#i have yet to see a piece of media about someone discovering they were secretly a walrus

[authorlmfletcher]

Merry Christmas @csulliven​ ! I’m your secret santa for @mlsecretsanta​ ^_^ Hope you enjoy it!

Also on Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383465

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Snow in Paris. How romantic. 

Adrien sighed as he watched the large snowflakes falling softly from his bedroom windows, secretly wishing that he was sitting on a rooftop somewhere with Ladybug. An image of her rosy red cheeks in the cold air, dark hair covered in white as she laughed made him smile. 

“Ready, Plagg? Time for patrol.” 

His kwami grunted noncommittally, tossing back an extra piece of camembert before Adrien called him into the ring. Chat Noir  pushed himself out the window almost before he was fully changed, black suit melting over his body in a familiar and comforting feeling.

From the rooftops, he watched children dancing in the streets with arms outstretched to greet the snow. Strings of lights draped over trees and over buildings, creating a warm and magical glow to the night sky. A few windows showcased trees twinkling with lights. It was perfectly wonderful, and all Chat could feel was empty. 

Christmas always hit him the hardest, the memories of his mother’s smile, joy, and laughter at this time of year flooding his thoughts everywhere he looked. He missed her so much. While usually he could keep the swirl of emotions under control, the holidays pulled them so close to the surface that nothing he tried could tamper them down. At least this year he wouldn’t let himself fall into the same angst-fuelled stomp around Paris from the year before.

Reaching their meeting point, Chat Noir flopped onto the rooftop, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. He couldn’t help the curl in his back nor the soft frown on his face as he watched a young family walking down the street, each parent holding one hand of their child in the middle, swinging him high into the air as he screeched with joy. 

He missed those days. 

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

Snow in Paris. Crap. 

Marinette’s feet slipped out from underneath her as she stepped out onto her balcony, a soft squeak escaping her lips as she frantically waved her arms to regain her balance. Tikki chuckled softly behind her. Marinette shot her kwami an unamused look. 

“You’ll be fine. Go - Chat will be waiting.” 

A quick set of words transformed Marinette in a brilliant flash of pink, a spotted suit appearing on her skin before she launched herself off her railing to yo-yo over the rooftops to their designated meeting spot. 

Trying not to slip as she landed on their rooftop, she noted the unusually despondent position of Chat’s body. 

“Hey Chat,” she called out. He turned and gave her a muted smile. 

“Hey.” 

That wasn’t her usual exuberant kitty. Deciding that patrol could wait, she plopped herself down beside her partner and gave him a good long stare, trying to telepathically discover what exactly was making him so sad. No answers came to her. 

“What’s wrong, kitty?” 

His hesitation to answer gave away a lot. Civilian issues, she realized. Something that mattered enough that he actually let it bother him when he was in his super suit. That worried her a little. 

“I - “ he shifted his eyes to peek at her, “I’m just finding the Christmas season hard. It’s all bright, and cheerful, and beautiful, but - it’s not like that for me.” 

Ladybug blinked, trying to process. Christmas always made her happy. The colours of the lights. The smells of fresh baked cookies. The snuggles on the couch watching a movie together with her parents. The excitement of homemade gifts. This was her favourite season! But, Chat - obviously it wasn’t the same. 

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say, her brain already slipping into planning mode. Something had to be done. No one should be unhappy at the happiest season of the year! She looked around the view of Paris, pieces of an idea popping into place in a typically Marinette/Ladybug fashion. 

“I have an idea.” 

Chat looked at her startled when she got to her feet. 

“An idea for what?” 

“An idea for you. Come on. Follow me.” And then she was swinging across Paris.  It took longer than she expected to arrive at her destination - a large building built like a square. Landing on the rooftop, she turned to find Chat close behind, a confused look on his face. 

“What are we doing here?” he asked. 

“Look,” she replied. A simple gesture brought his attention to the ice track laid out on the top of the building in a long path. “Transform to ice.” 

He gave her a startled look, shocked as she gulped down one of her power up macrons. Fumbling through his pockets, he followed her lead. 

“What are we doing?” he asked again. She just laughed, grabbing his hand and dragging him onto the ice. 

“Come on. I think you just need some fun.” 

She had to admit that the sheer look of surprise on his face was worth it. It took a few laps around the icy path before his usual boyish grin took over and he started to show off with spins and acrobatic displays. It felt like hours later when they both collapsed onto a bench with tired legs and hearts full of laughter. Ladybug felt thankful that her little plan had worked. She never wanted to see that hollow look on his face ever again. 

“Thank you, Ladybug,” he said softly, dropping his ice transformation with a sigh. “I needed that. Christmas season is just …  hard for me. It makes me think of someone I miss a lot.” Throwing his head back, he stared at the sky a moment before grabbing her hand for his trademarked knuckle kiss. 

“Anyway, thank you for the special evening. I should probably get going - I have a crazy day tomorrow and need to get some sleep.” 

Still on the bench, she watched him vault away. Detransforming, she sat there for longer with Tikki as the little kwami chomped away at a cookie. 

“Oh, Tikki. I wish I knew more about Chat Noir. Who could he miss so much that he gets that sad over the holidays?” 

Tikki simply chewed, not answering. Marinette sighed. “I know. I just wish I could do something to make Christmas special and happy for him instead.” 

It took all of 5 minutes for a massive, crazy, totally insane idea to come together. Changing back to Ladybug, she swung home, brain whirling with plans, knowing there was little chance of sleep for her creative self yet again. 

-----

Hands fussed with his hair. Others pulled at his clothes. Voices barked out orders as people raced around, moving props and backgrounds. The chaos of a photoshoot never got easier. The sooner he could get through these “fake happiness” last minute winter shoots, mostly for social media, the better. The head photographer shouted him in place - telling me which way to stand or sit, what to hold, how to pose, what face to wear. His body and expressions moved on auto-pilot. His thoughts wandered to the memories of the skating he’d done with Ladybug the night before. She understood him in a way that no one else likely ever would - able to read his REAL body expressions. 

“Adrien Agreste, get your head out of the clouds and down here onto the fake snow,” someone snapped, pulling his full attention back to the business at hand. 

The day promised to be one of chaos. Early photoshoot, obligatory fitness workout, rehearsal for a big presentation at an upcoming Christmas charity event, guest appearance on behalf of his father at two different events, another short photoshoot (outdoors - which sounded uncomfortable), followed by an evening at the 2nd or 3rd Christmas gala of the season. Hopefully there would be time to eat somewhere in there. 

Rushing from thing to thing on his schedule, Adrien mused over the busyness. Why did Christmas obligate people to fill their lives with meaningless activities and fake smiles? He would give anything to just sit together with his family and enjoy each other’s company in quietude. 

By the time he arrived home from the gala, dressed to the nines in one of his father’s top-line suits, that hollow feeling had returned. The oversized tree sparkling with lights and silver ornaments screamed how fake this holiday season felt - meaningless, impersonal, and just there because of obligation. 

He was too tired to do much else, stripping down to slip into some comfortable pajamas and tossing an extra chunk of cheese at his kwami. Briefly, he transformed, mostly to check if there were any messages on his baton. 

One unread message. 

“Hey Chat, I have this idea. Can we get together tomorrow? Say…. 10pm? The tower?” 

He typed back a quick message in agreement, mentally sifting through the day’s schedule, then flopped himself onto his bed with muttered words to transform back into his civilian clothes. 

At 9:45pm, Chat Noir burst out of Adrien’s bedroom window and raced over the rooftops. The snow from two days earlier had vanished, leaving things with a slightly damp look. Crisp winter air singed his cheeks, but it felt refreshing after yet another busy day. 

Ladybug stood waiting at their usual Eiffel Tower hangout, a large bag slung over her back. 

“So, what’s up, LB?” he asked, wondering what exactly she hid in a bag that size. 

“Follow me,” she said, jumping away. Whatever hid in the bag rattled as she took off. He hurried to keep up with her as she yo-yoed across the city, landing finally in a small park. She slipped the bag from her back, the rattling (and possible jingle?) sounding out. She unzipped it with deliberate slowness, giving him a grin. 

Inside sat decorations. 

“What are we -” he cut himself off as she laughed, pulling one of the silver spheres from her trove. 

“We’re going to decorate this tree. Together. It’s an important Christmas tradition!” 

Suddenly, he realized that he hadn’t even noticed the large evergreen tree in front of them. He must have frozen long enough with his mouth open in surprise that Ladybug had managed to hang 4 or 5 ornaments before asking if he was going to help. Springing into action, he carefully grabbed a ball and placed it onto the tree. A few ornaments later, he found himself wonderously tangled by tinsel with Ladybug laughing hysterically. He could feel his cat ears drooping as he asked for some help getting loose. 

When the bag was emptied, they stood side by side admiring their work. 

“Perfect.” He had to admit, she was right. They had done a terrific job. And it meant so much more to put together a tree with someone he cared about. Better than the team of professional decorators that Nathalie had hired this year. 

“Tomorrow? Same time? Eiffel Tower?” 

He had no idea what she planned to do, but he nodded, unable to stop the smile that crept onto his face. 

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

Everything was ready. Flour. Ginger. Molasses. Sugar. Marinette looked around the bakery kitchen with the feeling that she’d forgotten *something* but time to meet Chat crept closer. Maman and Papa had been more than generous when she had asked to use the kitchen for a  couple of nights. 

“As long as you don’t touch any of the morning’s baking,” her mother had answered, not needing any other explanation. 

“Time to go!” chirped Tikki, wide blue eyes twinkling. “I think he’s going to love this one.” 

“I know he will.” Taking one last glance at everything laid out, Marinette transformed and raced to find her partner waiting with anticipation at the tower. 

“Follow me.” 

She led him back to the bakery with an elaborate explanation of how the owners had graciously let her use their kitchen. From there, Ladybug spent the night helping Chat discover the joys of making a gingerbread house from scratch. Much laughter ensued as flour ended up on faces, ginger sent Chat into sneeze fits, and Ladybug discovered her partner’s lack of skills in a kitchen. By the end of their adventure that stretched early into the morning hours, they had a pair of iced together houses, one more askew than the other. 

“Go sleep now, Kitty. We’ll decorate them tomorrow night.” The excited twinkle in his eyes before he escaped made her smile when she finally crashed onto her bed for a few hours of sleep. 

The next night consisted of a sugar-fuelled cat boy, happily slapping candies and decorations to his somewhat lopsided gingerbread house. The next, she set up a laptop with a Christmas video on a nearby rooftop with some thick blankets and a thermos of peppermint tea. An afternoon visit to a local library ended up with them sitting in the middle of the children’s section with kids climbing all over them as the librarian read The Grinch and other kids acted it out. 

A midnight excursion wandering through Paris, taking in all the amazing light displays led to another spent window shopping well after most Parisians were sleeping. He hadn’t ever really just looked at window displays for their artistic value before. 

The following night, all plans were thwarted by the Giftster - an akuma who wrapped everyone up in paper and  bows out of spite over a poorly wrapped gift. It took longer than she hoped to defeat the villain,leaving her a little sad that her plan for the night was ruined - the hot chocolate bar she’d put together cold and the whipped cream melted to liquid by the time they arrived. 

“It’s still purr-fect, Ladybug. I don’t mind at all. It’s the people we’re with that make the holidays special, not the temperature of the drink.” He poured himself a large mug of cocoa and piled the top full of marshmallows, syrup, and sprinkles.”Delicious.” 

---

Adrien’s view of Christmas shifted. The anticipation of Ladybug’s holiday shenanigans brought him more excitement than he had felt for the holidays in a long while. Nothing would ever replace the hole left by his mother’s disappearance, but at least this made him feel hopeful again instead of melancholy. With less than a week left to Christmas, he sat in his class for the last day before the two week break. Marinette lay flopped on her desk, possibly asleep, as Nino and Alya argued the merits of their gift wish lists. 

“What about you, Agreste?” Alya snapped, poking Marinette awake with her elbow. “What are you doing this Christmas? Any big plans?” 

He shrugged. “Not really.” 

“No running off and sending your dad into Christmas Godzilla mode this year, ok?” Nino quipped. Adrien felt himself flush. 

“I won’t,” he murmured. “Listen - last year was hard. The first Christmas without my mom, ok? She loved Christmas and it just feels … I don’t know. Christmas season is just …  hard for me. I miss her so much.” 

Realizing that he was killing their fun conversation, he decided to turn himself around.  “But don’t worry! No running off this year. I promise. I’ve actually had a friend from work making sure that Christmas is awesome. We’ve gone ice skating, watched a really fun holiday movie, and we even made these gingerbread houses - from scratch! Even Mother didn’t do that!”  

He told them all about the adventures that he’d been having and how special they’d made the holidays become, carefully avoiding any mention of their superhero selves. The more he rambled on about the activities he had been doing late in the nights with Ladybug, the more Marinette’s eyes grew wide. He stopped talking when she let out a strangled sound. 

“Are you ok, Marinette?” 

She sat frozen, statue-like for a long moment, staring blankly at him. Suddenly she jumped with a yelp, clutching at her side. 

“Oh, yep. Yep. Totally good. I’m totally fine. Everything’s fine.” She let out a wild and panicky laugh, blinking rapidly. “I’m good. Are you good? Everyone’s good, right? Ok. I’m just - I’m just - Ms. Bustier? May I be excused to use the bathroom?” 

And then she bolted, racing out of the classroom in a gangly, flailing pile of limbs. The whole classroom paused in their conversations for a quiet moment as they stared at the door, then with a universal shrug, returned to what they were doing. 

“That was weird,” muttered Alya, frowning. “Even for Marinette.” 

-----------

“Just breathe, Marinette. Breathe. In. Out. Innnnnnnn. Ouuuuuuuuuuut. Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Out.” 

From the bathroom stall she hid in, Marinette could hear and see her kwami giving anti-panic attack advice, a blurry red dot floating in front of her face, but she couldn’t process the words being said. Adrien Agreste. Chat Noir. Adrien Agreste? Chat Noir. Nope. It just had to be a coincidence that Adrien’s “friend from work” had taken him on all the same adventures that Ladybug had put together for Chat Noir. Totally a coincidence that Chat missed someone special while Adrien missed his mother. Just coincidence. 

Oh crap. 

Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste. ADRIEN AGRESTE WAS CHAT NOIR. 

She threw up in the toilet. 

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

Chat couldn’t quite put his finger on what was different that night as they listened from the rooftops to a group of carollers in one of the parks. Ladybug sat a little farther away than she usually did. She didn’t roll her eyes at his jokes or speak much at all. In fact, she didn’t even look him in the eyes. 

“Everything ok?” he asked finally, unable to stand the awkwardness any longer. Her head snapped at that, eyes connecting with his for the first time in the night. 

“Oh. Yes, sorry. I just found out something about a friend today and it’s been hard to work through, that’s all.” She smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile - her eyes skittering away from him. He frowned. 

“Want to talk about it? In generalized terms, I mean.”

She shook her head. 

“No. I’d rather just listen to the music, ok?” 

“Ok.”

The next evening, with only 2 days left to go before the big holiday arrived, Chat found himself at a local food bank, handing out meals to families whose faces shone with so much gratitude that it made him feel embarrassed to live as he did. Ladybug still seemed preoccupied. He smiled at her every time she tried to stealthily look at him, wondering exactly what was going on behind those brilliant blue eyes. 

At the end of their volunteer time, they escaped to the rooftops. 

“Are we doing anything special tomorrow?” he asked, wondering if the magical sense of Christmas had worn off for her. “It IS Christmas Eve after all.” 

She gave him a look he couldn’t quite define. 

“Are you ok, LB? You’ve been really … off for the last day or so.” 

He watched as she opened and closed her mouth like a fish for a moment before snapping it shut. She visibly straightened her back. 

“It’s nothing big, I promise, but yes - let’s meet at the tower tomorrow?” When he nodded, she flashed him an almost real smile before swinging off into the distance. 

Plagg had no ideas, simply focusing on his cheese and musing over whether Adrien had any stocking fillers planned. The kwami tapped suggestively at the pictures in his Gentleman’s Camembert magazine. 

Adrien gave up, hoping that whatever bothered Ladybug would be resolved by the time they got together tomorrow. 

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

Christmas Eve dawned bright and crisp, the cold smell of winter on the air. Marinette did not want to get out of the coziness that her oversized comforter provided. If it hadn’t been for the wail of her akuma alert alarm forcing her to drag herself out of bed, she might not have for the whole day. 

The realization that Adrien Agreste - face of perfection and heart of gold - and Chat Noir - jokester and  impulsive rogue were the same person had left her rattled. Marinette had needed a few days to process it all, but she was slowly coming to terms with how much it meant to her to discover the boy she deeply cared for was also her best friend. 

She swung across the city to find a Grinch-like akuma, green from head to toe with a red hat and coat. With a single touch, the lights and decorations found on the streets of Paris simply vanished. Anyone found in his path transformed into lumps of coal. 

“I think he has the wrong city. This isn’t Whoville.” Chat voice chirped happily - sickeningly so, given the early hour of the morning. “Good morning, milady.” 

“Morning, kitty.” With a yawn, she searched the akuma for clues where to find their target. “I’m guessing it’s the Santa hat. But we have to keep out of range of his hands. Turning to coal sounds like a terrible way to spend Christmas.” 

With a nod, he stood up and extended his baton with a grin. “40 feet.” Then he launched himself off the rooftops to place himself securely in the path of the opponent. 

“Hey, is that your resting Grinch face?” he taunted, starting his usual distraction methods. She watched for the briefest of moments as the akuma threw itself at her partner with a growl. If she could just sneak in behind while it was distracted, she could probably pull the hat from his head. 

Things never are that easy when fighting akumas. Realizing that a second superhero attempted to stealth attack him, the Grinch whirled around, knocking her to the ground mid-pendulum arch. She hit the ground with a roll, dodging away from the outstretched hand. Chat responded with a careful leap, vaulting himself towards the villain and narrowly missing the hat. Acrobatic flips moved him back out of the way of danger. 

A few cheesy puns about the Grinch and being green later, Chat still somehow managed to keep most of the attention on himself while Ladybug attempted another grab for the hat. Failing, the Grinch growled, grabbing onto Chat’s baton and flinging the cat boy into the air. Ladybug watched in horror as her partner landed right in the akuma’s grip, wide-eyed and legs kicking.

Mere seconds felt like hours, a black heaviness overcoming Chat from his toes to his face. She screamed his name, panic clawing at her heart. No. No! Her yo-yo whirred with renewed vigour, calling her Lucky Charm. Into her hands dropped a carefully wrapped, red-polka dotted present with a tag reading “For the Grinch.” 

A plan clicked into place. 

“Oh, Mr. Grinch. I have something for you.” The akuma dropped the lifeless stone figure of Chat Noir to the pavement with a loud thud, turning its attention instead to her. She thrust the present at him with a smile, which made him stop and cock his head sideways with a frown. If she hadn’t been so focused on where the hands of her opponent were in that moment, she would have started singing. After all, music won the day in the story of the Grinch - hadn’t it? 

“Merry Christmas.” 

Cautiously, the akuma accepted the gift, settling down on the pavement beside Chat’s coal statue to rip open the paper and see what his gift was. The moment the lid popped free, a brilliant flash of light went off, blinding the akuma long enough for Ladybug to grab the hat and tear it apart. Away fluttered the butterfly, captured a moment later in her yo-yo with a snap. Bubbles enveloped the akumatized victim. In its place sat a confused man. 

Grabbing the remaining pieces of the gift box, Ladybug threw it up into the air with a shout, releasing the Miraculous butterflies. They swirled around everything. Lights and decorations reappeared. People changed back from coal to themselves. She watched with relief as Chat emerged from his own coal statue, throwing her arms around his neck. 

“Whoa!” he yelped, arms wrapping around her to prevent himself from falling backwards onto the pavement. 

“Stupid cat,” she murmured, prying herself free to pay attention to the man on the ground nearby. Helping him to his feet, she found herself giving Chat the chance to interact with the victim - watching in silence as her partner graciously reassured the man that everything was okay now and Christmas hadn’t been ruined. 

With a wave, they escaped to the rooftops. 

“So,” drawled Chat, giving her the most curious of looks. “I have a question for you. Why did you shout ‘Adrien’ when I turned to coal?” 

Certain that her heart stopped, Ladybug froze. She hadn’t. Had she? She blinked at him, wondering exactly what to say, brain scrambling for words. 

“Why would I call you Adrien? That’s just silly. You aren’t Adrien - you’re Chat Noir. Completely different people. You must have heard wrong. I’m sure I shouted for you, silly cat. Chat Noir. Not Adrien.” Realizing that she rambled stupidly, she snapped her mouth shut and waited. 

He narrowed his eyes at her, the gaze heavy and searching before he laughed. “Of course. I must have been mistaken. See you tonight then, LB?” 

She nodded and he saluted before running off. Breathing a sigh of relief, she headed home, hoping to get a little more sleep before the busy part of the day before Christmas required her attention. 

-------

“She knows, Plagg. I don’t know how, but she knows who I am.” Adrien lay flat on his bed, arms thrown wide, eyes staring at the ceiling. “Is that why she’s been acting strange lately? Maybe she figured out who I am and doesn’t like that it’s me!” 

A million ideas and thoughts raced through his mind, distracting him through the day’s schedules. Appearances here, appearances there. Fake smiles and poses for media cameras. No family time like all his friends. His Instagram feed showcased Nino and his brother working on making cookies, Alya’s family sitting around in their PJs playing board games, Marinette hard at work in the bakery with her parents. Sitting in the back of the car that drove him everywhere, Adrien felt that emptiness that always seeped in around Christmas. Alone, isolated, and now - Ladybug knew who he was to the point of not being able to look him in the eye. Christmas sucked. 

When their designated meetup time approached, he dutifully transformed into Chat Noir, stuffing the gift he’d put chosen for her into one of his pockets. Hopefully she would at least like that. 

Ladybug stood on their favourite platform of the Eiffel Tower, pacing back and forth with wild arm gestures. She must have really been deep in thought since she didn’t even hear him land on the metal railing. 

“Merry Christmas!” he called out, making her jump in surprise, hand clutched to her heart and blue eyes popped open wide in a strangely familiar and out-of-place motion. 

“Oh, Chat. You scared me.” He chuckled. “Merry Christmas.” 

“So, what’s on the plans for tonight’s Christmas adventure?” he asked. “Anything exciting?” 

She blinked twice, staring at him for longer than should feel comfortable. 

“Oh. Right. I thought I’d give you a special gift. It’s a tradition that my family has to open one gift each on Christmas Eve, so I thought it would be fun to do that with you.” 

It would be fun, he thought. As long as she still liked him. 

“Can I go first?” he asked, pulling the small package from his pocket and thrusting it at her. “It’s not much, but it seemed to scream like the gift you needed.” 

Inside held two small pins. The first - a tiny ladybug with closed wings, the other - a small white circle with a set of black cat ears and green eyes peeking up from the bottom. She laughed, telling him that his gift was wonderful and that she’d find the perfect place for them. 

She took a deep breath before she passed him a gift bag. 

“For you.” 

Carefully, he pulled out the tissue paper and unwrapped something soft. Into his hand fell a palm-sized hand-stitched doll of himself - Chat Noir. Digging into the bag more, he found a matching Ladybug. Something nagged in the back of his mind that he’d seen dolls like these before - back when Manon had been akumatized. Marinette had made dolls that Manon wanted to play with. He flipped them over to admire the neat stitching work and attention to detail.

“These are adorable. Thank you so much. Did you get these from Marinette Dupain-Cheng? I think she had some similar to these.” 

She made a funny sound before answering. “Kind of? I made them for you.” 

She had made them? He frowned in confusion. 

Ladybug stepped forward, pulling the dolls gently out of his hands and putting them back in the bag before putting it on the ground. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and moved so that she was achingly close. 

“Tikki. Spots off.” 

He didn’t have time to close his eyes, other than to wince slightly at the bright and unexpected flash of pink light as Ladybug’s transformation dropped. In her place stood Marinette herself, a heavy black cat-ear hoodie pulled up over her head. An homage to himself, he realized. Two heartbeats later, she raised herself up on her tiptoes, hands clutching at his arms, warm lips pressing against his. 

She stepped back before he could even react, whispering “Merry Christmas, my kitty - Adrien Agreste.” 

He stared into her bluebell eyes, the pieces of the puzzle in his life clicking together in the most wonderful of ways. She did know. And she kissed him. Marinette Dupain-Cheng had turned a season full of disappointment and missing his mother into something full of memories and wonder. She had turned it into the best Christmas he had ever had. 

“Thank you, milady Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Merry Christmas to you, too.” 

As he dared to pull her close and kiss her for real, he realized that snowflakes were falling gently on Paris. How romantic.

#ml secret santa #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #lyramaearcher #miraculous fanworks #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #marinette and adrien #ladybug and chat noir #identity reveal #christmas #christmas fun

[every1studio]

true feelings series: “july: the falling out” [ateez: hongjoong]

genre: angst + slight fluff (non idol!au)

ficstyle: bulletpoints + oneshot + series [YUNHO] [HONGJOONG]

prompt: a series for feelings that one would experience for the sake of “love”

note: I know that it’s been a long time and this isn’t going to be a big RETURN to tumblr. I’ve been going through a lot; I’ve been so unmotivated and just going through a roller coaster of emotions. So if it’s not too much, I kinda wanna write a little of what I’m going through in this piece... I hope you don’t mind. Until next time, Yenni.

a/n: this is inspired by this song “JULY,” on SOUNDCLOUD. Check Valerie Thai out!!! 

you remembered when you met him for the first time in July

it was at a little boutique street on 29th Avenue

you were working part time at a music instrument shop

the air conditioning in the shop kept you sane as you were busy carefully wiping the dust off of the display instruments

the tranquil sound of bells chimed as you got up to welcome in the customer 

you were kind of stunned

it was cliche to think that he was the most handsome guy you’ve ever seen in your life; but you weren’t wrong

he smiled as you welcomed him into the shop as he patted the sweat running from his sideburns, “I must be blessed to come across a place with some strong a/c..”

he looks around the shop as he admired the instruments hanging all around and secretly at you

“I should come here more often..” the guy mumbled

“and you should..” you mumbled back, so sure that he wasn’t able to hear you 

“hmm? why is that?” your face beamed with embarrassment as he shot a smile of curiosity at you

 “uH.. We hAVe a gOOd seLEcTion oF inSTrumeNts.. and stuff...” you tried to direction his attention away from you 

“I’m looking for a nice acoustic guitar.. could you help out?” 

how could he be so smiley and so calm? he must be a player

you nodded but you kept your guard up

finally you were able to get your mind off of his distracting face and went to something you were familiar with 

you always had a love for music; ever since you were little 

so when your uncle opened up a music instrument shop, you were quick to ask him to work there 

the guy caught himself looking at you more than the guitars you showed him 

how could he not?

you were so excited to show him your favorite guitars as well as some popular ones 

he could tell that you loved music just as much as he did

it showed in your eyes 

“I think this one is good for you, what do you think?” he woke up from his daydream of a daze 

“I think that I should ask you out on a date- BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO IF YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE!” you could tell that mid-sentence he got red, so red that you could feel it burn up to your ears 

“I wouldn’t mind going on a date with you..” you whispered, gripping onto the neck of the guitar 

the smiley guy stuck his hand out for you to take, “I’m Hongjoong..”

“I’m Y/N”

...

A COUPLE YEARS PASSED 

it was the end of summer when you reminisced over the times you spent with Hongjoong 

where you met

where you had your first date

when you two shared your first kiss 

when you two had your first fight

how he made you feel then

how he made you feel now 

you were so sure that you two were going to last forever 

where did it all go wrong? 

you could tell that the longer you stayed with him, the more he fell out of love with you 

the little voice inside your head won

telling you that you weren’t going to make him feel like he did when he first met you

telling you that even if you gave him your whole heart, he wouldn’t take it 

your insecurities pushed yourself away from him 

the words that weren’t said out loud were the missing piece to fixing your relationship 

but in the end, they were never said  

the beginning of July was the last time you two talked 

there was no closure 

a small and petty fight grew into a larger one that had nothing to do with what was spoken about at the beginning of the conversation 

after all the yelling, you stopped for a second

you were a whimpering mess as Hongjoong’s knuckles were white, holding himself back from something, you will never know

“do you still love me?” you whispered

you knew that he heard you, but you didn’t hear a reply 

“when did you stop loving me?”

after a few moments, he just grabbed his jacket and left 

you were bewildered as you collapsed onto your knees 

Hongjoong could hear your muffled cries behind the other side of your door

he made it outside the place that you two shared, but he couldn’t step away from it 

he didn’t know why he left you like that

everything just felt different, it wasn’t the same anymore

he waited for you to stop crying before he called his friend, Seonghwa, if he could crash at his place 

you couldn’t sleep that night

when you closed your eyes, he was there

when you opened your eyes, you were hit with realization that your room will no longer have him in it 

even as you wrapped yourself with the blanket, you were still cold 

his warmth was no longer there and it made you uncomfortable 

slowly but surely, you dragged your feet to continue on with your life without Hongjoong in it

Hongjoong didn’t know how to confront you; even after spending a part of his life with you for years, it was like he didn’t know you 

the both of you had mutual feelings that the two of you were able to move on

the landlord called for him to pick up his things

that was when he found that the you moved out of the place that you two once called home 

you quit your job at the music instrument shop 

you changed your number 

you deleted him out of your social medias, out of your life 

well.. you tried to 

despite of all of that, you couldn’t help but go by 29th Avenue 

so many memories were held on this street 

what if you called out to him that night?

what if you hugged him to stay?

what if?

you never said goodbye

there wasn’t closure

but it was for sure the end of the relationship 

you sat on the balcony of your new apartment 

you looked over the city as the warm summer breeze got caught in your hair

you stretched as you breathed in the air of your new life 

as you were stretching, an old guitar at the corner of your room caught your eye 

your arms fell to your side as you walked over to it 

you gave it a small melancholy smile as you sat down next to it

“it’s been too long..”

...

JULY OF THE NEXT YEAR

Hongjoong adjusted his headset before going live on his live radio show

Hongjoong was a famous radio star and he dug a grave in his work to forget about you 

“Hey everyone~ I hope you’re in a place with some nice, cool A/C~” 

like an old record, he was reminded of the first time he met you 

“I’m going play some songs that you guys have been requesting me to play on this station so let’s get to it!”

he scrolls down to read the first comment that caught his attention 

Hongjoong clears his throat before he read the comment out loud, “From: Byul1117 “Hongjoong, I LOVE listening to your station so much! there’s this song that I’ve been listening to on REPEAT, listening to it is like drinking a glass of lemonade on a hot day in July. I recently discovered this artist and I’ve been obsessed with this song, it’s called “JULY” by Y/N! please check it out, it’s on soundcloud!!””

he froze after he read the comment

there’s no way that it was you.. right? 

other people can have the same name 

“thanks so much for the support, Byul1117.. let’s listen to “JULY” by Y/N..”

he turns off his mic as his staff plays the song that was requested

the moment you started singing, he knew it was you

did you write music before?

did your voice always sound this beautiful yet sad?

who was the inspiration of this song?

was it him?

as the song went on, he remembered everything that the two of you did 

he unintentionally smiled as he remembered telling you that he fell in love with you for the second time on your first date at the quaint boba shop 

remembered on how you looked at him in confusion, “when was the first time?”

he kissed your hand like some sort of prince before answering, “when I opened the door of a certain music instrument shop..”

you jokingly cringed as you pulled away from him, “are you actually this CHEESY?!”

the music slows as you sang that you’d be waiting for him at the place where you two had your first date

the month of July held so much for him and for you 

when the song ends, he wanted to get up and run to where you said you were waiting 

but he couldn’t; the rest of the broadcast was a blur to him 

as soon as it ended, he ran to that street; 29th Avenue 

Hongjoong couldn’t lie

he felt like it wasn’t the same

but that was because he didn’t make an effort to keep it that way 

all of this was his fault and he knew it 

and he knew deep down inside, that you wouldn’t be blaming yourself for what happened 

what felt like an eternity passed, he made it to the shop 

he was out of breath but that was the least of his concern 

you never left his mind

everywhere he went he was reminded of you

maybe it was too late for him to do anything at this point

he didn’t know how to get to you when he felt like you were the one that was slowly pushing him away 

Hongjoong hoped that you were there waiting for him 

he was about to enter the shop when someone else enters before him 

you got up with a smile 

Hongjoong was so sure that you saw him 

that you would run into his arms again and start over 

but you ran into the arms of another man 

you showed him a smile that was once only shown to Hongjoong 

in those 60 seconds, it was like it played in slow motion 

you had moved on 

you were happy 

how could he enter your life again after seeing that you got back on your feet without him?

Hongjoong sat down at a table with his back to you as he heard you making your way out of the door

“did he ever visit you? I heard someone requested your song on his radio show..” the man who was accompanying you opened the door for you

“no.. but there’s no helping it, we both walked out of each other’s life. for better or for worse.. I’m not going to lie, he still crosses my mind. especially in July.. I hope he’s doing well..” your voice comes to a stop

Hongjoong could tell that you were about to cry, even without looking at you 

“I’ve been longing for closure for so long.. that now..now that I have you.. I don’t want it.. I don’t need it..” you murmured through tears the gently rolled off your face

the man before you wipes your tears away, “I don’t want you to bottle your feelings.. I want you to tell me everything that you’re going through.. I want to be there for you when you have the slightest feeling of sadness.. I want to be there.. as your boyfriend..”

both you and Hongjoong went wide-eyed, “Yunho..”

“even if you can’t accept me, I’ll be by your side... because I know how hard it was for you to go through the things that you did-”

“thank you Yunho..”

Hongjoong was clenching his hands, hoping that you’d turn him down

please, please, please; Hongjoong was holding his breath

“I would feel assured if you were by my side.. as my boyfriend..”

Hongjoong’s heart’s battery depleted as Yunho’s was energized 

“okay okay okay, let’s go to the movies before it’s too late,” Yunho happily picked you up and ran off 

as you two ran off, you were so sure that you saw Hongjoong 

but you didn’t say anything, because if you did, you would probably get closure... 

and if you got closure, you’d tell him how much you missed him

and if you told him how much you missed him, you’d fall for him for the third time 

Hongjoong smiled as streams of tears ran onto his hand

the hand that still had the cheap gunmetal couple ring you got for the both of you on your first anniversary 

he always had trouble taking off the ring because that would mean that he would finally move on from you 

but he couldn’t so he didn’t 

now?

seeing you finally be happy without him was a sort of closure he didn’t know he needed

he took off the ring as it was coated with his choked up tears 

and left it on the table at the place where you two had your first date 

29th Avenue in July was something that would always cross his mind 

and it was something that would always cross yours

End.

[ masterlist + guidelines ]

#ateez #ateez writing #ateez fluff #ateez reactions #ateez scenarios #Ateez hongjoong #kim hongjoong #hongjoong scenarios #ateez kim hongjoong #ateez au #ateez angst #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x atiny #ateez x male reader #ateez blurb #ateez oneshot

[sunriseintropicisle]

Things that makes me happier

I gave up posting number in front of my post title, initially it was to mark whether I reach the goal of posting a writing every week, which made me had to post 52 writings for the year of 2021, and by this point I am pretty sure I am not gonna reach that number so yes, we can forget it. 

So I personally feel like recently I am in a better state of being, and have lots of idea coming up in my head. While I still religiously write on my handwritten journal, I feel like writing, in case my nonexistent reader would like to know, or give some inspirations. Lol, like who you are. 

No, really, I am just really believe in sharing, and I would love to know if my mundane knowledge or experience be insightful even to only one other person. Because I myself found multiple times that a knowledge/sharing that someone posted online impacted me greatly - hence I am just thinking about the other me who may be seeking the things I am about to say/share. 

Things that makes me happier are:

Intermittent Fasting

I have been doing IF for 2 weeks now, and yeah, it makes me feel good. I started initially because, duh, like everyone else, I wanted to lose weight. Some might want to kick me in the ass for saying such thing, and assure me that I have normal body and yada yada. And, as straight forward as it is - I just want to be as skinny as possible. Hahaha. Maybe it is something to do with me very sold into the standard beauty, or maybe it’s got to do with something in the past - I was quite cheeky. 

However, even though I always say that I want to lose weight, over the years I have never really made the effort. Some days I took it hard some days it just a normal day, me eating this and that and whatnot. But then I have noted the intention of  me wanting to be so skinny, on top of those beauty standard I believe have huge impact in me and a quite hard time in the past for being cheeky is because it simply makes me feel lighter, not holding anything within my body. Because for the context and some TMI, I have a not so good digestion, so yeah. There was a period of the time that I often I feel stuffed and bloated - which felt so uncomfortable, that I can’t stand working while sitting because I felt my stomach is getting on my way.

I tried IF a while back, and it worked for me, so now I decided to try it again now. Intention achieved. I believe it was because the time window for eating that pool all the food I eat in a day to be only consumed for certain times (I do 7 hours, my best convenience). I used to eat on times where, looking back, I was not really hungry, you know. Like breakfast - turned out (I don’t know why I forget about this) that I am not a breakfast person. All through high school I don’t remember myself sitting, eating breakfast in my uniform. 

But then I just picked up a habit of eating breakfast while my stomach is actually not really ready for it, which end up making me feel bloated that last long all through lunch and pretty much for the day - and then without me knowing the new day has begin, and the cycle starts all over. 

So yeah, IF had helped me to be to schedule my eating time which made my digestion works better I guess, and no more me having a bloated stomach constantly.

Quitting Social Media

Finally I succeed in cutting myself with social media. This, I also had tried in the beginning of the pandemic I guess - went on without social media for weeks and at that time I really felt the benefit and all, until I came back to social media and can not disconnect ever since. Even though I have been wanting to detox myself, but at the same time I felt really dependent on it.

It took me one lows moment of life to finally be able to went cold turkey about disconnecting. It was when I felt frustrated on Twitter news where every day it seems like there were a bad news - people died, people lost jobs, people complaining, the news about our incompetent and corrupt government and so on. Without me realizing, it took a toll on myself. Other than that was me who checking in Linkedin constantly at the time and seeing my friends’ profile whose climbing up the corporate ladder, while I was unsure and questioning whether I am in the right place (sounds like the problem of these days youth who lives in their own bubble, yeah?). 

So one Friday where I had one of my breakdown, I went MIA for the weekend to the people who are close to me, as well as to my social media. It’s only been 2 weeks now, but it is safe to say that I can reclaim myself within these times, suddenly lots of thinking came up to me, as if all these times the bad news maybe somewhat oppress it or something. And, I also feel more certain about what is going on my mind/heart. 

I believe quitting social media has its downside as well, as like I really am not having an update on the news (90% of my news source is Twitter - how sad yet could not be truer for most of us), I completely blind on our Covid update I even think that Covid is slowing down in the territory. Yeah, as expected you lose win some as well as you lose some, but for now at leas, I decided to win for myself. 

Olympic 2020

I have never watched Olympic before, as far as I remember. Nor that I care about it. But this time is different. I believe the fact that we are on privilege to be in the safety of home have a huge part in me having the opportunity to watch the Olympic - thanks for that. For almost two weeks I was hooked to my TV, even one time I was on my TV from 6am to 10pm and watched all the games they aired. 

To have the company to watch was a big advantage as well. As now I have my sibling in the house, I teamed up with my sister to watch the Olympic, we both did not know that we enjoyed it so much that we invested in each game we watched. We cheered for athletics, we scream for badminton, we gasped for weightlifting. It was a very fun experience. For almost two weeks I change my work station in front of the TV and so did my sister. 

On top of that, what made Olympic special and very intrigued me was the diversity of the athletes. I guess I just did not exposed to such diversity as it was presented in the Olympic. I was presented with some very foreign countries whose name I hardly heard, or the people whose features were different one another. 

Questions like why some sports dominated my a certain race while other sports dominated by others also popped out in my head. And not to mention my awed to each of these Olympian athletes when they perform their sports, I always wonder what it takes for them to be there right now - how many years of training, how much tears were sacrificed and relationships had to be let go. There were just so many elements of the Olympics that made me really drawn and invested in it. 

Youtube

Surprise, surprise. 

Well, my attraction to Youtube recently was different because of the previous para - Olympic. Because of getting really drawn into the Olympic athlete, I was searching lots of reference videos. And as we all know how we are being spied and we are mere a number for these big tech companies, they get to know me better know and present me with more content that I love (or else I had never discovered). 

I am not sure what I searched previously, but Youtube chose that I now an avid cultural researcher, jk. Yeah, I watched a lot about something culture-related on Youtube because it is funny, looking back, I was once really attracted to be a global citizen and what not (what a flavor of youth!!), traveling the world, meeting people from other countries, make impact in the NGO (before long I know the NGOs are mostly funded by big corporations as well, heart breaking reality for me). 

What I am saying is that the savvy man-made tech of Youtube has made me rediscover my old interest about culture! And I just actually learn that you can learn a lot from Youtube’s comment section, which debates often open up you to things which are (1) people can comment based on data and have every intention to educate other people; and (2) people more often be ignorant, and how much you are on the right stance, with the wrong people, you can still be, yeah wrong. 

Somehow the lesson I gained in the Youtube’s comment section was really grounding to me to realize these polar of people, and in the end what you can do is only simply be you because after all, people really will hold on to their own opinion and belief. 

Jigsaw Puzzle 

RECCOMENDED 100/100. Damn, wasn’t it a good choice when one day I decided to try out jigsaw puzzle to entertained myself while waiting my partner to reply my chat message? 

On the one of the breakdown moment I mentioned I believe that I had to have distraction and I thought of either a puzzle or a coloring book. I ended up buying both, but I am positive that I am more drawn to jigsaw puzzle. I first ordered a 1500 piece puzzle and when it first came, I kind of secretly afraid that I will give up. Also my mother being my mother and she was pessimist that I would finish the puzzle. 

But one time I was just playing by myself, not expecting anything or even asked anyone to help me (afraid that I put too much task on other people), yet my sister helped me out, and a while after my mom helped we out as well. Resulting in the puzzle finished in 3 days. Soon after I order new puzzle, and so did my sister. Her order came first and it was a 1000 pieces puzzle, which we finished in 2 hours (boo, it turned out to be too easy), and now we are opening up our 3rd puzzle and tried to work on it. 

I am just really happy that I discovered it, it is really great way to bond and filling time. And every time I successfully put the pieces together - that just very satisfying feelings! I believe I will have more and more puzzle to come in the near future. 

--

I hope one of the thing above will work out for you and make you happier as well as it had affected me. 🤗

#mentariwrites #mentaridaily #happier #puzzle #lockdown

[immortalbutonlybyname]

Reviewing Dramas I have watched part 3

My rating system goes like this: 1- Did not like, 2- Enjoyed but probably wouldn’t watch again, 3- Enjoyed and would watch some episodes again (or for movies may watch again), 4- Enjoyed and would watch again, 5- Loved 

TV Series

Pinocchio: 4/5

Trigger warning: Suicide, Victim blaming, attempted murder, actual murder

Pinocchio is about a kid who, after a massive tragedy blown up and twisted by the media causes his mother to attempt a murder suicide by throwing them both in the ocean, gets washed ashore a small neighboring island and takes on the identity of a old man with dementia’s deceased son. Him along with his “niece” who has Pinocchio syndrome, where one will get uncontrollable hiccups whenever they lie, must work to become reporters for two different goals and find themselves facing a giant conspiracy and a question of fact versus impact in media. I really enjoyed this show, it was especially nice how each episode was named after a children’s story. I began this show because I really loved Lee Jong-Suk’s acting in High School 2015 and I was not disappointed. The episodes had a lot of painful scenes but also plenty of funny scenes to balance it out. It kept my interest really well throughout and I don’t remember an episode where I was bored. It does have darker themes so I would be wary of those if you are sensitive to such themes.

I Can Hear Your Voice: 4/5

Trigger Warning: Attempted murder, Actual murder, Victim blaming

I Can Hear Your Voice follows a woman who witnessed the murder of a father and the attempted murder the victim’s son, despite her fear she decides to testify as a witness. Her statement and evidence as a witness gets the criminal a guilty sentence, effectively making the murder wish to seek revenge. Years later, she is a lazy, cold public defense attorney who does not care for her clients and lacks manners, the young man whom she saved from the murderer and helped is actually a telepath and they meet again. The two of them, along with a former police officer turned lawyer, work together to help those who are truly innocent while also protecting themselves once the murderer has finished his sentence and begins to seek revenge. This show was great, it was funny, sad, annoying, and cute. I watched this one shortly after Pinocchio and it was kind of similar in feel but personally a little more interesting in my opinion. There were a lot of moral dilemmas that not only the characters but I as a viewer struggled with. I even got on my group chat with my friends and asked them about the issues and they struggled as well. I liked a lot of the characters, including the female prosecutor who is the main’s rival. Overall a really great show, definitely worth watching.

Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency: 5/5

Warnings: Forced suicide, OCD/Nervous habit/ possible hint to self-harm warning.

Flower Crew is about a former, escaped slave who becomes a member of the most sought-after marriage agency in Joseon era Korea after her husband disappears before their wedding leaving her with many debts to the aforementioned agency. She soon finds herself in a very sensitive situation of pretending to be noble and going through the queen choosing tests to save her slave brother, all while trying to decide if she loves the cold, stand offish leader of the marriage agency or if her heart is still after her missing fiance. The best thing about this show is that each character gets their backstory and closure they needed. Usually with shows, my favorite characters (as they are usually the secondary ones) never get the closure or even backstory they deserve. In usual my review fashion, I will not lie to you, I found out about this show about a week before the first episode aired and decided to watch it as it aired mainly because Park Ji-hoon was one of the main actors in it, and he didn’t let me down, he was a proper cringey asshole but I loved him so much. I was worried as the show progressed that he wouldn’t have a proper backstory and only the few hints they threw at me that I would have to piece together, but I was more than pleased when his arc finally came. It was definitely worth the wait and while waiting I ended up loving all the other characters and actors/actresses involved in this show. Definitely would recommend however, dark themes are a regular.

Beating Again (aka Falling for Innocence): 4/5

Trigger Warning: Heart conditions

Beating Again or Falling for Innocence depending on where you watch it, is about a stern, cold hearted man with a genetic heart disease and a kind but serious secretary whose father betrayed the main character’s father when they were kids making them enemies.  After a set of coincidences, the main character goes through a heart transplant and ends up with the heart of the secretary’s husband. Shortly after the transplant he begins to experience new mannerisms and personality traits that were once the husbands as well as finding himself falling for his secretary. Throughout the show they work to fix his past mistakes, trying to find out what exactly happened to the secretary’s husband, all while figuring out if he is the one in love or if it is his heart who loves her. I really enjoyed this drama; it was more on the serious side most times but had some great humorous moments as well. It also did an amazing job at pissing me off towards the end, most kdrama’s do but this ish was next level anger. I saw it on YouTube and decided to watch it while bored one day and I was not disappointed it was such a great show.

Who Are You School 2015: 2/5

Trigger Warning: Attempted suicide, HEAVY Bullying, Depression, Victim blaming,  

Who Are You School 2015 is about two long lost twins, one living the life of a pretty well off school bully and the other still living in an orphanage and being ruthlessly bullied. After the bullied twin attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge, the adopted twin who just happened to be nearby due to a school trip saves her. The bullied twin wakes up with amnesia and gets mistaken as the adopted twin, but as she gains her memory she discovers that while she lived the twin who saved her died in her place leaving her with not only guilt for surviving but also with the blame of the death of a friend from her sisters past. This story deals with finding who she truly is and coming to terms with her past while also trying to find the truth behind her sister’s past. This was a good show, however it took me forever to finish as the content messed with my own mental state if I watching too many episodes at one time (and I am a perfectly healthy person mentally so please be careful when choosing to watch), a few episodes was okay for me but when I first attempted to binge it was not a very good idea. I did honestly watch it for Yook Sungjae as I loved his performance in Goblin and while I knew what I was getting into, I did not expect it to affect me as much, his acting is great as usual and his story line just broke my heart. This show also does have a love triangle and it’s honestly the worst written most dissatisfying love triangle I have probably ever personally seen, so, there’s that. Once again very good show, however, practice caution if you are at all sensitive to these topics.

A Korean Odyssey: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Jump Scares, Anorexia, Self-Harm (sort of)

A Korean Odyssey is loosely based off of the famous Chinese story A Journey to the West. It follows Jin Seon Mi, a young girl who can see ghosts and Son O-gong, a former monkey deity reduced to the status of a common monster after being punished and kicked out of the spirit realm. After Seon Mi frees O-gong from the marble mountains she is cursed with the fate of Samjang, a human who must protect the world from evil spirits. If the Samjang is devoured, the monster who eats her becomes incredibly and uncontrollably powerful. O-gong wants to eat her to gain this power, however a deal made to get Seon-Mi to release him from the mountains, stops him. In fear of O-gong, Seon Mi, with the help of the demon king, gives the monkey deity a Geumganggo, a magical bracelet which makes it impossible to go against the words of or hurt the one who has gifted it, with an unexpected side effect, he is now uncontrollably in love with her. Now Seon Mi has to deal with saving the world from horrible destruction all while dealing with a head over heels and hating every second of it, deity meanwhile questioning both her feelings for him and his true feelings for her. I absolutely love this show. It is my favorite kdrama to date, I am actually watching it a second time with my friend and we are about halfway through, then a few days ago started watching it over again with my older sister so I would say this was deserving of a 5 ranking. I really love all the characters honestly (minus the main bad guys but no spoilers, if you’ve seen it you know who they are) they are all equally assholes and precious children who must be protected. I have to admit though, my favorite story line was the devil king and my favorite character has got to be the shopkeeper’s grandson despite his lack of scenes. I have never seen or heard of One (Jung Jae-won) before this show but I love him so much now. I actually watched this for Hong-ki (notice a pattern, but hey, at least I am honest in my biases.), but I finished this show with more favorite characters than I thought was possible. It does have ghosts and demons which can be creepy to some, but as someone who has yet to be affected by scary movies such as The Ring, and the whole Conjuring series, it really just looks to me like those demon snapchat filters so it’s not actually scary. Overall an amazing show, definitely recommend, 110% worth watching.

Korean Movies

Secretly, Greatly: 5/5

Trigger Warnings: Graphic images of gore, Mass suicide mentioned, Suicide, Death and Loss

Secretly, Greatly is about three North Korean spies who were sent to South Korea and are given disguises as a fool, an aspiring singer, and a high school student. They soon become accustomed to South Korean lifestyle and find happiness in each other, wanting to live their lives happily instead of spying for North Korea. After an information leak of all the identities of the North Korean spies they must stick together to survive while being hunted down by both sides. It’s a movie about finding family and happiness even in the toughest situations, questioning where one’s loyalty lies, and the strength of the bonds between those who have nothing but each other.

Northern Limit Line: 2/5 and 5/5 explained below

Trigger Warning: Graphic images of gore, Death and Loss, Actual funeral footage,

Northern Limit line is a movie based of the true story of the North Korean attack of South Korean naval ships during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It follows the crew members on one of the navy patrol boats, from when Corporal Park Dong-hyuk joins, to after the attack. This movie is really great, and I still love it. The ONLY reason I am giving this a 2/5 is because it messed me up for three whole days afterward. I was an emotional wreck; I had no previous knowledge of this attack and the extent of my knowledge of the movie going in was that it was based off a true incident of a North Korean attack. While I don’t regret watching it, I would probably never watch it again unless I really really wanted to and had like 3 days of free time to be emotionally damaged simply because of the heavy content of the movie thus the 2/5. It is rather graphic with quite a few shocking scenes and even real clips of the actual funerals of the fallen crew members and their families grieving. I cried, and honestly still feel like crying as I am writing this. I did lots of research on the incident afterward as well to further understand the content of the movie. Every actor did amazing in portraying the highs and lows of serving in the South Korean navy and the eventual close friendship between all of the crew only made it even more tragic. If you are able to handle the heavy material of this movie, I highly recommend it as it truly is an amazing and sad story that everyone should see at least once.

The Con Artists: 4/5

The Con Artists is about Ji-hyuk, a thief that specializes in safe-cracking who teams up with the young genius hacker Jong-bae, and the planner Goo-in for their biggest mission yet, to steal $150 million from Incheon Customs in 40 minutes. This show was pretty good, I liked all the twists and turns as the movie basically took you on a roller coaster ride throughout. At one point I was thoroughly pissed off, but I was played, and it only made the movie better. If you are looking for plot twists galore, you are in the right place with this one. I can’t really say much about it without giving any spoilers (that’s how elaborate it is) so I shall end this review here. Highly recommend!

Taiwanese Movies

Secrets in the Hot Springs: 5/5

Trigger Warning: Death and Loss, Jump Scares, ghosts

Three teens who have begrudgingly, at least to two of them, become friends go to one of the characters families hot spring to help run the place during school break, strange and hilarious things begin happening around them. They now must figure out the secret behind the mysterious hot spring. Personally, I feel this movie is so underrated, so much so I can not even find a gif for it so, have a picture. I decided randomly to watch this movie after boredom scrolling through Netflix one day and I am so glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it and did end up watching it again the day after. It’s really cute, if not a little awkward at points, and definitely hilarious. I didn’t find it exactly scary because the humor really distracted me. Some of the humor might not land exactly right with some people, like the constant mention and jokes of two of the boys being in a relationship together when neither were gay. I personally didn’t mind these and see them simply as a culture difference, but some may be a little more sensitive to these materials. Overall, I recommend this movie to anyone who wants a funny, slightly suspenseful, feel good movie to watch.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

Part 5

#review #k-drama #Korean movies #chinese movies #Pinocchio k-drama #Pinocchio #i can hear your voice #flower crew: joseon marriage agency #flower crew #beating again #falling for innocence #who are you school 2015 #a korean odyssey #hwayugi #secretly greatly #northern limit line #the con artists #secrets in the hot springs #taiwanese movies #taiwanese drama #netflix #korean movies #korean movie

[paperclipninja]

Younger post-ep ramble 6x04

Well now, we’ve hit a rather interesting point in the season now haven’t we? Can you say DRAH-MAH. This week’s episode, ‘An Inside Glob’, sees the tension that’s been mounting in the first three episodes of season 6 reach boiling point. And then boil over. Into a restaurant full of onlookers. Then onto Reddit. Lol. Now I may be biased because of my love of Miriam Shor (or I am simply an appreciator of good directing when I see it), but this week’s ep was so well put together, it felt like there was ample room for each scene to breathe and the pacing overall felt significantly less frantic than it sometimes does. There was a familiarity, for lack of a better word, about the structure and the feel of this ep, not to mention the writing left me legit laughing out loud many times throughout. The writers are bringing it this season. We also see the welcome return of two faves: Charles’ three-piece suit and Liza’s silver-suit power-tude. Let’s dive on in.

You always know it’s going to be a good ep when it opens with a loft heart-to-heart between Liza and Maggie, but not before Liza meets Maggie’s new boo Beth (with Liza’s ‘ew’ and hand wiping after Maggie tells her they just finished a session equal parts gold and gross). Their whole interaction, from the ‘I promise not to call him Chaz’ (was anyone else hoping she would call him Chaz, because I was HANGING for a Chaz drop at dinner. There’s still time...), to Liza sharing her concerns that Charles is secretly financing a new company and Maggie trying to justify all the coincidences and reassure her, it was just premium bff content. Not to mention a great set-up for the episode and follow on from the last one.

Liza continues to try and allay her suspicions about Charles by getting Kelsey’s view of the funding source after the morning meeting with my new fave power-trio (quick poll: Zane always looking like a dog who just ate your pizza - accurate or nay?) and Diana brings the top quality delivery of one liners right from the get-go as we’re introduced to this week’s author, Bronwyn Madigan (aka, the cash cow whose milk Millennial could use...yes, D. Trout, you did need to say that). Apparently baby boomers like to top off their reading of erotica with a good meatloaf (actual meatloaf, get your minds out of the euphemistic gutter) and that is now two foodstuffs I have a strained relationship with following this ep of Younger. Liza is able to quash her spidey senses re: the Mercury money briefly, as Kelsey reveals she’s been doing some digging and discovered the company is operating out of the financial district, therefore obviously it’s a big media company behind it. Obviously...

Lo and behold Kelsey marches her feisty self down to the Mercury office to confront Zane and weaves through hopeful start-up founders in a co-working space to find him (also, are AirPods a pre-req to land a job at Mercury?). Their entire exchange had a couple of ‘whoa’ moments for me. Exhibit A, when discussing how Zane secured Audrey Colbert’s book:

Kelsey: ‘So you slept with her? God, that is completely unethical. And so creepy”

Zane: ‘But it’s fine when you do it?’

File under: T for TRUTH. Not gonna lie, I almost applauded. I would have filed under H for Hypocrite except the next part of the conversation, in which Kelsey throws the accusation that Zane went after Audrey because he knew she was (and I’m with Zane on this one, she is going to need to learn to suck it up when Millennial loses out on books, our pal Kels is on one steep learning curve), followed with, ‘that book was important to me and you knew it’, goes straight to the H folder. How does Zane know it? Could it be because Kelsey told Zane she was going after Audrey’s book? Even after he told her he had a job, that he was just waiting for everything to line up and considering his history of swooping in and being competitive? While they are not fully comparable situations, I found this a bit rich considering the grief Kelsey gave Liza for discussing business with Charles (I get that was her insecurity and feeling he would interfere), when her discussions with Zane have seemingly led him to going after this book. Which is 100% in character for him btw.

I have been liking a lot of Kelsey’s boss moments this season but this week it certainly felt like she was in way over her head. At her lunch with Lauren, yet another combo I thoroughly enjoy on my screen, we once again see Lauren being the relentlessly supportive friend she always is and educating Kelsey on the dos and don’ts of dating apps (surely Kelsey knew that deleting an app doesn’t delete your profile right??? Putting it down to stress amnesia). Pointing out that putting your job title on your dating profile if it is in any way a potential threat to male ego is a big no-no (’this kind of over-accomplishment only works if you’re trying to pick up women’), Lauren offers up that Kelsey suffers from BDE. Of course we later discover that rather than big dick energy, Kelsey is suffering bald dude energy, confirmed by her alopecia diagnosis. I did so enjoy Kelsey’s dramatic reactions, ‘just keep an eye out ok?’, to the whole ordeal and it certainly added another element to the rising tension.

Cue hilarious conversation with Diana about her own battle with hair loss (not on her head) along with the rest of her ailments (shingles seems to be a running theme this season. Did someone in the writers room have a shingles flair up recently after reading a particularly terrible autobiography or suffer month-specific breakouts aka Diana’s electric tube top? Need to know). Even though it was not making Kelsey feel better necessarily, this was Diana being supportive in her own way and I am just here for it every day of the week. I think what I enjoyed most about the office scenes in this episode, aside from every single line that came out of Diana’s mouth, were the moments that were reminiscent of the old office dynamic. From Diana bleating ‘Liza’ as she enters Liza’s office (still can’t believe that’s a thing) with the idea of advertising erotica on the bike kiosks to the sarcasm when Liza asks ‘Bronwyn’s?’ and Diana responds with ‘no, my own’. We finally get to meet author of ‘The Seasoned Slut’ (loving the guest casting this season btw) who oozes a self-assurance that only serves to emphasise her reason for not re-signing with Millennial: that her problem ‘is with the lack of value placed on experience’. Ugh, I loved this line. 

I loved it because it is an absolute reality, especially for women in the workplace, and goes hand in hand with the ageism this show’s entire premise was built upon. I loved it because this show tells us that experience is and should be valued through Zane’s comment in episode one, that Kelsey should not lose Diana as she is the best in the business and Kelsey telling Diana that she values and respects her. And I loved this line because the set-up for this season remains true to the original premise and challenges it at the same time, taking another look at the role age/experience and gender play in success and reinventing yourself. Did I mention I love this show?

Liza’s reaction to the question of ‘where is the grey hair in the room?’ was also noted, a nice reminder that the age-lie is still in play and is never far from the surface. The other thing I loved in the meeting with Bronwyn was Diana’s horror that she a) might be considered the demographic for her books and b) ‘do people think I’m her age?’ I cannot imagine a time I will ever watch this line and not roar with laughter. I also love that that was the main takeaway Diana had from the whole BJ comment this woman just casually dropped in as she exited, you know, as one might mention they know a great bagel place you might enjoy nearby. 

Josh’s parenting journey continues to unfold as he gets his first overnight stay with Gemma, but not before experiencing some kind of parental rite of passage and being squirted in the face with breast milk. I know there is a lot of mistrust of Clare out there in the internet but I will keep saying this week after week, I am so enjoying seeing Josh and Clare navigating this modern-day parenting arrangement together. I appreciate Josh’s desire to be there for both Clare and Gemma in any way he can and I appreciate that Clare appears to be open and wanting the same. I am not the biggest fan of baby storylines in general but I tell you what, to see Lauren pacing up and down cradling this little person, I am 100% pro-baby. This is one of my favourite moments of the whole episode and just when I thought there couldn’t possibly be any more layers to Lauren Heller, I get the up-all-night-with-crying-baby Lauren and I simply cannot: ‘I have been up all night with a crying baby. Why? I don’t know, because the rest of you either don’t have ears or you don’t have souls’. Early contender for line of the season. Kelsey’s bag-of-hair inducing scream finally wakes Josh and Lauren’s reaction, for him to ‘get it together man, Kelsey doesn’t need this’, epitomises Lauren’s selfless nature (which I just love as it seems so contradictory to her sometimes self-absorbed tendencies). It was not because she was up all night with his child, it was that Kelsey was in the midst of a crisis that Lauren needed Josh to pull it together and it just reinforces yet again what a multi-dimensional, caring character she is. And yes Josh, you are the dad, not the babysitter (kudos for this Alison Brown) so you may need to learn to sleep a little more lightly or something FYI.

Kelsey’s hair stress continues to play out as she runs into Maggie, who was also hoping to make a covert pharmaceutical purchase and the two wander back to Maggie’s for the scene I have been looking forward to since the possibility of such a scene came into play. I am of course talking about dinner at the loft and the integration of Charles into the friend circle. Kelsey’s freak out seems to be hitting fever pitch as she asks Beth for advice but this is soon interrupted by the arrival of Charles and Liza, who come bearing blackout cake (which I googled and holy chocolate pudding it looks AMAZING) in the most adorbs coupley entrance and don’t mind me, just having a quiet gush over here. Ok, I’m done. While Kelsey is over chatting with her old boss, Beth puts her naturopathy into practice by suggesting Maggie take a more natural approach to treating her yeast infection, doing some seasoning of her own to let a clove of garlic work its magic. Between jalapeno dick and garlic vag, this show loves to make us consider our spices in a whole new light.

This entire dinner party scene was next level, I want to frame a picture of it and put it on my wall because yes. We have casual, relaxed Charles, who is the first to ask if there is garlic bread on the menu (I love so much that he was the first to smell it) and seriously, from this moment, the unfolding of the garlic saga was nothing short of amazing. Kelsey was so amped this whole scene, she’s like a tightly wound ball and it was palpable. Her interjections as she commented that it smells like an everything bagel and agreement about the garlic knot and escargot were just brilliant contrasts to her otherwise increasing intensity. I so adored seeing Kelsey and Charles interacting casually and seeing what this would (ahem, could have) look like. But Kelsey asking Liza if she’d told Charles about Brownyn Madigan...I’m sorry, but how could she WHEN SHE CAN’T TALK ABOUT WORK WITH CHARLES? This bit made my head hurt a bit. Surely Liza in that moment must have been thinking the same (also Liza’s moment of identifying a garlic knot, so so good). 

What I love most about this scene is that we have Kelsey’s conversation getting more intense by the minute as she jumps from unloading about the stress of work, to Zane and his new venture, before finally climaxing with her ‘who is it?’ declaration, all the while having zero suspicion that Mercury’s investor is sitting right beside her. Side note: I really like Charles’ comment that he’s sure it is business, not personal re: Zane. I think it’s interesting considering the stereotype that women are too emotional vs. men and I’m curious to see how this plays out this season as Kelsey finds her feet. Meanwhile, Charles is trying to have a nice double date with his gf, while also keeping a secret that is the cause of much of the distress Kelsey is sharing with the table, while Liza takes the opportunity to make Charles squirm by pressing the point about the money for Zane’s venture coming from somewhere. It’s such an intricate web and of course parallel to that is Maggie’s secret vagina garlic that has the whole room assuming some kind of paranormal baking is taking place before Maggie responds to Kelsey’s ‘who is it?’ with, ‘it’s me!’ and it was just too much. My reaction was the same as everyone around the table when Maggie announced the source of the garlicky aroma, what a dinner party (and what a way for Charles to avoid any further scrutiny).

I am so glad that the conversation that needed to happen finally did this week and that was, of course, Liza confronting Charles about his involvement in Mercury. Oy, my heart. It broke a little when Liza gave Charles the opportunity to come clean and he didn’t and she had to ask so directly. It was so good to hear these two talking, like properly talking, and Charles explaining that he had to make choices in order to be with Liza but he never wanted to give up publishing for good was great insight into the journey Charles has been on post-Empirical, especially as we really haven’t been privy to that. I felt for both of them at various stages during the conversation. I do believe Liza understands why Charles would want to reinvent himself but I also understand why she would feel so hurt that he would keep such a huge thing from her (although again, they’d agreed not to talk about work at Liza’s request so *insert shrug emoji here*). 

But it does highlight an ongoing issue which I really hope gets properly addressed sometime soon and that is where Liza’s loyalties lie. I think it is unquestionably not ok that Charles set up a rival company while Chairman of the Board of Millennial, for obvious reasons. However, had he told Liza, she would have felt compelled to tell Kelsey, which I have no doubt Charles knows and would expect as she is the publisher, so in not telling Liza he is yes protecting his own interests but also stopping her from being in a compromised position. So while Charles’ secrecy is disappointing, so is Liza’s text to Kelsey the following morning asking to meet before work after Charles asked specifically that she tell no one about him financing Mercury just yet. 

This episode comes to a head at Suffolk House in a most spectacular fashion. Hilary Duff really did knock this entire ep out of the water with her acting, I cannot heap enough praise on her for the entire performance. You just knew it was gonna be good when Liza turned up as Kelsey was intercepting Bronwyn in an attempt to convince her that Zane was a bitter ex-employee (not very professional IMO but we won’t focus on that for now), only to discover that Bronwyn didn’t know Zane from a wart on her butt (delightful). She was in fact there to meet...dun-dun-dunnnnn...Charles (shout-out to the three piece suit, always a welcome sight, did not disappoint)! Kelsey was justifiably angry, however the stark contrast in experience and maturity was well and truly on show as she proceeded to express herself very loudly and publicly, despite Charles and Zane suggesting they step outside. Zane clocked the smart phone filming the entire incident and you just knew that Kelsey’s outburst was going to come back to bite her.

Regardless of whether Kelsey was in the right or wrong, she certainly came off worse in the way she handled it. My favourite part of the scene was Liza FINALLY re-awakening that gutsy silver suit wearing power, her turning and telling Bronwyn that Charles called her books matron lit was this season’s manuscript drop. And thank f-ing god. One of the things I’ve always loved about the Liza/ Charles dynamic is that Liza stands up for herself with him when she doesn’t with so many others and she is not afraid to call him out, which has been missing these past couple of eps. So now that that has been restored, I am legit so excited to see how this relationship moves forward.

The ramifications of the restaurant confrontation are of course trending on Reddit by the next morning, and Liza and Diana have the unenviable job of delivering the news that even though Charles was in the wrong for setting up the company the way he did, he has since resigned from the board and a number of authors are making noise about jumping ship to Mercury (I was going to say that I think Kelsey might have preferred it if her eyebrows actually had fallen off in that moment but I feel like that’s probs false).

The fact that Kelsey and Charles are pitted against one another as publishers and Liza and Zane as editors provides the most glorious opportunity to explore the ideas of reputation vs. experience. vs. gender vs. fresh ideas and I am so here for it, so damn excited, and so sure that whatever ends up playing out this season, it will be nothing that I expect. In the meantime I’m going to compile every Diana Trout line from this episode into a ringtone because what workplace wouldn’t want Diana talking about nutcracker’s oesophagus ringing through the open-plan office?

#youngertv #younger tv #ramble #review #6x04 #sutton foster #peter hermann #kelsey peters #diana trout #maggie amato #lauren heller #team charles #younger season 6

[quilloftheclouds]

11/11/11 (... x7???)

You guys really love this tag game, huh? XD Tagged by @madammuffins, @bigmoodword, @shadeshadow234, @writeouswriter, @bookenders, @kaisha-writes, and @penzag.

Rules: Answer 11 (77 in this case??) questions, tag 11 people, write 11 new questions.

Taggin’ taggin’ @scottishhellhound​ @i-rove-rock-n-roll​ @capricious-writes​ @writerlyclaire​ @bookenders​ @kidsarentallwrite​ @inexorableblob​ @vieliwrites​​ @abalonetea​ @runningonrain​ @candy687​

Oof. It’s my own fault for letting these gather dust for so long. QUICKFIRE QUESTION ROUND. (And super duper long post below the cut.)

Okay first up I’m gonna post up my 11 questions for tagged people to complete up here so y’all don’t have to scroll all the way through my nonsense:

1. Put yourself in your wip(s). Are you dead? Why or why not? 2. What is your favourite kind of scene to write? 3. What genre is your favourite to write in? 4. What genre do you want to/wish you could write in? 5. Which of your ocs outfits would you consider wearing yourself? 6. What’s the worst thing you’ve done to your ocs (out of context if spoilers)? 7. What’s the nicest thing you’ve done to your ocs? 8. Does your writing style have any characteristic traits? What are they? 9. What are three things you think you’re good at in writing? (NO SKIPPING OF THIS QUESTION ALLOWED) 10. Do you listen to music/white noise while writing? What kind? 11. Come up with joke titles for your wips. What are they?

And now let’s get started!

Do you title your chapters, why/why not? Do they pertain to what happens in the chapter or are they random? I do! I may actually post them all up at some point, I had a lot of fun coming up with them, and I find them clever? A lot of them are puns, it’s great. All except the first and last chapter are titled with one word, related to the ocean or ships, alluding and symbolizing something that happens in that chapter. I made it a sort of word search, too, since every chapter title appears somewhere important in that chapter! As for why? I think it adds to the reading experience, especially with the way I employ them!

Do your main characters seem to have common traits or characteristics? Uhhhh, uh? Huh. Lemme see. I tried to be pretty creative and use a lot of variance in my characters, but sometimes they just... end up that way, whether I want them to or not. Dione and Phoenix are both tall? Both Phoenix and Colin can be pretty friendly and have the same sort of attitude towards certain things. Other than that, I’m not sure!

Why do you think this is? Honestly, it’s likely more coincidence than anything. Also because Phoenix and Colin both work on a ship’s crew, and they have to work well with other people because of that.

Do you borrow real life people or parts of real life people to insert into your novels? Why/why not? Yes. From me especially. Probably subconsciously from other people. It happens! But also, relatability. Accuracy.

Do you stick to a word count in your novels/chapters? Why? Used to, don’t now. It can really add to the tension if a chapter is very short. It can hold the reader in suspense if it’s very long!

What do you want your book to say to those who read it? What do you think your book says about you? Uh. I mean. I’m a simple writer who just likes sharing my worlds with the world, yunno? Maybe when I get further into writing it, I’ll realize what. (But I hope it shows I’m an interesting person that cares about representation and sharing exciting stories??? Mebe?)

If your WIP gets published and goes far would you sign over your rights for a movie adaptation, even if it means it gets butchered like the Eragon (or similar) series did? Ohhh gosh. Yeah no. I’d wait until I was sure it wouldn’t be. I’m not in this for the money or fame, I’m here for the enjoyment of it and the helping others through sharing stories with people they can relate to. Especially those that don’t have much to relate to already.

What is your favorite kind of character chemistry to write? Sexual tension, anger, resentment, jealousy? What about it do you like so much? I really like softness. Someone trying to cheer someone up, nice caring-ness and encouragement through humour and inside jokes. Gives me warm feelings. Oh. That sounds a lot like Colin.

Which settings are your favorites? Chill cafe, Gorey battle field? Why? I like natureeee. A lot. IRL and in writing. I especially enjoy fascinating, eccentric and magical seeming places even if they’re not magical! Think the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, or the Ice Caves of Baffin Island. That sort of thing.

What element represents your main character and why? HAH SPOILERS. Elements play a major part of OSS, my friend. How about I just put the elements, and you decide who’s who. Earth, Fire, Storm, Forest.

If you could pick an AU for your WIP (alternate universe) for a fan work, what au would you choose and why would you choose it? AKJHKDJSH I’VE ALREADY PLANNED OUT MY OWN AUs, MY FRIEND. My fave at the moment is magical modern spies. Because a lot of my characters are immortal and I love to imagine what they would be like in modern times! ...Oh wait, that’s not what au means. -u-

1. Who was your first OC? Of One Siren’s Soul’s cast, Celestine! Overall, that I can remember... a German scientist/mechanical engineer named Suin Omera. Ah, so many memories. 2. What was the first story you ever wrote? That I can remember... a little short story for school about a girl who lost her dad and discovered he had been secretly living in the arctic for a long time so she goes to try and find him? I don’t remember much about it. ^^’ 3. What book (or other piece of media) has most inspired you? AH. Most??? Literally the unpublished books of my two closest friends. @waterfallwritings​, I’m looking at you. >u> 4. How do you fight writer’s block? Badly. 5. What is your favorite genre to write in and why? Fantasy and sci-fi! Or a mix. You can find a more full answer here. 6. How would you describe your writing style? Uhhhh, I have a very action-y writing style? Unless the sort of mood requires, I don’t tend to use a lot of description and I more often focus on action and dialogue and character thoughts/narrative. It’s fitting to what I write, I suppose, because it’s an action packed pirate adventure, with a lot of focus on character. 7. In general, do you think you’d get along with your protagonists? Phoenix and Colin are nice. Dione maybe after a long while, since we both like literature and plants. Celestine... no one ever gets along with Celestine. 8. What do you love most about your WIPs? Oh. I uh. Wow. I only have one right now, but I like characters and their interactions and their thoughts on each other. But mostly I just love how far I’ve come already. That the wip even exists. ^^’ 9. What is your favorite character trope? Ah. Not good with tropes... I reblogged something on this a while ago, but that scene where someone spends forever taking out a comically massive amount of weapons from unexpected places on their person? That’s fun. 10. What is your least favorite character trope? Mmmm hmm. Hm. Mostly ones that discriminate or are based on negative stereotypes. Some of them can be done well, but not... many. 11. What’s an upcoming scene you’re excited to write? Someone’s gettin’ STABBED.

What was your first character like? See in an earlier question ^^^

What’s your most recent character like? Oh, this is neat. Who’s my most recent character? Uhhhh, um. I think it’s actually... I don’t have a name for them yet, but it’s a young siren that appears in book two that helps our main cast on their adventure!

Out of all of your characters, who’s the least human in appearance? Hehe. HEH. Oohhhh, this would definitely be Light. You don’t know who that is yet.

Who’s your worst character, and what would you do upon meeting them? Worst? The Scientist. Punch to the face.

If you could meet any of your characters, who would you choose? Uh. It’d be really cool to meet Forest! You don’t know who that is yet, either. ^^

Two of your characters from different WIPs meet! How do they get along? I don’t currently have another wip, but from my prospective wip at the moment, meeting... Celestine. Surprisingly it wouldn’t be the worst, because both would just start nerding out about each other’s technology.

Which out of your OCs just wants to live life out peacefully? George is so done with this trash.

Which one of your OCs is most definitely not living their life out peacefully? I want to say George again for the jokes, but the worst off at the moment is probably Dione. Sorry, Dione!

Is there any songs that make you think specifically of any of your characters? Ohhhh yeah. I’ll likely be making a full post for that at some point, and that’s also on each characters part of the wip page, but to save time, have this.

Which one of your OCs actually had a pretty good childhood? Dione had a relatively normal childhood, for the pretty-near equivalent of a princess. That is, of course, until she turned 24.

Who would have a fistfight with god out of spite? This actually happens. This ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN MY WIP. It’s Celestine.

1. What’s the weirdest thing you were ever inspired by for one of your WIPs?

Hmmmm, I mean tardigrades are pretty weird, right? Also awesome. They’re one of the most resilient known animals, able to survive both some of the highest AND the lowest temperatures known to have ever been survived by an organism? Awesome.

2. Do any of your OCs have famous face claims? If so, who are they?

Colin’s face claim is Booboo Stewart! He’s pretty famous?

3. What’s your favourite season and why?

Autumn. Pretty colours, perfect temperatures with a small jacket/sweater, and you get to experience the whole range of seasons from early Fall to late!

4. Do you have any superstitions?

Despite being a very logically, scientifically minded person... I am a Maritimer, and superstitions are huge. Never ever say before you go fishing that you’re definitely going to catch something. You’ll be skunked.

5. Rural, suburbs, city, in which do you live and which do you most often write about?

I guess I most write about rural, since... wait, what does the open ocean count as?? Anyways, I live in the suburbs.

6. What’s your favourite book series?

I dunno ‘bout favourites, but I like The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.

7. Is there a book/series that ever left you intensely disappointed? (Or one that left you pleasantly surprised?)

Uh... I mean, The Hunger Games was actually really good, but I was disappointed by the public’s focus on the love triangle?

8. What’s one of the weirdest/funniest out of context lines from your WIPs?

“Don’t tell me the boatswain has got ‘imself into the rum store again.”

9. A movie/show that made you cry? (Unless you’re dead inside)

AHHAH I AM DEAD INSIDE AND TRULY A FICTIONAL SOCIOPATH. But, I think Simon Birch is one I can recall getting misty eyed from.

10. What movies or books or shows do you think are criminally underrated?

Uuhhhhhh Treasure Planet is one? I’m not good at this one. OH. You wanna know some shows I loved way too much from my childhood? Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five, and Storm Hawks. I was a terrible nerd.

11. Which fictional character would you like to steal borrow from any world for a crossover with your own WIP?

Ehheee, honestly, I could work with anything, pretty much. But the magic system colliding with the Avatar from The Last Airbender? Ehehehe, that would be hilarious.

Do you own and fun socks? What are they? My best friend love fun socks, and for my birthday she got me some: I have two pairs, a black pair with colourful gardening tools on them, and one with little labelled garden herbs on them. They’re adorable and I love them. ^u^

How many notebooks do you have? What do they look like? How full are they? HAH. SO MANY. Most are sketchbooks, but out of notebooks, I have... three? One’s for schoolwork, one’s full of old writing, and one is for OSS notes.

Grab the book nearest you. Turn to page 70 (or 16 if it’s a tiny book). What is the 8th line on that page? How do you feel about it? Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson: I haven’t actually had the opportunity to start reading it yet, but here: “She’d never seen him at work, never experienced him as the type of person who could tend to another’s needs.” Considering I have no idea what’s going on... I have no idea?

Have you read any short stories? What’s your favorite? I’m not much of a short story reader, but there was a really cool one from a sci-fi compilation (that I can’t remember the name of). It was about time travelling and how it had already been invented, but because no one could ever go back in time, they could only go forward, no one had realized. It was kind of sad, now that I think of it, since the MCs ended up trying to travel back to their time when warned against it and they end up alone in the far future. Whoops.

Have you ever tried knitting? Do you still knit? What about other crafty things? What do you make? I tried it when I was back at home, but at the moment I don’t have the materials! As for crafts, I’m trying to get into bookbinding, card making... other sort of paper crafts. ^^

Of the books in your living space right now, which has the coolest cover? I’m sad now because I basically have no physical books here... aw. Um, The Cloud Collector’s Handbook by Gavin Pretor-Pinney is really pretty. Pastels and colourful skies and clouds are my favourite~

Do you know any camp songs? What did you used to sing in school, or at recess? Oh stars. I’m a Cub Scout Leader, my friend. OF COURSE I know camp songs. What did I used to sing in school? What’s the one with the “That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh/I like it, uh huh, uh huh” with the special clapping? That one. What’s that?

What’s your favorite fairy tale? How would you twist it? Well technically OSS includes some twists from The Little Mermaid, so does that count?

Are there any cool local events where you live? Ah, well daily we have the highest tides in the world. That’s pretty cool, huh?

What’s your favorite sea creature? Sea snakes. They’re deadly and pretty.

Do you like turtles? Why? Yes! YES! Turtles are adorable. Don’t put your finger near a Snapping Turtle’s mouth though.

1. If you could meet one author for lunch, who would it be?

Ooh, I’m bad about this. Say time travelling is an option: Roald Dahl. That would be amazing.

2. What are your thoughts on visual stories? (apps like Choices: Stories You Play, Episode, etc.)

Ah, I don’t really have much experience with them at all, so I can’t really say anything!

3. What was the first book to make you cry?

Have I ever cried at a book? Uhhhh... I may not have. Whoops.

4. Do you ever base your characters on people you know?

I mean, subconsciously probably? But I don’t typically think about other people when creating characters.

5. Name the worst book you’ve ever read, and tell me why it was bad.

Iiiii did not like Divergent. Sorry, that’s just a personal opinion. I guess it was too... dependent on a system that didn’t really make sense to me? I dunno, mate.

6. Do you have a trademark writing ‘quirk’?

I like short sentences in action-y scenes. Maybe that? I also really like using way too many em dashes and double line breaks to emphasize something.

7. Do you have any (un)helpful pets? (I couldn’t resist asking this one. Also, if the answer is yes, please send me photos.)

I don’t have any pets! I have planties though. Cute lil’ succulents.

8. What advice would you give to a person who is new to writing?

There are going to be times when you’re not happy with your writing! But any writing is helpful, because no matter what you write, you’re improving your skills to be better the next time. Plus, a first draft can be edited later! You can’t edit what’s not there~

9. Tell me your ideal writing environment.

My family partly owns a lake cabin out in the woods which we go to every summer. It’s so peaceful to sit in the hammock chair on the porch and write to the gentle lapping waves on the beach, the birdsong, and the swish of the tree branches around me. On a day with a perfect not-too-hot warm temperature, it’s very nice.

10. Sad endings: realistic, or unnecessary?

It depends how it’s executed! I prefer bittersweet ending to sad ones, since those tend to give me the most effective emotions. Certainly I tend to seek out happier endings instead, though!

11. You’ve decided to write under a pseudonym. What is it?

Ooh. Oohhhh, well. I’m actually thinking of changing my name legally. So that’s a thing. For a pseudonym, I think I would love to go with... hm. Gale Silver. Because I love puns and that hits on two major nature aspects I’m a nerd for.

what’s your favorite movie from your childhood? has this movie had an impact on your writing at all? have any movies had an impact on your writing? Hands down How To Train Your Dragon. I am a nerd who loves dragons and the music and scenery is gorgeous. Also just... so many of its themes snuck into my wip and I didn’t even realize until just recently. Whoops.

do you struggle to write for any ocs? why? are any of your ocs really easy to write for? Io is a little hard for me to write sometimes just because she’s so darn cold. Just. Apathetic towards everything, and super formal, yet at the same time very curt and to the point. I’m used to writing either a “formal” through super flowery language or a “cold” through Celestine’s mean snark, not just... Io.

do you have any big milestones coming up for your wip? (or blog? or work? or whatever?) I’M LESS THAN 2,000 WORDS AWAY FROM 50,000 IN MY FIRST DRAFT. YEAH MATE

what are your favorite writing resources for face claims, picking first names/surnames, etc? (feel free to just pick one resource to share but you’re welcome to share as many as you’d like!) Oh! I’m still pretty new to finding face claims and what not, but naming wise Wikipedia can cover all your bases sometimes. As I’m writing a historical fantasy, to find names that fit the time period, I’ll sometimes use this site.

if your ocs had a name for their group of friends, what would it be? (for example, most of y’all have noticed by now that the friend group for b’tzelem elohim is nicknamed “shalomies”) Okay but I still have such a love for that name. XD I call my group simply The Crew! Since, you know. They’re in a pirate crew by the end of the book. (My creativity knows no bounds.)

on a similar note, would they have a groupchat? (if your world doesn’t have technology, pretend it does!) Modern times, yeah prolly. Dione and Celestine would just have it muted except for emergencies, and Phoenix and Colin would just constantly be sharing memes and terrible puns.

how many languages can you speak, if any? how many can your characters speak, if any? I speak English and (Acadian) French! Trying to learn ASL at the moment. As for my characters? Hoo, boy. Without spoilers, Celestine is multilingual with four languages, Colin is almost trilingual, Dione is trilingual, and Phoenix... I think Phoenix can only speak English. Yeah that may seem like overkill, but in context it makes sense. ^^’

how much time do you spend planning/researching before starting your wip? Fun story about that! For one of my first serious wips, Soul Tied, I first came up with the ideas perhaps... six years ago? And I have yet to write a single thing. ^^’ For OSS, the story took maybe a month to completely plan out and outline, though I still do a lot of research and planning ahead as I write the first draft, too!

do you have a preferred area to write? (ie your bedroom, the coffee shop, the library, your kitchen, etc.) My desk in my bedroom!

what’s your favorite writing snack or drink? Ohh, I don’t eat while I write ‘cause I’m actually incapable of focusing on something while I eat, but I normally really like having apple spice tea or some other kind of herbal tea!

lastly, what should you be doing right now instead of this tag game? (ps: stop procrastinating even though, as i type this, i’m currently procrastinating) HAH. STUDYING FOR MY CHEMISTRY MIDTERM. IT’S FINE. NO.

Well that was long!

#oof #this is why you shouldn't procrastinate so much Quill #will i ever learn my lesson? #no #it was fun tho #oss #one siren's soul #tag game #writeblr #11 questions #11 questions tag game

[youreallyshouldtalkmore]

ErikXNice Girl Headcannons

This is dedicated to all my nice girls out there. Here's more a sweet with a bit of sour romance with Erik rather than *cough cough*, if you catch my meaning. Mostly because I need this...so it greatly reflects how I would act with Erik but I think many other women could enjoy this.

So although Erik probably wouldn't really have a healthy romantic relationship and probably just got his needs met, we know how it works in fanfic: a psychopathic male character usually ends up having a broken side that needs just the right girl to attend to.

And since I believe that with Erik's history, he does have a literal broken side (read he is probably 100% broken inside) I came up with an "Erik meets a Nice/Innocent girl" story in bullet points. I hoped that I kept a middle ground between, his evil side and broken side. I want it to be sweet but not strip Erik of his swagger.  

But after writing this, I'll stand by it all.

I just *swoon*...

So without further ado. Warning this looooong:

The two of you met in a museum.  You were looking at an art piece and questioned why did you come if you could get the same information with a basic search online?

Erik was surprised at your question. It was a question that said you had a clear interest, a deeper one, than the average museum goers. The average museum goer would just read the card and keep on going.

To this day, Erik had no idea why he spoke in answer to your question, but he did.  He agreed that the card didn't fully capture what the piece was about.  He wasn't trying to show off but he did add a few extra details he knew about the piece. A natural conversation started behind that...

You were there with an interest in your own background. Having done a DNA test, you were interested learning more on the heritage you couldn't find out so readily.  Erik like that. It's been awhile since he heard of someone who was interested to know more about their identity.

One response in the conversation that you said was, "I believe it's important for us, especially as African Americans to be aware of our identity and where we come from. It's important to find history that we can be proud of. The sum total of our history should not be the slave trade. By taking the DNA test I can discover a direction and try to find history about that. I know it's out there but trying to find it can be challenging..."

You had laughed it off but Erik shook his head. No, he respected and admired that. And he agreed. (Secretly he was impressed but was unable to verbalize it even to his own self)

The two of you spent your time together looking at the exhibits, Erik explaining things that were not on the sheet. You were surprised at his knowledge especially since it's obvious he is not a worker there.

Towards the end of your time, you had bid him goodbye and thanked him for all the information that you had learned. You had learned more than you ever hope to. (Yes, you were that type to make notes on your phone...and he was vaguely amused at this.)

After you left, Erik realized there was something off.  It took him a few seconds to figure it out. It was the first time that he felt a sense of peace. It was so foreign to him it threw him off track. He actually enjoyed walking around with you and talking to you. He didn't remember the last time he felt so relaxed.

And he tried to shake off this feeling. You were just a passerby in life. He would forget about you come the morning.

But, shoot, he didn't even know your name!

That's fine. Whatever.

 But it wasn't fine because as the moments slipped away, he found that the thought of not knowing your name or even seeing you again....

So he rushes out hoping that he can catch you. Fate was on his side, for once, and you were out of the museum and halfway down the stairs.  

He called out and you turned around, surprised to see him there.

Erik ran and stopped before you. Internally, he knew this was when he'd drop a "Can I get your digits and hit you up some time?" But strangely it felt wrong to say that to you.

But you were looking at him so innocently, waiting for him to say something. What should he say? How should he say it?

 "I didn't get your name." he says. You give your name and Erik gives you his. It was clear you were waiting for him to say something else. But you didn't look impatient and almost was a bit amused.

 "Do you have facebook?" It was the first response he had. He hadn't used it much since graduating MIT but perhaps a social media exchange wouldn't freak you out too much.

You looked at him, with slight suspicion? He couldn't tell, but he could tell you were thinking about it. Finally you gave a smile and agree. (He didn't realize the relief he felt when you agreed) So the two of you exchanged face book IDs.

 It took Erik about an hour to figure out what his password was. Eventually, he got a password reset. (Should have done that in the first place)  Erik found he was nervous, wondering if you gave him your real FB ID. But upon seeing your photo, he was reassured.

Though he realized by now that there must have been something wrong with him. He wasn't a stranger to women but he had no feelings about them. Whether their feelings were hurt or not wasn't high on his list. But with you, something warned him and held him back from his usual flippant attitude. He found that he was interested in furthering the conversation you all had not just skipping to business.

To that end, the two of you communicated on FB for two months. He found that he enjoyed and looked forward to chatting with you. You were easy to talk to and it blew his mind that someone like you existed in this world.

You were a humanitarian, giving to the people and communities around you. You had a fondness for art and would post many illustrations and artwork and art pieces you liked and founded.

 Eventually, he had to go on a mission and wouldn't be back for another month. He told you he was in the military and would be out of touch. You wished him all the best and safe journey there and back.

He never had anyone wish for his safety.

Upon coming back from his mission, he was angry again and had quite forgotten about the FB exchanged that seemed a distance dream. But when he opened his computer he was stunned to see that you had almost once a week, wished him the best and hoped he was staying safe.

Erik was confused as to what to do with you. He couldn't treat you like he would other woman. It was obvious you were more than a toy. It took a lot to remember there was such a thing as a date, something he had never been on. Usually, his "date" consists of picking up a woman from the bar and that was only when the itch became too great.

 But then all of a sudden, he sniffed at the idea. A date? He was seriously thinking of asking a woman out on a proper date? Has he lost his mind? What nice and respectable girl would go out on a date with him?

This made him all kinds of moody and for the next month he ignored and avoided FB. You knew that he was supposed to be back in a month but he didn't contact you for the next month. So your well-wishes continued but quite a bit more frequently. You hoped that he was safe, that he wasn't dead. You asked him to contact you to let you know that he was alive at the very least and that you were worried at what this extra time meant. But you also said if he was hurt or ill he needed to take care of himself before responding to you.

This weakened Erik's resolve. Someone was actually caring about his life? So he finally logged back in and replied. Your joy at his safety made him stunned for five minutes at least.

Suddenly the need to see you was so overwhelming to Erik that he thought again about asking you out on the date.

This time it didn't send him into a dark funk.

But it took him three days to ask you on FB if you'd go on a date with him. In hindsight he should have waited until he knew that you were online because by the time he had managed to press the send button it was would be the next day before you sent a reply.

Erik sat for five minutes staring at the reply. "Yes, I would love to."

Erik didn't quite know what you'd like but he wanted it to be simple and comfortable. He didn't have a tuxedo and he was not going to be comfortable in an upscale place. Didn't women like those kinds of things?  Did you expect him to take you to such places?

This might have sent him into another foul mood except that he had already asked you out and he couldn't shut you down like that. (I mean, he could but why did the idea twist his stomach?)

So he settled on taking you to a play that was in town. He wondered if you were expecting more but he noticed your delight in watching the play. Thankfully, you didn't ask him too much about it afterwards but he realized while you were watching the play, he was watching you.

And it dawned on him what he was attracted so attracted to. Yes, you were very pretty but there was something else that Erik couldn't figure out. Until now. Your beauty had something else mixed with it....an innocence that he had long ago lost. It was why he couldn't treat you like he did other women. It was also why he felt relaxed with you.

Unlike other woman, you weren't cussing and screaming at him or others. (Was this a fair question if he picked up girls from a bar? He couldn't tell)  You weren't loud and bossy. You spoke quite demurely, yet he knew that the strength laid in your thoughts not your projection of voice.  You laughed quiet charmingly without it splitting his eardrums. And your voice was smooth and relaxing in his opinion. Quite a nice sound

He vowed then that you would not know the real work he did. You would not know what his goal truly was. But when he became King, he knew he would bring you to see Wakanda. You would be his Queen. His yang to his yin.

The two of you began to see each other. Erik never made untoward advances that made you uncomfortable. Though he did managed to get a first kiss from you. It was sweet like you, instead of rough like the woman he usually was with.

Erik still remembers the first time he accidentally let you see the angry side of him. He was rarely angry around you but this time he came back from another mission. It was late morning on a Sunday and to this day, he would never know what possessed him to swing by your apartment. Especially when he vowed you would not know this part of him.

But he was so angry and you were so peaceful. He felt he needed that soothing balm because this time the anger was so prominent he felt he would blow before his time. You were surprised to see him, so soon but happy that he was alive and safe and allowed him inside.

 However you realized very quickly that something was wrong with him. He was a taunt bowstring and you couldn't get him to sit down. When you finally coaxed him to say something at least he blew up and had an angry expletive tirade.

The tirade didn't quite make sense to you but you allowed him to get the feelings out of his system. When he was spent he slumped down on the couch. It took him a few minutes before he seemed to come back to himself and he looked up at you.

Erik barely remembers what he was ranting about but when he came back to himself, he found himself tense in the silence. Why did he come here? Why did he say all of that to you? He should have done what he normally did and worked off the anger to a manageable level not come here and bombard you with this.  

But Erik schooled and hardened himself. If you threw him out that wouldn't be no one's fault but his own. So when he looked at you, expecting to see censure, he saw sympathy and understanding.

 "It must have been difficult for you." you say.  You told him (not asked) that you were going to make him breakfast. Instead of coffee, you offered him tea.

Once Erik realized you weren't going to kick him out, he asked for coffee instead. "I want coffee, straight black."

You didn't miss a beat. "You are already wired up. You need something to calm you down not get you more hyped up than you are." Coming from anyone else would have set him off on a tirade but the smell of it was already calming him. So when it was finished,  he drink it like he did his coffee, straight laced even though you offer honey, sugar and lemon.

He found he did calm down. (And might have made him into a side tea-drinker...)

But finally the day came when he knew that he would be going to Wakanda soon. He noticed that you figured out that he didn't tell you everything but did not pressure him. You gave him his usual "stay safe" speech that he quite looked forward too and he left.

Now if you know anything about me, I love happy endings, but I also wanted to do an ending more in line with the movie, so, alternate endings time:

  Sad Ending

A couple of weeks later, a knock came that afternoon. When you answered it, there was a man that called himself T'Challa, the King of Wakanda and was also Erik's cousin.

He gave you a video that Erik had asked him to give you. You had broken down there.

It took you two days, before you could watch the video. Erik explained his true mission and how he made this video because he owed you an explanation.

He said that being with you was the happiest time of his life. Away from the anger that drowned him. From the first day, he had felt a kind of peace that had been denied to him. He hoped that you would never lose that

He had plans for you. Plans he really wished he could have made reality. If he had been King, you would have been Queen helping others alongside him because he'd seen your nurturing side and knew you would have made a great Queen Mother. More than that, selfishly, he wanted you to be his wife.

That video was the first time that Erik told you that he loved you. And he always will, but he wants you to continue to share yourself to the world. "Make some other poor sap happy. At least do that in my honor and I'll be straight over here. Okay, baby? I love you. Peace out."

 You got a job working with the Wakanda outreach and always sought to honor Erik Steven's memory.

    Happy Ending

A couple of weeks later, a knock came that afternoon. When you answered it, there was a man that called himself T'Challa, the King of Wakanda and was also Erik's cousin. He was there to take you to Wakanda where Erik was recovering.

On the way, he told you to the story of what had happened. They had managed to revive Erik and he was furious about this. (Despite the fact that Erik must have been hanging on because T'challa realized he was still alive hours later)

Erik didn't mention you to him, but he found the tape with your name and address on it. (And the fact that, Erik had cried out your name in his sleep was a tip off but we won’t discuss that). He figured it couldn't hurt to track you down and bring you to Erik. You were shocked at all that you learned, though it did fill in the missing gaps.

When Erik saw that you were there, he was absolutely furious with T'Challa, as in stark raving mad. It had startled you because you had not seen this side of him before. His previous tirade at your house paled in comparison. But you quickly recovered and declared that you weren't going anywhere. Erik dared to glare at you but you returned his stare.

During this time was the first time you saw him without his shirt and saw the scars. Erik goaded you on about them. "Ugly, eh? You know what they mean? Huh? Each one is a sin committed. Each one a life I took. I killed, you know. In Afghanistan, in Iraq, even our own brothers and sisters right here on this continent.  What do you think now, baby? You scared? You ought to be. You could be next if you aren't careful."

If Erik wasn't trying to goad a negative response out of you, he seemed to straight up ignore you. He also had no filter in what he was saying and would say things to purposely provoke you.

You made friends with Shuri and were quite interested in Erik's health, especially his mental health.  They managed to cure his physical ailments but there wasn't much they could do for the mental.

When Erik realized you weren't leaving it seemed to make him even angrier. In his opinion you should have left long ago (Actually you shouldn't even be here to start). He kept laying into T'Challa every which way he could. "You call this a mercy, huh? Saving me? You should have left me to die.  Bury me in the ocean that was the only thing I requested of you and you couldn't even do that right!"

This was the first time that Erik saw you go off. You were angry that he obviously wanted to die, that he saw no hope for the future. You were angry that he had no will to fight to live. So you challenged him, "If we gave you a way to commit suicide, would you? Let me answer that, it's no because if you were that weak or strong depending on your point of view to commit suicide you would have done it long ago. All this drama wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't have met."

After your tantrum you promptly turned and apologize to King T'Challa, Shuri and Okyoe who was privy to it. It's not in your nature to fly off a handle and you apologize for your lack of decorum. Not one of them minded and they liked you more.

To say that Erik was stunned at your temper tantrum (on his behalf) was an understatement. The days that followed, left him in a deep sulk as he mulled over your words.

But after, your temper tantrum, Erik did begin to let you attend to him.  And once again, Erik found himself relaxing more around you. So much, even the others noticed. And they may have noticed that Erik accepting your tea that you insisted on making.

Shuri (out of Erik's earshot) would joke about it. "If we knew that's what it took, we would have brewed some long ago." You laughed and said, "It has to specially made, Shuri." "Oooh, I get it, it's the love that goes into the tea."  That remark got you all flustered.

Eventually a year or so later, T'Challa offered Erik a position working with Wakanda outreach if he wanted. By this time, Erik was slowly putting a life together and agreed to it. And by this time, although he lost none of his snark, he begrudging began to find himself with a family with T'Challa and Shuri.

You came to work with the Wakandian Outreach program as well.

Eventually, during a lazy date, Erik finally told you that he loved you. And a year later, the two of you were married.  "Even though I am not a King. You'll always be my Queen, baby."

I know this was long but I hope you all enjoyed it!! 

#black panther #black panther imagine #killmonger imagine #black panther killmonger #killmonger #killmonger x reader

[nitrateglow]

A few hours ago, my browser recommended me the article “There is No Case for the Humanities” by Justin Stover. At first I thought it would be a call to reform of the humanities departments in academia, which I could totally get behind. It was not. If anything, it was painfully regressive in its views on the place of humanistic subjects in everyday life. Apparently, only scholars should bother with literature, history, art, and language. Apparently, this matters to no one outside of a lecture hall.

Such thinking appalls me to my very core.

If you were to buy into Stover’s ideas, then the humanities are only of interest to the scholastic elite. He actually compares humanities professors to members of a golf course, imparting a sense of frivolity to the study of literature, rhetoric, history, art, and religion. To him and to many, the humanities are worthless because they do not give people immediate economic benefit. Hence why everyone insists you’re better off sticking only to STEM majors or business or trade schools. He says the humanities are only really meant for academics who shut themselves off from the world and publish overly-specialized articles in publications no one but other academics read. Of course, they’re useless.

I take issue with the idea that the humanities are entirely frivolous: I have seen how students still write at a fifth-grade level or use strawman arguments when they leave high school; they NEED to learn how to properly write a sentence and communicate their ideas. That’s just part of the working world. Learning to fact-check is also rather important given the media atmosphere of our times. Considering how multicultural the world is becoming, learning how other people see the world isn’t so frivolous an idea either. And do I need to argue that history is important? Like, really? Of course, I do have my own problems with academia, having worked in it, but that isn’t my point here. I just take issue with the frankly elitist notion that “normal,” non-academic people have no use for the humanities. So did someone else as I came to discover. 

This rebuttal by Roberto Fubini is simple and direct: yes, we do not need the humanities to continue breathing. However, a world without myth or art or language is a dismal one. Our biological functions do not need these things, but as human beings, we absolutely do.

Fubini argues that the humanities should not be seen as the study of irrelevant, dead things only of interest to specialists, but of things vital to our lives and our understanding of the world. Anyone can benefit mentally and spiritually from the humanities. Here’s his defense for the humanities:

The humanities need no case: a response to Justin Stover and many others.

Editor’s note: This letter was written by a reader of the site; I have provided the links to posts he addresses in his remarks and include his references.

Rimini, Antica Cafeteria, Piazza Tre Martiri / January 2018

Dear Editor,

Your excerpt and publication of Justin Stover’s piece, “There is No Case for the Humanities,” brought to mind the ironies in the attempts to marginalize the study of literature, language, history, philosophy, or religion – in short, those areas we now call the humanities. All these attempts, Stover’s included, create puppets of the humanities and give them voice from their ventriloquism: squeaky, insecure sounds, which offer caricatures and puffed-out straw men. Stover would have us imagine the humanities confined to the university library and lecture hall, with their professors holding forth on the narrowest of subjects. Small wonder, then, that scientists push them aside and receive greater recognition.

These ventriloquists of the humanities may be staging their spectacle with the aim of delighting or antagonizing their readers, but they miss the central point. The staging and spectacle employ the very means they would caricature, namely the humanities. Rhetoric, logic, and language are at the heart of the humanities, and their opponents – as well as many of their would-be advocates – secretly make use of the humanities in their speeches about its worth.

Language: if one sits in a café in a busy square and listens to the conversations, not to eavesdrop, but rather to take in what language reveals, then one comes closer to the heart of the humanities. It is the language of gossip, anger, excitement, exhaustion, distraction; it is the language of lies and love. Federico Fellini in his Amarcord, his film of remembrance, traveled back to this seaside city to record this language. Recording this language, he made a work of art. But this art is not above us, foreign to us. It is not a learned abstraction. On the contrary, its language illuminates our lives. The groundlings in the Globe Theater could applaud Shakespeare’s Tempest, and follow Ariel as much as Caliban.

Stover speaks for many others who would make the humanities into fragile, erudite, and airy subjects. They are much more basic and durable. In fact, they preside over the means of their making. He argues that the humanities produce overspecialized and effete scholarship. We could try to defend this humanities hologram. But this would be only more theater of the absurd, when the drama itself lies in the language of argument. Stover overlooks the real stakes of his “case” against the humanities: the loss of language, or more specifically the loss of care for and love of language.

If we look to poets and thinkers across the centuries, we discover, repeatedly, that they have criticized scholars for their narrow pursuits, and also for their quest for fame and money. So Socrates mocked the sophists, and Lucian the philosophers. Seneca ridiculed their excesses, a theme picked up by Erasmus’s Folly, and then by Rabelais and Montaigne, who stated (or understated) that “the greatest scholars are not the wisest men.” This resonated with the words of Seneca, who called them “a spiritless lot: for people are forever acting as interpreters and never as creators, always lurking in someone else’s shadow” (letters 33 and 87).

But – in case you think I am now being pedantic myself – the point is to learn from the humanities, the range and depth of its literature. By this means we might more fully understand ourselves by understanding others. Scholarship, at its best, serves as the café waiter or maître d’ to these literary offerings.

The humanities are so fundamental that critics (and advocates) easily overlook them, but this oversight is part of our modern malady and one-sidedness. Here Italians are more alive to the dangers of this one-sidedness, which is why Rimini will always celebrate Fellini, and Certaldo its Boccaccio, and why Roberto Benigni, the actor and comedian, can read Dante before thousands of people on the steps of Santa Croce in Florence. The leading television program right now is a tour of Italy’s cultural heritage by Alberto Angela.

Russia, too, has long explored this modern urge to isolate and limit the humanities through science and scholarship. Gogol, in his brilliant Dead Souls, has his protagonist Tchitchikov visit two estates: one is run according to the latest scientific methods; on the other, the learned landowner yearns to educate the peasants in German arts and manners. The first farm is a model of utility and proficiency and the second is in disarray. Gogol shows us the ‘triumph’ of the sciences at a cost, the cost of character and personality, as well as the vanity of erudition. Both extremes exist to the detriment of both.

This is comical, but relevant, as relevant as the question raised in Dostoevsky’s Devils: what is more important, Pushkin or a pair of boots? Stover would have the humanities push literature into scholarly insignificance. But the humanities, at heart, tend Pushkin’s fire, so that his words could warm the spirits of Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, and Akhmatova, and through them untold numbers of readers for generations to come. As Joseph Brodsky observed, Dostoevsky found inspiration and insight in the very syntax of the Russian language, in its use of dependent clauses, which led to the spiraling psychological digressions that wind through his work.

Does all this that the humanities provide then need a “case”? Can we ever stand as advocates or lawyers for the humanities? Or do they not, rather, wait upon us to become more alive to their resources? They require not a case, but care. They remain in patient uselessness; they guard the gifts of language, which we all need though too little respect in our preoccupations with science and technology.

Rabindranath Tagore a century ago contemplated the advance of the sciences in words that were pungent and prescient. Tagore held science in esteem and met with Einstein in 1930 to discuss the nature of truth. Yet as an educator, poet, and philosopher, he warned against the single-minded mania for science as the path to fulfillment. He spoke to Japanese students in 1916 just as Japan was pursuing Western technological ‘advancement.’ The life of science, he told them, was a “superficial life”:

Science, when it oversteps its limits and occupies the whole region of life, has its fascination. It looks so powerful because of its superficiality – as does a hippopotamus which is very little else but physical. Science speaks of the struggle for existence, but forgets that man’s existence is not merely of the surface. Man truly exists in the ideal of perfection, whose height and depth are not yet measured. (“The Spirit of Japan,” July 2, 1916)

The height and depth of humanity, then: these are the coordinates of the humanities. We may ignore them as we ignore our inner lives, our need for myth and stories, even our love for flowers: all “useless” things that, somehow, we secretly recognize as essential to who we are, to our self-knowledge and our self-realization. Erwin Chargaff, the great biochemist who explored our DNA, echoed Tagore’s warning, with greater pessimism: “Our time” – he wrote some forty years ago – “when even Old Testament prophets must disguise themselves in laboratory gowns, will not understand when I say that the majority of those things that concern or should concern humanity plays out in realms in which the natural sciences have not bearing at all.”

It is pleasant to be idle in a city like Rimini and sit outside in warm January weather and, like the statue of Julius Caesar in the Piazza, observe the passeggiata of life. Life in the round is the realm of the humanities. This realm is more than the courtoisie of an educated few, as Stover imagines the culture of the humanities. If we listen to the poets and singers that voice our mythologies, our lives follow a richer cadence. Schools and universities may have retreated from these voices, but they have never left us, nor do I think they ever will, if the gods are kind. It falls to us to watch our language more intently, with a sense of wonder before what may appear on the horizon, what new vessel may bring the wandering poets home after what seems so long an exile.

Cordially,

Roberto Fubini

Amen!

#humanities #literature #art #history #religion #language #philosophy #thoughts

[thisdaynews]

ICYMI: NDDC probe looks like TV drama — House of Reps spokesman, Kalu

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/icymi-nddc-probe-looks-like-tv-drama-house-of-reps-spokesman-kalu/

ICYMI: NDDC probe looks like TV drama — House of Reps spokesman, Kalu

Director of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr Benjamin Kalu, informs LEKE BAIYEWU regarding the examination of the Niger Delta Development Commission and what the parliament needs the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to do with the Interim Management Committee of the commission

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What motivated the House to research the NDDC?

Nothing roused it aside from that there were allegations from the general population, from the individuals from the locale. Petitions were sent to the House, particularly by common society associations, informants who were on TV now and again inventoriing, displaying all the wrongs in that office. What’s more, founded on that, the House, as the individuals’ parliament, wouldn’t have quite recently plunked down and overlooked the objection from general society. A movement was moved by a senior individual from the National Assembly, the Deputy Leader of the House, Peter Akpatason. At the point when the movement came, there was a goal. The goal was that the standing board (on NDDC) ought to explore whether all the substance of the movement which featured the issues in the district brought about by the organization were valid. That was the command.

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We promptly began work from the secretariat by imparting to all the partners that expected to respond to a couple of inquiries concerning what happened there. It was not just the NDDC that was gathered, the Bureau of Public Procurement, the Auditor-General of the Federation, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Central Bank of Nigeria, temporary workers, just as common society associations and different partners were welcome to recount to their story. In addition, areas 88 and 89 of the constitution state that we ought not close our ears and eyes when an issue of wastefulness or debasement in government is raised. That we began the test and held the analytical hearing doesn’t consequently imply that every one of them are liable. In the event that we accepted that they were liable, at that point there would be no requirement for the examination. The quintessence of the examination isn’t to thrown defamations on anyone; it isn’t to diminish the status of anyone yet to make enquiries in light of the fact that the constitution says we ought to do that.

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The test began like a standard one by the House however it has now created discussions that have grabbed the eye of the whole nation. What is your opinion about the disclosures by the advisory group?

Truly, as I have consistently stated, this isn’t a the big time. On the off chance that you permitted me, I would have favored a private examination of this until we get to the foundation of this. The manner in which it is being praised, it is presently looking like showbiz for the nation… like an unscripted TV drama. Concerning me, I’m not very content with it. I don’t think I like that component of the whole thing. In the event that you need to discover what is happening, it ought to be done unobtrusively. However, on the off chance that the law permits us to do formal conference, so it won’t create the impression that someone some place is attempting to control things, at that point we are ordered. All alone, we would have gotten a kick out of the chance to do a peaceful hearing. In any case it will produce another issue.

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What is that issue?

That the National Assembly secretly nailed a couple of people. Nigerians would pose inquiries like; for what reason didn’t they open it up for everybody’s viewing pleasure? We would not like to fall prey to that sort of trap. That was what caused the authority of the House to consider doing it openly for anyone to view and take part and have the data on what unfolded.

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Is it useful for general society?

Truly, it is acceptable in light of the fact that open commitment in parliamentary practice assists with expanding the certainty of the individuals in the parliament. What’s more, the certainty of the individuals is extremely major in building the trustworthiness of the National Assembly, which will make individuals to accept more in vote based system. It likewise builds our responsibility and straightforwardness components which the individuals are approaching and longing for, on the grounds that they generally said we work in obscurity and it will be a great idea to be increasingly straightforward and responsible, to cause individuals to accept the more. With that impact, we have accomplished something, that we made the open piece of what we were doing.

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Be that as it may, do the revelations put forth by the advisory group worth the attempt?

Certainly, it merits the exertion. Posing that inquiry resembles scrutinizing the need of the conference. I have consistently asked individuals, when you hear that a specific office burns through N1.3bn on network relations and you are from that network, will you not pose inquiries? At the point when you hear that sympathy visits took N122.9m from January to July, you should pose inquiries. At the point when you hear that consultancy administrations took N83m in a half year, that COVID-19 intercession took N3.14bn,that obligation visit remittance took N486m in this COVID-19 time, that imprest took N790.9m, that Lassa fever took N1.956bn – nearly N2bn when we are doing combating with COVID-19… When you hear that legitimate administrations inside this time of COVID-19 took N900m, when you hear that upkeep took N220m and abroad excursions took N85.6m, ventures open correspondence – just to illuminate the general population about undertakings – N1.1bn, security took N744m, staff-related installments took N8.8bn, partners’ commitment took N248m, and the aggregate sum is N81.5bn, nothing will prevent the National Assembly from thinking about that as a difficult issue to contribute its time and see if it is valid or not.

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Like we have consistently stated, it is a charge. It is just over the span of the examination that you will find whether it is valid or not. On the off chance that you don’t do the discoveries, by what method will you know whether it is valid or not? That is the thing that we are doing. The issues raised a require the need to burrow profound. The examination is justified, despite all the trouble. Everything I can say is that there is no substantiation in the introductions of the offices and the NDDC and IMC and the service. There is no certification. There are part of revelations that have indicated that specific things were not done appropriately. For the present, the dabs are not so much associating and we are as yet enquiring to know why. That is the reason if there is the need to welcome any of them once more, we will welcome them.

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On Monday, the test moved from which cash is absent to who got what contracts from the NDDC. The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, in any case, excused the claim by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, as a diversionary strategy. It is safe to say that you are stating no one in the National Assembly has been granted an agreement by the NDDC?

I concur with Mr Speaker that it was diversionary. I said so in light of the fact that, to be completely forthright, what we are seeking after is the thing that occurred among January and July (2020). We have not gone to different years. We are researching N81.5bn (spent) among January and now. This ninth Assembly falls among January and now. The movement that was moved was for (among) January and now. In the event that you state National Assembly has taken 60 percent of the tasks of the NDDC, you are stating that the National Assembly has taken 60 percent of N365bn appropriated for the organization. I’m certain you know how much what could be compared to that measure of cash. Do I concur with that? Unquestionably, I don’t. I don’t concur that 60 percent of N365bn has been taken by the National Assembly inside these a half year. That is the reason we are researching it.

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Is it accurate to say that you are stating the rate is lower?

To ask me whether I’m stating that no individual from the House has taken agreements from the NDDC is to request that I be an entertainer. It is highly unlikely for me to discover. The main route for me to discover is through this examination. What’s more, fortunately enough, the reasonable hearing component of the National Assembly has been reached out to this respectable priest.

A few individuals from people in general accept that Akpabio was not permitted to completely communicate at the consultation…

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We needed more time however the open felt that he was not permitted to communicate what he really needed to state. At the point when the administrator said ‘it’s alright, it’s alright,’ it was misconstrued as saying ‘stay silent, don’t recount to the story; stay silent, don’t uncover; stay silent, don’t uncover.’ Now, the Speaker possesses said it is energy for you to walk the discussion and set some things in motion. Since having sworn to tell the truth you said 60 percent of the tasks were for National Assembly individuals, distribute the names of the ventures, organizations recruited for the undertakings, and disclose the corporate cover of those organizations; let us know the names of those individuals. That way, we will have the option to know whether they are individuals from this National Assembly or not. I think it is a positive development since it will clear the doubt in people in general and away from questions in the psyche of such huge numbers of individuals who are currently speculating one another. ‘Are you certain you didn’t get contracts?’ ‘Did you get contracts or did you not get gets?’ That distribution will free some from these issues.

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The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), selected a board for the NDDC and the Senate affirmed the arrangements however the IMC assigned by Akpabio is currently in control. Do you figure the President may have been deceived on the administration of the commission?

Whoever possesses whatever position in the official is a privilege of the President, it isn’t our call. The National Assembly, through the Senate, has the command of the constitution to clear those people. It is just at that level that the National Assembly is permitted to partake in the arrangement of people that head offices or services.

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Regardless of whether it is the correct advance is reliant on the result of the targets and accomplishments, and the acknowledgment of the commands given by Mr President. In the event that what we are escaping the IMC is the thing that the President expected, at that point he should keep them. In any case, if the targets he has set for the organization are not being accomplished, at that point I think it is smarter to take care of business. On the off chance that the order that says inside a half year, set up scientific inspecting and get it cleared, and a half year after it isn’t done, and it is about the tenth mo

[tnbndl]

Why being in a quarantine is the best thing to get stuck with

written by: tnbndl

June 14, 2020

Being in quarantine is one of the most challenging part of our lives. It sucks.  It is a transition to a situation we are not familiar with---making an exception to those individuals  who has preferred to stay at home even before being advised

As part of compliance to what we are instructed, we get stuck with the idea on how we can maintain the lifestyle we used to live. At a glimpse, it is just normal days and nothing compared before the pandemic. But you might probably blunder.

How many of you found yourself with a huge change in living life?  I did!

Well, there are no exact statistics that provide the real number out from those people because I believe being in quarantine is the best place to get stuck with wherein we could use our time to finally do the things we always want to achieve. It is the period where we could be able to do the stuff that we weren't able to do before, due to the fact that we were so busy with our work or studies.

Yet, in pursuit of maintaining the lifestyle we used to live, It is surprising to think that we ended up with something that is bothering to keep around:

waking up in the morning, to eat, wait for the evening, eat again, sleep, and repeat.

Not to mention procrastinate with phone, scrolling through social media, because for some reason it is simply the option we have. There is nothing wrong about it. However, you might feel guilty for carrying that toxic behavior for so long that you even have it before being quarantined and put no interest on changing it.

Pathetic isn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, I am no one to tell you what you should do in your life but I am someone who was doing the same thing over and over again thinking that I can’t do better with my situation.

Therefore, I started to think  how I could motivate myself to able to maintain a healthy-balanced life while being glued at home.

Even before quarantine, I always wanted to secure my time and do things as much as I can. At first, I wasn’t bothered by the fact that I could still be at the level on how I used to. But sooner, it becomes foggy where I couldn't see the road on where I'm really heading to. And to tell you frankly, I developed a toxic behavior. I procrastinate a lot, got lazy all day, and forgot all the progress I made. I mean, I'm not saying procrastinating is bad, or has nothing good to do with you, because sometimes we need some break and procrastinate, get stuck with our gadgets, use social media, right?

What I'm attempting to point out is keeping that same lifestyle, same habits and avoid confronting yourself about it.    

For a moment, I was stuck. Believing that there is no way for me to maintain or go back to the life I admired. However I was wrong. I was wrong to put a conclusion on something that I am yet to experience--on how life can surprise every individual living in this world.

Indeed, life offers you different food on the table for you to eat and that's where I realized that It is secretly whispering around me, telling me to make a change and to desire whatever endeavor I want. It was a sign that's hard for me to ignore. In that moment I understood that there is really no way to go back no matter how that life really made me feel.I have to move forward and just forward.

Therefore, I started to picked up every pieces around the corner. I began to  reflect from my past and eventually connects the dots on areas where I can improve from by recognizing my own shortcomings.

Although, I am aware that changing positions is not easy to deal with. I'm not new to it. It is very uncomfortable. It requires an enormous effort and an amount of time before you can confidently present the final product.

Nothing comes easy  to a whirlwind of events that you will endure, even so, don't despair given the fact that you will only be squeezed between moving forward and going back to the old practices. Until then, you will thank yourself for choosing to finish what you started and look back in astonishment  on how you managed to get out of your box to make a difference.

Being stuck on something that you are familiar with can get horrible. Owing to the fact to familiarity of your routine is hardly enough to contemplate its sense. That is why we have to manipulate our beliefs with new moralities where we could invest from and start making quality time while in quarantine.

You actually can discover a lot of things coming from yourself

.

Like for example, you might probably just liken the smell of a book but no intentions to read it. Then it is your opportunity to also like reading it. Or maybe you also want to practice cooking and taking free  online courses, like I am doing right now,  then this is a great time to do your wills and improve.  

In light of something, manipulating my own beliefs helped me improved drastically. Providing radiant to areas where I subsist. Reflecting and watching yourself  is the new ”cool”  thing to develop because to the fact that it increases your mood and allows you to critically think your own  understanding.

In addition, it  gives you positive feedback to your current mood and eventually provide you confinement.

By having the courage to make changes, it allows me to cultivate aspects that I'm not fan of. Beneficial as they are, instead of just procrastinating and wasting my time on things that doesn't matter.

If you think that you can't make a change in your situation right now while being in quarantine, think again. You might be amazed on yourself.

Gandalf once said,

”All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

So, it is for you to find out how you will seize the opportunity you have right now.

I'm sure whatever you build from yourself right now will ultimately be worth it. Because for me, I am proud of what I am accomplishing and I am very excited to harvest my crop on time.  

So should you.

#self care #self impowerment #investing #investinyourself #change #life-changing #courage #courageous #quarantine #time #time management #manipulation #belief #get motivated #motivation #still procrastinating #procrastination #home & lifestyle #home improvement ideas #stuck #gandalf

[script-a-world]

Hi, I have a question that might span over a few different Script specialities, so I’m hoping this is the appropriate place to ask. Sorry ahead of time, because it’s a long ask! So in my story, there is a phenomenon of the human condition was discovered: when people are pushed beyond their extremes in a life-or-death situation, sometimes their soul ‘fractures’ into two pieces. One stays inside the ‘original’ body, but the other manifests as an exterior physical self. (1/9)

This second body takes on superhuman qualities, such as extreme strength, flight, elemental abilities, etc. and fulfills a role akin to a guardian. Usually the ability is relevant to whatever life-or-death situation is at hand. Ex: If someone is at risk of burning to death, the second body might have water-related powers to save them. (2/9)

So, the first documented case appeared during the World Wars where a soldier’s guardian manifested to save him from a crumbling building. Initially, people didn’t know how this was happening, but over the next few years, a lot of similar cases were cropping up. Consequently, speculation linked the appearance of the second half with violence. (3/9)

Because of the chaos of the World Wars, more people were being placed in life-or-death situations and therefore being more likely to spawn that soul fracture. It was still unclear as to how this was happening (was it because of genetics or some higher spiritual power, etc.), so governments secretly began experimenting where they took people and placed them under inhumane conditions to try and trigger the transformation. (4/9)

However, a huge majority did not actually transform (maybe only 1% were able to fracture) and this resulted in a lot of deaths. When the public discovered this, there was a lot of uproar and fury, and the UN banned any experiments that tried to trigger fracturing. The only research allowed would be things like interviews or non-invasive medical procedures on people with existing guardians. (5/9)

But because for the most part the soul fracturing remained unknown, many legal, ethical, social, and religious issues arose. There were questions like if the ‘other’ halves were considered humans. Were the “originals” any more human than their secondary counterparts? Did they deserve distinct rights and privileges as citizens of the state? Because they had superpowers, should they be classified as weapons? (6/9)

Should they be regulated, and if so, how? Were the “originals” still fully human? Is it medically ethical/legal to try and trigger the transformation for a patient who has a fatal disease/condition? Are the soul-fracturing a result of genetics or because of some unknown deity? Etc. There was some discourse about the issues like the politically correct terminology to refer to the ‘others’ and the ‘originals’ but legislation remains a grey area still. It’s a popular topic among politicians. (7/9)

After the war, there were fewer cases of soul-fracturing, so those who had other halves were regarded with some fear and suspicion. Right now, I’m tentatively saying that about 3-5% of the world population currently have other halves. So basically, my questions are 1) is the government and UN’s reaction to the phenomenon realistic and feasible, (8/9)

2) how do you think the government would currently handle the existence of these super-souls (in terms of politics, military, medicine, etc.) and 3) are there any social/logistical problems that I haven’t covered but you think would be relevant to explore? Again, I’m sorry this ask was so long, but I am apparently very bad at condensing my explanations. (9/9)

I apologize for taking so long to get around to posting this, but I hope you find our commentary useful! -Werew

constablewrites: For the first question: It's a reasonable response, but I'm not sure the UN necessarily has that sort of power. Those sorts of things are usually managed by treaties, which I believe the UN can help facilitate, but it can't just make decrees and expect them to be followed. If you're concerned about that angle, do some research into real-life analogues where the international community decided to set certain ethical standards. There's plenty of precedent for that.

For the second and third... I don't think this is really something anyone else can answer for you. Taking a twist on reality and exploring the ramifications of it is what speculative fiction is. There are a million different directions it could be taken, and deciding which aspects are most interesting to you and ring most true is how you find your story. You can find your way in by reading/watching/playing other media where they've explored similar questions, or by doing research into relevant areas of law and policy so you have a better understanding of how they work and where your concept might fit in.If you have specific questions about a particular detail you've worked out or get stuck on, you'll have better luck getting specific answers, but nobody else can build your world for you.

MareeB: This is such a sweeping ask, it's hard to nail down anything. Something like this would change so much. But this concept does remind me rather a lot of Bleach, and the relationship between Shinigami and Zanpakuto. The asker might find it useful to check the show out, to see how it plays with this concept. The story arc in episodes 230-265 deals with the zanpakuto specifically

Bina: (rubs hands together) Alrighty, here's my immediate impression of what some more social/logistical problems that you might not have considered yet (Question 3, and maybe some of 2)Would high-profile hospitals or governments offer huge amounts of money to buy someone's second half from them? For the sake of testing medical advancements and such. That way, it's more of a legal acquisition, although it really does raise the question of "are the fractured halves (I'll call them FHs) independent entities, or are they 'owned' by the original half (OH)?Would insurance companies try to raise rates on OHs? Would governments demand  that OHs get insurance to cover for any potential damages their FH causes?Would landlords try to unfairly raise the rent on someone they knew had an FH? Seeing as how it's an extra physical body. Or would they kick them out, seeing as how those crazy superpowers might destroy their building or harm other residents?

Has an FH ever "gone rogue"? Has an FH ever failed to protect their OH?Can FHs accurately predict the harm that might come to their OH (like foresight or some kind of "Spider sense"), or do they have to guess?What happens if an OH is the one harming themselves? Or deliberately putting themselves in harm's way? Would an FH interfere, or are they unable to lay a finger on their OH?What happens if the OH dies? Does the FH exist independently? Or do they die as well? What happens to the mental state of an FH if their OH dies?If a young child gets an FH, does the FH's appearance grow up along with the child? Or will the grown-up OH have an FH who still looks like a child? OR, is the FH's appearance completely independent of their OH? Can the FH be a different gender than their OH? (This might relate to transgender/genderqueer people, and give that portion of the LGBT+ community a reason to be on the side of FH rights.)

Do FHs acknowledge each other's presence? Can they communicate with each other? Do they have a special language or means of communication amongst themselves?What kind of social justice organizations exist for the sake of FH rights? What kind of progress have they made? How seriously are they taken? What 'allies' do they have in terms of other organizations? Any religious groups on their side? Environmentalists? Weird, niche cultists? Teacher's unions?Would a nation that’s very humanitarian towards FHs get into fights with other nations who treat them cruelly?Is there a nation who's the lead example in FH having equal rights? A nation who treats them the worst?Have opinions on FH rights caused existing international relations to deteriorate or fall apart entirely? Have they forged new ones between unexpected nations?

[These are questions I'd need answered to add further points/refine existing points:Do FHs have their own innate independence? Free will? Or are they sort of an Artificial Intelligence deal, where they have a Purpose and the means to fulfill that Purpose, but aren't immediately inclined to question their lot in life nor value their own thoughts and feelings?Can FHs speak? Do they only speak to their OH? Or are they taciturn in general?Are FHs willing to be physically separated from their OH? Or do they take that guardian role super seriously and would fight if someone/something tried separating them?Do FHs listen to orders by their OH? Can they be trained and commanded like dogs? Or do they have to be argued with to make them do things outside of guarding?If you cut them open, what are they made of? Blood and bone? Sand and ash? Stardust? Nothing at all? (This might hint to the 'was there some higher power who was responsible for this)]

Synth: Well, I don't think there is much to add to Bina's commentary other than I agree that nailing down exactly what the FHs are will help narrow down answers for the other questions. Them being completely separate individuals capable of independent thought and with their own hopes and fears will make for a much different story than if they are in some way bound to their OH, like how the dæmons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels are physically separate from yet spiritually still connected to their humans.

Werew: Oooh I didn't even make that connection, His Dark Materials is a great series to look at. Even though dæmons are a normal part of society and have been basically forever, those books get into ALL KINDS of ethics about them. I imagine that, in your situation, there would be MUCH more in the way of ethics and controversy because FHs are not extremely prevalent, have not been around forever, and the degree to which they are necessary to their OH is not entirely known.

#culture #sociology #magic #species?? #pylons #Anonymous

[asrarmukadamworld-blog]

Understanding Web Design

We get better design when we understand our medium. Yet even at this late cultural hour, many people don’t understand web design. Among them can be found some of our most distinguished business and cultural leaders, including a few who possess a profound grasp of design—except as it relates to the web.

Some who don’t understand web design nevertheless have the job of creating websites or supervising web designers and developers. Others who don’t understand web design are nevertheless professionally charged with evaluating it on behalf of the rest of us. Those who understand the least make the most noise. They are the ones leading charges, slamming doors, and throwing money—at all the wrong people and things.

If we want better sites, better work, and better-informed clients, the need to educate begins with us.

Preferring real estate to architecture

It’s hard to understand web design when you don’t understand the web. And it’s hard to understand the web when those who are paid to explain it either don’t get it themselves, or are obliged for commercial reasons to suppress some of what they know, emphasizing the Barnumesque over the brilliant.

The news media too often gets it wrong. Too much internet journalism follows the money; too little covers art and ideas. Driven by editors pressured by publishers worried about vanishing advertisers, even journalists who understand the web spend most of their time writing about deals and quoting dealmakers. Many do this even when the statement they’re quoting is patently self-serving and ludicrous—like Zuckerberg’s Law.

It’s not that Zuckerberg’s not news; and it’s not that business isn’t some journalists’ beat. But focusing on business to the exclusion of all else is like reporting on real estate deals while ignoring architecture.

And one tires of the news narrative’s one-dimensionalism. In 1994, the web was weird and wild, they told us. In ’99 it was a kingmaker; in ’01, a bust. In ’02, news folk discovered blogs; in ’04, perspiring guest bloggers on CNNexplained how citizen journalists were reinventing news and democracy and would determine who won that year’s presidential election. I forget how that one turned out.

When absurd predictions die ridiculous deaths, nobody resigns from the news room, they just throw a new line into the water—like marketers replacing a slogan that tanked. After decades of news commoditization, what’s amazing is how many good reporters there still are, and how hard many try to lay accurate information before the public. Sometimes you can almost hear it beneath the roar of the grotesque and the exceptional.

THE SUSTAINABLE CIRCLE OF SELF-REGARD

News media are not the only ones getting it wrong. Professional associations get it wrong every day, and commemorate their wrongness with an annual festival. Each year, advertising and design magazines and professional organizations hold contests for “new media design” judged by the winners of last year’s competitions. That they call it “new media design” tells them nothing and you and me everything.

Although there are exceptions, for the most part the creators of winning entries see the web as a vehicle for advertising and marketing campaigns in which the user passively experiences Flash and video content. For the active user, there is gaming—but what you and I think of as active web use is limited to clicking a “Digg this page” button.

The winning sites look fabulous as screen shots in glossy design annuals. When the winners become judges, they reward work like their own. Thus sites that behave like TV and look good between covers continue to be created, and a generation of clients and art directors thinks that stuff is the cream of web design.

DESIGN CRITICS GET IT WRONG, TOO

People who are smart about print can be less bright about the web. Their critical faculties, honed to perfection during the Kerning Wars, smash to bits against the barricades of our profession.

The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts. They wonder aloud how we can enjoy working in a medium that offers us less than absolute control over every atom of the visual experience. What they are secretly asking is whether or not we are real designers. (They suspect that we are not.) But these are the juniors, the design students and future critics. Their opinions are chiefly of interest to their professors, and one prays they have good ones.

More sophisticated critics understand that the web is not print and that limitations are part of every design discipline. Yet even these eggheads will sometimes succumb to fallacious comparatives. (I’ve done it myself, although long ago and strictly for giggles.) Where are the master pieces of web design, these critics cry. That Google Maps might be as representative of our age as the Mona Lisa was of Leonardo’s—and as brilliant, in its way—satisfies many of us as an answer, but might not satisfy the design critic in search of a direct parallel to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan poster.

Typography, architecture, and web design

The trouble is, web design, although it employs elements of graphic design and illustration, does not map to them. If one must compare the web to other media, typography would be a better choice. For a web design, like a typeface, is an environment for someone else’s expression. Stick around and I’ll tell you which site design is like Helvetica.

Architecture (the kind that uses steel and glass and stone) is also an apt comparison—or at least, more apt than poster design. The architect creates planes and grids that facilitate the dynamic behavior of people. Having designed, the architect relinquishes control. Over time, the people who use the building bring out and add to the meaning of the architect’s design.

Of course, all comparisons are gnarly by nature. What is the “London Calling” of television? Who is the Jane Austen of automotive design? Madame Butterfly is not less beautiful for having no car chase sequence, peanut butter no less tasty because it cannot dance.

SO WHAT IS WEB DESIGN?

Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for. Although websites can be delivery systems for games and videos, and although those delivery systems can be lovely to look at, such sites are exemplars of game design and video storytelling, not of web design. So what is web design?

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Let’s repeat that, with emphasis:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

Great web designs are like great typefaces: some, like Rosewood, impose a personality on whatever content is applied to them. Others, like Helvetica, fade into the background (or try to), magically supporting whatever tone the content provides. (We can argue tomorrow whether Helvetica is really as neutral as water.)

Which web design is like that? For one, Douglas Bowman’s white “Minima” layout for Blogger, used by literally millions of writers—and it feels like it was designed for each of them individually. That is great design.

Great web designs are like great buildings. All office buildings, however distinctive, have lobbies and bathrooms and staircases. Websites, too, share commonalities.

Although a great site design is completely individual, it is also a great deal like other site designs that perform similar functions. The same is true of great magazine and newspaper layouts, which differ from banal magazine and newspaper layouts in a hundred subtle details. Few celebrate great magazine layouts, yet millions consciously or unconsciously appreciate them, and nobody laments that they are not posters.

The inexperienced or insufficiently thoughtful designer complains that too many websites use grids, too many sites use columns, too many sites are “boxy.” Efforts to avoid boxiness have been around since 1995; while occasionally successful, they have most often produced aesthetically wretched and needlessly unusable designs.

The experienced web designer, like the talented newspaper art director, accepts that many projects she works on will have headers and columns and footers. Her job is not to whine about emerging commonalities but to use them to create pages that are distinctive, natural, brand-appropriate, subtly memorable, and quietly but unmistakably engaging.

If she achieves all that and sweats the details, her work will be beautiful. If not everyone appreciates this beauty—if not everyone understands web design—then let us not cry for web design, but for those who cannot see.

[Source] https://alistapart.com/article/understandingwebdesign/

 Jaspal Khalsa - Web Designer in Navi Mumbai. 7+ year’s experience of Web Design and Logo Design Services. Develop user http://jaspalkhalsa.com/web-design.html friendly and Responsive website from expert at affordable cost. I am expert to create integrated design that fills a need.

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[sandranelsonuk]

10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie

It’s an addiction like any other.

Ten or twenty bucks will scratch that itch, but the high never lasts, and before long you’re craving the next hit.

And the worst part? Nobody understands.

Except just maybe a fellow addict… “Hello. My name is Glen, and I’m a domain name junkie. My last domain purchase was three weeks, four days and seven hours ago.”

That’s how I’d introduce myself to the support group. (You know, the one that doesn’t exist yet.) I’d stand up and tell my story to a circle of fellow addicts, who’d nod their silent support.

My own addiction started with an act of vanity — I acquired the .COM version of my own name. That was 17 years ago, and owning a piece of Internet real estate was novel and exciting.

But that first domain registration, like the first high from an illicit drug, set me on the path to dependency.

The Telltale Signs of a Destructive Domain Habit

Like many addicts, I failed to acknowledge my problem until it was too late.

For years I told myself buying domains was just a harmless hobby. Something to do on evenings and weekends to help unwind after work. But over time my hobby became a powerful obsession.

I’d wake up each morning with a head full of new domain ideas and a burning desire to check their availability. At social occasions, I’d sneak out of the room to browse domain resale sites on my smartphone.

And despite plans to become a savvy domain “flipper,” I was selling almost none of the domains I bought, instead keeping them for personal use.

Eventually, my behavior became more erratic. I would buy any domains I could get my hands on — .ORGs, .COs, even .INFOs.

One Monday morning I hit rock bottom when I found a dozen GoDaddy receipts in my inbox for domains that had no practical purpose. Worse still, I couldn’t even remember buying them.

These days I’m on the road to recovery, and my mission is to help other addicts.

So take a careful look at the list below, and see if you recognize any of these destructive behaviors.

If so, you might just be a domain name junkie.

#1. You Just Can’t Quit GoDaddy

When you’re a domain name junkie, you struggle to think about anything else. You spend every idle moment brainstorming cool domains for your “someday, one day” online projects.

And once an idea has surfaced, you simply must know — is the name already taken? It doesn’t matter where you are, at work, at home, even in bed. You have to know.

When you discover the domain has already been taken (the good ones usually are), you start the search for viable alternatives.

And once you’ve dived down the rabbit hole, you can hardly crawl back out.

#2. You Lie About How Many Domains You Own

When you start collecting domains, it’s fun to log in to your account and delight in the breadth of your online kingdom.

But one day you reach the point where that list of domains is a painful reminder of a habit that’s out of control.

When your partner catches you buying yet another domain and casually asks, “How many is that now?” you pretend you don’t know, or deliberately lowball the true number.

But of course, lying is a telltale sign your casual hobby has turned into a serious problem.

#3. You’ve Started Dabbling in the Newer TLDs

In the beginning (well, 1985), just six top-level domains (TLDs): .COM, .ORG, .NET, .EDU, .GOV and .MIL existed, but that list has since snowballed.

Today we have more than 1,500 TLDs including .COFFEE, .LAWYER and .PORN.

On the one hand, domains are more plentiful than ever, and even if your dream .COM is long gone, you have hundreds of other options for snagging a snappy name.

On the other hand,  who knows how much prestige these newer domains will hold over the longer term? Nobody wants to build their blog around the domain equivalent of a pet rock.

Some domain junkies won’t look beyond .COM, but if you’re exploring the murkier end of the market (.CM anyone?), it might be a sign that your hobby’s taking a worrying turn.

#4. You Tell Yourself You’re a “Domain Investor”

When your domain account lists tens (or even hundreds) of seemingly random domain purchases, there are two ways to explain it.

Either it’s the result of years of clueless impulse buying from a click-happy domain junkie with no more strategy than a half-blind pigeon pecking in the dirt.

Or it’s the culmination of a strategic acquisition campaign to build a valuable portfolio of undervalued digital assets for future sale.

Not surprisingly, most domain name “enthusiasts” favor the second version.

But deep down, if you suspect there’s very little method to your madness, it might be time to go cold turkey on domains.

#5. You Read the Thesaurus… for Fun

Not every domain you dream up will be available for registration. The truth is, most won’t.

That’s why a thesaurus is a domain collector’s best friend. In fact, uncovering snappy synonyms for your latest near-miss idea can be a lot of fun.

But if a thesaurus has become your favorite bedtime read (you know, just in case a cool domain idea jumps out) it may be time to seek professional help.

Because — wake up call! — it’s a reference book, not the latest Jack Reacher.

#6. You Secretly Stalk the Person Who Owns YourName.com

I was lucky. I grabbed my personal domain before anyone else could.

But if you have a popular birth name, or you were just too slow to the punch, your best options may already have gone. And that really stings.

Because when your name’s John Brown, telling people your treasured home on the Internet is TheRealJohnWBrown.info is plain embarrassing.

And that’s why you secretly stalk the person who nabbed your name online. You stake out their website, mentally mocking their pathetic efforts while waiting patiently for the right moment to pounce.

Because one day, they’ll forget to renew that domain and then, my friend, victory will be yours.

#7. You’ve Felt the Pain of “Lapsers Remorse”

Sometimes you see a domain for what it is — a dumb impulse purchase you’ll never be able to use or resell.

Maybe you tried to make money by listing it for sale at a couple of domain marketplaces but didn’t get the faintest sniff of interest.

So when it comes up for renewal, you do the sensible thing and let it lapse. You even feel good about your level-headed decision.

Weeks later, you casually check to see if anyone’s re-registered it and find it’s now listed on a “premium domains” site for $3,000!

Of course, just because it’s listed for thousands doesn’t mean it’s worth thousands.

But you can’t escape the feeling you let a valuable domain slip through your fingers.

#8. You’re Considering a Domain-Inspired Career Move

Sometimes you’ll stumble across a domain name that’s so good you simply have to own it… even though it’s totally unrelated to your work or hobbies.

The smart move would be to snag it and sell it for a profit to someone who can make good use of it. But like Gollum and that damned ring, you can’t quite bring yourself to part with it.

So your brain starts to explore a future possible world where you become the person for whom this is the perfect domain.

Sure it means throwing away years of hard-won experience and starting a blog in a new field.

But finding a domain this good must be a signal from the universe, right?

#9. You Lose Interest in Domains Moments After Buying Them

Once the buzz of snagging the name you’ve been lusting after subsides, a faint sense of regret can quickly follow.

“I can’t believe nobody bought this yet,” quickly turns to, “I can’t believe I just bought that.”

And the longer you hold onto a domain, the more money you rack up in wasted renewal fees.

The best way to take your mind off this painful predicament? Start scouting for your next domain name.

#10. You Have a Conspiracy Theory about Domain Registrars

Maybe this happened to you…

One day you check a new domain and find it available for the regular price. The next day it’s suddenly a “premium” domain, commanding several thousand dollars.

And you can’t help but wonder:

Did my search alert the registrar to the juicy potential of this previously unrecognized name?

You wouldn’t be alone in your suspicions. Type “do domain registrars” into Google and “steal domains?” is the top auto-complete suggestion.

Are registrars capable of dirty tricks like this? Maybe. It’s difficult to be sure.

But paranoid thoughts like these might be the first sign your harmless hobby is turning into a dangerous addiction.

Learn to Spot the Signs of Addiction Before It’s Too Late

Domain name addiction is real. And it can wreck your life if you don’t catch it in time.

If you suspect you might be addicted, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you visit domain registration sites several times a day?

Do you lie to friends and family about how many domains you own?

Do you often “binge” and buy multiple domains at once?

If so, you’re likely a domain name junkie.

The good news? With the right support, a full recovery is possible.

But you must take that crucial first step. Acknowledge your addiction.

So repeat after me:

“I’m a domain name junkie. And today’s the day I get help.”

About the Author: Glen Long is Smart Blogger’s operations guy and a recovering domain name junkie. He’s holding a “yard sale” of the best blogging, copywriting and content marketing domains that he’s collected over the years — go check it out.

The post 10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from Julia Garza Social Media Tips https://smartblogger.com/domain-name-junkie/

[funnythingshere0-blog]

Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition review

New Post has been published on http://funnythingshere.xyz/amazon-echo-dot-kids-edition-review/

Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition review

Research Center: Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition

My feelings on whether my son should interact with Amazon Alexa and other voice assistants is not a secret — in fact, I wrote an opinion piece about it a couple months ago. So when Amazon announced its Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition ($80), I was both excited and worried. Excited to not have to worry about my son secretly ordering cookies from the voice assistant or stumbling upon music with explicit lyrics. But worried because the Kids Edition really, and I do mean really, puts the technology front and center in my kid’s life.

With mixed feelings, I pulled the bright green Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition out of the box, along with the usual hardware and a comic book-style user guide designed for kids. Uh-oh, I thought as I looked at it. He’s going to love this. But will I?

Yep, that’s my Alexa

The Kid’s Edition looks a lot like a regular Dot, but it’s wrapped in a durable plastic material. You can get the device in green, blue, or red. It’s got the same ring around the top that illuminates when Alexa is listening, as well as volume up, volume down, mute, and on/off buttons.

My husband and I set the device on his bookshelf in our son’s room, waiting for him to discover it. It didn’t take long, and I didn’t even have to tell him what the device was. Once he saw the ring around the top, he knew.

The Kids Edition filters out all explicit lyrics on Amazon Music, so I don’t have to be nearby when my son is using Alexa.

“I get my own Alexa? Yep, that’s my Alexa,” he said matter-of-factly and, without missing a beat, barked, “Alexa, play songs from the movie Trolls!” Once the tunes began, he curled up in his chair, swiped the comic-book-style Alexa instructions of the shelf, and began “reading” them (actually, he doesn’t know how to read yet). I went to work on connecting the device to my Alexa app, which is required for full functionality, and then perused the parental controls built into it.

If you’re wondering whether the parental controls and kid-friendly options on the Kids Edition are available on regular Echo devices, the answer is yes — if you pay extra by subscribing to FreeTime Unlimited. The cost is $3 per month per kid, or $7 per month per family if you’re an Amazon Prime member. If you aren’t a Prime member, the price jumps to $5 and $10, respectively.  FreeTime Unlimited Family comes included with the Dot Kids Edition for a year, which would normally be $84 on top of the cost of a regular Dot ($50) if you were buying both separately. While Kids Edition Dot is pricier than the regular Dot, the free subscription makes up for that.

Kid-tested, parent approved

If you already have an Amazon Echo or Alexa-enabled speaker in your home and you have kids who use it, you’re going to like the features on the Kid’s Edition. The Kids Edition version of Alexa is different than vanilla Alexa. For one, she’s more friendly. When my son chirps “Alexa, good morning!” Alexa quips “Good morning! Today I’m thinking about birds” as well as other cheery responses.

Kim Wetzel/Digital Trends

Ask Alexa to tell you a story on a regular Echo device, and who knows what kind of story she’ll tell. Ask her on the Kid’s Edition, and she springs into action with short stories about dogs, cats, parents, or a combination of the three.

My son is really into knock-knock jokes, and the kids version of Alexa knows a lot of them, as well as other age-appropriate jokes that has him cracking up. The Kids Edition also has lots of customized alarms, too. If your child is obsessed with Star Wars character Rey or SpongeBob SquarePants, they can wake up to their voices.

F-Bomb free music

One thing my son loves to do with our regular Alexa devices is listen to music, but his request to listen to songs from the movie Green Lantern (he’s really into superheroes right now) often results in Alexa playing songs from DJ Green Lantern, who is fond of explicit lyrics. The Kids Edition filters out all explicit lyrics on Amazon Music, so I can let him use Alexa without fear that he’ll accidentally hear something that he shouldn’t.

The Kids Edition is an IoT device attached the cloud, and will always be vulnerable.

The Kids Edition also puts a halt to voice purchasing, news, and adult-focused question-and-answer conversations. That means your child can’t accidentally-on-purpose order a dollhouse or cookies. Alexa even answers with positive reinforcement if a child says “please.” Hopefully this will cut down on the number of times my son yells at Alexa when she doesn’t immediately do his bidding.

Parent dashboard

The Kid’s Edition features a parent dashboard, and the primary account holder can add someone else to the dashboard so that both parents can have control. Through the dashboard, you can set up the device to only respond during certain hours so that your kid can’t try and interact with Alexa when she should be sleeping. Alexa even notifies you that she’s shutting down for the night.

You can also track and set time limits for how much time your child spends accessing music, TV, audio books, apps, skills, or the web (FreeTime Unlimited is available across all Amazon devices, including Fire TV and Kindle).

An age filter can be set to guide Alexa on age-appropriate material, so if you have a 4-year-old, they won’t necessarily receive the same answers as a 10-year old.

Privacy issues

Critics have been skeptical of how Alexa will handle children’s privacy. Several organizations, including Campaign For a Commercial-Free Childhood, have encouraged people to stay away from the device. Lawmakers have questioned Amazon about whether it’s taking measures to protect children’s privacy.

The Kids Edition is an IoT device attached the cloud, and will always be vulnerable.

Amazon does collect some data from the Kids Edition, but it’s unclear what they’re collecting and what they’re doing with the information. Melissa Campbell, communications manager for Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, wrote an op-ed piece in Fortune magazine discouraging parents from buying the device for that very reason. She criticized Amazon for its Children’s Privacy Disclosure, which supposedly offers little details.

“But the full notice doesn’t address kids’ data at all,” Campbell notes. “Instead, the section about children links back to the earlier privacy disclosure, completing an ouroboros of non-information that would be darkly funny if we weren’t talking about a device designed to record the goings-on in kids’ bedrooms.”

That’s worth serious thought. But, voice assistants aren’t known beacons of security, anyway. The devices are not hack-free, and you can see a word-for-word transcript of your interactions with the voice assistant in the app. While that information is erasable, it doesn’t change the fact the Kids Edition is an IoT device attached the cloud, and will always be vulnerable.

Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition Compared To

Warranty information

Amazon offers a two-year, worry-free guarantee on the Kids Edition. If anything happens, you can return it and they’ll replace it for free, no questions asked.

Our Take

If you’re already weary of having a smart speaker in your home for privacy reasons, though, you’re not going to buy an Echo Dot Kids Edition anyway. If you are invested in Amazon Alexa and have children who are interacting with Alexa on a regular basis, then buying the Kids Edition will give you some peace of mind.

It has for me. While I still don’t know whether my son’s interactions with Alexa are somehow harmful, I do know that for now, I can use the device to get him to say please, help him learn about planets, monitor and control his media usage, and keep him from hearing f-bombs in music.

Is there a better alternative?

The Echo Dot ($50) is cheaper, and you can add on FreeTime Unlimited starting at $3 per month per kid, or $7 per month per family if you’re an Amazon Prime member. If don’t need strong parental controls, the Dot or the Google Home Mini ($50) are fantastic introductory voice assistant speakers. And with the Mini, there are some kid-friendly features included.

How long will it last?

Amazon is here to stay, and with a two-year, no-questions-asked replacement policy, you can’t go wrong. Amazon issues regular firmware updates to improve the user experience and add more functionality.

Should you buy it?

If you’re thinking of buying an Alexa device for your kid and are interested in FreeTime Unlimited, this device is a fantastic option. If you’re not concerned about having control over your child’s interaction with the device, go with the regular Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini instead. If you’re concerned about your child’s privacy, you might want to consider not having any voice assistant speakers in your home at all.

[brigmuratsea]

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by Alec Baldwin. *Raises hand* I haven’t posted a #tbt in a while. Mostly, because I’ve recycled through the majority of my adorable baby pictures that strategically aim to show potential bachelors how beautiful our future children will be, and well, secondarily, I turned twenty-five this year and need to grow the duck up. After posting yesterday’s compelling #tbt, and after the internet was back up and running after I literally broke it, I sat back, relaxed, and read through your comments. To everyone who demanded that I tell them what I said to Alec, I am offended. Where were you so called “loyal followers” three years ago, when I was actually pooping my pants over the fact that Alec Baldwin cyberly attacked and roasted me like a lying, drunken, good-for-nothing piece of butternut squash? Perhaps the most disturbing part of yesterday’s fiasco, was the outpour of messages from my very best friends, asking me to remind them of exactly what happened, so they could share MY story with their accomplices who had too much pride to fangirl me and give me the satisfaction of their curiosity. The nerve, I swear. To the loyal fans, who left comments of support and encouragement during quite arguably my most hectic social media day of the year, keep it up, it is because of you that I have decided to open up and tell my story. It was a rainy day in July, the year was 2014. I sat in a pub in London with my best friend, Lindsay, who was hosting me for the week with her family in Belgravia. We had just graduated from Rollins College, had not yet started jobs, and had entirely too much time on our hands. As we sipped on our mid-afternoon pints, we engaged in riveting conversation about trolling. The Dictionary defines trolling as “to make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.” Urban Dictionary, however, defines trolling as “the art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off”. I tend to define it by the latter, but either work. I had been a long-time fan of the Baldwin family, initially finding solace in the fact that Ireland Baldwin also grew up with a father who used creative and thought provoking language to address his daughter in moments of distress, like when he called her a “rude, thoughtless little pig.” Just kidding Dad, I know you would have been more creative than that. My real admiration of Ireland, however, stemmed from her relationship with Slater Trout, a Professional Stand Up Paddler and Photographer. Disclaimer: Ireland only dates Professional Sit Down Paddler’s now. Ireland and Slater’s relationship was hot and heavy. They were young, in love, and things were going way too smoothly for them. No wonder Ireland went completely bat shit crazy, dyed her hair purple, broke poor Slater’s heart, got a baker’s dozen tattoos and started dating black FEMALE rapper, Angel Haze. Not only was Angel Haze sweaty, smelly, and disgusting looking, but she had a shitty attitude too. Their relationship started right around the same time when Alec was arrested by the NYPD for riding his bicycle the wrong way in traffic, and took to Twitter to tell everyone how he really felt about the arrest. “Officer Moreno, badge number 23388, arrested me and handcuffed me for going the wrong way on Fifth Ave” (ABFalecbaldwin) May 13, 2014 “Meanwhile, photographers outside my home ONCE AGAIN terrified my daughter and nearly hit her with a camera. The police did nothing.” (@ABFalecbaldwin) May 13, 2014 ”New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign.” (@ABFalecbaldwin) May 13, 2014 People weren’t very happy about Alec’s Tweets and his PR team basically told him to shut the front door. You can only imagine how much Alec was struggling to keep quiet when Angel Haze released a statement about his beloved Ireland later that month, spilling the beans on her and Ireland’s racy sex life. “An interracial gay couple, I mean that’s just weird for America right now. We f**k and friends don’t f**k. I have never f**ked one of my friends. Once I see you in that way, it doesn’t happen,” she says. “But we do f**k and it’s crazy and that’s weird to say because I think about it in terms of an audience reading it and them thinking, ‘What the hell?’ But it happens.” Since Alec had a history of being, well, very honest, the people were eagerly awaiting his response. For the first time in Alec’s life, he was being well-behaved. That is when Lindsay and I decided to interject. We had never trolled someone before, and we weren’t exactly sure how it worked. After a couple beers and thoughtful consideration, we demised a plan. Off of my Instagram account, Brigmur, I left a subtle comment on one of Angel Haze’s posts. Not on her latest post, but an older post, in order to make my comment stand out from the rest. The comment read, “My dad had dinner with Alec last night and Alec said he would have actually learned to like you, if you hadn’t said such sexually explicit stuff about his daughter.” One comment, and that was all that it took. We stirred the pot and waited for the aftermath to unfold. Realistically, we were joking around and didn’t expect anything to come from our asinine commentary. The rain continued and we headed back to the house for an afternoon nap before dinner. Our bedroom was in the basement of the house, and we didn’t get much cell service. Lindsay was sleeping, and I started receiving random messages on my phone. They all seemed out of order, and I was super confused. My phone was blowing up. I went near the window and opened Instagram to find over a thousand friend requests. “Lindsay, wake up! Something is happening!” I had text messages from all sorts of people, asking me why Alec Baldwin just directed an Instagram post at me. However, when I went to his Instagram to view his post, I couldn’t see anything. I later discovered that this was because he had blocked me, right after he gave me a warm Instagram shoutout, “It never ceases to amaze me how much lying, drunken, good-for-nothing trash posts their garbage on here @brigmur”. Well, there he was. The old Alec we all knew and loved had returned! I continued to receive Instagram requests, and people messaged me telling me how Alec found out about my comment. Someone who claimed to be friends with Angel Haze said that Ireland was holding onto Angel’s phone while she was performing at a concert and saw my comment. Someone else said that Ireland called Alec in hysterics, telling him to stay out of her life. Who knows what the real story is, but the whole thing was pretty epic. I couldn’t have cared less that Alec Baldwin blocked me on Instagram, I never even followed him to begin with. The real slap in the face, though, was when Ireland blocked me. It has been three years and I still don’t know what my girl Ireland is up to. About a month later, I was searching random Baldwin family members and discovered that Hilaria Baldwin hadn’t blocked me. This was an opportunity. I took to one of her older Instagram posts, of her doing yoga of course. “My dad had dinner with Alec last night and Alec said he would like you a lot more if you weren’t such a yogi”. Anddd…..Blocked.

[beautythroughthebeast-blog]

NJ MONTHLY: THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO IMMUNOTHERAPY

By Debbie Galant | February 1, 2017 | Appears in the February 2017 issue

Immunotherapy holds out new hope for many cancer patients. But for those with the disease, navigating the maze of experimental treatment can be daunting.

In September 2015, just days after I’d begun chemotherapy, I was at an art exhibit in Atlantic Highlands when I started talking to a gentleman standing quietly in the gallery. When I discovered he was a doctor, I lingered.

He listened to me ramble on about my recent diagnosis, and then said, in almost a whisper: “If your cancer recurs, there’s something new they’re working on.” Then he told me about a barely known, seemingly magical cancer treatment called immunotherapy. He talked about it like it was the Manhattan Project—a secret being held closely by the cancer-research community—and although I was alarmed that someone was talking about recurrence when I’d barely begun treatment, I filed it away.

Almost a year later, and eight months out of therapy myself, I was sitting with a friend at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, where immunotherapy—far from being a faint dream—was front and center on the agenda.

My friend Chiara D’Agostino, 45, was first diagnosed with breast cancer in fall of 2014. She had the same aggressive form I was diagnosed with—triple negative breast cancer—but until this past August, after two mastectomies and eight rounds of chemotherapy, it looked like she had it beat. That’s when a CAT scan revealed new nodules in her lungs. An aspiring model with a bouncy mop of gray post-chemo curls, D’Agostino is also a social media junkie (she blogs about cancer at beautythroughthebeast.com) who’s comfortable sporting a pink tutu for the cause or posting pictures of her surgical drains on Instagram. But her buoyancy had all but disappeared when it was confirmed that those nodules were indeed metastatic stage IV breast cancer. Thus began a dizzying new round of medical consultations.

So, here we were, talking about exactly what the doctor in Atlantic Highlands had mentioned so cryptically a year before. By this point, immunotherapy—a treatment that enlists a patient’s own immune system to kill cancer—was no secret, having exploded into public consciousness in December 2015, when former President Jimmy Carter announced that his brain tumor had completely disappeared. He had been treated with a Merck immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab, marketed under the trade name Keytruda.

But the Food and Drug Administration has only approved Keytruda and drugs like it for melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and a few other conditions. For a breast-cancer patient like D’Agostino, the only option is to enroll in a clinical trial. That’s what brought us to the Rutgers Cancer Institute—to find out more about the institute’s phase II clinical trial, a test of Keytruda on patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer.

Six weeks later, D’Agostino would join that trial. Her new tumor had tested positive for a molecule called PD-L1, which meant she was a fit for the trial. But first, she had to navigate a complicated medical maze that included 14 more doctor appointments, two brain MRIs, five CAT scans, two bone scans, a PET scan, two chest x-rays and two biopsies—the second of which was requiredbecause the lab had lost tissue collected the first time.

Chemotherapy, the standard-bearer of cancer treatment for the past 50 years, was a medical accident that grew out of the use of chemical warfare. Two pharmacologists hired by the U.S. government at the beginning of World War II to find an antidote to mustard gas had begun to suspect that it might have properties that could slow the growth of certain cancers. A year into their research, when German bombs struck a U.S. battleship secretly carrying mustard gas, their hunch was validated. Autopsies of victims of the attack showed that the mustard gas had profoundly suppressed their lymphatic systems. By 1946, it was reported that nitrogen mustard injected into lymphoma patients had indeed shrunk their tumors.

But immunotherapy—the newest weapon in the war on cancer—was no accident. It was a direct result of the sequencing of the human genome, which allowed scientists to begin discovering the genetic mutations that cause cancer. “All of a sudden, we could start to design drugs that could be targeted against a specific defect,” says Dr. Andre Goy (pronounced gwah), director of the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center.

The first breakthrough drug in this category was Gleevec, developed by scientists at Ciba-Geigy in the late 1990s. Gleevec turned chronic myeloid leukemia from a death sentence into a chronic disease.

Oncologists and pharmaceutical companies are hoping that immunotherapy drugs called PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors—like the one Carter received—will perform this miracle for other cancers.

Dr. Kim Hirshfield, director of the precision medicine translational laboratory at the Rutgers Cancer Institute, and D’Agostino’s primary oncologist, was able to simplify the complex science during our first visit. She pulled out a pen and a piece of paper and started drawing some squiggles. PD-1 interacts with PD-L1 or PD-L2, she explained, tapping one of her squiggles. “That puts an invisibility cloak over a tumor.” Behind this cloak, a cancer can slip past the patient’s immune system undetected. A PD-1 inhibitor—or immune checkpoint inhibitor, it is commonly called—removes the cloak and allows the patient’s immune system to recognize the tumor and destroy it.

An added bonus: while immunotherapy drugs are administered the same way as most chemotherapy—by intravenous infusion—they generally don’t cause the dreaded hair loss and nausea. What’s more, when they do bring a patient into remission, it can last for years.

Early successes have led to something of a pharmaceutical arms race. According to The Cancer Letter, a publication that covers cancer research, there are more than 800 ongoing clinical trials involving checkpoint inhibitors.

As it turns out, the two companies that have the strongest positions in this market—Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb—happen to be in New Jersey. Merck is headquartered in Kenilworth. Squibb, though based in New York, has 6,600 employees in the Princeton area, including many of its R&D employees.

“Squibb and Merck are kind of duking it out,” says Ed Silverman, Pharmalot columnist and senior writer at Stat. “Cancer is the big kahuna—a big, mysterious, evil disease that has been vexing everyone so long that anything that might make a dent is a big deal.”

And immunotherapy is a big deal. “We see patients who were in hospice go into remission,” says Goy.

How big? In a recent 10-K filing with the SEC, Squibb says Opdivo is the only drug that comprised more than 10 percent of its annual R&D budget in the last three years. Opdivo, responsible for $942 million in revenues in 2015, is so important to the bottom line that Squibb warns investors any bad news from its trials could cause a sharp decline in the company’s stock price. Keytruda, which racked up $566 million in revenue in 2015 and is the subject of 400 clinical trials, gets prominent mention in Merck’s annual 10-K report. Meanwhile, GBI Research, a provider of business intelligence, predicts that global sales of cancer immunotherapies will quadruple to $75.8 billion by 2022.

Muddying the waters are recent revelations that checkpoint inhibitors have caused serious—and in some cases fatal—side effects by over-stimulating the body’s immune system.

“Every drug has the potential for causing side effects,” says Hirshfield. “We know from early studies of the treatment of patients with checkpoint inhibitors that autoimmune phenomena may occur due to release of the brakes on the immune system. These include endocrinopathies in which the immune system attacks and causes dysfunction of endocrine organs such as the thyroid and pancreas, among others.” What’s more, says Hirshfield, “we do not yet know which patients are at the highest risk of these specific side effects, and if affected, the severity of the side effect they may experience.”

The consent form for the trials that D’Agostino signed include references to the risk of diabetes and the possibility of a fatal inflammation of the lungs, as well as dozens of less serious potential reactions, such as watery bowel movements, yellowin of the skin and weight loss.

Complicating the picture further is a suit that Squibb brought against Merck in 2014, claiming that Merck’s development of Keytruda infringed on its Opdivo patent. The case is pending.

Whatever happens in the courts, it seems the story of cancer treatment is being largely written in New Jersey. Although London-based AstraZeneca is a third major player in this field, two-thirds of the clinical trials in checkpoint inhibitors are reporting back to scientists here. If early success holds and side effects of these medicines can be mitigated, the brutality of chemo could give way to a gentler era of precision medicine.

“My prediction,” says Dr. Eric Rubin, vice president of early-stage oncology clinical research at Merck, “is that within a few years, most cancer we’ll treat with immunotherapy.”

For now, except for patients with a few specific cancers, getting access to these potential miracle drugs means one thing: getting accepted into a clinical trial.

If you live in New Jersey and you’re diagnosed with cancer, chances are someone will ask if you’re going to get treatment in New York, typically referring to Memorial Sloan Kettering. Why would you go anywhere else if the top doctors in the country are that close? On the other hand, if you’re looking at 12 weekly chemo infusions, you just might choose the convenience of a local hospital that provides such treatment.

That’s what I did. D’Agostino, a Montcliar resident,  also sought treatment close to home during round one, when her cancer was first diagnosed. But this time, with stakes higher, she considered the New York option. At the same time, recommendations from friends online and support groups led her to the Rutgers Cancer Institute and the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack.

D’Agostino spent most of September ping-ponging between New Brunswick, Hackensack and two Manhattan hospitals offering clinical trials.

The National Cancer Institute recognizes the Rutgers Cancer Institute, which has 69 oncologists, as a Comprehensive Cancer Center—one of only 47 in the country, and the only one in the state. Theurer, which has 45 oncologists and is known for its specialty in liquid tumors like leukemia and lymphoma, is applying for the status. (A third home-based powerhouse emerged from the 2013 partnership between MD Anderson Cancer Center—a Texas-based cancer-care giant—and Cooper University in Camden.)

And, as it turns out, while oncologists routinely refer cancer patients to Memorial Sloan Kettering when they have obscure or difficult-to-treat cancers, Sloan Kettering—which has three outposts in New Jersey and recently signed a cancer-care partnership with New Jersey hospital group Hackensack Meridian Health—also refers patients to the Rutgers Cancer Institute. Dr. Joseph Aisner, interim associate director for clinical science at Rutgers, says it’s typical for designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers to refer patients to one another “because of clinical trial availability, unique resources or dealing with issues of insurance.” Aisner adds that Rutgers takes most insurance plans. Regardless he says, “We have a commitment to the community. If they don’t have insurance, we’ll do it.”

That makes a big difference to D’Agostino, a former Italian teacher, who is currently unemployed, single and relies on Medicaid.

But D’Agostino was also drawn to Theurer, which similarly accepts patients regardless of their ability to pay. For starters, Theurer looks more like a five-star European hotel than a New Jersey hospital. Goy, the hospital director, conscripted Santiago Calatrava—designer of the World Trade Center’s Oculus transportation hub—to help with the plans for the building, which opened in 2011. The first thing you notice when you enter is the soaring, four-story lobby and its gleaming grand piano.  Goy is particularly proud of the rooftop herb gardens and cooking studio. “This is the best way to tell a patient that you believe in their future,” he says.

D’Agostino’s greeting at Theurer was impressive. She was handed a notebook, pen and a magnet “with every number you could need,” and was escorted wherever she needed to go. “It’s like a well-oiled machine,” she says.

It wasn’t the accoutrements, however, that made it hard to decide where she would have treatment. It was the science. Both offered clinical trials for metastatic triple negative breast cancer.

“My head was spinning,” D’Agostino says. “It was very daunting at first. I’m not a science person.”

Elly Cohen, program director of BreastCancerTrials.org, says that the complexity of medicine at this level is extremely hard for patients to navigate. “As we get more and more into personalized medicine—the biology of your tumor, what medications are available to you—it’s going to be very confusing,” she says. Compounding the problem, says Aisner at the Rutgers Cancer Institute, is the fact that patients rarely recall more than 15 percent of what they’re told in the consulting room. “If there’s another person in the room, we can double that,” he says, referring to data from the past 30 years. “The real answer is to have a navigator.”

D’Agostino wound up getting help from Vicky Carr, a patient advocate and clinical trial consultant based in Virginia, whom I’d met at a focus group for triple negative cancer patients. Carr helped D’Agostino tease out the differences between the trials she knew about and also sent her to check out trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Weill Cornell in Manhattan. D’Agostino couldn’t enter Cornell’s trial because they didn’t take Medicaid. Memorial’s trial involved androgen receptors, and D’Agostino’s tumor, it turned out, didn’t express androgen.

Both the Rutgers Cancer Institute and Theurer offered clinical trials involving checkpoint inhibitors, but in the end, D’Agostino’s decision came down to trial phase. Theurer was enrolling patients in phase III trials, but since these trials are randomized, D’Agostino knew she might get a placebo. Rutgers was offering her a phase II trial in which all the participants were getting Keytruda.

There was also the human factor. Hirshfield, at Rutgers, had a bedside manner so kindly that, if she weren’t wearing a lab coat and stethoscope, you might have mistaken her for a nursery school teacher. She occasionally giggled during a consult, and at the end of their first meeting gave D’Agostino a hug. At a later visit, D’Agostino says, “I was starting to cry and she came up and held my hand. When you get people who are loving and intelligent…oh my God.”

There is no question that, while the science of cancer seems to be advancing at almost startling speed, the path for the cancer patient remains a labyrinth, blocked at every turn by a patient’s ability to cut through scientific complexity, insurance and monetary concerns, and considerations of geography. Does it help, I wondered, to live in the state where most of these drug trials were being initiated?

No, says Dr. Cliff Hudis, CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “I personally don’t think there’s any particular geographic relationship.” After all, Merck and Squibb are global companies, and their drugs are used in clinical trials everywhere. “We will seek out top investigators, regardless of geography,” says Rubin of Merck.

Yet being in New Jersey does have an upside, in part because of the talent the state attracts.  Many alumni from the Rutgers Cancer Institute have gone to nearby pharmaceutical companies. Rubin, before joining Merck, oversaw clinical trials at the Institute. Cynthia Wojtaszek, director of U.S. regulatory strategy for oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, also hails from the Institute. Mary Todd, now global medical affairs leader for prostate cancer for Johnson & Johnson, was deputy director at the Institute in the 1990s.

Further, New Jerseyans have a distinct advantage in getting access to new treatments because of a pioneering agreement Todd forged with health insurers in the mid-1990s, when she was at the Institute. With the help of some powerful friends in Trenton, she convinced insurers to voluntarily cover standard of care for all patients undergoing clinical trials in New Jersey. This includes all tests, scans and exams a patient would have even if they weren’t in an experimental protocol.

Fouad Namouni, development head for oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, says there is indeed an advantage to locating clinical trials in the Garden State. “It’s just easier to drive down to a site in New Jersey than having a meeting in San Francisco and flying six hours,” he says. “We’re going to have faster discussions and hopefully productive discussions.”

For D’Agostino, doggedness, connectedness, luck and perhaps geography—along with our nation’s medical safety net—conspired to get her into a clinical trial. And although it surely didn’t feel that way to her, it happened—in medical-bureaucracy terms—at breakneck speed. But the real story of D’Agostino’s cancer is being written at a cellular level. It’s happening at the checkpoint between her cancer cells and her T-cells—the white blood cells that are key to the body’s immune response. In December, blood tests showed a significant decline in tumor markers and a scan indicated that all the nodules in Chiara’s lungs had disappeared. Although some new nodules had shown up on her lumbar spine, doctors were optimistic that the Keytruda was working. Only time will tell.

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