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jungle321jungle · 3 years

Text

Your Words Fill The Space Between Us

The published letters that detail the romance that changed the kingdom.

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Aka Roman and Janus send each other letters

Taglist: @angels-and-dreams @ollyollyoxinfree @gattonero17 @chumo-cookie @dreaming-always @anxiety-ismy-name @mrbubbajones @janustheliar @why-do-you-care @hogwarts-my-love

Ao3 - Masterlist

Your Words Fill The Space Between Us

September 18th

I received the gift you sent with your previous letter, and I wanted to ensure I thanked you for it- despite how bold it was. But I suppose that has always been something I liked about you- even if my heart very nearly stopped when Mother asked who the flowers and watch had come from. I was forced to give her the flowers (but I kept the watch for myself) after telling her it came from a businessman I work with (I am blessed that she didn’t ask which of them it was). Though I was disappointed to give up the flowers. I don’t even remember mentioning my favorite flowers and yet you knew anyways. Are you using your power for useless things again? I hope not, you have enough on your plate as it is without worrying about what I like and dislike. But if it truly crosses your mind do know that what I like are your letters and the rare moments we spend together.

But enough about that, more importantly I will be aiding my father this year so I too will get the pleasure of attending the New Year’s Ball. I hope when I arrive you can finally show me the spot you’ve described with the view of the whole city.

~~~~

September 23rd

I am glad my present to you was received well. As to your comment regarding whether or not I was using my power correctly, all I must say is that if it is my power I shall use it as I please. If that happens to be to determine your favorite flowers so be it, my servants are paid accordingly. Also, once I get more power laws change and I get you- so I truly see no downside.

I cannot wait until you get here, I will show you all my favorite spots here to view the scenery and my favorite places in town to shop and eat. We’ll need to think of an excuse for why we spend so much time together though, but we have the time to work out a story.

Speaking of, with this letter I am sending you a book. It’s one I just found by chance and I fell in love with instantly, I’m sure you’ll do the same. Be sure to send me your thoughts when you finish.

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October 17th

You are utterly horrific. Sending me a book that plays with my emotions like that. I wouldn’t have gotten so invested if I just knew she was going to die like that! Not even from her disease but from an assassin that’s horrible. Just horrible.

I stayed up to finish the last few chapters and now it’s late and I’m crying, but I don’t want the maids to hear. You’re horrible. And to prove it I’m sending you a book.

~~~~

November 2nd

I truly am dastardly aren't I? I laughed a lot at your letter, it was the exact response I was expecting. You never disappoint dearest. As for the book you sent me I unfortunately am yet to open it. I wasn’t planning on sending this letter until completing it, but things have gone bleak in terms of negotiations. I’ve been spending all my time locked in my office taking over my father’s daily work in addition to my own while he tries to calm things with the other delegations. At present I should actually be overlooking some documents, but I feel if I do I will truly lose my mind.

I miss you.

I know that if you were just here sitting beside me I would instantly feel energized.

At least the ball is next month.

~~~~

November 4th

I doubt you have even received my last letter as I write this, but I must tell you to withhold sending other letters. I’m not entirely sure why, but Father is suspicious of something and is having mail checked.

I’ll send word when the coast is clear.

~~~~

December 22nd

My father has found whatever it is he is looking for, so we should be fine now. But that did take longer than I thought. So much has happened in the last few weeks.

Mother’s sudden illness, and sister’s broken engagement, not to mention that the countries on either side of us have declared war and both are begging for us to pick a side. It’s beyond tiring. Father still insists upon holding the ball though, so I’ll see you then. I wonder if this letter will even reach you before you depart for the capital.

I hope I’ll have the time to show you around as I promised.

~~~~

December 27th

I was about to respond to your first letter when the second arrived. You must’ve sent one of your fastest messengers. As for your third and most recent letter I received it just before climbing in the carriage. We are staying in the Barony tonight, which is where I write this letter from. But I will wait to have it sent to you until I reach the capital.

I too hope we can meet up during the festivities, at least for a minute and even better if that minute was spent alone so we can speak freely. But please, remember that you mustn't push yourself too hard.

~~~~

December 31st

There is a small balcony west of the ballroom and past the room where the ladies rest. It’s secluded. We can use our usual signal, I’ll meet you there.

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January 1st

I cannot describe how amazing it was to simply hug you again. And as I said before it was wonderful to see how your dancing had improved. I’m sorry that our time together was so short, I will send you word as soon as I know when I can slip out of the palace. Maybe, two nights from now I can try? That’s when the commoners set up an array of stalls with games and prizes. Would you like to go?

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January 2nd

Of course I want to go! We will go and I will beat you at every game! But I don't have any clothes that would help me blend in. Also, how do you intend to disguise yourself?

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January 3rd

With this letter are clothes for you to wear tonight. I’ll meet you outside the gates by the large willow about an hour after dinner. And as to your question, I will be wearing a blonde wig.

~~~~

January 4th

You cheated. That’s the only way you could have won so many games. I don't care that you said you didn’t, you most certainly did.

~~~~

January 5th

You are free to believe what you like.

For the closing ball tomorrow we can meet at the same spot as the first night. And I have a surprise for you.

~~~~

January 6th

I swear I didn’t know.

I am so sorry. I didn’t know, I saw you crying and run off and I’m sorry that I couldn’t run after you. I’m sorry. Can I come by so we can talk?

~~~~

January 8th

You’re leaving tomorrow right? Please respond so I can see you before you do.

~~~~

January 9th

I understand you’re mad at me, and I won’t even ask you not to be. But I will ask that you at least try understand the position I am in.

And I hope you travel safely home.

~~~~

January 16th

Did you really not know?

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January 19th

I didn’t. My father sprung it on me, the same way he did to every party guest. He didn’t even tell me which nation he was leading towards in terms of support, much less this.

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January 22nd

Will you marry her?

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January 25th

I don’t want her. I want and I love you.

~~~~

January 28th

That’s not what I asked. I asked if you will follow through with the engagement.

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January 31st

I don’t have a choice. I thought I could spend more time living as the Crown Prince before I could reject the role and leave the crown to my brother. I thought I could do that if my parents ever brought up marriage- but this is more than a marriage. It’s war.

If I don’t marry the Delphine our trade routes are shut off- and since we already cut ties with the empire by my father announcing the engagement. If I reject this for you, I put the whole kingdom at risk. I… I don’t know if I can do that.

~~~~

February 4th

Surely there’s another way! Why can’t she just marry your brother?

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February 10th

Do you truly think I haven’t looked for one? My hands are tied. The only possible thing I could do to even have you near me is to bring you here as an advisor or the like when the time comes. I can find a way if it’s that.

~~~~

February 14th

No. I will not stand to the side just watch as you dance and hold hands with her for the public’s morale. I would rather die than that.

~~~~

February 19th

Please don’t be so dramatic. I am trying all I can think of in between my hectic schedule. But if you truly don’t like my efforts tell me, do you have any brilliant ideas?

~~~~

February 25th

Don’t mock me, Your Highness. You’re not the one who has had his heart stepped on repeatedly. You’ve been making me promises for years- am I not allowed to be upset when I find out that they’re hollow?

~~~~

March 2nd

You’re unbelievable. Feel free to sulk all you wish, meanwhile I need to continue my regular duties, prepare a wedding, and prepare for war.

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March 5th

War? I thought our kingdom was just to supply aid.

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March 8th

I’m getting married to the daughter of a nation who declared war upon the empire. Of course war will come to our borders as well.

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March 23rd

Father got the invitation to the wedding this morning. I wanted to tear it to shreds. Have you truly thought of nothing yet? Something other than me working for you?

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March 29th

I’m sorry to say I haven’t. In the months since the ball and start of the war I haven’t gotten anywhere with my Father- and Mother’s decline isn’t helping.

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April 1st

What? I had heard she was getting better?

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April 6th

That’s just the rumor I spread to redirect attention. She’s getting worse if anything.

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April 10th

I am so sorry.

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August 12th

It’s been a long time since my last letter, I’m not sure how many months. I guess I should follow custom and congratulate you on the wedding even if I am late. You at least looked very nice on your wedding day. You’ve truly perfected that fake smile.

I’m sorry for how I acted when I heard about your engagement. I know you didn’t want this either. And I know it’s late for this, but I’ll come work for you if that’s what it takes. The more I try to pretend that I don’t love you- the harder it gets- and the more it hurts.

~~~~

August 17th

Lord Roman Regis,

Please do not waste my time and deny that you are the author of the letter I just read. I intend to keep this letter brief. I do not wish to know what kind of relationship you have with my husband, but I must request that it ceases. My husband serves as a figure to both nations, and he cannot have anyone dragging him down. Especially not someone of a lower stature.

If you contact him again, there will be consequences.

Crown Princess Delphine Ekans

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August 22nd

Crown Princess,

Your Highness I apologize for any misunderstandings I may have caused, but please speak to Janus. I’m sure he will explain everything.

Lord Roman Regis

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August 26th

Lord Roman Regis,

To think a measly count’s son can not only tell me what to do, but he can be bold enough to refer to my husband without a title. I already asked you not to drag my husband down, and by doing so you have disregarded my warning.

Do remember that you have brought this upon yourself Lord Roman.

Crown Princess Delphine Ekans

~~~~

September 5th,

Ro,

You know all those times I told you to just get out there and just love the prince if you actually love him? Well this is not what I meant. I mean like you should speed up that “perfect” plan you two always talked about, not that you should wait so long that he got married. And definitely not so long that his wife outed your “despicable crush on the married crown prince”- however I can say that the papers are currently god tier with gossip. I have been asked for interviews like four times and I love it. Oh and have some faith in me, I didn’t talk to them- for long.

Anyway, lover boy should be able to help you out of this, right?

The better you,

Remus

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September 10th,

Remus,

Sometimes I hate you, and then when I remember we shared a womb I hate you even more. But even so, I thank you for being the one “calm” person about this. Mother and Father (mainly Mother) have been up in arms about how big of a disgrace I am, and just about every noble in the kingdom is in agreement. It doesn't matter that just about every unmarried woman pines after the Crown Prince even after he got married, because when a man does it- because that Witch known as the Crown Princess publishes my letter- I’m somehow a deviant.

I haven’t left the manor since word got out. And I am just flooded with letters from friends and other nobles, but truthfully I am too scared to read them. Maybe I’ll have a trusted maid read them and pick out the kind ones, but I am not sure.

I have no clue what is going on with Janus at the moment. I am yet to receive anything from him- most likely due to the Crown Princess’ interference. I wish I could know what was happening behind the palace doors... I truly do.

This is why I just wanted to run off to somewhere else, but Janus was confident he could change the laws for us and then we could go live quietly somewhere... I wish things were that simple.

I rather not discuss this anymore truthfully. I'd like to have a normal conversation again. So tell me, do you have any stories to tell of your travels? Reading them would prove far more interesting than anything here.

The best twin,

Roman

~~~~

September 18th,

Remus,

Given I am yet to receive a response from you, so I assume you are on the move once more, but I thought I should send you an update letter before you hear the filtered version from word of mouth.

I am currently being escorted to the palace. I know some will think I am to get some sort of punishment, but Janus sent one of the guards with a verbal message that he is handling this in his own way. I have no choice but to place my trust in him. Mother was still worried about it, Father interestingly seemed to be rooting for me but we didn’t get to talk more about it. But I know I will see Janus soon and that thought comforts me. Even though I know his wife will be close behind.

I’ll keep you updated on what transpires. But I still expect traveling stories. Like honestly, what was the point of you joining the navy if I don't get to read any seafaring adventures? You aren’t fighting in the war so surely there must be pirates or something? Or some stories about sirens and other such creatures? I want to read them all.

And in return you can have me as your wonderful twin.

The twin that matters,

Roman

~~~~

September 21st

Roman,

It almost seems strange to be able to address you by your name in a letter, but I like it all the same. I am very sorry for my silence and for Delphine’s actions. The former was a result of a few things: the first being my traveling to the battle front. I'm sorry I did not tell you prior to leaving, I did not want you to worry, but... I spent some time in battle. I was on my way back when your letter reached the palace and Delphine had taken it before I knew it even existed. Then upon my return I was busy dealing with Mother’s health and my war reports- I had intended to write other excuses here but truthfully I was scared of your reaction. I was scared that you would have just given up on me- on us. I had written and thrown away over 20 letters that I started without finishing before Delphine handed me a paper with a letter I had never seen published on the front page.

We had a long argument, about her not having the right to do such a thing to a “friend” of mine. It took a lot of time to cool things down and convince everyone to allow you to come here. Your father had sent me a letter saying he was worried for your safety, and that was enough to pull them to my side to bring you out of harm's way.

I am sorry I cannot currently go to see you, right now everyone believes I am just trying to clean up a mess that my wife blew way out of proportion and going to you would only start rumors. The knight who will deliver this letter- Virgil- can be trusted. He may huff and roll his eyes, but he does not pry and will not look at the contents of the letters. As he put it, he will only do the bare minimum of his job, and being curious and nosy takes too much energy. So you can send your letters through him. I swear I will figure something out.

In the meantime I hope your quarters are comfortable, let me know if they are not.

Yours,

Janus

~~~~

September 22nd,

Janus,

You are an absolute idiot. You went to war, without telling me? What if something had happened to you? Are you crazy? No of course you are. You’re absolutely insane- and I am so so glad that you are alright.

It has been strange being here in the palace, I don't often leave my room due to the looks servants give as I pass by, but my room is comfortable and Virgil makes good conversation. He certainly doesn’t have the demeanor of most knights which is enjoyable. Reminds me a bit of my twin in a way- but I think both would disagree.

Regardless, I have a request for you even though I know you will disagree. I wish to speak with the Crown Princess. I do not know how much you have told her, so I can keep things sounding one sided if you wish- but I want to speak to her. If you don't give an answer I like, I will simply write to her myself.

Roman

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September 22nd

Roman,

And you call me crazy. Why would you want to meet with the woman who ruined your life? You wrote in the same letter that even servants are scorning you- I will have Virgil report to me who they are so they can be fired immediately- and yet you wish to speak with her? I will not allow it.

Janus

~~~~

September 24th

Janus,

As you read this the Crown Princess should be receiving her letter as well. I kept it simple, just asking for tea with the promise of an apology. But before I schedule a time to meet with her, I want to know... do you like your wife?

Roman

~~~~

September 25th

Roman,

Delphine showed me the letter and she gave some unkind phrases to go with. I told her not to accept your invitation- but I think she wants to even more now. As to your question, I don’t know what I think of her. I hate what she has done to you, but I do not hate her (entirely) as a person. I admire the fact that she will go to great lengths to help her people, but I certainly do not like her. Or perhaps it’s better to say that I like her in the way one likes a business partner? Appreciating when they get the job done well, and hating when they don't. I am not sure if that answers your question, but I do not know how else to better phrase my thoughts.

Janus

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September 27th

Janus,

I met the Second Prince yesterday. He came to my room and chided me for not getting enough sunlight and fresh air, before he ordered me to accompany him to the gardens. He seems far too kind to be of royal blood. Oh, while he denies it I definitely say Virgil stealing glances at the Prince. It was quite adorable actually.

I am laughing to myself as I write this and he looks on, it is most amusing. Do tell you brother to visit again.

Roman

~~~~

September 28th

Roman,

Patton is definitely too pure for this palace, if he wasn’t the spitting image of father I would think he was illegitimate. As for him and Virgil... I rather not speculate, no one and I mean no one is good enough for Patton.

In more important news I will be accompanying Delphine to your tea tomorrow. At least for the beginning of it. Seeing you two together with my own eyes is the only way I can be sure someone won't attack the other.

I’ll see you then love.

Janus

~~~~

September 29th

Janus,

Since I am sure you are worried about what I and Crown Princess Delphine spoke of in your absence here is a few notes about what we discussed:

The fact that I have loved you since our academy days

That my feelings won't change no matter what she does

That I don't want anything negative to befall either country

She did not once ask about your thoughts or feelings, they seemed relevant to her

She doesn’t want me near you. She says it will ruin the reputation she is building

I do not know what this means for us, but at the very least I think I understand what you meant about having a business partner relationship.

Roman

~~~~

October 2nd

Roman,

Good to know your talk with her was for mostly nothing. She has more recently gone to my father about some scheme to boost morale and he seems to be on board. So she’s at least distracted for the time being.

In surprising news Mother wishes to meet you. She’s probably the one person who knows everything simply because she sees through every lie I tell. But thankfully she never questions me on the truth. You’ll receive an official invite from her soon.

Janus

~~~~

October 4th

Janus,

Your mother is one of the kindest people on the planet. She kept fretting over if I was okay, and meanwhile she is the one bedridden. And you were certainly right about her knowing the whole story, because it is clear she is rooting for us! She told me she just wants you to be happy, and marrying for love is something she wished you could do. She did also say she wanted to give the Crown Princess a “stern talking to”, and I think that would be hilarious to watch.

Roman

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October 14th 4th

Logan,

This year has been an absolute shitshow. Have you even heard what’ss going on? Because I haven’t heard a word fom you. But I suppose what else should I expect from the disaprearing count? I just want to marry for love and be done with the fucking war? Is that so bap? Delphine is making this hard, but I know she just wants things to be not war… it’s all so annoying. What should I do lo?

Your only friend,

Jans

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October 5th

Mother and Father,

I want you to know that despite all that has occurred I am well. I have gotten a chance to speak to the Crown Prince and Princess, and the Queen. Currently the Crown Prince intends to release rumors regarding the Duke’s family (which may or may not involve treason so please pull any assets out quickly) to stop the month long gossip about me. Once that happens, I am not sure if I will be staying here or returning home but I will let you know once I figure it out. Living in the palace certainly isn’t bad after all. The food is to die for. I may try to lengthen my stay just because of it. So don’t worry about me, worry about Remus who just sent me a letter detailing too many things about pirates that would make you cry in shame.

The lesser of two evils,

Roman

~~~~

October 8th

Crown Prince Janus Ekans,

I was quite surprised to get your letter and even more surprised by it’s contents. I have told you multiple times it is not becoming of a prince to send letters written in a drunken stupor.

Yes, I am well aware of the gossip in the capital that you have involved yourself in. But I saw no need to send you a letter of my own thoughts when I am not involved in your marital issues. If you were simply writing to me to rant and rave, then your letter was received. And I would like to say that I do have other friends.

Regardless, please expedite the report enclosed, it is part of our winter preparations.

Count Logan Ackroyd

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October 9th

Janus,

I went into town with Prince Patton (who gave me permission to call me by his name) and Virgil today. We went in disguise of course, but we got to go to a great many shops and try some good food. I bought you a present while we were out, but with the current circumstances I don’t believe I should send it with this letter. If you ever find the time to drop by my room please come and get it.

As we went about I couldn’t shake two thoughts from my mind, the first being that fall looks so different here in the capital, and the second was that it’s been nearly a year since we promised to do such things together. I still await the day where you show me your favorite spots.

I hope those times come soon.

Roman

~~~~

October 10th

Roman,

I too hope for the same, and I would love to see what it is you got me, but we have an obstacle at present. A few actually. While the war is finally moving in our favor, I fear that the Duke’s situation is less clear than I thought. In addition to that, Father wants you sent home to the county sooner than later. And if that’s not enough, Delphine wishes to speak with you before you leave- I will do my best to convince her otherwise. I’m not sure when they want your departure to be, I’m currently negotiating and thankfully Patton is on my side.

Janus

~~~~

October 11th

Ro,

So in my quest to find exciting stories for you I may or may have not taken a cutlass to the leg. It nearly got cut clean off! Or well that’s the story I’ll tell at least. Anyway, I’m gonna be home for a while so you should come visit your dearest twin. And as for get well presents there’s nothing better than basically all the sweets in the capital so I’ll take those please and thank you. Oh and buy me some of those racy novels you pretend you don’t read. Mother saw the word “tentacle” then burned mine.

Your horribly wounded and now sickly and pathetic twin,

Remus

~~~~

October 12th

Janus,

I heard from Prince Patton that there will be a party next week. He was asking me if I plan to go with him, and truthfully I’d like to, but I also don't want to undo anything either. What do you think?

Roman

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October 13th

Roman,

I’m afraid that your attendance will not be a good idea. But, I’ve heard sickness is floating around the palace. It would be truly tragic if I can’t attend. The greatest of tragedies.

Janus

~~~~

October 15th

Dearest Husband,

At least for the sake of appearances, can you pretend like you’re not missing your lover when we’re in public? It’s very nearly sickening.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

October 15th

Delphine,

I don’t believe I ever said he was my lover. Also if you want a conversation just come here. Thomas is a knight not a messenger.

Janus

~~~~

October 15th

Dearest Husband,

Sir Thomas shall be what I ask him to be. But on topic, if Lord Regis is not your lover then Queen Mother is in perfect health. If you’re going to ignore my and your kingdom’s wishes then at the very least be subtle. Please and thank you.

Oh and I will not be joining you for dinner, your sister asked me to dine with her.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

October 17th

Janus,

I’m afraid the party must wait (and for shame my meeting with the Crown Princess must wait as well). I have just received word that Remus was injured- not gravely though- so he is currently resting at home. I must return as soon as possible to rescue my parents from his madness. Well after I buy all the things the idiot requested.

Roman

~~~~

October 18th

Janus,

I love the jacket thank you so so so much. I’ll be sure to wear it the next time I see you, which will likely be the New Year’s Ball. I’ll write to you again as soon as I get home.

Roman

~~~~

October 21st

Janus,

I have just arrived and I already wish I had stayed in the palace. Mother is already talking about how lucky I am that despite the “scandal” she found a woman who would be willing to marry me. Maybe I’ll tell her to invite this poor girl over while Remus is here. Hopefully that scares her off.

Roman

~~~~

October 26th

Roman,

What do you think about eloping?

Janus

~~~~

November 1st

Janus,

You are aware of the fact that you’re married right? Also two men marrying isn't exactly legal. Also you know, the war?

Roman

~~~~

November 7th

Roman,

Trust me when I say the war will come to an end soon. And screw the laws and my wife. If I just kidnapped you, what would anyone really do?

Janus

~~~~

November 13th

Janus,

For starters I don’t think announcing kidnapping in a letter is the proper way to kidnap someone. Also I would like to point out that in the past years I always wanted to run away and you said no. Then a few months after I drop it you’re getting engaged.

Roman

~~~~

November 18th

Roman,

Virgil said the same thing. You two spent too much time together while you were here. And I’m a married man now. I’ve grown and I’ve changed. And running away sounds better and better.

Janus

~~~~

November 20th,

Logan,

If I said I wanted to elope with Roman to your domain what would you say?

Janus

~~~~

November 23rd

Janus,

You assigned him to be my guard of course we spent time together. Also I’ve been receiving letters from Prince Patton, he truly is a ray of sunshine. He told me that the Queen is doing better and I am elated to hear that. Please pass my well wishes to her.

Roman

~~~~

November 24th

Crown Prince Janus Ekans,

What would I say if you wanted to elope here? Well, I would remind you that you have responsibilities. While I do wish for your happiness do remember that the country lies on your shoulders as well. However if there was such a way that everything was sorted beforehand, then I would still say no.

Count Logan Ackroyd

~~~~

November 28th

Logan,

That’s unnecessarily rude. I will take your response as a positive one.

Janus

~~~~

December 4th

Dearest Husband,

I am apologizing in advance for what I must do. I did not anticipate such a situation, but the Duke has my hands tied. You know I will always do what I believe I must for the good of our nations, and to stop this war. I beg you to keep these thoughts in mind.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

December 4th

Lord Roman Regis,

I beg you to keep the crown standing tall despite everything. This is not your opportunity.

Delphine

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December 10th

Janus,

Is it true what everyone’s saying? That the Crown Princess is going to be charged for treason? Was that why she sent me a strange letter?

Roman

~~~~

December 15th

Roman,

She sent you one too? And yes I’m afraid it’s true… but I don’t think that’s how it started. I was aware of the fact she was working with the duke to supply troops using her knowledge of how both armies could work together, I truthfully think he took advantage of her. But her name is on some of the documents which can be read negatively.

I apologize in advance for my lack of responsiveness and attention to you. For now I need to convince Father not to execute Delphine and others in her position. This is all truly at the worst timing, we were in the midst of discussion to end this whole war.

At the very least I’ll see you come the New Years Ball.

Janus

~~~~

December 29th

Roman,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, love but I think I have things sorted. At the ball my Father intends to announce the annulment of my marriage- claiming that Delphine unfairly used me. That’s not true of course, but it’s the best way for us to keep her here as a “hostage” and to withdraw our support in this war and try to reclaim a more neutral stance. At least outwardly, things are always more complicated when you look closer.

But with the war coming to a true end, and the end of my marriage, perhaps it’s time I take ‘crown’ out of my title? Patton would certainly be a better face to be out there right now as we try to maintain the rockiest of peaces. And once he takes over maybe I’ll just have to vanish in plain sight. I know a certain count who would take us in without complaint.

We can speak on it more at the banquet, I’ll meet you in the same spot as last year. We can use the same signals.

Janus

~~~~

January 2nd

Janus,

I have spent the past day thinking over the words you told me. I'll admit when I received your most recent letter, I took your words to be akin to wishful thinking. But now after hearing all the plans you made for us, this sounds like something we can really do. My heart beats faster at the thought.

Running away with the Crown Prince, it sounds like a novel doesn’t it? If we were to leave, when would we go?

Roman

~~~~

January 3rd

Roman,

Ideally I’d like to leave as soon as the snow melts, but diplomacy is known to take it’s time.

Janus

~~~~

January 4th

Janus,

I’m ready when you are. Just give me some notice to pack up my things at home and to write a letter that will make my mother sob when she realizes that she can’t marry me off for a reverse dowry. Yes, I know such a thing doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure she does.

Also I spent today with Prince Patton and Virgil and my stance has not changed.

Roman

~~~~

Roman,

Do me a favor and keep your fucking mouth shut? I don’t need Prince Janus interrogating me anymore.

-V

~~~~

January 8th

Janus,

Virgil left a note on my bed last night saying in not so nice words that I ratted him out to you. I take it I was right! You need to speak with your brother then we can be official cupids.

Also I’m leaving today, so make sure your next letter goes to my home.

Roman

~~~~

January 13th

Roman,

I will do no such thing. No one on this planet is good enough for Patton.

Janus

~~~~

January 28th

Logan,

You have till March to prepare our rooms. No, I won’t be telling you my arrival date.

Janus

~~~~

January 30th

Janus,

I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’ve kept every single letter you’ve sent me. The good, the bad, and the pointless ones. I’ve kept them all in a box in my wardrobe and my maids know not to touch them. I think I’ll take the box with me when we run.

Roman

~~~~

February 2nd

Roman,

The Prince is being weirder than usual and is fretting over little stuff and he keeps mumbling your name. Do me a favor and take him off my hands fast.

Also he got very mad at me when he found out we exchanged letters. It’s not like we’ve been doing this since you left or anything. He’s so jealous it’s stupid. Sometimes I like to imagine what would have happened if you had been the one forced into a political marriage- and then I quickly stop because I realize he would order me to go arrest and or kill someone and I legally can’t say no.

Save me.

-Virgil

~~~~

February 3rd

Roman,

I have a box of your letters as well. Even ones you haven’t written but are about you- so even some of Delphine’s have been included. Our story is certainly different from that of other couples, and our letters reflect that. I’ll bring my letters as well, maybe we can organize them all into a large collection.

That was an incredibly sappy thought, and yet I wish to follow through with it all the same.

Janus

~~~~

February 7th

Roman,

I deeply apologize. I saw the play. I know we promised to watch it together, but Patton begged me to go with those eyes and that expression and I couldn’t say no. I will make it up to you. I’ll sit through an opera in the future maybe? I know you like operas even if I don’t.

In good news I plan to send a carriage for you, it should arrive on the fourth of the coming month. It will bring you here to the capital, we can see a horrid opera and then we can be on our way to our future. So you have a full month to pack.

Janus

~~~~

February 12th

Janus,

I can’t believe you watched it without me. It will take more than an opera to make up for this. You can start thinking now on how to make it up to me.

Roman

~~~~

February 19th

Janus,

As the days grow closer my excitement grows more and more. Even now I’m writing this to you rather than sleeping as it truly sinks in that we’re going to do this. I can’t wait.

Roman

~~~~

February 23rd

Roman,

My feelings are the same as yours. This morning I announced to my family my intentions. I didn’t tell them where we’ll be going of course, just that I will be relinquishing the position of Crown Prince and that I will be traveling. Father was enraged, sister was surprised, but Mother and Patton seemed to understand and once the three of us were alone they assured me that they are happy for me. I have a few more people (boring nobles) to tell, but now that they know there’s no going back. So you’re not allowed to have cold feet.

Janus

~~~~

February 27th

Janus,

Please if anyone was to have cold feet it was you. I’ve been willing to run away with you since the day I first laid eyes on the pretty thing you call a face.

Roman

~~~~

March 4

Janus,

The carriage should be here any minute, and I’m writing this letter that I intend to hand deliver to calm myself. My room is packed into bags, and I’ve already said most of my goodbyes. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’m sure time will fly when I’m with you. It always does.

Roman

~~~~

Jan,

Truthfully I wish you didn’t have to leave, but I understand it. So I wish you luck in chasing your love, while you’re gone I’ll make some changes around here so you can lead the life you want when you get back.

Be happy, and don’t forget to write.

Patt

~~~~

March 19th

Patton,

I have arrived safely, and both Logan and Roman are doing well. The former was griping about needing to share his estate with us, but all it took was me bringing up a few embarrassing childhood stories for him to loosen up. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but if you’re ever in the mood to frighten Father, tell him that we’ll need a royal wedding upon my return. I finally got to do the proper proposal I’ve had in my head since the New Year’s before last, and it was perfect.

I wish you luck in dealing with the state of affairs, if you need any help send me a letter discreetly and I can offer some aid.

Best wishes,

Janus

P.S. Fire Virgil if you feel like it. You can do better.

~~~~

A Forbidden Romance Years in the Making!

It’s been years since the ex Crown Princess and now hostage of the kingdom Delphine outed then Lord Roman Regis for loving a married man. Afterwards he was shunned by society and took shelter in the palace after his father begged for his shelter. Generously, the former Crown Prince agreed given he was tied to the scandal. But now we know that was never the whole story. Rather the two have been in a secret romance since their school days.

Now, as if his sudden disappearance was nothing, First Prince Janus Ekans has returned with his betrothed Lord Roman Regis, by his side. Previously talks of Crown Prince Patton signing the new law has been floating for a long while, but it seems the pen will finally be put to paper so a royal wedding may commence.

The couple will wed immediately following the signing of the new law legalizing gay marriage. And it will surely be a wedding to remember.

#jaz's oneshots #Janus Sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #roceit #love letters #letters #a story in letters #princes

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batmansymbol · 4 years

Text

why the mcconnell rule is invented, illogical, and inconsistent

this post has no action items. i am truly just ranting at this point, i just need to get this all down.

these days i feel like my head is spinning with misinformation. i haven’t seen a single well-cited post or article outlining every problem i have with the so-called “rules” mcconnell has invented. what i have seen are hosts of people defending him online based on scraps of unconnected, irrelevant information. even the people who have an issue with mcconnell’s actions rarely address every part of the problem.

so i’m just going to write the post myself, to feel sane again. i’m going to go through every reason that McConnell denying the Garland appointment, but pushing forward with a Trump appointment, is nakedly hypocritical and logistically contorted.

it freaks me out to see the Republican base accepting, for instance, this arbitrary idea that the Senate and presidency being of different parties should make any difference for a SCOTUS appointment—because if McConnell & co. can convince voters of this invented “rule,” what part of our (deeply flawed, but largely democratic) institutions will be next to fall at a moment’s convenience?

anyway. let’s go

The facts: after Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016, Barack Obama nominated a replacement to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. He made the nomination in March of the same year, but Mitch McConnell and his Republican cosigners, acting in a Republican-led Senate, blockaded the nomination and refused to hold a vote, saying that “the American people should have a voice” and later referring to Obama as a “lame duck” at that point in his presidency.

McConnell’s original reasoning for the blockade cited what he named the “Biden Rule,” referring to a suggestion Biden had made during George H.W. Bush’s presidency in 1992 to delay a SCOTUS nomination until after the election. (Biden’s suggestion was hypothetical; there was no vacancy in 1992.)

Flash forward four years. After Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18th, 2020, McConnell immediately stated that a Trump nominee would, unlike Garland, receive a Senate confirmation vote. In this statement, though, he declared new reasoning for the Garland blockade. He claimed that the blockade had been based in political precedent rather than on the "Biden Rule.” McConnell’s supposed precedent was that “since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

In other words, his claim evolved in 2020 into the idea that a Senate of one party and a President of another represents a divided American opinion. Based on that premise, a Republican-led Senate confirming a Trump nominee while blockading an Obama appointee is, apparently, consistent.

So let’s start with that idea, McConnell premise #1: “The American people’s will is unclear when the Senate and President are of different parties.”

Yes, you could make this claim. But if the American people’s “unclear will” is really the point, then the Senate should blockade any presidential nominations by an opposite-party president at any point, not just in the year leading up to an election.

The Senate has never behaved this way—19 justices of the 114 in our country’s history were nominated and confirmed by different parties—so this can’t be the point.

Then how about McConnell talking point 2, a direct quote from his statement? “Since the 1880s,” he claims, “no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

This is plainly false. We non-politicians might even call it a “lie.” We only need to look back to 1988, when, on February 3rd of an election year, a Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Republican Ronald Reagan’s nominee Anthony Kennedy by unanimous vote. McConnell blatantly ignoring this fact in his statement is particularly brazen.

“Yes, but Anthony Kennedy was nominated before an election year! He was nominated in 1987, only confirmed in 1988!”

OK. Let’s give McConnell the benefit of the doubt and say that he mistyped. Let’s assume he meant to say, “Since the 1880s, no President has successfully nominated a Supreme Court justice in an election year.”

McConnell is clearly namedropping the 1880s to make the practice seem shockingly out of date. Don’t buy it. SCOTUS appointments are lifelong, which means replacements are infrequent by nature. While 12,348 people have served in U.S. Congress over the course of our history, only 114 justices have served on the Supreme Court, ever. And of those 114, only 64 of those justices were confirmed after the 1880s.

Out of 64 people in 130 years, is it a real shock that none of their confirmations met the narrow criteria of McConnell’s rule? Let’s look at it mathematically. Criterion 1: their nomination would have had to arise in an election year, one of 32 such years since 1890. Criterion 2: the confirmation would have to happen under divided government (when the Senate and Presidency are led by different parties), one of 36 such years since 1890.

I’ve cross-referenced the years. There are only 13 years since 1890 that meet both of these criteria.

And then there’s Criterion 3: the vacancy would almost certainly have to be a death rather than a retirement, because Supreme Court justices often tactically retire when someone they trust to replace them is the President. I’m not at all surprised that, of the 13 election years since 1890 when the country had a divided government, there were no voluntary retirements or sudden deaths among a court of 9.

My point here is this: McConnell is implying that an opposite-party confirmation hasn’t taken place since the 1880s because it’s an out-of-date practice, a matter of principle, and a matter of representing what US citizens really want. In actuality, an opposite-party confirmation hasn��t taken place since the 1880s because of sheer statistical unlikeliness.

In saying that an opposite-party confirmation hasn’t taken place since the 1880s, McConnell also implies that parties have often obstructed each other’s nominees. In actuality, only 3 SCOTUS nominees have been voted down by opposite-party Senates since 1890: Haynsworth (Nixon nominee), Carswell (Nixon nominee), and Bork (Reagan nominee). None of these votes occurred during an election year, and crucially, Nixon and Reagan still wound up filling those vacancies with different candidates.

In essence, it’s all a totally arbitrary bit of framing. McConnell might as well say something like, “No Senate with primarily brown hair has confirmed a nominee whose birthday falls in April since the 1870s!” It’s the exact same process: picking random categories in order to winnow down the numbers, in order to make something seem more archaic and unlikely than it is.

We should also consider the fact that something “not happening since the 1880s” is hilarious as reasoning. Since when are the 1880s and before not considered as valid precedent? Does the entire Republican party not, right now, constantly refer to the second amendment, ratified 1791, as something that must be obsessively adhered to, letter for letter?

But all this is just about the reasoning McConnell gave this year. So let’s go back to his 2016 talking points, justifying their initial blockade of Garland, which Republicans everywhere are recycling faithfully. I see this one a lot:

“Blockading nominees in an election year was Biden’s tactic first! It was the Democrats’ idea!”

This is incorrect for two reasons. Firstly, there was no vacancy in 1992. Biden was speaking in hypotheticals and, unlike McConnell, had no actual power to control what would happen if a vacancy had arisen.

Secondly, Biden’s suggestion was that, should a vacancy arise, the nomination and confirmation process should take place after the election (still allowing Bush time to nominate and confirm before the inauguration), so that the process wouldn’t be tainted by campaigning and politicking.

Biden suggesting to George H.W. Bush that he should wait to name his hypothetical nominee until Nov. 4th of that year is not, in any way, the same thing as McConnell & co. refusing to vote on actual nominee Merrick Garland’s appointment for a ten-month period, destroying Garland’s nomination.

And then there’s this: “This wouldn’t have happened if Harry Reid, a Democrat, hadn’t removed the judicial appointment filibuster in 2013!”

Technically true. Harry Reid removed the appointment filibuster, dropping the number of necessary confirmation votes from 60 to 51. In my opinion, it’s true that Reid shouldn’t have changed this precedent. But it’s also true that Republican obstruction has made operating a functional government impossible since Obama’s election. Reid had few other options with a Republican Congress obsessed with stymying Barack Obama’s appointments.

This one just rubs me the wrong way: “Obama was a lame duck!”

The phrase “lame duck period” refers to the period between an election and the new president’s inauguration. In 2016, this was the time between Nov. 9th and January 20th.

Obama nominated Garland eight months before the lame duck period, in March. As little as I have faith in McConnell’s moral center, I would at least expect him to know the difference between the words “March” and “December.”

Barack Obama had nearly 1/4 of his second term left when Scalia died. The expansion of the term “lame duck” to include an entire year of the presidency is fundamentally ridiculous. You may as well call his entire second term a lame duck term, but maybe I shouldn’t type that, because they might get ideas.

And lastly, my least favorite of the McConnell talking points: “Dems would do the same thing and 1) blockade a Republican equivalent of Garland or 2) fill RBG’s seat!”

Well, a couple problems with this. Firstly, no, we haven’t ever done anything like the Garland blockade, so you can’t use this logic. In the 20th century alone, Democratic Senates voted to confirm twelve nominees by Republican presidents to the Supreme Court. A Dem Senate has never refused to consider a nominee by a sitting President, no matter the party.

Secondly, yeah, of course Dems would fill RBG’s seat if we were in power at this very instant. That wouldn’t be a hypocritical action, because we didn’t blockade Garland. The point isn’t that Presidents should be less and less frequently able to nominate justices. The point is that in 2016, McConnell changed the playbook by demanding that “the American people” get to decide—and now that he’s been asked to apply the same rules to his own team, he’s scrambling to create loopholes so that he can pack the court further.

This is the most infuriating to me because it’s truly invented. “Dems would do the same thing” - based on what? What are you even talking about? Every time a Dem Senate voted no on a Republican appointee, it was eventually followed by that same Dem Senate confirming another appointee by that same Republican. Conservatives are truly bending themselves into knots trying to feel victimized by the left wing. I don’t think I’d mind so much if they didn’t also insist on calling us precious little snowflakes with victim complexes.

The fact is this. Mitch McConnell invented a new SCOTUS appointment rule in 2016, loosely based on something Joe Biden floated but never did. He got away with it because our systems, left and right, are showing how poorly they’re equipped to handle people who are obsessed with gaining and keeping power. And now, in 2020, in order to justify going back on his own rule, McConnell added new stipulations about party and precedent that don’t hold up under even the scrutiny that I, someone with no legal or political expertise, can apply to the situation.

Mitch McConnell and his ilk are a moral black hole: spineless, shameless, power-hungry. The effects of McConnelism are obvious. Once Trump’s nominee goes through, five of the justices on the Supreme Court will be conservatives nominated by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote. In fact, Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 28 years. This is the current state of representative democracy in the US.

#politics #us politics #long post #personal #essay #this is truly just to make me feel better #i feel like if i can just write down all my anger i can stop focusing on it #so

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harperhug · 3 years

Link

In case the article gets paywalled:

What Good Is 'Raising Awareness?'

Just being educated about diseases isn't enough to make people healthier.

In 2010, a strange meme spread across Facebook. People’s feeds were suddenly filled with one-word statuses saying the name of a color, nothing more. And most of these posts were from women.

The women had received messages from their Facebook friends that were some variation on this, according to The Washington Post: "Some fun is going on ... just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status. Haha."

Oh, okay. It was for breast cancer awareness. Except, no, wait—how? The Susan G. Komen Foundation had nothing to do with it, though it did get them some Facebook fans, according to the Post story. It wasn’t clear at all who started it. There was no fundraising component to the campaign. And the posts weren’t informative at all. In fact, their whole point was to be mysterious. Maybe people asked their friends what they meant by just posting “beige” or “green lace” and then they had a meaningful conversation about breast-cancer screenings and risk factors, but I’d guess that happened rarely, if at all.

This incident is just one example of the nebulous phenomenon of “raising awareness” for diseases. Days, weeks, months are dedicated to the awareness of different health conditions, often without a clear definition of what “awareness” means, or what, exactly, is supposed to come of it.

Recommended Reading

According to a commentary published this month in the American Journal of Public Health, the United States has almost 200 official “health awareness days.” (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists all national health observances on its website.) And that’s not counting all the unofficial ones, sponsored by organizations.

The paper was an attempt to begin to investigate whether awareness days actually improve people’s health. Jonathan Purtle, an assistant professor at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, teamed up with Leah Roman, a public-health consultant, to see whether awareness could even be quantified.

“We both kind of anecdotally observed that there seem to be more [awareness days] than ever,” Purtle says. “In public health, and in medicine, we’re putting more and more emphasis on evidence-based practices. Everything should be informed by science in some way. We asked ourselves, has anybody ever evaluated these things, do we know if they’re effective at all?”

The answer: Not many people have, and we really don’t.

Awareness days do seem to be on the rise, by at least a couple measures—the researchers found that more than 145 bills including the words “awareness day” have been introduced in U.S. Congress since 2005, a huge leap compared with previous years. Articles that reference "awareness day" in the PubMed database have followed a similar, but less extreme, upward trajectory.

Trends in Attention to Awareness Days in U.S. Congress and Health Science Literature

But most of the articles Purtle and Roman found in their search (which was just preliminary, not a systematic metareview) were editorials or commentaries announcing or discussing awareness days. Only five studies empirically evaluated the effects of an awareness day, “but the designs weren’t that rigorous,” Purtle says. The best one, according to Purtle, found that on “No Smoking Day” in the U.K., five times more people called a quit smoking hotline than the daily average. “But that was about it,” Purtle says.

So evidence really is lacking on what good these awareness days do.

Liz Feld, president of the nonprofit advocacy organization Autism Speaks, says she has seen results from World Autism Awareness Day, which was April 2, and Autism Awareness Month, which goes on for all of April. The organization has raised more than $10 million so far in April, more than 50,000 people registered on Autism Speaks’ website, and more than 18,000 buildings around the world illuminated with blue lights on April 2 as part of the “Light it Up Blue” campaign. A spokesperson also told me that “Light it Up Blue” was a trending topic on Facebook and Twitter on April 2.

The money is something concrete that came out of the awareness month, but what about the rest?

“One-third of people who live with autism are nonverbal,” Feld says. “The power of a global blue-light movement is very strong. On that day, that is the collective voice of the autism community. That’s a show of power. The blue lights are really a voice.”

Here, "awareness" seems to mean sending a message, getting attention, and getting people to talk about the issue, at the very least on social media. During the week of the most recent World AIDS Day, December 1, 2014, AIDS.gov got the most engagement and new followers of the entire year, Miguel Gomez, the director of AIDS.gov, told me in an email. Perhaps not coincidentally, the organization’s HIV Testing and Care Service Locator got nearly triple its average traffic on December 1.

Social-media activism gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it less so. (There's even a somewhat pejorative term for it: slacktivism.) On one hand, it’s an easy way to reach a lot of people, and it often amplifies the voices of the marginalized. On the other hand, changing your profile picture for an awareness day (something Autism Speaks asked people to do for Light It Up Blue) might just be the smallest possible unit of support for a cause. If not backed up by money or deed, it’s little more than lip service. But lip service is not nothing—if enough people do it, it could help shift cultural norms, as Melanie Tannenbaum wrote in Scientific American, about people supporting marriage equality by making equals signs their profile pictures.

“Based on everything that we know about our brains and their bafflingly strong desires to fit in with the crowd, the best way to convince people that they should care about an issue and get involved in its advocacy isn’t to tell people what they should do—it’s to tell them what other people actually do,” Tannenbaum writes. “And you know what will accomplish that? That’s right. Everyone on Facebook making their opinions on the issue immediately, graphically, demonstrably obvious.”

With a controversial issue like marriage equality, enough equals signs on Facebook pages could send the message that this is a common cause to support, and just maybe, gather more support, in a snowball-rolling-down-a-hill sort of way. The thing is, though, that with diseases, everybody’s pretty much already on the same side. There aren’t pro-cancer people who need convincing to come around.

“The question I would ask Autism Speaks or someone who's doing some sort of initiative like ‘Make your picture blue,’ is how they think that will trickle down into some sort of positive outcome for people with autism,” Purtle says.

So I asked.

“First of all, anyone who takes the time to change their picture, they feel invested, like they’re part of something,” Feld says. “That’s the culture we live in now. It’s a way for them to participate. It creates a sense of a community, it really goes back to that. People like to be part of something, look at the ALS ice-bucket challenge. They wanted to be part of something that was bigger than themselves. It’s free, it makes you happy, it makes you feel like you're doing something.”

But Feld recognizes that this isn’t enough.

“You’ve got to follow it up with something else,” she says. “What comes with raising awareness is a responsibility to do something about what you’re aware of. I always say to people, ‘April 2nd is great but what happens April 3rd?’”

When so much is vying for people’s attention, especially online, including the couple hundred other awareness days, even if you get people to listen, how do you get them to do more than just post a status?

There is a sociological theory called narcotizing dysfunction, which proposes that the more people learn about an issue from the media, the less likely they are to do something about it. Purtle and Roman posit that this might be an unintended effect of awareness days, that people might “conflate being knowledgeable about a health issue with taking action to address it.” It’s not enough to just say “this is a problem, and we need to do something about it.” There are a lot of problems in the world that need doing something about.

So in addition to awareness-raising, to try to get people to do something, Autism Speaks fundraises and asks people to sign petitions. “[When we try] to get corporate sponsors, I always tell people here, you can’t just go pitch this as a moral imperative,” Feld says. “There are a lot of moral imperatives. An effective awareness day has got to give people a window into what a real person who's living with autism is going through. My goal is for people to see the face of someone with autism on Autism Awareness Day, so that they carry that with them on April 3rd, April 4th, April 5th.”

Awareness days wouldn’t be so popular if there weren’t an appetite to address health problems. “People want to do something, which is good,” Purtle says. What he worries is that awareness campaigns’ focus on the individual—what you need to know, what you can do—could reinforce existing troublesome ideas about the origins of health, especially with conditions like obesity and heart disease, where lifestyle is a big risk factor.

A lot of people believe, he says, that “it’s really people’s choices that determine their health outcomes and if they’re unhealthy it's either: 1. They made bad choices, or 2. They’re just unlucky and have some genetic thing. These awareness [days] seem to be reinforcing that if you’re aware of the health issue, it’s a good step, and it might be even sufficient to address the health issue. That really flies in the face of the complexity of the various forces that influence a person’s health and a population’s health.”

Those forces include environmental, societal, and economic factors—things that can’t be fixed with knowledge alone. “I think if more people understood that, perhaps we’d see awareness days looking a little bit different,” Purtle says. A better awareness day, he thinks, would spread information about the prevalence of a condition and its risk factors, as well as policy changes that could lessen disparities or help people living with the condition.

“Neither Leah nor I think awareness days are necessarily a bad thing, nor is awareness a bad thing,” Purtle says. “Awareness can be a first step toward changing behavior, but in my opinion, more importantly it would be a first step to positively address the policies that impact a population's health.”

#personal #important information #call to action

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365daysoftododeku · 4 years

Text

4th December 2019

Author: Mara

________________________________________________________________

Fire Alarm

Izuku didn’t mind the dormitories. Yes, he missed home, but it was nice. He shared his dorm with a guy named Iida Tenya. He couldn’t have asked for a better roommate, as Iida cleaned up his things, knew how to cook, remember to do the groceries and could help Izuku with some of his homework, if necessary. His neighbours were nice too, guys and girls his age who all suffered under the strain of college, arranged impromptu movie nights and one of them was a stress baker. If there was one person he would want to room with other than Tenya, it would be Hagakure Tooru. She might be a little bit messy and loud—not that Tenya was quiet per se—but she was a stellar baker. Everything she baked was worth dying for (one guy nearly died from it, but that was because the fool hadn’t asked about the ingredients and apparently had a garlic allergy). Soon after the rumour spread around that the guy was a vampire, but nobody had proved it yet.

There was one thing he didn’t like about the dormitories, and that was that a group of just-adults lived there. Like, they weren’t teens anymore, but definitely not adults. Wild parties were held weekly, sometimes the stairs were occupied by idiots sliding down them on sledges. Every floor had at least three students who know first aid, as people did the most ridiculous things. You even got some discount if you knew first aid because that meant it was unlikely the landowner had to deal with it. And the fire alarm.

People were allowed to cook, perfectly fine if people actually knew how to cook. The issue was, most of them just tried things. Izuku was one of those people, no shame in admitting that. But he had never set the fire alarm off. Others, however, weren’t all that successful. Izuku knew the emergency protocol on the top of his head by now, and he has been living there for three months.

~*~

When the fire alarm went off, Izuku wanted to nothing else but burry himself underneath his pillow and ignore it. But Iida wouldn’t allow it, yelling that they had to leave. That this was not a drill. It probably was nothing, but Izuku knew that Iida would drag him out of bed if necessary. Not breaking the rules today for Izuku.

Rolling out of bed, Izuku slipped into a pair of flip-flops and grabbed his jacket. He was already wearing a flannel pyjama—a bit embarrassing but he at least wouldn’t freeze his arse off outside—and they jacket would keep any remaining cold out.

Grabbing his keys, wallet and phone, he shuffled after an unfairly awake Iida. He would never achieve the level of awakeness Iida could. The alarm hadn’t been blaring for more than two minutes, yet Iida looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. No, he looked like he had woken up on his own and not by the noise. Izuku most likely looked like he just had risen from the grave.

Once outside, the square the dorm room was located it (together with a few more) was filled with students. A few were like Iida, wide awake and herding the students to the cold outside, but most were like Izuku. Barely awake, bleary-eyed and dressed in sleepwear. He spotted a few familiar faces, a couple of his neighbours, some of his classmates. Then his gaze landed on a familiar figure that made Izuku’s heart beat fast.

He still had no idea who the guy was, aside from being a student, but Izuku was smitten. Well, attracted to him. The guy was wearing sweats and a worn t-shirt, his long, pink hair was tied up in a messy bun. He didn’t look like he had just woken up, neither clearly awake nor bleary-eyed. More like he just had to go to bed.

Realising the guy was probably freezing—it was Winter after all—Izuku overcame his nervous jitters and stammering heart and walked over to his crush. Was it a crush? Maybe.

“Hi,” Izuku greeted, waving awkwardly.

The guy jumped, looking at him with wide eyes. A look of guilt was written all over his face.

Realising that the guy probably was the one who had triggered the fire alarm—there was no other reason to act so jittery—Izuku pondered if he should bring it up. It was really obvious, from his reaction, but he didn't want to make the guy feel uncomfortable. It could happen to everyone.

“Isn’t it cold?” Izuku pressed on, toying with the cuffs of his jacket.

The guy shrugged, though he pressed his arms closer to his body. Goosebumps run all across his bare arms.

Shrugged off his jacket, Izuku pushed it in the guy’s arms, “here,” he offered. “It might be a little short, but it would suck if you get ill from this.”

Taking the jacket from Izuku’s grip, the guy put it on. It didn’t fit him all that bad. What the guy had in height, Izuku had that in width. It fitted illy around his shoulders, but that made the sleeves long enough to properly hit his hands.

Almost disappearing into Izuku’s jacket, the guy muttered a ‘thanks’.

“I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he offered the guy his hand, in the hope to finally learn his name.

Reluctantly, the other guy took his hand, “Todoroki Shouto.”

A silence fell over them, one that made Izuku feel jittery. The guy was clearly uncomfortable, probably for causing this whole mess, which meant that it was up to Izuku to start a conversation. So Izuku did what he did best and start to talk about whatever popped up in his head. Ranging between his roommate, his mother’s cooking and his teachers, Izuku managed to keep himself occupied through the entire inspection.

When the fireman gave them the all clear, Izuku stopped talking. He had been so caught up in talking that he hadn’t realised that Todoroki hadn’t answered at all. Izuku probably had bored him to tears with all the chatting.

Looking at Shouto, he was proven wrong. The guy looked a little startled, blinking a few times while frowning.

“Why did you stop?”

Izuku started at the guy in surprise.

“Because we can go back inside?” Izuku said awkwardly, pointing at the thinning crowd. “And I was talking too much.”

Todoroki’s cheeks started to grow even redder and he looked away, toeing the ground.

“I like listening to you talk,” Todoroki admitted.

Oh. Izuku felt his cheeks heat up. That was really sweet, but also a bit sudden. The guy didn’t know Izuku at all, unless—

Had Todoroki been looking at him like Izuku had been looking? With interest, but keeping it at fleeing glances, afraid the other would catch them?

“You should go,” Todoroki muttered, still refusing to make eye contact. “Your boyfriend is waiting.”

Confused, Izuku looked over his shoulder. Iida was waiting for him, well, sort off. He probably was waiting for Izuku, but also making sure that everyone was back inside and hadn’t fallen asleep outside, risking getting hypothermia.

“Iida is my roommate,” Izuku pointed out.

Todoroki looked surprised, finally making eye-contact with Izuku. He was really pretty, but also adorable. With the bright blush staining his cheeks, his eyes almost sparkling. The pink hair helped.

“So, you’re single?” Todoroki asked bluntly.

Flustered, but seeing no reason to lie, Izuku nodded. Feeling a little daring, and since he had nothing to lose anyway, Izuku decided to ask the same question, only sounding a little more nervous.

“You’re single too?”

“Yes.”

Izuku’s brain was overloading a little. He was flirting, with this guy, this absolutely gorgeous and adorable guy and he had no idea how he was even an option for Todoroki. So Izuku ended up doing what he did best, talk. And that included blurting out stupid shit.

“Did you set off the fire alarm?”

There was a long moment of silence before Todoroki snorted and shook his head, “did it once, in the first week I think. But not this time around.”

Izuku was sure that his face was resembling a colour close to Christmas-red. Seemed that he was in the mood for an early Christmas.

“But you looked so startled when I talked to you—I’ve been told I don’t look all that menacing.”

Todoroki muttered something Izuku couldn’t catch.

“What?”

“Nothing— do you drink coffee?”

Izuku nodded.

“Would you,” Todoroki stammered over his words. “Join me for coffee, tomorrow?”

“Sure, um.” It took Izuku way too long to realise that Todoroki was asking him out. “Before morning classes?”

Todoroki nodded, fidgetting with the zipper of Izuku’s jacket.

The mood around them turned awkward and feeling tired, jittery, cold and with his heart beating erratically, Izuku offered Todoroki a non-verbal goodbye and fled like the coward he was.

Iida greeted him with a curious expression, eyebrows subtly raised.

“Where is your jacket?”

Izuku looked back at Todoroki. He now was talking with another guy, who looked like he had just woken up. Not thirty minutes ago, when the fire alarm went off, but a minute ago.

“I will get it back tomorrow.”

Iida’s eyes lit up, “so you have a date with Todoroki?”

Izuku wanted to ask why Iida knew Todoroki, and why he had never told Izuku that, but he just felt giddy. He was going on a date with Todoroki, and only because some fool had set off the fire alarm. If he ever found out who had set it off, Izuku would send them his portion of Hagakure’s homemade food.

________________________________________________________________

Would you like your work to be featured in the 365 Days of TodoDeku Project? Apply here! (≧∇≦)/

#Story #lavanderstarctacher #TodoDeku #365DaysofTodoDeku #TodoDeku365 #365 Days of TodoDeku #tddk #Shouto Todoroki #Todoroki Shouto #Izuku Midoriya #Midoriya Izuku #Boku no Hero Academia #BNHA #My Hero Academia #MHA #Todoroki x Midoriya #Shouto x Izuku #TodoIzu #long post

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itchyboogers · 4 years

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hello comrades

my name is grace. i'm gonna be honest right now, not sure exactly what this post is. just because i can't function without order, i'm gonna make a list of reasons why i'm sharing my story:

to spread awareness

because i need an outlet

many of my friends suggested i share this

simply to entertain whoever might take a look at it

just in case, because of my paranoia, i’m saying right now i don’t want any witch hunt. i feel like saying this is really reaching in terms of how many people are gonna read this, but my concern insists. this is gonna be a long article, so i’m putting the little “read more” thingamabob right here.

trigger warning, for like, everything

about me; prologue?

as you saw above, my name is grace. i’m 19, and this is a very personal experience that i’ve gone through. first, let me introduce everything that’s wrong with me. i have high-functioning autism, and throughout my life my autism has been the root of my downfall. ever since 2nd grade i’ve gotten the short end of the stick. you always hear about prodigy kids whose grades and social lives falter as the years pass, i am 100% one of them. this story isn’t necessarily about me, but i’ve been through some shit, son.

i have a family that is more supportive than i could ever ask for, i’m not gonna lie and say that my at-home life was miserable - because home was my safe place, and public school was where i fought my battles. i was a very eccentric kid and while my autism has limited me, it has also given me the ability to think outside of the box, blah blah blah so i’m grateful for it as well.

by the time i got to 6th grade, things went way more south than i thought they could go. i was a bit of an edgelord back then so i was skipping 4th period with my friend in the locker room. we’re dicking around, looking in lockers, climbing the stalls, being stupid kids. somewhere along the line we jump into the topic of sexuality, and she tells me she thinks she might be bi. i said that wouldn’t change anything about us, and that i might not like boys at all.

she told me about her parents not agreeing with the whole gay thing and she wasn’t even close to thinking of coming out of the closet because her parents would disown her. real fucked up, but it happened back then still quite frequently. i promised her i wouldn’t tell anybody and that i wouldn’t even think about outing her to anyone, and we gave each other a cute little friend hug, it was cute.

about 3 days later on the weekend, we’re texting and a small argument boils between us and another friend in a group chat. it starts to become a bigger argument, because kids are stupid and dramatic, and i definitely was. she ended up kicking me out of the group chat and i cried myself to sleep (i know lmao). i went to school on monday and i immediately get called into the principal’s office, regarding sexual assault claims. she lied and told the school faculty that i tried to touch her inappropriately during that time we skipped class in the locker room. she also got her friends to tell everybody.

long story short i became severely depressed, gained weight, got my head shoved in a toilet filled with piss by some 8th graders friends with that girl’s older sister, and started self-harming to suppress my urge to hurt other people. my meds got switched around (it’s why i gained weight) and i ended up switching schools because a public school had an IEP i think it was called? anyway

blah blah blah countless school stories and misfortunes blah blah blah crohn��s disease blah blah blah ambulance sent to the school all that jazz. it’s gonna hurt too much if i talk about PRLC, but basically there was a low-funded school for kids who wanted a second chance due to disability, drugs, ect. it was out at a wildlife preservation park with all sorts of animals, i met my best friends there, became the person i am today, ect. but staff changes ended up changing the school for the worse and eventually i got dismissed.

very long depression period, i got kicked out from the school i used to call a second home back in 2018 and this cycle hasn’t ended yet, to this day. i’m hoping writing this will give me some closure or something, because writing about my misfortunes online has sent me opportunities in the past. i am not a perfect person, i never have been, and i can still name many things about my psyche and outlook on life that i’d like to someday change.

the main course

this is where i start talking about somebody that i won’t mention by name, but i’ll call him music boy for convenience. in december of last year i got to see my favorite band live for the second time, the first being april of 2018. i love this band with all my heart, and i’m not going to mention them by name. but after the concert i was going through some heavy post-concert sadness, and i wanted to share my love and appreciation so i find a semi-active discord server dedicated to said band, and i join. i make some friends and acquaintances over a span of 2-3 months.

marijuana got legalized in my state this year, something i had been anticipating for a long time, ergo from january 2020 to the beginning of april 2020, i was in a constant state of stoned off my ass. nobody saw sober grace until the late days of april. i was not in any way able to make proper decisions regarding, say, a relationship. and it was really obvious that i was high, nobody would have thought otherwise.

after i get home from a birthday vacation to arizona on february 2nd, i start going in the voice chats for the server. i would say in the general chat something along the lines of “sick, i’m super baked i’m gonna go bother the voice chat” and i end up in a group chat consisting of most of the server members that are “of age” (so not too many). at this point i’m barely aware i’m making friends, but one person in the group i really happened to resonate with. her name is Christina, and she’s to this day my number 1 mom friend and goblin sibling. <3

i meet a handful of more people in the group chat (we called it the “after hours”) and we have a lot of fun doing different activities over discord. for example we all decided to sign up for club penguin online (which is now proven to be run by a predator, i believe) and we all battled each other in card-jitsu. or i would share my screen as i went on Omegle and did goofy high shit on there and met people under the “memes” or “weed” tags.

in this after hours group chat, one of the active members was music boy. he was the owner of the server dedicated to the band i love. why music boy? because he wants desperately to become a famous musician. there’s something about music boy that’s... ‘different’. i don’t know if anyone knows what i mean when i say, his energy was awry. the best way to describe music boy is kind of mean, but it’s the only way i’m able to express how this guy is as a person. i can best describe him by saying he expects his life to play out as a WattPad fanfiction, him being the main character.

just so you get the main point, this one time i was on Omegle dicking around ha ha funny random people, but music boy was silent. he then typed in the chat that he was gonna go on Omegle himself and do something painfully unfunny, he said he was gonna get his guitar and use that as a prop to “vibe check” people on the website. it wasn’t funny but everybody (me included) was sort of brainwashed into thinking he could do no wrong. don’t know how he got me to laugh at that, especially with his delivery of the joke.

yet, he didn’t want to “vibe check” people, i know that now - he just couldn’t stand when he wasn’t the center of attention. so he left and told a mod, who was also in the group chat, to join the server voice chat with him. and he announced that he was streaming himself vibe checking people on Omegle. the iffy part about that is that the entire reason he made the after hours chat was to keep NSFW stuff off the server, and it was basically prompted by me streaming myself messing around on Omegle and seeing a lot of (pretty expected) male genitalia. i’m not gonna explain that any further because anybody with a brain can understand why that was a confusing move on his part.

eventually february 14th came by, and i, being as high as i was, decided to send music boy a bunch of goofy valentine’s day cards, like the ones that were popular in 2013. i kept sending them because at the time i thought it was so funny, and i’m a natural flirt when i’m stoned. keep in mind everybody knew they hadn’t seen me sober yet, the joke in the server was basically 'when is grace not high?’ so it was evident that my decision-making process was impaired.

for some reason music boy wanted us to all play DnD, even though half of us didn’t know or give a rat’s ass how to play. i would make stupid jokes, and everybody would laugh, but music boy would exaggerate, he would go ‘oh thats how it is? is that how this is going to be’ or some unfunny shit like that because he thought every single joke or reference that anyone made had something to do with him, because, you know, he is the main character, after all. he eventually made a really embarrassing big deal about him ‘accepting my valentine proposal’ and then he went to bed i guess.

the next day or two is a blur to me, all i remember and know is that Christina knew that he was taking advantage of me always being super high, but she didn’t want to assume anything. like she had always seen me make a joke and then would see music boy turn that joke sexual, even when it was nearly impossible to make a suggestive joke out of what i originally joked about, which to be honest was probably my flawless Sméagol impression. but he would repeat the Gollum voice and say something unfunny that we all laughed at.

basically, if you haven’t caught on, music boy is a major egotistical narcissist that cannot stand having somebody that isn’t him being paid attention to. he told me his “dream” (that's TOTALLY gonna come true, by the way) was to go to a concert of the band the server was dedicated to, but he would show up in a custom made shirt that said “[lead singer of band] IS A THOT” and then the band’s guitarist would point it out and laugh because it’s SO funny and then get the lead singer’s attention, who would pull music boy on stage and challenge him to pehen he would start serenading the crowd and all the girls’ panties would instantly get soaked, all the tabloids would hear about it, and the band would jizz their pants, and he would become an overnight sensation.

here’s where stuff gets dodgy. i’m not claiming this is abuse, because i don’t have experience with abusive relationships, and i’m not in any place to assume that i understand what it’s like to be in one, but my friends have told me that he mentally abused me and took advantage of the state i was in. somewhere along the line he would, in the group call, tell his sob story about how all his friends ghosted him and tried to cancel him because of some sort of misconduct accusation in a previous server, and how i was his savior for putting my trust in him and believing his side of the story and he said some things about becoming a happier person because he met me, and it was all very unnecessarily dramatic and extremely manipulative disregarding if he noticed he was doing it or not.

I.E.

“and... then I met this girl... this really weird girl! then i saw her face, and i thought i loved her, but i found out she only liked girls and i lost all hope but then out of nowhere she sends me valentines cards! and now shes my valentine”

or some really really stupid gay shit like that, it’s the best i can imitate him without gagging or getting sick. then eventually (eventually being equal to ‘within the first week of meeting me’) he hEsiTaNtLy asks me to, like, idk be his e-girlfriend. he knew i was baked to oblivion and wasn’t in a proper state to make up my mind on anything serious but then again am i the main character?

no.

music boy is the main character.

if i’m being gut-wrenchingly honest here, i only genuinely liked the idea of being in an e-relationship with music boy for a day or a day and a half. the entire time i was just stoned out of my mind and not thinking as i normally do, i was nonchalant until april fools day when all hell broke loose in the server. on a live stream, the lead singer of the band made a suggestion that he was in the server that music boy made. and dear God, you would have thought it was the second coming of Christ by the way music boy reacted to it.

he was being unbelievably hyper, even for someone with ADHD. he was hauling his uncanny-valley looking forcibly ripped body around his room like a genetically mutated spider monkey, banging his head against his bed, stopping mid-sentence to play a quirky chord on his handy dandy acoustic guitar while he looked in the webcam and made a quirky blank face. it was like watching a six y/o meet Iron Man, even though there was nothing really to be too elated about.

he made an emoji for it and everything, he even posted on the “Official [band name] Discord Server”’s instagram account, but it was just a video of him, and the thumbnail was his goofy ass face, the whole video was just music boy saying unfunny shit trying to lowkey promote the server while flexing at the same time, something like [lead singer] we know you’re here!! you are welcome here my lord idk lmfaooo

but at this point i was becoming too sober to stand by silently and watch this moron suck his own toes, i wasn’t gonna act like his music was good and i wasn’t gonna act like he was gonna become a superstar without question. the breaking point was mostly when he almost came his pants and cried when the lead singer allegedly joined his server, but i came close to breaking when i started casually humming in the group call and hes like

Hold Up 👁️👄👁️ wait you’re so good... why are you so good? you’re like really good and i mean it!! you’re like, almost as good as me! but you know i have YEARS of practice you know haha but you’re like super good!

and then I decided to humor myself by showing him a cover i recorded and the first thing he said after listening to it halfway was “this scares me”, so that was a pretty big warning sign.

blah blah blah i cried for an hour after that then called him again just to break up with him because of my own mental health and he did handle this very well, not bashing him for that. i basically told him no we aren’t taking a break this shindig will no longer continue, like at all, ever and hes like okay cool yknow it hurts but ill get over it, and i really didnt expect that. because, he basically implied that if i left him he would k*ll himself.

i tried to keep the friendship going because i dont like abandoning people, but he slowly started getting distant from me, and the entire server kind of distanced themselves from me too, but at the time i only noticed music boy getting apprehensive with me. keep in mind (i keep saying that, don’t i?) i thought everybody in the server was cool with me making offensive-ish jokes because they had no problem with it during the time i was “with” music boy. then one day i get called out for talking about - i’m not joking - weed. i started ranting about how weed is my medicine and it was kinda silly to get so pissy over the devil’s lettuce but i dont think i made too big of a deal out of what i could have made.

couple days later im talking in the server again. i’m a very blunt person, my humor is very dry and it can tend to go over some people’s heads if they don’t have enough brain cells. i made a joke that i’d already made in the server before about me being r-word because autism and haha funny joke.

i get kicked out of the server.

at the time i was confused because i had no idea that i even said anything wrong. i messaged music boy a bit passive-aggressively because despite my confusion i still had a vague idea of what was happening. i said something like "was i too edgy" and like 3 minutes later he responds "you were making a lot of dudes uncomfortable”

mcscuse me bietch?

NOBODYYYYY in the general chat had told me that i was making them feel uncomfy whatsoever, and i dont think anything could have implied that anyone was in any way uncomfortable, and with these social situations i’ve explained to everyone in the after hours chat that sometimes i don’t get social cues. i’m autistic!!! it’s a very rare occurrence when i’m able to ‘read the room’. i thought they knew that but they decided to have a private staff meeting and they all agreed it was best to BAN ME from the server.

the thing is if i had been messaged, if i was let known that people were bitching about me calling myself r******d then i would have definitely complied. i can understand people feeling a bit weird when i make fun of myself using no-no words, and i’m definitely willing to stop saying a certain thing if it genuinely makes somebody feel uneasy. but nobody said anything about it to me. not a single word.

considering the server has gone to a snowflake kingdom since my exit, i’m not too upset about being kicked out. what i am upset about regards him knowing i wasn’t in a proper state to make any decisions. decisions including NSFW decisions that he hinted at for about 5 minutes before i stopped saying ‘ehhh i don’t know if i’m comfortable with this’ and he didn’t have to beg for coochie anymore. i’m honestly lucky because i can’t remember most of what he coaxed me to do, because if i think about it too much it gets traumatic and i start feeling nauseous.

Christina has been in the server just to tell me what new bullshit has been going on in the rules, and the ever-expanding list of things that you aren’t allowed to talk about in the server, we have a good chuckle at it. i got high again about a week ago, and told my friends the audacity of what music boy actually had done to me and we all agreed to go under a vpn and raid the server, because why not, its funny haha goofy joke. we were having the best time and i was about to piss myself laughing when one of my friends name-drops me and the whoooole gig is over. we get kicked out and Christina pretends to act like she had no clue what was going on, so she could stay in and screenshot this:

she didn’t know how badly that term in itself would send me down a long overdue psychotic episode because about a year or two ago, i was getting concerned that i might have anti-social personality disorder, the ‘proper’ term for a diagnosed psychopath. it ended up nonconclusive, so i don’t necessarily believe i have it, but for some reason him calling me that word really fucked me up. but here’s a pretty funny and cringy sequence of things he typed in to get his cult of teenagers to feel bad for him.

don’t go looking for this person, don’t go looking for the band, i’m just sharing my story because maybe somebody could benefit from my experience being told. i’m trying to jump over this long ass hurdle that’s kept me in one place for wayyy too long, i’m hoping that sharing this endeavor could help my psyche, and perhaps push me forward and lead me towards gathering up the courage i’m missing to finally study for and take the GED test, graduate, and put public school and it’s challenges behind me.

if you read this long and want to talk to me about it, by all means, ask questions, make jokes, ask for more goofy ass screenshots of how i’ve made fun of him, more drama queen music boy tales, because we have a handful, trust me.

i don’t expect anyone to read this or necessarily care about this, but if you’ve come this far, from the bottom of my heart, do not date a musician. and, of course, thank you for reading. but still, don’t date a musician. especially if it’s a man. mega especially x2 if you’ve only known them for less than a week.

add me on roblox i’m user xulue i’m a funny gal and im a pro gamer

stay safe out there, be kind, and for the love of God don’t bring your guitar to the voice channel <3

#xulue #tw: manipulation #tw: self harm #tw: drugs #tw: slurs #narcissist #npd #mental manipulation #mine #taken advantage of #autism #impaired judgement #my ex #discord #discord server #personal

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hubcapsleep2 · 4 years

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Next Year Innovative developments by Apple

Apple is without a doubt the most innovative company in the world at the present time. It is the business to which nearly others look for direction. Every time Apple reveals a forward thinking new design language or launches a new product, it creates ripples through the entire marketplace. Eventually, the whole industry is crafting products in Apple’s look and feel. However to say Apple is merely a trend-setter understates the business’s position seeing that probably the figurehead of invention in customer technology. Apple isn’t simply setting technology tendencies; Apple’s vision models precedents and starts motions that allow the tendencies to exist in the first place. As great as it must feel to be Apple in this situation - and as humbling since it must experience to be any of the many companies copying Apple at every switch - it’s not all sunlight and rainbows. You can claw your way to the top of a mountain, but there’s very little stable surface up there. One wrong step as well as your toppling back down the mountain, undoing years of the effort needed to get up there. I actually do not want to price cut Apple’s successes in 2018: Apple Pencil program for ipad device was a wanted addition; iOS 12 has provided new life to iPhones as previous as the 5S; Apple Watch Series 4 is literally saving lives; and that’s simply a few highlights. Searching back again, though, 2018 was a pretty tough year for Apple as certain missteps ended up impacting the company’s important thing. Within Apple’s most questionable techniques in 2018, there’s one I wanted to emphasize for an important reason: Without second-generation iPhone SE around the corner, it appears Apple has exited the spending budget flagship market. In reality, I will take it one step further: I am sure Apple won’t be launching any longer budget iPhones, and here is why. Apple’s product collection is certainly varied. The company generates revenue from services like iTunes and Apple Music to add-ons like AirPods and the Magic Key pad, from home entertainment devices like Apple Television 4K to personal computing gadgets just like the MacBook Pro. However sales for most of these aren’t that amazing (though Apple’s income most certainly are). It is essentially the iPhone that makes up about the majority of Apple’s revenue. Since its debut in 2007, iPhone has pushed Apple’s revenue to such incredible heights that the company has become the first trillion-dollar firm ever sold. With so much of Apple’s income riding on the game-changing gadget, you can wager there would be a significant drop in Apple’s revenue if people starting buying less iPhones. And that’s specifically what we are experiencing. Following a modest 4th quarter, revenue for Q12019 - which, to be clear, is comprised of October, November, and December, encompassing the holiday shopping season - was much lower than Apple originally expected. With the price of brand-new iPhones rising, revenue would’ve increased actually if unit sales experienced only remained constant, but there have been fewer iPhone units sold through the period. The implication is that demand has waned, or it’s possible there wasn’t very much demand for Apple’s expensive new iPhones in the first place. The first indicator of challenges was in 2017, the year iPhone X was released. At a starting cost 50 percent higher than the prior year’s baseline model, iPhone X unit product sales were reportedly toned although Apple’s revenue improved. How? Because even though Apple sold approximately the same quantity of products as the entire year before, the average cost of an iPhone had improved. When you sell the same number of products but mark up the price, you still see a bump in sales revenue.

Of course, it’s not merely the iPhone that is gotten more costly. Apple has raised selling prices across almost all of the organization’s portfolio. But with the iPhone driving revenue, the implication is this: In the event iPhone product sales continue being smooth or begin to fall, Apple will have to keep raising the price of the iPhone every year to maintain year-over-year revenue gains. As possible plainly see, it’s not really a coincidence Apple has made a decision to stop reporting iPhone unit sales publicly. Even if 2017 was an outlier, the start of new iPhones in the fall is supposed to give Apple a shot of income adrenaline in the final stretch out, allowing for a solid finish as the business crosses the monetary finish line. But also for the second 12 months in a row, that did not come up. Doesn’t it appear possible, if improbable, that increasing the prices for new iPhones has led to lower demand? In regards to a week ago, Apple CEO sent a document to shareholders. You can read the letter for yourself on Apple’s webpage, but it warns traders that Apple’s 1Q2019 revenue will be $9 billion less than was originally projected. The letter largely blames China’s overall economy for almost all the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline while also suggesting that buyers are still adapting to the extinction of carrier subsidies. In a recent interview Cook reiterated most of the same reasons to clarify lower-than-anticipated iPhone profits. Beyond slowed development in developing markets and the lack of subsidized pricing through service providers, Cook mentioned to iOS 12 and the $29 battery substitution program seeing that having encouraged users to keep their outdated iPhones rather than buying new ones. As you might recall, Apple began the battery alternative program in late 2017 in hope of hiding the smell of the battery hot debate, which had earned allegations of designed obsolescence. As indicated by Cook, many with old iPhones decided not to upgrade because they could get brand-new batteries for cheap. This would take away the functionality caps that Apple got imposed on them, fixing their iPhones to their former glory, especially when paired with iOS 12. In fact, Apple went to lengths to ensure that iOS 12 would make older iPhones faster, so Cook is most likely right in thinking the battery replacement program and iOS 12 factored into the weaker sales of 2018 iPhones. Nevertheless, Cook declared that complicated trade relationships between the US and China was eventually the largest factor. China represents a huge amount of untapped sales potential for Apple, so there’s probably some truth to that, too. You can observe the full interview in the video below if you would like to hear more of what Make has to say about it. Meanwhile, critics and analysts possess suggested poor iPhone sales certainly are a sign of market saturation; at this time, most people who would like an iPhone already have one, and that’s a hard hurdle to overcome, specifically with buyers modernizing much less frequently. It is also surprisingly possible that Apple valued the 2018 iPhones out from the developing markets the business claims to be targeting. After all, if you live in China and want to buy a new cell phone, will you buy an iPhone XS for $1,000 (¥6800) or more, or will you get the latest Vivo or Xiaomi Android mobile phone that’s manufactured locally and may do in essence whatever iPhone XS can do at a fraction of the price? And in addition, Cook mainly sidestepped the topic of ballooning iPhone prices - a condition that we have watched across most of Apple’s products for that matter - which has been one of the primary criticisms of brand-new iPhones. New Price Hikes Price boosts for the iPhone used to be pretty rare. Actually, after carriers stopped offering subsidized prices on cell phones, forcing us to start paying complete MSRP if we wanted to buy fresh iPhones, we're able to at least depend on a consistent starting price from year to year. That starting price used to be $649. With the discharge of iPhone 8 in 2017, it increased to $699, a frustrating increase, but it wasn’t too alarming. It had been only a $50 boost after generations of a consistent price, so many people gave Apple a pass. And also, also at the bigger price, iPhone 8 seemed really cheap compared to the $999 price tag on the brand new iPhone X. Yet apparently, the price increase for iPhone 7 place a precedent because in 2018, the purchase price jumped yet again. Matching the boost from iPhone 7 to iPhone 8, the 2018 iPhone collection started out at $749 for iPhone XR. You would argue that iPhone XR is a better device than iPhone 7 and justifies the excess $100, but value is subjective. Although some might say iPhone XR is worth its $749 beginning price, especially in comparison to Apple’s more premium models, many customers will fixate about how each new era of iPhone is more costly than the one before. And at this time, can you blame them? To make matters even more serious, as iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR were being unveiled on stage during Apple’s fall 2018 event, iPhone SE had been discontinued. So not merely are iPhones getting increasingly more expensive, but Apple has eliminated the only spending budget option we had. So if you’re seeking to get a new iPhone in 2019, there’s not much choice anymore. Buyers are mainly having to simply accept Apple’s higher starting price in the absence of a genuine budget iPhone. Naturally, customers and critics as well are getting more vocal within their demands an iPhone SE successor. Incredible Unpredicted Benefits Apple unveiled the iPhone SE , which stands for Particular Edition, in March 2016 at a special spring event. Both for consumers and the industry most importantly, iPhone SE was an extremely un-Apple device for Apple to release. The iPhone 6 had just jumped in proportions and received a completely new design from the prior generation. Then iPhone SE was released, featuring a smaller, compact form with its design practically indistinguishable from the previous-generation iPhone 5. A lot more surprising was the fact that iPhone SE particularly featured the majority of Apple’s up-to-date, flagship-level technologies regardless of the reduced starting price; for just $399, you have the same custom made A9 processor as iPhone 6S in addition to a 12 MP surveillance camera with 4K video recording and a bigger electric battery. Actually, the only significant short-cuts were having less 3D Touch and the use of first-generation TouchID instead of the faster second generation. But, once again, taking into consideration its low starting price (which eventually settled to $349), the iPhone SE offered uncharacteristically great value for something made by Apple. The problem was that iPhone SE did not become a top-selling iPhone. Throughout its life-span, its defining characteristic was that it provided an affordable point of access to the iOS ecosystem though it eventually gained relatively of a cult following among specific Apple fans. Obviously, after iPhone SE had been the baseline of the iPhone lineup for a couple of years, customers were prepared for the required refresh. Although iPhone SE offered an excellent cost-to-performance relation in 2016, a refresh would bridge the functionality gap that grew as iPhone SE’s A9 processor was followed and changed, first by the A10 Fusion chip in iPhone 7, then again by the A11 Bionic in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X . Patiently Looking forward to Apple's New Product launches Sure enough, we heard that Apple was working on a fresh version of the budget iPhone. Details varied, however the iPhone SE successor - alleged to be called either iPhone SE 2 or iPhone X SE (with suffix and modifiers meticulously arranged)- seemed to have the same purpose as the initial, which was to be a compact, low-cost iPhone offering great efficiency and most of the latest features. Much of the disagreement encircling the naming method for the iPhone SE 2 was because of unclear stories as to whether the gadget would retain its iPhone 5-era style or whether it could embrace the new iPhone X aesthetic. Some customers insisted (or possibly hoped?) iPhone SE 2 would look like an iPhone X from the front with a nearly bezel-less, edge-to-edge display. These stories were mainly informed by supposed styles for display screen protectors and situations; if reputable, the implication was that iPhone SE 2 could have a bezel-much less, notched display related to iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Of training course, the notch would become one of the defining features for 2018 mobile phones overall as its was imitated by almost every smartphone manufacturer following the iPhone X debuted in late 2017; however, for Apple’s purposes, the notch only exists to accommodate biometric sensors for Apple’s proprietary FaceID. Therefore the implication was that iPhone SE 2 would feature FaceID although the high price of FaceID components managed to get an unlikely inclusion in any budget iPhone. Following these reviews, renders were made to show how the device might appear if it ended up being real. Assuming the case styles and resulting renders had been accurate, iPhone SE 2 would’ve been a really fascinating gadget, the lovechild of the bygone iPhone 5 and the more futuristic iPhone X. Provided Apple can keep production costs and, by expansion, the MSRP down, iPhone SE 2 could’ve easily outsold the original iPhone SE, possibly becoming a top seller just like the original iPhone SE never could. These weren’t just the pipe dreams of iPhone SE followers and anyone who wanted cheaper iPhones; reports from Apple’s very own suppliers all but verified programs for iPhone SE 2, offering estimates for possible production schedules and ship dates. In early August 2017, Wistron Corp. - a low-volume manufacturer based in Taiwan that Apple recruits when iPhone demand is high - was focusing on expanding its creation base to accommodate a fresh compact Apple smartphone, which many presumed to be an updated iPhone SE. After that came a tentative ship day: In late November 2017, Economic Daily News in Taiwan reported Apple had been eyeing a release time in the first half of 2018 for the iPhone SE 2, which would’ve been consistent with the spring release of the original iPhone SE. January 2018 brought another report of iPhone SE 2 launching in 2018. Shortly thereafter, there is a rumor iPhone SE 2 would include a glass back panel, suggesting the addition of the wireless charging features that the iPhone has had since 2017. Just simply because rumors pointed to Apple gearing up for the release of a next-generation iPhone SE, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities who is known for predicting Apple’s products with uncanny accuracy, planted among the first seeds of doubt. In late January 2018, Kuo reported iPhone SE 2 had hardly any chance of being released because Apple had exhausted its resources on the three flagship models to be released in 2018. Of program, those three models ended up being iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. However, rumors persisted - though at a slower pace - in spite of Kuo’s question. For instance, there have been specifications and other information on the iPhone SE 2 reported in April 2018. Regarding to these leaks, Apple designed to keep production costs (and, by expansion, the eventual retail cost) down by omitting the 3.5mm headphone jack and using iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip rather than the A11 Bionic chip used in iPhone 8 and iPhone X. For all intents and reasons, the axe was decisively dropped in July 2018 as BlueFin Research told MacRumors that Apple had nixed all plans to proceed with iPhone SE 2. We’ll probably never find out for sure whether iPhone SE 2 was ever in fact in the pipeline; however, actually if it was planned initially, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get an iPhone SE 2 at all. It’s been four a few months since the release of the 2018 iPhones, a meeting that coincided with iPhone SE being taken off Apple’s lineup, which, in and of itself, allegedly happened because Apple retired its A9 processor. So apart from Apple quickly unloading the last iPhone SE models at a discounted $249 price, which took just a day, iPhone SE is fully gone from Apple’s catalog, and anyone waiting for a next-generation iPhone SE has little cause for hope. In the event that you ask me, the composing is on the wall: Apple won’t be making another budget iPhone. FORGET ABOUT Budget iPhone? Spending budget smartphones, or smartphones that cost roughly $300 or less, are pretty common currently. In some cases, these budget devices offer great bang for your buck. Some of the more recent notable for example the Moto G6 for $240, LG Stylo 4 for $250, Huawei Mate 20 Lite for $290, and, of course, the impressive Pocophone F1 for $299. If you have a tad more to spend, you can look for a used or refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8 for just barely over $300. Or you can get the new Nokia 7.1, an Android One gadget with the design and nearly all of the features that top-shelf Android flagships possess for the discount price of $350. I’m not sure where the phrase originated, but I totally agree: “Good cell phones are receiving cheap, and cheap cell phones are getting good.” Of course, you might’ve pointed out that the smartphones mentioned above are Android smartphones. How about iPhones? When carriers did away with subsidizing smartphones, we had to begin paying full retail price for new smartphones. Therefore Apple’s decision to create the iPhone SE was very timely: Instead of paying $649 or even more, you could purchase an iPhone for under $400 without making a ton of compromises. Suddenly, people who preferred iOS to Android had their own Pocophone. From September 2016 to its discontinuation in September 2018, iPhone SE was never a top-selling iPhones. Also at its peak, iPhone SE hardly ever accounted for more than 11 percent of iPhone sales as the third-best-selling iPhone, and just by a slim margin. Meanwhile, both iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus almost tripled the product sales of iPhone SE during that period, accounting for 28.5 percent and 29.5 percent of iPhone sales, respectively. After September 2017, iPhone SE sales dropped substantially, remaining somewhere between 5.5 percent and 8 percent until the device was taken in fall 2018. Suppose you’re Tim Cook looking at these quantities. Everybody has been requesting a second-generation budget iPhone, but sales numbers present that when a lower-cost option is available, the majority of customers keep purchasing the more costly iPhones. If customers are willing to pay even more for high-end iPhones, does it make sense to produce a cheaper device that, at best, no more than one in ten consumers will be interested in buying? With some context, positioning the iPhone more as a luxury item starts to make sense. Like voting on a ballot, Apple’s customers have been casting their votes on higher-end iPhones, therefore we can’t really blame Apple for moving away from budget smartphones that do not sell well. If you’re miffed about the loss of life of iPhone SE 2, there are, actually, cheaper iPhones available for individuals on a budget. But you’re not likely to observe them in shops. Current Market Conditions Apple gave clients the lower-cost iPhone they’d always been asking for, but most of them decided not to buy it. Therefore if you’re Apple, do you produce a second generation knowing the first era didn’t sell well, or do you ditch the budget-iPhone idea altogether? It seems Apple chose the latter. However, it doesn’t eliminate from the fact that spending budget iPhones are already available, not to mention plentiful. Specifically, I’m discussing used iPhones on the market. The gray market refers to the buying and selling of used iPhones on the secondhand marketplace. It’s comprised of the many people selling their used devices after upgrading, which essentially produces an unofficial market of budget iPhones. Therefore all those listings for iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 on eBay, the Amazon Marketplace, solutions like Swappa, and yard-sale applications like LetGo will be the gray market for iPhones. Apple doesn’t need to spend money on R&D, sourcing parts, manufacturing, and distribution for a budget iPhone because we curently have access to all of the discounted iPhones we're able to ever need in the secondhand marketplace. And each year when new iPhones are released, millions even more iPhones will revitalize the secondhand market as users who update to new iPhones sell their aged ones. Plus, any post-2016 iPhone models in the gray market could have better specs than iPhone SE, and some of these used iPhones would be cheaper than investing in a new iPhone SE from Apple for $349. Quite simply, Apple doesn’t have to sell a budget iPhone because the current-generation iPhones purchased at complete retail cost today become budget iPhones as consumers utilize them and eventually sell them to on the gray marketplace if they upgrade. And more devices are listed on the gray marketplace every day, so as long as Apple is selling smartphones, the gray marketplace is a renewable resource for budget iPhones. Of training course, the gray market isn’t the only method to get an iPhone on the inexpensive. Depending about how you look at it, Apple actually offers new spending budget iPhone options each year. With the official unveiling of new iPhones every year, the MSRP of every preceding generation still in production is decreased. For instance, when iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X were announced in the fall of 2017, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus became previous-generation gadgets, which warranted cost cuts. The iPhone SE was still in production when iPhone 7 got its price cut, if you wanted a fresh iPhone but didn’t want to invest $699 or even more for iPhone 8 or iPhone X, you could choose iPhone SE from $349, iPhone 6S from $449, or iPhone 7 from $549. Though $349 isn’t exactly chump switch, it’s certainly more palatable than iPhone X’s thousand-dollar starting cost. With iPhone SE discontinued, the least expensive iPhone available is iPhone 7 for $449, meaning the cheapest iPhone on the market is $100 more than last year. To be fair, iPhone 7 was an excellent device at release, and it’s still a compelling option today, specifically for the cost. Though it was divisive as Apple’s first iPhone without the apparently requisite 3.5mm headphone jack, iPhone 7 is otherwise a full-presented flagship. But if you’re searching for a new iPhone on a budget, which would you rather buy: a 2016 iPhone for $449 or an iPhone SE 2 with the most recent A12 Bionic processor chip for $100 less? Regarding iPhone SE 2 not materializing, maybe understanding what could’ve been is what makes this so disappointing for some. Even though the info suggests a limited audience for spending budget iPhones, there will always be situations where a low-cost iPhone with current-generation efficiency hits the sweet spot. Where Should Apple Go From Here? It’s a great time to be a lover of tech, particularly mobile tech as spending budget and mid-range flagships are slaying in the Android smartphone marketplace. Though priced higher than a $349 iPhone, the OnePlus 6T can be a prime example of how exactly to offer flagship-level specs, design, and performance at a reduced cost. For better or worse, Apple appears to have evacuated the spending budget smartphone sector after just one attempt. Granted, Apple hasn't actually catered to budget-minded customers with almost all the company’s equipment starting at $1,000 or even more and a shrinking amount of gadgets, like iPods and iPads, priced lower than that. That is why it was so unusual for Apple to produce a budget iPhone to begin with. The problem is that it seems Apple is now trying to close a door that probably the business never should’ve opened in the first place. After all, when you’re offering this inexpensive iPhone on the lineup, all of the flagship iPhones seem that much more expensive by comparison. Whether there’s a new iPhone SE later on, the prices attached to Apple’s items are climbing. In many markets, Apple is coming dangerously close to pricing the iPhone along with most of Apple’s other items out of reach. For customers who can’t (or don’t want to) pay such exorbitant prices, the actual fact that Apple offered inexpensive options previously but no longer offers those options today will certainly leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, almost like biting into a rotten apple. Honestly, I am hoping I’m wrong about this, but if Apple really wants to curb the decline in iPhone demand and for sales to resume an upward trajectory, one of two things will need to happen, and sooner rather than later. Apple needs to either lower the margins on iPhones to make them less expensive (or even just less expensive), or there must be a new budget option so customers at least have the illusion of preference. Because as the numbers have shown, most buyers choose the premium iPhones in any case, but if Apple puts a budget model on the table, at least they won’t feel just like they’re having to pay out the ever-growing Apple tax. Apple’s current pricing framework gives consumers only high- and higher-priced models to pick from. But it seems buyers are needs to recognize there’s still an added option, which is definitely to save themselves the difficulty, and possibly some buyer’s remorse, by not buying new iPhones at all.

#smartphones #social media

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oneofbeing · 4 years

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Dear Wengy and as many as Western authors, let us STICK to HARE not Rabbit (the change for convinence) since in the World of Animal Kingdom these are two different animals.. ''The double visions of the Hindus a rabbit in the moon, or the duck who is also a rabbit..'' Vedic period Upanayanam ceremony was performed between the ages of 5 and 24. Students were enrolled for learning under ONE teacher for ALL subjects. The dispute of 2 visioins of 'hindu's .. Let me split this TWO visions into FEW subjects. One subject is leading to another and so on. Here subject are between Universe & Animal Kingdom and if you bring these two together then it will lead to Biology, our own physical structure, then to how to attain Brahman (Supreme Cosmic Spirit ) the ultimate intellectual (knowing the truth about yourself) awareness. Students remain 19 years of education with ONE master how these topics were developed is really amazing and it is just a WOW moment of Learning and Knowing under Saptarishi teahers like Vyasa (Krishna), Vashista and Visvamitra all those 7 Sages, their lineage. How a curriculum can be developed during vedic periodwith every relevant skills available to human beings. Rig Veda according to me has to go back to Paleolithic age. not c. 1700–1100 BC or c. 1500 and 1200 BC. reason for this statement is Rig Veda do reflect Glacial period, its impact on humans and hymns and praising nature as gods then requesting their blessing to avoid poverty, killings etc (one vision of a hidden truth). These poems do speak about the climate change and necessary changes needed to be done to protect earth and its living beings.. this I call it as Orbital forcing which is about earth's axis and shape of the orbit.. these poems reveals about one of the shape that is human being, and what that SHAPE brings destructive effects on earth by their actions. ''Variations in the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles for Milutin Milankovitch'' Rig Veda Hymns are praying for better life for humans, animals, etc etc as if they have gone through this tough time in their life in the process explaining about Milankovitch Cycles. please go through the picture representation here http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm I looked at Writing Systems. Writing was Invented in he 4th millennium BC (4000~3000 BC) which started recording history ie beginning of the Bronze Age. The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) time periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE. 1st millennium BCE. Brahmin Script abugida thrived in the Indian subcontinent Languages Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrit) languages, Dravidian languages (Tamil et al.), Saka, Tocharian Time period 3rd century BCE to 5th century CE. The so-called Indus script is a symbol system used during the 3rd millennium BCE in the Indus Valley Civilization, a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1600 BCE) That means before the Bronze age it was 'SOUND RECORDING' Scripts were RECORDED from the memory to memory (Mnemonic) and passed it on to the students by the invented (teachers) then their lineage, generation after generation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic it is interesting to learn about this technique as this method was used much before the writing. Dear Harvard Wengy this is the reason for SD people using The double visions of HARE in the moon along with a animal kingdom picuture of it so that it is easy to RECOLLECT the subject which student needed to remember LIFE LONG.. ''Early written symbols were based on pictographs (pictures which resemble what they signify) and ideograms (symbols which represent ideas)'' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram Why it is for Life Long and AFTER.. here is the answer.. ANIMAL KINGDOM 1) Hares and Rabbits are two different animals. Their difference lies in their HEARTS :) since Hares has larger heart than Rabbits. Advantages of Large heart is pumping blood and this increases their power to run faster. Speed of their travelling is recorded as fast as 45 mph. 2) Rabbits built homes, where as Hares build FORMS in the grass or ground which can BLOCK out the WIND.! 3) Hares can adapt to changing environment. Hares' coats change colour in Summer and Spring. Summer they can be dark brown and rudy in winter brown colour softened to grey or can transform into white. Rabbits cannot change their colour. It is also quoted in http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490 that 'hares usually have black markings in their fur somewhere'. Means over all 4 types of colour shades..! 4) Hares do not mate for life demonstrating an unselective approach & no attachment forming out of mating. 5) Related to Climate change Hares moves together around Spring Equinox. ''Hares are known to move together en masse, is around the Spring Equinox. Around this time, it's as if some signal has been given in the natural world and the hares go crazy!'' http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490 ASTRONOMY How do we get the seasons? The tilt of the Earth's AXIS is the most important reason why seasons occur. We have hot summers and cold winters because of the tilt of the Earth's axis. The tilt of the Earth means the Earth will lean towards the Sun (Summer) or lean away from the Sun (Winter) 6 months later. (google) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox An equinox is the moment in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September. On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. They are not exactly equal, however, due to the angular size of the sun and atmospheric refraction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_refraction Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic wave from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of height.[1] This refraction is due to the velocity of light through air decreasing (the index of refraction increases) with increased density. Atmospheric refraction near the ground produces mirages and can make distant objects appear to shimmer or ripple, elevated or lowered, stretched or shortened with no mirage involved. The term also applies to the refraction of sound. Atmospheric refraction is considered in measuring the position of both astronomical and terrestrial objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction_(sound) Refraction, in acoustics, comparable to the refraction of electromagnetic radiation, is the bending of sound propagation trajectories (rays) in inhomogeneous elastic media (gases, liquids, and solids) in which the wave velocity is a function of spatial coordinates. Bending of acoustic rays in layered inhomogeneous media occurs towards a layer with a smaller sound velocity. This effect is responsible for guided propagation of sound waves over long distances in the ocean and in the atmosphere. On the equinoxes the Sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal – but not quite. metaphorical stance, the Equinoxes are a time of balance, between night and day, as well as masculine and feminine. The male and female hares boxing simply perpetuates this idea of balance at the Spring Equinox. The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to north and vice versa in September. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Vernal (Spring) Equinox marks the first day of astronomical spring. What is equinox phenomenon? An equinox is the moment in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September. On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. What does it mean by Equinox? the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth and occurring about March 21 (vernal equinox or spring equinox) and September 22 (autumnal equinox) What happens during the equinox? Far from being an arbitrary indicator of the changing seasons, March 20 (March 21 in some years) is significant for astronomical reasons. On March 20, 2017, at precisely 6:29 A.M. EDT, the Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. What is the cause for a solstice? During the December Solstice the Sun's rays shine on the Tropic of Capricorn. As the Earth moves around its orbit, it reaches two points during the year where the tilt of its axis causes it to be straight relative to the Sun. These days are known as equinoxes. What is the autumnal equinox? Equinoxes are opposite on either side of the equator, so the autumnal (fall) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is the spring (vernal) equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. Equinoxes and solstices happen twice a year. Equinoxes and solstices mark the start of astronomical seasons. What is the spring solstice? Northern Spring – Southern Fall. ... Equinoxes and solstices are opposite on either side of the equator, and the March equinox is also known as the "spring (vernal) equinox" in the Northern Hemisphere and as the "autumnal (fall) equinox" in the Southern Hemisphere. How do we get the seasons? The tilt of the Earth's AXIS is the most important reason why seasons occur. We have hot summers and cold winters because of the tilt of the Earth's axis. The tilt of the Earth means the Earth will lean towards the Sun (Summer) or lean away from the Sun (Winter) 6 months later. Equinoxes and solstices happen twice a year. Not Entirely Equal Day & Night The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from south to http://www.sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml08.htm "To the common people in India the spots look like a hare, i.e. Chandras, the god of the moon, carries a hare (sasa), hence the moon is called Sasin or Sasanka, hare mark or spot." 75 "Max Müller also writes, "As a curious coincidence it may be mentioned that in Sanskrit the moon is called Sasanka, i.e. 'having the marks of a hare,' the black marks in the moon being taken for the likeness of the hare." http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490 Hares are quite different from rabbits, Anatomically speaking, hares possess a significantly larger heart than rabbits. In hares, the heart can weigh from 1 to 1.8% of their total body weight, whereas with rabbits, the heart only weighs about 0.3% of their total body weight. When you think about it, this larger heart gives hares a greater advantage when it comes to pumping blood, which of course increases their powers of running at such speed and endurance enviable in the animal kingdom. Hares have been clocked at travelling as fast as 45 mph. Another difference between hares is that unlike rabbits, they don't build their homes in burrows, but instead build forms, little nests in the grass or ground that help block out the wind. Independence is a strong quality of the hare. In summer and in spring, hares' coats change colour like many other animals, as a way of adapting to their changing environment. In the summer, they can be quite dark brown and ruddy, but in the winter, the brown gets softened with grey, and some in further northern climates actually transform into white. One distinction about hares that doesn't apply to rabbits is that hares usually have black markings in their fur somewhere. Hares generally live alone or with a mate, but hares do not mate for life. According to our moral standards, hares are as promiscuous as it gets because they will mate with whoever takes their fancy, and there is no attachment formed because of it. hares are known to move together en masse, is around the Spring Equinox. Around this time, it's as if some signal has been given in the natural world and the hares go crazy! Now let us look at the double vision of Hindus a rabbit in the moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing#Indian_Bronze_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandu_Rajar_Dhibi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare http://www.druidicdawn.org/node/1490

#wendy doniger

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cindylouwho-2 · 5 years

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, early October 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across in the first part of October, although some may be older than that.

[I am out of town for nearly a week in late October, so don’t expect another update until the end of the month at the earliest.]

Just a reminder - you don’t need to read everything here! I try to organize the material by topic and provide a brief summary so that you can easily skip things you don’t need to read.

I’ve tried to improve the layout for better readability, by bolding key words in each paragraph - do you find that helpful, or too hard on the eyes? Leave a comment below, email me through my website, or send me a message on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

14 elements that will help your product pages get sales. Trust badges & reviews can really make a difference. Also, here’s a really simple explanation of how your descriptions should try to sell the product: “Bridge the gap between features and benefits: A feature is essentially a fact about your product or offer. The benefit mainly answers how a feature is useful for your customer. Tell them exactly “how” a particular feature is useful for them, and “why” they should make this purchase. Product descriptions that bridge the gap between features and benefits can lessen buyer’s guilt and ease the buying decision.”

It’s time for holiday season forecasts! Halloween spending is expected to be steady. While some are predicting up to a 4-5% increase in US November-December retail spending this year, others are worried about consumer debt. There is still “a stubborn wealth gap in the United States that appears to be once again worsening and in fact is "the biggest it’s ever been." The Gini index, a standard economic measure of income inequality, for the U.S. in 2018 was "significantly higher" than 2017, after widening steadily for the last 50 years, according to a Sept. 26 report from the U.S. Census Bureau.” Note that online retailers are finding that the holiday season is less crucial than it used to be, since people shop online all year now. “...the holiday season accounted for almost 24% of all retailers’ sales in the late 1990s, but is closer to 21% today.” Finally, “A late Thanksgiving this year, falling on Nov. 28, means there are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than in 2018. In fact, 2019 is the shortest possible holiday calendar scenario”.[emphasis added by me]

Kansas state tax collection on online sales is in question after the lack of a minimum on revenue or orders is criticized. The dictate kicked in October 1st, requiring any business selling anything in the state to register, which didn’t exempt small businesses as other states have done. This is important - if they manage to apply this tax to even the smallest businesses, and win any court challenges, other states are likely to follow suit.

ETSY NEWS

Etsy released a new stats page last week, which like most things they do these days, isn’t finished yet. You can read the announcement here, and a more detailed explanation here, including a discussion of the conversion rate numbers now provided. [I don’t find those very useful on Etsy, as I find I get a lot of visits that are not from buyers, such as people checking out my SEO.] Also note that there will be a Q & A thread this week in the forum, starting October 14th at 10 am EDT.

When a listing is clicked from any search, there is now a link at the top saying “Back to search results” which only goes to page one of the search on Etsy, not the page you were on. It even does this when someone clicks on your item from a search of your shop.

They made some recent improvements to the buyer app, including integrating shop names into the regular search. No need to tag with your exact shop name! (Mobile & desktop search also work the same way; the app was the last hold out.)

More holiday marketing tips continue to roll out, including this one on merchandising. It includes a list of holidays at the end (although Canadian Thanksgiving was just 5 days away on the date of publication, so that seems to have been a waste of space). Potentially more useful to some of us is the transcript of the podcast on shopper behaviour during the holidays. [includes links to the podcast if you would rather listen] “9% of our buyers do the bulk of their shopping in late December right before the holidays” and “On Etsy specifically, searches around the holidays spike for gifts in conjunction with a descriptor of the recipient. We see searches like “gifts for grandma,” “gifts for boyfriend,” and “unique gift for a friend” spike.” Finally, “In terms of uniqueness, 90% of Etsy buyers would rather give a unique or one-of-a-kind gift.” They also cover some specific research on holiday shopping patterns in the UK & Germany, compared to the US.

There is a new help file on search called Beginner’s Guide to Etsy Search, and while it is up to date, I am not sure why it is needed, when they already have a page (they even link to it) called “How Etsy Search Works”, which isn’t as up to date. If they are planning on releasing new instructions, as they told me months ago, they are going about it really, really slowly.

Etsy Ireland lost money last year, apparently due to the DaWanda deal. “Etsy, whose mission is to “keep commerce human”, faced a wave of criticism from users after designating its business in Ireland as an unlimited liability company in 2015 so that it didn’t have to publicly disclose financial information about the unit. The company has, however, published annual accounts for the subsidiary for both 2017 and last year.”

Meanwhile, free shipping & Etsy Ads have produced quite a stock boost for the main company. “KeyBanc’s comments were echoed by Canaccord Genuity, which earlier this week wrote that the company’s initiatives were driving “robust growth and improving profitability.” Analyst Maria Ripps called free shipping “an important step in bringing Etsy’s platform closer to par” with other e-commerce leaders like Amazon.com Not only will free shipping improve “consumer perception around the platform,” but she estimated that it could add upside of 3%-5% upside to 2020 estimates for both revenue and adjusted Ebitda. The company’s Etsy Ads initiative, she added, “should ultimately attract high affinity customers with strong repeat purchase behavior.” Also, they noted that no major analysts no recommend selling the stock - most say “buy”, with a few saying “hold”.

Etsy partnered with Blackrock Emergency Savings Initiative to help US sellers deal with the financial pressures of self-employment.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google’s advice on how to get your category pages to rank well is worth reading: among other things, you shouldn’t keyword stuff.

If you want your content to get the featured “0” position at the top of Google search, you should check out this article on featured snippets, or this Whiteboard Friday from Moz. [video & transcript]

More analysis of Google’s September core update shows that it may not have been as dramatic as the June update, but “your money, your life” (YMYL) sites still seem the most affected. SEMRush said the biggest winners were “DailyMail, eBackPage.com, lasd.org and marionschool.net. The biggest losers were TheFourMusic.com, Monks.org, BraidingClub.com, PascoLibraries.org and RoyalCaribbean.com.au.” Other case studies saw a lot of change in health and medical sites.

Another study states that websites still get most of their traffic from organic search.

If your own website isn’t ranking on Google, there are numerous fixable reasons, although some are more difficult than others.

Google says that HTML sitemaps aren’t necessary to good SEO.

If you are getting less organic traffic to your Patreon page recently, that could be because their SEO team accidentally de-indexed the entire site. It’s been fixed, but it could affect some pages for the next few weeks, if Google doesn’t recrawl you right away.

YouTube is the 4th most visited website, so improving your YouTube SEO can provide a huge boost in traffic.

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Facebook’s experiment on hiding like counts has rolled out in Australia. (Articles looks at the sociological studies behind this)

Instagram launched an account posting tips for “creators”, which the author notes does not focus on making money off of that content.

They have also expanded their Shopping part of the app, however, which is about making money.

And IG has released a Snapchat challenger called Threads, a standalone app run by Facebook. Techcrunch did a more detailed review & analysis. Right now, it doesn’t have any ads & they say they have no plans to add them.

Hubspot uses their own Snapchat account experience as a case study in how to make Snap work for business. (includes video & step-by-step instructions, if you are new to Snapchat.)

Twitter and Tweetdeck had a bad outage for several hours October 1-2, and it still isn't clear what happened.

If you use Twitter for your business, you should also be using Twitter lists. (I use Tweetdeck to organize mine.)

Now that it is working again, here are the best-performing hashtags on Twitter over the past few years.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Hubspot’s comprehensive guide to Google Ads is completely up to date for all new developments, and covers search ads as well as ads across Google’s network. [video and text]

They also put out a Facebook ad checklist, with video, text & screenshots.

And they also did a guide to YouTube advertising. [video and text]

Research and ad placement are key to getting better conversion from Facebook ads.

Gen Z (younger than millennials) don’t yet have full purchase strength as a cohort, but they influence buying in their households after seeing ads on Snapchat. Since Gen Z shows the least brand loyalty of any generation, it's necessary to reach them in new ways.

Shopify now has an integration with Microsoft Ads, which include all Verizon properties (Yahoo, AOL). More than 116 million Americans use Bing searches each month in some way.

LinkedIn has improved its ad tools, including audience forecasting.

Quora has improved ad targeting; they say they have over 300 million monthly users.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Advanced tips for site search in Google Analytics can get more out of the data than you thought was there.

Facebook will likely be paying out $40 million to settle a lawsuit for grossly overreporting video watching stats, including video ads.

Google Search Console is now reporting a lot fewer links for websites than in the past; it’s not clear if this is a bug or not.

The Console is now reporting on your videos.

Everything you need to know about Pinterest Analytics.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

If you use abandoned cart emails on your website, make sure they are optimized for conversions.

Ecommerce fraud rates are definitely increasing. “... digital goods have seen such an increase in fraud because they often have a streamlined purchase process that requires less information than other items.”

Google launched its new Shopping pages, which is not the same as Google Shopping but is connected to it, and allows buyers to check out on Google rather than retailer websites.

Amazon apparently surveyed Handmade sellers recently asking how they felt about Amazon Handmade.

Will Amazon face consequences in the US for its competitive activities? It’s looking more likely now. “Bloomberg reported in August that Amazon was dropping sellers' products in searches on its site if they priced a product cheaper on rival sites, behavior the news service noted could draw antitrust scrutiny.”

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

We all have difficult customers occasionally - here are 9 tips on how to deal with them.

While most web browsing happens on mobile, desktop users are still way more likely to buy. They also spend more than mobile buyers.

Gen Z members plan on doing most of their holiday shopping in physical shops this year (just like baby boomers), but many will do research online first. Also, “Forty-two percent of shoppers said that low prices are the top motivator for making purchases and 31% said free shipping was also a shopping incentive.”

Offering fewer options can lead to more sales. (The article has great suggestions on different ways to use this info.)

MISCELLANEOUS

Vimeo app Magisto is facing a class-action lawsuit over holding biometric data without the owners’ permission.

Haven’t heard much about the EU privacy law lately? It turns out that businesses that are GDPR-compliant are more successful than those that are not. The shocker is that only 28% of the companies surveyed were actually completely compliant, so this may be correlation and not causation. Also, the results were self-reported, so maybe not that accurate.

Here’s a decent list of free website builders, but I strongly suggest doing your own research on any that sound good, as the writeup isn’t very detailed. (The Etsy forum is a very good place for some of this research, as you can ask very specific questions of people who probably have similar needs to yours.)

Chrome is going to block embedded content that isn’t from an https site, beginning in December. [if your website isn’t yet https, get on that right away - it is going to become more & more crucial for being seen.]

#cindylouwho2newsupdates #smallbiz #Ecommerce #content marketing #contentmarketing #Social media #stats #analytics #EtsyNews #search engine marketing #search engine optimization #SEO

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tiergan-vashir · 5 years

Text

@aegirward

I wanted to address some things about your reply to me, but all of it was quite long, so to spare everyone’s dashboards, I’m just going to leave a link here for them to read it, as well as @friendly-fire-engaged‘s response to you.

There's a lot of misinformation here to unpack, so let me just start from the top:

Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my previous reply. I didn’t mean I was wary that Sylb specifically had photoshopped screenshots. I had become wary in general after being burned once.

Whether you were wary in general or wary against Sylb specifically is completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it was Sylb in particular or any other woman on the planet. The fact of the matter is that when faced with a woman who presented you with screenshots of sexual harassment from man with a long established, self-admitted history of sexually harassing women - you still decided the screenshots might have been photoshopped.

That’s not ‘wariness’ - that’s a blatant denial.

You also seem to be extremely determined to paint a very benign picture of yourself in which your only two flaws when it came to Sylb and her harassment were:

You wanted to give Kale a second chance despite his history, because people had given you a second chance in the past.

You made a mistake and believed that Sylb must not have been suffering that badly, because she was willing to continue RPing with the group despite Kale’s presence.

There’s much more to it than that. You conveniently glossed over your most egregious, malicious behavior:

Despite how kind and accommodating you were to Sylb’s face, you were actively sabotaging her to other people behind her back.

You made the conscious, willful choice to not only buy into the idea that Sylb may have photoshopped the screenshots and that she must not have been suffering all that badly because she was still RPing with EA, but that Sylb was the one who wronged Kale and that other, completely uninvolved people needed to be convinced of this as well. You held up a double standard where it was okay to trust Kale despite his past, but Sylb was not trustworthy from the beginning.

Here are some screenshots from @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post which show you driving a wedge between AMoB and FLEET by bringing up Sylb out of the blue in AMoB’s moderator chat and intentionally mischaracterize her to Renata and Berrod as someone who was just out to ostracize Kale.

https://imgur.com/a/i7SJjlq

The screenshots show you and Iota worked together to paint Sylb as someone trying to manipulate others into hating and shunning Kale. You brought up how Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’. You described her as someone who will “rant to anyone about Kale” - a falsehood I know is patently untrue. Sylb was extremely anxious and nervous about talking about her situation to anyone and didn't want to appear like she was trying to run Kale’s name through the mud.

She didn’t even bring it up to the majority of her own FC. Most of FLEET was in the dark all the way up until @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post was created. The only people who had in-depth knowledge that she was even suffering from anything were a small handful of her closest friends for support, the EA Mods she passed the document off to, and eventually Martin.

The screenshots also show you making the claim that she “copy/pasted her story about needing to block Kale and why to pretty much everyone” despite Sylb ONLY giving that document the EA Mods, Martin, and that handful of close friends she was going to for support. She went out of her way to specifically ask Iota not to share the document containing her request around to anyone outside of the EA mods without her permission first, as seen below:

https://imgur.com/a/4SHtSLd

All of this clearly demonstrates that contrary to what you claim, you actually very much did try to stop collaborations between AMoB and FLEET. You tried to convince Renata that Sylb was trying to smear Kale’s name and nearly succeeded in doing so. Renata herself admitted that as a direct result of this, she brushed off Sylb’s legitimate complaint. You smeared a woman’s name to people she didn’t know, because you and Zheng “questioned her intentions”.

In the next part of your reply, you’ve conflated two entirely separate events Sylb wanted to create: The FLEET-Resistance collab event and the Soldier’s Ball.

Your original reply to the ask mentions the FLEET-Resistance event Sylb wanted to create with AMoB. I was referencing this FLEET-Resistance event when I when I asked why it was suspect that a victim of sexual harassment wouldn’t want to create an RP event where she would have to be near the person who harassed her in the time immediately after she outright blocked him as opposed it being a completely sane and normal response from a victim of sexual harassment.

AMoB was not directly affiliated with EA. The FLEET-Resistance event was not an EA event. Kale, as a character, has nothing to do with FLEET and the Resistance. So why was it strange for a woman to want to exclude the man who made her uncomfortable in an event she was trying to collaborate on the day after blocking him?

Here are the screenshots of that conversation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l_kPtTU-YjJy335F1yB4KLyvFVaNbz2cr0xI2FCTU3U/edit?usp=sharing

You, her, Iota, Martin, and Zheng were all in a group chat together brainstorming. Sylb mentioned she didn’t really want a public event as she’d been hoping for more of a Maelstorm vs Resistance event and that it was too soon for certain characters to show up. Note how she went out of her way to avoid mentioning Kale and is wary of discussing her situation in front of someone who is not an EA mod until she is made aware that Zheng is already in the know. Notice how she finally agrees to open the event up further - just before Zheng insinuates she is spearheading a “Fuck Kale campaign”.

Another thing I want to point out is that Zheng never apologized to Sylb after that discussion for the “Fuck Kale campaign” comment and you did not provide a proper apology either. This wasn't a matter of “Golly! We thought Sylb must not have been suffering so badly, because she was still RPing with EA!” - this was a matter of you both explicitly not believing her and punishing her for it. As the AMoB mod channel screenshots clearly showed, you admit to questioning her intentions and actively worked to sabotage her.

The Soldier’s Ball is an entirely different event, and I notice that you have a very different timeline of events than what actually occurred.

At the time this conversation was going on, Sylb was still participating in EA events with Kale. If I remember right, it was shortly after the Ala Mhigan Ascension RP. I had not been told that she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events.

Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive. But prior to that, she was in our group DMs with Kale helping plan for the ascension ceremony. That was the event where I offered to translate anything Kale said and pass it on to her, rather than have her be in the group chat, if that made her more comfortable.

So the situation perplexed me, because in my mind, she had just been dealing with Kale and this combination of choosing Raniall over Kale and Martin over Zheng seemed less about comfort and more about a decision that would make things awkward with Kale’s group.

I told her the situation made me uncomfortable, because it did. I was thinking of the impact it would have on the 4th. The position it would put Raniall in and what it might make the other 4th members think. I never told her not to do it, just that it wasn’t something I was comfortable with, so I wouldn’t be attending the event, but I WOULD make sure it was promoted in all the usual places. I didn’t think my lack of participation would matter ICly, because I was not RPing anyone needed for the event.

Firstly - the notion that “she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events” is flagrantly untrue and easiest to disprove.

In the screenshot conversation with Iota I linked above where Sylb hands over her document to the mods to lay down her boundary with Kale, Sylb explicitly states: “I’ll continue to be polite to him in group channels and in voice chat, but I don’t want to have direct one on one contact with him anymore. I’m not asking the Eorzean Alliance discord mods (or anyone else) to take any sort of action against Kale. I’m just letting you know about this boundary that I’m establishing with Kale because it’ll likely impact the way that FLEET communicates with the rest of the EA group (as in, I’ll reach out to other GMs instead of Kale about stuff).”

This was copy-pasted word for word from the document that was shared with you and all the EA Moderators.

Secondly - the Ala Mhigan Ascension event happened in December, two months after Sylb had blocked Kale in early October and informed the EA moderators of her boundary. (Timestamps visible in the Discord screenshots where Sylb laid her boundary down.) By then you should have been more than well aware of it. There should have been nothing ‘perplexing’ about what was occurring.

Unless you did not care enough to read her document laying out her boundaries in its entirety when it was shared to you, you would know she was doing exactly what she’d stated her boundary was two whole months ago: cooperate politely with Kale in group chats, but bar him from talking to her in direct, one-on-one conversations.

Lastly - the most glaring mischaracterization you’ve written of everything surrounding the Soldier’s Ball is the idea that Sylb:

Uninvited Kale from the Soldier’s Ball.

“Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive”

Sylb was not selecting representatives - she was literally trying to get people to pick songs. She thought it would be nice to have a song for each Grand Company at the Soldier’s Ball, and was considering asking individuals from each Grand Company group to pick one. That’s literally it.

Here is your conversation with Sylb regarding Soldier’s Ball, where she is clearly discussing the selection of songs - not representatives: https://imgur.com/a/2ON3xLf

Because she did not want direct, one-on-one conversations with Kale as per her boundary, it only made sense for her to reach out to Raniall, Kale’s Second-in-Command, to get a Flames song. And because her last interaction with Zheng/Beowoad was him literally accusing her of launching a “Fuck Kale Campaign” (and even you mention in this exact conversation that Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’) - she understandably felt more comfortable reaching out to Martin to pick a song for the Resistance than Zheng/Beowoad. Yet she even offers to ask Zheng/Beo instead of Martin for the song if it too uncomfortable for you.

I will add that Martin was only initially uncomfortable with the Soldier’s Ball because you misled them entirely as to what the entire situation was even about. You provided them with a small section of the conversation, outside of its context and mischaracterized what Sylb wanted.

The rest of your reply to me is completely irrelevant, because it’s filled with baseless assumptions on what Sylb may have been thinking and more assertions that it was somehow “confusing” that she was still participating in EA events and working in group chats with Kale, but not in direct contexts despite you having knowledge of what her boundary was for months at that point.

All in all, your response here makes it clear that the public apologies written by you and Zheng are catered more toward damage control than actual reflection, assessment and change. Neither your apology or this post owns up to the fact you and Iota were kind to Sylb’s face, but actively slandered her as a person to other people behind her back. Neither your apology, Zheng’s, or this post owns up to the fact that you and Zheng went much further than simply assuming her situation was not as bad as it seemed - you both flat out didn’t believe her. You “questioned her intentions” and punished her for daring to lay her boundary down.

When asked to leave AMoB, Zheng tried to argue that G&G has dealt with four sexual harassment cases and one had an “issue that appeared to be a plot to discredit someone falsely.” (https://imgur.com/a/r08qz70) If it is not Sylb Zheng was referencing, then perhaps this other individual’s case should also be given a second look considering how poorly Sylb was treated.

Aegir, Instead of taking responsibility for the your true actions, you eagerly paint yourself as a man whose only flaws were that he miscalculated how serious the situation was and really wanted to believe in second chances. You talk repeatedly about how “confusing” Sylb’s behavior is to try and paint her inconsistent so your actions seem more excusable, while Sylb was doing exactly what she stated she was going to do to the EA Mods to keep herself safe. You present a timeline of events that is muddled and out of order to serve your own needs and place yourself in a more sympathetic light. A real apology doesn’t try to replace the other person’s story with your own reconstruction of events, rewriting what needs to be apologized for.

To put it bluntly, I question your intentions, Aegir.

Your apology, and by extension, Zheng’s apology as it contains much of the same face-saving “we misjudged how serious the situation was and thought the issue was minor because Sylb was still working with EA” language - won’t feel genuine by any stretch of the imagination until you own up to your true mistakes.

If you can’t admit to where you actually went wrong, how is anyone supposed to trust that this is more than a simple attempt at damage control? How are we supposed to believe that you and the rest of the G&G leadership have actually learned from this and will truly change?

#G&G #gold & glory #gold and glory #long post #drama #discourse

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rainyrowan · 5 years

Text

London With You | Chapter 1

AN: hey everybody! i came up with this idea during the holidays, but never really got around to finishing it. but here we are, a month (late)r and i continued it! tbh, i hoped for this story to become a one shot. however, it eventually exceeded the one shot word count limit of 3,000. so, think of this as a short multi-chap story! i hope you enjoy reading this and i’ll see y’all in chapter 2!!

description: An au set 8 years after the Matthews’ moved from New York to London. At this point, Riley's a thriving 22-year-old woman who’s on her own, especially during this Christmas season. That is, until a young Lucas friar stumbles upon her apartment building.

pairings: riley x lucas

word count: 1,959

The cold December atmosphere fills the air, as Lucas Friar strolls through the streets of London.

He’s been walking for 30 minutes straight with one large duffle bag and at this point, no sense of direction given that his uncharged cell phone means lacking a GPS. With that, it takes all of his brain power to remember the address Asher had sent him.

It’s safe to say that this is probably one of his worsts nights. Nearly freezing to death is something he definitely does not need at the moment.

After a while, he finally stumbles upon a tall building with a name so familiar that he decides to take his chances and see if it’s the right one.

The front desk manager smiles as he sees Lucas entering the building.

“Good evening, Sir! How may I help you?” He says, still offering a bright smile.

“I was just wondering if Asher Garcia lives here?”

“Hold on, give me one sec.” The manager scurries onto his desktop and does a quick search.

“Alright, is this him?” He tilts the monitor in Lucas’ direction.

His eyes widen as he sees a photo of his friend and lets out a sigh of relief. “Yes!”

“Okay, cool! His apartment number would be 498 and that’s on level 4.”

“Thank you so, so much.”

“No problem at all! You have a great rest of your night, sir!”

Lucas flashes a slight grin at him as he heads towards the elevator doors. He hops into one of them whilst thinking about how lucky he was when finding the right building.

When he reaches the 4th floor, it didn’t take him long to find his room. Although, when gets there, he spots an envelope with his name on it, taped to the door. Lucas yanks it out and reads what it says.

Hey Buddy--

I’m so sorry about what happened with Missy. I knew you should’ve left her while you still could. But hey, I’m not writing this letter to prove you wrong for dating that stuck-up bitch. (Saving that for when I actually get to see you in person *wink*) I’m writing this because a family emergency came up, and I won’t be home until after the holidays. My deepest apologies! In the meantime, you can still crash at my place. I cleaned it all up for you and left a key underneath the ‘Welcome’ mat.

You make yourself feel at home now. See you soon.

Regards,

Asher.

Although Lucas was bummed out that Asher isn’t home, he didn’t necessarily saw this as that big of an issue since he just needed a place to stay. That is, until he unfolded the welcome mat to find that no key was there.

A tired sigh escapes his mouth. “Great.”

He slides down against the wall, trying to figuring out what he’s supposed to do next. He’s pretty much homeless until Asher comes back, which definitely worries him.

Seconds later, one of the apartment doors open and a woman steps out. She’s quite tall and was also dressed in athletic wear. Although, what really gave Lucas a sense of familiarity was her long brown waves. After locking her door, she turns around, enabling Lucas to practically go out of his mind.

“Riley?!”

Riley offers a double take, before exchanging the exact same reaction. “Lucas?”

Lucas couldn’t believe it. He scrambles to his feet and walks towards her.

They haven’t seen each other in ages, ever since her mother revealed that she decided to transfer to London to take up her promotion. Lucas never thought he’d see Riley ever again.

“Oh my god, hi!!” She gives him a tight squeeze. “What are you doing here in London?”

His smile slightly fades away. “If I’m being honest, I’m kind of in a crisis right now.”

She frowns. “What? How come?”

“Well, it’s a really long story.”

“Good thing I practically have all the time in the world. Do you have someplace to be?”

He laughs. “Nope. Definitely not.”

“Alright, you can crash at my place for a bit... How ‘bout that?”

“That’d be wonderful, but don’t you have someplace to be? You were just about to leave.”

“Well, I don’t really have much going on. If anything, I felt productive tonight and decided to go to the gym downstairs. But that can wait!” She smiles, unlocking her door.

Riley leads him inside, and he instantly notices the smell of cinnamon lingering through the air the moment he steps in. Once he gets a good look at everything, he also realizes how minimalistic and neat her apartment was. She had grey walls and light-wood floors. In Lucas’ opinion, this interior design didn’t seem to match the personality of the girl he had once knew. Taking in his surroundings, he thinks about how much she’s grown since then.

Although, he still feels this familiar sense of safety. Home. He always has around her. Despite all that happened in the past couple of years, that apparently didn’t seem to change.

“So, this is my apartment. It ain’t all that big, so my apologies there.” Riley explains.

“No, I really like it. It’s quite cozy if you ask me.”

“Aw, well I’m glad to hear that! Oh, I’ve got to show you something!” She grabs his wrist and drags him into what appears to be her room.

Lucas gasps as he sees it. “No way.” Across from them lies a white bay window, similar to what Riley had growing up.

“This bay window was actually the reason why I got this apartment.” She then slightly frowns, “Too bad I don’t have anyone to share it with me.”

Lucas turns to Riley. “Maya?”

“How is she? We lost contact in a sophomore year.”

“Well, that’s because she made new best friends around sophomore year.” He scoffs, “They go by drugs, alcohol, partying, and Zay.”

Riley’s eyes widen. “You’re kidding. Zay too?”

He shakes his head. “We all tried so hard to stop them.”

At this point, she starts walking over to the bay window. Lucas trails behind her.

“What happened after?” She asks, taking a seat.

“Our whole gang pretty much fell apart after that. Too many fights and arguments went on constantly. Things were just too toxic.” He pauses. “In that very moment, I realized how fucked up we all were without you.”

“I--” Riley couldn’t seem to process what she had just heard. “I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry--”

Lucas stops her. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. As a matter of fact, I think they’re all doing pretty well currently. I haven’t been speaking to them, but rumor has it, Maya eventually ended up getting an art scholarship to CalArts.”

A smile creeps back onto her face. “Really? That’s good.”

The both of them spend the next couple hours catching up on the time that they’ve missed together. Lucas further discusses what’s been going on with the rest of the gang, even though he’s not entirely sure if his information is accurate since he’s only been hearing about them through other people.

Riley talks about her career and accomplishments. Turns out, she ended up majoring in journalism and became a fashion journalist at British Vogue. Like always, Riley never fails to keep Lucas in awe of her.

“That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you, Riles.” Promptly, the sound of Lucas’ stomach grumbling interrupts her, leaving her laughing hysterically.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” He laughs.

“It’s okay! C’mon, let me make you dinner.” Riley says as they head on over to her kitchen.

Lucas takes a seat on the bar stools behind the island, while she rummaged in her fridge.

“I wasn’t expecting a visitor today, therefore I didn’t really go out and buy groceries… All I have is Instant Ramen Noodles. Is that fine with you? Or if you want, I can go out real quick to get some food.” Riley offers.

“That’s fine. Do you need any help?”

“I can take it from here. Thanks, though.”

He takes a seat at her bar stool as she pours a pot of boiling hot water onto both ramen bowls. She then places one in front of Lucas whilst sitting next to him.

“So… You wanna tell me how you wounded up here?”

Lucas laughs in spite of himself. “Alright.”

“You see, around senior year of high school I ended up dating, well, Missy Bradford.”

Hearing this, Riley stops attending to her food and turns to him. “Huh, really?”

Lucas throws his hands up in surrender and drops his head down. “Look, I don’t really know what I was thinking but-”

“Lucas.” Riley interrupts. “It’s okay.”

He sighs. “But hey, during that time I was accepted to UC Davis as a veterinary major.”

“Wait, so you’re a-?

“Yes, Riley. I’m a veterinarian.” He says smiling.

Things obviously took a positive turn at this point, given that Riley hops off her seat to offer him an embrace. “I’m so proud of you.”

She thought back to when they were both at middle school and they had to work on a project about human connection for their history class. She remembered how they shared their very first connection when he told her that he wanted to become a veterinarian. It was a secret. The fact that he never told anyone, but her, meant the whole world to Riley. Even as much as hearing that Lucas actually is one right now.

“Thanks, Riles. But anyways, I was able to pursue my dream and once I graduated college, it’s like everything went at about a hundred miles per hour.” Lucas rambles on about how he was mainly stationed in California.

“About a month ago, they moved me here in London. And since I was still dating Missy during this time, she came up with the idea of moving into one of her father’s apartments just a couple blocks away from here, actually. I wish I could’ve called you or something. It would’ve made moving here so much easier.” He chuckles.

Riley drops her head down. “I can’t believe it. You were here for a whole month. You didn’t live too far away either. If only we kept in touch…”

“I know right? But hey, we’re here now. So, it’s fine.”

She looks back up at him and offers him a gentle smile. “Lucas, why were you seated in the hallway earlier?”

“We were just always fighting. I would have to come home every single day to her being such a pain in the ass. Coming home to a very toxic household isn’t that easy, Riley.” He pauses. “Especially when you come home to see another guy with her.”

Riley’s eyes widen. “She was cheating on you?”

“Yeah. This just happened two days ago, Riles. I had to leave. Miss just wasn’t worth it anymore. She never was. I packed my essentials, booked a hotel, and just left.”

“I always knew she was bad news.” She mentions, shaking her head.

“Tell me something I don’t know. Missy eventually kicked me out. Luckily though, my friend Asher offered a room at his apartment. It’s just a few doors away, actually. But he won’t be back for a while. Something came up and he had to leave.”

Riley’s eyes widen. “Asher Garcia? He lives in this building?” Lucas nods.

“I should really be getting out more!” She laughs. “But hey, you know you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I have a spare bedroom, you can stay there in the time being.”

Now it’s Lucas’ turn to give Riley a hug. “Thank you.”

#girl meets world #riley matthews #lucas friar #riley x lucas #lucas x riley #gmw #london #my fics #what is this?#denise? writing?#whAAt #well here it is folks #i really hope you like it #chapter 2 comes out SOON #rucas #rucas fic

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fishfingersandscarves · 6 years

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Fishy’s Big Ol’ Stucky Rec

ive been reading a hell of a lot stucky fics to balm the pain of infinity war

so please enjoy the list ive complied

your favorite ghost - augustbird

It's harder than Steve ever expected to bring Bucky home.

the gravedigger’s handbook - idrilka

Sometimes it's the most difficult thing, coming home. They both learn that, in their own ways. (In the end, Bucky comes back to Steve. In the end, it is all that matters.)

pull apart the dark - togina

Steve's unending faith in his best friend was beginning to look less like hope and more like fantasy. When they'd caught the Soldier – in a firefight that still gave Sam nightmares – the only thing the man seemed to recall was how to hit exactly where it hurt.

Four months later, Barnes still refused to speak English. Refused to heed anything but Steve's voice.

So, all in all, it was not a great time for Hydra to attack New York. All in all, Sam really wished they'd just killed him, instead of turning Captain America into a baby.

Even with a Million Chances I Wouldn’t be Enough to Deserve You - AppleJuiz

Bucky feels fairly confident when he decides not only is this the Worst Day Ever, but there is no way he can feel worse than right now. You would think that by now, he’d know things can always get worse.

As if getting falsely accused of bombing the UN, having his reunion with Steve go a million times worse than anticipated, and becoming the Winter Soldier again for a brief spell wasn't enough, Bucky gets to relive it all... over and over again.

I can’t remember how this started (but I can tell you exactly how it ends) - gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)

“And this is the thing, Steve. I would rather relive this day for eternity than watch them win and you die, or see you be enslaved to them the way I was.”

The Difference A Day Makes - twinagonies

In which Bucky lives the same day over and over again, and circling, circling, comes back to himself.

Meridian - Tippet

The metal hand flexes now and Steve’s eyes go straight to it, then fix back on the soldier’s. Slowly, that the soldier can see every crease shifting into place, his face fills with a quiet wonder; he looks at the soldier as a beggar gazes at a banquet.

(Steve goes missing; Bucky goes after him.)

Slow Work - lorata

It's 2011, men are allowed to marry, and Bucky is dead.

The future isn't all that's strange. Together in peacetime for the first time since before Steve took the serum, Steve and Bucky struggle to find their place -- and each other -- in the middle of a new millennium, new bodies, and new dynamics.

Or, just because you wake up in a century where everything you've repressed is magically okay, that doesn't make it easy.

The Ungraceful Art of Falling - buckyfuckybarnes

Bucky Barnes was cold.

He felt like he’d been cold for months now; doing nothing but experiencing one unending chill after another. He’d been cold in England, and again in Italy, and again especially in Austria – both while he was kept in an underground cell, and when he was strapped without cover to the unforgiving metal of Zola’s lab table.

But Steve… Steve Rogers was sunshine. Everything about him was warm, from his crinkly-eyed smile to his white-hot rage. Steve was Coney Island on a summer’s day; lying back on high rooftops to watch fireworks on the 4th of July; drinking stolen whiskey in his parent’s living room…

Loving Steve was a fact – simple and plain, like breathing air or bleeding red; loving Steve was soldered into his skin like a tattoo – it buzzed in his brain like its own kind of high. It was a part of who he was.

Mine is the Shining Future - brideofquiet

He could have a life here, but what would it be? He could be a grocer; he could marry a girl who remembers hearing his name on the prayer list nearly every Sunday mass. He could fill sketchbooks in his spare time and stuff them into a trunk under his bed when he’s exhausted their pages, never to be seen again. He could live and die on Friary Street.

It would be a fine life, if a simple one. Something similar was enough for his mother. It should be enough for him, too. Is it?

In late summer of 1937, Steve Rogers immigrates to America.

the universe expanded - foreverthyme

There is no life without Bucky, or Steve and Bucky from the beginning onward and every place in between.

December 7th - boopboop

This isn't the first time Steve's lost a few days to a fever, but Bucky's never been good at keeping secrets and Steve's got the feeling that he's missed something more important than just time.

Not Easily Conquered - dropdeaddream, WhatAreFears

Series:

A Long Winter, The Thirteen Letters, Not Easily Conquered

In 1945, Steve Rogers jumps from a nosediving plane and swims through miles of Arctic Ocean to a frozen shore.

In 1947, Steve Rogers marries Peggy Carter.

In 1966, the New York Times finds the lost letters of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

just say you do - biblionerd07

Steve just wanted a job. He wasn't expecting a marriage proposal. And he certainly wasn't expecting to accept.

Into That Good Night - Nonymos

Steve Rogers has lived for entirely too long—long enough to see the world's end. The heroes are gone, and the Earth is pushing what's left of mankind towards the exit.

But when a makeshift team rises from the ashes, when a mysterious presence all but drags Steve there, he begins to think there may be hope yet. As they shoot for the stars one last time, Steve will get proof yet again that the future is nothing if not an echo of the past.

Easy Work For Easy Pay - AustinB

Bucky's working his way back up through the ranks at S.H.I.E.L.D. after a mission took his left arm and Stark gave him a new metal one.

So when Fury tasks him with integrating the newly defrosted Captain Rogers into the 21st century, he jumps at the promotion.

To Never Have Loved At All - hitlikehammers

Steve will say they had work to do, and a universe to put to rights. They had people to find and hearts to unbreak. They had a mission. There was no time for any of them to mourn.

Steve, as it turns out, says a lot of things that are mostly bullshit.

took my love, took it down - LaughsAtThunder

The problem, Bucky thinks now that he has most of his memories back, is that his whole entire world has always revolved around Steve Rogers. Steve has been always been half of Bucky’s identity. Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend. Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ wingman. Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ teammate. And now, well, now Steve had other people to fill those positions. And of course, of course he’d always been a little bit in love with Steve. So when he overhears Steve telling Natasha that he’s finally found someone he’d like to date, someone with similar life experience, Bucky clings blindly to the hope that maybe, just maybe, Steve is talking about him.

This, You Protect - owlet

The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

Always Afraid, Always Ashamed - CaptainDean13

Maybe that was why they slipped. Maybe they shouldn’t have been chatting on the comms so much. Maybe they should have swept the compound before congregating in one room. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe there was nothing they could have done. Maybe it didn’t matter.

The team is taken hostage and Steve is forced to face his fears and secrets to save them.

to memory now I can’t recall - Etharei

While on a mission storming a HYDRA facility, James Buchanan Barnes touches one of the many strange alien devices collected by the Red Skull. He does this, in fact, twice— in the past, and in the future.

Next thing he knows, Bucky Barnes is opening his eyes in the 21st century, which is full of great gadgets and coffee, and at least includes his old pal Steve. (And, inexplicably, a different Stark.) Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier finds himself in the middle of World War Two, helping Captain America hunt down HYDRA (which is at least familiar), pretending to be Bucky Barnes (which is not), and figuring out the very noisy group of soldiers who call themselves the Howling Commandos.

20th Century Limited - Speranza

"Where am I? Where is this?" and he was in Brooklyn, he was on a beach, the train was shaking around him. He was in the plane, ice splintering up onto the windshield. He was in a tank, tubes trailing from his face, from his groin. Christ, he was cold. There was still ice on his fingers. He was in the Grand Canyon. He was in Times Square. This couldn't be Times Square. Where the hell was this? "Tell me! Where am I, who are you, where's—" —Bucky?

All The Angels and The Saints - Speranza

In which Steve Rogers loses God and finds God and loses God, and also: Bucky.

The Hundred Year Playlist - girlbookwrm

Series:

Dreamers With Empty Hands, Good Morning, Heartache, What’s New?, The Terror of Knowing, Fool for Sacrifice

Steve knows pain. Has always known pain. Far back as he can remember, hurting has been a part of him.

AKA Steve’s Rhapsody in Pain, Part One: Chronic Illness Edition. Contents: one (1) Smol Steve Rogers with Very Big Pain Problems, one (1) Wee Bucky Barnes with a Very Foul Mouth, twenty thousand (20,000) Nazis in Madison Square Gardens, infinite pining, and excessive use of parentheses.

The New Age - AustinB

“You’re good at the future,” Steve says, a little downcast.

Bucky doesn’t notice. He grins, “I always thought I would be.”

(AU: Bucky and Steve were both on the plane when Steve put it in the Arctic.)

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bongaboi · 5 years

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Oregon: 2018 Redbox Bowl Champions

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Justin Herbert did just enough to keep his streak intact for consecutive games with a touchdown pass. Make it an impressive 28 and counting for Oregon's quarterback, the longest active streak in the nation among FBS schools.

That it turned out to be the Ducks lone score in their 7-6 win over Michigan State in the Redbox Bowl only emphasized why coach Mario Cristobal was smiling after Herbert's decision earlier this month to bypass the NFL draft.

Herbert shook off a sluggish day and threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Dillon Mitchell in the fourth quarter, and Oregon held on after Michigan State botched a field goal attempt for a 7-6 victory in the Redbox Bowl on Monday.

"We felt like it was going to be that kind of game just watching them on defense," Cristobal said. "We kept battling and battling. You take a victory whether it be one point, two points or 50 points. These guys found a way to get it done."

Herbert passed for 166 yards and extended his streak on a day when the Ducks' offense mostly sputtered.

"We kind of just shot ourselves in the foot the first few drives, and guys kind of settled down and making plays," Herbert said.

Oregon (9-4) crossed midfield only three times and couldn't get into the end zone until Herbert found Mitchell in the right front of the end zone for the deciding score. The Ducks' defense held up from there but got some help from Michigan State's special teams.

The Spartans were lined up for a 50-yard field goal attempt when quarterback Brian Lewerke, who doubles as the holder, bobbled the snap, then attempted to run before hurriedly throwing an incompletion near the sideline.

"It's one that I have to come up with," Lewerke said. "The ball kind of hit my hand on top of the ball. I tried to make something happen. That's what happens."

After Michigan State's defense forced a three-and-out on the following possession, the Spartans took over at their own 42, but Lewerke's long pass on 4th-and-12 was knocked down by Oregon cornerback Thomas Graham.

Lewerke completed 22 of 40 passes for 172 yards with one interception. It's the third time in four games that Michigan State (7-6) has failed to score a touchdown.

Running back LJ Scott ran for 84 yards on 24 carries, ending his injury-riddled season with the Spartans on a high note after being limited to five games. The senior running back declined to redshirt this year and declared for the NFL draft in early December.

Matt Goghlin kicked a pair of 34-yard field goals but he also missed one from 50.

"We never got that bust-out play," Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. "You're not going to win many games scoring six points."

It was Oregon's first bowl victory since beating Florida State in the 2015 Rose Bowl.

THE TAKEAWAY

Michigan State: The Spartans had more than enough on defense but as has been the case all season, the offense simply couldn't hold up its end of the bargain. Lewerke tried to get the passing game going and took several deep shots, but it was his scrambling that was most effective. The memory of the mistake on the field goal try in the fourth quarter will linger, but the Spartans' inability to get a sustained attack on offense was what ultimately did in Dantonio's team.

Oregon: Getting Cristobal a bowl win in his first season was big and should be a nice lift for the Ducks program. That they won when their offense was held to 25 points below its scoring average is also big. The victory is Oregon's third straight, which should build some momentum heading into the offseason.

DON'T GO HOME WITHOUT IT

Cristobal was forced to stop celebrating his team's win over Michigan State in the Redbox Bowl when he noticed that his left hand was bare.

That started a frantic search that ultimately was unsuccessful -- almost.

"This is embarrassing," Cristobal said with a smile. "I thought I lost my wedding ring. It was in the locker room the whole time."

MITCHELL'S RECORD

Mitchell got off to a slow start before breaking out in the second half and finished with six catches for 70 yards. That was enough to set Oregon single-season record with 1,184 receiving yards. Josh Huff set the previous record of 1,140 yards in 2013.

"It was a goal of mine once it was brought to my attention," Mitchell said. "But I don't really think about it like that. I enjoyed the win more than anything."

WILLEKES BREAKS LEG

Michigan State played most of the second half without defensive end Kenny Willekes, who suffered a broken left fibula in the third quarter. Willekes led the Spartans with 8 1/2 sacks this season.

UP NEXT

Michigan State: The Spartans will have to find someone to take over for Scott, who went into the day 10th in school history for rushing yards. The good news is that a majority of the starters on both sides are returning, including Lewerke. Michigan State begins 2019 with a home game against Tulsa on Aug. 31.

Oregon: In addition to Herbert, nearly the entire defense is coming back next season as well, so the foundation is set for the Ducks, who open next season at Auburn on Aug. 31.

#2018 #redbox bowl #chtholly nota seniorious #chtholly #sukasuka #oregon ducks #college football #bowl season #saimoe

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metalandmagi · 5 years

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December End of the Year Media Madness!

It’s a new month and a new year! And what a crazy month it was what with Tumblr imploding and all. But I’ll still throw this on here just because I’ll be on this site until it literally boots me out. But I do have a twitter now…@metalandmagi where I’m also barely active at all.

Anyway, why make top 10 lists for the entire year when I can just ramble about all the media I consumed this month? There’s only a marginal amount of holiday things on here by my standards!

November media

Movies!

Give me some credit there’s only four Christmas movies on here.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: A documentary about Mr. Rogers starting with the birth of the television show to his death. This is the fluffiest most heartwarming thing I could have possibly picked to watch on Christmas, and I encourage everyone, even people who hate documentaries and/or never grew up with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, to watch it. There’s a lot of important messages about acceptance, dealing with tragedy, and mental health that people can learn from and feel good about. Not to mention how he completely revolutionized children’s television. So yeah, he was awesome.10/10

Spider-man Into the Spider-verse: When a rip between dimensions is opened, a bunch of different spider themed superheroes from every comic fan’s wet dreams all get together to close it. Guys I’m not that big of a Spider-man fan, but dang this movie was a ton of fun. I came for the amazing visual effects and stayed for the amazing...everything else. The music, the performances, and the story were all top notch. Also I now have a new favorite Nick Cage role. If you thought the trailer made the animation look interesting, it was just the tip of the iceberg because it is the most visually interesting movie I’ve seen in the last three years. I strongly suggest any fan of animation...or even any fan of great stories and movies in general go see it even if you’re not that big on Spider-Man. Now I’m demanding a Spider-verse Aunt May movie because I have so many questions! And the post credits scene was the best out of any Marvel movie. Period. 10,000/10

The Wiz (2015 musical): I should start making a section for musicals or plays instead of just lumping it in with the movies. It’s the Wizard of Oz...but cool. I’ve never seen any iteration of The Wiz and it seems like I’m constantly hearing about it. So I watched the 2015 version of the 1975 Broadway musical that NBC aired. And yeah it’s good. There were some great performances. But I wasn’t very impressed with the songs themselves, and it’s not really the same without a dog along for the ride, but whatever. 7.5/10

Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle: The surprisingly fun reboot/sequel thing of Jumanji where four teenagers get stuck in a video game that follows every “stuck in a video game” trope you can imagine but actually does it well. It’s a sweet, funny romp through the jungle with some great comedic performances. I really don’t have much to say about it except that this movie is better than it has any right to be. 8/10

The Christmas Chronicles: Two children stow away on Kurt Russell’s, I mean Santa’s sleigh and go on a dangerous, balls to the wall adventure throughout Chicago trying to save Christmas or something. After everyone started talking about how crazy this Netflix movie is I had to watch it to verify if it is indeed as wild as they said. And yes...yes it is. It is so laughably ridiculous and questionable that it’s impossible to actually hate. The elves are some unholy mixture of minions and gremlins, one of the children is a literal felon that no one is concerned about, and Kurt Russell is super into the role but has some sort of thing about fat-shaming Santa. I just...have so many questions! But it was certainly a trip, so I’d have to recommend it just so you too can witness the insanity. -10 “savvy, straight-talking St. Nicks”/10

Arthur Christmas: No, it’s not a Christmas special related to the aardvark cartoon! This is the 2011 animated movie that no one remembers exists. Santa’s clumsy but enthusiastic son Arthur must deliver a forgotten present in less than two hours while the rest of his family deals with some Arrested Development style family drama. This is by far the most underrated Christmas movie of all time; even I didn’t realize it was actually good until I watched it for the first time in 2016! The fun road-trip style plot and the entertaining characters were victims of bad marketing. Arthur is hilariously endearing, and there was so much heart and effort put into it that I can find new things to notice every time I watch it. Not to mention the amazingly animated opening spy sequence! And also Mrs. Claus is secretly a total badass and Bryony the elf is the coolest female character in a Christmas movie ever. The movie’s message of old vs new is nothing we haven’t seen before, but I really don’t care because at the heart of it all, it’s about making people happy on Christmas. If you’re like me and just assumed this movie would suck...or didn’t know it exists, please give it a chance. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth seeing. 9/10

Neo Yokio Pink Christmas: Yes, it’s the Christmas special for Neo Yokio. No I cannot accurately describe it with mere words. There’s a rich bachelor gift exchange, demon possession, and pompous French aunts slinging insults at each other. It is unironically my favorite holiday episode of a show ever, and to me it’s the best Christmas special ever made. I thought I was prepared for the absolute bat-shit ride I would go on, but no...I wasn’t even close. At this point I don’t know if it’s written like this on purpose or if some divine twist of fate made the executives believe this is truly brilliant television. Either way, it is a masterpiece in its own right. There’s even a somewhat intriguing plot and a message about gift giving and capitalism under all the crazy! If you haven’t jumped down the rabbit hole yet, I implore you to watch the insanity that is Neo Yokio and follow it up with Pink Christmas because it will truly make your holiday season. 100,000 demon DNA drugs out of 100,000!

Die Hard: Nothing says Christmas like terrorists taking over a skyscraper and Bruce Willis having to take them all down by himself. Yeah...so I’ve never seen Die Hard before, but this is one of those movies that is so famous that I felt like I’d already absorbed everything important through cultural osmosis. And even though it’s pretty good, I would have liked it better if I didn’t know what was going to happen. My only real complaint is that I think it goes on way too long. More than anything it just made me sad to remember that Alan Rickman is gone. And it bothers me so much that John McClane goes through this building that’s under construction WITHOUT SHOES! 8/10

Books!

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis: The 4th/6th book in the Chronicles of Narnia, in which Eustace Scrubb and his classmate Jill Pole go to the underworld to find King Caspian’s long lost son. Even though my children- the Pevensies aren’t in it, I actually think this book is my favorite of the series so far. Jill and Eustace are both sassy enough to play off each other, Puddleglum absolutely hilarious, and the book actually has a clear cut plot! It reads much more like a Greek myth than a children’s fairy tale since there aren’t nearly as many of Lewis’s trademark author interjections, and you know...it’s a literal journey to the underworld. And can I just say that it’s super refreshing to have an author write two main characters WITH ZERO ROMANTIC INTENTIONS! Especially since they’re freaking children! Now I just wish Disney had continued the movies even more! 9/10

Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare: I’m going to do this with only minor spoilers. It’s the final book in The Dark Artifices trilogy. Will Emma and Julian break the parabatai bond? Will the reflection of the modern day American government- I mean the Cohort/ the Clave fuck up the relationships between Shadowhunters and Downworlders forever? You’ll have to suffer like the rest of us to find out! In my opinion, 99% of this book is amazing, but in the last 50 pages there are some...bullshit ways of solving problems. Like everything that went down with the Cohort in Idris. Not to mention we’ve been so invested in the parabatai curse and how Julian and Emma’s bond would go down and...let’s just say the resolution was way too easy. And if you thought Clare’s other finales were jam packed, you ain't seen nothin’ yet. My copy is 880 pages and there was still more stuff that I wanted to happen...like any sort of scene between Dru and Ash...or an ending between Kit and Ty that doesn’t make me want to cry (the Wicked Powers is going to be brutal). But the rest of that 99% is mind-blowing! There’s so much good I can say that it mostly outranks anything I didn’t like...I mean we finally got a Malec wedding and a proper polyamorous relationship for the Angel’s sake! It may be my least favorite of her finales by default but it was still a fun ride! 9/10

TV shows!

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018): An elite soldier finds a sword that can transform her into a super buff magical girl who helps princesses take down the forces of evil. It’s a reboot of the 1980s cartoon, and holy crap it’s AMAZING! I have a whole new group of children to adopt, each episode is entertaining in its own way, and there’s so...many...good...ships! And it gives Steven Universe a run for its money with the care that went into making every character a different kind of warrior, which I love because the cast is 99% female. My only real complaint is that I never warmed up to Catra because she wasn’t particularly sympathetic to me from the beginning. But I understand why some people love her. If you love well crafted adventurous character driven cartoons and haven’t watched it yet WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? 10/10

Nailed It Holiday: Yes, my favorite baking show (and by that I mean the only baking show I watch) has a holiday season out on Netflix, in which newbie bakers are tasked with making incredibly professional desserts with a very short time limit. And whoever makes the best treat gets 10,000 dollars. I’ve talked about this show before in my June media madness, and I don’t know what it is but I’m so addicted to it. 10/10

Brooklyn nine-nine (season 5): Come on we all know the cop sitcom. It’s the best sitcom. Just in general it’s the best. Great characters that subvert expectations, great humor, and a lot of heart. I’ve known that this show is supposed to be amazing for years, but I only started watching it a few months ago. And since I couldn’t find season 5 anywhere...I got a Hulu subscription just to watch it before season 6 comes out. That’s how good this show is. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 2): Our favorite underdog comedian is back, and she’s slowly gaining popularity and doing...stuff. Like going on tour. And hanging out with Zachary Levi. Yes, this season is great, but my problem with this series is that every character aside from Midge and Susie are the fucking worst, especially the parents. Midge’s parents suck, Joel’s parents suck, Midge and Joel are appropriately neglectful parents for the time period...I could go on. And it’s not even in a funny way; like it’s just disgusting to watch these power dynamics. Not to mention how old the comedic bits for the parents get (how many times can we hear about Joel needing to date or Midge needing to get married?!) Yes, I realize that we’re supposed to be annoyed AND YES I realize that this is a product of culture and how society was, but none of the parents have any redeeming qualities. In episode one, we’re led to believe that Midge’s parents will grow and change through the season and they never do! At least there are moments where Joel can kind of be redeeming and expand on his actual character before he reverts back to being an asshole. Anyway, my thoughts are pretty much the same as the first season. It’s funny and interesting to watch, but it can be ridiculously frustrating when you hate almost all the characters! 8/10

Fuller House (season 4): Yes I do watch the ridiculous Netflix reboot of Full House. And yes, it is absolutely terrible! I really really hate it! But will I stop watching it? Let’s just say you can pry this pile of garbage from my cold dead hands. I don’t know if I’d call this a guilty pleasure or a hate watch type of show... it’s certainly not so bad it’s good territory like Neo Yokio...but Full House was pretty much my entire childhood. And yes, the original show is also not great. I loved it as a kid, and it was my first real exposure to a non-traditional family in live action, but yeah it doesn’t age well. What I’m trying to say is...I have no good reason for watching this.

I don’t mean to say that there’s nothing good about it, especially this season. They really back off on the more cringe-worthy catch phrases, Stephanie being aware of how stupid the writing is and constantly pointing it out is actually funny, their Christmas episode was surprisingly genuine, and they impressed me by actually make two female characters try and work through their difficulties instead of pitting them against each other for laughs. It has its moments, just like the original but definitely not enough to make up for the worst of it. Maybe this generation of children will like it the way lots of my generation used to like Full House...but yeah it’s awful, I hate it so much. -1 missing Tanner child out of 3

Voltron Legendary Defender (season 8) SPOILERS: It’s the final season of Netflix’s Voltron, and boy it was...something. I didn’t want to make this a big rant/defense of the show...but I feel like I have to highlight some things because this fandom is a shithole that refuses to see the good in anything.

There is so much good and so much...not good I can say about it, so here’s a couple things. I know this show didn’t go the direction anyone wanted, but that doesn’t make it bad. In addition to the stunning fight scenes and music, the performances this season were just amazing! I literally wanted to cry every other episode even though sometimes I didn’t know why the fuck something was happening. I don’t know how I feel about Honerva’s plan. I understand her motivation, but I was constantly questioning how we got from point A to point B... so yeah the plot and writing could be...weird at times. Also everyone seemed to have super pointy chins this season...

Spoiler alert: Not many of us wanted Lance and Allura to happen, but I truly believe it wasn’t done in a half assed way. At the very least, I appreciate that they had a genuine bond that developed over so many seasons. BECAUSE YES IT DID! Anyone who says they had no development or that it felt forced never paid attention. I wanted it to stay platonic; I wanted Klance to happen, but...I can’t be too mad at the writers because they at least tried. I still believe that Klance was endgame and the creators were forced to change the outcome of the show later on. AND YES LANCE DID GET A CHARACTER ARC! It may not have been the one we wanted to see, but I’m baffled that people think Lance living with his family, surrounded by people he loves-which is what he wanted all along- is not a happy ending. I just wish his relationship with Keith wasn’t pretty much ignored all season. But I believe Allura is his past that taught him to genuinely love and Keith is his future who will make Lance his “first choice”. And I’m not even gonna try to explain how I feel about Shiro and Allura’s endings because everything I feel is so complicated and layered. There is good and there is bad.

TLDR: This show teaches us that we’re stronger together, and I think the “fandom” completely missed the point because they do nothing but tear others down and refuse to look at things from other perspectives. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NOT LIKE IT, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE AWAY OTHER PEOPLE’S ENJOYMENT AND BE A DICK ABOUT IT. It may not have been everything I wanted, but I’m glad I went on this ride. Besides, there are canonically infinite realities so there’s got to be a reality where all your dreams for the show come true. As a season, I’d say it’s a 7.5/10.

Honorable Mentions

I watched Avengers: Infinity War again. And yes it’s still great.

I’m watching Superstore because when another sitcom comes on before The Good Place, why not? Also since I finished season 5 of Brooklyn 99 I had to use my Hulu subscription for something.

Camp Camp has a holiday episode...so naturally I watched it...several times. Please watch Camp Camp.

Hellsing Ultimate Abridged finally ended, and I feel obligated to shout this out because, hey when you put out one episode a year it’s a big accomplishment to finish it!

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is finally here!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL THE WINTER ANIME IS ENDING!!! They were all so amazing! So shout out to Iroduku-The world in colors, Bloom into You, Hinomaru Sumo, Dakaichi, Banana Fish, Jingai no Yomen, Golden Kamuy, Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san, Tsurune, AND RUN WITH THE WIND even though they’re not finished yet.

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jamesv-t · 4 years

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I follow too many football teams

Decided to sit down and compile a list of all the various football teams I'm following at the moment, across different leagues and countries, and note the reason I started supporting them as well as the extent to which I follow. I was surprised.

Arsenal WFC: started following the club on 4th July 2018, when they signed my favourite footballer, Tabea Kemme. Bought a season ticket and attended as many games as my work pattern would allow; from the first game I was amazed by Dutch striker Vivianne Miedema, the best forward I'd seen play since Robert Taylor's purple patch in 1999. Despite missing all 4 of Tabea's appearances for the club, I bought a shirt with her name and number on it which I've worn to every game possible, home and away. The last match I saw in person was a 4-0 win at Brighton back in January (easier to get to than home games, so of course I'd go) during which I realised that despite Tabbi's injury worries, I was in deep enough to care about the other players. This turned out to be prescient as two days later she retired from playing. Thanks to the FA Player, I can watch (almost) every match streamed live to my tablet.

Matches seen: 5 home, 5 away (Lewes, Brighton [Amex], Crawley, Spurs [new White Hart Lane], Brighton)

Shirts: 1 - 2018/2019 home shirt with Kemme 22 on the back.

Gillingham FC (mens): Where it all began. Attended my first game against Doncaster Rovers in April 1995, taken by my dad and granddad. The Gills won 4-2, my younger brother and I had room enough to chase each other around the terrace. Since then I've experienced nauseating lows, dizzying highs, and creamy middles. As of 21st May 2019 my support for the club has been on hold - they appointed Steve Evans - a man who had previously convicted of tax evasion and falsifying accounts, a man who had previously sought to incite Gillingham staff and players whenever his teams played against the Gills, and an all round nasty piece of work - as manager of the first team. I could not in good conscience support a side managed by him, in person or remotely, so I packed away my shirts/scarf/badges, muted the club's social media accounts, and my Saturday afternoons were a lot more fun as a result. He's still at the club, they're currently fourth in the League One table, but this summer they cut loose the associated women's side, so I don't know if I'll ever go back.

Matches attended: bloody loads. In the three figures, easily. Had a season ticket one year. Attended at least 1/3 of all games - home and away - in the promotion season linked above. Been going at least once a season for the past 20-odd years, mostly more than that. Away games at Crawley a few times (making it my joint second most visited stadium, apart from Priestfield and tied with Meadow Park), once at Spurs (old White Hart Lane), West Brom, Millwall (that was fun, got the tickets through work, ended up with the home fans, Gillingham got a last minute winner that we couldn't celebrate), Charlton twice, a reserve game at Leighton Orient, the above linked game against Wycombe when we went down, strangely not Brighton though despite living here for nearly 10 years.

Shirts: had plenty over the years. I've still got the shirt we got promoted in with Thomson 27 on the back, signed by a number of the squad, somewhere. Currently I only have two - the 2009 promotion shirt because it looks pretty good, and the 2011 home shirt because of fond Football Manager memories!

Borussia Dortmund (mens): Over a decade ago I started a relationship with a German woman. In the getting to know you stage, I asked her what her nearest Bundesliga* club was. (My small talk has since improved. Slightly.) She replied "Dortmund", and I started following the club. I'm not saying that I'm responsible for the team's subsequent uptick in form - they won the league two seasons running after I visited the ground, adding the Pokal (cup) in the second season as well - but I'm not not saying that either. The availability of streams plus the free-flowing, attacking football made them an easy follow, especially at a time when Gillingham went 35 games without an away win in all competitions. I look forward to the club starting up a women's side next season, especially as they're starting from the bottom rather than expecting to be parachuted into the Frauen Bundesliga.

Matches: just the one so far in person, an entertaining 2-3 loss to Wolfsburg in December 2012.

Shirts: had a 2004 home shirt that was horrible material, very plasticky. Also have a really comfortable and stylish 2012 away shirt that I couldn't wear for a few years due to it having Hummels' name on - thankfully he's returned from his Bayern defection now. A Munich fan who stayed with us a couple of years ago found the whole thing hilarious.

*I'm glad I specified the country, as while she grew up nearly 100km from the Westfalonstadion, she was only 20km from FC Twente - but it was complicated enough explaining to people in the early days why I was following a German team, and I think trying to tell them I was following a Dutch side due to my German partner might've been far too much!

BSG Chemie Leipzig (mens): Dortmund aren't the only German side I've hitched my wagon to, but they're the most high profile. Faced with an indefinite period of time with nothing to do during lockdown, and growing tired of my other FM careers, I set about giving myself a challenge. Due to the high praise dished out by the media to Red Bull Leipzig, a team funded by the energy drink conglomerate who bought their way up the league, I decided my challenge would be to - in the words of Sir Alex Ferguson - "knock them off their f**king perch. I wanted to make another team the biggest side in Leipzig. Scouting around the Wikipedia page for the city, and aided by this thoroughly informative Reddit post, I settled on Chemie due to their political leanings and colour scheme. Six real-life months and a dozen fictional seasons into the career, I'm one Bundesliga and one Pokal away from equalling the energy drink's trophy haul. I've taken an interest in the real life side as well, languishing away in the fifth tier of German football (an unholy hell of regional leagues and village sides).

Matches: not yet. One day I'll stand on the terrace of the Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark, Freiberger in hand, cheering on the side. But the raging pandemic that brought me to start the career is, ironically, preventing me from properly indulging.

Shirts: none, as I rarely wear football shirts these days. But this t-shirt is pretty cool.

Gillingham WFC: Simple thing here - when the side were cut adrift from the parent men's club as part of a cost-saving measure in the summer, I decided to go with the team who were not managed by an odious berk. I'm kooky like that.

Matches: one so far, a pre-season friendly away at Lewes last summer. I was the lone Gills fan. There were more dogs supporting the home side than humans cheering on the away team.

Shirts: none, as the club have switched to red after no longer being under the men's umbrella.

Valur (women's team): Some of these have deep, meaningful reasons behind my follow of them. Others, less so. In the early part of 2019 a friend of mine and his Czech girlfriend moved to Reykjavik to live for a bit. We visited them and were surprised to see floodlights from their balcony. Their flat overlooked a football ground, where Valur play, and so it was a simple thing to follow their side to feel closer to Paul and Barbora. It was weird seeing Valur's main striker, Elin Metta, posting Insta stories of playing with the same friendly cat that Paul does!

Matches: just the one streamed so far, due to a dearth of matches available online, but Valur won!

Shirts: christ don't give me ideas.

ACF Fiorentina Femminile: And if you thought that was a tenuous reason...last month we took a tour around Italy, stopping in Rome, Florence, Bologna and Venice. I wanted to get something football related to remember the trip by. Venice was out - I was going to the Venezia store anyway to pick up a few things for a mate who had guided them to glory on Football Manager, and didn't want to tread on his toes. Rome was unsuccessful - Lazio's kits have been cool in the past, but their right-wing fans aren't for me, and Roma had some lovely coloured merch but nothing that grabbed me. A surprise heavy shower sent us scurrying into the Fiorentina club shop, a place I'd earmarked to visit anyway, and a lovely flattering jacket jumped off the shelf at me. (It helped that it was reduced from €100 to €30!) Why the women's side over the men's? Women's football is just much more fun!

Matches: just a 3-1 loss to Sassuolo a few weeks ago. Who loses to a Phil Collins single?!

Shirts: no shirts, but a sexy jacket.

Ashwood City FC (mens, fictional): Ashwood City are Kent's only Premier League side. One of the founder members of the Football League, they've never been relegated from the Premier League. They're also fictional, the main subject of football podcast The Offensive. Now in its third season, it's been a weekly highlight, weaving current football events into an ongoing story arc. It's occasionally sweary, frequently hilarious, and clearly written by someone who's lived in Kent judging by the accurate jabs at Kentish people/Gillingham! It also used an entire episode as set-up for a reference to the 1992 Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner film The Bodyguard, which still frequently makes me chuckle at random moments.

Matches: tricky, as they don't exist. Like Steve Evans' moral compass.

Shirts: nope.

#football

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