#it's about accountability but also about inevitable change and the willingness to learn from the past

[commsroom]

there's an interesting statement being made about identity if you accept all of the wolf 359 characters are equally themselves as of the finale: eiffel is form without memory; hera is memory without form; lovelace is both, but without continuity of experience; minkowski is both with continuity - and she's still not the same person that goddard recruited. if we're never the same people we were, but we're always ourselves, then the only way the self can be defined is through its own assertion - and maybe it can be argued that "my name is-" (and later, being able to say "my name is hera" reintroducing herself to pryce) and "i am captain isabel lovelace. no matter how hard you try, you are not taking that away from me" and "without me, who are you?" / "renée minkowski, and that is more than enough to kick your ass" are all the set up for (and part of the answer to) "am i still doug eiffel?"

#wolf 359 #w359 #it's about accountability but also about inevitable change and the willingness to learn from the past #and change for the better #holding those maybe contradictory ideas in your head #that we can't escape who we are. the limitations of the self or the people we've been in the past. but also #that there's no permanent state of self we're bound to #that the self is a constant negotiation of presentation and communication with others and can't exist in a vacuum #but also that it is about inherent worth and self-defined and self-named #i think that line is so interesting. 'we can't just change who we are but we get better.' #because depending on how you interpret it it either supports or contradicts this philosophy #and i think the difference in how hera interpreted it vs how maxwell might've meant it is part of how they misunderstood each other #and why it's an idea that stuck with hera and that she returns to. and feels like it was a lie. after maxwell betrays her #but that's another discussion maybe. #and also of course. the significance of names in wolf 359. but that's a whole thing on its own too.

[ijustliketoreadstuff]

The mistake that exposed Luka

Ever since Luka found out about Ladybug and Cat Noir’s identities, Luka had done the best he could to ensure that no matter what he knew about the two heroes, he wouldn't let it affect him in any negative way as he was fully aware that Monarch was constantly on the prowl for negative emotions. Instead, Luka had decided to look at his new knowledge in a different light. 

In “Migration”, when Marinette looks to Luka for advise about her troubles, she does at first feel guilty for asking him for help on account of that she broke his heart back in “Truth”. However, knowing now that it was because of the weight of Marinette’s responsibilities as Ladybug that ultimately left her no other choice but to break up with him, Luka had learned to make peace with their past relationship, after all, he got his answer as to why their relationship struggled, and in the end, Luka understood it was neither his nor Marinette’s fault they broke up. They both agreed to start a relationship, but inevitably realized that things between them just couldn't work out as a result of their personal matters.

(Luka quickly realizing back in “Truth” that Marinette is unable to commit to their relationship, but had no idea why)

Rather than succumb to the pain of his broken heart, Luka had decided to learn from his experience, allowing him to not only look past the troubles of his relationship with Marinette to repair their friendship, but to also learn a little more about himself throughout the whole process, inspiring him to even make new songs that were sometimes sad, and other times cheerful.

Realizing now that Marinette and Adrien were just doing the best they could with the life they were living, as both civilians and heroes,  Luka had decided that if either of them felt troubled about their lives, they would at least know that he would always be there for them. If they needed him, they knew where to find him, and as we saw in “Migration”, the two would do just that, never knowing Luka knew the struggles they were hiding behind their secret lives. However, from what we now understand, they were not the only ones Luka was helping.

Due to Luka’s caring and insightful nature, many people looked to him as  someone who could help them sort out their troubles and complicated feelings. And more often than not, the people he talked to were able to gain some much needed insight about their lives and obtain good advise from him about how to deal with their problems. For Luka, it was normal to see people make an effort to better themselves, and if he was able to look past peoples differences to help them and himself be a better person, then he was willing to trust that others were also able to make the effort to take what they had learned about themselves, with or without his help, and strive to change themselves for the better, rather than let their past actions and choices take the better of them. Unfortunately, what ultimately sealed Luka’s downfall, was his willingness to look past peoples differences and mistakes, and trust that if they were willing to acknowledge themselves, then they deserved just as much a chance as anyone.

(Bob attempts to convince everyone he has turned a new leaf and is willing to change things for the better)

When Bob Roth realized it would be no easy feat to recruit Luka, he decided to take advantage of Luka’s kind nature by making it seem like he wanted to take Luka’s word on the matters of changing and was now capable of admitting that he was not always honest to people like Anarka in the past, let alone to Kitty section when he promised them a record deal back in “Silencer”. By making it seem like he was willing to set aside his past to focus on being a better man, and a better record producer who would do everything he could to provide Luka and his  friends the attention and recognition they deserved for their hard work, Luka had decided to stick by his word that anyone can change, and even the worst of people deserved a second chance, so if Bob was willing to acknowledge his past actions and actually tell them how he planned to commit himself to making things up to them, then it was worth a shot to give him a chance as well. 

However, much to Luka's dismay, Bob had no intention to change his ways and was instead willing to do whatever he could to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was to recruit Luka so he could provide him a series of new songs that would bring him a higher profit than Jagged, especially since Jagged had now attempted to focus more of his attention on his family rather than producing new songs.

(Luka’s attempts to give Bob a chance nearly get him akumatized the moment he realizes Bob had every intention to take advantage of him and destroy the band his friends worked hard to build)

Luka’s attempts to trust Bob not only narrowly got him akumatized, but it had also unfortunately put a target on his back now that Monarch was aware Luka knew of both Ladybug and Cat Noir’s secret identities. Although Ladybug and Cat Noir were able to save the day near the end, Luka had decided to take responsibility for unintentionally tipping off Monarch that he knew of the heroes identities, by deciding it be best for him to leave Paris so Monarch would be unable to track him, after all, even if Ladybug and Cat Noir managed to defeat Gold Record, Monarch still knew who he was, where he lived and who his family was. 

Rather than hide things, Luka gave everyone solace in confiding with them that he needed to leave because he knew Ladybug and Cat Noir’s identities, and even though Adrien and Marinette wanted to persuade him to stay, as they were both determined to protect him at all costs, Luka knew it was not worth putting him as the top priority when the heroes top priority should be to defeat Monarch and retrieve the miraculous to free Paris. By trusting the people closest to him with his secret, without actually telling them who Ladybug and Cat Noir really were, Luka had ensured they would understand that his decision was simply something he needed to do, not just for his sake, but for the sake of everyone he cares about, something Marinette and Adrien understood well, given their hero lives revolved around making tough decisions.

Although Luka was kind enough to give anyone a chance, his experience with Bob had taught him the hard way that although anyone can change, not everyone wants to, and even though he now realizes people like Bob didn’t want to acknowledge their mistakes and sacrifice their privileges to commit to changing themselves, he understood there will always be others who will find the determination to want to be better upon realizing the error of their ways, something Luka was happy to learn his mother and father took a little more to heart. 

(Jagged renounces his life of fame and fortune to focus on being a better father)

(Anarka agrees to give Jagged a chance)

Realizing that Luka was able to stand up to Bob and refuse the temptation of fame and fortune, Jagged had decided to follow his sons lead and also give up the life of fame and fortune so he could commit to being a better father for his family, after all, its just as Luka said, money and contracts are just paper, it can never replace friends and family. Anarka in turn, understood she needed to try and think of others like she would with her children and give them a chance to not only talk, but show her they are more than the people she assumed would only get on her nerves and should be thrown off her boat on sight. 

With Luka away, only time will tell how his family and his friends will handle life without his presence, and with Monarch determined to obtain the information of Ladybug and Cat Noir's identities from him, no one knows what he will be willing to do the moment he realizes Luka is far out of his reach.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #tales of ladybug and cat noir #thomas astruc #ml s5 spoilers #mlb s5 spoilers #ml s5 analysis #ml migration analysis #mlb migration #luka couffaine #ml viperion #marinette dupain cheng #ml ladybug #adrien agreste #ml cat noir #jagged stone #anarka Couffaine #bob roth

[halforcdad]

love that the camera panned to Whistler when Ernie mentioned a “cheat code”, yes it’s because she was having the revelation about Alina being the key, but also because Whistler in a way is NCIS’s cheat code and secret weapon in tandem with Ernie most of the time 

no she’s not marching out into the field with them 99% of the time to nab the suspect or save the victim with cool ass fighting skills, but she is still working her ass off behind the scenes, doing the tedious, but necessary research and pulling her connections to help them solve their cases and getting them out of situations safely (here we go again):

just off the top of my head, Whistler gets them the list of names in 1x01, sends the FBI to help Tennant and Jesse in 1x06, helps Lucy and Ernie work out the Clark Lohan stuff and figure out what his real goal is in 1x10, is invited onto the team for good reason and delivers during the Maggie Shaw case, literally everything that happened in 1x17 and 1x20, and helps them figure out who the Freeloffs are and how to crack David in 1x21, asks her friend for assistance to get a lead in the 1x22 to find Babin, sure some of this you can explain away as Whistler just doing her job and doing what she should as an intel officer/special agent, theoretically you could say any other DIA officer or FBI agent could do what Whistler does for the team adequately and decently 

but Whistler is quick and efficient and she’s analytical, does all the research, she comes prepared, checks all her work twice makes sure to dot all her i’s and cross her t’s and knows how to get what she wants, she’s just very good at her job plain and simple (there’s a reason D.C. wanted her in a big managerial position) she bounces off the team well and gets them what they need without needing to be asked twice and never complains, and half of the help Whistler gives is offered when she’s not even on duty, she’s making time and exceptions for the team and she proves herself worthy of their trust and belief in her time and time again, it’s why even if you take away the Lucy stuff and the ease of having already known and developed a rocky relationship with her before her FBI transfer, they keep going back to her even if she’s not an official liaison between the departments, Whistler always pulls through

she is the cheat code you cannot account for because she is not NCIS and brings an outside perspective and skillset, but she has been heavily influenced by them, she is the cheat code because she has a reputation that comes with expectations and behavior you expect from her but then she surprises you, she’s a different person now, it’s the love given to her and the love she has for Lucy, the way the team just wants to see them both happy and cared for, her blatant honesty and transparency and willingness to be open and raw, her willingness to put everything on the line to protect the one she loves most when appealing to Alina that wouldn’t have been there in the beginning of the season, that’s only come after a long season of toiling with her emotions. rethinking her life and goals, of realizing her mistakes and earnestly trying to fix them and ultimately the growth that’s come from that, that inevitably appeals to Alina and gets her to share what she knows, Whistler is a cheat code because she’s learning to adapt and change and not be stuck in her ways because of the power of love, Whistler not caring that Alina thinks she's foolish to for telling her how much she cares because Whistler caring and loving is what saves the day 

#ncis hawaii #kate whistler #kacy #in case my 100 posts didnt give it away im a staunch whistler supporter #i havent loved both members of a ship so much in a while wth #there was just so much whistler this episode i was pleasantly surprised they really did right by kacy this finale #the power of falling in love with one dazzling lucy tara life changing stuff i tell you

[strengthforchange]

Harnessing Inner Strength for Positive Change

In the journey of life, change is inevitable. Whether it's striving for personal growth, navigating through challenges, or pursuing our dreams, the ability to embrace change is crucial. At Strengthforchange.com, we recognize the profound connection between mental health and one's capacity to initiate and sustain change. Our mission is to empower individuals to tap into their inner strength, break free from limiting beliefs, and embark on a path of positive transformation.

Strength is not merely physical; it encompasses resilience, determination, and the willingness to adapt. It resides within each of us, waiting to be awakened and utilized to navigate life's twists and turns. However, harnessing this strength requires introspection, courage, and sometimes, external support.

At Strengthforchange.com, we provide personalized services tailored to meet the unique needs of our clients. Through counseling, coaching, and therapeutic interventions, we guide individuals towards self-discovery and empowerment. Our team of experienced professionals collaborates with clients to identify obstacles, explore underlying emotions, and develop strategies for sustainable change.

One of the fundamental aspects of fostering change is recognizing the power of mindset. Our beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions shape our reality and influence our actions. By cultivating a growth-oriented mindset, individuals can overcome self-doubt and embrace the challenges that come with change. Through cognitive-behavioral techniques and mindfulness practices, we help clients reframe negative thoughts, build resilience, and cultivate a sense of optimism about the future.

Moreover, change often requires stepping out of comfort zones and confronting fears. It involves taking calculated risks and being open to new possibilities. Our therapeutic approach emphasizes creating a safe and supportive environment where clients can explore their vulnerabilities and experiment with new behaviors. We encourage them to embrace discomfort as a catalyst for growth and view setbacks as valuable learning opportunities.

Another crucial aspect of fostering change is building a strong support system. Surrounding oneself with positive influences, whether friends, family, or mentors, can provide invaluable encouragement and accountability. At Strengthforchange.com, we not only offer individualized support but also facilitate group therapy sessions and community events where clients can connect with like-minded individuals and draw inspiration from each other's journeys.

Ultimately, the journey towards change is a deeply personal one, but it doesn't have to be traveled alone. With the right guidance, resources, and support, individuals can tap into their inherent strength and unlock their full potential. At Strengthforchange.com, we invite you to take the first step towards a brighter future. Find the strength to make a change today, and let us accompany you on your transformative journey.

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[giga-courses]

Zero to Dangerous: Unleashing Your Full Potential

"Zero to Dangerous" is a concept that embodies the journey of transforming oneself from a state of mediocrity or inaction to one of remarkable capability and impact. It represents the process of unleashing one's full potential and transcending limitations to achieve extraordinary results.

The path from Zero to dangerous involves several key elements. First and foremost, it requires a mindset shift—a willingness to embrace discomfort, take risks, and step outside of one's comfort zone. This mindset is characterized by a hunger for growth, a thirst for knowledge, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. It involves challenging self-imposed limitations, questioning societal norms, and redefining what is possible.

Equally important is the cultivation of discipline and perseverance. Moving from zero to dangerous requires consistent effort, dedication, and a commitment to continuous improvement. It entails setting clear goals, developing effective habits, and maintaining a strong work ethic. Embracing failure as an opportunity for growth and learning is also crucial, as setbacks and obstacles are an inevitable part of the journey.

Building a strong support network is another critical aspect of the zero to dangerous process. Surrounding oneself with like-minded individuals who share a similar drive and ambition can provide motivation, accountability, and valuable insights. Collaborating with mentors, coaches, or role models who have already achieved remarkable success can offer guidance, inspiration, and valuable lessons learned along their own journeys.

Additionally, acquiring and mastering new skills is essential for moving from zero to dangerous. This may involve investing time in deliberate practice, seeking out opportunities for learning and development, and continuously honing one's abilities. The acquisition of knowledge and the development of expertise in a particular domain enable individuals to make significant contributions and have a lasting impact.

Embracing innovation and adaptability is also crucial in the pursuit of going from zero to dangerous. In a rapidly changing world, being open to new ideas, embracing technology, and adapting to evolving circumstances are vital for staying relevant and pushing boundaries. This mindset encourages experimentation, creativity, and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom.

Ultimately, the journey from zero to dangerous is an ongoing process that requires self-reflection, self-awareness, and a commitment to personal growth. It is about embracing the unknown, pushing past limitations, and continuously striving for excellence. By adopting the zero to dangerous mindset and taking intentional action, individuals can unlock their full potential, achieve remarkable success, and make a meaningful difference in their chosen fields.

For more info. Visit us:

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[eduauraa01]

7+ Signs that will level up the Education (Near 2030)

Education look like in 20 years: The changes you can expect

Future of education after covid is in a state of transition by giving educators and students an assortment of new technologies to work with.

With the sudden pause in everything that followed the pandemic, the way students learn and teachers teach.

This has left the entire education industry in a fix, leading to uncertainty surrounding India’s future of education.

With the scope of online education increasing with each day, changes in the education system are inevitable and probably for the betterment of our nation’s level of education.

What will the future of education look like in 2030?

After the pandemic forced teachers and students to take learning online, the future of education is uncertain. A change in the education system is certain and very much needed.

So, what is the future of education? Let’s find out.

Technology will dominate the industry

Today, students grow up with gadgets at home and use them for their studies or school.

This has brought about changes in the manner in which they learn.

With the increase of education technologies in the market, the future of online education is bright, with technology dominating the industry.

In fact, Eduauraa has already started offering interactive video lectures using 2D and 3D animation.

Schools in the future would include subjects like Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality in their curriculum, aside from using this tech as a teaching tool.

The point is to empower more inventiveness and to draw in showing strategies and learning encounters.

The outdated concept of “Higher the price, better the education”

With the future of education in the online world, students will have access to all the study material, mentors, and teachers online.

Hence, the quality of education for all the educational institutions will come to an equilibrium, creating a better future for the school.

With such greater development in technologies, there is a higher possibility that all the students will be provided with almost similar levels of teaching and curriculum.

Therefore, the concept of higher fees and a better learning future would no longer be taken into account.

Education will be accessible by all

We are living in a world that increasingly advances technologically with each passing day.

With most students having gadgets, education will no longer be a concept where one must go to a school or institution to be educated.

This change was notable, especially during the pandemic-induced home education, where children worldwide received lessons over the internet.

With the level of advancements that we live in today, the future of learning seems to be heading towards increased accessibility.

Education in the coming years will be more easily accessible to all.

All students would need is a sound internet connection or access to gadgets and a willingness to learn; education will no longer be exclusive.

Ebook compilations of different authors, as presented by Eduauraa can also be a boon for students, providing them detailed indexes, keywords, concept summaries, etc.

Freedom to personalize their curriculum

Currently, students learn the subjects they are offered by the institutions, especially in schools.

The scope for personalizing streams according to one’s professional aspirations is limited.

However, this is going to be the biggest change in education in the coming years.

With more institutions imparting online education and adopting a flexible curriculum, students will have better options in terms of courses.

At present, only a few institutions outside India offer customizability of curriculum.

However, Indian institutes are expected to catch up in the coming years.

This is bound to create a future generation of students who have control over what they learn.

A complete change in the assessment methods

As most educational software will survey students’ capacities at each progression, estimating their abilities through Q&A may not get the job done.

Many contend that tests are presently planned so that students mug their materials and fail to remember the following day.

The worrisome result of the present assessment methods is a lack of knowledge retention as weeks and months pass after closing a chapter.

Teachers stress that tests may not legitimately measure what students ought to be fit for when they land their first job or enter college.

Therefore, yet another change in education would be a complete overhaul of the assessment methods.

The increased importance of mentors

Students in the future will enjoy much freedom when it comes to their education.

Teachers and educational institutions will play a supportive role in such a scenario.

However, the highlight of this shift is the increasing importance of mentors.

Mentors will play a vital role in shaping the academic choices students make, bringing them to the same stage as teachers.

In fact, teachers may also need to play the role of the mentor when learning becomes completely online.

A complete revolution in this regard is the Eduauraa Assistant that can schedule learning milestones and create customized study plans for every learner.

The learning space will be more diverse

Students will have more freedom to learn on various occasions in better places.

The question arises about online schooling, can it be the future of education? eLearning instruments encourage openings for far-off, self-guided learning.

This would mean classrooms are not the only place students will learn lessons.

They can just as well take their classes and do their classwork at a corner table in a cafe or head to their university for an in-person class.

Through MOOCs and live online classes, students from all over the world can learn from anywhere they wish.

Variety in the learning material

Change in education is imminent, leading to a shift in the material students use to learn.

Lessons won’t just be limited to textbooks and reference books but also include videos, infographics, and other media tools. This is something educational software companies have been working towards since their inception.

However, 20 years down the line, we will see even universities and schools picking up this teaching method to improve the quality of their lessons.

Eduauraa is one such name in the education sphere which has already taken steps in the direction of education revolution and evolution.

With upgraded course materials, teaching and assessment methods, curriculum designing, and student-teacher relationships, the team is leaving no stone unturned to bring desirable changes to the education system.

Education is now combining forces with technology to offer students and teachers more options in an education in 20 years than they have ever had before.

#level up the Education #online learning app in india #online learning

[summonerscenarios]

Hakumen's 4-star info piece mentions a tail spa and states 'through which she's built a relationship with a certain gladiator from the Ikebukuro Berserkers'. I read this as being Bathym, as. Well, really he's the only transient at the I.B. guild I can think of that'd need specific tail care.

So as a scenario, how about Bathym and Hakumen helping out a vulpine-therian Player? Not multitailed lile Hakumen, but still. Fox tails are flumfy and need to be well taken care of, and the two experts on fur care products would certainly be willing to help if asked

Oh you can bet that the two of them would go to the spa together - what better way to spend a day than getting pampered and complaining about people~

------

Fur maintenance is one of the more important and sometimes troublesome tasks that therians have to take into account - keeping up on the upkeep of fur prevents it from matting and getting tangled up, as well as taking care of any excess fur that may hang around and get caught on things. Vulpine therians have to be especially vigilant on this front as you’ve come to realize, given the general thickness of your fur and the fact that you’re so fluffy that every time you start shedding you essentially drop your body weight in excess hair. Besides the occasional brush and you’ve learned quickly that for particularly fluffy therians like yourself, the proper tools needed to keep your fur from getting matted and messy are many and a pain to get your hands on, let alone use.

Brushes, detangling combs, shampoos, conditioners, finding the right hair dryer temperature to not make your fur frizz - it’s annoying, and it’s not like you remember much about how you took care of it before coming to Tokyo; if you did have that knowledge before it’s long gone now. Some days it's manageable, but then there’s others where your fur just doesn’t want to co-operate - those are the days that almost make you loathe being a vulpine-therian since, thanks to all the fluff, it’s noticeable when you’re not looking at your best. Moritaka, bless his heart and willingness to help a friend in need, is a big help during your first few weeks at the school. You thought he was joking when he mentioned having to do a complete brush every morning and night to help with the shedding and detangling, but the routine practically becomes a lifeline once your fur starts fluffing up as the seasons start to change. He’s helped as much as he’s able, though there’s only so many tricks Moritaka knows that can help, and you don’t know if it’s just because you’re a vulpine therian, or if your fur’s just built different, but there’s some times where you need more than just a good brush and hastily done trims in the bathroom mirror.

Thankfully, you also have friends that just so happen to notice the predicament that you’re in, and surely one such friend, being an expert on maintaining appearances, simply can’t sit by and watch you suffer. When you inevitably come to Bathym for help you can see that he’s already assessing the damage, humming something to himself as he runs his claws through one of your thicker patches of fur. You can practically hear the ideas forming in his mind when said claws catch on a tangle in your hair, and his grin is a little more sympathetic when your expression sours and you shirk away from the uncomfortable tug, ears flat against your head as you bring a hand up to your hair in a vain attempt to untangle it for what feels like the tenth time today. There’s no way that Bathym’s letting his poor summoner walk around in this sorry state, and no sooner have you momentarily smoothed out that tuft, Bathym’s steering you over to the nearest seat, practically commanding you not to move as he pulls out a phone from god knows where, with little explanation other than he’s got some ‘calls to make’.

You have to say, with how confident he is about taking care of you, you feel confident that the demon means it. You expected some advice, maybe a few product recommendations that you could go out and buy later to see if they worked. What you don't expect is for Bathym to get Hakumen involved. Or, more accurately, you didn’t expect for her to almost kick the door down in a flurry of fabrics as she storms over to where you’re sitting. Perhaps you should have - being a Vulpine therian herself, especially one who pizes her appearances so much, means that she’s far more versed in what works and what doesn’t than you currently are - and if she has her way, you’re sure you’ll be an expert by the time she’s done with you. She makes a big show cooing over her poor lord’s condition, making a few non-subtle hints about how she’s hurt that you didn’t think to rely on your darling Hakumen to take care of your present problems while she takes a good look at what she’s going to be working with.

Things move quickly from there. Before you know it you’re being walked towards an expensive looking car with Hakumen and Bathym gripping your arm on either side while they chatter to each other about all the things they have planned for you. The bewilderment on your face is ignored by your two new friends, but must be clear to others as Xolotl gives you a small sympathetic wave as he opens the door for you all to get into the vehicle. The ride is quick, and you take advantage of the free drinks and treats on display (because of course there would be drinks and treats) while only vaguely listening to Bathym and Hakumen batting ideas back and forth, along with some half-playful jabs about the others' tastes fired back and forth.

Admittedly the entire spa reserved just for you is a little bit of an overkill, but naturally with their high standards nothing but the best will do - and if that means giving you an entire day teaching you how best to care for your fur, then you’re getting that and more. You can’t help but balk under the attention as the spa staff emerge to greet the three of you the second you step through the door, addressing Hakumen and Bathym in a way that tells you they’re not just regulars, but valued customers of this place (which you can understand - the amount of coin they make on a daily basis would be enough to buy your school, never mind a day at the spa). When the staff inquire about the ‘special guest’ you immediately feel all eyes on you and there’s no denying it’s a bit embarrassing to have everyone’s attention on you. Thankfully Hakumen takes the lead from here, constantly insisting that they give you nothing but the best and finest as she all but drags you forward. She insists you’re in capable hands, but that doesn’t mean that the two therians aren’t constantly butting in to watch the whole time, putting in their thoughts and opinions on what would work best for your fur as you’re led from station to station.

The spa employees are professionals; you feel it the second you sit down in the chair and they get to work. The hands that smooth through your hair don’t hurt even as they catch on knots and work to untangle them, and by the time they’ve worked the shampoo and conditioner into your hair you’re well on your way to melting in your chair from how relaxing this experience is - if this is what it’s like all the time then you can see why Bathym and Hakumen frequent this place.

Speaking of Bathym, he’s all but too smug to point out that some of the products that they’re using on your fur care was made by yours truly - you should feel special, since so few get the chance to use them! Thanks to that and a multitude of other products you quickly lose the names of, your furs already looking a damn sight better than it was, and soft to boot! It’s already clear that you’re feeling better too, chuckling at the hair dryers that tickle as they comb over your hair, sending more than a few loose hairs all over the place as they work your fur into a more manageable state. Of course the Tycoon and Berserker are all too eager to get involved too - if only to interject with advice and tips on what to do next time you need some fur maintenance - both would rather keel over than let your hair get back into the poor state it was in when you’d first approached Bathym for help.

The tail is the hardest part, if only because of the wear and tear it's been through. Constantly tripping over it when you’re rushing to get ready in the morning; nearly snapping combs in half just trying to neaten it up; not to mention that one time Kengo accidentally stepped on it and you almost knocked him out cold because the pain made you swing without thinking- needless to say, it’s very much in need of some good old TLC. Therian’s tails are sensitive, so even with how gentle the staff are there’s more than a few breaks because you’re fidgeting too much. There’s no hiding the fact Bathym keeps snickering at how flustered you’re getting over the attention, but the smoldering glare you shoot him over your shoulder can’t be taken seriously when the content wagging of your tail betrays you.

This impromptu spa day is finished off swiftly, and you’re feeling more pampered and fluffy than you’ve probably ever felt, and at the end of it all you’re gifted a goody bag of products to boot as you’re led out of the building. You’re still trying to memorize all of the labels and notes for later, hoping that you remembered enough to help next time when a card is promptly shoved into your face. It’s a membership card for the spa, presented to you by none other than Hakumen who slides a hand around your side as she starts talking about how next time you should both come here again next time - after all she simply can’t allow you to get all of the pampering, even if she did enjoy watching you preen at the end result. Bathym’s right behind her too, slinging an arm around your shoulders and ruffling your now tangle-free fur as he comments that you’ll have to clear up your schedule soon; you have to thank them for helping you out, so what better way than your undivided attention for a few days~!

#tokyo afterschool summoners #housamo #housamo imagine #housamo headcanon #tokyo afterschool summoners imagine #hakumen #housamo hakumen #bathym #housamo bathym #housamo berserkers #roppongi tycoons #housamo tycoons #requests #anonymous

[bookwyrminspiration]

the sophie & keefe parallels with jolie & brant 🥺🥺🥺

oh this one hurts. this one hurts real bad. if we take it far enough then we could say Sophie and Keefe's relationship is leading to inevitable ruin because they love each other too much to acknowledge their faults and hold each other accountable

but to break it down further

Sophie and Jolie/Keefe and Brant:

We can draw some pretty obvious parallels between Sophie and Jolie. They're both Ruewens, they're both members of the Black Swan, Jolie wanted to make the world a better place and that's what Sophie is trying to do now. There's also the element of forgiveness and leniency, Jolie still trying to save Brant and reason with him and understand him when he was past redemption for everyone else, which ultimately killed her. Sophie keeps forgiving Keefe because "I could never hate you," when he's given her plenty of reason to do just that. She keeps giving him chances and if it continues they'll never learn and they might go down in flames, too. We can also touch on the elements of secrecy and privacy, as Grady shared that Jolie was a very private person and didn't talk about her life a lot and Edaline shared that she'd seemed closed off and worn out before she died.

There's the obvious Neverseen parallel between Brant and Keefe, though Keefe joined as a ruse and Brant was a real member. They both thought they knew what was best and they both tried to convince everyone around them they were right (Keefe later admitted he fucked up bad, tho). They're both incredibly determined and aggressive in a fight, throwing around a lot of cocky attitude and threats (when Keefe isn't being emotionally devastated by his mother). A minor detail that I can't help but notice is the notes. Brant wrote Jolie love letters constantly while she was in the elite levels as an expression of his affection. Keefe leaves notes behind when he wants to see her and when he's leaving, as those are expression of him wanting to connect with her and just be near her. If we look specifically at the note from Unlocked, it's him saying he loves her by trying to protect her--in this case, by not being near her.

however, I also want to present this perspective

Sophie and brant/keefe and jolie:

what are some of the defining characteristics of Brant? What makes him, well, him? Passion. Drive. A willingness to do things no one else is (like torture a child, but not saying that's a good thing). Still held guilt and grief over Jolie, saying "If she doesn't get to live--no one does" in Everblaze. A lot of these traits are reflected in Sophie too. She's incredibly passionate about her friends and keeping them safe, making choices no one else agrees with (burning down the storehouse, which notably uses fire) and always wanting more. more success and progress, more results, to be getting somewhere. Brant has delivered several passionate speeches and lines throughout the series, but a lot of the times it's Sophie who responds to them and talks back. They're both burning their way through life and blazing a breakneck paced trail, frantically running towards something/someone (note: also the bad match situation for both of them, denied something everyone is supposed to have access to)

Jolie and Keefe both give me the vibe of gentle souls, of people who have been hurt and are just trying to live with it (although Jolie died with it). Jolie was quiet but determined, willing to take risks and put herself and her personal safety on the line, same as Keefe when he ran away to join the Neverseen. Actually, I think we have an even better parallel between Jolie and Keefe's time with the Neverseen than his comparison to Brant. They tried to play double agent, and it didn't end well for either of them. They both lost something--Jolie, her love and life, Keefe, the caches and the trust in his relationships. The journaling interests me too. Keefe has his sketchbooks and Jolie had her notebook about Brant, both of them organizing their thoughts on paper and trying to make sense of things. I also want to briefly make the point that Jolie kept asking people (the reader of the journal) to give Brant another chance, that he's just misunderstood, and Keefe is constantly asking Sophie to trust him, to let him back in. There's this element of clinging to the past and trying to make things right without acknowledging how everything has changed.

and then we could also touch on how they're both childhood friends sharing something--Brant and Jolie had that gremlin, which is how they bonded, and Sophie and Keefe had that element of both sticking out and garnering attention, Sophie being the new/weird human-girl (though she isn't human) and Keefe skipping a grade and having a bad family life. They were both challenged by distance and communicated through other means--love letters and transmitting.

I could probably keep going but!! there's so many similarities between the two relationships and their past, but we can only hope that Sophie and Keefe don't end up the way Brant and Jolie did. this is a super interesting comparison tho, so thank you for the prompt! I hadn't even realized how similar they were until I started writing this

#sophie hold keefe accountable and stop letting him in without actually learning his lesson challenge #jolie already tried that and now she is but a crumb in the wind #a burnt crumb #a crisp #crumchy even #many thoughts #so many #oh and jolie and brant are both dead so if they follow that path one of them will kill the other and have to live with it #just some thoughts #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc character analysis #sophie foster #keefe sencen #jolie ruewen #brant [REDACTED] #kotlc brant #long post #quil's queries #nonsie

[woman-loving]

Who is a Malaysian lesbian?

Selection from “Queering the State: Towards a Lesbian Movement in Malaysia,” by Rais Nur and A.R., in Amazon to Zami: Towards a Global Lesbian Feminism, ed. Monika Reinfelder, 1996.

This selection from a 1996 book discusses lesbian identity in Malaysia from a lesbian feminist perspective. It acknowledges a range of meanings that “lesbian” can have, and selects one defined by sexual practice. Note that many women didn’t identity as “lesbian” themselves, and that the term was defined and applied here according to the authors’ goals. The authors also touch on multiple “butch” identities, “femme” identity (“femmes” weren’t seen as unable to be with men), and potential political dimensions to lesbian identity.

We felt it was necessary to give our definition of the term ‘lesbian’, given the multiplicity of definitions in currency. These range from extremely broad definitions of the word, which include metaphorical[2] (e.g. notions of ‘lesbian’ as a space or positionality) or emotional dimensions (e.g. a woman whose primary emotional attachments are formed with other women, though she may not necessarily have sex with them), to definitions which are strictly narrow and literal, and which have sexual intimacy between women as their lowest common denominator (i.e. a woman can be called a lesbian only if she has sex with other women, whatever the other dimensions of her relationships with, or the depth of her feelings for, them). However, despite the diversity of meanings of the word ‘lesbian’, and the rich range of experience it can be said to cover, we believe that our purposes in this essay would best be served by limiting our use of the term to apply to any woman who has sexual relations with other women.

This definition is not unproblematic, as such a narrow definition necessarily excludes many people who consider themselves lesbian but do not practise lesbian sex, such as lesbian celibates or other women-identified women. In fact, early on it our research, we wanted to include women who identified themselves as lesbian as part of our definition, and therefore hinge our definition on the self-identification of the woman concerned. This, however, became untenable, because as we progressed we came across many women who have sexual relations with women but do not use the word ‘lesbian’ to describe themselves. For some of these women, such a word was alien to them, and in some cases they were hardly aware that other lesbians existed. Others were familiar with the concept of homosexuality, but used words other than ‘lesbian’ to identify themselves. Thus we decided that our use of the term would refer to women who have sexual relations with other women, regardless of whether or not they used the word to describe themselves.

Our knowledge is primarily of urban and middle-class lesbians, although we have made attempts to access the experiences of others. Lesbianism is a phenomenon which exists very much underground, in the sense that there is very little public discourse about it (and what little there is frequently pathologizes it) and very few safe spaces in which lesbians can be out or come together to share their experiences. Furthermore, the experience of being a lesbian in Malaysia is heavily influenced by ethnicity and class. These two factors make it difficult to extract an account of lesbian experiences which can address lesbian existence in both urban as well as rural areas, and apply across class and ethnic divides.

Unlike gay men, who have been united through work against HIV/AIDS, there has been no similar phenomenon which has sparked this move towards a sense of community for lesbians, so that by and large there are many tight-knit groups, based on race or class, which do not intermingle with each other: Malay lesbians generally have a different network and socialize at different places from Chinese and Indians, working class from middle class, urban from rural, etc.

The players

In as far as it is possible to generalize, one aspect which can be said to be common to all these different subcultures is role-playing, or the construction of lesbian identity around notions of the ‘butch’ and the ‘femme’, with their attendant ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits. While Western countries like the UK and the USA have recently seen a resurgence of the butch and the femme in lesbian culture, this has mainly been dictated by fashion and the ‘lesbian chic’ trend, which in the UK saw many straight women dressing like dykes and lesbian characters suddenly appearing in various soap operas, and partly by postmodern notions of parody, irony and ‘genderfuck’. That is to say, while some lesbians do take butch/femme roles seriously in these countries, many others see adopting these roles as a fashionable thing to do and/or a way of subverting essentialist notions of sex and gender, and parodying notions of identity/sexuality as stable and immutable rather than fluid and constantly changing. So a lesbian who dresses as butch one day may very well decided to dress as a femme the next, and vice versa.

In Malaysia though, butch/femme roles are taken very seriously by the majority of lesbians, and there is no element of playfulness or parody to them. The word ‘butch’, though generally used to refer to a lesbian who adopts or exhibits traits and behaviour socially deemed to be masculine, in fact covers a continuum of identifications or definitions. At the lower end of the scale is the ‘tomboy’ who dresses in a boyish manner, generally looks like a cute boy, and yet is still possible to tell that she is female. The tomboy figures in all cultures.

‘Peng-kids’ occupy the middle of the continuum, and are generally associated with Malay working-class lesbians. The word ‘peng-kid’ is derived from ‘punk kid’, as they are deemed to have borrowed heavily from punk culture in terms of their attire. Peng-kids often feel that they are men trapped in women’s bodies. They bind their breasts as well as use men’s underwear and aftershave. They are renowned as very loyal and extremely attentive and generous to their girlfriends. The peng-kid phenomenon, which can be traced back to the 1970s, is now very widespread and exists in both rural and urban Malay communities. The term has also been adopted among some Chinese lesbians, who abbreviate it to ‘PK’.

Finally, there are the ‘hardcore’ butches. In the West, what is known as a ‘bulldyke’ or ‘bulldagger’ would be the closest equivalents to the local hardcore. Whereas peng-kids feel that they are men trapped in women’s bodies, and thereby acknowledge their femaleness to some degree, in many cases, these hardcore butches do not even perceive themselves as women, and pass as men whenever possible. Many consider the idea of sex-change operations seriously as some stage in their lives. Hardcores exist in all cultures in Malaysian society, but appear to be predominately working class.

Butch identifications in Malaysia are therefore multiple and complex. Things become simpler when we come to femme identity. Generally, femmes are perceived to be straight women in disguise, or women who, although they might be involved in a lesbian relationship, have the option to ‘become normal’ and conduct relationships with men. A femme’s lesbianism is therefore not seen as essential or fixed; whereas butches see themselves, and are perceived, as having no choice about their sexuality--they are definitely and incontrovertibly lesbian. Many femmes have lesbian relationships in order to avoid the complications of becoming pregnant, which might happen in heterosexual relationships. Another reason why femmes prefer butches to men is that they believe they are more secure in a relationship with a butch, since it is not as easy for butches to abandon one woman for another as it is for men, given the relatively small lesbian subcultures which exist in Malaysia.

In many senses, this emphasis on roles is very restrictive, and those who resist defining themselves in such a way often find that they are treated with distrust and hostility by their peers, as are lesbians who change identifications. There is some degree of policing within the lesbian communities in Malaysia, and what is acceptable in terms of clothing and appearance, sexual practices and roles is clearly defined and strictly enforced. This means that lesbians who reject such pressures and constructions of identity are excluded. More importantly, in their insistence on butch/femme identifications such lesbians reinforce the stereotypical notions of lesbians and lesbianism harboured by society at large, rather than challenging them or presented alternative constructions of identity, alternative ways of being lesbian.

Partly, this dependence on roles has to do with the fact that lesbians feel beleaguered by the homophobia and hostility of society as a whole, and therefore do not trust people easily--choosing a role and sticking with it signifies a willingness to belong, to play by the rules, and indicates that one is an ‘insider’ rather than an ‘outsider’ and therefore can be trusted. But we feel it is also partly to do with the lack of any political dimension to lesbianism in Malaysia, restricting it solely to the sexual dimension.

Lesbians in the West have played a prominent role within feminist campaigning since the 1960s, and have contributed greatly to, and learned a lot from, feminism and its insights. Lesbian and queer theory, as it exists in the West today, has its roots in the feminist movement, and has built upon feminism’s interrogation of the categories of gender, its assertion, for example, that, as Simone de Beauvoir put it, ‘one is not born a woman, one becomes one’. ‘Masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ were shown to be states of being which were socially constructed and therefore avoidable, rather than biological and inevitable.

While, on the one hand, many feminists made the political decision to become lesbians in the light of feminism’s analyses of gender relations, and as a logical extension of their politics, on the other, many lesbians used and extended the analytical foundations laid down by feminism to challenge and deconstruct the institution of heterosexuality--to expose it as an instrument of patriarchy or, at any rate, something which is neither more natural nor more inevitable than any other sexual preference or tendency. Lesbian feminists, in line with the early feminist tenet that ‘the personal is political’ therefore identified the realm of sexuality and sexual practices as the locus of much patriarchal power and oppression, and proceeded to problematize heterosexuality and politicize lesbianism, arguing that it represented a subversive force in its refusal to fall in with dominant/patriarchal concepts of what is natural or permissible in society.

This perception of lesbianism as having a political dimension rather than simply a sexual one, of being not simply something restricted and limited to the bedroom, but having wider implications and political resonances, is, however, largely absent in Malaysia. There is very little sense (or perceived need) here that lesbianism is or can be a political force, or that it can be used to critique or challenge dominant patriarchal and heterosexual ideologies and institutions. We believe that his has to do with the fact that feminism, which is closely connected with the lesbian movement in the West, has not translated well here, nor has it had the impact which it had in the West. As a newly industrializing country, Malaysia faces different challenges and has different priorities to that of ‘first world’ or Western countries, and often feminism is not perceived to be, or made relevant to, the needs and lives of women here.

At any rate, without feminism’s insights on how patriarchy works to oppress women and how gender roles function to reinforce patriarchal power, many lesbians simply adopt heterosexual notions of gender and replicate heterosexual relationships without questioning or problematizing them. It may, of course, be argued that these lesbians adopt butch/femme roles as a conscious eroticization of difference.[3] But we believe that it is rather a case of a lack of alternatives. The invisiblizing of lesbians in society, and the lack of roles models who practise alternative ways of defining themselves or conducting relationships, of course reinforces the above.

#lgbtq #lesbian #malaysia #what is a lesbian #lesbian feminism #amazon to zami #butch femme #lesbians

[mfkinanaa]

SUN IN GEMINI.

Gemini: Mutable Air   

Ruler: Mercury

Keywords: Communication, Interaction, Exchange

Functional Expression: Lighthearted, cheerful, intelligent, adept, versatile, responsive, dexterity, sociable, engaged.

Dysfunctional Expression: Superficial, silly, gossip, unfocussed, nervous, unemotional, cold, erratic.

Communication is Key.

When the Sun is found in Gemini, the focus is on the exchange of information. The world of ideas – the intellect and mind – is Gemini’s natural domain.

Geminis are often motivated by a healthy curiosity, and consequent need to communicate. For these reasons, this sign is often characterized by highly sociable and interactive individuals.

This is a sign of adaptability, flexibility, and change. That may vary from changing associates, to changing outfits and changing their minds. At its core, the freedom to be flexible is an essential part of the Gemini journey. Those with the Sun in Gemini can easily switch between their thinking or feeling modes. They react immediately to any stimulation within their environment, swapping opinions and points of focus, depending on prevailing circumstances.

As mentioned, the principle of communication is prominent here. The Gemini individual can seem like a veritable social butterfly, moving from one topic or group of people to the next with ease. Geminis bring something to share with one group, at the same time as leaving a piece of information behind in their wake. They will move about, taking something else from one “experience-set” and sharing it with the next.

Accordingly, Geminis are often noted for a high degree of sociability, and those born with the Sun in Gemini can be quite refined, charming or gracious, knowing exactly how to quip and sparkle at just the right time to keep others entertained.

In many ways, they need the flexibility, freedom and choice to be constantly circulating or moving about. Versatility and adaptability is the key note of this sign, and Gemini is often happiest when able to jump from one situation to the next.

The Need for Variety.

Gemini is the sign of the Twins, and this is an important feature of the Gemini temperament.

The Twins embody the principle of duality, and so those born to this sign can be constantly aware of opposing points of view, divergent opinions, and the various options in any situation. They can shift or change as the moment does, depending on their mood.

The need for options is paramount, and even if the Gemini individual has no real intent on taking a certain path, they need to feel they could do should the opportunity arise.

Rather than choosing one career, one option, or even one partner, Gemini may feel more comfortable seeing themselves in a constant state of flux. Knowing that change is inevitable, Gemini will be more able to focus on current circumstances and relationships in their lives if they feel that there is room for other opportunities.

With the potential for surprise around every corner, they can then happily adjust to what is in front of them now. Trying to limit Gemini to a set number of outcomes can be problematic. This may be a source of nervous tension without knowing why.

Gemini is a sign which is highly prone to episodes of anxiety based on too much or not enough mental stimulation. At their best, Geminis stay balanced through experiencing a steady stream of stimuli without taking on too much. 

Those with the Sun in Gemini like to have options, and need to feel the freedom to be able to choose. This then leads to the tendency to create numerous options for themselves, which can mean becoming scattered. Too many choices can lead to overwhelm, and sometimes they will find that less equals more.

This propensity to change their mind, or hold apparently contrasting opinions has lead Gemini to earning a reputation for being two-faced, unreliable or fickle. Whilst all of that may possible, it is often untrue, and does not do justice to the true motivation of this sign.

Geminis prefer to keep their options open, which can mean allowing for a multitude of possibilities to exist within any given circumstance.

Logic and Intellect.

As an intellectual and rational sign, Gemini is on the one hand likely to be concerned with analysis, figures and facts. Life is often approached from a detached and ‘reasonable’ point-of-view. They obtain a ‘fact’ then circulate it.

This concern for facts and figures can manifest at its simplest level through becoming a source of gossip. At a more refined level, it can operate through gathering of facts, data and information to be used for complex analysis further down the track.

Sun in Gemini can be the position of the researcher, writer or accountant – someone who gathers information for the benefit of all concerned. Commerce and trade also fall under the influence of this sign, and individuals who work with figures, finance and exchange may have strong Geminian influences in their chart.

Usually quick-minded, those born under this sign have a natural aptitude for keeping abreast of changing conditions, and can making lightning fast decisions based on logic and intuition when they are free of any emotional involvement or potential limitation.

Gemini has a natural wit and love of gathering facts that makes all forms of communication an easy avenue for self-expression. With a strong fascination for anything bright, shiny and new Gemini can find great delight in the latest gadget, headline or turn of phrase.

Many writers, promoters, marketers and agents are born under this sign, preferring to work in environments where the capacity to adapt and keep abreast of constant change are assets to be used on a daily basis.

Irrationally Rational.

On the other hand, Gemini can also be prone to episodes of irrationality with changeable moods that serve as counterbalance to such levels of analytical thinking.

As much as this is a sociable sign, the need to reflect and go within is also highly pronounced. There will be times when the social drawbridge must be closed in order to process complex states of mind. Reason can quickly follow eccentricity in the sign of The Twins.

Those with the Sun in Gemini individual are continually moving between rational and irrational reactions within their own psyche, internally exploring the myriad of possibilities across a spectrum of potential responses. Having analyzed all possible outcomes and responses from within, Gemini can then return to the bright and bubbly social mode of being that is their natural birthright.

With the accent on all things intellectual, the emotional side of life is often less pronounced. Gemini’s prefer to keep things light and bright and breezy, so avoiding the complexity and weight of deep, emotional scenes.

Unless other Watery influences appear in the birth chart, there may be a tendency to avoid commitments and obligations of an emotional nature, preferring to explore the options available ‘out there’ rather than get caught up in the web of someone else’s emotional ties.

Gemini can be strangely uncomfortable with emotional concerns, and will seek to find ways to analyse what in essence needs to be felt. This can lead to conflict within the self, as well as in relationships, if the tendency to detach is not recognized and actively worked upon.

Recognizing the value of feeling is an important component of effective communication.

On another level, this is also the sign of the flirt. Gemini may prefer the fun of endless possibilities and the excitement of “the chase” over the routine of traditional partnership roles. Consequently, sometimes the need for freedom and variety can undermine that ability to make commitments and create lasting structures.

Sun in Gemini: Your Solar Journey.

Born with The Sun in Gemini you are here to ask questions and find out. This is the sign most concerned with the exchange of information and ideas, and you may find your life experiences seem to work out so that you have the freedom and opportunity to do just that. The ability to communicate comes from the capacity to see every side of a situation. In time, your versatility and willingness to learn helps you become a valuable friend, source of fun and well-informed ally. Your challenge is to explore the realm of possibilities, whilst recognizing the support that structure brings. Then you can communicate all that you know with depth as well as conviction.

#astroworld #astrology #astrotips #aries sign #taurus #gemini #cancer sign #leo #virgo zodiac #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces

[blissfulalchemist]

full clear for catraf xx

Thank you for asking Stella! Here they are for you all!

1. Who do the kids enjoy playing with the most?

Raf more so. Not that mom isn’t fun, but A. she’s shorter and so can’t lift them as high as dad can B. Dad isn’t always around (gotta love that military career) and so he’s seen as more of a novelty than anything. Outside of those two its Chance and Wes.

2. Who gets carried away with the baby proofing?

For Liz? They both do. It’s the first kid and so everything has to be perfect and ready and just SAFE! Danny? Well they kind of kept the house as is for baby proofing since it just made sense if they were gonna have another kid....and Liz showed some signs that she was gonna be a little out there. Raf though went a little more extensive in the touching up though. 

3. Who does the baby follow around more?

Liz followed dad around more when he was home, was it to annoy him a little? Yeah, but she just loved hanging around him too, especially when he played cello for her. She also loved to imitate his smiles and body language, she wanted to be a leader like him, so she just had to follow him like royalty did in order to best learn. Danny always kind of was Cat’s shadow. He was always the quieter one and just preferred mom’s quiet to Liz’s loud, he also liked to watch her cook and work around the house really, yes even corrected her when she wasn’t cleaning just right, though who is she to argue with him. Mom also just was fine with him drawing in her lap as she she did computer work or just any time she was sitting. 

4. Who is the one the kids call out to when they’re looking for something?

You would think Raf but no it’s Cat. Cause here’s the thing, Raf makes sure everything has a place and everything stays there, but who decides to move stuff around or leave a bit of a mess? Cat. So if something is missing it’s because she probably moved it and she can tell you a very specific area on where she placed it. She’s better at retracing her steps too so if she can’t remember she can find it fairly quickly. Yeah can’t tell you how many times she’s almost made Raf late cause she decided to put his keys somewhere else the night before and thought he’d be able to see it.

5. Who’s constantly up checking on the baby in the middle of the night (even when the baby is sound asleep)?

Cat likes to sleep with Liz and Danny as much as possible when they are babies so she can at least wake up to their cries easier, but her anxiety makes it harder to sleep and if she can wake up just a bit to see that they are still breathing then she can get some sleep still. When Liz was first born, Cat kept trying to run on 2 hours of sleep which was doing more harm than good so Raf bought the bigger bed to allow them to have Liz between them and then Danny. Raf would also check on them too but he also sleeps a lot more lightly than Cat does, as they get older he checks on them a little more, especially when he comes home late in the middle of the night. 

6. Who has their kids’ favorite movie nearly memorized on account on how frequently they request to watch it?

Cat would have the songs memorized and special lines memorized, while Raf would have the full movie script down. Its something he can do to try and feel closer to them and keep himself from missing them. He can know their exact reactions and be able to see in his minds eye the movie with them.

7. Who trails behind the baby to make sure they don’t fall? (And then has to console them once they inevitably do.)

Cat more so. It starts to feel like second nature to her to keep an eye on them. Being at the big family parties she always tried to keep an eye on the smaller kids to help in case their parent was farther away. Part of that community parenting aspect, so she does this to other’s people kids. She has eyes on as many of the kids in jeopardy verse as possible. Raf will watch but he’s also more the one that can stop them without even looking it seems. Especially Liz, he has a second instinct with her a lot of times.

8. Who knows to cut off the crust from the sandwiches?

They are both chefs they both remember to do this. If one does forget it’s Cat cause she rushed, but neither child is that picky.

9. Who started taking photos of the baby as soon as they were born?

Raf. Cat would have but she was a disaster and didn’t want pictures, he did not listen. Three pictures are sent to everyone as soon as humanly possible of both Danny and Liz. Cat soon takes the most pictures of them both, you could make a three hour length movie with just the first ten years of their lives for each child.

10. Who doesn’t let the kids go out in the cold until they’re bundled in layers?

This might fall more onto Raf. Look its not because Cat doesn’t care but she’s someone that doesn’t get as cold and feels that if you have one good coat you don’t need all these extra layers. She just makes sure they have coat, scarf, gloves, hat, boots, and appropriate pants. Raf will want them doubling up on layers at a certain temperature that’s a bit higher than Cat’s threshold for extra layers. 

11. Who has a harder time getting the baby to eat their food?

Raf does. They make their own baby food and snacks a lot of time and well....someone tries to make it healthier and therefore it doesn’t taste as good as the other. Cat is just slightly better at hiding the vitamins and minerals than he is. 

12. Who ends up having to hold whatever half-eaten snack the baby didn’t want anymore?  

Neither really. Cat does a lot of time but both she and Raf quickly figure out the right portion to give the kids and those two kids split their snacks so its easier. This makes Cat laugh because sometimes they only like certain things of a meal and so it makes it easier to share, just like she and her sisters. You could give them a corn dog and one could not and would not eat the hot dog part while the other could not and would not eat the breading so mom and dad would just buy one big one and boom there was snack/meal taken care of.

13. Who checks under the bed for monsters?

Cat brings the monster spray while Raf is the muscle to fight them away if the spray isn’t working. 

14. Who’s the “tooth fairy” that leaves money under the kids’ pillows?

Both are, but you can always tell who got there first by how much money was left under the pillow.

15.  Who is better at comforting the kids when they’re scared?

This goes to Cat more. It’s not that Raf is bad, he’s got his methods to make them feel comforted for more specific situations, Cat just is better with in the moment emotional comfort. Cat is primary first response team while Raf is more like the doctors once you get to the hospital. It works out really well for them and most of the time it doesn’t take much for the kids to be comforted by mom, so the second response isn’t needed until the morning when they can go to dad for a solution on how to fix what’s scaring them.

— BONUS

A. Who do they think their child takes after? In what ways do they remind them of each other?

There’s a running joke that Liz takes after Wes too much to actually be Raf’s but at the end of the day she’s more like Cat. Her personality and extrovertedness comes from Raf 100% but the qualities in which she believes in and are her core come from Cat above all else. Her wanting to stand up for those around her, willingness to give the shirt off her back to those in need, leaving the world a better place than one found it, determination, stubborn in their morals, and impulsiveness to do the right thing, all things that came from Cat, you just only really see it as loud as Liz when Cat loses that barrier of polite society. The music though came from Raf, Cat has a love for music and has to have it around, but the talent for it and ability to be a performer comes from Raf. Danny though, his core comes from Raf. That independence, leader like quality, thinking ahead/preparedness, analytical, sense of duty,  and loyalty to his family that’s all his father. The way it presents is more from Cat, he’s shyer and more willing to let others take the lead but still be the voice of reason, he also is a bit more attuned to other’s emotions that has become a learned behavior, and just is softer like her. 

B. What was their first night as new parents like?

A bit overwhelming really. They thought they were prepared but no one is really prepared. Neither slept much that night as it soon became little tiffs on who was getting up to do what and the next few days had them questioning if it was the right thing to do. Many of these thoughts came from Cat’s own anxiety and that neither didn’t have any kind of sleep and so their minds weren’t exactly the clearest. Once Raf’s parents butted in and made those two get some good sleep things were smoother sailing and so Danny was a lot easier as they felt like they knew more and had better systems in place. 

C. Did their relationship change once they became parents? How?

It did as things they agreed on and methods established proved to be unrealistic and so there was an adjustment in how their parenting styles would mesh again. This was also around the time Raf’s career started to take off again and so there was some slight resentment and worry on Cat’s end that they would be permeantly tossed to the side, things that went away as they found systems that worked and Raf continued to show her that he wasn’t just going to forget about them, that he was going to be there as much as he could be. 

D. What new traditions do they start as a family?

There was already some shared cultural traditions that involved family but one thing was as they got more friends and settled back in with the community(especially in jeopardy verse) were big dinners and music/talent nights. It was at least once a month and everyone was invited, it was food galore, laughs, music, and just a way to have everyone around to catch up. On a smaller scale the four of them have a wall that was mostly photos that were of Raf when he was somewhere new and family vacations that were firsts, soon when someone in the family visits some place new for the first time you take a picture and it goes on the wall. Going as a family for the first time also counts and they get spots on the wall. This makes Cat the most happy once Liz and Danny start moving out as she can see where they’ve been and see where they’re going. 

E. Are they honest with their children? Are there certain things they try to shield from them?

Neither Cat or Raf like lying and so they are honest in age appropriate manners. Cat really doesn’t hide her mental illness and explains it to Liz and Danny many times when they ask in ways that get more details as they get older, this is most important to Cat as she doesn’t want her kids to suffer in silence like she did so if it’s normalized to be talked about they can feel more comfortable coming to her or Raf if they start to have issues. Depending on the verse there are things that they try to shield the kids from but are discussed when asked in a way that feels appropriate for their ages. 

#x: top chefs

[clarythericebot]

betty & james & accountability

What i love most about betty is that it is, in taylor swift’s words, about a seventeen-year-old standing on a porch, learning how to apologize.

it’s about a teenager growing up, intentionally and painfully.

and it shows. 

there are so many points in the song where you hear him want to turn away from his pain and deflect. 

you heard the rumors from inez 

you can’t believe a word she says

most times, but this time it was true

There’s a distinct pause between “says” and “most times”. you get the impression that james is making a complete statement--she’s just the small-town school gossip, don’t listen to her. and then he catches himself. he admits it, and for the first time his easy narration slows down into an agonizing confession: 

the worst...thing that.. i ever did...was what...i did...to you

Then it speeds up! It turns into an anxiety-ridden teenager wanting to talk to his best friend/ex at a party that she’s throwing, a rambling mess of an articulated daydream that keeps turning into a nightmare. it’s also one of my favorite choruses that she’s ever written. 

 but if I just showed up at your party 

would you have me? would you want me?

would you tell me to go fuck myself 

or lead me to the garden 

in the garden, would you trust me 

if i told you it was just a summer thing? 

here we see james attempting to envision his highest hopes; but even in his wistful imagination, he swerves into every single thing that can go wrong. if he goes to the party, she could take him back--or she could reject him. maybe it’s neither and she’d deign to hear him out, a quiet conversation just like old times--but even if she did, would she believe him? would it even matter, or would she dismiss all his apologies as too little and too late?

and up next is, i think, the most controversial part of the song:

i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything 

but i know i missed you

but i’ll get to that later. the important point about it at this point is that we can infer that this is his motivation, the reason why he keeps considering to go to the godforsaken party--he misses her. 

the next part of the song is the beginning of end. 

betty, i know where it all went wrong

your favorite song was playing

from the far side of the gym

i was nowhere to be found

i hate the crowds, you know that

plus I saw you dance with him

what’s interesting to me is this is him catching himself again. there’s a pause between you know that and plus. what it looks like here is that james would rather betty believe he ran off by himself because of his dislike for crowded places because of his automatic excuse. but pay attention to the words. your favorite song was playing from the far side of the gym. betty hears her favorite song, looks around for james to dance with. james had disappeared into a corner by himself, but he does see her look for him, and the fact that he understands that they’re far from each other has a covert implication that he works up the courage to make the attempt to get to her. but.

I saw you dance with him. 

we can infer a bit from this interaction. firstly that betty, if not necessarily a social butterfly, seems to be loved and comfortable even amidst the throes of high school. (she is the type of to throw parties and have supportive friends attend them, after all.) secondly that james is decidedly not as extroverted at her, and is crushed to see her dance with someone else. 

and he admits that. we see that temptation again, to shift blame to betty herself--I hate the crowds, you know that. but he catches himself, and reveals the real reason was that he was jealous and insecurity.

I was walking home on broken cobblestones 

Just thinking of you, when she pulled up like

A figment of my worst intentions

She said, “James, get in, let’s drive”

Those days turned into nights

Slept next to her, but

I dreamed of you all summer long

What I appreciate here is that he doesn’t slut-shame her. He explicitly says a figment of his worst intentions. and it’s true. all his sorrow and regret doesn’t excuse the fact that he uses this unnamed girl as a salve to his helplessness. to throw in a little feminist commentary in here, he also seems to be falling for the toxic idea that sex and losing his virginity will prove his masculinity. betty low-key calls him out on it in cardigan: I knew you / tried to change the ending / Peter losing Wendy.

What would Peter have to do to not lose Wendy? Grow up. But there is growing up, the awkward and painful process of taking responsibility, and the supposed indications of growing up that don’t actually tell you a thing about maturity (like having sex), and it looks James decided to choose the latter. 

(not to excuse james, though, it should be noted that the unnamed girl isn’t entirely fair, either. in august, she clearly knows about betty--you were never mine. she isn’t completely random; james gets in the car because he knows her. she sings i remember thinking I had you and back when I was living for the hope of it all. Put together, the character of this unnamed girl is someone who seems to have had a longtime crush on james. what the entire situation seems to be is that james used her to grasp at some shred at confidence, while she snatches at a moment of weakness to try for the relationship she wanted for him.)

does the unnamed girl deserve an apology? yes. of course. i can kinda see why james wouldn’t bring her up in his apology song to betty, though.

The swell of music after the above verse, by the way, seems to symbolize James’ determination. Picture him using that burst of bravery to propel himself to the closest he’s been yet to his ex’s house without panicking, only for that musical bravado to trickle away into agonizing quiet as he takes in what he’s about to do. 

Betty, I’m here at your doorstep 

And I planned it out for weeks now

But it’s finally sinking in

Betty, right now is the last time

I can dream about what happens

When you see my face again

James explicitly states that this is when the feeling finally sinks in. And what is the feeling? Quite obviously: Fear. In a way, it’s underlined by the fact that he notices it’s the last time he can think about the best case scenario. In choruses, we know that James cannot stay in the best case scenario. He will inevitably sink into the depths of the worst possibility, and the pause after this seems to indicate the heart-thumping instinct to run while he still can. The fact that James is afraid is palpable, and not just because he’s facing Betty.

There’s a question that hangs around this song: Why doesn’t James just talk to her? In private? Not in a party? It’s not because he’s trying to pressure her--all mentions of her friends or anyone else, really, seems to indicate that they will clearly be on Betty’s side. There is no one pushing Betty to forgive him--quite the contrary. And while she switched her homeroom, they’re still in the same school; she can’t avoid him and, from what we learn of Betty, she wouldn’t, anyway.

The answer, I think, is showing up to the party is part of James’ apology. 

If how it all went wrong was because he was too cowardly or it took him to long to face the crowds for her, then damn it, his apology will take place in front of a crowd of hostile teenagers. If how he acted caused her embarrassment, to be the object of unfair rumors, he’d give her a chance to publicly shame him. It’s an extreme move, but it’s characteristic to James’ reckless (now intentional) abandon, and the fact that he really is so young. An adult would apologize quietly. James will go for the all-or-nothing, even if it kills him. 

And it is killing him. I think the fathomless fear of the worst case scenario would be enough to choke him out of his resolve if his motivation was, in fact, only due to emotion. 

In earlier verses, he sings: 

i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything

but i know i missed you

this is utterly immature, if you think about it. selfish as much as it is sweet. he would ask her to come back to him in spite of all the hurt he caused because he misses her, he wants her with him. but if he were really relying on that, he’d leave.

he doesn’t.

the only thing I wanna do

is make it up to you

The real reason why he’s here is to make it up to Betty. To apologize to her, to take responsibility (to finally grow up) and whatever comes along with it.

so i showed up at your party

Picture people staring at him then--his worst fear. There is silence.  Not neutral or curious. Openly hostile. How dare he show his face? Girls whisper. Boys, other friends of Betty’s, maybe even the guy he was so jealous of in the beginning, crack their knuckles. James’ head dips into his neck, his shoulders hunched. 

yeah, i showed up at your party

He and Betty catch sight of each other. He holds his breath.

And then!

yeah, i showed up at your party

would you have me? will you love me?

will you kiss me on the porch

in front of all your stupid friends?

if you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?

Will it patch your broken wings?

THE SWEETEST. 

What I’d like to underline here is that, aside from the heart-rending, world-toppling reunion, we finally get a deeper glance into James’ daydreams, his true best-case-scenario. He learns to take responsibility because he wants to make it up to her--because he realizes that she’s hurting, too. And his wildest dreams, his real longed-for hope, isn’t that her love is going to make him feel better. It’s that his willingness to be lay his trembling heart before her in front of everyone who hates him will mend her own heart. 

I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything

But I know I miss you

At this point, this line has graduated from immature selfishness to the wondrous, reckless, willing-to-learn openness. The controversy around these lines is that James is saying them as an excuse for his actions. On the contrary--he uses his love for her to break him out of himself, and we understand that now. I’m only seventeen, he says, and teenaged boys can be blustering and insensitive and self-centered, and some never really grow up. But James does, for Betty’s sake. He may be young, but his guiding light is his love for her.

 Standing in your cardigan

Kissing in my car again

Stopped at a streetlight

You know I miss you

#clary scribbles #taylor swift #folk lore #betty #august #cardigan #teenage love triangle #james #meta #taylor swift meta

[life-observed]

The Real Reason Why Couples Break Up

When people try to account for why couples break up, the emphasis typically falls on the idea of difference:  a disorganised creative type was up against a highly managerial ordered one; one of them liked hill walking, the other hated the outdoors. Someone was gregarious, someone else loathed parties. No wonder – it seems – they had to split.

This method of explanation is underpinned by an implicit and hugely dominant theory of love which goes as follows: the reason why couples function is similarity; what tears them apart is difference. We get an inkling of just how widespread this theory might be when we consider the operations of modern dating sites. In their wish to help us find what they term the ‘right’ person, they scour their databases in order to try to match us with a creature who will most exactly share the greatest number of our tastes, interests and attitudes. The smaller the differences – so the theory goes – the more likely the relationship is to work.

However plausible this might sound, it skirts a fundamental truth about love which we ignore at enormous cost: no couple ever breaks up because of the differences between them. They break up because one of them is fed up of not being heard. A couple might disagree on a thousand things – from the optimal frequency of sex to what kind of social life to lead – and still stay together, while another might be similar in almost every area, but be torn apart by a vicious sense that their competing realities were not being recognised.

What ultimately counts for the success of love is not whether or not there are differences, but how whatever differences there happen to be are handled; whether with curiosity, a willingness to change, mutual forgiveness and modesty – or whether (in the doomed cases) with defensiveness, rigidity and entrenchment.

We know that compatibility can’t be the basis of lasting love because, by its logic, it invariably ends up escalating absurdly. Two people who like reading, crosswords, northern Italian cooking, ice hockey and the music of Joni Mitchell might at first fall passionately in love, but gradually grow cross with one another as they learn that one is sympathetic to ballroom dancing while the other has an occasional wish to think about archaeology. Or one is interested in ragu, while the other favours casseroles and pies. The temptation is to resolve such frictions by abandoning all divergent partners and refining our search criteria ever more tightly. But this only forces us to seek out implausible degrees of alignment. We may end up searching for a partner who is keen on fly-fishing and the novels of John le Carrè but doesn’t like salted butter and is good at shutting cupboard doors, or someone who loves going camping in North Cornwall in September but who is interested in the Liberal Party (yet is also an enthusiast of tactical voting). However, of course, two such well-matched people could easily come to blows over the colour of the bedroom curtains, children’s names, the use of napkins, or the ethics of fracking.

Pre-existing compatibility can only ever get us so far. At some point, inevitably, even the best matched partner will in some way emerge as unlike us in some way. What then matters is how the mismatch is handled. One kind of response is deeply romantic, and almost aphrodisiacal in quality; the other, deeply disappointing and over time plain insufferable.

This is what we need to hear above all when a conflicting perspective rears its head: I hear you; I understand what you’re saying, I am going to think about that, perhaps I will need to change. In other words, we need to feel that our point of difference has been witnessed and, to a degree, respected. The partner may not accept our position or observation entirely, but they can see where we are coming from and are committed to examining our stance – because they know that it matters to us, and they fundamentally respect our existence. They don’t rush to take every uncomfortable issue off the table. In relation to gently worded complaints or criticisms, they do not immediately deny our remarks and grow enraged. They don’t turn around and tell us that a problem lies entirely with us, that we’re being deliberately mean, that we’re the odd one out not them – and why are we complaining anyway when they’ve had such a hard day and this is the last straw. They strive not to take immediate offence, get stern or fall apart. They are at moments alive to the idea that they may need to change or evolve. They don’t expect to be loved exactly for who they are right now; and they respect that – of all the people in the world – their partner probably has a fairly accurate grasp of key aspects of their psychology that they might need to focus on.

On the other hand, what gradually destroys love in the long-term, even in the case of the most apparently well-matched couples, is the opposite of the above: an attitude of defensive pride, a shutting of the ears, a refusal to countenance that the partner may be trying to say something of desperate importance and has the right to be heard with a certain good will and tolerance.

It’s not the frustration that kills, it’s how it’s heard – or not. One could imagine a couple with a highly dysfunctional sex life, but one which was nevertheless handled with such skill by both parties that it would never be the cause of a break up. This couple might have made love only once in the last five years and yet be so committed to exploring why, to explaining their feelings and taking the other’s view on board that the apparently grave mismatch would have no power whatever to shake the foundations of their union.

The single greatest explanation for all divorces is, in the end, defensiveness, the inability to listen with grace to what another person is telling us without resorting to stubborn pride and denial. There are no sexual problems too grave that they ever make it too hard to stay; there are no differences in social attitudes or interior design tastes too severe to doom a love affair. There are only ever terrible ways for our frustrations to be heard. The lover we desperately need isn’t the person who shares our every taste and interest; it’s the kindly soul who has learnt to negotiate differences in taste without defensiveness or impatience.

#The Real Reason Why Couples Break Up #break up #breaking up #defensiveness #loss #relationships #divorce #relationship #listen #understanding #listening #respect

[welcometocaritas]

‘IF YOU LOVE ME, DON’T LET Go’

First chapter of my yumagna fic is out ladies and gentlebabies!

Chapter: 2/7

Characters: Yumiko & Magna

Pairing: Yumagna

Fandom: The Walking Dead

Format: Multi-Chap

Summary:  At some point, you just have to let go - or so Yumiko keeps telling herself.There was never any letting go of Magna.

Links: A03, FF.NET, Wattpad

A/N: This is a shorter chapter and is basically just a little look at Magna's history (I'll be getting into Yumiko's around about chapter 6).

I really didn't mean to make Magna's backstory as angsty as I did, it just sort of . . . happened as I was trying to figure out where her head's been at with her relationship with Yumiko, and why she's been doing some of the things she has. I don't take some of the situations I've used lightly, especially since they can be extremely triggering for people and I wanted everyone in the fandom to be able to read this. The child sexual abuse is in there because I'm pretty sure that's what the show was implying when they mentioned Magna's cousin. Everything's pretty much implied or referenced. I don't think I go into great detail. There are no actual scenes with the stuff.

So I've done some half-assessed calculations that are probably shit but I'm gonna go with them for the sake of this story - I'm a little worried that lack of sleep might have made me mess up some of the maths but oh well. I used the actresses' real ages for this, went back 10 years to before the apocalypse so Yumiko would have been around 27 and Magna around 22. Now Magna had to have been out of prison long enough to get a job - which is NOT easy to do but I decided to grant her a stroke of luck and had her being out of prison for around at least a year. Now Michonne mentioned hard prison time - whether Magna actually experienced much of this time, or if it was just that she expected to and got a tattoo before being allowed out early is up in the air - and I've gone with giving her about three-four years in prison, because I didn't really want to drop below the age of 17 for her being sentenced. I'm headcannoning their meeting when Miko was 24 and Magna was 19, so about her second-third year in prison.

Also my understanding of the law is . . . not great? I basically only know what I've gleaned from reading about injustices and corruption in the system so if you're a lawyer and notice any mistakes please don't crucify me and I didn't do much research for this story when I normally do heaps cos I wanted to get it finished quickly. However, I have based a lot of the incidents mentioned throughout this fic on real situations/cases that I've read about so there is that element of truth to it. I did my best anyway. I think the issue will be that there are a lot of variations between states and laws changing over the years. I recently fell down a Proven Innocent rabbit hole because Rachelle Lefevre playing a bisexual is hard to pass up and, like with Nadia Hilker, I'm addicted to her hair (Abbey knows I have a hair fetish, she understands my weakness when it comes to these things).

"I learned at a young age that if I was ever going to see justice for the wrongs done to me, I had to find it myself."

― Erin Merryn

. . .

Magna didn't think she'd ever regret what she did - the bastard deserved it, and if the justice system wasn't such a joke she never would have had to go to such lengths - but she did regret what it had done to her relationship with Miko. What she had done. Lying wasn't difficult for her - even if she had always preferred a more blunt approach, along with the honesty that entailed - but lying to Yumiko had been . . .

She'd hated every second of it. Hated even more the toxic resentment that had started to build up inside her as a result, the way a gentle kiss could make her stomach turn, her thoughts sickening her as they bubbled up from the dark pit in which she tried to keep them contained; the number of times a loving look had made her want to snap, to let the truth fly free and watch as everything between them burnt to ashes.

(it'd be everything she had been waiting for, after all - for thirteen years)

Because Miko . . . Miko was so good. And she cared so much, sometimes more than Magna could bear, and none of it was real. All those feelings had grown from a lie that she'd never had the courage to uproot, to set before them and watch as the disgust bled into her lover's - her best friend's - eyes. Because Miko thought she was good as well, and whilst Magna didn't think that what she'd done was wrong, she also knew it wasn't right. Justice, maybe- definitely, but not Miko's version of justice. Not part of the framework she had chosen to study and dedicate her life to. Magna's version of justice didn't fit in her world, couldn't and worse . . .

Neither did Magna.

She hadn't been able to trust Yumiko's love for her, that it could withstand the impact of truly knowing her; and in the end, she'd only sabotaged what she had hoped to protect. She was self-aware enough to realize that part of that had been intentional. When their relationship had crossed over the border of friendship, when they had gotten all that more close, too close, something inside Magna had rebelled. Something panicky and defensive, revolting at the love that was building inside her, the safety she felt lying in Miko's arms (a place she never wanted to leave); that fear that it was only temporary, too temporary, that one day Miko would wake up and realize just who she'd fallen into bed with, and then it would all be over. The longer it continued the worse it would hurt. She hadn't been able to wait around for it to get to that stage. Instead, she'd forced the gears into rapid motion, propelling herself towards that inevitable heartbreak whilst she still had some heart left for herself, before she gave it all away to Miko.

(and deep down, knowing it was already too late, that Yumiko had taken her heart years ago, and Magna had barely murmured a protest)

It had been impulsive. And stupid.

And after everything was said and done it still fucking hurt. It hurt so much she could barely breathe in the aftermath.

She hadn't been able to save herself from that.

And she'd tried to explain to Miko why she'd done it but it had been a poor attempt, born more out of spite than any rational thinking. She hadn't even really tried. Because in the end, she hadn't seen the point. Wasted energy. Wasted hope. She couldn't see a future in which Miko would be able to understand. To understand and forgive her and love her still.

Because she couldn't understand, not really.

(and sometimes she hated her for that)

Because Miko was a good ass fucking lawyer and she had seen the system work as a result, but all Magna had ever known were its failures: how she'd had to move in with her uncle and his wife after her mum had gone to prison for killing her own father, never mind that it had been in self-defense; and later, watching the sick bastard who'd preyed on her cousin be allowed to walk free even after pleading guilty - rather, from what she'd gathered, because he had pled guilty, his easy compliance and willingness to accept a deal leading him to walk free with barely a slap on the wrist fine and a registration as a level 1 sex couldn't even search his name or address on the local registry when he was considered that low a risk.

How the fuck was any of that justice?

Though, she supposed she should be grateful, in a way. That same system that had wreaked havoc across her life had also allowed her to be released after only serving four years - less than - when Miko had found far too many ways to poke holes in her case; much better than the life sentence she'd been staring into ever since she'd left the courthouse for the final time.

To be fair, the case against her had been less than flimsy in the first place, the evidence circumstantial at best - they'd never even found the murder weapon. Surprisingly, all those cop shows she'd binged growing up actually came in handy for something. She wasn't an idiot, she planned ahead, did what she could to cover up.

But she'd also been realistic. She'd known back when the crime was still only a hypothetical in her head that getting away with it wasn't the most likely outcome, that she'd probably go to prison, maybe even for the rest of her life. But as long as he didn't get to live his - as long as he wasn't given a chance to do to another child what he'd done to her cousin -that had seemed like an acceptable price. It wasn't like she'd had much going for her, anyway. Hell, given the state of her bank account and failed education, she probably would have ended up going to jail for petty theft one day, regardless.

And at least you got free boarding and meals in prison - though she would have rather starved and slept on the street than feel so trapped every second of her life, to the point that when freedom did come it was that which felt unnatural to her.

If Magna's court-appointed lawyer hadn't been breaking under the weight of over a hundred ongoing cases she might never have been sentenced in the first place. Not that she had even had it in her to care at the time. Even now, those months were almost a complete blank in her memory. She could remember that she'd been in a daze for most of it, that she hadn't been feeling much of anything - a welcome liberation from the all-consuming rage that had burned within her for months before she drew that knife: not when the police locked her in handcuffs that pinched at her skin; not sitting in that courtroom with the press of too many people's eyes on her; and not when the door to her prison cell had slammed shut for the first time.

She could maybe recall her lawyer snapping at her more than once, frustrated and helpless as she refused to offer more than the occasional one word answer or grunt.

Years later, when Miko had finally come onto the scene, she'd been far more awake to her circumstances; too awake.

But she'd do it all over again, even now. Even with the memory of that look haunting the space between them, the way her heart had drawn in on itself, shuddering under the weight of all the judgment she'd expected but still not been prepared for.

He deserved it.

How could she let him just walk away?

How did Magna explain to Miko that the law she'd devoted her life to was nothing but shit? It was all gone now, anyway, the system that had ruined her life fallen away into dust along with the rest of civilization.

But Miko . . . Miko still looked on that lost world fondly, she missed it in a way that Magna never could and . . . even with all that rage boiling inside of her, begging her for an outlet, she couldn't take that from her; didn't want to.

One of them should have something worth remembering in this nightmare.

Magna could be selfish. She'd be the first to admit it. But she was also incredibly selfish about the people she loved. They came first - and fuck the rest of the world. And Miko . . . Miko was on the top of that list. It had killed her, being stuck in that cave, knowing that she had hurt her, that the last thing she would probably ever do in this sorry life was hurt the only woman she had ever loved.

And she wouldn't do that again.

Except she probably would. Because that's what she did.

She messed everything up. Including her and Miko.

But maybe that was for the best. She and Miko . . . they weren't compatible. They were like oil and water that had fallen into the same bowl and ended up stuck together, but always separate; Magna heavy and sinking to the bottom whilst Yumiko floated to the top, always.

They weren't meant to bond.

(but they did and they did it so well that-)

She didn't think she would ever be as open and trusting as Miko - but life experience warned her that that was probably a good thing, especially if she wanted to survive in a world where the dead wanted to eat you and most of the living wanted to kill you. It scared her, how easily Miko - and even Connie and Luke - let people in. She was terrified it was going to get them killed one day.

Kelly was more like Magna in that respect. They were both always preparing themselves for the eventual fallout. It was why Magna hadn't even had to bring up the idea of creating a stash - they'd both already fallen into the familiar habit of scrounging away what they could. In the past, that kind of safety net had been the difference between life and death. She hadn't felt good about it. Of course she hadn't. She liked the people at Hilltop, as much as she liked anyone who she couldn't allow herself to grow attached to, and she was so fucking grateful to be taken in by them, to finally have a home. But homes never lasted. Even before the Apocalypse they were nothing but a false promise you would end up hanging yourself with if you didn't keep your guard up. And Yumiko, Connie, Luke and Kelly were hers. They were her people. And at the end of the day, they came first. She had to protect them. Even if it meant doing things that they would never agree to, things they might later end up hating her for.

And Kelly. . . Kelly understood that because she was hard in a way that the others weren't and she had Connie. Kelly would do anything for Connie.

The thing was, even if she and Yumiko decided to try again, even if they could move past this, Magna didn't think she could change that part of herself. She didn't want to change it. How could she when it had the potential to keep Miko alive? She would rather destroy their relationship beyond repair than one day have to drive a knife through Miko's skull because she had failed to do the only thing she had ever been any good at - keeping them just that little inch further away from death's door.

Ten years and most of their group was still alive whilst the rest of the world had become a sea of ravenous corpses and that . . . that had to count for something.

It had to.

. . .

"What are you afraid of?

that you love him

or that you 've lost him

either way the heart beating in your chest

didn 't originally belong to you."

— You'll Be Buried With Him Painted Over You by Abby S

  A/N: I tried to think about what kind of life experiences might have shaped Magna to be someone who could do what she did. Cos no matter how many of us might want to punish bastards like that when they do commit these crimes, most of us don't actually do it. There are things that restrain us. Certain moral codes, fear, faith in the justice system, having things that we don't want to lose, not being ready to sacrifice our freedom and our future if we get caught. For whatever reason, most people just don't cross that line. So I thought a lot about what we'd seen of Magna and the kind of person she is and how her past might have shaped her to be able to make that choice. I mean Magna cares about the people she considers hers a lot and she's very protective, so that's obviously a large part of it, but I knew there also had to be more. Also it's my head cannon that Magna loves kids, like they're one of her weak spots, but she keeps her distance from them because they remind her of her cousin, and because of the person she's become since her cousin died. . . . OK, just gonna do a little shameless self-promotion, hope you don't mind :)

I made a yumagna vid so if you haven't seen it already and you're interested it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grzrpr0QZEE (I'm gonna do more so if you want to stay in the loop subscribe to my youtube channel. I'll probs end up doing a short one for Unsteady because of this fic but I'm holding out till we get a yumagna hug)

I have an insta for yumagna called @yumagnas.home . my multifandom one is @bonnielextra (lots of awesome women that i make edits for just fyi) and my personal one is @cissyalice. Hit me up so I can follow some more yumagna stans!

My twitter is @bonnielextra and @tocaritas (for my edits). Currently just a lot of crying about yumagna on the first one.

And my tumblr is welcometocaritas. Obviously no pressure to look at any of these but I just thought I'd put them in just case :)

#yumagna #magniko #the walking dead #magna twd #yumiko twd #yumiko x magna #yumagna edit #yumagna fanfic #nadia hilker #eleanor matsuura #twd edit #twd fanfiction #mypost #my post #myfic

[oxboykev]

First Friday

I am jobless. By choice. You see, a month ago I ended my employment as a technical writer at a biotech company. It wasn’t exactly a rash decision. I had been contemplating this imminent separation since probably last December. 

Prior to this job, I was employed as a Captionist at a local technical university. That lasted all of two months. They could see that all the training in the world wasn’t going to help me learn on the job and so they told me to stop clutching onto the banister I was dangling from and, for all of our sakes, let go. The job required expert listening, near perfect accuracy capturing speech and translating it into electronic shorthand and lightning bolt typing speed. It was humbling to know that I possessed only one out of the three, at varying times, and, honestly, was fair to mediocre in demonstrating either of them consistently.

Like now, back then when I turned in my work laptop and its corresponding rolling suitcase to the office I contemplated my essential worth to society. As has been written countless times and is known to virtually everyone around the world, having an occupation not only allows you to accumulate capital, but it also invests a person with a sense of belonging and dignity. It provides a sense of worth in the eyes of one’s family, peers, loved ones and, most importantly, oneself. It’s an easy calculation to make, but I seem to be the only one in my immediate surroundings who can’t seem to come up with the correct change.

Thus, it was with much fanfare that I welcomed the decision of the aforementioned biotech company to bring me aboard as its newest technical writer last July. After several months of searching and one extensive and effectual in-person interview later, I had accomplished a professional aspiration I had of being a technical writer. What I didn’t let on was that I had only brushed shoulders with technical writers and had never written a proper technical document up until my hiring. In actuality, through word-of-mouth and first-person accounts I only lived the job vicariously through a number of technical writers with whom I was coworkers or friends. The fact that I had never held the title or had actually done any such writing previously was to be my ultimate undoing. But I charged ahead anyway because, to be completely honest, I needed the money and security of the benefits that a full-time job guaranteed. Even so, I was still confident in my intelligence and capacity to learn through touch and sight how to become a technical writer. I was fully prepared to make technical writing my career of choice.

Reality, though, has the unique talent of cutting you off at the knees if you dare ride into a situation with such sugar plum delusions dancing in your head. Landing the job of technical writer, I soon learned, was not that much of a hurdle. The seemingly insurmountable difficulties occurred when I tried navigating the pre-existing dynamic that had already been baked inside the “team” at the company. I know that it takes a while for me to warm up to new people and situations, but I always felt I compensated for my initial stiffness by keeping my eyes and ears open and holding out the hope that I would eventually learn my way around any obstacles and redeem myself with my coworkers by becoming more familiar with and sympathetic to their little quirks. That’s the same attitude I carried with me into the technical writer position to this new team. However, it didn’t serve me well this time because I couldn’t learn the basics and intricacies of the job as fast as the boss and coworkers expected me to. 

It didn’t help that my boss had spread her attention and energy thin by accepting a new supervisory position for a different department within the company shortly before she hired me. She ostensibly was going to have to do double-duty in order to juggle her oversight responsibilities for two departments. On my first day in the office, my boss had already packed up most of her office items and was transitioning to her new office in a different part of the office building. So within a couple weeks of me starting she was out of pocket and already assuming the duties of her new role. That left limited facetime between us and wasn’t especially conducive to getting to know each other better and attempting to be in sync. Perhaps it’s a mistake on my part to think I need a lot of personal attention to place things in order and put all my effort into learning the ins-and-outs of a job. Given my years of experience in the workforce, maybe I shouldn’t be so unnerved by the feeling of being left to fend for myself and just jump into the stream of work before me. 

Suffice it to say, the limited attentiveness of the boss left my two other beleaguered coworkers to pick up the slack and take on the majority of my training. All I can say is that they did the best they could, given the timing and circumstances. But when the more senior medical writer decided to quit several months after I arrived, in October 2018, leaving the junior technical writer to deal with me plus another recently hired technical writer that’s when, I feel, my tenure at the company became more and more tenuous. The pressure to “get it right the first time” and perform like a veteran technical writer were implicit points made to me by the supervisor in her office during our one-one-one meeting a few days prior to the senior medical writer leaving for good. Of course, I readily conceded to her demands because I needed the job, considering I had been jobless for over a year after leaving Seattle, then the short stint of playing Captionist and finally a return to an uncertain job search before landing the technical writer job. If I had been completely honest, for both of our sakes, and told her that it was going to take a considerable amount of time for me to perform at the level she expected of me, then I would’ve rendered my usefulness to the team moot. In hindsight, I did myself a disservice by believing I had to cling to this one particular job instead of cutting my losses, once again, and find myself something more fitting.

So I bit my lip and continued to rough it through the thicket of a subject field I realize now I had no business being in. By the end of 2018, with three new writers installed, we became a team of five. And I was the only male. Regardless, I had been in numerous work situations where I was the only man and had no trouble fitting in and actually forming some strong bonds of friendship with my female counterparts. So it was all the more curious and a bit humiliating to be gradually ostracized by the newest recruits. No matter what effort I made in the beginning to chat with them and become familiar with their personalities, they eventually coalesced into an inviolable clique. As the months warmed up, I noticed these three would go for walks during lunchtime and not invite me. Then, eventually, they didn’t invite me into their casual conversations anymore. I guess the increasingly humiliating part for me was that they would commiserate around the near vicinity of my desk and act as if I weren’t sitting just a few feet away. From my vantage point, it had gotten to the point that each and every day they were giving me the brush-off, sans any rationale, and I just had to take it. It wasn’t as if I could argue back, since all three of them had stopped talking to me, thus leaving me nothing to work with. This untenable situation became more acute when the junior technical writer went on maternity leave at the end of May 2019. There I was, the guy none of his teammates talked to and whose boss came by once in a while to check up on me. Isolated. Plus, I was given fewer and fewer assignments as the weeks and months rolled by. 

After my first annual performance review, I could tell the boss was slow-motion demoting me. Due to a combination of factors, including, admittedly, a fair number of unforced errors on my part, my boss noted that the quality of my work was subpar. She went through the motions of advising me how I could improve and letting me know that she appreciated my willingness to learn from past mistakes. In my head, I wanted to ask her, “Why are you keeping me on? Why waste your and my time any longer?” It got to the point where I would just sit at my desk each day and pretend to be busy. You would think fake working would be rather easy. However, when you’re a man of conscience and pride, like I am, it was actually a numbing and increasingly resentful experience. The fact is, I really wanted to be a valuable contributor and demonstrate my hard work ethic. But there was going to be no path forward for me when my position was continually being undercut and my workload, for months, had been dwindling to virtually just one project. I really stopped caring. I had no backers, I had no moral support and the point of it all seemed to be getting more and more pointless.

Without acknowledging the obvious tension and remaining silent about the inevitable parting-of-the-ways between she and me, my supervisor emanated professional antagonism toward me every day that I persisted in showing up at the office. So after taking a week-long vacation toward the end of September, I went to my computer and typed up a brief, to-the-point resignation letter and handed it in to my supervisor on a Monday morning. The look on her face and her body language told me immediately she had been looking forward to this moment just as much as I.

Although I feel like I’m in more limbo now than ever, to be honest, I also feel freer than I’ve ever felt in the last year and a half. But this also means I have plenty of free time to second-guess myself and wonder what was it all for. I guess that’s what’s called “being human”. 

#work #occupation #job #resign #quitting

[anthonymanly]

The best way to become your own boss is to start a side hustle while you still have the safety and security of your day job.

Starting a side hustle not only pads your income, but it also creates career-changing opportunities you wouldn’t have normally stumbled upon at your full-time job. Many side hustles have led to new jobs and lifelong friends.

However, building a side hustle to profitability with a limited amount of time outside of your day job is never easy.

It takes prioritization, a psychological shift in how you view what’s most important in your life, and the willingness to get very creative on a daily basis.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, there are many reasons you should start small with building your side hustle customer-by-customer from the ground up. For one, the prospect of making more money on top of your regular pay is a powerful incentive, especially in a volatile economy.

A long-time hobby can also motivate you to grow a business around things you love.

Aspiring entrepreneurs with a strong drive can look to a side hustle as a stepping stone toward financial freedom. Your side hustle can also allow you to focus on what you’re most passionate about if you don’t get that satisfaction from your full-time work.

If you’re planning to start a side hustle, here are 7 steps that’ll help you get more traction.

1. Prepare for the Long Haul

Before you start a side hustle ask yourself how badly you want to succeed. If you’re just toying with a business idea and entertaining the notion of striking it rich, don’t expect success to happen overnight or that you’ll make it past the finish line.

Remember, your side hustle will begin taking many hours each week away from precious moments you’d otherwise be spending with friends, family and elsewhere. A side hustle also requires a massive amount of effort to succeed, given that the majority of your time each day goes to your full-time job.

2. Identify Your Skills

To experience quick results, you need to back your side hustle with relevant skills, experience or industry knowledge.

Business success happens only when the right skills meet the right interest areas.

3. Validate With One Paying Customer

Your side hustle idea may seem incredibly awesome and disruptive to you, but that’s not necessarily how your potential customers will see it.

The reason you need to validate your side hustle idea with a paying customer before getting too far into the business is to make sure you’re not creating a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.

The “lack of market need” is the top cause of startup failures.

So be warned, there’s a good chance you’re nurturing an idea that not enough people will find value in. And if nobody wants your product or service, the resources (time, energy, effort) you invest in building it will just go down the drain.

To prevent this from happening, be sure to validate whether your product or service will gain traction in the real world. You can do that with objective feedback from potential customers and asking them to join a waiting list, pre-purchase your solution or hire you as a service provider. Quickly abandon ideas that aren’t getting a positive response and consider more feasible opportunities.

4. Differentiate Yourself From Competitors

Competition is an inevitable part of doing business. In just about any niche, competitors will try to outperform your product or service, take as many of your customers as they can and look for opportunities to innovate past you.

To prevent this from happening, all you need to do is secure your value propositions with a serious competitive advantage.

Your competitive edge can be anything that differentiates your business from that of your competitors.

This can range from

smart (or low) pricing,

aggressive sales tactics,

higher profit margins,

unmatched customer service,

best-in-class features,

strategic relationships,

intellectual-property

and other specific factors that clearly differentiate your brand from the competition.

Your competitive advantage is what makes customers choose you, and continue coming back for more.

5. Define Clear Goals

In order to make your larger goals happen, you need to start with very small, incremental goals. After bringing on one satisfied customer, it’s time to get your second. Then your third, fourth, fifth and so on.

If you begin by aiming for 1,000 customers instead of just one, you’ll get too overwhelmed with everything that needs to be in place before handling that many customers. In my experience, having practical goals that are attainable on a daily, weekly and monthly basis helps you develop positive habits and train yourself for success.

6. Set Milestones That’ll Force You to Launch

A good, viable side hustle idea should be launched, monetized and iterated. Don’t obsess over trying to build the perfect solution when you don’t yet know what exactly your customers will resonate with most.

Otherwise, you’ll just waste precious time, trapped in a dream state.  To help you draw up a simple action plan that lays out key milestones and deadlines that’ll guide you from start all the way to launch date stick to your deadlines, tell friends and family about them, hold yourself accountable and don’t allow yourself to make excuses.

Then perform the actions needed to move from one milestone to the next.  Never aim for perfection because it will bog you down and prevent you from ever launching anything.

7. Delegate Work Outside of Your Expertise

You can’t be good at everything all the time. The reality of starting a side hustle is that you’re going to have weaknesses. That means some (or even many) of the skills necessary to efficiently running your side hustle must be found elsewhere in order to free up your time to continue doing only what you’re best at within your business.

Outsourcing your weaknesses is a more effective alternative. It’s also more affordable in the long run as the value of your time increases significantly.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you and your coaching business right now:

Join our FREE Facebook™ group, the Scalable Business Dojo, and connect with coaches who are growing too – it’s our Facebook™ community where the sharpest business coaches on the planet learn to get more money, deliver more impact, and get more freedom, CLICK HERE and join now!

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Schedule a FREE 15-minute Game Plan Call with me we’ll map out a personalized plan of your next steps to grow your coaching business.  Please leave your credit card at home too – there’s no pitch on this call.  Just great conversation with an expert to help you figure out what’s next for you in your business. CLICK HERE to book a call now!