facts misrepresented the police work for majority voters and they should not have to be called completely irrational and wrong their parties don't like reality checks and enjoy watching others raped and killed not themselves and their children

Their neighborhood doesn't want to see the reality of its conduct standard

Their business isn't so profitable if consumers see that spending there impoverishes others

That and police that don't want to do the job left and they finally found police that will kill old impoverished women sacrifice it to restart the war with the mid east

Their only there to shock people of Armenian and the most notorious Muslims so they can keep warring in the mid east

I believe them the methodists in there are Jews and their owners would rape and kill them if they didn't find impoverished people to attract their attacker to

I don't know what's going to happen to that pastor for it......but I suspect some of our help has been priorly incarcerated for drug felonnies and would prefer to rape and kill me of cops before having to ever be incarcerated ever again the drug war produced a very horrible Holocaust expression in people

So I will be leaving there is no help at all from biden...bye great den......and kamela or the mela fucka just more and more wallet grabbers off the welfare so....

Well they kept calling sleeping not collapse and that no appropriate triage response to poverty was important so by civil war statute their federal felons but nothing formal in help is arriving at all so I don't know what will happen to them for that I've found out I have deep karmic beliefs that karma only accurately plays out as an organic process and passively refuse to interfere or get involved

I think they do stalk me for meaningless jail rapes because Tobi treangens mother told me about weed or marijuana that all those beach goers had to tolerate icky girl on girl french porn films for male perverts and if I don't know what it's like to be fucked they will keep chaseing me till i prefer homosexualism mostly and men are Santa Claus

My culture is heteronormative and I am lesbian girl on girl french porn was all too masculine to have any sexual reality....

Because women actually are really offended by an animal that sticks it's butt at it like a masters kid to slaves

And I am not a queer

Otherwise I think they do it to me because my birth fathers mother was clever to me......she knew to allow me negativity so I have never had drive and ambition that could get me into trouble when I could just be a simpleton.....so to them they just do what my grandmother did

They feel their kids ambition to pay for school with drugs I suppose is just being put in jail for others so they stalk me with I should be sacrificed to them I guess

The pastor......he never works or offers to help with physical stuff to do at meals.........so I think I do have some belief in retributive means.....uhm if he can't stop being manically gross and wanting to see cop fucks an endangered woman then I think he should have to experience what a cop fuck is like before calling them to finish off terrorist victims

Because that's usually what happens to cop callers...if cops feel prank called too much they finally turn on the caller for refusing to leave them alone

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strongwomencan · 2 years ago

Link

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danielheweseasthampton · 2 years ago

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#daniel hewes #east hampton #personal trainer

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angieees-stuff · 3 years ago

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Let me introduce myself :

My name is Angela but the name I hear the most is mom..

I am 27 years old & my favorite color is blue . I’m a mom of 3 beautiful kids . I have 2 young kings and a princess . My kids ages are 4,2..& 1

I am engaged to my 46 year hard working 6ft giant . We have a trucking business together . I pray we reach a billion dollars in revenue & we become owners of a 20-30 fleet . My fiancé been in the trucking world for 20+ years . He enjoys it . I love learning from him and educating myself on the business .

I’m ready to get married . I want to elope . And then have a big ceremony with friends and family . I want to look elegant and classy when i elope . I want to feel like a rich queen and look like one too . I want a pair of jimmy choos 🥰😍

Edit: we are now married . 2/4/2023 🥰🤪

I’m ready to move to Savannah Georgia and start our life together . To move away from all the toxic people that hold us back from our future .

I desire:

To be a wealthy housewife

Go to law school ( I want to be the first lawyer in my bloodline )

800 credit score

Real estate investor

Start Airbnb business/ short rental for high end clients

To be part of the 1%

To be wealthy

Own many rental properties

Build private schools for young girls

Start a charity to invest in young entrepreneurs or help pay for college

To be a sports mom . I love football ( Let’s go Birds 🦅)

To own vacation rentals in the Hamptons, Florida, California, Jamaica 🇯🇲, & in Nigeria 🇳🇬.

Days filled with free will to do what I want

To own a private jet travel to travel when I want

Personal chef & trainer

A nanny thats fluent in French or Spanish to teach my children (au pair)

To travel with my kids and allow them to explore the world

Tummy tuck (mommy makeover) & teeth (porcelain veneers or composite

To own a G-wagon, Lambo truck , & rolls Royce

To maintain a social but private life

To be members of a country club

Be invited to private events

To have a group of friends that are like minded

To have everything I want

There’s so many things I want out of life . But most importantly I want to be happy and give my kids a life they don’t have to heal from . I want to break many generational curses .

I have so much to write about and to tell . I’m just trying to find myself again . I’ve been a devoted mom & now fiancé for the last 4 years and I truly don’t know who I am because my life revolves around my man & children .

God is my best friend . I want everything that God wants for me . My favorite scripture Mathew 7:7 💕

But let me stop writing .. just follow me & keep up . & help me find who I am besides a mom & fiancé .

#self love #self care #momlife #about the author #luxury #black girl luxury #black femininity #being a mom #sexy mommy #black moms #please help #strong women #moms of tumblr #step mom #age relationship #age gap relationship #engagedcouple

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coochiequeens · 2 years ago

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Finally some good news a self defense program for ladies of color

With Lizzo's "About Damn Time" playing in the background, affirmations filled the air — "You got this!" and "Come on, girl!" — as women raced to make it into hula hoops scattered around a room Monday at a Columbus hotel.

It was all part of a new empowerment self-defense program targeting women of color, with this particular exercise teaching the concept of removing one's self from a difficult situation.

Called We Are Worth Defending, the training was offered to 15 women this week by IMPACT Safety, a program of social services organization LifeCare Alliance. Participants in the course, which ends Friday, then will be expected to offer similar lessons in the community.

"This training is important to us because we need more women-of-color instructors to be able to go into their community and be able to teach young girls, women, boys and people of all genders how to defend themselves and live violence-free lives," said Kendall Trelegan, U.S. and Canada regional manager for ESD Global, which partnered with IMPACT Safety to conduct the trainings.

According to the National Coalition on Domestic Violence, 45% of Black women have experienced intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking.

"Black women have, because of historic trauma and the way that self-defense gets played out in our communities, a very complicated relationship with what self-defense means," Julie Harmon, director of IMPACT Safety, said. "This is an opportunity to explore what's underneath that and to see how people want to move forward."

Empowerment self-defense is a specialized self-defense that helps participants develop skills such as boundary-setting, assertiveness and being aware of one's surroundings.

Harmon said there are very few empowerment self-defense instructors who are women of color, not only in Columbus but nationwide.

Participants in Monday's training at Hampton Inn & Suites Columbus-Easton represented many occupations. Those present included a nurse, yoga instructor, personal trainer and fashion designer. There were physical exercises involving an attack dummy and discussions about disrupting violence and setting boundaries.

LifeCare Alliance fundraisers and ESD Global helped to offset the costs of the $2,500 training through stipends and scholarships. Out of the 15 women who took part, only one paid the full cost, according to Harmon.

Participants' relationship with the program doesn't end with this week's training, though. Harmon said there is a requirement that each person pay it forward.

"They owe ESD Global 30 hours of free or low-cost empowerment self-defense training over the next few years to give to their community," she said.

see rest of article

#We Are Worth Defending #Columbus

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notmumtoday · 10 months ago

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saintlaurentproblems · 3 years ago

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If you had $100 million and you had to spend it all in one month, how would you spend it?

Oh this is fun!!!!!!!

Big Purchases:

Montecito Mansion: $20 Million + $3m in renovations/interior design

Greenwich Village Apartment: $6,250,000 + 500,000 in renovations/interior design

Hamptons: $14 Million + 750,000 renovations/interior design

Vail, Colorado: $11,750,000 + $500,000 on interior design

Malibu: $14,500,00 + $500,000 in interior design

Then I would invest in a lot of random businesses. I’ll do research though so they’re actually lucrative.

Start a Birkin & Chanel collection

Private chef, personal trainer, personal masseuse, glam squad, stylist/personal shopper, house keepers, gardeners, & a personal assistant to organize my life.

Oh and I’m going to hire the women from the Home Edit to organize everything.

At least two cars at each property (except Manhattan).

Spending $100 million is actually so hard to do lol.

#answered

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96thdayofrage · 4 years ago

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The event, which was set to be held at an evangelical church in Novi, Michigan, was meant to address the post traumatic stress disorder some officers face after killing a person.

But over the past week, videos of Grossman’s controversial comments spread on social media. According to Stevenson, the complaints started coming in after a Twitter user tweeted images of an online flyer from the Michigan Police Chiefs website promoting the in-person event scheduled to take place at Oak Point Church in Novi. Grossman was scheduled to speak on day 2 of the event, which would have cost $195 to attend.

“If you have a problem with a bunch of cops being trained to kill, I’ve included contact info so you can let them know,” the tweet said.

Oak Pointe said in a statement after Grossman’s controversial comments surfaced, “The fact that we were unaware of the planned speakers and contents of the MACP (Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police) May 26-27 event is our responsibility. Even though this was not a church event, we are responsible for what we host in our building and therefore endorse.”

The statement went on to say, “In one of his online seminars he states, ‘Any natural or learned resistance to killing, any sense of the sanctity of human life, any human emotions, any remorse or compassion at the moment of truth can all be overcome and overwhelmed with training’ (Unit 2, from ‘On Combat’). Because of this statement and other elements of Lt. Col. Grossman’s teachings, we cannot welcome him as a speaker at Oak Pointe Church.”

According to the website for Killology, the term is defined as a noun and characterized as “The scholarly study of the destructive act, just as sexology is the scholarly study of the procreative act. In particular, killology focuses on the reactions of healthy people in killing circumstances (such as police and military in combat) and the factors that enable and restrain killing in these situations.”

Grossman founded Killology after retiring from the Army. His outfit specializes in studying the impact using lethal force has on soldiers and members of law enforcement. Killology explores techniques the military uses to help soldiers overcome the reluctance to kill and how they can be applied to officers in the line of duty. Grossman’s books have focused on how soldiers and police officers can kill without feeling guilty, and his training encourages officers to see themselves as being “at war” while on the streets.

Since his retirement from the Army in 1998, Grossman has been “one of our nation’s leading trainers for military, law enforcement, mental health providers, and school safety organizations,” according to the company’s website.

Over the past 20 years, he has spoken to numerous local law enforcement groups across the country, as well as the FBI and U.S. Attorneys Offices, according to the website.

In one of the controversial clips of Grossman speaking in 2015, he says officers often have the best sex of their lives after returning home from a shift during which they killed someone.

“There’s not a whole lot of perks that come with this job,” Grossman said. “You find one, relax and enjoy it,” he added as people in the audience laughed.

In other videos, Grossman told the audience that a person must become a “predator” before taking a life and encouraged officers to fantasize about wearing a cape and letting it “flow in the wind,” as they look over the city they serve.

As he signed an autograph in one video, he quoted Ecclesiastes 3:3, saying, “a time to kill, a time to heal.”

Critics of Grossman say his tendency to encourage the militarization of police work could lead to more fatal police encounters.

Grossman’s courses were scrutinized in 2016 after it was revealed that St. Anthony Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who fatally shot Philando Castile, had taken Grossman’s “Bulletproof Warrior” course a few years prior.

Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who now specializes in use of force, said of Grossman’s training, “It’s become a much broader metaphor for all aspects of policing, and it’s contributed to a very adversarial approach to policing, where officers are told that they are superheroes doing battle with the forces of evil, that they’re soldiers on the front line in a war against anarchy.”

According to Stevenson, the May training session wasn’t meant for “the line officer” but was intended for police chiefs and executives dealing with police shootings as part of ongoing training aimed at police leaders in the state.

On social media, users criticized Grossman’s practices.

But Stevenson defended the initial decision to have Grossman speak at the session. “Suicide’s a problem,” for some officers, Stevenson said. “So that was what we were having him talk about. I mean, he does have a military component, but that that’s not applicable to the civilian side.”

He also referenced the suicide of a Dearborn officer who took his life in December, five years after killing a 35-year-old Black man.

The officer, Christopher Hampton, still faced a civil lawsuit in the death of Kevin Matthews.

“My hope is that I can put Col. Grossman’s people in touch with the people that have objections and they can find out what he’s really teaching and address their concerns,” Stevenson said.

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florbelles · 4 years ago

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background and personality for miss lyra ❤❤❤❤❤

thank you so much, lovely! sorry this took an eternity and a half xx

PERSONALITY

what’s their alignment?

d&d alignments are not her friend!

having said that, she leans towards neutral or chaotic ( very rarely lawful ); neutral in that she does not attempt to disrupt order for the sake of it and does not prioritize personal freedoms over the general ( what she believes to be ) good, chaotic in that she’s willing to do whatever it takes to meet her goals regardless of legality or acceptability and thinks little of the laws and values of society; she considers herself above the law insofar as she does not respect the law or believes it to be fundamentally flawed, but does not opposite the concept of order on principle ( while, on the contrary, she is an enforcer of order and principles within the context of the project; no one is above the judgement of god, herself included ). her loyalty and unconditional love where she gives it earns her high points in the morality category in traditional d&d quizzes, as does her commitment to her cause ( whether that’s with the project or in her life before, conning or murdering corrupt or vile members of society in retaliation ). practically speaking, though, her methods align her with the evil sector, particularly in regards to the lengths she’s willing to go to; she also gets personal enjoyment out of inflicting suffering on those she deems unworthy, derives pleasure from the atrocities she commits. she is driven by passion more than anything else, and is consumed by rage and loathing, meaning she is never truly neutral; because she gets personal satisfaction from her work as the judge, it can’t be said that she’s acting selflessly in the pure interest of upholding the values of the project, so the merit of her devotion in and of itself isn’t without ambiguity. she believes herself to be a monster, but believes her cause is righteous – it takes evil to know it, judge it, and exterminate it – but she has never once in her life done something #fortheevils or in the interest of promoting ( what she believes to be ) evil for the sake of it; for that reason she’s difficult to categorize based on the traditional understanding of the alignments.

tl; dr: given that she truly is driven by rage & passion and very much wants the world to burn ( at least at a certain critical point in her arc ), and given the depravity she’ll resort to in order to reach her end goals, she’s probably best aligned as chaotic to neutral evil ( though she believes herself to be doing right ).

which one of the 16 personality types do they fit into?

enfp-a; the campaigner.

what are their hobbies and interests? do they have any particular “favorites” (food, books, and so on)?

setting sinners free, anna karenina, fleetwood mac, driving with the windows down, sinner roasts bonfires in the summer & autumn, watching the sun rise.

favorites are answered here ( x ), activities and interests here ( x )

what are they bad at?

bar games & team sports (anything she can’t cheat at, really).

what kind of things do they dislike/hate?

apathy, willful ignorance, obstinate self-deceit, the song oh john.

do they have any vices/addictions/mental illnesses?

she turns to risky behaviors, inflicting pain on herself ( via the provocation of others/combat ) or others ( whom she feels are deserving ). she has flirted with most forms of substance abuse in the past, but never crossed the line into full chemical dependency with anything but tobacco ( more because of using nothing specific habitually than out of moderation ).

what are their goals and motivations?

to do right even if she was born wrong ( she might be a monster, but she’s a monster for a cause, and surely that means something ); to keep what she has ( her family, john ); to fulfill her purpose as the judge of eden’s gate; to cast out the unworthy; to get her family safely to new eden. after the collapse, she simply wants to lead and protect the only family she has left — the faithful — until the shepherd joseph promised arrives and releases her from her duty.

what are their manners like? any habits?

full rundown on her mannerisms here. extremely extroverted, open body language, usually smoking; draws herself up to her full height even when seated. often holding a cigarette, talks with her hands. very animated, but graceful and deliberate. uses eye contact and physical touch to either intimidate or establish intimacy; disregards personal space for the same reason.

what are they most afraid of?

answered here.

becoming her mother. losing john. losing herself to her wrath, to an extent, but she would rather burn herself alive than become isabela. ( that was always more something that she would go to any lengths to avoid than a fate she truly feared, at least before john’s death and the collapse; that was the first time she was actually tempted to numb herself and embrace oblivion, but she never did ).

BACKGROUND

where were they born? what was their childhood like?

lyra was born in the hamptons, but she spent most of her childhood (that she can remember) on nantucket island; early childhood she spent out ruling it herself, on beaches, frolicking with the summer people, still trying to get her parents’ attention, then, still wanting what she saw other families have; not perfect, perhaps, but something.

what’s their family like?

BIRTH FAMILY

lyra maintains, for the most part, that the problem was never with her parents, but with her; she told joseph at one point that the difference between the rest of them is that they might not have been born monsters, but she was; nothing made her that way. the reality, of course, is different; because of the fact that lyra’s abuse was tied primarily to neglect as a young girl and later the emotional abuse, exploitation and manipulation by her father, she does not feel entitled to the trauma she carries from it matched against some of the horrors she’s witnessed. ( of her father’s business associates and the men she would target later in life, lawrence was never the worst of them, and for that, she considers herself fortunate ). she’s very aware of the fact that she had the best education money could buy ( provided it also got her as far away from them as possible ), that she was not beaten or, truthfully, reprimanded; her father never touched her, but that was a universally true statement — the most physical contact or affection he displayed towards his daughter was a hand on her shoulder at galas, steering her towards an associate she was meant to beguile, or lifting her hair to fasten his latest bribe around her neck.

she never, in her entire life, felt more like a whore, not even when she was fucking men she met along the road to rob them.

her mother, isabela, was not inherently malicious; she was extremely depressed and jaded and, as a result, heavily self-medicated; she did not turn a blind eye to her husband’s affairs, or to the way he slowly made lyra her replacement, but she smothered it with drugs. she did not hate lyra, and never expressed open animosity towards her and that, to lyra, was the worst of it; she would attempt to provoke her often, would scream, fight, threaten, sob, but isabela was unmovable entirely. she was dead to the world.

the opposite of love, to lyra, was never hatred, it was indifference, and isabela was completely indifferent to her.

it’s the only thing lyra could never forgive.

she ran away often throughout her childhood, and as her sixteenth birthday neared, she finally left for good; she ensured she wasn’t found. they disinherited her within the year upon receiving notice from the family of one of her highschool girlfriends that she was visiting them ( an unintentional betrayal, but one that prevented her from making the mistake of contacting anyone from her old life again ). they sent her an official letter forbidding her from contacting them or returning home, swearing her off and stating that they did not recognize her as their daughter ( though, since she was a minor at the time, the only legal aspect was her removal from their will ).

lawrence would tell his colleagues and friends years later that he did what was necessary because he was afraid of her, that he truly believed she had the capacity to kill him for the inheritance. it was a ludicrous claim; for all of his insistence that she was like him, scheming, manipulative, opportunistic, incapable of feeling, all she ever wanted was to be loved and accepted by her family. she did not want to be a monster, she was simply told she was one all her life. she began to believe it, and, ultimately, she chose to become it.

still, she would have forgiven lawrence everything, in the end, if he’d ever cared to ask. she loved her parents, and later she hated them, but she could never be indifferent. she could never be like them. that, perhaps, was why they never loved her.

THE SEEDS

she loves her chosen family desperately. faith is her best friend and the sister she never had, and though their form of enmeshment makes them occasionally toxic, they truly do love each other; jacob is her mentor and trainer in her role as the judge, they’re quite close; joseph she has perhaps the most tumultuous relationship with because of his concerns about her intemperance and the way she and john indulge each other, but she respects him and understands him in a way john does not — she does not personally seek his approval or fear his rejection, so she views him more objectively. later, of course, they’re all that’s left, and while john will always be the person closest to her heart and the most important part of her life, joseph is the second.

she does make overtures to befriend ethan, but she is only an amplifier of his feelings of isolation and resentment towards his father; no matter what he does, the loyalty of both the flock and his father will always lie with lyra, and that is difficult for him to accept. despite joseph leaving new eden in his hands, ethan is under no illusions about the fact that lyra stayed behind to watch him, and her presence undermines him at every turn, regardless of her intent — she is the de facto leader, for reasons he will never fully understand, and he resents her for it.

john is her whole heart. he’s her soulmate. having him, however briefly, makes everything worth it to her in the end; she can’t ever regret it, no matter what it cost her; she tells poppy that “god gave him to me, and for that, i forgive [god] all the rest.”

what factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold?

prior to hope county, none; lyra is her own contractor and the center of her own networks.

with the project, lyra serves as the judge; she serves as a sorter, an intel gatherer, a judge of the worthy and unworthy, oversees the realm of the damned; she shows those who are submitted to her judgement their true selves and allows their choices and actions to speak to their character and determine the fate. after all, who is she to judge?

post-collapse, she leads new eden in practice, though not in title, in joseph’s absence.

how do they fit into their “story”?

lyra is the judge of eden’s gate and a seed by marriage. she’s a career serial serial killer and conartist come to hope county seeking refuge after a murder gone wrong; she is a damned woman, and the project is her last resort. she’s the sealbreaker, the lamb, and the wrath of god. in terms of far cry 5 canon, she replaces the deputy as the prophesized hell that followed, though she never has any allegiance but to the project; hers is a cautionary tale in that, in their attempts to avoid the fate joseph foresaw for them, the seeds ultimately bring ruin upon themselves. there’s no junior deputy in her canon; they called in sick the morning of the arrest.

where do they currently live? what’s their place like?

before hope county, lyra was perpetually on the move seeking targets, as her lifestyle demanded; after joining the project, she lives at the seed ranch with her husband.

post-collapse she lives in new eden until the arrival of the highwaymen brings joseph back to oversee it. she retakes prosperity and lives in what’s left of her old home until her death.

how do they eventually die?

she and john get hopped up on rads!bliss on their 70th wedding anniversary and put each other into mutual cardiac arrest. yeah, they fucked to death, what about it. this is the only way either of them ever die. shaggy finds them in a final insult to him.

lyra dies at forty-three — seventeen years later than she’d have liked — after taking a knife between the ribs via her nephew. while that’s the wound that technically does her in, the reality is that it was probably survivable; lyra had been dying for a long time, physically and emotionally broken by the holy war, though she put on a convincing front for the sake of joseph and the flock. she kept herself going until she had done her duty by new eden and fulfilled her purpose, bringing the shepherdess that was promised to the flock; she tells poppy that she’s her sacrifice, and she’s finally free to go back to the grave where she belongs. she does, happily; letting go is a relief.

#pardon the essay #oc: lyra fairbanks #answered #spicevalleys

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dollarwarm36 · 4 years ago

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Women Coaching In Football

Leadership Coaching For Women In Global Advancement

Content

The Life Teacher.

Career & Meeting Coaching.

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UA women's assistant to miss Florida game - WholeHogSports

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griffinequestrian · 4 years ago

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Heels Down Mag: Should Protective Vests Be Required In Show Jumping?

By Justine Griffin for Heels Down Mag

Over the weekend, a client of Jet Show Stables in Florida got bucked off their horse.

The rider, who is also a close friend of Jimmy and Danielle Torano who have long run the farm, suffered serious injuries. She broke her collar bone, shoulder blade and four vertebrae. She suffered a collapsed lung and broken hip. All from just being bucked off.

“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” said Danielle, an amateur-owner hunter/jumper rider. “It’s a risk we take every time we get on, but I think it would be a totally different story if she had a vest on. I really do.”

Danielle is advocating for more hunter and jumper riders in the U.S. to wear protective vests while riding and showing. She thinks the vests – more commonly used by eveners on cross-country – should even be mandatory.

“If it can help protect us even a little bit, then why aren’t we doing this?” she said.

Protective riding vests are a rarity among grand prix show jumping riders, but they’ve popped up at national horse shows in recent years. Sandy Ferrell wore a protective vest over her show coat in the 3’9″ green hunter championship at the 2017 Devon Horse Show. Grand prix show jumper Andrew Welles has shown while wearing an air vest.

“We won’t even jump a pole on the ground without them on now, even at home,” said Alexandra Welles, an amateur show jumper and Andrew’s wife.

Air vests, made by companies like Hit-Air, Point Two, among others, are designed to “deploy”, or fill with air, when a rider is ejected from the saddle to soften the blow of impact with the ground.

“We ride these enormous animals over huge jumps with no protection other than the hat on our heads,” Danielle explained. “It’s ridiculous and it’s dangerous.”

Safety vests have been used in equestrian sport for 35 years, but the research behind their effectiveness is still slim. For the newer air vests, it’s even thinner. There just isn’t a wide body of conclusive data yet.

But even knowing that, Danielle still thinks something is better than nothing.

“Even if there’s a 10 percent chance wearing it will help in some way, why wouldn’t we do it?”

Danielle posted on her personal Facebook page about the need to advocate for vest use among hunter and jumper riders after her client’s fall. While she said she received mostly support from her friends in the horse industry, there were a few naysayers.

“One person said, ‘oh I’d never wear that’,” Danielle described. “My husband and I have been in the business a long time. We remember when there was pushback on helmets. Change can be hard, but we’ve been on the other side of it, of not wanting change, and see how important change for safety really is.”

Danielle said her husband, grand prix show jumper and trainer Jimmy Torano, is also a big believer in the tradition of the sport. She said the formality of “tradition” is the likely the largest barrier to getting riders to invest in wearing vests.

“My husband is one of the biggest proponents of tradition and the look of it,” Danielle confessed. “He’s the type who wants me to still wear my jacket when when the show waives them. I think it’s silly. But I can see people not wanting to wear vests because of the way it looks.”

But even Jimmy, she says, is turning the corner.

“It has to slap you in the face. I really believe that,” Danielle described.

At Jet Show Stables, clients will be asked to wear the vests going forward, Danielle said. Same with their 10-year-old son, who rides in the pony hunters.

“He’s afraid he’s going to look silly, and that no one else is going to be wearing one,” she said. But he’s still wearing it.

Danielle said she plans to make the case for making vests mandatory with organizations like USEF and USHJA. She isn’t the only one, Diana Babington, a rider and the wife of Irish show jumper Kevin Babington who was paralyzed in a fall at the Hampton Classic last year, is also advocating for the change.

“There is this part of the sport where everyone feels they must look a certain way,” Danielle said. “But it’s time to evolve. The more people get behind it, the more it will become like wearing a helmet – you won’t think twice about it.”

#horse #horses #horse back riding #hunter/jumper #show jumping #protective vests #body vests #equestrian safety #safety #equestrian #equestrian problems #Kevin Babington #Diana Babington #Jet Show Stables #Danielle Torano #Jimmy Torano #heels down mag #heels down magazine

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zdbztumble · 5 years ago

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“Jewel of the Seven Pokemon!” Chapter V

Featuring the return of a certain Pokemon no story with Misty should be without!

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV

FF.Net

AO3

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There was something strange about how these Cofagrigus were fighting: they weren’t.

Even with three mummies to use as shields, they weren’t attacking or even trying to position themselves to battle. They weren’t even laughing anymore. All they did was run.

Misty wasn’t complaining, of course. “Another Water Gun, Gyarados!” she ordered. They may have been out in the open, but she still didn’t want to risk any Attacks that might hurt the producers or Mr. Hampton. But if the force of the water can bring them down to the ground, and Gyarados can close in on the Cofagrigus with Crunch…

“MISTY!” Ash was at the end of the alley, waving his hands above his head. Pikachu did the same at his side, and Sir Bela was leaning on his cane next to them. Iris was nowhere in sight.

“Ash!” Misty shouted. “Watch out for the –”

It was too late. As soon as they saw three new targets, the Cofagrigus moved in. The mummies swung around to cover their backs as they dove. Ash and Pikachu leapt off to the side, but Sir Bela didn’t seem prepared to leap anywhere – or run, or walk. He did reach inside his jacket, and just as the Cofagrigus reached him –

“OW! Cilan, that hurt!” He was sitting behind Misty on Gyarados’s back; at the sight of Purrloin, he’d clung to her around the waist.

“Pardon my instinct,” he squeaked.

Misty rolled her eyes and twisted free from his arms. Up ahead, Purrloin took advantage of the Cofagrigus’s exposed fronts to land Night Slash on two of them, though it didn’t seem to do much damage. Ash and Pikachu joined in the fight too, with a Thunderbolt. It struck the Cofagrigus closest to them; the Coffin Pokémon flinched and stopped mid-air, but recovered its bearings almost immediately.

“Their Defense is higher than I’d hoped,” Cilan muttered. The Cofagrigus pulled the mummies in closer to them, so that they were stuck to their backs. “And they’ve just doubled it.”

“But Purrloin and Pikachu can still battle them from the front,” Misty whispered. “If they can get everyone free, then Gyarados can still finish them off.” I just hope they think to do that.

Pikachu seemed to have the right idea; he was using Agility to try and circle around his opponent, though the Cofagrigus kept turning to keep his front to Pikachu. Purrloin, on the other hand, kept striking at the two surrounding him. He was fast enough to land his Night Slashes, but the Cofagrigus kept turning their backs to him, so that he had to twist around to send the Attacks off to the side. One of those Night Slashes struck the Cofagrigus Pikachu was chasing, right in the back. The mummy – Mr. Hampton, Misty could tell from the black bandages – slid off and rolled onto the ground.

“Now’s our chance, Gyarados!” Misty patted the side of his head and pointed straight ahead. “Crunch!” But as Gyarados reared and roared, Ash twisted his hat back and ordered Pikachu to use Electro Ball.

“Pi Pikachupi!” The sparking ball appeared on his tail, and Pikachu did a perfect flip to hurl it. The Cofagrigus dropped down, and even opened its body up so that it could get lower to the ground, directly over Mr. Hampton. The Electro Ball spun towards Gyarados, and Misty just managed to steer him out of its path with a quick tug to the horns.

“They’re getting away!” she heard Sir Bela shout. When she turned Gyarados around, the Cofagrigus were already well ahead of them. The one had Mr. Hampton on its back again. Purrloin and Pikachu were on their heels, but the side door to the neighboring stage blew open, and an Ominous Wind knocked them back without stopping the Cofagrigus. They flew inside the stage and pulled the door shut behind them.

“NO! Ash, what were you thinking!?” Misty snapped. She jumped down from Gyarados’s back and marched over to take Ash by the collar. “We were waiting for one of the mummies to get loose so we could use Crunch on the Cofagrigus!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that!?” Ash snapped back, smacking Misty’s hand away. “I was trying to free them too!”

“Crunch is a Dark Attack, Ash – it’s better against Ghost Pokémon than Electro Ball!”

“I didn’t know he knew Crunch either!”

“Oh yeah?” Misty growled, stepping in closer.

“Yeah!” Ash barked, stepping in himself.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh yeah? Well…well…did Pikachu say my name when he used Electro Ball?” Pokémon vocabulary was limited, of course, but Misty couldn’t remember any other time that Pikachu used “Pikachupi” except when he was greeting her.

“Uh…yeah. I guess so.” They were almost nose-to-nose, with the brim of Ash’s hat smashed against Misty’s forehead. Ash stepped back and brushed a finger across the bottom of his nose. “It kinda fits, doesn’t it? A fast, nasty, punchy attack.”

Misty grabbed his collar again. “What’s that supposed to mean!?”

“ENOUGH!” Sir Bela barked. “If you two are quite done behaving like an old married couple –”

“WHAT!?” Ash and Misty sprang apart; he was blushing, and Misty was sure she was too.

Sir Bela either didn’t see that or ignored it. “We now have four persons mummified by those Cofagrigus,” he said. “And still no sign of the missing Pokémon.”

“Did you say four?” Cilan asked. He tried to jump down from Gyarados too, but couldn’t quite manage it; he slipped getting his second leg over and landed on his side. Oshawott came tumbling after him, landing on Cilan’s head.

“They got Iris, Cilan!” said Ash. “Axew too! That noise came back – whir-whir-whir! – and then it came up – COFA! – and then – clamp!”

“Did they use her as a shield, to keep your Pokémon from attacking?” Cilan asked. He flipped onto his feet and hurried over. Oshawott jumped from his arms into Misty’s.

Ash shook his head. “No. She and Axew helped them chase us out here.”

“Why wouldn’t they do that with Iris?” Misty wondered. It was strange that the Cofagrigus would’ve chased Ash and Sir Bela out of the stage, too; Misty and Cilan’s Cofagrigus only went out the loading doors when she let Gyarados back out.

“And why have they taken all their mummies and held up in the cave sets?” Cilan pulled his magnifying glass out and tapped his chin with it. “It’s possible they mean to bait us, but for what purpose?”

“They’ve got that jewel,” said Ash. “The one Mr. Christopher brought from Galar. Before she got mummified, Iris said they were circling around it and chanting.”

“A-ha!” Misty snapped her fingers and turned her nose up. “So it is a curse!” She shouldn’t have felt so proud about that – there were four people mummified by Pokémon possessed by an ancient jewel, and one of them was Ash’s friend. And who knows how we’ll get them un-mummified? I’ve never seen that in a movie…

Cilan shook his head. “Nonsense. There’s a perfectly rational explanation for these things.”

Misty’s eyes narrowed. Stubborn skeptic…spend a few days in Saffron City and see if you still think everything’s got a “rational explanation.” “Are you ever going to tell us what that is?” she asked dryly.

“Gladly.” Cilan adjusted his tie and cleared his throat. “You’ve heard of method acting, I suppose – trying to emotionally inhabit a character. Some Pokémon actors use this technique, just as people do. If seven method-trained Cofagrigus – some of whom clearly know Psychic – came together on the set of a horror film that required them to be possessed by a lost spirit, they could fall into a kind of mass hypnosis, and really believe that they were serving the soul of a princess. They would then feel compelled to protect her jewel and mummify intruders. Several of the mansion servants meet such a fate in the novel, I believe.”

“Mass hypnosis, huh?” said Ash. He sounded impressed. Sir Bela looked up thoughtfully, and Pikachu and even Oshawott both gave agreeable hums; they were all buying it.

“That’s crazy!” Misty snapped. “You don’t know that those Cofagrigus are method actors! And that jewel belonged to a prince – Sir Bela said so himself!”

“But the Cofagrigus may not know that,” Cilan said calmly. “And as you haven’t seen the jewel, you can’t know it has a curse – an extraordinary claim. Whereas deducing that the Cofagrigus are method-trained is –”

“You haven’t seen the jewel either, Mycroft,” Misty sneered. “Why don’t you try having an open mind?”

“I’m happy to have an open mind, but not so open that my reason falls out.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean!? Are you saying that I’m not being – MMPH!” Misty jerked her head, but Ash kept his hand fixed over her mouth and turned her away from Cilan.

“What do you think, Mr. Christopher?” he asked Sir Bela. Misty got free from his hand by giving him a hard shot to the gut with her elbow.

“I think,” Sir Bela said slowly, “that we won’t know anything until we go back into the cave set and get a good look at that jewel. Now, we can’t go in there unguarded and unprepared, and I don’t think Purrloin can manage seven Cofagrigus on his own.” Purrloin, who had been rubbing against his Trainer’s legs, looked up and growled at that.

“H-H-How unf-fortunate,” Cilan stuttered, with a step away from Purrloin.

“It’ll be too cramped in there for Gyarados, Misty,” Ash said, nodding towards Misty’s Atrocious Pokémon. “But I’ve got a Krookodile.”

“My Crustle knows Feint Attack,” Cilan offered. He and Ash both released their Pokémon at the same time. Misty had never seen either kind before. Krookodile was cute with his sunglasses, but Misty clung to Ash’s arm at the sight of Crustle, whose name seemed too fitting.

Sir Bela looked them over and nodded curtly. “Very good,” he said. “But do any of you have a Pokémon that can use Psychic? It would be terribly useful to get those people away from the Cofagrigus. We might even use it to steal the jewel too.”

Cilan shook his head and crossed his arms. Ash shook his head too, but he looked at Misty and grinned. Cilan, Sir Bela, and all the Pokémon followed his lead, and Misty took a step back from all their stares. Why? she asked, slamming her palm to her forehead. Why did I have to get caught up in a mess that needs him?

***

“Psyduck, don’t wander off!” Misty hissed. “We need to stay together!”

“Psy.”

“Not so loud, Psyduck! We don’t want to get caught!”

“Duck?”

Some things never change. Ash rolled his eyes and shook his head. Luckily, Misty was in front, so she couldn’t see him. They were all in a row, walking hand in hand, while Pikachu led the way back to the opening they’d found earlier. Oshawott and Krookodile walked alongside him, and neither of them seemed to know what to make of Misty’s Psyduck. Oshawott especially seemed not to like him; he kept shooting Psyduck dirty looks, shoved him when he started going the wrong way, and refused to catch him when Psyduck tripped on plaster rock. Pikachu told Oshawott off for that, but it didn’t improve his attitude any. Not that Psyduck’s even noticed, the dope. Ash remembered Tracey saying once that Psyduck was really Misty’s favorite Pokémon; he didn’t see how Oshawott could’ve gotten that idea, but he was sure that was the problem.

“Psyduck can actually battle now, right?” Ash whispered, tugging Misty slightly back towards him.

“Yes,” she replied. “He’s really good, actually. But he still can’t do Psychic without a headache.”

“What!?”

“Quiet!” Mr. Christopher hissed. He was at the rear of the line, with Crustle and Purrloin right behind him. It was still amazing, how much scarier he sounded with a whisper than a shout.

“What!?” Ash repeated, more softly. “Then how are we supposed to use his Psychic?”

“I’ve got a plan – don’t worry.” It was hard not to, when Misty sounded so unsure, but she shut up and picked up the pace after the Pokémon, so Ash shut up too.

There whirring sound was still going, though only from the direction of the opening into the ceremony set. The “cofa, cofa, cofa” chanting was louder than before, with a nasty echo that couldn’t have come from the cave set. The red light was brighter too, and it pulsed every time the Cofagrigus spoke.

“In – in there?” said Misty.

Ash nodded and gulped. “In there.”

“Well…age before beauty!” She let go of Ash’s hand, reached back, and pushed Cilan out in front; Ash helped her push. Cilan glared at them from over his shoulder, but he straightened out his vest, stood up tall, and walked up to the wall, Crustle scurrying after him. When they reached it, Cilan had Crustle quietly build a few steps with Rock Slide to give everyone a view inside. Ash and Cilan helped Mr. Christopher up, and they set Pikachu, Psyduck, Crustle, and Purrloin on the ledge so they could see too. Misty held Oshawott in her arms; he refused to be put down.

The ceremony set was a big circle, made like a hollow chamber of a cave with the big pointy rocks sticking up and down – Ash couldn’t remember what to call them. In the middle was a sort of shrine, a golden ark with a fastening on it that held a giant glowing ruby set in a gold ring. A few red lamps scattered around the outer rim of the set gave even more red light. Up at the top of the set, a section had been cut away, and a thin ray of pale gray light came down from there onto the jewel. All seven Cofagrigus drifted around the shrine in a slow-moving circle, and the four mummies stood a few feet back, making sort of a square around the circle. They all stared straight ahead through their bandages, with blank eyes rolled straight up. Three Hoothoot were hanging from the top of the set, their eyes wide open and glowing blue.

“Those Hoothoot belong to the cinematographer,” whispered Mr. Christopher. “She’s Johtovo - they help her to hang the lights.”

“They’re not mummies,” Ash pointed out. The Hoothoot weren’t wrapped up, and as creepy as their glowing eyes were, they weren’t anything like what happened to Iris and the others.

“But there’s something wrong with them,” said Misty. “Maybe they’re possessed by the soul of the prince in the jewel!”

“Or they’re using Hypnosis,” said Cilan.

“Why would the Hoothoot be using Hypnosis?” Misty asked. “And on who?”

“Excellent questions, Misty.”

“…Well!?” she demanded. Cilan didn’t answer, but bowed his head in thought. Misty looked ready to keep arguing, but Ash slapped her lightly on the arm. He wasn’t sure which of them was right about the Cofagrigus, but he didn’t want to hear them argue about it anymore. It didn’t really matter to Ash what the reason for all these things was anyway, as long as they could free the people and find the Pokémon.

It was fascinating, though, watching the Cofagrigus. Seeing all the strange things Pokémon could do was always amazing. And even in the set of a horror film, with red lights and mummies everywhere, Ash didn’t feel afraid. Maybe it was having a horror movie star and ex-intelligence officer with him. Maybe it was being in another adventure with Misty – there was something about being with her or Brock that made everything seem OK, in a way Ash couldn’t explain even to himself.

Or maybe it’s all that red light. Ash couldn’t get a good look at the jewel, with the Cofagrigus moving around it, but there was something about the pulsing of its glow, in and out, light and dark, over and over and over again…

“Ash!” Misty shook him by the shoulder. “Are you ready?”

“Uh…yeah. Yeah! Ready for what?”

Misty dropped her head onto the ledge, Cilan shook his head, and Mr. Christopher glared at him. “This Psyduck is about to steal that jewel for us,” he said. “As soon as we have it in our hands, we must attack at once, to win time to escape. Are you ready?

“Um – sure. Ya got that, Krookodile?”

“Krook!” He adjusted his sunglasses and slipped into a battle pose. Pikachu and Crustle did the same, Purrloin crouched low as if he were going to pounce, and Oshawott wiggled his eyebrows at Misty before jumping down and puffing his chest out. She giggled softly and scratched his head before turning to Psyduck.

“OK, Psyduck,” she said. “Remember – you need to get that jewel first and fly it over here. Then you need to round up all our friends – the ones wrapped like mummies – while the others distract the Cofagrigus. Understand?”

“Psy.” Ash hoped that meant yes.

“Alright…Psyduck, Headache!”

“Headache?” Ash, Cilan, and Mr. Christopher all said together.

Psyduck gave a dutiful nod, walked over to the nearest wall, and whacked his head against it. The blow pushed him back, and he staggered around on one foot for a second, but nothing happened.

“Try again, Psyduck,” said Misty. “Harder this time!”

He did, with the same result. He tried a third time, and hit his head hard enough to chip away some of the paint and expose the white plaster underneath, but his eyes still didn’t light up with Psychic.

“Oh no,” Misty sighed. “The plaster’s not hard enough.”

Ash groaned, Mr. Christopher sighed and shut his eyes, and Cilan muttered, “I might have known.” The Pokémon all looked disappointed too. All except Oshawott. He puffed his chest out even more and stuck his tongue out at Psyduck.

“Oshawott,” he sneered. “Osha, osha, oshawott.”

“Psy?” Psyduck looked up at Misty, who shook her head and smiled at him.

“It’s not your fault, Psyduck,” she said, patting her Pokémon on the head. Ash had to choke down a laugh when he saw Oshawott’s reaction; face red, paws balled up and trembling. There was almost steam coming out of his ears. Before anyone could stop him, Oshawott ripped his shell off his chest and beaned Psyduck in the head.

“PSY!” The duck lost his balance again. He teetered on one foot, flailed his arms, but couldn’t catch himself. He went over the side of the opening – the side leading into the shrine set. He bounced against plaster rocks all the way down, before landing on his head.

The chanting stopped. The light from the jewel went steady. And every one of the Hoothoot and Cofagrigus was looking at them.

Mr. Christopher moved first. He ordered Purrloin to attack with Shadow Ball, and the Devious Pokémon hurled five of them into the ground in front of the Cofagrigus. Plaster rocks turned to chalky dust, which spread through the whole shrine set and back towards them. It stung Ash’s eyes and throat, but he didn’t turn away. The red light threw shadows of all the Pokémon against the dust, and they were moving in.

“Krookodile, Stone Edge!” Ash cried. It was no good trying to use Bite or Crunch until the dust settled, but they could still throw some barriers between themselves and the Cofagrigus. Krookodile pulled himself up onto the ledge and roared. Ash saw the shafts of real rock shoot up from the ground, and the shadows of the Cofagrigus scatter. Crustle used Rock Blast to catch them as they moved. When the Hoothoot took off from their perches, Pikachu brought one of them down with Thunderbolt. And Oshawott backed up until he was directly in front of Misty, and spread his arms wide.

“Psyduck!” Misty nudged Oshawott to the side as she leaned over the ledge. “Are you OK? Psyduck!”

“They’re getting closer!” Cilan yelled. They were slowing down either. And even with the Cofagrigus off-guard and moving around, there was no clear way to get the jewel.

“Prepare for battle!” Mr. Christopher barked. “Dark and Ghost Attacks, everyone!” The Cofagrigus were almost on them. The dust was starting to settle, and the red of the Coffin Pokémon’s eyes was shining through what was left…

“PSY!”

Bright blue light engulfed every one of the Cofagrigus, the two Hoothoot still in the air, and the mummies that had yet to move. They all flew back across the set as if tossed, landing in a heap together. Psyduck floated in the air, in the middle of a glowing blue orb.

“Wow…guess you weren’t kidding about him being a good battler now,” Ash whispered to Misty. She gave a half-cough, half-laugh in reply. Oshawott slumped to his feet and pouted; Misty slipped a hand around him without looking away from the shrine.

“Good job, Psyduck!” she called to her Pokémon. “Now get that jewel!” The Cofagrigus were starting to stir, but another wave of Psychic put them back down. Psyduck spread his wings and bowed his head, and the blue light spread around the jewel in the shrine. It lifted straight up into the air, hovered there for a minute, and then shot at them faster than a diving Swellow.

“Head’s up, Ash!” Cilan yelled. Ash threw his hands up and braced himself. It didn’t keep him from tumbling back off the steps and rolling down the path once the jewel hit him.

With the red glow, Ash expected it to be warm or even hot, but it was cool to the touch. It was about the size of a shrunken down Poké Ball and slightly sharp around the edges. Even away from the shrine, the Cofagrigus, and the shaft of gray light, the ruby was still glowing. The gold setting it was in was made for a bigger finger than Ash’s, and had funny writing and pictures done in tiny detail all around it.

No…not funny…I can read it. Ash had never seen anything like it before, but he could read it. There is never perfect rest…Thou shall rise again…It was what the pictures meant. But what Ash saw – what he heard in his head, as the cave set and the jewel and even the red glow gave way to bright, piercing blue – was a language he’d never heard before.

“Ash? Ash? Do you got it? Ash, we need to go! Ash!”

Misty’s voice sounded a million miles away. But who is Misty? And who was this Ash? That was a fine way to address a prince…

#z's fics #halloween #pokeshipping #pokemon black and white #cilan #iris #Ash Ketchum #misty waterflower #fan fiction

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