#so if I could do that more consistently and with less need for constant pivots that could be something

[arolesbianism]

Oh and to be clear with my beastieball team building I have gone into the game basically completely blind so I am just working off of what I've seen within the game for hypothetical team building

[sepublic]

The Golden Guard: Eda’s Dark Parallel?

           Does anyone else think that the Golden Guard actually reminds Lilith a LOT of Eda, specifically Eda as a kid, during the good old days before she got cursed?

           Think about it… They’re both sassy, hot-headed teen prodigies with an owl motif and yellow attire. And the way Lilith angrily talks about the Golden Guard, it seems her feelings of resentment mirror how she felt towards Eda back when they were kids? Lilith, who was by-the-book and traditional, worked so hard… And then there’s this younger person with an Owl motif who just swoops in out of nowhere and through talent, completely outclasses her!

           If you go with the idea that Lilith wanted Gwendolyn’s approval and had to compete with Eda over that… Then for all we know, maybe Lilith lowkey wanted Belos’ approval as well, but felt like she was being cheated out of that with the Golden Guard, who kept stealing the spotlight from her! 

          Like she was afraid he’d take her spot as head of the Emperor’s Coven, the way Lilith feared that Eda would win the initiation duel back when they were kids… And lo and behold, the Golden Guard DID take that! Granted Lilith left an obvious vacancy from her own betrayal of Belos so of course he took that spot, but still; It’s quite a sore spot.

           In some ways, perhaps Lilith is aware of this, deep-down or not; She might see the Golden Guard as just Young Eda, but without any of the emotional connection, nor any redeeming qualities; If he does have them, again, it’s not like Lilith knows the Golden Guard well enough to know these traits, much less take them into account.

           LOTS of text and speculation and analyses below!!!

           The Golden Guard is even sixteen years old… Which, is very likely EDA’s age, back when her and Lilith competed for the Emperor’s Coven! That can take on a whole new, dark meaning for her… 

          Perhaps Lilith is low-key disturbed by the Golden Guard’s existence, because he reminds her too much of Young Eda? Eda, before she was cursed- So it’s like the memory of her is coming back to haunt Lilith, in the form of someone who has no concern for Lilith whatsoever to hold him back, unlike the actual Eda.

           And in a way, it’s a horrible reminder that some things never change, that some things stay the same and Lilith can’t get past them, she can’t outgrow it like she thought she did; Because even now, even as head of the Emperor’s Coven, there’s still a 16-year-old prodigy with an owl motif and yellow attire, who is sassy and playful and mischievous, who threatens to upstage Lilith’s self-esteem and sense of power. Somebody Lilith is afraid of; Thirty years later, and she STILL has to deal with this kind of person in her life, but it’s worse because she’s actually older and should be better, yet somehow isn’t…

           Who knows? Maybe Lilith even recognized the similarities to Eda, enough to actually be sympathetic to the Golden Guard at first? Perhaps she, on some level, saw the Golden Guard as a way to vicariously redo her past with Eda, but without the mistakes… Maybe she tried to be nice to the Golden Guard, but then he quickly turned out to be a snob, he’s not REALLY Eda; So Lilith settled on never cursing him like she did Eda, but then otherwise decided that she didn’t owe him any love and could just quietly loathe his guts.

          Lilith failed Eda in part because she was an older sister who abandoned her in a time of need, but there’s not really that expectation with the Golden Guard, so why bother? She’s got enough on her plate as is, and an ACTUAL Eda to worry about, to look after, to be concerned for and patch things up with.

           I’ve even seen people make the very good point that in a lot of ways… The Golden Guard is like a Dark Eda? In the sense that, he’s Eda, had she joined the Emperor’s Coven as a kid. He’s a look at Young Eda, if she didn’t reject the Coven System, and joined Belos- Reveling in her own talent and power as granting her ‘special treatment’ over the rest, so any downsides to the coven system weren’t HER problem anyway!

           Again, this adds another layer to the Golden Guard being very reminiscent of Young Eda, and even current Eda as well… Except, he never lost his magic and was never cursed. Maybe that’s another thing he unknowingly haunts Lilith over; He’s lowkey a reminder of what Eda could’ve been, had Lilith not been selfish and a coward, or had she communicated better. Yet at the same time, he’s frustrating- Because the Golden Guard is like the worst parts of Eda, the parts that Lilith hated and made her resentful…

           And this constant reminder of the past, of her own issues with Eda back then that culminated in the curse- It could’ve made it a LOT harder for Lilith to really resolve things with Eda, because this kid keeps reminding her why she was so angry, and it’s impossible for her to move on because the Golden Guard isn’t some distant memory, but an actual person who continues to threaten her, the way Eda had…

          And of course, the Golden Guard reminds Lilith of the Eda she lost; The happy, carefree Eda who wasn’t cursed, the Eda she could’ve had in a sense. The Eda that Lilith in some ways wanted, yet is forced to confront and acknowledge is a very obnoxious and terrible person that makes her unhappy…

          And this kind of rude reminder that the Eda that Lilith wanted would’ve continued to make her miserable, if not moreso, is not something she appreciates shattering her dreams and low-key denial, of a world where things had just been a little different.

          The person you’re trying to get, maybe get BACK, wasn’t so great after all- So you just have to move on, and be glad for the Eda who IS happier with her life and more mature, despite being older and more cursed. You gotta move past your guilt Lilith, and realize that Eda is in a better place- Not that she ever needed the curse, but she doesn’t quite need saving from the parts of her life she actually chose for herself, in part to be kind to Lilith no less! Because I bet Lilith believes that deep down, she didn’t deserve Eda’s kindness, so she wishes to reverse that compassionate decision of Eda’s that only resulted in Eda suffering because of how terrible Lily secretly is.

           But, back to the subject; There’s more similarities to Eda and the Golden Guard, especially at the end of Separate Tides; How he makes an ominous warning before casually, happily yelling “BYYEEEE!!!”, just like Eda when she warns Luz about trying to have a Moonlight Conjuring in Hooty’s Moving Hassle, before heading off to the Night Market. His widow’s peak even bears a decent resemblance to Eda’s, doesn’t it? Which…

           Combined with all of the talk about bird motifs being a Clawthorne thing, it DOES raise many questions about the Golden Guard’s potential connection to Eda. Is he some long-lost son? A third child that Gwendolyn had later in life, because witch biology might allow them to do that? Some homunculus, crafted from bits of DNA from Eda, and maybe even Belos? Belos does seem weirdly fond and trusting of him, the two are placed together in the Season 2 outro when nobody else, not even Kikimora, is there; And of course, the Golden Guard wields a staff, red magic, and fleshy creations, VERY similar to Belos…

           I can’t say for sure- But the idea of the Golden Guard as an alternate Eda is fascinating. An Eda who became completely arrogant, and didn’t stop to care about others; Her cockiness and mischief becoming cruel and obnoxious, essentially the worst parts of Eda, down the path she’d always dreaded. A look into another life, a different choice in such a pivotal part of her past… Personally, I LOVE this kind of dark parallel of a character, so I’m hoping these similarities are commented upon in-universe, assuming they’re not outright literal!

           In a way, the Golden Guard could haunt Eda, because he reminds her of herself… Of her carefree youth, but what she could’ve had… But also, the terrible things she’d done. And obviously Eda despises the coven system too much to really change her mind, and it’s safe to say that the Golden Guard is not at all what she wanted to ever become… But still, it’s a neat bit of character writing and parallelism. If Belos is like a Dark Luz, what Luz could’ve been had she not grown… And the same could apply between King and Kikimora;

           Then who knows? The Golden Guard could be a Dark Eda, who got by talent and continued to take things for granted. An Eda who swore loyalty to Belos and was embraced by the emperor for her skill and ability. Jovial and cheery, but without any of the actual compassion that makes this genuine with Eda. An immature brat who never grew up (granted he’s only sixteen and hasn’t gotten the chance), unlike Eda. And if the Golden Guard is an alternate Eda;

           It’s fascinating how his roles are reversed with his alternate Luz… The Eda parallel is younger than the Luz parallel, learning from them, and taking after their motifs as well! But I guess it’s not all too surprising, with how Eda and Luz both learn from one another, though I suspect Belos and the Golden Guard aren’t as mutual, but who knows? 

          It does make you wonder about Kikimora and King as potential mediators between these duos, whose placement remains consistent… How does Kikimora, the King parallel, interact with her Luz and Eda? Did she become close friends with HER Luz, while, as Dana’s art suggests, she seems somewhat irritated by and resentful of her own Eda? So it’s like Eda and King never grew to be friends and conquer differences… As well as if King never grew to respect Luz and saw her as just a “f*cking nerd”?

           With how Luz is taking after Eda, and possibly getting a Cardinal palisman to complete the Clawthorne motif as a new member of the family… Who knows? The Golden Guard could be an intriguing character for her to bounce off of narratively, maybe as someone Luz might have, in another universe, learned to look up to and admire? How well Luz’s relationship be with the Golden Guard, if they are a Dark Eda? And how can this indirectly show us about how Luz and Young Eda would’ve interacted, what Young Eda was like, what Lilith went through as a kid…

           And, for all we know- The Golden Guard’s owl motif doesn’t hint at a pre-existing connection to the Clawthornes, but rather a future one… Maybe he’ll end up being adopted by Eda, the way Luz was? I’d love to see the Golden Guard become an evil older sibling who’s protective of Luz… 

          I ADORE that trope to death; Evil older brother with bright, younger sister, whom he cares about, and the sister cares for him too, even if it’s complicated because the sister believes in the brother to be better, while the brother doesn’t want to be better, or is at least reluctant about having to change…

           I’d love to see another Hugo and Kipo dynamic, and actually… If the Golden Guard parallels Eda, then who’s his Lilith? Could it be Luz herself? I’ve talked before the similarities between Luz and Lilith, as kids who were bullied and struggled with a lack of talent, but made up for it with hard work and ingenuity; They’ll give you a lot of trouble for doing the right thing, but then happily leap at the opportunity if they think someone is improving.

           And, as Separate Tides has also shown us; They both grapple with guilt over making Eda suffer, unintentionally to varying degrees. Luz and Lilith both learn that they’re not a burden and that it’s okay to ask for help, and come to terms with their guilt with Eda… If Belos and the Golden Guard are Luz and Eda reversed, then could Luz and the Golden Guard also be Lilith and Luz, reversed?

          With the Eda parallel being the older sibling in this scenario… An alternate timeline where Eda and Lilith were the same people, but switched places in birth, and it was EDA who ended up being the cruel and toxic sibling who left the younger feeling demeaned and worthless. I imagine if that were the case, the Golden Guard’s toxicity would occur largely in the beginning, as he acts adversarial to Luz and mocks her, taunts her over Eda’s loss of magic, and her own glyphs no doubt; The Golden Guard doesn’t seem to acknowledge glyphs as a valid form of magic himself.

           But then, if he were to get a redemption, the Golden Guard’s tune might change as he matures and learns to treat Luz more kindly… In a way mimicking how Eda really grew to care for Luz, but also the way Eda has begun to reconnect with Lilith, except with the Golden Guard as the one with the baggage and guilt.

           And, a redemption might not be too implausible, because… He is literally only sixteen, the same age as Emira and Edric, and likely the same age as Eda when SHE was cursed. Younger than Lilith, when she made the worst mistake of her life, because she didn’t understand the coven system for what it truly was –and who could blame her?- and was grappling with a likely terrible mother in Gwendolyn… The Golden Guard is literally a minor, and possibly an overworked teen prodigy.

           After all, the first glimpse of his personality Dana gave us, way back in 2020, was of the Golden Guard admitting that he was tired; And despite his usually cheery personality, all of our glimpses at his face behind the mask (symbolism!) have had him look likely serious and glum… But then again, we don’t see the lower half of his face, so who knows? 

          Perhaps the Golden Guard is abused and overworked by Belos, kind of like Amity with her parents… The Golden Guard is a child dealing with a very toxic influence, and a huge burden of responsibility no less. And with all the potential connections to Belos as maybe even a literal father, or at least a parental figure, it’s not hard to see why the Golden Guard would turn out so messed up. And the Golden Guard being ‘tired’ could be a connection to how Eda is left exhausted from her curse, too.

           So, who knows? Because of his age, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect, or at least hope, for a redemption for this kiddo. But a recent sister show to The Owl House has taught me anything, kids aren’t free from death, and Infinity Train made it clear that you can humanize and sympathize and mourn someone who deserved better, yet ultimately dug their grave and was condemned to a sudden death because of that; All because they didn’t know any better, and really couldn’t have.

           And on another note- Maybe the Golden Guard has owl motifs like Eda… Because in a lot of ways, he actually admires her? He admires the Owl Lady, or at least the certain ‘past’ version that others such as Lilith may have brought up… Maybe the Golden Guard seeks to supplant Eda the Owl Lady as The Most Powerful Witch in the Boiling Isles. Maybe he sees himself as Eda, but better, and this rebellious, hot-headed kid feels the need to prove himself by defeating someone he sees himself in.

           Maybe the Golden Guard is like Lilith, as someone who wishes Eda could’ve joined the coven system, and he’s disappointed in how all her talent was ‘wasted’ on other things. Maybe the Golden Guard was disappointed in Eda losing her magic, losing further respect for his ‘problematic idol’, and/or he felt some validation and vindication in being a successor to Eda. 

          Does he hold some grudge? Did the Owl Lady’s power excite him, give the Golden Guard a goal to recklessly challenge and defeat, so he can experience the thrill of victory and add to this feeling of invincibility that teenagers, especially the talented ones, have?

           Eda as a kid, and even now, has always been fond of spiting what others say she can’t do, or setting new precedents and accomplishments to prove herself. Maybe the Golden Guard is like that, and hopes to take on the onus of outdoing the Owl Lady; Perhaps he admires Eda, and wishes she could’ve joined a coven like him. As an outside admirer, he mourns Eda’s ‘potential’ in a way similar to Lilith, but different; Because he’s a kid who looks up to her, and not an older sibling that has an actual childhood with Eda. If so, then that’s another dark parallel to Luz;

           After all, Luz got frustrated by Eda in Adventures in the Elements. So maybe the Golden Guard is someone who grew resentful of Eda for not living up to the legend he hoped, the image he wanted, sort of like Lilith! I’ll go out on a limb and even suggest him as a past apprentice, who unlike Luz, never learned to be patient and appreciate Eda’s teachings, so he turned to the coven system and Belos for easy gratification. He didn’t want to be challenged… And in that way, the Golden Guard could parallel my speculation on Belos, as also a Dark Luz.

          So of course, it makes sense that Belos would recognize this same dilemma in the Golden Guard, and perhaps be sympathetic and take him under his wing for it. Eda might not recognize the Golden Guard because he’s changed a bit himself, is hiding his own identity –Lilith doesn’t seem to know much about the witch beneath the mask either, just the public image and façade- and Eda’s been having memory issues. Maybe this will add to the Golden Guard’s resentment, who knows? He really might just be a rebellious teen who Eda failed, unlike with Luz… And that could add to more envy, perhaps.

           At the very least; Dana’s fondness for the Golden Guard takes on a whole new meaning… What with how Eda is pretty much one of, if not THE most favorite character of hers, the one who really jumpstarted this entire show and world to begin with… Having this other character she likes essentially be a canon AU version of that beloved creation, would certainly make a lot of sense! Dana likes Eda, she likes to show us about Young Eda; So a character who IS Young Eda, just on a different path, would likely appeal to her. We’ll see…

           I think it’s worth noting that in her art of the Golden Guard, it depicts him as essentially a normal, lazy teenager who’s asking someone else to do his chore for him, while he lounges around to do something else. I could see a young Eda as occasionally fulfilling that role and asking her older sister Lily for a favor- And maybe this could allude to the Golden Guard being frequently exhausted from being overworked himself, hence “I’m tired” and wanting to extend his breaks as much as possible. We’ll just have to wait and see…

[siriusmydeer]

hello love, i was wondering if you could do a james potter x slythering fem!reader? one where she is working so hard on getting her life together. she is trying to be different than her family and working so hard but it is getting to her. she feels like she is failing and every turn she takes is a dead end. she feels like there is no purpose to what she’s doing. i think some super fluff is required, like james boosting her up and loving her. plzzzzz & thx

his slytherin

james potter x slytherin!fem!reader

summary: when you overwork yourself james is there to save the day.

word count: 2.4k

warnings: mentions of insomnia, mentions of sleep deprivation, mentions of not eating, mentions of over working yourself, angst, sad!james, house stereotypes, bad grades, implications of smut, WOLFSTAR😍, mentions of food, a breakdown, THERES FLUFF I PROMISE

seventh year was quite literally, a mess. maybe not for others, finally done school or they were super excited to travel around the world seeing things they’ve never seen before. you’re dream had consisted of constant studying, and working that barely made any time for yourself.

for the prior three years you had studied and practiced with madam pomfrey in the healers wing to eventually become a healer yourself, and it took a lot more than you thought it anticipated.

you knew as a healer, later in life you would have to deal with artefact accidents, dementor attacks, creature-induced injuries, magical bugs, potion and plant poisoning, dragon trainers with injuries, and incredulous spell damage.

with that you had to be prepared, which meant more time hitting the books and less time spending your final year at hogwarts with your best friends and your staggering boyfriend.

(hahah u see what i did there?)

james had qued in on your restless nights by gazing across at you in the great hall. the colour of emerald green becoming frequent in his life now; surprisingly to everyone else. where you were sat at the slytherin table, your eyebags already deepening by the day and your nose buried in some sort of school book.

the thought of even being like your family, made you nauseous. you didn’t want to be like your strict, immoral family, the death eaters, the murderers, and the ministry officials. who worked like machines without feelings or care.

as a slytherin born into a pureblood family those were the expectations that were almost nailed into your back like a sign said, ‘here’s the pureblood slytherin, shame her even though you don’t know her!!’

of course those were the stereotypes, ones that had been built on for centuries since salazar slytherin himself. that you of all people had to inherit. so you had to fall, and rebuild yourself entirely for even a chance. the restless nights, insomnia, caffeine and studying was your way of rebuilding.

of course that had an effect on your grades, not sleeping, not eating and barely focusing made your grades tremble a great deal to the point where professor slughorn got concerned by his best potions makers, recent poors in his class.

you were too focused on being better that you couldn’t even focus on your own well-being, that you couldn’t even see you were hurting yourself on the people around you. almost self isolating yourself from everyone entirely.

“darling?” james whispered, his body sitting across from yours at one of the mahogany tables in the library. pince set him a warning glare not to cause any mischief as she turned around.

“hmm?” you mumbled, barely acknowledging his prescence and continuing to read your defence against the dark arts textbook, something about the ‘chameleon ghoul.’

he had barely seen you all week, and when he did he saw your agonized face scrunched up in a book and your mauve dark circles that rested below your eyes clear as day.

“why don’t you take a break, dear? have a rest, you’ve been working non-stop. ve’barely seen you.” he murmured the last bit, embarrassed for feeling ‘needy.’

“can’t jamie, newts are soon i need to be prepared.” you looked up in his direction for a moment, barely catching his saddened eyes through his spectacles at your denial of his request to finally see his girlfriend.

if this were two maybe three years ago, james would not be caught dead having a conversation with a slytherin, let alone a relationship with one. the stereotypes blinding his vision for along time before he could see what was truly in-front of him.

i mean the gryffindor pride genetically ran through his veins as he was born into the etiquette pureblood-gryffindor family himself. it was almost destined for the both of you to be corporeal enemies.

but... something about your altruistic and considerate attributes subtly changed his mind. thanking merlin, and horhace slughorn for pairing the both of you in potions in fourth year. there was always something about the way you were so gentle and benevolent with him in potions class might’ve flipped a switch in his mind.

“right then... see you later?” he muttered disappointed in himself, you work so hard to prove yourself meanwhile he didn’t even have a glare in his way because he was the perfect headboy gryffindor student; with absolutely no judgements thrown his way despite his actions towards others in previous years.

“dunno, i’m studying.” you replied, your voice monotone and dull almost raspy from barely using your voice unless answering questions in class to almost being a know-it-all and pushing yourself to the tops of all your classes.

he got up from his chair, it scraping against the floor as he walked to the exit almost like a dog with its tail between his legs. he just got so mopey by your dejected less merry self. he had to do something, he had to make you understand that being a slytherin wasn’t just you.

it was a part of you sure, but ambitious just meant you strived for your goals and you were cunning which showed your amplified skill.

that didn’t mean you were— evil? being a proud reckless gryffindor was one in his heart but nobody ever thought he was malicious.

so, james fleamont potter did the only logical thing he could think of; going to his bestfriends for help. of course at first they were not over the moon glowing in delight when they found out he was dating a slytherin, especially sirius.

but that was expected, his family being his only views on how a pureblood slytherin acted only projected onto you. giving you almost a conscientious reason to work, the thought of someone james felt was his brother perceiving you as despicable only made you pursue your self judgements.

but after your book swaps with remus, you and peters athrimancy study sessions and music bonding with sirius they grew quite fond of your personality and thought that you were due with a chance with the marauders.

“moony, i need help.” he spoke desperately as remus’ face was also buried in a book, except out of his own free will.

“james needs my help? hear that sirius? prongs needs my help.” he declared proudly as the brown-haired gryffindor groaned crossing his arms.

“it’s y/n.” he mentioned, glancing in sirius’ direction before sitting on the vermillion love seat across from the fawn haired boy.

“what about her?” remus was more-so confused, what would be so wrong with you that james had to ask him for help?

“she’s suffocating herself, the books, the studying, not sleeping, not eating, nothing. i dunno what to do anymore remus, she’s so pent up on wanting people to stop looking at her like she’s heinous she’s working herself to death!” he ranted, all his anger and agitation spilling out in one fast-paced sentence that james needed to catch his breath by the end of.

“i just dunno how to make her catch a breath, take a break. what do i do?” james panted, looking at his mates for an answer.

“imperious curse?” sirius proposed, a bad proposal but his intentions were... thoughtful. “yeah let me go use an unforgivable curse on my girlfriend so she can have a study break. no thank you, next.” james sarcastically humoured him, james didn’t want to compromise your education or use an unforgivable curse on you for that matter but you looked so incredibly burnt out he didn’t know how to help you.

“body-bind curse? so she’s like.... forced to stop?” peter suggested, looking up from his transfiguration essay catching onto the conversation as he twirled his quill between his fingers.

“or, y’know something actually logical you could do is take her books. get her lavender tea or something, let her talk.” remus finally spoke, shrugging then looking at the ‘lord of the flies’ book in his hands a smirk lying on his face knowing that would he james lucky choice.

“moony, you genius! i could kiss you!” james hopped up from his seat, on his way back to the library.

“oi! i’m the only one he’s going to be kissing, prongs!” sirius yelped as james walked out of the portrait hole with a distant chortle.

on his way to the library, where you were previously seated, james made a stop to the kitchen to grab a few of your favourite snacks and some water. he dropped them back at his dormitory, but not without a mini lecture on ‘kissing moony.’ from sirius.

what a drama queen.

the castle was slowly darkening, the only light pivoting from the floating candles in the air. he saw your frozen-like figure in the same spot you were except looking over your history of magic textbook, learning about the ‘emeric the evil.’

“y/n.” he stated firmly, you almost jumped from your seat in surprise, due to your recent sleep deprivation. “merlin james, give a girl a little warning first.” you chastised before returning to your next book that was slammed together right in-front of your eyes.

“james! i was—“ you were cut off quickly by him gathering all of your books and placing them in his left arm. “what are you doing?” you questioned, looking at him with furrowed brows, to exhausted to argue with him.

“you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, your basically a study.... that muggle thing- robot! you’re a study robot! so i’m taking care of you.” he got sidetracked as he spoke in a gentle yet firm tone.

“but i have too-“ you were cut off again by his pointer finger shushing your lips together. “no, either you sit here in silence because i’m taking your books either way or you come with me to my dorm.” james spoke, resisting to your complaints.

“fine, but you have too—“ you started off, annoyed that your study time was ruined by james incessant comments about you ‘overworking yourself.’ he though, was not having any of that. “nope.” he grabbed your hand, dragging you off to the gryffindor tower.

you gave a small tired wave to sirius, peter and remus on the way to the dormitories as they were all either on the floor or splayed across the scarlet-coloured couches. sirius following with a teasing wolf whistle and wink seeing the both of you walking up the stairs.

“don’t do anything i wouldn’t do!” he chuckled, looping his arm over remus’ shoulders.

“ha, bloody, ha, padfoot. so, so funny i’m on the floor laughing.” he teased, sarcasm lacing his words in a monotone voice almost mocking snape.

you playfully rolled your eyes before being dragged up the stairs to the boys dormitory. the only noises heard were the clacks of your shoes and the soft breathing emitting from both you and your boyfriend.

your eyes were met with candies sprawled all over his poorly made bed, one of his quidditch sweatshirts paired with your favourite joggers; the ones he probably stole from your dorm room one night; because he was keen on you just staying there with him and ‘subtly’ moving all your things into his dormitory with the rest of the boys.

you looked at him with an arched brow, a silent question of ‘why are you doing this?’ ignoring your questioning look he sprawled himself on his twin-bed, his hands clasping in his lap waiting for you to change.

you put on the clothes he layed out, feeling james’ left hand tug you onto his chest when you were done. oh his soft, pillowy chest, you almost felt tempted to fall asleep right then and there.

“darling girl, tell me what’s going on?” he softly questioned while stroking your hair with one hand, his other arm stroking your back.

“i just—“ you stuttered, feeling a wave of tears glossing over your eyes. “i feel like everything is going so, so, wrong. m’so afraid of failing, i want to be better! i don’t want to be like m’terrible family, but it all feels like so much!” you mewled into his shirt, his grasp growing a bit tighter in an effort to psychically comfort you.

“baby, you’re nothing like your family, you have to know that?” he directed your vision to his gaze, the soft marks of mascara down your dampened face only made his gaze softer.

“you work so hard on trying to be not like your family, you don’t even know how amazing you truly are. you’re so generous, you’re always willing to help someone even if you don’t like them, i know i wouldn’t have that patience!” he softly chuckled, seeing a faded grin on your lips.

you sniffed as he continued his praise, “you’re such a hard worker, and i’m truly in awe of you. you’re the one person who truly puts her best foot forward and it’s so incredibly amazing, but you’re working so hard your exhausting yourself. y/n, it’s breaking me to see you like that.” you saw small wet streaks around his eyes, not truly realizing your self destructive habits had been harming people around you; had been harming him.

“jamie, i’m— im so sorry!” feeling the wash of emotions suddenly bundled up wash all over you, your nervous system feeling overwhelmed with the emotions of sadness, guilt and anger bubble up all at once. you whimpered into his shirt, spewing out mumbled apologies that were barely coherent due to all the sobs.

“shh- shh, don’t apologize.” he articulated, shifting his hips up and grabbing a folded parchment from his back pocket.

“w—whats that?” you questioned, trying to calm down the mewls and whimpers that wanted to escape your throat.

“this, darling, is a schedule.” he pointed out, a week schedule with times on it that labeled your subjects as well as times of the day. he also dedicated certain parts of every single day with “james!!” in bright red ink.

“so those,” he pointed out, directly at all the times he wrote his name leading up to the newt dates, “are times you and me spend together, no studying, just loving. so i can remind my beautiful, smart, and amazing talented loving girlfriend how astonishing she is.” he said with a grin, proud of himself.

“you really know how to charm a girl, potter.” you may have teased, but without him you don’t know what you would’ve done. james was truly your saviour, your light, stars to your moon; if you will.

he was yours, and you were definitely his. 

taglist: @fathermarty @kittykylax @terr0rizer @aspiringsloth20 @dear-luna @famdomhideout @hufflepogue

[hotdogct]

blooms in adversity ||| n.jm

pairing: na jaemin x reader genre: angst-ish, fluff. words: 1.8k a/n: you ever get rejected from a job and have a complete meltdown over your future hahahahahhaaa just asking for a friend :) title is an obvious nod to ‘mulan’, i listened to way too much hippo campus while writing this. enjoy!!!

network tags: @czennienet​

At this time we have decided to move forward with other candidates in the hiring process. Thank you for your interest and we wish you the best of luck in the future.

The rejection email might’ve landed in your inbox late in the afternoon, but you had been anticipating its arrival all day long - the thought of it lingering, stagnant, weighing heavily on your brain like a storm cloud that refused to pass. 

Jaemin knew this, anticipated it. It’s why the two of you were outside, taking full advantage of the warmth the sun was providing this late spring day. After noticing the neglected planter on your balcony in the early days of your relationship, Jaemin wouldn’t stop nagging you about his ‘legendary’ green thumb. As soon as winter began to fade to spring he began to wax poetic,  explaining the overwhelming benefits plant ownership has on a person and pretty please can-he-take-you-to-the-nursery and-

It’s not that you didn’t appreciate flowers. Some of your fondest memories of the early stages of your relationship were the bouquets Jaemin would spoil you with at each date - how you used to keep them on display prominently in the kitchen, a silent reminder of his newly blooming affection towards you. Even after they wilted, lost their petals, there was seldom time to mourn. A new bouquet would always take its place, and the absentminded cycle could continue.

Absentminded. That was your whole problem, the reason for the sad remains of dead flowers residing in the neglected planter. You had started off with the brightest of intentions when moving into your first apartment - wanting to establish routine and create the perfect place to unwind at the end of the day.

Nervously you had browsed the outdoor section of the nearest hardware store, shaky hands brushing over begonias and marigolds, before settling on a flat of dusty pink petunias to take home. None of these names meant anything to you, no terms familiar. Equipped with extra gardening tools courtesy of your mother, you spent that afternoon carefully digging into the soil. Gently sitting each starter petunia into place and covering their roots as if tucking in a child for the night. For the next few days, you’d make sure to have your daily nightcap of wine out on the balcony, watch the sunset and water the planter. 

But one day you forgot. The next you were tired. Then you went out of town for the weekend. And at that point, shame left you frozen. Rather than attempting to salvage your petunias, you passively let the entire idea and label of “plant mom” slip from your brain.  A pattern that followed you your entire life - never quite being able to follow through, see something to completion. Sometimes you almost feel as wilted as the abandoned petunias themselves.

This was why Jaemin, with his prince-like features, his romantic gestures and bouquets, swept you off your feet almost instantly. Rather than nagging you about a drawer being left open in the kitchen, a light left on in the living room, the messy dining room table after a night of arts and crafts, he would simply take care of whatever chaos you had left in your wake. You might’ve been a storm, tremendous and unpredictable. Yet Jaemin thought there was nothing more beautiful, and decided he was up for the thrill of the chase. 

So it was only fair to humor him, to try again at the “plant mom” thing. After his consistent nagging reached a crescendo that rivaled only the oncoming cicada brood in terms of volume, you found yourselves strolling through the nearby nursery bright and early on a weekend morning. 

“You’ve put this off all Spring long,” Jaemin lamented, gesturing wildly with his hand at the expanse of greenhouses before the two of you. “And look! Now there’s nothing pretty left!”

“What are you talking about, Na?” You could easily spot at least three to four different flats of colorful starters that had already caught your eye, and started to walk tentatively over in their direction. Before you could get too far, Jaemin’s firm grasp on your wrist prevented you from moving much further, a pout apparent upon his features. Instead he pivoted you both in the opposite direction, towards the more complex greenery and shrubs. You shot Jaemin a confused glance, which only led to a small laugh escaping his lips, followed by words that left your cheeks as crimson as the nearby roses:

“Those flowers weren’t nearly pretty enough for the balcony, let alone pretty enough for you.” 

It had been Jaemin who had pushed you to apply for this job. You were blinded by the familiarity of the stressful retail gig you held long before the two of you even met. The ever changing schedule, along with the grueling work and constant understaffing was your unshifting reality. But you had health benefits and a small, but earnest 401K started - what could you really complain about?

Turns out, quite a bit. It wasn’t until one late night in bed, where Jaemin was massaging your back and shoulders wordlessly after a brutal shift - doing his best to water and tend to you, his most beautiful flower. Silently pressing his hands firmly on, around, all over your shoulder blades in a busy pattern, he tried his best to keep his anger contained to the intensity of his movements. How could they neglect you so? A flower of your caliber needed full sun - and Jaemin didn’t need to feel the tight knots your muscles had twisted themselves into to know that you were wilted. While he was especially gifted at keeping his mouth shut, a brief look at your pained, exhausted expression was all it took for him to slip, speak up.

“You deserve better than this.”

Immediately wide eyed despite how tired you were seconds before, Jaemin realized the vagueness of the previous thought, and clarified, pulling away from your body so that you could roll over, sit up. “N-not like that. This job is going to kill you.” 

Your face softened. While stubborn to a fault, even you could admit Jaemin’s argument was sound. When was enough enough?

And then, doubt. Before you could even begin to imagine the possibilities, the blue sky ideas that could await you. Instead, you immediately hone in on the skills you don’t possess, requirements you don’t meet. The idea of not running on automatic, the thought of having to try, of doing something new. The overwhelming fear of rejection. Pulse racing now, each shallow breath in only made the thorns that had grown around your ego constrict themselves further, pressing in uncomfortably.

Jaemin’s arms find their way around your trembling body seconds later, his added weight bringing you back down to earth. You periodically feel his lips leaving gentle kisses, pressed with the utmost care along the back of your neck, the curve of your shoulder. In between, ghost whispers of comfort land reassuringly in your ear.

“You have so much to offer the world.” 

“You deserve to be somewhere where you can shine.”

“Let's get you blooming again, yeah?”

The smile that graced Jaemin’s face when you told him you had a second interview scheduled was so bright it could probably be seen from outer space. True to his word, over the last month he helped revise your resume, hunt for job listings, prepare for interviews late into the night. There was gradually less and less tension in your muscles when Jaemin would massage almost nightly. Buds slowly began to appear on your stems, where rot had once been. 

The second interview went great - or so you had thought. Then the hours after turned into a day, then two, then the week passed without hearing back. Your expectations had plummeted like a sagging helium balloon, days past its prime. The subject went unmentioned by both you and Jaemin, the silence instead speaking volumes.

The two of you were out on the balcony, music blaring. You’re sitting on an uncomfortable stool watching Jaemin below you, donned in a gardening visor and bright pink gloves. He was planting the flowers you were absolutely frightened to take care of, when the rejection email arrived, unceremoniously. 

You blink once, twice, comprehending the words on your phone screen individually. Move forward - are you now set back? Other candidates - no, that’s you, you feel like the “other”, luck - you’ll need it, alright-

Deep breath. 

You look over and down. Jaemin is so heavily invested in covering a starter daisy just right with soil that he missed your initial reaction, your brief show of raw emotion.  Sensing your eyes on him, he looks up at you, squinting into the sun, smiles bright. If autopilot didn’t fail you now, the small smile on your face would convince him you’re fine, everything was fine. 

But Jaemin was intuitive, he was smart, and he knew better. The speaker was playing some cheerful pop song, the weather was cooperating and tolerable. His nail beds were caked with dirt and soil, a favorite feeling of his from childhood that comes with the satisfaction of gardening. His wide eyes were still studying you. There you were, his radiant flower, sitting in the fullest and brightest of sun, and he had nurtured you back to growth.

So why weren’t you blooming?

“Are you okay?”

A small chuckle leaves your lips, knowing the truth and the inevitability of it all. This time when you blink once, twice, in an attempt to avoid Jaemin’s overwhelming gaze, you can feel hot liquid streaming down your cheeks, taste the saltiness of the tears once they hit your lips. You can hear the clatter of gardening tools being abandoned, plastic flats of flowers being shoved aside, and you can feel Jaemin’s broad frame envelop you seconds later, almost knocking both of you off the stool. 

You lose track of the time, sobbing into Jaemin’s chest. An exaltation of the saddest manner, but necessary when coming from someone as normally stoic as you. His tight grip around you never wavered, the softest of rocking motions to settle you down, his familiar hands massaging at your weary frame. Loving words on loop from his lips.

“This is just a minor setback...it’s alright...”

“They don’t know what they’re missing.”

“We’ll get you back out there tomorrow.”

Eventually your brain stops screaming, though a headache remains. Your breath steadies into a slow rhythm. As quickly as it had arrived, the overwhelming anxiety courtesy of the rejection email disappeared.  The once raging storm had subsided.

And still, Jaemin thought, there was nothing more beautiful.

[imagine-darksiders]

Homesick - Chapter 2

Behind the door.

Warnings: implied child abuse, abusive parents, blood, nosebleeds, angst, themes of childhood trauma, ptsd

Tags: Darksiders, DeathxAzrael, hurt/comfort, angst, Reader, Found family, Reader needs a hug

Chapter 1

---

“What lays beyond that door?”

Azrael's innocent question causes you to stiffen and your steps falter on the landing, knowing precisely to which door he's referring, but unwilling to even spare it a backwards glance.

The momentary delay hardly lasts for more than a second and goes seemingly unnoticed by the angel, whose gaze appears too focused on the locked, mahogany door that stands quiet and guiltless at the furthest end of your landing. Hanging back near the top of the staircase however, with eyes sharp and turned just enough in your direction that they catch the hitching of your chest, Death does notice.

Then, he blinks, and you're suddenly twisting your head over a shoulder to look beyond Azrael at the door in question, a smile on your lips but not in your eyes.

“Oh, that's just a storage cupboard,” you say casually, waving a dismissive hand through the air and continuing your journey to the opposite side of the house, “I've been in and out of there all week stacking boxes of junk up to the ceiling. Now, come this way, all the best human-y stuff is stock-piled in my bedroom.” 

You're too quick to disregard the door, too eager in turning to walk towards your room on stiff legs and Death wishes the angel would turn to look at you so he might also see what the Horseman sees, if only to confirm that he isn't imagining things.

Alas, letting out an intrigued little hum, Azrael clasps his hands loosely behind his back and sweeps after you, all the while pivoting his head this way and that to take in everything your humble home has to offer.

------------------

You had so nearly forgotten what the joy of discovery looks like in another person. To see the eyes of someone else grow wide and bright with unbridled wonder at a world you've long since lost a taste for.

Azrael's fascination at the most mundane of human objects manages to put a genuine smile on your face, though the ensuing pain still throbs like the beat of an insistent drum every time your cheeks press against your bruised eye.

Luckily, the angel appears to have missed your subtle wince.

After first having dragged him away from your television, you've managed to introduce him to many of humanity's other wonders that lay dotted around your bedroom.

Before long, Death had even slunk inside to join you both, taking up the mantle of an uninterested observer and absently perusing your book collection in the corner whilst keeping a surreptitious eye on the goings on of his companions.

You've perched yourself comfortably in a bean bag, content to simply sit back and observe whilst Azrael explores your room, his wide, white wings folded neatly against his back in order to spare some of your ornaments from being knocked off their shelves. 

“This... ursine mammal,” he says, pausing beside your bed and poking a finger into the fur of an old, stuffed bear sitting atop your pillow, “Does it serve some purpose?”

You're too preoccupied with fighting back a laugh to answer him right away, and by the time you realise he's watching you expectantly, Death pipes up in your stead, cutting off any explanation you might have offered.

“I imagine it's only there for decoration,” he muses, casting a critical eye over your bookcase and the dozens of unread stories scattered about on the shelves, “But then, I have to wonder if half the things in this room aren't just ornamentation.”

Knowing what he's implying, you spare the back of his head a scowl. It isn't as though you've had a lot of time to read those books he gave you, not between rebuilding your own home and helping humanity come to terms with life post-apocalypse.

“Ah!” Azrael's head shoots up and he tears his eyes from the bear, glancing towards you instead. “It is symbolic, no? In resembling a most ferocious predator, this bear represents the perfect guard for your home.”

He looks so damn pleased with himself, you almost don't bother to correct him, instead wrestling your grin into a pensive frown and nodding slowly. 

“Uh, sure! That is a pretty... exciting way to look at teddy bears.” Hopping to your feet, you make your way over to the bed and sweep a few of Azrael's primary feathers aside, picking up the toy bear and squeezing it to your chest. “But mostly humans use these for comfort at night, when we sleep. We usually get given them as children. And, as we grow older, I... guess we just get too attached to get rid of them. Most humans keep their childhood toys long into adulthood.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Death huffs, shaking his head with a smile hidden beneath the bone-mask, “You humans will get attached to anything that sits still for long enough.”

Azrael, on the other hand, looks as though you've just revealed to him one of humanity's greatest secrets. Rubbing his chin in thought, he says, “Remarkable! I've heard that humans are rather famous for the bonds they forge with other species, yet I never imagined that could extend to inanimate objects as well.”

“Yeah, you'd better believe it,” you smirk, placing the bear down on your pillow once more, “Someday I'll have to tell you about the woman who married the Eiffel Tower.”

At once, the Archangel blinks hard, eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hair line. “A tower? Surely that’s a jape?”

So perplexed is his expression, you throw back your head and let out a bark of delighted laughter. “What are you, Shakespeare? Nobody says ‘jape’ anymore, Azrael!”

Off on his own side of your little bedroom, Death's neck twists around slightly to regard both you and the angel as you engage in a light-hearted back and forth about the use of archaic vocabulary. He doesn't even realise that one corner of his mouth has begun lifting at the sight. 

There is a truth about the Horseman that even he is reluctant to acknowledge, and that is that the constant slew of bad things happening in the Universe is... wearing. It’s wearing. To be on a constant path that always seems to lead towards battle or tragedy? Sometimes it feels as though his entire existence has merely consisted of one battle after another. 

He saves one world, only for another to be torn apart, he destroys a species, and another asks him to fight their war for them, he helps the makers but in doing so, inadvertently kills their elder. Century after century - a millennia of bloody battles and terrible sacrifices and trying to keep his siblings safe - If he ever stopped to think about it... 

Death’s eyes slip slowly shut. 

He has worked... so hard, hasn’t he? Is it really so wrong if he enjoys these moments of fleeting repose? 

All of a sudden, a strangled sound leaves Azrael's throat and Death is yanked from his peaceful reverie. “Y/n!?” the angel exclaims, his expression shifting to horrified in less than a second, “You're bleeding!”

Apparently, mentioning your name and blood in the same sentence is enough to get Death's voice to crack as he whips around properly and barks, “What!?”

Baffled, you raise a hand to your nose, dabbing at a sticky wetness gathered there whilst the taste of salty liquid drips onto your upper lip. “Oh, so I am,” you observe casually, only to have a pair of chilly hands curl unexpectedly around your forearms. 

Without warning, the terrifying visage of the Horseman is looming mere inches from your face and in another instant, one of his hands presses itself to your forehead and firmly – albeit gently – tips it backwards.

“Um... Death, we've talked about this. Personal space, remember?”

The Horseman remains eerily silent as he stares transfixed at the blood oozing from your nose and you squirm uncomfortably when the grip he has on your arm begins to grow even tighter. Meanwhile, his wordlessness allows Azrael to fret aloud in the background.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” the angel mutters, pacing back and forth behind Death, never tearing his eyes from the red straining your face, “You shouldn't be having all this excitement. You should be resting.”

It's difficult to hold back your groan of exasperation as you lift your arms and knock Death's hands aside, stepping out of his reach.

“Oh for - It's just a nosebleed! Honestly, what has gotten into you two?” With a hefty sigh, you skirt around the rigid Nephilim, dodge one of Azrael's wings as it tries to curl instinctively around you and march into your ensuite bathroom.

Almost immediately, the angel tries to follow, but he swiftly has the door pushed shut in his face before he can enter and soon, they hear your voice filtering out to them from the other side. “I'm not a baby, guys! Nosebleeds are no big deal, it's just happening because of... well, you know.”

Azrael's stomach twists itself into knots at the sight of yet another locked door standing between himself and his human friend. He's about to call out for you to let him see the damage when an icy chill sweeps across the room and he turns, his mouth falling open slightly at the sight of Death staring at him through unseeing eyes.

The old Nephilim's body has gone completely still and there's a haunted look about him, as though he's lost, or perhaps trapped in another time, another place.

“Horseman?” Azrael murmurs uncertainly, feeling the cold prickle at the hairs on the base of his neck. Seconds pass and he receives no answer. Hesitant now, the archangel reaches towards Death's shoulder and, when he isn't immediately shoved away, places a hand on the frigid, solid muscle that bunches under his gentle touch. “Death,” he tries again, and this time the Horseman's head snaps up to stare at him, as if only just realising he's there.

The angel ducks his head to better catch Death's eye, his voice soft enough that only the two of them can hear it. “Are you alright, old friend?”

A long silence stretches between them with only the faint sound of running water from your bathroom tap to fill it.

Then, giving a start, Death roughly shrugs the comforting hand off his shoulder and stalks past the angel towards your window, leaning his elbows heavily against the sill and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge Azrael's concern. He doesn't think the archangel has ever been that close to him before, close enough that the subtle scent of old books and clean linen invaded his nose and chased away the awful stench of your blood, effectively leaving his mind clear once again. 

'Idiot,' he chastises himself, eyes still wide behind the bone mask. How could he have frozen like that? In front of Azrael no less. Creator, he'd never live that one down. He had – for lack of a better word – panicked, and it's as embarrassing to admit to himself as it is to have been caught panicking. But...

The sight of your blood... The smell of it, sweet and strong enough that it even settled on his tastebuds...

It's pathetic, really. He is Death. He's seen and caused far more bloodshed than arguably any being in any realm. So why then does your spilled blood hold his dead heart in such a cruel and unforgivably tight chokehold?

The redundancy of taking a calming breath isn't lost on him, yet he does it anyway, tipping his head up to peer out of your window, chest rising and falling with motions he could only have picked up after spending so much time around you.

It's begun to rain, he notes idly. Tiny droplets of water patter down onto the dusty window panes and Death follows the path of one until it merges with several others and is lost in the fray.

Down in the streets below, many passers-by have dived for shelter, yet there are still two figures who remain. One is an angel, whose golden complexion shimmers when raindrops trickle steadily down his face. He's standing in the shadow of a water-logged bus stop and beside him, leaning just a little too close, is a serpentine demon, scales black and glittering like obsidian. The odd pair rest almost shoulder to shoulder underneath the bus stop's awning, each sharing a brief respite from the rain with what was once a well-loathed enemy.

Death blinks upon seeing that their hands are intertwined. Dainty, golden fingers curl loosely around clumsier claws and suddenly, the Horseman feels as though he's intruding on their secret moment, so he turns back to face your room.

Azrael has drifted closer once again and there's a knowing expression on his face that causes Death to frown. Sure enough, the archangel spares your bathroom door a hasty glance before he looks at the Horseman once more. “...Death,” he says slowly, “It's... all right, you know. If seeing Y/n’s blood upset you-”

Hackles are raised in half a second, a set of sharp teeth clack together and Death hisses, “You think I'm upset?”

Judging by the flat look he receives, that is precisely what the archangel thinks.

Despite the obvious vehemence behind Death's tone, he's careful to keep his voice down, ever mindful that you're only a room over. Perhaps getting defensive isn't the best idea.

“There is no shame in it, Horseman,” the angel coaxes softly, “Y/n is my friend as well. There has already been far too much human blood spilled this century.” He casts another, baleful glance towards your bathroom, quietly adding, “I didn't think I would be seeing it again, not this soon. And especially not from our human.”

...Our human.

Death is unnerved by how natural that sounds coming off Azrael's tongue.

Expertly, the Horseman wills his shoulders to slump and his muscles to relax, then, with an unmistakable air of indifference, he folds his arms across his broad chest and turns himself deliberately away from the archangel, glowering at your bedroom wall.

And Azrael, wise enough to read the standoffish behaviour for what it is, allows his mouth to fall shut because he knows that, as far as Death is concerned, the conversation is over.

He has a care not to release a weary sigh. But with you shutting him out physically and the Horseman shutting him out verbally, it's difficult for even the composed archangel to keep exasperation at bay.

Just then, your voice calls out to them from the other side of the door. “Ugh, sorry about this guys. It's slowing down, but it hasn't stopped yet. I'll just be a minute!”

“So long as you're all right,” Azrael replies.

When he receives no response from you and no further input from Death, he lets his head drop into a disappointed nod, pressing his lips together. Suddenly, his presence feels a little too big for the space he's occupying. He needs to think.

Azrael leaves your bedroom with a far heavier heart than he'd gone in with, raking his fingers through fine, white hair and expelling a soft breath from his lungs, as if that might alleviate the weight settling across his chest.

So far, this first visit to your home has not gone as he'd hoped it would. Through no fault of your own, mind. But trying to focus on taking in everything you show him whilst he knows you're in more pain than you're letting on is woefully distracting. That's without even mentioning the creeping sense of unease that has been hanging over him ever since he first stepped foot through your front door. 

Briefly, Azrael wonders if Death had noticed the way your breath hitched slightly and your reply had an almost imperceptible, underlying tremor when he asked you what lay beyond the door at the end of your landing. He'd have to ask the Horseman about that later, when he's in a more talkative mood.

Already, the archangel can feel the beginnings of a frown forging crevasses down the centre of his forehead. He composes himself in another breath and finally lifts his eyes from the carpet, only to stop in his tracks. 

That door – that unassuming door to your cupboard lays ahead of him, quiet and solid as all doors should be, just sitting there under a flickering light bulb, as though it had been patiently waiting for him to notice it.

And notice it, he does, because something about the door has changed since he saw it last, something so obvious, yet also entirely unsettling.  

Where it had once been shut tight, now it stands ever so slightly ajar.

Despite everything in him screaming that he must respect the privacy of his host, Azrael's curiosity grows too bold and he finds himself treading silently down your landing, his shoes making no sound on the grubby, cream carpet. Drawing to a halt, the angel's keen gaze sweeps over the wooden door, taking in hairline cracks and mottled rot that a hundred years has left upon it like battle scars on a warrior's face. Slowly, he roves his eyes down to the dull, brass door handle and he immediately falters, doing a double-take.

Sitting atop the handle is a very noticeable, very thick layer of dust.

His brows knit together until they nearly touch and he reaches out to swipe a finger delicately along the brass. When he pulls away, he lifts his hand for an inspection and, sure enough, the pad of his forefinger is now sporting the same, grey substance.

'Why would a door you claimed to use recently have so much dust upon the handle?' The feeling of unease that had been stealthily keeping to the back of his mind now pokes its head out a little more, creeping forwards, daring him to acknowledge it.

'Something's wrong...' a quiet voice tells him.

Azrael's hand reaches out once more, except this time, it curls around the handle entirely and rests there for a moment as the angel's mind starts to race. 'Y/n.... Are you hiding something from us?'

As soon as the thought enters his head, he can't shake it loose. 

Yes - he trusts you - he knows you'd have no reason to lie to him, and especially not to the Horseman. And yet... Clearly there is something beyond this door that you're trying to divert their attention from and whatever it is has you spooked.

Feeling more and more like a common criminal, Azrael keeps one ear on the room behind him and slowly begins to twist the door handle, wincing when its rusty springs catch and squeak in protest.

His wings shiver with anticipation as he pushes the door open.

What awaits him on the other side is decidedly not a storage cupboard...

“A... bedchamber?” he murmurs to himself. 

Within an instant, he's hit by an oppressive wave of must and wood rot. The smell spills like liquid from the room and seeps into your hallway, causing the archangel's lips to curl, though he's quick to smooth his expression out again because there's something far worse lingering below the initial stench, something that – even after a hundred years – still clings to the peeling wallpaper and broken, dust-choked bed in the corner of the room.

It isn't quite magic, more like the residue of a dark and terrible memory. Azrael knows as well as any angel that memories can be immensely powerful things and capable of haunting a place long after the living are dead and gone. Hesitating, he takes a moment to steel himself before stepping over the threshold and entering that old, foreboding bedroom.

At once, he notices that, as with the door's handle, absolutely everything is covered in a thick layer of grime and dust, the television on the wall, the various, glass bottles that stand on a table at the room's centre, amidst which sits a single, yellowing glass.

Against the wishes of his own nose, Azrael takes a brief sniff at the air and grimaces.

Alcohol.

Even the most pious of angels would recognise it.

He dismissively turns his attention from the bottles and glides over towards a worn dresser that stands to the left of the bed, a bed that stinks of an odour he desperately tries to ignore. Upon the dresser are a vast array of what you;d once called 'photographs,' all of which sit inside basic, wooden frames. Inquisitive, Azrael bends down and peers at them, a soft smile worming across his face when he sees a familiar human grinning back up at him.

You couldn't be much older than four or five, but he'd recognise you at any age. It seems even as a child, you possessed that same, mischievous spark in your eyes.

You're standing alone, and in spite of a clear gap where a tooth has fallen out, you're beaming up at the camera so hard, he imagines your cheeks had to have hurt. In fact, the more Azrael inspects the photo, the more he thinks your expression most resembles a grimace, not a smile. He shrugs it off however, and moves on. After all, the facial structure of humans is such that they're capable of expressions far more complex than those of angels or demons. Perhaps he’s only misreading it. 

The next picture sees you looking a few years older, sitting in the lap of a tall, angular man wearing a white shirt that looks to have been frequently stained by all manner of substances whilst his face is stretched into a grin that makes Azrael's skin crawl. Captured in stillness, it looks menacing and shark-like. Worse still is the large hand that seems to have secured itself like a vice around your thigh, squeezing noticeably into the little, blue leggings you'd worn that day.

You aren't smiling as widely in this photograph....

The archangel's face begins to fall as well.

Humming, he moves on to the next picture and in an instant, that creeping unease suddenly rings in his head like an alarm bell.

Again, you're older here, perhaps early into your adolescence, and the smile you'd sported before is barely there at all. The same man is standing behind you this time, and his long, gangly fingers are clamped down over your too-small shoulders, fingernails digging so hard into the bare skin, the resulting indents are even picked up by the camera.

Your lopsided wince that could be mistaken for a smile at a glance shows off one side of your mouth and in it, Azrael can clearly see that you're missing a tooth.

He may not be the most well-versed on human biology, but he's definitely heard that children only lose the same tooth once. And that the process is a natural one.

Through the lense of the camera, your younger counterpart seems to peer up past the glass frame, past the fabric of time and space and straight into Azrael's misty, pale eyes, a silent yet clear plea in the tilt of your brows and the whites of your knuckles.

'Help me.'

All at once, the archangel feels sick. He staggers backwards, away from the dresser and doesn't even notice the golden halo on his back is thrumming with protective magics, pushing them outwards to envelope your entire house.

He doesn't need Jamaerah's second sight to know that you were afraid of that man who's eyes are stained the same colour as yours. Hazarding a guess as to why you were afraid causes Azrael's throat to tighten.

Swallowing hard, he tries to regain his composure. The archangel has always considered rationality to be one of the greatest weapons in his arsenal and if there was ever a time to use it, that time is now. 

'Perhaps... I am mistaken,' he reassures himself, 'I don’t know human customs nearly as well as I-’ 

“Azrael?”

The angel gives a start and jerks his head around to face the door, only to find Death eclipsing it, his eyes blazing like twin fires.

Stepping forwards into the room, he hisses, “What are you doing in here?”

The Horseman is quite certain he's never seen Azrael look so guilty.

Instead of giving him an answer though, the angel slowly breathes, “Where is Y/n?” Soon, he droops in relief when Death throws a thumb over his shoulder and replies, “Still in the bathing room, tending to a bloody nose... You didn't answer my question.”

Beckoning the Horseman closer, Azrael keeps his voice to a hushed whisper and holds the last photograph up in front of him.

“What do you make of this?”

Azrael's behaviour strikes him as so uncharacteristically odd and secretive, Death actually hurries over to him and snatches the picture frame from his hands, making an effort not to appear curious about the room he's never been inside. The angel watches raptly as Death scans the photographs with his luminous, orange eyes. Then, all of a sudden, the Horseman's fingers tighten around the little, wooden frame, hard enough to make it splinter and Azrael knows his worst fears are being realised. He hadn't imagined it.

Death sees it too.

“You guys shouldn't be in here.”

A tiny voice, low and trembling calls from the doorway and the angel's gaze snaps up. Death, in the meantime, remains too fixated on the photograph to bother acknowledging your presence.

Azrael drifts towards you cautiously, as though you'll bolt at any second. He tries to decide whether it would be better to apologise for invading your privacy or ask you why you look so terrified.

“Y/n,” he starts, paying attention to the way your hands turn over one another incessantly, “We were only-”

“... How... How did you get in? The door was - it was locked! You can't be in here... Get out!” Your voice raises in pitch. There are tears leaking from your bruised eye, swiftly turning the skin underneath it slick and shiny and there’s still a trace of blood underneath your nose.

Death finally lowers his gaze from the photograph and holds you captive under a wide and menacing stare. “A storage room, was it?” he asks curtly, showing you the picture clutched between his ever-tightening fingers.

The moment you lay eyes on it, your back goes rigid and all the blood drains from your face. “Put that down!” you demand and lift your foot as if to take a step inside the room, but as soon as you cross over the threshold, you seem to remember something, and quickly jerk yourself backwards, stumbling into the hallway again and sucking down a ragged gasp, blurting, “Just – Just don't touch it!”

“Why not?” Death drawls and tilts his head to one side, calculating, “It can't be that important to you. You've had it locked in this storage cupboard for these past two years.”

He's pushing you, Azrael realises with a sinking feeling, he's trying to provoke you into an honest reaction, no doubt. The archangel doesn't like it, but he likes the look of that man in the photograph even less.

“That's none of your business!” you snap, heart pounding like a jackhammer against your ribs. Unfortunately, your response only seems to stir something in the Horseman, who draws his head back as though you'd struck him a physical blow and he growls, “I hate to disappoint you, but it is my business where your welfare is concerned.”

“My welfare stopped being your concern about two years ago!”

Death falls silent, jaw clenching.

He'd be remiss to say that your comment hadn't struck at a place he guards jealously. He's painfully aware of the angel's eyes burning a hole into the side of his head and he nearly squirms at the pitying look he's receiving.

It would seem that Azrael knows him a little too well.

“You never once stopped being my concern...” the Horseman mumbles, his gaze moving down to the image in his hand. A younger, smaller you peers back at him with woe caught like sleep-dust behind your eyelashes. Death's eyes shoot back up to you again, the softness gone from his voice when he growls, “Why did you lie to me?”

Tensions are high enough that Azrael doesn't think it prudent to mention you'd lied to him as well.

Apparently, a direct confrontation was not the best way to deal with this delicate situation, a fact that becomes clear when you cinch your jaw shut for a moment, gaze flickering to and fro between the angel and the Horseman.

Seeing two of your most trusted friends standing in his bedroom with a symbol of your shame and your trauma held quite literally in Death's grasp sends your heart rate skyrocketing, fear like poison dripping down into your stomach. You can hardly believe they'd invade your privacy like this. Death especially, who knows better than anyone the necessity for keeping some secrets buried.

He doesn't need to learn about that part of your history - neither of them do. You don't want to have them worrying. And God forbid they should pity you.

Squaring your shoulders, you spin about on a heel and begin to march purposefully down your landing to the stairs.

“Where do you think you're going?!” Death barks after you.

Chest heaving, you pause on the first step and cast a heavy frown over your shoulder at the Horseman, matching his ferocious gaze without a single blink. “If you won't leave that room,” you tell him, “then I'll leave this house. And I'll thank you both to be gone by the time I get back.” 

And just like that, you continue to descend your staircase and disappear below the wooden balustrades. Seconds later and there's an almighty 'slam' that signals you've had an altercation with the front door before leaving through it.

For some time, the house is weighed down under a blanket of silence as the pair of unearthly beings are left to stand in the aftershocks of their actions.

“Oh dear..” Azrael's stare is vacant, worried, and he has several fingertips pressed to his lips. “I fear I've reopened an old wound..”

“No. This... isn't your fault,” the Horseman sighs, “I should have addressed this sooner. I've known for some time there was something Y/n didn't want me to know. And, I suppose, I'd always suspected that this room might lead to some answers.”

Taken aback, Azrael turns a mystified look onto the Nephilim. He'd expected Death to lay the blame upon his feathery shoulders, after all, he was the one who first ventured into this so called 'storage cupboard' and upset the proverbial applecart. Still, he finds it somewhat odd that the Horseman – a nosy creature if ever one walked the nine realms – hasn't ever tried to see for himself what lay beyond the door. Tilting his head, the angel asks, “You never thought to investigate?”

At the question, Death averts his gaze and shrugs one of his pale shoulders. “Admittedly, no, I did not.”

“Well... Why?” Azrael presses, though he already has an inkling.

After a moment of frowning pensively at the photo in his hands, the Horseman turns to look at him and he's once again thrown off by the level of emotion in those wild, striking eyes. Death really has grown since knowing you.

“I never brought it up because....” 

“.... You didn't want to jeopardise your friendship,” Azrael finishes for him softly, and Death is only grateful that he didn't have to say it himself out loud.

At the same time, the two of them peer back at the photograph and the archangel is surprised at himself for the anger that boils in his lungs at the sight of that man’s hands on you. Death however, isn’t in the least bit surprised at the presence of his own rage. 

“Horseman...,” Azrael says, his voice eerily calm, “You don’t supposed.... Y/n might be trying to hide something else, do you?” 

"The bruise...”

Furious, orange eyes meet cool and misty white. 

“It isn’t out of the question,” Azrael breathes, “A random attack from human zealots? Or-” 

“- Or something a bit closer to home,” Death finishes as he tosses the photo onto the nearby bed and turns to face the door. 

Outside, rain continues to hammer relentlessly on the house whilst a streak of lightening illuminates the bedroom and the two, imposing beings inside, one with dark magics crackling at his fingertips, and the other with a halo of solid gold on his back that thrums with violent energy as the glyphs on his wings begin to glow electric blue. 

Without a word, the Angel of Death and the Grim Reaper slip from your house and stride out into the coming storm, their ancient minds focused solely on tracking down their human.

[aion-rsa]

15 Best Final Fantasy Characters

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While the list of things that Final Fantasy has gifted the gaming world is much longer than the one we’re bringing you today, one of the most consistently incredible aspects of this legendary RPG franchise is the quality of its casts of characters.

Even if you’ve only played one or two Final Fantasy games in your lifetime (or perhaps even just absorbed elements of the series through its prominent place in gaming culture) you likely know and have strong feelings about at least one Final Fantasy character. No matter how fantastical these games get, their heart will always be found in the heroes, villains, and even NPCs that drive some of the greatest adventures in RPG history.

Which Final Fantasy character is the best of them all, though? That’s a question fans will never find a universally approved answer to, but I’m willing to be most personal shortlists include at least a few of these incredible characters that have become icons of this franchise, the genre, and gaming.

15. Bartz Klauser (Final Fantasy 5)

Many Final Fantasy protagonists are tortured souls burdened by destiny and circumstances. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that type of character (we’re actually going to honor a few of those tortured souls later in this list), but too much of that kind of personality can really wear you down.

That’s what makes Bartz Klauser such a breath of fresh air. As a young man just trying to honor his father’s dying wish to go out and explore the world, Bartz didn’t ask to get caught up in an epic battle or grand adventure. Yet, he handles the incredible events that befall him with positivity, humor, and constant support for his friends and allies. 

14. Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy 8)

There was a time when it felt like Squall’s place somewhere at the bottom of any list of Final Fantasy protagonists was all but reserved. There are still more than a few Final Fantasy fans who passionately hate him, and it’s easy to understand why. He’s angsty, he’s sometimes derivative of other characters, and he’s even sometimes cruel to people who should be his closest allies.

Yet, there’s just something about Squall. His looks and gunblade certainly make him memorable from a design perspective, but there’s also something to be said for how we get to watch Squall grow throughout Final Fantasy 8 in a way that few franchise protagonists get to grow across the course of their own adventures. Squall is the surprisingly grounded heart of a Final Fantasy game that reaches all-time high levels of weirdness.

13. Zidane Tribal (Final Fantasy 9)

I’ll always have a soft spot for Final Fantasy 7 and 8’s more somber protagonists, but like many fans at the time, I was more than ready to embrace Final Fantasy 9’s return to medieval fantasy as well as its returns to slightly more upbeat lead characters. 

Zidane is a fantastic example of a more lighthearted Final Fantasy protagonist, but he is no mere throwback to a simpler time. There’s plenty of darkness in Zidane’s surprisingly deep backstory, which makes his attempts to become a better person and a better leader (as well as his insistence on enjoying life whenever possible) that much more interesting. 

12. Cidolfus Orlandeau (Final Fantasy Tactics)

Some version of Cid pretty much had to be on this list, but which Cid is the best of them all? Well, there’s certainly an argument to be made for Final Fantasy 7’s Cid, Final Fantasy 14’s Cid, and Final Fantasy 9’s Cid, but my vote for the best Cid goes to a somewhat outside the box version of this recurring character. 

It’s interesting enough that Final Fantasy Tactics’ Cidolfus Orlandeau is a warrior when so many other versions of Cid are engineers, mentors, or even political leaders, but what makes Orlandeau really stand apart is how powerful he is. This is one of the most overpowered characters in Final Fantasy Tactics in terms of both lore and in-game abilities. Actually, his incredible power kind of feels like a love letter to the entire Cid “lineage.”

11. Zack Fair (Final Fantasy 7)

It may seem like Zack Fair’s popularity only started to grow in more recent years, but the truth of the matter is that many Final Fantasy 7 fans have always loved Zack and just weren’t able to properly share their love for this previously minor character prior to the modern internet age. 

Before Zack Fair finally got to star in his own game (the largely underrated PSP title, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII), he won the hearts of millions with his optimism, friendly nature, and unwavering belief that he can fight to make the world a better place. He is, in many ways, what we think of when we think of heroes. 

10. Celes Chere (Final Fantasy 6)

Final Fantasy 6 certainly isn’t lacking in memorable protagonists (or villains), which really makes it that much more impressive that Celes Chere has arguably become the game’s unofficial lead all these years later. 

Celes initially comes across as a standoffish enemy general who is only helping the player’s party because they’re temporarily united against a common threat. By the time we reach this game’s legendary opera scene, though, we understand who Celes really is and even start to sympathize with what we previously believed were her greatest flaws. Celes was one of the first Final Fantasy characters that properly showcased the storytelling potential of this franchise and gaming.

9. Lightning (Final Fantasy 13)

Final Fantasy 13 honestly deserves a lot of the criticism it regularly receives, but it’s always been a shame that the game’s divisive (often negative) legacy means Lightning is sometimes denied the status she so rightfully deserves. 

Lightning’s backstory isn’t the most complicated in Final Fantasy history, but that actually proves to be one of the character’s strongest qualities. Lightning is mostly interested in protecting her sister, which turns out to be all the motivation as she needs to embark upon an epic journey as well as all the motivation we need to sympathize with the incredible things she does along the way. Lightning is fearless, strong, determined, and the kind of person many of us like to think we would become in her situation. 

8. Balthier (Final Fantasy 12)

It’s certainly easy to understand why so many Final Fantasy fans have compared Balthier to Han Solo over the years. Balthier is, after all, a sarcastic yet suave sky pirate who gets caught up in a war. You don’t have to break your brain to see the similarities.

However, that doesn’t make Balthier any less of a compelling character. Balthier believes he’s the real protagonist of Final Fantasy 12’s all-time great story, which is honestly hard to argue against when you consider that he’s the most consistently compelling character in the game and one of the most consistently entertaining characters in the history of this franchise.

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7. Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy 7)

What is it about Tifa that’s made her one of the most popular characters in Final Fantasy history? Is it her warmth? Is it her combat abilities? Is it the ways that she’s able to so easily pivot between leader and supporter based on what the situation calls for? 

The answer is “yes.” Tifa is capable in ways that the best playable video game characters sometimes need to be, but she’s still vulnerable, conflicted, and sometimes scared in the ways that any of us would be if we were in her situation. She’s a truly well-rounded character who is more than worthy of her fan-favorite status. 

6. Auron (Final Fantasy 10)

On the surface, Auron is everything that you’d expect to see in a “cool” Final Fantasy character. With his giant sword, samurai-like philosophies and lifestyle, and mysterious vibes, you could even argue that Auron represents some of the “tropes” we sometimes associate with this franchise’s most notable warriors.

Yet, Auron is so much more than the (admittedly badass) warrior he first seems to be. As we learn Auron’s backstory, we also learn more about the Final Fantasy X universe and this game’s wonderfully weird and surprisingly complicated storyline. Auron is undoubtedly cool, but it’s the sweet and sorrowful details of his backstory that elevate him above some notable competition. 

5. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy 7)

It’s sometimes hard to look at Cloud and not see a collection of what we now think of as cliches for both Final Fantasy protagonists and JRPG characters. Even if you want to push aside the fact that Cloud helped introduce (or at least arguably perfected) some of those cliches, you can still make a compelling argument for the character’s all-time great status on the basis of some of his qualities that don’t get talked about quite as often as they should. 

Cloud is a much deeper and more mysterious character than he often gets credit for. Given that we learn more about him as we learn more about Final Fantasy 7’s plot, world, and emotional stakes, he’s also one of the best (if initially less obvious) player surrogates in the history of RPGs. 

4. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy 7)

Like so many of Final Fantasy’s other great characters, you could make an argument for Sephiroth’s “best” credentials on the basis of his design alone. Any character that looks this cool and has a theme song as incredible as “One-Winged Angel” is destined to steal some hearts. 

What’s most impressive about Sephiroth, though, are the ways that the Final Fantasy team has revisited this character and grown him over the years. Sephiroth is a tragic character in many ways, but you won’t find many who are willing to shed a tear for him or the ways he’s used his personal tragedies to internally justify unforgivable acts. 

3. Yuna (Final Fantasy 10)

While I don’t hate Tidus as much as some people do, I have to admit that I’ve always seen Yuna as the real protagonist of Final Fantasy 10 as well as one of the series’ best characters ever.

Yuna’s incredible empathy and compassion are appropriate character traits for a summoner who is so willing to complete what is generally considered to be a suicide mission. Yuna believes in the role she plays in this world, but she’s not so committed to her duties that she becomes this one-track protagonist that doesn’t get to develop a personality. Indeed, it’s Yuna’s likability that inspires so many Final Fantasy 10 players to see her complete her quest, whatever the cost may be. 

2. Kefka Palazzo (Final Fantasy 6)

When people are praising Kefka as a villain (which is obviously something that happens quite often), the line you’re almost always guaranteed to hear is that Kefka is one of the few villains in any medium who achieves their seemingly absurd plans for world domination. His almost unrivaled success as a villain has rightfully become the defining part of his legacy.

As a character, though, Kefka stands apart through the almost horror movie-like nature of his design (he’s somewhere between Pennywise and the Joker) as well as for the way he goes from court jester to world-destroying diety so convincingly. He is, at the very least, the best Final Fantasy villain ever. 

1. Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy 9)

Vivi’s short lifespan and the fact he was ignored and dismissed for so many of the few days he had to live should make him one of the most tragic characters in Final Fantasy history. Indeed, many aspects of Vivi’s life are a tragedy and a pretty compelling tragedy at that. 

Yet, there’s a reason that simply hearing the name “Vivi” puts a smile on so many Final Fantasy players’ faces. Vivi may discover the sorrowful truth of his existence in Final Fantasy 9, but he also learns the joys of friendship, confidence, and adventure. In many ways, the character’s final words represent how we all feel whenever we have to leave our favorite Final Fantasy characters:

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“I’m so happy I met everyone… I wish we could’ve gone on more adventures. But I guess we all have to say goodbye someday.”

The post 15 Best Final Fantasy Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[andsoshespins]

Reasonably Disgruntled?

Tomorrow will mark two weeks since NYC decided to close all schools due to the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases across the city.  We went into full remote teaching and learning mode until further notice.  That notice came this past weekend, informing everyone that schools will reopen this coming Monday. I am feeling intensely disgruntled at the current moment. 

Cases are on the rise.  We made a huge adjustment in everyone’s schedule for two weeks; and now that we are finding a rhythm, the time has come to change everything again.  

Wouldn’t it be both more effective and safer for schools to remain closed until the new year?  We are returning, with altered class sets and yet another schedule overhaul to accommodate those who have opted in for the in-person part.  All for a grand total of 2.5 weeks (8 teaching days) before the Christmas holiday break.  

With ever-shifting schedules in my particular position, I consider myself a flexible adult accepting of and agreeable to constant change in the education world.  But I cannot keep up.  This is really impacting me mentally and physically.  I am feeling incredibly unsettled.  And if I, a relatively stable adult professional, am feeling that way, how are our children and their parents feeling?  

One of the first things you are taught as an education major that is glaringly obvious and does not need repeating when you are actually in the classroom, is the need for consistency and stability.  As humans we crave a sense of predictability to feel safe and learn effectively.  Our students have experienced so much trauma related to this pandemic, and possibly the only place that provides structure is itself in such flux and cannot provide that security, whether virtually, in-person, or in a hybrid way. 

I am feeling so irritated by these dueling mantras of “Be flexible; remember change is the only constant” and “Provide some consistency for the kids.”  Am I alone in seeing the dichotomy?  I love me a good nuance and balance, but I am struggling here.  

I am also feeling peeved after sitting through a virtual faculty meeting that spent entirely too much energy and time on progress goals based on standardized test scores.  Not only does this show that not even a pandemic can help us re-prioritize our children’s education, but it also demonstrates a complete lack of efficient planning for the more pressing logistical matters.  Like returning to buildings blindly on Monday.  And the fact that these exams will most likely not happen because of the torn-to-shreds-school-year 2020-2021 is becoming.

I am also feeling increasingly frustrated by my own shortcomings.  I know I am not working to my fullest potential.  I know that I could be doing more and putting more effort into the Nearpods I am making.  But everything feels so fleeting.  I do not feel or see the impact of any of my work.  I have had too many live sessions for which not one student logged in.  It is so disheartening.  I am spinning my wheels in the snow.  Part of me feels guilty blaming the pandemic for this.  Part of me is wondering how much is healthy and how much is perfectionism taking a swipe.

My resentment towards this whole movement only grows when I think about how little choice I feel like I have in the matter.  I understand that schools seem to be spreading the virus far less than the other areas of the community.  I understand that the whole plan about zip codes and color zones is logical and in accordance with the state.  I am thankful that the testing will be ramped up to weekly in certain cases.  But I still cannot help to feel that all of these measures are compromising, compromising our well-being as teachers and as a whole school, compromising our actual health, compromising our abilities to be effective in this pivotal moment of turmoil and growth.

Now, I know this may come off as a whining complaint, because teachers somehow became selfish and lazy in the last few months according to media sources and some opinions.  :::rolls eyes:::  Yes, I am concerned for my own health and that of those around me.  But at the heart of this complaint is my desire to do the best for my students.  I am feeling unable to do my job in so many ways, failing at maintaining some kind of consistency for both them and for me.  If I am unsettled, my students feel that.  How can we be effective at building those connections and allowing a safe space for learning anything without some consistency, however abnormal it may be at the moment?  This is why I struggle, because when I can barely get by, my students suffer.  And all I want is to uplift them and push them towards a brighter future they can build.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I had to let the little tabby go this morning.  I woke up to the third day of shitting on the rug in a row.  They had tried unsuccessfully to roll the carpet up like a burrito ignoring the litter completely.  I had brought it in earlier in the week and gave it a full wash.  Yesterday I went so far as to get doggie pads from the pet store and laid them out near the litter.  It had been locked in my back studio for most of the time until I cracked the front door open this morning.  I gave it a choice as it hesitated on the porch and it slowly lunged then jumped over the divider.  It stared down at me for a minute then went off.  Not two minutes later when I went back out to check, another black cat was staring up from the stairs confused.  I wondered if they were lonely too.  There are no shortage of strays in our neighborhood.  I say this almost metaphorically sometimes.  One fateful November on the coldest night of the year I brought the Calico in from the cold.  These days more often than not I wake up to her cuddling me like teddy bear.  She was fairly vocal about the arrangement but not overly aggressive to our visitor.  She adjusted to the litters almost automatically with a few months of peeing where she shouldn’t.  This cat was a different story.  I had felt guilty.  I’m the only one who seems to care about the wildlife it seems.  When it becomes my responsibility, the landlord finds new things to single me out on.  But for the most part, I can’t really save the entire neighborhood by myself.  Especially when people just ignore me and talk behind my back about the Fundamental Attribution Error they perceive me to be.  I’ve been learning to make my own decisions however heartbreaking they may be.  And in this case, I felt if I kept them indoors any longer it would not be a happy situation for any of us.  It hurt.  I cried a little.  But ultimately, every hard decision is easy to make when nobody cares what you do.  And lately it’s really felt like for the most part nobody really gives a fuck about me.  This is not to say I believe it through and through.  I obviously continue to write these because there are people out there who read into them for my insight.  Mostly because I feel they care about me and how I think.  But I can assure you that I am very much alone in my life here in this city.  It is such a catastrophic failure of isolation that I’ve wondered if it’s for the best.  How do you let go of the things that hurt you?  How do you make decisions for yourself that tear you apart inside daily?  How do you live with the guilt?  Personally I’ve lived in the silence of the choices I make for so long that I am at peace with my trajectory.  It doesn’t mean that it’s not a brutal process of letting go and growing at the same time.  

It’s important to note sometimes that people ask too much of you without anything in return.  And this can go on and on until you are saddled with responsibilities.  Society in America is the worst for that these days.  You can never be good enough for most people.  The real trick is that people aren’t really aware of what’s good enough.  And so their perception of who you are and what you do is always skewed.  Celebrity is a hallucination based off of this.  I personally think I’m never good enough for anyone.  I’m not good enough at anything to not be compared to someone else.  And yet the entire last week my net worth crept up without me doing much of anything other than readjusting my finances.  I compare myself constantly because nobody ever treats me like a human being.  Nothing I do is good enough.  The job market is the worst for this kind of mental torture.  You feel picked over and ignored.  You read into the narratives in the news about how the next recession will be the worst.  There will be no jobs.  It will be a musical chairs situation and you will have sat out too long.  Your skills are useless.  Your pay won’t compare to what you were making.  You’ll have to make sacrifices in your life while the rich dance on the ashes of your bottom line removed from their fiscal budget.  And the more I compare myself to the American narrative the more I realize how pigheaded and pompous it is.  It never meets you eye to eye.  It isn’t that proud.  It never wants to face your pain and admit that it has contributed to it by playing into the very same game that hurts you.  It wants a savoir and a martyr at the same time.  A fall guy and a shill.  An inside outside man.  And when you look yourself in the mirror and try to be that all you can see is more pain reflected back at you.  I never wanted to be in this mess.  I only wanted to be a good person.  I show love every day and it is not returned.  And sometimes you have to reevaluate how much of it you want to squander on people who use it like a prop.  Everybody wants a superhero until they realize they’re the villain.  Everybody thinks they’re better than you until you prove them otherwise.  They waltz around in the street like it’s a parade or fashion show.  Expect you to read into every single nuance without understanding the context and the history of what you’ve honestly been through.  And after awhile the writing becomes clear on the walls.  The shit on the carpet is consistent and without fault.  It’s in their nature.  The human animal isn’t so hard to understand and neither is love  Love is waking up to your cat inexplicably attached to your chest until you cannot breath.  Envy and jealousy have nothing to do with it.  Love sometimes after all these years is an understanding of just how fucked up it is.  Like a caged bird, you open the gate and wonder if they’ll leave.  I open the back door and it’s just me and my cat staring out waiting for things to change.  And the more they do, things around here have pretty much stayed the same.  And the angels on my shoulder however you’d like to visualize them never leave my side.  So I have all the information I need to make the hard adult choices for myself and live with them.

Everything does pretty much suck lately.  I’m about to face another winter alone.  Aside from my cat and my long distance friendships which are more fulfilling than I could ever explain.  I feel targeted and attacked almost every day.  I do think about leaving entirely.  I also think about how logistically that can happen with one cat as opposed to two.  It hurts the most to admit that things aren’t really working out for me.  And it becomes a game of figuring out what actually does.  Because if you wallow in the misery of it all you can miss some opportunities.  My bank missed a rally on a stock I got in on early.  Now they’re projecting it forward to 2025.  All I ever hear from any business talking head is this idea of pivots.  How we’re supposed to continually get knocked off our bikes and get back up again.  The pivot is the musical chairs game corporate America loves to play.  Thin the ranks and the benefits and offer more duties to the next person for less pay.  When you’ve been kicked out of every elite club and shunned into nothing more than a ghost where do you actually go?  What do you have to do to be valued as a human being?  I can save every cat in the neighborhood and donate my proceeds to charity and I will still be invisible.  And if I don’t snap out of it I will fade like Casper the friendly ghost.  It’s not a joke anymore.  This is my reality.  I am phased out of everything and whispered about like some legendary scarecrow.  Nobody ever talks to me.  Nobody ever calls me by my name.  I never hear the words “Hi Tim” other than in personal assistance from Artificial Intelligence.  Animals speak to me clearer than most humans.  And what I heard from the little tabby I tried to help was pretty clear.  They didn’t belong here.  And in some ways neither do I.  And yet where do I go?  I feel like I’m trapped in a constant episode of the Prisoner.  This happy little village wants to pretend they’re better.  That I need to acknowledge them and their fucked up ways before I’m accepted again.  And then there’s the undercurrent beneath all of that.  The idea that people understand that I try to lead by example.  That I’ve already communicated what I’m about.  That nobody wants to believe my narrative on things because it would be a horrible reality.  To realize that I am better than this.  And in some ways, admitting this to myself I’ve realized why I’ve waited so long.  I wanted to know for sure.  And I wanted to make decisions that were true to myself that people could be proud of.  And the one thing I have never given up on is the future.  I don’t have room for any more cats.  Nor do I have room for any more people.  No new friends.  Angels only.  Yes I do sometimes feed the strays.  I’m a polite and genuine person by nature.  But don’t take my kindness for a weakness.  And when I close the door on this chapter of my life.  Don’t come knocking when the story is over.  <3 Tim

[flowerofpanem]

“And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

When she was a little girl, sick in bed, Moly had loved listening to her father’s stories. They were about princesses in foreign lands so unlike their own, or children that could fly, or simply about a place that lived in peace without fear. The one thing all of them had in common? They ended happily ever after.

Now it was like she had awoken to find herself in a story of her own. The arena shifted like the sands in the desert, unpredictable and a constant stream of flux. Around her now was a vast array of vivid foliage drifting in a hot tropical breeze, but the air was silent and that was what gave Moly paused. Back home, even in the city of Three, the birds were like omens; their songs stopping when something was lurking on the horizon.

Chewing her lip, Moly pulled herself to her feet and glanced around with nothing but silence to meet her ears. Where had Luna disappeared to? She had heard a canon earlier, but that couldn’t have been her ally. There were still plenty of tributes left. Seven or eight, Moly couldn’t be sure anymore other than there was considerably less than what they started with.

However, the name of her ally died on her lips as the ground quivered and trembled with a resounding thud. Thud. Thud. Even the trees knew to shiver under the force of what was coming. Moly wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew it had to be big. You didn’t have to hear it come because you could feel it coming.

Hastily, she gathered her small belongings together which consist of a newly obtained fishing knife and a handful of herbs gathered the day previously. Evanescently she debated whether she should run or hide in the foliage. Camouflage had never been her strong point...

What she hadn’t anticipated was the jaw-dropping sight that slowly emerged from the trees to her left.

Moly’s jaw went slack as her brain tried to comprehend what she was seeing. The reptile was so large two men could stand upon each other’s shoulders and they would not have looked the creature in the eyes.

For a moment monster and tribute’s eyes met in confusion or in awe, one in wonder how big and the other how small or perhaps, the creature was just hungry. Oh, Moly certainly was in one of her father’s stories now...

Stepping backward, Moly tumbled to the ground but she hardly felt the fresh scrapes and cuts the underbrush left on her skin. She needed to go, now! RIGHT NOW!

Then she heard it, what she could only describe as a ‘roar’ that could make the world go silent. Tears sprang to her eyes as she felt the ground tremble with every step as the creature walked forward its head-shaking under the weight of its three gigantic horns.

Back home surely her little brother and sister were yelling at her to run. Get up Moly! Run! She could almost hear their frantic screams echoing the screams in her own head.

Scrambling, Moly stumbled to her feet her mind oddly blank as she turned and darted from the horror behind her. As she ran the branches cut at her arms and tore at her clothing, but Moly felt nothing. The only sound in her head was the rapid inhaling of her breath as it caught in her throat. She hadn’t run this hard since she was a child, since before she was ill.

Moly relished the feel of the wind in her hair as her dark locks whipped around her face obscuring her view. It was kind of like flying...

Snap.

Moly heard it before she felt it. The shooting pain in her ankle as her foot got tangled in a root and sent her sprawling to the ground with a thud of her own. For a moment, she considered just staying there, but some primal center of her brain whispered to keep going.

Stumbling, Moly got up limping away from the dinosaur that was chasing her. One more step, one more step... Only she met a forcefield with a resounding bang.

“Oh, come on!” She cried as she hammered with her fist against the invisible boundary. What had she done to deserve this? She asked herself as she let out an audible cry, pivoting quickly to again face the monstrous Triceratops.

How did you defeat a dinosaur?

Then it came to her... You didn’t need to defeat the dinosaur when you had a larger brain that had 66 million more years to develop.

If Moly had to guess, the entire arena would have felt the tremble and collapse of the beast as it plowed headfirst into the invisible barrier, Moly having dove out of the way moments before.

But the dinosaur wasn’t the only one dazed as Moly pulled herself to her feet and blinked absently at it. She had done it! She had for the moment, beaten the threat to her life. Perhaps she could do it, perhaps she could go home!

Still limping, Moly started walking away knowing her reprieve was only temporary and the Triceratops would be back if she didn’t find a way out.  With a broken ankle though, which was starting to hurt now that the adrenaline was wearing off, was not going to let her get far. Hiding was now her best option...

Yet, the odds were not in her favor. The odds were never in Moly’s favor as the resounding thud, thud, thud told her.

Eyes wide, Moly turned her head and was greeted by the sight of a rather pissed off dinosaur Silver would have told her. It was then faced with insurmountable odds, Moly Linux drew in the breath that would go in but never come out.

Was it possible to be scared to death? Moly Linux would tell you yes. Whether it was because of her weakened heart, her recent strenuous activity, or the beast itself, no one would know for sure. The only certain things in life were The Reaping and Death in Panem.

All Panem would know was that the sound of the canon was covered by the eerie roar of a giant predator. Some would call it mournful, but it wasn’t mournful over the loss of a girl from District Three, but that its prey had not gotten up. The hunt was over.

In the end, wise men know that darkness is right and do not rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[neverendingwhyy]

In this piece of writing I am going to try to recount my counselling session I had this morning, as I feel it was a pivotal moment in my therapy and journey to learning more about myself, my trauma and why I am the way I am. I am going to paraphrase in some areas but none of this will be exaggerated nor will anything be left out unless I feel it was completely irrelevant. So, here goes nothing…

I sat down in my usual spot in her therapy room, completely unexpecting of where today's session would lead. As per usual, I had not planned or thought about what I was going to talk about today, and just let the words flow spontaneously from my mouth. First I confessed my reluctance to go to work since I became pregnant, as well as having a severe back injury that my job makes so much worse.

This lead to me saying:

"I have another confession to make… I downloaded Tinder the other day."

My therapist - let's call her P for private - asked me to explain why I introduced this information as a confession.

"Well, over the past 10 years of my life, the absolute longest I have been able to stay consistently single is the better part of 2 months, yet throughout every relationship no matter how long, short, serious or casual it was, no matter how much I enjoyed or despised it, I longed to be alone. I had the desire to almost date myself in a way, like to learn who and what I really am when I am not half of someone else. Yet every time I finally get the opportunity to do so, I'm immediately, consciously or not, seeking a new connection; all the while preaching to myself and friends and family that I am not at all looking for a relationship. But no matter what, within weeks I am someone else's partner, sometimes reluctantly so due to my inability to turn people down, and sometimes willingly, telling myself this time things will be different. Despite this constant longing to be alone, this idea that I intrinsically despise affection, love, romance, being wanted, I always find myself behaving in a way that would portray anything but those desires or beliefs. I'll find myself back on a dating app in less than a week after becoming single, and my bio every time will state that "I don't know why I'm on here" even though subconsciously I probably knew very well what I was on there for (thought still unable to articulate it to this day, if there is a reason). A severe case of cognitive dissonance, and it annoys the shit out of me. About a week or two ago, I was watching a show and there was an intimate scene with cuddling and kissing. Now, most of my life, due to my personal experiences with... "sex", I have always hated those scenes in movies, always thinking the whole time "Oh just get on with the film already" but for the first time ever, I watched this scene and instead of being irritated by it, I found myself feeling jealous, realising I had a craving for the physical affection that was on the screen in front of me, someone to cuddle and kiss. So that night I downloaded Tinder, and Bumble."

P took this in and asked me:

"What is it about the part of you that wants the affection? Where do you think that part of you comes from? Does this part of you have a certain age?"

I replied, after thinking for a while:

"I guess it would be my seven-year-old self."

P: "Why do you think it is your 7-year-old self?"

Me: "I presume it's because that is the first time I experienced being somewhat sexualised, experiencing something that no 7-year-old should experience, and all I wanted after that experience was someone to hug me and tell me what had happened was not okay."

P: "Are there other behaviours in your life that you can attribute to this 7-year-old part of yourself? What are they?"

I paused:

Me: "I guess this is the part of me that would walk from home to town and back again completely alone, clubbing by myself and getting beyond wasted, and yet still being surprised and damaged when I was subsequently taken advantage of. This is the part of me that chooses to willingly walk home at 3am through the dark, secluded park rather than the open road with people to hear if something were to go wrong, naively telling myself that the decision to do so was to prove to myself I could fight should I need to. The part of me that is a total doormat, and accepts any type of attention from any type of person, even when I know full-well how bad the situation could turn in terms of my safety."

P: "How about you choose an object in the room to represent this part of yourself."

I looked around the room and saw the perfect object, a cute little teddy bear with outstretched arms, as if it were asking for a hug. P asked me to then find an object to represent the part of myself that wants nothing to do with relationships, to be self-sufficient and devote my emotions to me, myself and I, only. Scanning the room again, which is filled with cute little knick-knacks, ornaments, art, plants, teddies, I spotted a little china cat, sitting tall and proud, which I thought was perfect because to me a cat represents "I do not need you".

P asked me go over to the teddy and hold it, after placing the cat in the seat I was originally sat in.

She asked: "What does this part of you want from the part of you that wants to be alone, and self-sufficient? Try to use an "I" statement and ask for what you want, or need, from this other part of you."

I replied, after thinking for a while:

"I need guidance, I need to learn how to stop being so impulsive, to stop seeking gratification that I know is toxic or false. I need to learn delayed positive reinforcement, I need to learn how to say no when I want or need to, and I need to learn and implement these lessons fast so that I can pass them onto my child."

P: "Now come back to your original seat and put yourself in the shoes of your other self. You've just been asked for help from this little 7-year-old you. How do you respond?"

Me: "The first thought that comes to mind is to almost laugh and say 'You're a lost cause, there's no helping you'."

I then paused, knowing that this isn't the right way to feel about myself if I want to make any progress whatsoever. Something suddenly clicked inside my head, I genuinely felt the switch flick and I immediately gained a new perspective. All of a sudden, I looked over at this little teddy bear, and instead of seeing my little 7-year-old self, the child that I was so used to thinking so negatively of, I saw a child that was all of a sudden no longer me, but just an innocent little 7-year-old girl to whom I had no relation to whatsoever.

I said:

"Okay, something just switched in me and I don't hold that view anymore, I don't know if this is because I'm a mother-to-be, or for some other reason, but all of a sudden all I can see is an innocent little girl who doesn't know any better, a little girl I don't know, and I have the overwhelming urge to do absolutely whatever I can to help her feel better, treat herself better, and to not follow the path that I followed."

P: "What is it you would do for her?"

Me: "I would to sit her on my lap, should she be okay with that, and hug her and never let go. I would to tell her it's not her fault, that she was innocent and didn't deserve to go through the things she went through."

P: "Now If you think about it, what mother would allow her 7-year-old daughter to go on Tinder? What mother would allow her 7-year-old to walk into town at night all alone, through dark and secluded routes?"

This hit me hard, what she was telling me was: the parts of myself that would engage in these risky, self-sabotaging behaviours, were merely the acts of my 7-year-old self, who innocently just didn't know any better. My 7-year-old self who knew that she was on this earth to be used over and over again for others satisfaction and pleasure, because that was all she had been shown, through many experiences as she grew in physical age. That this little 7-year-old repeated those behaviours for years and years and years, not knowing that all along there was always the opportunity to change the path she lead and followed.

At this point I think P could tell that this was hitting me quite hard, she asked:

"How are you doing?"

I said: "Honestly this is really hard, I feel raw, like my skin has been peeled off and I am sat here fully exposed, and that if anything touches me it will burn like hell. But this is good, I feel good, this is absolutely necessary, and hard work is the only way I'm ever going to grow. I also feel the need to go home and write about this because this is huge for me in terms of gaining a new perspective, and moving closer to possibly being able to forgive myself for the life I've lead and to hopefully move the fuck on."

Sadly I don't remember much else of the session following this core segment, but I know none of it was as important as this experience. I really hope that if anyone reads this, that it may help them to realise, or at least be open to the chance that, other ways of viewing yourself and your decisions and mistakes do exist. That the way you have viewed yourself and put yourself down most of your life, doesn't have to be the only way you treat yourself forever. Now, this crazy experience only happened today, so of course I'm yet to put the learnings into actions, but the story itself is enough to at least get me thinking in a new light, which I am so grateful for the opportunity to do so. I have spent more of my life than I can remember, viewing myself as the biggest most useless waste of oxygen that there is, and sadly I would say I do still feel that way currently, however I can feel those thoughts and beliefs losing their power over me, and I can see a light for the first time in a very long time. There is hope for change in my behaviours, patterns, decisions, and I can't wait to explore the new opportunities and perspectives that this experience has opened up for me.

If you read all of this, thank you - and if you feel it was a total waste of your time, sorry lol

[wrestlingisfake]

Double or Nothing preview

Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho - The winner of this match will face the winner of the Casino Battle Royale at a later date to determine the first AEW world champion.  Interestingly, Jericho is scheduled to challenge for the IWGP heavyweight championship on June 9, and this match may indirectly affect that one.

This is a rematch from Wrestle Kingdom 12, where Jericho began his sudden shift from “I’ll never wrestle anywhere besides WWE” to “I can be the Brock Lesnar of New Japan.”  Neither man has had a match since Wrestle Kingdom 13 earlier this year, where Omega lost the IWGP heavyweight title in the main event, and Jericho lost the IWGP intercontinental title in the semi-main. 

Jericho’s character outside of WWE has been a leathery weirdo brawler, whose services are highly valued by promoters even though he’s totally uncontrollable.  He’s randomly ambushed several top names in New Japan, and he seems to be gunning for Cody Rhodes down the line, but his recurring nemesis is Omega.  The general idea is that Omega entered the “greatest of all time” conversation with his six-star performances in 2017, and that puts a target on him for legends like Jericho that want to make a statement.  Omega defeated Jericho at Wrestle Kingdom 12, then Jericho shockingly attacked him at All In, then Omega’s team defeated Jericho’s team during Jericho’s wrestling cruise, and then Jericho attacked Omega again at AEW’s February 7 media event.

This is basically the biggest match AEW can present at this point.  It’s a rematch from the Tokyo Dome, featuring the biggest current star who’s never been to WWE and the biggest ex-WWE star they could sign.  In some ways it’s a coup they could put this together in a US show, but in other ways I’m disappointed that AEW couldn’t come up with something hotter.  18 months after his first NJPW vignette, the challenge for AEW is to prove Jericho still has mileage as a 48-year-old resident legend, and not just as an occasional special attraction.  Luckily, Jericho is keenly aware of this stuff and pretty good at finding ways to keep himself over, so hopefully this match will set up a good direction for him.

I tend to think Omega should win here, but Jericho is coming in with a pretty shitty win-loss record, considering he’s been set up as the top heel in the company.  A win for Jericho would add momentum to the angle that he thinks he’s singlehandedly put AEW on the map, and set up more matches down the line.  Then again, Omega is the actual ace of the promotion, and needs to be protected as such.  So I’m expecting a creative finish, but I don’t know which guy will win.

Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson vs. Penta El 0M & Rey Fenix - The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt) are defending the AAA tag team championship.  This feud started with the Lucha Bros. showing up at an AEW press conference, taking exception to the Bucks calling themselves the greatest tag team.  This led to the Bucks flying all over the place to ambush the Lucha Bros. at various indie shows.  Finally, when the Lucha Bros. won the AAA tag title at Rey de Reyes, the Bucks suddenly showed up for an impromptu title match and won the belts.

It’s worth noting that a rematch for the title has already been booked for AAA’s Verano de Escándalo on June 16.  So the outcome of this match won’t have much impact on which team ends up with the belts in the long run.  With that in mind, the logical outcome is for the Bucks to win to establish them as the benchmark for the strong tag team division they’ve been promising.  Penta and Fenix aren’t enhancement talent by any means, though, so I could see them scoring a win on the Bucks’ turf.  But until the Lucha Bros. put a ring on it and sign with AEW, it would be risky to put them over.  I’m leaning towards the Bucks retaining.

Cody Rhodes vs. Dustin Rhodes - Dustin, 50, is the son of wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes and his first wife, Sandra; Cody, 33, is Dusty’s son by his second wife, Michelle.  This is virtually a direct follow-up to their match at WWE Fast Lane 2015 (as Stardust and Goldust), which had been the closest they’d come to their dream of doing the match at a Wrestlemania.  A year later, Cody left WWE to begin a meteoric rise in the non-WWE scene, leading to his leadership role in AEW.  Once it became clear Dustin was leaving WWE, it was obvious he would end up here.

Dustin delivered a strong video package about needing to prove he’s still got it, and wanting to settle old scores with Cody.  Cody cut an intense promo likening Dustin and his era with Old Yeller, suggesting he has to put Dustin down because he loves him.  You can debate the wisdom of indulging in this storyline at a pivotal point in AEW’s beginnings, but you cannot argue that both men as fully committed to proving it can work.  Hopefully that results in some killer storytelling and a good match.  I have to think Cody wins here, and the brothers hug and Dustin ends up with a backstage job or something.

PAC vs. Hangman Page - ...already happened, so I guess you can watch that here.  The match on this card had to be cancelled.  The angle is that Page was so hype to fight Pac that he went to an indie show in England to do the match a week early.  Pac intentionally got disqualified and then pillmanized Page’s knee; he claimed he only wanted the Double or Nothing match to injure Page, but since he’d already succeeded with that he wouldn’t be coming to this show.  I suspect this match was intended to determine a participant in the match to crown the first AEW world champion, since Page has been talking about wanting that spot for months. 

As of this writing, AEW hasn’t announced what Page will be doing on this show, or even if he’s kayfabe recovered enough from the knee attack to have a match  This could be trouble, because it leaves fans to imagine all sorts of crazy surprise opponents that the company may not be able to deliver.  Already people have been actively speculating about CM Punk (the Dave Chappelle of wrestling), Jon Moxley (formerly WWE’s Dean Ambrose), and Joey Ryan (who had a farcical feud with Page last year).  How AEW handles this mess will leave a lasting first impression with fans, particularly fans like me who’ve seen all the stupid things WWE would do in this situation.

Britt Baker vs. Nyla Rose vs. Kylie Rae - This is a three-way match, so the first woman to score a fall over either opponent will be declared the winner.  Baker is probably best known as the wrestling dentist from the four-way match at All In last year.  Rose made headlines as the first trans woman signed to a major wrestling company, and I’ve just learned she starred in a Canadian sitcom a few years ago, playing a computer programmer, which is an interesting contrast from her “Native Beast” wrestling persona.  Rae is relatively less known, but she’s a smiley happy character in the vein of Bayley, and she’s from Chicago so I know who I’m rooting for.

Unfortunately I think the big story in this match is whether the live audience will accept Nyla, or if a bunch of jerks try to start transphobic chants or something.  I think the hardcore AEW audience is cool about it, but there’s just no way to know until she goes through the curtain.

Of these three, Baker seems to be the one they’re pushing as the face of the division, which may make her the favorite.  But the fact it’s a three-way with nothing tangible at stake makes this one hard to call.

Christopher Daniels & Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian vs. CIMA & T-Hawk & El Lindaman - Daniels’s team is SoCal Uncensored, which has become something of an underground sensation via their sing-along catchphrases and Being the Elite skits.  Cima’s team represents a faction called Strong Hearts, consisting of the wrestlers who joined him in leaving Dragon Gate to found Oriental Wrestling Entertainment in Shanghai. 

OWE is one of several attempts to expand the wrestling industry into the lucrative Chinese market--AEW is clearly partnering with them to cultivate Chinese talent and a Chinese audience.  Note, however, that Cima, T-Hawk, and Lindaman are Japanese, not Chinese; the Chinese wrestlers they’ve been training will presumably appear in the future.  This match seems to be less about China than about getting OWE over with the AEW audience, and acknowledging the influence Cima has had in the careers of wrestlers like Daniels and the Young Bucks.

If you weren’t paying attention to ROH last year, you might be surprised how hot SCU has become with the kind of fans that’ll be at this show.  When I went to All In I was prepared for the sea of Bullet Club shirts and constant Elite chants, but the response to anything SCU did was far more intense.  They really should win here, although there may be a plan to use them to establish the Strong Hearts as a force to be reckoned with.  It’ll really depend on how often Cima and the OWE guys are planning on flying out to do these shows.

Aja Kong & Yuka Sakazaki & Emi Sakura vs. Hikaru Shida & Riho & Ryo Mizunami - Kong is legendary monster heel, whose career goes back over 30 years.  As for the others, I don’t have much info on them.  My impression is that this match is designed to help introduce joshi (Japanese women’s wrestling) to the west, which would suggest the younger participants in this match (Sakazaki, Shida, Riho, and Mizunami) will be groomed for long-term roles in the company.  From what I’ve heard, Kenny Omega wants AEW to spotlight Japanese women as a unique attraction, similar to how WCW used cruiserweights and luchadors back in the day.  It’s a clever move, since the other US promotions have male Japanese stars, but joshi is still rather obscure in the west.  On Being the Elite they’ve played up Kenny Omega’s history with Riho, so I guess I have to pick her team to win.

Chuck Taylor & Trent Beretta vs. Jack Evans & Angelico - Chuck and Trent are the Best Friends, who were on the verge of breaking up when we last saw them in New Japan.  Evans is one of the original big names from the super-indy days in the early 2000s.  Angelico has been teaming with Evans in AAA, Lucha Underground, PWG, and elsewhere.  The Young Bucks have talked a big game about making the tag team division more important in AEW than in other promotions, but matches like this one will determine if they’re really serious about any tag teams but themselves.  I can’t decide which team should win, but I’ve got a soft spot for the Best Friends so I’m rooting for ‘em.

Casino Battle Royale - This is a 21-person gauntlet battle royal match, scheduled for the pre-show, where the winner will qualify to for a future match to determine the first AEW world champion.  Typically this kind of match starts with two participants in the ring, and each additional participant enters every 90 seconds or so.  The twist here is that five participants will start, and every three minutes another five enter the match.  The final entrant, being “lucky 21,” gets to enter alone, meaning only one person will have that “freshest person in the match” advantage.

The rules for elimination have not been specified, so I assume it’ll be the standard rules for most battle royales.  After entering the match, a participant will be eliminated if they exit the ring over the top rope and both of their feet touch the floor.  Participants can avoid elimination by stalling their entry into the ring, or by exiting the ring under the top rope, or by going over the top and keeping one foot off the floor until they can re-enter.  Eliminations can occur at any point in the match, before and after the last participant has entered.  The last person left in the match after everyone else has been eliminated is declared the winner.

Confirmed entrants for the match include:

Ace Romero (the big fat dude from MLW)

Billy Gunn (he’s an ass man, womp womp)

Brandon Cutler (the Young Bucks’ old buddy from PWG)

Brian Pillman, Jr. (the son of the “loose cannon” from WCW/WWF)

Dustin Thomas (a guy with no legs who impressed everyone at Joey Janela’s Spring Break recently)

Glacier (the Mortal Kombat guy from WCW...yes, that Glacier)

Isiah Kassidy (one half of the tag team Private Party)

Jimmy Havoc (an edgelord from the British indie scene)

Joey Janela (sleazy guy from GCW that does the Spring Break shows)

Jungle Boy (Luke Perry’s son doing a Tarzan gimmick) 

Luchasaurus (a guy who seems to be neither a luchador nor a dinosaur)

Marq Quen (the other half of Private Party)

Michael Nakazawa (Kenny Omega’s old buddy from DDT)

MJF (obnoxious preppie douchebag from MLW)

Shawn Spears (WWE’s Tye Dillinger/Cody’s old buddy from OVW)

Sonny Kiss (formerly XO Lishus in Lucha Underground)

Sunny Daze (scary weird guy that makes Bray Wyatt look like Mr. Rogers...okay, I’ll admit that’s not a very helpful comparison right now, but you get the drift)

???

???

???

???

That leaves four spots remaining as of this writing.  Knowing AEW, those spots could go to some of the guys who are signed but not booked (like Darby Allin or Peter Avalon) or to total unknowns, or to giant surprise stars.  It is entirely possible some women could be added to the match.

Obviously that “lucky 21” spot is perfectly suited for a big surprise entrant to shockingly debut, run wild, and win the whole thing.  However, since this match is for the pre-show, I don’t see them blowing their wad on a really big surprise.  On the other hand, the winner of this match has to be a credible contender for their world championship, so they can’t just give it to Joey Ryan or whoever.  This is where you really start wondering if Jon Moxley is available.

Sammy Guevera vs. Kip Sabian - The opening match, to air on the pre-show.  Guevera is a former AAA crusierweight champion.  Sabian has held the IPW:UK championship, and based on the limited data I can find for that title, he may well still be the champion.  Considering how much of this card consists of wrestlers I literally never heard of until they were booked for this show, it says something that these two are so obscure they’re in the opener.  But that’s to be expected when starting a promotion from scratch.  Hopefully they both give us a reason to care who they are.

[patriotsnet]

Who Will Be Speaker Of The House If Republicans Win

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-will-be-speaker-of-the-house-if-republicans-win/

Who Will Be Speaker Of The House If Republicans Win

Weakening Of The Investigations Against Trump

Pelosi Says She Will Not Let Republican ‘Antics’ Interfere With Jan. 6 Committee

If Democrats dont control the House or the Senate, they cant initiate investigations of Trump or some of his more controversial cabinet members, such as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

More importantly, after the 2018 elections, the electoral process will recede as a constraint on the president and GOP in terms of the Russia investigation at least for a while.

We dont really know why Trump, despite his constant criticisms of the investigation, has not fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or why he has not directly tried to stop the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. Maybe Trump, despite his rhetoric, has some real respect for the rule of law. I think its more likely that Trump understands that firing Rosenstein or making a drastic move to stop the Mueller probe would increase both the chances of Democrats winning the House and/or Senate this year, and the odds that the resulting Democratic-led chamber would feel compelled to push to impeach Trump. But if the GOP emerges from 2017 and 2018 without losing control of the House or the Senate, I suspect that, with the next election two years away, the president will feel freer to take controversial steps to end the Russia probe. And I doubt Republicans on Capitol Hill would try to stop him.

List Of Speakers Of The United States House Of Representatives

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The speaker of the United States House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House, and is simultaneously the body’s presiding officer, the de facto leader of the body’s majority party, and the institution’s administrative head. Speakers also perform various administrative and procedural functions, all in addition to representing their own congressional district. Given these several roles and responsibilities, the speaker usually does not personally preside over debates. That duty is instead delegated to members of the House from the majority party. Neither does the speaker regularly participate in floor debates. Additionally, the speaker is second in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate.

The House elects a new speaker by roll call vote when it first convenes after a general election for its two-year term, or when a speaker dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term. A majority of votes cast is necessary to elect a speaker. If no candidate receives a majority vote, then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected. The Constitution does not require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House, although every speaker thus far has been.

Cbs News Projects Hickenlooper Wins Colorado Senate Seat Democrats’ First Pickup

Democrats picked up their first Senate seat of the night, with CBS News projecting former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has defeated incumbent GOP Senator Cory Gardner. Hickenlooper decided to run for Senate after running briefly in the Democratic presidential primary.

Gardner was considered one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection this year, especially since he’s the only major statewide elected GOP official. Gardner has also been trailing Hickenlooper in polls leading up to Election Day.

While this is a victory for Democrats, they will have to pick up several other seats to gain a majority in the Senate.

Read Also: When Did The Republicans And Democrats Switch

Pelosi Says It Doesn’t Matter Right Now If She’ll Seek Another Term As Speaker Beyond 2022

 In a press call, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shot down a question about whether this upcoming term would be her last as speaker, calling it the “least important question you could ask today.” She added that “the fate of our nation, the soul of the nation” is at stake in the election.

“Elections are about the future,” Pelosi said. “One of these days I’ll let you know what my plans are, when it is appropriate and when it matters. It doesn’t matter right now.”

After the 2018 election, Pelosi agreed to term limits on Democratic leaders that would prevent her from serving as speaker beyond 2022.

How Maine And Nebraska’s Split Electoral Votes Could Affect The Election

As the race drags into Wednesday, it appears two congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska could prove pivotal in deciding the outcome of the election.

Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the nation that split their electoral votes. Maine awards two of its four electoral votes to the statewide winner, but also allocates an electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of its two congressional districts. Nebraska gives two of its five electoral votes to the statewide winner, with the remaining three going to the popular vote winner in each of its three congressional districts.

You May Like: What Republicans Are Running For Governor In Nevada

Pelosi Wins Tight Race For House Speaker

Pelosi, 80, is the only woman to ever serve as speaker.

Nancy Pelosi re-elected for House Speaker

The House of Representatives has narrowly reelected Nancy Pelosi as speaker with 216 votes, giving the California Democrat a fourth – and likely final – term leading the House.

Pelosi, 80, is the third speaker in the last 25 years to win with less than 218 votes, after former Republican Speakers Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. Five Democrats did not support Pelosi on the floor, and instead voted for alternative candidates or “present.”

After seizing the gavel, Pelosi said the “most urgent priority” of the 117th Congress will be defeating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Two weeks ago, we passed an emergency relief package to crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers and families, which is now the law. But we must do more to recognize our heroes,” she said Sunday. “Indeed, the pandemic has pulled back the curtain on even worsened disparities in our economy and our society. We must pursue justice: economic justice, justice in health, racial justice, environmental and climate justice.”

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, won unanimous support from the Republican conference garnering 209 votes on the floor.

Still, many new members were spotted with friends and family members around the Capitol.

Roy was shut down 371-2.

Grumblings From Within The Gop Could Cause Long

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has been a pointed critic of Trump’s conduct on January 6, and alongside Cheney, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the former president for his role in provoking the Capitol attack.

Kinzinger, who was first elected to the House in 2010, was dismayed by Cheney’s removal from leadership.

“Liz may lose, and MAGA-lago may celebrate,” he tweeted on May 12. “But I predict that the history books of the future will not celebrate. They will say this was the low point of the Republican Party.”

The congressman has increasingly directed his ire toward McCarthy.

He added: “Liz stayed consistent. She didn’t look for opportunities to attack Jan. 6, but as conference chair she does press and is naturally asked about it. She responds truthfully. Kevin? He felt threatened, so instead of fighting for his job he went on offense against Liz.”

Kinzinger then said that McCarthy wants to be speaker so badly that he’ll do anything to appease the far-right Freedom Caucus, filled with bombastic Trump loyalists like Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Louie Gohmert of Texas.

“Kevin … made the determination that if he appeased the Trump crowd, he could raise money and take the credit, when he was up for speaker,” Kinzinger wrote. “He also assumes that people like me will vote for him for speaker, but the legislative terrorists in the Freedom Club wouldn’t, so he needs to be all in with them.”

Also Check: How Many Republicans Are In The 116th Congress

Why Democrats Struggled More Than Expected In Some House Races

Its too early to say exactly what went wrong for House Democrats, who broadly hoped to comfortably expand their majority.District-level internal party polling had shown Republicans with the potential to lose even more seats in 2020.

Many Republican strategists had resigned themselves to the possibility that their House ranks could decrease. Instead, Republicans were the ones making gains albeit modest enough ones to stay the minority party in the House.

Cook Political Reports House editor Dave Wasserman had some early thoughts on Wednesday: Just like Biden, Democratic congressional candidates suffered losses among Hispanic voters in key races. Democrats had bad nights particularly in Florida and Texas; they lost a couple of incumbents in Florida and didnt defeat a single Republican incumbent in Texas, despite making a massive investment in the state to target 10 districts.

Republicans also learned from their losses in 2018 and recruited top-tier women candidates, who were on a winning streak.

After last night, Republicans are on track to more than double their current count of 13 women, Wasserman wrote.

These outcomes all elude a clean narrative. Its difficult to say early on how much is based on strategic error, and how much is owed to the bizarre nature of this election year amid a pandemic that significantly hampered Democrats ability to do basic campaigning tasks like door-knocking.

Gop Chatter About Possibly Electing Trump As House Speaker Grows

Former Speaker Boehner Discusses GOP’s Future, U.S. Political Division | NBC Nightly News

A Fox host asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy late last week whether he’d support electing Donald Trump as Speaker of the House. The answer raised a few eyebrows.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked Friday about the possibility of Trump becoming Speaker of the House if Republicans win control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms…. “You know, I’ve talked to President Trump many times, he tells me he wants to be speaker, and I think he should be president,” McCarthy told Fox News.

It wasn’t long before McCarthy’s office clarified that he’d misspoken during the interview: McCarthy meant that Trump supported the California congressman’s bid for Speaker, not that the former president wanted the job for himself.

That said, the question that prompted the confusion didn’t come out of nowhere.

Steve Bannon, who used to advise the former president, seemed to get the ball rolling on this, recently touting a scenario in which House Republicans take back the majority next year and support Trump as their new Speaker. Under the fanciful hypothetical, once Trump held the gavel, he could start exacting revenge against those who defeated him, launching investigations into imagined scandals, and initiating impeachment proceedings against President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Soon after, Trump was asked about the idea and replied, “That’s so interesting…. Yeah, you know it’s very interesting…. It’s very interesting.”

Chatter in conservative media soon followed.

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House Republicans Vow To Vote Against Raising Debtceiling

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

More than 100 House Republicans have vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling. In a letter released on Monday, a group of 103 lawmakers said in order for Democrats multi-trillion spending plans to come to fruition, the debt limit would have to be significantly increased.

They contended a vote to raise the debt ceiling would imply consent to new spending. The lawmakers also made it clear Democrats alone were responsible for the effort to spend trillions.

We do not accept Pelosis agenda. We will not be on the hook for Bidens failures, and we sure as hell do not consent to this kind of reckless, wasteful, useless spending in our nations capital.

Gop Women Made Big Gains

While the majority of the Republican caucus will still be men come 2021, there will be far more Republican women in Congress than there were this year. So far, it looks like at least 26 GOP women will be in the House next year, surpassing the record of 25 from the 109th Congress. Thats thanks in part to the record number of non-incumbent Republican women 15 whove won House contests. And its also because of how well Republican women did in tight races. The table below shows the Republican women who ran in Democratic-held House districts that were at least potentially competitive,1 according to FiveThirtyEights forecast. As of this writing, seven of them have won.

GOP women have flipped several Democratic seats

Republican women running for potentially competitive Democratic-held House seats and the status of their race as of 4:30 p.m Eastern on Nov. 11

District D+22.1

Results are unofficial. Races are counted as projected only if the projection comes from ABC News. Excludes races in which the Republican candidate has either a less than 1 in 100 chance or greater than 99 in 100 chance of winning.

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New Yorkers Become First Black And Openly Gay Members Of Congress

 Tuesday night will be historic in part because of the diversity of candidates elected to the House. Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, are the first Black and openly gay members of Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is leading in North Carolina’s 11th district, a safe Republican seat. Cawthorn, 25, won the June primary against a Trump-backed candidate for the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows . He has come under fire for visiting Hitler’s retreat and for his campaign launching a website which included a racist broadside against his Democratic opponent.

Us House Speaker Pelosi Names Republican Kinzinger To Jan 6 Panel

WASHINGTON, July 25 – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday formally named Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger to serve on a select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Kinzinger, Pelosi said in a statement, “brings great patriotism to the committees mission: to find the facts and protect our democracy.”

It was unclear whether she would name additional Republicans. Earlier in the day, Pelosi was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week” and said that other Republicans also had expressed interest in working on the panel.

Kinzinger, 43, is an Air Force veteran and an outspoken critic of Trump. He was one of seven House Republicans who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump earlier this year on a charge of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol.

He now joins fellow Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney on the panel as it prepares to hold its first hearing on Tuesday on the deadly attack.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who initially said Trump bore responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack that brought the worst violence at the Capitol since the War of 1812, has since mended his relationship with Trump as the two attempt to win Republican control of Congress in the 2022 elections.

Representative Adam Kinzinger speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 10, 2021. Ting Shen/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Also Check: Which Republicans Will Vote To Impeach

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.

Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election,2 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020,3 but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

Maine Senate Race A Toss

 With polls closing at 8 p.m., the hotly contested Maine Senate race remains a toss-up. Senator Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, is considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, but she is facing considerable skepticism from Democrats and independents who previously supported her. State Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic candidate, and has posted record fundraising.

CBS News projects that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts have both won reelection. Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also won reelection.

The Alabama Senate race is leaning toward Republican Tommy Tuberville, who is taking on incumbent Senator Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. 

The Tennessee Senate race is also leaning Republican. The Mississippi Senate race is likely Republican. The Senate races in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Rhode Island are lean Democratic, and New Jersey is likely Democratic.

Also Check: Did Any Republicans Vote To Impeach

Mcconnell Not Troubled At All By Trump’s Suggestion Of Supreme Court Challenge

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Mr. Trump for falsely claiming that he won reelection, although he acknowledged that the presidential race had not yet been decided.

“It’s not unusual for people to claim they have won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But, claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,” Mitch McConnell says, adding that Americans “should not be shocked” that Democrats and Republicans are both lawyering up for the close races

CBS News

He also said he was “not troubled at all” by the president suggesting that the outcome of the election might be determined by the Supreme Court. The president cannot unilaterally bring a case to the Supreme Court, what it’s unclear what case the Trump campaign would have if it challenged the counting of legally cast absentee ballots.

McConnell, who won his own closely watched reelection race on Tuesday evening, expressed measured confidence about Republicans maintaining their majority in the Senate. He said he believed there is a “chance we will know by the end of the day” if Republicans won races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Trump’s Save America Pac Released A Photo Showing The Former President Meeting With House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy On January 28 2021 Save America Pac Mccarthy Gets A Mixed Reception From Trumpworld

NBC Projects Democrats Take Control Of House | NBC News

Trump continues to hold immense sway over conservatives, and House Republicans delivered an easy victory for Stefanik in becoming the party’s Conference Chair last week, despite her having a more moderate voting record than Cheney.

Loyalty to Trump, which Stefanik displayed in lending credence to the former president’s grievances regarding the 2020 presidential election, is a true tenet of being accepted in his orbit.

Only weeks after the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s impeachment by the House, McCarthy made a sojourn to the former president’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, even taking a smiling photo with him.

However, according to a report from Insider’s Tom LoBianco and Warren Rojas, some loyalists in Trumpworld view McCarthy with a heap of skepticism.

A Trump advisor recently told the former president that McCarthy likely wouldn’t lock up the requisite number of votes to obtain the speakership if the GOP regains the majority in 2022.

“He’s left too many people unhappy and unsettled and time is not on his side,” the advisor told Insider.

However, a veteran GOP strategist with close ties to Trump who spoke to Insider noted that McCarthy was a stellar fundraiser who backed the former president in a very public way in ousting Cheney from her leadership role.

“He’s not gotten crosswise with Trump,” the strategist said.

Read Also: How Many Seats Do Republicans Need To Keep The House

Trump’s Former Physician Wins House Seat

Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician who served under both Presidents Trump and Obama, has won his race in Texas’ 13th Congressional District. Jackson rose to prominence in 2018 when he gave a glowing press conference about Mr. Trump’s health.

Mr. Trump nominated Jackson to be Veterans Affairs secretary last year, but Jackson withdrew amid allegations that he drank on the job and over-prescribed medications. In his House race, Jackson has closely aligned himself with Mr. Trump. He has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and criticized mask-wearing requirements. He has also promoted baseless claims about Biden’s mental health.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw also won reelection. Crenshaw is a conservative firebrand and a rising GOP star in the House.

Pelosi Says American People Have Made Their Choice Clear In Voting For Biden

 In a letter to her Democratic colleagues in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed confidence that Biden would be elected president, even though several states have yet to be called.

“The American people have made their choice clear at the ballot box, and are sending Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House,” Pelosi said.

She also praised House Democrats for keeping their majority, saying that the House will “now have the opportunity to deliver extraordinary progress.” However, she only obliquely referenced the heavy losses by several freshmen Democrats who had flipped red seats.

“Though it was a challenging election, all of our candidates both Frontline and Red to Blue made us proud,” Pelosi said.

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Analysis: Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House

 Want to hear a crazy idea? Of course you do!

Let’s go step by step.

1. Florida gained another seat in its congressional delegation thanks to faster-than-the-national-average growth over the last decade.

2. Republicans control both chambers in the state Legislature as well as the governorship, meaning they will have total control over the redistricting process and where the new seat will be drawn.

3. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a BIG friend of former President Donald Trump.

4. Trump makes his permanent home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Which brings me to this exchange between the former President and conservative radio talk-show host Wayne Allyn Root late last week as recounted by the Washington Times:

ROOT: “Why not instead of just waiting for 2024, and I’m hoping you run in 2024, but why not run in 2022 for the United States Congress, a House seat in Florida, win big, lead us to a dramatic landslide victory, taking the House by 50 seats, and then you become the speaker of the House?”

TRUMP: “You know, it’s very interesting. That’s so interesting. And people have said, run for the Senate, OK, run for the Senate, but you know what? Your idea might be better. It’s very interesting.”

Now that idea doesn’t seem so crazy, does it?!

Well, OK, it’s still very unlikely to happen. Mostly because Trump doesn’t really seem like the kind of guy who would be cool serving in the House after he had been president. Too small potatoes for him — even as speaker!

[christimesteele]

Transcript - Time Talks Ep 37 - Felicia Rose Chavez on Poetry, Dismantling Patriarchy, Anti-Racist Writing Workshops, Mutualism, Building Power, and Grief

chris time steele  00:06

Welcome to Episode 37 of the Time Talks podcast part of the channel zero network. This month I had the opportunity to speak to Felicia Rose Chavez, along with being an educator and professor, Chavez is an activist, writer and author of the book The Anti Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative C lassroom. In this episode, Felicia Rose Chavez spoke about poetry, dismantling patriarchy, anti racist writing workshops, mutualism, building power and grief. Thank you to awareness for the music. And here's a brief jingle by fellow channel zero network member.

 Silverthreads 00:41

still walking, still waking is co hosted by me carla bergman, and me Eleanor Goldfield. This is where we interview long term organizers and radicals about their watershed moments, what they've learned along the way and how they maintain their hope on this path, dreaming and building emergent worlds for a present and future anchored in justice and freedom for all because there are forks in the road. But they all lead us home to the fight to the build

 chris time steele  01:38

You wrote about the influence of June Jordan's Poetry for the People. I wanted to read an excerpt from it because I feel your book does this just so much as well and your writing. I read all of your, most of your short stories and essays that I could find online as well which were just so powerful. She writes, "poetry is a political action undertaken for the sake of information, the faith, the exorcism and the lyrical invention, that telling the truth makes possible. Poetry means taking control of the language of your life. Good poems can interdict a suicide, rescue a love affair and build revolution in which speaking, and listening to somebody becomes the first and last purpose to every social encounter." And building on top of this, I was wondering if you could speak on a transformational moment. I don't know if this goes back to when you went to Albuquerque Academy, or after it or before or maybe it's a process, a moment that radicalized you to interrogate the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy further, but to also fight against it, but also building outside of it?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  02:48

That's a powerful question. I don't believe that it's any one moment. I mean, I think there are shocking moments that we lived through, that we can point to and remember, by the narrative that I've had the opportunity to reflect on is one of consistent lived experiences that I like to think of as splinters right, they just kind of splinter under the skin where you're like, something's not right about that. That's not, is it just me, am I being crazy? Am I being overly sensitive, or why being too critical? And it happens again, and again, and again, until something's just like so much in your face that you can't, you can't deny it anymore. And you have a choice to make, you know, do I, you know, shake my head walk away, talk about it later, rant privately with my friends, my parents, my partner, or do I take action against it. And I think it took me many, many years to finally commit to that action. First through proper channels. You know, like in graduate school, I was petitioning for change and working on academic committees, working with faculty to create my own class. And nothing happened as a result of that. I mean, it was a lot of extra labor with no real fruit. So it took me writing down my own experience on the page and being vulnerable, and saying, hey, you know, I'm going to I'm going to count these splinters, I'm going to take them out one by one. And that started as early as, you know, elementary school where you're like, ah, why am I being treated differently as a student of color, you know, and then throughout middle school in high school, as you said, I went to a private predominantly white school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And by that senior year, I was furious. The context of college changed everything. You know, when I when I saw how easily my peers kind of transitioned into higher education, as though it were all laid out for them. And it was, you know, it was it was predestined. And for me it was real work, something I had to kind of claw for, and hang on to. So, you know, I guess the ability to articulate what it is that was wrong, presented itself in my teenage years. But it wasn't until later in life in my in my 30s, really where I was able to put it down on the page in a way that felt like I was doing it justice.

 chris time steele  05:36

Your thoughts about that moment were really, blossoming. When you were in Iceland, going back to when you said, when you were in elementary school, I remember you mentioning, in the book or a talk when you handed your husband, something from the third grade, where you were really,

 Felicia Rose Chavez  05:54

He was like, really, we're going all the way back? And I'm like, yeah, we're going all the way back. But that experience of reading, the very earliest rendition of the book was a 10 minute speech, where I just spoke to what I experienced at the University of Iowa as an MFA graduate student in creative nonfiction writing. And then a list of practical strategies that I do now kind of pivoting, from the way I was taught and embracing a new way to teach creative writing in the classroom. And I cried during that speech I stood up and just cried and cried. Because I was saying it. I was, it was my testimony, I was testifying to the people I went to school with and the people who taught me they were in the room. And I was, I was really summoning the courage to say what I experienced out loud, I think so many of us don't, we don't have that opportunity to go back and say, listen, this is what happened to me here. And we need to change so that this doesn't happen again, to your current students and your future students, it was a powerful, powerful moment that I think emboldened me to move forward to write the book.

 chris time steele  07:12

And I really thought the Iceland story was so powerful, because you said in, in one moment, you were so emotional, and cried, because you felt like you were betraying some of these people. But at the same time, when you when you did that, you found that you had so many people on your side, you know, when people were passing around the paper and trying to dismantle the systems that you spoke about was so violent.

 Felicia Rose Chavez  07:39

That was the great surprise of this book. And it happened twice. So once in Iceland, where I'm sobbing, because I think, what are they going to say, you know, and then I get this glorious response as you said from, from both the people of color in the room and the white educators in the room who said, we don't want to, we don't want to replicate this sort of harm. So what can we do to help? You know, like, can we have a copy of your speech? Send it to us, you know, and I thought, well, I could do more than a speech, i'll write on this, I'll really give it everything I have. But in the process of writing, I can't tell you. I mean, it was two years of constant paranoia, I mean, really awful, agonizing moments, day and night, where not only am I dredging up, hard to confront moments from my past and trying to make art out of it, trying to make a message out of it. But at the same time, I'm thinking, this person from graduate school is going to call me a liar. This person who taught me is going to is going to, you know, say that I got it all wrong. This person, I mean, I just was constantly thinking of strategies of defensiveness and dismissiveness and denial that has been the signature moves of white supremacy throughout all of our lives, right throughout history, and so I thought how many people are going to shut this down before he even has a chance to speak to anyone? Luckily, before it was published, as we were in the editing phase, a group at the University of Iowa called Black at Iowa Writers came forward and started calling out faculty members by name, specifically one faculty member John Degotta(?) and spoke out against their unfair treatment in the nonfiction writing program. I wasn't hip to it, a friend kind of nudged me to check out this social media account and I cried and cried. Then too, I mean, just out of pure relief, that it was real, that this experience was shared, and that someone was bold enough to come out before me and do this work. And then in an, in a sense, hold my hand and walk me through the process so that I could be brave enough to do it next.

 chris time steele  10:08

Thank you for sharing that story. That's, that's really powerful. And it really shows you that when you have the courage to stand up, that others are going to stand with you, even though they feel so alone. And that vulnerable moment,

 Felicia Rose Chavez  10:20

Absolutely, they didn't know, no one knew that I was working on this manuscript, it wasn't like I kept in touch with the alumni committee. You know, like, you never know, you never know how your work is going to impact someone, how your story, just sharing it aloud, it's gonna impact someone to, to go on and share their own story. And that's the power in in storytelling, right. And so, that was such a relief for me to feel supported in that way and less isolated.

 chris time steele  10:55

I think, another part of your, your writing that has such a liberatory and powerful effect is that you call out these systems as they are by using bell hooks, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. It's, it's right out in the open is, it's not something that some writers try to hide it by talking about systems and things like this and something so refreshing about your work. And you explicitly tell your story, which I feel calls out patriarchy as well. You mentioned how a colleague had to leave, and someone said we don't want to mother, these students and I loved how you reformatted the language. And you made it so powerful of talking about how we are multitudes mothered again and again in rhythm and time. And you talk about in the piece Color Lines about the coop living situation and the racism and patriarchy you had to endure there. From your story, the Brown Line, which just, which would be a simple walk for a man is this horrifying event for you. And for a woman that shows that inside your house, you have sanctuary but you should have that outside as well. It should be your sanctuary, your stories make these be so apparent. And was just wondering if if these tools to dismantle these systems like patriarchy? Is it just in the writing? Or what are some strategies you use to help dismantle or show these systems with students or more in your own writing?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  12:30

Well, first of all, thank you, I feel so heard and seen by that quick analysis. That was really that was wonderful for me. Thank you for, for that quick overview of different works that I've put out in the world. That was really special. Yeah, I think that it takes this reorienting, we're so accustomed to, especially within our educational journeys to say the right thing, to be what ever the person in front of us teaching us needs us to be in order to move forward, move on, get the grade, whatever it may be, right tune out. My practice, at heart, it's about tuning in, it's about doing the opposite, right? It's not about the authority in the room. It's about becoming our own authority. And the more that we can tune in and quiet everything around us, and listen. And the first step is to listen to our fears, and to listen to our insecurities, because that's just another iteration of white supremacy in our brain. So it's just another form of manipulation and control to say, you can't do this, you're not any good at this. Who do you think you are? Right? And sometimes these are the voices within our own families from internalized racism, right? This is who you know, who do you owe your fancy? Who do you think you are? Right? So, so these are, these are the voices that haunt us, but they live there and they're not going away? We just got to acknowledge that that's what that is. And then we move forward and we say, Okay, if I can move past fear, right, what do I want to try? What do I want to risk and failure's okay. So if we just accept the failures, okay, what do I want to try? And when we attempt something, whatever classroom it may be, it doesn't have to be a creative writing classroom. My goal was the anti racist writing workshop, is to couch it in creative writing, but like, please extend it. Right? I'm working with science teachers, I'm working with math teachers and working with history teachers, like extend it beyond, let's activate our imaginations to see how much we can empower students across the academic curriculum. And so we we embolden our students to try something that they're afraid to try and, and then as they're doing it, we ask them to listen. How's it going? check in with yourself? What are you proud of? What, what's really hard for you? What do you want this to be? But it's not yet, right? And we ask questions, encourage students to ask questions of themselves to be their own assessors. And then finally, how did it go? Right? What do you think about what you produced? What do you want to change, if you had an opportunity to change it, go on and try it, right? until they're able to tune in and say, I trust my own voice, I trust who I am, my gut, whatever we want to call it right to be able to go inward and say, I'm going to tune you out right now and listen to me. And I think that is so powerful for all of our students, but especially our students of color, and especially our young women of color, who can say, okay, now I can trust me, I'm going to listen to that voice that tells me this is an unsafe situation. I'm going to listen to that voice that says leave now. Right? I'm going to listen to that voice that says you cannot talk to me. No, thank you. Don't talk to me that way. And I'm going to trust that voice. And I'm going to act on it. So it is, as I said, it's couched in creative writing. But the whole gist of it is, how can we truly embrace our own voices and exercise those voices to create change in our culture?

 chris time steele  16:28

Yeah, I love that answer. And you really talk about boundaries in your in your book as well. And how were you when you were turning 30. And you talked about the trust in yourself and the power of No, and how this helped you fight back against educational and academic trauma that you were experiencing?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  16:46

Yeah, that that was the turn for me, was becoming a mother. And it was a really hard time period in my life. My husband, I was a new mother. And I don't consider myself maternal. And there are some women who are like that I've since learned, you know, are we like, you know, I changed the diaper for the first time when I changed my son's diaper. It was on on the job learning. And, and I had I experienced postpartum depression, probably as a situational and hormonal kind of situation, we had just moved to a new town, my husband took on a new job, he was traveling a lot, I didn't know anybody. And I just remember being in the house a lot. There was this huge wildfire. And so we weren't allowed to go outside for weeks because of the smoke. And so it was just like, contained. And and this, not a good recipe for mental health, for a new mother especially. And it was then that I start I knew I had to speak up. Like I knew I had to start saying what I wanted, what I needed. And so that was a that was a big turn for me. Again, intricately linked with with being a woman.

 chris time steele  18:05

I was wondering on my next question, Is this the kind of two questions they may relate I notice a lot of mutualism in your writing in your pedagogy? How you talk about deep listening, it also reminds me of some of those Zapatista teachings of asking, we walk kind of that we, we learn as we go, and we reflect as we go. But we don't get paralyzed by that fear. I was wondering if if there's a relation with mutualism, with your inspiration for your writing. And it also sees this ties in with Audre Lorde on quote you used, the way we can do is by creating another whole structure that touches every aspect of our existence at the same time as we are resisting it.

 Felicia Rose Chavez  18:51

I mean, that's, that's the difficulty that presents itself, right is that we're on a learning journey together as educators, those of us who are invested in doing the work, and I'm doing facilitations now all over the country, with elementary, middle, high school, undergraduate and graduate teachers, who are eager to learn that the question comes up again and again, is this the right place to do this work? Can we do this work within the institution? How do we, how do we flourish when the structure is set up so that we fail? And it's a tough question? It's a question that's keeping me up at night. Especially when it comes to our younger students like they're so they're held to a particular learning standard, right? Very strict learning standard. And there's no collapsing that system yet. As one brilliant educator just shared with me the other day on a meeting. He said let's do it anyway. With our with our kiddos with our little ones, let's just do it. Let's Let's lead them through an anti racist writing workshop curriculum. And then they'll become the next generation to overturn the standardized tests and the learning standards that they've been held prisoner to, for so, so long. And I thought that was really exciting, exciting way to think about it, right? How do we, how do we learn along the journey to change the restrictions that we face on a daily basis? Right. And it's, it's reminiscent of that last letter that I include in the book, which is addressed to the reader? And it's something like how do we live racism and mourn racism and fight racism all at the same time, it feels impossible, sometimes it's just, I'm just gonna lie in the bed, be useless, because I'm so overwhelmed by all of this. And then there are other days where you can take on the fight and try to change the system within so

 chris time steele  21:03

are you referring to the Letter to Close? When the police officer was blocking your driveway? This, this may lead to my my next question. And you may have already answered it with I really liked that answer. We're planting the seeds, and the students in the next generations to fight the threat to blossoming that is in academia or just education systems. And this question is of the do you worry about your book being co opted by liberal institutions? As an example, after George Floyd was murdered, we saw many businesses and colleges make statements about white supremacy and racial justice. But at the same time, there's been so many murders since then, of people of color Black, Indigenous communities and Black trans communities. And also with the recent killings of Daunte Wright and now Adam Toledo. My academic institution has been silent as well. Do you worry, the term anti racist writing workshop will be branded but still reproduce the violent and toxic problems that you wrote about?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  22:11

I mean, likely? Likely, I mean, look at, you know, these schools that I'm working with now, quite a few of them preempted, you know, before the book preemptively took on this anti racist initiative. Right, Colorado College, whom I work for, has taken on an anti racist initiative college wide. They're attempting to do the work. I feel, perhaps more so than some of the colleges that I kind of, you know, step foot in, and then and then exit. When I do these facilitations. They're at the very beginning of this initiative, whatever they label it is true anti racist work. I wouldn't call it that. Right. I think that's the term that's popular at the moment. But hey, that's a lot further than what we were three years ago, right? No one was throwing around that term at the college and university level, to the extent that they are now, again, co opting is the right term. I think that they're putting out fires. Because students are demanding again and again and again, that there's change. So I think it's a gesture to address those concerns. The real work happens daily, and college wide. And that's where we get into trouble. Because I think the attitude of many faculty members is, oh, well, we'll just have to wait on so and so's retirement in order to stop implementing harm. Because we all know so and so is, you know, horribly terrible, right? There's this 10 year old system where we have folks who are irresponsibly educating their students, it's hard for me to enter into the Zoom space and do these facilitations when I can see the dismissiveness at play sometimes with faculty. This isn't to say that it's always this way. Sometimes they're very sincere groups who are asking a lot of questions that are very engaged. Sometimes people turn their turn their bodies away from me, they'll roll their eyes, they'll sigh they're clearly doing something else, right. they're required to be there to hear me out or tune me out, whatever it is that they're doing. The University of Iowa just brought me in to do a panel and a public reading, which was a surprise for me, and it was one of the worst couple of weeks I've had since the book came out. I was not eating well, I couldn't sleep. It was reliving a trauma that I hadn't anticipated would be so difficult. For me, and it truly was, and I think that was also damage control. Right? I think it was putting public facing events out to the world to say, Yes, she, you know, she writes about her experience. So look, we're listening to her, will there be change that comes as a result of that I'm not facilitating workshops with those faculty members. And I'm curious if that does happen, right? I don't know. It's disappointing a lot of the time, and I get a lot of hate mail. And you've talked about the gendered politics of this all I mean, there's horribly sexist, as well as racist. And it's discouraging. It's disappointing to hear echoes of these hate messages out of the mouths of professors who are responsible for generations of students, you know, quick to dismiss and deny that racism even exists. It's scary sometimes.

 chris time steele  25:58

I think you made a great point of many awesome points, that just having an anti racist workshop, even if it's not being lived up to it lays this great foundation for it to be called out and put back into place, when it's not being used correctly. By as you said, these students who seeds were planted in optimism of this?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  26:20

Absolutely, I do a facilitation called self advocacy for students. And that's my favorite one to do. Because it's, it's how to hold one another as peers accountable and how to hold our educators accountable. Every time I talk to educators, I say you need to explicitly say it. I teach an anti racist writing workshop, I teach an anti racist econ class, I teach an anti racist history class, like, How can you be so explicit, so as to empower your students to hold you accountable, right, because if you just come out and say it, now you've got to follow through. And, and I want all of our young people to be able to exercise their voices in that way, where they were their reminders, constant reminders to one another, and to their, to their teachers, that they deserve better.

 chris time steele  27:17

I also loved throughout this book that you call out gatekeeping even with, not just within academia, but within these writing groups that these workshops, there's often a lot of gatekeeping that goes on, and I like the you talk about gaslighting, and also the importance of language, all these different things that really cause so much violence, and how you call out words like literary and classical, which are another synonyms for gatekeeper. And I just really love that you I just wanted to highlight that this is so important what you bring out. And when I was teaching political science and history, this was something I was trying to change in my department to stop using words like slave and using enslaved, I had a big fight with my department when I tried to get rid of a Pearson textbook, and try to add Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, The People's Indigenous History of the US.

 Felicia Rose Chavez  28:14

Wow, that was a fight?

 chris time steele  28:16

Yeah, then they told me because I didn't have a PhD. I didn't know about scholarship, that the book was against America and all kinds of things is so horribly racist things and it really reminded me of your story on Shakespeare, but not being a play that was highlighted for just not one time, which became an outrage.

 Felicia Rose Chavez  28:37

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just just earlier today I, a board member at the creative writing studies organization, I just joined, and they put out a call for proposals for conference panels. And I just read the call and noted language in there, like, you know, you must have, you must cite other sources, scholarly sources that support this work, you know, this, this is the same old rhetoric that that we offer one another to maintain this, this domination over who gets the control of the narrative, right. And to me, that's no different from our officers saying, you know, there was a meme that I posted, you know, it's a package of Skittles, it's a gunm a cell phone, it's a gun, a sandwich, it's a gun and then a taser? Oh, no. Right. I got confused. I didn't have you know, a gun is a taser like it's, it's control of the narrative. So, so it extends across our culture. It's not just within academia, but it is shameful, how we use that as as a standard to enforce white supremacy without having to use those words.

 chris time steele  29:56

Definitely. Thank you. This is probably my last question, I want to be mindful of your time, along with your amazing book which I have already recommended it to so many people, the Anti Racist Writing Workshop, I'd like to talk about your other writings as well. And I love Femme Fatal. the great frat boy in the sky, your other writings, how they deal with a field to deal with a lot of grief, Anatomy of a Life is one, the Mindful Birthing. I love that one. I was wondering if you could talk about the piece Memory Loop, which I found extremely personal and powerful and vulnerable. Wondering if you could talk about the process for this piece of was it therapeutic to write? Did it reopen wounds? Or did it help to heal wounds? Or was it a combination?

 Felicia Rose Chavez  30:49

That's That's the one. I feel like all the other writing was just practice, right. I mean, it was just fun. Well, not always fun. But but more experiments. You know, I wanted to try different things with my writing. But that was the very first piece I ever wrote. I taught writing for many years as a way of supporting myself. And I taught writing because I was such an avid reader. And so I think the two go hand in hand and in that I was able to share strategies that appealed to me, as a reader, and relay that but not necessarily coming from a place of a writer speaking to another writer, I thought of myself as a teacher for so many years. And it took needing to relocate to Albuquerque, from Chicago, to go back home and serve as a caretaker, to my parents, my dad specifically, that motivated me to say, well, I'll try. I'll try graduate school, I'll try a writing program, let me dedicate some time to writing. So I showed up for a two week period, I showed up every day, a little bit early to work. And I wrote, you know, maybe 20-30 minutes per day in my little cubicle. And I would write and cry and write and cry. And what I created, I didn't edit I just sent out. And that was the very early version of memory loop. It took me between 10 and 12 years to return to that piece over and over and over again, I did so many different versions of that piece. I mean, the bones are still the same, but I tried reordering it, retitling it, like I mean, I just just adding a ton of research, taking it out. It was the, it never felt right. And once I achieved the draft the current draft, I thought I just knew it. It's like the body knows. It just I just knew it was almost like a sigh of relief. Like I finally did it. And it was, I think, transitioning from this is what happened to me, right, which I think is what we all come to the page as an act of like, release, right, this is what happened to me, I was witness to this, then, you know, this is, let me try to get inside the head of my mother who had experienced great depression. And it's kind of a stunning, shocking depression, which felt out of nowhere, when in truth was years long in the making, once I stepped out of her experience and into my own and really owned my own my own actions, like I'm complicit in this story, I'm not just there watching it happen. I'm involved, and I need to point the finger at myself as well, it needs to be, you know, like, it needed to be way more complicated than I was initially prepared to make it because I had to, I had to process it first. So to make something of it took many, many years. And it taught me something I learned about myself in writing that and coming to terms with my own guilt, as a you know, a participant in in the story. And in that in that few years, you know, 10, 5 years of my mom's life. And I'm really grateful that I didn't settle for that first draft. I'm really grateful that I did that work and went back again and again. Because I think that I needed to teach myself something in that writing.

 chris time steele  34:22

Wow, thanks for sharing that process it's such a powerful piece, you switch from narrative so smoothly. You know, some writers have to use the three stars to show we can do the scene as a new narrative. And then your piece went to so many different avenues that was just so powerful. Thank you for explaining that process.  Thank you for listening to this episode of the time talks podcast. Please check out some other shows on the Channel Zero Network. Thanks to Awareness for the music, please support his music on Bandcamp and please pick up Felicia Rose Chavez's his book out on Haymarket, the Anti Racist Writing Workshop, and check out her other writings. I'll link them in the show notes. See you all next time and free Palestine.

[statetalks]

Who Will Be Speaker Of The House If Republicans Win

Weakening Of The Investigations Against Trump

Pelosi Says She Will Not Let Republican ‘Antics’ Interfere With Jan. 6 Committee

If Democrats dont control the House or the Senate, they cant initiate investigations of Trump or some of his more controversial cabinet members, such as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

More importantly, after the 2018 elections, the electoral process will recede as a constraint on the president and GOP in terms of the Russia investigation at least for a while.

We dont really know why Trump, despite his constant criticisms of the investigation, has not fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or why he has not directly tried to stop the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. Maybe Trump, despite his rhetoric, has some real respect for the rule of law. I think its more likely that Trump understands that firing Rosenstein or making a drastic move to stop the Mueller probe would increase both the chances of Democrats winning the House and/or Senate this year, and the odds that the resulting Democratic-led chamber would feel compelled to push to impeach Trump. But if the GOP emerges from 2017 and 2018 without losing control of the House or the Senate, I suspect that, with the next election two years away, the president will feel freer to take controversial steps to end the Russia probe. And I doubt Republicans on Capitol Hill would try to stop him.

List Of Speakers Of The United States House Of Representatives

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The speaker of the United States House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House, and is simultaneously the body’s presiding officer, the de facto leader of the body’s majority party, and the institution’s administrative head. Speakers also perform various administrative and procedural functions, all in addition to representing their own congressional district. Given these several roles and responsibilities, the speaker usually does not personally preside over debates. That duty is instead delegated to members of the House from the majority party. Neither does the speaker regularly participate in floor debates. Additionally, the speaker is second in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate.

The House elects a new speaker by roll call vote when it first convenes after a general election for its two-year term, or when a speaker dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term. A majority of votes cast is necessary to elect a speaker. If no candidate receives a majority vote, then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected. The Constitution does not require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House, although every speaker thus far has been.

Cbs News Projects Hickenlooper Wins Colorado Senate Seat Democrats’ First Pickup

Democrats picked up their first Senate seat of the night, with CBS News projecting former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has defeated incumbent GOP Senator Cory Gardner. Hickenlooper decided to run for Senate after running briefly in the Democratic presidential primary.

Gardner was considered one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection this year, especially since he’s the only major statewide elected GOP official. Gardner has also been trailing Hickenlooper in polls leading up to Election Day.

While this is a victory for Democrats, they will have to pick up several other seats to gain a majority in the Senate.

Read Also: When Did The Republicans And Democrats Switch

Pelosi Says It Doesn’t Matter Right Now If She’ll Seek Another Term As Speaker Beyond 2022

 In a press call, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shot down a question about whether this upcoming term would be her last as speaker, calling it the “least important question you could ask today.” She added that “the fate of our nation, the soul of the nation” is at stake in the election.

“Elections are about the future,” Pelosi said. “One of these days I’ll let you know what my plans are, when it is appropriate and when it matters. It doesn’t matter right now.”

After the 2018 election, Pelosi agreed to term limits on Democratic leaders that would prevent her from serving as speaker beyond 2022.

How Maine And Nebraska’s Split Electoral Votes Could Affect The Election

As the race drags into Wednesday, it appears two congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska could prove pivotal in deciding the outcome of the election.

Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the nation that split their electoral votes. Maine awards two of its four electoral votes to the statewide winner, but also allocates an electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of its two congressional districts. Nebraska gives two of its five electoral votes to the statewide winner, with the remaining three going to the popular vote winner in each of its three congressional districts.

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Pelosi Wins Tight Race For House Speaker

Pelosi, 80, is the only woman to ever serve as speaker.

Nancy Pelosi re-elected for House Speaker

The House of Representatives has narrowly reelected Nancy Pelosi as speaker with 216 votes, giving the California Democrat a fourth – and likely final – term leading the House.

Pelosi, 80, is the third speaker in the last 25 years to win with less than 218 votes, after former Republican Speakers Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. Five Democrats did not support Pelosi on the floor, and instead voted for alternative candidates or “present.”

After seizing the gavel, Pelosi said the “most urgent priority” of the 117th Congress will be defeating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Two weeks ago, we passed an emergency relief package to crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers and families, which is now the law. But we must do more to recognize our heroes,” she said Sunday. “Indeed, the pandemic has pulled back the curtain on even worsened disparities in our economy and our society. We must pursue justice: economic justice, justice in health, racial justice, environmental and climate justice.”

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, won unanimous support from the Republican conference garnering 209 votes on the floor.

Still, many new members were spotted with friends and family members around the Capitol.

Roy was shut down 371-2.

Grumblings From Within The Gop Could Cause Long

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has been a pointed critic of Trump’s conduct on January 6, and alongside Cheney, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the former president for his role in provoking the Capitol attack.

Kinzinger, who was first elected to the House in 2010, was dismayed by Cheney’s removal from leadership.

“Liz may lose, and MAGA-lago may celebrate,” he tweeted on May 12. “But I predict that the history books of the future will not celebrate. They will say this was the low point of the Republican Party.”

The congressman has increasingly directed his ire toward McCarthy.

He added: “Liz stayed consistent. She didn’t look for opportunities to attack Jan. 6, but as conference chair she does press and is naturally asked about it. She responds truthfully. Kevin? He felt threatened, so instead of fighting for his job he went on offense against Liz.”

Kinzinger then said that McCarthy wants to be speaker so badly that he’ll do anything to appease the far-right Freedom Caucus, filled with bombastic Trump loyalists like Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Louie Gohmert of Texas.

“Kevin … made the determination that if he appeased the Trump crowd, he could raise money and take the credit, when he was up for speaker,” Kinzinger wrote. “He also assumes that people like me will vote for him for speaker, but the legislative terrorists in the Freedom Club wouldn’t, so he needs to be all in with them.”

Also Check: How Many Republicans Are In The 116th Congress

Why Democrats Struggled More Than Expected In Some House Races

Its too early to say exactly what went wrong for House Democrats, who broadly hoped to comfortably expand their majority.District-level internal party polling had shown Republicans with the potential to lose even more seats in 2020.

Many Republican strategists had resigned themselves to the possibility that their House ranks could decrease. Instead, Republicans were the ones making gains albeit modest enough ones to stay the minority party in the House.

Cook Political Reports House editor Dave Wasserman had some early thoughts on Wednesday: Just like Biden, Democratic congressional candidates suffered losses among Hispanic voters in key races. Democrats had bad nights particularly in Florida and Texas; they lost a couple of incumbents in Florida and didnt defeat a single Republican incumbent in Texas, despite making a massive investment in the state to target 10 districts.

Republicans also learned from their losses in 2018 and recruited top-tier women candidates, who were on a winning streak.

After last night, Republicans are on track to more than double their current count of 13 women, Wasserman wrote.

These outcomes all elude a clean narrative. Its difficult to say early on how much is based on strategic error, and how much is owed to the bizarre nature of this election year amid a pandemic that significantly hampered Democrats ability to do basic campaigning tasks like door-knocking.

Gop Chatter About Possibly Electing Trump As House Speaker Grows

Former Speaker Boehner Discusses GOP’s Future, U.S. Political Division | NBC Nightly News

A Fox host asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy late last week whether he’d support electing Donald Trump as Speaker of the House. The answer raised a few eyebrows.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked Friday about the possibility of Trump becoming Speaker of the House if Republicans win control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms…. “You know, I’ve talked to President Trump many times, he tells me he wants to be speaker, and I think he should be president,” McCarthy told Fox News.

It wasn’t long before McCarthy’s office clarified that he’d misspoken during the interview: McCarthy meant that Trump supported the California congressman’s bid for Speaker, not that the former president wanted the job for himself.

That said, the question that prompted the confusion didn’t come out of nowhere.

Steve Bannon, who used to advise the former president, seemed to get the ball rolling on this, recently touting a scenario in which House Republicans take back the majority next year and support Trump as their new Speaker. Under the fanciful hypothetical, once Trump held the gavel, he could start exacting revenge against those who defeated him, launching investigations into imagined scandals, and initiating impeachment proceedings against President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Soon after, Trump was asked about the idea and replied, “That’s so interesting…. Yeah, you know it’s very interesting…. It’s very interesting.”

Chatter in conservative media soon followed.

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House Republicans Vow To Vote Against Raising Debtceiling

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

More than 100 House Republicans have vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling. In a letter released on Monday, a group of 103 lawmakers said in order for Democrats multi-trillion spending plans to come to fruition, the debt limit would have to be significantly increased.

They contended a vote to raise the debt ceiling would imply consent to new spending. The lawmakers also made it clear Democrats alone were responsible for the effort to spend trillions.

We do not accept Pelosis agenda. We will not be on the hook for Bidens failures, and we sure as hell do not consent to this kind of reckless, wasteful, useless spending in our nations capital.

Gop Women Made Big Gains

While the majority of the Republican caucus will still be men come 2021, there will be far more Republican women in Congress than there were this year. So far, it looks like at least 26 GOP women will be in the House next year, surpassing the record of 25 from the 109th Congress. Thats thanks in part to the record number of non-incumbent Republican women 15 whove won House contests. And its also because of how well Republican women did in tight races. The table below shows the Republican women who ran in Democratic-held House districts that were at least potentially competitive,1 according to FiveThirtyEights forecast. As of this writing, seven of them have won.

GOP women have flipped several Democratic seats

Republican women running for potentially competitive Democratic-held House seats and the status of their race as of 4:30 p.m Eastern on Nov. 11

District D+22.1

Results are unofficial. Races are counted as projected only if the projection comes from ABC News. Excludes races in which the Republican candidate has either a less than 1 in 100 chance or greater than 99 in 100 chance of winning.

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New Yorkers Become First Black And Openly Gay Members Of Congress

 Tuesday night will be historic in part because of the diversity of candidates elected to the House. Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, are the first Black and openly gay members of Congress.

Meanwhile, Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina is leading in North Carolina’s 11th district, a safe Republican seat. Cawthorn, 25, won the June primary against a Trump-backed candidate for the seat vacated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows . He has come under fire for visiting Hitler’s retreat and for his campaign launching a website which included a racist broadside against his Democratic opponent.

Us House Speaker Pelosi Names Republican Kinzinger To Jan 6 Panel

WASHINGTON, July 25 – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday formally named Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger to serve on a select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Kinzinger, Pelosi said in a statement, “brings great patriotism to the committees mission: to find the facts and protect our democracy.”

It was unclear whether she would name additional Republicans. Earlier in the day, Pelosi was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week” and said that other Republicans also had expressed interest in working on the panel.

Kinzinger, 43, is an Air Force veteran and an outspoken critic of Trump. He was one of seven House Republicans who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump earlier this year on a charge of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol.

He now joins fellow Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney on the panel as it prepares to hold its first hearing on Tuesday on the deadly attack.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who initially said Trump bore responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack that brought the worst violence at the Capitol since the War of 1812, has since mended his relationship with Trump as the two attempt to win Republican control of Congress in the 2022 elections.

Representative Adam Kinzinger speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 10, 2021. Ting Shen/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Also Check: Which Republicans Will Vote To Impeach

Its Not All Bad News For Democrats

While it was unquestionably a good night for Republicans, Democrats still held onto most of the seats they won in 2018 and will continue to be the majority party in the House. Thats in part because they retained most of the suburban districts they picked up in 2018.

Of the 233 seats that Democrats held coming into the election,2 186 of them were in districts that were predominantly or partly suburban in nature, according to density categorizations by Bloombergs CityLab. Thus far, Democrats have lost seven of those seats, but they captured one GOP-held suburban seat around Atlanta. And thanks to redistricting, theyve also won two formerly Republican seats around Greensboro and Raleigh in North Carolina, which reflect the partys strength in more populous areas.

Because of their relative success in the suburbs, Democrats kept many seats in places President Trump won in 2016. Coming into the election, Democrats held 30 seats in districts Trump carried in 2016, and they wouldve lost their majority if theyd lost more than half of them . But theyve won 18 of them so far and picked up one from the GOP . In fact, more than half of Republicans gains have come in seats representing places that Trump won by a pretty sizable margin in 2016. Well have to wait a bit before data can tell us how congressional districts voted in 2020,3 but for now it seems many Republican gains were made by picking off the lowest-hanging fruit.

Maine Senate Race A Toss

 With polls closing at 8 p.m., the hotly contested Maine Senate race remains a toss-up. Senator Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, is considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate, but she is facing considerable skepticism from Democrats and independents who previously supported her. State Speaker of the House Sara Gideon is the Democratic candidate, and has posted record fundraising.

CBS News projects that Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts have both won reelection. Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma also won reelection.

The Alabama Senate race is leaning toward Republican Tommy Tuberville, who is taking on incumbent Senator Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. 

The Tennessee Senate race is also leaning Republican. The Mississippi Senate race is likely Republican. The Senate races in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Rhode Island are lean Democratic, and New Jersey is likely Democratic.

Also Check: Did Any Republicans Vote To Impeach

Mcconnell Not Troubled At All By Trump’s Suggestion Of Supreme Court Challenge

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Mr. Trump for falsely claiming that he won reelection, although he acknowledged that the presidential race had not yet been decided.

“It’s not unusual for people to claim they have won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But, claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,” Mitch McConnell says, adding that Americans “should not be shocked” that Democrats and Republicans are both lawyering up for the close races

CBS News

He also said he was “not troubled at all” by the president suggesting that the outcome of the election might be determined by the Supreme Court. The president cannot unilaterally bring a case to the Supreme Court, what it’s unclear what case the Trump campaign would have if it challenged the counting of legally cast absentee ballots.

McConnell, who won his own closely watched reelection race on Tuesday evening, expressed measured confidence about Republicans maintaining their majority in the Senate. He said he believed there is a “chance we will know by the end of the day” if Republicans won races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

Trump’s Save America Pac Released A Photo Showing The Former President Meeting With House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy On January 28 2021 Save America Pac Mccarthy Gets A Mixed Reception From Trumpworld

NBC Projects Democrats Take Control Of House | NBC News

Trump continues to hold immense sway over conservatives, and House Republicans delivered an easy victory for Stefanik in becoming the party’s Conference Chair last week, despite her having a more moderate voting record than Cheney.

Loyalty to Trump, which Stefanik displayed in lending credence to the former president’s grievances regarding the 2020 presidential election, is a true tenet of being accepted in his orbit.

Only weeks after the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s impeachment by the House, McCarthy made a sojourn to the former president’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, even taking a smiling photo with him.

However, according to a report from Insider’s Tom LoBianco and Warren Rojas, some loyalists in Trumpworld view McCarthy with a heap of skepticism.

A Trump advisor recently told the former president that McCarthy likely wouldn’t lock up the requisite number of votes to obtain the speakership if the GOP regains the majority in 2022.

“He’s left too many people unhappy and unsettled and time is not on his side,” the advisor told Insider.

However, a veteran GOP strategist with close ties to Trump who spoke to Insider noted that McCarthy was a stellar fundraiser who backed the former president in a very public way in ousting Cheney from her leadership role.

“He’s not gotten crosswise with Trump,” the strategist said.

Read Also: How Many Seats Do Republicans Need To Keep The House

Trump’s Former Physician Wins House Seat

Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician who served under both Presidents Trump and Obama, has won his race in Texas’ 13th Congressional District. Jackson rose to prominence in 2018 when he gave a glowing press conference about Mr. Trump’s health.

Mr. Trump nominated Jackson to be Veterans Affairs secretary last year, but Jackson withdrew amid allegations that he drank on the job and over-prescribed medications. In his House race, Jackson has closely aligned himself with Mr. Trump. He has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and criticized mask-wearing requirements. He has also promoted baseless claims about Biden’s mental health.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw also won reelection. Crenshaw is a conservative firebrand and a rising GOP star in the House.

Pelosi Says American People Have Made Their Choice Clear In Voting For Biden

 In a letter to her Democratic colleagues in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed confidence that Biden would be elected president, even though several states have yet to be called.

“The American people have made their choice clear at the ballot box, and are sending Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House,” Pelosi said.

She also praised House Democrats for keeping their majority, saying that the House will “now have the opportunity to deliver extraordinary progress.” However, she only obliquely referenced the heavy losses by several freshmen Democrats who had flipped red seats.

“Though it was a challenging election, all of our candidates both Frontline and Red to Blue made us proud,” Pelosi said.

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Analysis: Donald Trump For Speaker Of The House

 Want to hear a crazy idea? Of course you do!

Let’s go step by step.

1. Florida gained another seat in its congressional delegation thanks to faster-than-the-national-average growth over the last decade.

2. Republicans control both chambers in the state Legislature as well as the governorship, meaning they will have total control over the redistricting process and where the new seat will be drawn.

3. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a BIG friend of former President Donald Trump.

4. Trump makes his permanent home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Which brings me to this exchange between the former President and conservative radio talk-show host Wayne Allyn Root late last week as recounted by the Washington Times:

ROOT: “Why not instead of just waiting for 2024, and I’m hoping you run in 2024, but why not run in 2022 for the United States Congress, a House seat in Florida, win big, lead us to a dramatic landslide victory, taking the House by 50 seats, and then you become the speaker of the House?”

TRUMP: “You know, it’s very interesting. That’s so interesting. And people have said, run for the Senate, OK, run for the Senate, but you know what? Your idea might be better. It’s very interesting.”

Now that idea doesn’t seem so crazy, does it?!

Well, OK, it’s still very unlikely to happen. Mostly because Trump doesn’t really seem like the kind of guy who would be cool serving in the House after he had been president. Too small potatoes for him — even as speaker!

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-will-be-speaker-of-the-house-if-republicans-win/

[sportsanimebreakdown]

How to Draw Someone Getting Punched in The Face

AKA: The first of many posts where I don’t just lose my shit over Hajime no Ippo, but I explain to you, in stupid amounts of detail, whhhyyy.

Layout Disclaimer: Any sequential pages will be laid out right to left. That’s how it goes in Japan and it’s important to the motion of the page to keep it the way the artist intended it. Also, I don’t own any of the following artwork. If you’re a publishing company and want me to take it down, just ask and I will.

SO!

Let’s start with the basics. Let’s have one of Japan’s greatest living artists, Inoue Takehiko, rewind like thirty years of his life and show us the early years of Slam Dunk as an example of how most artists show someone getting punched in the face. (Non-sequential excerpts)

So on the right, we have a decent and typical page: we can’t really see the person who’s hitting our protagonist, his eyes are flat for comedic effect, and we’re in the split-second right after the punch. To tell us the strength of the hit, we have strong motion lines, mild distortion of the character’s face, and some ink splatter for blood from a split lip. In the other page, we get even less info, not even seeing their faces. We still get the sense of the strength of the big guy’s hit, both from the motion lines and by how much the guy dominates the panel. 

It gets the point across that someone was just punched in the face, and it does it a lot better than most. (Have you ever seen someone get punched in a shoujo manga? It’s pathetic, they really need to pick up their game over there.)

But in order to talk about this, let’s introduce a timing/effectiveness numbering  system:

So 0 is the point of impact. 1 is right before it. -1 is right after it. So a 5 might be “Hitter walking up to Hittee” while a -5 might be “Hitter walking away from struck Hittee”. So that’s the timing numbering. And then let’s add a second number in there to account for power. As you can see in 1:2, it’s the moment before impact, but it looks a hell of a lot more effective than 1. and in -1:2, that impact actually looks like it hurt, as opposed to -1. 

I’d put the Slam Dunk panels at -1:1. So they’re both right after the moment of impact, and they’re effective punches, but I’m not thinking that someone’s gonna get knocked unconscious.

Now let’s look at George Morikawa’s early work on Hajime no Ippo (sequential excerpts, right to left) at Issue 9: 

First panel: 0:2. Point of impact, fairly effective.  Second panel: -3:2. Opponent's body has had full falling-down-reaction, and we can see his legs shaking.

So in this early example, Morikawa is still getting his feet under him. The sound effect (PAN!) isn’t as effective as it could be. It feels like a solid object between us and the image. This translates to the impression that Ippo has just stopped Miyata in his tracks. Which works, but... well you’ll see how he’ll improve. We can’t see Ippo’s expression, which would be nice since this is a plot point, but we get a sliver of Miyata’s shocked face.  Also, notice the direction of force and how it creates a mass on the page. We’re going up. Naturally, Morikawa keeps that consistent across the punches and the reaction, but look at the mass the two fighters create on the right panel. Awkward, much? It’s hard for us to get a sense of how hard Ippo’s hit him because there’s very limited directionality to his strikes. Also, it doesn’t lead the viewer’s eye to naturally move quite as well from panel to panel.

Let’s go forward to Issue 100:

First Page: 2:2 The puncher is crouched down, showing the power he’s going to put into it, which we see in the next panels, where the impact happens (I’d put the impact panel at 0:2) Second Page: -1:3 . Ippo’s head is already flying back.

Here, we only get one panel of the actual impact, but we see a strong wind-up and a strong reaction, so it’s definitely improving. We even get, right after the impact, the audience reaction in a quick three-pane, while Ippo’s “just been struck” face hangs in the air. Learning how to massage time, when to hold a moment and when to fast forward, is important for any artist, but the skill -or lack thereof- is more obvious in the sports genre. Also, let’s look at the directionality, which is improving: the opponent’s punch direction on page 1 leads the uppercut you know is coming right to the top left corner, as it should. Then it keeps this direction, pivoting behind ippo slightly, for the next page. So consistent and solid, but nothing that makes you get chills.

Issue 131:

Page One: 2:4 to 1:3 We get a whole page of the opponent’s incoming punch and Miyata watching it, calculating. Page Two: 0:6 Miyata’s landed his surprise counter punch and it’s completely caved the dude’s face in. Page Three: 0:7 At the start of the next chapter, Morikawa brings us back to this moment of impact, extending it. Page Four: 0:7 to -2:7 he hit him so hard, -1 was blown past and he’s already on the ground.

Morikawa’s got it DOWN. The balance between audience reaction/Miyata’s internal focus (look at those eyes) and the action is perfect. The pace is kept up by the constant breaking of the rigid square panels by the sound effects. The two-page spread gives an entire page over to the sound effects. The ink splatter (or what will later develop into Morikawa’s “debris” effect) makes it feel like blood/sweat is being blown off of the opponent. The motion lines tell us his head is practically exploding and that Miyata is moving with incredible speed. The great top/right-to-bottom/left movement on the title page is classic and gorgeous and brutal. On page 4 there’s an angle change that’s done very naturally (from right-left to left-down) which, slamming the guy down at an angle that stops all future momentum on the page, tells us what a game-changing, fight-ending punch that was.

I’ll stop with the damn blow-by-blow, but let’s look at how, past Issues 900, Morikawa’s style has developed to the point where he can make anything look fucking amazing:

Shadow boxing: 

Look at the beautiful directionality of that! The twisting cyclone of power! Not only do we have the motion lines on the objects themselves, and not only is there the directionality of the abstracted sound effects, but movement itself is given form in those white stripes and the tiny bits of debris. What are those?? I DON’T EVEN KNOW BUT THEY FUCKING WORK.

Clenching a fist and starting to twist his body:

Look at one of the few pages where Morikawa will break his usual 90-degree-rectangle-panel-layout. How it makes everything feel like it’s happening at the same moment. Look at how the sound effects are chaos everywhere, and you don’t even know what they SAY but you can TELL what they say because of how they’re drawn (like the cracking knuckles in the middle panel or the shooting-off-to-the-right one at the bottom (which says hiiiIIII...! like a plane taking off) and how they draw the eye from panel to panel and shooting onto the next page, making you blow past this page in eagerness, even though it’s so great.  FUCK. LOOK AT IT.

And finally... How to blow someone’s head off and do it in a way that makes you wonder how they’re still alive: -1:10

That’s it. I have nothing more to say. I only have intense hand waving and an artistic inferiority complex left. 

Ah well. At least he didn’t start this freakin good. There’s hope for the rest of us.

[junker-town]

The case for Denver Nuggets skepticism

The Nuggets had a charmed season last year. Are they about to fall back to reality?

The Nuggets will show how hard the journey from good to great really is.

The Denver Nuggets broke out last season as a lovable collection of complementary misfits. On their way to the second-most wins in franchise history, the Nuggets dazzled with unpredictable, synchronized ball and player movement that made it seem like no group enjoyed each other’s help more than they did.

Denver made a massive leap on defense, handled lengthy injuries to Will Barton, Gary Harris, and Michael Porter Jr. with poise, and watched their franchise player go from cult hero to household name. And yet, I never believed they were anything more than a karaoke contender. After a summer in which they doubled down on the roster that got them there (a sensical trade for Jerami Grant notwithstanding), maxed out Jamal Murray before they had to/should have, and watched the rest of the league sharpen its teeth into a row of steak knives, I remain dubious.

As we approach a season that will either solidify or damage Denver’s status, most Las Vegas sportsbooks have set their win total between 50 and 53. ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus projections believe they’ll finish second in the Western Conference, behind the Houston Rockets. I’m skeptical. Months removed from their first playoff appearance in six years, Denver’s season holds the texture of a rorschach test. Was it a step forward, a squandered opportunity, or even a complete aberration���the feel-good story that came together too fast? This year, the Nuggets will either build on their growth or slink back towards mediocrity.

The former’s case isn’t hard to make. There is something to be said about the importance of continuity, and no team is more invested in sustaining it than Denver. All ten of their minutes leaders from 2018-19 are back. Nikola Jokic is 24 years old. Murray is 22 years old. Harris turned 25 last weekend.

But there are several reasons to think the Nuggets are due for the type of lapse that tends to bite up-and-coming teams in the backside right when they think they’ve turned a corner. Before diving into the specific issues that may keep this team farther from a title than last year’s showing might suggest — including Jokic’s defense, Murray’s volatility, and Paul Millsap’s age — let’s first look at a few statistical regressions they’re about to confront.

The Nuggets had more clutch wins than any other team last season. They came out on top in a league-high 67.4 percent of all games that entered the final five minutes with a scoring margin of five points or fewer. This isn’t a reliable recipe from year to year, and, surprisingly, Denver’s success was bound by an NBA-best 95.5 defensive rating — the same side of the floor where most of my own doubt lingers. Sustaining that edge-of-your-seat success in 2020 won’t be easy, and it’s only reasonable to believe a few more of those close games will end in disappointment.

There are several reasons to think the Nuggets are due for the type of lapse that tends to bite up-and-coming teams in the backside

The Nuggets also had some luck in one area that has traditionally been their Achilles’ heel. Last season their opponents shot a league-low 34.4 percent from three. In the previous three seasons they were lit up, finishing 29th, 27th, and 28th in opposing three-point percentage. (Only the Boston Celtics allowed a lower percentage on “open” attempts in 2018-19.) From there, it’s no surprise to see that Denver’s opponents shot a league-low 20.2 percent from deep in the clutch, too. In other words, the Nuggets finished third in win differential for reasons that don’t signal a long, smooth ascent. None of these numbers are indicative of infrastructural problems, but the margins out West are paper thin. If they dip as teams like the Clippers, Lakers, Rockets, Jazz, Spurs, Pelicans, etc. rise, it could be a problem.

But more important big-picture dilemmas exist, the most notable being Jokic’s defense. In his first playoffs, Jokic’s offense was almost identical to his regular season: he was exceptional. But reasons for worry poked their head up on the other end. Jokic isn’t a hopeless defender — think of his struggle as more of a glass ceiling than impenetrable force field — but right now his physical limitations prevent Denver from adapting on the fly how most champions can. The Nuggets had the postseason’s third-worst defense, and in the regular season it crumpled whenever Jokic was on the floor without Millsap. To be fair, Denver’s defense also struggled when Millsap played without Jokic; Grant’s presence beside each one while the other is resting may be the solution. But regardless of who else is on the floor, the best offenses will hunt Jokic in myriad ways throughout the fourth quarters that really matter.

In the second round, Portland did a great job using Jokic’s man to set off-ball screens, involving him in less predictable ways that attacked his mind as much as his pudgy frame. His head was on a constant swivel, and in their biggest possession of the season — down one with 20 seconds left in a do-or-die Game 7 — the Nuggets took the floor with Jokic on the bench. (He fouled out of Games 5 and 6, too.)

Murray is not ready for the vital role they need him to fill

The Spurs were more concentrated in their gameplan, running simple high pick-and-rolls with DeMar DeRozan and Jokic’s man during important stretches of their first-round series. Jokic struggles here, but not devastatingly so. He knows how to take up space, gamble with cause, and can even slide his feet with enough retractable speed to smother guards at the rim. Now he needs to prove he can do it on a consistent basis against the best players in the league, over and over again.

Criticism of Jokic is fair. He’s not perfect. But without him this organization wouldn’t be worth the time it takes to research and write a column about whether they deserve to be viewed as a contender. His progress will dictate Denver’s future. To an almost equal degree, the same can be said about Murray. His future is blinding, but whenever I watch Murray play I see a teenager trying to handle a zippy Lamborghini Countach on his way home from a road test that he barely passed. Shepherding a team this talented through four playoff rounds takes a level of stoicism and sophistication Murray doesn’t have. That’s not his fault, of course. He’s young, and Denver’s offense was lush with him as an active participant last season.

But if winning it all is the goal in 2020, Murray is not ready for the vital role they need him to fill. Maybe that changes in 2021 or 2022. His steep learning curve suggests it may. But the league-wide window to win it all is now. Who knows what the NBA’s hierarchy will look like in two years?

While Murray creeps towards what he’ll eventually be, the Nuggets are built to feed off someone who’s already there. To have him be the second offensive option is too much of a wild card. (This take might be too hot for public consumption but I don’t think Jamal Murray is even the NBA’s best young guard named Murray.)

It’s fine to debate the topic but to me Murray is more of an asset than the indispensable building block Denver evidently sees, and I wonder how far they would’ve gone last year with a steadier hand. Murray’s game has a higher ceiling than Mike Conley’s ever did, but it’s fun to think about Conley sliding in beside Jokic as Denver’s primary caretaker. Going forward, if the Boston Celtics and Nuggets both struggle to reach their own expectations before the trade deadline, a Kemba Walker for Murray swap makes some sense for both sides, too. More realistically, I wouldn’t hesitate to include Murray in a Godfather offer for Bradley Beal. Do that and Denver is feared instead of captivating — 10 percent less jittery.

Again, I realize how harsh all this sounds. At 21, Murray averaged 18 points, five assists, and four rebounds on a team that won one more game than Damian Lillard’s Blazers and James Harden’s Rockets. But sometimes it’s unclear why we feel the way we do about certain players; my hesitation to buy in might simply boil down to the fact that in three NBA seasons Murray’s three-point percentage is 36.2. On par, that’s not bad, but for someone who doesn’t get to the line, takes more long twos than he should, and made over 40 percent of his threes in college, it’s not great.

Murray wasn’t my cup of tea before the Nuggets offered him a maximum contract extension, and if Denver’s bet on what he can be doesn’t pan out like they anticipate it will, pivoting won’t be easy. This team is getting expensive while bleeding trade assets. They owe a top-10 protected 2020 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Porter Jr. is a total unknown. Millsap turns 35 in February and replacing him (or keeping him) won’t be cheap.

At this point, their path to max cap room doesn’t really exist until the final year of Jokic’s contract, when replenishing around him and Murray after Harris hits free agency may be a possibility. But that much patience can leave them susceptible to Jokic’s departure. Tomorrow is promised to no team, and unless Tim Connelly spurned his hometown Washington Wizards to play wait-and-see, serious moves may be necessary.

The Nuggets aren’t dumb, though, as is evident by the path they took to get where they are. Before the 2014-15 season I wrote a piece about Denver’s incoherent path back to relevance. The Nuggets had just missed the playoffs for the first time in ten years, Kenneth Faried and Ty Lawson were their two best players, and Brian Shaw was about to explore a rap career. Despite drafting Jokic in June, the organization was blind. A few years later they might be more watchable than anybody else. They’ve won with flair, youth, and unique talent, sure, but of even more importance: Denver has slowed down over the last few years, ambling into a style of play that’s less gimmicky and more a reflection of what must be done if truly serious about a lengthy playoff run. There’s confidence in that stylistic adjustment. The Nuggets are no longer dependent on the Mile High air’s energy-sapping power. They want every arena to feel like home.

Long-term plans have become a fool’s errand, but if Denver’s is to preserve what it currently is for as long as it possibly can, to believe this core can mimic the same home-grown charm that popped up in the Bay Area half a decade ago, nobody will oppose. There’s nothing wrong with winning 50 games every year and then crossing your fingers when the weather turns warm.

But in NBA lingo, for those who want to win the whole thing, internal improvement is increasingly synonymous with stagnation. Risk is a means for survival as much as growth. Murray isn’t Steph Curry, Harris isn’t Klay Thompson, and Millsap isn’t as young or as cheap as Andre Iguodala was when he first decided to climb aboard something special. In the immediate future, they must learn to live with Jokic’s defensive shortcomings — blemishes that will never eclipse all the mind-numbing positives he brings to the table — hope Murray’s fourth season yields an All-Star appearance and that Millsap stays healthy.

Murray’s max extension limits their flexibility, both on the trade market and in free agency next summer, when Millsap’s contract expires and Malik Beasley (who is good!) needs a second contract. In the meantime, questions abound for a team that enters 2020 having to prove itself in a way other playoff locks do not. Maybe they explode and make everything I just wrote look foolish, but waiting a whole year to find out could be more costly than it currently seems. The journey from good to great is so difficult, especially when more can go wrong than go right.