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justjimedits · 5 years

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Fic: Speaking Derekish

Title: Speaking Derekish Rating: G Fandom: Teen Wolf Prompt: Derek deserves nice things, for Sterekbingo 2019 Wordcount: 1501 Summary: Stiles discovers a few things about Derek as he stops paying attention to the words Derek is saying but looks for what he’s meaning. He discovers a whole new language. “And then he was cursing because he never agrees with anything I say, he doesn’t get that..-” “Derek doesn’t curse, dude.” Scott stopped talking to look at Stiles who, to be honest, hadn’t been paying that much attention to what his best bud had been ranting about. Because let’s face it, it was either about a Lacrosse game, about Allison, about how hard life was to be with a huntress or hating on Derek. Stiles cared, he really did but his busy mind was only capable of paying attention for so long before it would drift. The whole cursing thing had caught his attention though while Scott frowned at him with that adorable ‘I don’t get it’ look. “What?! Yes he does, he curses all the time.” “Nope.” He popped the P with exaggeration as the other boy’s frown only deepened. “Pretty sure he doesn’t curse.” “You’re delusional.” Scott decided on and with a huffed whatever, went back to the topic he had been on while the young Stilinski resumed his thinking. Was he delusional? He had been sure the Hale didn’t curse all that much. He stuck with idiot and moron, said frigging instead of fucking and the exclamation to indicate surprise was a standard ‘Oh my God.’ Stiles noticed these things, you know. However, he wasn’t as sure as he could have been so this warranted some closer investigating for sure. * * *

Of course, he attacked this new mystery with the same gusto as always, keeping notes, drawings, scribbles and if possible, snapshots. Over the weeks he was watching the local sourwolf closely, with the sole purpose of catching him on cursing, only….there’s so much more to notice. Once he stopped reacting to the words and only paying attention to them in a literal sense, stopped having emotional responses to their stunted communication because he was more invested in what the words were, things started to shift.

There was no surprise about Derek’s pretty horrible way of communicating, because he barely did it and if he did, it was thrown out as blunt as possible with lots of glares, snark and eyebrow movement. Raised by wolves, Stiles had joked once, which he was starting to regret now. He knew, deep down he knew, Derek wasn’t good at any of this because he had lost his parents at sixteen and hadn’t been able to be raised into normal skills after that. Too busy to deal with all the personal trauma, everything had been halted, which is why the older man probably kept gravitating towards teens even now. He was barely out of his teens himself with his emotional maturity. No, what really started to be visible was the way Derek did communicate like he was raised by wolves. Visceral instead of oral and once Stiles had discovered it, there was no unseeing it. He had researched wolves, okay, pack behavior and such. And Derek wasn’t like them, wasn’t raised human, he was raised werewolf. To him, they were probably the weirdos with their chatter and behavior. Derek didn’t curse, Stiles had been right with that. But he growled and snarled and looked so darkly at people, that it was understandable the others thought he DID curse. He didn’t do it out loud with words, yet everything about the way he said things would suggest cursing was involved, internally. So much cursing. For all his not touching and growly snarls, he was unknowingly very touchy. Small touches on shoulders or necks, small shoulder bumps and light grazes. Something people wouldn’t notice unless they were paying attention to it, Derek especially did it with Isaac. And everything coming out of Derek’s mouth was pretty much focused on keeping the pack safe, protection, defense, attack mode. The bluntness made more sense because the focus wasn’t on being social or nice, it was about keeping everybody alive one more day. And Derek said it best when he wasn’t saying it at all. It was easier to read him now, Stiles paid close attention to the head tilts, the eyebrow movements, the way his body held itself, it was a language all on its own. A sad language which was constantly misinterpreted by the others, completely ignored and disregarded because they all only heard his angry words. And he couldn’t help himself, he started thinking back on past interactions, on what he all had missed himself. A whole freaking lot, that’s what. It made him feel sick to his stomach because he was supposed to see shit like that, and how could he have missed out and probably hurt somebody who...maybe was a friend? Maybe. The answer was simple. He had missed it because Derek never made much of an effort to let others in, to explain anything which included himself.

Not again. After another grueling pack meeting which had ended in discontent faces all around, Stiles lingered behind as the others left, Derek giving the frowny face when he noticed. “What.” He barked out and the teen wondered if proper infliction and use of question marks in a sentence were about as absent as Derek ‘s eyebrows were in shift to werewolf.

“I’m sorry.” Stiles said and the frown turned into surprised eyebrow raising because the other man clearly didn’t follow why the human felt the need to be sorry.

“For...”

Again, what was with the not asking questions as they should be asked? “For what happened with Gerard, Scott making you give the bite and how we all ignored you after.”

The questionable eyebrows went slightly pinched in Derek Hale’s classic bitch face of ‘what the fuck are you even on about, Stiles’. Yes, he had added his own name to that look because he had noticed he seemed to brought it out, a lot. In this case, it was an understandable look because the whole Gerard thing was a while ago and nothing in the meeting of today even hinted towards that moment so Stiles could understand why Derek felt like he was missing out on a whole conversation predating this one.

“You’ve been reading your diary.”

Stiles snorted amused at the snark Derek throws his way with the proper amount of shading the wolf was capable of handing out. It was one of the reasons why he hated and liked spending time together, the quips and bickering was a thing between them. “No, I’ve been reading you.”

While the human had been expecting the raising of walls and shutting of gates and Derek just balking at the idea of getting this personal, he did none of that. He sighed and nodded in understanding, some tension bleeding away. “So that’s what you’ve been doing the past weeks.”

“Dude! I...-” Spluttering at being caught all this time, he felt a little insulted he hadn’t been as smooth about it as he thought he had been. And then he felt guilty, and why even would he feel that now, fuck Derek Hale and his secret language he could now read. Yeah, he felt guilty for being creeper and probably making Derek all kinds of uncomfortable with his close observations. But come on, Derek was a creeper all the time too so...maybe not as guilty.

“Look, it’s all your fault for not using words like normal people but then I realized you’re not normal people, you’re like normal werewolf. Which still doesn’t excuse you because you need to learn to use words, Derek but I realized too that I missed out on a whole plethora of Derek speak and I should have seen it sooner. What you all did, what Scott did to you with the whole non-con bite after you saved his life because of Freakazoid Argent Mom. We fucked up, no, scratch that, I fucked up because the others don’t really speak your language but I should have so….I’m sorry.”

Derek had listened to the onslaught of words with this weird blank look on his face, as if he couldn’t follow what just happened. And then his face crumbled into this whole pained look and Stiles knew what was about to leave his mouth. The whole ‘I deserved it’ spiel the older man was so good at. Because he truly believed he didn’t deserve anything nice and acted like it, and they all had enabled that behavior all this time, using him as the scapegoat because he didn’t behave as the rest of them.

“Nope, no, you don’t get to say that. I’m onto you now and this….” He motioned to the blame face Derek was sporting. “This isn’t going to work on me again. Dude, I totally speak your language now and it’s going to be awesome! You and me, bud, we’re going to be getting along now, yeah?”

“Like you give me a choice.” Derek huffed.

“No way. I’m going to be the best friend you ever had and you’re not getting rid of me now, I’ve got your back. Which is a very nice back so it’s not really that much of a crime to have.” Right, maybe he should have taken his meds so he would have had more of a filter. Derek didn’t really react much to it, which Stiles now knew meant he liked but didn’t know what to do with it, yet.

“Stiles….”

“Yeah buddy?”

“Don’t call me dude.”

#sbnice #Sterek #Sterekbingo #sterekbingo2019 #just jim #fic #teen wolf #derek hale #stiles stilinski

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themiddlelayer · 4 years

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Bolt out of the Fucking Blue

MM and I have been chatting a bit today. He asked me to proofread some e-mails to the recruiting team at the company in DC that he’s supposed to start with soon. It felt so good. So normal. Like we really were friends and I could relax with him again, at last!

NOPE.

I already stopped following him on FB and filtered his e-mails so I could decide when I addressed anything he might send me. Things were tense there for a bit when I was still living with Tampa and we talked about money stuff. Since the Tampa drama he’s had my back and been nothing short of a great support.

He’s tagged me in things on FB before and I would just turn off comments and hide it if I didn’t want to see ‘his people’ commenting or reacting. This afternoon he did it again. The post just said that he missed AZ and all the people in it. I made the mistake of looking at who he had tagged... Fucking Gypsy and Nomad on their ‘real’ fb account.

My reaction was absolutely visceral. I started ugly crying, almost to the point of hyperventilation. My dizzy spell turned into literally seeing stars for a minute or two. I don’t know if my blood pressure shot up, or totally bottomed out. I’m thinking bottomed out given how I’ve been feeling, but I left the cuff with MM. (Amazon hasn’t had a run on those yet, so I ordered one that should be here in a couple days.)

I know that it’s nobody’s fault and part of me is genuinely happy that the three of them got some ‘closure’ or whatever. But clearly a bigger part of me is still very deeply hurt and angry that they all got to go on with their lives and I’m the one rebuilding myself all alone. I don’t know how to really process this and let it go.

I absolutely know that the way things happened were ultimately for the best. I know that my next chapter will be amazing and I deserve happiness. I know that fighting to stay, fighting to make them stay... that was about me feeling like I wasn’t worthy of love and so I had to beg for it. Like I was just their consolation prize because Gypsy kept running and pushing them away. That’s utter fucking bullshit and I know it!

So how do I deactivate the button that seeing that post hit...the button that sent me into panic attack, meltdown mode before I could even really process it mentally? It was literally a physical reaction that took me almost almost an hour to come down from. That’s C-PTSD in action. It was fucking scary and it’s not okay.

One hour left at “work” so I’m turning on Netflix for a bit.

I am not okay, but I don’t know what to do about it right now other than just keep myself safe. That’s what I’ll do. Distract. Tune out. Stay safe. Make it through one more day. One more hour. One more minute. That’s how this goes, right?

#c-ptsd #panic attack #nomad

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doux-amer · 6 years

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Finally watched Infinity War today (I didn’t want to see it in a full house and I wanted to see it in a genuine IMAX theater because it was filmed entirely in IMAX so I had to wait). Spoilers ahead so if you don’t want to see them, scroll past this post!

SCROLL PAST.

RIGHT NOW.

NOW.

So, I thought IW was really underwhelming and predictable. I assumed it would be generic and bloated based on the trailers so I was unexcited, but with the way people were so psyched by it, my expectations went up. I walked in, afraid of what would happen....and spent 99% of the time not feeling like I was on the edge of my seat at all. I predicted everything that was going to happen, which was severely disappointing. I can count maybe one or two things that I didn’t expect. And because of that and because the plot was so insubstantial (funnily enough, I thought its issue would be that it would be too unwieldy and bloated, not that it would be superficial and would feel as though it skimmed over everything), IW barely had any emotional impact on me, and at the very least, if that’s going to be the case, then at least have some juicy plot that I can sink my teeth into, you know? I know part of the reason why I’m so uninvested in most of these deaths is because this is a two-parter, but the other part is because the way the movie was set up meant that I could barely connect with most of the characters on a deep level especially when each of them were given like...two lines lol.

Anyway, I’m tired of writing normally so here’s Part 1 (sorry, you know I talk at length about these things) featuring overall movie stuff, which basically consists of general criticism lol, with Part 2 about characters (not entirely critical):

Violence - I thought Loki’s grim death set the tone for the movie, but the violence was so subpar in this. I don’t want gratuitous violence, but this is THANOS. Where’s the bloodshed? Nothing felt visceral enough. Even his stupid tricks with the Reality Stone weren’t gruesome. Soap bubbles? Really? Even what happened to Mantis and Drax looked so dumb. This is the Mad Titan. COME ONNNN.

Dumb plot holes(?) - Okay, there were big questions that undermined the movie like.....if Thanos and the Black Order can locate the Stones, what kept them from going after the Stones earlier? How do they know the exact location of the Stones and how to track their movements?

Location captions - I still hate them. STOP WITH THESE OMFG. It’s so distracting, and we don’t need it if you’re good with dialogue and exposition.

Relationships - Too many undercooked relationships that were important (and too many that went to 100 realllll fast and in terms of romantic ones, it felt kind of dumb to show three pairings going “ILU” and kissing in a row lol), especially Gamora and Nebula’s with Thanos. I don’t blame the Russos and M&M for this though because it’s not like they could’ve spent 3/4 of the movie building their relationship up, and this REALLY should have been a thing that was explored in GotG1. I’ve been saying since that movie came out that it should’ve been Gamora’s story, not Quill’s.

Dialogue - Almost no memorable dialogue and lots of corny one-liners instead which made it a struggle to feel for the characters had it not been for affection stemming from previous movies transferring over (and sometimes even that wasn’t enough). TOO MANY QUIPS especially for characters who aren't necessarily quippy and a movie that shouldn't be. I know the MCU's known for this, and I HATE it because everyone's humor code sounds and is the same and BP and IM1, the two most significant films in the MCU, show that you don't have to resort to it to make a movie fun while tacking a serious and/or heavy plot.

Timeline - This all happened way too fast. I don’t think Thanos should have gotten all of the Stones that quickly and easily especially since apparently this all happened within a day (or two?) which begs the question: what tf were Thanos and the Black Order doing all this time? If it’s that easy to get everything, why didn’t other people try? He just seems so overpowered that there doesn’t seem to be anything to this story besides the characters reacting and uh......that doesn’t make for a solid foundation for a story. You need characters being more active than reactive. And I feel like one day is just too quick and the Stones are too powerful that it really felt meh.

Strategy - It’s hard to scramble together a strategy when things happen so quickly that you’re put on your back foot and all you can do is focus on surviving, but uh...aside from me yelling about how Tony is right and I feel vindicated, I was a little disappointed because Tony was preparing for this for six years so I thought that we’d see more of his plan even though lbr there’s no way he could’ve planned for the way that things went down. Some other stuff were stupid like going to Titan which I guess makes sense because 1) they wanted the fight away from Earth to minimize human casualties, 2) they didn't know the Guardians and Thor were out there or where they were, 3) I think the ship was set to Titan anyway, 4) they lost all contact with Earth, but...that’s kind of contrived and idk, couldn’t Strange contact someone on Earth? Or use portals? If not, I feel like we should have seen limits to his magic because it just seems ridiculous that none of them would think of that.

Set-up to Avengers 4 - Going back to the timeline thing, because everything happened too fast and at such a gigantic scale, everything lost its impact because the action was relentless and because you know there’s another film coming so this ended up feeling like a set-up to Avengers 4, the way that AoU felt like a filler movie there to plant some seeds for CW. Why should we care when we know we really need to care in A4? I guess we should worry about what things are reversible or not, but I was underwhelmed. Obviously this is unavoidable just because it’s a two-part saga, but at the same time there should be a few things that we really feel devastated and panicky about.

It’s just...you had ten years to work on this, six years of buildup from The Avengers, so much room to be inventive like never before, and a lot of comics to draw inspiration from, and.....this is it? That's it? That's all? Considering how it was so hyped up, I went from thinking it looked like a bland, generic mess in the trailer to hoping that I would be emotionally eviscerated and then being nervous over the past 24 hours that I would be, but nope. I WANTED TO BE A DESTROYED, MESSY WRECK AND I WASN'T. ://///

#iw spoilers

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lampfaced · 7 years

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so who wants to hear the story of how I nearly completely fucked over my hard drive before I could even try to get things onto the new one, all because of a stupid decision and faulty backup

So I got my replacement hard drive in the mail. I have all the materials necessary to transfer things over and install the new drive in place of the old one. But I want to make sure all my software is up to date before I do the actual hard drive transplant because well why not? So I go into the App Store and set up my computer to download the latest OS.

According to people online, sometimes the install takes a long time. Like ten hours long. So I set things up, and go about the rest of my day. Several times over the span of the next several hours I check and see that very little progress has been made and it even freezes a lot. Which worries me. Eventually I decide that the fact that my computer is taking so damn long is a sign I should just restore from my last hard drive backup on my external HD. So I do that right before going to bed. Instead of trying to be patient and let the installation go overnight and see if it had made any progress by morning.

The restore takes another several hours so I let it go overnight.

At about three in the morning I wake up, kinda antsy about my computer for some reason, and I go to check on it. The restore is complete.

But there were items missing from my desktop.

I opened one folder to see how things looked in there and there were only two or three items there. Folders that were years old and full of hundreds of files before.

I have never had such a visceral reaction to something. My whole body went cold, I started shaking, and my entire GI tract decided it was time to wage war on the rest of my body. Extreme nausea, lump in throat, upset butt, you get the idea. Nothing ever came of it but damn it was unpleasant.

I looked back on older backups I've made over the span of last year, and I found that for some reason Time Machine had been picking and choosing what to back up and what to ignore. Thank god my art folder was safe and I'd moved all my art to there from the various other folders I'd had on my desktop for other fandoms or whatever. My music was all safe, all the art resources and art I've received from people safe. I had to go through a few backups to locate some of my folders that were completely missing from the latest backup, and thankfully the contents were there.

But there have been some casualties. I lost all the content of my stitchpunk folder, and all the contents of my SU folder - which was mostly filled with rocks I wanted to make into character designs, references of the show style, headcanons about how things work for some of my own OCs, etc. The stitchpunk folder, ironically enough, I'd already lost before the last time my hard drive crashed, back in 09. That one, sadly, I had not moved my art over from outside of my character references. When I go into the backups the folders are sometimes there, but when they are there are only three or four items present.

It also turns out that with my model of laptop, it actually is recommended by other users not to download the latest OS for Mac because it's prone to problems during download. Oh goodie I probably could have found that out if I'd fucking did a little more looking around before trying to update things. But nope! Had to be impatient.

I'm still working on seeing how much I can find in older backups but dear god. I had no idea the prospect of another HD loss would make my body react like that. Normally my face goes red and my whole body gets hot and I feel frantic, but that's it. I'm still shaky and light headed and nauseous, but not as badly as I was this morning. My brain has also been running all the “if only you had done this, if only you hadn't done this” scenarios by me and that isn't helping.

I don't trust Time Machine anymore after this. I don't care that it's a built in backup program in Macs and before, it gave me no problems, and the vast majority of users have no problems either. Not using it anymore. Enough other people have had problems like mine that I'm gonna steer away from it. I've already found some other backup programs I can use instead so I'm gonna make use of one of them after poking around further to see which works best for me.

#feel free to ignore #v/ent #can someone tell my body to c h i l l #acro was dumb about computer and shit almost got real bad

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moiraineswife · 7 years

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satans-armchair replied to your post“I looove Chaol and I agree he gets a shit ton of hate for no reason!...”

I think it's vital that there's a character that needs to grow to accept. It shows that not everyone is born accepting and it gives Chaol the massive opportunity for character development. Even if he doesn't fully accept Aelin, he loved her and she will always have a space in his heart whether he comes to terms with what she is. I kinda don't want it to be just "Chaol understands Aelin is okay and accepts her" I want it more steady and slow and meaningful if you get me? I don't understand why he gets so much hate either :/ I didn't really like him because DORIAN but he is such a cool character and I want to know more about where he's from and his family and his relationship with everyone he's such a good man to his guards

Okay, okay I agree, I do, I really do but like...okay this is a point I’ve been wanting to make for a while so bear with me (I’m not going to get involved in the discourse Lauren said, Lauren lied) but Chaol is not the only one who has to change and grow with regards to his feelings towards fae and magic?

Aelin reflects in ToG that it’s maybe for the best that her magic/magic in general is gone. Pretty much her entire arc in HoF revolves around HER not being able to accept that part of herself. That’s one of the biggest reasons she can’t shift/fully access her power - she’s afraid of it; which is natural after all the propaganda she’s been exposed to?

Dorian too is terrified of his power because of what he’s been told/taught/the society they live in. He spends a huge amount of time fighting it, trying to control it, terrified of it. It takes them both a long time to accept their magic and themselves and they both spend pretty much an entire book coming to terms with it?

Chaol has to figure out the same things too except he doesn’t have the benefit of actually possessing magic himself? He has no firsthand experience with it but he still spends all of HoF helping...both Aelin and Dorian deal with their magic? He helps Dorian in trying to find a way to free it/hide him better...and he ensures that Aelin can get to Wendelyn where she’ll be safe/won’t be executed if she’s caught because of what she is.

I also think...and idk I don’t know if anyone else reads it this way so maybe i’m way off the mark but I think people misunderstand Chaol’s reactions towards Aelin in QoS? It is not just because of her magic/her fae heritage (he accepts Dorian’s magic, he accepts Aedion, and he works well with Rowan too) the problem is not what she is/that she has these things...it’s what she does with them.

Like, okay, picture things from Chaol’s POV for a second? We as readers know exactly what happened in Wendelyn, we know Maeve is a piece of work and we know that Aelin didn’t actually hurt anyone. We see things from her POV, we are quite literally inside her head. Chaol is across the sea, all Chaol hears is that the queen of Terrasen decided to encircle an entire city with her fire magic...and that’s an entire city of her people, fae, people like her. He’s sitting in Adarlan at this point, suffering from PTSD after what’s happened to him, Dorian is enslaved and suffering and Chaol blames himself entirely for that and then he hears this. and he’s sitting in a kingdom that he knows full well what it’s done to Aelin and her kingdom and he justifiably gets a little bit worried that she might turn that power on his people, his kingdom, his king. (who...she spends...a very large portion of QoS.........trying to kill.

I feel like we forget this/don’t discuss it...and actually I’d like it discussed a hell of a lot more in the books as well, Aelin was flat out ready to kill Dorian. She refused to listen to Chaol. She refused to try. She was just like nope, I know best, he’s got to die, I’ve got to kill him. And I understand exactly where she’s coming from with her experiences but the fact of the matter is she was wrong. The point here is that there’s a lot of things going on perspective wise. Chaol is correct given the information that he has; Aelin is correct given the information that she has and this is why they clash because they can’t see past this, they both have solid, logical reasons that they’re right and they don’t understand things from the other person’s POV and neither does the fandom. This generates Problems.

So I don’t actually think that Chaol clashing with Aelin in QoS has anything to do with prejudices towards magic users. At this point in the story the man is actively working as a leader of a literal rebellion inside the city. He has been working for weeks at this point repeatedly risking his life over and over again to help magic users. And he does this throughout the book. He doesn’t have a magician problem he has an Aelin problem...And it’s a reasonable one as far as I’m concerned. (I’m not saying Aelin is unreasonable but I’m saying that I understand both sides. And there is genuine merit to both sides. And fandom makes this look so much easier than it actually is)

Chaol is, essentially I think, a good man. And what’s most poignant and interesting for me is that he is an incredibly human character. I mean that in the sense of him being..well literally human when there are all these fae and magic users running around but I also mean in his reactions, in his humanity itself. Chaol has always been, I think, what should have been one of the strongest voices for a reader/every day person to relate to?

Chaol, for me, presents a really interesting kind of trope subversion actually? Because he’s presented to us as this big, capable guy, very disciplined, an excellent warrior, an elite guard with a position that carries a huge amount of responsibility despite being at a young age. He’s aloof, he’s very loyal, very duty orientated, very serious and sensible.

But he’s also incredibly moral (I think a lot of these characters are presented to us as emotionless and unfeeling robots who just kill and do as they’re told etc and Chaol undermines that trope and that kind of toxic masculinity incredibly well) And this doesn’t show itself only in him looking down on other characters but he holds himself to those standards as well. Until the end of ToG Chaol had never killed another person before. And the way that he reacts to that is actually...incredibly human? He’s in shock. He seems to display a lot of the symptoms of PTSD in CoM (he stops wearing his sword, he struggles with the idea of him taking a life- even though it was in self-defence, even though he would do it again, even though he knows it was right- it still breaks something in him. He has nightmares about this, he reacts to it in short and it’s an incredibly visceral, empathetic, human reaction which is not something we’re used to seeing from characters like Chaol.

He shows an incredibly strong incredibly human and incredibly down to earth reaction to violence. Like, I’m pretty sure if I stabbed someone and got covered in their blood and they died as a direct result of this I’d be pretty not okay with that. And this is what I mean what I say that Chaol is a pretty good reader voice in these books? Because this is...realistically...how I and how I think most people would react to this sort of thing? He isn’t emotionless. He isn’t invincible. He struggles with these things and that’s human and it’s compelling and it’s interesting because we don’t get to see it.

Usually protagonists just sail through this stuff. They have no qualms, they have no morals, it’s all about ‘whatever you have to do to get the job done’, they kill and torture and hurt people and it has no effect on them whatsoever because they’re Tough and Strong and capable of dealing with all of this. But people, you, me, Chaol, aren’t made that way. Killing bothers us, violence bothers us, we’re emotional beings and this is in our nature and Chaol reflects that nature incredibly well?

He’s flawed, yes. He has a lot of prejudices that he has to work to unlearn but he’s more than that. He’s not just a lesson for ‘sometimes you think bad things and have you fix yourself’ he’s also a very compelling, very broken character in a lot of ways.

I can make a pretty reasonable case for Chaol’s position in the castle being the way in which he escaped from an abusive household (the way that his father talks to him and treats him and emotionally manipulates him is not normal. Nor is the way that he talks about his mother. And repeatedly Chaol not being with his father is referred to as him having ‘freedom’ and giving up that freedom for Aelin’s sake. But it’s freedom. People with happy, healthy relationships with their parents don’t tend to think of being on their own and without them as freedom in the stark terms that Chaol does)

And when you consider his story with that context..it makes a lot more sense. Chaol (a lot like Lucien’s position in ACOTAR at the Spring Court) doesn’t have anywhere else to go and he doesn’t have anything that isn’t this position. He’s dedicated his life to this because it was a place where he mattered, where he seemed to be treated well, where he was doing something that he wanted to do and that’s a huge thing to do if he’s leaving an abusive situation- the strength to step out and actually do something that is fully his choice, to claim his independence and know that if he fails, if this backfires, if he loses this, he’s screwed. He has to go back. And that’s a terrifying prospect for anyone in Chaol’s situation.

So he clings to this and it’s not just blind loyalty, not after a certain point. I think it was when he was younger but he crosses a line. And it’s not just loyalty to the king or a corrupt regime it’s loyalty to Dorian - the first person who likely treated him fairly and with genuine love and compassion. It’s loyalty to the only thing that he has, quite literally, something that he’s given up everything for, something that he very seriously risked his freedom to attain and losing it is...not an inviting idea.

So by the time you swing round to QoS Chaol has basically lost...Quite literally everything. His position, his honour, his king, his humanity. He’s thrust into this war, becomes a rebel leader, is trying to do what he can for people while shouldering massive amounts of survivor’s guilt and PTSD over the things that he’s been through. And he just..keeps going. And going and going and going in trying to do the right thing whatever that may be.

I think that has always been Chaol’s driving force. I think it’s taken the guise of various different things, duty, loyalty, respect etc but it’s always been about that, it’s always been about trying to do what’s right. And before that was being loyal, it was keeping his word, it was doing his job to the very best of his ability. But it slowly becomes other things. It becomes fighting what he once defended, it becomes questioning everything that ever gave him a shred of safety and stability. It becomes taking on a war and a responsibility that is so much larger than he ever thought he would or could deal with and carrying it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

And that for me is Chaol and Chaol’s arc in a nutshell and I....Like that a lot. I like that we have someone who is presented to us as being so, damn human. Moral and breakable and flawed and scared and hurt by the things that he’s done and the things that he’s seen. But he embodies one of the things we so often see with deeply human characters - that perseverance, that will to survive, to go on, to just keep fighting, just keep living, just keep going because that’s what people do, that’s what Chaol does and it’s just...idk dude I like this character a lot idk what else to tell you.

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topicprinter · 6 years

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Your mind races. Your palms sweat. The words don’t come out of your mouth right if they come at all. We’ve all been there at one time or another. And some of us get it worse than others, and more frequently. Social anxiety.Nobody wants to look stupid or be embarrassed. But since it’s not like your life is on the line, why is social fear so bad? There’s an answer…While it’s hard to remember what a broken arm feels like, it’s quite easy to remember all the times you felt mortified in public. So it’s not surprising that research shows social pain is actually worse than physical pain — because you can relive it over and over again:Individuals can relive and reexperience social pain more easily and more intensely than physical pain. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people reported higher levels of pain after reliving a past socially painful event than after reliving a past physically painful event.And the old saying is true: often the fear itself is much worse than whatever you’re afraid of. Research shows being afraid you’re going to lose your job can be worse than actually losing your job:…perceived job insecurity ranks as one of the most important factors in employees’ well-being and can be even more harmful than actual job loss with subsequent unemployment.Epictetus, the ancient Stoic philosopher said this:Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.And the advice you usually get on how to deal with fear is dead wrong. What happens when you suppress your feelings?Your ability to experience positive feelings goes down — but not negative feelings. Stress soars. And your amygdala (a part of the brain closely associated with emotions) starts working overtime.From Handbook of Emotion Regulation:experimental studies have shown that suppression leads to decreased positive but not negative emotion experience (Gross, 1998a; Gross & Levenson, 1993, 1997; Stepper & Strack, 1993; Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988), increased sympathetic nervous system responses (Demaree et al., 2006; Gross, 1998a; Gross & Levenson, 1993, 1997; Harris, 2001; Richards & Gross, 2000), and greater activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala (Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008).But there’s a way to deal with fear and anxiety that neuroscientists, the ancient Stoics and mindfulness experts all agree on. And it’s not that hard. Let’s get to it…How To Make Fear Less ScaryThere are a number of specific techniques for reducing those awful anxious emotions:Mindfulness recommends “noting” troublesome thoughts like fear. Recognize and accept them to let them go.Neuroscience advocates “labeling.” (Frankly, this is a lot like noting but backed by some PhDs and an fMRI.)Stoicism has “premeditation.” That’s when you ask, “What’s the worst that could happen?” and realize it’s not that bad.Neuroscience also recommends “reappraisal.” This is reinterpreting your feelings with a new story that makes them less scary.A random bunch of tips? Nope. So what do they all have in common?You gotta use your brain. You gotta think. Some might reply, “I am thinking, I’m thinking about all the awful stuff that could happen if I embarrass myself. In fact, I can’t STOP thinking about it!”But you’re not thinking. You’re reacting. Fight or flight. Like an animal would.Look, our ancestors didn’t spend millions of years climbing to the top of the food chain so we could respond the same way a lizard does. We have this shiny new prefrontal cortex and can use it to fight fear.In fact, you already have and you probably didn’t realize it…Ever had so much going at once that something which would normally scare you just doesn’t? That’s not random. When your thinking brain — the prefrontal cortex — is highly engaged, it slams the brakes on feelings.And you can use this trick deliberately. Anything that gets you thinking actively can smother anxiety:…resources that are used to perform a cognitive task are no longer available for emotional processes. Accordingly, people can rid themselves from unwanted feelings by engaging in a cognitive activity, such as doing math equations (Van Dillen & Koole, 2007), playing a game of Tetris ( Holmes, James, Coode-Bate, & Deeprose , 2008), visualizing scenes such as sitting in a double-decker bus driving down the street (Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998), sorting cards ( Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990), responding to colored lights ( Christenfeld, 1997), or filling out bogus questionnaires ( Glynn et al., 2002).Now we’re talking about social anxiety, and it’s not like you can start doing your taxes at a party to feel less anxious. That’s okay. We can do one better. What should you think about?Your fears. Yeah, it’s a cliche, but it’s true. “Face your fears.” Actively. With your brain switched to “on.” Neuroscience research shows when we avoid scary things we become more scared. When you face your fears they become less frightening.Brain imaging findings suggest that extinction may involve a strengthening of the capacity of the PFC to inhibit amygdala-based fear responses (Phelps et al., 2004). Several approaches to treating anxiety disorders such as PTSD and phobias have been shown to be effective in promoting extinction. In essence, these therapies encourage the patient to confront the fear and anxiety head on.Stoic PremeditationObserve your fear — and actually increase it. Imagine the worst that could happen. You are stripped naked in front of everyone and begin farting showtunes.I know, this sounds terrifying. But imagining the worst is especially useful with social anxiety. Why?Is someone going to stab you to death for saying something stupid? No. Do you live in a tribal society where social ostracism means you will be exiled and starve to death on the savannah? No.So you’re not really afraid of what other people will do — you’re afraid of the feelings it will cause in you: embarrassment, shame, etc. News flash: you have control over the latter. They’re in your head. And nowhere else.Visualize the worst and you’ll see it’s really not that bad. How do I know? You laugh about some of the embarrassing things you’ve been through in the past, right? So I recommend you just start laughing now.You hit yourself with the worst possible scenario and you can handle it. Awesome. But you might be anxious that you’re still going to feel anxious. Fine, fine. We got another arrow left in the quiver.And this one’s powerful. This guy is the tactical nuke when it comes to dealing with fear and anxiety…ReappraisalMost people think their feelings are realer than real because they’re so visceral. We have a hard time denying what we feel.Well, that’s wrong. Just because you feel it doesn’t make it real. Feelings aren’t a satellite dish receiving signals of eternal truth. Feelings come from beliefs. Change the beliefs and the feelings change.In one of Ochsner’s reappraisal experiments, participants are shown a photo of people crying outside a church, which naturally makes participants feel sad. They are then asked to imagine the scene is a wedding, that people are crying tears of joy. At the moment that participants change their appraisal of the event, their emotional response changes, and Ochsner is there to capture what is going on in their brain using an fMRI. As Ochsner explains, “Our emotional responses ultimately flow out of our appraisals of the world, and if we can shift those appraisals, we shift our emotional responses.”You say something at a party. Everyone starts laughing. You think they’re laughing at you. How do you feel?Hold on, my bad, turns out their laughing with you. Now how do you feel?See? Change the story and your feelings change. Harvard researcher Shawn Achor taught bankers to reappraise “stress” as a “challenge.” What happened? Here’s Shawn:We watched those groups of people over the next three to six weeks, and what we found was if we could move people to view stress as enhancing, a challenge instead of as a threat, we saw a 23% drop in their stress-related symptoms. It produced a significant increase not only in levels of happiness, but a dramatic improvement in their levels of engagement at work as well.Yay, we’re done… Actually, not yet. As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Rather that treating your fear, wouldn’t it be better to not have it in the first place?What’s one of the primary sources of this anxiety? And how can we nip that in the bud?Don't Be An Opera Singerhen you’re feeling anxious in a social situation a lot of thoughts are going through your head: Will I bore them? What do I say? What if I embarrass myself? How do I impress them?See a pattern here? Your brain sounds like an opera singer warming up: ME ME ME.When I spoke to Robin Dreeke, former head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program, what did he say was key to connecting with people? Suspend your ego. Here’s Robin:Ego suspension is putting your own needs, wants and opinions aside.nd Robin’s right. Don’t worry about impressing or not-screwing-everything-up. Research shows when people are meeting someone new they don’t evaluate the interaction by what you said — they evaluate it based on how well they think they performed.So do you see the problem here? Why so many conversations are awful? Because your brain is going ME ME ME and their brain is going ME ME ME. You need to break the cycle. So try: YOU YOU YOU.When you’re focused on yourself, you are literally being self-conscious. And that breeds the fear and anxiety. So focus on the other person. It’s simple: listen to what they have to say and ask them to tell you more.It will make the person you’re talking to happier. Studies show people get more pleasure from talking about themselves than they do from food or money:Talking about ourselves—whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter—triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money…And it’ll probably make you happier:Researchers… found that happy people are ten times more likely to be other-oriented than self-centered. This suggests that happiness is a by-product of helping others rather than the result of its pursuit.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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irenenorth · 6 years

Text

New Post has been published on Irene North

New Post has been published on http://www.irenenorth.com/writings/2018/01/im-not-doing-this/

I'm not doing this

On Friday night, I opened several tabs in my web browser about Donald Trump and his latest, idiotic comments about “shithole” countries.

When I woke up Saturday morning, I looked at those tabs, so numerous that I couldn’t read the title tags anymore, and thought, “No. I’m not doing this.”

I wrote a few columns for the paper about Donald Trump before reporters were told they couldn’t write columns anymore. If I were still writing that column, my mental health would have certainly deteriorated. Trump is about to hit his year anniversary as president and he has diminished the reputation of the United States on the world stage, proven he doesn’t know or care about basic facts about the government and has, in general, made life worse for most Americans.

Many countries reacted to his racist comments.

If you ask my husband, he will tell you about Trump’s presidency. “It really is a shitshow. It’s just one revelation and scandal after another.”

The debasement of the office of the President of the United States of America is a tragedy. Trump has stained our national honor with his overt and unabashed racism. The people defending him on TV look like fools

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) January 12, 2018

I am sure books will be written about the damage he has done to this country, which was already great when he took over. He has made it worse. Amy Siskind has been keeping a weekly list to remind us that this is not normal.

On a weekly basis, the List tracks specific news stories representing eroding norms under the current regime. Taken together, they reveal a nation pushed towards authoritarianism, the wielding of unchecked governmental authority by one person or group at the expense of the freedom of those who oppose them. How is this possible? Weary from the 2016 election, many voters embraced uninformed obliviousness, unquestioning optimism, or an uncritically visceral reaction for or against the new administration. Instead, Amy Siskind sought facts. The Weekly List was born on November 20, 2016, chronicling Amy’s findings. Originally for her friends and social media followers, the List quickly went viral. The earliest weeks listed fewer than a dozen items. Now, nearly a year later, each week brings with it at least one-hundred new abnormalities.

The list will soon be published as a book. I want to purchase it, but hesitate because I have been watching Amy post her list each week. It’s a dizzying compilation of how things have gone wrong.

Since this is my site and I write what I want, I hesitate each time I think about writing anything to do with Trump. I don’t want my blog filled with his garbage. People who read this site know my feelings on all things Trump. If you follow me on my personal Facebook page, you have seen my angry posts when the president and the GOP have gone too far.

So, today, I will just simply list a few of the things that have angered me or are wrong. For my own sanity, I will refrain, for the most part, from writing about the president, his ignorance, stupidity, and general dumbfuckery.

As for the shithole comments, let me say, I am first, and foremost, an American. I don’t identify with other nations/cultures/ethnicities/etc., because I grew up here. I will probably always have a little bit of New Yorker in me as it is the place that shaped, in large part, who I was to become. However, my ancestors came from American Indian tribes in upstate New York, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, England, and if you could trace it back far enough, Africa. At some point in time, most of these cultures and countries were considered “shitholes” by Americans already here.

I am glad there were Americans who didn’t see things in that way and welcomed my ancestors to the shining shores along the East Coast, excluding the American Indians who were already here. They had a chance and I am one of the results of those welcoming arms.

CNN counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd spoke on Thursday about this issue. I encourage you to watch both clips.

If you want to see a shithole country, read the comments in this Reddit thread. Fix this country before you start criticizing others.

I know people think it’s funny to refer to democrats and republicans as Dumms, Dimms, Democraps, Republicons, and Rethuglicans, and to make up new disparaging words for the GOP acronym, but it really makes me think less of you. If you can’t have an adult conversation without resorting to name calling, I really don’t want to talk to you.

For the billionth time, women don’t come forward to report sexual assault and rape because they are still, in 2018, being asked why they did something wrong. Why did you wear that? Why did you go there? What were you thinking? The focus should be on the dirtbag who perpetrated the crime. They don’t speak up because there are still too many people who shift the blame to the woman, discount her testimony, and/or victim shame.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. About. Uranium. It’s been explained here here, and here.

Also, have a big cup of shut the fuck up about her emails. Really, ask yourself why it is only the conservatives, conservative media, and Republicans who keep bringing up Hillary Clinton. She lost. She’s not out there whining about it multiple times per day. They are.

This tweet not only sums up what Trump thinks, but what morons/assholes/racists who adore him think.

Trump's guide to diversity

Africa: Array of shithole countries Haitians: Have AIDS Nigerians: Live in huts Puerto Ricans: Lazy Black Americans: Ingrates Mexicans: Criminals and rapists Muslims: Evil terrorists Women: Treat them like shit

White supremacists: VERY FINE PEOPLE

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 11, 2018

How do you combat the idiocy and still remain sane? Imagine if I had to correct everything Trump said each day?

Yes, Oprah made a great speech and we should take it to heart, but don’t make her president. People forget she brought the world scam artists like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. When she traveled to Europe, she belittled employees at a Parisian shop, shouting, “Don’t you know who I am?” at them when they were closing for the day and she wanted in. She told atheists they really believed in god, but just didn’t know it. She was shocked people left their children outside without fear. She was also shocked in India when people ate with their hands. I don’t want this woman in the White House.

The president is a racist. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it’s true. If you still support Trump, you, too, are a racist.

So, as I close more than 50 tabs and “nope” out of making myself angry on just on one single thing Trump did, know that I am reading his garbage every day. While it is painful and frustrating, we must remain vigilant and continue fighting against injustice and standing up for what we know is right.

I’m just going to try to avoid sullying my website with trying to educate the willfully ignorant and someone else’s pathetic excuse for a life and his constant need for attention. There are too many other, and better, things to write about.

#politics #racism #Trump

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mmwm · 7 years

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Yesterday, spouse and I went to Kezar Lake in Sutton NH, as we often do, but instead of us both walking around it, this time he brought his canoe. He took off from the inlet, after checking in with the Lake Host on the other side of the lake (the Lake Host is there to check for invasive species that could be tagging along on watercraft), and paddled an almost-straight trajectory through the marshy area — and over two small beaver dams, where he had a surprise encounter with a large snapping turtle — across the lake to the beach side, while I meanwhile walked the 3-mile road around the lake.

During the entire hour my walk took (his paddle was considerably shorter), the sound of a speeding motor boat with water-skier was grating on my eardrums like fingernails on a chalkboard. Among perhaps 10 canoists, kayakers, people fishing in bass boats, and folks in slow moving pontoon boats was this one power boat, zipping and circling around the lake, apparently heedless of the two adult loons and one chick in the water.

I watched the boat almost drive right over on adult loon. I couldn’t get the bow number on the boat, unfortunately, because while power boats are allowed on the small lake, harassing loons by being too close to them is illegal.

So dismay, anger, fear for the loons, frustration were coursing through my veins, and the noise of the clamorous power boat ringing in my ears. (I realise it doesn’t bother lots of people, but it bothers me. Sort of like the effect of Mary Hart’s voice on Kramer, in Seinfeld)

Then I watched a young (10-ish) boy in the water with a large (beautiful) doberman dog, pretending to shoot it repeatedly with a stick close to the dog’s face, then splashing water on the dog’s face. The dog seemed unsure what to do, moving away from the boy but not entirely out of the water, barking once or twice, not seeming to know how to respond. If there were parents nearby, they did nothing to stop what seemed to me like taunting behaviour. The dog seem confused, the boy persisted, and I felt sad watching this interaction.

Then I rounded the corner, where a slightly older man, walking the opposite direction, jokingly (I guess?) said, “You’re only halfway done!” My response and the set of my mouth was apparently not what he felt they should be, because he followed up with “Smile, young lady!”

If you know me, you know I don’t swear aloud much, but with the motor boat sound, the recklessness of the boat and the danger to the loons, the way I interpreted the dog interaction, I was this close to telling him to STFU. Instead, because I know that reaction would be unkind, rude, and not compassionate, on the one hand, and I also know it would be escalatory and potentially dangerous on the other hand, I kept walking, serious face and all, angry, downhearted, and disquieted. Definitely not smiling.

When I had earlier met this man on the other side of the lake, with no other people around, and he had boomed out “Hello there!” in a sort of odd way (I felt), I’d had a slight frisson of discomfort, and now I was very thankful I was near the beach, among a small crowd people, even the taunting boy and his lax parents, because I know that what can follow non-compliance to the command “Smile, young lady!” is verbal abuse, attempts at intimidation, or worse.

I left that encounter walking fast (-er than usual) and furious, eventually breathing normally again, eventually letting my senses take over, smelling the air, observing what was around me, feeling the road and my ligaments and muscles as I moved, listening for the bird calls through the sound of the power boat.

A half-mile later or so, I encountered this lovely Yellow Wooly Bear (Spilosoma virginica), who obligingly curled itself around my offered clover stem so I could move it off the road.

Then later a white admiral butterfly (Limenitis arthemis … there is also a red-spotted purple form of the same species) —

And this interesting fungus formation —

I realise that some folks (even some women) don’t understand why many women react so strongly to being told to “smile.” They don’t understand how it’s patronising and demeaning, this auditing and evaluating (by complete strangers!) of another person’s emotions, this assertion of a right to control someone else’s emotions or the way those emotions show up on their face. Here’s some help for those folks:

The Sexism of Telling Women To Smile, in Atlantic: “I couldn’t imagine that my facial expression should affect strangers in any way. I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to just go about life smiling at nothing all the time. It’s pretty nonsensical. Why would I smile for the duration of a 30-minute walk? I felt it was very much about them, not me — as if my facial expression was a reflection of them, I wasn’t a whole person with thoughts and feelings of my own, and I was put on this earth to reassure men they were adequate on a daily basis. And I was viscerally aware that this rule only applied to me because I was female.”

Men, we need to stop telling women to ‘Smile!’ by Matthew Hansen in the Dallas News : “”You really should smile,” a man will say. Or: “Why you so mad? Smile!” Or: “You’re pretty. You would be prettier if you smiled.” In this moment, Rosie Meegan is faced with a choice that nearly all women recognize, and a choice of which most men are blissfully unaware. She can smile, even though a male stranger telling her to smile makes her feel the exact opposite of smiley. Or she can say no and potentially face his wrath. … ‘It assumes that I’m a decoration in your life, an ornament, here to give you pleasure.’ … By my count, I have talked to 19 women about ‘Smile!’ All 19 said it has happened to them. Most said it happens regularly. All 19 said they don’t like it. In some cases it’s simply grating. In other cases, it carries a vaguely menacing undertone — fear is a main reason women do force a smile, women told me. Most depressingly, all 19 women I spoke to considered it a fact of life, part of the tax that women must pay. And here I am, drifting through days during which no one ever requests that I change facial expression.”

Nope, from Shakesville: “Telling people to ‘smile’ and/or ‘laugh’ is not, in fact, nice. Telling people how to behave is an assertion of ownership; it is disdainful of individual agency, a failure to acknowledge boundaries and autonomy. That auditing other people’s emotions could be considered ‘nice’ is absurd.” (She’s responding to a “Do Something Nice” campaign in Vancouver, which is why she keeps using the word ‘nice.'”)

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s “Stop Telling Women to Smile” street art project: “I am not here for you.”

I have male friends (and a few older female friends) who sometimes make it known that they like it (me?) more when I smile (e.g., if I post a non-smiling photo on Facebook, I usually get at least one “Where’s that pretty smile?” or “I’d rather see you smiling” comment). I’m ambivalent about that — when it’s actual people who know me and really might have my best interest at heart, who really might feel sad because I look sad — but my response is totally unambivalent when a stranger on the street instructs me to look or feel the way he wants me to: I’m not here for you.

Yes, being told to smile — generally by men who are only acting on what they’ve learned and internalised, who aren’t intending harm — is a minor thing compared with the kinds of oppression, suppression, violence, and the threat of violence that many people face daily. Everything is relative. But it is a regular reminder for many women that being pretty, seeming attainable and non-threatening, looking agreeable and cheerful no matter what we feel, are what’s expected of us as full-fledged autonomous human beings in this culture, and that when those cultural expectations aren’t met — when we don’t smile on command or if we respond with something benign like “No thanks, I don’t feel like it” — men may retaliate with slurs, intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, and rarely (I hope), physical abuse. As one of the women in the Atlantic article says, just being told to smile makes us feel watched and vulnerable. Being called “bitch!” when we don’t smile makes us feel worse.

A woman quoted in the Dallas News article says that though she used to force a smile in response, and apologize, and feel bad about herself without understanding why, now she “she doesn’t smile on command, even though she’s risking the possibility that the benevolent sexism will turn into something worse — the hostility often reserved for women who refuse to accept gender norms.”

I guess that’s where I am, unwilling to smile on command; it’s certainly where I was yesterday, when I was feeling dismayed by humans and our wanton aggression and destructiveness. And I don’t want to add to the culture’s already high level of resentment, aggression, and anger by rudely rebuffing a probably well-meant (or at least unthinking) attempt at encouragement; but on the other hand, I think I have a right to look and feel the way I do, without being told to change because a stranger is uncomfortable with it.

Being told to smile leaves me with no good option here — either I ignore it, probably appearing rude and dismissive; or I react angrily, which will almost surely evoke resentment and retaliation (toward me or a convenient scapegoat); or I smile or make a joke — one woman says “I’m trying to cut down” when men tell her to smile — but that seems to me a capitulation equal to smiling on command, seeking to help him feel comfortable about her demeanor — and in fact her being.

So men (and a few women), please, please stop telling strangers, and even acquaintances and coworkers, to smile. If we’re looking serious, sad, angry, upset, dismayed, or anxious, we probably are, and you’re not going to turn that frown upside down by force or by even by suggestion. If you want us to really smile, give us a reason to do it: do something kind, say something genuinely funny, or just smile at us without expecting repayment in kind. Thanks.

Black-eyed Susans along road

Walking, Not Smiling Yesterday, spouse and I went to Kezar Lake in Sutton NH, as we often do, but instead of us both walking around it, this time he brought his canoe.

#admiral butterfly #canoeing #caterpillar #cultural norms #gender #Kezar Lake #loons #motor boat #New Hampshire #sexism #smile #smile young lady #Sutton NH #telling women to smile

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