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garblegox · 3 years

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• Humpty Dumpty Elegy 3 | five books on ☠DEATH🌼 •

The group held a vote on whether to kick Mr. Dumpty out for a year.

Yes won.

I wasn't in on the deliberation, behind the scenes. I'm not a big wig; didn't even get a vote. But I know three big things tipped the scales: Our safety, the perversion, and content violations in chat.

Once we had all taken off our pity goggles, we started to wonder why we overlooked all the murder-suicide commentary. We also thought, in horror, about the reactions of our loved ones, girlfriends, or wives, if we exposed them to Humpty's antics.

A few long-time regulars on the discord were becoming noticeably more absent since he joined. One said a year ago that he wouldn't tolerate Humpty Dumpty's bullshit. He meant it, and he made his point through his actions from the start.

We wanted our other friends back. Friends we'd known for many more years; who actually participate in games with the group; who are gregarious and entertaining; Friends that haven't designated the entire group to be their therapist.

Not everyone had bad memories of Humpty. Because some never logged on when he was in voice chat.

It's officially an elegy.

We all feel gross. Our admin, despite all the negative testimonies, including his own, felt that booting Dumpty was a bitter pill to swallow. He's only ever banned people for egregious, obvious, suicide-by-admin type behavior. But he also felt a bit ashamed for letting people in his group be exposed to such an individual.

In a way, we could hold ourselves responsible for not being more firm in enforcing our boundaries. Five "no"s, and one "yes", means "yes". Five "no"s, a "yes", and a "man, Humpty, you're really a piece of shit, you know that?" also means "yes" just the same. I know how to say "no". And with Humpty, I didn't do my best.

But again, we were never actual therapists, and Humpty rarely acted like a friend. What kind of friend makes you have to consult with books by FBI agents on establishing firm boundaries? Nutty fuckin douchebag friends. I did appreciate him buying me Doom, though. That felt genuinely nice before he cracked a whip at me about it.

This time, I'm gonna try to be far more respectful. He is a human. He is lonely. He does have a lot to learn. And I get no pleasure from his exile. Maybe relief, but no schadenfreude.

Before, I was writing from the perspective of someone at the end of their rope. After experimenting with every level of intensity, trying to get these points across, the only level I hadn't tried was the furious, "Okay fuckhead, you're dead to me. If you don't want to do it the easy way, we'll do it the humiliating way" level of intensity.

It's been fun. But my anger has only one thing left to do, and that's diminish. I got a lot of books for Humpty Dumpty to read, and it's going to be hard to keep the fire hot.

My overall goal is still to share books with people, and to learn from the finest anti-model I've ever met. I told Dump about what I was writing, the reason why, and the fact that I was trying to eviscerate him. He chuckled at me and never got around to reading it, which kind of emboldened me to crank up the spice.

Now that he's cut off, there's a far greater chance he revisits this series. I'll focus on making it actually readable for him too, and not a massive diarrhea cannon aimed at his face. I'll sound like how I spoke to him pre-Twelve Days of Christmas, when I was in investigation mode; When I had hope for him. I got into this mess via sympathy.

"I'm going to kill myself" was Hump's #1 catch phrase. I still reckon he stole it from Wednesday for attention, but whatever, lets just humor him. I don't want that to happen. And if he was ever tempted to really do it, it might be after getting swept off into the goatscape.

So, as we kick off our more namaste-like, Dumpty-free future, let's begin with my favorite books about DEATH. Books a suicidal cat might dig. I know I did.

• #1 Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl •

Cried like a silly bitch at work, the other day, thanks to this book. I re-listened to it on my phone, and you'd think I spent the whole shift slicing onions.

I'm blessed with coworkers whom I can joke about it with. In the kitchen, we have two types of conversations on line: peep-to-peep chatter; or shouting from one corner of the room to the other, as a sort of performance to make front of house laugh.

Our favorite hits include shouting about: Familial trauma or neglect, sleep disrupting insecurities, suicidal thoughts, political cynicism, nihilistic bile, and the last thing we had a good fuckin cry about. Like a half dozen Statlers and Waldorfs, heckling existence itself.

This one produced some rare tears, though. Tears of awe. This feels like one of those, "Read-every-few-years-for-the-rest-of-my-life" type books.

Known as "the third school of Viennese psychology," Viktor Frankl's "Logotherapy" was first put to the test when he survived three years, in four different Nazi concentration camps. From, "logos" meaning, "meaning" or "reason", logotherapy focusses on the existential meaning of a patient's existence.

Frankl would often ask patients, after they spilled out all their woes, "So, why haven't you killed yourself, yet?" It wasn't rhetorical, he wasn't just trying to be hilarious, the "why" was the point of his entire practice.

"One who has a why to live can bear almost any how" -- Friedrich Nietzsche (aka Frick Nitzels)

Viktor witnessed what happened to a person when their meaning was lost. A man, who lived to see March 31st, the day he prophesized would be his liberation, died two days later when it became clear his dream wouldn't come true. First, he went catatonic, then came typhus. Death by April Fools.

Meanwhile, another man, who prayed to god to transmute all of his suffering into protection for his loved ones in other camps, took every measure of sadism and misery with a steady return of hope. That's not masochism, that's alchemy.

I discussed with Humpty the importance of how he constructs a narrative around his life. That he cultivates nihilism at his own peril. That his big strong brain only has access to half of the truth, if he only focusses on the objective ones. Psychology has a reductionism problem, where mechanical focus on clinical diagnoses reduces people to barely animals.

For some people, their neurology is perfectly sound. Not an imbalance in sight. Their lives? Ship-shape & Bristol; Ivan Ilyich approved; all rites passed; A G R E E A B L E. But how do they feel to be alive? Like the biggest bag of worthless shit.

Why? What makes some people seemingly impervious to psychiatric intervention? Because not all psychiatrists think "the meaning of life" is a scientific topic, and therefore not their role to discuss. Which means you can spend a lot of time learning about psychology, and never learn a single subjective truth.

This is why self-diagnosis is so risky. Where is any of this bullshit I'm writing about on Web MD?

So start here. Evaluate self-help by more logotheraputic standards. Ask, "does this even acknowledge the importance of meaning in my life, or help me pursue it?"

This is my favorite shit to summon tears with. I'm not fully sure why. But if I need tears on queue: "I am here- I am here-..." and I'm away. Same at work, as while I write this now. Makes me wonder what madness even means.

• #2 The Road To Character by David Brooks •

What does Dumpty value?

Not dating fat or ugly women; Getting the negative attention of Japanese videogame developers on Twitter; Being seen as the brother of a girl who isn't his biological sister, or in his family at all; $750 Shadow The Hedgehog statues; Not being a "normie"; and many other purely worthless things.

He's where I started wondering if chronic depression might be a philosophical issue for some people, as opposed to a contextual or neurochemical one. The man will never improve till he wraps his head around the idea of intrinsic values.

There's zero hope of Humpty living a happy life without a moral compass. Sadly for him, he's not a real psychopath, who can easily find all the eudaimonia he wants, just at other people's expense, guilt free. He's a dull narcissist, whose fate is just a crescendo of greater and greater solitude; a deeper and more empty abyss, till annihilation.

This is a book I read early, in my journey to deconfuckulate my brain, and it played a major role in most of my Humpty-scolding, largely without me recognizing it. Upon re-reading, I was surprised to find it influenced my decision to read 4 other books over the years. Including Man's Search For Meaning, and Culture And Anarchy (BANGER) by Matthew Arnold.

Btw Matthew Arnold is the guy who gave us the modern usage of "philistine." I'll be writing more about him, because his book is as applicable today as it was seven generations ago. That book is 2 Yosemite Sam guns/2 Yosemite Sam guns, bang bang bang.

Maybe you're like me, and "moralist" sounds like an insult. Well, Brooks isn't here to scold anyone or be a nerdy little bitch. Don't let anyone fool you, this isn't religious or conservative propaganda, it's another contribution to logotherapy. Take it from a pathologically anti-authoritarian douchebag like myself.

He gives a couple handy binaries to help organize your priorities. "Adam I vs Adam II" virtues, or "Resume vs Eulogy" virtues.

The Adams refer to how in Genesis, Adam displayed two different sets of virtues at different times. Adam I is practical, marketable, flexible, conditional, and Hellenistic. While Adam II is spiritual, self-contained, disciplined, unconditional, and Hebraistic.

Adam I is a great object, but a vacuous subject. Adam II puts little value in the objective world, in favor of a richer subjective one. Not everyone is in a rush to hire Adam II for a job, but everyone's coming to his funeral to pay their respects. Spending time around Adam II is mind expanding, and spiritually enriching.

You see the orange of that cover? That's the yolk I've been trying to get into Humpty's empty fucking shell the whole time. But little did I know I'm just a stupid normie, trying to argue against the axiom that life is meaningless. Am I really that cruel for calling Humpty empty? He's the only motherfucker I know to be like "Yeah, sonder is bliss, but leave me out of it. I'm an ant, not a hill, in this useless head of mine."

We could hold modern psychology responsible for a lot of this. When people dropped faith, and abandoned priests, they created a vacuum in their hearts. I think you can fill it with a multitude of things, without going back to church. But to fill it with psychology exclusively is a disastrous mistake. If you want dogma, just go back to church. Way better chance of turning out friendly.

When Humpty asked for help, what did he have in mind? He claimed he was continuously improving, just by being in our presence. But I know "improve" has nothing to do with eulogy virtues, coming from him. It's why I became convinced he was just looking for attention. The sweetness of a spotlight.

Everyone in the group has got eulogy virtues, and the kind of worries that'd fill Adam II's heart with the warmest sympathy. Wednesday is someone who has exhausted all conventional strategies for fighting depression; all the neurochemical and contextual battlefronts have been braved by him. But the real victories have been existential; A change in philosophy. (Plus, our frontal lobes grew in. If you're under 25 look forward to that shit. It's nice. 👍👍👍👍)

There's no such thing as building character through osmosis. Brooks, like many others in this series, see it as a painful reconstruction project. Parts of you need to be dismantled, examined, and often thrown away. This is why this series is so heinously mean. Humpty is the only one that can humble himself; For me to do it is just humiliating. I tried to lead this horse to this water, and this horse stomped it into a mud puddle.

Another thicc scoop of logotherapy, with a stoic cherry on top. I said that it got me to read four other books, but really it's a bibliography of more than a dozen great authors we should all read before we die. From Mary Ann Evans to Montagne. He makes St Augustine sound like Iceberg Slim. Bestseller for a reason.

• #3 Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker •

Hey, I was just wondering if it'd be cool if I could just be immortal and unforgotten forever? At least for a few millennia. I'm thinking Giza pyramids level longevity. Should be easy. I like a good bite-sized goal.

A lot of people will tell you that the reason they, or anyone else, do anything is to get laid. That at the nucleus of all their heroism, striving, and anxiety, is sex. But why is sex so important? Because we're mortal. The real nucleus is death. The one bone our subconscious chews away on, day and night.

This is where "monkey brain" doesn't apply. Death anxiety is a unique byproduct of human intelligence. It's based on our ability to treat abstract symbols as if they were as concrete as the things they symbolize. A banknote, representing cold hard gold glows in the hand of its owner, like real precious metal; a man wearing a hat, that signifies his leadership over 50 armed men, can be as threatening alone with his hat as he is with his all his men in tow; And looking at the corpse of another human is a glimpse at one's own future. As if your death were mine too.

Every bit of psychological progress is just a wobbly house of cards if you built it before grappling with death. It's the "worm at the core of our pretentions to happiness."

We've all heard the story, someone reaches the tippity-tip-tap-top of the hippity-hip-hap-heap and what do they do? They stoop, put their chin to their fist, furrow their brow, and bum everyone the fuck out with an unsolicited existential crisis.

Because you ain't a pyramid you silly bitch. You a poopy worm.

This book though, in all seriousness, is all seriousness. When I read this I was like "FINALLY! Freudian psychology without all the awkward erections!" See, Freud was 95% right, but his dogmatic obsession with orgasms left his work in need of some decryption.

This book is where we all stop pretending we're any different from Humpty Dumpty. When we act out, we're lashing against our fear of death; fear of heroism; fear of success. When we reach to great heights, we're grasping at immortality.

Lets be straight up, Humpty's not stupid. He can give you a crystal clear description of objective facts, plus secondary and tertiary details. That brain of his is firing on all cinderblocks. The problem is, the neurotic are people who see things with perfect clarity, rather than confusion.

Humpty knows he's mortal. He knows heroism is just a reflex, to either uselessly distract yourself from death, or futilely attempt to negate it. He knows success will just leave him with one last thing to do: die, and be forgotten.

But he doesn't handle those facts, lets say, gracefully. His solipsism has him convinced he came up with all these notions himself. Anyone who appears to grasp them, AND put them towards a happy life, must not grasp them properly.

A little stupidity could do Dumpty some good. Or as Ernest calls it, "legitimate foolishness". The religious call it, "faith". His biggest fears are, making a fool of himself, and buying into comforting lies. He won't talk to women because of course they're going to reject him; He won't join a meatspace community because of course they don't want an autist, or an independent thinker; Of course he won't spend time on self-help, it's either redundant, or futile.

Maybe he's right, because you know, each "of course not" has a long flowchart of if-thens and either-ors behind it, that he spent DAYS ruminating on. Instead of one moment, where he tests his pessimistic hypotheses. Testing would be foolish, when you consider the prior arithmetic.

If Humpty looks even a little foolish, people instantly spot his autism and then he's DOOMED.

He's such a god that he can predict the future, but not withstand it. And such a worm that life is a joke, but too sacred to play with it.

You think "worm" is an insult. But most people don't even live up to a worm's standards; worms leave the world around them a better place. All they do is enrich. I bet if we didn't have worms, plants and fungi would officially cancel this "terrestrial animal" project they've been experimenting with for a while.

For want of a worm, the dirt was lost. For want of a dirt, the food was lost. For want a food, the poop was lost. For want of a poop, life was lost. For want of a life, the Earth was lost. For want of a Earth, God was lost. And all for the want of some shit little worms.

• #4 The Worm At The Core by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski •

Giving myself only a month to discuss this was HUBRIS. Good fuckin JESUS god! Then again, the work has all been done, I'm just trying to waft some air from these books at people's noses. It's gloomy, but this is the bread isle for the existentially starving. Virgin Mary toast, by tha loaf.

All that stuff back there? Ernest Becker? Not a scientist, that guy. It was one of those dirty rotten philosophy books. Eew! If you ask any traditional scientist nowadays, what they think about the importance of philosophy, a heartbreaking percentage think it's obsolete. Which to me, means a heartbreaking percentage of scientists are arrogant brainless fuckin' tumors.

When Denial Of Death dropped in '73, it garnered a ton of hype. It inspired a lot of art. But the scientific community abandoned it like a mamma bird, ditching her nest of chicks because they carry a foreign smell. They felt a little cucked by Kierkegaard, the pre-Freudian post-Freudian. And they'll never be outshone by a theologian. Not willingly.

But there were still scientists looking to bring Becker's work into the realm of the empirical. People like our authors here. Data, studies, models of predictability, nice science shit. The result? TMT, or "Terror Management Theory." Sounds so metal.

It's a treatment lane. Some people are mentally ill due to life circumstances, genetics, physical sickness, etc. For which, there are drugs, CBT, and lifestyle adjustments. One illness can be the result of many different influences, and can thus be treated by many different things.

One drastically overlooked influence however is existential dread. Yes, it can kill you.

Drugs won't change your relationship with mortality. All they can do is take away the physical manifestations of our inner conflict. But they don't answer questions once and for all. With the exception to psychedelics, which I highly recommend. A psychedelic near-death experience is a good time. Try experiencing a little eternity, and tell me you long to live forever.

You're longing for the scariest thing IN THE UNIVERSE!

Cognitive behavioral therapy is great for misbehavior. But behaving like a content person, when you're not, doesn't make you a content person. It's painful, like bone tinnitus. It doesn't answer important subjective questions. Doesn't wipe away the oily film of the absurd.

Lifestyle adjustments are great, but again, it's all extrinsic. Perfect in the meantime, as you're working on coming to terms with your mortality. But your lifestyle will adjust itself anyway, as your fear of death diminishes. It's one way you know its coming along. However I'd never assume I'm over my fear, rather that I'm just artfully dancing around the topic in my head. Once again, an art, not a science.

Do I have a healthy relationship with death? I think I do. Sadly, I think it has a lot to do with my parents, a healthy dosage of dying pets and peers, and most importantly, 3 catastrophic nightmare psilocybin trips. Things I can't share with others; All non-fungible experiences.

The shroom inhibitions were another big reason I gave up on Humpty. You gotta be humbled, you gotta be scared, you need to practice your death before you die. You can't just manage death terror with sarcasm, and catatonic pessimism. He needed to see what the fuck a "monkey brain" can really do.

Our generation has made such a mockery of suicide. All the yapping about it is becoming profane. Whether we play that card for laughs, or just to hear another person beg us to keep on living, we play it as often as we can. Why? Why cry so much god damn wolf?

I think it's a "proximal defense" against terror. We construct what they call proximal and distal defenses against death's effect on our emotions.

Distal defenses are like a roof over your head, and mortal terror is like the rain. Distal defenses do most of the work, keeping subconscious thoughts under control, long before they emerge onto the surface. But when the rain gets through our roof, our proximal defenses play the role of a bucket, catching individual leaks.

Humpty's roof is rusty, corrugated swiss cheese. He thinks the scheme of things is all a sham. Group oriented values are the values of a sheep. He's abandoned all hope of having kids, and has sour-graped on the topic entirely. The rain gets in with full force.

His bucket? He turned it upside down, painted "suicide" on the side, and now wears it on his head. He's soaked up to the neck, shivering, and laughing from the dark. You won't fire him, he'll quit. Everything in his life has been pure fate, except for his death. That'll be his creation.

• #5 The Myth Of Sysyphus by Albert Camus •

Camus and I are perfect examples of the fact that being super handsome and cool doesn't make your life happy or more meaningful. Don't worry 'bout it. 'Sno big deal.

I'm barely smart enough to read shit like this. I re-read everything before I write about it, and I re-re-re-read this one. Felt like an Aesop Rock song, where I'm carried along by isolated little lines and phrases that blow my mind. And only after repeated exposure, do I start to get the thread from start to finish.

The point is, Sisyphus is a bad muthafucka. Don't pity the man, he's a hero. Life is an absurd Sisyphean bunch of goofishness. This book focusses on the question of suicide, in the face of this reality. The rock is going to roll back down hill. Why push it up?

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure all four of the previous books have referenced sexy ass Albert Camus. That wasn't intentional, but it's pretty neat. If this book feels like it's really tearing your mental asshole open, try easing into it with the other ones. I'm still loosening up for Kierkegaard. The one guy all five books can't stop slobberin' on about.

One thing I liked about Humpty was that he recognized the absurd, and it consumed him too. We shared the same harrowing passion. I think he had a bitchboy response to the issue, but to be engaged with it at all was something I respected deeply within him.

In a way, a "normie" is someone who has either never grappled with absurdity, or lives to avoid it at all costs. We share a disdain for people like that. Especially the avoiders. Humpty wants what Camus calls "living without appeal"

That is, appeal to a god, an ideology, a fiction, or hope. Anything that would insult his genuine gift of lucidity. His atheism, individualism, rationalism, and cynicism are virtues of his. I got no books on abandoning any of those things. But they're a heavy ballast, and they can sink you if you're reckless. An issue that really only effects the smartest people, to toot all our horns. Hey you, give yourself a toot!

Honestly, I've probably spent more time telling Humpty he needs Jesus, than I've said he needs Camus. Because I think he's too Dunning-Kreuger to take him seriously. If something resembles a stupid movie, TV show, or game he likes, he'll consider himself already schooled on the topic. And there's plenty of flippant absurdist media out there to distract him from that good-good shit.

Albert gives 3 examples of living an "absurd life" without appeal. An actor, a seducer (Don Juan), or a conqueror. It should be noted that Humpty is quite deliberately none of these things, and Wednesday is dying to be all three at once. The act of wearing a mask in social settings is extremely degrading, in his opinion; he says women reject him, but he wouldn't dare approach them anyhow, for love is short-lived and exceptional; And he knows everything conquerable is re-conquerable. The point is, you ain't gonna make Humpty look stupid, by fooling him into carrying that rock anywhere.

He also discusses Dostoyevsky's character, Kirilov. A man who committed "logical suicide". After grappling with the absence of god, and his lack of spiritual purpose, Kirilov sought revolt, freedom, and passion through taking his own life. This is the character I think Humpty most resembles.

It's as if Dumpty has the myth backwards in his head. At the top of the hill is death, and at the bottom of the hill is life. Like death is the burden he shoulders, and life is the inevitable retrograde from all his hard work. He can kill himself, or millions of others, and the worms will eat, nutrients will flow. Life will flourish like nothing happened. Fed only sooner in his haste.

This book has drastically improved my attitude at work. Few jobs are more blatantly Sisyphean than cooking food and washing dishes. And I think few cooks handle it with as positive an outlook as me.

Granted, I can't wait to leave. It's also one of the few jobs where you just get burned every day. The palms of my hands are a permanent strawberry bubblegum colour, while the backs are a ghostly pale mick beige; I'll fucking destroy you in a game of hot potato. But in the meantime, I'm proud to carry my daily rock with dignity.

In fact, inspired by the masterpiece, Holes, I like to think of my work like Madam Zeroni's pig. When I'm carrying a 50lb flour bag down four flights of stairs twice a day, or dumping 180lbs of canola oil into their fryers to start the morning (240 if it's dump day), I hear her spooky ass voice in my head. I watch my body get stronger, and I feel some squaring of my debt to the universe. Whatever it takes to be Sisyphus with a smile.

I guess Humpty was looking to be my rock. I was hoping he'd find his own.

• End bit •

(Oops, this was late. Real dickfuck move from someone trying to give life advice. Although I get a free pass thanks to Atomic Habits, so long as I don't fuck up twice in a row. Considering the massive topic, the drastic change in direction, and waiting 15 days to start writing... well I don't have any valid excuses either way. Just gotta not do it again. Okay? Capeesh? Prick?)

It's amazing how quickly the worst memories began to fade the second I didn't have Humpty Dumpty around to resent. It helps that he's a pretty textbook case of himself, and there are countless other people like him to remind me of our time together.

You gotta wonder, "what kind of hyper-demanding asshole friend expects one to read this many books?" honestly I never expected that. I thought Humpty came to Wednesday and I, believing we had knowledge to share, and I spent close to two years, thoughtfully trying to inject lessons from our reading/life into conversations with Humpty. Not only did he breeze by them with zero feedback, he often chose to argue with us directly.

It's not like he's just never been exposed to these things, but would have loved to be. He's always been bent on disproving them.

This series had a different aim, just before I turned on Dumpty. I called it "Books My Dumbass Friends Need To Read." I used the same five books, with 5 different write-ups, posted it, and after all the fun of writing it, it felt completely wrong.

I've been teasing my other friends for a long time, that they all gotta read some of this shit, instead of just getting the sparknotes from me. These books have patched up issues for me that my friends continue to grapple with, and one of the only tools I know of to fix them is a nice book.

(and shrooms)

But my heart wasn't lashing out at them at all. For a number of big reasons. First, they all read books, unlike Humpty. It's what makes book recommendations possible in the first place, and why I don't need to blog at them. They're all bonafide seekers, who are finding happiness at respectable paces. I learn from them just as well. God bless em. Second, none of them use the group as an emotional barf bag. We all expect ourselves to bring something to the table to REWARD people for giving us attention.

I was furious with Humpty Dumpty. I was tired of wasting the group's time, interviewing him about his made up psychoses. Hours on this fucking piece of shit, who'd move the goalpost to a new fantasy dimension of cum and shit and sarcastic scoffs the second you got an eye on his shadow's true form. I needed to put this iceberg of wasted patience far from our boat.

I might replace my anti-model with a role-model. My boy Wednesday. Hump Day, not Humpty Dumpty. He got two different eyes, he seen so much death, and he knows the future. He's Odin. He's Moondog. The Witcher to my Dandelion. The warrior to my poet.

We'll see. I'm gonna be vague about him. Then again I've been super vague about Humpty.

Toning down the venom is a must, though. These aren't books for pieces of shit. They're books so robust even pieces of shit can put them to full use. Albeit, maybe with the help of a jail sentence. Humpty Dumpty is a nauseatingly relatable human being. He's not of a different form from us, but of a different scale.

Oh boy! Next month I bring you 5 more of these dirty little whores! You had better fucking like reading! Oooooh SHIT!

11 notes · View notes

margridarnauds · 5 years

Note

for the ship headcanon thing, peyronan + whichever you most want to answer!

I have been Summoned by the word “Peyronan”

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first?

Ronan, while they were mid-cuddle and he was on the verge of going to sleep. It takes Lazare, like, several days to croak it out himself because he’s still in utter, absolute shock and trying to recover. If he ever does before You Know What happens, in which case it’s one of Lazare’s biggest regrets. And Ronan dies believing that Lazare, despite everything else, never truly loved him.

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?

Laz is TERRIFIED that Ronan’s going to die from it, like...he consults his regiment’s physician and everything, trying to figure out the PERFECT cure, he fusses over Ronan day and night, constantly checks his temperature, it’s utterly adorable. To everyone except Ronan (though Ronan isn’t above feigning sleep so that Lazare will press his hand to his forehead longer), who really, really wants to get up and walk around and...no, Laz, I promise I won’t die if I take two steps out of bed. Yes, I’m sure. He gets a chicken soup recipe from his company’s physician and MAKES IT HIMSELF, spoonfeeding it to Ronan.

Ronan has simultaneously never felt so touched or so smothered in his life.

Meanwhile, Lazare firmly believes that he CAN’T get a cold, because obviously, if he could, then he would have gotten one as a child. Completely ignoring that he DID get them as a child, but Grandpapa de Fuck made him do drills through them anyway, even when he really, really shouldn’t have.

Spoiler alert: He can. And he does. About a week later. Then it’s up to Ronan to take care of him, and for all of his complaints about mother-henning, Ronan’s not THAT much better. The regiment’s physician, and the regiment as a whole, have never been so GRATEFUL to see The Colonel’s Peasant Boyfriend in their LIVES, because Lazare is not a particularly easy patient. He can take orders with everything BUT the doctor telling him that he needs to stay in bed and off the job for a few days.

15. When they watch a film what do they choose and why? Who gets the final vote?

Lazare is perfectly happy to watch a science documentary most of the time. Ronan tends to like the crappiest films imaginable so he can poke fun at them (though his taste is bad enough that what is ACTUALLY crappy and what is a Bonafide Ronan Favorite is very, very thin.) Since Lazare is ALSO perfectly fine leveling snark at the worst films imaginable while his boyfriend "discretely” tries to cuddle up to him, they tend to go with that. (It is not discreet. At all. Because it’s Ronan, but Lazare at least PRETENDS to be taken aback when he looks down and sees Ronan there, popcorn in hand. Lazare doesn’t even know HOW Ronan got popcorn, but he did.) GENERALLY, Ronan gets the deciding vote, but if nothing else, they’re both pretty fine with just doing their own things on their laptops/phones.

16. When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

Can neither confirm nor deny that I have a longstanding 1789 Zombies AU in progress that...one day, I REALLY need to do work on, because I had that one well-plotted out and everything and it’s been well over a year now. But, suffice it to say, they actually get a lot closer, because one of the things that’s kind of a staple of zombie stories from The Night of the Living Dead onwards is that societal boundaries just kind of...collapse. Things that are SUPPOSED to be important, like funerals, just...stop being as important, as people rush to defend themselves. So, with Peyronan, a lot of the things that would NORMALLY matter to both of them (homosexuality still being on the books as a crime, their social statuses, the tension between the revolutionaries and the Monarchy)...I’m not going to say they STOP mattering entirely, but they become a lot less important in terms of the larger goal, which becomes survival.

I do think, though, that the casual way that Lazare deals with the zombies really horrifies Ronan at first, as he tends to see it as one more sign that Lazare is A Murderering Murderer who doesn’t have a conscience, but then as time goes on it becomes VERY obvious that Lazare is doing this off of experience. He’s already figured out how the transmission of the virus works via trial and error, he’s figured out that there’s NOT a cure for it, and that the only way to ensure that a zombie isn’t formed is...well...making sure that the body doesn’t survive long enough to become one and then burning it for good measure.

17. When they find a time machine, where do they go?

@lochley and I have a long, longstanding AU with Lore and everything where they...don’t INTENTIONALLY go to the Cretaceous Era, but they end up there anyway. So, yes, Ronan + Laz + Dinos: A winning combination.

In terms of “Things that I could see the two of them actually doing In Canon...” I honestly think it would be hilarious to see the two of them fucking up the age of Louis XIV. Alternatively, Ronan and Laz + the Romans. Because there’s SUCH a huge classical influence at this point in time that I can SEE it.

18. When they fight, how do they make up?

They have some absolutely FURIOUS arguments, usually with one of them storming off (generally Ronan), they have several hours to cool down, possibly cry a little (though if either one of them SEES the other crying, it tends to immediately end then. Because neither one of them can really see that and hold onto the anger,) then they go into Pining Mode, and then one of them will inevitably awkwardly knock on the door and they’ll actually TALK. Neither one of them can fundamentally EVER stay mad at the other for too long.

19. Where do they go on their first date?

Most of the time, I’m going to have to say “The Bastille” for obvious reasons, but in at least one reincarnation AU I’ve considered, they run into each other at college. Ronan’s initially pissed because the prissy law student wasn’t looking at where he was going and bumped into him, then somehow this all led to said prissy law student asking him out to the coffee shop in the library in-between classes as an apology.

20. Where do they go on holiday?

Bold of you to assume that Lazare understands what the word “holiday” is.

21. Where do they get nervous about going with one another?

The Jacobin Club, Versailles...besides that, really anywhere out in public. For obvious reasons. Even if people thought they were FRIENDS, it would be cause for scandal, much less the truth.

In the Modern AU, things have thawed a lot, but Laz still doesn’t really feel comfortable with Ronan’s friends. It’s not even that they actively hate one another, it’s just...they’re RONAN’S friends. And Laz is still a socially awkward parrot in any timeline.

Also, the Chateau de Peyrol. That place REALLY creeps Ronan out. Really, really, REALLY creeps him out, and Laz really doesn’t like going there either. There’s a REASON why Laz tends to stick to Paris for the most part when he can, or else going around the provinces.

22. Where does their first kiss happen?

In terms of Canonverse, I do tend to lean towards the Bastille. It’s the easiest place to assume a relationship upgrade. (And the fact that we do have this.) Not really original, but...well....Les Amants de la Bastille. And it’s not like they have THAT much range as far as locations, anyway. Given the whole “secret relationship” thing.

23. Where is their favourite place to be together?

Underneath a tree somewhere, watching the stars together on a cool night. (Bonus if Lazare *has* to share his coat with Ronan because it suddenly turned chilly.)

25. Why do they fight?

The sad thing in the canon verse is that, while there are probably about two-ish months that you can wiggle in where they weren’t quarreling (From ~May 3, when Ronan “escaped” the Bastille to June 2, when the printing shop was raided and Ronan re-joined the Revolution and then, depending on whether or not we’re going with the Takarazuka/Toho timeline or not, from June 2 to June 20th with the Tennis Court Oath. Which...in that timeline is DOUBLY sad because Lazare would have been fully under the belief that Ronan had given up the Revolution for him. And then...well...canon happened. Ronan Was Ronan), a LOT of their relationship was spent under fire.

Most common topics tend to be their respective loyalties, Lazare’s increasing brutality towards civilians, where the Revolution is taking Ronan, Ronan wanting Lazare to leave the Army in favor of him, etc. (Ronan tends to see the Army + Laz relationship in very simplistic terms: Remove Laz from the army and he has his beloved boyfriend back and whole and safe, without the darkness of the Comte de Peyrol. The problem, obviously, is that it ISN’T that simple. Laz can’t easily remove himself from something that’s been his WHOLE LIFE, just like Ronan can’t easily remove himself from the Revolution.) Sometimes, Ronan doesn’t really understand Laz’s attempts at lessening the tension via buying things, thinking that Laz is trying to buy him off somehow, when...to Laz...that’s really the only MODEL that he has for this kind of thing. Aristocratic men keep their lovers in fancy apartments and buy them things regularly, that’s just...how it goes. But Ronan doesn’t love The Comte de Peyrol, he loves Lazare, and the reminder of how different their experiences are...doesn’t always sit well.

And then there are the usual domestic disputes that boil over quickly.

Personally, I think that had things gone better for them in canon, those disputes, while a FEW of them would have obviously lingered, would have lessened. Laz might have very well left the Army of his own accord post-1789, it would have DEFINITELY been a possibility post-1791, Ronan might have felt less pressure to be a Revolutionary™ in the time between the October Days and the Varennes Flight, he might have been more willing to run away with Laz to someplace far away.

They just had the misfortune of getting into a relationship in a very, very tumultuous time and not having the time to really sort it out. On one hand, they’re having this rush of being in their first real relationship and having all these new, terrifying feelings, but then they aren’t REALLY given the chance to explore them before it’s all snatched away.

26. Why do they need to have a serious chat?

...When do these two NOT need to have a serious chat, for some reason or another? See the above for a laundry list of reasons, which still doesn’t mention the whole “Killed Ronan’s father” thing.

I found this in my R/L folder and had forgotten it was in there.

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love?

Ronan lives for those little moments where Laz is ever so slightly more HUMAN. Those moments where Laz comes to bed late and pulls him closer as soon as he gets in or nestles his head into his neck, those little half-smiles that he’s pretty sure are reserved almost exclusively for him, the dry jokes that it takes Ronan a few moments to realize ARE jokes because he’s so used to Lazare being perceived as humorless, dinnertime discussions where Ronan tries to see how many awful ways he can flirt with Lazare before he gets The Eyeroll™ (it’s never made it to more than two times), getting to curl up on the couch with him, the little moments where Laz is so CONCENTRATED on something that he doesn’t even notice Ronan (and he does try, like a cat, to see how much he can distract him. He WILL sit on Lazare’s lap when he’s in the middle of harpsichord practice), the forehead kisses that mean so much MORE coming from someone who he knows they don’t come naturally to, the hand kisses that are so reverent that it knocks Ronan off his feet every time that Lazare does it, getting to fall asleep to the steady beat of Lazare’s heartbeat.

That’s his Lazare, and it’s the Lazare that the world can absolutely never know.

And Lazare falls in love with Ronan’s life repeatedly. The tackle hugs, the kisses whenever he gets home, his terrible, terrible attempts at jokes, the moments when they’re fighting where Ronan looks him eye to eye and on one hand Lazare is furious but on the other hand he’s also impressed, his idealism, whenever he turns over and sees Ronan asleep and vulnerable and his heart just clenches at the thought of anything happening to him, the moments where Ronan can SEE that he’s too focused on his job at the moment and pulls him away (and Lazare can admit that, yes, his work was all the better for having a few moments of break), his absolutely garish choices in outfits, the way that he plays with Lazare’s hair when they’re waking up in the morning, how DEFENSIVE he’ll get of Lazare whenever Lazare offhandedly mentions something about his childhood or his later career, the compassion that he shows, albeit in his own odd way, towards the underdogs, even if Lazare believes that it’s ultimately futile. (”Futile” in this case means “...Of course we’ll adopt Stray Dog #10).

30. Why does it work (or not work) between them?

Is this the second time I’ve used this gif today? Yes. Do I care? No.

They have their issues, definitely more than the average couple, but ultimately they’re both stubborn, they’re both DEEPLY devoted to one another, they both act as a push-pull force on one another to keep each other in check (with Lazare’s level-headedness serving as a buffer for Ronan’s impulsiveness and Ronan’s spark and idealism motivating Lazare), both of them ultimately learn a LOT from one another and their perspective, and, even though fighting all the time is obviously not the sign of a happy, well-adjusted couple, they TEND to default to an Old Married Couple dynamic, especially since a lot of their bickering, sans near the end where Lazare goes over several lines, is primarily bourne out of WORRY for one another. Both of them feel like the other’s side is using them, both of them are right, but unfortunately they don’t have the same hindsight when it comes to their OWN side.

And, even though they have SUCH a massive power imbalance between them, especially at the beginning, Lazare is so...shocked, really, by the turn of events and so infatuated for the first time that Ronan really, really does have most of the power there, and he mainly uses it for good, bringing Lazare out of his shell as steadily as he can. And sometimes he overreaches, sometimes he missteps or blunders or doesn’t know the full scope of a situation before he throws himself into it, because he’s RONAN, but ultimately, he does care for Lazare and Lazare still cares for him.

Had things been different and they’d had to part ways post-canon instead of The Thing Happening, I don’t really see them taking anyone else on BECAUSE they’re so really...focused on one another. Like, anyone who Laz would so much as LOOK at (which is impressive in its own right since Laz is...very, very picky. I lean towards him being either demisexual or gray-asexual, but the point is that the boy does NOT normally find people attractive) would have to be compared unfavorably to Ronan, and Ronan is going to compare anyone to Laz, and they’re simply not going to match up, because for better AND worse, the two of them have had such a cataclysmic impact on one another’s lives.

And no matter what, they WILL reconcile at the end of things. It might take them into the afterlife, but they will figure out a way to make things work. It’s there in the French, it’s...not as present in the Zuka, but there’s at least the implication that Ronan is seeking out Laz in the afterlife even if Laz is rejecting that redemption at the moment, and Toho was homophobic and simply gave us Angel Ronan on a Platform. (Okay, not a LITERAL angel, but like. Ghost who’s ascended to a higher plan of existence.) But it’s so IMPORTANT to me that the French begins with Ronan seeking out revenge against Lazare and ends with their wedding reconciliation in the afterlife. Both sides FINALLY find peace.

#otp: he would be troubled if you died on him #peyronan #food tw #1789 les amants de la bastille #i just...i love my sons. so much #they love each other so much #and i have no idea how much of this is coherent given it's an ungodly hour where I'm at but OH WELL #am i ever REALLY coherent when talking 1789?#the answer is no #vierschanzentournee

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Clarksburg VA serial killer sentenced to seven life sentences for murdering seven veterans by insulin injection CHARLESTON, W.Va (WDTV) – A former nursing assistant was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court for murder and assault charges in the deaths of eight veterans at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Acting U.S. Attorney Randolph J. Bernard announced. Reta Mays, 46, of Harrison County, West Virginia, was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, one for each murder, and an additional 20 years for the eight victim. Mays pleaded guilty in July 2020 to seven counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of veterans Robert Edge Sr., Robert Kozul, Archie Edgell, George Shaw, W.A.H., Felix McDermott, and Raymond Golden. She pleaded guilty to one count of assault with intent to commit murder involving the death of veteran Russell Posey. Over thirty family members of victims were seated in Judge Thomas Kleeh’s courtroom for sentencing with 350 people watching via Zoom. the family members of victims were able to share stories about their family members and speak to Mays directly from the stand. Those who could not be in attendance prerecorded video messages that were played during the hearing. The common question among most of these testimonies was the lingering question of why Mays had killed their family members. “Why would anyone want to kill dad?” asked Amanda Edgell, daughter of Archie Edgell. Mays was employed as a nursing assistant at the VAMC, working the night shift during the same period of time that the veterans in her care died of hypoglycemia while being treated at the hospital. Nursing assistants at the VAMC are not qualified or authorized to administer any medication to patients, including insulin. Mays would sit one-on-one with patients. She admitted to administering insulin to several patients with the intent to cause their deaths. Mays had the chance to speak Tuesday morning. In, what is now the longest statement heard by the public, Mays, through tears, apologized for her actions. “I can only say I am sorry for the pain I caused these families,” Mays said. In closing, Mays’ defense cited her history of PTSD and military sexual trauma while continuing to ask for a sentence of 30 years, the minimum allowed by law. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas described the violent deaths of each of these veterans before continuing to ask for the maximum sentence, 7 life sentences and 20 years. Judge Thomas Kleeh announced the sentence just before noon, repudiating a claim that she was not a monster. “You are the worst kind. The kind of monster no one sees coming,” Judge Kleeh said. This investigation, which began in June 2018, involved more than 300 interviews; the review of thousands of pages of medical records and charts; the review of phone, social media, and computer records; countless hours of consulting with some of the most respected forensic experts and endocrinologists; the exhumation of some of the victims; and the review of hospital staff and visitor records to assess their potential interactions with the victims. Today’s sentence was the result of the tireless and comprehensive efforts of both criminal investigators and healthcare experts. Mays was also ordered to pay a total of $172,624.96 to the victims’ families, the VA Hospital, Medicare, and insurance companies. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jarod J. Douglas and Brandon S. Flower prosecuted the case on behalf of the government. The Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and the FBI investigated. The West Virginia State Police and the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes Task Force, a HIDTA-funded initiative, assisted. U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh presided. Copyright 2021 WDTV. All rights reserved. Source link Orbem News #Clarksburg #injection #insulin #killer #life #murdering #sentenced #Sentences #serial #veterans

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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In early May, a group of 20 Black mothers in rural Mississippi logged onto a virtual group therapy session to discuss the immense, compounding pressures of providing for their families and caring for their children during a global pandemic and historic unemployment crisis. It was the first time any of them had talked to a traditional mental health counselor, and the results were cathartic.

“It’s important that we refuel — to be able to be better parents, to be able to be better daughters, to be better sisters and mothers,” says Dr. Erica Thompson, the executive director of Magnolia Medical Foundation, the community health nonprofit that ran the program.

Magnolia Medical Foundation’s pilot series was designed to address the unique challenges facing Black mothers in recent months as they navigate a pandemic that has disproportionately claimed Black lives, an unemployment crisis that has exposed the failures of the American social safety net, and the explosion of a national movement combatting the systemic violence perpetrated against Black people.

Magnolia Medical Foundation’s program invited mothers to participate in therapy sessions virtually, via computers or phones, and then stop at a drive-through to pick up information about mindfulness and coping mechanisms, as well as other more tangible resources, like food, cleaning supplies and face masks. “This allowed them to place those questions that they had, and to be able to pick up resources and information that they could carry with them to build out their recovery and their resilience and sustainability,” said Thompson, who returned to her native Mississippi after medical school to address the stark health disparities that faced Black people like herself.

But the Magnolia Medical Foundation is hardly alone in using this moment to find new ways to support Black mothers. In recent months, community leaders have rallied to offer Black women access to mental health care, counseling and information regarding their unique health challenges. Doula groups from Brooklyn to New Mexico have led online trainings on how to handle stress and trauma, and midwives in rural counties across the South taught clients how to take their own blood pressure and how to advocate for themselves in a hospital setting. Organizations like Black Mamas Matter Alliance and Black Women’s Health Imperative have published guidance and held webinars addressing topics targeted at Black moms, including navigating health insurance, accessing telehealth, and to how to give birth safely during the pandemic.

The focus on Black mothers is not incidental. Even before the pandemic, many Black women faced outsized barriers to health care. They are less likely as a group to be insured than their white counterparts, more likely to suffer from maternal health complications, and three to four times more likely to die from causes relating to pregnancy. Black mothers are also more likely to see their babies die, particularly in rural areas, where the mortality rate for infants born to Black women is at 11.8 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Enduring racism can also be a significant factor for Black women’s health, says Monica McLemore, a family health care nursing professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She and several colleagues recently published a study finding that Black mothers who reported high levels of racial discrimination may be at risk for preterm births and other negative birth outcomes. Other studies have shown that racism among medical practitioners affects the quality of care Black mothers receive, the amount of time doctors spend with Black patients, the way providers view Black patients’ pain and evaluate their complaints. Black mothers’ experiences with racism have also been associated with delays in seeking prenatal care.

Those stresses are perhaps compounded in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, when millions of people have shared violent videos on social media. “We are very worried and concerned about people’s exposure to repeated videos of the murders and shootings of unarmed black people,” McLemore says. “We also worry about the fact that many people who would have social support, currently don’t have that in the context of physical distancing.”

COVID-19 exacerbates negative health trends, in part because it fuels people’s fears of seeking out medical care, experts say. As hospitals reassign doctors and nurses to handle a surge in COVID-19 patients, other parts of the hospital — like maternity floors and family health wards — are understaffed and restricting outside visitors. “On-the-ground community based organizations have already been the safety net for so many of our communities, for folks who have historically not been able to access care,” says Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OB/GYN who works in community health centers in Washington, D.C. “So those networks are really critical in this time.”

Partly as a result of these factors, more Black women in recent months have expressed interest in giving birthing outside of hospitals, says Angela Doyinsola Aina, interim executive director of Black Mamas Matter Alliance, a group that brings together community organizations working on Black maternal health around the country. Laboring at home or in a birthing center can have upsides, research shows; home births can be associated with fewer interventions such as induced labor or cesarean sections. But they also carry significant risks, doctors warn, particularly for Black women who are more likely than their white counterparts to have serious, and potentially fatal, pregnancy complications such as fibroids and preeclampsia.

The apparent growing interest in giving birth outside of hospitals is a trend that worries many mainstream health care providers. In April, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which do not recommend home births, addressed the issue. The AAP published new guidance, while ACOG put out a statement on birth settings emphasizing the need for “patient-centered, respectful care” while reiterating that hospitals and accredited birth centers are the safest options.

Still, midwives say their services have been in high demand. Nikia Grayson, a certified nurse midwife at Choices, a reproductive health care center in Memphis, has been flooded with calls and social media messages every day for months. “Any means they can reach me they’re gonna do it,” she says. She is the only midwife in Memphis that can do both hospital and home births, and until recently, she was the primary provider at the center’s midwifery clinic and its wellness clinic for transgender patients. As a Black midwife operating in a city whose population is 64% Black, Grayson says she intentionally focused her practice on making sure families of color have safe birth options. Choices is set to open a birth center in August, which will be the first one in Memphis, and it has added three other midwives on staff so that it can ramp up its load from the 15 births per month it was handling in the first part of the pandemic to 30 births per month.

The large caseloads are not ideal for pregnant people or midwives, Grayson says. But they are a direct result of the restrictive way that midwives are regulated, particularly in the South. The midwives that do practice in the U.S. are often limited in where they can deliver babies and cannot always get their services reimbursed by private insurance or Medicaid.

Legislation related to the pandemic response may address some of these problems. In March, the Black Maternal Health Caucus in Congress introduced a package of legislation they called the “Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act,” and some ideas included there, such as allowing providers to offer telehealth services across state lines and extending Medicaid postpartum coverage, are inching forward.

But even as midwives, doulas and community health groups are seeing demand increase, many are struggling amid the ongoing economic crisis. Small health centers operate on shoestring budgets in the best of times, and an increase in total demand does not change the economic picture if patients can’t pay for the services. “A lot of these organizations are really trying to figure out if they’re going to stay in business,” says Linda Goler Blount, president and CEO of Black Women’s Health Imperative, which provides health information to women, advocates for policy change and funds federally qualified health centers. “We’ve seen organizations have to lay staff off, so even if they don’t close the doors, at what level will they be functioning in the next six months?”

Back in Mississippi, Dr. Thompson of the Magnolia Medical Foundation is working with Nakeitra Burse, a public health educator and consultant, to build a new program that will pair Black women in Jackson, Mississippi with doulas and create a registry of doulas in the state. The goal is to establish a more sustainable network of trusted, community providers who can address high maternal mortality rates and help Black women safely get the care they need.

“We have to do what we have to do for our community and not wait for someone else to do it,” Burse says. “We are still holding the system accountable. But until then, we have to create and do for ourselves at this moment.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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mavwrekmarketing · 7 years

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A sea of jargon and acronyms

Every year, the Chinese government organizes a series of meetings in Beijing to approve new laws and amendments and confirm leadership positions. The event is called the Two Sessions (lianghui or in Chinese) because it comprises two major gatherings: the National Peoples Congress, or NPC, and the National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC.

The NPC, sometimes called Chinas parliament, has around 3,000 delegates, many of whom are government officials and representatives from around the country, or serve as military leaders. Most of the delegates are members of the Communist Party of China and are responsible for new legislation and appointments of officials.

However, much of the NPC seems symbolic. In fact, many Western media outlets call it a rubber stamp parliament, a term Chinese state media occasionally complain is insulting to the system of government. But its difficult to avoid the characterization since the NPC almost never rejects any legislation put before it. Instead, many of the real decisions are made behind closed doors at various Communist Party meetings, the most important of which is the National Party Congress held every five years.

The CPPCC, on the other hand, which has around 2,000 delegates, is somewhat different: many of its members are not Communist Party members, its role is purely advisory and it has no legislative power. As a result, many CPPCC members are business people and celebrities, including the basketball player Yao Ming, the actor Jackie Chan and the tycoon Wang Jianlin. Other members of the CPPCC include officials from Chinas eight other political parties outside of the Communist Party, parties which have no real legal power and cannot contest elections but provide the ruling party a means of calling the state a multiparty government.

Lintao Zhang via Getty Images

The event is stage-managed and heavily regulated.

What actually happens at the Two Sessions?

Even though it is rare for anything surprising to happen at the annual Two Sessions, they are still an important part of Chinas political life. So what actually happens?

Firstly, there is a certain amount of debate amongst the delegates which does inform and affect the way Chinese laws and the choices for leadership positions are made.

VCG via Getty Images

A journalist reports during the opening ceremony of the NPC on March 5, 2017 in Beijing.

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Secondly, much of the discussion is heavily publicized in state media (see for example these special pages created in Chinese on the websites of government news agency Xinhua and the Communist Party house newspaper Peoples Daily), which allows the government to gauge public reaction to proposed new laws and government initiatives. The speeches and media coverage also allow the government to formally communicate its plans, both to party members who do not attend the meetings in Beijing and to the public at large. Legislative rituals allow the government to present an image of an orderly and somewhat democratic process.

And finally, although the event is stage-managed and heavily regulated, it does offer Chinese and foreign journalists a degree of access to officials at press conferences but also at informal meetings a level of access that is rare in China, particularly with government functions. Still, most foreign correspondents in Beijing find the Two Sessions to be a snoozefest, comprised of set pieces, stultifying speeches and pressers where only pre-approved journalists are allowed to ask only pre-approved questions.

Stringer China / Reuters

Bo was Communist Party chief of Chongqing, and he soon fell from grace.

Corruption and murder

Sometimes, though very occasionally, interesting things do happen at the Two Sessions. In 2012, an official at the NPC told delegates from the city of Chongqing a sprawling municipality in southwestern China that the climate in Chongqing is very different from the climate in Beijing.

Observers quickly realized that this remark heralded one of the biggest political scandals in China in decades, referring to the state of politics in the city, rather than the actual temperature of the region. The remark about the weather actually signified the takedown of Bo Xilai, who at the time was a charismatic contender for the presidency. Bo was Communist Party chief of Chongqing, and he soon fell from grace, accused of bribery and tainted by his wifes conviction for the murder of an English business associate.

But while Bos scandal and the statements that surrounded it served as interesting fodder for journalists and the general public, slip ups like this are rare at the NPC.

Lintao Zhang via Getty Images

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen on a giant screen during the opening session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on March 3, 2017 in Beijing.

Will Xi stay or will Xi go?

Instead of corruption and murder scandals, this year the most important signal many China watchers are tracking at the Two Sessions is any sign that President Xi Jinping intends to stay in power whether as president or as general secretary of the Communist Party. If he wishes to extend his reign of power, the move would put him beyond the customary two terms limit that has been in place since the death in 1976 of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.

A key indicator of his intention to stay prominent in the party in some capacity will likely be a move from Xi to allow his trusted right-hand man Wang Qishan, who currently manages the anti-corruption campaign, to stay on as a senior member of the Communist Partys Politburo, a group that serves as the overhead authority within the Communist Party.

Jason Lee / Reuters

China’s Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan at the CCPPCC opening session in Beijing.

Wang himself is 68, the age at which party leaders are conventionally asked retire and as such, allowing him to maintain power would go against traditional conventions of the party. If this year the NPC signals that Wang might retain his role despite his age, many observers will interpret that as a sign that Xi himself will turn against other conventions of the past three decades and retain his grip on power beyond his second term as president and general secretary of the Communist Party that should end in 2022.

Much of the government communication coming from the Two Sessions already seems to be laying the groundwork for this, as countless state media articles and speeches by senior officials refer to the importance of regarding Xi as the core of the partys leadership.

China Daily China Daily Information Corp – CDIC / Reuters

China recently ended its one-child policy.

Rights for fetuses and a Trump-Xi meeting

As the Two Sessions nears its end, here are some notable developments.

The NPC is expected to confirm a new civil code for China that will codify certain rights and responsibilities for citizens. Although the new law is, as reported by Reuters, light on individual rights reforms, it may for the first time in China, grant certain rights to unborn babies.

The draft provisions of the new law, according to Xinhua, describe the fetus as being entitled to some civil rights in terms of inheritance or gifts. Chinas civil law does not currently recognize any rights before birth, the state media outlet quotes a civil law jurist as saying, but, it continues, there is a growing consensus among legal experts that the law should afford some some recognition and protection to an unborn child. There are, however, limits, one Chinese law professor and CPPCC member told the publication: granting a fetus the right to life may impact on womens rights.

DigitalGlobe/ScapeWare3d via Getty Images

The Chinese foreign minister said progress had been made on the South China Sea dispute.

Other interesting news has come from a press conference on the sidelines of the NPC given by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. He said that China and the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed on a draft Code of Conduct for the disputed South China Sea. The contentious islands were the topic of remarks earlier from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said that Chinas island building campaign was illegal and akin to Russias taking of Crimea.

Wang also warned of a serious risk of a head-on collision between the U.S. and North Korea, as both nations test their respective weapons capabilities in a sort of military escalation North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently tested a nuclear-capable missile, and the U.S. began deploying the THAAD missile defense system and conducting large-scale military drills with South Korea.

Lastly, Wang indicated that a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping was in the works, a development which was reported by U.S. media Monday.

Reuters Staff / Reuters

Xi and Trump could soon meet in person.

What to look forward to

Despite some possibilities for tea leaf reading by China watchers, it is likely that there will not be much that will be reported by journalists or that will be actionable by hedge fund managers to emerge from the Two Sessions this year.

So what should people watch for? I look forward to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that will take place in the fall later this year thats when well learn a lot more about Xi Jinpings plans for his succession, or his plans to keep control of the levers of power beyond the conventional limit of two terms as president.

In the meantime, one big wild card is Chinas relationship with the U.S. After poking China in the eye by publicizing his phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Donald Trump softened his tone in a later call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Some believe China threw him a bone by reportedly fast-tracking trademark applications his company had applied for in China in a range of business areas, an act the Chinese government denies was special treatment despite comments to the contrary.

Whether Xi and Trump succeed in lowering the tensions between the countries in the coming months or not, the Chinese president continues to pursue a new role as the champion of globalization in contrast to the America First rhetoric emanating from the White House. After Xis speech at Davos where the leader looked to fill the gap of a more isolationist United States, state media reports from the Two Sessions have parroted the position, with Xinhua news agency commenting that his strong defense of free trade and warnings against protectionism have surprised and delighted observers. This annual political gathering may not have definitive answers to Chinas role in the global order, but the Two Sessions are a glimpse into what the world should be paying attention to.