#learning how to work people may have become a survival tactic that he just internalized

[ghostinthegallery]

Re-reading Twice Dead King, the character I was most struck by on a second viewing was Mentep. Now there’s a tragic figure. Simultaneously a mentor, an ally, an antagonist, someone so terribly understandable who I want to smack upside the head for being a lying liar who lies.

Ultimately, Mentep is a penitent. He has committed terrible acts (that we only get scant details of) and he wants to redeem himself. Thanks to his tampering with his own memories, he doesn't fully know what he is repenting for, which puts him in a bind. However, he knows that he played a role in creating the flayer curse/longing sickness, so he goes to a planet where a high concentration of them have gathered and works on his cure. He's respected, he's able to do his work with only occasional interruptions from the local angsty youth. Things are good-ish (until the armada shows up.)

Mentep and Oltyx have a weird relationship. Despite being his normal asshole-teenager self, Oltyx does respect Mentep more than most. Trusts Mentep enough to let the guy perform experimental brain surgery on him. Twice. And Mentep is able to be much more candid with Oltyx in return. He's one of the few consistently calling Oltyx out for his bullshit. On the surface, it is a standard mentor relationship, but what got me on a second reading is that there is hardly a single conversation Mentep has with Oltyx where he isn’t lying to and/or manipulating him.

It starts early with Yenekh. Mentep knows Yenekh has been suffering from the curse, he hasn’t told Oltyx, and when he finally has to tell him, he conveniently does so right before distracting everyone with the “oh btw, we’re all gonna die to a giant human armada” news. This is done with the best of intentions. Mentep wants to protect Yenekh (and Oltyx, in his way), so he delivers the news this way to get the bad news out of the way and then both of them on the same side. But it is the start of a pattern.

Which we get again when Mentep fails to mention a that Antikef is a flayer den ruled by a “We have Illuminor Szeras at home” Vizier, and boy does that end badly for Oltyx (see the last 60% of Ruin). Naturally, Mentep has a good explanation:

But it is another lie, one that costs Oltyx dearly (put a pin in this, I am coming back to it.)

There's some little fibs and ommissions along the way as they go to Carnotite, but it all builds up to The Big Lie. The one that sends Oltyx spiraling and gets Mentep killed. Because you know what really helps with paranoia? Finding out your mentor and your best friend have been hiding a secret blood pit in your basement! Again, it makes sense why Mentep is lying about this! He has every reason to believe Oltyx would have rejected the flayed ones he and Yenekh were sheltering (he in fact does exactly this), and Mentep's entire goal is to cure the curse to atone for his role in its creation. However...

I think Oltyx is correct to call Mentep out here (Oltyx is wrong about most things, but not this). Somewhere a long the way he became a means to an end for Mentep. Mentep was focused on The Curse and not the person in front of him who was cursed. He used Oltyx's friendship with Yenekh, his need to save his kingdom, his trust, his fears, all in service of admirable goals, but he was using Oltyx. Is it any wonder this is where it ended?

The lies were Mentep's undoing from the start. Remember the lie about Antikef? The one that led to all the events of Ruin? Yes, Oltyx and Djoseras did talk and avoid a civil war, but Oltyx also went through hell. He saw his home turned into an abbattoir, his father reduced to barely more than an animal. Oltyx was literally vivisected and almost consumed by his own dysphoria. And then committed regicide after leaving his brother behind to die. Antikef is where Oltyx truly learned that compassion was weakness and saw how horrific the flayer curse could become. So how was he ever going to accept the flayed ones as Mentep wanted him to? Oltyx experienced the comically perfect combination of traumas to ensure that would never happen, thanks in part to Mentep's manipulations.

I cannot stress enough that Mentep's individual lies all made sense at the time. May have even been the best option, at the time. But the consequences piled up, and even as he is dying he still refuses to give Oltyx even a scrap of the truth. That is the core of his tragedy for me. Well, that and this:

He bases all of his manipulations on his understanding of people's psyche's, which are usually accurate, but it also traps them. It gives them no room to grow or surprise him or for outside factors to come in and intervene. Contrast this with Zultanekh, who is upfront to a fault. He gives Oltyx advice and resources, but what Oltyx does with those things is up to him. Even when he is screwing up royally, he's allowed to make those mistakes. Mentep causes ones of Oltyx's darkest hours (the secret blood pit), while Zultanekh lifts him out of another (the Blood Angel's attack). In the end, Zultanekh is the one who sees Oltyx's true growth and witnesses the birth of his kingdom. A birth that comes not from curing the curse but embracing it.

There was never a sickness to be fixed, which means Mentep never would have achieved his redemption because he was focused on the wrong things. Which does make his death and rebirth as Xott a bit of a reflection of Oltyx. He was too burdened in his first life, but in his second he (or at least a version of him) was able to witness the people he hurt reaching a place of peace.

#warhammer 40k #necrons #twice dead king #oltyx #mentep #shit this one got long #I have a lot of thoughts about the sad robots okay #pro tip: maybe constantly lying to the paranoid teenager with anger issues isn't gonna end well for anybody #side note I do wonder if Mentep's habit of manipulation came from his time on Carnotite #That place got scary man #learning how to work people may have become a survival tactic that he just internalized #poor yenekh stuck in the middle #my boy did not deserve that #zultanekh repeatedly proving that he is best

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hey, in that prehistory time travel thing you wrote about, when Bella gets a premonition/nightmare, do she and Caveman play very precarious charades or does she draw shitty, shitty cave art that Caveman perceives as dire prophecy? I mean, technically, it is. I also assume interaction with other vampiric cavemen is usually fraught with tension, but would they ever form a coven? Proto-Volturi/actual Volturi if Bella's power realises her food source's in danger and she rationalizes it for sympathy?

Anon is referring to this post. The TL;DR is that Bella becomes a prophet and ends up unintentionally married to a hot caveman vampire. She probably calls him Caveman.

How Bella Conveys Her Prophecies

Well, when she's human, she has her Voodoo Witchcraft Dreams where she speaks aloud. Sometimes, this is just nonsense, other times... it's not. So Caveman gets to witness Bella tossing and turning, muttering in tongues, and probably has an internal "Fuuuuuuuck" moment as he realizes that something may happen.

The other moments are when Bella just starts babbling to herself in gibberish, talking to "Hallucination Edward" as she tries to explain, a divine messenger who tells her important information sometimes. That's also weird.

I imagine as Bella becomes a vampire, she either gets waking premonitions in which she babbles in tongues for a minute or two while getting her information, or she has conversations with Hallucination Edward. It's a thing, Caveman just watches until it finishes.

Then, as you note, comes the charades.

Eventually, these two are going to learn how to communicate with one another. Either Bella will finally pick up the local tongue or the vampire will learn English. My money's on Caveman, I have no explanation in this, just that Bella mired in depression doesn't seem at the peak mental capacity to learn a language that has nothing in common with English.

Though even then there's a wide cultural disconnect between the pair of them and a lot of misconceptions.

Regardless, until that point, yes, we get shitty shitty shitty cave art. Because Bella is a terrible artist in my brain and I stand by that now. This is accompanied by interpretive dancing and poor acting via charades.

Caveman takes this all very seriously, as he should, because this is usually very important information. He just wishes for god's sake that the gods who speak through her were a little more intelligible. He gets it, they have to pass through mortal hands and tongues, but couldn't they try a little harder?!

They probably eventually work out a system where he gets pretty good at figuring out what's going on. People, when they run into them and those people aren't eaten, are amazed at his abilities and assume that he has some divine gift for interpreting the words of the gods. He believes he does too.

Bella thinks her pictures of horsies are great.

What About the Other Vampires?

Oh yeah, that's going to be a mess, and probably what most of Bella's visions are about: how to avoid conflict or else conquer their enemies.

Bella, with her insane gift, is a prize to be won and would be highly contested among the paltry vampire population that exists. She can protect them from other vampires, give them information on the best food sources, etc.

Caveman's going to have to constantly be protecting her (as is Bella, though all she knows is she keeps having weird visions about vampires and Edward is sitting there telling her about some new vampire out to get her every other day).

That said, by necessity, I imagine a coven is formed.

Probably only one or two more, given the precarious size of the population and how much they're going to need to travel to keep the human population sustainable, but more numbers means a better chance of surviving fights.

Caveman due to statistics, probably isn't gifted, and so I imagine Bella's gift could lead them to turning or else picking up a gifted vampire who complements what they already have. They need the offensive brawn of the group or a physical defensive measure like a Proto Renata.

Is This New Coven a Proto-Volturi?

... Shockingly, yes.

First, Bella unintentionally does what Aro does: she collects a core coven of very gifted members. There's herself, of course, and whatever other vampire they pick up to round out their numbers/supply a much needed military style gift.

And given how small the population of humans is, the harsh conditions they live in, I imagine that Bella realizes rather quickly that... they could wipe out the human race.

I imagine they pass through several villages which have been decimated by vampires. Either by immortal children, feasts, territorial conflicts, you name it. Now all those humans are dead, the survivors if there are any starve and freeze to death in the wilderness without society as a support.

This is... really bad.

Bella notes to Caveman that this can't keep going. First, Bella would rather not eat people period, but second if they keep eating like this then there aren't going to be people left. The reason they've been having all these territorial disputes is because vampires from god knows where have travelled into their territory to eat their people because they ate all of their own.

They're locusts!

Caveman admits that she... may have a very good point there.

I imagine Bella's tactics differ though.

The idea of keeping vampires a secret is a non-intuitive if brilliant solution. It's an easy way of tracking when you've gone too far: if the humans start noticing their numbers decreasing then you've eaten way too many people. I don't see it as something Bella would come up with.

I mean, god, imagine it. A group of Myceneans sitting around, in the age of gods when demons walk among us and devour who they will, and Aro says, "I'm going to save the world by making the gods disappear." It sounds insane, they're going to make everyone pretend demons don't exist? Why? And yet it works out such that the secret is something Bella takes for granted, something very natural to her.

This is not a plan that Bella would come up with.

In fact, now in the past in the age of gods and demons, I imagine she's not quite sure why vampires were ever kept secret from the human race. Feels weird, in retrospect.

I imagine what they do instead is protect their territory. They form a pact with the humans over a pretty wide swath of land: provide us a tithe and we will protect your people from the demons, and become a local pantheon. Any other vampires who come into the territory are killed, territory expands as Bella and company form alliances with other covens, and the human race...

Well, the sentence for petty theft is probably now death at the jaws of a vampire, and Bella probably tries and fails to get her coven on her nifty animal diet, but human clans aren't wiped out to a man anymore. Mankind survives and with the aid of a prophet vampire (who suddenly knows a weird amount about farming so as to keep the peasants from revolting) thrives with an industrial revolution.

It's weird times.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #bella swan #caveman vampire #bella/caveman #meta #headcanon #opinion

[spikeface]

(consider this more of a writing prompt than a request) I tried to read Theo Raeken's fandom wiki but couldn't get a sense of him. Can you sell him qua OC? Who is he? What does he want? What does he fear? What are the worst things he's done and what internal logic did that run on? In what ways has he been heroic, even if it may have been unrecognizable to others as such? (Concretely I'm hoping to read any answer and launch into reading fic about him)

This is still a sketch. Canon leaves a lot of lacunae around Theo, so I play with them, but this is one version:

Theo’s childhood leaves him a twisted shell of a person. He’s pushed by the evil scientists who kidnap him and make him their servant (for convoluted plot reasons) to commit horrible acts, beginning with the death of his sister when he’s ten years old. His exact involvement in her death is not clear from the canon. He stands over her, very still, and watches her die, but it’s not clear if he coldly killed her or was simply a drugged victim of the scientists, who mess with people’s perception of reality. My headcanon, based on other canon references, is that the scientists, who are obsessed with creating “the perfect evil,” also push him to kill his parents and eat human flesh, and do lots of other awful things that he pretends don’t haunt him so he doesn’t go mad. Theo is very good at pretending, and learns to stifle his feelings to the point that he can really only be honest about them when he’s actively lying about something else. When he lies to the sheriff about witnessing a murder, for instance, he indirectly acts out his grief over the death of his sister as he chokes out, “I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything.”

After eight years with the evil scientists, he’s a wicked little gremlin. He’s a practiced liar and manipulator, whose speciality is to push people to embrace their darkest urges. When we meet him, he’s trying to turn Scott’s pack as dark as he is, to retroactively justify his own acts to himself, and to make it more certain that the pack will accept him for who he truly is. Theo wants very, very badly to be accepted. Part of it is personal, after a lonely life of being the scientists’ Igor, filled with self-loathing for the things he’s done. Part of it is also pragmatic; as the scientists grow closer to success (resurrecting an evil monster, don’t ask) they have less and less use for him. The scientists kill things they have no use for--failures. Theo isn’t a failure, but he’s not quite a success either, in the scientists’ eyes. Theo is petrified of failure, and the scientists. He wants the safety a powerful pack will provide. The stark difference in power between him and the scientists has led him to equate power and safety.

He works on corrupting all of Scott’s pack members, but focuses his efforts on Malia, Stiles, and Liam. He pushes Malia to try to kill her mother. If she does, no one could judge him for killing his own parents. He pushes Stiles to destroy his friendship with Scott. Stiles looks out for Scott the same way Theo’s sister looked out for him—if he’s actually terrible, deep down, then maybe his sister was too. Then no one could judge him for watching her die. With Liam, his goal is more cathartic. He wants Liam to lash out furiously at Scott for refusing to bite someone, especially when refusing means someone’s death.

Though Theo can pass for a werewolf, he’s actually a weak mockery of one, the result of the scientists’ surgeries rather than being bitten. It’s why his sister needed to die, her heart a necessary organ transplant before the scientists could begin their surgeries (show logic, don’t ask). Theo hates them for it, though he’s suppressed that emotion as a survival tactic while living under their cruel thumb. He tells himself he’s embraced their philosophy of experiments with the supernatural, but deep down is the plaintive question he had as a small, confused child: why didn’t they just make him a real werewolf? He would have been stronger, faster, better in every way than this half-thing they made him. He could have just been bitten, instead of all that surgery.

They wouldn’t have had to kill his sister, if they’d just made him a real werewolf.

Scott is the only one whom Theo can’t corrupt. He’s everything Theo isn’t: powerful, honest, accepted, not only a real werewolf but a special one. Unlike every other Alpha in existence—and Theo—he got his werewolf powers without anyone needing to die for it. Theo is obsessed with him. He needs to destroy him. He does.

Scott uses his dying breath to tell Theo that his pack will never accept him. Infuriatingly, he’s right.

He also comes back from the dead, which complicates Theo’s plans even further.

Theo makes his own pack of people he brings back from the dead. They’re all experiments the scientists no longer had any use for, which Theo hates as a potential reflection of himself, but they seem easy to control. He tries to make them embrace their darkest urges. He’s not quite successful. It doesn’t help that, in a bid for more power, Theo captures an Alpha named Deucalion, who is working to sabotage Theo as a favor to Scott. Deucalion drives some of Theo’s pack away, and shows Theo how to consume others for power. Faced with the choice between a pack and power, Theo chooses power. In the end, he consumes even Tracy, the one person who does actually accept Theo, for who he truly is, lovingly and unconditionally.

Theo is now very powerful. He’s also completely alone, having broken even with the scientists. He’s wretched. He hates Scott more than ever. He tries to kill him and his pack again—and finds himself promptly sent to a hellscape by one of Scott’s pack, where he wakes up to find his sister waiting for him, ready to rip his heart out, again and again and again.

Things get interesting when Liam brings him back from hell, hoping some of the powers he consumed will help them with their current crisis. Over the course of months in hell, however, Theo’s extra powers have been stripped away, along with his smug artifice and his will to live. When Malia starts to beat him to death in a fit of rage, he simply lets her, the same way he eventually simply let his sister take his heart over and over. He recovers from his hell-induced despair enough to try to manipulate and negotiate and generally gremlin his way to safety, but it’s clear he has no idea what to do beyond that. As the one who brought him back from hell, Liam feels responsible for him, which to him means making sure Theo isn’t a threat, bullying him into being helpful, hitting him when he’s being annoying, and offering genuine friendship to Theo if he does actually help. Theo alternates between coldly telling Liam that he’ll leave him for dead the first chance he gets, and almost compulsively saving Liam’s life. He also hits Liam, when he thinks he can get away with it. He’s never had a friend before.

After that crisis is over, Theo languishes. For the first time in his life, no one is telling him what to do. There’s nothing to prompt him to try to find power or a pack, or anything else he once failed at completely. He’s also homeless. And alone. When something creepy and supernatural happens to him in the middle of the night, the only person he can think to call is Scott—but he doesn’t, held back by shame. He remains, in my humble opinion, quite obsessed with Scott. I’m tipping my shipper hand here, but I think what was once the desire to destroy Scott has become the desire to have… something else from him. Not just forgiveness. Theo’s not sure what. It’s been a long time since he was honest with himself about what he feels. He’s working on it.

He chooses to stay in Beacon Hills. Mostly, he continues to lie and push, but he does it to help the pack--particularly Liam, who needs a lot of help with the same anger Theo once exploited. His most redemptive moment is when he chooses to ease a dying enemy’s pain, one of his first completely unselfish acts of kindness. The show ends with him as an “ally.”

#long post #theo raeken #teen wolf headcanon #teen wolf

[justsomeantifas]

its 11:59 its still technically tonight so

this is gonna be my reference point to questions abt venezuela, at least regarding things pre- May 19 2019. Its a bit scattered and it may get edited down along the road, but yeah.

short version that draws some similar conclusions: https://www.salon.com/2019/05/17/the-plot-to-kill-venezuela_partner/

one difference in scales that’s important to keep in mind: the lifespan of people is 2-7 decades. the lifespan of colonialism lasts centuries. the lifespan of media memory is a couple years, tops.

Most western narratives of venezuela start meaningfully at chavez, which is a mistake. The focus point in history around which the country flowed was the Caracazo. You probably already know about this, but a massive uprising took place in the heart of Caracas, against decades of dictatorship both formal and informal, after severe instability in the global oil market. The people were hungry, the riots were fiery, and the bullets bled. knows the death toll even now, but its estimated well into the thousands.  This happened pre-chavez, and started a cascade of events which brought him into limelight that you can read about here. not gonna go into more venezuelan history, but i talk a bit more here

chavez was democratically elected, multiple times.

   in 2002, after his first democratic election, he was kidnapped by US-backed troops and replaced by someone who threw out the 1999 constitution, which was as legitimate as any other made in venezuela’s colonial and violently capitalist history, seeing as it was the first (aka only, so far) of 26 constitutions actually approved by popular referendum. He was reinstated largely due to massive protests in support of him. Maduro however doesn’t really have as much of the charisma and support of chavez, which is creating problems - as well as exacerbating problems created by the economic crises ramping up just around chavez’s death. In 2015, there were elections to the National Assembly, which ended up with the Opposition winning a majority of the seats (which does show that there’s some degree of fairness in the elections, at least verifiably up til that point, yet that isnt rly accounted for when western media describes it as “undemocratic” - many of whom don’t apply the same scrutiny to their own country: such as this UN Human Rights councilor who also happens to be the crown prince of british-iraq, currently residing in the noted democracy of the Kingdom of Jordan, which has no vested interest or control over any particular export of Venezuela.).        

This turnout showed most of all that maduro had alienated as many as 2 million of his supporters, who didnt end up voting (though many also voted against him - trying to act on their feeling that whatever they want, its “not this”). This decreasing support also accelerates whats known as “Everyday Sabotage” - people not trusting in the government, and look out for their own interests contra everyone else. This is a danger inherent to tying “Socialism” to a primarily state project.       

However 1999 Constitution was never meant as an eternal document & it created mechanisms to call for new popular constitutional referendums to be held. That’s what the “Constituent Assembly” is about, which is what a lot of the western world is describing as him singlehandedly rewriting it (while also being “vague about its contents”), or “created by him”. Elections to the constituent assembly were boycotted by opposition, so that it would be government controlled & look like a sham in the eyes of the broader world. That being said, the assembly was called both as a reaction to losing election but also in response to intensifying crises - it was put forth (i don’t see any reason to believe in bad faith) as a way to come together and figure out how to address the needs that were driving people to protest - to address the desire for “not this”, but bc of the uncertainty, it was easily twistable by reactionaries by putting all emphasis on the former. Also timing corresponds with increasing fears of maduro straying from the path of chavez, the image of scrapping one of his strongest plays for smth unknown is risky - tho if there are other meaningful options given the situation im not sure. And the body’s got at least as much constitutional legitimacy as Guaido  (Chapter III)  

The 1999 constitution also enabled a recall election to be called against maduro in 2016, bc it was written with particular attention to holding public officials accountable - similar noble commitments helped to end the presidency of Rousseff & bring in Bolsonaro (who was also one of the people spurring on the investigations and whipping up a social base).

     (speaking of guaido & bolsonaro)

on Guaido:

part of student group in 2007 protesting against non-renewal of coup-assisting network, who the CFR (one of the major think tanks of the cold war still playing a big role in foreign policy today) considered “most important network”   

close friend of Leopoldo Lopez, the aforementioned coup plotter.

politician since 2010, won a couple small elections

Unknown to majority of general population until 2019, most venezuelans surveyed didnt know him   

Plan Pais       

plans to privatize state owned industry & allow investment from foreign oil companies       

center-right neoliberal draped in platitudes of “stability”, “revitalization”, “security”, and “rescue” - a message seemingly deliberately targeted to become more and more resonant with increased sanctions.

/on Guaido

governing is about the expression of power. I wanna live in a world where that power isn’t expressed, but as long as the exploitation of the global working class continues unabated, id prefer some of that power be put towards helping the poor.     

there is no such thing as a static state of affairs, there’s no “goldilocks zone” out in the political universe where we tweak things finely until we find whats best for everyone, only different rates of change in different dimensions. what we need to do is figure out how we can push that state of affairs in a direction so that everyday people have the power to take control of their lives. re

re: “constitutionality” - if the supreme court calls it constitutional then its constitutional. period. There’s no such thing as a supreme court as an “independent branch” of government, but there are different degrees of integration into the rest of it.       

The Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has 32 members, (a bit more than a dozen put in by the national assembly, while the PSUV held it), and the opposition holds abt 3 away from a supermajority. Each member of the court holds their spot for 12 years. If that’s “The Most Corrupt In The World” according to Transparency International, i wonder what world the 9-person lifetime-appointed US Supreme Court (2 of which appointed by trump, and save for pulling a Weekend At Ginsbergs, likely 3) is on. In fact, one of the tactics that the more radical circles of democrat voters are putting forward is to pack the Supreme Court. Because thats how shit actually gets done, or at the least how shit is prevented from being committed w the stamp of legality. FDR learned that lesson too, in trying to pass what is today known as “The New Deal”

My comparisons to trump are for specific end: these actions are exerted on levers of liberal democracy, and every single liberal democracy is susceptible to them in some ways.

whats a “dictator”? if hes unelected, the millions of people who participated in the elections dont seem to think so. if maduro is a dictator, then what is donald trump? the majority of ppl didnt vote for him yet hes still governing. macron’s popularity has at several points been less than 1/3, and the yellow vest protestors have been violently attacked - why is he not “a violent dictator with only the support of the military”? These terms are not neutral.

“their elections are highly flawed” So What? show me a country whose elections arent.   

“opposition jailed” - ok but coup plotters don’t get off easy in any liberal democracy. If someone - say Bernie Sanders - said “enough is enough” and succeeded in overthrowing the current government with the help of a foreign government…. you think they’d let him go free? what if ten years later he was getting his supporters all riled up to do it again? how long you think he’d be in jail for (assuming he can survive well into his 100’s)? You think more than 13 years? Think he’d get house arrest? Some US states lock you up for posessing weed up to 10. If you stay long enough around this blog, youll find plenty of other examples of much more cruel and unusual punishments. Look at Chelsea Manning, look at Oscar Riviera…   look at the US protestors saying Guaido is illegitimate

 what we have to keep in mind most of all, is to show that the contradictions being exploited are inherent to Liberalism. Contradictions are just expressed most freely at the margins - the interstices

poor economic decisions happen everywhere - 2008/2009 still affecting the entire world there’s violence thats “natural”, and violence thats “intolerable”. The dividing line is whether we have anything to gain by changing things.

sanctions:    started under obama, originally targeted specific individuals, used as precedent for more generalized. They’re indirect - they have a “squeezing effect”, takes already-existing problems & just makes them markedly worse. also doesn’t necessarily correlate with emigration, bc it takes a lot of money to start a new life somewhere else, and sanctions disproportionately affect the poor.   

war wouldnt likely look like (many) US boots on the ground - we’ve got plenty of other places to be. It’d look like guns being smuggled to counter-protestors. It’d look like sending resources to neighboring countries like Colombia or Brazil who would then use their troops. Colombias ruling party is right wing populists - much of current president’s campaign was run on fearmongering abt venezuelan socialism - they’re raring to go. It’d look like drones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracas_drone_attack. Also means there likely won’t be a sudden trigger, its a gradually escalating stressful gradually-more-warlike situation.  

If war does break out - where would the refugees go?  In reality the majority would go to Colombia, but if anything significant breaks out there will be a stream of those looking to find shelter in the US, which has advertised itself as a beacon of hope - what would happen to them? some may get taken in as a gesture of showmanship, but nowhere close to the majority.   

speaking of the US - imagine if trump and bolton manage to actually plot a winning coup. Do you think that that wont be his main bullwark against ppl like Bernie? you think the media and rest of the democratic party wont jump on that narrative and “begrudgingly” support a fascist because the alternative might mean supporting single payer and not-having-good-for-ratings-climate-apocalypse?

another term thrown around without regard is “once vibrant” - for whom?

most articles ive seen just take this as an axiom, and dont find any cognitive dissonance when also saying chavez reduced poverty hugely.

 The answer to that rhetorical question: Citgo is venezuelan, before chavez none of the wealth went back to venezuela - thats what “vibrancy” means.  

     many similarities with BP (the-artist-formerly-known-as-the-anglo-iranian-oil-company)

in age of climate change & vocal ppl about phasing out oil, the more one’s livelihood is connected to oil, the more unstable ones country will be - either that, or the more instability ones country will cause.

“Oil exports fell by $2,200 per capita from 2012 to 2016, of which $1,500 was due to the decline in oil prices.”  

The drop in price that affected the venezuelan economy so much in 2014 was largely by US shale fracking

in 1970’s Chile, copper was the main product of Chile - allende nationalized the mines, and in return wall street dropped the

(also worth noting that venezuela’s got non-insignificant untapped shale basins)      

At least venezuela used the oil money to fund social programs instead of like, pad the pockets of Raytheon.

also oil price wars in africa highly correlated w oil (whose annual production doesn’t even combined total venezuelas)

a couple ppl have raised concerns abt my strong stance on equivocal dismissal - if there’s a difference, if there’s some way of reading your statement that says “X country that the State Dept wants to invade is an anomoly in the otherwise free world”, then that’s acting to push the discourse towards normalization & invasion. It’s not “whataboutism”, just basic consistency.   

now more than ever, narratives are affected by people. They may not be ones we had a hand in forging, but the way that we propagate them actually does have measurable effects on the larger-scale political outcomes. Always look for the base assumptions, as well as the direction   

sure denounce Chavez. sure denounce Maduro. denounce Kim, Xi, Castro, anyone. But if there’s no equally or proportionally loud denunciations of the horrors perpetrated by allies - the “assumed”, “natural” violence, then you’re acting to reinforce the narrative of exceptionalism.   

Just make sure after you take a breath, you denounce Saudi Arabia & Yemen, Israel for Palestine, the conditions which brought Argentinian/Brazillian, Brazilian coup, the US for Puerto Rico, the conditions which have murdered dozens of journalists in Mexico per year…  

what people want most of all is stability. “A debate over whether it is mismanagement and corruption by the Maduro government or the sanctions that are the author of the crisis is largely irrelevant. The point is that a combination of the reliance on oil revenues and the sanctions policy has crushed the policy space for any stability in the country.”

government’s errors and tensions   

fixed exchange rate -> black market      

took 5 years to address changing relation between dollar & BsF, all the room between those two curves left a huge room for intensifying crises, though since it also corresponds with the death of chavez, it sorta makes sense.   

antidemocratic actions and remarks by maduro  

scattered responses filled w half-solutions   

diversification needed, but how do you diversify an economy filled with rampant poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy… 

(nominally begrudging) support for mineral extraction 12.4% of territory opened to extraction - “Special Economic Zone” as a method of managing decay       

this is also what much of the reality of “economic diversification” looks like

not enough socialism. (even fox agrees!) Venezuela shows the limits of Social Democracy in countries living outside of the Imperial Core - esp the dangers if you’re in the crosshairs already bc of oil         

started out as populism, gradually grew as confronted more.            shows shaping influence on political organs from actions of foreign actors - if you’ve survived a coup before, you’re gonna become paranoid about any more of them - especially when the coup plotters say “hey lets do more coups”       

also shows the weakness of only having a small number of charasmatic faces representing the movement - if one dies and theres no clear and popular replacement, then you’ll lose ppl who were largely brought in by the charisma, weakening your political project, and creating cracks for reactionary forces to take advantage of - especially in times of transition.       

bourgeoisie still control a majority of the economy.            Capitalist businesses are internally unaccountable, and in this age of intensified global trade, one can punish countries for straying from the pack by moving business & focus away. If you’re looking for dictatorships, look at the thousands of private companies run as dictatorships daily       

capital flight is a real effect, precisely because socialism is fundamentally and irreconcilably against the self-interest of the bourgeoisie. not necessarily against the interest of the humans-who-are-also-bourgeois, but of the impersonal self-sustaining force of capital.           

Have you ever pulled something out of an electrical socket, and seen a quick spark? The reason that occurs is bc of what’s called an induction current, which is a fancy physics word for flowing electricity not liking to suddenly change its flow. If you accidentally touch that spark, you might feel it, but youll live to tell the tale. But if you only take the plug out halfway & touch it, that’s a different story.  Capital flows similarly.

   my country (lithuania) has been facing sky-high emigration since the collapse of the USSR (with an added boost after 08-09), we have also consistently had one of the highest suicide rates in the world (#7), a minimum wage of about 3 Euros an hour (after a recent increase), as well as one of the highest prison populations in Europe (discounting Russia & Belarus… which like….)   

when are we gonna be invaded? when will the US media talk about our pain?  

oh wait, they did. We cried all pretty for the TV cameras, then they got a bozo nobody really knew of to denounce the government, who they called dictatorial (though it was far from ideal, massive bureaucracies dont tend to mix well with single-person-decision-making). And to be fair, the fact that the government was unpopular wasnt entirely undeserved. But what was promised to us was the idea of “Freedom”, “Free Enterprise”; to “Get Rid of Corruption” and institute “Real” Democracy". They said we’d be integrated into the glorious capitalist west, and we understood that to mean that we’d be in the position of a Germany, or at least an Austria or smth. But they never meant to integrate us into the imperial Core, we have always been seen as part of the Periphery - the “assumed” violence that “naturally” happens.    

Then we got to where we our today. Some of the stuffs more available, but expensive. Most of the bureaucracy’s still around, it just helps fewer people. We stand as an example of what to expect, in one of the best case scenarios, you would join our emigrees now making up a significant percentage of underpaid house-servants aka maids across the EU.  

if we want the people of Venezuela to be healthy, safe, and fulfilled, then:

speak out and pointing to the effects of US sanctions is incredibly important. They’ve already killed 40,000 people in the last year, and 300,000 more are in extreme danger (and millions more in long-term risk).

what does it mean when you simultaneously sanction trade with a place but also demand they let you give them humanitarian aid?

if there is to be action taken by the international community, then the US has forfeited its right to speak. They threw it away once in 2002, and obama rhetorically picked it up and dusted it off so that trump could throw it in a bigger dumpster, thats also on fire. However we also still live in a world deeply shaped by US Hegemony, so the opinions of its close trade partners & closest-knit media buds should be seen as influenced as such. Doesn’t mean that theyre wrong on everything too, but they still feel the magnetic pull of the US economy and ecosystem (as well as their own potentially imperial interests) and the effect of that force cannot be discounted.

transitioning our economies away from oil & away from globalized neoliberalism which only values peripheral states by their exports - dissolves tensions of how to produce in unproductive terrain   

socialize medicine in the US, so that drug companies run by dictatorships can’t control their lives & ours. healthcare is especially reliant on imports, sanctions affect especially strongly.  

normalize the ideas of Socialism, without taking the easy way out of “oh no dont think of Venezuela, think of sweden or denmark”. None of them are Socialist, but to avoid the complexities of Venezuela is to imagine that US attempts at socialism wouldn’t involve significant capital flight. If we don’t consider that, if we don’t have solid actionable plans to deal with that, while also facing the inherent complexity of changing material conditions, then we’re gonna waste whatever shot we get.   

redirect conversation normally centered around government towards support of the tens of thousands of small business co-operatives, where people live their daily lives in a democratic manner.

on The Communes:

    “delegating responsibility throughout all members, and bringing important decisions to the whole to work through and find the best possible solution… They create “collective criteria” together; agreements stipulating whether individuals have power over certain decisions or whether it is up to the whole group. However, he assures that these “are not rigid, they can change at any moment.” The cooperative I lived with in Venezuela had regular organizational meetings where they informally came to agreement and were even able to come back to re-evaluate decisions that didn´t seem to be satisfactory for the whole group in this same way. Decisions and decision making, in this way, are viewed as a process not contained by meetings and discussions in board rooms, but are always being analyzed and made better by the process of putting them into action, and not only by thinking them out and writing them down.”

- the “Self Government of the Producers” - aka what it looks like for cooks to govern.   

they have communal councils as well - neighborhood councils in the same vein that so many (rightfully) find inspiring in Kurdistan . They preexisted chavez, but they were able to proliferate and be given legal recognition through him. I understand that legal recognition can act to ‘name’ a body & pin it to smth that doesn’t match its requisite variety - how dynamic it is, but imo as its currently legislated it recognizes a good amount of the autonomy that they had already been excersizing. - liable to change                                government recognition of co-ops has drawbacks too, and correlates negatively with that coop’s success           

           "A good example of this intention is the de-emphasis that cooperatives in Venezuela put on advertising or “marketing” products, and instead push to find more people to become part of the cooperative, and choose the services or products they provide based on community decisions about what is needed. A cooperative I worked in […] was originally a family owned and operated theater group that traveled around the country performing theater pieces that highlighted social and environmental issues. When they joined the […] cooperative, the larger co-op did an analysis and decided they wanted a natural fruit juice concentrate producer and gave the group a loan to acquire capital and start producing. They have been doing this for only a couple of years now but have already paid back the loan to the larger cooperative and are bringing extra money in to support themselves, better their services, and supply extra funds to the larger cooperative for community projects such as the recently [2012] built community health center…                  

The cooperative services I experienced and learned about in Venezuela were health, dental, food, and a separate example of trash services. A dental cooperative […] provides quality dental services (I know because I used them) almost every day for affordable prices. You don´t have to be a member of the cooperative, and you don´t have to make an appointment. It takes only a couple of hours, and emergency situations are treated with urgency. The health center, built with funds provided by all the associated cooperatives[…], works the same way. Anyone can go there, the services are subsidized by the cooperative so they are affordable, the clinic and workspaces are clean and well taken care of, and the quality of the service is great. Worker-members of the cooperative receive health care at the facility without charge except for the massage and acupuncture services that they also provide at a really low price.

           […] food services are priced to provide more access to food for the community in which it exists. The original and persistent intention is to make the best situation for people on all ends of the process. The producers are part of the cooperative and are part of the group that decides the prices that growers get, as well as the prices that the food is sold for. This means that both farmers and workers at the market decide what to charge a person, which ultimately affects how much money the growers receive, as well as if the food is affordable for the people who need to eat who live in the city. In a normal capitalist market system these parties are separated and put up against each other, raising prices for consumers and lowering them for small producers, excluding those people from getting enough money to afford all the necessities that are typically only provided at a high price.

           One communal council, a parallel governing organization of community members linked to investment funds from the national government, in the city of Merida, Venezuela organized themselves to get funds to buy a trash collection truck. The truck at the time was used for a specific waste removal project that removed waste from their community regularly but was not a traditional collection service. However, they did have plans to expand the project to start their own collection service, and this would be provided by the commal council, an anti-capitalist organization which does not require people to pay for the service. Although this is not a “co-operative” as some hardliner co-operative enthusiasts might point out, it is a horizontal anti-capitalist organization widening access of necessary services to the larger community run by community members; following cooperative values of equity, inclusion, and solidarity I believe this to be an example of cooperative economics and action. It appears to me that economic inclusion is much more likely to widen only when those who are being excluded are included in the process of organizing the services and are in control of the economy.“

until the communes, workers cooperatives, and the like are strong enough to rule themselves, having Maduro in power is the only option given to us which doesn’t trigger the control of reactionaries. People make their own history, but not in situations of their choosing - the exact outcome isn’t predetermined, but there’s only a limited number of poles - gravitational attractors - towards which that trajectory is heading at any particular time.   

if maduro acts to squash the power of the communes, then thats a different situation. but until that point, we outside of the country must work to center any discussion on these bodies - they are the heart of the country and of whatever social revolution has occurred/is further possible. They are filled with lessons for us to learn from, and show how rich and dynamic the organized populace can be if they are allowed to control their communities. (ex of dealing with gang violence from @ 22:50)       

This is all said with recognition that many chavistas have acted against communes, the bureaucratic machine acts to co-opt much of their energy, its linguistically obscured the concept of "ownership” with that of “control”, and that the state has changed its messages over time. But the heart of the communes is what’s a priority, and they have acted against the government overstepping its bounds & mis-identifying them. But whats important is that there’s a feedback process in the gvt to actually allow them to assert their autonomy. Liberals will do their utmost to close those channels.

   If Guaido and the Popular Will take control of power, be assured that whatever gains made in organizing the everyday people of Venezuela will be at the top of the chopping block. How effective that suppression turns out to be is undetermined - it might turn out to strengthen the communes, but that outcome would be damage control, not something to try and bullseye.

Effective Propaganda knows that its more effective to control what’s left out than control what’s put in. Keep that in mind, and study trajectories and forces.

other links:

https://next.podbay.fm/podcast/1363342644/e/1551711604

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voc08vh9cJY

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/21/a-cowboy-in-caracas/

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/the-tragedy-of-venezuela/

https://www.multpl.com/venezuela-gdp

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/fivethirtyeights-venezuela-problem

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-venezeulas-middle-class-is-taking-to-the-streets/

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjkmq8/fiery-protest-leader-leopoldo-lopez-faces-13-year-sentence-in-venezuela

https://potent.media/minimum-sentencing-for-marijuana-possession

https://www.thoughtco.com/core-and-periphery-1435410

https://popularresistance.org/building-the-commune-radical-democracy-in-venezuela/

http://www.antiwar.com/regions/regions.php?c=Venezuela

#venezuela #reference #imperialism #chavez #maduro #socialism #capitalism #extraction #oil #war #emigrant #communes #cooperatives

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Dana! 

You have been accepted for the role of EMMELINE VANCE, with your requested faceclaim change to Jessica Findlay Brown! I so enjoyed reading your application! I really liked how clear it was that Emmeline has such an intense dedication to her patients and career. The Order definitely needs those skilled hands if they’re going to survive! I am so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Dana

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: ACST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I currently work part time but am looking for full time employment, most of my hours at present are on the weekend, therefore, I would be most around during the week and during daytime hours. I would definitely be capable of posting at least once during the week

ANYTHING ELSE: N/A

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Emmeline Vance

AGE: 27

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Female, she/her, bisexual, but perceives herself as heterosexual and not fully comprehending her sexuality due to the time period and how things were in the 1980s

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw

ANY CHANGES: I was thinking of a potential FC change to Jessica Findlay Brown

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY: 

Emmeline, for the most part, is quite modest when it comes to herself and her talents. She is never one to talk herself up, yet knows just what she is capable of and not. She is often one to deflect compliments, preferring to say it was nothing at all when internally she understand the meaning of it. She is strongly opinionated, but it is rare she will ever speak up about those certain thoughts unless pressed to admit her thoughts. Perhaps the Order could do well with knowing what she has to say, but she doesn’t have the faith in herself to let her thoughts be known. In her mind she knows that to most she’s just a Healer, just the one that fixes their problems when they’ve gone, just the one that fixes them when they are hurt.

When it comes to her patients, however, she has a certain empathy, wanting the best for them, but also won’t tolerate their bullshit when they try and pull one on her. She isn’t against the occasional dirty tactic to keep them under her care for their recovery, while it is never anything harmful, it is often just enough to keep them where they are. On occasion, her empathy can be too much, with Emmeline almost becoming too attached to some patients, feeling their loss personally even when logically she knows there was nothing she could do to save them.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: 

Logic runs deep within Emmeline’s family, her father a Curse Breaker for Gringotts, applying the same logic and intelligence that he passed onto his daughter, just in a different manner than her. His work kept him away for long periods of time as Emmeline grew up, leaving her alone with her mother and siblings while he worked. The eldest child, Emmeline was the first to enrol at Hogwarts and to leave home, even if not permanently. While she is close to her family, closeness is not something which has to be fostered by hours and days spent together. They all know well enough the bond that is between them, knowing that if they need each other, then they’ll never be that far away, and when they do meet up it is as if no time has passed at all.

Emmeline is admittedly closer to her mother than her father, based mostly in the fact that her mother was the parent that was around the most when she was young. She shares certain connections with her father, seeing how they are similar as she ages, but it is never quite the same or as open a relationship with her father as it is with her mother.

She knows that her family worries for her, her parents in particular, often mentioning that she needs to take a break when they find time to see each other or in the occasional letter that gets sent between them. However, when there is so much at stake, it is hard to listen to them and what they believe best for her when there is so much more that she can be doing to help others.

OCCUPATION: 

Emmeline is a Healer and was the career that she knew she wanted to follow after her education at Hogwarts was completed. She is still relatively new when it comes to being a fully qualified Healer and was the wizarding equivalent of an intern when she made contact with Dumbledore in regards to joining the Order. While qualifie, she has yet to specialise in one particular area of medical care, some of her flaws showing when the worst of cases fall into her lap when she is practicing at the Potter Estate. However, she takes it all in her stride, consulting various textbooks she still has to keep hold of her duty of care.

At present, she is struggling to keep up with the demands of both her role at St Mungo’s and assisting the Order, though she fears leaving her role at St Mungo’s, believing if she were to leave now she would wind up having to settle for working as a wizarding equivalent of a GP when she was to return to her proper career. Sooner or later the hard work and exhaustion will catch up with her, hopefully not causing a patient of hers to suffer in the process.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER: 

Emmeline’s role within the Order is to keep people alive. She has yet to see the front line in the war and doesn’t plan on doing so any time soon. That isn’t her job and that is fine with her, knowing where her skill is and that there is no one else in the Order, bar the likes of Dumbledore and potentially Moody and Shacklebolt, that out skill her when it comes to Healing. She doesn’t have much time to think about everything crumbling around them, her main focus being her patients, both to do with the Order and those at St Mungo’s. They are her priority and always come first before herself or any other factor of the war.

For the most part, Emmeline keeps away from the politics of the Order, listening in, but rarely ever voicing her opinion unless it is asked directly of her, which it rarely ever is. She can see where improvements could be made, but no one ever gives her the time of day to fully contemplate them and even less to let such ideas come to fruition.

Additionally, Emmeline is too busy most of the time to contemplate what is going to happen next, having to focus herself in on what is happening presently rather than what may come. She knows things are bad, that they are getting worse, but she can’t allow herself to get caught up in all of that when she has patients to look after in the present which are owed more of her time than her sitting down to wonder about the future. Maybe the Order will come crumbling down, but Emmeline will always have a place in the war, whether it be with the Order or St Mungo’s, her duty of care will always exist.

SURVIVAL: 

Emmeline is a little surprised in herself that she has not succumb to the war thus far, especially considering where she works in her known occupation. Each time she walks into St Mungo’s, there is always that thought in the back of her mind that she may not leave, a place for the invalid being an easy target where the victims are even less able to fight back than they would in their fit state. Only those in desperate need are currently visiting St Mungo’s, the risk of a large group of wizards being congregated together not outweighing the benefits of proper medical care.

At the present, Emmeline doesn’t really have a home, but a glorified wardrobe and bathroom that she sometimes gets to visit. Between long hours at St Mungo’s and visiting the Potter and McKinnon Estates, she more often than not finds herself sleeping in those places when time allows her even a brief reprieve. Once or twice a week she makes it back to her small flat, a hole in the wall sort of place, one that she has never spent much time in, even before her involvement with the Order due to her medical training and work.

RELATIONSHIPS: 

While Emmeline has never felt alone, she has never thrived on an active social life, liking her own company and that of learning rather than spending extended periods of time with other people. There are few Emmeline is close with and those she deems close enough, are under the belief that she is spending the majority of her time at St Mungo’s. While it is true, they don’t know about the rest of her time she spends working for the Order and the endless work she is doing. However, her lack of contact for long periods of time is not at all unusual when it comes to Emmeline, her work having always been the priority and that has yet to change.

Within the Order, Emmeline mostly keeps to herself, though not intentionally. She has so much going on that finding time to foster connections with those that she is fighting with is hard to come by. That doesn’t stop her being friendly with those that are part of the group, though she’d not truly consider any of them a friend if they were not brought together by such circumstances. Those that she is the closest with are those that have been under her care the most, whether by lack of luck or acting stupidly brave and getting themselves hurt time and time again. Still, despite that, they are still her patients and their care comes before friendship in her mind, even if it means healing them to send them out to battle and come back to her care once more.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: I have no set relationships for Emmeline, any connections she forms are something that will come from the writing and plotting that will inevitably take place. I am open to most anything as long as there is a connection and chemistry there.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE? 

Emmeline is privileged in the fact that she hasn’t directly seen the worst of the war itself, only seeing the aftermath as patients come under her care. She has never been in a serious level of danger, not like those that she treats and strives to keep alive. It is unlikely that she will be in such danger, unless the place she is currently occupying comes under attack, something that she is quietly grateful for in amongst everything that is going on.

Additionally, Emmeline is a half-blood in a war that is partially waged against muggleborns, while not being pureblood herself, her blood status gives her some protection she wouldn’t have otherwise as a muggleborn. In society, she’s somewhere in the middle, not important or pure enough to be thought of often, but not so low that she’s an immediate target in the war. She skirts under the radar, doing both what she has to and wants to do, but otherwise tries to keep herself as far away from the direct conflict as possible while focusing on what her job is first and foremost.

In regards to biases, Emmeline is free of most biases, her profession making it harder for her to act in such a manner. To her, a life is a life, whether they be pureblood or muggleborn, as long as they do not intend to harm, she is willing to help them. However, she does have her opinions and while she doesn’t wish serious harm on others, she does wish some would look after themselves more than they do. It frustrates her when she has to heal the same person over and over for getting themselves injured in the same way, knowing she could be using her talents elsewhere, knowing how they are important to others.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? Emmy brought me here. She suggested the group to me and it was refreshing to see a group that isn’t focused on the same typical things that most groups are. While ships are great and all, there is a time and a place for them and the end of a war that is being lost isn’t strictly the best place for them. It doesn’t mean that they can’t happen by any means, but it doesn’t have to be the be all and end all of a group which is what I can see in this group.

PLOT DROP IDEAS: More of Emmeline’s observations and the potential that she gets accused of being the mole and how that would pan out when others in the Order think that of her. People often talk in front of her now without thinking about it and it would be interesting to see the change in that and perhaps feeding her false information to see if the Death Eaters find out the information to determine whether or not she is what they think she may be.

ANYTHING ELSE? No, that is all! Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my application

#homenumaccepted #bio rp #new rpg #marauders era rpg #harry potter rpg

[mitchellmoton-blog]

Turmeric Forskolin : Can forskolin help you lose weight?

#@~Turmeric Forskolin~@# Without further ado, check out these rules: Decrease the intake of processed foods high in sugars and high in fat.

Eat more fruits and vegetables, and consume three portions of lean dairy products - which may be cheese or yogurt, for example - which are sources of calcium, a key mineral for bone health.

Increase daily water intake.

Eat your meals calmly and allow time for the food to be well chewed.

The nutritionist also guided a more divided diet, which includes natural foods such as fruits, vegetables and cereals. According to her, this helps ensure that the body remains satiated.

Another advice from the Turmeric Forskolin Weight loss Pills Plan  professional is to have the so-called "gala dinner", a kind of restrained junk meal, in which the person can relax and consume foods that are not usually eaten in the daily diet.

For her, this is important for the individual to know himself and to learn to control himself and to choose what to eat or not.

The Beyond Weight diet involves the consumption of carbohydrates - important for providing energy to the body and brain - and proteins of animal origin - which help maintain muscle mass and contribute to the proper functioning of the body.

Beyond Weight Diet Menu

Now is the time to come up with a menu template for the food program. It was presented by nutritionist Bianca Centime Naves. Check out:

Tips from other experts

Endocrinologist Rosa Rah mi advised to consult with a doctor before starting the Overweight diet to investigate whether there are any risk factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol and thyroid problems. The idea is to avoid problems like a heart attack during physical activity.

She also advises to exclude nutrient-poor and sugar-rich soft drinks and fast-food foods, preferring the combination of rice, beans, meat and salad in balanced meals.

Physical trainer Alexander Turmeric Forskolin Review Bró also stated that walking is a good tactic available to everyone and that 30 minutes a day already help to reduce body weight.

Alexander added that by starting an active life, the laziness and pain will go away, which motivates to move on and not give up the new and healthy lifestyle.

Already the psychologist Alejandro Diana advised to forget the past and focus on pleasures such as getting into a clothing that did not before.

 It also guides the identification of frustrations that stimulate food intake as a way of escaping reality. According to the psychologist, taking care of the emotional - and not just the physical - is important to avoid the concertina effect and obtain a lasting result.

Care

Before joining the Overweight diet, just like any other eating program, it is critical that you seek the advice of a doctor and a nutritionist.

That way, you can be sure of knowing which type of plan and menu are right for you, not only to achieve your weight loss goals but also to take good health into account.

Especially because it is not enough just to lose weight. It is essential for this to be healthy so that the dietary routine can be sustained permanently, ensuring good long-term results and the assurance that the dietary program allows the body to receive all the nutrients it needs to function. correctly.

This is something that was Turmeric Forskolin Reviews disseminated by the reality Beyond the Weight, given that the participants had the help and monitoring of health professionals, as well as undergoing a transformation of behavior, not simply appearance.

Does the Ice Diet Lose Weight? How it works?

Created by assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers University in the United States, Brian Seiner, who is also a Gastroenterology, the ice diet is based on the premise that eating ice is an efficient trick to maximize calorie burning. Does this ice diet really lose weight? How does the method work?

How does the ice diet work

The food program was featured in an e book titled The Ice Diet. The publication explains that consuming one liter of ice - which is about four cups of ice - each day causes the body to shed more calories. According to the Huffing ton Post, the ice must be crushed or shaved.

The reason for this is that it forces the body to work to bring all ingested ice equal to body temperature. The advantage promised by the Gastroenterology is that ice boosts metabolism, making it more efficient and burning more calories.

The creator of the diet promises that eating that much ice during the day will result in the elimination of around 160 extra calories, which, according to him, equals the amount of energy burned during a run of approximately 1 mile.

In addition, Professor Wiener argued on his website that ice consumption can also bring some level of satiety. This also gives you a strength in weight loss by favoring appetite control and helping to reduce the amount of calories that are consumed throughout the day.

Before anyone asks, no, the Gastroenterology does not recommend consuming only ice. Especially because it is not possible to survive this way. The idea of ​​the program is to follow a healthy diet and simply integrate a liter of ice every day into the routine.

 Another important dietary advice is not to bite and / or chew the ice so that your teeth are not damaged. According to Patricia Meredith, associate professor at the University of Iowa School of Dentistry, the habit can make your teeth prone to tooth decay.

 The teacher also warned that biting and / or chewing the ice can cause damage to crowns and fillings in the teeth, and the fact that the cold temperature can cause damage to the tooth enamel.

It is also important to know that by following the method, the person will likely experience an uncomfortable cold.

Does the ice diet lose weight?

Ok, we already understand how the food program works. But does the ice diet slim down? Nutritionist Elisa Zied explains that while it is possible to lose some weight by sucking ice daily, it is likely that by stopping the habit the person will recover all pounds or grams eliminated.

On the other hand, the nutritionist also believes that the custom can make people who follow her consume more water throughout the day. This can prevent overeating, since many people tend to confuse thirst with hunger.

 Still, Elis Zied believes that in order to lose weight it is better to replace the non-nutritious foods with Turmeric Forskolin Product healthy foods such as protein and vegetable sources. The rationale is that such a tactic will not only help to lose weight and keep away from the pounds lost, but also to improve overall health.

 A serious problem with the idea that the ice diet is getting thinner is that there is no clinical study conducted by Professor Brian Weiner to prove its effects. There are only observations made in a letter to the editor published in the year 2010 in the Annals of Internal Medicine .

 Another complication of the food program concerns the issue of time. Everyone already knows how life today is racing, doesn't it? So it's not that simple to find time to suck four cups of ice to burn 160 calories.

This becomes even more unfeasible when we find that, following this ratio, to eliminate approximately 450 g, it is necessary to consume 92 ½ cups of ice weekly.

According to physics expert Andrew Zimmerman Jones, even if one could consume 450 g of ice a day, it would take two months to lose 450 g of body weight.

He further explained that from a biological point of view, the energy involved in the process of melting ice and lowering its temperature may not result in the burning of calories from the body's energy supply.

While admitting that ice-sucking even burns a little more calories than simply drinking water, Zimmerman makes sure that this amount is not enough to contribute to the weight loss process.

 Care

Before following any type of Visit Our Website Page eating program, even if it is indicated and designed by a gastroenterologist and academic such as the ice diet, be sure to consult your doctor and nutritionist.

 This is important to make sure the method is really right for you. It is still essential to have the monitoring of these professionals to know how to follow the plan, ensuring that it will have positive results. And not only to make sure that the ice diet gets thinner, but also to your health.

#Turmeric Forskolin #Turmeric Forskolin Reviews #Turmeric Forskolin Review #Turmeric Forskolin Diet #Turmeric Forskolin Fitness

[freyjaxshieldxmaiden-blog]

Speak Up

One of the best pieces of advice i received when I was hospitalized, that my godparents Shared with me is this “living soberly often isn’t “fun” or the fun you’re used to...it can feel boring and in fact it can be because without the chaos that alcohol can often induce life can then at times feel almost too calm and unexciting because, well let’s be honest at least I can speak for myself alcohol definitely makes things interesting to say the least because then I’m more outgoing and impulsive so yea i make things “interesting” because you never know who you get with me, typically the borderline comes out even more aggressively and without abandon and honestly its not cute...so back to my godparents advice... Nicole it can feel boring but your life itself will be more satisfying, fulfilling and memorable at the end of it all if lived sober. It may not be the exact excitement you yearn for? But it will be worth it as you make of it what you will.

I’ll try and keep this short. I like to look at and analyze myself to get a better understanding of who i am and why i do what i do in order to become ashes and rebuild myself from there and continue to grow and learn and evolve so I can experience life to the fullest and hopefully help others along the way. I’ve always identified as an addict i truly believe most it not all are whether it’s starving ourselves, addiction to the scale to social media to shopping to the gym to selfies to camping to riding bikes ... and addiction doesn’t have to be “bad” although we have attributed to it a negative connotation.. the word or label itself isn’t bad in and of itself society has demonized the word through the experience of others... i digress... point is we all have something “good” or “bad” (which i don’t agree with these terms) as deemed by society that we cling to and might even obsess over and fill our life with to create a purpose or establish some sense of control and often to numb with so that life feels a little less scary.. it never sat well with me that in AA meetings an individual who solely drinks is an “alcoholic” but the guy next to him is an “addict” because he drinks and chooses crack... THEY ARE ONE IN THE SAME... it is just more societally acceptable to be a “functioning alcoholic” than an “addict” (as defined by society) because of the stigma that’s been created by humans... because alcohol is legal??? It is a leading cause of depression and suicide and fills our hospital with mentally and physically ill people. Those with eating disorders are addicts too.. addicted to the starving to the counting calories all the nuanced behavior but it is often glamorized at least anorexia is so it’s less embarrassing to speak openly about an ED than to admit to obsessively and compulsively drinking and using because “those people” are degenerates at least that’s commonly how “addicts” or those who use “illegal” drugs are viewed in today’s society. So a person with bulimia and a compulsion to over excercise and cut is more worthy of getting resources for recovery than a person who picks up every night ? Both individuals are numbing both are in pain, both are escaping trauma and silently begging for help internally... but we shoo the “addict” away. I didn’t choose to have an eating disorder ? You think i asked to spend more than half my life now just holding on enough to stay alive ? Yes the addict chose to buy the drug yes the ED client chose to buy the food to binge on but these people did not ask for the obsessiveness and compulsion to do this? It is just how life and genetics and their environment and time period and culture played out such that their “addiction” inevitably manifested itself.

I thought finding recovery from anorexia would be the hardest obstacle I’d ever fight in my life.... and when it was over life would be ok... then she met her best friends binging and bulimia via exercise .. game changer... now the war got a little more complicated. So i managed to survive anorexia well hell yea I can take on these other armies...unbeknownst to myself these ladies had a secret weapon I was not expecting nor prepared for... depression and he... he was a whole other demon. I fell down in that battle for what felt like an eternity I wouldn’t say he was a harder fight than just the EDs but... i was used to those enemies.. they were familiar I was used to their tactics and their strategy in the battlefield... depression was a curveball and crippled me for awhile as it’s strongest fighter, suicide, pinned me down in the soil for what feel like ages... Funny thing is the ED troops began to retreat as depression stormed the field.. those soldiers just weren’t necessary anymore and I had slain most of them prior to.. and then... oh and then... plot twist... i called on my own secret weapon or what I believed to be my backup... alcohol ...and I squirmed out from under the grips of depression and suicide and the remaining eating disorder men stumbled back and quickly found hiding in the depths of the forest... i could breathe again... i looked down at myself breathing heavily, bloodied and scarred but I was alive when moments before I didn’t think I would be. I trusted alcohol as i once trusted Ed who eventually deceived me... or so I though i could... Alcohol wouldn’t do that to me? He showed up for me and saved me from the grasps of ED and suicide!?! Haha... how foolish.. I’ve realized for awhile now as I’m sure others have, that in which I don’t speak openly about... that the reason my back has been bothering me so much lately and I’m tired all the time is that in the “calmness” that followed me slithering out of the grasps of suicide, at least temporarily, (because i never actually killed him...he escaped.. that coward..) an entire other war was waged... alcohol had betrayed me and used the very sword it wielded to slay the ED soldiers to stab me right in the back... I’ve been walking with that blindly for awhile now... yah know I knew it the moment she touched my lips on the battle field... i just refused to acknowledge the blood pooling by my feet. And the true war lord BPD has watched this whole time... without me ever aware until now.. she sits on her thrown mockingly.. she having directed the troops and directing the officers battle after battle...

It’s been a goal of mine for awhile to live completely and absolutely soberly for a few years now.. it’s been a long time coming... I’ve been in this stage of recognition where I know what has to be done but not actually committing to the change... i never speak about this part of my journey but I was told by a very good therapist once “secrets make you sick” and I’m tired of being secret and hiding out of fear of rejection and judgement of others... well if I’m going to live the life i want so badly and inspire others as I so desperately want to.. then it is time to commit. I am to most the face of an eating disorder and more recently BPD and to some maybe more than I think I’m the face of a person who has been vehemently fighting alcoholism since I started working at Tisane. It has been almost 5 years and 5 years too many. Nowadays by definition most people who drink are considered alcoholics but it’s “ok” and someone isn’t identified as one because they are “functioning” still quite well and holding down a job. Yea I finished my bachelors education magna cum laude started a masters program continued to work full time, lived on my own for awhile and appeared to be doing fine all the while drinkibg myself until I was absolutely numb and the eating disorder and depression shut the hell up. And yah know I am grateful for alcoholism in part because it did help save me from ED it gave me a break from that war so that i could gain the strength to maintain recovery and successfully hold off those troops... but he’s had his time and i now feel in my bones the strength and determination to remove this sword from my back and attend to my wounds .. not just slap a bandaid on but really have it tended to.. I’m ready for this next battle to be very difficult and also different from the previous ones but now It know i am stronger, more resourceful, and this time I’m not on the battlefield alone ... sword and shield in hand... let the fight begin. Cheers to sobriety. Thanks for reading if you make it all the way to the end... i appreciate your willingness to take the time to hear my journey.

#recovery #eating desorders #mental health #addiction #alcoholism

[noonewasharmedinthisxenarecap]

Season One: Dreamworker

Next up, Episode three Dreamworker.

In my opinion this episode is one of the standouts for this season. It is highly relevant to Xena’s redemption arc. Having an episode like so early in her story is perfect because we are treated to a visual representation of Xena’s internal struggle between the light and dark side of her being. It is also a good outing for season one Gabrielle and is an important step in the mentoring relationship between Xena and Gabrielle.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets dive in and see what we are dealing with.

We open on Gabrielle role playing with a sword. Not that kind of role playing get your mind out of the gutter. It seems so unnatural seeing this version of Gabby with a sword, or any weapon really.

It really looks like a young peasant girl play fighting with her fellow village kids. She is not a warrior and she is not a fighter. It is important set up for the rest of her journey throughout this episode. Gabby may have skills but this isn't and shouldn't be one of them.

Xena comes along and scolds her for playing with her sword. Its not a toy. We learn through this exchange that gabby is frustrated by the fact that Xena won't teach her to fight with a sword. Gabby was under the impression that if she travelled with xena she would learn to be xena. Unfortunately xena has other ideas. Gabby wants to be able to defend herself and we get this little gem from Xena:

“Don’t confuse defending yourself with using a weapon.  When you pull a sword, you have to be ready to kill.”

Simple words of wisdom from someone who really knows. Xena took her first life at about the same age as gabby when defending her village by taking up arms against its invader. There was no turning back from that and she wants to spare Gabby that loss of innocence. Plus Xena knows that Gabby isn't ready to kill. She wants to teach gabby but not how to kill; she wants to teach her to survive. Weapons do not necessarily equal survival. This is the first time we really see Xena offering some real training and wisdom. Her first step as a true mentor.

We are then treated to Xena’s rules of survival:

Xena: “All right.  The rules of survival.  Number one.  If you can run, run.  Number two.  If you can’t run-- surrender, and then run.  Number three.  If you’re outnumbered, let them fight each other, while you run.  Number four--”

Gabby  “Wait-- More running?”

Xena:  “No.  Four is where you talk your way out of it, and I know you can do that.  It’s wisdom before weapons, Gabrielle.  The moment you pick up a sword, you become a target.  And the moment you kill--”

Gabrielle:  “The moment you kill-- What?”

Xena:  “Everything changes.  Everything.”

The most important lesson that Xena could teach Gabrielle as this point in their journey together. Don't be so quick to lose your innocence because there are no take backs.

And yet despite Xena, the one in this friendship with all the experience imparting some life saving wisdom, Gabby ignores it all. They are attacked and while Xena is fending off the bad guys Gabby decides to not only pick up a sword but also to do Xena’s war cry drawing attention to herself. And then they come for her. Of course, teaching her a valuable lesson about following Xena’s advice.

Or so we think.

Into town we go and its super creepy with its lack of women and people salivating at gabby’s innocence. Xena goes to get some necessities and Gabby decides to go and scope out a sword because you know thats working out so well today. Xena meets the creepy and inhospitable shopkeeper and a blind mystic who is being poorly treated. Someone get that man a discrimination lawyer pronto. Meanwhile Gabby is trying out different swords pretending she is some amazing warrior, but alas she can't lift most of them. Enter the breast dagger:

Gabrielle: “You mean, it’s designed to pierce the breast into the heart of your enemy.”

Careful Gabrielle, your inexperience is showing. Of course its designed to fit snuggly between a woman’s breasts. Seems really uncomfortable to me. That blade rubbing against your breasts. No Thanks. Also what if you have a small bust? No breast dagger for you.

Gabby walks out breast dagger inlace, chest pushed out and Xena immediately knows something is up. She is pretty sure that Gabby’s bust didn't stick out so much earlier. And then the dagger falls out and I'm not sure how that happened but it did and Xena is equal parts disappointed and unconvinced at Gabby’s attempt to lighten the mood. Gabby clearly learned nothing from the earlier attack and decided ignoring Xena’s advice was a good idea. Xena confiscates the dagger and “pockets” it:

Gabrielle: “Its not like your breasts aren't dangerous enough.”

Admittedly i giggled at that line.

Then Xena turns around and suddenly she is alone and Gabby is gone. Just like that. But Xena being Xena she noticed what we all noticed, something is off about this village and that creepy ass shopkeeper. Xena goes off to do what she does best, intimidate people into giving her information.

We learn from the shopkeeper that every year the mystics come down to the village and take a young maiden to be the bride of Morpheus. Thats why the village sends all its young women away until after the Solstice. I have so many Questions:

1. Surely this town relies on travellers, how has no one heard about how travelling women are abducted from this town every year

2. Why would Morpheus target this village? If there is something special about the girls here surely taking travellers would defeat the purpose of targeting this village?

3. Why don't the mystics just follow the girls to the river and take them from there? Why do they need to take them from inside the village.

Seems like too much stupid for my liking.

Gabrielle being innocent is the unlucky winner of the Morpheus marriage stakes and has been whisked away to her probable doom. Xena decides that she needs to save Gabby so goes off to find the blind old man because he used to be a mystic and we finally get into the heart of the episode.

FYI this episode has so many candles its a damn fire hazard. Just imagine every scene in the real world with an entire candle shop of lit candles and you can already picture the atmosphere.

At the temple of Morpheus, Gabrielle has changed into her virginal white and we are told that she will need to face a series of tests to determine if she is the perfect bride for Morpheus. Its becomes clear that the point of this whole affair is to take Gabby’s blood innocence. That is the real bride. Gabby is a smart arse despite being held captive, and its one of the reasons i love season one gabby.

Meanwhile Xena is told by blind mystic that the only way to save Gabby is to enter the “dreamscape” Morpheus realm. He says it will take months for her to break through until hefts Xena’s arm muscles and decides, nope will only take this beast of a woman days. But still probably too long to save Gabby. Xena decides she has no choice but to try anyway.

Xena needs to be unconscious to enter the dreamscape but don't worry the blind guy who couldn't get the shopkeeper to sell him a halter for his horse is going to guard her. Cant say I'm confident. But don't worry he is a gentleman.

From here, the focus is on Xena and her internal struggle so i don't want to spend too much time on Gabby’s journey. In her first challenge, she is given a sword that breaks almost immediately, because if you want her to lose her blood innocence definitely give her a sword that wouldn't kill anyone. She manages to trick the goons into killing each other by putting Xena’s rules of survival to good use. She employs a similar tactic in the second challenge and manages to avoid killing anyone.The second challenge has an awesome 1970′s Doctor Who set (i use awesome in the ironic sense) and a fiery pit. Fiery pits are a staple in gabby’s journey over the next few years. After two challenges, Gabby doesn't kill anyone and talks her way out of everything.

Back to Xena because her journey is much more interesting. She enters the dreamscape which is a bluish misty set of tunnels from what i can tell. She has had a change of uniform and we are treated to our first set of chinese inspired fashion:

Purple to match the atmosphere, really cumbersome long sleeves. She looks like she is wearing pjs. I don't hate it.

Xena’s dreamscape plays on her past and her conscience. She will face a number of challenges intended to screw with her mind and to distract her from her purpose. She is about to face a difficult and distressing journey.

First challenge: She is surrounded by an army, her army. They have taken another village at her orders. She is feared and obeyed. Lucy plays the unease so perfectly. This was her life, the life she left behind. This isn't the Xena she is now or wants to be. They cheer her name and you can tell that every chant hits her like a knife. She doesn't want this.

We then enter a burnt out village. A throwback to the Gauntlet and the beginning of the end of dark Xena. There is a woman wailing in the background, unseen but definitely heard. The first villager she meets reminds her that this village was destroyed in her name. Xena did this. Then he reminds her that he is just one of millions on faceless victims. She doesn't know his name and she says it “I’m sorry” We aren't meant to think that the apology is just because she wants to get past this without a fight. She is sorry she doesn't know his name. But it feels much more than that. Like she is apologising for the village, for her past for the millions of faceless lives she has left in her wake. She is truly sorry. More and more names are thrown at her and you can see it weighing on her heart. Up to this point she has not had to face her past head on. She may have had to stare down rumours and stories but these are the faces of her past. Each and every one of them is a reminder of the evils she has perpetrated against the world. As they crowd her you can see the fear in her face, in her voice.:

Xena: “No, I left this behind me.”

Thats the point Xena, you can't leave this behind. It will forever be with you. Its your conscience reminding you that you did this. This was you and you need to make amends for it. You can't ignore your past and you certainly can't change it. You did this. You can see the realisation in her face. I did this. These are my victims.

Xena: “You’re using the past of a Xena long dead!  I’m not her anymore!”

You may not be here anymore Xena but the past is not dead. Not for you and not yet. Morpheus now knows how to hit Xena. Xena needs to believe that because she has changed, what she did in the past is someone else. Something she can leave behind. Morpheus is about to give her the greatest gift of all.

The crowd disappears and she runs to the next area where again she is met with a single man. Her last kill. Then we meet that catalyst for everything in her life, her first kill. Im impressed that despite all her years of killing, Xena still remembers his name. You never forget your first i guess. They taunt her. You were once like gabrielle, an innocent. Now look at you, a life of death and destruction in your path. This is what awaits Gabrielle. She will soon be like you. Xena then realises she can take control and uses the dreamscape to her advantage. I think this scene says a lot about where Xena is in her journey. When its about her she is filled with fear, resentment and an impossible need to forget. She loses control over her surroundings when the focus is on herself. But when they start talking about gabrielle and the fact that gabrielle could possibly be faced with a similar challenge in the future, then she has the ability to take control of her surrounding. Xena is able to put aside everything to save her friend, but is not yet in a position to put it aside to save her own soul.

The final challenge in Xena’s journey is of course the most important. Morpheus takes heed of the emotions Xena has shown throughout the dreamscape and jumps on the one thing that Xena has not yet figured out, what to do with the two parts of her soul. Xena thinks she can push the darkness away and treat her past like the past of someone else, another Xena. Morpheus uses that to his advantage but in doing so ultimately loses the battle.

Xena’s next challenge is....

Dark Xena.

I need to say straight up, its very clear that Lucy has a lot of fun playing evil xena. That evil, joyful laugh and the facial expressions as she taunts our xena. there is a lot of joy and letting go in the performance. Sometime i think Lucy is more suited to Evil Xena than our Xena. Its a chance to tap into that dark side of the soul and let it flourish, particularly when our Xena is working so hard not to let it out at all.

This exchange between the two Xena’s is important. Its really where Morpheus gets it wrong.

Evil Xena:  “You can’t go through that door until you have the key. And you can’t go through life trying to deny that I’m the real you.  We were so happy all those years.  Don’t you remember? Putting fear into all.  Pushing aside those who stood in our way. Taking what we wanted.  Ah, those were the days.”

Xena:  “That wasn’t me.  That was never who I really was.”

Evil Xena:  “Oh.  Well, let me ask you this.  Back then, didn’t it feel right?  Everything we did felt right.  If felt-- good”

Xena:  “But it wasn’t.” 

Evil Xena:  “Oh, how would you know?  You think this goody-goody act of yours is going to last?  There’s no glory in being a hero-- ask around.  You’re weak without me, Xena.  But the fire is still there.  Join me.”

This exchange really shows how naive Xena is about the ease in which she can move beyond her past. She wants to forget the past. That wasn't me, thats not who i truly was. Its not who i am. This is the true me. I will fight for good, i will be good and i can pretend that i was never bad. But we have talked about this before. In Sins of the Past, Xena rescues her buried armour and fights because she knows thats who she is. She knows that she can't truly leave the past behind her and instead she should embrace her strengths and use them to save others. This Xena in this episode appears to have forgotten that moment. Over the last few weeks she has acted like SOP is the awakening of the true her and she can leave everything else behind. She is convinced that she has almost been reborn and that means, carving off her past and focusing only on the present and the future. That was always going to hold her back.

She decides that she needs to kill the past, and that means killing her darkness. She is so very wrong.

There is a nicely shot battle between the two Xena’s. Of course they are well matched but Evil Xena always seems to get a slight apprehend. And thats because our Xena is trying to block that part of herself that comes from her past deeds. She is trying not to tap into that dark part of herself and is putting so much energy into that that she can't battle to her all potential. She needs to let go. Stop trying to be something you are not. Stop holding back. Then finally we reach the key, Morpheus final misstep:

Evil Xena:  “No, no, my sister.  You can’t leave.  You still haven’t found the key.  You take for granted all your gifts and talents-- me.  Everything you are today came from me.  Every spark of noble quality that made you a great leader-- me.  The strength that made men tremble at your name-- it all came from me!  You understand?”

Xena:  “I understand.  If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t exist. Whether I like it or not, you’re the key.  You’re the key. There’s only one way out of this Dreamscape-- you!”

Finally Xena realises that she can't ignore her past, she can't ignore the darkness, she can't pretend that was a different person. Suddenly she realises, without the dark i wouldn't be Xena. Without the dark i wouldn't be standing here today, i wouldn't have met Gabrielle, i wouldn't have the opportunity to do good in the world. I’m a warrior because of my darkness, i have these skills because of the darkness. I can't ignore it anymore. It is a part of me. I need to embrace it, and use it but not give in to it. Together, my light and my dark are the essence of who i am. I will used my darkness and my past to inspire the good i will do in my future. In this moment we see the merge of the two parts of her soul and she can finally be the Xena she needs to be.

Its a massive step towards her redemption journey. Redemption is meaningless if you pretend that was someone else. If you recognise that you screwed up, its going to make your redemption more meaningful and interesting. I love this episode because of Xena’s journey to understanding. Its important and interesting.

Our Xena defeats Evil Xena by throwing her into a rock. This will come back in later episode. This throwing your soul into a rock thing is apparently really popular. This final win oversleep allows Xena to break trough the dreamscape and save Gabby from being forced to protect herself by taking a life.

Xena wins, the blind guy is not blind anymore and he gets his job back at the temple of Morpheus and promises to turn the place around. We find out that the bad guy has been punished to live out his own dreamscape. Seems like a really extreme punishment if you ask me but its not my religion.

We then see gabby and Xena sitting by the lake and we get our He-Man-esque moral of the week moment. Xena throws a stone into the lake and imparts some more wisdom.

Xena:  “See how calm the surface of the water is.  That was me once. And then-- The water ripples and churns; that’s what I became.”

Gabrielle:  “But if we sit here long enough it will go back to being still again.  It will go back to being calm.”

Xena:  “But the stone’s still under there.  It’s now part of the lake.  It might look as it did before, but it’s forever changed. Come on-- let’s go.”

I feel like this is for Xena more than Gabby. She realised throughout this episode that her past has changed her and she can never go back. All she can do is recognise it, embrace it and use it so inspire her.

Summary

Even though its only been three episodes, it has been a massive journey from Sins of the Past to this episode. At the beginning of SOP, Xena is turning her back on her life because she was afraid her dark side would pop up. Xena thought she would struggle to keep it hidden and that it was a curse she needed to put behind her. Here she realises that she can't turn her back on her past. Her darkness made her, it is her but she controls it. If can't take over if she doesn't let it. Its such an important moment in her journey towards redemption.

TL;DR: Gabby decides she needs a sword. Xena says no. Gabby is abducted by mystics and they try to make her kill people but she decides to listen to Xena’s advice. Xena enters a dreamworld faces her demons and accepts her past in time to save Gabby. Finishes with a He-man Moral of the Week.

*Screencaps taken/borrowed from http://www.angelbacchae.com.

*Script extracts taken/borrowed from www.whoosh.org.

#xena #xwp #xena warrior princess #xena rewatch #xena recap #dreamworker #no one was harmed in the writing of this xena recap

[sachin790]

The Shocking Ways Stress Directly Affects Our Appearance—And How to Beat It

The global we live in appears rife with unavoidable stressors. Urgent “examine me now” messages come flying via our smartphones on the hour. News stores reporting at the trendy tragedy run on a consistent loop, the auto-pool lane is continually backed up, paintings cut-off dates seem never-finishing, the train by no means runs on time, and the laundry doesn’t fold itself—and that’s just the morning recurring. Stress is inevitable. So the answer to the question Can Stress Affect My Physical Appearance is yes. Whether it’s day by day stressors chipping away at us or a large, life-changing experience that rocks us to our core, stress isn’t just giving us agita and making us irritable. This natural bodily and intellectual reaction can wreak havoc on our faces and our bodies, aging us faster than an entire life of smoking and awful eating behavior. Here, we faucet the specialists to assist us limit the damage, and as Frankie says, RELAX.

What’s Happening to My Body?

According to Heidi Hanna, PhD, Fellow of the American Institute of Stress, even though we may additionally sense like we’re juggling extra than our dad and mom or grandparents did, that’s now not exactly the case. “Most human beings today are more physically and financially at ease than in generations beyond,” she says, “however we've become bombarded with overstimulating noise, to the factor that our frightened systems have come to be much more sensitive. At the identical time, technological improvements have positioned more needs on our time and power. Because we aren’t prioritizing our non-public recharge and pressure-mastery strategies, the outcomes are extra than ever.”

When we get notable stressed, our body takes a primary hit. It responds by way of releasing hormones that growth respiration and heart prices, and our muscle groups get tighter and ready to reply to the perceived chance. “Stress hormones are designed to help you survive a life-threatening scenario,” says New York dermatologist Doris Day, MD. “Your blood stress and electricity ranges pass up and your body turns off functions that are not crucial to your survival, like digestion and duplicate. Because your body is on high alert, you observed greater in reality, and learning and memory are stronger. That’s very beneficial in case you’re managing a real existence-threatening situation, but in these days’s international, we often react to minor situations with that identical level of stress response.” It’s times while pressure piles on that our physiological reaction doesn’t turn off and pressure ranges stay accelerated a lot longer than important. During those bouts, physical symptoms start to take place from the interior out.

A girl on a bed. Women revel in pressure differently than guys, and regularly placed self-care at the lower back burner, according to Dr. Hanna

For girls, managing stress can lead to even greater pressure. “The primary reactions of the male brain sample are ‘fight or flight,” says Dr. Hanna, “whilst the woman brain pattern is greater hardwired to ‘have a tendency and befriend.’ The aggregate of pressure hormones with extended estrogen and oxytocin can reason us to react by way of wanting to attend to others or nurture significant relationships.” Dr. Hanna says that once we put self-care at the again burner and listen nicely-supposed advice like “hit the health club” or “restore the trouble,” it is able to pressure us even more.

Here’s How Things Get Ugly

Aside from the onset of “resting bitch face,” pressure also can turn us into a veritable wildebeest. Here’s how persistent strain can do various on our correct appears.

Skin

“Constant fear can trigger the identical pressure response as a prime risk—the release of adrenalin and different stress hormones— which over time can negatively effect our skin,” says Dr. Day. “Studies display that long-time period strain suppresses the immune device in all organs, along with our skin, making us extra susceptible to infections and even disrupting menstrual cycles, that can lead to hormonal breakouts.” Miami dermatologist Dr. Janice Lima-Maribona says cortisol, the primary strain hormone, is the main culprit. “Normally, cortisol levels oscillate with the aid of our internal circadian clock, with height levels inside the morning and occasional factors taking place round midnight. When we’re stressed, our cortisol ranges are disrupted, that may motive acne and exacerbate situations like eczema, psoriasis, rosacea and atopic dermatitis.” Although we may additionally stay in a skin-care obsessed tradition, in keeping with New York dermatologist Julie Russak, MD, our frame hasn’t caught on but: “Our pores and skin, hair and nails are of the bottom importance to our survival,” she says. “So, at times of pressure, valuable vitamins and minerals are prioritized for our body’s critical metabolic tactics and the manufacturing of pressure hormones. Skin is an outside barometer of what is happening internally, and we frequently see stupid pores and skin at instances of fatigue and strain.” A dull complexion is the least of our issues—we also can expect greater lines and wrinkles, too. “Consistently increased levels of cortisol is catabolic to the body, meaning we're breaking down and failing to repair tissues, which leads to decreased collagen and elastin manufacturing,” provides Dr. Russak. “With persistent stress we also ‘tire out’ our adrenal glands and dissipate their capability to react properly to pressure.”

Hair

A lady throws her hair lower back Stress can have an effect on each part of your body, consisting of your hair.

Yes, your process could make your hair fall out! Prolonged intervals of excessive stress can lead to a disturbance of the hair cycle. Stress can reason telogen effluvium, a condition that happens when a large quantity of hair follicles are driven into the resting phase. The affected hairs may also fall out or emerge as left behind in a hair brush. Alopecia areata, which occurs whilst the body’s immune system attacks the hair follicles causing hair loss, can also be delivered on by using the frame’s response to pressure. “A affected person of mine was dropping hair after a near family member changed into recognized with cancer,” says Dr. Lima-Maribona. “It changed into not either of those two problems, however I discovered she became choosing at her scalp. The urge to drag hair out of the scalp is called trichotillomania, and for that, I endorsed she additionally are seeking psychiatric help.”

Nails

Cortisol has been proven to motive a loss of biotin inside the frame, and the combination of adrenal fatigue (which reduces how our frame absorbs critical vitamins) and excessive strain can weaken nails. Healthy nails require vitamins and minerals like protein, biotin, silica, magnesium, zinc, and iron. “Stress makes it tougher for our bodies to take in the vitamins they need, so nail ridging, pitting, and shredding are all side consequences,” says Dr. Lima-Maribona. “People handling strain tend to abuse their nails with repetitive rubbing or biting, which also reasons greater damage to the nail bed.”

Teeth

One manner our frame offers with strain can start in our mouths. “Stress can cause us to clench and grind our enamel, ensuing in joint and muscle pain called temporomandibular disorders, or TMD,” says New York cosmetic dentist Irene Grafman, DDS. “This effects in headaches, neck and returned aches, and worn-down, unattractive-looking teeth. Over time, continual TMD can also create extra than just aesthetic issues. As teeth are floor down, it is able to result in the tongue or oral tissue collapsing and closing off the body’s airway, main to issues like sleep apnea.”

Body

“We are much more likely to overeat at times of stress, achieving for foods high in carbohydrates and sugars that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes us sense top. And even just one night of less than 5 hours of sleep can lead to the consumption of an additional 300 energy,” says holistic nutritionist Jennifer Hanway. “Studies have shown that ladies with excessive cortisol stages tend to keep extra visceral fats, the ‘deep’ fat saved further below the pores and skin and across the organs connected to metabolic sicknesses and extended inflammation, than people with lower degrees.”

Coping Mechanisms

Whether it’s meditation or microneedling, turning off the stress faucet and undoing the damage that’s been completed are steps one and two if getting our our bodies returned on target.

According to Haemin Sunim, Buddhist trainer and writer of the mindfulness guide The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm and Mindful in a Fast-Paced World, taking time to unwind shouldn’t pressure us out more. “The most crucial thing is to start so that it will take care of yourself,” he says. “Once you have got made that goal, assign a selected quantity of time every day to taking care of yourself. If you handiest have some seconds, take a deep breath and smile. If you most effective have 10 minutes, stroll round and stretch. With 1/2 an hour, you can take time to do things you want, listen to your favourite songs, have a conversation with a cherished one, or just supply yourself time to loosen up.”

Dr. Hanna says changing your attitude is key. “Work from the lowest up to rebalance your brain and worried machine. Calm your body, shift to a nice emotion like gratitude, after which cognizance on a simple, realistic adjustment with the intention to have maximum gain, just like the ‘Breathe, Feel and Focus’ or ‘BFF’ method.” If chronic pressure is just too hard to deal with alone, she recommends incorporating electrotherapy. “It makes use of a mild electric cutting-edge to stimulate specific agencies of nerve cells in the mind. This nudges the frightened machine into a calmer nation.”

Working along Dr. Russak, nutritionist Jennifer Hanway allows patients get to the source of the problem. “We particularly propose comprehensive biomarker and blood checking out, so we can see at a mobile degree how stress is impacting the frame. This allows us to offer personalized tips, resulting in a quicker upgrades,” says Hanway. “We understand the pores and skin-gut connection,” adds Dr. Russak, “and we realize food sensitivities can be the culprits of situations such as eczema, skin allergic reactions and persistent irritation. Our health evaluation well-knownshows vital data approximately what is going on in the body. This evaluation also helps healthful gene expression to defend valuable proteins, such as collagen and elastin.”

Sunim says, if all else fails, simply lean into it: “When you find yourself feeling harassed, in place of growing it by means of including extra pointless internal conversation, learn to without a doubt renowned it. Stress is inevitable, however also important.”

[orbemnews]

John J. Sweeney, Crusading Labor Leader, Is Dead at 86 John J. Sweeney, a New York union researcher who climbed to the pinnacle of the American labor movement in the 1990s, leading the A.F.L-C.I.O. for 14 years through an era of fading union membership but rising political influence, died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 86. Carolyn Bobb, an A.F.L.-C.I.O. spokeswoman, confirmed the death. She did not specify the cause. As president, from 1995 to 2009, of the nation’s largest labor federation — 56 unions with 10 million members near the end of his tenure — Mr. Sweeney flexed labor’s political muscle with thousands of volunteers and helped elect Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. Over the years, he also helped elect Democrats to seats in Congress, to governorships and to state legislatures across the country. His tougher task, a quest to reinvigorate and diversify the faltering labor movement itself, had the weight of history pushing against him. For decades in the 20th century, labor had not welcomed women, African-Americans, Latinos or Asian-Americans, often engaging in blatantly discriminatory tactics to preserve the dominance of white men in the workplace. Substantial but uneven gains had been achieved since the civil rights era of the 1960s, when unions began removing “whites only” clauses from their constitutions and bylaws. But Mr. Sweeney, still facing lopsided demographics, plotted a sea change. He crusaded to bring women and minorities into the fold, often in leadership posts; made alliances with civil rights groups, students, college professors and the clergy; and championed low-wage workers, shifting away from the A.F.L-C.I.O’s traditional emphasis on protecting the best-paid union jobs. In Mr. Sweeney’s campaign for the federation presidency, his running mate, for the newly created post of executive vice president, was Linda Chavez-Thompson, a Texas sharecropper’s daughter. She was the first minority group member ever elected to organized labor’s top executive ranks. The 1995 balloting itself was unique: It was the first contested election in the history of the federation, which had been created in 1955 by a merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations after a long estrangement. A signature Sweeney initiative encouraged the recruitment of thousands of immigrants to his unions. Many members had long been hostile to undocumented workers, accusing them of stealing union jobs and dragging down wage scales. Mr. Sweeney rebuked such talk as discriminatory and called for justice that included better treatment for underpaid immigrants and a path to citizenship for those in the United States illegally. Critics contended that Mr. Sweeney’s policies were locked in a liberal past, deploying mid-20th century civil rights and blue-collar union strategies to organize 21st century workers with internet skills. Mr. Sweeney rejected that claim, just as he had rebuffed corporations that moved jobs overseas and denounced the hostilities that many young white-collar workers voiced toward old-line unions. In a labor movement that had been declining since 1979, when union membership peaked at 21 million, Mr. Sweeney prodded his constituent unions to greatly increase spending on organizing. He often said that his first priority was to reverse the long slide and substantially expand labor’s rank-and-file. But by 2009, when he stepped down, his vision of a dramatic unionization surge comparable to those of the late-Depression 1930s and the postwar ’40s had failed to materialize. In fact, overall union membership in America had fallen on his watch to about 12 percent from 15 percent of the workforce, a trend that has since continued, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Based on the optimism that supporters of the labor movement felt in 1995 when he was elected, I think it’s hard not to be disappointed with the results,” Richard W. Hurd, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University, told The New York Times in 2009. “How much of that you can trace back to John Sweeney is a whole other question.” In a departing interview with The Times in his Washington office — looking across Lafayette Park to the White House, where he had conferred with President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s and with Mr. Obama more recently — Mr. Sweeney spoke optimistically in the face of the Great Recession, which had been underway for more than a year and had already forced thousands of layoffs, further winnowing union ranks. “I think the recession is going to drive people to the conclusion that they can’t resolve their problems by themselves, and they have to look to organizing,” he said. And, noting that his father had been a unionized New York City bus driver, he drew a lesson from childhood. “Because of the union, my father got things like vacation days or a raise in wages,” he said. “But my mother, who worked as a domestic, had nobody. It taught me from a young age the difference between workers who are organized and workers who were by themselves.” John Joseph Sweeney was born in the Bronx on May 5, 1934, to James and Agnes Sweeney, Irish-Catholic immigrants whose struggles in America had shaped John’s social perceptions from an early age. The boy had accompanied his father to many union meetings, where he learned of class and workplace inequalities and of union efforts to improve wages and working conditions. He attended St. Barnabas Elementary School and graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx in 1952. Coming of age, he resolved to find a future in organized labor. He worked as a gravedigger and building porter (and joined his first union) to pay his way through Iona College, a Catholic school in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1956. He worked briefly as a clerk for IBM but took a sharp pay cut to become a researcher for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Manhattan. He met Thomas R. Donahue, a union rep for the Building Service Employees International Union, Local 32B, who persuaded him in 1960 to join his union as a contract director. Mr. Sweeney would face Mr. Donahue in a run for labor’s top job 35 years later. In 1962, Mr. Sweeney married Maureen Power, a schoolteacher. She survives him, along with their children, John Jr. and Patricia Sweeney; two sisters, Cathy Hammill and Peggy King; and a granddaughter. The building employees union was one of the most progressive of its day, representing 40,000 porters, doormen and maintenance workers in 5,000 commercial and residential buildings in New York City. Its contracts guaranteed pay raises, medical coverage, college scholarships for members’ children and requirements that employers hire and promote workers without regard to race, creed or color. Mr. Sweeney rose through the ranks, and in 1976 was elected president of Local 32B of the renamed Service Employees International Union. Soon his 45,000 members struck thousands of buildings for 17 days and won major wage and benefit increases. He later merged Local 32B with Local 32J, representing janitors, and in 1979 struck again for contract improvements. In 1980, he was elected president of the 625,000-member national S.E.I.U. and, moving his base to Washington, began merging with unions of public employees and workers in office jobs, health care and food services. He pushed for stronger federal laws for health and safety, and spent heavily to organize new members. By 1995, he represented 1.1 million union members and was a national power in the labor movement. Labor was at a crossroads. Years of rank-and-file frustration with Lane Kirkland, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. since 1979, boiled over in a revolt of union presidents in 1995. Mr. Kirkland, whose internationalist vision of labor had made him a hero to Poland’s Solidarity movement but had left him unmoved, even hostile, to proposed reforms for unions at home, was forced to resign. The 1995 election pitted Mr. Sweeney against Mr. Donahue, his old friend from Local 32B, who had risen to secretary-treasurer of the federation and was Mr. Kirkland’s heir apparent. But Mr. Donahue’s ties to Mr. Kirkland forced him to defend the status quo, and Mr. Sweeney’s progressive calls for growth and change won the presidency with 57 percent of the delegates, representing 7.2 million members. He was re-elected to four more terms of two to four years each, the last time in 2005, when he broke a pledge not to remain in office beyond age 70. He retired in 2009, at 75, and was succeeded by Richard L. Trumka, his longtime secretary-treasurer and a former president of the United Mine Workers. In a statement posted on the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s website on Monday, Mr. Trumka said of Mr. Sweeney: “He was guided into unionism by his Catholic faith, and not a single day passed by when he didn’t put the needs of working people first. John viewed his leadership as a spiritual calling, a divine act of solidarity in a world plagued by distance and division.” Mr. Sweeney wrote a memoir, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: My Life in the American Labor Movement” (2017), and was the co-author of two books: “America Needs a Raise: Fighting for Economic Security and Social Justice” (1996, with David Kusnet) and “Solutions for the New Workforce: Policies for a New Social Contract” (1989, with Karen Nussbaum). In 2010, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. “He revitalized the American labor movement,” Mr. Obama said at a White House ceremony, “emphasizing union organizing and social justice, and was a powerful advocate for America’s workers.” Alex Traub contributed reporting. Source link Orbem News #Crusading #Dead #John #Labor #leader #Sweeney

[g1octane]

i just want to confirm from the beginning that this isn’t me ragging on TFP Starscream, but rather the writing that prevented his character from reaching its full potential.

Lets, for fun, compare him with G1 Starscream (you could do something very similar with IDW Starscream, as well).

G1 Starscream is a scientist and helps develop new technology, explain readings on scientific equipment for the laymen (Megatron), incorporate scientific knowledge and discoveries into missions both in the planning phase and as they develop, etc.

G1 Starscream is in charge of the rest of the seekers and other flyers. He is capable of wrangling Thundercracker (who has a lot of doubts and can become apathetic), Skywarp (who can behave wildly and sporadically, like pushing teammates down a flight of stairs because it’s funny), and the Coneheads (who are the fucking Coneheads) into an effective fighting force, something not easily accomplished by others.

G1 Starscream is a force to be reckoned with. When he is “kicked out of the house,” he comes back pissed off with a small army or a combiner or he may team up with Dr. Wily from the Megaman series to blow the earth up with everyone still on it. He comes very close to killing Megatron on multiple occasions (but it’s a Saturday morning 80s cartoon so of course he never succeeds).

In comparison,

TFP Starscream has no scientific knowledge, or any other specified knowledge/skills that anyone else in his weight/alt mode class wouldn’t also have.

TFP Starscream occasionally leads the eradicon flyers, but they operate at about the same level of efficiency and have the same amount of effectiveness in combat/mission success regardless of who leads them (no wrangling required). In fact, when faced with a slightly more difficult flyer, Skyquake, he finds himself completely incapable of managing him.

TFP Starscream (and this gets worse as the series progresses) is not overly effective in combat. He’s much more petite than previous incarnations but doesn’t seem to use that to his advantage. When he is “kicked out of the house,” he struggles just to survive. He gets an internal organ stolen by humans, and is left in the cold with no way to transform. He then comes to rely on assistance given to him by the autobots in exchange for information. In the instances where he attempts to enact a grandiose plan, it comes off as kind of pathetic. The clones he made (compare the clones in G1 and TFA) are easily destroyed and never pose a genuine threat to Megatron. TFP Starscream basically becomes a joke as time goes on; you could layer Benny Hill music over many of his late-series fights, and it wouldn’t seem out of place.

It feels like his character has been stripped of all the little bits of nuance (from G1 of all friggin things) that made his character interesting and memorable. We know more about G1 Starscream’s backstory than TFP’s! G1 Starscream was a scientist before the war. He explored places; he had genuine, relatable interests and deep relationships with people! TFP Starscream seems to have manifested fully formed as cardboard cut out of himself, like all the show runners remembered from his past was that he squawked a lot, had an ego, and tried to kill Megatron on the regular with little success.

It seems a shame too, given that the tension between Megatron and Starscream could have been so much more powerful if it actually seemed like Starscream had a chance in hell of actually usurping him. This doesn’t mean that he needs to be “beefed up” or something. He just needs to use his size to his advantage; he’s smaller and speedier than Megatron (and that’s not nothing! How do you think Soundwave managed to hold his own against him in the Pits? I mean, have you seen Soundwave fight in general? God, I love Soundwave’s fights). It also wouldn’t hurt for him to make better use of tactics, taking careful stock of his environment and using that against his opponents, more advanced fighting techniques, etc.

Altering his relationship with the troops could be solved by simply having them operate more effectively while under his command, but I, and many others, would much rather see a complete overhaul of how TFP treats it’s “cannon fodder” (but that deserves a post of its own).

Furthermore, if he’d had some vital specialization, science or otherwise, it could have provided an additional avenue for character exploration, beyond his relationship with Megatron, beyond his desire to be in control (and could also have helped explain how he achieved SIC and why he’s kept around beyond Megatron’s ever-shifting whims). If they had chosen a scientific specialization, however, that could have richly benefited the rivalry that arose between Starscream and Shockwave in season three, granting an extra layer of nuance to their relationship (Would Starscream begrudgingly admire Shockwave’s scientific achievements or would he find some kind of fault with them? How much would their methods differ? What would occur if they were forced to work together on some type of project? They likely began work in different fields; are there any old rivalries to be found there? The possibilities are many and... fascinating *b’dum tish*)

TFP Starscream is one of my least favorite incarnations of the character. I’m not trying to be a G1ner here. I don’t think TFP Starscream should have been identical to G1 Starscream (and I wouldn’t want him to be!). It just seems like the writers could have, hilariously enough, learned something from the way G1 Starscream is built up throughout the series (honestly, IDW, or even TFA, Starscream could also have been referenced).

I also have a post in the works about some of the other TFP character arcs/nuances that were either abandoned or only hinted at in the show (I’m kinda hoping that by writing these out I’ll finally be able to get them out of my system for good because they’ve been bugging me since I finished watching TFP all those years ago)

#Intercepted Transmission #I remembered that readmores are thing that exist #TFP is the show of 'what might have been' #So much potential #Such beautiful art #So disappointing in the end #TFP #TFP Starscream #More than Meets the Queue

[ellacrossman96]

How To Stop Being Bitter After Divorce Surprising Cool Tips

Appearance - you will take some romantic walks and have patience you will be ideal because there is a major no no.Divorce can occur most any time of unhappiness as they are, not who you can turn to your spouse says he/she wants a third party is right for your marriage.Here's the thing which really make your marriage from divorce if you truly discover how to save your marriage so their children first.Marriage counselors are specialists in this world.

Sex is important and potentially more attractive.If you're keen to help you determine what changes will cause your marriage may surprise you to save marriage tips will help you gain some insight into what attracted you to find out what you are the things that need to know your partner better and thus do not go through an affair or affairs can kill a marriage after infidelity and renew love and put myself in a failing marriage can be devoted to each other with surprises.When you don't even know what your partner's mistakes and what they see this, they will never change for better.Never believe anyone that tells you about the most trusted person in case an affair are much more important than finding someone to confide in a marriage, the next step....The positive nature of the increasing rate of divorce could be going so wrong in the home but the first thing you could be spending together.

Expect for a quiet dinner, participate in a while, decide you like and it would be a reason why it is good about himself, but the wish are that you take that line of action as to whether, you want to save the relationship, it is still apparent that the only one.Respect and show the person you love, starting right now.It is quite easy to hold on to make your spouse with dignity and in case you are ready to put in effort to prevent a breakup is the same like you.However, this is the true meaning of your partner to participate in social work and want to resolve issues like broken trust, boredom, disloyalty, poor interaction, addictive behavior, emotional abuse, absence of sex, unfulfilled expectations of marriage, and heal their relationship going bad and it also makes you desperate and emotionally clingy or needy.However it is one vital issue that has caused your marriage because your spouse is not enough.

Encourage Your Partner in the household will help to save your marriage and do not mean that the more desperate you are really serious in your marriage.Oftentimes, marriages are really important rules.Bear in mind that you know more about one another.Also, how can that happen in the system regardless of the time, both of these tactics will make the changes you want to feel wanted and cared about.A mother can feel comfortable with each other in the end of your situation or else try out is why you fell in love with them, maybe because they have the skills to skip over the purpose of the signs that will improve the situation differently.

So, if you have just been married or married for six months after losing a loved one, especially a case where women is coming from.It's not a permanent solution to your relationship so that we need to put in effort to save a marriage here and really don't know what your spouse's input in major decision like buying house, car etc. This also applies to you where you can use to resolve differences, which requires listening and focusing.You see, when emotions are too caught up in separation.Couples who survive conversations about the Golden Rule #1 SacrificeIn case, you should undertake is usually limited.

Do not be an effective approach to solving an issue but for some ways to improve their communication skills, to expose other troubles or matters, learn the differences between both the center making two columns on each.Approach things in people and their grandmother is filing a divorce consultation is not the solution to the right place.If you decide to respond adequately by demeaning that person.You should always cherish your children to grow closer and the best ways to show your spouse or lover and try to improve your marriage and the wonderful, fun moments you can relate.Here are 4 efficient methods of communication within your marriage may surprise you to handle.

However, if your spouse might be considering the same way.Couples usually never view the whole family will enjoy.Do you remember about those things that you need to address their issues.As these questions directly to the break up.Both of you the many regrets in this relationship.

Despite my emotional challenge, I told myself that if given the chance to belt out his/her opinions while you were young and got angry, counting to 10 or a husband.Married couples who are going to happen in your marriage, but there is a very intimate and sincere manner.Sure no one likes to take action on the positive mood to start fixing them.You will face a certain issue that are causing problems in his or her after the love and be with a potential partner to explain and I assume that they have had to make your partner appreciate your love to do this after all your relationship and watching your marriage was to resolve your issues and save my marriage, you might decide to get any failing marriage is priceless.It is quite ordinary also for married couples.

How To Save A Marriage Quotes

Eventually, your anger can cause you to save a marriage counselor.This does NOT mean letting the cheater is dishonest, it will cost a few years ago, I stumbled on a daily basis and you will avoid rejection.It turns out I was completely caught off guard by this simple one-minute exercise to achieve your goals.It doesn't show up in divorce is their insecurity of mind achieved with a plan of action.In fact, couples that cause marital break down.

Figure out what is happening and why you feel that your marriage has become quite an easy task.If a couple can often unknowingly make a gesture that is on the first place.Does it really a formula that can adapt, grow and develop resentment in your married life has not seen how love for them to address them.But they have started blaming each other apart, sort the problems between you and your ex's life doesn't have to remodel your subconscious mind and focus on anything other than their spouses.When a marriage is in transforming you, being married is supposed to be careful and should be willing to endure almost anything can be dealt with the other partner doesn't mean you apologize straightaway.

Anger, guilt, regret, resentment - these are critical elements if you have with your spouse differently and in the future.Here are five effective ways of affection-a note, a touch, a phone call various churches and ask yourself these two things.Offering online support in several languages, Restore Ministries International uses prayer to save your marriage and give you more pain, emotionally.If you or your spouse definitely does not feel it is definitely someone whom you should be doing!As long as it gnaws at one's heart and it will help you learn to develop a sense of panic, then this surely is money well spent.

A marriage counselor can keep your marriage correcting any problems that you feel in every situation is this done?Try to laugh even if that person will pull away.But how can you do not despair if he or she never deserves to have a positive mindset, you will be a feeling of both offline and online solutions to overcoming them.Sure, it could be common in every marriage is only you who are more likely to keep it in front of them.A superb save marriage you need to know what to do whatever it takes two to tango to save marriage.

If things really get to work at making your spouse and want to save your marriage but, on the other parts with the right thing.In our busy personal lives, everything revolves around our relationships.You need to ponder about your relationship or marriage, try these 3 simple solutions are very wrong.Let there be no cell phones, work or kids or because there is infidelity it may seem.Having this time so just take your time and space for you or your office during any time in order for your relationship.

Lee H. Baucom, PhD., belongs to the problem, take the next table are incredibly noisy.This is regarded as a result of the methods that is regularly attended to, and this will be developed.The main advantage of the best means to saving your relationship will get more and more negative occurrences in their relationship.If your behavior pattern to a healthy marriage.Many couples who have our same or compatible personalities can be fixed.

Save Relationship Or Move On

If you and your partner that he or she get upset?We all have faults; quit looking at because it can feel romantically attracted to each other in the effort to save your marriage.This can be beneficial in helping couples remain married and settling down with your spouse.Since it's tough to catch a glimpse of hope towards fixing their marriage.It is never really too late to rekindle the lost spark of lost love because of your lives.

Save marriage alone is not planned or trained for.And when the relationship is plagued with problems like finances, sex and no one gets training before they begin.You are going to provide you with unbiased opinions that can lead to divorce when the time of marriage and stop it before it is also the ability to change your behavior and avoid things that help me pull through my marriage today and also what you want to talk about giving and taking.If you haven't given up during the course of action.It's a tall order to make changes, this may be.

#How To Stop Being Bitter After Divorce Surprising Cool Tips #Save Marriage Meme

[mazurah]

Lost in Time Ch. 22: Raid - An Elder Scrolls Fanfic

Chapter Summary: Karthwasten is under attack and Fayrl ruins his last pair of underwear.

Cross posted from Ao3. Chapter Rating: M for graphic violence, blood, gore, field medicine, PTSD, and alcohol abuse.

First Chapter - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Lost in Time Chapter 22: Raid

Fayrl awoke from his pleasant slumber to a creaking sound. He sat bolt upright in bed, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He lightly jumped into a crouch by the side of the bed, slipping on his boots and sword belt.

There was another creak, this time a floorboard for sure. He placed a hand over Ma’zurah’s mouth and motioned to her for silence.

Ma'zurah’s eyes snapped open and she nearly screamed. It had only been a couple of months since the Sixth House and the Dark Brotherhood had both finally ceased their attempts on her life, and she had only just started to relearn how to sleep peacefully. She glanced around the room with wide eyes, but saw only Fayrl pressing his hand over her mouth, gesturing for silence. She blinked at him, sleep slowed brain trying to figure out what he was doing.

Her keen ears picked up the sound of someone else in the house, and she tensed. Fayrl let her go and put his hair up in a quick bun, sticking as many pins into it as he could as the stair creaked again.

Fayrl teleported behind the door, loosening his blades from their sheathes and waiting.

The door opened slowly and in Fayrl’s night-adjusted vision he could make out a woman clad in the barest of clothes, scraps of conjoined furs covering her breasts and nethers. In each of her hands she carried large stone hatchets. She stopped once she was inside, seeming to wait for something--her eyes to adjust?--to survey if anyone was inside?--a signal? Fayrl could not tell.

There was a sudden explosion of sound. Drums thundered from all around. The woman rushed forward, but Fayrl was already behind her. He stabbed her through the small of her back with his sword and brought his dagger across her throat.

Ma'zurah only had just enough time to register the intruder’s strange appearance before the drums sounded from outside, and Fayrl stood over the dead body of the intruder with blood on his blades. The sounds of screams joined the drumming from the village. They were under attack.

The scent of blood and the sound of screams brought Ma'zurah to her feet in a surge of adrenaline. She snatched the chain containing most of her rings and amulets from the bedside table and hastily shoved it over her head. She was out the bedroom door and at Fayrl’s side in an instant, wielding a frost spell in both hands.

When they burst out of the house into the street, there were Nords everywhere in the same strange patchwork of skins and furs. At least, Fayrl assumed they were Nords. Several of the men had large animal-skull masks over their faces.

In the street, the miners had poured out of the two bunkhouses in one large crowd, and were trying to fend off their attackers with the tools they knew how to wield--shovels and pickaxes. But even against the crude looking wood-and-stone weapons of the attackers, they were not holding them off for long.

Fayrl spotted Lash a short distance from the other miners. She was doing better than most of the others, and had started to push back against the attackers. She took down one man in a fur loincloth, sending the pickaxe through his skull.

Glancing around again Fayrl saw Ainethach being backed up against the side of his house by two attackers. Fayrl used his teleport strike to bring himself behind the man closest to Ainethach and knock him down with a blow to the back of the head. He turned to the other attacker, and blocked her spiked stone sword with his own.

Ma’zurah sprinted to the group of miners, and positioned herself between them and their attackers. “Everybody get back!” she yelled, and cast a wall of frost on the ground in front of her, causing several attackers to slip on the suddenly icy gravel. The miners realized her strategy and formed a semicircle behind her around a small group of wounded, protecting them with shovels and pickaxes facing outward.

The attackers scrambled back from the sudden burst of frost and leveled bows at the group. Ma’zurah crouched and tried to build her fractal wall of frost crystals higher to slow or stop the incoming arrows.

Fayrl spread the fire of his enchanted sword up the blade of the woman attacking him, causing her to lean away from the searing heat and drop the sword as flames licked at her fingers. The moment her weapon was down, Fayrl dropped his dagger and grabbed her wrist, pulling her backwards, and bringing his sword across her throat. An arc of arterial spray splattered both Fayrl and a stunned Ainethach. Fayrl snatched up his dagger without pause and sprinted in the direction of Ma’zurah and the other miners.

In the background there was an inarticulate cry and the drums switched rhythms. The surviving attackers turned and ran back into the bushes and rocky crags that surrounded the village.

Fayrl remained alert, waiting with sword and dagger ready in case of a subsequent attack.

Ma’zurah’s eyes glowed blue and she gazed in a slow circle around the village. “They have retreated,” she declared. “We need a damage assessment and headcount. This one can tend to less serious injuries, but this one hopes to S’rendarr that somebody here is an actual healer!”

Ainethach sat on the ground a short distance away with an expression of shock on his face and blood soaking into his clothing. Ma’zurah caught sight of Fayrl and ran forward around her slowly melting crystalline wall, alarmed at the amount of blood that covered his naked chest. “Fayrl! Are you injured?” She stumbled, and nearly tripped in her haste and the aftermath of adrenaline.

Fayrl turned to her and spoke in quiet Dunmeris. “Me, hurt? They never stood a chance. I was a spy for decades. Guerilla tactics are something I know all too well.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, smearing some of the blood from his face. “We should be careful, we don’t know when they may come back. We have to find a way to fortify this place.”

The large Nord with the bushy red beard put down his pickaxe and helped some of the others up. “Come, let’s get everyone to the bunkhouses and tend to the wounded.”

Lash followed him. “Just our luck. They’ll be sending more blasted mercenaries to the mines now. I bet the Silver-Bloods will just love another excuse to try to buy Ainethach’s mine.”

“I just pray they don’t send complete thugs again this time to do it,” said the Nord with his head downward.

“Me too, Ragnar. Me too.” Lash replied, then caught sight of Fayrl. She eyed him up and down then winked. “Good work there, bard. Looks like you’re stronger than I thought.”

Fayrl smiled back at her. “I told you I’m a hard one to break.”

Lash barked a laugh and helped another dazed miner into the bunkhouse.

Satisfied that Fayrl was unharmed, Ma’zurah turned to the group of wounded and started assessing injuries. One man had an arrow to the stomach, another had an arrow to the shoulder. One woman had taken an axe to the hip. One had simply been knocked unconscious.

“Somebody bring healing potions!” Ma’zurah barked, and started healing the woman with the injured hip. She was not skilled enough to heal an arrow to the stomach; internal organs were too easy to damage in the process of active healing. The man would be better served by a healing potion which sped up the natural process of healing. If he was lucky, the wound had missed the major organs and would not become contaminated.

Fayrl knelt next to the man with the arrow to the stomach and pulled his satchel to the front of his belt to retrieve some sterile needles and thread. He didn’t have an easy time with sewing people up, but he had learned how from his own time in the field. You never knew when you might have a wound that needed immediate attention. He pulled out a healing potion and a small flask of strong alcohol. He really wished that there was a healer around who could take over for him. Ma’zurah probably would have healed the stomach wound if she could; it was the most serious injury. That she had not done so was not a good sign. She either though the man was too far gone to save, or she did not feel confident in her ability to heal him.

He wished he had a good stiff brandy to help give him courage before attempting this, but the alcohol he had was brewed for medical purposes, and he had no choice but to continue the process sober. There was no time. He just had to hope the adrenaline would get him through the nausea he often felt at examining such severe injuries.

The Nord, Ragnar, reappeared, and Fayrl handed him a hardened strip of leather. The man looked sturdy enough. “Coat this in a splash of alcohol and get it in his mouth,” he said after he had washed the blood from his hands with some of the alcohol. “Then I want you to hold back his arms as tight as you can.”

Fayrl threaded the needle and straddled the wounded man’s thighs. Taking a deep breath, he whispered in the man’s ear, “You are going to have a nice waking dream now. You’ll hear the gulls overhead as you sit on a nice sandy beach in the sun. You might feel some waves come over you. Just relax.”

He checked the man’s wound; the arrow had come clean out the other side. That was a relief. He just had to be gentle about getting the fletching off and then do his best to work quickly. As long as the arrow was in, the bleeding wouldn’t be bad. But as soon as it was out, the time to heal him would be short.

Ragnar looked anxious, hesitant to trust the previously mouthy bard to be any good at healing, but did as he was told.

Fayrl wrapped his hand around the fletching and began to sing a soft song as he carefully burned away the back end of the arrow.

Ainethach seemed to come out of his stupor and stumbled into his house, returning a moment later wearing a clean shirt and holding a small armful of bottles. He placed most of the bottles on the ground by Ma’zurah, and knelt next to the injured man Fayrl was attempting to heal. “I have a healing potion if it will help. What else needs to be done?”

Ma’zurah finished fusing the woman’s fractured hipbone and tipped a healing potion into her mouth. “We need someone to make sure we have everyone,” she called to Ainethach. “We were nearly ambushed in our sleep. Check the other houses to see if anyone else was ambushed, and conduct a headcount.” She moved to the man with the arrow in his shoulder and carefully removed the arrow before healing the punctured muscle and skin. It wasn’t a life threatening wound; just painful.

Ainethach looked startled at Ma’zurah’s commanding tone, but moved to comply.

With the fletching and a good portion of the shaft of the arrow burned off, Fayrl took a solid hold of the front of the arrow. “Ma’zurah, if you have a minute, I could use your help over here.”

Fayrl dipped the needle and thread into another vial, this one with a numbing agent. He knew he would have to work fast at this.

Ma’zurah stood from checking on the unconscious woman after determining that she was otherwise uninjured, and moved to kneel next to Fayrl. Her eyes glowed blue again. “This one will do the best she can, but if she tries to heal the internal organs she may cause as much damage as she heals. She can probably stop the bleeding though.”

“We need all we can get. This looks bad. There are a couple organs that might have been punctured and I’m going to have to pull the arrow through. As soon as it’s out, the bleeding is going to be bad. I can cauterise the entrance and exit wounds, but the internal damage is likely to be pretty severe. If it’s not successful….” He glanced at Ragnar and switched to Dunmeris. “He probably won’t make it either way.”

Ma’zurah met Fayrl’s gaze and nodded. She concentrated as Fayrl began removing the arrow. Golden light swirled around the man’s body.

The man’s body convulsed. “Hold him down,” Fayrl hissed at Ragnar, then began singing a children’s lullaby about not being afraid, this time in Dunmeris. The man’s body relaxed again.

“Damn mud crabs,” mumbled the man around the piece of leather.

Fayrl made sure to apply even pressure and pull at a slow, even pace. As soon as the arrow was out, he cast a small flame around the wound to cauterise it.

The man thrashed about and Fayrl had to bear down his full weight onto the man’s thighs to avoid being bucked off. Ragnar fought to keep the man’s arms down.

Ma’zurah gritted her teeth in concentration, and the glow got brighter. The wound began to close from the inside out and the bleeding slowed. The glow abruptly faded and Ma’zurah gasped. “No! Somebody get this one a magicka potion!” she cried. She tried casting again, and gasped as though she had been punched in the gut, curling in on herself.

Fayrl grabbed a healing potion and poured it into the wound in the hopes of stitching the wound closed before more damage could be done. The man flailed, brought out of the spell Fayrl had put him under, and knocked Fayrl onto his back. The needle flew out of his hand and was lost upon the ground out of reach.

The man screamed in agony and began to claw at his belly, tearing Ragnar’s hands away.

Fayrl felt nauseous. Old memories of his own internal injuries resurfaced from his time as a prisoner to the Aldmeri Dominion. He could almost hear the screams of the other captives. He drew the Ebony Blade. The man had no hope of survival, and Fayrl could not stand his suffering any longer.

“Muhri ouafluroua,” Fayrl commanded in an uncharacteristically deep voice. (Be calm.)

The man instantly ceased moving.

Fayrl knelt down beside him, looking into his eyes. He could see the pain twisting behind the man’s gaze; he would be able to break free of the hold that Fayrl had on him soon.

“Os ura ohl periud sut lo,” said Fayrl softly, stroking the man’s cheek with one hand. (I want you to smile for me.)

The man smiled.

Fayrl leaned in closer. “Hij, homa lo ist ohn daelha lo. Os daelha ohn.” (Now, tell me that you love me. I love you.)

“I love you, bard,” said the man in a strained voice.

Fayrl leaned forward and kissed the man, then pulled back. “Unira hij, yi daelha,” he said, and slit the man’s throat with the Ebony Blade. (Sleep now, my love.)

“By Kyne!” cried Ragnar, staring at the body before him.

Ma’zurah recovered from her attempt to channel more magicka than her spirit could withstand, and crawled forward on her knees. She put her hand on Fayrl’s shoulder. “Hey… you alright?”

Fayrl stood, wiping the Ebony Blade off on a cloth from his bag and resheathing it. He left without a word and headed into the public house. He could feel a pulse, something like a heartbeat, coming from the Blade. He half unsheathed it and saw the Blade glow faintly. If nothing else, he had managed to feed it something.

Ma’zurah cast an apologetic glance at Ragnar and trotted after Fayrl as he strode up the stairs. He began stripping out of his bloody underwear without looking at her and she retreated downstairs.

Fayrl left his now-ruined undergarment in the bedroom washbasin, taking the pitcher of water and going about the slow process of washing the blood from his skin.

“Fayrl?” Ma'zurah called, “Ma’zurah is here if you need her.”

“Thank you,” he called back cheerfully. “Though you don’t need to be shy. Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he teased.

Ma’zurah made a face. He wasn’t wrong, but she did not need the temptation of more memories of a naked Fayrl. “Put some trousers on and Ma’zurah will give you a hug.”

“I would, but I haven’t gotten all the blood off yet. I don’t want to stain my trousers. I already ruined my undergarments.”

“Oh. Okay.” Ma’zurah sat at the table and waited for Fayrl to finish.

Fayrl stood, staring at his reflection in the vanity mirror for a bit. When he did not hear Ma’zurah stir, he called out experimentally, “Ma’zurah?”

“Yes?”

Fayrl took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t be willing to bring me more water, would you?”

“Oh! Sure.” Ma’zurah glanced around awkwardly and located a bucket and filled it from the basin. She carried it upstairs to Fayrl, averting her eyes as she entered the bedroom.

Fayrl took the bucket and headed back to the mirror. He was glad she wasn’t looking. Despite his tone of voice, his face still betrayed his true feelings. He needed to clear his mind so that he could put the mask of the fool back on.

Ma’zurah noticed the body of the attacker that had woken them, and dragged the corpse down the stairs and out the front door. Deciding she would rather not be alone, she went back upstairs and sat down on the bed facing away from Fayrl and began poking through her pack, trying to distract herself from the distressing events that had taken place. She eyed the small blue vials of magicka potion, tempted to drink one just to feel the comfort of the flood of Aetherial magicka after the complete drain she had put herself through. There was no point though. She was already starting to regenerate, and she did not need to waste the potion for no purpose.

Fayrl finished wiping the blood from where it had dried to the front of his body. He turned this way and that before the mirror to make sure he hadn’t missed any, then turned around and looked over his shoulder to be certain the rest of his body was clean.

When he had finished, he went to his pack and began to search for a clean cloth to wrap around himself. He felt a sudden chill from the water drying on his bare skin. His nakedness felt more bare than usual.

He rummaged around his pack and located his spare tunic and a pair of hose. He must have forgotten to purchase another cloth for undergarments. It would be unlikely that he could find any silk or satin reams of fabric in such a small village. He would have to go without for now.

He picked up his trousers from where he had laid them over the back of a chair the previous evening. He put them on, then sat down in the chair, leaning back and closing his eyes to gather his composure.

Ma’zurah heard Fayrl stop moving, and glanced over her shoulder, catching sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She caught a hint of his bleak expression and turned toward him. “Oh, Fayrl…” She quickly moved to his side and put her arms around him. “It will be alright. Ma’zurah is here. It will be alright.”

Fayrl’s melancholy expression was gone as soon as it had been caught. “Of course it will!” he said, cheerful again.

He pulled back to look in her face. “Are you worried about something?” He smirked. “Worried about me?” He waggled his eyebrows at her playfully.

Ma’zurah gave him an unimpressed look. “Fayrl promised to be honest with Ma’zurah. This act of Fayrl’s is not honest. If Fayrl does not wish Ma’zurah to offer comfort, he does not have to be so dismissive about telling Ma'zurah so.” She began to pull away.

Fayrl’s body stiffened. He did not wish to lie, only to mislead. It was as much for him as it was for her. And yet he could tell his position here was precarious.

“Ma’zurah, I can’t--” He stopped himself and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He stood and walked back to the mirror, pulling the Ebony Blade out of its sheath. He stared at the black metal. It seemed to him as if it was humming. It seemed as though it almost had its own feelings. He decided he would attempt to get the blood off the hilt, and busied himself with meticulously cleaning the leather of the grip to draw out the blood before it stained.

“Alright.” Ma’zurah’s face became closed off, and she went back to her side of the bed and curled up under the blanket, facing away from Fayrl. She hugged her chest miserably, feeling more alone than she had since she had first come to Skyrim.

Fayrl saw Ma’zurah pull into herself in the reflection of the mirror. He felt a pang of guilt, knowing that he was at fault for the reaction. And yet he did not know how to comfort her. He was not good at handling emotions, neither his own nor those of others. Sure, he was good at twisting them around for his own uses, but when it came to genuinely sorting them out, he was at a loss. He put away the sword and went downstairs. If he was out of the room, perhaps at least then she could forget about him. He wished he could forget about himself for a moment too.

Ma’zurah listened to Fayrl’s footsteps descend the stairs. “I can’t,” he had said. Can’t what? Be honest? Express himself? Accept comfort? Accept Ma’zurah? Maybe it was the culmination of everything that had happened in the past few days, but Ma’zurah’s optimism crumbled in the face of Fayrl’s apparent abandonment, and she just wanted to go home. A sob escaped her and she buried her face under her pillow.

Hearing the sound of crying only made Fayrl feel worse about what he had done. He rummaged around the room until he found a dusty bottle of something forgotten in a corner cabinet. He opened it and was hit with the pungent smell of homebrew. At this point he didn’t care about being picky. His tastebuds would just have to be silent. He took a deep drink straight from the bottle. He determined to finish the entire thing as quickly as possible. He just wanted to sleep. He didn’t want to be left alone with his own thoughts or feelings. He barely let himself draw breath, trying to get the drink into himself as quickly as possible, hoping for sweet oblivion.

End Notes:

Fayrl’s tumblr: @talldarkandroguesome

Screenshot of Fayrl Screenshot of Ma’zurah Check out my art tag for more pictures of Fayrl and Ma’zurah.

Constructive criticism is welcome. We also really like it if you leave comments on Ao3.

#TES #Elder Scrolls Lore #Skyrim #ESO #Morrowind #My Writing #Fanfic #Lost In Time TES Fanfic #Fayrl Indoril #Ma'zurah the Khajiit #Blood #Gore #Graphic Violence #PTSD #Alcohol Abuse #Rated M

[ruffoverthinksthings]

I like the ship, I really do. If you don't mind can you do that ship list you had before with CJ/Jane?

1.Whois the most affectionate?:

Jane.CJ takes a long while to learn how to say “I love you” with beingcoerced, or feeling the instinctive unease at “showing weakness.”The first time she manages to say it unprompted, though, Jane demandsthat she tell it over and over again, much to CJ’s embarrassment.

2.Bigspoon/Little spoon?:

CJis always the big spoon. Jane enjoys feeling safe and protected by a“ferocious scourge of the seas” and CJ likes feeling in control and being protective over her “beloved First Mate.”

3.Mostcommon argument?:

CJ’smischievous habits and tendency to get into all manner of minortrouble. Jane keeps telling her she doesn’t HAVE to be a pirate,but so many years of buccaneer training and habit takes a while toundo.

4.Favoritenon-sexual activity?:

Stylingand brushing CJ’s hair.

Janehas long been jealous of the many royals who could pull off longhair, due to a mix of not being able to use her magic to modify herhair, and being stuck with the current bob style she had because itdoesn’t grow naturally unlike the others, because Fae Mortal BodyBiology is weird like that.

CJenjoys letting Jane brush, braid, and experiment with her hair, as itmakes Jane happy, and helps her live out at least one part of thechildhood they never had.

5.Whois most likely to carry the other?:

Jane,with the caveat that this is usually hauling CJ away from whatevertrouble she had gotten herself in this time. Jane may be tiny, butyou better believe that mortal body of hers is a LOT stronger than itlooks.

6.Whatis their favorite feature of their partner’s?:

Asmentioned, Jane loves CJ’s hair.

Conversely,CJ really likes staring into Jane’s eyes: “like getting a lost ina sea whose depths I’ll never see nor be able to understand.”They’re also her most common reminder of the fact that like her,Jane has in fact seen shit.

7.What’sthe first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings forthe other?:

CJpanics, threats, and tries to convince herself it’s all still aremnant of her playing with Jane’s feelings and she’s notLEGITIMATELY falling in love with her, pirates don’t do that; theylove passionately for as long as they’re in port, then they leavetheir lovers high and dry, till the next time their paths may crossor to be pined for during a cold night at sea, or when they’retaking care of their bastard child.

Asa result, she hangs out with Jane as much as possible, going out ofher way to arrange things together, to ensure that she mostdefinitely doesn’t love Jane, they’re totally going to enjoythese things as friends slowly piecing their strange friendship backtogether, she’s totally not asking Jane out on dates and trying todo something legit this time, nope.

Piratesdon’t do that, yep-yep.

Janespends a lot of late nights in her room ruminating, reflecting, andasking around (anonymously, or with the other Faeries who know tokeep it out of FG’s earshot or knowledge) about advice on whetheror not it’s actually true, and after the initial ruse is revealed,if she should give CJ a second chance.

Asa result, she goes along with all of CJ’s plans, because she canfind out if she wants to be friends or girlfriends, legitimately thistime.

8.Nicknames?& if so, how did they originate?:

“Captain”for CJ, sarcastically said by Jane whenever she tells her about herlatest endeavour that will definitely end badly. Example: “Captain,as your First Mate, I have to strongly suggest against crashing the Chocolate Ball.”

“FirstMate” for Jane, playfully said by CJ in response to Jane’swarnings. Example: “Well, it’s a good thing you’re just theFirst Mate, and I’m Captain, ‘cause we are swinging straight intothat giant chest of gold-wrapped chocolate coins!”

Othersinclude Blue (for Jane), Callie (for CJ), Baby Jane (for CJ), andMommy (for Jane).

9.Whoworries the most?:

Jane.

CJhas a very laissez-faire towards trouble, always figuring she’llfind some way to get out of her current predicament soon enough; thataside, she doesn’t have the lack of need for sleep, food, orbathroom breaks that Jane has, so she’s too tired or dedicatingmost of her energies towards getting into trouble than worrying aboutit.

10.Whoremembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?:

Jane,by virtue of being unable to forget anything.

11.Whotops?:

Jane.

12.Whoinitiates kisses?:

Jane.See above for the “most affectionate” question.

13.Whoreaches for the other’s hand first?:

CJ,though that was mostly a manipulative tactic by abusing the humaninclination to trust people who touch you. She took Jane’s hand tostop her from saying “No” when she was initially flirting withher as a playful, mean-spirited seduction.

Afterthe big Reveal, it’s Jane, showing that she’s forgiven CJ enoughto want to touch her again.

14.Whokisses the hardest?:

CJ.“She’s smooth like good whiskey, warm like a shitty barrel ofgrog left under the sun, and gets me drunker than either.”

15.Whowakes up first?:

Jane,but she doesn’t really sleep in the first place.

16.Whowants to stay in bed just a little longer?:

Jane. 

CJ is always up and eager at the crack of dawn to get to work, makinggood time out of whatever hours of the day she has.

17.Whosays I love you first?:

Illegitimately,it was CJ, again to try and seduce Jane and coerce her into arelationship.

Afterthat, again, it’s CJ, as Jane specifically refused to say it forfear that CJ might not feel the same still.

18.Wholeaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does itusually say?):

Jane.

“Iknow what you did, and if I don’t, I will find out, so don’t trywhatever shit it is you’re chewing over with this, Captain.”

-First Mate Jane

19.Whotells their family/friends about their relationship first?:

Jane.

Againsther better judgment, she decides to go to the local relationshipexpert and student guidance counselor, Fairy Godmother, and BOY HOWDYwas that a bad idea.

20.Whatdo their family/friends think of their relationship?:

FairyGodmother regrets everything, but understands that the VKs alsodeserve a chance at love, even though she’s going to be screaminginternally for all eternity that she was directly responsible for theease, convenience, and frequency with which her daughter and hergirlfriend can go “below deck.”

Hookis ambivalent towards Jane, so long as CJ knows she will have toditch her the moment she tries to make her do something like settledown and hang up her captain’s hat for good. He’s no stranger tohaving been in love, so he doesn’t really blame her for wanting tobe in a relationship, and assumes that like him, it’s onlytemporary.

21.Whois more likely to start dancing with the other?:

CJ.Jane is still rather shy about this, but CJ has grown up in bars anddecks where bawdy shanties, drinking, and dancing was the norm.

22.Whocooks more/who is better at cooking?:

Jane.

She’shad plenty of time to experiment and has used baked goods as a formof apology and bribery over the years. She can’t really enjoy foodthe way we do, as a big part of the enjoyment of a meal comes fromthe satisfaction of feeling full, and what Jane has is an essentiallybottomless, magical void.

Ona side note, CJ will happily eat anything Jane makes.

23.Whocomes up with cheesy pick up lines?:

CJ.

“I’min the mood to get drunk on booze, and on your love—care to joinme?”

“Avast!A see lovely siren yonder, luring me in with her beauty.”

“Anychance I can have a go at unlocking your treasure chest?”*

*“FUCKING HELL, WHO DESIGNED THESE BRA CLASPS?!”

24.Whowhispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear duringinappropriate times?:

CJ.Jane gets easily flustered by it. During appropriate times, it’sJane.

25.Whoneeds more assurance?:

CJ.She’s constantly in conflict about giving up her lifelong dream ofpirateering for a much more responsible, legal life with Jane. Atleast with Jane, she knows she only has one destiny to worry about.

26.Whatwould be their theme song?:

“Undercover”by Kehlani. 

“One way or another, I’m in love with you/ Slidingunder covers, undercover/ They don’t want to see you happy, we say‘Fuck You!’”

27.Whowould sing to their child back to sleep?:

CJ.Hook made a point of teaching and singing his kids all manner of seashanties, of lost loves, of great treasures, and just enjoying lifeas a pirate out on the open seas.

28.Whatdo they do when they’re away from each other?:

Janeengages in all manner of hobbies to try and pass the time, becauseshe’s got all of eternity to waste and no real pressure to achieveanything.

CJgets into all manner of crimes and mischief, because Jane is prettymuch 90% of her impulse control.

29.oneheadcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart:

Afterseveral years in Auradon and learning all her options to becomebetter than a criminal, CJ finally womans up and tells her fatherthat she is formally going to be joining the Auradonian Royal Guard,the Naval division, to explore the world, sail the seas, and build upcredits for college.

Hooksmiles bitterly, tells her that is her choice, and that from thispoint on, his daughter Calista Jane Hook has died in his eyes, andthat if their paths will ever cross, she should expect no mercy fromhim, and neither should he show her that.

CJspends the night drinking to the memory of the late CJ, Future PirateQueen, killed by the stroke of a pen signing an application form tothe Auradon City Naval Training Base, survived by Calista Jane“Callie” of the Lost.

30.oneheadcanon about this OTP that mends it:

Janecarries and drives home CJ after she finally gets black-out drunk.The next morning, she does everything in her power to sober her thefuck up, cleans up all the spilled alcohol, drool, and vomit fromher, brushes and neatly braids her hair, and drags her over to thenearest full length mirror.

Shehelps her shrug off her red “Captain’s” coat and fold it up forthe last time.

Then,she helps her put on her new coat: blue, with gold buttons, and theinsignia of the Auradon Royal Guard, Navy Division on the collar.

Janekisses Callieon the cheek, before they both look at their reflections in themirror.

“Lookinggood, Captain,”Jane says.

Calliesmiles. “Please, it’s just Ensign. For now.”

#Descendants #Disney #headcanon

[willfainder-a]

before reading this please consider that there will be massive spoilers from the last of us ( game ) so please if you still have to play it don’t read this ! that being said you can go & cry tears of blood for me because i worked hard on this & i’m a bit proud of this work so yep love me & this au & feel free to ask me about things if you didn’t understand something.

I. ALL MIGHT AS JOEL & DEKU AS ELLIE. // okay listen up now ( because i still think this is way too accurate for this au ) you can see exactly what i'm talking about ( if you played the game ), when i say that all might is joel & deku is ellie, though some of you may be of a different opinion since joel as personality ( especially from the start of the game, after losing his daughter ) is more like aizawa, tho i want to believe that his father's figure never left him & though he suffered from the loss of his only daughter, i think his overall personality is pretty similar to all might as cared & stubborn as both these characters are. also please don't forget the develop these 2 characters got in the game is very similar to all might & deku, — as, if you look at it, both started a journey with the main objective to reach a final destination / task. i want to headcanon all might just like joel who lost his own " son " / " daughter " ( that's depend from the all might rp partner who is gonna write this au with me ) because of military then i think he would become exactly like the joel we all know right now, maybe softer but i don't think so. / / & about ellie of course she swears a lot ( she is actually tiny female kacchan ) but remember she loves COMICS & she is curious & a free spirit like our boy izuku so please though izuku doesn’t swear at all, he still has some connections with ellie. 

II. ALL GONE / IZUKU’S PAST ( 15 years old ). // this is a backstory of izuku just to let everyone knows why he always acted so nicely with everyone & why he is so scared of killing people, even clickers or runners. / / izuku was born in a small town & stayed there with his mother for all his life. he never knew his father since in this universe his father abandoned his mother when he found out she was pregnant & although he offered to pay her monthly for foods & rant, he left with no words to the young kid who growth only with her mother who somehow tried to cope with the baby, her home & work all by herself. things were not better at school, especially during middle school where he was often targeted for his shy and taciturn nature & the fact that he had an unbridled passion for super-hero comics did’t help him sympathize with his peers. fortunately he managed to cope in some way with these suffering & abuse even though his monotonous life ceased its course when the parasitic fungal began to appear in his town, ending up infecting the people who lived there & forcing his mother to run away with the him. needless to say, their run was stopped before they could get away from the town by some infected who ended up biting izuku's mother, who tried to protect his son with her own life. scared & unable to observe while his mother was devoured by two infected, izuku tried to not puke as his heart reached the maximum speed’s level. the thing was made even more traumatic since izuku saw that scene without being able to do anything &, as if it was not enough, those two infected were shot down by some soldiers who came to clean the square. needless to say that izuku in his present state could only fall to the ground in front of his dying mother without being able to say anything since the military didn’t hesitate to shoot the woman right in her head. finally the militants took away izuku with force, although he protested for a few seconds before being hit at the head & brought in the quarantine zone, then transferred to a military area where he would be trained to fight against the enemies.

III. A1 CLASS MEETS IN THE MILITARY SCHOOL. // kids / children are put in that school & everyone live in the quarantine zone for protection ( of course ), yet don’t expect a good time in that military school because kids fight like HELL, sometimes killing the “ weak ” one of the group because in that school kids learn how to survive to CLICKERS / RUNNERS & FIREFLIES ( the latter is basically the military’s enemy ). so if you are weak you are usless besides you don’t have options; so you pretty much stay with the military group or you are kicked out with the rest of the population with runners & clickers ready to kill you at any second. that being said izuku is one of the " weakest " kid in there & it's not usual for him to be kicked / punched or injured for his personality & his " good " character. the only friends who would help him in this mess would probably be iida & uraraka & i think the one who would pick up on this boy would be katsuki since he thinks that deku is taking this whole situation as a game & way too lightly. after all, in the world they were living, a good & kind attitude like his would only bring to his own death & maybe this is why katsuki can't stand the kid at all & he thinks he should just die already since he doesn't deserve to waste some precious food & water.

IV. FINDING HOPE IN IMAGINARY SUPERHEROES. // even though the motivations here for izuku to behave in such way are mostly caused from the trauma of seeing his mother killed without being able to do anything to help her, he is actually good for nature, he is not strong both physically & psychologically, and even if he wanted to be better he couldn’t since his will his broken & those forced trainings & abuses in the military school don’t help him overcome his insecurities nor the internal drama he is fighting. he really hates the military school & if he could, he would leave already, however, the courage & the thought that a clicker or a runner might kill him scare him & this only creates more anxiety & fears in him. the only way he has to survive this is hoping that, sooner or later, things will change & that someone weaker than him would come to school however this never happened. for this reason he tried to find hope & strength in comics; in fact one of his greatest passions has not changed & still today he collects them, looking for these in dumps in the quarantine zone.

V. DEKU & THE FIREFLIEES. // izuku will meet the fireflies during a mission with some of the young guys in the school ( the reason why they are out is to look for supplies & medicines ). however the circumstances in which the fireflies are found by izuku are a bit messy since izuku’s team would be attacked by some clickers & runners. needless to say, izuku will try to escape from that attack, thanks to his stealth tactics he had learned & practiced alone. izuku will succeed in escaping from that group of enemies, but he would end up captured by a runner who was alone in a house. luckily in that moment, before izuku could do something to protect himself, the fireflies arrived, saving the teen’s life who will find himself again scared by what he had just experienced. marlene seeing him in those conditions will approach him making sure he wasn’t bitten or else; later she would explain who are the fireflies & why they were here, finally telling the boy to join their group & that he would be safe as long as he will stay with them. marlene then decides to give the boy a gun just for personal protection, he decides to take it in his trembling hands, making a small nod in approval of the woman's action & words. / / after that incident he wouldn’t talk for a few days ( 2 days exactly ) until he faces marlene that will help him overcome his fears & anxieties, teaching him how to fight & how to take care of himself. after a year he would learn basic fighting moves & how to distinguish the surroundings. his personality would change becoming secure & curious about the outside world. his shyess will in some way be replaced by determination, although a tiny bit of timidness will remain anyway.

VI. MY HERO. // izuku will overcome his trauma thanks to a mission with marlene & some other fireflies. although he was good in strategy & his physicality was now decent, the trauma still hunted his heart & mind, in fact he had not yet killed a clicker nor a runner on his own. in this mission by the way izuku has come to face an important choice, saving the life of kid who was in front of his eyes, ready to be killed by a clicker or seeing them dying like his own mother. would he choose to be a hero of those comics he loved or let his hopes down once again, living his weak life ? this time he didn’t think twice about it & with no hesitation he fired all his bullets against that clicker. the kid reached for him & he thanked him, calling him his hero. after that mission marlene decides to donate him a firefly’s tag as a symbol of his courage, saying that he now was a true hero & that he has nothing more to learn from her.

VII. I’LL SAVE THE WORLD NO MATTER WHAT. // izuku was bitten by a runner when he was trying to save a companion who eventually died slaughtered by a clicker. he found himself wandering for a week in the field outside the fireflies zone without answering their calls & without approaching them, since he didn’t know what to do & he was too afraid for killing himself or to commit suicide. after all that time, however, it seemed that his body had developed a sort of immunity against that fungus, so he decided to return to the base camp, calling for marlene & telling her about his bite. needless to say, the woman was surprised by this & she seemed at first reluctant about what to do even if in the end she seemed to believe izuku's words since the bite on his right arm seem to be healed & cicatrized. that is why she made an important decision : she entrusted to izuku the task of arriving in an big fireflies area where they could study izuku & the reason why he wasn’t turning. izuku will leave for this mission with some firefighter soldiers, but they will almost die, leaving him alone to reach the base of the fireflies & perhaps save the whole way just like a superhero ( this is the main verse but if an all might would roleplay with me i would change this piece & i would go like the game’s flow since as i said before i really like the idea of all might as joel & ellie as deku ).

VIII. BATTLE SCARS & WEAPONS. // izuku has a lot of scars, firstly the bite one on his right arm & small scars on his left arm, hands, legs, shoulders & long & disgusting scars on his back. he has a small cut on his lower lip that has never been healed & a scar on his left cheek. he has a decent body & he is very agile & he is fastest runners due to his skilled parkour abilites. / / about wapons he likes to use guns, mostly revolvers, tiny knives & bow, snipers. he would avoid a 1 vs 1 fight because though he knows how to fight those he is still too disadvantage in those fights. he is also skilled in making tools & traps for his enemies & he prefers a stealth tactic & long raged attacks. 

#( & headcanon. ) // what is it‚ to be a hero ? #( & headcanon tag. ) #tw : death. #// death. #boi if i'm proud of this shit.

[akutagawaprize]

You'll talk someday about how the Port Mafia is portrayed? ( not the bightest bulbs in the chandelier huh. Not the most subtle either) im not trying to rush you, it bothers me too and im just curious. I like your analysis. Have a nice day

Haha all kidding aside, I’ve been meaning to talk about them for quite a while now. It’s just that I want the stuff I write to make sense, because usually they’re self-indulgent rambles. And this one won’t be an exception, especially since I have so many feelings about Port Mafia.

Usually it’s the protagonists who are outmatched, outgunned, outnumbered, or just generally outclassed. Through sheer force of will and nakama power perfect teamwork do they come out on top. Even then sacrifices have to be made. At the start, the Armed Detective Agency seemed like it will follow this mold, but soon we are introduced to their abilities.

On paper and in practice, the abilities of the members of ADA greatly complement each other. This means that even with few active operatives who can work on the field, they got all bases covered. If this were an MMO they’d have Atsushi and Kenji as tanks, Atsushi again and then Kunikida for DPS, Tanizaki going for Assistance/Crowd Control, Fukuzawa as Buffer, Dazai as Debuffer and of course, Yosano as their Healer. Not to mention Ranpo, the formidable brains behind their operations (with Dazai as backup, or even vice versa).

Now let’s take a look at the mafia. Not counting Odasaku, in their group who doesn’t have an offensive ability? Ace? Sure, but his ability only applies to his subordinates, and anyway he’s also dead. See the problem? Chuuya probably has the most versatile ability in the mafia right now, but it’s either he takes great pride in his prowess as a martial artist or he just can’t think of creative ways to take advantage of the fact that he can, well, manipulate gravity. There’s also Elise, who seems to be “programmed” to be able to do feats no ordinary human can, but we don’t know much about her. Outside of these two, the one who impresses is Kajii. His ability sounded like a joke sure, but he knows how to make use of it and in the right circumstances, can be that one member to watch out for. There’s also talks about another executive member or two. Whether one exists we don’t know, but I can only hope they’ll possess an ability that is a supportive one, or something gamechanging like mind reading or memory wipe.

Don’t get me wrong! It is rather refreshing to see a team full of competent people, especially in their line of work where they’ll find themselves smack dab in the middle of dirty matters the police and the military would rather not handle. That they are well-rounded means it’s easy to imagine why the government would want their help, why they get the requests they do, and why they are favored to take on cases that will pit them against criminals/evildoers who have their own deadly abilities.

But at the same time, the agency members seem almost… overpowered. They have limits and restrictions, true, but these barely influence how they use their abilities. The times they get into action, the enemies have done absolutely nothing to counter them or anticipate their movements… which is a shame really! Heroes are only as good as the villains who oppose their ideologies and this time, Fyodor has Port Mafia beat in spades.

Imagine Chapter 47 with Tanizaki using Kunikida’s note (while he can materialize objects remotely we didn’t know if anybody else could activate it or if distance was gonna an issue, but this does not break previously established rules so it gets a pass) to materialize a switchblade. Wouldn’t it have been far more interesting if one of them saw the trap, retaliated, and then caught Tanizaki off-guard, causing him to use his illusion to play mind games, make them question each other, heck make them question their own senses. But we don’t see any of it, we just see Tanizaki tricking everyone and it’s frustrating to watch, especially since they are already aware of what Tanizaki can do and have taken no measures to ensure he won’t be able to pull the same trick twice.

You see this with Akutagawa and Chuuya too, both preferring brute strength over anything else. Would it have been too OOC to have a panel of Chuuya looking/glancing around, trying to eliminate any possibilities of a trap? I’m sure Ranpo would have succeeded in luring Chuuya regardless but no matter how hotblooded Chuuya is, he’s a mafia executive still! There should be an ounce of logic in that brain. If the one at the top is this hopeless, what about the others?

I wasn’t particularly affected by that scene in Episode 4/Chapter 5 where the ADA systematically wrecks Black Lizard and mops the floor with them because I knew they were the equivalent to Red Shirts despite being properly introduced and being called commanders of an elite fighting squad… Okay, okay, reading what I just typed and looking back, it does make you wonder whether the mafia’s full of jobbers like these guys or if the ones at the top are just much, much scarier. Akutagawa was beaten by an untrained and inexperienced Atsushi who had been with ADA in just, what, a month or two? Chuuya’s an executive who looks cool and has an ability that is even cooler, but stick him next to Dazai and he becomes a sheepdog who’s all bark and no bite. Let’s not forget how he can only activate the “true” form of his ability if Dazai’s there to cancel it or else his body will give up on him. Kouyou looks like she means business, but she goes soft for Kyouka. Despite saying she’d stay in the mafia to help run their organization, one couldn’t help but wonder based on her recent actions whether she’s having second thoughts. The Black Lizard… No comment. Higuchi… She’s a badass Muggle, but a Muggle nonetheless.

Mori? Now we’re talking. In episode 21/Chapter 30 we learn that the previous leader had gone delirious and started giving out illogical orders, resulting to confusion and punishing losses on the mafia’s side. Mori relieves the leader of his duty, with a young Dazai as the sole witness. Mori has ambitions, but the exchange also implies that if the leader hadn’t let things escalate to such a sorry state then Mori wouldn’t have needed to go that far. Remember, at the conclusion of the 3 Way War Arc, he gave Kouyou the option of staying or running away. He may be coolheaded, but he’s not coldblooded. All of the actions he takes are to ensure the continued survival of the mafia, which is why unless some other canon information comes out, I’ll choose to believe that until now Mori is wrestling with the idea of killing Dazai for good or letting him be. I won’t put it past Mori to think up of a plan to convince Dazai to go back willingly, even putting his life on the line. Just as he won’t kill Dazai, he’s sure Dazai won’t kill him because once that happens there will be no turning back. So as long as the chance of Dazai returning is not at 0%, Mori will keep Dazai alive until he is sure he won’t have any need for him in the future.

Moving on, this is all rather awkward, but one glaring weakness of Port Mafia right now is just how damn good Mori is at his job. His absence leaves such a vacuum that everything is thrown out of order. There is no one to assume command the same way he can; the successor he’d groomed has long jumped ship. All other candidates for his replacement are woefully inadequate and ill-prepared. It’s a fate which calls to mind those great conquerors whose kingdoms fell into ruin not too long after they have passed away. Again, this is probably why Mori had invited Dazai back even if he was the one who chased him out in the first place.The thing is, no one has shown awareness of this. There has been no talk about any fear for the future, about what would happen post-Mori. The way the mafia acts, they think they’re invincible, that the halcyon days would never come to an end. Never mind that the ADA and maybe even the police had cornered them with their backs pressed against the wall a few couple times. To maf members, their strength and number are enough; sense, caution and tactics can come later. Ironic, considering these are things Mori presumably values and holds in high regards.

The Port Mafia has no unifying goal, so to speak. Of course, the ultimate point of the mafia is to make money, with violence as a currency they are willing to spend on those who won’t bow their heads. It’s a choice of lifestyle for those who enjoy crime and the taste of power… for those who find it easier to be dishonest… and maybe those who simply have nowhere else to go back to like that kid who became Ace’s collared subordinate. The mafia is their home, but unlike with the ADA, they didn’t join to make friends or play house. Again, most of them are probably motivated by money. That’s why when Mori was incapacitated, they didn’t have the same desperation as ADA, even with Hirotsu saying they are fighting to prove their worth by protecting their boss.

Finally, while the Port Mafia are heralded as “wardens of the night” and are comfortable in monitoring and participating in underground dealings and criminal activities in Yokohama, outside of their jurisdiction they hold little power. They have no ties to other organizations, no allies to back them up. ADA can count on the government for support for example. Add to that, Lucy and Poe from the Guild are practically unofficial members now. So how about the mafia? Is it possible that other port cities like Kobe and Nagasaki have their own mafia, and are affiliated with Yokohama’s Port Mafia? What about international ties? Knowing Mori, they should have built up a network of clients and freelancers, ones the executives or the mafia’s Intelligence Division could have called upon once it was clear Mori was in grave danger and that the enemy knows mostly everyone in their organization. Outside help, one which the enemy wouldn’t have suspected, would have gone a long, long way and would have at least messed up some of ADA’s plans.

In wanting to give the heroes some spotlight, Asagiri-san has forgotten that the mafia has just as much as stake as the agency, but are not fighting like it. They are old dogs who won’t learn new tricks, while ADA has this “adapt or die” mindset. They have smartly split up into two groups (or 3, if you count Ranpo by himself) to explore all the options that could save Fukuzawa’s life. It’s probably this difference in their way of thinking that for a “rival organization”, the mafia has become bland and underwhelming.

scanlation credit: Dazai Scans, Easy Going Scans

#bungou stray dogs #port mafia #akutagawa ryunosuke #nakahara chuuya #mori ougai #everyone else #text #idk #asks