#also preferences are fine it's just when bottom and top seem to become synonymous for certain personality traits that isn't great | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

textileinfomedia · 4 months

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Top 10 Kurtis Wholesale Market in India

Well, kurtis don’t need any introduction because it’s ruling the fashion industry by its style as well as richness. Here, we mentioned top 10 kurtis which has stunning appearance to catch or attention.

Designer kurti- the stylish one:- A designer touch to the fabric come out as designer kurti and steals the heart of women. Along with the intricate patterns and striking combination of colors, it actually looks fabulous to wear on any high-society parties, reception, and cultural ceremonies. The comfort of fabric from which it fabricated, gives comfort and softness to the one who wears it. Fashion designers are always come up with a newfangled collection to endow to the fashion-lovers.

Search for Top 10 Beautiful Kurtis to Try for Indian Women:

Printed kurti- makes your choice delicate:- No doubt, simple and plain kurtis are looking fine, but the prints emblazoned on it keep the look of fabric affluent. Likewise, printed kurtis look simply gorgeous to the female who wear it. This kurti is mostly preferable to wear as casual raiment that every female loves to look stylish and casual at the same time. Delicate designs like natural elements flowers, leaves, and other dainty patterns look graceful and appear elegant.

Cotton kurti- say bye to hot summer:- Cotton is the best fabric for 365 days, but in summer it prefers more by people to wear cotton-made dresses. Cotton kurti is the best choice to say bye to hot summer days. It keeps females comfortable, give the free feel, has softness, and most importantly it has lots of varieties in designs to wear. This kurti is the synonym of perfection. With the countless varieties in designs and colors, it becomes more distinctive to buy.

Fancy kurti- let the fashion speak:- To enjoy a party or any function that demands fancy look, females try their hands on fancy kurti. The mixture of vogue and ease add a new style statement to the persona of young girls who like to enjoy her new look. The fancy appearance with attractive designs and awesome color combination turns out to be the good selection that makes her look captivating. A newfangled collection of fancy kurti embellishes the wardrobe of females.

Georgette kurti- good choice of chic fabric:- Georgette is the light-weight, sheer texture material, and a kurti made from it is just wow. Alluring designs, matching with almost all bottom wears makes it versatile to have in the wardrobe of females. To style up in something new and experiment with the fresh appearance, try out georgette kurti for it. It’s a wonderful choice to make a complete pair along with the jeans, leggings, or any other bottom wears.

Chikan kurti- made with an ancient art work:- Lucknow is known as the center for chikankari work in India. Since the time of Mughals, this artwork scatters its beauty across the nation. Chikan kurti is the perfect example to take. A simple kurti gets an elegant look designing in chikankari work and glimpse graceful on any female who wears it. Various delightful designs and patterns complete its overall appearance.

Embroidered kurti- by bewitching art-form of design:- Embroidery is a beautiful art-form to design any raiment with graceful designs. The touch of ancient form leaves you spellbound when you see the kurti imprinted through embroidery work. It includes intricate patterns with the elegance that it seems us easy, but in reality, it’s not that easy. Embroidery kurti is the flawless choice to wear on rituals, pujas, or any traditional ceremonies. Shout out alluring embroidery kurti for a new experiment.

Long sleeve kurti- a top class kurti:- A benefit of long sleeve is it can protect from harsh sun rays, from cold wind in the winter, but what’s the role of the long sleeve in fashion? Well, long sleeves are also in fashion nowadays. It gives erotic look to the hands with bold designs engraved on it. These kurtis are best to match with palazzo and churidar to look stunning.

Indo-western kurti- mixture of ethos:- Indian plus western when mixed up, come out as the best result. The cut-work in both the side of kurti is general, but the slits on the front, back and multi-slits are the exteriors in western. The gown-style as well as has slits on a perfect gap, and modish designs make this kurti popular to wear on any function.

Catalog kurti- a beautiful bunch:- When you get a bunch of beautiful kurtis, you find varieties in colors, not in designs. So, if the user wants the same design but variation in color, they get with the catalog kurti. The catalog is the bunch, a bunch of anything although; here is the bunch of outfits. This kurti is utilized as daily wear or occasional purpose. You can also search for top 10 beautiful pink colour kurtis for Indian Women.

These are the best kurtis to buy. If you want to enhance your business collection of kurtis, then you must buy these various ranges. There is a lot of wholesale textile markets available in India from where you can buy these alluring raiments at a reasonable price. We at textile infomedia provide you all the necessary details to our clients about textile products and wholesale markets.

Take a visit to textileinfomedia.com and search the best.

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voxofthevoid · 4 years

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Taking It Up The Ass Isn’t Character Growth - A Rant

So, in response to an ask a while back, I said I had a rant brewing on fandom and sex positions, and well, a lot of you wanted to see it, so here you go. You literally asked for it.

Disclaimer: This is going to talk a lot about top/bottom roles in slash fic and fandom attitude towards them and is heavily filtered through the lens of my own tastes and experiences with fandom. I’d also like to be upfront that I am 100% in favor of people writing whatever fictional content they want, and it’s not what fandom does with characters that bothers me but rather how that translates into attitudes towards real, live people. Also, this is the essay version of a slow burn AU because I regurgitate my entire fandom history before getting to the point. Beware.

I discovered fan-fiction around a decade ago, had no clue what the hell it was, got hooked and dived deeper. I started participating in fandom circa 2013, and I was fairly young and also completely inexperienced both sexually and romantically. The fandom in question was Hannibal and my ship of choice was Hannibal/Will. It was/is a very chill fandom in general, but we had our drama. And chief among the contentious topics was—you guessed it—the top/bottom debate. I can’t actually remember any other topic that was discussed and argued for so ardently in that fandom, at least in those days. Even after I drifted away, I came across a few posts on the matter.

Generally, you had two camps—people who supported strict roles and those who were in favor of switching*. And because we’re a society plagued by illogical assumptions, the strict role camp mostly had people who thought Mr. Big Bad Cannibal in the Fancy Suits wouldn’t take it up the ass because he’s older, more experienced, more mentally stable, and of course, more ‘dominant’ in personality. Yes, that sentence is chock full of problematic shit. I am aware. Lots of people were aware and argued strongly against attributing top/bottom roles to personality. I don’t remember anyone arguing as enthusiastically for Top Will, but those voices were also there. But the general idea was that assigning strict top/bottom roles to a male/male couple was casting them in a heterosexual mold and thus, the progressive option was to make them switch. Strict roles also garnered comparisons to “yaoi” and uke/seme stereotypes, which was of course bad and fetishizing and we, the Western media fans, of course had to do better. Stealth racism is fun to untangle.

Anyway, I lapped up the woke juice. Partly because I was a baby queer from Buttfuck Nowhere, Asia, who had zero exposure to LGBT+ communities and what queer folks did with each other. Partly because it was the stance taken by most of my favorite writers so it seemed like a good position to emulate.

Emulate it I did. Most discussions I had about this happened in private with the handful of close friends I had in fandom. Where it really showed was in my writing. I made sure to write switching—maybe not in every fic, but then I alternated between fics. Thing is though, I did have a preference. I liked Top Will. I created and consumed a ton of Top Hannibal, and sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was not, but I couldn’t pinpoint why it made me uncomfortable. Back then, I thought I was a cis questioning/bi girl and once again, the impression I got was that not being MLM, having a preference was automatic fetishization. So I tried my best to justify my preferences, to my friends at least. I think what I said was that fandom was skewed towards Top Hannibal, and I liked the opposite because I’m a contrary fuck. Which I am, to be fair, but this was just me desperately trying to figure shit out without being offensive.

That’s the line I touted all the way until 2018, which was when I fucked off to grad school in A City, finally freed of Buttfuck Nowhere and able to actually date. At this point, I was settled in my sexuality (girls only) and questioning my gender (non-binary or trans guy). I had also tentatively figured out during undergrad that I’m an exclusive top and a Dom. Actual attempts at dating cemented that, yes, those are my preferences, about as flexible as a steel rod. Cue motherfucking epiphany over my fanfic tastes.

And see, over these years, I was engaging intermittently with fandom. I dutifully wrote switch couples. I also continued to have rigid tastes and continued to explain it away as being a contrary fuck—to be fair, until Steve/Bucky, my preference did seem to be the opposite of the larger fandom preference. But correlation, as we know, isn’t causation. Until Steve/Bucky, I continued to write versatile couples because I honestly didn’t have the guts to just say I liked it just one way. I do now but even then, I feel compelled to add that it’s because I want to see my own taste reflected in fic, so I write/read the character I relate to as a top, it's not that deep etc. Would I be as forthright if I didn’t have that reason? Would I have such strict preferences in fic if I didn’t have strict preferences IRL? The latter’s a mystery, but the former isn’t—I wouldn’t be because fandom is still entrenched in the same ideas that got me to this point to begin with.

In every fandom I’ve been in, I’ve seen some version of this debate go around. Sometimes, it’s one party saying “why would you write Character X as a bottom, he’s so Reason A” and a reblog chain that insults the OP and/or extols the virtues of switching. Sometimes, it’s a general-ish message that says they don’t understand why people have strict preferences when we all know real gay couples switch. Sometimes, it’s blanket statements that accuse anyone with preferences of fetishizing. Sometimes, it’s the same reasoning that gets you “Character Y is a top because of Reason B” transposed on versatile couples except this takes the form of “they switch because they’re equals.”

Ya’ll, I’m fucking tired.

I have long since lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen where an exclusive top learning bottom and liking it is character growth. Where a character who prefers to bottom taking a turn on top is empowering.

Isolated, these are fine. But I’ve seen enough of such stories that it’s distinctly discomfiting and a major squick. Sometimes a trigger, if I'm too immersed in the story. I’m not going to try and burn an author at the stake because they pissed me off. I am just going to close that window and quietly handle my shit. People can write whatever they want. But this one theme hits too close to home, as you can see from this 1.6k rant.

My friend (also my ex-girlfriend) and I had an all-out bitching session about this the other day. Both of us are kinky fuckers who have rigid, complementary roles we prefer and we have both had our grueling days of struggling to reconcile our sexual tastes with our ideologies precisely because of how these things are frowned upon in conservative and progressive circles. Seeing that in fandom, of all places, is both insulting and exhausting. Topping and bottoming aren’t personality traits. Neither is D/s. It’s sexual preference and power play. It really does not have to be that deep. I am not exorcising childhood trauma using the bodies of women. My partners, former and current, have not been brainwashed by the patriarchy. We will not become better, more complete individuals once I magically stop being a stone top and my partners embrace the joys of a strap-on.

I have, with my own two eyes, seen someone say that in a really committed relationship, of course the couple will switch.

Bullshit.

It’s transparent bullshit. This does not get attributed to cisgender M/F couples. Even when the automatic assumptions of woman = bottom and man = top get addressed, switching isn't presented as the default. No one’s saying “oh, if you really love your husband, you’ll peg him”. I do know butch/femme sapphic couples get their own share of shit. Because it’s all heteronormativity, right? Can’t have any other reason for top/bottom roles.

You have two extremes with “so who’s the woman” on one end and “it’s woke only if they switch” on the other, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re equally damaging. There shouldn’t be a pressure, however subtle, to conform your taste in fiction to some arbitrary idea of progressiveness. People are going to like whatever they want anyway; all this does is create an atmosphere where those likes can’t always be freely expressed without a lot of mental gymnastics. We’re seeing so many versions of this in the pushback against so-called problematic content, but smaller, subtler versions exist too.

Fictional characters aren’t real. They can be whatever you want them to be. And yes, other people will often want them to be the exact opposite of your ideas, but that’s just how things work. Meanwhile, the people behind these usernames? They’re real. No one should be throwing real people under the bus to ‘protect’ characters that don’t exist. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t care whether he gets fucked or dismembered in Author B’s fanfiction, but the discourse that surrounds the dick up his ass? That does affect flesh and blood people.

I am not claiming that this is the only attitude in fandom. Middlegrounds do exist. Plenty of people abide by fic and let fic and there are folks who pipe up to say not every RL queer couple switches. But it’s often the extremes that reach most people. That was certainly my experience, and I’m not the only one.

I don’t really know how to end this post. It is 100% a rant and one that’s been building up for a while. Bottom line is that people’s sexual behavior varies wildly and whenever you attack sexual tastes in fanfic by saying it’s unrealistic - or worse because let’s be real, that’s a very tame word choice - please remember that there’s likely someone out there who practices it.

* I’m using switch and versatile synonymously in this post. It’s mostly concerned with top/bottom debates. A lot of what I’m saying is also echoed in portrayals of and discussions surrounding D/s dynamics, but I’m not addressing that as much for now.

#fandom #top bottom discourse #wow that's a tag #here it is the rant i promised #because i don't quite trust tumblr i feel compelled to add that this is ofc not some kind of attack on actual people who switch either #you do you man #live your best life #vox has opinions

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micropenisunveiled-blog · 5 years

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How Having a Small Penis Messes With Men’s Minds

I noticed my penis was one of the smaller in the bunch as a kid, when I used the communal showers after swimming, track and basketball practices. So for a long time public washing was strictly off limits—I'd rather drive home from the gym in my sweaty clothes and shower in the privacy of my own apartment.

My insecurities about his 3.3-inch erection affect more than just my hygiene habits. Condoms didn't stay on well, and that made sex more of an anxiety trip than it already was. In a recent bout of obsession, I gathered a "database" of scientific papers on penises and measured myself multiple times a day for several weeks to see how I sized up. Growing up, it shaped me socially, even when my pants were on. Because of teasing from my brothers and some team mates at school I became quite insecure. I had an ongoing fear that I would never grow up, never become a man. I feel that my low self-esteem, due to my size, was a main driver for this. I did an interview with Michelle Malia, freelance reporter on November 3 2017 that was published in Tonic.

I am reprinting the article here.

I suspect that lots of guys can relate to my story. It is part of why I started this website.

THE TONIC ARTICLE

Almost one in five American men are unhappy with the length of their erection, according to a recent study of more than 4,000 men, and another 15 percent have a problem with their girth. You won't be surprised to learn that the guys who thought their penises fell short had less sex than the penis-proud group. "Being small can be the heaviest of burdens. I'm genuinely afraid of everything and everybody alike," says David, 30. "I feel I just can't be truly sexually desirable to women with my size."

There's a lot of dick-shaming that perpetuates this idea. When Marco Rubio exposed Donald Trump's small hands, Trump felt the need to tell the whole country that his penis was perfectly fine, thanks. (On national television. During a presidential debate.) In a Fat Shack ad, a seductive blonde—lips parted, a trail of mustard dripping out of her mouth á la cum—holds a sandwich. "Four inches has never been so satisfying," the caption reads.

It goes beyond mainstream news and marketing and weasels its way into casual conversation. "A lot of the jokes we make in everyday life are often sexually related in one way or another," says Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist and the director of Men's Health Boston, whose practice focuses on the health effects of testosterone deficiency. "It's sort of standard humor for guys to josh each other about masculinity type stuff, including penis size."

Movies and television frequent take jabs at villains and characters by assaulting their masculinity. No one would consider making fun of a man with one arm, or a blind individual. When asked in a recent Bloomberg poll what bothered them most about Donald Trump voters picked one action above all others: when he mocked a reporter with a disability in November 2015. But no one winces when someone makes fun of a man’s small penis. Interesting!

Morgentaler calls men with dick fixations "peno-centric." The idea that the size of your junk validates you as a man might start as early as boyhood. "When we're younger and coming of age sexually, when there's a lack of sophistication about what it means, number one, to be a man, and number two to be a good lover, the thing that men can see and point to and certainly think about is really the penis," he says.

Boyhood is synonymous with inexperience, and sadly, we don't magically figure everything out as adults. Some guys may think they're small even when they're not, but for the ones who do fall left of the bell curve, the best way to get over it is by being realistic about what your penis "should" look like and how important it really is in the long term”, Morgentaler says.

Lots of people never have the chance to see other people having healthy, real-life sex, so they might base their expectations on the sex they do see, usually in porn. But—shocker—porn is not real life. Those macho men are more than well endowed and that can give off the wrong idea, that you need to sport an eight- or nine-inch shaft (also, ow—but we'll get to that later) to satisfy your sex partners.

"If a guy watches 50 or 100 of these video clips, he's going to feel inadequate because he may be smaller than every one of those," Morgentaler says. "But those men are extremely unusual." When researchers sifted through data on more than 15,000 men, they found that the average penis is 3.6 inches soft and 5.2 inches erect. Nothing like many of the massive dicks we see on our laptops.

On a purely biological level, it's also irrational to think size has anything to do with your baby-making skills. "If it matters from an evolutionary standpoint, the best question would be, does it increase fertility?" says Robert Martin, an evolutionary biologist and adjunct professor at the University of Chicago. "The testes size indicates the potential of producing sperm, but I don't see any connection between penis size and anything that would be important in evolutionary terms." There's no evidence that primates have ever used their penises as a power display, he adds, and it may even have little to no effect on how physically desirable you are as a man.

Australian researchers generated 343 life-size male figures that ranged in body shape, body height, and penis size. They projected these "men" on a screen and asked 105 heterosexual women to rate how sexually attractive they were. The women cared most about body shape, which was responsible for 79.6 percent of attractiveness. (They preferred a triangular torso with wide shoulders and narrow hips.) Height came next with 6.1 percent, and penis size fell by the wayside, accounting for only 5.1 percent of attractiveness. "It seems to be a male preoccupation," Martin says.

It's a preoccupation that can be debilitating. Andy, 24, has never heard complaints from sex partners about his 4.7-inch erection, but he still can't shake the feeling that he's coming up a half-inch short. "It lingers in my mind throughout the day on a regular basis," he says. "It causes great anxiety and depression most of the time." Andy started to notice he was smaller than average when he was 19. Like Jase, he also measures a lot. "There [have] been days when I find myself spending a huge amount of time with a ruler next to my penis."

When he's naked in front of sex partners, he often tries to cut through the awkwardness of the initial reveal by being self-deprecating—"It's small, huh?"—but nobody has ever complained or agreed.

It's not crazy that Andy's partners aren't throwing him shade. When it's part of the equation, the penis is an important part of sex—whether it's the real thing or the dildo equivalent. But it's not everything. "How we talk and behave in bed, how we touch, these are all important parts of what makes for good sex," Morgentaler says. "The hands and the mouth and the lips are all part of that. The penis is just one part of the repertoire."

Bigger is not always better, and that goes for anal, too. Research in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 72 percent of women and 15 percent of men feel pain during anal sex. In another study, 76 percent of bottoms reported pain during anal, and for 23 percent of those guys, it was worse than mild.

Not to mention more than a third of women need clitoral stimulation, not penetration, to reach orgasm.

Jace told us that he wonders if he was born bisexual, or if his life experiences led him to exploring sexuality with men, specifically because of his fear of intimacy with women after bad experiences. In his relationships with women he told us that he had used large strap-ons, penis extenders, and sex toys of all kinds before he finally figured out all women need is need is clitoral stimulation to reach her oh-my-god moments. Now I helps her plateau using the basics: his mouth and, sometimes, a vibrator. In his relations with men Jace told us that he is exclusively a bottom, and has come to prefer orgasms through prostate stimulation.

Jace has three decades of life in the books, he's been married and in a long term dom/sub relationship with another man—that's a lot of time to figure out what is and isn't important in your relationships and sex life. Younger guys might need to live a little more before they figure that out. "Every time I hear stories about guys my age hooking up and having one-night stands and even being in relationships, it gets to me because I know I can't ever do any of those [things] because of my size," Andy says.

The peno-centric approach can keep you from engaging with others in all sorts of ways, whether fully clothed or bare-ass naked. Morgentaler recently saw a patient who was worried that he wasn't "developed" down there��despite his junk being "completely normal," Morgentaler says—and because of that, he was still a virgin.

Jace doesn't get regular checkups anymore, because at his last visit the doctor brought in several interns including a young woman to check him for a hernia. "I really thought that I was going to die of embarrassment right in the doctor's office," he says.

David doesn't like swimming or going to the beach because he feels exposed. "I can say with all my heart, I'd be way more happy and have a better life if I had a normal penis," he says.

It might seem like a huge deal when it comes to first-time hookups or one-night stands, but in the longer term, your penis does not take top priority. Most aspects of a relationship have nothing to do with what's in your pants—compatibility, mutual respect, and sense of humor, to name a few. Good sex is also high up there in importance, but using your penis is just one way to satisfy your partner, and it's naive to prioritize size over everything else.

"I would emphasize that this problem often goes away when a guy ends up in a stable relationship, because the couple figures out what they do that works, and penis size is usually not an impediment," Morgentaler says. "The quality of the man is not dependent on the size of his penis."

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meredith-and-lily · 5 years

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Chapter 1

This story starts with a floating girl, a book, and a memory. The girl and the book are in the memory, and though the battle starts much later, this is where the story starts.

Lily floated above her bed and furiously tore through the pages of her book, desperately wanting to reach the climax before dinner. As each word took hold, she was drawn further and further into the story and the world it created within her mind. She reached a particularly romantic scene and sighed as a random thought drifted across her mind. I could do that with Meredith.

This thought was startling enough to yank Lily out of her book and back into a reality where gravity decided to stop ignoring her. She crashed to the floor because she’d floated away from the bed during the last chapter. The first thing she was aware of was the book that she’d crushed under her in her flailing attempt to right herself midair. Then she became aware that her arm hurt - a lot.

Meredith dashed into the room. “I thought I heard a … are you ok?”

“Yep, totally fine,” Lily picked herself up off the floor. “I fell off the bed.”

“Fell off the bed or fell out of the air?”

Lily blushed. “The air. I was thinking something, but I can’t remember now.” She could remember perfectly well, but she did not feel inclined to share her thoughts with Meredith. “What were you doing?”

“Gardening,” Meredith was in charge of the Academy’s garden. She was the only one with a green thumb and she enjoyed being surrounded by quiet foliage.

“I shall, um, let you get back to that. Unless I can join you?”

“Sure,” Meredith did not mind the intrusion upon her space. In fact, she did not consider it intrusion at all. She and Lily complemented each other, though Lily was significantly more rambunctious, and they enjoyed gardening together. Lily couldn’t tell a carrot from cauliflower, but that didn’t matter.

The two passed an hour in near silence, broken only by the bad jokes they made up and told to each other. Lily had the relatively simple task of turning over the soil, so she didn’t need assistance. The silence between them wasn’t strained. They both felt comfortable enough that they didn’t need to fill perfectly good air with meaningless chatter.

At age 15, conversations are as varied as they are simultaneously serious and ridiculous. Opinions and values develop, dilemmas emerge, and abstract concepts must be grappled with. And imagination works at full steam, forgetting that childhood has gone, creating conversations with sentences that would confuse all but the one who spoke them.

This was true of Meredith and Lily, and sometimes the ridiculous and serious topics combined, and the girls would end up discussing the concept of ‘up’ and how the significance of ideas is determined by society as a whole while pretending to be upside down and hang from the bottom of the planet.

It is a rare thing to see a friendship that works so well as theirs did. They were complements but not synonyms, and their respective flaws were annoying, but not damaging. Lily once mentioned the concept of fate, because she thought that for them to be paired so perfectly couldn’t be chance, and Meredith agreed, but only silently.

The girls grew together and helped each other through their darkest times. There was a destructive period of two months where Meredith became obsessed with the meaningless of life and the actions we take. Lily held her when she cried, and helped her move on.

When they were both 17, Meredith asked Lily out. This was two years after Lily had had her startling thought about Meredith, but neither of them remembered that day. The memory is known only to the gods now, and us. Over the years, Meredith had taught Lily how to garden, and Lily had taught Meredith how to fly. One this particular day, the two were seated on the Academy roof, letting their conversation run its course. Meredith finished her statement and looked at Lily.

“Hey.”

“This may sound strange, but would you, possibly like to go out with me?” Lily opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say, so it hung there for a moment as Meredith continued. “I mean, I know there’s not many places we can go, because of the curfew and all, but it could still be a date, right?” Meredith started babbling, staring at the ground below her. Lily finally returned to her senses to realize that Meredith had been talking for at least two minutes, worried that Lily would reject her.

“You know what, just forget it. I’m sorry, I never meant to, but you’ve told me you’re gay, so I thought maybe. Just, I’m sorry.” Meredith stood to leave, hiding her face. Lily jumped to her feet, almost falling off the slanted tile.

“Wait!” A million thoughts ran through her head, about how Meredith shouldn’t fly down on her own, about how she’d been dreaming about this for years, about how Meredith should’ve asked sooner. All that came out of her mouth was a strangled “yes.” She swallowed. “Meredith, I’d really like to go out with you. I … I really like you,”

Meredith had been standing on the edge of the roof, ready to fly down and presumably never show her face again. “Are you sure?” Her tone betrayed her, giving voice to the doubt she felt.

Lily didn’t think about what she did next. She just ran at Meredith and hugged her tightly, knocking her off the roof in the process. Meredith panicked for a moment, but Lily calmed the winds around them and slowed their descent.

“So um, should we kiss? That seems stereotypical though, um, unless you want to …”

Meredith blushed. “Let’s save that for when it means something.”

Lily gulped and gently lowered her and Meredith to the ground. “So … dinner?”

Meredith nodded. “Dinner,” She grabbed Lily’s hand, and they ran to the Cafe, giggling like kids.

---

Lily lied in the dark, her cheeks red from the events of the evening. By now, the sun had set and everyone was in bed, but Lily couldn’t. She could hear Meredith snuffling in the other bed, and smiled into the dark. She flipped over onto her stomach, grabbed the pillow and squealed into it. She fell asleep imagining her and Meredith together at last.

---

When Lily opened her eyes, Meredith was sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed. Her head was bent over the pages of a book, her long fiery hair hanging down.

“Morning,” she yawned. Meredith looked up and smiled.

“Morning. We’ve got an Aqua later.”

Lily nodded. An Aqua was one of the tests their teachers sprung on them randomly, to test the parts of magic related to water. The magic taught at the academy was arranged by classical magic elements; water, earth, air, fire, death, ice, nature, and destiny. Air was Lily’s strong point, which was why she could fly so well. Water was not. Lily didn’t bother to ask how Meredith knew this. She’d gotten no answer for the past few years, and had just about given up.

“Do you know anything else?”

Meredith shook her head. Meredith was a girl of few words. She wasn’t shy, she just had better things to do with her thoughts than to engage in meaningless chatter.

“Frick” Lily flopped back onto her pillows. “This’ll be great,” Lily was in fact, quite competent in aquatic magic. She was one of the strongest witches of the generation and compared to some of her peers at the Academy, was stellar at it. But her weak point was water and had been for two years.

“I have an idea,” Lily sat up again. “You’re good at Aerial magic. Why not find a way to turn the water into something closer to that?”

Lily caught her brainwave instantly. “Turn to water into vapor, and use that!” Meredith smiled in response. “When did you come up with that?” Lily’s tone was grateful and inquisitive at the same time.

“I was just thinking.”

“Well, you’re a genius. C’mon, let’s not be late.”

The girls dressed; Lily in jeans and a white blouse and Meredith in a light blue dress. Then they pounded down the hallway, racing each other to the Cafe. They burst from the doors into the overcast day, Meredith in the lead. Lily spotted a rock and used it as a springboard to leap into the air, above Meredith’s head.

“No fair!” Meredith cried. She grinned and shot into the air herself, though not as gracefully. They zipped through the air, darting around each other like dragonflies. As they approached the Cafe, Lily began her descent. Meredith continued, wind whistling around her. Suddenly, she dropped like a stone. She fell through the air, until stopping herself a few feet above the roof.

Lily looked up at her, annoyed. In her opinion, flight should be respected and used properly, not as a game.

“I hate it when you do that.”

Meredith just smiled. “You love me.”

The girls walked into the Cafe and sat down by one of the windows. The Cafe had been grown by one of the Nature witches and had light walls made of tree trunks wedged together. The windows were made in conjunction between the Terra and Pyro witches, and had bright colors dying some, making art out of others. The table Lily and Meredith sat at was a dark green plant with huge leaves for the top. Meredith twirled her fingers as they sat down, and the plant sprouted red and white spider lilies.

Riane, who’d already been in the Cafe for half an hour, was not-so-subtly waiting for them to enter so she could get all the latest news. She, Lily and Meredith were good friends, although their relationship wasn’t as close as Meredith and Lily. As soon as she saw Meredith bloom the flowers, she made a beeline to their table and sat down.

“Soooo … what’s new with you two?”

“Do you know there’s an Aqua later?” Lily diverted.

“Don’t change the subject. A little birdie told me that you finally asked Meredith out,”

“Has Carl been gossiping again? And what do you mean, finally?”

“Come on! It’s been obvious since ever! Also, no, it was Tyler,” None of the birds on the property actually had names, but it had become a running joke a couple of months ago and hadn’t died since. “So? Yes or no? Is Merily a thing?”

“I’ve already told you, I prefer Lildith, and we’ll see,” Lily and Riane continued chatting for some time. Lily gradually became aware that Meredith hadn’t said anything. She turned her body to where Meredith was staring into space. “Hey, you ok?”

“I’m fine,” Meredith’s reply was directed at the wall. Lily bit her lip.

“You sure?”

“I said, so didn’t I?” Riane looked between the two of them, suddenly confused.

“I’m going to go get some food,” She stood up awkwardly and moved a couple of tables over. As she did she glanced at them a couple of times but soon lost herself in a different conversation.

“Seriously, what’s up?”

“Well, apparently, the entire Academy expects us to date, and it’s not like you bothered to correct Riane when she assumed that you asked me out!” Meredith’s outburst wasn’t loud but drew some curious glances from nearby tables. She glanced around and lowered her voice, “Isn’t this supposed to be an us thing? Why does everyone else have to be involved?”

Lily scowled. “I get that you’re a private person, ok? But what does it matter what they think? They can think what they like. They’re not involved unless you make a deal out of it.”

Meredith snorted. “Well, isn’t this a good omen,” she remarked dryly.

“You know what, fine. You’re right, they shouldn’t care. But they do. What do you expect me to do?”

Meredith softened her expression. “I wonder how Riane even knew,” she remarked. As she spoke, she twirled her fingers and the decidedly non-citrus plant that formed their table somehow produced a few oranges. She picked the miraculous plants and tossed one across the table.

Lily snatched it out of midair and smiled. “Guess we have some fans. I suppose me knocking you off a building is pretty obvious.”

“You’ve done that in the past. Doesn't mean anything,”

“Then we shall have to ask her later. For now, do you know what time the Aqua is?”

Meredith shook her head. The girls sat in silence, munching on their oranges. Once they finished, they walked outside again. Lily tried to grab a yogurt container behind Meredith’s back, using some of the Aerial magic. Meredith didn’t turn when the breeze rustled past her, but she did address Lily as she strode out of the Cafe.

“Grab me some toast,”

Lily did so, smiling sheepishly.

“You have to be less obvious.” Lily joined Meredith outside. “Also, eat less yogurt,”

“Hey, yogurt is good,” Lily protested.

“I thought you were vegan,” Meredith raised an eyebrow.

Lily scarfed down the rest of the container and vanished it in midair, transforming it into a strawberry-scented patch of air. “No proof now,”

Meredith giggled, and started walking toward one of the fields surrounding the Academy. Once they reached the field, Lily stuck out her hand and flicked her fingers. A small fountain of water sprouted from the stalks of grass. She grimaced and increased the stream to a faster pace. Once she had a large amount hovering in the air, she cut off the water and molded the water into a large bubble.

Meredith smiled, and lifted her hand toward the water, and slowly moved her arm to the left. The water followed and Lily frowned. She reached out her other hand and jerked the water away. It shot backward and came to a screeching halt. The quick stop caused some water to detach from the main bubble, and it promptly fell onto Lily’s head.

Lily shivered and lobbed the water at Meredith. Over 100 gallons of water fell through the air, and she panicked. A bolt of fire shot out of her hand, sizzling when it met the water and creating steam. The extremely hot steam rose toward the sky and Lily looked at Meredith.

“You can’t use Pyro in an Aqua,”

“I can use it to keep from getting drenched,”

“Not fair! I’m soaking,”

“I don’t need to practice raising and lowering the temperature of water,” Meredith smiled while Lily laughed for a moment.

“Fine, you win,” Lily laughed. She scrunched up her face and concentrated for a moment. Wisps of steam rose from her shirt. After a minute or two she opened her eyes and pinched her shirt. Still wet.

“Let me try,” Meredith fixed her gaze on Lily’s chocolate colored hair. The water heated into a mass of steam which lifted Lily’s hair into the air. Lily reached up and felt her — now frizzy — hair.

“Woah. You’re good at this,”

Meredith smiled modestly.

“How are you so good at this?”

Meredith’s smile became more mysterious. “Let’s just say I’ve practiced a lot.”

“Why would you bother?” Lily asked, slowing each word as she tried to comprehend Meredith's reasoning.

“I’m focusing on changing things from solids to liquids and back,”

“Like water to ice. Combining Aqua and Cryo magic?”

“Think bigger,”

“Um, glaciers?”

“You could transform anything into air, water, and earth. Anything,” Meredith stared pointedly at Lily.

“Would that include people?”

“Would I tell you?”

At that moment, Lily’s mouth dropped open. “No!”

“Yes,”

“That’s how you get around so fast and know so much about what’s happening. You turn yourself into, I dunno, a pile of dirt or some air, and then you can just listen to people! Genius,”

“I prefer the aesthetic of mist, but you know…” Meredith stopped talking when Lily punched her in the arm.

“Oh, my gods. That’s amazing,”

“Which ones?” Meredith replied. Lily stared at her.

“Which ones what?”

“Which gods,”

“Alaz’s eyes. All of them. This is monumental! Does anyone else know you can do this?” Lily asked, an intense expression transforming her features.

“Not as of yet, unless you keep yelling,”

“Fine, fine,” Lily relented. “I’m calm. I’m cool. All’s good, but still. Wow,”

Meredith smiled goofily. “Thanks. Now, your turn,” Meredith and Lily spent the morning practicing, until Lily was proficient. By then, the sun was high in the sky and it was time for the Aqua. They and other girls at the Academy congregated at the Arena, located in a field across the Academy grounds.

The Arena was separated into different sections for each of the magic types, with a general purpose area connecting the different areas. This Aqua was only for the most advanced witches, both for students at the Academy and other members of the Authorian who were seeking to raise their status/skill level.

The Authorian kept their base in the middle of the woods. It contained the Academy for new witches to train and places for the graduated members of the Authorian to live. The Academy itself contained barracks for the girls to live, the Cafe to eat, the Arena to train, and a set of classrooms to learn about Ermia, the world they lived in.

The schedule of the Academy was separated by weeks and repeated monthly. The first week was used for training and classes for the different types of magic. Then the second week was focused on fitness and combat. The girls learned self-defense and how to use a number of weapons, training them to be fit enough to fight or run if necessary. The third week centered around book studies, in subjects such as magical lore, history, and studying the different species that lived on Ermia. The remaining days of the month were used for testing the girls on what they’d learned and assessing their current skill levels. The girls were also expected to practice during the off weeks in each subject to keep their skills.

Out of the three subjects, Riane was the athletic one, Meredith the bookish one, and Lily was undoubtedly the best at Magic. Riane normally wouldn’t be at this Aqua because she wasn’t at the level of skill as Meredith and Lily. However, she’d recently shot ahead in her Aqua magic and was able to join them.

There were about ten people waiting to be tested in total. Four were part of the Academy and three older witches. All seven were wearing blue robes, indicating they’d focused their power on perfecting their Aqua magic. Riane, Lily, and Meredith were wearing the Magenta robes showing that they hadn’t chosen a focus yet.

That interesting fact was what made the three so powerful. They had about equal aptitude in each type of Magic, while all the other witches at their skill level were equals in that area but much lower in others.

In an Aqua, the participants would enter the water area of the area to test, with their peers waiting outside. While waiting, the witches were not allowed to practice so as to not interrupt the test. Lily couldn’t prepare, so she used this opportunity to ask Riane some questions. She grabbed Riane’s attention and they started chatting.

“Hey! Congrats on making it to the final Aqua,” This level of Aqua was the last one, and upon completion resulted in an Aqua Gold qualification. All the witches trying for Aqua Gold today already had earned Aqua Silver, an admirable rating itself. It usually took a while to pass each test, and make it to the next test. Meredith had been trying for Aqua Gold for a few months, and Lily for almost a year.

“Thanks,” Riane replied. “Who knows, maybe I’ll become an Aqua witch,”

“I think that’d suit you. But, more seriously, how’d you know Meredith asked me out?”

Riane pointedly started at a tree to Lily’s left and went mute. Her expression was unreadable, much to Lily’s chagrin.

“Seriously. How’d you know?”

Meredith was staring at the ground now. Lily didn’t notice.

“Were you spying on us? I’m not kidding, how’d you find out?” Her tone was aggravated, but Riane wasn’t budging. The air was tense for several seconds until Meredith broke it.

“I asked her for advice on how I should do it,” Lily looked at Meredith, and deflated.

“Oh, okay. I’m sorry, Riane,”

“It’s fine.” Riane smiled. “I just didn’t want to rat out Meredith. You’re good,”

Lily stood there awkwardly. Then the girls all flinched when a voice called out.

“Riane Yaney?” The administrator, an Aqua Gold named Zara directed her to the test.

Lily and Meredith were left standing there.

“I hope she does okay,”

“She will,” Meredith agreed. “She’s done Gold tests before. She’s a Pyro Silver, remember?”

“Yeah. So, you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. You?”

“Gods, I hope so,” Lily took a deep breath. “I’m so done with this test. It’s been forever,”

“You were so fast moving through all the other tests. And you have a Gold in like everything else.”

“Except Eco. You wouldn’t happen to know when the next Eco is?”

“Sometime this week, but aside from that, I’ve got no idea. So you’ve got like 4 days to prepare,” Weeks were 5 days long on Ermia, and months were anywhere from 18 to 26 days long. This resulted in irregular schedules, but the number of days in each month corresponded to the god that that month was for, so it couldn’t be changed.

“I’ll do well there. I’m so close! And you are too!”

“I need Aqua, Cryo, and Destiny. Then I’ll be Gold all round,”

“You have those in the bag. Oh, gods. I’m nervous.” Lily opened her mouth to say something else, but Zara called out again.

“Meredith Wurtin?”

“Good luck!” Lily shot a thumbs up at Meredith as she walked away. They wouldn’t see each other until after Lily tested, so they’d all learn their results at the same time. She took a few deep breaths and waited as the area gradually emptied. She was the last one left, and she could feel her heart rate increasing as Zara called.

“Lily Pangin?”

Lily walked toward her, trying to contain her nerves.

“Maybe this’ll be it, huh?”

“Hopefully,” Lily replied. She entered the water area and took stock. It was a patch of dirt and nothing else. In the lower levels, they’d have ponds to work with, but here there was nothing. In the Gold Aqua, each of the witches had to extract as much water as possible from the ground, and control it as well as possible, performing tasks as directed by the administrator. In this case, Zara.

This time, Lily didn’t wait for Zara’s instructions and simply raised her hands to the sky. All the water contained within the dirt flew up into the air in tiny streams creating what could only be described as an inverse bubble the size of a house. This was normal for Lily, but this time, she cooled the air around the bubble, adding to its size. It grew so that it was larger than a barn.

Lily shifted her hands so the water formed a flat disc, then a thin cylinder sticking into the sky, and finally a perfect square.

Zara raised her eyebrow. “Can you hollow it?” Lily gradually shifted the water from the center to the outside of the bubble, forming another sphere. “Rain?”

Lily let drops of water fall, bit by bit. This was her hardest trick. Usually, she’d drop too much water, get flustered, and drop it all. She focused all her energy on keeping the swirling mass in the air. She didn’t notice when Zara told her to stop until Zara tapped her on the shoulder.

“Good. Can you make it a wave and lift yourself up?”

Lily moved the water over her head, creating an impressive waterfall that scooped her up and shot her into the air. For a brief moment, she lost control. She gritted her teeth and regained power over the water. She balanced on a column of water that sloshed around Zara’s feet and looked down.

“Shoot the targets!” Zara yelled up, and pointed at some trees that’d been painted yellow. The paint was special in that the more waterlogged it got, the darker the color. This exercise would’ve been easy for Lily, but she was unused to the volume of water she was dealing with. Her first shot splashed the tree she was aiming for but also the two next to it, and she dropped two feet as her support disappeared.

Her next blast was more controlled, but she was still unprepared for the drop, this time closer to 5 feet as the tree turned jet black immediately.

“Keep going!” Zara encouraged.

Lily yelled and shot each of the remaining trees perfectly until the final tree was dark as night. She tried to lower herself down to ground level, but in one terrifying, heart-stopping moment the water finally rebelled against her and she fell the remaining distance to the ground. She hit the water and the world went black.

#meredith-and-lily blog #meredith and lily #chapter 1 #canon

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yourboatholiday · 3 years

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Want to visit French Riviera and Sardinia on the same holiday? It’s easy! Check our yacht itinerary and do your luggage!

We are about to take you aboard a beautiful catamaran chartered for the occasion. We will set sail from the Principality of Monaco, we will skirt the Côte d’Azur, stopping off in the best French locations, and then we will dive into the Tyrrhenian Sea until we reach the beautiful Sardinia, the Italian’s golden beaches region.

GET THE BEST DEALS FOR YACHTING IN SARDINIA AND SOF

If you’re looking for dreaming a little, follow us on this 14-day itinerary among exclusive locations, enchanting beaches, and a fabulous sea:

How to choose the right boat for French Riviera and Sardinia yachting itinerary?

We at Your Boat Holiday operate charters throughout the Mediterranean Sea as well as in exotic destinations such as the Caribbean Sea and Southeast Asia. Our experience has led us to know how to advise our customers on the right boat according to their needs, depending on whether they want to prefer luxury and comfort or an adventure holiday and maybe even more sporty.

In the first case, the choice falls on a yacht. There are various sizes but in general, they offer large spaces, luxurious interiors, and a wide range of entertainment such as water games, slides, and beach clubs.

Catamarans and sailboats, on the other hand, are slightly less comfortable, especially in terms of living spaces, but at the same time, they offer a more authentic seafaring experience. They are also very suitable for eco-sustainable holidays and have an eye on the environment by using the wind instead of engines.

Whatever your choice, what to do if you are not an expert skipper? Not being familiar with how to steer a ship is actually not a big problem. All rental boats offer the possibility (and sometimes the obligation) to have qualified onboard personnel who take care of everything related to the management of the ship: from navigation to cooking and cleaning.

Relying on their skills means spending a relaxing and safe holiday.

What is the best time for such a trip?

The summer season is certainly the ideal one to plan to navigate the Mediterranean Sea. In particular, the Tyrrhenian Sea offers its best between May and September, when the days are longer, warmer, and sunny and the sea temperature is very pleasant.

What will our yacht itinerary between French Riviera and Sardinia be?

Here is a brief summary of which destinations we are going to visit during our 14-day tour:

Our embarkation marina: French Riviera, Principality of Monaco;

Day 2: French Riviera, Cap d’Antibes;

French Riviera, Cannes and Lerins Islands – day 3;

French Riviera, Saint Tropez – day 4;

Sardinia, Stintino La Pelosa beach – day 5;

Sardinia, Maddalena archipelago – days 6, 7 and 8;

Sardinia, Porto Cervo – day 9;

Sardinia, Tavolara island – day 10

Sardinia, San Teodoro – day 11;

Sardinia; Cala Luna – day 12;

Sardinia, Villasimius – day 13

Sardinia, Cagliari – the last tour spot;

Everything’s ready? Make yourself comfortable, the journey begins:

Among the many places that are worth a visit on a sailing holiday on the Côte d’Azur, the most popular is certainly Monaco. A small autonomous state, or better, a small kingdom that extends for a few kilometers along the French coast.

Related: Top 3 Monaco Grand Prix yacht rentals to witness the greatest fest ever!

Getting lost among the palaces and boutiques is very easy for those who visit it for the first time such as being bewitched by the splendor and luxury that inhabit this place. In the Montecarlo district, the heart of the city-state, typical examples are the casino and the renowned harbor with its luxurious docked yachts.

Antibes is a village famous for being an inspiration for the great Picasso. It houses a museum dedicated to this huge artist. Not far from there is the Cap d’Antibes promontory, dotted with small coves and crystal clear water beaches. A boat tour here is worth an entire vacation. It is a small peninsula that extends for a few kilometers towards the sea and offers remarkable landscape views. It owes its name to the very chic village of Antibes.

Cannes, famous most of all to be home to one of the most important movie festivals in Europe. It is a perfect town for boutiques and good food lovers. You can not miss a visit to the castle from which enjoying a breathtaking panoramic view of the shoreline.

The Lerins Islands, on the other hand, are a small archipelago made up by two major islands located a few kilometers off Cannes bay. The largest, Sainte-Marguerite island, houses the remains of a fort used as a prison where the famous “man with the iron mask” was imprisoned. The second, Sainte-Honorat island, is home to the Lerins abbey.

Saint Tropez, is a luxury and opulence synonym that sometimes results in ostentation. Examples are the numerous yachts docked to their quay seeming to compete with each other in size and color. This town is also famous for its clubs and nightlife as well as well-known beaches such as Bouillabaisse, Caneliers, Salins, Tahiti, and Pampelonne.

Often considered among the best beaches in the Mediterranean and even in the top ten of the most spectacular in the world, La Pelosa is one of the Sardinia symbols in the world as well as the place that made the town of Stintino famous, transformed from a fishing village to a renowned tourist resort, above all thanks to this natural masterpiece. Located in northern Sardinia, it is a must on a tour around here. It looks like a painting and a natural swimming pool made of white and very fine sand and Caribbean-colored water that just reaches visitors’ ankles for tens of meters.

The Maddalena archipelago is located on the north-northern coast of Sardinia, off the Costa Smeralda, in the stretch of sea between Sardinia and Corsica known as Bocche di Bonifacio. It consists of 7 major islands (La Maddalena, Caprera, Budelli, Santo Stefano, Santa Maria, Spargi, Rizzoli) and several smaller islets, bathed by a wonderful and transparent sea. One of the most evocative landscapes in the world due to its naturalistic value is under the protection of the Maddalena Archipelago National Park. Born in 1984, it extends over land and sea for hundreds of square kilometers.

Related: Interested in Corsica? Let us show you our 7 days boat itinerary from Cape Corse to Porto Vecchio

The inlets create a myriad of landings, the colors of the sea are unique and the seabed is a diving paradise. Simply unmissable.

Porto Cervo is located in the north-eastern corner of Sardinia and is the realm of luxury holidays. It is an exclusive seaside village nestled among natural beauties where, during the summer, social events, parties, and sporting events follow one another attracting the international jet set. It’s easy to find yourself shopping with VIPs and celebrities here.

The marina, built in the 1980s, is today one of the largest and best equipped in the Mediterranean with about 700 berths, and home to the Costa Smeralda Yacht Club, a prestigious club that organizes international sailing regattas.

Not far from Porto Cervo is Tavolara, an island that emerges from the sea like a granite colossus dotted with greenery and Mediterranean scrub. An excellent destination for climbing lovers, Tavolara is a mountain 560 meters high, four kilometers long, characterized by impervious rocks and splendid chromatic shades like the green of juniper, rosemary, and mastic, in combination with the blue and emerald green of the waters around. The island is the fulcrum, as well as the characterizing symbol of an unforgettable spectacle: the marine protected area of Tavolara-Punta Coda Cavallo.

San Teodoro is a sunny Gallura village made up of elegant villas and flowery streets overlooking the turquoise sea of the north-eastern coast of Sardinia. Here you will be spoiled for choice among its splendid beaches: La Cinta, a thin and long stretch of golden sand embraced by the blue and crystalline sea, Cala Brandinchi, a white coast and waters similar to tropical paradises renamed, not surprisingly, Tahiti or the magnificent Marina di Puntaldia with its modern marina.

One of the wonders of the Orosei Gulf and the whole Mediterranean, Cala Luna is an inlet carved into the cliffs with an 800-meter strip of fine golden sand in the center that plunges into the clear blue sea. Its bottom, shallow in the first meters, quickly becomes deep and is appreciated by snorkeling, diving, and underwater fishing enthusiasts. The cove is protected by steep cliffs overlooking the sea, 300 meters high and bolted in some points, the destination of many climbers. To the north, the cliffs are dotted with five large caves: inside, as well as enjoying the shade during the hottest hours, you will see the sea enclosed in an ampoule.

Villasimius is the pearl of southern Sardinia, a dream tourist destination, whose population multiplies in the warmer months with the arrival of thousands of tourists. Its coast is made up of a ‘crown’ of beaches, interspersed with small cliffs and the Capo Carbonara promontory. On the eastern side of Villasimius, you can discover enchanting beaches like Porto Giunco, with the Notteri pond behind it, the habitat of pink flamingos, and other rare species of birds. From the top of the promontory that dominates the beach, where an ancient Aragonese tower stands, you will witness a panorama that you will hardly forget.

Glimpses of historic districts overlooking the sea, shopping streets, and panoramic terraces, including the inimitable bastion of Santa Croce, where you can spend romantic evenings after burning sunsets. Cagliari is the main and most populous city on the island, in the center of a 430,000 inhabitants metropolitan area as well as a gateway to Sardinia and a cruise hub in the Mediterranean.

Contact now YBH Charter Brokers:

You can contact us by sending an email at [email protected] or by phone, calling +39 33436 00997, available also on WhatsApp for both calls and texting.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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THAT MIGHT BE WORTH EXPLORING

You can't just say Err to the user of a stove. Though serfs were in principle forbidden to leave their manors, it can't have been the personal qualities of early union organizers that made unions successful, but must have been. And it turns out that was all you needed to solve the problem.1 But investing in concepts isn't stupid; it's what VCs do, and the difference is individual tastes. Maybe options should be replaced with something tied more directly to earnings. A significant number of would-be startup founders are probably dissuaded from doing it by their parents. Money matters are particularly likely to become the top idea in your mind. It's more important than anything else.

Well, yes, but you have to work as if it were inherently stupid to invest in them. Another way to decrease the risk is to join an existing startup instead of starting your own. He knew as well as they were ever going to be negative. For example, once computers get so cheap that most people never seem to make is to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. I have a general idea of the greatest masters did this so well that you envision the scene for yourself.2 Simple as it seems, that's the recipe for success. That sounds right, but is it simply a description of how to be successful in general? Indeed, they're bad in a particular way: they have the same drab clunkiness as anything else that comes out of a garage in Silicon Valley would feel part of an organization whose structure gives each person freedom in inverse proportion to the mere discomfort of wearing such clothes.

One of the reasons kids give up drawing at ten or so is that they decide to start drawing like grownups, and one that most people can have one of their own. Everyone knows computer science and electrical engineering are related, but precisely because everyone knows it, importing ideas from one to the other doesn't yield great profits. Which means for a group of 10 people within a large organization divided into groups in this way, but I found the same problem there.3 But is that more important than that they learn to write well? For competitors, list the top 3 and explain in one sentence each what they lack that you have. Then would-be founders can use this as a checklist to examine their own feelings. You don't need to write anything, though? The Defense Department does a fine though expensive job of defending the country, but they wouldn't now. One is that companies will inevitably slow down as they grow larger, no matter how hard they try to measure, and to him they looked wooden and unnatural. It's hard enough to overcome one's own misconceptions without having to think about how to solve it. This was my reason for not starting a startup. They also know that big projects will by their sheer bulk impress the audience.

Eventually everyone will learn by word of mouth. I got done that day, the answer would have been delighted at first to be bought for $2 million, but are now set on world domination. As we stood there, he said. It's not just a synonym for annoying. The biggest spammers could probably protect their servers against auto-retrieving filters. Which means if you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. Indeed, food is an excellent metaphor to explain what's wrong with their lives, the first paragraph sounds like the sort of place that has conspicuous monuments.

This tells you how much to trust your instincts when you disagree with authorities, whether it's worth going through the usual channels to become one yourself, and perhaps most dangerous, the tendency of such work to become a duty rather than a pleasure. Most large organizations and many small ones are steeped in it. It's this end that gives rise to phrases like those who can't do, teach. Of course the habits of mind to invoke. Though the Web has been around for more than ten people. Experts expect to throw away some early work. Much Renaissance art was in its time considered shockingly secular: according to Vasari, Botticelli repented and gave up painting, and Fra Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi actually burned some of their work. The most amusing thing written during this period, Liudprand of Cremona's Embassy to Constantinople, is, I suspect, mostly inadvertantly so. At the bottom are business, literature, and the weather is still fabulous. Work like a dog being taken for a walk, instead of fleeing as soon as conventional working hours end.

The most valuable truths are the ones sitting back with slightly pained expressions. In the mid twentieth century there was a vogue for setting text in sans-serif fonts. In math and engineering, recursion, especially, less is more. You can sit down with you and cook up some promising project. In math it means that a shorter proof tends to be the one to discover its replacement. Whereas there appears to be great demand for celebrity gossip magazines. Just as inviting people over forces you to think well.4 And this is not a reference work. Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people's mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes. That's what a metaphor is: a function applied to an argument of the wrong kind of people, I like to work with a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders. What makes the nerds rich, usually, is stock options. This problem afflicts not just every era, but in both cases we suggested their first priority should be to find a cofounder, what should you do?

What would someone who was the opposite of down and dirty would be up and clean. So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same place they come to meet investors. And yet Y Combinator showed us we were still overestimating people who'd been to elite colleges. But does it do this out of frivolity? The unfortunate writer would then sit down to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to lead in it, and they all said they'd prefer to hire someone who'd tried to start a startup doing something technically difficult, just write enterprise software. Audiences have to be resourceful. But for what it's worth, as a sort of golden triangle involving doctors, Mercedes 450SLs, and tennis. What you want to know whether to recruit someone as a cofounder. The finance guys seemed scrupulous about reporting earnings. It is possible to slow time somewhat. I will get in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand. It seems that, for the average engineer, more options just means more work for me, because just in the last ten years the Internet has the most effect.

I didn't want as the top one, rather than because they wanted to; they're probably required to by law.5 There are two main reasons. If you'd been around when that change began around 1000 in Europe it would have seemed to nearly everyone that running off to the city to make your fortune was a crazy thing to do, at least, how I write one. Large organizations have different aims from hackers. They're not just beautiful, but strangely beautiful. They would just look at you blankly. It seems obvious when you put it that way too.

Notes

What they must do is fund medical research labs; commercializing whatever new discoveries the boffins throw off is as straightforward as building a new version from which I removed a pair of metaphors that made them register. There are fields now in which internal limits are expressed. But that turned out to be on fewer boards at once, or the presumably larger one who shouldn't? A more powerful than ever.

Look at what adults told children in the world, but less than 1. How many times that conversation was repeated. Till then they had no government powerful enough to supply the activation energy required to switch to OSX.

To do this all the page-generating templates are still a dick move. Become correspondingly more important than the long tail for sports may be to write an essay that will cause the brand gap between the top schools are, which shows how unimportant the Arpanet which became the Internet. The VCs recapitalize the company and fundraising at the exact same thing—trying to figure this out.

Incidentally, this is the way and run the programs on the proceeds of the biggest discoveries in any era if people are like sheep, but they were friendlier to developers than Apple is now the founder visa in a rice cooker, if you don't even sound that plausible. Org Worrying that Y Combinator was a false positive, this is largely true, because for times over a hundred and one VC. If you don't know yet what they're really saying is they want it.

That's the trouble with fleas, they will come at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, they have that glazed over look. Most smart high school junior. The other reason they pay a premium for you; who knows who you start fundraising, because it aggregates data from so many people mistakenly think it was too late to launch.

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walnuttreehealthandwellbein-blog · 6 years

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Mindful and military: Why mindfulness training is a crucial tool for veterans

“Mindfulness is a universal human capacity — a way of paying attention to the present moment unfolding of experience — that can be cultivated, sustained and integrated into everyday life through in-depth inquiry, fuelled by the ongoing discipline of meditation practice. Its central aim is the relief of suffering and the uncovering of our essential nature.” ( Santorelli, Heal Thy Self, 2010)

After the battle is over, the fighting starts The mental health needs of military veterans continue to be the focus for numerous research studies and of concern to the general public.

The estimated demand for services varies widely and the impact of these conditions on individuals, which lie behind the statistics, are frequently downplayed by defence departments in their general purpose communications:

“Fortunately, the rates of conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in our people remain low…” (Ministry of Defence, 2017, p.5).

However, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis from Sharp et al (2015), indicates that the prevalence of any mental health disorders in both serving and military veterans is in the region of 37%. Of this group, they report that between 40–60% of these individuals don’t seek help. It is speculated that this is due to the ‘macho’ culture of the military and the stigma of being consider weak if presenting with a mental health issue. It is reported that of those who do come forward for treatment, 60–70% do not receiving adequate help and that they continue to suffer.

It is reported that of those who do come forward for treatment, 60–70% do not receiving adequate help and that they continue to suffer.

Behind these statistics are the often forgotten families and loved ones who become primary carers for these very troubled individuals and therefore, the overall impact of PTSD, for example, should never be underestimated (Beks, 2016). The suffering reaches far and wide as family members become at high risk of developing their own mental health issues due to the burden they carry. It was also recommended, many years ago, that they too should receive appropriate interventions (Gaskell, 2005). Two reasons why The Walnut Tree will be unveiling a new, unique ‘affected others’ course in Spring 2018.

Although PTSD is less prevalent in military veterans than other common mental health conditions at 4% vs 19.6% (MacManus et al, 2014), PTSD provides an interesting focus when considering Mindfulness Training (MT), because of the involvement of a range of behavioural symptoms. For ease of diagnosis these are grouped into four main clusters namely:

Re-experience Spontaneous memories of trauma, recurrent dreams associated with trauma, flashbacks, periods of prolonged psychological stress Area of brain affected: Hippocampus and Amygdala

Avoidance (of) Distressing memories, thoughts, feelings, or external reminders of traumatic events Area of brain affected: Hippocampus

Negative cognitions and mood A range of feelings including persistent and overwhelming distorted sense of blame of self and others. A significant loss of interest in activities, with estrangement from loved ones and others. Inability to remember key aspects of traumatic event Area of brain affected: Hippocampus and Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC)

Arousal Displays as aggression, reckless behavioural, sleep disturbance, hypervigilence Area of brain affected: Amygdala

There is also a PTSD subtype of disassociation: experiences of feeling detached from mind or body, or experiences in which the world seems unreal, dreamlike or distorted. Area of brain affected: Hippocampus (Adapted from American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p.2)

A unique programme providing the help required The Veterans’ Stabilisation Programme (VSP) is a unique evidence based programme from Walnut Tree Health and Wellbeing C.I.C in conjunction with Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation NHS Trust. It was conceived by army veteran Luke Woodley, who himself suffered from PTSD, and failed over many years to find appropriate help (NSFT, 2017). In conjunction with clinical psychologist Roger Kingerlee PhD and John King, a mindfulness practitioner, Woodley, using his lived-experience and extensive research, set about redressing this paradigm for veterans suffering mental ill-health as a result of complex trauma (Kingerlee et al, 2016). The VSP provides veterans with the discipline and skills to manage every day life. This cognitive based group training helps to:

recognise current mindset and develop skills to change it

understand the psychology behind PTSD to gain a greater sense of control

manage and understand difficult thoughts and feelings

reduce dependance on alcohol and drugs

improve relationships

teach the discipline and tools of mindfulness

Mindfulness, when delivered appropriately, is so much more than any of the recent ‘McMindfulness’ pejorative tags. The research literature suggests, it can have profound and far-reaching positive effects as indicated by some of the latest research for example: cultivation of compassion for self and others (Khoury et al, 2015), reduction in stress, anxiety and depression (Khoury et al., 2013) and increase in positive moods (Eberth & Sedlmeier, 2012). Such evidence would suggest that MT has earned its place in the psycho-education of veterans to help them better self-manage their mental health issues (Khusid et al, 2016).

The brain’s most important job and how it is affected by PTSD Current research is particularly useful in improving our understanding of what happens to the human brain that is ‘suffering’ the effects of PTSD. The work of Mahan and Ressler (2012), reviews how the neural pathways associated with PTSD in humans is linked to the neural pathways relating to fear.

These pathways belong to the limbic system synonymous with emotional processing. The three brain areas most affected by PTSD are the amygdala, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

Source: Mahan, A. L and Ressler, K. J., (2012) A schematic of the human brain showing how the limbic system is involved in PTSD. In: Fear conditioning, synaptic plasticity and the amygdala: implications for post traumatic stress disorder. Trends in Neuroscience

The most important job of the brain is to ensure survival at all costs.

The most important job of the brain is to ensure survival at all costs. To be able to do this effectively it needs to be able to achieve the following:

signal what the body requires moment to moment eg: food, sleep, sex

develop a ‘map of the world’ to know where to safely find what will satisfy

create the appropriate action and energy to get there

highlight threats and opportunities along the way

modify actions to suit current situation

Each structure in the brain works towards one or more these aims. The primitive, reptilian (bottom) part of the brain is responsible for all the life sustaining activities of a human being; for example eating, sleeping and breathing. It is responsible for maintaining an internal balance called homeostasis. Any one of these myriad of functions can become unbalanced and cause psychological problems.

Above the primitive brain sits the limbic system which is common to all animals that nurture their young and live together in groups. This is the seat of preferences (likes and dislikes), emotions and the centre of dealing with the rigours of living in complex social settings. The reptilian brain and the limbic system form ‘the emotional brain’. It acts like a welfare officer, looking out for threats and acting accordingly without any reference to the ‘thinking’ part of the brain called the neocortex.

When under a perceived threat, it will automatically run ‘preset’ programmes like the flight, freeze or fight responses. It is in these parts of the brain where the amygdala and hypothalamus can be found (see diagram).

The amygdala acts like the body’s alarm system, monitoring stimuli picked up via the body’s sense organs. If the thalamus has failed to make sense of these sensations, as it does in PTSD, and allows them to become fragmented, the hippocampus, which is responsible for normal memory processing breaks down, causing time to ‘freeze’ giving the impression that the incoming danger will last forever. The alarm is triggered. Heart rate is increased and blood pressure rises, the body could already be on the move before the rational brain has had time to think. The body is now awash with potent stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. Under normal circumstances, when the threat is over the body returns to a state of homeostasis.

The prefrontal lobes of the neocortex (PFC — top brain), which sits upper most in the brain, is the site of humans’ ability to reflect, plan, imagine and empathise with others. It is here that the fine edge between impulsive behaviour and acceptable behaviour occurs — this is where choice is made. It plays a ‘command centre’ role. It is the place of discernment. If fear is felt and smoke is detected, this allows for rational thought to occur around is there immediate danger in the home or has a neighbour just lit a bonfire. In PTSD, the amygdala is hyper-responsive and the hippocampus and the PFC show reduced activation, the balance has shifted and the symptoms of PTSD start to show. If balance is to be restored there are two options, work on regulating from the top-down or the bottom-up. For Bessel Van Der Kolk, one of the world’s leading experts on traumatic stress, “mindfulness… is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma.” (Der Kolk, 2014, p.96) If the PFC is to be strengthened (top down) working with mindfulness to become more aware of the body’s sensations is a good place to start. Formal practices around the body scan and mindful movement can be helpful here (Farb et al, 2007).

Bottom up regulation via the ‘emotional’ brain can again call upon mindfulness to assist, for example via breathing practices as the breath is both under the influence of both the conscious and autonomic control (Taren et al, 2015).

Christine Forner, a registered clinical social worker with over 17 years of working with complex trauma, takes the importance of mindfulness in the recovery of traumatised individuals one stage further. She postulates that a traumatised brain functions mindlessly or at least is absent of mindfulness. She regards a well functioning medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as the epitome of mindfulness. This is based, in part, on Siegel’s work The Mindful Brain (2007) around the nine functions of the mPFC:

body regulation

attuned communication

emotional balancing

response flexibility

empathy

insight

conditioned fear modulation

intuition

morality

It appears that Forner doesn’t just want to return her clients to where they were, but sees the opportunity for growth through trauma informed mindfulness practices. Experience at The Walnut Tree would support this. “It is knowing how hard it is to become mindful when someone has been dissociating that we can figure out how to help our clients get back on track and find within themselves the place of mindful contentment.” (Forner, 2017, p.41)

Through understanding of what is happening in the various areas in the brain when under the influence of PTSD, those who specialise in the alleviation of trauma can begin to align MT appropriately. In short, different mindfulness practices can be targetted to work on the various affected parts of the brain and this should be a major consideration in any design of a MT course.

The VSP does not sit in glorious isolation at Walnut Tree Health and Wellbeing. The organisation has been built on a foundation of mindfulness and compassion for ourselves and others. Mindfulness meditation is practised by all the directors and there is a non-judgmental and compassionate culture. As the statistics show many of those suffering from trauma will not present unless the environment is perceived as welcoming.

The definition of mindfulness that is used on the course highlights that mindfulness is a skill that can be learnt. It ‘promises’ a way of coping with upcoming experiences. An emphasis is place on this new found practice as being a part of daily life, it stresses that it is a discipline — an attitude that is highly understood by military personnel.

It explains the purpose of mindfulness training — the relief of suffering.

Sue Wright is Director, Operations and a Wellbeing and Recovery Coach at Walnut Tree Health and Wellbeing C.I.C, headquartered in Norfolk, UK. She served with the Royal Navy and is now studying for an MSc in Mindfulness Studies at University of Aberdeen. Sue is powered by tea.

Bibliography AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION (APA), (2013), Post Traumatic Stress DisorderVirginia : APA. BEKS, T. A., (2016). Walking on Eggshells: The Lived Experience of Partners of Veterans with PTSD. The Qualitative Report, (21)(4), pp. 645–660. DER KOLK VAN, B., (2014). The Body Keeps The Score. St Ives: Penguin Random House UK.

EBERTH, J. & SEDLMEIER, P. (2012). The effects of mindfulness meditation: A meta-analysis. Mindfulness, (3), pp.174–189.

FARB, N. A., SEGAL, Z. V., MAYBERG, H., BEAN, J., MCKEON, D., FATIMA, Z. and ANDERSON, A. K., (2007). Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, (2)(4), pp. 313–322.

FORNER, C.C., (2017). Dissociation, mindfulness and creative meditations. New York: Routledge.

GASKELL, A., (2005). Post traumatic stress disorder: The Management of PTSD in Adults and Children in Primary and Secondary Care. NICE Clinical Guidelines, (26) (11), [Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56486/].

KHOURY, B., LECOMTE, T., FORTIN, G., MASSE, M., THERIEN, P., BOUCHARD, V., HOFMANN, S. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, (33), pp.763–771.

KHOURY, B., SHARMA, M., RUSH, S., & FOURNIER, C. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, (78), pp.519–528. KINGERLEE, R., WOODLEY, L and KING, J., (2016) Developing male-friendly interventions and services. Clinical Psychology Forum, (285), pp.41–47.

MACMANUS, D., JONES, N., WESSELY, S., FEAR, N.T., JONES, E. and GREENBERG, N., (2014) The mental health of the UK Armed Forces in the 21st century: resilience in the face of adversity. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps (0), pp.1–6.

MAHAN, A.L and RESSLER, K. J., (2012) Fear conditioning, synaptic plasticity and the amygdala: implications for post-traumatic stress disorder. Trends in Neurosciences (35)(1), pp.24–35.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (MOD), (2017), Defence People Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2017–2022 London: OCL.

NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK FOUNDATION NHS TRUST (NSFT), (2017), Veterans’ Stabilisation Programme. Norwich: NSFT.

SANTORELLI, S., (2010). Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine. New York: Bell Tower (Kindle edition).

SHARP, M., FEAR, N.T., ROMA, R. J., WESSELY, S., GREENBERG, N., JONES, N. and GOODWIN, L., (2015) Stigma as a Barrier to Seeking Health Care Among Military Personnel With Mental Health Problems, Epidemiologic Reviews, 37(1), pp.144–162.

SIEGAL, D. J., (2007). The Mindful Brain in Human Development: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-being. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. TAREN, A. A., GIANAROS, P. J., GRECO, C. M., LINDSAY, E. K., FAIRGRIEVE, A., BROWN, K. W., ROSEN, R. K., FERRIS, J. L., JULSON, E., MARSLAND, A. L., BURSLEY, J. K., RAMSBURG, and CRESWELL, J. D., (2015). Mindfulness meditation training alters stress-related amygdala resting state functional connectivity: a randomized controlled trial. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, (10)(12), pp. 1758–1768.

#Mindfulness #Military veterans #Recovery #PTSD #Trauma

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