#there should be no issues with trying to conceive. yay

[ticklishqueeralien]

Appointment done

[smile-files]

a rundown of pl bluesky henry for the uninitiated, since he's a different (yet related and not mutually exclusive) characterization of henry to the one i've been dabbling in lately:

henry's occasionally antagonized by his superego, which, in certain high-stress and/or high-guilt scenarios, manifests as a separate voice in his internal monologue sounding a lot like a hybrid between his own adult self and mr ascot (in contrast to his id, which is a blend of his child self and randall and which is much less distinct); this superego refers to henry in second person and chastises henry for doing the wrong thing, which usually amounts to him doing anything remotely self-indulgent and/or not in direct accordance with another's best interest, and makes him hypervigilant of how he might be (or is) hurting his loved ones

largely instigated by the temporal paradoxes which have, among other things, taken randall away and returned him in a horrifically painful manner, henry has experienced a guilt spiral in which he believes his desire for randall's return directly and necessarily hurts randall, and, through a warped understanding of a certain time travel loop, believes he dooms himself to randall's hatred in the past by abandoning him in the present

in accordance to the above two, henry questions his relationships to those closest to him: among other things, he fears he has assumed a greater level of closeness than is really present, and wonders if these relationships are HIS at all (this causes him to obsess over what level of formality he should be referring to his loved ones with)

henry (eventually) enters a romantic relationship with dalston! yay! but the path to that is incredibly tedious given how henry thinks for a while the very notion of the relationship to be some sort of personal, selfish, aberrant delusion of his; and at the same time, he keeps thinking about his own issues, including his inability to deal with said issues, and pushes dalston away out of fear of involving him in a life he thinks is doomed for tragedy - but this doesn't work for long, since dalston is (thankfully) stubborn as all hell

on a related note... across timelines, henry has a 50/50 death rate. his relationship with dalston is one piece of the puzzle helping prevent him from choosing to shuffle off the mortal coil in this timeline

henry sleeps next to the corpse of an incarnation of randall! henry tries to trick himself into believing he's just asleep! henry wakes up and almost immediately has a panic attack!

henry practically goads an incarnation of randall/the masked gentleman into trying to kill him! he fails but ends up in a month-long 'coma' through which he isn't allowed to die (the 'coma' is only indirectly caused by this incarnation of randall)

henry is trying to parent the daughter whom an alternate version of him has; to some extent he's still disturbed by her very existence, given how she was conceived for the sake of maintaining this other henry's public image, but tries his best to give her a good childhood

worth noting too is that henry (as far as he can surmise) somehow has this strange device implanted in his brain which allows him to hear others' voices from afar and have his own voice heard over those same distances; the device can malfunction, giving him intense migraines, and has trouble hearing voices from people within, say, the akbadain ruins (which, relating to the azran's connection to the time stream, raises whether the device is somehow also azran technology)

henry has an... uncharacteristically poetic internal monologue

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE03, Ep1

I’m here! The final season continues from where se02 oddly left, right in the middle of a conversation! XD.

-Tohru’s crushed heart (scarf): Excellent symbolism!

Tohru, burdened with trying to lift the curse of teen & adult sohmas, is now also troubled by trying to help Arisa’s romantic life is sad for akito! Too much for compassionate selfless tohru. Unable to help, protect & erase the pain, tohru crumbles. Freezes. Her white scarf (heart) flies away, gets crushed by cars & becomes dirty. But here comes a boy ( who thinks himself a monster) picks it up, cleans & returns it back. He thinks nothing of his deed. nothing heroic abt saving a scarf, really. But do we need to be heroes to save others? kyo saves tohru by being kyo. Not the zodiac cat & not the menacing monster. Her heart is saved by him, shown much care & returned back. Mind you, the heart (scarf) is not brand new after the delima. It’s not very clean after being crushed, some marks remain, but these are marks of growth!!! you walk away after hardships carrying minor scars of victory. This scene solidify kyo’s role in tohru’s life as an equal companion. Not a heroic prince charming. It is the little things he does that shows who he is. kyo isn’t abt big soft words, he doesn't say the best things. he is a man of action. His care, love & compassion comes so very easily & naturally to him thro actions. This is what yuki meant by saying he’s jealous of kyo. Yuki over thinks his steps & doubt everything before he acts. Kyo acts spontaneously then doubts himself later. He saves the scarf (heart) then tells her directly to buy another one if she feels it’s not clean. He failed to see how this trivial action meant the world to tohru. Tohru smiles lively cuz her heart is back to her.

Why is the scarf scene so important? (aka furuba’s best usage of symbolism yet!)

It symbolizes tohru’s toxic flaw that she must overcome! It represents tohru’s tormented heart over other ppl’s pain with severe neglect to her own problems & issues. Arisa’s love life shouldn’t be tohru’s delima, nor Akito’s complex or Kureno’s or the damned curse. Tohru toxically chooses to bear other burdens’ until they crush her.

Hana can’t come to save tohru from pain each time tohru indulges in it. Tohru must realize her own flaw & grow up beyond this toxic type of kindness. Feel & help others, but don’t use them to escape your pain & don’t indulge in their own struggles & neglect yourself. There is a reason hana’s knowing of tohru’s pain is thro “magical” waves, to symbolize that this can’t become a norm, not real. You can’t depend on magic to grow. I love that!

The white scarf bearing smudges of the tires even after kyo washed it shows that kyo’s love & care can’t magically heal all tohru’s pain. It parallels kyo’s words from se01, ep,24 when he said tohru didn’t heal all his pain, but he feels better simply cuz she stayed by his side. Tohru now is feeling better cuz kyo chose was there for her. Love doesn’t magically heal you, kids! But it sure puts you on the path! Also, this once again adds more depth to the (tohru/kyo) equal give & take dynamics.

This scene deconstruct the image of Tohru represented as an angelic mother throughout 2 seasons. Instead, It paints her as a real flawed girl with much need for growth. Exactly, like how we have learned by now that kyo isn’t a horrible monster nor a prince charming saving the day, but a flawed boy with much need for growth. However, these two push each other forward in a subtle way through daily situations! Excellent writing!!

-Kureno. (aka. who tohru should never become):

The harmful kindness: Kureno is someone who hurts himself & hurt many others (akito, arisa, shigure, & consequently the rest of the zodiacs) by giving the harmful types of kindness to akito, by completely erasing his own needs, desires & living for the sake of someone who would be far better without him. Kureno is who tohru might have become if she selflessly continues fighting solely for the sohma’s sake & trying to break the curse while ignoring her own life. She’ll become as miserable as kureno & the zodiacs will become dependable on her.

The destructive pity: Kureno pities this tormented child (akito) & chooses to stay with her until her tears dry. This pity is destructive cuz it is done while he wishes to be miles away with Arisa & it encourages akito to stay as she is. Look, a child whose mom hates her deserves pity. But an adult woman needs to learn to build relationships based on mutual affection & respect. This talk of pity reminds me of kyo & kagura. Kagura pitied the cat zodiac. The relationship was doomed cuz kyo refuses pity. It doesn’t matter if her pity turned into love later. Kyo doesn’t want that from her or anyone. There is NO equality there. We know tohru came to love kyo for all the times he was there for her & all the times he pushed her to improve, to complain, to want things! she said so in se01, ep, 24. But we also know that young baby tohru pitied the cat when her mom told her the zodiacs story. what if kyo thinks tohru’s affection is pity???? that’s a big NO for him & for every person. I really want tohru to be as far from any kurno’s traits as possible!!!

-Akito, the pitiful woman:

Akito was born a girl, forced to be raised as a boy by her mother’s demands? where is the father?? she was hated by her mother. why? she also hates her mom. (hate your child & they’ll hated you). So, akito is doomed by her mom. Akito tries to prove that she’s loved by the zodiac “she specified the male zodiacs” interesting! we saw how she hates both Isuzu & kisa & doesn’t give a damn abt kagura. This woman, forced to pose as a man, actually desires to be treated as a woman. As for the other zodiacs:

No worries abt hatori leaving cuz he’s 24/7 attending to her health.

Ayame makes tea exclusively for her & hatori.

she thinks Ritsu is too timid to attempt leaving.

Hiro’s a baby, momiji is hated cuz she can’t break him.

Kyo is destined to be locked. but Why she cares abt the cat anyway?? She publicly hates him & feels disgusted by him.

She used to control yuki but can’t anymore.

she uses intimacy to bound those who “can” leave her the most: kurno! & shigure? she sleeps next to shigure in the valentine ep. hatori remarked: don’t let akito catch cold. We saw the sexually charged rage in se02, ep10. So, she isn’t faithful to kureno. They don’t have a relationship. She doesn’t even have a relationship with shigure, either. to her, sex is a tool to tie them both to her?

It is ironic that the person who said she despises woman & accuses Isuzu of seducing hatori is herself seducing others. Except, tragically, kureno isn’t with her for herself, but cuz he pities her. We saw her slapping & embracing him. Next scene; her bare shoulders & his unbuttoned shirt clearly implies they got intimate which is what akito does to feel secure in kureno not leaving her. Kureno is not even interested in her despite submitting to her advances, needs & orders. He does it out of pity. Truly the most tragic form of physical affection: sex for pity. wow... how tragically pitiful is the abusive ruler of the zodiacs who looms over them & demands respect & eternal bonds. How can she find someone who’ll love her for herself, if she doesn’t learn to show good sides of her? Yuki wasn’t loved for who he is in school, but for being the “prince”, he showed his real character & got himself true friends & soon a lover!!!  Kyo, was feared & pitied for turning into a “monster”, but once he showed his kind & harmless self, he got himself true friends & a girl who loves him for his actual personality! Who will love akito for who she is if she only shows a spoiled child, horrible family head or a pitiful woman? What does shigure love in her? he doesn’t seem to pity her nor pamper her much, does he?  perhaps we’ll know more abt the real akito later.

Side notes:

Akito’s mom reminded me of kyo’s dad. Abused children, who are hated by their parents, don’t let go of the hurt easily. they’ll always try to either get their approval, show them they were worthy of their love, or they’re NOTHING like their parents think they are. eg: Kyo’s biological father’s hate has destroyed kyo. Kyo have kazuma & tohru & he still wonder why they love him. It took kyo 17 years to actually promise to call kazuma "dad” one day in se01 finale. You need time to heal the wounds inflected by the ones who should love you the most. Being loved by others doesn’t magically heal you! You need to take few steps forward.

Isuzu is Ren’s clone! finally understanding why the severe hate from akito towards Isuzu. I’ll wait for more Ren/Akito content before analyzing their relationship.

Ren is so sexy. ngl, the scene of the zodiacs touching her belly after she just *conceived* akito is so creepy~ ew! 

Hana picked up tohru first before kyo, cuz this show isn’t exclusive for romantic love as much as it isn’t exclusive for friendship. There is balance. 

Tohru needs her own future, so does Arisa & hana! Learn to accept the limit of what you can do as a friend, tohru.. forever loving furuba for steering away from “friends stay together forever~yay” anime trope! Furuba is abt independent & individual adult life! building your own future! Epic writing!

Forever fascinated by how much the little small ordinary daily life things has really built kyo-tohru love! It feels so real & very uniquely built! Excellent writing!

Arisa is stuck with an adult man trapping himself in the most unnecessary love triangle. Kureno’s cage is self made, no curse. A very sheltered boy/man not living in the real world. Only two options for kureno if he continues this path: he’ll hurt akito, or akito will hurt him. We know the answer from the trailer, don’t we?

Arisa letting go of kuron is growth! Let go & live, girl!

There is a subtle theme of learning to let go in furuba~

Yuki is the biggest kyoru shipper!

Tohru intentionally hitting kyo with scarf’s pon-pon is my fave side of her! intentional flirting shows change from her little girl’s good girl attitude to her own type of a feisty woman! after all, she’s nearly 18!

The way the camera moved when kyo spotted the scarf was so good!

The director is obsessed with flying!! did he work on attack on titans? cuz the Ren-akito flying fight reminded me of Titan Eren strangling Titan Annie in AOT se01 finale! but chibi version! XD. I’m sorry for akito’s pain, but I was distracted by laughing! XD

look, if you plan to dramatize a situation, know your budget & your skills. Obviously, the director knew the scene is badly done, hence, the wide far away, dim lit shot to hide as much as it can. Couldn’t he do without it? let akito strangle her to the ground without flying!

oh well~these over-the-top shots are now a furuba trade mark~ just praying they stick with one weird shot per season.

[treason-and-plot]

REPLIES TO NANETTE’S CONFESSION

@justanothersimsblog

That's worst...

@muses-circle

Mia's face says it all. 🤯🤣

@twinsimskeletons

Her face says it all

@mysimsloveaffair

But yes...Mia's face says it all.

@mysimsloveaffair

I've tried typing a comment 3 different times, but I'm actually speechless. It's kind of sad that Nannette felt the need to resort to that 😩

@gaiahypothesims

OMG NANETTE!!!!!! That's the worst way! Grooooossssssssss.

@zx-ta

I KNEW IT!!!

@wannabecatwriter

I get it that he was good looking, but even then, he doesn't seem worth that effort. Although, if she hadn't done that, she wouldn't have Mia.

Like you mentioned re Jacqueline on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:  I think we often underestimate the desperate lengths some women will go to to get pregnant, especially childless women in their mid to late 30s who feel their fertility is rapidly declining. The desire to conceive becomes all-consuming and rationale often goes out the window. I’ve known a few such women myself. There is literally nothing they won’t do to get pregnant! And yeah, yay for having Mia!

@pixelcurious

Oh no lol

@pixelcurious

Poor Mia, her father was a love glove

@streetlightaurora

Oh... That's somehow worse... 😬

@kscriba

Oh LOL that’s so much worse

@princessdejamars

Ew....that somehow seems so....over the top....but still gets the job done....Poor Mia

@skyburned

gross. Unethical and disrespectful. And gross.

@winifredwoogie

Ohman...that is disturbing and desperate. Also...Eeeewww.

@devotedghosts

Girl, what??!!!!  @skyburned said it best.

She sure did! ;=)

@tyrellsimsoficeandfire

I always wonder how you always come up with such original backstories. Do you just create them when needed or already while creating the Sims?

Awwww, thank you so much, Tyrell! I quite often have a sense of what a character’s backstory is going to be...for instance when Nanette emerged as a single mother I knew there was a murky backstory involving Mia’s father. But sometimes a characters’ story will evolve in a way I wasn’t anticipating, or it will become much less of a big deal than I originally thought...Anita’s Daddy issues, for example. 

@shhhushhh

That's something she should defenitely carry with her to the grave... To some point I was thinking Nanette's actions were a bit "better" than Agathe's because she wanted a baby, and Agi seemingly just wanted the man since she terminated the pregnancy. But then I remembered that Nanette didn't do great as a parent since they were living in poverty whole their life and Mia had to cancel school, and then paying for Nanette's loans etc. But at the end that's my twi cents.

Nanette is hopeless when it comes to money and budgeting, that’s true, and she would prefer to run away from money problems rather than deal with them like a responsible adult. But she did raise a bright, vivacious, hardworking and kindhearted daughter, and she has always loved her with all her heart, so I think she must get some credit for that! But it’s disgusting to think that both Aggie and Nanette tried to manipulate men using other human beings...and then Aggie got rid of hers when she realised her plan was doomed to fail. At least Nanette cherished her daughter and accepted responsibility for her. For that reason I’m inclined to think Nanette’s actions were less reprehensible than Agathe’s.

@miraakles

Nanette went above and beyond to have that kid... Jeez.. See if Agathe went this far with Pablo I just have no words... Still, I love you Nanette! That might've been a bad move but hey!! Least you tried your best to dealt with the consequences of your actions and raised Mia as best you could. Unlike some people who try to force the child on someone and when that doesn't work abort and paint them out to be the monster! 

@justanothersimsblog

Would've been better to poke holes...

....but that would have been so unethical! ;=)

@gaiahypothesims

Or you know... lie and say you're on the pill. There were just SO many more ways for her to unethically get pregnant. bwahah. Oh Nanette... what are we going to do with you. I feel terrible for her, but yet.. oh man. What kind of life are you living when that seems like any sort of option. Nanette Nanette Nanette. Poor thing.

She tried that...obviously he suspected something, lolol!

@sweetnovember77

Now? Nanette reveals this now? Why is she doing this now?

@skyburned

Not only was it immoral to have done it, it's horrific to tell her child that she did it.  What in hell has she accomplished?  What's that child supposed to do with that information?  Means justifying the ends has nothing to do with her decision to share them.

The conversation with Mia about Agathe and Pablo gave Nanette an opportunity to reveal the truth about how Mia had been conceived…she always planned to tell Mia *one day*, but until now the right opportunity hadn’t really presented itself. And as Nanette mentioned earlier, smuggling the money together has really strengthened their bond, and made Nanette feel she didn’t want to have any secrets from Mia any more. It could be argued that Nanette was being very selfish, unburdening herself of the secret that had nagged at her conscience for so long, but there was also a genuine desire to set the record straight, to let Mia know that there was more to her father’s story than him just being a deadbeat Dad.  

@stsciurussimblr

Of course the end justifies the means or we wouldn’t have this great story! Duh! 🤔

@miraakles

That's the thing though, Mia is far from a kid. To live her life believing her dad was just some lowlife who abandoned her isn't fair to her, it makes sense for Nanette to tell her the truth, tell her how everything really went down so she can form a mature and appropriate opinion. It's easy to move on when you know the whole story and not just part of it.

Yes, I agree. I think Mia is old enough and has sufficient life experience to handle the truth. And is is important that she is given the opportunity to form her own opinions about her father, that’s a great point! 

@gaiahypothesims

Ah HAH! I missed that one. And it doesn't escape me the hilarity of trying to think up better ways to get secretly knocked up without it being completely immoral. Its immoral. lol Whichever way its done.

@muses-circle

I'm all for Nanette coming clean about Mia's origin, gross as it is, but was *now* really the best time to do it? She had to know Mia would freak out and possible attract the wrong kind of attention. LOL this whole thing screams "THEY'RE GONNA GET CAUGHT".

@shhhushhh

I wonder if Mia's quite mild reaction is due to her being naturally non-judgmental, or her being highly subjective because it's her beloved ma, or because it's her way of coping with an info that can easily get someone into a depression or existential crisis. What Nanette did is gross and sick indeed - not the method, but how she deliberately took away the free will out of someone, their choice not to be parents. One of the very few times I feel bad for a man 😂😂

Mia is going to be pondering the impact of Nanette’s confession for a long time and it’s going to involve a lot of soul-searching…she is still trying to come to terms with it, and it’ll take a while. She’s a bit stunned at the moment. You can be sure she will be asking Nanette a lot of questions!

@wannabecatwriter

Kind of reminds me of what Jaqueline on Unbreakable Kimmy Shmidt did. They both just really really wanted that baby. But props to Nanette, she was always a good parent to Mia.

I think she was too! They may have been poor, but Mia always knew she was loved, and that her mother always had her back. And Nanette has never regretted for a single second her decision to give birth to Mia. 

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

My favourite Charmed episodes - season 5

This is the fifth part of my Favourite Charmed Episodes meta series all posts in the series will be tagged as #favecharmedeps.

Season 5 is honestly one of my favourite seasons and has two of my all time favourite episodes from across the series. There’s something about the whole vibe of season 5 that I just love. It feels very different from seasons 1-4 and generally I’d expect to dislike that, but it really works for me. I love the more mystical and fairy tale-esque theme running through it which taps into the lighter side of magic. The sisters have fantastic arcs in this season (and I’d argue it’s the last season that they receive truly good characterisation); Piper struggles with adjusting to becoming a mother; Phoebe tries to move on from an unhealthy relationship and creates a new life for herself with her job and Paige’s arc is my absolute favourite. I just love seeing Paige embrace being a witch and work through her identity issues in regards to where she fits in with the sisters and the world at large. I’ll discuss this more, but I honestly just adore Paige in this season and I think her characterisation is beautifully built upon from season 4. I’ve chosen 5 episodes from season 5 - A Witch’s Tail, Happily Ever After, Sympathy for the Demon, Y Tu Mummy Tambien and Centennial Charmed. 

A Witch’s Tail (5x01+2)

Initially I wasn’t going to include this episode because although I like it I don’t love it, but I had to because of what this episode means for the sisters. Generally, I like mermaids, but I’m not particularly invested or taken with Mylie or her story, it’s what it means for Phoebe that’s significant. Overall, this episode perfectly launches the three main character arcs that the sisters have this season, which I’ve outlined above, so let’s explore that in more detail. 

After seeing Phoebe go through literal hell in season 4 in her relationship with Cole, this episode is the perfect follow-up from that. She’s trying to divorce Cole so that she can move on and when he comes back her reaction is completely understandable. All she wants to do is runaway and never come back. Who can blame her? I’m a huge fan of the show using magical transformations as a metaphor for the sisters emotional or mental struggles and in this instance, a mermaid is the perfect creature for Phoebe to become. Mylie explains that their hearts are as cold as the ocean, that they don’t love and that they simply swim in the ocean completely free from all ties and responsibilities. Phoebe truly deserves to have this arc in this episode, it’s only sad that she doesn’t get even more focus. I’d argue that she suffers the biggest trauma of any of the sisters in season 4 and yet after Long Live the Queen and Wombraider, she’s never really given adequate time to deal with those traumas and the writing doesn’t give her space to do it either. The second Wombraider has finished it’s all just swept under the rug and I have a lot of problems with that. What this episode demonstrates to me is that through all of that heartbreak, Piper and Paige don’t know how to be there for Phoebe, in fact, nobody does. Phoebe carries the hurt caused by Cole completely alone because she feels that no one else can understand or that she’ll be judged. This is where I can criticise Piper and her sister relationship with Phoebe, because I feel like Piper doesn’t support Phoebe at all. Paige is more open-minded about Cole (despite being the one that hated him in season 4) and works her ass off to vanquish Cole for Phoebe’s benefit. But back to the point, Phoebe turning into a mermaid and running (or perhaps swimming is the more appropriate term) away at sea is because she doesn’t have that support and understanding that she needs. Notice that the sisters and Leo aren’t enough to bring her back home, it’s Cole that is responsible for her turning back into herself. And I love that final scene between them on the beach because it’s such a peaceful moment between them where they get to acknowledge all the hurt and damage they’ve caused each other, but that they still love each other. Cole describing Phoebe’s desire to wash away the pain with the waves of the sea explains perfectly why Phoebe chose to stay as a mermaid. This scene is overall one of my favourite Phoebe and Cole scenes because of how simple it is but how strongly it conveys the love and loss that’s between them. In some ways it’s sad that this wasn’t the end of their relationship, because I think it would’ve been a very courteous and sweet ending. 

Moving onto Piper, this episode is the beginning of Piper’s journey to becoming a mother. We see her struggle to conceive in season 4 and the heartbreak she feels at finding out she may not be able to conceive naturally, but this season is all about the process of her becoming a mother. I admire what the writers do with Piper in this episode (and season 5 generally), because I assume that a lot of Charmed’s viewers back in the day were young women and girls that perhaps didn’t have children so a large chunk of the audience probably couldn’t relate to what Piper was going through. However, becoming a mother is one of the most significant and life-changing things any woman can go through and it deserves to be explored properly. I know from close friends and family that have children how emotionally and mentally difficult it is. The assumption is that having a child should be a happy time - particularly the pregnancy when you’re celebrating and enjoying getting everything ready for the baby - but it’s actually very overwhelming. Piper’s feelings of fear and panic are particularly fitting when you consider the context of her pregnancy and life. She’s been trying a long time to get pregnant, so immediately she’s putting pressure on herself for everything to be perfect; she’s a first-time mother with no other women close to her that are mothers to seek advice and comfort from and she has very specific fears due to Patty dying when she was very young. I like how the episode starts out portraying Piper’s fear as coming from wanting to protect the baby, but that in the end it actually runs deeper than that and it’s her fear of leaving her baby without a mother. It echoes many of the fears that Prue had of repeating Patty’s history, and now as Piper is becoming a mother it’s natural that she would start to feel that way too. The fact that Piper casts a spell to remove her fear is not unlike Phoebe becoming a mermaid to avoid her emotional issues - they’re both trying to erase and suppress their feelings as a way to deal with them. But Piper removing her fear only endangers her and her baby (I still don’t know how the baby survived after the physical trauma Piper endured in this episode, I’m assuming Wyatt was constantly healing her from the womb) and Patty coming to her towards the end of the episode is the beautiful ending to that. Patty reassures her that Piper isn’t her, she’s her own person and things are and will be different for her child. It ends with Piper realising that whilst Patty only had Penny for support, she has Leo and Paige and Phoebe. She has a fantastic support system and she needs to start leaning on them instead of trying to handle it all on her own. 

As for Paige, she doesn’t have as much of a clear defined arc in this episode, but what is made clear is how much responsibility she’s taken on within the family. In addition to working a full-time job as a social worker (she gets promoted in this episode, yay!) she works her butt off to save Mylie, to get Phoebe back and to help Piper. She has to juggle all of these aspects of her life and all these responsibilities, and the chaos she has to endure perfectly sets up her fantastic arc which spans across the series with Paige quitting her job and devoting herself entirely to witchcraft. 

Happily Ever After (5x03)

God, I love this episode so much. Like I said, I’m a sucker for fairy tales and this entire episode is all about fairy tales, so what’s not to love? I enjoy the magic in this episode, the folklore but like nearly all of my other favourite episodes, it’s a great episode for character development. There’s a continued exploration of the arcs that were established in A Witch’s Tail and each sister’s arc is handled well. 

Piper is still trying to find a way to handle the responsibility of being a mother-to-be and whilst she’s overcome her initial fear of leaving her child motherless, she’s now concerned about what it means to have a magical child. This predicament leads to Piper summoning Grams and I always love to see Piper and Grams interact. Whilst I appreciate seeing the sisters stand on their own two feet and find their own way, these moments are really necessary. Everybody needs guidance and support from our parental/guardian figures and Grams visiting at this time feels very fitting. Piper needs her and Grams has a lot of valuable advice to share. However, Grams being back taps into a vital part of Piper’s personality that rears it’s head whenever Grams is around - her passivity. I’ve mentioned it before, but naturally Piper isn’t a leader, she’s very passive and allows others to take charge. Since Grams is an authoritarian anyway and has a very strong influence over Piper, we see Piper getting overshadowed by Grams. Grams starts dictating what Piper and the sisters should do, and instead of making her own decisions Piper falls into the habit of agreeing with Grams’ decisions because she doesn’t have faith in her own ability to make decisions. This also taps into another insecurity Piper has - her capability as the matriarch as the family. As I discussed when analysing Long Live the Queen, Piper feels that she fails to live up to Prue’s standards as the eldest sister, but she also feels that she fails to live up to Grams’ standards as the matriarch. For Piper, this episode is all about reassuring her that she is a powerful woman and witch that is a capable wife, sister, mother and matriarch. As Grams says at the end of the episode, she was there to remind Piper that she doesn’t need her. It’s such an important experience for Piper to have because up until this point she doubts her ability to assume that role of responsibility. Although it certainly doesn’t completely resolve Piper’s insecurities about this (as you’ll see as I talk about the other episodes), it’s a very nice episode for this evolving arc that she has. 

As for Phoebe, this episode is still about her trying to move on from Cole and the aftermath of their relationship. Throughout the episode she assumes Cole is the one responsible for bringing the fairy tales to life and trying to sabotage them, but of course, it’s not him. It’s easy for Phoebe to demonise Cole because that way she can project everything she’s feeling onto him and place blame, but all she’s doing is avoiding the fundamental issue which is that her experience with Cole has deeply affected her. She no longer has faith in herself, she doesn’t trust her own judgement and as a result she’s closed her off to those around her. The episode ends with Cole taking her to Adam and encouraging her to trust her initial instincts that he was a good guy. He says that she needs to learn to trust herself again before she can trust him. I appreciate the message that Phoebe needs to find a way to move on from Cole and that part of that is realising that not all men are evil and that she needs to trust her judgement of character, but personally, I wouldn’t have written it this way. It feels like there’s so much emphasis on Phoebe opening herself back up to love but it’s way too early for that. It makes more sense as part of an arc whereby Phoebe and Cole find their way back to each other, but that doesn’t happen so I do struggle to see the significance of this. Personally, I do have quite a lot of issues with the way Phoebe’s character is written post season 4 and the Source plot generally. I don’t think that Cole ruined Phoebe, I think that the writers lost sight of Phoebe’s character after season 4 and didn’t know how to write the aftermath of such a dark plot. They pursued the path with Phoebe becoming Queen of the Underworld and being pregnant, but didn’t consider how hard it would be to deal with the traumatic aftermath of that and their choices were pretty poor. I thought this was worth mentioning now, because from this point onwards, whenever I discuss Phoebe (and Cole or Phoebe/Cole) you’ll notice that I’m very critical because I don’t like the way it was handled or how the writers ruined both characters post season 4. 

Moving onto Paige, I really like her arc in this episode. Since quitting her job, she’s dedicating herself to the craft and is working on a protection potion that Grams did. This creates the perfect moment for Paige to meet Grams. The two bond over making the potion, Grams notes that Paige has a natural flair for the craft and it boosts Paige and allows her to see her own potential. Meeting Grams also provides conflict for Paige, who having been adopted and never having met Grams, has difficulty accepting Grams as her grandmother. I personally love that they bring up this issue and that Paige doesn’t immediately bond with Grams. Paige’s adoptive family are not mentioned nearly enough throughout the series, so it’s good to actually hear Paige talk about how important her adoptive grandparents were to her and how she loved them. It’s also good to see Grams accept this and to express her hopes that one day Paige can come to love her as a grandparent too but that she would never expect nor want to replace her grandparents. It’s nice to see that the two bond over their similar traits, in this case their stubbornness and the episode ends with a lovely payoff, with Paige calling Grams ‘Grams’ for the first time and it’s a lovely ending. It further establishes Paige in the Halliwell fold since she has now met Grams and had the opportunity to get to know her. I also like the responsibility Paige takes in this episode. I think the intricacies of Paige’s character tend to fade into the background, but honestly, throughout season 4 and 5 she is always right there working to help or save the sisters. In this episode, she’s with Piper to comfort her about having a magical baby, she follows Phoebe when she transforms into Cinderella to make sure she’s safe and she works to make the vanquishing potion. Paige is always actively there taking care of the family and I think those little details are often overlooked when it comes to Paige. 

Putting aside characterisation, I love this episode because I just think it’s fun. The big bad wolf, Paige in a coffin as Snow White with the dwarfs around her and Phoebe getting stuck in a pumpkin is kind of ridiculous but I still love it. I appreciate the way the lighter themes of fairy-tales are intertwined with genuine character development. 

Sympathy for the Demon (5x07)

This episode is by far one of the best in the entire series. I honestly just think this episode is brilliant. It’s a fantastic Paige-centric episode, a great Cole-centric episode, it provides great insight into all of the sister’s with the manifestation of their greatest fears and it’s generally an interesting plot that’s dark, scary and emotional.  Generally speaking, I see this episode as being a metaphor for mental health. Barbas consistently invades the minds of the characters, twisting their perceptions and fuelling their greatest fears and making them increasingly paranoid and frenzied. It’s comparable to mental illnesses like schizophrenia and other types of psychosis. I think that’s why I find it so dark and emotional.

I know that Cole is like marmite - you either love him or hate him - but this episode reminds me why I love him. The nature of Cole’s character opens him up to so many possibilities and this episode demonstrates that fantastically. Because of the evil powers he has he’s susceptible to corruption from Barbas and is also a target because of the amount of power he has. But in spite of the evil magic he carries, this episode shows that Cole is clearly not evil. His second greatest fear is that he is evil, and that in itself is proof that he’s clearly not evil because someone who is truly evil wouldn’t care about being evil. His greatest fear of all is hurting Phoebe, which is not only proof that he’s still completely in love with her but that he feels remorse and guilt for the hurt he’s caused her in the past and is terrified of doing it again. When Cole becomes aware that someone is playing with his mind he immediately orbs to the manor and asks for help from the only people he knows who have the capacity to be able to help him. He’s afraid he may hurt someone and he asks the sisters and Leo to stop that from happening. When Paige offers him the power stripping potion, he takes it despite knowing he won’t be able to protect himself, because his fear of hurting Phoebe is more powerful. Love him or hate him, in this episode Cole is a victim, just like he was in season 4 with the Source and it’s actually very sad to see how his mental state deteriorates as a result of Barbas’ influence in this episode. The clue is in the title “Sympathy for the Demon”, we’re supposed to feel sorry for Cole in this episode and I definitely do. When Paige strips his powers, Cole is once again free of that burden that’s plagued him for so long - evil magic - but then he’s forced to take his powers back. That final scene where he takes his powers back and shimmers out is pretty heartbreaking. He doesn’t want his powers back, but knows he has to so that Barbas doesn’t have them and you see that disappointment all over his face that he has to take that burden back. You can see how much it hurts him that once again he’s evil in Phoebe’s eyes and you can feel how much he just wants to be good and to not have to deal with having those powers anymore. Once again, I have to say that I have a lot of issues with the way Cole is written this season, particularly after this episode. If you want to know more about my thoughts you can read about them here. For now, all I really need to say is that this is probably the last episode whereby I can actually get on-board with the way Cole is written. After this I think the writers did him a complete injustice and unnecessarily and unfairly destroyed his character. 

Moving on from Cole, this episode is fantastic for Paige’s ongoing character arc. At the beginning we see her trying to perfect the Animal Conjuring spell created by Prue and her frustration at being able to do it. It’s the perfect way of showing Paige’s insecurity about living in Prue’s shadow and generally being on the outside of the Halliwell family. When Cole drops by the manor, Paige’s instincts are that he needs help but Piper and Phoebe dismiss this with Piper literally telling her, “It’s two against one”. This kind of treatment of Paige is common throughout the seasons, with Piper and Phoebe voting against her when making important decisions or dismissing her instincts, and it only further reinforces Paige’s insecurities and feelings of not belonging. Despite giving up her job to commit to being a witch full-time, she doesn’t feel she’s being taken seriously by her sisters and she’s still unable to do spells that Prue was able to. Paige’s inferiority complex with Prue is central to this episode, and a very valid and important aspect of Paige’s character to explore. Barbas articulates all of the emotions and thoughts Paige is experiencing in this episode: “So the fear that you're not good enough, that you're not worthy of the power of three. Oh, go on, prove yourself. Save Cole the same way Phoebe did before. Your sisters will be so proud.” As a result of this, Paige charges off on her own to help Cole which, as we all know, has disastrous consequences. Once again, it’s not the first time we see Paige behave this way. In Size Matters and A Knights Tale, Paige acted in a similar way and wanted to and/or chose to act alone on her instincts without her sisters. In this episode, the consequences of her actions cause the sisters to scald her which only exacerbates Paige’s feelings of inadequacy. When Barbas brings the sisters greatest fears to life, it’s interesting that Paige’s is claustrophobia demonstrated by the walls closing in on her. This feels very metaphorical for Paige’s emotions throughout the episode. She feels that she’s desperately trying to get ahead, to be better and do better, but it’s only causing the pressure to grow. She feels pressure from herself and her sisters closing in on her and it’s overwhelming. Paige overcoming this fear is only the start of her finding a resolution to her struggles in this episode. Next, she has to overcome her inferiority complex with Prue. To do this, she’s put in a position whereby she’s the only one that can defeat Barbas and strip his powers. It’s an interesting scene, because Prue is central to it: 

Phoebe: Paige, orb the potion. Paige: It's in a puddle. Piper: You can do it. Prue did. Barbas: Ay, there's the rub. You're no Prue are you?

In the end, it’s these comparisons to Prue that give Paige the strength and determination to orb the potion and strip Barbas’ powers. It’s the second part of Paige overcoming her fears. By this point, she’s overcome her claustrophobia (a metaphor for the pressure she’s putting on herself to be the perfect witch and sister) and in this scene she proves that she’s capable of defeating Barbas, something that only Prue has been able to do in the past, which Piper makes a point of earlier in the episode. The final step is Paige perfecting the Animal Conjuring spell, which we see Paige finally accomplish at the end of the episode, affirming that she’s every bit as capable as Prue was. Overall, this episode is a beautiful and emotional one for Paige that taps into the core of her character perfectly. The circumstances under which she came to find the family mean that her insecurities are completely understandable. And her feeling inferior to Prue is particularly understandable since Piper and Phoebe idolised Prue and Paige feels that to a certain extent she should fill Prue’s shoes. It’s interesting that Paige feels this way, because Piper as the eldest sister feels the exact same way and we see her struggle with that. It would’ve been nice to see a conversation between the two sisters about these feelings, because I think it’s something that they both could’ve bonded over and related to. 

This episode is undoubtedly fantastic for Cole and Paige in regards to their development, but it provides all of the sisters with good character arcs that build upon the ones we’ve seen from them in the previous season and the start of season 5. Piper’s magnified fears as a result of being pregnant are built upon in this episode. We see that Piper fears tragedy following her wherever she goes and that whenever she experiences a glimpse of happiness, it’ll be destroyed. This builds upon a core fear that exists within the Halliwell family generally of dying young and the high risk of death generally because of the danger that being witches puts them in. Piper’s fear of this is magnified at this point because she’s going to be a mother, and she fears leaving her child motherless but also of not being able to protect her child from harm and unhappiness. It’s sad that we don’t get to actually see Piper overcome this fear, but the point is that she does and in doing so she is able to save her sisters. I feel like this is a subtle call-back to Piper’s fears of not being an adequate big sister and of failing to protect her sisters, because in this instance she not only overcomes her own fears but actually helps Phoebe overcome hers and in turn saves Paige’s life. At the end of the episode we see Piper laughing and express that she’s realised that she’s experienced heartbreak before, but that she always survives so she should enjoy the happy moments whilst she can. 

Phoebe’s arc in this episode is the perfect follow-up from her experience in season 4. Her greatest fears are that her current boyfriend (Miles) is evil and that she is evil too. Once again, this is a fear that has a long history with Phoebe going all the way back to season 1 with Is There a Woogy in the House? whereby Phoebe worried that she was more evil than her sisters and that’s why she was targeted by the Woogyman. This is probably one of the best episodes for properly exploring the aftermath of the Source plot-line in how it affected both Phoebe and Cole. Interestingly, their fears almost mirror one another with both of them fearing that they’re evil. Phoebe’s fears are understandable and seeing her come face to face with them in such a brutal way which results in her nearly beating Paige to death is heartbreaking. I also feel like in a subtle way this happening to Paige was to remind Phoebe (and Piper) how much they love Paige and how lost they’d be without her. It’s clear that they love her, but I think they have a tendency to forget that they need to show that. At this point, Paige is still new to the family and it’s naive to think that Piper and Phoebe would have developed the same bond with Paige as they have with each other and had with Prue. So I like that there’s a moment like this where Piper and Phoebe experience what it feels like to lose Paige, because it affirms how important she is to them. Returning back to Phoebe, this episode is pivotal in getting her to trust herself again, just like Cole said in Happily Ever After. Phoebe’s relationship with Miles is very important to her recovery after her relationship with Cole, and it’s this episode that allows her to let her walls drop and let Miles in without being terrified that he’s evil or that her own judgement is unreliable. 

Overall, I think this episode is brilliant. It builds upon the sisters core character arcs that have their roots in previous seasons and brings resolution to them in a fitting way. It provides a great exploration of Cole’s character and I’d argue this is probably one of the best Cole episodes across the series because it captures the essence of his character. It’s a highly emotive episode that taps into the sisters worst fears and brings them to life in a very harrowing way. It’s memorable because it brings back one of the series most loved Big Bad’s. I honestly just love everything about this episode. It proves that when Charmed is at its best it’s a bloody fantastic show that has everything going for it.

As an addendum to what I’ve already said, I know that originally Brad Kern planned for Paige and Cole to have an affair in this season and I feel like this episode could’ve potentially been the starting point for this. I’m so glad Rose and Julian spoke against it, because I think it would’ve ruined Paige’s character and her relationships with the sisters beyond repair, but you can see the foundations for that potential in this episode. Paige sympathises with Cole in this episode, she helps him and she defends him throughout saying that he’s an innocent and needs protecting and that they shouldn’t return his powers back to him. Likewise, when the sisters are being hard on Paige for stripping Cole’s powers without consulting them first, Cole defends Paige. The fact that Paige shows Cole understanding and compassion alone could’ve been a potential building block for a romance since Cole essentially spends the entire season in isolation and desperately seeks human connection and affection from others, particularly Phoebe. 

Y Tu Mummy Tambien (5x10)

This is one of the episodes in this series that I think is very underrated. The concept of it is a little dumb, Jeric is boring and underwhelming, but I love this episode because it’s so significant for the relationship between the sisters. It also has some cute and funny moments which are always fun to watch. 

Lets start with the lighthearted scenes shall we? We have Piper trying on maternity clothes with Paige, which is one of my favourite casual sister moments. Later on, we have follow up scenes of this with Darryl trying to touch Piper’s stomach and her threatening to blow off his hand (typical Piper!) and Leo telling her that she looks beautiful when he catches her self-consciously looking at herself in the mirror. It was nice that this little bit that is supposed to be funny turns out to express and deeper issue for Piper that she feels that she’s being treated differently because she’s pregnant. It’s a very valid issue that lots of pregnant women experience and I’m so glad they gave Piper the chance to express that just because she’s a pregnant, she’s still the same person and she doesn’t want to be coddled or protected. 

It’s the latter half of this episode that makes it so special to me. The fight between Piper and Cole is one of the most badass moments of the series, but seeing Piper have to choose between saving Phoebe and Paige is heartbreaking. Considering the struggles Piper has had with being the eldest sister and forging a bond with Paige, this awful situation she finds herself in is quite fitting. It allows Piper to grow further into her role as big sister. She’s faced with an impossible situation and by using her smarts and trusting implicitly in her sisters, she manages to save both of them. This is Piper in full big sister mode and it’s so beautiful to see. What’s most important about this process is just seeing that Piper loves Paige every bit as much as she loves Phoebe and then when faced with a choice between them she literally cannot and will not choose. Not only does this solidify Piper’s love for both her sisters, and give some resolution to Paige’s worry that she’s not fully included within the family, but it shows how well the sisters work together. When Piper reads the spell to dispossess Paige, Paige intuitively knows exactly what Piper’s plan is and goes along with it without Piper even having to communicate it. Paige’s line at the end of that scene, “You really can’t mess with sisters” is great because it emphasises how united the sisters were in this and how unbreakable. It’s a great homage to how far Piper and Paige have come since season 4, since Piper found it difficult to accept Paige and bond with her and Paige felt pushed out by her. But here we see Piper loving and cherishing Paige as much as Phoebe and the two of them intuitively communicating and working together to save the day. This right here is really why the episode is one of my favourites, because you can’t beat those key sister moments and this is one of them. 

And the final scene of the episode has a perfect light-hearted ending which perfectly captures the dynamic of the sisters. We get Phoebe and Paige pampering themselves and Piper walking in with maternity clothes on, and we get this sweet moment between the three of them where they’re being goofy and just being sisters. It’s such a touching scene and a very underrated sister moment. 

Centennial Charmed (5x12)

Once again, this episode is one of favourites and definitely makes it into my top 10 favourite episodes of the series. In many ways it feels like a direct follow-up to Sympathy for the Demon, with the focus being on Paige and Cole and their conflict with one another. Whilst in Sympathy for the Demon Paige’s mission is to help Cole, in this episode it’s to vanquish him. It’s kind of sad that Paige and Cole wind back up in this place of resentment, when they were able to find compassion and understanding for each other earlier in the season, but nonetheless, their rivalry makes for a fantastic episode. 

Despite the fact that Cole has a lot of focus in this episode, I’ll mostly be skipping over his characterisation (just as I did in Y Tu Mummy Tambien), because I find it to be too problematic to analyse. I personally feel like the Cole we see in this episode is a black-washed version of him. Cole may be angry and frustrated and tired of Phoebe’s rejection and obsessed with winning her back, but he’s also smart. He’s smart enough to realise that Paige is not the reason their relationship broke down. He and Phoebe were at their happiest at the start of season 4 when Paige came into their life, and although Paige was uncertain of him in the early episodes of the season, she only really went hard for him after he became the Source, which she had every right to. So Cole resorting to creating an alternate timeline without Paige so he can be with Phoebe is illogical and not something Cole would do. 

As for the episode itself, excluding Cole’s characterisation it’s brilliant. Once again we get a Paige-centric episode that explores her position within the family and her desire to be the best witch she can be so as to make her sisters proud. Just as she has in the past, Paige decides to go off on her own without consulting Piper and Phoebe first and tries to vanquish Cole. You’d think by now Paige would’ve learned to confide in her sisters first, but I think this ongoing trait of Paige’s is very reflective of how anyone in her position would behave. She’s used to being independent and acting alone, she’s not used to having to run every decision she makes by other people and having to vote on it. Furthermore, she has a history of feeling ignored and suppressed by her sisters, which deters her even more from confiding in them about her concerns and instincts as a witch. As a result of this, Paige tells Piper and Phoebe that she wants to move out. And then Cole casts his little spell and Paige’s world is turned upside down, quite literally. 

The alternate reality Paige finds herself in is so important in showing the impact Paige’s character had on the show. Even after having been on the show for over a season and a half, there’s still a lot of ambiguity surrounding Paige. She still doesn’t always feel secure in her position in the Halliwell family, she’s lacks confidence in her ability as a witch, she feels overshadowed by Prue and in some way clings to her life before she met her sisters where she was an independent only child. Building upon what Y Tu Mummy Tambien showed us, this episode proves how important Paige is to the sisters and what they could’ve become without her. Without Paige, Piper is a vigilante demon hunter, who is divorced from her husband, estranged from her sister, is twisted up with vengeance grief about Prue’s death and on a relentless mission to kill Shax to get her revenge. Without Paige, Phoebe is unhappy and unfulfilled and trapped in a volatile situation with Cole in the manor which has been overrun by demons. Both Piper and Phoebe are visibly miserable and lack any of the happiness, fulfilment or purpose they have in the real timeline. This episode shows that Piper’s line from Sam, I Am “Paige is the reason I’m still standing here, she brought this family back together”, is 100% true. Paige isn’t just a replacement for Prue, she’s a special, unique and much needed and valued member of the Halliwell family who quite literally keeps the family together in the aftermath of Prue’s death. Everything Paige does for Piper and Phoebe is realised in this episode. Those subtle scenes or moments where Paige supports and encourages her sisters are more significant than anyone could realise. It’s a beautiful tribute to Paige and everything she’s done for the family, and that’s a large part of the reason I love the episode. 

In addition to that, I just love the sister relationships in this episode. Paige gets to bond with Piper all over again, and it’s wonderful to see that even in an alternate dimension, Piper is able to overcome her initial uncertainty to welcome Paige into her heart and trust her. Piper seeing Paige’s skills in witchcraft is a nice call out to all of the hard work Piper has put into teaching Paige and provides common ground for them to bond. Not only did Paige save Piper and Phoebe in the real timeline, she saves them in this timeline. She brings Piper and Phoebe back together, reconstitutes the Power of Three, helps ease Piper’s grief over Prue’s death and sets Phoebe free of her miserable relationship with Cole and reaffirms once again why she is so vital to the well-being of the Halliwell family. 

Just like Y Tu Mummy Tambien, this episode ends with a perfect final scene that is light-hearted and taps into the bond between the sisters. Experiencing life without Piper and Phoebe makes Paige realise how much she loves them and how grateful she is to have found them, which in turn makes her go back on her decision to move out. It’s one of my favourite Paige episodes, because it’s such an effective way of showing Paige how important she is and her family needs her and how much she needs them. It’s all part of the ongoing character arc of Paige trying to find her place within the family and I’m all for it. It might seem repetitive to some, but finding a sense of belonging with the sisters is no easy task. Prue, Piper and Phoebe had a very close relationship that was so intense that even Leo expressed in season 2 that he felt excluded sometimes. For Paige to walk into the family in the immediate aftermath of Prue’s death was very hard on her, because she knew how close that sister relationship was and felt she’d never have the same. Not to mention how difficult it was for Paige to adjust to having sisters after spending her entire life as an only child. From Paige’s perspective it can seem like a positive and happy thing that she found the sisters, which of course it was, but it was also incredibly hard and I love that even this late into season 5, the writers were still giving Paige’s transition onto the show and into the family adequate focus. 

Moving on from Paige’s arc and journey in this episode, the plot itself is generally great. I’m a sucker for time travelling episodes, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned already at some point when writing this series. It’s an intense episode that takes you on a wild ride. And despite how predictable many of Charmed’s episodes are, this one doesn’t feel quite so predicable. The alternate timeline makes it feel that anything’s possible and although we’ve seen Cole get vanquished before, you don’t really see it coming in this episode. Even until the last second when Phoebe is holding the potion, you doubt whether she’ll actually throw it. After all, alternate reality Phoebe may not be psychologically and emotionally in the same place as our Phoebe, and may still be in love with him and believe they can come back from everything. We’ve seen her kill him before, but to me, this doesn’t feel like one of those moments. It feels almost too good to be true, but narratively speaking, it makes perfect sense. Cole creates this hideous alternate timeline to win Phoebe’s heart and ironically it ends with his death. It’s karma; Cole’s punishment for going against the Avatars advice and manipulating reality for his own selfish desires without giving consideration to the consequences. It’s also a conclusive end to his hold over Phoebe, which at this point has been a long time coming. 

Overall, this episode is just brilliant. I can’t express how much I love it. It has a great plot, great character development and a great resolution. Once again, this episode is proof that when Charmed is at its best it’s damn good. 

There you have it, my favourite season 5 episodes. Originally, when selecting the episodes I was surprised I didn’t have more favourites since I consider season 5 to be one of my favourite seasons. But on reflection I realised that it’s really the quality of the episodes in this season that makes me like it so much. As I’ve already said, for me, Sympathy for the Demon and Centennial Charmed are two of the best episodes of the series and that makes a massive difference to how I feel about season 5. I know that many fans dislike the more “cartoonish” and “campy” vibe that season 5 creates, but I personally really like it. It’s a nice change in pace from seasons 1-4 and provides some amusing moments, but the show still manages to keep the serious and emotional undertones of the show. Plus, the characterisation is strong this season, particularly Paige’s. This is by far my favourite Paige season, I think she’s brilliant. Her sisterhood with Piper is also fantastically written and it’s lovely to see that develop after how much they struggled in season 4. I have an issue with Phoebe’s characterisation and the way her relationship with Cole played out, but regardless of that, we still got some amazing episodes out of it. The second half of this season lets it down a little for me. Whilst I like a lot of the episodes from the first half, after The Day the Magic Died my enjoyment for the show just seems to plummet. And ever since I was a little girl, whenever I’ve re-watched the show I notice the same pattern that I drop off around this point in the series and lose my motivation to keep watching. Nonetheless, this season will always be one of my favourites, because of the fantastic episodes it has and also because the first ever episode I saw of the show was from season 5 (I don’t remember which one because I was so young, but I just know that Paige had short red hair). 

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts and as always feel free to share yours with me. The next post in this series will be season 6. A little heads up, the posts from now on are likely to be significantly shorter since I’m not a huge fan of seasons 6-8 and have a lot less favourite episodes from those seasons (in fact, I’ll probably have to scrape the barrel just to choose episodes I genuinely consider my favourites). 

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 1]

-claps hands together- Okay, this one’s going to be a little different. My primary goal when I first started the Nuzlocke thing was to replay games with some more variety in the choices. The Nuzlocke element was more about limiting the chaos of the Randomizer than really doing a proper Nuzlocke.

This, though, is going back to the basics. It should be very fun.

Rules:

After possessing poke balls, only the first pokemon of any route is eligible for catch.

Barring duplicates. Waiting until an unregistered pokemon appears is valid.

Any pokemon that faints will be considered dead, and go into a specified box.

Each pokemon must be nicknamed.

Starter pokemon is determined by Trainer ID number.

Team wipe means the run’s over.

Plus one extra special one:

Only battling Trainers is allowed.

No grinding. The only smudge line is that if I can’t run away from a pokemon, I am allowed to defeat it. I’m not going to be locked into a situation where a wild pokemon ends everything because it’s too fast and I’m not allowed to attack it.

My expectation is that I’m going to fail at least a few times. So the part tag on these posts isn’t going to necessarily match where I’m at in the game. I’m just going to keep on until the Elite Four is beaten.

Hopefully this is as exciting as I’m wanting it to be!

Heyo prof.

Geez, the moments before you have the option to adjust the text speed are the worst.

In the spirit of having fun, I’m not going to go with my standard. For this game, I shall be... Coin. Only in caps, because I think gen three is still a gen where all of the names of stuff come in caps. Gotta make sure I fit in.

I love video games.

Rival names are always so difficult. You can be Turq. Also in screamy caps.

First thing’s first, after changing the text speed. Into my computer for a Potion. Which I never knew about until I started watching people play these games on the internet.

Second thing is...

ID number.

Bulbapedia says 4-6 is Fire. Yoooo.

Who knows if we’ll even have a chance to watch that play out. We have to make it through the rival fight first, and that’s pretty much RNG.

Charmander, your name shall be Heero.

First fight of the game.

Scratch, Tackle, Scratch, Tackle, Scratch, Tackle...

Yay, we get to continue forward!

Heero is level 6 now.

One day, this stat chart might be of interest to me.

Heero is a Calm female Charmander. She knows Scratch and Growl.

Up to Viridian, grabbing Oak’s Parcel, down to Pallet, delivering Oak’s Parcel... Pokedex get, and we have five poke balls! Plus vague instructions to visit our rival’s sister for a Town Map.

Route 1 reentered, and our first available catch appears.

What I’m dying to know is if I get exp for catching in this gen. I can’t remember.

Yay!

Nope on the exp, though.

Rattata’s name is going to be Cat.

Cat is going in the box. The experiment of this first run is going to be how far Heero can push. I have a limited amount of exp to harvest, and I want to have it go to something I’m planning on using for a while. Who knows how this will turn out.

Route 22 is going to be briefly examined for our next partner. We’ll be back later to fight Turq, but right now he would eat us alive.

First thing is Rattata. Nope.

FUCK YES.

Maybe. This is still complicated.

Caught!

Going with a theme here... Allenby.

Old dude int town teaches us how to catch stuff, he gives us the Teachy TV which I don’t think I’ve ever touched except by accident, yay, we move forward.

Into Route 2. I walk through the grass without getting anything, and you know what, for now that’s fine. Into Viridian Forest we go, and that means it’s finally time for trainers.

Allenby is going to be in front for as much as I can keep her. As much as I like the possibility of just training Heero into the invincible Charmander that laughs in the face of Brock... lol.

Bug Catcher Rick is our first fight outside Turq! He has a level 6 Weedle. ...This is already uncomfortable. Yep, Poison Sting poisons Allenby. But Allenby wins and grows to level 5.

Rick also has a Caterpie.

...I have Potions. I should have bought Antidotes, but I forget how low the HP is early on, and also that walking probably does damage. But Allenby should be able to take on a Caterpie. Maybe.

With the help of a Potion.

And when we’re running around trying to find an Antidote, a Caterpie appears.

Her name can be Rain.

Now I have the delightful project of looking at the menu every few seconds to check if it’s time to give Allenby a Potion. I... think it’s fewer steps to one of the Antidotes hidden in the forest than the Pokemon Center or Mart.

The exciting challenges of early gens.

...Fuck it, I don’t know where the Antidote is. I’m going to try out rushing to the Center.

One more Potion.

Made it.

Rain, into the box.

I’m buying ten Antidotes. Three more Poke Balls, and five Potions.

Back in Route 2, a Pidgey wants to join the box squad.

...

And I wasn’t going to use it anytime soon anyway, but I turned my brain off and didn’t nickname it. Sigh. Uh, for future reference, the Pidgey’s name is Ren. I don’t think I can change it until Lavender Town, but that’s its name.

Fight number two.

Opening with a level 7 Weedle.

Allenby makes it to 6 beating it. Allenby learns Low Kick!

Another level 7 Weedle follows.

Allenby is finally poisoned. After a lot of good luck. Needs a Potion before I can use an Antidote, because the Weedle’s probably going to use Poison Sting again, and if I use an Antidote, Allenby’s health is low enough that a Poison Sting + poison would be an issue.

Nope, it uses String Shot.

Allenby makes it to level 7.

And Doug’s last thing is Kakuna. Well, this will take forever, but that’s fine. Doug down.

I realized I didn’t do this for her. So here. Have a timely picture. And I finally found the Antidote. It was just in the middle of the path.

Missed the name. Don’t ask why. But Allenby faces a level 7 Caterpie. Allenby wins and is now level 8 (also the dude’s name is Anthony). Level 8 Caterpie comes out to pick up the slack.

Bug Catcher Charlie is next, and yay, Metapod. Allenby is level 9. A Caterpie and Metapod later, Charlie’s out.

Next up, Bug Catcher Sammy. He’s got a level 9 Weedle. Ick. But it’s gone now, even though Allenby is poisoned. Congrats on level 10, btw. Antidote time.

That’s all we have available before Brock, and that means we’re going back to Route 22 to fight Turq. If memory serves, he has two. His starter, and... I want to say Pidgey? With the Pidgey out front?

So Allenby gets to play second fiddle to Heero for a little bit. Hopefully Heero will survive long enough to get some exp before post-Brock, since she won’t have any participation points for that fight.

Happy fun times with rival.

Hey, I got it right!

He has his. level 9 Pidgey. Oh geez.

Yeah, Heero can’t handle this. Allenby? Save her?

Allenby succeeds. Heero grows to level 7. And learns Ember!

Squirtle comes out, and it’s level 9 too.

Allenby wins. Nice.

Brock time, I guess.

Iconic.

Camper Liam sends out a level 10 Geodude for Allenby to hopefully eat. Allenby does, and reaches level 11. Even better, Allenby learns Karate Chop! Liam sends out a level 11 Sandshrew. Allenby beats it and all that’s left to the gym is Brock.

Don’t worry, kid, we still love you.

Back to the Center to heal, then. Brock.

Hi. I’m Coin. I’m on a path of destruction.

Level 12 Geodude is my first opponent.

Aaaaand it’s gone. Allenby gets to live to level 12.

Level 14 Onix.

Allenby wins!

First badge get. Heero gets to go back into the first slot for switch training. Then Running Shoes for me! Yay!

Right we go, and Bug Catcher Colton is our first post-Brock opponent. He has a level 10 Caterpie. Heero handles it, and reaches level 8. Level 10 Weedle up next. Heero wins again, and level 9 she hits. Another level 10 Caterpie. That’s enough to get Heero up to 10! It costs and Antidote, but whatever.

Lass Janice is up next. She has a level 9 Pidgey. Then surprise, she has another. Heero hits 11.

This isn’t especially important I just wanted to break up the wall of text.

She has a level 10 Rattata.

She also has a level 10 female Nidoran. It poisons Allenby, who has to go in after Heero is nearly felled by two Tail Whips worth of Quick Attack. Allenby is level 13, and I’m about to be down another Antidote.

Trip to the Pokemon Center, and then it’s Bug Catcher Greg. He’s got a level 9 Weedle. Thankfully Heero can nail those in one shot, and is now level 12. Level 9 Kakuna. Level 9 Caterpie. Wait, let me guess, level 9 Metapod? Yep.

Yay Heero. Heero now knows Metal Claw. Double yay.

Next up is Bug Catcher James. He’s got a level 11 Caterpie. He’s also got a level 11 Metapod. Heero thanks them for the exp.

Lass Robin follows with her Jigglypuff. It is level 14, so I think I will let Allenby help out after Heero gets a nom in. I also think it’s time for Allenby to be up front again, if only for a little while. I’m still getting a feel for how to distribute the exp. In this case, I let Heero handle all the Bug Catchers, and intended for Allenby to get all the other trainers. Lass Robin moves, so I wasn’t sure if she was a trainer NPC or standard NPC.

Youngster Calvin! What’s on your agenda?

A level 14 Spearow.

I’m going to let Allenby stay in for a hit. Tune in to see how much I am filled with regret.

Peck is unpleasant, but Karate Chop can finish it in two, so that’s how we’re gonna do.

Same, my man.

Youngster Ben. With the level 11 Rattata. And the level 11 Ekans. With Intimidate. Ugh. And Wrap. More ugh. But Allenby makes it to level 14 through Ben’s contributions.

So there’s grass on this here route. Time to see if we’re getting another one for the box, or maybe adding someone to the team.

Box buddy. Hm. You can be... Herine.

The dude selling the Magikarp in front of Mt. Moon is technically in Route 4, so that Magikarp could conceivably count, but Magikarp needs loads of experience to level up to something usable. Efficiency demands we not add it.

The art they’ve added into these is really pretty. I like it a lot.

Mt. Moon gives us a level 7 female Zubat. Another for the box. Her name’s Dini.

Now for the long, long, long trek through a cave where I can’t attack any of the constantly spawning creatures. Yaay.

Bug Catcher Kent wants to spice it up with a battle. He has a level 11 Weedle. Allenby takes that, Heero nabs the level 11 Kakuna.

Lass Iris is also here. She has a Clefairy, and since Fairy Type doesn’t exist yet, tear it up Allenby.

I have no memory of what Type theme you have in this gen. I want to say Magnemite...? Yeah, level 11 Magnemite. Followed by a level 11 Voltorb.

Allenby grows to level 15!

There looks to be a Bug Catcher for Heero around the corner. Bug Catcher Robby. He’s got a level 10 Caterpie.

On a related note, Heero is level 15 now!

Hm. I think I want to check something really fast. Because I don’t have a ban on guides in this Nuzlocke. Eh, okay, that’s not going to work. I wondered if maybe exp needed to reach the next level changed when a pokemon evolved. It looks like no after a brief thing. Species line determines it, not present form. Moves are affected, but that’s a different...

I should look that up.

Okay, for my current team, I think I don’t want to delay evolution for anything. Risk is high, benefit is nil.

Anyway, Robby has a level 10 Metapod. Followed by a level 10 Caterpie.

I pick up a Rare Candy.

I haven’t decided how I feel about Rare Candy on this run.

She has a level 11 Oddish, making me happy I got lazy with switching Heero out of first position. Allenby can tackle her level 11 Bellsprout. No I’m not assigning EV preference that would be a level of insanity beyond anything I could manage shut up.

...I took a break to talk to a friend and I think I’m lost.

Youngster Josh wants to battle! Youngster Josh bringing it with the level 11 Rattata! Youngster Josh bringing it with the level 10 Rattata! Youngster Josh bringing it with the level 10 Zubat!

Heero can eat that one.

Heero hits level 16, and I think I know what that means!

She’s a good girl.

Hiker Marcos wants to fight now. He has a level 10 Geodude. And another one. And a level 10 Onix.

Allenby is level 16 now. Yay.

Um. Okay. I’m going to try to unlost myself. I think the ladder furthest from the entrance is the one that goes forward, but even more than usual, I want to be sure I explore everywhere.

This is how the most popular game franchise in the world starts.

No, Sandshrew should never be made to do evil. A curse upon you, grunt. It’s level 11. A baby.

The Rattata’s on-brand, though.

Congrats on level 17, Allenby. Heero can take the level 11 Zubat. She even does.

Another ladder, another Grunt. Another level 11 Zubat. A new addition of a level 11 Ekans. It is not match for our fierce team.

A different grunt has a level 13 Rattata. Allenby is not impressed. Also a level 13 Sandshrew. I am not impressed. This other Grunt also has a level 13 Rattata. Allenby is level 18. Heero gets the level 13 Zubat.

You don’t need to tell me that.

Super Nerd Miguel has a Grimer. It knows Poison Gas.

I forgot how much I hate poison. Level 12 Koffing is next. I need to spend two turns on Antidote and Potion. Heero gets the level 12 Voltorb since Allenby has kind of taken a beating from the poison. Because poison is awful.

Welcome to level 17, Heero.

I take the Dome Fossil, since the plot makes you take stuff from the poor guy.

I use an Escape Rope to get back to the Pokemon Center. I think this is the last stretch of Mt. Moon and there are some trainers outside. I’d rather everyone be healed to the brim before we go through them.

We made it! To the outside world!

Stopping point!

[jonathankatwhatever]

I was trying to see the inversion of a Hexagon into an fT. The challenge is that the fT counts 2 as 1 and thus 1triangle as consisting of 4bT’s in 3fD’s. It looks like a simple task but it isn’t simple.

One reduction is to say the 3 gs related to the 3fD’s all center at the midpoints, meaning where the Ghost intersects in each orientation, and that covers each of the 3 bT’s that attach to the central bT, meaning from their perspectives inward, while the center bT has to express the relationship to each of the 3, to 2 of the 3, to all 3 of the 3, and thus to none of the 3. That is the manifestation of the 1-3-1 counting: it’s 0-3-1 and 1-3-0 compressed or projected in a view that says this is a hand. A hand has a specific meaning that it pairs with the other hand, and that is fairly easy to visualize with your own hand: the little finger and the 3 central fingers form a unit that works with the thumb or which sets apart from it. The other way around means your pinky waves oddly in the air.

Now I’m remembering an AMT counting lesson: when you are counting dimensions, like 6 to 7 - and this was beautiful to see - then 6 as a bT lays out over the front edge of the original bT, meaning it identifies to the front edge as SBE2, meaning it returns to you, but just to you, and that is 1, and at that spot, the D7 count is 0, so D7 then counts to where D8 is 0. Think what that means in identity terms: you have counted SBE2 to your front edge, and you then count through to your far edge, which is D7. I explained mechanically how that happens yesterday, and why that unlocks the hyperbolic: the spreading apart or coming together of a triangle into single point, of a bT from or into an End.

We’ve discussed that substitution and inversion relationship many times: a point to and from 2 points connected by a 1segment. Is there more to say? I’m drawn to the idea that things symbolize other things and that what you enact has a meaning beyond what you are enacting. You could be a talented chicken. I mean, you could be. That is the other choice: that you enact what you enact and that’s what you mean to enact, which would make you a talented chicken, pecking out your life for no meaning beyond that of the chickens pecking out theirs.

If I believed that, I would have to believe I’m doing this by myself and I know that’s not true. The math works that way. It simply isn’t possible for there not to be another End and that End has to be within dimensional reach, which kind of limits things. There’s a cardinal issue in here, isn’t there? I was looking at cardinals this morning, for no apparent reason. I mean the inaccessible conception of counting like described above, where the dimensional count is always by 1, and there’s always a dimensional overlap. That last is very important, I think, because it helps bridge the issue of how 7 and 6 relate, how a hyperbolic form becomes flat form. The answer seems to be that as the conceived bT shrinks to an End, then at some point in the process it reads as an End, and that I’m thinking isn’t as much orthogonal as triangular, meaning the End forms before you reach the Orthogonal. That should then create a stack which has an attachment somewhere in it to that Hexagonal, meaning where the bT reads as an End. And that should then spread so you can have this true at each End in a Hexagon and thus have Hexagonal appear as the process itself! Yay!

This seems to be the answer to the concept of inaccessible cardinal. Wow. You can count and count, however you want, and you will reach the End where the Triangular emerges and thus Hexagonal, which means the dimensions have shifted beyond whatever you can count. You simply can’t reach the spot where they shift.

Think about that mechanically. This is so big, I’m actually reeling as I type, and I’m in a high chair having coffee at Time Out.

Can’t reach the spot because Triangular appears out of D7, and that means the edge has shifted from the place to which you were counting to the next edge. That is brilliant. Really privileged to type that. I’m serious: had no idea it was coming out until I was typing it. I can see how the pieces fit together, but that was just a cool problem solve that I didn’t realize I knew how to do. I love unlocking potential. Though sometimes I think you may pull me to pieces.

The edge shifts because of 0 to 1 and 1 to 0 counting. I find a lot of humor in that because that is one of my oldest obsessions. It’s widely shared, I think: when counting a row of columns, how do you count the spaces? The ones between? The ones on the outside? One of those? You can’t get rid of that ambiguity. And it flows through everything: take a column, go to the next, and go back. Is that 1-0-1-0-1 or 1-0-1 where the 0 in the second way is the second column? Example: you are under guard and they check you every day at 9AM, so the rest of the day you do what you want as long as you are at check-in at 9AM. Is that a long chain of doing stuff or is it 1 then a big 0 and then 1 because you’re only counting the check-ins?

That sounds obvious, I think, but the idea behind it is that you’ve just shifted dimensions by stuffing whatever you did Between into a 0. And that, remember, enables you to treat it as 0-1-0 where it is the 1. And that enables comparing using different metrics over the check-ins. Incredibly powerful.

This work, which is astounding me, comes from me thinking explicitly about you. The connection of you to work is really great. I’m loving it. Fits the Storyline. Fits the transference conception that is behind Storyline, with that mechanism being what we’ve been describing.

Let’s start with simple counts. Take SBE: count to 3 and you define the front edge of the far side. That means SBE+1 takes you to the far edge of the far side, which of course fits with it being how we perceive time because you need to fit together the far edges of identity. That is, identity expresses through the included dimensions and thus in or as the far edge of identity of a chain of Start to End, of End-to-End over a Between. Add another, so it’s (1+(SBE)+1). That’s the far edge of the far side plus 1bT, which means halfway is the next edge, and that edge connects over the next bT to the front edge of you again.

One of the major importances of 10 is that it counts to the far edge of the far side. That means it has counted from me to you and back to me and back to you, to the far side of you. That can be 1-0-1 then 0-1 then 0-1 for 1-0-1-0-1-0-1. That also means 1-0-(1-0-1)-0-1, and more. But consider that idea: the insertion of 1-0-1 for 1 is the dispersion of the End into Triangular.

I find looking at the dimensions this way to be wonderfully fascinating Count 8 and 9 and that takes you to the front edge of the far side. What about a skipped count? What if I say 5 and 7? We know that 5 returns to the front edge of me, and focuses on the half as where the trailing and leading edges meet. So from that 1segment, count around, and 7 takes it around to focus on the front edge of me, meaning it has crossed all the way around Start then around once and then around again to End at and within start. I think of that as breaking the tape to win instead of approaching the tape.

That can be counted as 1-0-1-0-1 when just counting the starts. But that compresses the identity that’s in the far side, so it’s more completely 1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1, where each 0 in the first version is now a 1. This asserts the importance, even primacy of counting dimensions at the Hexagonal level. I think that makes sense because it relates any count of dimensions to the lower dimensions that we can draw, that represent actual stuff, and that is explicit at Hex, as we’ve abundantly described.

Note that each 0 above represents the skipped fD that’s Between you and me on both sides. Mechanically that means there’s an inversion from my near edge to your far edge and my far edge to your near edge, meaning we’re facing each other. We reach our hands out: we can cross them and define the HG or hold them out straight. If we hold them out straight, imagine two Ghost orthogonals dropping through the fD’s. If you give that a twist, then the dropped orthogonals cut slices out of the HG, which makes hyperbolas.

I did see that 13 returns to the far edge of me, and thus halfway back to you at the leading edge.

Wait a minute: did we just actually put the whole CH thing to bed? It’s dimensional shifting is brand new. I really love this answer. It says the dimension shifts before you reach the End of any count within the original dimension. That explains that nagging issue of any count being infinite if you want to see it that way. Yeah, 1 is infinite, as is any number when treated as an infinite count, meaning that you shift the dimensionality and that shit is available at every count. It’s available in decimal 0 when you think you’ve stopped. Triple wow.

I’m thinking about posting because this was a surprise and it was a major achievement. I’m not sure I even got to the best stuff.

Oh right, Hexagon inversion with fT: it would be that 2 of the fD in the fT disconnect from their shared attachment End so the bT Between them (and to one side) can invert itself over to fill out the Hexagon. Imagine that for each arrangement. So, in essence the shared End becomes a bT, meaning a standard inversion of End to 1segment, and that bT is the inversion of the bT at the third End of the fT, meaning the triangle that sticks out and which is in the same up or down orientation, so it essentially shifts from above or below the fT into a Hexagon. All the identity translations work.

So, what this means is the part that sticks out fits. Or not. But it does in the ideal.

Note what else this does. When we open the long edge of the fT by breaking up that End for a bT, that attaches to the Ends of the missing 1segment that comes from the pointy End. That’s the same as the tip End inverting to a 1segment, then inverting to an End (center of Hex), then to a 1segment. This means the missing or gap 1segment is the inversion of the Start 1segment, specifically tied to whatever is ‘behind’ or connected to the 1segment on its other side. That is sheer beauty. And it was the first time running through it.

I need to post. Have to get moving. This AMT was the best thing ever.

[angelinarecs]

Stargate SG-1 Rec - *Updated*

More Stargate fics! Because I can never get enough of this show. You can find my full rec list here. 

Organized by pairing (or gen), and then alphabetized by title. Summaries (which have been copied from their respective stories) and descriptions are provided. Notation at the end of the description indicates if a story is completed or a WIP.

Gen

Arachne’s Chase - “Sergeant, fire in short bursts. We don’t have many rounds, try to make each shot count, okay?” Sam looked him in the eyes; she was totally calm. Uncertainty had gone now; she knew what she was fighting. She wasn’t too sure on their odds of surviving, but then that wasn’t anything new. “You can do this, Sergeant.” She watched as his face set in a determined expression. It wasn’t a face suited for ferocity but she gave him credit for trying. Drama/Adventure. Sam and Walter get stuck off world trying to hold their own against giant spiders. Walter keeps freaking out and Sam just wants to get home. A good look at both Sam and Walter’s characters as well as a decently written action scene. One-shot.

Fortitude - This was written for a LJ Sam Carter Ficathon, and deals with the first mission for Sam after her encounter with Jolinar. Adventure. Sam tries to prove her mettle in the field, both to herself and her teammates. She fails to take care of herself and follow orders in the process. A good look into what must have been a trying first mission after everything that happened with Jolinar. One-shot.

Infirmary After - Sam’s turn to concentrate on breathing. Enough time passed that Janet was wondering if she’d even answer, wondering what she’d do if there was no answer. “Embarrassed,” Sam said at last, her voice too low to carry much beyond the bed. “Ashamed. Not so much that it happened - I really did get my head around that years ago, played it over and over and over until I desensitized myself to the possibility - but that they saw. That it happened in front of… of… That they’re never going to look at me again without thinking of it.” Drama. Compelling and hard-hitting, this story doesn’t need to be graphic to touch on the horror and also high likelihood of being raped in the dangerous world of SG1. The trauma is dealt with well, both from the Sam’s perspective and from the perspective of the team unable to stop it. This story should be commended for showing that a plot dealing with trauma does not need to be graphic to be shocking. One-shot.

Keeping Score - Sam is good at staying alive. Adventure. Sam remembers her past as she fights to stay alive and make it until her time finds her. One-shot.

Talking Strategy - TAG to The First Commandment. Friendship. After the death of Jonas Hansen, the guys try to get Sam to open up about her past with him and work through the funk she fell into. Some really lovely team moments in here. One-shot.

The Blue-Jello Metaphor - They were all eating Jell-O out of the long dessert glasses. She had her usual, the blue raspberry vivid and bright. The boys all had red Jell-O. She looked beyond them to the other tables. Every single person in her line of vision had red Jell-O. She glanced up at the dessert case along the food line. There sat the other glasses of blue. She knew that if she turned the other direction and looked at the other half of the cafeteria, there’d be more red Jell-O. She was the only blue. She stared down at her cup. She was always the only blue. Surrounded by a sea of red. Humor. This story gives an endearing and humorous look at a disgruntled Sam as she tries to navigate Air Force, team, and dating life as a genius scientist. I find this to be a good character sketch and really love the team dynamic portrayed. One-shot.

The Knife’s Edge of Madness - Alternate ending to Desperate Measures: What if Sam had managed to escape on her own without the team finding her? Angst/Drama. Trapped with few memories in the aftermath of Jolinar’s death, Sam finds herself sheltered in a hospital officially as a Jane Doe. While I don’t normally like stories about amnesia because the plot lines are often absurd and the handling of amnesia is almost never medically or psychologically accurate, this story manages to have a plausible explanation for the tramautic memory loss and explores several issues in memory retrieval and concepts of identity accurately and compellingly. This examination gives the reader a fascinating view of Jane coming to accept she’s Sam and relearning the whole process with her. One-shot.

The Most Wonderful - SG1 aren’t exactly where Jack wants them to be for the holidays. Gen. Set in early seasons, so it smells like original team spirit. Angst. Jack and Teal'c are left to save Sam and Daniel after they are trapped on an alien planet. Jack just wants to get home for Christmas. One-shot.

Under Fire - “She blinked up at him. “What happened?” she murmured.

“You tell me. One minute you’re doing a favorable impression of GI Jane, the next you were face-first in the dirt,” the Colonel said.“  Adventure/Drama. Carter and most of SG1 are injured offworld and have to struggle back to the gate, holding their own against three-foot, carnivorous lizards and other Jurassic threats. Set early in SG1’s history, the story explores team dynamics as well as providing a good inner monologue for Sam as she struggles to reconcile her skills and gender in a male-dominated world. The audience follows along through Sam’s POV, learning little bits and pieces about the situation as Sam does. Very good use of In Medias Res too. Overall, just a really well conceived, written, and executed story. One-shot.

Undertow - “Samantha Carter,” she managed to spit out, along with a mouthful of blood. Her tongue probed the gash inside her cheek and she was grateful to find no loose teeth. “Captain. United States Air Force. Service number 456731479 .” She couldn’t remember the question, but she knew this was the right answer – the only answer she had.“ Adventure/Hurt/Comfort. Carter and the team are captured offworld and Sam is being questioned/tortured after captors believe her to be a Goa'uld. The story is told from Sam’s POV and is as disjointed as he drugged thoughts would have been. Very well executed overall. One-shot.

Unsuspecting Universe - Two teammates alive, seven Jaffa dead. And one Captain Samantha Carter with a junked up weapon, and a glitter in her eye that boded badly for the universe. Adventure/Drama. Sam saves the team again with a McGyvered weapon and a little bit of luck. Jack is concerned that the universe will never be the same again. A fun look at Sam’s technical and tactical skills in the field. One-shot.

With Great Power - And what would you call me, a Tau'ri woman who can use the weapons of the gods? she challenged, power coursing through her until her whole body felt like static electricity was firing along every muscle and nerve fiber. No content to warn for. Adventure. BAMF!Sam has to get the boys out of trouble. The rest of the team are left to pick up the pieces, and their teammate, when it’s all over. An interesting look at the interaction between Sam and the ribbon device. One-shot.

Sam, Daniel Friendship

Eroding Away the Mountains - “If she’s learned anything over the past five years, over all the years of her life, it’s that the universe never pauses for you to catch up. Whatever happened yesterday, tomorrow will still come, because even time loops don’t last forever, and she has responsibilities that can’t be ignored. So she’ll go back to the Mountain, her lab, and a job she loves, even when it hurts.” Friendship. An exploration of Sam and Daniel’s friendships through a series of hikes. I really enjoyed that the friendship was built organically over time and that the loss of Daniel resonates with reader almost as much as it does with Sam. Bonus team interaction as well. One-shot.

Reckless - “This was the Sam that always surprised Daniel. Not the scientist or the soldier, but another person all together. Someone defined by an edge of recklessness that she normally hid underneath her levelheaded exterior.” Adventure. The gang is captured and Carter leads a minor revolt to save them. Sam-centric, but told from Daniel’s POV. This use of POV is a really creative character exploration for both Carter and Daniel. One-shot.

West - They gave her food and water and drew her a map to the city of Reata far away, where perhaps she could find the men she sought. “Stargate. Chapa Hi?” she said, so perhaps it was a farewell. “Chapa Hi,” they said in return, and sent Thaywood-ware-thees on her way with their best wishes. Adventure. Seperated from her team, Carter is stranded offworld where she doesn’t speak the language. She travels from town to town, continually getting sent further west, in search of her team and the Stargate. One-shot. Story is deleted! 

Sam, Teal'c Friendship

A Star At Dawn - While rescuing natives from a threatening volcano, SG-1 is caught in an avalanche. Angst/Drama. Teal'c is buried and Sam is injured. It’ll take both of them working together to live through the night. A welcome look at the friendship and bond between Sam and Teal'c, especially in the wake of losing Daniel and O'neill. One-shot.

The Working Hour - “I suppose you think I’m pretty weak.”

Teal’c looked up and realized she been watching him watching her. He shook his head. “No. I do not think you are weak. You have a warrior’s heart and a quick brain. You fought well, and you prevailed. That is not weak.” Adventure. Set early Season 1, Carter and Teal'c are stranded offworld and injured. Cue Carter being badass and Teal'c trying to reconcile his past as Apophis’ First Prime and his new role on the team and coming to trust a woman. I really enjoyed the writing style and the interaction between Sam and Teal'c. One-shot.

Sam/Janet (yay for underappreciated ships!)

Ten-Thousand Suns - Sam is trapped in the rubble after an earthquake collapses a building on an alien world. Hurt/Comfort. Janet and a team of specialists try to keep Sam alive long enough to free her from the rubble. For her part, Sam is just trying to keep it together as she fights for her life and fights for the realization of those that she loves. Featuring underappreciated ships that actually make a lot of cannon sense and ascended!Daniel. One-shot.

Jack/Sam

Camelot Episode Tag - What was Sam thinking at the end of Camelot? And what happened next? Sci-fi/Angst. The story follows Sam directly after the Ori arrive through the supergate and her recovery from free-floating in space. Bonus Married!jack/sam. One-shot.

Going Under - Set in Season 3. SG1 visit an alient planet, but their attempts at a meet and greet go wrong. Captured, seperated from the Colonel and under dire threat, they must find Jack and make their escape. Team fic, with S/J elements, but strictly within canon. Adventure. A planet-of-the-week story featuring BAMF!Sam, awesome team dynamics, and some hinted Jack/Sam. This story handled the adventurous and perilous atmosphere along with the friendship and working relationship of the team. Complete.

Patience - Patience may be a virtue, but it can also get you killed. Hurt/Comfort/Drama. Things have been tense between Jack and Carter lately and Jack suggests some time off for the overworked scientist. When Carter doesn’t show up to work the next day, Jack figures she took him up on his offer. Little does the team know that Sam is trapped in her car just outside Cheyenne Mountain. A story with Sam in peril and Sam getting herself out of peril. Also hints of Jack/Sam. One-shot.

Remember Days of Gladness When Sorrow is at Hand - “For the thousandth time that week, Sam felt her eyes prick with tears. You wouldn’t know it by looking at them, but all three of her guys could be ridiculously sweet sometimes.” S8 post-Threads fic. Canon S/J with a side of teamy goodness. Friendship/Romance. Carter is still grieving over the loss of her father and still coming down from defeating the replicators. Her team surprises early one morning with helping hands to give her the dream home she always wanted. Jack and Sam also have some nice, if awkward, conversations. One-shot.

Three Wishes - Mistaken for a genie, bashed on the head and captured along with Sam, Jack wakes up with wishes in mind… Friendship/Adventure. Poor Jack is just trying to get through their latest missions, and Sam is just trying to get both of them home. Fun Jack/Sam friendship and/or pre-relationship. One-shot.

Tumbling Down - “Hours later, Sam is leaning against the window, letting the cool glass leach the heat from her face, with Cam’s hand resting lightly on her left thigh. Across the booth Daniel is slumped back, third cup of coffee in his hand and Vala draped half-asleep against him… Atlantis is wonderful and it’s the command step her career needs, but sometimes she misses her team so much it hurts. She doesn’t known if it’s better or worse to know they’re still exploring the universe together without her.” Friendship/Romance. An episode!tag for SGA Trio. Sam returns Earth to heal after breaking her leg in the Pegasus Galaxy, her team and Jack take care of their injured teammate. Sam revisits some memories of her time on SG-1 and muses on the life - and relationships - she built and left behind. One-shot.

[taytay4ever]

Amid So Many Stories About Bad Men In The Media, Taylor Swift Strikes Back With ‘Reputation’

In the run-up to her sixth album, Reputation, Taylor Swift has been discussed first as a global brand, with the media analyzing her every machination and whether it has induced her possible “obsolescence,” and then as a musician. But now that this record is finally in the world, let’s start with Swift’s music for a change.

Reputation is a cold, convoluted, often surly record, heavily weighted with overly complicated prog-R&B arrangements, awkward attempts at rapping, and lyrics that underline every reference to Swift’s casual hook-ups and late-night binge-drinking. At the risk of libeling Swift’s usual stable of expensive pop-auteur collaborators — headlined by Max Martin, Shellback, and Jack Antonoff — some of the songs seem almost pasted together, with verses barging indelicately into pre-choruses as tempos shift in jarring fashion. The elegance of previous Swift blockbusters like 2012’s Red and 2014’s 1989 has gone missing.

And yet, Reputation adds up to a fascinating and often moving, self-portrait. On the biggest possible stage, Swift has fearlessly exposed some of her rawest vulnerabilities. For the first time in years, Swift seems like a rather ordinary human being, with all the unattractive flaws and nagging hang-ups that suggests.

As was the case with Reputation‘s bewildering first single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” the album is initially off-putting, as sour and difficult to like as Swift’s previous pop album, the candy-coated retro-pop showcase 1989, was sweet and catchy. Swift is nothing if not a pop-music prodigy, a seasoned hitmaker at age 27 who already displayed preternatural gifts for crafting heart-rending earworms more than a decade ago, at a time when her peers were struggling to write essays on The Great Gatsby (which Swift pointedly references on Reputation) in high school.

Swift’s franchise is creating the types of songs that people like without even trying to like them. And yet Reputation is decidedly not in that tradition — sure enough, the album’s early singles have not captured the public’s imagination the way those undeniable world-beaters of 1989 did. It seems intuitive that this represents a failure on Swift’s part. But then you dwell on this album’s lyrics, which are laced with violent imagery and obsessed with control and score-settling, and all of a sudden the turbulent, herky-jerky music makes more sense.

Reputation doesn’t fail at being likable, because being likable for once doesn’t seem to be Swift’s agenda. Rather, this album succeeds at expressing a litany of deep, intractable resentments by a world-famous pop star who seems alienated from all but a tight circle of trusted confidantes. “Here’s a toast to my real friends,” she crows on the album’s bitterest track, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” You suspect she’s not addressing more than a few people.

Who is Taylor mad at? Who do you got? No specific names are mentioned in the lyrics to Reputation, so instead there are opaque references to “older guys,” “the world,” “what I can’t have,” and “the liars.” But, above all, what haunts Taylor is the proverbial “they” — in “I Did Something Bad,” they are “burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one.” In “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Swift loves her baby because “he ain’t reading what theycall me lately.”

The songs on Reputation don’t necessarily lend themselves to the sort of “Which boyfriend is this one about?” parlor games that people usually play with Taylor Swift albums. The animus instead here feels intangible and existential, which is why Swift’s belated embrace of hip-hop, while artistically tenuous and bound to be viewed cynically by those who believe Swift is an opportunist, is such a crucial development on Reputation.

It’s easy to laugh at Swift’s stilted flow in “…Ready For It?” or puzzle at the ill-advised “street speak” of the chorus. (“I, I, I see how this is gon’ go.”) But the overt feistiness of rap allows Swift to front-load emotions that she has previously kept concealed behind frothy pop hooks and that iconic “Oh, I can’t believe my good fortune!” award-show face. “I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ’em,” Swift spits in “End Game,” which shoehorns cameos by Future and Ed Sheeran that would seem preordained by a streaming-service algorithm if Swift were more enthusiastic about streaming. (Reputation is not yet available on any streaming platform.)

Swift has written similarly barbed lyrics in the past, of course, but back then there was usually a trace of playfulness. When she refers to herself as “insane” in “Blank Space,” you can sense the self-deprecation and implied eye roll. But Reputation — aside from that stray cat joke in “Gorgeous” — is mirthless. This time, when Swift buries a hatchet, she draws blood.

Swift has been a magnet for criticism lately — some of it fair, much of it not. The media narrative has turned so rapidly against her that it’s almost hard to remember that, for much of her career, Swift was a darling of the press. As late as 2015, the New York Times was still inclined to refer to her as an “underdog,” and there were no shortage of Swift defenders in the press eager to call out perceived slights, whether it was an indie-music site not reviewing 1989 (even as virtually every other outlet on the planet lavished the album with coverage) or the sexism of Ryan Adams covering the album in its entirety.

But nobody sees Swift as an underdog in 2017. Now, she’s an establishment foil for Cardi B, whose scrappy smash “Bodak Yellow” removed “Look What You Made Me Do” from the top of the pop charts after “just” three weeks this fall. “Look What You Made Me Do” has sunk precipitously ever since, along with the followup single “…Ready For It,” which peaked at No. 4.

Certainly, it’s worth noting that these songs haven’t made the impact that singles like “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off” did. But the whispers that Swift is now finished as a pop star, as Spotify-powered rappers storm the charts seems a tad premature, given that Reputation is projected to move an impressive-in-any-era two million units in its first week.

Did anyone really expect Swift to keep on churning out 1989-sized pop bangers in perpetuity? Who faulted Beyoncé when Lemonade — which like Reputation is clearly conceived as an album rather than a playlist of singles — also didn’t produce any lasting chart hits? (The highest charting single from Lemonade, “Formation,” peaked at No. 10. At least Taylor spent the better part of a month at No. 1.)

Here’s a criticism I agree with: Swift should condemn the alt-right cult that reveres her as some sort of blonde Aryan goddess. Her apparent stubbornness on this issue is strange, considering that sending out a press release against Nazis is literally the easiest thing in the world to do. (I suspect she doesn’t deem it necessary to declare her anti-Nazi bonafides, as opposed to being reluctant to anger conservatives, a frequent charge from critics. But letting the controversy linger nonetheless is nonsensical.) However, the larger argument that Swift’s stock as a pop star has slipped because she’s maintained a largely apolitical public persona doesn’t wash.

Swift, like virtually every artist, is a narcissist. And, by and large, that’s why people like her, because when Swift sings about herself, she does it in a way that makes millions of people believe she’s actually singing about them. That is the job of a pop star. This weird insistence that a musician who has previously shown no inclination to be a political commentator must suddenly register her yay-or-nay take on Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, or Hillary vs. Bernie says more about our displaced reverence for pop stars than it does about Swift’s supposed moral obligations.

Isn’t it possible that Taylor Swift genuinely has nothing to say on these matters? And isn’t that okay? If given the choice between performative wokeness and authentic non-engagement, I’ll take the latter, please. Besides, as we’ve seen demonstrated time and again lately, the personal is political, particularly when it comes to one of Swift’s primary subjects: The power struggles between men and women.

Reputation arrives in the midst of an ongoing moral apocalypse in the entertainment industry, in which sexual harassment and assault have been properly re-contextualized in the popular consciousness as expressions of dominance and humiliation, typically by straight white men over women. Swift herself has been victimized by this power imbalance, by a Colorado radio DJ who groped her during a station visit in 2013, when Swift was 23. (Swift won a civil suit against the DJ this summer.)

It might be hard to conceive of Swift, one of the world’s most famous women, as somehow subordinate to a faceless radio jock. But consider how country radio has suppressed women, or how chart success (which is still enabled greatly by radio airplay) has come to dominate, dubiously, how we determine relevance or even artistic merit in popular music. If the fallout from the Harvey Weinstein scandal has taught us anything, it’s that even famous women can be abused by much less famous but nonetheless well-connected men behind the scenes.

But with Reputation, I sense that Swift is finished with that. In her new songs, Swift always has the upper hand. If anyone is going to get broken, it’s the guy in the equation, who’s typically an older (and therefore patriarchal) figure. (“I’ve been breaking hearts for a long time / And toyin’ with them older guys / just playthings for me to use,” she seethes in the dirge-like “Don’t Blame Me.”) If she does decide to settle down, it’s up to the other person to accept her shortcomings, not the other way around. (“Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me,” she sings on “Dress.”) Either way, she gets to be the dominant one, the person who always gets what she wants, including the last word.

After listening to Reputation, I think I understand why Swift’s been seemingly indifferent about her recent bad PR choices, including her threat, via a lawyer, to sue a blogger who criticized her silence on the white supremacist issue. And I get why she’s retreated from the media to the comfort of her massive cult on Tumblr, an audience inclined to perceive her venting and femme-fatale posturing as cathartic, rather than merely petulant.

If Reputation had a nutgraf, it would be, “Why should I have to explain myself?” To Swift, going through the paces of tending to her “perfect” public image seemingly provokes the most resentment of all, since it only seems to make people expect even more from her. Haven’t they already taken enough?

Uproxx

[dancekickboxcardio]

Weekend 🎊. I am back. I am tuned to New York Times while I write ✍🏾 my thoughts 💭 down on my iPhone 📱 X. I wonder what fun things 😍 I am going to do today. Yes, I am full of life, energy ⚡️ and excitement 🤩. It is a huge difference from the past few days and I can definitely tell I am better. I don’t need Advil. My nose 👃🏾 has a thick mucosal drainage and that’s ok. My immune system has been fighting whatever it is that compromised my bod. I have to shower 🚿. I haven’t in like days. Wawames just walked in. I have to pack 🧳 for the holiday 🎄 trip 🛣.

I was looking to starting slow on my first day back at the gym 🏃🏼‍♀️ 💪🏾. I am eager to see familiar faces and bid them the Merriest Christmas 🎁 as I take my leave for New Jersey and New York. If we stay in a hotel 🏨 which I have not asked, there is a gym 🏃🏼‍♀️ 💪🏾. Otherwise, I am stuck and can not get my system going in the next 5 days. I did say I have to pack 👗 right. I may not have new outfits with tags 🏷 but I have two unopened scarves 🧣. I have two new earrings 💎. That’s it. It’s ok. My priorities ⚠️ have somewhat shifted to my serious academic work at health club 🤦🏼‍♀️. It’s a personal me time and I work on issues such as coming up with the most inquisitive thoughts 💭 from efficiency 📊📈📉 to psychological underpinnings 🧠. I have made a schedule 🗓 of what I want to do today. Sadly,

I am a no go 🙅🏼‍♀️. My Mom is in early and she gave me the bad news. I have no time to prep and be dropped off 🚘 to work on my fitness 😕. It was a little bummer but I took it optimistically and know there are many things I can get busy ✍🏾🗒 with today. Allowance 💵 week 🎊🙏🏾. That’s my hands like an athlete 🎽 sliding together ready to perform my shopping 🛍 habit 😏. I was going to wear my new Zella’s 👖 today. Let it go 😏. What am I going to do today. Let’s brainstorm 🧐.

(1) Read a book 📚

(2) Twiddle 📲

(3) Shopping 🛍 plan, like what do I want to spend my little “paycheck.” Vie, it’s allowance 💵. Stop 🛑 dreaming like you have to earn what you need. Isn’t that what normal people do? Work for their living. I am like living ✨ and everything handed to me. This is so “frustrating.” I say this because I know my potential and value. I love 💕 where I am and I feel that I am doing important work. However, I entertain like a devil’s advocate what my life could be. It’s not crushing because I know where my heart ❤️ is and I concede. I am already a strong head as we know it. Funny 😆 how my temper is not met with masculine inability to handle what they do not understand with care and love 💕 and affection 🤗. It’s like I am coddled and engage in a communication of negotiation and explanation of what it feels 😦. My gawd, are you lucky 🍀.

(4) Watch TV 📺

(5) Pinterest 📍

(6) Study 📖

(7) Journal 📓

Yeah, it’s true I am the queen 👸🏼 of walking in delicate situations. That is like one of my gifts 🎁 . A great conciliator. It is also my weakness to understand and take so much. It is the worst of situation and I still have that tolerance and patience. What do you do? Be a royal 👑 mess.

You definitely can tell that I am in good health. I am joking 🙃, I am thinking 🤔 of the stuff that I want to do and must do and have that strength to actually do it.

I am still not sure what happened like how I got the strain of bacteria 🦠 or virus. That’s why I vigilantly clean 🧽 my mat and foam roller. I need to kill the microbes. Perhaps, it was already in me. I miscounted as usual when I do not think 💭 it through like I don’t pay attention and give a damn. Quick thoughtless spitfire. I was only sick 🤒 three days. Monday why didn’t I go? I only had 5 hours of sleep 💤 . Perhaps that late night 🌌 and lack of proper amounts of sleep 🛏 pushed the threshold of immune system defenses low. It still doesn’t point the vector. Where did I get it from? I went to the hospital 🏥 twice over the past seven days. I went Thursday to get a blood 🩸 draw and I went Monday to get the rest of my lab 🧪 completed. It was unsuccessful Monday and I only touched the door 🚪, the sign up stuff 🖊 and sat 🪑 on the waiting room. So how? Maybe it was already in your system. Yeah. I emailed📧 my doctor 🥼 and I have to check what she said esp who shall explain the results on my tests. I happily 😃 cooked 👩🏼‍🍳 even if most is perfectly burnt. I watched TV 📺. I was on my phone 📱 doing stuff and slept 🛏. I didn’t get to study 👓. Yes, you did. Right. I was pretty good in answering question raised by professor 👩🏻‍🏫. I am excited 😜 to continue today. I would like to plan next year. I have reminders on how I want to live 2020.

I love 💕 my seafood 🦞 casserole 🥘. I try not to eat 🍴 everyday. Thank God, breaded 🍞 fish 🐟. Yes, I have panko and regular bread 🥖 crumbs on my grocery list for next week 🛒. I shall be out of town.

When I woke up Tuesday I knew something is off. I can barely wake up for being weak. I had no fever 🤒 or headache 🤕 but I had no energy. I feel sick. I had muscleaches. I slept 🛏 and rested because it was imperative. I had chills. I drank tons of Advil 💊. I don’t believe I did anything but being stuck in bed 🛌 which is a surprise because I maybe ill 🤧 like almost every week after flu shot 💉 but I was functional and not totally unable to do a thing. Eating 🍽 was a chore. Yet I had to put nourishment in me. If not, I won’t have fuel ⛽️ to fight off the infection.

I feel like I finished Neruda Tuesday not Wednesday because I wanted to get over the Jerusalem book 📚 and I didn’t until Thursday. Right. I read Tuesday. I cannot tolerate being stuck in bed the entire day. I should change my sheets.

I had no caffeine ☕️ in my system for the past two days Wednesday and that’s ok. I don’t need that supercharge 🔌 because I wasn’t going to power 💥 through my day. I have no strength and energy. There is not way I am going to push the limits of my protective body mechanism. I noticed that I have an appetite. That’s good. But I am eating more than usual like I am craving and my diet was so uncontrolled. I had a sweet 😻 time with Jamesicle 🐈. Sparky is being a sweetheart today. He went up to me, leaned on my back and would like to be carried 😯. Hmmmmm.... love 💗 without having to dispense a treat 🍭. I wished I had finished the book 📚 but I was living life as I usually do. A cat 🐈 is talking. I love 💕 it. I am always distracted. I don’t know 🤷🏼‍♀️ about you but sometimes you want things exactly as you conceived it. I just pulled down my curtains. Lights in 🌞. But I was consciously telling myself to not be perfectionist and exactly how you want it. Life is not going ever to always be your way. But when it does, you see your ends. You adjust. I mean I wasn’t so frustrated that my new gym bags 💼 , the ones I like are all sold out 🏷. My gawd, the Roksanda was the perfect one. My second choice Betsey Johnson was gone the next day. Now what? Well, it wasn’t too hard of a choice if I should get a full price 💲💲💲💲💲💲Lululemon. Be honest with yourself. You only have three hundred dollars 💵 . Would it be less different if you get the carry on on sale? Right. It doesn’t define who I am. In fact it makes me respectable that I am not passing off what my little stipend can only afford. I don’t make these grandiose claims and when I do not have a show for it, I go around town making false claims to placate my juvenile tendencies 🙄. You are adulting. Ugh 😑, I know. Oh, there were $20 bottoms by Zella’s to Gottex so I am cool 😎. Spend $150 what’s supposed to be for coat 🧥 on them. Horrible in a sense. But who tells you precisely how to live your life. Those who are not happy 😃 and problematic or without in theirs.

I definitely was improving Thursday. I was greatly enthused 😃 when I completed ✔️ the Jerusalem book. I haven’t shared my musings 🖊 on passages that I highlighted by camera 📸 on the book. It checked off my 12 books for 12 months to complete the year 📆. I was feeling good and pat myself in the back because I did something good and I actually reached one of my annual goals🥅 , yay 😀 🎉. Oh, I shall put my impression plain. Wait a second.

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A post shared by Gal Glasses On (@book1234glitters) on Dec 19, 2019 at 3:17pm PST

It is a very heavy text considering that it wasn’t like a 300 pages literature. It was packed. I follow where my heart 💓 leans, the thread 🧵 which guides it and I stumbled into a perfect transition, Canterbury Tales. I was surprised 😮 to see myself delving into religion and realizing how my upbringing has some influence on how I see it. I wasn’t livid violent at each slights and insults. I was very calm and try to see what’s going on. You need to be less reactive and stand on what is right not on the tides of push buttons. It takes a certain strength to build yourself. It takes another to sustain peace ✌🏾.

I am not hungry 😋. It’s a Friday. I could expend my extra energy in thre treadmills and on the equipment floors . But I am cool 😌. I still have a lot of task 📝 to tackle. I am wearing my Apple Watch ⌚️ and esp yesterday to have like a monitor to tell if my heart beats are irregular. Like right not I am not at all uneasy 😬 and it’s not that my blood pumping organ was functioning erratically and strongly, I had some tightness in my chest. I may not have cellular function on it, but it shall alarm 🚨 when something is seriously 😒 not right and I can call emergency ⛑ medical 🏥 help in a jiffy. I can tell the huge calmed difference and on fit Americano ☕️ too. Shall I shower 🧼 with my new tech. What do I feel like doing? Decisions, decisions, decisions. Make it haphazard 🚧. There is literally like a book on it. Wait, let me pull it up.

I am like already living it. I am not alone 🔦.

[blu-b]

Cornish funny farm, a review (Poldark S3 E8)

I usually don’t do this kind of comment / summary, but after today’s episode let me chime in with a few things….

Behind a cut, for reasons.

Ross & Elizabeth 3.0: Oh finally, those two get to talk in private, and like adults. Yay! Now everything will be rectified…right? Right?

Ooooh far from it! They talk and talk and…. never come to the actual point?? Elizabeth hints at Valentine’s parentage, Ross asks if he’s his, Elizabeth says she doesn’t know - cue a brief hysterical fit where Ross accuses her of not wanting to tell (to what point and purpose should she?? Also Ross, mate, if you have any basic knowledge of how reproduction works, you’d know that this is not an exact science, at least not in your times), Elizabeth once again defending herself for something that is not her fault, Ross wanting to know what exactly George suspects…and the conversation starts all over again. Hello?? Get to the fucking POINT, people!

OK Ross basically apologizing for what he did was VERY relieving, as was seeing that they still have some sort of fondness for each other, albeit a sad one; but what was that bullshit about “never injure the woman I loved” - remember you kicked in her door and broke into her bedroom? Also, I’m not a fan of his borderline aggression when he says “You WON’T tell!”…too many bad memories of that one night™ .

And then, the weirdest and wildest thing ever: So the only way to save her marriage to George is by “giving him another child” and make it look like it’s premature as well. “When there’s some confusion about the date…” Yes Ross, really, are you happy to help out again?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, DEBBIE H.?? What’s this bumfuckery?? Why is Ross suggesting such a thing to her?? I can’t believe it…I was literally yelling at the TV like: “Ross…..Roooooss…..no, you didn’t..ROSSSSS ROOOOSSS NOO ROSS!!” What in fuck’s name did I just witness???? This can’t be serious. I’m still speechless.

Also, Ross, your many “all in good friendship” kisses to Elizabeth’s face are cute, but did you check if she really wants that? No? Ah, I’m smelling a pattern here. 

And, what’s all that guesswork about who told George of their night together? 

R: Have you never hinted to him….? E: How could I?? But maybe you said something to him….? R: Asjsalmnkbjamff!!! E: Oh, but who could have told him? Hmmmmm. Who else was in the house….. ………… ……….. ……….. Both, looking ominously out to the graveyard: ………………..could it be? Agatha….?

I mean, how stupid is that? Agatha basically told Elizabeth on her dying bed (stool) that she had spilled the beans to George, so…..dafuq?

I liked what they did with Ross “confessing” his feelings to Demelza, it explains a lot about his later actions and why he’s trying to hard to stick to his promise. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t say it in the end - of course he should, but for his character development it’s not important whether he says it out loud or just in his head; the main thing is that he has reached that conclusion and is coming to terms with his own feelings that were so unclear to him not too long ago. I really like season 3 Ross so far with the exception of the above examples, so yeah…there’s still hope.

Insert obligatory timeline glitch: “And for the first time in years, we talked. ” - Ross meaning Elizabeth. Ummm. Years? Valentine is like what, 2 years old? And there was that incident with the horses at the cliffs, he spoke to Elizabeth there, albeit briefly, but he did speak to her. “For the first time in years” makes it sound like they haven’t talked for a decade. Meanwhile, Jeremy Poldark has aged one day. 

So, back to the talk. So the plan is to seduce poor George every day so that no one can tell exactly when a possible new baby was conceived? Very clever. Good luck with that.

Speaking of George….and ok yeah I’m biased here, but still….my poor precious darling boy! :’( The small victory of the election is tarnished by his family affairs. He so wants to believe little Valentine is his, but he just can’t get over old Agatha’s cruel words. Played to perfection by Jack, the internal struggles of a man who doesn’t know if he’s being lied to by the woman he loves, or has just been led on by an old woman’s spite. I liked to see that his nervous little habits increase, and it’s also quite telling in this context that it’s George who first loses his nerve in the dispute with Ross, not the other way round as usual (note to self: I do love when George results to cursing, shouting, or a threatening purr ^^). And that image of him sitting alone in his carriage almost broke my heart :-(

What was stupid though was that they put the confrontation in after Ross spoke to Elizabeth. He knows that George is suspicious of her and of Valentine’s parentage, and still he says something stupid like “…and so is her son!” - meaning Geoffrey Charles, of course, but it’s just such a cheap and obvious way of creating suspense. George very obviously and understandably thinks Ross is - in anger - referring to Valentine, and how can he not think that? Ross of course doesn’t say it with that intention, but it’s just stupid because he usually either says “Francis’ son” (because that’s what makes GC a Poldark in the first place), or simply “Geoffrey Charles”, not “Elizabeth’s son”. It would have made A LOT more sense to put this BEFORE the conversation with Elizabeth, so that Ross actually realizes that he has said something incredibly stupid to George and put Elizabeth under even more suspicion. The way it is, it’s just another cheap “Poldark vs. Warleggan” moment.

Then, Demelza. I almost felt sorry for her when yet another man tells her “You’re not perfect, but I’m not looking for perfection anyway…” - like seriously? Is Hugh actually getting her with the same superficial crap that Ross told her? Ugh. Don’t get me wrong, Hugh is cute and I like him, but I’m not sure I like / understand the way his attraction to her is portrayed. It’s all a bit too obvious and too much and…well, yeah. I don’t really care enough to delve deeper into it.

Morwenna’s storyline is finally getting a bit interesting, after endless hours of her looking at Drake like a moon calf and swooning over some flowers and standing at the window looking longingly out to…whatever. Worse that what they did to Elizabeth in s2, imho. She still doesn’t do much but sit there and suffer, but this time I’ve actually shed a tear for her because I’m finally beginning to feel a bit more for this character than just “ugh…!”.

Also, I get that Osborne is a horrible man that we shouldn’t come to like, but I’ve got to admit that he does have some comical moments, and especially perfect timing, so kudos to Christian Brassington for this portrayal.

Also, I kind of like Rowella. I wasn’t too into any of the “young generation” and I still don’t care a damn for Sam Carne and his what’s-her-face, and neither for Drake for that matter, but the way Rowella plays the fat vicar’s vices is kind of entertaining (and makes one wonder why her sister never thought of similar tricks, but she was possibly too busy looking out the window…). 

Final conclusion: Almost every marriage in Cornwall is beyond botched.

One ray of light though, Dwight. Dwight is always right. Hahaha, I loved how he stuck it to fat Ossie ^^ But in general, he and Caroline don’t get nearly enough screen time in this season. 

Elizabeth was again reduced to little else but holding Valentine and looking ominous, but I did love how in two scenes she got to actually decide something for herself, and how she takes on responsibility, not only of Morwenna, but in general. She seems more like the lady of the house now and issues commands, and she’s not afraid to use the differences in their rank to put Osborne into his place. Well done, lovely lady! *applauds* Also, I like how her feelings for George seem to have developed into something more than convenience.

Finally though, Ross and Demelza. Oh my. What a clusterfuck of bullshit. It all boils down to:

“My heart will always and forever belong to you…but, actually, trying out another man for a day would be kinda cool, and once I did that I’ll happily return to you and go on as if nothing happened, also btw you cheated on me so you are morally obliged to grant me this favour." 

Wow. Kudos to Ross for his self-control and his patience with her. I’m not getting into the discussion whether cheating out of revenge is okay or not, and neither into any other for that matter, and while I admit that Ross has some horrible flaws and did abysmal things in the past, he’s trying so hard this season, especially with Demelza. That he makes a few remarks the like of “Not every man in Cornwall is in love with you” doesn’t really come as a surprise after the Fucky McMustache episode, but all in all and given that it’s Ross we’re speaking of, he’s basically snuggly as a kitten. Whereas my understanding for Demelza shrinks with every episode since season 2 tbh. OK so he doesn’t write her poems, so what? He doesn’t care what dress colour she wears, so what? She could be stuck in a FAR worse marriage with a far worse man (think Osborne), and also some of her antics are really rather pointless and just feel like random bitching because she doesn’t get what she wants (a large part of which seems to be the “ploughing” of a certain “field” if I’m reading this correctly; at least that seems to be what the script is hinting at). 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they’re working through a difficult time in their marriage, and both of them are not easy persons, but - citing the books - all of this is about eventually understanding that there’s more to love and marriage than what convention teaches us and that in order to understand a partner and truly love them, you need to let go of them sometimes. And there would have been so many more ways to bring that across in film, instead of having Demelza be randomly angry with Ross and paying him back by cheating with the next best man who babbles romantic nonsense at her. 

This was one of the more powerful episodes in s3, and still the overall feeling I’m left with is one of being sorry for all the persons who’d deserve more happiness than what they’re currently getting: Elizabeth & George, Morwenna & Drake, and Ross….

Oohooo and edit: No Ross, Elizabeth is actually not "the only person" who can do something about this spiderweb of lies you're both entangled in (especially not by telling another lie!). YOU could walk up to George and tell him face to face that Elizabeth is innocent, that you slept with his fiancée against her will and that you're sorry for what you did, and if Valentine should turn out to come after you, that you'll help support the child (even though George and Elizabeth surely don't need the money). That would come very close to a suicide mission, but it would be honest for once and you'd not be using Elizabeth to cover up your own mistakes.

[amorremanet]

obi-wan/anakin/padme (because i can't get enough of your hcs about these three)

another, “send me a ship and i tell you the things” meme, yay!

Who accidentally pushes a door instead of pulling/vice versa: Anakin. Look, you can only be electrocuted in ways that should’ve been fatal so many times before your luck runs out. Statistically speaking, Anakin is doing way better than he should be, because one of the only issues he has is the door thing, and it’s a miracle that he hasn’t died from how many volts of electricity have ever gone through his body and how many times it’s happened.

So, like…… relative to being dead? Screwing up with doors isn’t that bad.

Who doodles little hearts all over the desk with their initials inside them: Obi-Wan did for a while, but has worked on stopping since Padmé asked him to either make his own desk or stop doodling on hers.

As far as making his own desk went? ……yeah, that died after Obi-Wan tried to look up, “how to make a desk” and decided that it sounded messy and complicated and okay, wow, he has so much more respect for Padmé’s desk now that he actually kind of understands the work that she put into making it

Who starts the tickle fights: Obi-Wan.

Who starts the pillow fights: Padmé.

Who falls asleep last, watching the other with a small affectionate smile: They take turns, but it’s usually Anakin, simply by virtue of him having a weirder sleep schedule than either of his spouses

Who mistakes salt for sugar: They all had moments of doing this until Anakin gave up and put really clear labels on every container that could conceivably be used for salt or sugar (and one for salgar, though only he and Ahsoka ever use that one because Obi-Wan and Padmé think salgar is disgusting).

Who lets the microwave play the loud beeping sound at 1am in the morning: Anakin, but it’s usually a sign that he’s upset about something. But it is still really annoying. Especially when it happens right before or in the general vicinity of Padmé having some big deal business at the Senate.

Because Ani? Sweetheart, she appreciates that you’re upset and don’t always know how to talk about it until you’ve worked out some of the frustration through tinkering, or working out, or having a late-night self-pity party with microwave taquitos and a pint of Cherry Garcia?

But she also appreciates what rest she can get and would, in general, appreciate it if you could, like…… please care enough about your spouses to not let the microwave beep on the eve of this important vote she’s been trying to argue for that will, you know, literally affect the fate of several star-systems? kthx.

Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines: Obi-Wan, oh god. They are so cringe-worthy, you’re gonna scream. Or groan and facepalm, which is what his spouses usually do because Obi-Wan is such a loser nerd and they love him.

Who rearranges the bookshelf in alphabetical order: Obi-Wan and Padmé are in an ongoing dispute over whether it should be alphabetical by author (sub-alphabetized by title), or parceled out into subjects and then made alphabetical by author. Anakin has been permanently recused from the debate because his idea for an organizing system attempted to combine Obi-Wan and Padmé’s ideas, utilized some concepts that were somehow inspired by the wiring inside of a speeder he’d fixed a few days earlier, and literally only made sense to him and R2.

Anakin still stands by his terrible idea. He also maintains that it is a very, very good idea and that Obi-Wan and Padmé would learn their way around it through practice if they would just let him do it and try it themselves. This argument is slightly hampered by the fact that Anakin cannot explain how his system works without at least five charts.

One of the original charts involved sand and how his system would minimize the amount of sand involved in the bookshelf. No one is entirely sure why this was important in designing an organization system for the bookshelf because the closest it’s ever been to sand was the sawdust that happened when Padmé built the bookshelves herself, and now that he’s had a nap or ten, even Anakin admits that this chart was probably not necessary.

However, he maintains that this doesn’t change how his idea for how to best organize the bookshelf is the one they should be using. Neither does the fact that he was exceptionally caffeinated at the time and hadn’t slept in a while. Nope.

Who licks the spoon when they’re baking brownies: They take turns, but Obi-Wan probably does it most often.

Who buys candles for dinners even though there’s no special occasion: None of them, really. They usually don’t even bother to have candles for special occasions.

Who draws little tattoos on the other with a pen: Obi-Wan and Padmé take turns drawing them on Anakin. Except for sometimes, when R2 is actually the one drawing on Anakin, and Obi-Wan and Padmé get framed, because R2D2 is a troll.

That said, the humans here have figured out that R2’s tattoo doodles are usually more risqué than Obi-Wan’s or Padmé’s — neither of them, for example, particularly gets the “humor” of Anakin having a cartoon phallus drawn on his face — so R2 gets away with this less. This has yet to make R2 stop doing it, but y’know.

Who comes home with a new souvenir magnet every time they go on vacation: Anakin, oh my god. He has souvenir magnets all over the fridge and various surfaces in his favorite speeder, he has souvenir snow-globes on the bookshelves (and one in Padmé’s home-office), he collects all the tacky souvenir junk you never wanted.

Who convinces the other to fill out those couple surveys in the back of magazines: R2 has tried in vain to convince his humans that these would totally be fun and they should do it, but they keep shooting him down in favor of doing Mad-Libs. R2 has resorted to filling them out with 3PO, which is mostly just irritating because most of 3PO’s answers suck.

[inthepursuitofbooks]

Joss Whedon is problematic

I love Buffy. It’s by far my favorite TV show. It’s my security blanket. When I’m sick, Buffy and mac & cheese. When I’m sad, Buffy. When I’m stressed, Buffy. That being said, as I get older I notice the more problematic points of the show, and later the comics (I stopped reading the comics when Xander and Dawn started having their weird thing). As I get older and the more I hang out with “woke” women and learn terms like “intersectional feminism,” the more I notice the problems I have with Joss Whedon. Don’t get me wrong, I will always love Buffy, but I’m slowly having to watch it in the mindset that I watch I Love Lucy and I Dream of Jeannie: for its time it was revolutionary, but is clearly dated in the handling of the relationships and the script. I mean, the show was the first mainstream usage of the word “google” as a verb. It was also one of the first to show a lesbian couple. The more research I do on the show, however, leads me to believe that a great many of those choices were not Whedon’s doing, but the other writers such as Jane Espenson, whose credits include “Husbands,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Warehouse 13,” and “Once Upon a Time.”

One of the main problems I have with Whedon is his weird fascination with making “strong female characters” only show their strength when they’ve been broke, damaged, or struck with illness. Examples of this include the plans for Inara had Firefly gone beyond a single season (article can be found here), Anya’s entire arc from ruthless, badass vengeance demon to a somewhat simpering, bitter, sarcastic woman, Cordelia’s final storyline and the travesty of what happened to her character simply because Whedon got mad that Charisma had the gall to get pregnant (here is a great 2-part blog discussing the problems with Cordelia, there’s also this video where she discusses her return and official death to the show,) Fred’s final story arc, the handling of Natasha Romonoff in Age of Ultron and Loki’s calling her a “mewling quim” in Avengers, River Tam’s entire character, etc. Whedon seems to be obsessed with “break the pretty one” kind of trope.  

Another problem I have is his inability to not self-insert. Xander’s entire character, from silly shirts to general nerd, is a giant self-insertion of Whedon into his creation. It’s saying something about how Whedon also views himself through Xander’s character. The more times I watch Buffy, the more I realize Xander is the “woe is me, I’m a nice guy why doesn’t anyone want me, I deserve credit for not raping her even though I was trying to force Cordelia to love with a spell, essentially raping her mind” kind of guy.  Here is a great write-up on the problems of Xander. There’s also this write-up discussing the “Xander trope.”  He also tried to say the reason he loved working on Avengers was getting to work with the Steve Rogers character because “we’re basically the same.” HA. NO. STAHP.

The entirety of Dollhouse. The whole show is a problem. The entire creeptastic thing.

Angel and the weird relationship of a 16-year-old and a 217-year-old. Don’t get me wrong, Spike and Buffy was weird too (yay for Spuffy shipping even though I’m aware of the issues), buy Spike and Buffy were together a few years after she turned 18. It’s still weird. Exactly what kind of mindset does a multi-century old creature have to be in to think “Oh hey. She’s a tasty morsel and she’s 16! Sixteen was grown in my day!” *bleh*

Whedon has a diversity issue starting with creation of the First Slayer through each of the Slayers killed on the show to Firefly and its entire Chinese/Western future world. This isn’t the problem, it’s inspired greatly by the anime Outlaw Star. The problem is THERE ARE LITTLE TO NO ASIAN PEOPLE IN THIS SHOW. Where are they? If, in this future the Chinese have taken over and melded with American Western Cowboys, where are they? Where are all the Asians? Summer Glau is amazing, but when asked why cast her and Sean Maher as the Tams, Whedon replied “They looked Asian.” I can’t find the interview, but if I do, I’ll link it. The First Slayer: a hyper-racist archetype of the most violent tribal black woman he could think of, the second slayer to die: a Chinese woman in the boxer rebellion, the third slayer to die: FUCKING KENDRA and her really strange Jamaican accent.

Moving away from Buffy (even though I could continuously discuss the problems I have with my fave) there’s the sterility issue with Natasha Romonoff. He took her from being a badass woman in her own right to be nothing more than the love interest of Dr. Banner/The Hulk in some weird Beauty and the Beast trope in Age of Ultron. He then also had her discuss why she considered herself a monster. It wasn’t because she was an assassin or because she had been trained to kill or any of that, it was because she was unable to bear children. Not taking into account how awful that monologue must have felt to women who have trouble conceiving, the entire speech stinks of misogynistic bullshit. What was, in the comics, a commentary on state-perpetrated robbing of a female’s body autonomy, is reduced to a soliloquy of regret. It could have been, and some do see it as, a moment where she is regretting her loss of choice. However, the fact that she refers to herself as monstrous, not because she killed a man in cold blood to “graduate” but because she can’t have children is a frightening commentary of the view of a woman’s place despite her skills or intelligence.  There’s also, as I mentioned earlier, the moment in Avengers where Loki calls Natasha a “mewling quim.” He called her a cunt.  Whedon thinks he’s being clever to get by the censors. For that reason, I’m terrified of how his handling of Batgirl is going to go.

Again, all of Dollhouse. That show is basically an ode of Whedon’s love of tough tiny women getting punched in the face.

The character of Drusilla and what Angelus did to her. However, kudos to the legit evilness that is Angelus. I can appreciate when a character is evil just to be an evil dick.

Another issue I have is that, yes, he was a feminist. Back in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. He hasn’t evolved with the times. He hasn’t grown with age. His feminism is one of strictly white females and has not changed since the first Buffy movie, however I am glad that the tv show evolved to not having the slayer sense when evil is near by way of CRAMPS. Seriously.  His “strong female characters” sway more toward waif-like and skinny. The entirety of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog” is an example of “I’m better for her so I should have her” thought process of the fedora-wearing nice-guy crowd. The choice of Felicia Day’s character to be with Captain Hammer is never considered. The language used in a lot of his writing leans toward ableist. He uses the word “retard” and “midget” several times across several of his creations.

Here’s another great discussion on feminism and Joss Whedon. I think I may have linked it earlier, but just in case I didn’t, there it is. There’s also an entire blog dedicated to discussing Joss Whedon which you can find here.

I rambled a bit, and I may add to edit this again later, but this was just a quick think and dump write-up for a friend. If you have more receipts of Joss Whedon’s lack of feminist growth, please feel free to add.

[jonathankatwhatever]

I was trying to see the inversion of a Hexagon into an fT. The challenge is that the fT counts 2 as 1 and thus 1triangle as consisting of 4bT’s in 3fD’s. It looks like a simple task but it isn’t simple.

One reduction is to say the 3 gs related to the 3fD’s all center at the midpoints, meaning where the Ghost intersects in each orientation, and that covers each of the 3 bT’s that attach to the central bT, meaning from their perspectives inward, while the center bT has to express the relationship to each of the 3, to 2 of the 3, to all 3 of the 3, and thus to none of the 3. That is the manifestation of the 1-3-1 counting: it’s 0-3-1 and 1-3-0 compressed or projected in a view that says this is a hand. A hand has a specific meaning that it pairs with the other hand, and that is fairly easy to visualize with your own hand: the little finger and the 3 central fingers form a unit that works with the thumb or which sets apart from it. The other way around means your pinky waves oddly in the air.

Now I’m remembering an AMT counting lesson: when you are counting dimensions, like 6 to 7 - and this was beautiful to see - then 6 as a bT lays out over the front edge of the original bT, meaning it identifies to the front edge as SBE2, meaning it returns to you, but just to you, and that is 1, and at that spot, the D7 count is 0, so D7 then counts to where D8 is 0. Think what that means in identity terms: you have counted SBE2 to your front edge, and you then count through to your far edge, which is D7. I explained mechanically how that happens yesterday, and why that unlocks the hyperbolic: the spreading apart or coming together of a triangle into single point, of a bT from or into an End.

We’ve discussed that substitution and inversion relationship many times: a point to and from 2 points connected by a 1segment. Is there more to say? I’m drawn to the idea that things symbolize other things and that what you enact has a meaning beyond what you are enacting. You could be a talented chicken. I mean, you could be. That is the other choice: that you enact what you enact and that’s what you mean to enact, which would make you a talented chicken, pecking out your life for no meaning beyond that of the chickens pecking out theirs.

If I believed that, I would have to believe I’m doing this by myself and I know that’s not true. The math works that way. It simply isn’t possible for there not to be another End and that End has to be within dimensional reach, which kind of limits things. There’s a cardinal issue in here, isn’t there? I was looking at cardinals this morning, for no apparent reason. I mean the inaccessible conception of counting like described above, where the dimensional count is always by 1, and there’s always a dimensional overlap. That last is very important, I think, because it helps bridge the issue of how 7 and 6 relate, how a hyperbolic form becomes flat form. The answer seems to be that as the conceived bT shrinks to an End, then at some point in the process it reads as an End, and that I’m thinking isn’t as much orthogonal as triangular, meaning the End forms before you reach the Orthogonal. That should then create a stack which has an attachment somewhere in it to that Hexagonal, meaning where the bT reads as an End. And that should then spread so you can have this true at each End in a Hexagon and thus have Hexagonal appear as the process itself! Yay!

This seems to be the answer to the concept of inaccessible cardinal. Wow. You can count and count, however you want, and you will reach the End where the Triangular emerges and thus Hexagonal, which means the dimensions have shifted beyond whatever you can count. You simply can’t reach the spot where they shift.

Think about that mechanically. This is so big, I’m actually reeling as I type, and I’m in a high chair having coffee at Time Out.

Can’t reach the spot because Triangular appears out of D7, and that means the edge has shifted from the place to which you were counting to the next edge. That is brilliant. Really privileged to type that. I’m serious: had no idea it was coming out until I was typing it. I can see how the pieces fit together, but that was just a cool problem solve that I didn’t realize I knew how to do. I love unlocking potential. Though sometimes I think you may pull me to pieces.

The edge shifts because of 0 to 1 and 1 to 0 counting. I find a lot of humor in that because that is one of my oldest obsessions. It’s widely shared, I think: when counting a row of columns, how do you count the spaces? The ones between? The ones on the outside? One of those? You can’t get rid of that ambiguity. And it flows through everything: take a column, go to the next, and go back. Is that 1-0-1-0-1 or 1-0-1 where the 0 in the second way is the second column? Example: you are under guard and they check you every day at 9AM, so the rest of the day you do what you want as long as you are at check-in at 9AM. Is that a long chain of doing stuff or is it 1 then a big 0 and then 1 because you’re only counting the check-ins?

That sounds obvious, I think, but the idea behind it is that you’ve just shifted dimensions by stuffing whatever you did Between into a 0. And that, remember, enables you to treat it as 0-1-0 where it is the 1. And that enables comparing using different metrics over the check-ins. Incredibly powerful.

This work, which is astounding me, comes from me thinking explicitly about you. The connection of you to work is really great. I’m loving it. Fits the Storyline. Fits the transference conception that is behind Storyline, with that mechanism being what we’ve been describing.

Let’s start with simple counts. Take SBE: count to 3 and you define the front edge of the far side. That means SBE+1 takes you to the far edge of the far side, which of course fits with it being how we perceive time because you need to fit together the far edges of identity. That is, identity expresses through the included dimensions and thus in or as the far edge of identity of a chain of Start to End, of End-to-End over a Between. Add another, so it’s (1+(SBE)+1). That’s the far edge of the far side plus 1bT, which means halfway is the next edge, and that edge connects over the next bT to the front edge of you again.

One of the major importances of 10 is that it counts to the far edge of the far side. That means it has counted from me to you and back to me and back to you, to the far side of you. That can be 1-0-1 then 0-1 then 0-1 for 1-0-1-0-1-0-1. That also means 1-0-(1-0-1)-0-1, and more. But consider that idea: the insertion of 1-0-1 for 1 is the dispersion of the End into Triangular.

I find looking at the dimensions this way to be wonderfully fascinating Count 8 and 9 and that takes you to the front edge of the far side. What about a skipped count? What if I say 5 and 7? We know that 5 returns to the front edge of me, and focuses on the half as where the trailing and leading edges meet. So from that 1segment, count around, and 7 takes it around to focus on the front edge of me, meaning it has crossed all the way around Start then around once and then around again to End at and within start. I think of that as breaking the tape to win instead of approaching the tape.

That can be counted as 1-0-1-0-1 when just counting the starts. But that compresses the identity that’s in the far side, so it’s more completely 1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1, where each 0 in the first version is now a 1. This asserts the importance, even primacy of counting dimensions at the Hexagonal level. I think that makes sense because it relates any count of dimensions to the lower dimensions that we can draw, that represent actual stuff, and that is explicit at Hex, as we’ve abundantly described.

Note that each 0 above represents the skipped fD that’s Between you and me on both sides. Mechanically that means there’s an inversion from my near edge to your far edge and my far edge to your near edge, meaning we’re facing each other. We reach our hands out: we can cross them and define the HG or hold them out straight. If we hold them out straight, imagine two Ghost orthogonals dropping through the fD’s. If you give that a twist, then the dropped orthogonals cut slices out of the HG, which makes hyperbolas.

I did see that 13 returns to the far edge of me, and thus halfway back to you at the leading edge.

Wait a minute: did we just actually put the whole CH thing to bed? It’s dimensional shifting is brand new. I really love this answer. It says the dimension shifts before you reach the End of any count within the original dimension. That explains that nagging issue of any count being infinite if you want to see it that way. Yeah, 1 is infinite, as is any number when treated as an infinite count, meaning that you shift the dimensionality and that shit is available at every count. It’s available in decimal 0 when you think you’ve stopped. Triple wow.

I’m thinking about posting because this was a surprise and it was a major achievement. I’m not sure I even got to the best stuff.

Oh right, Hexagon inversion with fT: it would be that 2 of the fD in the fT disconnect from their shared attachment End so the bT Between them (and to one side) can invert itself over to fill out the Hexagon. Imagine that for each arrangement. So, in essence the shared End becomes a bT, meaning a standard inversion of End to 1segment, and that bT is the inversion of the bT at the third End of the fT, meaning the triangle that sticks out and which is in the same up or down orientation, so it essentially shifts from above or below the fT into a Hexagon. All the identity translations work.

So, what this means is the part that sticks out fits. Or not. But it does in the ideal.

Note what else this does. When we open the long edge of the fT by breaking up that End for a bT, that attaches to the Ends of the missing 1segment that comes from the pointy End. That’s the same as the tip End inverting to a 1segment, then inverting to an End (center of Hex), then to a 1segment. This means the missing or gap 1segment is the inversion of the Start 1segment, specifically tied to whatever is ‘behind’ or connected to the 1segment on its other side. That is sheer beauty. And it was the first time running through it.

I need to post. Have to get moving. This AMT was the best thing ever.

[natsbigfight]

One step forward, two steps back.

Today seemed to be the best day to sit down and write, its cold and rainy outside so I am tucked up in front of the fire with my laptop. Where to start…

On the 5th July I arrived at the hospital around lunchtime feeling quite nervous for some reason. It seemed silly at the time but maybe I was just sensing the long journey I had ahead of me. As I was taken into theatre my nerves increased until it was clear to the nurses and doctors that I wasn’t doing too well so they gave me a dose of IV Lorazepam to calm me down. As I drifted off to sleep I thought to myself – it’s ok, this is a quick and fairly simple procedure, you won’t be under for too long and they will look after your pain in recovery. Little did I know I wouldn’t wake up in recovery until three hours later. Turns out it took two surgeons 2.5 hours to clear the adhesions in my abdomen enough to be able to even reach my uterus. They were not expecting how severe the adhesions would be and during the process of clearing them my gynae surgeon make an accidental 6cm cut in my bladder. I was really upset when originally I was told that he “nicked” my bladder but then upon further questioning we found out how badly he actually had cut it. They repaired the cut and filled my bladder with saline, it sprung several leaks and so they did more repairing and then refilled and it appeared to be water-tight. My bowel surgeon found that I did not have another hernia (yay no more mesh) but where I was experiencing pain there was a section of my bowel stuck to the abdomen wall with adhesions so he has freed that in the hopes that will sort my pain out. Once all the adhesions were cleared the actual ventral suspension only took them 15 mins and went really well.

When I woke up in recovery they had my pain pretty well managed and this continued through the rest of my hospital stay – so pleased to be able to say I had a great experience with pain management this time! They didn’t do the spinal block as planned because of my sleep apnea – they use morphine in the spinal block but morphine can cause your respiratory system to become lazy which would not match well with sleep apnea. For those that don’t know what sleep apnea is – it’s basically when I have periods during sleep where I appear to stop breathing (the docs call these breathing pauses) and I developed this condition when I let my weight get out of control. But I had my PCA which kept me really comfortable.

The morning after my surgery my gynae surgeon came to see me. We talked about my bladder and how I would have to wear a catheter for at least 2 weeks to give my bladder time to start healing. He talked about this in such a blasé way that I was quite upset. In fact he actually said “look I’m a gynae surgeon, I don’t do bladders so this can happen” all while shrugging and holding his hands up in a “what are you gonna do” way. Well it’s all well and good for you to be so casual about the whole thing but you are not the one walking around with a tube shoved up your pee hole and a bag of piss strapped to your ankle! Yes I was annoyed that my bladder had been cut which completely screwed up my recovery time but I understand that the adhesions were really bad so I can’t be too annoyed at the surgeon – but it was his attitude about the situation that really pissed me off. Not to mention he fist bumped me before leaving after one visit – it really filled me with confidence in how serious he takes my health. There was an ACC form filled in which they never gave me a copy off so we are in the process of trying to track down a copy of it now. After he glossed over my bladder he then went on to tell me that the adhesions had almost completely swallowed up my left ovary to the point where he couldn’t find it and only caught a quick glimpse of it during surgery and so this combined with endometriosis and the amount of abdominal surgery I have had he doesn’t think I have a great chance of conceiving naturally now. At this point the sounds of the hospital around me seemed to stopped, I could see my surgeon looking at me waiting for my response, my heart felt like it was in my throat as hot tears poured down my face. My fertility is the one thing I have held onto and tried to protect this whole time. Any one of my doctors will tell you that when discussing anything to do with treatment or surgery my fertility is the first topic I want to cover. How could this be happening? I slowly drifted back to the present and focused on what he was saying, he was in the process of telling me that my right ovary looked great and he had tucked it up out of the way of the worst of the adhesions. I asked if there was a chance that this ovary could also be covered in adhesions before I was ready to have another baby and he said that there was no way of knowing but for now it was healthy. He said that because this ovary is still healthy there is still the chance to conceive naturally but it was very low and so I needed to prepare myself for the IVF process. I know IVF isn’t the end of the world. I know a lot of people who have done it. But it’s a long physical and emotional battle that I just don’t think I have in me. I have fought so many battles over the past three years that I really didn’t need another one. Pregnancy itself was going to be hard on its own with coming off some of my medication which controls nerve damage pain, potential issues with my j pouch and the uterine prolapse. But now I also have to have deal with the painful rollercoaster of IVF before I even get to the pregnancy battle? It’s just not bloody fair! Then of course there is the chance that the three free rounds we get are not successful and we then have to look at other options. Part of me feels like maybe it’s too much. Maybe we need to just admit that our family is complete at 3. But the pull on my heart when I think about not holding another baby in my arms is too much. I want to see Isobel’s beautiful face as she looks at her younger sibling for the first time. After all the crap we have dealt with surely we deserve this? I called Pete after the surgeon left me alone and asked him to come in and see me. I needed him to sit next to me and calm me down. To help me see straight again and get a hold of my grief. After a couple of hours of me crying on and off we decided we would give ourselves today to feel sorry for ourselves and then tomorrow I would pull up my big girl undies and get on with it. This was easier said than done and I still struggled for a couple of days to get a hold of my emotions. I am shelving this issue for now while I deal with recovering from this surgery. I will take it back down off the shelf and process it when I feel stronger.

I managed to come off my IV pain killers on day 3 in hospital and we were all planning on me getting home the next day. Unfortunately that night I spiked a temp and we couldn’t get it under control the next day. They examined me and initially diagnosed an upper- respiratory infection so they sent me down for a chest x-ray. The x-ray came back clear so they did further investigations and found that I actually had a kidney infection from the catheter. I was placed on antibiotics and I ended up spending another 6 days in hospital fighting the infection. I also developed a really bad case of oral thrush from the steroids they had me on to clear up my chest infection before the surgery. If you haven’t had oral thrush then you should count yourself lucky. It is one of the most unpleasant things I have ever dealt with. 

At first your tongue and throat become covered in a thick white layer and it feels like you have something stuck in your throat which means your gag reflex is almost always triggered. Once this passes your tongue and throat lose the top layer of skin and it feels like your mouth is full of razor blades. Eating and drinking is excruciating and I spent almost a week on a liquid diet. The liquid diet was actually a life saver due to the horrible state of the food in that place. In the 9 days I was there I only managed to eat 2 meals, the rest were totally inedible. 

These pictures show some of them, the ‘omelet’ in the middle was solid and rubbery, there was also solid/rubbery egg in the potato thing on the right and the pasta ‘carbonara’ on the left was just downright disgusting.

I was lucky to have some great roommates during my stay. We all kept each other’s spirits up and shared stories, I was thankful for the distraction. I was finally released on 14th July and I couldn’t wait to get home. It had been really hard on Isobel, Mum and Pete running around after me and bringing me in food etc. I am so lucky to have Mum and Pete; I would never be able to get through all of this without their support and help.

I spent 5 days at home with the catheter and I was miserable. I had almost a permanent feeling of needing to pee, the tube kept pulling when I moved the wrong way and I could only wear PJ bottoms because of the pee bag strapped to my leg. It wasn’t until two days before I got it out that I realized that not wearing underwear was better because it didn’t press the tube into strange places and let it sit where it was comfortable. I also had a bath at Mum’s which went a long way towards relieving the discomfort. On Wednesday morning they did a contrast x-ray to make sure the bladder was water-tight and on the mend. This was so horrible. They used an IV drip connected to the catheter to slowly fill my bladder up with saline and then they took a series of images. The relief when they let the saline drain back out was amazing! I went back later that day once the report was written up to have it removed. I felt like a new woman! I am in the process of re-training my bladder and I am holding onto my urine for as long as I can in order to stretch the bladder back out. They assure me there shouldn’t be any long term issues thank god.

So right now I am taking it easy and working on dropping my pain meds. The worse part of my recovery is I have really severe nerve damage again. They made 5 key-hole incisions and 2 larger incisions during the surgery. The two larger ones are low down and where they attached the uterus to my muscle. It’s those two points that have resulted in nerve damage. The pain feels like a hot poker is being jammed into my tummy each time I move. This usually takes a couple of months to settle down to a point where it doesn’t cause me too much trouble. Obviously this causes me to be really restricted in what I can do which is so frustrating. I want to try and get back to work next week as the bills keep stacking up and we just can’t survive on only Pete’s income. Although I am trying to get back to work I am going to be careful with how I go and be aware of what I am capable of. There is only 2.5 weeks until Pete’s surgery so I need to be as recovered as possible to ensure I can take over the house duties from him.

So that’s the most recent chapter in my story. I look back at all we have been through and just shake my head in wonder. How can the shit still keep coming? Is there some higher power that is messing around with our lives just to have a laugh? It’s bloody ridiculous. But nonetheless it’s the card we have been dealt and so we will continue the good fight. We just need to remind ourselves of the positives. We have each other and a roof over our heads – that’s all that really matters. 

Who needs their sanity and all their organs as well?

[gracebella-sinclair]

“oh i’m so- oh.” I paused and looked up at Asht- King Ashton.

“It’s you.” I sighed with a bit of a bitter tone. Twenty years later and you’re still bitter, really Gracey?

“Gracebella. I heard you were coming back.” Ashton replied.

“Ah yeah for the new selected. I’ve heard rumors you’ve aged horrible, glad I can now confirm them true.” I spat at him.

“I’d prefer we didn’t fight, Gracey.” He replied, trying to avoid my venom.

“Right. Don’t call me that King Ashton, I’d prefer you refer to me as Ms.Sinclair. Anyways, the only reason I came, aside from Yanely wishing to come for some reason, is that my daughter seems to find you greatly impressive for one reason or another. She wants to meet you if that’s alright.” I explained as my daughter samantha had made a beeline over to us once she saw me bump into him and was now hiding behind me. I didn’t want them to talk but I couldn’t bare to see Samantha so sad.

“Of course.” He allowed causing Samantha to let out a giddy laugh.

“Um! Hi! I’m Samantha Sinclair i-it’s a pleasure to meet y-you sir…I mean! King Ashton!” She introduced with a shaky voice and held her hand out for him to shake.

Ashton took her hand and shook it to her deep excitement. “It’s nice to meet you Samantha.” He said. Just then I thought I heard a painfully loud noise and looked towards the window. However I suppose it was just me.

“How old are you?” Ashton asked.

“I turned 20 last month, I’ve gotten to be so old now yet I still have got no clue what I’m doing.” She laughed as I tuned back in. Fuck. I would have stopped her Ashton didn’t need to know her age. Stupid noise.

“Well… what are you thinking you like?” He asked as he seemed to be thinking about something.

“I’m not really sure. I don’t take after my mother sadly so me memory is about that of a fish. Mo- i mean Yanely tried teaching me how to do gymnastics since i’m pretty tall again unlike my shorty mom.” She paused to laugh. Yes, very funny Samantha you’re 5’11 super hilarious.

“I’m not really good at anything and i don’t really like anything that I’m good enough at to use as a profession. I like soccer but i’m too much of a klutz.” She added with a nervous laugh.

“Maybe we could play sometime while you’re here. I know my younger brother has been itching to play.” He suggested. No no no no I’ll be stopping you there. Too close to my daughter.

“Hah maybe, my mom doesn’t want me to stay here too long, I had to fight her to let me come, she doesn’t like me being around too many people she says they’re dang-” samantha started to say but was cut off by me.

“Samantha doesn’t have the best social skills and got in many fights with people as a child for being too blunt, simply trying to avoid that.” I explained.

“I see. I’m sure a quick game with Cody, Winter, the kids and I doesn’t pose too much of a threat. What do you think, Grace- Ms. Sinclair.” He almost said my name, good correction.

“maybe not winter, as she once said I have claws the same goes for her. I wouldn’t want her to be too competitive against my little sammy.” I paused to think once more. It’d seem petty if I didn’t let her. Plus Samantha would likely cause a scene.

“But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt too much.” I added with a sigh.

“yay! We live by the beach so I especially don’t get to play often since it’s hard to play soccer in sand. Anyways, my mother told me once that apparently my fath-” er used to play soccer. I’ll be stopping you right there Samantha. You know we don’t talk about him

“I think that’s enough soccer talk, didn’t you have something you wanted to ask King ashton?” I prompted.

“Ah right! I was wondering how you never mess up when you talk on the television, like is there some trick? I always used to panic during presentations in school, and i still have issues with job interviews and not stuttering.” I asked.

Ashton laughed “Practice makes perfect I guess. I’ve always been decent at talking to people, but the key is to just keep doing it.” He answered.

“yeah decent.” I scoffed dryly.

“mom! That’s mean.” Samantha said growing embarrassed. Ah right celebrity crush, should be nicer.

“not mean, honest. Anyways I think you should go and go to bed sweetheart you get crabby when you don’t get enough sleep.” I suggested hoping she’d leave. She didn’t need Ashton’s influence. She was so sweet and pure, even with me as her mother she probably doesn’t even know how to swear.

“I’m 20 years old I can monitor my own sleep, thank you very much.” She replied smugly.

“fine.” I gave in not caring to fight with her right now.

“Maybe I should leave you two alone?” Ashton suggested causing Samantha to look incredibly depressed. Fine I’ll leave then. See how well you do having a conversation with him by yourself.

“no it’s fine. However I’d like to excuse myself being Winter is here and I haven’t seen my snowh- friend in ages.” I excused and made my way across the room, however was sure to hiss “if you’re mean to her your head will be on a stick in the morning.” as I passed Ashton.

After a few moments Samantha came back to me. “Mom, he wants to talk to you alone.” distress filled me immediately. No its probably nothing, maybe she told him how much I talk shit about him.

Once we walked back over to him Samanth excused herself to go to the snack table.

“What?” I asked using impatience to hide my fear.

“We need to have a conversation.” Ashton said sternly.

“About what? The fighting? Since I agreed not to so there isn’t much else to talk about.” I asked trying to now seem nonchalant.

“When is Samantha’s birthday?” He asked. no

“Why do you want to know?” I asked but berated myself for my voice shaking for even one minute, already thinking of every law I could use to defend her. He couldn’t take her away.

“She’s twenty.” He replied. A month older than Haiden. She’d have to have been conceived before Ashton’s selection ended. No let’s go with what we’ve planned.

“Yeah so? adoption’s a thing.” I replied putting up my act again.

“She looks like you.” He replied.

“Maybe I chose a kid who did.” God I shouldn’t have said maybe, how is he supposed to believe this if even I don’t.

“Gracebella. Is she my daughter?” He asked no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no don’t do it

“No she’s not… You are the person who… assisted, in her creation, but you are not her father and she is not your daughter.” I let out. God well she’s sure to be killed, kidnapped, or locked away from me forever now.

Shock hit him first then,“Where the FUCK did you get the idea that you could keep this from me?” He yelled at me.

“Gracebella do you have any idea what this means?” He asked, yes I do. Which is exactly why I can’t let you take her.

“It means nothing. Clearly I can keep this from you as I have for twenty years. Her blood relation means nothing. You did not raise her, she is not yours. You have no legal or personal claim to her.” I replied preparing my legal argument next.

“You had no right. My ASS I have no claim. She is technically the rightful heir of Illéa!” Ashton yelled. Technically she wouldn’t live long enough to be the heir. But Ashton wouldn’t kill her he’d probably have her legally legitimized too, perhaps he doesn’t know he can though, and I have the upper hand with legal experience.

“No she is not. It’s not your name on her birth certificate, and her last name is not Schreave. She is legally not the heir of Illéa, and you are legally not her father.” I said. That would only stall though, he could hire a lawyer and change her birth certificate after a paternity test.

“Why? Why keep her from me? Why do you hate me so much?” he asked.

“I don’t hate you, I didn’t do this out of hate. I don’t want to have a child as an heir. I work hard and I have a legacy of being able get people to transfer their castes, i constantly speak about the freedom to chose your own life, what kind of person would I be if i said those things and then chained my child to this life. Sure I may have started off by hiding her in rage, but that was just because you already had so much going on, not to mention it’d be very much legal for you to kill her as she was born out of marriage.” I defended.

He sighed “I wish I’d known.” He said.

“Why? So you could take her away from me and either hide her away or force her into a life of unhappiness?” I hissed.

“So I could know her. You know better than anyone that I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone. But I wish I’d been able to talk to her, to know my daughter.” He replied.

“Well she’s not your daughter. She’s my daughter, you’ve already got plenty of kids: haiden, eloise, elaine. Samantha is mine and you can’t have her and never could have. In fact I’d like to send her home early so she won’t have to talk to you ever again.” I replied and crossed my arms.

“I am your superior, Gracebella. Or have you forgotten? It is complete within my power to keep her here, at the palace. I could even demand a paternity test. The second she is linked to me, you forfeit all claim to her. I am your King, Gracebella. It would do you well to remember that fact.” He threatened. I bit the inside of my cheek as I thought.

“You wouldn’t be able to do that, as her biological and legal mother I have the right to claim her regardless of the father unless there is significant reason such as abuse or neglect. And Ashton, I doubt you remember this but after you eliminated me I was able to entirely vanish, I could easily do that again and then you wouldn’t be able to do squat, you can say something all you want but if you can’t act on it there’s no point.” I threatened back, god I want to push him he’s so annoying.

“Think about Samantha, Gracey. She doesn’t deserve this.” He tried to reason.

“You’re right. She doesn’t deserve to have to live entirely hidden, that’s why i’ll only make her if you force me. But she doesn’t deserve to be forced into the life you want her to be in just so you can bond with a girl you don’t know, and don’t call me Gracey.” I replied.

“I don’t want this life for her. But I want to know what she’s like! I want to talk to her.” He argued.

“Does she know?” he asked.

“No, she doesn’t and it’s going to stay this way. She’s happy as she is now, what you want will just make her confused.” I replied now trying to reason with him. If he told her it’d be game over.

“Gracebella, please…” He begged.

“Please what? You told me to think about what’s best for her now you do the same. Do you really think what you want would be good for her or make her happy?” I argued against him.

“I think she deserves to know the truth.” He said.

“Well I don’t think so, and I’m her mother so that’s that.” I said running out of arguments.

“How is this good for her? Don’t you think she’s ever wondered?” He asked.

“Yeah she did, and I told her her father was an asshole golfer from clermont. At least one aspect was accurate.” I mumbled the last part.

“I know we’ve had our issues Gracebella, but this is low, even for you.” Ashton hissed. That hurt I already said I’m not doing this for me.

“Again I’m not doing because I hate you. I’m doing this to protect Samantha.” I replied coldly.

“This is not protecting her!” He yelled.

“Yes it is! I’m protecting her from the stress and the aspects of living as you had to. I’m protecting her from the people who would wish her dead for being illegitimate, and I’m protecting her from all the other dangerous in your life.” I listed.

“You won’t even let me talk to her!” he yelled. “Because you’re going to tell her and who knows what she’ll do once she knows.” I defended.

“I won’t. If you let me talk to her, if you let me get to know her, I swear to you, Gracebella, I won’t tell her anything.” He pleaded. I grinded my teeth as I thought. There was no good reason to deny that request.

“Fine. But you have to do it in a discreet way. Find a good reason to talk to her and I want to be present when you talk.” I bargained.

“Tomorrow. I’ll invite her to play soccer with us tomorrow.” Ashton suggested, that’s it. After that he won’t see her again and we can go back to our happy normal life.

“Fine. Who are all of the others playing I want to know who’s going to be around her.” I asked.

“Cody, maybe Haiden, though he hasn’t played in years.” He said. Prince Haiden, I didn’t trust a single cell in his body. He’s much too similar to Alizé. The twins were better.

“ Do you really think Samantha and Haiden should hang out? Couldn’t you see that going horribly wrong?” I suggested hoping he’d catch that I meant Haiden finding out.

“Hasn’t it already gone horribly wrong? Did you really think I wouldn’t put the pieces together?” He asked.

“No I didn’t think you would. I didn’t see a reason why she would say her age or why you asked and if that happened I could say adoption and change the topic.” I defended. I’m not a moron.

“Give me a little credit, Gracebella. I’m not that daft.” He replied.

“I don’t know you’re old and have a crappy memory and I was hoping she wouldn’t talk as much as she did.” I grumbled.

“We’re basically the same age.” well, I’m at least a year younger.

“Yeah but like I have and had a good memory and you haven’t and don’t.” I insulted.

“It was basic math. Doesn’t have much to do with my memory.” Ashton replied.

“But maybe you can’t remember how long ago the selection was or the specific month I was eliminated.” I suggested.

“I think about it all the time, you know. The Selection.” Ashton said.

“Why? Shouldn’t you be happily married and at peace only focusing on your country?” I asked.

“I am happily married. I know I made the right choice. I would have regretted it for the rest of my life if I hadn’t chosen Alizé. But by not choosing all of you, I lost friends. I thought we were friends, once.” He said. Right, friends.

“Yeah I’m sureeeee you saw me as a friend, not anything more than just someone to fuck around with.” I replied with more than just a hint of sarcasm.

“No matter how many times I tell you you that whatever you think I felt for you is wrong, you’ll never believe me.” Ashton sighed. He’s still such a freaking liar.

“It’s not my fault that you chose to do with me what you did. I believe what I believe off of facts, the actions that you did. Not off of what I want to believe.” I retorted.

“You know it never would have worked out between us, Gracebella. You would have hated it here. None of that means that I didn’t love you.” He seems to think I’m bitter I didn’t win. At first though the idea of forgiveness for what he did to me came to my mind. But he’s not really sorry, he doesn’t deserve it. And me being bitter? That’s not it. I’m perfectly happy and love Yanely. I would never want to change that. What hurt me was the way he was able to act like he enjoyed me and wanted to spend time with me. That he’d lay in bed with me one day talking about how wrong the world is, then the next be throwing me away like a piece of trash. He could have at least told me first that he was going to get rid of me rather than just listing it aloud and not even telling me without me hunting him down. It made me feel used and hurt, and he couldn’t even try to understand how I felt.

talking about this made me vulnerable and I hated it, well he wasn’t going to get away with hurting me, if he wanted to get yelled at a second time he’d get it. Lucky for him though Samantha came back. She mumbled something to me, I think it was a question involving the roof? Maybe she wants to go up for some fresh air.

“Yes.” I replied hoping that would fit with the situation. What is wrong with my tonight? Maybe I need a new medication.

I turned to look at Samantha as she left but saw her leaving with Haiden.

“wait, what did she ask?” I asked Ashton trying to catch up. He smirked before saying

“Seems it’s a little too late for you to try and keep her and Haiden apart.” He said. Haiden and her hanging out on the roof. It just screamed danger.

“I don’t think it’s very appropriate for your son to be going up on the roof, what if someone tried to break in that way?” I suggested trying to reason with Ashton. Though really I shouldn’t Ashton was the one who would get drunk with me, talked about doing drugs, and rode terrifying roller coasters back in my risky days. He probably couldn’t see any harm in them being on the roof.

“He’s a good kid, Gracebella. Cut him a little slack.” Ashton replied, no I’m not worried about Haiden hurting her, she’d beat his ass

“Fine I suppose. He seems weak though, and with issues with rebels lately, i mean they killed that one selected Azalea. Is it legitimately safe for them to be up there?” I asked.

“They’re fine.” He said. Not very assuring. I sighed and decided I’d just have to go and watch them. First I’d have to get out of this conversation with Ashton.

“Don’t tell Alizé about this, or anyone else for this matter. More people than I would like already know but as of now it’s only me, you, winter, yanely, and cillia and that’s it.” I added almost forgetting. That bitch would dig my grave and push me in it.

“I’m not going to keep this from my wife. Liz and I don’t have secrets.” Ew Liz. That nickname is meant for cute people not for bitches. We tried to resolve things but we didn’t have the time, so if she still hates me good for her the feelings mutual.

“Alizé already hates me. Adding that on she’d probably take it out on Samantha.” I reasoned.

“We’ve all grown up. She won’t do anything, but I will not keep this from her.” right, maybe everyone but you.

“Fine. If she does do something though I will be printing out a card with I told you so on it.” I replied stubbornly.

“Have a little faith in people, jeez.” Ashton said.

“I have faith in people, I don’t have faith in Alizé. Regardless of how much time has past I make my judgements off of my experiences and my experiences with her are not pleasant ones. Maybe that’ll change but that depends on her actions.” I defended.

“Loosen up a bit, would ya? We’re all here for a party, are we not?” He said. Oh there he is the Ashton who can never take anything seriously.

“Right. Well then I’ll go talk to someone I enjoy like Yanely. Have a nice rest of your day.” I said and turned around. I’d have to find my way to the roof next. Cillia led me there once or twice.

“I’m sure I will.” He grumbed.