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crystalgirl259 · 4 years ago

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How to Train Your Dragonblood 3: The Dragonblood Alpha Ch1

The bright, yellow, morning sun shined and shimmered over the stunning blue sea surrounding the northern islands. Suddenly something fast moved across the surface causing the water to part and spray sideways. A colorful, bustling town sat atop one of these many northern islands. A few sea birds were heard in the background along with the shifting waves as they hit the base of the island. This was the island of Ninjago. The only island that housed both dragonbloods and humans as one community.

It was the best-kept secret this side of anywhere.

Much had changed on the island of Ninjago in the five years since Jay Walker and the Fire Dragonblood Kai had first bonded together and became a couple and showed humans and dragonbloods alike that coexistence between their two species was not just a possibility. It was the way of the future. The catapults and trebuchets that once dominated Ninjago's towers during wartime have now given way to aqueducts, wing-inspired windmills, and Dragonblood Racing bleachers.

Similar changes also occurred beneath Ninjago's surface.

There was a reinforced hangar, complete stables, feeding troughs, and a dragonblood wash for when they were in dragon form. Granted, it may not look like much, but this wet heap of rocks packed more than a few surprises. Life here was amazing. Just not for the faint of heart. The streets were seemingly empty, aside from the shadowy blurs zipping over the many roofs of the town. In-between two houses, a group of scared sheep watched the sky as they trembled in terror.

The bunch of sheep started crossing the plaza back to back as their eyes darted around in fear.

On their sides, they had different colorful targets painted into their white wool. They quickly scurried into a space between two buildings, only it was too small. One of the marked sheep was pushed away and into the open. It looked up alarmed just before being snatched by a sudden, flying blur. Fast shapes moved across a totem and buildings. While most folks enjoyed hobbies like whittling or needlepoint, the people of Ninjago preferred a little something they liked to call Dragonblood Racing.

Dragonbloods barreled past at a dizzying speed.

Their riders swiped, kicked, and rolled into one another while they weave between the houses, docks, and revamped structures of Ninjago. Dareth, who is now twenty, rode Tox, his Poison Dragonblood, who carried the sheep in her claws, until Plundar, also twenty, but every bit as a juvenile, and Adam, his Lightning Dragonblood, side-checked them and stole their sheep.

"Sorry, Dareth! Did you want that?" Plundar laughed as Dareth glared at him and Adam. Adam fell back toward Zane and Harumi, who lag on their Ice and Wind Dragonbloods, Pixel and Morro. "Here ya go, babe!" Plundar called out and, with a chivalrous grin, he tossed the sheep to Harumi. She snatched it with a sneer and a grumble. "Did I tell you that you look amazing today because you do?" He smirked, but she wasn't impressed.

"Ugh, come on, Morro, it's starting to stink around here." She huffed in disgust Morro started to peel off, spewing a gust of wind as he did so.

"You must see that she still hates you." Zane sighed at his friends' antics before he and Pixel also flew ahead. As they flew, Pixel released a wave of frost that blew into Morro's previous gust and left Plundar and Adam shivering. As they rush past the main bleachers, Harumi dropped her sheep into one of seven baskets suspended over a chasm at the lap crossing. Each backboard bore an image of its corresponding dragonblood. Morro and Harumi's basket was filled to the brim with sheep.

Presiding over the game, Cliff turned to the frenzied crowd.

"That's nine for Harumi and Morro, Cole and Rocky lags with three, and Plundar and Adam, Zane and Pixel, Ronin and Shade, and Dareth and Tox trail with NONE!" He roared over the crowd as his eyes fell on an empty basket at the far end, its backboard painted with an image of fire. "And Jay and Kai are... nowhere to be found." He sighed as he slumped back into his large chair.

"Scared your boy off with the big talk, didn't ya, Cliff?" Ed chuckled lightly. Plundar, still defrosting from the blast, suddenly got a punch from behind. Cole rolled in, astride Rocky, spirited and competitive as ever.

"What are you doing, Plundar?! They're going to win now!" He growled.

"She's my princess! Whatever she wants, she gets!"

"Harumi?! Didn't she try to bury you alive?!"

"Only for a few hours!" He argued. Cole rolled his eyes in frustration and Rocky flew as far away from the love-struck Plundar as he could get. He loved Adam with every fiber of his being, but his human rider could be very annoying. The racers chased each other through a sprawling hangar and into a vast cave, teeming with colorfully painted dragon stables. They exited through the far side and circled back through the village, blasting past many of its dragon-friendly additions.

In the village, one of Rocky and Adam's children suddenly sneezed, releasing a little molten rock and accidentally setting one of the houses aflame.

Cole saw this and Rocky peeled away from the other racers, and yanked open a spout on the overhead network of aqueducts, dousing the flames with a surge of water. Back to Cliff, amused as he watched the racers around the island, searching for sheep. He turned to Ed and nodded.

"It's time, Ed."

"Righty-ho! Last lap!" He shouted to the crowd. A horn sounded and the racers all turn to each other, excited. It was time to release the Black Sheep.

"Come on, Rocky! We can still win this thing!" Cole grinned and the Earth Dragonblood kicked it into high gear.

"Come on, Shade!" Ronin shouted.

"Let's go!" Dareth cried to Tox.

"Go, Adam!" Plundar yelled as Ed loaded the Black Sheep onto a catapult. He pulled the trigger, launching the Black Sheep into the air. Cole spotted it first and steered Rocky into a steep climb toward it. In a flash, however, Dareth and Tox flew in and nab the sheep.

"NO!" Cole shouted and Rocky roared in frustration.

"Good job, Tox!" Dareth praised as he patted the green dragonblood's neck and tossed his captured prize to Harumi. "Here you go, darling! Mine's worth ten!" He called to her when she caught it. She cheered and steered Morro towards the baskets

"You guys are fighting over Harumi?!" Ronin scowled at his brother in disappointment while Shade let out a laughing sound, but Dareth just ignored them and Tox flew to catch up with Harumi and Morro. When they saw him, Morro rammed into Tox, sending her and Dareth into an uncontrolled spin. They slammed into Plundar and Adam, sending them all tumbling head over tail. The crowd went wild. Harumi thought they were in the clear until Zane and Pixel came up beside them.

He grabbed at the sheep, but Harumi fought back, inciting a tug-of-war.

Neither of them noticed Cole and Rocky flying toward them. As they got closer, Cole stood on Rock's back, keeping his balance.

"Get 'em, Cole!" Cliff shouted out in excitement at what was to come. Cole leaped off of Rocky, ran up Pixel's back, and plucked the Black Sheep from Zane and Harumi's hands. He laughed in victory as he tumbled through the air onto Rocky, sticking a perfect landing, the Black Sheep in hand. Zane smiled at Cole's strategy while Harumi and Morro growled in annoyance at losing the Black Sheep. As they flew, Cole eyed the fast-approaching finish line, unaware as Dareth suddenly rammed Tox into Rocky, sending them off-course.

He recovered and saw Ronin flying headlong toward them, war hammer cocked, aiming at his head.

He cried as Ronin hurled his hammer. Rocky suddenly ducked and rolled Cole out of the way. The hammer caught Dareth in the face with a clang and the crowd collectively winced. Cole and Rocky recovered from their roll, looped over the water, and blasted past the finish line, dunking the Black Sheep into their basket.

"That's thirteen! Cole and Rocky take the game!" Cliff shouted and the crowd came unhinged. The winners flew over the crowd, basking in their victory while the loses flew away to lick their wounds. Ninjago was pretty much perfect. All of Jay's hard work had paid off, and it was a good thing too because, with humans on the backs of dragonbloods, the world just got a whole lot bigger...

#ninjago #ninjago zane #ninjago cole #ninjago kai #ninjago nya #ninjago jay #httyd #plasmashipping #How to Train Your Dragonblood

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majorxmaggiexboy · 6 years ago

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i recently remembered a film my brother and i watched several times as children, and that got me thinking about the other stuff we would watch. most of which seems kind of weird on reflection. we don’t actually have any of these anymore, so just for funsicles i’m trying to think of the films and see if i can remember any of the details before actually googling them.

Live Action

Two Brothers - a couple of tiger cubs are captured by poachers or something and separated from each other. one is trained to perform in the circus and is also fed candy by some guy, the circusmaster is an absolute [censored]. the tiger learns to jump through fire which is important later. the other cub is given to a little boy (TERRIBLE IDEA) and is a pet for a while until he’s sold to someone else. the tigers are eventually reunited but then they’re chased by people with guns who try to trap them by setting things on fire BUT because the first tiger learned not to be scared of fire he shows his brother how to jump through it and they escape and are reunited with this other tiger that has a hole in her ear from a really close call with poachers. i think she’s their mom.

Gunther and the Paper Brigade - idk if it was knock-off Newsies or what but like there’s this kid named Gunther whose brother keeps an ant farm and said the line “did you know that all the ants in the world would weigh as much as all the people in the world?” and i think they’d just moved to a new house but Gunther joins some kind of newspaper group and at first he is AWFUL at delivering papers like he just slings em any ol’ place but then he gets into a sort of war with a bully and i think somebody orally siphoned some gasoline at one point and the brother’s ants definitely came into play and in the end Gunther was really good at delivering papers. He rode a bike. at one point he’s hanging out at the mall pretty often for some reason and his brother teases him about it.

Ben Wagner - Uhhh family moves to new town, kid has an older sister and a younger sister, there’s a freaky adult at the school who said the line “Wagner. Waaaagner. I’ve got it. The name is now set. in my. brain....,,..” Benny’s miserable for some reason but he meets a kind of mysterious girl who takes him to visit her elderly relative but to get there they have to walk across a log that’s across a river/waterfall type of situation. the elderly relative says something to the effect that if they all stand on one side of the house it’ll tip over. Ben regularly visits these people. His dad gives him some chores but he half-arses all of them and the dad walks him around to each thing (like the car that was supposed to be washed, the garage that was supposed to be tidied, w/e) and goes “you did a lousy job”. The older sister wants money for something but hasn’t saved up her allowance so she demands money from Ben and says the line “I bet you have tons of money squirreled away”. He goes to visit the mysterious girl and her relative but his little sister follows him and falls off the log bridge so he jumps in the water to save her and he manages it but then they’re both in the hospital.

No More Baths - Guy runs a club for kids and has some rules in place specifically to keep the kids safe but one kid breaks the rules and winds up getting himself hurt so the guy who just wanted to do nice things for the community kids gets straight up ARRESTED and his dog is put in the pound and the whole thing was some racially-motivated bull and the kids aren’t having it so they protest by refusing to bathe and i think they get to testify at the guy’s hearing too and anyway he wins so then the kids go play in some water bc they haven’t washed in weeks.

Goosebumps: Night in Terror Tower: Some dude is a little too enthusiastic about explaining to two children how the Rack works “It stretched, annnd streeettched, unTIL HIS BOOOOOOOOONES, WERE PUUULLLLLLLLED...poP. Right Out Of Their Sockets. :) “ and then those kids get chased around by some dude who wants to kill them or something. they try to buy a bus pass but they have medieval currency and the girl’s like “Our parents wouldn’t give us play money” but then they wind up in like actual medieval England. I think the girl’s name was Sidney.

Bunch of Assorted Wildlife Documentaries: idk there was a thing about an elephant painting and a lot to do with dolphins idk i think there was a bit of Steve Irwin in there too

Cartoons

The Gallivants - like Divergent but with very Orange ants who are assigned a career? or pick out a career? but when they reach adulthood they’re all supposed to develop something called a “kabump” which is like an extra segment for their creepy insect bodies. They wear shoes and their limbs can have either pink stripes or blue stripes. they might wear gloves? anyway the protagonist is named something like “Shando” and he doesn’t develop his “kabump” on time so it’s scandalous. His friends desert him or something. I think he wanted to be a musician and so makes himself a fake kabump but he plays the saxophone a little too vigorously or something and makes it come off, at which point he’s shamed and rejected by literally everyone but at some point he also tries to work in construction but accidentally breaks stuff and is told “You’re not a Con-struct. You’re a DE-STRUCT.” then he wanders around in a labyrinthine cave fighting a two-headed creature called something like, The VanterViper that wants to kill all the baby ants or something at i think in the end he’s appointed like official Mom of all the babies or something of that nature

The Ugly Duckling - Standard retelling of the classic tale, this one was created almost exclusively to sell Crayola products i’m pretty sure. This version has a baby swan just trying to live his best life but then a bunch of [redacted] sing at his adoptive mom about how “one bad apple spoils the batch” and he either runs away or gets kicked out. then he runs into a mouse who wears boots and has red hair and she proceeds to call him “Ugly” as if that’s his name, for the entire rest of the movie. He winds up inside a house at one point and two freaky looking cats sing at him about the importance of having “a high IQ” i think a church burns down and he saves the mouse? over the course of the film he gets more and more swan-like in appearance and maybe works for a theater for a little while and then everyone loves him.

Scamper - a bunch of penguins are trying to hatch their eggs but then they’re attacked by...something....and one penguin feels bad about losing some eggs so he takes someone else’s but then admits what he did and returns the egg to its real parents and everyone mourns the loss of their children while being grateful for the survivors. when the eggs hatch there’s like a little pink penguin and a little bluish penguin and they’re friends, they’re learning to slide during Penguin School but then they get captured and wind up on a boat and there’s a dog. They eat really tasty-looking crackers out of bags and are terrorized by the ship’s crew until they manage to escape and find their way back home to their grieving parents.

Willy the Sparrow - a sick (literally and figuratively) young boy has fun bullying a cat and being a [redacted] to birds but then an elderly woman turns him into a sparrow to teach him a lesson. He meets other birds, all of whom have decidedly human heads of hair, including an old man sparrow who teaches him to fly. he winds up challenging the former child-leader-of-the-sparrows for power using his human smarts to amaze them all and eventually leads an attack on the cat who rightfully holds a massive grudge against him. idk he like helps them find food or something and then gets turned back into a human maybe

The Seventh Brother - a young child is moving to a new place and brings her puppy, but somehow his carrier is knocked out of the car??? or something?? and he winds up lost in the forest but is rescued by a large family of rabbits who teach him how to act like a rabbit. He saves one of them from being carried off by a bird but then begins to die of malnutrition as dogs can’t live on the same diet as rabbits for any length of time. also, he rescues a former tormentor from a creepy-as-hell predator and is badly wounded in the process, prompting the rabbits to band together to get him home to his owner. they succeed and he’s pretty much cured by one (1) bowl of puppy food.

Some Blue’s Clues Special: idk whatever’s the one with the treble-clef and the treasure hunt where the ‘treasure’ turned out to be Steve’s grandma’s cookies that you can tell the exact taste and smell of just by looking at them and also the grandma made an appearance too

That Weird Puppet Cat in the Hat Thing with the grouchy bird who had to be taught how to play pretend but then was pushed into a panic attack when the group was playing pirates and he imagined it too vividly so then they explained that he could change the story at any time and also at one point they played a game called “pass the yawn” and the bird just went OFF more than once

Some cartoon, i think it was Anastasia, where at one point someone’s taking some stuff away and the girl says what on reflection i think might have been “My luggage!” but at the time i thought was “my lungs!” and i spent the whole movie thinking they done straight up confiscated the girl’s lungs.

The Swan Princess - and i remember nothing except the way Odette would say “Darren!” and the fact that she spent a lot of time as a bird and there was a puffin. also Darren was one of my early crushes purely because i liked his name.

The Secrets of NIHM 2: main character’s name was Timothy and was one of the first characters i mentally fanfic’d about. there was some song that was like “Just! say! Yes!” where i think he was being pressured to do drugs or be experimented on or something but mostly i remember him singing “I am my father’s son” and me being so confused thinking “well yeah?? Who else’s son could you be???”

idk some Thumbalina thing all i remember is “Deary! Marry the Mole!”

Friggin’ Barbie Rapunzel there was a purple(?) dragon and Rapunzel liked to paint and that movie was where i learned the word “adequate” and i’m still mad at that woman for being so rude like lady. who raised you. where are your manners. i think the dad dragon wanted the purple dragon to hate humans or something idk

some other film where there was a very definitely purple dragon but i can’t remember any details so it’s just going to haunt me forever but it was like a small-ish purple dragon.

#personal #movies #some of these didn't seem Weird until i started really thinking about them #turning the memory over a few times #in which i remember every movie child!me ever watched apparently #seventh brother was my great-grandad's favorite okay he and my great-grandma loved that one #willy the sparrow was also a frequent flier oh my nO #i have to actually google all these now and i'm gonna yell

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sleepytoycollection · 7 years ago

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SpacePops: A Review Part 2

Part 1: Here

Well, here I am again, this took me longer to get around to than I intended, but hey, I had four times as many dolls to look at. Not to mention how much drawing I’ve been doing for my main blog lately, so yeah I’ve been busy.

Anywhoozle, as my first review can tell you, I found my Luna doll to have a certain amount of charm through all her cheapness, and if you can still find one from your local TRU; you might be lucky enough to snag them for round $2 bucks each as I did. And I def recommend getting one if you can, if nothing else for a nice, articulate spare body and some MH sized shoes. Just don’t let your self pay for than $5 for one. They’re not that fun.

I was lucky enough to manage to get a hold of all five characters, so let’s see how they measure up to Luna. To avoid being too repetitive I’ll try to focus on their unique features only.

Let’s start with Rhea:

Rhea was actually the one I liked the best from her art work. I mean look at it, she looks amazing here, the boots, thigh high stockings, the layers, gloves and chains would’ve made for an amazing doll of the effort had been put in.

I won’t ramble forever about the what-ifs, but it’s just so much of a punch to the stomach to know we’ll never see the real potential these had realized.

I’m not gonna go through the all the profiles, but if anyone’s interested I could scan them in for better visibility.

Gremlin #2.

Getting her out of the box, the first thing that struck me was her hat.

And I mean that literally as there was nothing helping it attach to her head. Much as I’m grateful these dolls lack those plastic ties shot into their heads that mattel’s become so fond of; I don’t think a rubber band would’ve too much to ask for.

Here she out of the box:

She’s...something.

After how much Luna has surprised me by simply being less bad than I feared; Rhea on the other hand was everything I’d worried these girls would be.

Her hair is terrible, it’s the cheapest, nastiest of all the dolls, it’s literally the same stuff the Midnight magic dolls used. It had a gross, greasy feel and wants to pull away from the scalp if I dare try to run a comb through it.

Ugh. On top of that, it became quickly clear I’d gotten a Rhea with a defective hand. Instead of the normal back and forth movement almost every other doll has, she’s got side to side movement.

Except, her hands still have the dents in the molding indicating it’s not meant to turn that way. I’m at a loss. I really can’t tell how this happened, or how her hand isn’t falling off.

It could’ve been worse in that regard, but there’s not many good uses for side to side movement that look natural.

At this point I’d only opened the one doll prior, and so was extremely worried I’d simply gotten lucky with Luna.

sigh.

Her outfit is super cheap, made cheaper looking by how complex a design they were trying to emulate. It’s all one piece and gives the impression of a store bought Halloween costume in miniature.

I will grant however, all the dolls having their name on their tag is cute.

But it’s a wasted detail on something this cheap. The black band on her waist is a sort of flimsy, felt-like material, and the knit of her shorts is thin. I feel like I could easily tear a run in it if I pull just a little too much, especially being unhemmed as they are.

She’s got a slight blue tint to her pale complexion, as you can see her here next to Catrine.

The socks are made of paint, and I’d have rather they be left off entirely. Her left knee also doesn’t bend, and I have not been able to fix it yet.

As you can imagine, after Rhea I lost a lot of energy for these girls. She was the doll I’d wanted the most, and was just disappointing in every way, despite me already having incredibly low standards.

Still, I was going to have to open these girls up eventually. So this time I decided to go for the design I’d liked the least with Athena:

Every time I look at her dress I can’t help but think of the Flintstones. Not in a cute way either.

It’s like if, after their crossover, a member of the Jestons universe tried to make a fashion version of their cave clothing as a cheap cash in, and just doesn’t work for me that much. Maybe it’s partly the colors used.

It’s a little better art wise, but eh. Maybe if she wasn’t he same color as Rhea..?

Blah blah profile.

Gremlin #3.

Despite my opinions on her look, out of the box she struck me as a pleasant increase in quality if nothing else. Nothing falling off, no visible defects.

It was around this time tho I was starting to realize there seemed to be a decided aversion to hair gel. Her spiked updo’ is translated as a short ponytail here.

Can’t say I mind too much, but lack of gel means her hair gets pulled pretty easily, especially where her glasses are. She’s got nothing on Gilda Goldstag that’s for sure.

Her tie is made of the same cheap fuzzy stuff Rhea’s belt was made of, for that matter her gold belt is the only new fabric type here.

But to my great surprise her skirt has a separate over lay!

And it’s even lined, I’ll admit it improved my opinion of her a good bit. It feels sturdy.

Her netted sleeve too is competently made.

..but left a stain on her arm.

With out the overlay her outfit looks a bit less flinstone-y, so I’m just gonna leave it off.

Under her dress she has some pink tights, which I appreciate as they become less and less common in the doll world. Even if it makes me wonder why Rhea couldn’t have had socks. Just one of those things I guess.

Her glasses are held in neatly with, of all things, the help of tiny plastic bobby pins!

!!! I’m sorry but that’s adorable, tiny pins! And they work! Amazing.

Her hair is the same quality as Luna’s, thank goodness, and is easy enough to brush out.

But to my dismay, her glasses don’t fit her face. If you put the arms over her actual ears, they set waayyyy too low. I can’t get them to twist so the bridge will set on her nose. But if I place them high enough so the lens can cover her eyes, they get stuck from her head being too wide and wont’ touch her face.

That said, I like the shape and look of these, and I’m sure I have plenty of other dolls who can rock them. But it doesn’t say much for your line if your accessories can’t be used for the doll they were made to be used on.

Still, Athena was a huge improvement to my energy for these girls, so let’s hop over to Hera.

I wanna take a sec to apologize for the quality of several of these pics, my camera’s very old and staring to kick the bucket.

Hera’s pretty cute, if you like Draculaura. Which I do. The fact the lime green specifically reminds me of Snow Bite, which is my fav version of Ula helps make it a pleasant comparison.

Gremlin #4.

Yay! A different fabric! And hemming! It’s a dream come true~

Now if only I had the same excitement over her hair.

It’s the standard for these dolls tbh, but being curled has not agreed with it. I’m kinda afraid to touch it. She’s got a head band in there, but it’s very hidden.

even if it wasn’t, it’s just a plain ribbon, no where near the flower crown of her art.

The dress is really the star here, of all the outfits so far it’s the one that feels the sturdiest, and no printed details.

Her tag.

Her tights are different fabric to the other ones we’ve seen. It’s not as stretchy, which is why you see it sagging around the knees. It’s the kind of netting you’d see as a tulle petticoat.

It looks alright, but it makes me concerned with how durable these would be in the long run.

Now,you may have noticed me not making any comments on the shoes. Well I have a very good reason for that:

They’re all the same. They reused the same shoe mold for all four of these girls, leaving only one who doesn’t have these heels.

That girl being of course, Juno.

She was my second favorite of all the girls when I saw their art all that time ago.

Aside from how much I love the colors used, she has pants! And a shaved head!

...And another Gremlin.

And last but not least, here she is:

Of all the girls, she’s the one who comes the closest to looking like her boxart.

So not too surprising her outfit is to be my favorite of the bunch.

She’s also the only one to use any kind of styling product. Fairly lightly, but it’s on there. Yet, despite how little there was used they still managed to get a good bit on her face.

Can’t have it all I suppose.

But the flocking looks good.

I also appreciate how she has the most unique face paint of all the ladies. It’s not much by usual standards, but with every girl using the same face mold, they can use all the differences they can get.

Without her Jacket you can bein to see just how had that top is, but she can put her hands in her pockets, so if there had to be a trade off, I’ll admit they made the right one.

Her jacket is nicely sewn, only her collar sporting an unfinished hem, but I don’t know how you’d really hem those jagged edges anyhow. It’s usable and looks alright.

Her boots tho, no complaints there. By Spacepop standards these are the best shoes you’ll ever see. By normal doll standards they’re still not bad.

I very serious when I say I love these pants. I feel like most of their clothing budget went into that fabric. Almost like someone was trying.

Sigh. But then you get this.

It’s garbage. The worst piece of all the clothing I’ve seen here, and there’s no way this would’ve held up to a child.

Now what else have I not covered..oh yeah. The gremlins.

They suck.

Like the shoes, the reused the same mold 4 times. Unlike the shoes, I never thought they were cute.

Only 1 dared to use a different mold, Athen’s gremlin:

...Who might be the only one that comes close to being endearing. The combo of a cute hair style, cute paint details, side glancing eyes, make Roxie almost a nice accessory.

Whew, well, now I’ve gone through everything I could think to talk about.

Having gone over every doll just cements that the execution of this line was a huge misstep on the part of Madame Alexander. Tho I can’t be sure.I get the impression they made these to compete with Monster High, but they company simply waited too long.

By 2016 MH was going into the reboot, and with Mattel’s sales and quality going down MA seemed to lost faith in these ladies and gave up before release. It’s a shame too, Maybe the weren’t the most original idea on the market, but They could’ve been a nice solid competition. Instead we got these; and it leaves me with a sense of melancholy the more I think about the ways things are going. With new lines and experiments coming to a standstill nowadays, doll collecting has been less and less exciting.

And now, less than a year after their debut Spacepops have gone the way of Pinkie Cooper and Novi Stars. In their own way, the last remnant of an era of collecting that’s now gone as styles shift to something else.

Still, I plan to have fun my new new set of ladies, I haven’t completely decided how far I’ll go, maybe leave them as-is for posterity. Their flat face ups have grown on me. Maybe I just miss the bright, harsher colors that are going out of style.

All that said, I bought a spare Athena to experiment with, so I’ll def have some follow ups with how these ladies look with a good repaint.

Anyway, I’m tired and out of thoughts for now. Hopefully you found this somewhat informative, and as always thanks for reading.

#doll review #spacepop #spacepop dolls

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postapocalypse13 · 7 years ago

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sex as power (#MeToo)

Rape is a political statement. It says: "I am everything. You are nothing." God of Sky and Rain Women hold up half the sky? In His world women hold up the sky. Men sit around, masturbate, watch football, occasionally, go out and rape lowering that small part of the sky. Rose Red I am prickly, admittedly. I come by it rightly. Organically evolved defensive weapon (note, no offensive weapon attached). You must approach me with care. Feel the velvet of my vibrant leaves, gently. My flower, radiant in grace and wonder. Musical poetry wafting, my enchanted perfume calling for the discerning touch. But grasp too hard, too clumsily, without reflection, a thousand tiny cuts push you far away. In no time, you will heal, leaving me to bleed forever, attempting to clear from my system your poisonous residue. Bitter Dregs You don't get it. You don't want to. It would be too much to bear if you let your thought go there. Briefly unconscious, awakened to hard concrete ground surrounded by heels and toes, amazing they don't crush me, but no, like clockstep they walk around though occasionally a(n unmeaning?) shove -- I'm not a someone, just a minor obstacle unnoted in their busy day. No worries. Not like shoved down under hard muscle, jutting bone, stinking of beer and rage; or waking from too brief oblivion, broken pain, bleeding tears, torn, bruised, a colorful toy made for pleasure. Then the voices, echoes. Harpies and Sirens, Furies and sad old women. Fingers shake in disapprobation. Shrill voices call me beautiful, in the way that ugly things are. So bad, so pitiful, cardinal status among the neverweres. Struggling shadows, whispering curses demurely lest anyone notice and throw them further down, below duration. Never easy, confessing degradation. The sin adheres. No one wants to know. logic of rape culture I don't know. Would it be morally acceptable to destroy a person's mind while they sleep, because they'll never know they had one? Would it be morally just fine to cruelly use people's lives while keeping them unconscious without consent or prior knowledge, because unexplained pain won’t rise to legal proof? Is there value placed on personal integrity? Must boundaries that make individual beings complete with self-control, define a zone of self to be respected? Do conscious beings own a right to privacy, a zone of personal integrity, sacred space for self-discovery: “This is mine. This is me.” When we choose to agree for common utility, what inner prize do we remember to defend? Or do we prefer to behave as a bunch of random beasts, subject to convenient moral rules, precepts to defend hierarchy of self-proclaimed reasonable men? I am beginning to think that this whole anti-abortion, anti-contraception idea is about rapists who want to impregnate their victims and then have access to torture them for life. Mighty big hate on. Dazzling glitter of star light is doing its job: distract and divide while they rape, kill and rob. Ascending spiraled steps in hope of eventually reaching a solid surface, more a chore than a mission as we continue inexorably day by day. Or is that eternity by eternity? There's not much choice, as these stairs, though solid and seemingly endless, do not provide enough solidity, enough surface, for other sustained activity. There is not even room to climb by twos, thus enabling the solace of close companionship. Certainly there is no room to make love between, stair to stair, to find what respite or pleasure such loving might provide. Perhaps for some of the more daring an occasional rearguard rape may be accomplished, coming from behind as it were, never seeing the face of the victim, so that's alright. A temporary digression from the rote work, hand over hand, leg up and leg up, monotonous unfulfilling dance. The land, when we found her was warm and inviting. We felt safe, supported, encouraged to grow. We ate of her fruit, fish, herds. We built with her trees, stone and clay. We drank from her beautiful streams which we soiled with our waste. Gaea was saviour and womb. We repaid her with rape. We didn't understand, thought her merely land, thought ourselves masters from afar. Perhaps it is not so much a war on women as another front in the war on people with lesser means. I mean, how dare a woman be raped if she can't afford her own treatment? Women are raped by husbands, strangers, dates, bosses, family members, often seriously injured or killed in the process. Implying we have nothing more serious to protest about than "glass ceilings" is a macabre insult. Small girlchild, rags and dust – follow her morning of traverse, this tiny world allowed. Each tent flap reveals fester of wounds deep and shallow, ravage disease. Senses, thought, subsumed to beat of breath outside rational context. Stuck in the dirt, her worth a hole where she bottoms out, tributary blood expelled. It could be rape; it could be terrifying violence. But you got it wrong. You blamed yourself. And the reasons you got it wrong go back to that world, not to you. Cross Purpose At time's crossroads, Reason drowns in rage, pain, radiated rain, treasonous air. Weary of care, of punishing, bottomless anger, of sobbing men robbed of their right to give birth. Taken from Mama's warmth, from the cave, to play brave. And it's ladies' choice as you squirm in fool's corner. Such a chore -- kissing at this and that for a chance to score the shame, the blame from stuck-out tongues, the bloody laughter "I could bite off that little thing -- make you squat to pee." Wired to fight, at any cost, because, of course, the Cross proclaims "We're right. They are inherently wrong." "Those below must be taught to obey our superior tools, to be broken, that we may ride." Against our better fate, our race divided along strict lines, by difference nature instilled to make us strong Our Gang Outrage Depression facing outward Taking power to give it away. This entrained impulse See them crackling, jangling puppets at puppy play, bite, bark, entangle, grab and tussle, growl, muscle in for the kill. Bloodlust arousal. Natural as puke, as death, violation as violent orgy violation as ecstatic initiation to the brotherhood. Life elevated to dreams, goals, careful weighing of coin and hours, dependable plans, actions that honor can favor, love, duty, allegiance to the rules of sanity and kind regard have no purpose here. Men of blood and battle fluid need no fine speeches, no valor -- only food and receptacles for their waste. Capital Crime Sweet old daddy Doing his will in the night Keeping the mamas afright for the plight of each beloved child, so tender so young He really oughta be hung! so say the neighbors, clicking their tongues Take him to the magistrate Fill his ears with the voice of hate while he's tied, defanged, prostrate Let our will be done! Tie him down in a prison cell Make him feel the wrath of Hell 'til we all are bloody well exhausted of our fun. No need to delete old daddy sweeping shit and burning bones any toil we deem atones to repay society's loans of wicked sowing days assuring he damn well pays for the pain and loss his wicked ways marred our happy homes. Trial It was said, everyone knew, some whispered in my presence, that I was born a bastard of rape. My mother, a pious maiden, in penance gave me into servitude to the Brotherhood. Thus she was allowed to return to her Sisterhood’s life of humble ministration. I never knew her, or have no memory of such an early time in my life. I knew nothing of the treasured childhood that comes with family. I was a low thing, circumscribed by duty. I was educated, taught to read, write, do sums, memorize long passages of scripture, sing in the Holy Choir, take my part in ceremonies, taught for useful service. I was taught to please my masters as my only worth. Any modification to please their plans was my sacred duty to undergo. Any master. Any metamorphosis. Any mutilation. Accept. When he bit me, as the fast-acting soporific emitted from his fangs entered my artery, I hoped this was my end. It wasn’t. He did not drain me, but woke me to force his blood into my sagging mouth to remake me in his image: immortal, powerful, supernatural, outside of the laws of man. I learn to create my own sacred place, free of duty, free of the yoke of belief. I am my own silent sanctuary beyond the touch, the reach of their world. What good am I, have I, what good does it do me to have a conscious me apart from my puppet role, plaything of powerful forces and men? Perhaps after all the trials of my journey, it is enough to have a consciousness that knows me so well and feels a kind of comforting love. Perhaps the kind of love a mother feels for a child she never wanted, who is yet of her, a companion to her trials. They arrive, enter a door next to a large glass window decorated in bright colored paint. It is a portrayal of a man on a cross. Bloody red holes mar his hands and feet. A thorny green crown sits on his head. Inside are cakes and hot black drinks on a short table. A few others are also eating and drinking. On the floor, next to a large, tattered chair, a woman sits, rocks, dirty and worn looking. Her shaking hands make attempts to feed coffee to her lips, but more is spilled on her worn and spattered dress. She has been mumbling incoherently. She is getting louder. Renata starts to make out words. "They fill yer belly with their babies. No more babies. They hurt and make me so sick. The men, they fill me with their nasty liquid babies. They make them grow in me, take over my body, make me sick, and cut so hard to get out. I won't take them, horrid demons. So they throw me back in the street for the men to fill me again, hurt me again. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. No more babies. No more pumping out their nasty babies. I won't. I won't go there. You can't make me leave." She burbles, gasps, cries, mumbles, and repeats her litany. She rocks her body, suckles on her fingers and strands of long, lank hair. She seems in a trance, perhaps poisoned, perhaps cursed. From further back in the room, a man dressed in black, prominently carrying a black book, approaches the group around the table. "Don't mind Betty. She's a hard case. We can't find anywhere that will take her." He seems perturbed by this inconvenience, embarrassed by this woman's plaint. Thoughts of keeping still while learning how to blend in have flown from Renata's mind. She goes quickly, yet with gentle motion, to sit beside this Betty. Close up, she is surprised to see this woman is young, certainly no longer a child, but not the old used up hag she had appeared to be. Her burbling snot and tears mixed with spilled coffee and older stains make her an unappetizing sight. Yet, there is something so fragile, so sad and affecting in her defiantly defeated form, Renata can not help but reach out her arms to comfort. Nobody likes to talk about Betty; but you can bet we cream over her (secretly, all cozy in our beds, in our heads and groins). Nobody likes to admit what casual cruelty we are capable of. Gang-raping children because we can doesn't appeal to our desired self-image. Her mother allowed it in exchange for food, a place to sleep, the blessed drugs to keep away the pain of knowing the endless, hopeless misery life had become. Or, she was alone on that dark street, lost and frightened, with nowhere safe to go, no one protecting her just then. Her sexuality tempted me, in all that frenzy of bonding blood cries, heightened primal energies, hot insistent bodies falling under ritual spell. She is but a sacrifice, a holding cell for sin. There is no freedom for will to grow within her, only unwanted, tainted seed, thrust outward from the nauseous collective psyche to poison her potential. Does she need to be defined by what has been done against her nascent will? Is there salvation in finding a slim, hiding, healthy cutting from her core, carefully planted and watered in hallow grounding? And what of all those other sacrificial lambs? What cosmically sympathetic vibration can be turned to healing, calling forth a will to grow whole, to become one's own desired destiny? Mothers' Night cascading shards uneasy echoes falling "It's our calling." Rape of Earth, hot spurts of words savage knives Abiding Mothers, sacred and mundane twist into harridan cold stars wail, hurtling waves Sad, old, crust of ages sliced, screwed, carved up for profit "It's not the color of the skin, the culture of the smile" the scent of danger, the inborn stranger -- all excuses for Us (superior) and Them (inferior) "They are not like we; but lower curs." we may harm with unfettered glee Cursed to be cut to our requirement. Borders clear "Here, fear fences in our livelihood and wives." Leave THEM to putrid pits cunning jabs, our pleasure. Thus, all treasure that might regale, heal, reveal true worth, of man and Earth sold for pittance of potash to dance a weary jig Post-trauma A child of my own rape, it shaped me, made me less and more Memories stored, to when I can't go on implore: "You'll feel better when you're gone."

#MeToo

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namelessblacksheep · 6 years ago

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BANK HOLIDAY BLESSINGS

Only on a Bank Holiday weekend (why are those lazy thieving bastards given such prominent holidays anyway) can you really justify a few things. Sitting all day in the Sun daring it to give you skin cancer whilst supping alcoholic concoctions and listening to music. Going away somewhere you’ve never been and pretending to be someone else. Or even attending some kind of festival where you get to meet randoms and bond on a human level.

Of course, there are those people who gave up on life and see such times to fix some part of their never-ending obsession with their home or garden. ‘Sorry mate can’t come out and actually have fun because I have to paint some wall (or some shit)’.

Then there are the ones who choose to spend it with the in-laws who have ultimately admitted: ‘you know what, I’m never going to have friends and neither are you, so let's get together and have an argument instead’.

I like these long weekends. They are far too short to go anywhere extravagant and too long to simply just do what you normally do on a weekend - you know, thank God you aren’t at work, and then try and do something you can tell someone at work what you did when you weren’t there.

Life can be pretty dull and dreary most of the time (if we’re being honest). Sure, you can lie to everyone on Facebook or Instagram about how amazing your food is or the wonderful time you are having that made you stop doing that thing and taking a stupid picture to send to everyone.

Bank Holidays give you the chance to get utterly ruined with a bunch of people and then have enough time to recover, repent your sins and ready yourself for reintroduction into your shitty little life. Allegedly the one we just experienced was based upon some tall tale about Jesus’ resurrection. I'm fairly sure the true story is about Jesus getting monumentally mashed up with his 12 mates that he had to hide in a cave for a few days until he was ready to face the world again. You heard it here first.

Well, having done zero housework and sensible enough to not have any in-laws, I took the first option. It was a very cathartic experience. I went through my own resurrection over the next couple of days which involved me getting back in touch with things that I actually like. Disclaimer here: it’s not other people.

I spent some time just being with myself reflecting on how much has changed since this time last year. I stopped giving so much of a fuck about life goals - like seriously, there’s only really one: try not to die, and if you fail at that as well, do so with style, not sitting on a toilet looking at colour patterns.

In the depths of my recovery, I tried to recapture as much of the previous evening’s experience without killing my liver in the process. This is where if you are from any generation other than the Millenials, you come to be grateful (weird word for those guys, I’ll post a link later on) for the good shifts in the world.

I streamed a whole bunch of movies and boxsets without even putting on pants. No looking for your Blockbuster video card, heading into town and the queueing up hoping that your preferred movie had not already been rented out and was unavailable. No crazy £10 for three nights combos. Nope, I just hit play and watched. One for the gratitude journal right there.

Next up, having not recovered quickly enough for my liking I simultaneously ordered sustenance from the nice man who calls me Boss and delivers within 45 minutes, whilst also diagnosing myself with multiple possible exotic illnesses without the need for either medical training or an emergency appointment with my doctor. Seriously, Google should be putting them out of business. Having totally misdiagnosed myself (much like a regular doctor), I decided to hydrate, eat some food and take some NSAIDs (more or less like a regular doctor would prescribe).

With my recovery going rather well from the intrinsic properties of chips and mayo and chilli sauce covered kebab, I started to get withdrawal symptoms from the nostalgic murmurs of the musical aspect of my previous evening. It’s okay though because we now have music on tap for fucking free!

The next few hours were spent creating playlists on YouTube of better times. I ended up with a grunge playlist, a glam rock one and a Wu-Tang Clan inspired hip-hop gangster rap themed one. I also accidentally stumbled upon a few very informative videos on the best kitchen devices for melting Toblerone and Nutella. Got to love the connection made by the algorithm there.

This weekend has been a truly awesome checkpoint. A reminder that life is much more than the 9-5 grind or the next big event in your life before you give up and start getting angry at the news or giving a shit about laminate flooring and gazebos.

So, I give thanks to Jesus for giving his life (aka getting fucked up with the lads and hiding out in a cave for a few days) to remind me what is truly important about Bank Holiday weekends - it’s about getting in touch with who you would be if you hadn’t made so many bad decisions in your life. Time for a barbecue!

From the Urban Dictionary - dear Millenials here is what gratitude actually means:

Gratitude

When you grate with Attitude

Working example: Just gonna gratitude some cheese

#bank holiday #worklife #happiness #fun

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hallsp · 5 years ago

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Jordan Diary

What follows is a somewhat lacklustre chronicle of my trip to Jordan, taking in Amman, Aqaba, Petra, and Wadi Rum:

Wednesday, 26th December, 2018

Jordan has a strange, haunting beauty, and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the world of tomorrow. – King Hussein bin Talal

I’ve just been woken by a God-awful thud. “Jesus, what fresh hell is this?” I remember thinking. I had a stone-splitting headache but came to my senses quickly enough. The airport, I suddenly remembered! We must have landed at Queen Alia, in Amman. That was where I was supposed to be, after all. I just couldn’t remember how I got here. I didn’t remember the flight. I didn’t really remember boarding. How on God’s green Earth did I get to the airport?

The last thing I can properly recall was ordering a doo-doo shot in a bar on Armenia Street, after my fourth or fifth vodka-redbull. This, on top of a bottle or two of red wine and some beers earlier in the day.

Christmas Day had started out nice and quiet, just like normal: a gathering of friends, lots of cooking and eating food, some pleasant conversation over a few glasses of dinner wine. I hadn’t planned on going out. I hadn’t actually banked on the bars being open. At home, in Ireland, everything is closed for the holiday. It was all Shadi’s fault. And Maryam’s. And Jodey’s.

Now I was hopelessly hungover, possibly still drunk, and I had to navigate a new country through the colourful medium of Arabic, but it didn’t matter, I was here: the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

It was really cold, something close to freezing, far colder than Beirut. I hadn’t anticipated this, and I’d packed in a stupour at 2 in the morning. Clothes-wise, I was woefully unprepared.

I left the airport and tried walking, but it turned out to be a seven hour walk from the airport to Amman city centre. I managed to gauge this almost immediately and turned back in search of shelter. I eventually found a taxi into the city. It cost 20 JD, but I paid him 30 out of sheer gratitude. I had no sense of the conversion rate. I would later discover that a 10 JD tip is outrageous, something like $15. It was like some terrible inversion of Wilde: I knew the value of everything, but the price of nothing.

The hostel, Nomads, on Jabal Amman, is amazing. The staff are friendly, the rooms are nice, the location is central, and the WiFi is excellent. It’s got a good vibe, too, lots of wall paintings and the like:

I joined a free walking tour — recommended price: 5 JD — almost straight away, which left a lot to be desired in the end. The guy walked us around a bunch of shops and souks, for which I’m sure he received some kind of commission. It did give me a sense of the city, though, so I found my bearings fairly easily afterward.

I decided to go for some food. The falafel served at Al-Quds is supposed to be the best, an old Palestinian place named for the city of Jerusalem, and it certainly was. I still have dreams about that falafel sandwich in a crispy sesame bun. It might be the nicest falafel I’ve ever had. I then went for the equally famous kanafeh dessert at Habibah, also a solid recommendation.

Since I hadn’t slept for very long last night, I decided to call it quits early, around about 7ish, but not before buying a wrist watch I had seen earlier in the day — one with Arabic numerals. I’ve been looking for one of these for months.

Thursday, 27th December, 2018

I was up early, about 7 am, to beat the crowds and the impending storm, so off I went to the citadel high above the city. Jabal al-Qala’a it’s called. Somehow, I managed to follow a road up towards the citadel from the wrong side, but I was able to clamber up some rocks and over the wall, accidentally bypassing the ticket office. I had a Jordan Pass, so it didn’t really matter.

Occupied since the early Bronze Age, the citadel has been re-fortified countless times, most recently by the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Umayyads.

Two pillars remain from the Temple of Hercules, built by wise old Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century. Also remaining is the entrance hall of the Umayyad Palace, a once-spectacular complex of royal buildings from the 8th century.

Unfortunately, the storm arrived sooner than expected and it started pouring so I went for shelter. When the weather improved a bit, I made my way down to the Roman theatre, a short distance away.

Constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century under Antonius Pius, the theatre can hold up to 6,000 people, and is an iconic building in Amman. Amazingly, it’s still used for concerts and performances.

On my way out of the theatre, some local kids started joking with me in Arabic. I hadn’t a clue what they were saying but they were stunned when I replied in kind, also in Arabic. This was when I met Qusai, a Palestinian-Jordanian who saw the whole thing and came over to talk. He was eager to explain that things were bleak for Palestinians in Jordan. The majority of the 2 million Palestinians in Jordan — including Qusai — have citizenship, but this doesn’t mean much when it comes to prospects for employment. There’s rampant discrimination. This is true for Qusai also, in spite of his qualification in accounting. He’s been attending the recent protests outside the King Hussein Mosque.

At this stage, I desperately needed some food, so I headed to Hashami restaurant, famous in Amman for their hummus and falafel. Pictures of the royal family and other dignitaries adorn the walls, but it’s not a well-to-do place. It’s simple, wholesome food.

It started raining heavily at about midday, and never stopped. I spent the remainder of the day at the Jordan Museum (a steal at 5 JD, no Jordan Pass accepted) to explore the depth of history in this country and, frankly, to get out of the rain.

The museum is impressive. The whole top floor is given over to an expensive exhibition of inventions and discoveries from the Islamic Golden Age, called 1001 Inventions, and featuring a video with Ben Kingsley as the polymath Ismail al-Jazari. The most interesting part, for me at least, was the exhibit on al-Jahiz, who is credited in his Book of Animals with evolutionary ideas which pre-date Darwin. Evolution, as a concept, is generally opposed in the Islamic world, so I was happy to see some accommodation being made on official levels.

I had dinner at Shahrazad, named for the storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights, and recommended by the guide yesterday, where I tried ara’yes, meaning bride, a kind of pita bread filled with minced lamb, onions, parsley, and allspice. It’s then brushed with olive oil, and grilled over hot charcoals. It was tasty, but very filling!

Friday, 28th December, 2018

The desert route to Akaba was so long and so difficult that we could take neither guns nor machine-guns, nor stores, nor regular soldiers. – T. E. Lawrence

Amman is smothered in cloud, raining heavily. The roads have become rivers, torrents of water flowing to God-knows-where.

I decided to catch the 7 am JETT bus from Amman to Aqaba, with my roommate Ryan. It’s a four hour drive, and costs 8.60 JD. They showed an Egyptian movie, which I could follow in parts, and played some Arabic music, featuring my old favourites: Mohamed Mounir and Fairouz.

Jordan is serviced by a highway which runs north-south, known as the Desert Highway, al-Thari2 as-Sahara. The cloud began lifting the further we traveled south, green farmland soon gave way to desert, and flat land became mountainous. You enter the world of the Bedouin.

It’s truly amazing what happens to the weather as you descend into Aqaba, though. As we moved south and descended towards the Red Sea, the temperature rose dramatically, from 8 to 18 degrees. It has its own little micro-climate here.

I like Aqaba. It’s small, but full of history. The British and the Arabs, along with Lawrence of Arabia, famously took Aqaba from the Ottomans in July, 1917. Instead of coming by the sea, as was expected, the Arabs came across the open desert and won a decisive battle.

It’s a frontier city. It’s from here that you can see four countries: Jordan, of course, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt:

Ryan, my English roommate, wanted to buy some souvenirs so we shopped around for a little while. He eventually bought a few things at one place owned and operated by Mohammad, an Egyptian guy, who gave us a good price. I love Egyptians, and there are loads of them in Aqaba; we bonded over our shared love for Mohamed Mounir.

Ryan and I decided to go for a pint — there’s a Jordanian beer called Petra I wanted to sample — in the Rover’s Return, an English pub near the city centre. It’s beside an Irish pub, but this was closed. We had to cross into a tourist-only area, and show our passports. While passing, I said jokingly: Ana ajnaby. I’m a foreigner. Surprised at my Arabic, the bowab, or doorman, apologised for not speaking English and asked me to go over to the duty-free shop and buy cigarettes for him. I wouldn’t have to pay tax, you see. I agreed. I glided in and asked for his brand. The uniformed customs official just laughed and called over his two colleagues. This wasn’t the first time he’d had this specific request, clearly. He asked for my passport and asked who it was for. “Me,” I said. More laughs. This obviously wasn’t going to work. One of the other men asked if it was for the bowab outside. “Tab3an,” I replied, caving under the pressure of the interrogation, “of course.” There were laughs all around this time. The official denied my request, but after much pleading in my best (or worst) Arabic, he finally agreed and stamped my passport.

The beer was really nice, and the weather was gorgeous, so it was nice to sit outside. Just as we were sipping our drinks, an air show started in the skies over Aqaba, right over the border with Israel. Four planes performed synchronized displays, and then each would perform its own crazy manoeuvre.

I had a good look around the old ruins of Ayla, the ancient city known to the Hebrews as Elath, and to the Romans as Aela, before boarding the bus back to Amman.

Saturday, 29th December, 2018

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe, which Man deemed old two thousand years ago, match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city half as old as time. – John William Burgon

I woke early again, this time to get the JETT bus to Petra at 6.30 am, which cost me 11 JD. There were loads of people vying for a seat so I was glad I had reserved the night before, though a second bus was quick to arrive.

We arrived at Petra about 11.30 am, after some delays. I left my backpack in one of the souvenir shops in the car park, and went straight inside. I had come to Jordan especially to see Petra, one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World, so I wasn’t going to waste any time.

Petra was the capital city of Nabataea, one of the so-called “incense-states,” wealthy kingdoms which prospered in the Red Sea region, largely because of trade between Arabia and the Mediterranean. In 100 BC, when the kingdom was at its height, about 30,000 people lived in Petra. The city was eventually captured by the Romans in AD 106.

I trekked all the way down to the canyon, and began the long walk through the narrow gorge known in Arabic as: al-Siq, the Shaft. It’s a gorgeous sandstone chasm with huge rock-faces either side of the passageway.

After some time, you reach the famous Treasury, al-Khazneh in Arabic, the most beautiful and elaborate building in all of Petra. Its name derives from folktales about treasure hidden at the site. Constructed by the Nabataeans as a royal mausoleum in the first century of the common era, it’s an astonishing achievement. It’s simply breathtaking to behold.

I walked the entire complex, following the route from the entrance all the way to the Monastery, past the Treasury, the Royal Tombs, the Theatre, and the Colonnaded Street. It takes about three hours, all in all, walking at a leisurely pace. The path up to the Monastery, the final hour of the walk, is all up hill and very steep, so it takes some doing. The view at the end is worth it, though:

The Monastery, larger but less ornate than the Treasury, also gets its name from an Arabic nickname, al-Deir. In reality, it was probably a temple dedicated to the Nabataean King Obodas I.

The poet John William Burgon referred to Petra as: “a rose-red city half as old as time.” It does feel timeless, but it’s the colour of the stone city which really grabs you. There are so many shades of red: rose, crimson, garnet, but also purples. The sun works magic with the rock in this place.

Eventually, I made it up to my hostel, Rafiki, just up the hill in the nearby town of Wadi Musa, getting there for about 5 pm. This place was a bit of a dive, I thought, but soon realised how much of a gem it really was. The staff were a bunch of legends, for a start.

Later that evening, I overheard a guy speaking with an Eastern European accent but with Irish overtones, so I quizzed him. It turned out that he was Slovakian but he’s been living in Ireland for fifteen years, in Dalkey no less, just down the road from me. We drink in the same bars. “That’s funny, what a small world,” I thought.

A little while later, I bumped into a Japanese girl, Kurumi, who I had seen on the bus and at Petra that morning. We got chatting. “I’m living in Dublin,” she said at one point. “Sorry,” I said in shock, “is that somewhere near Tokyo?” “No,” she laughed, “I’m learning English in Ireland.” Well, jumping Jesus. It certainly is a small world, and getting smaller.

I opted to stay at the hostel for dinner, and I was glad I did. I’ve never seen such a good spread: a chicken dish with rice, alongside vegetable curry, bread, hummus, falafel, salads, and pasta, with dessert to follow. It was a feast for 5 JD. I went to bed early again, as Kurumi and I have agreed to go to Petra first thing in the morning, as soon as it opens at 6 am.

Sunday, 30th December, 2018

Wow! Getting to Petra early has really paid off. There’s almost nobody here. It’s a much more imposing site in the quiet of the morning without all the hustle and bustle of tourists coming and going. It’s really peaceful, more majestic even.

Today, I have one goal: walking the trail known in Arabic as al-Kubtha. It’s a long walk up through the mountains, but it promises breathtaking views of the Treasury. It took us about an hour, with Kurumi and I arriving around 7 am. The early wake-up and the steep climb together turned out to be a very small price to pay:

We had the view over the Treasury almost to ourselves, though people started arriving very soon afterward. What a view, though!

We spent about an hour overlooking everything and watching the world go by, before descending down the mountain for lunch at a Bedouin restaurant near to the entrance. I had chicken galayet, a local favourite, which was chicken with tomato and onion, stewed until soft, and seasoned with garlic, olive oil, and salt. I noticed some David Roberts lithographs on the walls. You see these all over the Levant.

Finally, we went back to Petra for one last look around. I opted for some horsepower in making the journey from the site entrance to the canyon, which helped after all the walking. We walked up to take a look at an old 6th century Byzantine church near the Royal Tombs, almost opposite the Theatre.

I bought a couple of fake antique coins from an old Bedouin man who pointed at one set of coins and announced: “Made in Taiwan.” He had a good sense of humour, and I wanted cheap fakes rather than real coins, which were available but came at a price.

It was about 4 pm when we decided to say goodbye to Petra. I thought that was it, until we got back to the hostel. I had a shower and opted for dinner in the hostel again, which was even better than yesterday. After dinner, there was a big commotion. Emil, the Slovakian guy, had met an Italian girl named Rosa, who had it on good authority that Petra By Night, which is exactly what you think it is, was running tonight. I had read somewhere that it ran only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and had resigned myself to missing it. However, the New Year had altered the schedule.

Suddenly, a guy came through the door with tickets (17 JD), and we were all immediately climbing into a taxi. We had to rush so not to miss it, but we arrived just in time, and got decent seats. It was cold, and dark, but the whole path up to the Treasury was lined with candles. It was really beautiful. We were given Arabic tea, which is to say sugary tea, on arrival and then it began. There was music, beautiful, haunting Arabic music, and then some storytelling, and then — it was over! Just as soon as it started, or so it seemed, it was finished. It was worth it, though, to see the place one last time and in the stillness of the night.

When we returned to the hostel, I told the others of my plan to visit Wadi Rum the next day, and to spend New Year’s Eve in the desert with the Bedouin. I sent a flurry of emails to my contact and arranged for all of us to go together: Myself, Kurumi, Emil, and Rosa. It would be another early night.

Monday, 31st December, 2018

Fly to the desert, fly with me, Our Arab’s tents are rude for thee; But oh! the choice what heart can doubt, Of tents with love or thrones without? Our rocks are rough, but smiling there The acacia waves her yellow hair, Lonely and sweet nor loved the less For flowering in a wilderness – Thomas Moore

We got the 6.15 minibus — all four of us — from Petra to Wadi Rum for 8 JD each, and it collected us from the hostel, so that made things much easier.

We arrived about 8.30, and found Salem, our Bedouin guide. We threw all of our luggage into a 4X4 and started our tour of Wadi Rum. This place is stunning:

It was used to film much of Lawrence of Arabia, and, unsurprisingly, it’s often used as a stand-in for the surface of Mars, most recently in the movie The Martian, with Matt Damon.

We got to see lots of different locations, including the Seven Pillars, so-named after Lawrence of Arabia’s book of the same name, and Lawrence’s Spring, which is still used to water the camels. A type of wild sage grows around the water, which gives a lovely smell.

One of the most glorious locations was the Khaz’ali Canyon, which contained ancient inscriptions, some from pre-history, some in Nabataean, and still others in old Arabic. There was a fig tree at the entrance to the canyon which caught the light so splendidly:

We made it back to our camp to watch the last sunset of 2018 from high up on a mountain. When we climbed down, and made it back to camp, tea was served around a fire in the main tent. Salem’s uncle played the oud. Now, in the darkness, around the camp fire, I really got a sense for what it must be like to live with the elements here. It was an amazing experience.

The family cooked a huge amount of food, chicken and vegetables, in a pit in the sand, not unlike a fualacht fiadh at home in Ireland, though here the food is predominantly steamed. They also served various salads, along with staple dishes like hummus, and their speciality, moutabal.

We all went star-gazing for the last couple of hours. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life, the sky was ablaze with distant suns. You could clearly see the band of the Milky Way. It was astounding. What stories must have been told of these wandering lights! We returned to camp for the countdown, and afterwards, in the far-flung distance, we could see fireworks exploding in the dark.

Tuesday, 1st January, 2019

We returned to Wadi Rum village for about 8.30 am, to go our separate ways. My flight home to Beirut was at 3 pm, so I had to get a bit of a move on. There are no buses to Amman from Wadi Rum, so my only options were a bus to Petra, then another bus, or a taxi to Aqaba, and a bus from there, but both options left me with little time. I had no real option but to get a taxi straight to the airport. Luckily, with some cajoling, Salem arranged for a taxi all the way from Wadi Rum to Queen Alia, with a detour to see the ancient mosaics in Madaba, for the low price of 100 JD. It was a four hour drive all the way north. It would be tight.

My driver turned out to be the greatest human being on Earth. Ali, the man, the legend. We spoke only Arabic for the entire trip, which occasionally (often, actually) strained my meagre abilities almost to breaking point, but I loved him. He was enthusiastic about everything. First, he tried to tell me all about Islam, but gave up that venture pretty quickly. Next, we moved on to music. He introduced me to Mehad Hamad from the UAE, Mashael from Saudi Arabia, Shaima Al Shayeb, and Sabah. I had the good fortune of introducing him to — who else? — Mohamed Mounir. We sang the whole way from Wadi Rum to Queen Alia International.

We parted as true friends, with promises to see each other again.

#jordan #petra #wadi rum

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pastordorry-blog · 7 years ago

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Merry Christmas!

“LORD OF IT ALL!”

Christmas Ever 11 pm Service

Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2017

Last month, my husband Phil and I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with three other people from our congregation, three people from Yardley UMC, and about 30 others from various places around the country. We arrived in time for a very late supper on Tuesday and went to bed, pretty much exhausted from the traveling. Wednesday morning, our tour guide had us board the bus at 7:30 AM so we could be one of the first groups to arrive at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. He said, "I know you're tired, it's been a long journey here, but trust me. If we don't get to the church early, we won't get to see the best stuff. The line will be way too long."

I didn't mind getting up early. I was so excited about seeing the place where Jesus was born. For months before the trip, the main thing I was looking forward to about my trip was knowing I would be standing here, in the pulpit on Christmas Eve, having been to Bethlehem. I was positive the trip would bring me some new insight, something special, that I could share with you, and that would make a difference for each of us.

But that is not at all what happened on our trip to Bethlehem. It was every bit as crowded as our tour guide predicted. And not only was it crowded. It was a little rough! We waited and waited on the main floor of the Church of the Nativity to be able to go downstairs to see Jesus' actual birthplace, and when we got there, we were given 10 seconds to kneel at the altar, look at the camera while our guide snapped a photo, and move on. Supposedly Jesus was born in a cave--not a wooden stable like we so often think of. But the Church had made the cave so ornate, it didn't feel like anything. Plus, it was hard to think spiritual thoughts when the other groups were pushing and shoving us. Our guide even got into a shouting match with another tour guide about protocol, and which group should go first. We had come to Bethlehem to worship the Prince of Peace, but our experience was anything but peaceful!

At the end of the day, we got back to our hotel, and I told Phil, Bethlehem was a bust. I was really disappointed that I was not going to have a special insight to share on Christmas Eve. I was also a little worried, that we come a long way, and what if every day was like this?

Thankfully, things got better and better with each day of the trip. It didn't get less crowded. I think we just got better at being pilgrims. What I didn't realize before going on this trip is that I would need to learn how to be a pilgrim. After all, I've been a "pilgrim", a person on a quest to know and love God, for a very long time! But going to Israel, that was my first rodeo, as they say. My brain was flooded with new details. How brown the landscape is, except for the palm trees. How much like here the highways are, yet how different the makes and models of the cars are. The smells of all the different foods, building materials, and even cleaning products! The sounds of people speaking in multiple foreign languages all around us, almost all the time. The Muslim calls to prayer. All of it interested me! It's like that joke about how a donkey will starve if you give him two bales of hay instead of one, because he can't decide which to eat. It took me a few days to learn to focus in on what was most important at each holy site. I didn't know how to do that on our first day, when we visited Bethlehem. And because of that, I returned to the hotel feeling unsatisfied. I was not filled with the good things I thought I was bound to receive.

And so I found myself this year, as I was reading over Luke's Christmas account, amazed at how the characters in the Christmas story were able to take it all in. It was definitely THEIR first rodeo! God was doing a brand new thing, and they were the first people to know about it. Luke tells us that the shepherds saw the angel, went to Bethlehem, and met the baby Jesus for themselves. God in the flesh, right there with them! They were so filled by what they heard and saw, that they were practically bursting at the seams. They went back to their fields unable to contain their gratitude and joy. The echoes of their songs of praise can still be heard even 2,000 years later. Every day groups of pilgrims come from all over the world to the Chapel of the Shepherds, a few miles outside of Bethlehem, to sing Christmas carols and imagine what it would be like to be the first people to hear the good news that Jesus was born.

On that first Christmas, the shepherds sang with gusto and joy. What a contrast to how Mary reacted! Luke tells us that she was amazed at how the shepherds had seen an angel. That's a surprise, considering she saw the angel herself many months before. But maybe what amazed her was not the new that Jesus was born, but the way God decided to share the news with the world, by telling a seemingly unimportant group of people like the shepherds before anyone else. The echoes of her quiet ponderings can still be felt even 2,000 years later. Every day groups of pilgrims come from all over the world to visit Mary's home in Nazareth, and to imagine what it would be like to be part of Jesus' life and ministry on earth, and part of his early Church.

I like the contrast of these two reactions. The shepherds' jubilation and Mary's serenity. In our Christmas Eve services, we try to incorporate both, because both are important. In a few minutes, we will quietly sing, "Silent Night" and ponder what Christmas means as we hold up our candles as light in the darkness. We will say the Lord's prayer, and treasure Jesus' life and teaching, even as we wonder, how to best live that out in our time and place. And then we will abruptly change mood. Margaret will pull out all the stops on the organ, and we will belt out "Joy to the World", because the news of Christ's birth is so good, we cannot contain our gratitude and praise. Even the earth itself will repeat the sounding joy, that Jesus is Lord of it all.

I am very happy to report to you that, as the days of our pilgrimage to the Holy Land went on, I got better and better at being a pilgrim. I figured out how to focus in on what mattered most. I learned to enjoy the moment. And I came home filled with memories and experiences to digest over time. So ultimately, I did not come home disappointed, although I never did get that one big, "Wow!" moment. I flew home with a bunch of souvenirs, but without that one great story to tell you tonight, on Christmas Eve.

Or so I thought. Shortly after coming back home, I noticed a change in myself. While we were in Israel, we went to an archeological dig in Jericho and saw a wall that is 10,000 years old. We stood and looked down into a pit at a wall--nothing special about it, except it was built 10,000 years ago! It was largely destroyed, the Bible says, by the Israelites. We’re still singing about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. I realized, God's been on the job for a long time. I should really stop worrying! People of faith have faced challenges and frustrations in every age, but God is still God. it doesn't matter the year. God is Lord of it all!

While in Israel, we saw pilgrims from so many different countries, often speaking languages we could not even identify, let alone understand. On our last day, people from Poland were gathered for worship on the beach at Caesarea, and they gave us prayer cards. Poland! One day at lunch, we sat next to people from Guatemala. Guatemala! And then, guess what? Phil and I were walking around some shops at lunch one day, and we heard someone call his name. It was a couple from North Wales, where we used to live before moving to Newtown. The husband is an attorney Phil has done work with over the years. We not only saw people from far away, we ran into people from home! I realized, God is everywhere! If I could learn to relax into that communion of all the saints, I could have more peace and joy. It doesn't matter where you are from, or where you are. God is Lord of it all!

While in Israel, we went to so many beautiful churches. Just about every important religious site is marked, not with visitor centers, museums, plaques and monuments--but with churches! Sometimes there are monuments and plaques, too. But there's always a church. And a gift shop. That's how I got so many souvenirs! The churches are often very ornate, not really my style, but built with expensive materials like marble and bronze, and painted with gold leaf. All done as a way to honor and worship God. But we also saw the fields where the shepherds graze their sheep, and caves where they put them at night, especially in winter. We saw tenement housing on the West Bank. We saw mangers. Not made of wood--made of stone! There's not a lot of wood in Israel, but there's no shortage of rocks. It is very likely that the stable where Jesus was born was a cave, and the manger was a carved stone feeding trough. Not fancy at all. I realized, that's a lot like my life. Some days are worth showing off--I could take a selfie and post it proudly. But some days, I'm humbled by my limitations, mistakes, and humanity. So why not just accept it? After all, God is Lord of it all.

I read Luke's account and am jealous of how easily Mary and the shepherds seemed to take in the good news of Christ's birth. They were already adept at focusing on what mattered most, and enjoying the moment. They were already good at experiencing God, wherever God was to be found. Perhaps that is the second miracle of Christmas: that God made people able to receive God's presence. Why make light if we have no eyes with which to see its brightness? Or skin with which to feel its warmth? But unlike seeing light and feeling warmth, experiencing God's presence does not always come easily to us. And yet, it comes. Maybe not in the "Wow!" ways we can easily spot, but most often in little bits at a time, and almost always, in retrospect.

Perhaps that is why Jesus told his disciples, when he gave us the sacrament of communion, to eat the meal "in remembrance of him". Perhaps we were designed us to best experience God's presence, by taking God in, in small bites, by remembering and treasuring and pondering our experiences, and by patiently learning to be pilgrims. It may be that we can only loudly sing God's praises after standing quietly for a time in the new life.

Inside the Shepherd's Chapel, outside Bethlehem, the message of the angel to the shepherds is carved in Latin. It begins, "Gloria in altissimis Deo et in terra pax." Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace." Peace to all humanity. Peace to each of us. Peace, because God is Lord of it all. Amen.

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monkeyandelf · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/heres-i-want-to-go-back-to-honduras/

Here's I want to go back to Honduras

Honduras is under the radar for a lot of people, but I had the chance to go and I can say this for certain: it’s excellent. It has mountains, dense rainforests, beaches and scuba diving, diverse ecology, Mayan ruins, a culture all its own, and much more. I understand why it made a bunch of must-visit lists for 2017. I’d return in a heartbeat — here’s why.

Editor’s note: This trip was sponsored by Pica Bonito Eco Lodge.

It’s incredibly lush

I mean, look at this place. It’s carved up geographically, and the biodiversity is off the charts. You can swim with whale sharks on the sandy Carribean coast, then turn around and visit dry forests, rain forest, cloud forests, wetlands, caves, savannas, valleys, and peaks. And that’s just the obvious stuff. This is all just a two-hour flight from Texas, people.

The Copán Ruins are awesome

Learning about a place through its history is pretty important. So I spent a lot of time at ruins but Copán was one of the most impressive. It was occupied for – historians think – about 2000 years. It has an amazing acropolis as a gateway to the underworld, underground tunnels, skull carvings, crazy stonework all over, and a really good open-air museum on site.

And set apart from other Mayan ruins

Copán has a distinctive sculptural style within the tradition of lowland Maya, perhaps to emphasize the Mayan ethnicity of the city’s rulers. Some of the sculptures have been painted to represent what they would have looked like when Copán was still inhabited.

Intermission

Trip Planning

35 of the world’s best places to travel in 2017

Matador Team

Trip Planning

18 things you have to do in Honduras before you die

Henry Leonel Cárcamo Macoto

Photo Essay

A dream trip come true: A journey across Mongolia

Jeff Colhoun

I wanted to loiter around these towns forever

The plazas were alive with families, kids, and friends lingering in the shade; they were ringed with food stalls and hole-in-the-wall eateries; and were sprinkled with hostels and BnBs… I could have stayed an awful lot longer.

Honduran personality is magnetic

Hondurans are proud, fun people. The country has been through a lot and yet I found the towns approachable and upbeat. This is Carnitas Nio Lola, a funky restaurant in the town of Copán that is covered in Christmas lights and serves delicious Honduran food, like baleadas (refried beans with Honduran-style sour cream, scrambled eggs, avocado, and sometimes a kind of chorizo or beef, in a tortilla).

Toucans are the bomb

I was lucky enough to see this Keel-billed Toucan at a sanctuary at McCaw Mountain.

The. coffee. is. to. die. for.

Hondurans know their coffee. I visited Welchez Coffee Farm to get a tour and a taste. A cup of this joe will get you wide-eyed, no matter what you did the night before. A lot of the best coffee in Honduras is exported so I had to take time to visit a farm and make sure I got the real deal. It also supports community initiatives at the same time, so it was a win-win. Pro tip: take some home.

The eco-lodges are on point

Much of Central America is on the eco-resort train. But I found Honduras to be a great balance between ecotourism and price point. I stayed at Pico Bonito Eco Lodge in La Ceiba, on the Carribean coast. The private cabins are rainforest hideouts. At night the mountain air would downdraft through the forest and cool things off just enough to keep the windows open and listen to the surrounding wildlife.

The national parks are diverse and packed with sites

I took a day trip to Pica Bonito National Park. In a day we trekked, climbed up to waterfalls, tried to spot a jaguar, crossed rivers, and back again. I mean, look at all that green. It was refreshing to feel dwarfed, it made me grateful to be a guest in a place like this. I cannot wait to be a guest here again soon.

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reginaidiotarum · 7 years ago

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A GIRL

I see how silly it was for me to title my last piece, “A Girl In A Boy’s Bod,” It was always just *my* body. It was a piece I wrote in distress at coming to my mother in distress and having that turn in on me. Having the conversation yanked right out from underneath me and the desperation of just being a voice in pain. It has been a full ten years now, since I wrote that, and I still have not read it since that night. It is too painful for me.

I have come a long way since that night. My world torn from underneath my feet. It was as though reality had slipped away. I knew it was pain. Terrible pain, but I never knew the course, just the correlation with certain things. I had said three words, and that was that. How dangerous the notion? I felt considerable pain all the time, a deep, psychological pain that were *as* intense as one of those medieval torture devices could muster. And I knew what lessened that pressure, and I knew what intensified it.

But this what never the argument people wanted to hear. This was an affront to their world view. They were blinded by faith and lost all semblance of reality. They would make fun of me, stand in my way, question if I was insane. All sympathy was lost in a clinical language and I languished in pain for years waiting for people to care enough about me to understand why I had tossed my life away with three words.

Prove to me you are not mad they said. How can I prove a negative? It makes no goddamn sense.

But I tried.

Here are my results:

First, I needed to study philosophy. If I have to answer an impossible question, I might as well understand the science of asking questions. Dan McCullough's “Out of the Cave” is my primary source for this stuff. He’s an amazing teacher and he distilled the arguments from many philosophical debates. Well, I came away from that knowing that using Synthetic *A Priori* (Assuming things) probably won’t get you very far to understanding something. Basically what I already knew, you can’t prove a negative.

But, what if you could?

Douglas Hofstadter wrote an amazing book about knowledge and understanding. He does this by analyzing human thought looking for all the little bugs. The mistakes we make, and understanding the code of the brain like that how you can watch that buggy Pokemon TAS to get a better understanding of how Nintendo games were made. His examples are MC Escher, famous for subverting the illusion of art to confuse human identification process, Bach, notable for playing with Shepard Tones and key stacks to leave different audio impressions.

(I tried to hear it myself, but I fear my partial childhood deafness left me with the inability to process music psychologically. I can hear it, but I am musically illiterate. But, I understood it through the descriptions of others. I looked at the patterns on the screen to see if I could understand it like that, but they just looked like mountains and valleys to me.

Kōsei Arima from Your Lie In April is a pretty good example of how I feel when trying to understand music, though his illiteracy is as a result of strong abuse associated with the process leading to pain whereas I just kinda hear key changes like they are blurry and indistinct.)

And Kurt Godel, who demolished the Principalia Mathematica by creating a little program using the logic therein to call for logic not contained inside.

Hofstadter uses these subjects to make a guess about human thought process so we can make artificial intelligences. He comes to the conclusion that knowledge is gained precisely by trying to assert a negative. He told the story about how all the mathematicians were super afraid of of testing Euclid’s Parallel Postulate and just kinda assumed there was proof of it. Like, two lines that are not parallel have to intersect somewhere, right? If it didn’t the entire system would fall apart.

Lewis Carrol, another influence of Hofstadter, dreams of a world of madness without this fifth postulate. In his ignorance of never trying Carrol’s imagination got the better of him. But, in the end, it was just hyperbola.

Two lines that never intersect, right there. A Hyperbola. Heck, it might even be one line, a parabola. Non-Euclidean isn’t nearly as scary as Lovecraft painted it out to be. In my experience treading into the unknown never reveals horrors, but the woefully mundane.

Assume you are wrong, and try yourself. It’s amazing. I had a lot of help trying my ideas against the nice people over at /r/GenderCritical. They were motivated by a fear of me that made them react to me with extreme rigor. I figured I’d entertain their debates long enough to feel them slip past the point of rationality or good faith, and give up. Here was the evidence I complied during this time.

If there is a heuristic approach to the universe, it’s science. Never assuming what is real, merely testing things, and recording the results. The scientists never sound confident, but when has confidence ever been a sign of wisdom? See, the scientists observe something. And, then they seek to understand it. They have a very pragmatic approach. They take a list of ideas as to what might be going on, and then arrange them based on what they have come up with as the most likely scenarios, and then they see if they can devise a test that they could iterate through to the point where it’d be improbable not to do.

Heck, sometimes you come up with a theory that can have a positive aspect to it. Zhou had a theory that “transsexuals” (Kind of an ugly word, makes it seem like we are motivated by sex), were experiencing a hormonal condition and neural biology. Early dissections of men’s brains and women’s brains showed slight differences. Things like longer dendrites on certain cells. The amount of neurons was fixed, but the structure of them was different. Zhou had decided to test various trans people, and he found that trans people had the structure of their gender identity, at least in some cases. Some people claimed that HRT spoiled the pot, so there have been experiments since then that have controlled for that.

“But that’s one person.” I only need one positive example to assert that it the possibility is true. And with the the GCers couldn’t touch me anymore, and they would have to deny empirical evidence itself. The continuity of the universe to continue arguing this point.

Well, I have an experiment that I could run. Well, it was not a good one because it would involve cutting open my head.

Maybe if I understood how this whole “brain” thing worked, I could see if I could find yet another test. So I studied neural networks. Mathematical simulations based on the neurons in the head.

So, we have known about the structure of the neuron for a while. Observed it under microscopes. We found that each neuron was structured in the same way. A bunch of fingers on one side, a pool in the middle, and a long tube on the other, sometimes with fat between them. (The layer of fat, an insulator layer, works like capacitors and allows the transfer of electrons through the space to shift the saline in the next segment of the cell into the next “drum” of fatty tissues. Makes for lightning fast transfer speed on those cabling neurons or input neurons)

They basically take data from the previous batch of cells, or in the case of certain cells, chemicals nearby. Convert that data into sodium or chlorine using pumps, and create a voltage level using the PH of the cell as a battery. These trigger a feedback function with another set of pumps to decimate the voltage and bring it to a normalized output for the next set of cells. Genius eh?

They use feedback loops, and the fingers, the dendrites, grow or shrink based on various forms of chemicals in the brain. Zhou’s work seemed to imply the the dendrites of these BSTc cells got seeded to their position during the third trimester of pregnancy, and laid dormant until puberty shifted them.

One neuron can provide the logic for AND, OR, NOT, ADD, SUBTRACT due to the pumps used. Two layers of neurons can give you an XOR, and after layers and layers of these, you have a heuristic sort program that can basically process any data.

So, we know there are cells there, and the are permanently affixed to one position. No amount of meditation or forced feedback can make those little suckers grow to my body, and I fear disrupting the processes of the neural network to try a hard-reset on them. It seems that my hormone levels are being reported in my brain through these cells, and the experience is pain.

Eureka, I had it.

I just needed to test it for myself.

This is where I’m going to say I engaged in a bit of mad science. I know how dangerous it is, but I’m dealing with finitude here, and if this is my one life, I’m going to make the best of it. I decided to see if changing my hormones took my pain away.

I also knew what the results of HRT would do to me, and so I asked for a new name and adopted pronouns of my new hormone levels. I knew not long into my treatment, significant changes would occur.

I could do it by taking a common diuretic that could suppress my natural testosterone count, and appending my estrogen levels with estridiol, a hormone already in use by many post-menopausal women and women taking birth control. Neither are radical or hard to get drugs. Neither are kept in pharmacies purely for my sole benefit to say the least.

I hunted around and selected my doctors. I didn’t want gatekeepers for this experiment, I wanted enablers. I knew that if my problem wasn’t hormonal, I’d have 6 months to cease treatment before any changes had occurred.

I didn’t last a week on the the treatment until I called it an amazing success. You know that video of the color blind guy wearing glasses that allow him to see color for the first time? It was like that for me for everything.

My pain was gone, and for the first time, I felt like I could see the world for how beautiful it was.

It was true then. I have been a girl this entire time. But, what did it all mean?

#trans #hrt #mad science #neurobiology

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andrea-cristina-travel-blog · 8 years ago

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A Spanish surprise: How to spend 48 hours in Santander, Spain

“Santander is a very beautiful city; we have the sea, the mountains, and real culture”, says my guide Carolina, as I gaze across the glassy Bay of Santander, admiring the rising peaks in the distance. And she’s right too. Here in northern Spain’s Cantabria region, an area still largely unspoiled by the hordes of tourists that flock to the south, green rolling valleys spill towards sleepy towns, while beautiful Mediterranean-like beaches hug the coastline. Admittedly, the seaside capital of Santander is somewhat misleading at first encounter. It’s definitely not as elegant as other Spanish towns – much of the old city burnt down in 1941 – but what it lacks in old-world charm it certainly makes up for in character, and natural beauty. I recently spent a weekend here, arriving with no prior knowledge or expectation and departing having immensely enjoyed all this charming city has to offer. From the elegant tree-lined ‘Paseo de Pereda’ promenade, to the atmospheric plazas; the golden sands of El Sardinero, and the impressive (yet blustery) coastal walks; and the newest jewel in Santander’s cultural crown, Centro Botin. Curious? You should be. Santander offers the perfect weekend getaway. And with flights just two hours from London, it’s a city calling your name. Here’s how to make the most of your own weekend getaway to Santander. HOW TO SPEND AN AMAZING 48 HOURS IN SANTANDER DAY #1 9AM Early birds catch the worm, and if you’re that way inclined, head for a walk along the Paseo de Pereda promenade, when the waters of Santander bay are still, and the paths quiet. Alternatively, sleep in and leisurely make your way to Mercado de la Esperanza, Santander’s historic marketplace. Here, fishmongers hawk the freshest of fresh seafood plucked straight from the surrounding waters, and local farmers sell a huge array of delicious summer fruits. We also recommend picking up some local cherries and peaches for the day. 11AM Wind your way slowly through what remains of the city’s old town, stopping at the imposing Santander Cathedral, before arriving at Centro Botin, Santander’s glorious (and somewhat divisive) arts centre. If you’ve been to Paris’s Centre Pompidou you probably already have an idea why Centro Botin divides opinions. Designed by the same renowned Italian architect, Renzo Piano, this contemporary gallery is bold and futuristic. Locals were wary of it pre-construction, saying it would block their views to the sea, but today this contemporary gallery is likely to be the highlight of your weekend in Santander. Featuring installations by famed artists, including Carsten Holler, and Francisco de Goya, as well as the impressive architecture and rooftop terrace, it’s the perfect place to spend at least a few hours. When you’ve finished admiring art and architecture, stop for a coffee and pastry El Muelle, housed on the ground floor of Centro Botin. 2PM Just a short work away is the Estaciόn Marίtima Los Reginas, where the ferry between Santander and Padrena departs from. It’s also the perfect spot to admire the impressive view of Santander, before following the scent of barbequed seafood to one of the local seafood restaurants. Local specialities include oysters, squid, octopus and tuna, and we’d definitely recommend a glass of white wine to accompany your meal. While there are plenty of restaurants to choose from, El Tronky was a personal fave for us, located just off the pier. You can’t miss it, just follow your nose. 4PM Jump aboard the ferry back to the mainland, before heading straight back into the city centre proper. Have a wander, or perhaps indulge in a little Spanish siesta! 8PM Santander wouldn’t be a Spanish city if it wasn’t filled with many amazing tapas bars – which means you’re definitely not short of excellent dinner options! Rio de la Pila houses many great restaurants, including Bodega del Riojano. The rustic dining room is lined with colourful wine barrels painted by the hands of contemporary artists, including Picasso, in return for food. The Cantabrian cuisine served here is delicious too – try the rabas (fried squid), or the sharing platters! If you’re after something more modern, Cadelo is your pick, while those seeking a tasty burger should look no further than Nobrac, a hipster burger and beer bar straight out of Shoreditch. Of course, Spanish nightlife is renowned around the world, and to experience it for yourself in Santander, Plaza de Cañadίo is the place to be. Overflowing bars filled with locals spill out onto the plaza making it a raucous, yet fun affair for all involved. For those ready to dance the night away, Calle del Sol houses many clubs with differing styles of music. DAY #2 10AM After a big day exploring, and a larger night enjoying Santander’s hospitality, a sleep in is on the cards. Make your way to Paseo de Pereda promenade and catch the local bus (€1.30) to Peninsula de la Magdalena, home to the former Royal Palace and incredible views of the headland. If you’re up for it, take a tour inside the luxurious Palace (€3), or slowly make your way to the beaches to the east. Make sure you’ve packed your bathers, because the beaches of Santander are beautiful. El Sardinero and Playa de Mataleñas are the pick of the bunch, both wide expanses of sand with clear waters. If you’re ready to shake off the relaxation, surf lessons are also available. 2PM Pop into one of the local tapas bars and grab a tortilla de patatas (a Spanish omelette with potatoes) to go before embarking on a leisurely walk from El Sardinero to Faro de Punte Silla lighthouse. The walk is spectacular and provides some of the best views of Santander’s dramatic coastline. Pack some snacks and set up for a picnic wherever you like to enjoy the fresh coastal breeze. 5PM Jump aboard the #1 bus (€1.30) back to Paseo de Pereda promenade and grab yourself a hard earned ice cream at one of the exceptional ice creamery’s located on the promenade. Opinions are divided amongst locals as to which is best, but Regma consistently seems to come out on top. Our personal fave was Monerris Helados in plaza Cuadro, who won us over with the most delicious raspberry cheesecake ice cream! Museums in the city are free on Sunday afternoons, so make the most of it by visiting the Museo de Prehistoria y Arqueologίa de Cantabria, or the archaeology museum. Located under the former city market, Mercado del Este, the museum takes you through Cantabria’s extensive history, which includes some of the oldest prehistoric caves in the world. 8PM You’ve made it through to our favourite time of day again: dinner time! Time to sample a famous Spanish dish, Cocido, at Fuente De, a nondescript family run restaurant in the heart of the city. A chickpea based stew originally from Madrid, Fuente De’s version of Cocido has a distinct Cantabrian twist, and is best washed down with a local red wine. If you’ve not collapsed from exhaustion, drop into one of the many city bars on the way home and drink to a wonderful weekend in Santander. ESSENTIAL TRAVEL INFORMATION FOR SANTANDER WHEN TO VISIT SANTANDER Having left a rare beautiful London afternoon behind me, I have to admit I was a little distraught to see Santander shrouded in a thick blanket of clouds. Fortunately the temperature was still a balmy 21 degrees, and over the course of the weekend the clouds cleared to let the glorious summer sun blankets the city. Santander, and its locals, seemed to come alive, and with everyone out enjoying some of the many outdoor pursuits. Although summer in this part of Spain is changeable, July – August is still the best time to visit. The weather is at its warmest, and the city is abuzz with festival season supporting the usual after-dark fun. It’s important to note the city is busy during this period, with domestic tourism popular in this part of Spain. The winters in Santander are mild, and almost never freezing, while the mountains to the south offer skiing during the winter months. WHERE TO STAY IN SANTANDER Despite being a relatively small city, Santander is stocked with accommodation options catering to all budgets. Mid-range We stayed at the four star Silken Coliseum hotel, located in downtown Santander, and just a short stroll from all the major attractions. While catering mostly for a business clientele, the rooms were large and comfortable, while the breakfast was excellent. To book, or to discover more, click here. Read Tripadvisor reviews here. Budget While not huge on the European backpacker scene, Santander does have a number of comfortable hostels to choose from. Our pick is Santander Central Hostel, located right in the centre of town. With cool communal spaces and comfortable rooms, it’s the perfect budget friendly option in Santander. Read Tripadvisor reviews here. AirBnB If you’re a fan of AirBnB, there are heaps of options available in Santander. The rates are extremely affordable too, with some of the cheapest we’ve seen in Europe. Book using our code and receive up to £30 off your booking. HOW TO GET TO, FROM, AND AROUND SANTANDER Being a smaller city, it is easy for a tourist to travel around Santander. Local buses are frequent to almost all points of the city and its beaches, small ferries operate to outlying beaches and suburbs such as Pedreña, while taxis operate within the city. It’s worth noting Uber is not currently available in Santander. From the airport Santander’s Seve Ballesteros airport is located a short distance from the city. A regular, dedicated services operates between the airport and Santander bus station every 30 minutes (on the hour, and half hour), and takes around 15 minutes. The return journey departs every 30 minutes from Santander bus station (at a quarter-past the hour, and quarter-to the hour). A one way ticket costs around €2.50. Alternatively, taxis are easy to come by and should cost no more that €10. Buses Local buses are frequent and inexpensive, at €1.30 per trip. At every bus stop there is a clear map showing the bus routes and stops and many stops have information boards that indicate the time interval for each bus arrival. For complete bus network map and timetables can be found here. Bikes Santander is a very bike friendly city, and has bikes for hire at various points around the city. All you need is a credit card to release a bike, and they must be returned to a bike station. Taxi Taxis operate all over Santander, and can be booked from a fixed point, or caught from taxi ranks throughout the city. They’re actually quite cheap for a city, and can be a more comfortable alternative to bus transport. Boat Boats operated by Los Reginas leave Jardines de Pereda (on Santander’s promenade), for either Somo or Padrena on the opposite side of Santader’s bay, every half an hour, and cost €4.95 for a round trip ticket. For more information, or for the timetable, click here. Flights Santander is serviced by Ryanair and Iberia, with Ryanair flying direct from London daily. Skyscanner is your best bet to find the cheapest airfares to any destination, every time. Search for flights to Santander by clicking here. JOIN OUR TRIBE & WANDER WITH US Join 30,000+ people and receive travel stories, tips + hacks, and stunning photography to inspire your wanderlust. Straight to your inbox We hate spammers. We'll never be those people. We were hosted by Spain Tourism and Cantabria Tourism during our stay. A big thank you to the team for making our stay memorable. As always, all views are our own. The post A Spanish surprise: How to spend 48 hours in Santander, Spain appeared first on The Common Wanderer.

https://www.thecommonwanderer.com/visit-santander-spain-48-hour-travel-guide/

#Destinations #Europe #Spain #Travel Guides #Cantabria #El Sardinero #Food #Nature #outdoors #Santander #Travel guide #Wine

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bettercallselly-blog · 8 years ago

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Hi everyone! The Leftovers Episode Three is finally out and here I am, trying to put things together as always. This episode was special and beautiful, completely different from all the others. It almost felt like I was watching a movie about the amazing character of Kevin Garvey Senior. We didn’t know much about him from Seasons One and Two: he is Kevin’s father, he’s a former police chief and he stopped working when he started hearing voices. He spent an indefinite number of years in a mental institution, and he finally got better when he stopped fighting the voices and started doing what they told him to do. The last thing we knew about him was that he decided to move to Australia as the voices recommended. I could not wait to know more about him and this episode is just what we needed to understand what kind of person he is and what’s the meaning of his journey. Apparently, he’s not hearing voices anymore and the last thing they told him was to move to Australia, without telling him exactly where to go or why. So he arrived in Sydney, bought a ticket for Verdi at the Opera House – that’s the second time we hear about Verdi in the serie, it’s impossibile to forget about the amazing episode International Assassin with Nabucco always in the background – and waited for some signs to come. The first signs he received was a hippie with a red headband who asked him if he wanted to talk to God.

“Son.. i’m fucked up on this s*it they call God’s tongue…”

“Then you’ve gotta talk in God’s tongue”, that’s what he told him. We already knew that “God’s tongue” is an high-end hallucinogen, used by K.G. Senior to communicate with Kevin through the Hotel’s television (International Assassin – s02e08). So… Do we have to take it for granted that Kevin is really God? Or that’s just a coincidence? But the odd part is yet to come, because K.G. Senior doesn’t remember a thing about that. He claimed he woke up two weeks later in a hotel room in Perth on the opposite coast of Australia and now he clearly has no memory of Kevin being in an identical hotel room. He doesn’t remember helping him with his situation, or telling him to take “his target” to the well. The only thing he remembers is his room with “a smoldering mattress and a bunch of white dudes lying around in war paint” and – and that’s the funny part – seeing a chicken in the television.

Apparently, on October 14th a small Australian town lost its entire population of 14 people, including the animals. The only living thing that didn’t depart was an egg, from which a few days later a chicken came out. Then people started talking about this chicken, claiming it could help people find what they were looking for. And that’s were K.G. Senior’s story really begins: he obviously went to see Tony, the chicken, and asked him to give him a purpose. Tony started pecking on an audio tape – the audio recorder was a present to Kevin from his mother, a month before she died – with a really weird and explanatory recording of Kevin and his father trying to stop the rain by singing a song. This moment brought two things to my mind:

Kevin, trying to escape the Other Place by singing “Homeward Bound”, to prove his love for his family.

The National Geographic (may 1972) article about “The spider that lives underwater”. The song goes

“The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout – Down came the rain and washed the spider out – Out came the sun and dried up all the rain – And the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the spout again”.

That’s an obvious reference to the National Geographic article and to something that Christine mumbled right before giving birth to Lily in Season One

“The are spiders underwater”

Anyway, according to the recording the song seems to work and we hear the rain stop.

“On the seventh-year anniversary of the Sudden Departure, I believe the rains will come, and with them a great flood. I have to sing to make it stop”

That’s probably what gave K.G. Senior the idea to use music to stop the Apocalypse: his plan is to go all along the Australian Songline, learn all the songs from every sacred site and sing them in order to stop the world from ending.

At this point in the story he needs one last song to complete his mission. He looks for an aboriginal man called Christopher Sunday, who owns the last song he needs. He tells him his whole story, about his journey to Australia, about young Kevin and his mother and he asks him to teach him his song. This is probably the longest (and weirdest and most beautiful) monologue of the entire serie – with Verdi again in the background: K.G. Senior cries for the first time, remembering how little Kevin coped with his mother’s death… At the end of it, Chris agrees to give his song to K.G. Senior, in exchange for his help in fixing some water leaks on the ceiling. While doing that, he falls from the roof and lands right on Chris, killing him.

He ends up wandering alone in the desert, where he gets bitten by a snake. This scene is very significant because once again we are in front of a spirit animal (he claims his totem is a bush snake). Also, he gets bitten by the snake on his left arm, in the exact same spot as the cave woman from Season Two opening scene was bitten (and that’s also the same spot of Nora’s tattoo).

Anyway, the snake poison makes him sick, he collapses next to a wooden cross and he wakes up in the same house we saw in Episode Two last scene. We discover someone has taken care of him, and has given him some medications. Right out of the house some people are building a big ark, so maybe they’re waiting for a great flood too. That’s where he finds out that Chris has died, and that therefore he won’t be able to teach him the last song he needs. He goes back inside, takes some random medications from a cabinet and finds a photo album in the refrigerator, showing the life of a young woman, her husband and their five adopted children. He falls asleep watching the pictures and he wakes up a few hours later. That’s where everything starts to make sense again: the four ladies from last episode are right outside his door and they’re drowning the “other Kevin”. They hit the poor K.G.Sr with a dart, and he wakes up next day. Grace, the blonde lady from last week’s episode, is looking at him waiting for him to wake up. She tells him her heartbreaking story, of how she assumed that her children had departed and found their bones two years later next to her house. She had a strong faith in God and strongly believed that the Departure was really the Rapture and her children had been chosen by God to ascend to heaven with him. She’s now devoured by guilt and she’s desperately trying to make sense of her tragic story. That’s why she thought K.G. Senior was an angel, sent by God to give her a message: he was standing on the exact same spot where her children died, with a page from “The Book Of Kevin” in his hands. She thought that God was asking her to find this police officer named Kevin, the only man on earth who couldn’t die and who was able to help her talk to her children for the last time. She didn’t expect her beliefs to cause someone’s death, again, and now she’s broken. That’s why the last scene is so beautifully powerful. Grace is crying because she thinks God has forsaken her and it takes just one sentence to fix her broken heart:

“You just got the wrong Kevin”.

The world is not over. God is still there with her, and she has a purpose again. It seems that these two people are going to help each other achieving their destinies..

I really loved this episode in a special way. Kevin Garvey Senior is an amazing and strong human being. He sacrificed everything he had in order to save the world and help his son, even though he seems to think that he himself, not Kevin, is the only man alive who can prevent the Apocalypse, and that Kevin is just a part in his own story.

Interesting facts:

– The National Geographic is back!! – “I don’t want him in Australia”. That’s what K.G.Sr says about Kevin. Why doesn’t he want him to go to Australia? I guess we’ll find out in the next episode! – We finally found out something about Kevin’s mother.. Apparently she died of cancer when he was 8. – K.G. started hearing voices five minutes after the Departure… Was he the very first man having a connection with dead people? – K.G. Senior leaning on Kevin’s old recorder to protect it from the rain reminded me of Nora bent over Lily on the bridge (s02e10) – In Season One K.G.Sr didn’t care about killing the deer. Now he apologizes to a snake, before killing him. His trip to Australia has changed him so much, now he even has a spirit animal, a totem. – Matt seems to be sick again. :( – Grace’s last name is Playford, which is also the last name of Thomas Playford, leader of the Millerite movement in Australia!! – Christoper Sunday is played by David Gulpilil, who was in a 1977 movie called “The Last Wave” where we meet a character named David Burton (just like our Leftovers character, who came back from the dead and found himself in a cave in Perth after being in the Hotel). The movie also talk about a flood that might end the world. – The man on fire says “They didn’t take me”. Is he talking about the LADR radiation “treatment”? This scene is also a reference from the movie “Walkabout”, also starring David Gulpilil. (Thanks Jim Kathan for finding this news)

– Australia is the beautiful new setting for the story, so full of magic because of the aboriginal rituals and traditions, their painted bodies, and the sacred paths called The Songline. The wide evocative landscapes are often forbidden to strangers because traditional Aboriginal people regard all land as sacred, and the songs must be continually sung in order to keep the land “alive”. We are even shown a picture of Uluru, the main sacred rock of Australian aboriginal people, in the photo album that K.G.Sr finds in Grace’s refrigerator.

The Leftovers – RECENSIONE 03×03 “Crazy Whitefella Thinking” Hi everyone! The Leftovers Episode Three is finally out and here I am, trying to put things together as always.

#crazy whitefella thinking #review #s03e03 #season three #the leftovers

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