#probably had an effect on my understanding of disaster prep

[alittleworldlywise]

The joy of growing up and moving from an extreme weather risk zone to a risk zone for a completely different type of extreme weather.

[submalevolentgrace]

(yesterday i received an ask, which prompted me to write the following response. the asker has apologised for sending it and i took it down to prevent anyone from laying into them, but present is anonymously below because i like my response and want you to see it)

"Based on the fun new revelation that the world is ending before I graduate, is it even worth it to try prepping or should we all just get ready to jump into traffic come 2025?"

okay, there is, A LOT to unpack here. i'm gonna do my best to respond to this helpfully, the way i am facing it: confronting it, emotionally processing it, pragmatically preparing, and holding on to a sort of grim, dark hope.

we're talking about climate collapse and the latest IPCC report here right? first off, it's not a new revelation. maybe it is for you personally, but for humanity as a whole, we've known about the inevitable outcomes of emissions damaging the climate since like the 70's. i found out about it myself in primary school in the mid 90's, when it was still called the greenhouse effect, and i then spent 20 years on and off in various roles of support for climate activism, when i had the spoons. if you're young and just finding out about it now i know it's probably overwhelming, and especially sucks the later you've been born into this mess… but i'm pointing out that it's not new, to underline the point that it's also not sudden. yeah it's getting worse, but it's been getting worse for generations, and will keep getting worse for generations.

it's not a meteor, or a volcano. it's a creeping steady decline of habitability with sputters and bursts of natural disaster; there is no timeline or event or threshold at which the world ends here.

that 2025 "deadline" from this year's IPCC synthesis report, for instance; it's not a date that the world ends. honestly, in some ways, it's kinda meaningless. what it is, as i understand it, is that all the data says that if we want to limit global average temperature rises to 1.5C by end of century - which we do, because even 2C would be catastrophic - we need emissions to peak by 2025 and then rapidly decline. it's a vastly oversimplified agregate of incredibly complex data reduced down to the point of absurdity in a desperate attempt by scientists to get corporations to allow governments to take action to limit corporations. it's a deadline for government action to limit effects by 2100. the year will come, and pass, and the world will go on. probably with emissions still going up, probably with targets shifted again and 2C accepted as the next half hearted goal that will also be missed, but life will go on.

no end of the world. life will go on. into the 2030's, into the 2040's, into the 2100's, life will go on. it'll be hotter and colder, wetter and drier, more storms and bushfires, less food and fertile land, but life will go on. populations will starve, land will become uninhabitable, life will go on. when you hear about "the end of the world" from climate collapse, it's not a hard apocalypse that kills us all off or whatever. it's the slow creep of nature getting more harsh, and the way we do things much harder.

if you look at the serious reports from scientists and militaries, the language you see isn't "end of the world", it's "end of modern societies". that's what's really at risk: the fragile infrastructure that holds up the ruling classes of rich nations and has us all scurrying around to make it work. mass scale power grids, international supply chains and just in time logistics, silicon wafer production, year-round plastic wrapped preserved passionfruit chunks grown in thailand, packed in argentina, sold in france, profits to america, money stored on a computer in the cayman islands. i can't sugarcoat it and say that's all that's at stake; people are definitely going to starve and drown and die of exposure; but that already happens every day in most of the world, right now. there are a million rohingya at the border of bangladesh, locals fleeing khartoum as the west airlifts out is nationals, people whose civilisations were crushed under the boots of empires and land destroyed to create the farmland and factories that are killing the planet. life for them goes on.

i mean, i get it. seeing the impending collapse of your society, everything you've known for your whole life being willfully destroyed, it's fucking devastating. we want to keep sitting here on comfortable couches with our gold and cobalt plated supercomputers sharing cat gifs on the hellsite. we don't want to have our civilisation taken away from us and be forced into brutal struggle to survive. it's going to fucking suck, it will be awful, and it will be (and already is) most destructive to the people who are already the worst off, which just sucks even more… and maybe your life is already bad enough that you don't think you can handle it getting worse. i mean, i've been suicidal since i was 14 and i've been through trauma and medical torture you wouldn't believe since then. i get it. you're scared, terrified even. existentially threatened. you don't know what you can handle and maybe you donn't wanna find out.

but here's the thing: the ONLY sensible thing you can do, now and going forwards, is prepare for it.

you wanna kill yourself when it gets hard? let's say sure, i agree with that. what's the threshold then, what's the limit? when will you kill yourself? the power grid going down? sewerage backing up? supply chains failing and being unable to buy food? from the comfort of the developed world, those all feel like exit points i can imagine many people taking as their out… but how long does it have to last before you know it's carbon-monoxide-party time? a month of no power, no flush, no food? a week, a few months, or a year? because it won't start that way.

it's not a meteor or volcano, it's a slow slide. some powerlines sagged so there's rolling blackouts every now and then, a few hours or a day at a time. pipes backed up a bit so pressure is reduced for a week until repairs are done. fires and plague have closed roads so shelves are bare and stores are limiting purchases on essentials this month. there will be bumps along the road before there will be any sort of definitive cliff where you can say "this is it, now is the time to kill myself". these bumps are already happening.

i really hope you can agree, it'd be absurd to be such a fatalistic doomer that you kill yourself instantly at the first blackout, dry tap, or closed grocery store; when you can't know if it'll be back up in a few hours or tomorrow or next week. these small disruptions are already happening right now, directly as a result of climate collapse, but we're still here, still living. if we're going to talk about suicide as a pragmatic option, you need a threshold, and wherever you set it, you'll have to get through what comes before. "i'll kill myself after a month with no grid" still means you gotta be ready for a week without it. you gotta prepare, even if you plan to not survive.

and i know it's overwhelming, i know. to look around and think about what is essential to keep you going, what you can sacrifice, how you can make it through. but you're not going to be doing it alone, everyone around you is going to be doing it with you. we're all going to be struggling through it, and based on how communities have responded in the last few years to a string of once-in-a-lifetime disasters here in my home of climate-fucked australia, i am certain that when the climate collapses around a group of people, they will form a community and help each other, no matter how selfish and mean of a country bogan (translation: redneck) they are. people will help each other; people already are helping each other.

because yeah, climate collapse will probably destroy modern civilisation… but so what? it's a neoliberal capitalist hellscape quickly plunging us into technologically enforced eternal authoritarianism… and like, not to be an accelerationist or anything, but here's that dark hope i mentioned: i'm kinda relieved by the thought that the infrastructure that enables it won't last this century. that climate collapse will force us out of these horrors, and back into real, interdependent community.

so do what you can to prepare, how you can, to make the little disruptions more bearable and comfortable. there's plenty of resources still available for off grid life, camping, home agriculture, and general self sufficiency out there on the still-existant internet, and more people are getting into it all the time - not just what you imagine when you hear "prepper". any skill you can develop, anything you can do to prepare, even if it's as simple as keeping extra shelf stable food and a jug of clean water around, anything you can do will help you materially and more importantly, mentally.

having some jerry cans of water and a small solar setup has been amazing for my mental health and anxiety! and as much as i'm putting material and energy into preperations, i'm also putting them into comfort, maybe even hedonism. collecting some cool lego, got some fancy synths i didn't need, making fucked up noise music with them. enjoying the sound of the neighbours' chickens, looking forward to the day "the world ends" and i can free-range my own on the council's nature strip and share the eggs with the pottery lady down the street. once you're prepared to survive a week of grid down, maybe you'll realise a month, a year, isn't so unbearable. maybe it starts to feel nice?

because i've been there, the suicidal grief. 2018 was absolutely the worst year of my life and i was sure i'd die being tortured in hospital, and coming out of that, in 2019, both the IPCC and ADF released incredibly bleak reports on climate collapse outcomes, and it all sank in. all the spare spoons i'd sunk into helping when i could, all the decades of scientists desperately warning, it all failed. the final warnings have been coming for years, with no change in course, it's happening. and i faced the realisation that my decades were limited, my time of comfort short, and i started despairing and grieving. i turned to what support systems i had, and they failed me. when my psych asked what i was so anxious about and i started explaining the climate reports, he tensed up and started asking diagnostic questions for dilusional psychosis. i went home and cried, i was sleeping on the couch in the junk storage room of my sharehouse because i'd let my own room fill up with so much trash that there was a distinctly organic smell of growth choking the whole place out. i was fucking done, my heart and body broken, there didn't seem to be any point in anything, not without a future. it's the closest i've been to killing myself since leaving home…

so i said, fuck it. i've got a tiny pool of cash from welfare backpay, and i bought a synth i wanted. it fucking rocked, and brought me so much joy, so i bought another, and another. no future to save for, anyway. i made some cool music, i never saw that psych again, i gave up on my drive for revenge on doctors and finding answers about my fucked up nervous system, why bother when the world is ending? and i made music. i can kill myself later maybe. i started loving myself more, because what's the point starving to death hating myself? i made music and got confident and cleaned my fucking room, bought a new mattress. i met a girl and took a chance and we fucked real good and i fell in love again. i moved out somewhere new and quieter and left a home of over a decade behind me, left parts of my identity behind me, moving forward and growing for the better. i have a family now, the first family that has ever loved me without expecting anything in return, and i love them with all my heart. i listen to the chickens, and watch leaves float down the storm water drain, and make cool music. yesterday i listened to a 14 minute track i made 6 months ago and almost cried, because nobody can make music that is so perfect for my tastes except me, and i brought it into existence. on the weekend i'm gonna set up the solar panel to keep the backup battery topped up, i use it to charge my phone and laptop, which the kids would call solarpunk and i'd call cool as fuck to have a solar powered laptop.

in 2019 i stared into the void and realised there is no real future for me, for human civilisation as we know it, and i grieved and processed… i almost killed myself, but i didn't, and the years since have been the best of my life, no question.

so, no. don't kill yourself, now or in 2025 or at any point until you can't handle the torture anymore. "graduation" sounds young, real young, even if it's tertiary. i'm creeping towards 40, and the age that "graduation" conjures makes me think that you've got a hell of a lot of potential left in you, for fun and stupidity, and growing up, and finding love and heartbreak, and your version of wierd-arse synth music.

so go out there, prepare, and enjoy.

…

…..and for the love of all the false goddesses of the void, never, NEVER EVER again contact a random fucking blog on tumblr and ask if you should kill yourself. holy fuck buddy. the amount of pressure you put me under to deliver an emmaculately worded response that somehow talks you down from the ledge without lying, is way, way too much fucking pressure. i really hope you were being stupidly hyperbolic, but even then, Eris Fucking Kallisti Herself In Absurdist Pagan Blasphemy, so incredibly unacceptable to say to a stranger. i think you need a therapist, even if they do think you're catastrophising, because like. shit dude. this is abso-fucking-lutely not okay!

now go. prepare and enjoy.

[shihalyfie]

“Dependable senior” Kido Jou

Continuing my thread of analyzing the Adventure characters in detail, today we’ll be talking about Jou, Adventure’s most famous disaster character whom most of us have probably started feeling may actually be the most relatable character in this cast. It’s hard not to love him, honestly, given how earnestly he works so hard at everything and yet has an unfortunate tendency to dig himself into a hole.

Let’s just cut to the chase and talk about Jou!

Jou’s family background

Adventure is of course known for its overall focus on family backgrounds, but Jou’s is fairly different from the others’ for a lot of different reasons. We never meet Jou’s parents in the series itself, only in a drama CD, but we do meet his brother, Kido Shin -- and in fact, Jou’s the only Adventure kid to have siblings outside of the group (two, in fact, although we don’t meet Shuu until 02).

Jou’s family is what’s often called an “elite” family -- one that pushes for its kids and family members to have a certain degree of “high status” through their career. Even those in non-Asian countries will probably recognize that academic achievement measurement pressure is endemic to the culture in general -- especially since Japan has standard entrance exams go all the way down to high school level -- but it is especially prominent in the case of the Kido family, and Jou’s father has been pushing all three of his sons to become doctors, largely because he wants one of them to inherit his clinic. (While it’s not as extreme as Sora’s problem with iemoto position inheritance, Jou’s position of being in inheritance pressure is not entirely dissimilar.) It also means that just being any kind of doctor isn’t enough for him -- it’s got to be one of the “dignified and prominent” kinds of doctors (heavily implied to involve surgery, given the mention of blood).

In addition, while it’s not strictly said within the series itself, it’s implied that Jou is feeling a lot of pressure in terms of being the youngest of three sons, when the older two have a huge age gap with him. Jou is only in elementary school, while his second oldest brother is in high school and his oldest brother already a medical student! (By the time Adventure is over, both brothers are in national university, which is a really tough achievement.) Within his family, Jou really is The Baby compared to two high-achieving brothers who are already “well on their way to great things”.

In order to be on the path of becoming a doctor, Jou starts off the series, only in elementary school, in the “prep school track” -- or, what’s basically a constant cycle of getting into a good school so that he can get into another good school so that he can get into another good school (et cetera). Again, Japanese schools have entrance exams as early as high school, so this is something he’ll be setting on very early. I also cannot emphasize enough that for anyone who has to go through this process, it is absolute hell. I have never met anyone who actually enjoys doing this; it’s a means to an end. It’s very hard to have your heart into this unless you want the final goal that badly -- vague promises of status alone don’t do it -- and even those who do want it often end up demotivated and going through the motions with their will broken partway into it.

And, unfortunately for Jou, he’d already had a good reason to not want to do this from day one.

Jou has severe blood phobia. (Formally called “hemophobia”, although I tend to avoid that term given that it’s one letter off from something else.) Shin even makes it clear in this scene from Adventure episode 38 that any doubts about Jou’s ability to become a doctor don’t have anything to do with his personality or abilities, but the fact is that this is, indeed, a very serious and concrete problem for someone who intends to become a doctor (or at least, again, the kind of doctor that his father wants him to be). It’s possible that Jou outright fainting at the sight of blood might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s definitely enough of a deterrent that he’s not feeling this whole thing at all, and convincing him to actually care about becoming a doctor is going to require a huge uphill battle. By default, the answer was already a huge, capital NO in giant letters before anything ever began. And yet, Jou continued to force himself to go through the motions.

It should also be made clear that while Jou’s father was pressuring him to become a doctor, he was also not trying to force Jou to become one. The drama CD where he appears had him actually outwardly encourage Jou to do whatever he wanted instead of forcing himself -- but it was also extremely clear that he was still personally very unhappy and dissatisfied with the idea of all three brothers not taking over his clinic. As much as the Kido brothers do seem to be concerned about their father’s disapproval, it’s less so out of fear of retribution and more that they just really worry about disappointing him. Hence, this is why Jou continues to follow the path even when he’s not really feeling it, and it’s important to understanding Jou as a character for the rest of this post: Jou has no personal interest in status or honor, but is motivated by his sense of duty towards other people. 

Even so, “because my father really wants me to” isn’t exactly very motivating in itself, and, all in all, Jou starts off Adventure very jaded about his future prospects, and rather demotivated and uninterested in them. But come the events of Adventure, Jou, the aforementioned “baby of the family”, gets recasted as the oldest in the group -- which becomes a huge factor in how he ends up changing his view of himself and his personal goals.

Jou in Adventure

Jou starts off the series assigned as Mimi’s camp group leader, but even Mimi senses an aura from him that he doesn’t seem very “reliable”. In this case, the word “reliable” doesn’t refer to his Crest name (which did get a dub name of “Reliability”) but rather various words that effectively mean “able to be counted on”. Which, at this early point of the story, Jou is decidedly not. Once the adventure gets off the ground, Jou easily succumbs to stress, and especially the stress and burden placed on him from being the oldest in the group.

If you’re wondering if that one-year difference between Jou and Taichi/Yamato/Sora really is that big of a deal, culturally speaking: yes, it is (especially when everyone’s at this young age), and Jou isn’t just being stickler about it. You can actually see an example of how this comes into play once they return to regular society in Adventure episode 29, when the kids are allowed to go to Hikarigaoka purely because “a sixth-grader” (Jou) is with them. This is the kind of responsibility that society normally imposes on him, and this is what he carries even into another world.

In fact, Jou’s aware even from the get-go that he’s not exactly cut out for that kind of role. From the Adventure novels:

Jou thought about it. He, too, felt sorry for the younger boy… but it would be over for his leadership if he went back on what he’d already decided. Give them an opening and they’ll soon be walking all over him. He just couldn’t have that. Jou was all too aware of his own often indecisive personality. ... When they heard what had transpired between her and Jou, Yamato and the others glared coldly in Jou’s direction. What was this, a dictatorship?

As a result, he initially rubs everyone the wrong way because, in their view, he’s trying to impose his will on everyone like some control freak, but as it turns out, being a control freak is actually part of Jou’s stress response.

Said control freakishness manifests in Jou constantly spending the early part of the series by leaning back on “the rules of society” -- including the early series running gag of him insisting that there must be “adults” there, when this is clearly not the case to everyone else present -- because, for someone like him who easily gives into stress and anxiety and has a nasty tendency to become incredibly irrational, leaning on those “rules” is some degree of comfort to him. Now that he’s been dragged into another world, he’s desperately clawing at anything that can bring his sense of “reality” back -- hence why he keeps relying on the concept of “adults”, because the truth is that he himself isn’t actually that capable of handling the situation on his own, and he’s trying to convince himself that there’s Some More Reliable Thing Out There that they can fall back on.

The infamous “egg scene” in Adventure episode 7 is certainly comedic when Jou overreacts to everyone harmlessly listing off things they like on their eggs, but things quickly take a turn for the dramatic when Jou practically has a mental breakdown over it. In the end, Jou so easily succumbs to anxiety that even little things like “being a little out of order” stress him out to no end. The world is easy to understand and explain when everything is in the right place, and chaos has a tendency to completely disorient him.

But on the other hand, it’s also in Adventure episode 7 where we learn that Jou’s control freak behavior isn’t because he actually cares about any kind of status or honor for being the oldest, but because he truly, truly feels responsible for everyone’s welfare.

“Because I’m the oldest” is a statement that Jou means in the context of him having a duty to protect everyone -- beyond everything, the one thing that does make Jou passionate is how much he truly, truly cares about other people’s welfare, to the point he impulsively throws himself onto the Black Gear-controlled Unimon and tries to yank the gear out with his bare hands. In fact, said episode demonstrates that Jou can be recklessly self-sacrificial when he wants to be, because his failed attempts at dispute resolution lead him to conclude that he should be the one to take one for the team. For all it’s worth, Jou has the right idea when it comes to trying to take leadership, because he’s very much doing this for the welfare of others more than he ever cares about himself or the glory of the position -- it’s just that, being rather reckless, rather paranoid, and not very good at actually thinking straight, his way of going about it doesn’t tend to always land right.

But it’s undeniable that he cares, and he’s trying, and this leads to a shift in how the rest of the team comes to perceive him for the rest of the series now that they understand that his intentions really are for their sake, not because he’s trying to be a jerk about it.

And that comes out to be the one most prominent trait about Jou for the rest of the series, especially in Adventure episodes 23 and 36 -- as much as an unpredictable loose cannon as he can be, he’s so loyal to his friends and determined to protect them that he would even recklessly throw himself into the line of fire for them. That’s the basis of his Crest, which is something that’s been translated half a dozen different ways, but all boil down to the same principle: he has a strong sense of duty and responsibility to other people, and will always make do on his promises to others or his desire to provide for them.

After a few of their initial bad starts, the Adventure kids never treat him badly -- in fact, both Sora and Mimi respectfully call him “Jou-senpai” as if to acknowledge his position over them in school, something that’s stuck very well with the actual fanbase (more on this later). Of course, everyone tends to get exasperated at him or worry about whether he’ll actually pull through on anything he attempts, but the majority of the humor revolving around Jou in Adventure has very little to do with anyone insulting or tormenting him, and more that he tends to be so dramatic and high-strung that he kind of digs himself into a hole. (Like how he tries to angrily chastise everyone for spending their money on food in Adventure episode 30, only for the revelation that he’s starving himself to kick in and for him to sink into the exact opposite extreme.) Ultimately, everyone comes to understand that Jou’s working really hard for their sake, so they cut him a bit of slack.

In fact, while Taichi initially complains about Jou sitting out of their trip to Shibaura to find the eighth child for the sake of entrance exam studies in Adventure episode 32, the kids strike a compromise by dumping all of their phone call work on him. Of course, this is a bit of “revenge” for him not accompanying them, but it is effectively the other kids respecting his right to sit out and not have to completely give up on his real life obligations even in the middle of the eighth child search, by allowing him to participate in the search in a way that’s more convenient for him.

But despite diligently sticking to the motions, Jou doesn’t actually emotionally care about all of this. We even get a hint of this in Adventure episode 35 -- Jou gets what he calls “the worst grade in his life,” presumably due to all of the stress he’d been going through lately, having just gotten back from the Digital World and all. He also bounces back incredibly quickly, saying that he’ll have to call and inform his parents he’ll be back late.

In the end, Jou doesn’t really care about his grades or performance when it comes to cram school, even despite insisting on sticking to it, because he’s just not feeling it. He doesn’t even want to be a doctor all that much; he has no true motivation and no reason to care. (The only time Jou is ever portrayed as actually liking doing any kind of studying at all rather than doing it as obligation is when everyone’s listing off what they miss doing in Adventure episode 6, but it’s in a context where everyone’s talking about missing home, so it’s more of him missing his daily routine and what’s “familiar” to him than anything else.) He went through the motions, and was slightly disappointed about the grade, but the “ultimate goal” of becoming a doctor had no personal meaning to him, and so he shrugs it all off.

Jumping in physical danger to save someone’s life? That’s a no-brainer -- Jou would easily throw himself into the line of fire to do so, because he’s so passionate about protecting other people and taking responsibility for them that he’ll gladly sacrifice himself for anyone else in a heartbeat. But this whole thing about becoming a doctor and his future career is such a vague thing that he doesn’t even want that it’s arguably more of his “required daily routine” than it’s actually something he cares about all that much.

And so, we finally meet Kido Shin, in Adventure episode 38 -- he’s the oldest of the Kido brothers, already a medical student, and, ostensibly, the one closest to their father’s goal of having doctor sons. Yet his first appearance indicates that even he doesn’t have it all together, either -- he sleeps in the closet (Jou didn’t even know about this!), and somehow just slept through all of his surroundings being kidnapped. So even one of Jou’s apparent models is a bit of a disaster himself -- and, more importantly, Shin leaves some advice with Jou that sticks with him for the rest of the series.

Shin does not intend to be a doctor in the way their father wants him to be (remember, he specifically wants them to take over his clinic). This is Jou’s first time hearing about this, which is important because it means it’s the first time Jou is having such a major shakeup to his likely perception of Shin as a “prior example” -- and Shin knows this, because he promptly uses himself as an example of why Jou should also be free to choose his own path. Jou being the Kido family’s “baby” especially comes out in the novel, because Shin implies that he thinks Shuu would feel independent enough to not need any advice about this, whereas Jou definitely needs it.

We don’t get follow-up on this until after they return to the Digital World, and Mimi witnessing a handful of deaths and eventually Taichi and Yamato falling out brings her to her emotional limit; Jou decides to take responsibility for her, and while part of it is presumably because he’s had charge of her as her camp group leader since the beginning, it’s also clear that the recent events in the Digital World are weighing on him in their own way, as are Shin’s words about finding his own path.

What he wanted to tell her was this: that he didn’t see any likelihood of co-existing with the Dark Masters, and that they had no other choice but to fight them. Even a neutral country like Switzerland had a military. They would be invaded by enemy countries without one. It would be nice and ideal if they used the nonviolent resistance approach as Ghandi did. But that didn’t mean it was okay to just be killed without lifting a finger… But not even he could find a good answer.

QUESTION: Under what circumstances is it okay to battle?

That sort of question would never appear on a school test, and he’d never once thought about it before…

But on their way, Jou and Mimi encounter Ogremon and Leomon, and for the first time, Jou’s peripheral knowledge of medicine from his father starts having a practical use -- up until then, “becoming a doctor” had only been something that he’d been following for a vague sense of status that he didn’t even want, but here, Jou starts to see the connection between that goal and what it would mean for what he wants: to be able to help people right in front of him. Shortly after, when Leomon’s death turns out to involve injuries beyond that a sixth-grader can take care of with his limited supplies (”toilet paper won’t fix this!”), Jou is suddenly hit with a certain sense of reality: if Jou wants to truly help others, there is much more of a skillset he’s going to need to gather in order to do so.

So by the time of Adventure episode 50, Shin’s words now weigh so much on Jou that he’s even dreaming about them, and he finally internalizes those words of “everyone taking their own path”. In short, this is Jou acknowledging that fighting isn’t the only way to meaningfully contribute -- after all, Mimi has a severe aversion to fighting or seeing more casualties and thus can better meaningfully contribute by gathering allies to work together, while Taichi and Koushirou are directly in the front lines.

Jou, ostensibly, decides to go off and find Yamato, but there’s another layer under this: Jou admits that he’s not very strong, so much to the point that he doesn’t think Gomamon will reach Ultimate, and feels like there should be “something only he can do”. The full answer to what Jou started touching on here, and what he ends up doing thereafter, is stated in explicit words in Two-and-a-Half Year Break:

When we were in the Digital World last summer, many of the Digimon got injured and died. I couldn’t do anything for them, even though I was a doctor’s son. I don’t want to ever feel useless again! Not when someone is hurt in front of me. The Digital World doesn’t have a doctor. They need someone who’ll be able to heal them. Even now, I carry around a simple first-aid kit just in case the Gate opens again. Because of it, my bag is always crammed. And my arms are becoming muscular. [laughs] Really! By the way, I have a problem. Of course, I’ll be doing regular doctor studies, but I’ll be treating Digimon, you know? Don’t you think I’ll need to study veterinary medicine too in order to heal them? 

And thus, Jou finds the all-important link that actually motivates him to want to become a doctor -- the one thing that had always been a constant about Kido Jou was that he could not leave people behind when they needed help right in front of him. Or in other words, he has a marvelous case of Good Samaritan syndrome (a whole eleven years before Kudou Taiki, at that!). “Feeling useless” is pretty much on the very, very top of the list of things he hates the most. And, by his own admission, “fighting” is not really his specialty, and he doesn’t even particularly like it himself.

But he wants to meaningfully contribute in some way, and now, here’s an option that isn’t fighting: he has the roots in a talent for treating the wounded and preventing casualties that way. All he has to do is hone it. And just like how Shin decided that he specifically wanted to be a doctor in a place where a doctor would be needed most, Jou also decides he specifically wants to be a doctor for the Digital World, because that is something he can meaningfully provide for instead of becoming a doctor for the status.

He’s still going to disappoint his father this way, but never mind that: he’s found something that he wants, and it’s his own path, like Shin told him to follow. And yes, that means even if he has to fight his own blood phobia to do so.

And this becomes very important to how he’s able to confidently help bring Sora out of her darkness-induced spiel in Adventure episode 51, where she -- who has a problem with a compulsive tendency to burn herself out in helping others -- starts falling into despair because she caves to the pressure of having to save everyone. Yamato and Jou, together, simply re-shift her frame of mindset: it’s not that being a Chosen Child is about trying and failing to fulfill a particular duty, it’s that there’s a situation happening and they are actively making the choice to do everything they can. Because, really, Jou himself understands it best -- he’s never been someone good at doing things because other people tell him to, he’s someone who’s gotten this far because of his own personal sense of responsibility and priorities being so strong, and that’s why he’s capable of pushing on with his own path and what he wants.

02 and beyond

Jou was, unfortunately, forced to sit out the events of Our War Game!, but as far as blaming him for it goes, it’s really hard to; he had no idea this was going on at all, and by the time the incident had hit climax, he was already in the test room and impossible to be contacted. (You can imagine he was probably quite upset about not having been able to help out afterwards.) As for why nobody tries to pull him out the way they do end up pulling him aside a few times in 02, it’s because this isn’t just a practice exam for prep school -- this is THE exam. Remember, this kind of lifestyle involves a chain of needing to get into a good school to get into a good school to get into a good school, and Jou is aiming for a national university like his brothers; this actually could impact the rest of his career, and given that the other kids respect how important this is to him, it’s also understandable that they’d be a bit hesitant to pull him aside from this.

We’re first properly reintroduced to Jou in 02 episode 5. Unlike Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Koushirou, Jou does not attend Odaiba Middle School, which means that, assuming that the Adventure universe Odaiba is like the real-life one in which Odaiba (Koyo) Elementary and Middle are the only schools on the island, Jou regularly spends his school and prep school days off the island and quite separated from the others. Instead, Jou attends a private middle school (hence why he had to take an exam to get in), presumably one that’s intended to help him on the medical school track.

But despite that, his first major scene in the series is to ditch prep school to go help Gomamon. For someone who doesn’t know Jou very well, this probably would seem appalling -- that someone so studious would be so willing to ditch at the drop of a hat -- but anyone who does know him well would probably not be surprised; after all, “being a doctor” is still a far-off dream, whereas Gomamon needs help now, and the number one thing Jou can’t stand is to leave people in need behind.

Unlike with Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Koushirou, who all have some degree of connection to the 02 juniors in some way (Taichi and Yamato being Hikari and Takeru’s brothers, Taichi and Sora having known Daisuke from the soccer club, and Koushirou having known Miyako from the soccer club), Jou is a complete stranger when he’s introduced to Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori, with Digimon-related work being the only connection they have to him at all. Despite that, the new 02 kids, being well-behaved juniors who really look up to their elders, immediately endear themselves well to him -- in fact (you can thank @takerusfedora​ for this observation), Miyako squishing Poromon in delight upon seeing him, and the context she usually does this in, hints that she might even see him as attractive. (Considering that he’s a prospective medical student from an elite family, this probably shouldn’t be too surprising.)

While the fact he’s medical school bound isn’t explicitly brought up in the series itself, the fact he’s well on that path is already pretty evident by his actions, given that he comes stocked with heating pads and other medical supplies, just in case. Takeru comments on him always being prepared -- because he’s constantly thinking of other people and how he can be useful to them.

This episode also marks the beginning of a particular relationship between Jou and Iori, which is quite an interesting one considering that we’re talking about the oldest and the youngest of the group of eleven (not quite twelve yet) Tokyo Chosen Children at this point. As many point out even within this episode, Jou and Iori have a lot in common, and it’s likely Jou sees a bit of himself in Iori -- someone who has a firm insistence on principles (even beyond the point of practicality), but also is protective of others and hates to see them hurt. Not only that, Iori had even gotten a similar lesson from his grandfather earlier in the episode about the importance of “making one’s own decisions” -- and so, the two share common ground in Iori having ditched his “duty” to practice kendo with his grandfather that day in order to help Gomamon, and Jou having done likewise via ditching his prep school classes. Because Iori will always have more kendo lessons, and this certainly won’t be the last prep school class Jou has, but these are effectively two kindred spirits who care so much about friends in need that prioritizing them over all else is non-negotiable.

Jou compliments Iori by calling him “dependable”, which is a huge compliment coming from someone who, at this point of the story, regularly attracts comments like “dependable senior”. 02-era Jou gets this kind of reference a lot in press materials and fan descriptions of him, because now that he’s matured a bit and isn’t as prone to making ridiculous, reckless decisions or being as emotionally high-strung, his on-point aspects like being very on-task and always keeping his word are much more visible.

Well, that said, he still kind of starts screaming loudly as soon as he hears his dad is supposedly in trouble in the middle of his exam in 02 episode 16, so he’s still a little emotionally high-strung. But never mind that!

As usual (especially since this is most likely a practice exam, one of many Jou will be taking for the next year), Jou doesn’t mind being interrupted all that much; it’s not like exams are any fun anyway, so of course Jou doesn’t really care about being pulled from it, especially when Daisuke and the others are literally suffocating to death at that exact moment.

Unfortunately, for Iori, this entire incident is a convergence of things totally eating away at his psyche; he’s still blaming himself for everyone being trapped down there, he’s just placed a burden on Jou, and his grandfather had just said that lying is the worst thing that one could ever do, so now Iori thinks of himself a horrible, undeserving person. But Jou is someone who empathizes with being so stuck on “principles” that you forget the big picture, and reframes it in a way Iori can understand: lies are bad when they hurt people, but in this case, not lying would have led to much, much worse happening, and both Iori and Jou share that common ground of absolutely hating the feeling of standing by and doing nothing while others are in trouble.

We also finally meet the third (or, technically, second) Kido brother in 02 episode 33, Kido Shuu -- and while we don’t see him interact directly with Jou (at least, not until the drama CD), what we learn about him contextualizes Jou’s situation even further: Shuu not only decided to leave the path of inheriting his father’s clinic, he’d also decided to ditch the medical school path entirely, switching to humanities because he was so fascinated by Professor Takenouchi’s work. That’s a pretty drastic shift, but, as Shin had said in the novel, Shuu is the type to be independent enough to do whatever he wants without Shin even having to advise him of this, and given that he made this decision less than a year after the events of Adventure, it was likely a huge motivator in Jou deciding that their prior “example” of being medical students wasn’t necessarily something he needed to follow when both of his own brothers weren’t even following that standard anymore to begin with.

And, much like with Jou, Shuu’s new chosen profession also brings him closer to the Digimon, except in an “understanding more about them” sense rather than Jou’s medical sense. So, just like Shin wanted, all three brothers found their own paths.

In Diablomon Strikes Back, Jou is thankfully blessed with being much more available to deal with the conflict; he starts off stuck in a long line to register for high school in the midst of scrambled records, but comes to assist Daisuke and Ken with a bike as soon as he’s able. This movie being quite the comedic one, you get to see a bit of his disaster tendencies slip back in as he scrambles to help everyone -- but, as always, he’s doing his best.

A lot of people have also pointed out that the movie spends an awful amount of scenes depicting him in the company of the girl he borrowed the bike from,��which has led to a few amusing extrapolations, but at the base level implies that he at the very least wanted to make absolute sure that her bike was safely returned to her once everything is over -- after all, Jou would hate to be responsible for someone losing a bike, or in debt to someone. He’s someone who fulfills his obligations, after all.

By the time Jou actually is in medical school in Kizuna, he truly has become among the crowd too busy to participate regularly in Digimon incident tackling (similar to Sora and Mimi), but To Sora indicates that he’s still keeping tabs on everyone through their group chat and emotionally supporting them, and it’s made clear in both the short and the overall movie that the rest of the group is sympathetic to and understanding of how difficult life is to juggle with all of this. Not only that, much like how Jou stated back in Adventure that he was looking for a way to meaningfully contribute and help out besides just fighting, Jou plays an important role in using his position to tend to all of the Eosmon kidnapping victims.

At least, until he ends up becoming a victim himself and is actually dragged into the fight -- and, now that he’s actually on the spot and the conflict is right in front of him, he approaches it with enthusiastic gusto, indicating that he’s still able to be as emotionally high-strung as ever.

We get more info on Jou in his Memorial Story short, “Kido Jou: Medical Student” (which takes place at some unspecified point before the movie), where we learn that Gomamon is still worried about how much that blood phobia thing might impact Jou’s career, and “tests” him by having himself and Agumon pose as mock victims. Jou, very tired and not in a mood to play, snaps at him (rather understandably, given that Gomamon is kind of being a bit insensitive here), but when Gomamon is injured, Jou immediately puts everything aside to help him, even through -- yep -- blood.

Again, it’s not entirely clear how severe Jou’s blood phobia was back when he was a kid, but it’s at least put on the table that Jou’s figured out a way to push past that in order to fulfill his dream, and especially when it involves a loved one being hurt in front of him. Jou tires himself out pretty badly with the work, but hey -- he used to jump recklessly into physical line of fire for his friends, so of course that kind of thing is nothing to him. (But he still apparently is a bit lacking in the confidence department.)

Because Jou was lucky enough to be able to concretely decide on what he wanted to do as early as elementary school, Jou’s epilogue career is naturally the single most straightforward, and really just amounts to “you know that thing he wanted to do? He did it.” And indeed, he becomes the Digital World’s first doctor -- presumably not inheriting his father’s clinic, nor following a high-status expected path, but choosing to become a pioneer in a place he has a deep emotional stake in, in a place where he’s needed because there are no alternatives. And, of course, he’s depicted treating Ogremon, who was effectively Jou’s first “patient” all the way in Adventure, the first step in him realizing that this was his path, and his alone.

Meta

Jou occupies an interesting position in the Digimon fanbase in terms of memes, considering that there’s a fanbase meme of over a decade where anything relevant to him gets people spamming “JOOOOOOOOOOOOO” (with varying levels of Os). Being a comedic but lovable character who tries his hardest but repeatedly runs himself into a corner, he also happens to resonate much harder with the adults in the audience rewatching the series, because all of us as disaster adults can just so easily look at him and go “oh, that’s me.” He also seems to be inexorably tied to the word “senpai”, given that so many characters call him that (including the 02 kids, who never went to school with him); after a certain point it’s hard to dispute that he (especially in 02) exudes this kind of “dependable senior” aura, and, like with “Ken-chan”, the Japanese fanbase has a tendency to constantly use “Jou-senpai” all of the time to refer to him affectionately.

His Japanese voice actor, Kikuchi Masami, also holds the distinction of having been in nearly every Digimon TV series to date (the only exception, as of this writing, being Appmon), with him having been Jou (and Jou’s entire family of two brothers, his mother, and his father) in Adventure and 02, Dolphin and Grani in Tamers, Neemon in Frontier and Adventure:, Kurata in Savers, and Damemon in Xros Wars. (Him being the absolutely despicable Kurata in contrast to the endearing and lovable Jou has been cited as quite a shock to many.) There’s been many a joke about Kikuchi’s constant presence, but Jou is undeniably his most iconic role for the franchise, and you can also imagine it’s conversely gotten a lot of people to fondly think of him every time Kikuchi reappears.

[cutie1365]

Hello Detective Chapter 70

Pairing: Sherlock x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: How have I written 70 parts of this???? Please keep the love coming, it helps me write. Literally even just a comment saying hi helps. Shout out to @dancingwithlamas this ones for you doll :)

Any and all feedback is appreciated and encouraged!

Masterlist in bio, taglist in reblog.

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“Mr. Magnussen, please state your full name for the record.” Lady Smallwood said, beginning the meeting, if you could call it that. Interrogation was more like it, not that anyone would actually stand up to him. It was a formality.

You looked around the room at the council and up to the translators in the gallery. Lady Smallwood sat on your right, you were meant to oversee the enquiry together. Naturally as she was your senior, she took charge. When it came to Magnussen, you knew when to keep your mouth shut.

“Charles Augustus Magnussen.” He answered slowly, his eyes fixated on you as you broke and looked away. You kept your focus onto the stack of papers in front of you.

“Mr. Magnussen, how would you describe your influence over the Prime Minister?” Lady Smallwood, asked, jumping right in, not holding back.

“The British Prime Minister?” Magnussen asked, making you want to roll your eyes. Of course you were going to have to be more specific, he’s probably got every Prime Minister in the world in his pocket.

“Any of the British Prime Ministers you have known.” Smallwood expanded upon her question. That must be a lengthy list, he’s been in this business for a while.

“I’ve never had the slightest influence over any of them. Why would I?” Magnussen played dumb. Lady Smallwood turned to you with an exasperated look, she wasn’t going to let this go.

“Mr. Magnussen, I notice you’ve had seven meetings at Downing Street this year. Why?” You ask, keeping your tone as kind and impartial as possible. God forbid you come off threatening to the man who’s blackmailing you.

“Because I was invited.” He answered simply, it’s not like he was going to come out and say the true reason he was there or what he had on the PM.

“Can you recall the subjects under discussion?” Lady Smallwood picked up where you left off.

“Not without being more indiscreet than I believe is appropriate.” He smiled with those dead lifeless eyes.

“Do you think it right that a newspaper proprietor, a private individual and, in fact, a foreign national should have such regular access to our Prime Minister?” John Garvie, the MP of Rockwell South asked, his tone hostile. You turned to him with a raised brow, he was stepping out of line, and by his definition, you were also a foreign national. He needed to be careful, he didn’t know who he was dealing with.

Magnussen lifted his glasses from the table and slipped them on. You knew he wouldn’t take kindly to that comment.

“I don’t think it’s wrong that a private individual should accept an invitation. However, you have my sincere apologies for being foreign.” He almost smirked, you shook your head at his remark, what a cheeky bastard. You had to hand it to him, however evil, the fucker was good at what he does.

“That’s not what I meant. That is not in any way...” Garvie tried to cover, looking to you and Smallwood for help. You shook your head to silence him, the damage was already done and now he would have to live with the consequences.

“Mr. Magnussen, can you recall an occasion when your remarks could have influenced government policy?” Lady Smallwood asked, “Or the Prime Minister’s thinking in any way?”

“No,” He answered with certainty, spilling his glasses off to clean them.

“Are you sure?” Lady Smallwood pressed, still not convinced.

“I have an excellent memory.” Magnussen almost smirked, putting his glasses back on. You heard Smallwood sigh beside you, knowing this was getting nowhere.

“Madam Director-General do you have anything to add?” Lady Smallwood asked you, you turned and made eye contact with Magnussen, remembering his words from earlier as he passed you in the parlor.

“Those who speak of what they know find too late that silence is wise.” He quoted ominously and you rolled your eyes.

“Is that a threat Mr. Magnussen?” You asked, unamused.

“Simply a reminder.” He smirked, walking past you, brushing his hand under your chin to lift your head until your eyes met. You pulled away from his touch, wondering how much trouble you’d get into if your hand just accidentally found its way into a fist and completely on accident, rammed into his face.

“No, I do not.” You shook your head, and the meeting adjourned.

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You came home in a sour mood, dealing with Magnussen had that effect on everyone. Sherlock could tell something was wrong when you walked in the door. Your head was slumped, you were quiet and didn’t say anything as you slipped off your coat and hung it on the rack.

“Bad day?” Sherlock asked, looking up from his laptop as he sat in his chair.

“You could say that.” You huffed, that was an understatement. You turned back to Sherlock as he tilted his head at you.

“What happened?” He asked, curiously.

You simply shook your head. You couldn’t just say that the man that was blackmailing you was under investigation for influencing government officials and was going to walk away scott free with your help. Nope, that wouldn’t go over well.

He placed his laptop onto the ground and motioned for you to come to him with his fingers. You slipped off your heels and sauntered over to him. You sat on the arm of his chair, draping your legs over his lap. He rubbed his hand up your arm comfortingly, before leaving in to kiss you. He knew not to press any further when it came to your work. There were some things you couldn’t tell him, he understood that. You smiled after he kissed you, almost instantly forgetting about your horrible day.

“Have you found a case yet?” You asked as he slipped his arm around your back to hold you in place. You knew he's been desperate for one.

“Nothing substantial,” He shook his head with a frown, you stroked his cheek with a sad smile.

“Something will come up soon, it has to,” You tried to reassure him.

“Come on, how about I make us some dinner.” You hopped up off his lap and started to make your way towards the kitchen.

“Marriage has made you domestic,” He chuckled, getting up from his chair. You stopped and turned around, feigning offense.

“For that comment, you’re making dinner,” You pointed at him with a smirk, he raised his hands in defeat, laughing.

For once the kitchen didn’t look like a complete disaster. You grabbed a few things from the fridge and helped Sherlock prep dinner. The two of you moved like a well oiled machine, communicating without words. Sherlock playfully splashed you with water from the sink as you laughed and planned your counter attack.

You knew things were too good to be true. You knew the universe wouldn’t let the two of you be happy for too long.

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A week later Sherlock walked into the flat as you were curled up in his chair with a book on a rare day off. You nearly hadn’t heard him come in, he took the stairs so slowly. You smiled and greeted him once he’d entered through the door, his silence clued you in that something was wrong.

“Y/N...” Sherlock said, his tone was serious.

“What is it?” You asked, closing your book. Clearly something was up, you could tell that he was struggling with his words, and that worried you.

“I have a case.” He said carefully, and you chuckled in relief.

“That’s it?” You smiled, shaking your head, “You had me worried for a second there.”

But his demeanor hadn’t changed, there was more.

“It’s a very delicate case, one that will require a lot from me... from us.” He said vaguely. He was trying to protect you, he didn’t want you to get mixed up in this and get hurt.

“From us?” You asked, not understanding, did he need your help?

“I can’t bring you into this case. It’s too dangerous, and I can’t lose you. You know that, I can’t live without you.” He made his way towards you.

“You’re scaring me Sherlock.” You stood from the chair, now face to face with him.

“We have to make people believe we’ve broken up.” He said quickly, and your jaw dropped. Of all the things you thought he would say, that was not on the list.

“What?” You asked, eyes wide.

“For the case, I have to appear to be single. I’ll have to appear to hit rock bottom, and I can’t get you wrapped up in this.” He tried to explain best he could without giving away too many details. You wondered what exactly ‘rock bottom’ meant, because for him it always came back to one 7% solution.

“Ok,” You said hesitantly, after taking a moment to think.

“There’s one more thing... I may have to pretend to date someone else. I’m not sure what way this will go yet, I’ve determined 43 possible outcomes and I just, I need you to know this before I start working on the case.” He rambled, he was nervous. Though anyone would be if they had to tell their wife that they essentially were taking a break.

“This case is important, I gather.” You assumed, clearly he wouldn’t be going through all of this if it wasn’t.

“Extremely.” He said dryly. There was no hint of joking in his voice.

“You’re not going to get yourself killed are you?” You asked with the raise of your brow. If it was that dangerous maybe you'd be more helpful by his side, after all the resources at your disposal are vast.

“That would be unfortunate, but it’s not my intention.” He retorted.

“Let's keep it that way.” You ordered, you were not ready to become a widow.

“So you’re ok with this?” He furrowed his brows, thinking you were going to put up more of a fight.

“I trust you with my life. I know you wouldn’t be doing this unless it was absolutely necessary. And the fact that you’re including me in your deceptions and warning me is very thoughtful and shows a lot of personal growth.” You smiled, proudly. The Sherlock you knew two years ago wouldn’t have even been giving you this warning, he would have just dumped you to protect you.

“You’re starting to sound like a therapist.” He scoffed playfully.

“I have one question,” You said in a serious tone, earning a nod from him, “How...committed will you have to be to this fake relationship?”

“I may have to kiss her to be convincing, but I won’t allow it to go any further than that, if that’s what you’re asking.” He nodded, of course he didn’t want to be doing this, but at this point all his calculations pointed to this being the best option.

You nodded and slowly unclasped the chain around your neck. You slipped your wedding and engagement rings off your finger and slipped them onto the chain, before refastening it around your neck and tucking it into your shirt.

“I know I’m asking a lot of you.” Sherlock reached forward and took your hand.

“We’ve been through much more than this. We’ve fought bigger demons. We can make it through this too. What’s your anticipated timeline?” You asked curiously, you could handle being away from your husband for a few weeks, your work was keeping you busy enough to take your mind off of it, but you didn’t think you could handle months.

“A few weeks, I’ll know more in the coming days.” Sherlock nodded, of course he’d like to get this case done as fast as possible, but that didn’t seem likely given the delicate nature and number of moving parts.

“Well I guess it’s a good thing I kept my apartment then.” You smiled, Mrs. Astor would sure love to have you back for a little while.

“That is convenient, yes.” He nodded.

“I do owe Charles dinner, that could be good for your narrative. I can make sure we’re seen. I guess I should pack my things.” You looked around the flat. You weren’t sure how public this break up would have to be, would you have to convince Mycroft, or John? Luckily during your tenure at MI6 you’d learned a thing or two about playing a convincing character. This could be fun, like a little game to distract yourself from the fact that your husband would be entertaining another woman.

“No, wait until tomorrow. Tonight I want to show my wife just how much I love her.” Sherlock smiled, grateful that you were on board with this crazy idea.

“She sounds like a lucky lady.” You smirked.

“She’s about to be.” Sherlock chuckled darkly as he scooped you up into his arms. You squealed with laughter as your feet left the ground and Sherlock’s lips met yours suddenly, as he carried you back to the bedroom.

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Please comment and reblog so we can keep this story going! I have more coming but yalls support helps so much!

[robert-c]

Doomsday Prep

There are many possible “doomsday” scenarios, some more likely than others, but one thing seems certain – our “just in time”, highly efficient (i.e. profitable) method of limited redundancies and backups to physical systems (like warehousing and delivery) practically ensure that any significant disruption will trigger a catastrophic cascade effect. Virtually all major cities have at most three days’ worth of food available in stores and distribution centers, i.e. temporary warehouses. A major solar flare would knock out virtually all satellites, and significantly damage all computer chip devices. We already know that these events are fairly regular with our sun, we’ve just been lucky enough not to be in the wrong place when one crossed Earth’s orbit. We don’t have to wait for an asteroid to hit (also inevitable), or a new pandemic to emerge (also something that seems to happen fairly regularly over the course of human history) for something disrupt this house of cards we have constructed. And we have yet to mention the violent political sects that would be more than happy to exploit any disaster to their own advantage.

From once being an “out there” fringe interest, it now seems that the tables are turning. Anyone who thinks that things can continue “just as they are” indefinitely without any major failure might now reasonably be called the “fringe believers”. Of course, even if you understand that a disaster is probable doesn’t make you able to prepare for it. Age, health and income can have a lot to do with just how much preparation (and actual survival) you can handle.

The fact is that most “preppers” have been conservative (to state it mildly). My take on that had always been because they intended to either disrupt the society themselves or capitalize on a convenient disaster. Liberalism, more or less by definition, is optimistic, as it believes changes will make things better than the way they are now; while conservatives are more concerned with keeping things the way they are. However, now that it is clear that there are a lot of people on the right wing who would be more than happy to usher in a fascist regime by force; more progressives and liberals are thinking about the need to survive what will certainly be a catastrophic time of violence.

I am too old to count on my survival in any world like that, but I am hoping that all like-minded people will start doing what they can to ensure a safe place for themselves. Let’s call it my way of hoping that the idea of a society of inclusion and equality won’t perish at the hands of those who have a rather limited idea of what the future could or should hold.

Liberals have two disadvantages going into this which I hope they will address successfully. The first is that most do not make the pursuit of wealth a priority, and as admirable as that is, establishing a safe haven is an expensive proposition. The most economic projections I have made suggest $500,000 as a sort of minimum figure for land and accommodations for up to half a dozen, and closer to a $1,000,000 for a better defended site. The second disadvantage is the need for community. The lack of unity of among many on the left makes that a little problematic. A community is needed because defense against outside threats, whether right wing militias or just desperate refugees who will only take what you have, requires people to watch and defend perimeters, and/or scout approaches to your safe haven.

I’m making this pitch because today’s fascists, like those in the past, use the fear of violence from the left to cover the violence they intend to bring in order to take power. In the longest term I believe that inclusion and diversity either win the day or the human race disappears – and I don’t want our disappearance to be associated with the most regressive, backward looking aspects of who we were.

I’ve written some thoughts for my children and grandchildren that will hopefully help them in the event of these worst case scenarios. One of them already has a  concealed carry permit so I think she’s going to be ready.

[pumpkin-lith]

Clone Wars Saved...ish

What the hell did I just watch ?

Let’s start by saying that 1) spoilers alert, not necessarily coherent but definitely there, I’ll put on a read more, but unspoiled mobile users, just in case it fails, scroll by and 2) @norcumii had warned me. And yet I didn’t quite expect that because, how could more clones ever be bad !

Oh boy.

Thanks to @shadow-spires for being my emotional support watchbuddy. I needed it more than I thought I would and we’re only three episodes in.

Some context : I’ve watched... only a few episodes of the show before, despite probably being able to give you the plot of all 6 seasons and quote lines and scenes, thanks tumblr and my own love for clones. And I hadn’t really looked at the bad batch half-rendered episodes because I still had trouble with the graphics of the actually finished show, so...

But I was ready for this, for feels, for finding Echo again and, finally, get 66 and murdered by Dave Filoni. Set up a meeting time to watch some eps with shadowspires, fun when there is a twelve hours diff between us and here we go.

Let me tell you, there was a lot of yelling in all caps in the chat side bar...

Trying to keep mostly in order of the episodes :

- WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO KIX’S HAIR ? Why ? Why hair and no more tattoo ??? Is this supposed to be red corsair continuity ? But then WHY IS HE HERE AND NOT ALREADY ABDUCTED ? Is this merch reasons ?

- Two seconds in and WOW I hate the Bad Batch. And this does NOT get better. I’m really tired of the Muscle is Dumb trope, Tech is like a human C3PO which urgh but fine but then KEEP CONSTANT (this is going to be a major point of my yelling), if Hunter says you chatter all the time THEN DO but no, we won’t here a single random fact ever again for three episodes, and Crosshairs chats and snarks a LOT for someone ‘not talkative’. 

- Regs. FUCKING REGS, urgh, I hated that word the INSTANT it was said. Canon isn’t as heavily into the Vode An fanon loves, but WOW fuck that. Strike team or not, you’re not supermen, you have to rely on intel, be supplied, you’re not a bunch of mercenaries, you’re a MILITARY STRIKE TEAM, you must interact with regs a lot so it means you’re a bunch of condescending assholes ALL THE TIME.

-Also fuck 1) that team’s dynamics and 2) the “two teams do not get along” trope, fuck it with a SHOVEL.  1) You’re a Commando Team. In an army three years deep into war. You’re comrades and probably have save each other asses hundred of times. So why can’t you behave ? And I know people do not always get along, or even best friends sometimes irk each other, but, look, consistency, if you think you’re with lesser people because regs (can you tell I’m not over that either), you present a united front and you don’t bitch at your teammates in front of them. 2) YOU ARE MILITARY. Trained for 10+ years, there’s DISCIPLINE there, even a maverick strike team, when Cody is down, you OBEY THE SECOND IN COMMAND. I don’t care if you have a better plan, you TELL the officer, you don’t just tell him to shut up and watch. AND YOU DON’T GET AT EACH OTHER’S THROATS.

-Did I mention I hate everything about Dumb Violent Muscles unable to control himself or follow a plan ?

-Of course the one time we could see Cody in charge, he’s hurt and useless.

-WHY. IS. THE MEDIC. GOSSIPING. INSTEAD OF KEEPING WATCH OVER THE WOUNDED BROTHER ???

AND WHY DOES HE HAVE HAIR DAMMIT

-The tactics Mess out of order :  Why is nobody blowing stuff up, a group able to single handedly take on 100+ droids is getting pushed back by thirty later on, why not trap the outpost to blow up the incoming droids, the analytical droid cannot comprehend why the clones would leave the outpost while in full view of the cyber center and it has to be pointed out to him, WHY DID NOBODY TRAP THE FUCKING OUTPOST TO BLOW, why does the tech guy LITERALLY NAMED TECH doesn’t hide/erase what they did to the computer, why if he didn’t have time DIDN’T HE BLOW UP THE COMPUTER. 

-And for a plot point being “droids analyzes our tactics so we always have to change them”, it means that no one ever attacked a front door and drew all the droids there for a second team to sneak by the back door. Somehow.

Ep2 & 3 :

- Why is “this may or may not be Echo” matters on a tactical PoV ? I get the emotional one, of course, but having the Bad Batch question it at the beginning and later on starting a fight over it has no other reason than to go for another round of We Do Not Get Along Trope. The Seps have either a PoW or an Algorhythm allowing them to win battle, no matter what it is, you have to go and rescue/take it. WHY ARE YOU ARGUING.

- I know this is the funny part of ‘Anakin and Padmé are the less subtle ever’ and it was funny (I didn’t hate ALL of the episodes, see ?), but why is she explaining to Anakin why he fights three years into the war other than reminding the public, this is the LEAST EFFECTIVE PLAN ever to hide from Obi-Wan with Rex obviously standing guard.

-Not a critic, just fucking amused : if someone isn’t aware that Padmé and Anakin are a thing, there is a lot of subtext to thing Anakin and Rex have a hidden fling. I don’t even ship it and I could see it x)

- Tell Padmé I say hello. TELL PADME I SAY HELLO. Obi-Wan fucking KNOWS, maybe not the whole “married and pregnant” but hellooooo that was blantant cue that he’s aware they’re together, at the very least so very close friends that they sneak private calls during a siege if Anakin is really dense, we have ONSCREEN PROOF that Obi-Wan SAID OUT LOUD something about it and it makes Anakin thinking Obi-Wan doesn’t know and couldn’t understand in RotS even STUPIDER. Good job Anakin.

- This Galaxy has the most efficient Google Translate ever. Either it’s a known language of the planet you’re going to, and then by doing research amidst the prep to go to the planet everyone or at least Rex as Captain would put the translator to the spoken languages there on his helmet, or it’s an unknown one and yet with two sentences, Tech’s tech (urgh) is able to translate and analyses it well enough to speak it back to them. Wow. 

- WHY. IS. THE. JEDI. NOT. USING. THE. FORCE. You’ve worked with Echo before but there’s no mention or even trying to feel him, fine, better have another fight of whether or not he’s truly here, two droids manage to get the drop on you, two droids manage to get the drop on you AND SOMEHOW AREN’T IMMEDIATELY BISECTED, Two droids manage to get the drop on you, survive, AND GIVE YOU ENOUGH TROUBLE YOU NEED SOMEONE TO SHOOT ONE TO GET OUT OF IT. 

- Echo, my poor baby TnT I knew this was going to hurt, and it does, it does so much. 

-And we’re RIGHT BACK to full on rage rather fast. We go from “he’s so weak he can’t walk, he doesn’t remember anything after the Citadel, he’s so out of it he doesn’t know where he is and ‘notices’ Rex being here two or three times” to “He can walk, he can be yeeted into a vent, he can tightpole walk, he can shoot while standing, he knows the whole base’s blueprints and also all the Separatist’s database.” in like. Five minutes. CONSITENCY FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Why is no one carrying him, why don’t we even get a fucking HUG ?

-Why was everyone yeeted by Dumb Muscles WHEN WE HAVE A JEDI HERE. WHY STILL NO FORCE ??? Clone-yeeting is like Anakin’s favorite pastime, he should have thought of it FIRST, My Moment Has Come.

- Oh FUCK NO. WHY did you even GO BACK TO THE NATIVES’ VILLAGE ? You got dragons, you fly back to your ship that wasn’t damaged in anyway, you evac fast and clean, DONE ! Why go back ? Anakin even says that the Techno Union will strike for helping them BUT UNTIL YOU WENT BACK THEY DIDN’T KNOW THE NATIVES HELPED YOU ! They had no problems until now ! DON’T INVOLVE CIVILIANS ! If they had gone with the plot point of having the natives pick a side and be the ones to save them from that pole by flying to get them, then yes, totally, stay and help and defend them against the retaliation massacre ! But since they didin’t, do NOT go there and draw to them a retaliation massacre.

-FUCK that speech. Sorry Rex, but FUCK THAT. Again, civilians. You are supposed to be the GOOD GUYS trying to STOP THE WAR, not draw innocents into it when it could be avoided. AND THEN LEAVE WHEN YOU JUST TOOK DOWN ONE ATTACK AND THE TECHNO UNION WILL SURELY COME WIPE OUT THAT VILLAGE FOR HELPING YOU AND THERE’LL BE NO JEDI TO SAVE THE DAY.

-Why is everyone suddenly dumb.

-Fuck that “good old days” bullshit. I’m sure there were good times, but your good old days are three years of war and losses. Gimme “now everything will be alright”, because for once someone survived, for once the future is looking hopeful, give me them hoping that it’ll be okay and then gut me with the sheer irony of it all because I know 66 is looming. AND FUCKING HUG HIM DAMMIT, he was almost catatonic thirty minutes ago, at least HELP HIM into the ship rather than leave him standing here alone.

-And no mention of Fives, of course. Idk it may be in episode 4, it BETTER be in Episode 4, otherwise this is “it be like the good old days, yay, btw Fives’ dead”.

I am SO ready for the damn Bad Batch arc to be over and hoping the actual original content is way better. I wished they had scrapped that disaster of an idea full of bad clichés. You want a strike team to go with Rex ? I’ve got a strike team for you : Jesse is an ARC, Kix is both a medic and seen many times with a rifle (AND THE COOLEST HAIRCUT, get us Bly there and give him a tracking speciality with the many ‘primitive’ planets he was on, and we have Aayla for the muscle. That would be badass.

[argylemnwrites]

It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment - Chapter 15

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Romance (Canon Divergent from Book 2, Chapter 15)

Word Count: ~4900

Rating: R (all the adult language - what can I say, Drake swears)

Summary: A much needed conversation, part two.

Author’s Note: Thought I would have this up yesterday, but my Vikings broke my heart, so I couldn’t bring myself to do final edits. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! This chapter is not even remotely holiday themed, but it contains one of my favorite scenes in this story, so I hope you enjoy it!

This series diverges from TRR canon, where instead of waiting to discuss his relationship with Riley until their last night in NYC, leaving her a note while Liam is proposing to her, Drake tackles this topic as soon as possible after Tariq makes his statement and Riley’s name is cleared. To catch up on this series, you can find the previous chapters in my masterlist (link is located in my bio).

It was pitch black out when Drake awoke to a faint tapping sound. He checked his phone. It was 3:26. He figured he must have imagined the noise and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep, but the noise returned. It was a knock on his door - light, but insistent. Drake was tempted to ignore it, but deep down, he knew who it was. So he shuffled over, flipped the lock, and cracked open the door. 

“You know it’s 3:30 in the morning, right?”

Liam nodded. “I apologize. I couldn’t sleep and I thought maybe… But you’re right, it was rude of me to come by at this hour. I’ll just-”

Drake cut him off with a groan, swinging the door open fully and gesturing for Liam to enter. “No, come on in.”

But Liam didn’t enter, instead pausing in the doorway for a moment before he spoke, “Actually, I was hoping you might want to go fishing.”

Drake blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the fog of sleep from his mind. They hadn’t gone out, just the two of them, in a long time. And given their most recent… conversation, it seemed like an odd choice. But Drake had stuck around to support Liam, so if he needed to go out fishing in the middle of the night, well then Drake would be going with him. “Yeah, okay. Just gimme ten minutes.”

So Drake brushed his teeth and got dressed, grabbing the fishing rods, the lawn chairs, and the tackle box before making his way down to the private garage. It was just Liam there when he arrived, so either Bastien had cleared a private outing, or Liam was ducking out without his security team knowing. It didn’t matter much to Drake either way. He just loaded their gear into the back of his car and moved to hop into the driver’s seat, but Liam called out, “Actually, do you mind if I drive?” Drake shrugged and walked around, sliding in on the passenger's side and settling in for the short drive to their usual spot. Except instead of turning right after passing through the palace gates, Liam turned to the left.

“Uh, where are you going?”

Liam glanced over at Drake before returning his eyes to the road ahead of him, “There’s a different lake I want to visit. I hope you can forgive me this break from our typical routine.”

Once again, Drake found himself shrugging. Not knowing how long of a trip they’d be taking, he leaned his head against the side window. It was dark enough out that he couldn’t see much of the scenery, but he knew they were basically heading east. They drove for well over an hour, not talking, just listening to Liam’s classical music playlist, the one he used when he needed to think. Drake didn’t know what was going on, so he let Liam drive on without any questions about where or how or why. They just drove and drove, and eventually, tinges of orange and pink started to appear in the sky. As the sun began to peek above the horizon, Liam turned off the main road onto a smaller frontage road. After about five more minutes, he pulled over to the side and stopped.

“We’re here,” was all he said before he got out of the car and went to grab his half of the gear from the back. Drake followed his lead, carrying his rod, chair, and the tackle box down a gravel path, Liam just a few paces ahead of him. It was a short and easy hike, leading to a large, crystal-clear lake. The area Liam had chosen was basically a meadow, but there were thickly forested patches along the shoreline, giving rise to large hills and mountains just beyond. Across the lake, Drake noted a grand estate.

He had no idea why they were here and not at their usual lake just west of the capital, but Liam had already set up his chair and was threading his line through the guides. So Drake placed his own chair next to Liam’s, opened the tackle box in between them, and started prepping his own line. Soon enough, they were casting out, the sky lightening in color by the second as the sun continued to climb upwards. They were both silent at first, but after several minutes, Liam broke the ice.

“So, Olivia’s aunt is behind the attacks.”

Drake whipped his head over to the left, trying to gauge Liam’s mental state. That must have been why Olivia came to the palace two days ago. It certainly explained the surge of activity triggered by her visit. Liam didn’t make eye contact with Drake, choosing instead to stare out over the water as he continued to fill him in on the situation.

“She wore a wire yesterday, securing recordings of her aunt talking about the whole thing. Lucretia’s initial plan was to kill any degree of public approval I had before I abdicated, leaving Olivia poised to take the throne. Olivia somehow managed to convince her that we were sleeping together and to give her more time so that she could eventually get pregnant and a Nevrakis would become the heir to the throne.”

“Wait, her aunt thought you two were sleeping together?”

“Olivia didn’t disclose how that even became a point of conversation with her aunt, but Lucretia brought it up unprompted very early on in Olivia’s surveillance, so it must have been part of her ploy to get the initial confession out of Lucretia. Regardless, it was effective. While Olivia was informing me of her aunt’s aims, Lucretia was scrambling to strike deals with her co-conspirators since they were no longer a necessary part of her scheme.”

“How’d that work out for her?” 

“About as well as you would expect. Turns out people who are willing to destroy and kill to gain power don’t respond kindly to being cut out of a coup. Lucretia started naming them all without Olivia even asking because she was planning on having the two of them take out the other key agents in the attacks, all of whom were looking to kill Lucretia at the first opportunity after she dismissed them from her plan.”

“Ah, classic Nevrakis family bonding.”

“Heh. Olivia made a similar remark. Regardless, the strike teams will deploy today to bring the parties involved into custody. Hopefully, things will be well coordinated enough that no one will be forewarned and able to flee. One other insurgent in particular is someone we absolutely need to arrest. His name is Anton Severus, and he and Lucretia seem to be the ringleaders.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“We hadn’t either. Initial research turned up some… strange connections to Olivia that we’ll need to investigate further. However, this photo was even more interesting.”

At that, Liam grabbed a small piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and passed it over to Drake. He nearly dropped his fishing rod when he saw the face on the paper.

“It’s that Justin prick!”

“Indeed. Seems he was working under an alias.”

“What the fuck, Liam? He was Liu’s press secretary. He spent a shit-ton of time with her one-on-one. He could have-”

“Drake, this whole situation is a disaster. If you have concerns about the vetting that went into hiring this man, I suggest you take it up with Bertrand. There is something else I thought it prudent you know regarding him, though. He arguably stood to gain the most from the initial scheme concocted by him and Lucretia. Understandably, it sounds like he is the most upset by her recent change in strategy.

“From the way Lucretia talks about him, not only is he highly dangerous, but he also has access to key information Lucretia has been collecting. This includes the findings obtained by the PI that was following you in New York. Apparently, the goal there was a titillating piece surrounding you, me, and Riley. Unfortunately, we think it is highly probable that he will have leaked the information obtained thus far to the press given Lucretia’s description of her conversation with him. So I apologize, but it is likely you and Riley will gain some media attention.”

“So will you.”

Liam shrugged at that, “Yes, well, that comes with the job description for me. That’s not exactly the situation for the two of you.”

“Was warning me about this why you brought me out here?”

“No, that was something I obviously needed to do, but that’s not why I wanted us to go fishing.”

“Why, then? Why today?”

“It's all just been... It's been hard to handle all the…” Liam trailed off. Drake couldn't remember the last time he was at a loss for words.

“Yeah, you've had a lot of shit to deal with.” 

Liam chuckled. “I think that safely qualifies as an understatement.”

Drake smiled softly, letting the quiet of the surrounding nature keep the moment still and peaceful. When Liam got like this, it was best not to ask a lot of questions. just let him talk when he felt like it. So they sat there, lines dipping below the surface of the water. The fish weren't biting, but that didn't really matter at all. They were both silent for many minutes, but eventually Liam started talking.

“My mind is just so full all the time. As soon as I think I have a handle on one topic or issue, another one just worms its way deep into my brain. Being out here, it's nearly like all those conflicting ideas can just float away from me. For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can breathe, that I can decompress even slightly. I know that I can't escape the realities of my life forever, but this is a nice reprieve. So thank you, Drake. Thank you for indulging me, even if I did wake you before 4 o’clock.”

Drake nodded, “Of course, Liam. you know I'd do…”

Liam's eyes drifted over to Drake's as Drake trailed off. He wasn't sure if he had the right to finish that thought. A few months ago, there was literally nothing that Drake wouldn't have done for Liam. He couldn't imagine a single thing. But now, after everything with Riley... Well, saying something like that seemed pretty fucking disingenuous.

But Liam just shook his head sadly, “Even after I said horrible things to you the other day.”

Drake frowned at that, “Liam, I deserved nearly all of it. I should be the one apologizing. You have a shit-ton of crap to handle everyday, and my pissy attitude should not have to be part of it.” He kept his eyes focused on the water, ashamed that he couldn’t even figure out how to be the first one to apologize. But Liam chuckled lightly, seeming to be oblivious to Drake’s pain and guilt.

“Drake, since when are you worried about your attitude around me?” 

He let out a sigh before he responded, “Pretty much whenever I can tell you’re stressed.”

“But that shouldn’t be how this works,” said Liam, “We are supposed to be equals, my title be damned. That can’t happen if you are tiptoeing around me when my life becomes stressful.”

“See, I knew you would see it this way. But you’ve gotta understand that the shit you face is so much worse than the shit any of the rest of us face. I gotta be more careful with you than you are with me. Besides, you look out for me, too. You gave me a place to stay, you let me duck out and do my own thing when I get antsy, you find me lots of high quality whiskey.”

“Are you kidding me, Drake?”

He smiled at that, glancing over at Liam, “Just a little. My point is that we both have been there for each other.”

Liam shook his head. “But don’t you see, Drake, that everything you just listed didn’t really impact my life in any major way. Doing those things for you required very little sacrifice. You, on the other hand, just aggressively reminded my brother that you have uprooted your entire life for me. You put long-term plans on hold to be there for me.”

“You were a prince, Liam. Now you’re the fucking king. You made the best accommodations you could for me given the situation. I did the same. It’s no one’s fault that your life doesn’t allow you the flexibility that mine does.”

“Be that as it may, I worry I’ve taken you for granted, that I’ve treated your support as a given. You altered major life plans for me. That shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

Drake waved his hand through the air, almost as if he could swat away Liam’s concerns, “Trust me, it’s really not a big deal.”

“Your screaming match with Leo would suggest otherwise.”

“Eh, Leo was just being an ass and things got outta hand.”

Drake dropped his eyes to the lake’s surface, watching his line cut through the water. He could feel Liam’s stare on the back of his neck, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Maybe, if he just sat there quietly, Liam would let it go. Accept his statement as the truth.

“So this is what you meant about keeping your attitude from me when you think I’m too stressed to handle it.”

Drake sighed slowly, rolling his head around to look at Liam. He didn’t know what to say, but his silence kind of confirmed Liam’s statement.

“I don’t need you to turn yourself into an emotional martyr for me, Drake. I would never want that for you.”

“That’s not what this is, I just-”

“Drake, I think you do it without even thinking about it. It’s become nearly reflexive for you. Remember at my coronation, after Riley was forcibly removed from the palace?”

Drake nodded. While the overall events of that night were burned into his brain, he honestly didn’t remember the details all that well. He’d been a mess. Chasing after Riley. Thinking he’d fly out to New York. He’d gone from being convinced that she was going to be this gnawing presence in his life, happily engaged to Liam and just out of reach, taunting him as the possibility that was never meant to be, to being terrified she would not even be a small part of his life anymore. It was in that moment that he decided if he ever saw her again, he would be grateful to fill whatever role she wanted for him in her life, even if that meant opening himself up to excruciating pain in the end. “Yeah, that one was pretty hard to forget.”

“As soon as I got visibly upset, you jumped into action, planning and organizing. You even told me you would go to New York, and I just assumed that you were doing that for my sake. But that wasn’t your primary motivation, was it?”

Drake closed his eyes and shook his head, “I needed to make sure she was okay. I just wanted to be there for her.”

“You loved her already, didn’t you?”

Liam’s question gave Drake pause. He’d never really bothered to think about when he’d fallen for Riley. It was just one of those things, where one day it had just hit him out of nowhere that he was completely gone on her. They’d been eating breakfast with Hana and Maxwell at Applewood the day after finding the photographer’s ID badge. She’d been giving him shit in response to some comments he’d made about mimosas and after a few moments of bickering, she’d stuck her tongue out at him, as if that would win her the argument. It had just been so stupidly silly, so damn playful, so completely her that he’d just known. And that had been it. He’d never really bothered to try and figure out when he actually fell in love, at least not until this moment.

“I think so,” he finally spoke, barely getting the words out. It felt so shameful, to admit out loud that he was in love with Riley. That he’d been in love with her for a long time at this point. It was stupid to get hung up on this. He’d moved to a new country for her. Of course Liam knew he loved her. But to explicitly state it felt wrong. Dirty. Cruel.

The silence of the surrounding nature felt unbearable. But after a painful minute or two, Liam finally responded to Drake’s confession.

“I wish you would have told me how you were feeling. I wish both of you would have told me, but I really wish you would have told me.”

“Liam, I-”

“Let me rephrase that. You should have told me. The rejection would have never been pleasant, but I would have handled it. Romantic feelings go unrequited all the time. But you lied to me, if not outright, then certainly by omission. And that Drake, is the aspect of this whole mess that I am struggling with the most. I always trusted you to be the one person in this world who was honest with me, to never have an ulterior motive during our discussions. And I’ve lost that faith, Drake. That is what hurts the most.”

“I know, Liam. I’m so sorry.”

“See, this is why you can’t just decide that you need to hide your actual emotions from me. Regardless of whether or not my royal obligations are intense, there needs to be mutual honesty between us.”

Drake shook his head roughly, “It wasn’t all about protecting you. That was part of it, sure, but it was more complicated than just that. I wasn’t exactly trying to be noble.”

“Why then?”

“I don’t want to make excuses here, Liam. I know I fucked up.”

“I just need to understand, Drake. I need to make sense of all of this. So please, just talk to me openly.”

Drake took a breath, trying to organize his thoughts before he started, “It was self-preservation really, and I know that’s selfish of me, but it’s the truth. It was going to be bad enough in the end when she chose you. That alone was going to hurt like hell. I just couldn’t stand the thought of you knowing about it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I was convinced that she was going to choose you once she cleared her name.”

“Is there some reason you thought that, or…”

“Previous experience mostly. It’s not important, though.”

“It kind of is, Drake. You are talking about this like it was some foregone conclusion that she wasn’t as interested in you as she was in me, when all I have is evidence to the contrary.”

Drake let out a huge sigh, his shoulders sagging in the process. He wasn’t sure if this topic was wildly embarrassing or just uncomfortable, but they were here now, and Drake didn’t see a way out of it at this point. “Over the years, there have been quite a few women who’ve tried to use me to get close to you. Some just feigned interest until you guys were introduced. Others seemed to have researched me and my interests pretty extensively, letting things escalate between us for quite a while before they suddenly didn’t have time for me. Usually, that was right after they met you. It didn’t take long for me to learn the drill.”

“And you thought Riley was doing the same thing? Drake, she hadn’t even heard of Cordonia when we wandered into that bar.”

Drake mustered up what was left of his courage before continuing, “I think she would have accepted your proposal that night. We snuck outside for a bit. Talked a little. We kissed. I don’t know. We both made it pretty clear that was it for us. It felt a lot like goodbye.

“Then after you got engaged and she came back, I don’t know. Things were different. She kept bringing up us actually being together. It was a strange shift, and part of me just couldn’t believe that she really wanted to be with me. I  kept wondering if she was just looking for comfort after being publicly rejected and I was the best option. So I kept telling her we should wait until she cleared her name to talk about our future. And I braced myself for the day that would happen and she would realize she could have you again. That she could go off and be with who she actually wanted.”

“You told me about your relationship the day after she cleared her name.” Liam’s voice was quiet, but calm. Understanding. Gentle.

“I know it’s not an excuse, Liam. But I just didn’t really think that she had any deep feelings for me until she told me she loved me that night. Some part of me couldn’t shake the thought that whatever the hell was going on between us was about to come to an end.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No. It didn’t.”

They both sat there, still and silent. It was tense, to be sure, but unlike the other day, Drake didn’t sense any anger rolling off Liam. He knew he was much calmer, too. Maybe they had just needed to purge their more toxic thoughts before they could have this conversation. Or maybe it needed to happen outside of the confining, binding walls of the palace. Out away from pressures and obligations, away from nosy servants and nobles. Maybe that was why Liam had wanted to go fishing. Maybe deep down he knew this was the only way either of them would talk. But that didn’t explain his choice of location.

“Why here?”

“What was that?”

“I am just trying to figure out why you wanted to come out here to… wherever the hell we are to have this conversation.”

“Valtoria. That’s where I brought us.”

“Okay, so why Valtoria?”

Liam sighed, looking around and fully taking in the surrounding woods and meadows. He was silent, with only the lapping water and the hum of last of that year’s cicadas filling the air. Eventually after several painfully long moments he answered.

“You know how Valtoria has been vacant for decades? Well, it was going to be hers.”

“What are you talking about, Liam?”

“I was going to offer her the title of Duchess of Valtoria.” He kept looking around, almost as if making eye contact would be unbearable.

Drake's mind raced as he tried to figure out what the hell he was talking about. It only took a few seconds for him to realize the truth behind it all. “You couldn't marry a commoner. You had to make her fucking suitable match.”

Liam winced at that, finally turning his head to face Drake. “I was trying to give her a home. I wanted Cordonia to feel like her country, not my country. But yes, Drake. I was also looking to appease her critics on the council. Titling her was a needed formality.” 

Drake let Liam's words wash over him. He knew that Liam himself didn’t really care that Riley came from poverty, had clawed her way to a working class lifestyle. But somehow, the fact that he would have elevated her to noble class before marrying her rubbed him the wrong way just the same. His discomfort at the idea must have shown on his face, because Liam spoke again after a brief moment.

“Come on, Drake. I know it’s your reflex to hate the nobility, but surely that wouldn’t apply to her?”

Drake shook his head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it? Why would the mere formality of titling her upset you?”

“That’s not…. It’s just… No one needs to change anything about her.”

A faint smile crept across Liam’s face at Drake’s reply, even as he squinted his eyes in disbelief, “My god, who are you and where have you hidden Drake Walker?”

“What?”

“That was dangerously close to romantic, my friend. Certainly more saccharine and sweet than anything I have ever said.”

“Bullshit, Liam.”

“Fair enough, but you have to admit that was far more sentimental than you usually act.”

“Jesus, Liam. I’m not saying that to be romantic. I just don’t like the fact that you wanted her to change who she is to marry you.”

“It was never about changing her. It was merely adding a formal title.”

Drake squinted at Liam, trying to figure out how he could be so oblivious, but then it dawned on him. Riley hadn’t let Liam see her as she really was. She’d kept things light and polite. She’d never laid into him. Never opened up to him. She had kept playing at being princess the whole way through.

“Tell me, Liam -  how many times have you heard Liu swear?”

After a couple of seconds, Liam said, “My answer is that I can’t recall her ever swearing, but I can guess that is not her typical behavior based on that question.”

“She called me a ‘goddamn motherfucking asshole’ within her first few days here,” Drake responded, shaking his head with a smile, “You may not have asked her to change who she was, but…”

“You’re saying she just felt compelled to act differently around me.”

“I think so.”

Liam was quiet for a few moments, likely thinking about everything that had been said. Eventually, he shook his head, “Well, I think there’s some form of irony buried in this whole situation. Apparently, there have been many women out there who acted differently around you to get to know me. The one woman I actually wanted to get to know was acting differently around me as she fell in love with you.”

“Liam, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Drake. At least not for that part. I will certainly accept your apology for hiding your feelings from me and prolonging the uncomfortable situation. But the rest of it is just life. I fell for someone, but she fell for someone else. There’s no reason for her not to be with the person she loves if he loves her in return.

“I’m not blameless in this whole mess. You were right; I just assumed she was interested in me. I could blame the entire dynamic of the social season, but that wouldn’t be proper. I am a grown man, and I should have recognized her waning interest in me.”

“No, you were right. We should have talked to you sooner.”

“And I probably shouldn’t have offered up being my mistress without asking about her feelings surrounding my relationship with Madeleine. There is plenty of blame to go around.”

“Excuse me, you what?”

“It’s not my proudest moment, Drake, but I was desperate and grasping at straws. Looking back, I certainly could have done better there. However, I am guessing you have some moments you wish you could redo in this whole debacle?”

Drake was still trying to process the fact that Liam had apparently asked Riley to be his side piece, but he knew his overall point was valid. They both had made mistakes here. And maybe it was time to leave those mistakes in the past and start moving forward. So Drake just nodded, a gesture Liam returned with a smile before he looked out over the lake again. The silence between them wasn’t entirely comfortable, but it certainly felt closer to normal than it had in a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riley poured the couple at the bar two more IPAs, then quickly glanced around the room, trying to see if there were any other customers who needed another round. Not seeing any obviously empty glasses or anyone trying to flag her down, she started loading up a tray with dirty glassware to bring into the back to get cleaned.

After her breakdown her first night back in New York, she’d resolved to not think about Cordonia, and she honestly felt like she’d done a pretty good job. One of the afternoon bartenders had quit unexpectedly, so she volunteered to pick up some extra shifts, which not only kept her busy and distracted, but also helped her earn some much needed cash.

She gotten some texts from Maxwell and Hana, but she’d kept her responses light and casual. She really was doing fine. She just had to convince them of that fact. If they kept asking her how she was doing, she would fixate on everything that had happened, and the would be the opposite of helpful. She needed to keep moving forward, and then she would be able to move on with her life.

Riley carried the heavy tray into the backroom and loaded up the industrial dishwasher. After washing her hands, she went back out front, but the sight in front of her stopped her dead in her tracks. She knew that hair. She knew that face. But that hair and that face were supposed to be in Cordonia, not scanning the room awkwardly, clearly looking for someone.

“Hana?” she finally called out when she found her voice, “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Tags: @addictedtodrakefanfic @kingliam2019  @dcbbw @mfackenthal @jovialyouthmusic @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @riley–walker @thequeenofcronuts @notoriouscs @butindeed @thesumofmychoices @texaskitten30 @yaushie @cosigottahavefaith @thequeenchoices @katedrakeohd @feartheendlesssummer @sirbeepsalot @ladyangel70 @ao719 @ooo-barff-ooo @octobereighth​

@sunnyxdazed @lilyofchoices

[zamgoods]

Pray 4 Money Prays 4 You

May 11, 2020       Have you prayed for money recently? Got on your knees and begged for a miracle to save you? How much did you ask for today? One hundred dollars, thousands of dollars, or even more. Lotto Jackpot!

The power of prayer is supported by words.  English speakers use the word “M-O-N-E-Y” for currency without knowing the legacy and lore of the word, you may be praying for funds yet to your dismay you receive woe.   

The Triangle on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States should be recognized as the yellow triangular warning sign symbol with electricity in the middle. Danger, Peligroso, Doom!

Ever have the idea that Money is praying for you ---to save you. Huh? Wait What?!  That’s right, money is worried for you, but more on that later.

The truth is THAT WE have been following the wrong instructions and haven’t been paying heed to the warning labels.  Proceed with caution when praying for something because you just might get it.  

It is not just my 2cents.  The word money is derived from two languages:

In Latin the word monere means to warn, remind, advise 

 In Hebrew manar means to reckon, count

Admonish, Premonition are words relating to money.  Probably not what you had in mind during afternoon prayers.  Moneie is to think, remind... is it starting to look like money to you? 

I’ ve been trying to understand the connection.  What does riches have to do with warnings of disasters?  “Mind on my money and money on my mind” is a stressful pastime. The rap lyric by Snoop Dog can be used as an SAT prep test study tool.   It is a self fulfilling prophesy. 

Always being broke and living pay check to pay check is the plight of the populous. Trending around the world.  Selling your soul for such a miserable price, must be why so many celebrities end up poor at death’s door.  Doubtful and in Debt.  

But there is a bright side.  The Moon.  The mon in money is a warning sign because of the phases of the moon’s messages.  Staring at the full moon can get you mooneye and moonstruck in a hypnotic trance.  That’s the eye over the pyramid. Words like mononucleosis, monotheism is about the number 1.  Which relates to the moon.  The currents and tides in the ocean and seas have an almost magnetic effect on the moon.  A high tide and possible flood is forewarned by the moon.  It seems to raise water high.  Since we are 70 percent water, some become lunatics and our brains swell during full moon.  

The MON in money is ultimately derived from the god Amon or Amun Ra.  He is the one father of the gods in Ancient Egypt.  The ending of prayers are often punctuated with the word AMEN.  The Theban Triad consists of the hidden god Amon, his wife, Amunet, and his son, Khonsu with the moon above his head.

The $1bill has the eye in the pyramid, some call it the Eye of Horus.  Khonsu is the said to be Horus as a boy with the lock on head.  He carries the crescent moon.   The crescent is a sign for new moon or baby growing into its fulfillment and into old age.  The death of the moon is forewarned by it’s left facing crescent.  In Bible translations, the word Lucifer actually is translated by the crescent moon, hilel.  Maybe the reason the name Eye of Lucifer is over the pyramid, yet the designers of the Great SSeal say it is the Eye of Providence.

Juno Moneta is mother deity for the Romans, who was prayed to for her maternal protective powers of warnings.  She is Moneta.  Roman money was minted near and in her temple on Capitoline HIll.  As you can see the words monetary, mint, money, Monet all have to do with Juno Moneta saving those she cares about, strangely she was against Trojan Prince Aeneas being the founder of Rome and caused him great strife.  

We also have to deal with the word “D-O-L-L-A-R” which means to fall, go astray by fire in Aramaic.

So In essence you are praying for your on down fall.   Counting down the self imposed curses.  Our bills are exactly that, bills.  On the front, it clearly states that it not an asset but “legal tender for all debts...”

Not to mention that $ the dollar sign represents many legends regarding death from Samson’s  demise to the curse on the serpent in the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

Sibyls were exalted for prophesying and guiding people and rulers through difficulties.  They wrote warnings of the future.  $1bill spells out the Sibyl who assisted Aeneas to become the forefather of the Roman Empire.  That’ why she is still praying for us and warning us of the perils to come.

Even scientists admit the powers of prayer.  Invoking a plea from your depths of soul energy has effects unexplainable.  But many are ignorant of the fact the “words” we use have power.  Word power can be seen in Dr. Masaru Emoto’s water studies show water reacting to “good and bad” words and intentions.  Biblical and Qur’anic scriptures speak on this vibrations of sounds that can create life and death itself.  Many references can be made on this.  But for now we realize that you must “use your words very carefully” especially when you are fearful and desperate.

[hmsusa]

The advancement of Telemedicine

One of the side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was an exponential increase in the use of telemedicine. Doctor visits over the phone or video. But the rapid adoption of this technology has had some growing pains, including exposing a predictable divide in socioeconomic status, age, and people of color.

There are also technical issues that are still being tweaked. But overall, the adoption of telemedicine has been a great opportunity. Visit HMS USA’s website and contact us for better Medical Billing and Credentialing experience.

Part of the reason for the dramatic rise in telemedicine, sparked by the pandemic, is the fact that there was so much deferred potential for its use. In other words, many healthcare offices and many patients already had the technology and capability to engage in telemedicine, all that was waiting was for the regulatory switch to be thrown.

Insurance companies, including Medicare and Medicaid, were simply not allowing the technology to be widely adopted. The pandemic forced their hand, and once we got the green light, we were massively up and running within days.

But of course, there were some rough spots, as you might imagine with any rapid adoption of new technology or procedures. In my office, we are now on our third video conferencing application to use for telemedicine in the last 9 months. Along the way, functionality has improved.

The core application is simple, a secure video connection between health care providers and patients. Initially, it was a little more than that. Then we added the ability to have an assistant prep the patient beforehand, to make sure their video was working, and to get basic health information related to the visit.

But we realized we needed the ability for third parties to join the visit, which could be a family member, a student being trained, or a medical translator.

Lockdown Implementation

Once the lockdown was over this also provided the opportunity to select patients for telemedicine visits vs in-person visits, which is obviously how this technology will mostly be used going forward.

Some patients simply do not have the resources or are not confident in their ability to use the technology, and yes, this is mostly older patients. Some try and fail, which can be frustrating for the patient and can be disruptive to a busy clinic schedule.

For those who can use the technology, it is mainly a matter of whether or not they need a physical exam or some procedure. For those who don’t, the convenience of telemedicine is immense.

It also quickly became clear that when everything is working, telemedicine is incredibly useful, convenient, and efficient. When there is a glitch, it instantly can become a disaster. Doctors and hospital owners can contact us through HMS Medical Billing official website for handling all their Medical Billing-related issues.

In my office, when the system goes down I can continue seeing patients, using paper backup until the system is back online. When I am in my home office doing a telemedicine clinic, if the system goes down I am dead in the water.

This means at least a couple of things. First, the system needs to be incredibly robust with very little downtime. But also we need to think more about contingencies.

A good-enough backup to use when the primary system goes down for some reason. Right now that backup is a telephone visit, which for most patients for whom telemedicine is appropriate works just fine.

Problems to Insurance Companies

The problem here is that many insurance companies and state regulations do not allow for telephone visits, or don’t reimburse for them. That needs to change.

Also, we probably need to think of other backup systems that will work well enough until the main system is back. The obvious choice is using a smartphone or tablet, which can go on battery power for a while if the power is out and can use 4G/5G to connect if your internet connection is down.

The challenges that remain are several, beginning with the easiest problem to solve, and that is regulatory. That was the main hurdle, to begin with, shattered by the necessity of the pandemic, and for me probably the best thing to come out of this otherwise negative historic event. But more tweaks remain.

First, we need to allow for telephone visits, which will narrow the economic and technical divide, allow for a necessary contingency when the video technology fails, and simply provide more options.

Second, states need to allow for telemedicine visits across state-lines. They did early in the pandemic, during the lockdown, but then reinstated limitations. What this means is that a doctor who has a telemedicine clinic in CT needs to also have a medical license in Virginia if they are seeing a patient who is currently in that state. This serves no useful purpose.

I have patients, for example, that live in CT where I work, but winter in Florida. Do they need to find a local Florida neurologist to do their telemedicine visits while they are there? Many patients travel over state lines from neighboring states because there is a specialist they want or even need to see.

These restrictive laws prevent the very patients who need to travel the furthest to benefit from telemedicine. The solution here is very simple, medical license reciprocity for telemedicine alone.

I can understand why some states might want to limit this, to prevent an exodus of telemedicine care to other states. I do not agree with this, patient rights and the overall efficiency of the system should take precedence.

And states can limit the use of telemedicine from other states but allow for exceptions in cases where a patient can demonstrate the need for an out-of-state specialist, or for patients who live only part-time in a state and want to maintain continuity of care.

The more difficult problem to solve is access to the necessary technology and the ability to use it. The good news is that 96% of Americans own a cell phone of some kind, while 81% own a smartphone. About 75% own a desktop or laptop. The numbers are slightly lower for older Americans.

While good, this could mean that one in five patients or more lack the ability to engage in telemedicine that requires video. Allowing for telephone visits will solve much, but not all, of this.

There may be situations in which it is cost-effective to provide the technology to patients, to improve their access to care and reduce the need for transportation.

Unfortunately, the adoption of telemedicine was unnecessarily delayed for so long, and then we had to scramble to get it working literally within days. But that phase is over, and now we have to adapt telemedicine to the entire health care infrastructure quickly. All things considered, it is going very well. But there is still room for optimization.

We provide the best Telemedicine Medical Billing services to physicians and hospital owners at HMS USA Medical billing. If you need our services, visit our website and reach out to us with your current problems.

[easyweightlossmethods]

Groundbreaking new weight loss product changes the face of dieting

Denver, Colorado, USA - October, 1st 2019 - People who struggle to lose weight now have an easier, scientifically-proven option for breaking the weight gain cycle and shedding unwanted pounds: Leptitox. Sonya Rhodes just announced the release of a brand-new weight loss product. It is set for worldwide distribution as of October 2019 and is looking to change the dieting industry. Based on science-backed research on the underestimated and previously shrouded subject of leptin resistance, the all-natural supplements feature powerful herbs, select vitamins and amino acids to arm the body with the ability to fight and reverse leptin resistance—the cause of weight gain and obesity.

The Full Details

“Before we understood the role of leptin resistance in obesity and the inability to lose weight we had no other choice but to attack body fat in all the wrong ways,” says Sonya Rhodes, co-founder of Leptitox. “With the discovery of leptin, and the phenomenon of leptin resistance we finally know the right way to target the obesity epidemic we’re facing. And that’s what we’ve done with the Leptitox supplements; combined our awareness of leptin resistance with the desperation and despair people feel around their inability to lose weight when they’re doing everything they can.”

Determined to end the heartache of those who are overweight, and who don’t know how to combat it, Sonya Rhodes has taken it on herself to manufacture a product— Leptitox — which addresses the problem of leptin resistance as well as the initiating, underlying cause, breaking the weight gain cycle once and for all. As Sonya explains: “It was important that we not just treat the symptoms of weight gain, thereby managing the issue, but that we zero-in on the actual cause. We weren’t looking for superficial results, leaving people confused and feeding into the yo-yo trajectory diets are known for. Without addressing the cause we knew it wouldn’t be enough to really help people, and that was our mission.”

According to the extensive research Sonya Rhodes stands behind, leptin resistance stems from a source few people would acknowledge as a risk. This is why, according to Rhodes, the obesity epidemic has been able to spread as much as it has—we have blamed the wrong things and allowed the real cause to remain a normal staple of our lives. “This is how any problem proliferates, by not being stopped early on.” Sonya Rhodes continues, clearly passionate about the subject, “We didn’t nip the problem in the bud when we saw the initial spike of obesity and by that point it was too late anyway. If we had known what was making people gain weight we could have done something, but all we can do now is reverse it. Thankfully, that is what our supplements do. It’s not too late if we target the right things.”

Ideal for anyone who has struggled with seemingly stubborn and unresponsive body fat, leptitox attacks weight gain from the one place overlooked in the heath industry. Not only does it promote healthy weight loss, it helps curb hunger and detoxes the cause of leptin resistance right out of the body. Rhodes has created a product suitable for anyone who is tired of doing their best and seeing no results, and even better, the product itself is safe, all natural and suitable for a wide-range of people, with a no-risk 60 day money-back guarantee.

Leptitox supplements are currently available, having just been released to the public in the early fall. Purchasing the supplements also provides people with material created to inform the public of the true cause of their inability to lose weight, as well as providing the solution so they can easily adjust their lifestyle to make permanent changes. For Rhodes this is just the beginning, her purpose is to broadcast the reality of leptin resistance and it’s solution — leptitox—to the world, and really make a difference in the lives of people who have lost hope.

For many of us the sight of a freshly glazed doughnut can feel like falling in love and coming home to a pack of unopened cookies can feel like the adult version of Christmas morning. There’s something about sugar that hooks us and keeps reeling us in again and again. Whether we like it or not sugar has a major hold on us.

Why Do We Crave Sugary Food?

If you’re reading this it’s highly likely you understand, and have first-hand experience, of this allure. Sugar isn’t just confectionary, it’s compulsion; there is no such thing as stopping after “just one.” I mean, if one is good, more is better. At least that’s what it feels like with the sweet stuff.

We are given many reasons for our sugar cravings: pleasure-seeking brain circuits, intestinal parasites, mineral deficiencies, malnutrition, habitual behavior, unbalanced diets, too much salt, buried emotional issues, lack of sleep, stress.... and my favorite, lack of discipline. We are not at a loss for reasons for our addiction to sugar, yet knowing isn’t enough to change us or our behavior. If knowing was enough we would all be winning gold medals and gold stars in every area of our life. If anything, knowing just makes it feel worse... we know better so why aren’t we doing better? Knowing becomes just another reason for us to feel bad about ourselves.

The next step to knowing is to try and do something about it. We take matters into our own hands and attempt to turn our sugar-loving switch from on to off. This is not a painless process, and just when we feel we’re making ground something happens to throw us off and we’re on a mission to hunt down any sugar we can find and back at the start.

When we decide to target our sugar dependency, we attack the sugar itself, we clear the pantry, empty the house of all products and declare sugar the enemy. And this is fine... except it doesn’t work. When we create an action plan like this, we’re a few steps too far ahead and facing the wrong direction. We don’t address what’s really happening.

The key: target the true problem, not the side-effect of the problem. And sugar cravings are the side-effect, they’re the symptom of the real problem, and treating symptoms never makes the problem resolve. The only way to create true, long- standing change is to address the root cause.... otherwise you’re just wasting your time and prepping yourself for another future sugar-binge.

What is the root cause? Leptin resistance. One way to target leptin resistance is with a product called leptitox, a blend of 22 all natural ingredients which work with your body to reverse leptin resistance and it’s effects. When leptin resistance occurs in our body we have a malfunctioning system. This malfunction will produce troublesome symptoms. Not only does leptin resistance increase hunger but it creates cravings! That’s a recipe for disaster! Not only will you be hungry but you’ll be hankering after the worst foods imaginable...

We may have blamed everything else under the sun for our inability to stop reaching for the next cookie... everything but leptin resistance. If you want to see real movement and change you’ll need to target leptin resistance and do something to “fix” it.

Leptitox is just the way to address the growing problem of leptin resistance, since it has been created to target and address it. Leptitox is a blend of 22 carefully selected herbs, amino acids and vitamins with the ability to help your body address the real cause of leptin resistance. It will change everything you thought you knew about weight loss.

What Is Leptin Resistance?

Before we saw the world as a globe spinning in the vast expanse of space we once believed it was flat and the sun revolved around us.

Before we knew the dangers of mercury—as a neurotoxin and overall health no-no—it was once considered the go-to treatment for a host of medical conditions, for everything from syphilis to parasites.

Before we had modern health-conscious cosmetics women would adorn themselves with lead-filled face paint and wash their skin with ammonia. They would slowly poison themselves but were convinced it was essential for true beauty.

The knowledge we have gained over the years has not come without a fair share of innocent misunderstandings, but thankfully, as we know more we are able to make more informed choices based on actual science, on truth, on what works. It is crucial we build our actions on a foundation of truth.

Our beliefs about weight loss have centered around constantly shifting paradigms. Throughout the decades we have blamed various things for our inability to lose weight and keep it off - high-fat foods, carbohydrates, calories, lack of motivation, genetics.... We have, in a way, been the people who thought the sun orbited us.

Deep down we may sense there’s another reason for our inability to control our appetite and our expanding waistline, but just don’t know what it is. If you look at the diet and health industry we have created you’ll see the answers we’re fed about the obesity epidemic. We are supplied new “answers” and “solutions” all the time, and so—full of hope—we try them, only to be disappointed when we end up back where we started.

What if I told you the health industry has got it all wrong?

What if I were to tell you that we actually have the solution for why you have gained weight and been unable to lose it?

Would you believe me?

If you’re anything like the people I’ve just described, the people who have trusted the “answers” and “solutions” in the past, probably not. You may be burnt out on hope.... Yet, you are reading these words so there must be some trace of hope left, and I want to work with that tiny bit of remaining hope to change your life. And I mean it.

We’re here to show you a new way, to point you in the direction of the actual cause of your weight gain. No more blaming the wrong thing, looking in the wrong direction, no more wasting your time.

The Real Cause

This new direction starts with something called leptin. Never heard of leptin before? You’re not the only one. This hormone is a lesser known player in our hormonal system (which is sad since it is responsible for so much within our body.) Did you know leptin helps regulate bone mass, the menstrual cycle, the synthesis of thyroid hormones, our appetite and metabolism? And this is just scratching the surface.

Leptin is known as the “obesity hormone” and the “fat hormone.” A pretty big clue for what it’s responsible for.

When our body operates faultlessly, as a well-oiled machine, leptin would be produced by your body’s fat cells and communicate with the hypothalamus (in our brain) via the bloodstream. The amount of leptin would determine whether the body stores fat or loses it, “a minor increase in leptin concentration reduces the appetite and leads to a decrease in body weight."(1) This is how things are supposed to work: a high level of leptin in the body informs your brain that there is enough fat stored, you are not starving—you will survive - and so your appetite is switched off and you burn more fat. Similarly, if your body fat were to decrease, leptin should follow suit and diminish, signalling to your brain to stop burning fat—to store the fat you have—to increase your appetite and prompt you to eat.

This is how things are supposed to function. But what happens when something interrupts the balance which our body is meant to keep? That’s when leptin resistance occurs, and this leptin resistance is the reason for our fruitless (yet well-intentioned) attempts to take control of our health and body. Once you are leptin resistant you won’t lose the weight no matter how little you eat or how much exercise you do.

Thankfully, there is a way out. Your life doesn’t need to be ruled by leptin resistance, there is something you can do. Real results. Real science. No wishing for the best. And this is where we come in. If you’ve had enough of the endless trying and disappointment, if you’ve had enough of feeling like a prisoner in your body and a prisoner to food then a product called Leptitox may help. It is a ground-breaking supplement program that addresses the root cause and breaks the devastating cycle of weight gain once and for all.

Here you will find answers, you will get relief, you will have a plan of action that works.

Read More Click Here

Product Review

I’ve never had the impulse to write a review for a product before. I figure people will discover for themselves how good something is without my help. But after trying the Leptitox supplements this changed; I knew I had to help other people understand what this product offers, since it gave me what I had been after for years.

I personally didn’t find Leptitox because of a review, I found it because I was desperate. I had been struggling with my weight since I was a teenager and after a few decades had had enough. I had been on every diet imaginable (low-fat, low-carb, fruit fasting... I tried everything) as well as various health products and workout programs. I spent time and money on things I hoped would change me. So I came to Leptitox with a LOT of skepticism and a baggage-load of disappointment.

The fact they offered a 60 day money-back guarantee made the decision to purchase a lot easier. Less to lose. I’m so glad they chose to offer the program this way, since it made it more appealing for someone like me who really couldn’t emotionally deal with another thing which felt like it just took my money, without even delivering the results.

When you buy the program you automatically get the 60 day money-back guarantee. I already took a few basic supplements (a multi-vitamin and vitamin D—for the cloudy Washington days) and just slipped the Leptitox supplement alongside these, so it wasn’t that hard for me to remember to take them. If you’re new to taking supplements you may need to set an alarm on your phone etc, but this wasn’t an issue for me. It was easy to remember to take them, I just left the bottle out on the surface with my other vitamins.

I guess their effect could be considered magic, but they’re that way for a reason—for a scientific reason—that’s what creates the change. First of all, they’re 100% natural. That made me feel better right off the bat. They’re mainly composed of herbs, with a spice or two, and a couple science-y sounding amino acids thrown in for good measure.

These 22 ingredients work together to do 3 things: help the body detox, control the appetite and promote healthy weight loss. The daily dosage is 2 capsules taken once a day, and you’re supposed to take those 2 capsules 20-30 minutes before you eat. For me, it was easiest to take this dose first thing in the morning—my work schedule is too erratic to have it later in the day. I would have it before breakfast, and this really worked for me. It was easy to remember: I got out of bed and pretty much took the capsules then and there, then I could just get on with my day, not having to remember it again. Pretty easy.

Before Leptitox I had no clue about how EDC’s—endocrine disrupting chemicals—disturb the way my body works, I didn’t even know they existed! (Which kind of made me wonder about why society doesn’t make a bigger deal of them... but anyway....)

They mess with the body in a major way and they’re found in so many things around us, things we could consider “safe” or “inert.”

Now that I’ve mentioned results... (if you’ve stuck with my review this far you’re probably wondering what they are.) I achieved more than I thought would be possible for me. The first week I lost 2-3 pounds; encouraging, but I still passed it off as circumstantial thinking next week I’d be back at my regular weight. Long story short: at the end of the 60 day money-back guarantee period I had lost 17lbs, and in another 60 day period I had reached a 32lbs loss! To say I was thrilled would be an understatement.

Most diet protocols call for extreme deprivation and punishing workouts. With Leptitox I didn’t have to do any of that. Now, did it take no effort at all? No, I had to be dedicated to taking the supplements, and address and fix the weak areas of my lifestyle which added unnecessary toxicity. I had to think about what I was doing, but did I have to run myself into the ground? Not at all.

This program gave me the body I never had (or at least hadn’t had since my early teens.) If I can inspire you to take a chance—like I did—and try Leptitox for yourself I really hope I’ve done that. Now that I’ve experienced what I have I can say that taking the risk and trying “one more thing” is worth it. Even after a string of failed diets and weight loss plans please don’t give up on yourself. Change is possible. It happened for me and it turned my life around.

Visit The Official Website Here

[eyesaremosaics]

What are your thoughts on Pisces?

Pisces.I love Pisces probably more than any other sign. Most likely because I have a Pisces moon, which means I understand them emotionally on a level other people do not. Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, meaning they carry with them all the qualities of the other signs. The are a prism. A hodgepodge, a mosaic of traits which seem undesirable on a surface level.

Pisces see and feel it all, yet they are very quiet and passive about it. They know intuitively when you are not doing well, and why. They also know exactly where to touch you to heal. My brother is a Pisces, he’s also a massage therapist. He knows exactly where to go to get to the pain in your body, and exactly what he needs to do to heal it.

They have deep empathy for human beings and all the creatures of this earth. If someone had deep piscean influence in their chart, they will tend to have a mystical, mysterious aura about them, and they will have deep empathy and understanding for everyone they encounter. They love animals, and tend to have a fairytale princess effect on them. Pisces are easy to confide in. They get you. In a way you don’t even fully understand, and they don’t need explanations.

Pisces is drifting along in an aimless dream of romance and inspiration. They are dreamers. Pisces is so involved with their imagination and very active fantasy life, that they often forget the real world exists, and are very disturbed when reality sets in. They are easily disillusioned, because they see the good in people. They trust first, and question second. Very childlike in that way. Often they do not understand cruelty, it is not inherently in their nature.

Now, the argument goes: well there were multiple serial killers who were Pisces. Richard Ramirez and John Wayne Gacy for example. These were also double Pisces, Pisces sun and moon. I truly believe these people were so abused and neglected as children that they turned to their overactive imagination to escape. These dark fantasies of theirs... Became horrifying reality. It was a way to take back power and control that they never had. They were divorced from reality as a result of trauma. it was a maladaptive coping mechanism. Pisces can either be a saint, or the embodiment of evil. They can be easily swayed to the dark side. Pisces does not fear the dark, they welcome it with a frightening intensity that is not for the faint hearted. When Scorpio is trying to harness the darkness, and Capricorn is resonating with it... Pisces is being quietly devoured--and they like it.

Pisces are the most capable of lying to themselves. They need fantasy to feel alive. They need dreams and otherworldly experiences to fulfill their spirit. Their perception is so deep, that it is wasted on shallow pursuits. Pisces is shy; they "connect deeply, or not at all" like Anais Nin (Pisces). Pisces is very idealistic. Their motto is “it should be!” Which it often isn’t.

Pisces feels way too much, all at once. It's overwhelming, and no other sign could handle the intensity that they feel. A dark storm brewing on the horizon. Their emotions are natural disasters inside of them. Terrifying to behold. Yet also beautiful. They find beauty in everyone and everything. They have a magic about them that is all their own. The paint such vivid pictures, and convince with their dreamy hypnotic aura. ,

If they have heavy fire influence in their chart, they may come across as aggressive, but honestly, they are big softies. Pisces Men like John Wayne and Johnny Cash have a rough and tumble exterior, but inside they are soft hearted, and very romantic .

Often Pisces feel suicidal, more so than any other sign. It’s because of the intensity of their feelings. They are also more likely to fall into drugs and alcohol. Their very nature is escapism, so addiction is a slippery slope. Pisces carries the weight of all the other signs with them. They are on their way out, back to the universe. Likened to the elderly person on their death bed, coming to peace with their death. That is why they have a mystical quality. They are otherworldly. Something not of this earth, or faraway in their eyes. like the third brother in the deathly hallows. They found a clever way to evade death, through invisibility, when they are ready to ascend, they greet death as an old friend.

Pisces can be moody, and difficult to be with. It’s because they are at the mercy of their emotions, even though they try desperately to hide it. The war in their mind is constant, and very real. The sky clears when they are inspired or in love. In the same way an autistic child is overwhelmed by external stimuli , Pisces is overwhelmed by too much empathy. They are burdened with it. Much like Kurt Cobain (Pisces). He started a revolution in the 90s, of men being angry and vulnerable in a way that was not expressed before.

People tend to ignore the strength and resilience of Pisces. Because they are sensitive, people perceive them as weak or fragile. This couldn’t be any father from the truth. They have a deep reservoir of strength in them, and they know how to claw their way out of the deepest holes. Their complex understanding of human nature, and acceptance of others lends them and an enduring unconditional love that other signs can’t begin to comprehend. They have a deep mystical wisdom, and they understand life on an objective and emotional level that can often astound others.

Often Pisces will be completely devoted to a person. They are generally very submissive by nature, and often let their partner guide the relationship. After their illusions of this person are shattered however, they will often drift into a new relationship without realizing it, and are perplexed as to why the other person is upset. They are mutable, just like Virgo and Sagittarius, so they easily adapt to circumstance. The problem with Pisces though, is that they will tolerate abuse in the name of love much longer than any other sign.

They want to believe the good in people, and will readily make excuses for their loved ones because they empathize and understand where they are coming from. This leaves them to be martyred and badly used. They are “prey” or “easy targets” because they so readily accept people’s explanations.

An example of Pisces resilience is Elizabeth Taylor. This woman endured physical illness, injury, and brushes with death all her life. Also, suffered deep personal loss. Her first husband was heir to the Hilton fortune. He hit her, and cheated on her continually (this is at the height of her physical beauty), then married her soul mate who died in a horrific plane crash. She married his best friend (amidst great scrutiny) trying to remain close to him, then met the true love of her life Richard Burton, who mirrored her own self destruction through drugs and alcohol.

They almost killed each other, despite the passionate intensity of their love. They were still deeply in love when they finally separated (after a divorce and remarriage, nearly twenty years of connection) but they understood that they were dying together. “Pray for us” she said to the press. They never stopped loving each other, even though they both remarried. On his death bed Richard said: “goddamnit I still love that bloody woman.”

She wore his ring until she died, and ordered her ashes to be scattered in Wales where he was born.

She survived James dean’s death (a close friend), along with Montgomery Clift’s overdose (her best friend). She took all her losses really hard, and nearly died from the grief every time, yet somehow she survived stronger than ever.

Pisces is able to overcome great trauma with wisdom. They find great wisdom In the wound, and are therefore very healing. Michelangelo was a Pisces, and he was a testament to their vision and creativity.

Even the most influential musicians of our time have Pisces influence, Prince, Elvis, Michael Jackson all have Pisces moon. They are dynamic in their own signs (Gemini, Capricorn, Virgo) yet the Pisces almost overpowers their personality. They have a unique gentleness and sensitivity.

I once was friends with a Pisces girl, who knew what I was feeling before I could vocalize it. She and I were able to communicate with very few words. It was almost telepathic. It felt symbiotic in a way, the connection. She had big doe eyes, a sleek figure with the tiniest waist, big pouty fish lips, and long shiny chestnut hair. She was mesmerizing in her beauty. As a ballerina, she had this grace about her movements that was tranquilizing to watch. I was ostracized in my acting class--no one wanted to work with me, yet here comes this graceful creature. She nestled beside me gently as a swan. "I want to help you. I will be your partner." She said kindly. She understood every wavelength, the still waters that run deep. I used to sleep over her house. Listening to Lana del Rey's "ultra violence", painting, smoking cigarettes... The thick miasma of smoke coiling like spirits in the air, whispering to one another, giggling like little girls, reading tarot and feeling serene.

She created an atmosphere of dreams and visions. Like a cloud of Egyptian smoke. They are the priests and priestesses of the zodiac. They are the reflection of the moon in the silvery surface of the lake. The eerie humming from another room, the sound of an out of tune piano echoing from somewhere upstairs. They are the scratch of the needle when a record has ended. The static in between frequencies, the sound of something coming through. Satin shoes wet from the rain. They are the lily floating on bracken water. The musical playlist you never knew you needed. The martyr, the madman. illusion, chivalry, The feeling of falling into a dream, a metaphor, a transient state of being. The rainbow fish. The giving tree. .

They are the poignant psychologist, the princess in the ivory tower, the knight in shining armor. The artist. The sensitive. They are fresh paint on a prepped canvas, blues, greens, purples bleeding together. Silk, chiffon, butterfly wings. The morning dew on the grass. They are ghosts, seances, tarot readings inns dimly lit parlor, pendulum swaying, a bull in a china shop, miniature porcelain figurines, veils, the witch on the bayou… A glass vase full of ballet shoes, shells and imitation pearls. Sand slipping through the hourglass. Giggles, hiding in the garden beneath the rose bushes, imagination games, scary stories around the fire.

They are screams In the pillow, drug addiction, sexual exaltation. Spiritual awakening, the magician. History, psychology, social sciences, art, music. Piscean a are moved by music. They are ancient texts. Sacred spells. Mystics, healers, They are tears, pearls, pink satin, pale blue silk, the color of the sky, the feeling of drowning, unconditional love, complete understanding, non-judgement, nostalgia, holding on to the past with romantic reverence, fairy tales, horror stories the feeling of bliss. Becoming a child again, a knowing child.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note:  A guest entry from Z to The Prepper Journal. A lesson learned should NOT be an oxymoron. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly receive a $25 cash award like Z. And, as always Z will be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest AND have a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards  with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today. 

What is the history of government-mandated rationing within the U.S.?

Since WWI, here is how things have played out:

World War 1

Though rationing was not mandated by the government in this war, the government did strongly encourage American citizens to self-regulate their consumption of certain goods. Slogans such as “Food Will Win the War” dominated war posters which were plastered in highly traveled areas.

“Meatless Tuesdays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays” and similar ration-themed days were advocated nationally, with an end result that food consumption within the US was decreased 15% from 1918-1919. (Ref: 1)

World War 2

It wasn’t until after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that the U.S. truly instituted severe rationing. The reasoning for this was that American soil had been attacked, we faced war on two fronts, and the threat of further attacks on American soil was highly likely.

Rationing had to be instituted in order to insure that American troops had the supplies that they needed. Though an annoyance, people generally didn’t have a problem with rationing during this war as they understood the importance of what rationing was accomplishing. There were no moral qualms among the nation in regards to WW2, and many had family overseas who were fighting for our freedom. As a result, rationing was a much more bearable burden.

Here is what was rationed in WW2:

1)        Tires

There was a shortage of rubber due to the Japanese invading the parts of Southeast Asia where rubber was produced.

2)        Metal goods

These included cars, metal office furniture, radios, phonographs, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, dog food in tin cans, washing machines, sewing machines, toothpaste in metal tubes, typewriters, and bicycles

The metal and other raw materials which would normally be used to produce such goods instead were needed for the production of tanks, aircraft, and other weapons.

    3)        Fuels

For obvious reasons, gasoline was rationed in the form of gasoline cards. Government perceived need determined how much one would get per month. In addition to gasoline rationing, a national speed limit of 35mph was enacted (in order to save gas and rubber), and all sightseeing driving was banned.

Firewood and coal were rationed as well, making heating a home during the winter a much more difficult proposition.

4)        Foodstuffs

Sugar, shortening, butter, margarine, meat, lard, cheese, processed foods, dried fruit, canned milk, jams/jellies, and fruit butter were all rationed during the course of the war.

Coffee was rationed as well due to German U-boats sinking Brazilian shipping vessels.

5)        Medicines

Scarce medicines, most notably penicillin, were also rationed. Though this resulted in troops getting the medical supplies that they needed, it also resulted in civilian doctors being forced to choose between which patient would receive the life-saving medication that they needed and which one would die.

6)        Clothing

Shoes, silk, and nylon were also rationed during the war. (Ref: 2, 3)

Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, War on Terror

No government-mandated rationing has occurred within the United States since World War 2.

What Lessons Can We Learn From This?

1)        Rationing Doesn’t Happen Often

The first thing I believe that we can learn from the history of rationing within the United States is that it’s not something that happens often. It’s happened once.

The only likely way that government-induced rationing could occur would be if the US faced an attack on its soil that would require the majority of its resources to fight off a potential invasion. The last time that happened was World War 2. That leads me to my second point:

2)        Rationing Depends on the Scope of Current Destruction

Obviously an event that wipes out the entire West Coast infrastructure is going to require some rationing on the Eastern Seaboard. Why? Because everything that previously was able to be produced and transported from the West would then be destroyed or radioactive.

Though the threat from Russia and China during the Korean and Vietnam War were both very real, the threats were more or less contained to a different side of the world than ours. Yes, there were instances such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, but as a whole the threat remained a threat. It didn’t finalize.

Had those missiles or bombers hit the States, then I do think that rationing would have happened again as the entire country would have been mobilized.

3)        What is Rationed Often Depends on What is Destroyed

During WW2, it was the destruction of merchant vessels from other lands, and capture of strategic factories/material producing regions by the enemy which resulted in certain goods being rationed. The Japanese didn’t bomb our dairy farms though, so why on earth would butter be rationed?

For food items in particular, the main reason that they were rationed was because soldiers needed all the food they could get. If you give somebody 60+ lbs of gear to haul 20 miles a day through extremely difficult terrain in terrible weather all the while having their stress levels constantly elevated due to having to fight for their lives, they are going to need all of the calories that they can get.

As a result, foodstuffs would be rationed too. (It kind of makes producing your own food and homesteading sound good, huh?)

4)        Rationing Being Unlikely Doesn’t Make Being Prepared Stupid

It would be foolish to assume that the ability to waltz on down to the supermarket any day of the week to purchase whatever you need/desire with a little square of plastic is something that will always be available. You would think power outages alone would be enough to convince people of this, but alas, that’s not always the case.

Anyone who has some cash, food, water, and other goods laid up already understands that.

The defining moment for me was when my wife and I were on vacation and the kettle corn vendor had a broken credit card reader. I had no cash, and as a result my wife had no ketlle corn. I learned my lesson real fast. Carry cash.

That same preparedness mindset has helped me to avoid other miseries at other times.  After all, if just a single credit card reader malfunction could deny you access, couldn’t the power going out for any length of time cause even greater problems? What about the loss of a job?

In Conclusion

Though government induced rationing may not happen in the future, I would argue that the weapons which are available to the world today are much more devastating than anything that has been available throughout history.

Nukes, EMPs, and bioweapons can completely change the economics of a country within a matter of minutes. Yes, an EMP was technically available by the end of the second World War, but we (the good guys) were the only ones who had that technology at the time. That’s not the case anymore.

Now we have rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran (who have vowed to destroy us) possessing EMP, nuke, and bioweapon technology. In a matter of minutes, either of those weapons could make a portion of, or all of a country’s ability to mass produce, transport, and sell necessary goods on a national scale virtually impossible.

Anything can happen, but in all probability I don’t think government-mandated rationing will happen anytime soon. However, if you are already prepared for a disaster of any appreciable length (and you have kept your preparations secret) you will be much better able to ride anything out provided that I am wrong.

References:

http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/food-rationing-in-wartime-america

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/seventeen-states-put-gasoline-rationing-into-effect

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/office-of-price-administration-begins-to-ration-automobile-tires

The post The History of Rationing in the US appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[top40gordy]

This is a great article! Here’s an excerpt: Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway. Here’s the whole article, if the reader cares to read all the way through.  There is also a link to the original academic paper: 

Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/

The author with the "Deep Adaptation" paper. Photo by VICE

 What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it's sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside?

 Good news: there is. It's called "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy." I was introduced to it via an unlikely source—a guy formerly in advertising who had left his job to become a full-time environmental campaigner. "We're fucked," he told me. "Climate change is going to fuck us over. I remember thinking, Should I just accept the deep adaptation paper and move to the Scottish countryside and wait out the apocalypse?"

 "Deep Adaptation" is quite unlike any other academic paper. There's the language ("we are about to play Russian Roulette with the entire human race with already two bullets loaded"). There's the flashes of dark humor ("I was only partly joking earlier when I questioned why I was even writing this paper"). But most of all, there's the stark conclusions that it draws about the future. Chiefly, that it's too late to stop climate change from devastating our world—and that "climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term."

 How near? About a decade.

 Professor Jem Bendell, a sustainability academic at the University of Cumbria, wrote the paper after taking a sabbatical at the end of 2017 to review and understand the latest climate science "properly—not sitting on the fence anymore," as he puts it on the phone to me.

 What he found terrified him. "The evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war," he writes in the paper. "Our norms of behavior—that we call our 'civilization'—may also degrade."

 "It is time," he adds, "we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today."

 Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway.

 Erik Buitenhuis, a senior researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, tells me that Bendell's conclusions may sound extreme, but he agrees with the report's overall assessment. "I think societal collapse is indeed inevitable," he says, though adds that "the process is likely to take decades to centuries."

 The important thing, Buitenhuis says, is to realize that the negative effects of climate change have already been with us for some time: "Further gradual deterioration looks much more likely to me than a disaster within the next ten years that will be big enough that, after that, everybody will agree the status quo is doomed."

 "Jem's paper is in the main well-researched and supported by relatively mainstream climate science," says Professor Rupert Read, chair of the Green House think-tank and a philosophy academic at the University of East Anglia. "That's why I'm with him on the fundamentals. And more and more people are."

 Read's key disagreement with Bendell is his belief that we still have time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, saying, "I think it's hubris to think that we know the future." But that doesn't mean Bendell's premise is wrong: "The way I see it, deep adaptation is insurance against the possibility—or rather, the probability—of some kind of collapse," says Read. "'Deep Adaptation' is saying, 'What do we need to do if collapse is something we need to realistically plan for?'"

 When I speak to Bendell, he tells me he thinks of "Deep Adaptation" as more of an ethical and philosophical framework, rather than a prophecy about the future of the planet. "The longer we refuse to talk about climate change as already here and screwing with our way of life—because we don't want to think like that because it's too frightening or will somehow demotivate people—the less time we have to reduce harm," he says with deliberation.

 What does he mean by harm? "Starvation is the first one," he answers, pointing to lowering harvests of grain in Europe in 2018 due to drought that saw the EU reap 6 million tons less wheat. "In the scientific community at the moment, the appropriate thing is to say that 2018 was an anomaly. However, if you look at what's been happening over the last few years, it isn't an anomaly. There's a possibility that 2018 is the new best case scenario."

 That means, in Bendell's view, that governments need to start planning emergency responses to climate change, including growing and stockpiling food.

 He minces his words even less in his paper: "When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you won't have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death."

 Should people start building bunkers and buying bulletproof vests? "There's no way of getting through this unless we try together," he says. "We need to help people stay fed and watered where they live already to reduce disruption and reduce civil unrest as much as we can." Of the Silicon Valley financiers prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand, he says: "Once money doesn't matter anymore and the armed guards are trying to feed their starving children, what do you think they'll do? The billionaires doing that are just deluded."

  Bendell wasn't always this gloomy about the state of the world. He once worked for WWF, one of the biggest environmental charities in the world, and in 2012 founded the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work. So how did he end up writing a paper that determined that civilization—and environmental sustainability as we currently understand it—is doomed?

 "Since the age of 15, I've been an environmentalist," he tells me. "I've given my life professionally and personally. I'm a workaholic, and it was all about sustainability." Once he sat down with the data, however, he realized that his field was quickly becoming irrelevant in the face of oncoming climate catastrophe. "It would mean not getting super excited about the expansion of your recycling program in a major multinational," he says. "It's a completely different paradigm of what we should be looking at."

 What he didn’t expect was for the paper to take off online. "It was aimed at those people in my professional community and why we're in denial," he says. "When I put it out there, I didn’t expect 15-year-olds in schools in Indonesia to be reading it with their teachers." He says that "Deep Adaptation" has been downloaded over 110,000 times since it was released by IFLAS as an occasional paper. "Someone in the alternative economics and bitcoin crowd told me, 'Oh, everyone's talking about deep adaptation in London at all the dinner parties,'" he laughs.

 Researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), an established progressive think-tank, consulted Bendell's paper in the process of writing its new report, "This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown." Laurie Laybourn-Langton, its lead author, told me via email: "I appreciated the frankness of the report in facing up to issues that so many in research and policy communities seem unwilling to. We don't subscribe to the view that social collapse is inevitable, however."

 He explains: "This is partly because it's so hard to predict the outcomes of the complex and uncertain process of environmental shocks interacting with social and economic systems. We simply don't know. That said, they shouldn’t be disregarded as a potential outcome, and so we are calling for greater levels of preparedness to these shocks."

 The effect of drought on cows in Ethiopia. Photo: TheImage/Alamy Stock Photo

 Not everyone was so taken with the paper. Bendell submitted it to a well-respected academic journal for publication, with little success. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ) told me that the paper was in need of "major revisions" before it would be ready for publication. Bendell ended up publishing it through IFLAS and his blog. "The academic process is such that I took that as an effective rejection," he explains, saying that the reviewers wanted him to fundamentally alter his conclusions. "I couldn't completely rewrite the paper to say that I don't think collapse is inevitable. It was asking for a different paper."

 Emerald, the scholarly publisher that owns SAMPJ, says it takes issue with how Bendell frames its reception of its paper on his blog: "the study on collapse they thought you should not read—yet." A spokesperson told me: "The decision was arrived at based on the merit of the submitted article and the double blind peer review process integral to academia and the advancement of knowledge. SAMPJ, and [editor Carol Adams] are proud members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere to the highest ethical standards in publishing. We see no evidence that the decision of Major Revision was politically motivated.

 "Emerald requested the author correct their blog post to reflect the facts. This request was unfortunately ignored. The post continues to imply the paper was rejected because it was deemed too controversial. The paper was not rejected, and was given a Major Revision due to the rigorous standards of the scholarly output of the journal."

 Bendell says he did reply to Emerald's request to amend his blog post—but only if they would consider telling him the decisions of those who reviewed his paper. (Under the double blind peer review, reviewers' decisions are anonymous.) "That title can be read in a number of ways," he says. "It is a paper that the reviewers didn't want you to read. They didn't want it published."

 Climate gloom and doom is nothing new—doomsday preppers have been stockpiling their freeze-dried food rations for decades now. But Bendell's paper appears to have hit a unique nerve, especially given that the average scientific paper is estimated to be read by only three or so people. Rupert Read tells me that he was sent it simultaneously by three other academics when it was published. But it hasn’t trended on Twitter. It hasn't been pushed by a celebrity. It was briefly mentioned in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, but that's it.

 "Deep Adaptation" is that unique social phenomenon: an academic paper that has gone viral through word of mouth.

 Nathan Savelli, a 31-year-old high school life coach from Hamilton, Canada, was recommended the paper by a local environmental activist. Reading it sent him spiraling into depression. "I guess in some ways it felt like I was diagnosed with a terminal illness," he tells me. "If I'm being honest, it was a mix of heartbreaking sadness and extreme anger."

 Savelli felt so low that he sought help from a climate grief support group organized by 350.org, the global grassroots climate movement. "I had attended counseling in the past for other issues, but never a group session, and thought it might be something helpful for me," he tells me. Did it help? "I'm not sure I'd say it alleviated my grief, but it was definitely comforting to be around people who understood what I was feeling."

 And therein lies the problem with "Deep Adaptation:" if you accept that the paper is entirely correct in its prediction of collapse, how do you move on with your life? How do you even get out of bed in the morning?

 "I'm aware of what difficult emotions it triggers," Bendell acknowledges. "I do believe that if you’ve come across this [paper], then absolutely some grief and despair is very natural. Why isn't that OK? We all die in the end. Life is about impermanence." On his blog, he lists several sources for psychological support, including several groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that discuss collapse and offer help to those struggling to come to terms with the conclusions of his paper.

 But, Bendell adds, reading the paper has been "transformative" for some. "People find a new boldness about living life on their own terms—actually connecting to their heart's desire. How do they wish to live, and why don't they live that way now rather than postponing it?" In one case, it even helped prompt one high-ranking academic to quit her job and the city.

 In December of 2017, Dr. Alison Green left her post as the pro vice-chancellor of Arden University. She had read the IPCC report warning that the world is nowhere near averting global temperature increases, as well as the 1,656-page National Climate Assessment on how climate change is now dramatically affecting our lives—and then she read Bendell's paper.

 All three combined to put her on the road to a drastic life change. "My desire is to get out of academia and to get out of the city. I tell people I’m heading for the hills," she tells me over the phone. "My plan is to get a smallholding and live more closely to nature."

 Reading the paper, she says, helped to crystallize her increasing uneasiness about the pace and scale of climate change. "What was really striking about this paper is that a social scientist was saying—not just the wacky fringe, this is a professor at an established institution, with a track record—saying that he believed that collapse was inevitable."

 "That," she adds, "had a profound effect on me."

 She's not the only one. Bendell himself says that he is still working out how much he can reconcile his job as an academic with his newfound conclusions about the state of the future.

 "I think the reason why my framing and my paper took off is that it’s maybe the first time a social scientist was saying these things categorically," he says. "We are seemingly in denial. It's time to break that taboo and have serious conversations about what we do now."

 This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

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  Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/the-study-on-collapse-they-thought-you-should-not-read-yet/

[yamatodenniskasukawa-blog]

Dennis Kasukawa - Yamato Kasukawa | Prepping for a Cryptocurrency Globe: China Edition

Over the past year, the cryptocurrency market took a collection of hefty punches from the Chinese government. The market took the hits like a warrior, but the combos have actually taken its toll in numerous cryptocurrency investors. The market lackluster efficiency in 2018 pales in contrast to its excellent thousand-percent gains in 2017.

  What has happened?

  Because 2013, the Chinese government have actually taken procedures to control cryptocurrency, however absolutely nothing compared to what was applied in 2017. (Have a look at this write-up for a thorough evaluation of the main notification provided by the Chinese government).

Yamato Kasukawa

2017 was a banner year for the cryptocurrency market with all the interest as well as growth it has achieved. The extreme cost volatility compelled the Reserve bank to embrace more extreme procedures, including the restriction of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and clampdowns on domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. Right after, extracting manufacturing facilities in China were required to close down, pointing out too much electricity usage. Several exchanges and factories have actually transferred overseas to avoid laws but continued to be accessible to Chinese capitalists. Nevertheless, they still stop working to run away the claws of the Chinese Dragon.

  In the most up to date collection of government-led efforts to check and also prohibit cryptocurrency trading among Chinese financiers, China expanded its "Eagle Eye" to keep track of international cryptocurrency exchanges. Business and bank accounts suspected of carrying out transactions with international crypto-exchanges and also associated tasks go through procedures from restricting withdrawal restrictions to freezing of accounts. There have actually even been ongoing reports amongst the Chinese community of even more extreme procedures to be implemented on international systems that permit trading amongst Chinese investors.

  " As for whether there will be more regulative measures, we will certainly need to wait on orders from the higher authorities." Excerpts from an interview with group leader of the China's Public Details Network Protection Supervision company under the Ministry of Public Protection, 28th February.

  WHY WHY WHY!?

  Picture your youngster spending his/her financial savings to purchase an electronic product (in this instance, cryptocurrency) that he or she has no other way of verifying its authenticity and also value. She or he might obtain lucky and also strike it rich, or lose it all when the crypto-bubble burst. Currently scale that to millions of Chinese residents and also we are speaking about billions of Chinese Yuan.

Dennis Kasukawa

The marketplace has lots of scams and meaningless ICOs. (I'm sure you have listened to news of people sending coins to random addresses with the promise of increasing their financial investments and ICOs that just do not make good sense). Several unsavvy financiers are in it for the money as well as would certainly care less regarding the modern technology and also technology behind it. The worth of numerous cryptocurrencies is derived from market speculation. Throughout the crypto-boom in 2017, join any type of ICO with either a renowned consultant onboard, an encouraging team or a good hype and you are ensured a minimum of 3X your investments.

  An absence of understanding of the company and the technology behind it, combined with the expansion of ICOs, is a dish for disaster. Members of the Reserve bank reports that virtually 90% of the ICOs are deceptive or involves unlawful fundraising. In my opinion, the Chinese federal government wants to make sure that cryptocurrency stays 'manageable' and not also big to fail within the Chinese area. China is taking the right actions towards a more secure, much more controlled cryptocurrency globe, albeit aggressive as well as questionable. As a matter of fact, it might be the best move the nation has absorbed decades.

  Will China release a demand and make cryptocurrency prohibited? I extremely doubt so since it is pretty pointless to do so. Currently, financial institutions are outlawed from holding any kind of crypto properties while people are permitted to however are disallowed from executing any type of types of trading.

  A State-run Cryptocurrency Exchange?

  At the yearly "2 Sessions" (Called due to the fact that 2 significant parties- National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Meeting (CPCC) both take part in the forumï 1/4 hung on the very first week of March, leaders gather to review regarding the most up to date problems and also make necessary law changes.

  Wang Pengjie, a participant of the NPCC messed around right into the potential customers of a state-run digital possession trading platform along with initiate educational projects on blockchain and cryptocurrency in China. Nevertheless, the suggested system would certainly require an authenticated account to allow trading.

  " With the facility of related policies and also the co-operation of individuals's Financial institution of China (PBoC) and China Securities Regulatory Commission( CSRC), a controlled and effective cryptocurrency exchange system would certainly serve as a formal means for companies to raise funds (through ICOs) and also capitalists to hold their digital possessions as well as attain resources admiration" Passages of Wang Pengjie discussion at the Two Procedure.

  The March towards a Blockchain Nation.

  Governments and also central banks worldwide have actually struggled to come to grips with the boosting popularity of cryptocurrencies; however one thing makes certain, all have actually accepted blockchain.

  Regardless of the cryptocurrency suppression, blockchain has been obtaining appeal and also adoption in numerous levels. The Chinese government have been supporting blockchain efforts as well as welcoming the innovation. As a matter of fact, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) have actually been servicing a digital currency as well as have performed mock purchases with several of the country's business financial institutions. It is still unconfirmed if the electronic money will certainly be decentralized and offer attributes of cryptocurrency like privacy and immutability. It would not come as a shock if it ends up being just a digital Chinese Yuan given that anonymity is the last point that China wants in their country. Nonetheless, created as a close replacement of the Chinese Yuan, the digital currency will certainly be subjected to existing financial policies as well as legislations.

  Individuals's Bank of China Guv, Zhou Xiaochuan. Source: CNBC.

  " Great deals of cryptocurrencies have seen explosive growth which can bring significant adverse influence on consumers and retail financiers. We don't like (cryptocurrency) items that use the huge chance for speculation that gives individuals the illusion of obtaining abundant overnight" Passages from Zhou Xiaochuan meeting on Friday, 9th March.

  On a media appearance on Friday, 9th March, Governor of Individuals's Financial institution of China, Zhou Xiaochuan criticized cryptocurrency jobs that leveraged on the crypto-boom to cash in as well as gas market conjecture. He likewise kept in mind that growth of the digital money is 'highly unpreventable'.

  On a regional degree, several Chinese cities have are driving blockchain initiatives to promote growth in their region. Hangzhou, renown for being the head office of Alibaba, have stated blockchain modern technology to be one of the city's top priorities in 2018. The local government in Chengdu city have actually additionally been suggested the building of an incubation facility to cultivate the adoption of blockchain innovation in the city's monetary solutions.

  Regional empires such Tencent as well as Alibaba have actually additionally formed partnership with blockchain companies or launched jobs on their own. Blockchain firms such as VeChain have actually likewise protected several collaborations with Chinese companies to improve supply chain openness in China.

  All clues indicate the fact that China is functioning towards a blockchain nation. China has constantly had a open attitude to rising innovations such as mobile repayment as well as Expert system. Henceforth, it is without a doubt that China will be the initial blockchain-enabled country. Will we see the Chinese federal government backing down and also let its citizens trade once more? Probably, when the market has actually developed and is less volatile but most definitely not in 2018.

[andrewdburton]

When to follow the rules — and when to break them

Last night's recipe from HelloFresh was Bulgogi Pork Tenderloin. As always, the instructions were clear and easy to follow. As always, it took me about twice as long to prep things as the recipe card said they would.

I chopped the vegetables, boiled the rice, seared the meat, made the sauce. But when I reached the final step — “finish and serve” — I hit a wall of sorts.

“Ugh,” I said to Kim, who was playing with our three cats and one dog simultaneously. “The recipe calls for a tablespoon of butter in the rice. I hate adding butter to rice. It makes it gummy and gross. But HelloFresh always wants me to do it.”

“I like butter in my rice,” Kim said, throwing a bacon ball for the dog while kicking a catnip toy for the cats. “But if you don't like it, don't add it.”

I sighed. Of course, she was right: Just don't add the butter! Such an obvious solution, right? Yes — and no.

You see, I am fundamentally a Rule Follower. When I'm cooking, I follow the recipe exactly. When I'm building an IKEA desk for my new office, I follow the instructions exactly. On the road, I generally stick to the speed limit (which sometimes drives Kim nuts). I used to take pride that never once did I cheat on my homework or tests in high school and college — and I never helped anyone else cheat either.

As I said: I am, fundamentally, a Rule Follower.

This has been true when it comes to managing my money too. Since beginning my quest to become the CFO of my own life fifteen years ago, I've surrendered to wiser minds than mine. I tend to heed the time-tested “rules of money”, rules like:

When average people like me are wondering how to invest, the best answer is usually “set up automatic contributions to an index fund”.

When setting up a budget, it's more important to pay attention to the Big Picture than it is to fret over details. Follow the balanced money formula and you should do okay.

When you want to get out of debt, use the debt snowball method. If possible, pay high-interest debts first. Many folks (including me) have more success, though, if they pay off low-balance debts first. And still others use a debt snowball approach in which they start by tackling the debts with the greatest emotional weight.

If you're going to use them, know how to use credit cards wisely. If you're unable to use credit without digging yourself into debt, then throw away the “shovel”.

And so on.

Following these rules has proved profitable. These “rules” are rules for a reason. Because they work. They allow folks to get out of debt and build wealth. Crazy, right?

Here's the thing, though. As effective as these financial rules have been for me, as much as I like strictly following a recipe, I've also come to realize that sometimes it makes sense to (gasp!) break the rules.

The challenge, then, is determining when to follow the rules — and when to break them.

Chesterton's Fence

Some people chafe at rules. They instinctively want to rebel against them. My old friend Sparky, for instance, never met a rule he didn't want to break. It was just part of who he was.

From my experience, though, rules generally exist for a reason. They're not arbitrary creations meant to frustrate and hamstring people. Rules are an attempt to create order and help life run more smoothly. Sometimes, though, people and institutions evolve. Old rules that once proved useful become outdated and ought to be discarded. But it's dangerous to mindlessly break rules (or to discard them).

G.K. Chesterton's 1929 book The Thing includes an essay entitled “The Drift from Domesticity”. While I haven't read the entire essay, I'm fond of the intro, which describes the danger of discarding rules without careful consideration:

In the matter of reforming things…there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox.

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.”

To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense.

The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.

It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.

[…]

This principle applies to a thousand things, to trifles as well as true institutions, to convention as well as to conviction.

I learned about this concept — colloquially referred to as “Chesterton's Fence” — last March from a GRS reader named Marc. “With an old house,” he wrote, “I have found the principle of Chesterton’s Fence to be invaluable. When renovating or repairing never rip something out if you don’t understand why it is there.”

In the nine months since I first heard about this idea, I've thought about it often. I think it's important. It applies to many aspects of our lives. And it's directly applicable to the question of when to follow rules and when to ignore them.

From Amateur Spectator to Expert Producer

Earlier this week, David Wells (who runs the excellent Fifteen on Friday email newsletter) published an article on the four steps to expertise and meaningful contribution. These steps seem like a natural fit for a discussion of knowing when to follow (and when to break) rules.

According to Wells, there are four steps to moving from a “spectator” to a “producer”.

The first step is becoming an “amateur spectator”. At this stage, you're new to whatever it is you're experiencing. You don't know the rules, but you're able to enjoy the process. This is me when watching cricket. I have zero clue what is going on, but I'm entertained by the sport.

The second step is becoming an “expert spectator”. Here, you do understand the rules. More than that, you know why the rules exist and how they influence whatever it is you're experiencing. I'd say I'm close to being an expert spectator when it comes to film. I have an appreciation for film history, and I've read a lot (and watched a lot) about how films are made. This helps me appreciate the movies I see, but I couldn't make one of my own.

The third step is becoming an “amateur producer”. (Wells calls this an “amateur professional”, but I think he actually means producer.) At this level, you have enough knowledge of your subject, of its rules and conventions, that you can participate and create. An amateur producer, Wells writes, “is not someone who just undersands that something happened, but can explain to you why it did.” I'm an amateur producer when it comes to photography. I know the hows and whys of writing with light, and have even sold a few photos.

The final step is becoming an “expert producer” (or “expert professional”). Wells writes, “At this level, you not only understand why something works, but you are able to deploy various tools to accomplish a desired end.” I like to believe — although you might argue the point — that I am an expert writer. (Or, at any rate, an expert blogger.)

Here's the thing to note about these four stages of expertise. Folks at lower levels ought not break the rules. Hell, folks at the first level don't even know the rules. As you become more aware of the rules (and the reasons for them), you're able to actually create within this set of guidelines. At the very highest level — as an expert producer — you can, at times, break the rules.

And I'd argue that those at the very top can sometimes write their own rules. To wit:

LeBron got away with one ? pic.twitter.com/Uv4uMKKcDi

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 5, 2019

Let's return to Chesterton's fence for a moment. I believe that Chesterton is arguing that if you're an amateur spectator, you have no right to ask for the metaphorical fence to be removed. As an expert spectator, you at least appreciate why the fence exists, but you probably shouldn't be the one to remove it. Only if you're a producer — and preferably an expert producer — should you actually remove the fence.

Once, about 25 years ago, I decided to bake some brownies. Although my wife was an expert baker (and a chemistry teacher to boot!), I was not. As I mixed the ingredients, I realized that we were out of baking soda. “No worries,” I thought. “We have baking powder. I'll just use that.”

My brownies were a disaster. They didn't rise. Turns out you can sub one for the other, but you have to know what you're doing. It's not a one for one equation. I didn't have a clue why this “fence” existed — I was an amateur spectator in the kitchen — and I paid the price with bad brownies.

Obviously, some “fences” (and some rules) are more important than others. When I don't follow a brownie recipe correctly, there are no real consequences other than losing a small amount of time and money. But if you were to, say, disregard the rules for operating a nuclear power plant, you could end up with the Chernobyl disaster.

When you're dealing with trivial matters, it's less important that you follow the rules. When you're dealing with larger issues — marriage, firearms, vehicles, politics — knowing the rules and adhering to them becomes more critical.

Learning to Break the Rules

Now, there's no doubt that sometimes a fence — or a rule or a guideline — outlives its usefulness. Sometimes when a person complains that a fence serves no purpose, she's right. And sometimes, as in the case of recipes or financial rules of thumb, it's okay to stray from the path — if you know why you're straying.

Let's use that Chesterton passage above as an example. The quote I published in this article has been altered. The original was a wall of text, two ginormous paragraphs with odd punctuation. This worked fine in 1929 when Chesterton published the piece. It does not work so well in 2019 when people are reading on computer screens.

So, I took the liberty of re-formatting the quote to make it more readable for modern eyes. A minor thing, perhaps, but it's still a case of me altering Chesterton's Fence. (Literally!)

Actually, I can think of many examples of how I break the rules of writing. I didn't always do this. In fact, I used to be a strict prescriptive grammarian. I believed that the rules of writing were immutable and ought to be learned and followed.

Today, I don't see grammar rules as black and white. After decades as a writer, and after working with professional editors for the past ten years, I've come to understand that the purpose of writing is effective communication. Our grammar rules are useful guidelines because they tend to promote effective communication, but once you know them (and know why they exist), it's okay to break them.

Last night's dinner is another great example. Over the year that I've been using HelloFresh, I've followed their directions for rice many times. I know how they want me to make it — and why. In that time, I've learned one very important thing: I don't like the tablespoon of butter they ask me to add at the end. It serves no functional purpose. Kim likes the taste; I don't. (And I hate the texture.) Because I understand how the rice is prepared, it's okay for me to omit the butter.

My clam chowder is an even better example. My source was a recipe published in the November 2000 issue of Bon Appétit magazine. I've probably made this chowder fifty times since I first discovered it. At first, I was slavish to the recipe. (I'm a Rule Follower!) In time, I began to experiment.

What happens if I add more bacon? (Deliciousness!)

What happens if I add more garlic? (Deliciousness! But too much garlic makes things worse…)

What about more onions or clams or potatoes? (More onions are good, but the potato ratio depends on the amount of liquid I use.)

What if I use Yukon Gold potatoes instead of russets? (Gross! Yukon Gold potatoes are awful in chowder.)

Today, nearly twenty years since I first made the chowder, the recipe I use is mostly my own. I started by following the instructions exactly. At the time, I was a clam chowder “spectator”. Eventually, I gained the confidence to “break the rules”, to adapt things to my own preferences. As I gained competence, as I became an “expert producer” of clam chowder, I could play with the recipe.

When to Break the Rules

Breaking the rules can lead to innovation. Breaking the rules can let you build a life that is truly your own. Breaking the rules can produce better clam chowder. But in order to break the rules, you have to understand them. More than that, you have to know why the rules exist.

“Learn the rules like a pro,” painter Pablo Picasso is reported to have said, “so you can break them like an artist.”

I think it's also vital to ask yourself a few questions, such as:

Why do you want to break this rule? What purpose does it serve? Is it simply out of laziness? Or will breaking the rule potentially lead to some useful reward? Driving on the shoulder because you're inconvenienced by slow traffic is not a valid reason to break the law. But adding bacon to clam chowder because it's delicious is a good reason to change things up.

What are the consequences of breaking the rule? Will it harm anyone else? Will it harm you? Take the Balanced Money Forumla, which says that you shouldn't spend more than half of your take-home pay on Needs. If you do, you put yourself in a precarious financial position. You could really hurt yourself (and your family) if something goes wrong. On the other hand, you're not going to hurt anyone by jaywalking on an empty street at midnight.

For some rules — office rules, personal rules, family rules — it's useful to ask what the new rule will be if you break (or change) the old one. If you decide to withdraw from your retirement accounts to fund a purchase — a financial rule I don't suggest breaking — is this a one-time thing? When will you allow yourself to do the same thing in the future? How will you replace those funds?

It's not bad to follow the rules. In fact, as a Rule Follower, I think it's generally a smart thing to do. When you follow the rules, you usually get good results.

Twenty years ago, I didn't understand the rules of money. I was violating the rules without even realizing it. As a result, I was deep in debt and living paycheck to paycheck.

In 2004, I surrendered to the idea that what I was doing wasn't working. I was playing the game without understanding the rules. As a result, I was losing and I knew it. So, I decided to teach myself how money works. I learned the rules. More to the point, I started following the rules. Surprise! My financial life improved. (In a way, this is what's happening with my friends Wally and Jodie. It's fun to watch them learn the rules of money — and to start winning the game.)

All the same, sometimes it pays to break the rules — if you do so wisely.

Credit cards are dangerous, yes, and ought to be avoided if they're going to lead you into debt. That's a solid rule. But if you're disciplined and sophisticated, you can use credit cards as tools to unlock all sorts of rewards.

And in a way, the modern FIRE movement — that group of folks who wants to achieve financial independence and retire early — is built on “breaking” the rules of retirement. The folks who pursue FIRE not only understand the “rules” of money, but understand why those rules exist. And because of this, they're able to re-write the rules to achieve something truly remarkable.

The post When to follow the rules — and when to break them appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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[fashionoutfit6]

3 Fundamental Actions To Top ESSAY Posting English

3 Fundamental Actions To Top ESSAY Posting English

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