#which could easily lead to isolation...you know the drill

[gifti3]

demon x human is great cause u get to watch two people change one another in very opposite ways

[lady-griffin]

Possible Idea for the Firelights in S2

Which I’ve fallen way too much in love with, btw

After the Firelight Base is attacked, where do they go?

Do they just go back to their broken, destroyed home? Try to fix it up? Can they even go back?

Do they disperse?

Or do they go to a location most people (especially those from topside) would have difficulty navigating if they didn’t know exactly where to go?

Like an abandoned mine of sorts? One with really large, giant machines suspended in the air that could be used as little community hubs, perfectly accessible for those with hoverboards?

It’s just something to consider.

Seriously, I can’t express how much I love the idea of Jinx’s lair becoming the new base for the Firelights. I love it way too much; I’m going to be crushed when it doesn't happen (which to be fair is totally on me).

The old mines would be perfect for the Firelights, especially in helping them recover and giving them a sense of extra protection and security after what they’ve gone through.

Maybe it’s not permanent, but it doesn't have to be, it allows them to stay together, so it’s home for the moment

Destroying their base, likely making them scared to return, is an ingenious way to physically separate a group of people who are loyal to one another and fight well together, but this way they wouldn’t have to disperse.

It seems like the mines are well-hidden and isolated, with a lot of natural defenses – it’s been abandoned for a long time, there’s probably a complicated tunnel system to the cavern, and it has multiple physical locations (the drill/fans we’ve seen) that others (their enemies) can’t easily get to.

There are probably a few like Jinx’s lab, where they connect to the tunnels that lead outside, but the few we’ve seen in the background, seem pretty inaccessible – unless you’re a group of people who can fly.

There’s also the idea of Piltover and Noxus winning the day and those who’ve been pushed to live underground having to retreat further down to be safe.

But it’s not a defeat, it’s just a retreat. They’re still here.

I also really love the idea of how this place once represented darkness and the abyss, basically daring you to look down, especially when compared to Ekko's original base for the Firelights, representing light and hope, encouraging you to look up.

It’s still the same place it was in S1, but it's changed with all these other people sharing it with Jinx.

Not because she was forced to, but because she chose to open her space to others, one that was solely hers and we only saw her and Silco there.

But now it's filled with others, who've impacted and changed it with their own touches of color and graffiti and when we look, we see there are all these little pockets of light and color in the dark abyss.

There's still darkness, but it's no longer all consuming.

And I don't know, the idea just warms my heart so much, and I really, really want to see it.

Also, I can’t fully tell, but when Ekko is pulling the chain in the trailer, the area is dark and it could be a cave. So, maybe? Again, it’s hard to tell.

Seriously though, I love this idea so goddamn much!

[funkin-news]

ninjamuffin ama summary - 9/28/2021

you know the drill, purple text is me paraphrasing, everything else is direct (or almost direct) quote, FNF-related stuff only

Q: What is one common misconception about FNF or its development that you wanna clear up?

A: im not the sole creator, im not some sole director. Each of the boys have very important roles with the game. This isn't just 1 dude having tunnel vision about a game, its generally all us coming to similar conclusions on where we want to take the game and what we wanna do wit it

Q: why

A: because I love video games and I love newgrounds

Q: Do you or the team plan to go back and make the older weeks higher quality?

A: that will definitely happen. both for general polish, and things leading up into future weeks / story or whatever

Q: Why did everyone think Week 8 was gonna come out on the 22nd?

A: accidental "teases" (Dave's MC-related doodle), madness day, general anxiousness bc the devs haven't been sharing much

Q: What kind of QOL changes are being added in the future?

A: charting editor improvements is one

Q: What is the most insane, most likely impossible to happen person you would like to collaborate with, could be Funkin related, could be just a personal project

A: the girl reading this

Q: Is Cassette Girl week 8?

A: no

Q: Is there concept art for the characters, or did they look the same during development?

A: GF looks exactly the same as the first ever drawing PhantomArcade did. There's a few small lil variations for a good chunk the other MAIN characters, one day u will see all them

R: can you explain the old bf icon? or is it just a dumb placeholder?

A: just a cool ass lil icon evilsk8r did during the game jam weekend

Q: Are you letting yourself getting inspired by more different genres of music for future weeks?

A: i think that more a Q for kawaisprite, but that man loves music, and can and does get inspired by anything he listens to in regards to music

Q: Why has the team been so silent about update progress?

A: They do better working in silence than hyping things up; when Week 6 was teased working on it became really stressful for them. Also, element of surprise

R: but youve been silent abt week7 on desktop for months, half a year. & week 8 is like….. nonexistant

A: week 8 isnt nonexistant, we just absolutely do not want to talk about it whatsoever. i said all the week 7 stuff will come with week 8 update

Q: what do you genuinely think about the people thinking you guys scammed people out of $2 million? just curious is all, i’ve seen lots of people talking about it rn

A: i think people are a bit wary about kickstarter, and makes sense when people's coin is on the line. if u want a breakdown of what we used KS coin so far, we spent maybe 2K of it on some development stuff we needed, most other expenses been paid from our savings / donations, etc.

Q: When does the OST come to the backers?

A: Kickstarter vinyl OSTs still need to be manufactured, which would take at least 6 months because of a global PVC shortage, completely out of our control. what is in our control is that we also still need to finish up and finalize artwork for it, the boys wanna make it all perfect. Same goes for CDs, but those should be done way sooner

Q: You got a date range of when Tshirt / Poster / or Pin surveys will be out by any chance? 👀

A: kickstarter tshirts / poster / pin stuff have been coming along nicely and hopefully those surveys should be coming soon, prob next few weeks

Q: Do you guys think you'll experiment with other artstyles in future weeks?

A: yes, cuz we've already done that (week 6) theres a lot more where that came from

Q: if you could isolate one part of the game and say it’s your favorite what would it be

A: the fact that FNF is our pure creative vision, with absolutely nothing getting in the way of that. Open source free Newgrounds rhythm game with crazy zany kawaisprite music, and stylish and charismatic animation and art style. and game been successful because of all of that.

Q: what do you think about people compiling the full ass game and playing it without paying anything

A: that makes me happy

Q: what do you think of all the mods and stuff people has made about your game

A: mods make me happy

Q: any inspiration from doki doki literature club for the weird stuff in week 6?

A: no, but some of the cool lil programming things DDLC did do interest me

Q: How do we know you're working on the game

A: you don't, and really it doesnt matter all too much. we being productive and things are moving forward, and people not believing that doesnt change that

And now, a speech:

i think trying to focus on keeping hype and keeping game popular can very easily be hollow. We have no worry about trying to keep hype or relevancy or anything like that. If FNF popularity shrunk to 0.1% of it's size, we'd be content, cuz that's still like 1000% more than before

"before" referring to anything we did before FNF.

you can lose success just as easily as you got it, and for FNF, it got successful INCREDIBLEY fast. With that in mind, it's just the nature of things if it all loses relevancy.

So far FNF doing good through the year, but if it wasn't, it's no real sweat off our back.

Although it's uhhh easy to look at it that way from our perspective. Get back to me and see if my thoughts on this has changed if FNF is forgotten from all memory.

Q: will there be a sequel to the full ass game? Like 'the full a2s game' or something clever like fast & furious movies do

A: friday night funkin: tokyo drift

[tiaragqueen]

Can I request Yandere Inosuke capturing Y/N? Y/N simply deals with him so she can live another day. But there comes a situation where Inosuke question what is a kiss and wants to try it on Y/N. So Y/N gets it over with...Now Inosuke have a new addiction which is for Y/N's kissesn.

Aggress

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Inosuke Hashibira x Demon Slayer! Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,1k+

✂ Trigger Warnings: Mention of abuse, isolation, forced affection, possessiveness

[Edited]

Do not re-upload my writing to another website or use it without my permission.

***

Feral boar time! I made him aged-up if you don't mind.

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

“Hold you, hurt you, love you, need you, love you, wrestle you down to the ground. Bite you, love you, hold you. I wanna kiss you.” - I Wanna Kiss You [Paula Cole]

You wouldn’t say that you were afraid of Inosuke, but you were afraid of him. He was simply too unpredictable, too chaotic, and too insensitive. Obviously, you couldn’t really blame his upbringing. He was raised by the boars, after all. It’d be understandable if he didn’t know much about manners or tact, or how to treat a lady properly. There were only so many things Tanjiro and Zenitsu could teach him – or drilled into his head – if he remained stubborn with his old ways.

And everything just got worse ever since he dated you.

… Well, not really. It was more like… he forced you to date him. You doubted what he felt for you was ‘love’, either.

As expected from a feral child, Inosuke was possessive and aggressive as a lover. Anyone who so much as looked at you would earn a growl from him, and you didn’t want to remember the number of times he almost punched every guy that talked to you had his friends weren’t there to restrain him. The two boys, and Oyakata, were probably the only people he allowed you to speak to. And even then, he forbade you from spending too much time with them, especially Zenitsu.

Little by little, Inosuke became the only person you could interact with.

His intense personality and restricting ‘rules’ eventually wore you down. You were stressed, physically, and mentally. Tanjiro had tried to comfort you, and even Nezuko had made a flower crown in an attempt to cheer you up, but none of them worked.

It’d never work unless Inosuke was gone from your life – from this world. However, knowing his fighting skills, you doubted anyone would want to dispose of him so easily.

It was the reason why you were unable to fight and train to your fullest. And it was also the reason for your downfall.

No longer did you fight to survive from demons. Instead, you fought to survive from his rage now.

And no, not the combat type. You were fully aware of the gap between your skills, as much as you hated to admit it. Rather, you stayed compliant. It was the cheapest and most humiliating tactic you ever did in your entire life, but anything was better than enduring his accidental abuse.

Though, sometimes, you wondered if he purposefully hit you. It wasn’t as if he knew how to be gentle, anyway.

But it seemed that life desired to make you suffer even more, because these past few days, you’d caught him staring at your lips for more than once.

You didn’t want to think about those lingering glances, because although you’d never dated anyone before, you knew what it meant – knew what it could possibly lead to.

And you didn’t want to.

You didn’t want to give your first kiss to someone who had taken advantage of your near-death experience to lock you up in an abandoned cabin. You didn’t want to satisfy his curiosity over the taste of your lips. You didn’t want him to touch you more than a long, bone-crushing hug.

However, there was only so much you could do to prolong the inevitable.

“[Name], what is a kiss?”

You almost choked on your spit at his abrupt question. No, not this…! You weren’t ready to hear whatever he was about to say.

“It’s… it’s…” you stammered, cheeks flushing slightly as you racked your brain. What was the right answer that could both sate and deter him? “It’s an act of… pressing one’s lips… to another.”

“What?!” He reeled back, pure distaste contorted his pretty features. It wasn’t a response that you didn’t expect, but you welcomed nonetheless. “That’s disgusting! Why would anyone want to do that anyway?!”

Yes, it’ll be more disgusting if I have to do it with you, you said mentally.

Silence ensued. You shifted a little on your spot, trying to predict his next move. Should you excuse yourself to somewhere else? Should you stay inside? Inosuke looked like he was contemplating something, and you weren’t sure if it was a good thing or not.

“… Can I try it?”

It felt like something had knocked the air out of your lungs. Gaping, you stayed immobile as if hoping he’d forget that you were there. Inosuke was peering at you now, long eyelashes occasionally caressed his pink cheeks. He was embarrassed yet curious. Oh, God…!

“N-no, of course not.” Blinking owlishly, his expression slowly turned sour. Oh, no. Now you’d done it; you made him angry. That… that wasn’t good. You needed to escape if you wanted to retain your sanity and dignity.

But he was fast, and you weren’t even able to stand up before he pushed you to your back, uncaring of your squeak and groan. Firm hands gripped your wrists as pale green eyes bore down to your trembling ones, fierce yet bashful.

“You dare to disobey Inosuke-sama's order?!” he yelled to your sweating visage. 

“N-no! Let me go, Inosuke!” You tried to wriggle and even head-butt him, but it was futile. His skull was thicker, and he was just too strong. “I don’t want to kiss you and I never will!”

Inosuke fell silent. You thought he finally came to his sense and release you, but you were terribly wrong.

A squeak went muffled against your mashed lips as he crashed his teeth against yours. Gradient blue hair tickled your face and pricked your stinging eyes. The tears that you’d tried so hard to contain trickled through your lashes and dripped on to the floorboard; one of the many tears you’d shed later.

After seconds that passed by too long, Inosuke withdrew slightly. He was huffing and panting, the blush had deepened into scarlet that covered nearly his entire visage. Despite being flustered by his own brazen action, he seemed satisfied. Euphoric, even. You didn’t want to see that smug expression any longer, so you closed your eyes and prayed he’d be gone by the time you opened them.

“Heh, that was quite surprising. Who would’ve thought something so disgusting could end up being so sweet?”

You didn’t know, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know. Maybe you’d feel it when that beloved someone kissed you; the delight, the pleasure, everything sweet that he wouldn’t be able to put into words.

But it was too late for that, wasn’t it?

It might sound pessimistic, but you truly thought you couldn’t be free. Not now, not ever. And unless someone finally took an initiative to save you, Inosuke would always keep you with him.

That was the only conclusion you could gather as he grinned down at you, his pearly white teeth bared and eyes dilated in a barely restrained joy. He was terrifying, then again, when has he didn’t look at you like he wanted to devour you whole?

“Again! Give me more kisses until I’m satisfied!”

[chiseler]

The House of D

As one of his final acts in office, Mayor Jimmy Walker broke ground in 1932 for the New York City House of Detention for Women, built on the site of the old Jefferson Market jail in Greenwich Village and colloquially known as the House of D. According to sociologist Sara Harris’ Hellhole (on John Waters’ list of recommended reading), It was intended as a model of prison reform. Opened in 1934, the twelve-story monolith of brownish brick with art deco flourishes loomed behind the old Jefferson Market courthouse on Sixth Avenue, looking more like a stylish if somewhat cheerless apartment building than a prison. Windows were meshed instead of barred, and the one sign on its exterior merely gave the address, “Number Ten Greenwich Avenue.” There were toilets and hot and cold running water in all four hundred cells, and it was going to focus on rehabilitating its inmates – prostitutes, vagrants, alcoholics and/or drug addicts – rather than merely punishing them. From the start the reality was at variance with the intentions, and the facility quickly became infamous as a combination of Bedlam and Bastille. Within a decade it was chronically overcrowded with a volatile mix of inmates: women who couldn’t make bail awaiting trials that were sometimes months off, women already convicted and serving time, alcoholics and addicts, the mentally ill, violent lesbian tops, street gang girls, hookers and other lifelong multiple offenders, and teenagers spending their first nights behind bars. Tougher, more experienced prisoners brutalized and sexually assaulted the weak and inexperienced. So, of course, did the staff. The halls rang with the howls of inmates suffering the agonies of drug or alcohol withdrawal. There were cockroaches and mice in the cells and worms in the food. Village lesbians called it the Country Club and the Snake Pit. The IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn did time in the House of D, as did accused spy Ethel Rosenberg and Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas. In 1957, Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, spent thirty days there for staying on the street during a civil defense air raid drill. Her ban-the-bomb supporters picketed outside every day from noon to two; the Times called them “possibly the most peaceful pickets in the city.”

Despite its bland exterior, the House of D made its presence very known in the neighborhood through the daily ritual of inmates yelling out the windows or down from the exercise area on the roof to the boyfriends, girlfriends, dealers and pimps perpetually loitering on the Greenwich Avenue sidewalk – a carnivalesque Village tradition for almost forty years. Waters first caught the spectacle in the early 1960s. “It was amazing. No one can ever imagine what that was like. All the hookers would be screaming out the windows, ‘Hey Jimbo!’ And all the pimps would be down on the sidewalk yelling stuff.” Writer and film producer Jeremiah Newton initially encountered it at around the same time. “It was this huge, monolithic building, looking like the building the Morlocks dragged the Time Machine into, and the girls were always yelling down, screaming obscenities and throwing things out the window. It was the biggest building there. I sat on a stoop watching the people walk by. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.” The Village writer Grace Paley lived near the facility in the 1950s and 1960s, and walked her kids past it regularly. She wrote that “we would often have to thread our way through whole families calling up – bellowing, screaming up to the third, seventh, tenth floor, to figures, shadows behind bars and screened windows, How you feeling? Here’s Glena. She got big. Mami mami, you like my dress? We gettin you out baby. New lawyer come by.”

Women arrested at antiwar rallies during the Vietnam era found themselves locked up in the House of D with the hookers, junkies, crazies and butch lesbians. On Saturday, February 20 1965, two eighteen-year-old college students, Lisa Goldrosen of Bard and Andrea Dworkin of Bennington, were arrested during an antiwar protest at the UN and sent to the House of D. There, they later testified, they were brutally mistreated and humiliated by male doctors “examining” them for venereal diseases, and forced constantly to fend off the rough advances of other inmates. They were not allowed to use a telephone until Monday. That March, the New York Post ran an exposé based on their testimony. They didn’t experience anything other women hadn’t for thirty years by then, but in the 1960s those other inmates were overwhelmingly poor black and Hispanic women. Dworkin and Goldrosen were white, middle-class college coeds. As so often happens, that’s what it took to generate public outrage.

When Grace Paley herself was arrested at another war protest some months later, she was detained in the facility. Conditions had slightly improved in light of the outcry the Post had stirred up. Paley had been arrested before at antiwar protests, but it had always resulted in at worst overnight stays. This time a judge threw the book at her and gave her six days. “He thought I was old enough to know better,” she later wrote, “a forty-five year old woman, a mother and teacher. I ought to be too busy to waste time on causes I couldn’t possibly understand.” At least she could look out her cell window and watch her kids walking to school.

In October 1970, Angela Davis was arrested in the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge at Eighth Avenue and Fifty-First Street and taken to the House of D. It was not her first time in Greenwich Village. She was born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, where her father was a car mechanic and her mother was a teacher and a civil rights activist. They lived in a black neighborhood called Dynamite Hill because the Klan had firebombed so many homes there. With help from the American Friends, she and her mother moved to New York, where her mother studied for her Masters at NYU while Angela attended Elisabeth Irwin High School in the Village. She went on to study philosophy at Brandeis, the Sorbonne, and at the University of California, earning her Ph.D. One of her teachers was Herbert Marcuse. By the late 1960s she was an avowed Communist, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and affiliated with the Black Panthers. She lectured in philosophy at UCLA until 1969, when her Communist and radical affiliations got her fired.

In August of 1970 a black teen named Jonathan Jackson took over a Marin County courtroom and demanded the release of his older brother, Panther member George Jackson, from nearby Soledad prison. He took the judge, the district attorney and three jurors hostage. In the attempted getaway, Jackson, the judge and one other person were shot and killed. When police discovered that Davis, who knew George Jackson, was the registered owner of Jonathan’s weapon, she was charged as an accomplice to murder, a capital crime in California. She fled the state, which put her on the FBI’s most wanted list. A beautiful twenty-six-year-old with a huge and magnificent Afro, she became a global pop star of the revolution a la Che Guevara. When the FBI arrested her she’d spent a few days walking openly in Times Square, unrecognized because she’d slicked down the Afro and dressed like an office worker.

Within thirty minutes of her being locked up in the House of D a crowd of protesters began to gather outside the monolith, chanting; prisoners stood in their windows and chanted along, their fists raised. The NYPD sent a Tactical Defense Force unit – riot police – and House of D officials turned off all the lights inside, hoping to quiet things down. Instead, women set small fires in their cells, and demonstrators cheered the flickerings in the windows. They dispersed without major incident. Placed in isolation, Davis went on a ten-day hunger strike. She spent nine weeks in the facility while fighting extradition to California, where, she was quite convinced, she’d be convicted and put to death. In fact she would be acquitted of all charges in a San Francisco courtroom in 1972, after spending eighteen months behind bars.

Davis was the facility’s last celebrity tenant. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Greenwich Village civic and neighborhood groups had constantly called for the facility to be removed to some location more appropriate, which is to say far away from where they lived and walked their children to school. More liberal souls in the neighborhood thought it should stay, fearing that if the women were shifted to some more isolated location they might be all the more easily mistreated. Before he wrote the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles, Villager Jerry Herman wrote a satirical revue called Parade, which included a song about the House of D controversy:

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Keep her and shield her from all who wish her harm

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Cornerstone of Greenwich Village charm…

So I say fie, fie to the cynic

Know that there’s love in these hallowed walls of brown

There’s love in the laundry, there’s love in the showers,

There’s love in the clinic

'Twas built with love, my lovely house in town

Save the tramp, the pusher and the souse

Would you trade love for an apartment house?

Dworkin and Goldrosen’s testimony before a commission studying conditions at the House of D helped lead to its being shut down in 1971. Inmates were moved to a new facility on Rikers Island. After some debate about possible new uses for the Village monolith, it was simply torn down in 1973. The site is now a small, fenced-in garden. In 1974 Tom Eyen’s spoofy play Women Behind Bars, set in the House of D in the 1950s, premiered. John Waters’ star Divine performed in a later production.

by John Strausbaugh

[atamascolily]

Shield of Lies, continued.

What would my mother think of me? he wondered, and it was the first time such a thought had ever confronted him.

Luke, you really suck at introspection, don’t you? Like... NEVER in TEN YEARS have you EVER wondered about your mother? Sigh.

Shortly after the reorganization of the government, Nanaod Engh had given Luke keys to most of the real treasures of the New Republic—the central data libraries maintained by various branches of the General Ministry. Thanks to Admiral Ackbar’s intervention, Luke also carried the highest-grade security clearance held by any civilian.

Between the two, Luke had—potentially—a great deal of information at his fingertips. But the access he had been granted was a courtesy, not a necessity. Luke’s most urgent curiosities were in areas of little interest to bureaucracies, and he had never found reason to make much use of the favors extended him.

But he found himself with reason now.

Speaking of lack of imagination.... SIGH.

Luke returned to the pilot’s couch and curled up sideways in it. “How do people become part of the circle?”

“Curiosity is not sufficient—which I hazard you know. Some are born to it. Some come to it. Is it any different in your discipline?”

“Born with the gift, do you mean, or born to someone who already belongs, to a trained adept?”

“Is the gift not in the blood?”

“Sometimes it seems that way. Sometimes it seems as if the talent goes wild, almost as if the Force chooses its own,” Luke said, turning on his back and propping one foot on the control panel.

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Look at the way the Jedi are coming back,” said Luke. “The Empire hunted us so relentlessly that most everyone who escaped thought they were the only Jedi left. But it isn’t just that a few solitaries who were hiding have resurfaced. I’ve found students with no family history whatsoever, in species that were never represented before in the Order.”

“Some of your number may have been adventurous travelers,” said Akanah. “On Carratos, I heard many jokes about how the Emperor spent his evenings. If a Jedi sleeps alone, surely it must be by choice, as it is with you.”

LOL, Akanah doesn’t know about Callista. Or Gaeriel. Or anything else about Luke’s messed-up love life.

“Are you saying that you expected me to warm a bed with you?” Luke said. “I didn’t think that was our bargain.”

“No,” she said. “I never expected that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That Luke Skywalker could have a hundred children by now. A thousand.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No—that’s the simple truth. There are different rules for heroes and royalty, and you’re seen as a little of both. You can’t be unaware of that.”

Luke frowned and looked away. “I don’t know how to be a father to one child, much less a thousand.”

“You wouldn’t need to know,” she said. “Their mothers wouldn’t expect it. They would be grateful enough for the gift.”

“I’d expect it of me,” he said, and firmly steered the conversation back on course. “We were talking about my being an honorary member of the circle—”

Again, I’m surprised by Luke’s lack of imagination--and offers--given how people at the spaceport viewed him. Did none of them really think, “I would totally bang this dude?” WHY IS HE SO SURPRISED?

Also Luke, just say “fuck,” it’s okay, I promise.

“We were talking about my being an honorary member of the circle—”

“Not honorary,” she corrected. “Novice.”

“Novice, then. But there’s an exception in your oath for people like me?”

“Every adept has the right to judge and the duty to teach,” she said. “I’ve made my judgment.”

“And the rest?” Luke asked. “We’ve had many hours together—why haven’t you started to teach me?”

“But I have,” she said. “I’ve asked you to think about what you know and believe. To go beyond that, the novice must ask for the door to be opened. But you aren’t ready to think of yourself as a student again—not yet. You run too well and easily to go back to crawling.”

#accurate. Luke spends most of this book so convinced he knows everything and yet he can’t figure out why he’s so stuck in a rut.

“No,” Luke said, shaking his head. “To be a Jedi is to be a seeker. A Jedi is always learning. It’s only on the dark side that one becomes obsessed with knowing, and impressed with doing.”

“There’s a touch of the dark side,” Akanah said slowly, “in the way you cling to the privilege of killing, and resist the teaching I’ve offered you. A hint of a mind that has settled on answers and resents being challenged with new questions.”

Luke toyed with the lacing on his longshirt as he considered her words. “You may be right,” he said finally. “I found the Force at a time when what I needed was power. I wanted a weapon to protect my friends, not enlightenment. I was thinking of war against the Empire, not peace with the universe. Perhaps something of that lingers in how I see myself. I’ll think on it.”

“Good,” she said. “Your words give me hope. And hope is the beginning of everything worthwhile.”

I have no idea how the chronology lines up with the other plots and honestly it’s hard to care. This is the most interesting part of the book to me, and I’m STILL reeling at how late in the game this is.

He then took advantage of the open space inside the bay to work his first complete set of Jedi training drills since leaving Coruscant. Working both with and without his lightsaber, he patiently went through the complex exercises which brought him to a profound state of restful clarity.

It was in this state that he felt most keenly the truth and the wisdom of the simple words: There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force. The peace, the knowledge, and the serenity were gifts that came with his surrender to the Force and with his connection through the Force to all that was.

Sustaining that clarity was always the challenge. In the isolation of a Dagobah, the Jundland Wastes, or a hermitage on a frozen shore, an experienced Jedi could preserve that inner state indefinitely.

But the chaos of the real world was another matter. When ego returned, so did will. The surrender became tainted, the connection flawed. The clarity gradually slipped away under the continuous assault of elementary drives and passions. Even the greatest of the masters needed to perform the practice regularly lest they lose the discipline that made them what they were.

GAH. WHY IS IT ALWAYS DUALITY WITH YOU, KUBE-MCDOWELL? WHAT ABOUT  A MIDDLE WAY BETWEEN THE “TAINTED WORLD” AND “PURITY OF ISOLATION”. What about “entering the market-place with gift-bestowing hands”? And nothing ever stays the same “indefinitely”!!!!!

The drills were as much a test for the body as for the mind, and the docking bay’s newly sanitized shower brought a blissful peace to muscles that were telling Luke they had not been properly exercised in too long. He stood for a long time in the place where the six needle jets converged, letting the water flowing down his body become another meditation.

Yeah, maybe you should have thought of that in your hermitage-quarantine-sulk thing??

I’d forgotten about the bookstore full of Jedi forgeries!!! 

The offerings included Emperor Palpatine’s Principles of Power, a private publication for Imperial Moffs; the Sith book of offerings and rituals; the H’kig book of laws; and the secrets of forming Bilar-type claqa group-minds, among others—with a special discount if Luke took any three or more. Most of the documents were undoubtedly frauds, and none tempted Luke beyond idle curiosity over the skillfulness of the fraud.

And the Jabba’s palace re-creation OH MY GOODNESS:

But making his way to the outgate, Luke turned a corner and was taken aback by the brilliantly lit exterior of a club bar called Jabba’s Throne Room. Performing Nightly—The Original Max Rebo Band, said the scroll. Visit Jabba’s Guest Quarters with a Pleasure Slave. Face the Mighty Rancor in the Pit of Death—

Driven by an outraged curiosity, Luke joined the line and paid the membership charge without haggling. Inside, he descended a curving flight of stairs into a remarkably faithful copy of the throne room in Jabba’s desert palace on Tatooine. Some of the dimensions had been stretched to accommodate more tables in front of the bandstand and around the rancor pit, but the architecture and atmosphere were authentic.

“Why, it’s just like the Palace Museum,” [he] said to the tall and elegantly dressed Twi’lek barring the way at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m afraid my master Jabba is away on business,” said the Bib Fortuna look-alike, nodding toward the empty dais. “But I’m having a little party in his absence, and I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.” His head-tails stirred in signal, and one of the scantily clad dancing girls hurried to him.

“Yes, Lord Fortuna,” the server said.

“Oola, this is a friend of mine,” said the major-domo. “Treat him well. Find him a seat at my best table.”

The same fiction was carried through everywhere else—an Ortolan keyboardist leading a jizz-wailer trio on the bandstand, the roaring of the rancor underfoot, an annoying Kowakian monkey-lizard skittering around the room stealing food and cackling rudely, even a carbon-frozen Han Solo hanging in the display alcove. But a busy kitchen was concealed down the corridor to the servant’s quarters, and the price card “Oola” left for him included various services available upstairs in the guest quarters and downstairs in Jabba’s dungeon.

It was tasteless and exploitative, but the music was surprisingly agreeable, the roast nerf was tantalizing, and the clientele was markedly more subdued than their counterparts out on the walks. [He] ordered a drink and the executioner’s cut of nerf, refused all other offers with a polite smile, and settled in to discover the truth quotient of The Secrets of the Jedi.

Shortly after his meal arrived, Luke’s consciousness was pricked by hearing a familiar name spoken at a nearby table: Leia’s. He looked up, fearing that the evening’s entertainment at Jabba’s Throne Room would be a dance by a slave-girl-Leia look-alike. But the band was on a break and the transparisteel dance platform over the rancor pit deserted.

I’m honestly surprised this isn’t at Galaxy’s Edge, tbh.

Shortly after, a holographic Jabba made an appearance on the dais above the main floor. That signaled the start of an elaborately scripted show that promised to involve not only “Bib Fortuna” and the dancers, but additional actors and the audience as well.

Luke took that as his cue to leave. His decision was affirmed when, climbing up the curving stairs to the street, he encountered the bounty hunter Boushh coming down them with an unconvincing Chewbacca in tow.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Wookiee?” he muttered under his breath as they passed.

LOL. Anyway, here’s some stuff on archives searches in the GFFA:

From Carratos he requested any information available from newsgrid, political, or police records on Akanah Norand Pell, Andras Pell, and Talsava. He sent the same query to Coruscant’s criminal records office and citizen registry and to the home offices of both the Coruscant Global Newsgrid and the New Republic Prime Newsgrid.

From the New Republic Reference Service, he requested a quickreport on naming conventions on Lucazec and Carratos, thinking he might parse another lead from the names in hand.

A second request to the same source asked for five-hundred-word excerpts from all matches on the key words “Fallanassi” and “White Current.” After a short debate with himself, and despite the pathetic and sensational inaccuracies of Secrets of the Jedi, Luke also contacted an information broker on Atzerri and paid a hundred credits for a search on the same keys.

He also requested a Current Terms & Conditions brochure from the chief librarian’s office on Obroa-skai. The library computers there were the only resource offering both a greater variety and a greater volume of records than those held by Coruscant.

But Obroa-skai’s generosity with its planetary treasure was limited. To protect against theft of the library, and to provide the resources needed to maintain it, accessing the records meant either going to Obroa-skai or hiring one of the library’s own trained contract researchers.

In either case, Obroa-skai was not a resource one turned to for quick answers. The official language of New Republic recordkeeping was Basic, and everything held by Coruscant was kept in one of several readily searchable data specifications. But the Obroa-skai library was a collection of primary documents, in ten thousand storage formats and uncountable languages. The most complete general index covered only fifteen percent of the library’s holdings, and all the specialty indexes combined added only a few percent to that.

Those were the principal reasons why the brochure—which Luke received within minutes of requesting it, as the first response to any of his inquiries—reported that a normal single-part library search was averaging eight days. The waiting list for terminal time was holding at fifteen days, and the backlog for contract researchers had climbed to seventy.

LOL. I should definitely use that in a fic at some point.

[ymiwritesstuff]

Aaaaaaaa the vampire Kak one was so good!!! Really love your writing! 💖 Could I ask for a continuation of it, where poor Kak's just trying his best to avoid taking blood from anyone (especially fem!reader), but he's become too weak/hungry that he needs it? That boy's already incredibly stubborn, feel like vampirism would make him ten times moreso 😔

I’m so glad you loved the Vampire Kakyoin story! And thank you for the kind words

A Different Side

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

Vampire!Noriaki Kakyoin x Reader

Summary: Despite all the help you’ve provided for Kakyoin, the vampire is still frightened of himself and a certain trait that has been kept away relatively well until now

Continuation of Isolation please read that before this one in order to understand the context better

Moments like these made Kakyoin’s insides shine with delight. A quiet moment between the two of you, your head laid gently on his lap, your (E/C) eyes closed as you enjoyed his presence next to you. Kakyoin would carefully examine your resting form with his lavender eyes, a quiet smile spread across his lips. Ever since the male had talked with you on that fateful evening, all his fears and worries had come to a halt. He could finally enjoy life with you by his side.

A part of him was disappointed that he hadn’t talked with you sooner as it would’ve improved his life much faster. However you were understanding of his situation and even after that evening, you allowed him to take his time, only visiting him when he was comfortable. It took him quite some time to gain the ability to relax in your presence as he was still unsure if he could control his potentially dangerous desires. However Kakyoin was eventually able to behave somewhat normally around you, much thanks to your support and patience, which he was eternally grateful for. You completely devoted yourself to him in order to help him. You had completely reworked your schedule so you were able to spend time with him during nights, talking with him, shopping for him and just about anything else he needed. He was soon comfortable enough to go out with you in the darkness, enjoying the chilly breeze and the sky filled with stars.

However soon a harassing anxiety made its way into Kakyoin’s mind as a sudden craving of blood hit him like a truck. The feeling of succession due to being able to withstand the need in the past was utterly destroyed as one night whilst walking along the dimly lit streets, he craved for the red substance, eyes shining with hunger as they looked at every person who walked past him. The feeling was overwhelming, his fangs grated in lust, his pupils dilated and his hands trembled as he was trying to resist the urge that almost overpowered him.

It had been a few days since the first urge to consume blood had presented itself and small bits of said urge hadn’t left him. He still felt the need somewhere in his mind, bothering him to the point where he almost began to isolate himself again. In addition to this, he had noticed his physical condition weakening, hence the current relaxation session with you. Despite the delight he felt while in your company, Kakyoin could feel the lust in him, as if it was slowly consuming him, eating his last bits of humanity.

His face twisted, he raised a trembling hand that seemed to move against his will, landing on the delicate flesh of your neck. How easily he could break that skin, dig into the flesh and drain the crimson liquid from your body. His fingers and claws gently crazed the surface, his nose already smelling the substance. He would be in top condition, his cravings would be silenced and his tongue could finally taste the delicious blood he so desperately needed. His fingers twitched. His tongue glided over his top lip. His lavender eyes shining with desire. Just a little bit. A tiny drop-

Kakyoin quickly retreated his hand from your body, his breathing quickening. That was close. Too close. He had almost given in to his twisted desires. This was exactly what he was afraid of. If he hadn’t snapped out of it, who knows what he would’ve done. He would never hurt you, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he did. But why? Why was it so difficult to resist?

The sudden movements beside you caused you to open your eyes and look up at Kakyoin who had an expression that practically screamed in fear and anxiety. You wasted no time sitting up and tending to his distraught state. “Are you okay, Nori? Did something happen?” Kakyoin’s eyes moved to you, his throat unable to let out the words bubbling in it. He looked tired, weak and he was trembling as if his cold body temperature was bothering him. You begin to wonder what caused such behavior but soon recall the feeling of a cold hand on your neck. Quickly moving your own hand to the spot where you could feel his, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. Your (E/C) eyes move to him to silently ask him what was going on.

Your guess seemed to be correct as Kakyoin’s worried expression only worsens. “(Name) I.. I didn’t mean to..” You keep your hand in the same spot, deeply thinking about everything that’s currently happening. He didn’t mean to drink your blood, you knew it. He would never do it without you knowing. However he looked very weak. During all this time you’ve been helping him and you hadn’t even thought about the fact that he needed blood. How long has he been craving it? “I.. I would never.. (Name).. I-I’m sorry I-”

“You need it, Nori. You’re becoming weaker and weaker. I can’t stand to see you like that. So please.. Drink my blood” Kakyoin’s lavender eyes widened in surprise and concern. Your selfless offer caught him off guard, his lust quickly rising to the surface once again. He was quick to try to deny you: “N-no (Name).. I can’t.. What if I.. Drink too much..?” The past fears of losing control quickly returned, making him think of the worst possible scenario. He and you both knew how much he needed blood, however Kakyoin couldn’t possibly allow himself to do it. If something were to happen, how was he supposed to live with himself?

“You have to. Who knows what will happen if you don’t. Nori I can’t lose you.. If I have to sacrifice my blood in order to keep you with me, I’ll do it” Your pleas dug into his soul like a sharp drill. He knew you were right, he needed blood in order to stay alive. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how much pain you’d be in if he were to disappear. As much as he hated it, he had to do it. A painful sigh of approval escapes his lips. “Alright.. But please.. Stop me if I.. If I can’t do it myself..” A relieved smile makes its way onto your face and with a nod, you prepare yourself for the next few moments.

Kakyoin lowers his face to your neck, his whole body lightly trembling and the smell and feeling of your blood calling to him. He could practically see the red liquid flowing through your veins under the thin skin. It almost looked like it wanted to get out and be consumed by the red haired male. Before he sinks his fangs into you, he gently connects his lips with the surface in an attempt to not only soothe you but also apologize for the fact that he has to do this. You take a deep breath, holding onto his body, waiting for the inevitable pain that will present itself as soon as his fangs pierce your skin.

And said pain quickly comes forth as you feel the two fangs sink into your neck, followed by the feeling of your blood being sucked out. Kakyoin has a firm hold of you, a part of it coming from the side of him that craves your blood. Once the taste of the substance fills his mouth, he’s unable to control his urges. He needs it more than he ever would’ve thought. Your blood is the most delicious thing he has ever had the pleasure of tasting. A part of him regrets the fact that he was about to deny such an experience from him. The texture, the taste, everything. Everything about your vital fluid makes only makes him crave for more, his vision blurring in pure excitement and lust.

You grip onto his clothes and lean your head against his shoulder. The pain is mostly gone, but this whole experience is so new that you barely know how to react. Your eyes are closed as you try to adjust to the strange feeling. The increased pressure leads you to suspect that the side of him that he was so afraid of has come through and you now know that he won’t be able to stop himself anymore. Tiny tears make their way to your eyes as the power he uses to drain you increases to the point where you can’t withstand it anymore. You gently try to pull away but Kakyoin denies your silent request by holding you tighter, a growl-like sound erupting from his throat.

“N-Nori.. I.. I don’t think I can take it anymore” You gently grip his head and guide it away from your neck. Kakyoin quickly snaps out of his lust-filled state and willingly pulls himself away, licking the remaining blood dripping from your wound. He swiftly looks at you, concern painted across his face. With a smile you assure him that you’re fine and also note his improved look. He now looks much healthier, his eyes shine normally, his skin glowing lightly. “Are you okay?” His voice has regained its usual tone, which only increases your smile. “Yeah. And you’re too” Kakyoin is relieved to hear that he was able to control himself, despite your blood making him feel forbidden things.

You quickly pull him into a kiss in which you can taste the remains of your blood on his lips. He wraps his arms around you in a manner that radiates warmth and care. He’s happy to have someone like you in his life, helping and supporting him when no one else could. Kakyoin makes a silent vow within his mind to protect you from everything that could ever hurt you. This includes the side of him that would surely crave the delicious fluid flowing through your body again in the future.

[idio-cies]

Broadsword Scene Breakdown

I had to, I’m sorry, I love this scene too much. And in honour of Lance’s birthday tomorrow. No one asked for this but oh well!

Also loads of people are doubting Lance’s Altean Broadsword will come back and I’m over here wanting to dish out hope for you all with analysing this shit, so here we go!!! :D

I’ll try and keep things just to one point, so I’ll just keep to the analysing of the cinematography ;)

People pointed out that this scene is a slight reference to 0102 training drill. 

And that’s totally right. There’s just a slight different algorithm on it that means Lance won’t fall into a hole if he’s hit. It shows you his loneliness, but also, he actually does need help and protection in this scenario (to be a team that has your back)- it was what was meant to teach them in that simulation. So that’s why it’s like that here. 

The rest lies under the cut:

Something that intrigues me is that Allura witnesses this whole scene. Technically, upon coming into the training room we are looking through her eyes but then she is completely taken out until her voice is heard later and she is revealed. Also it’s just cool staging to have us see the doors open.

It attracts your attention, like curtains pulling back. See how all the lines lead to Lance at the end as well. 

It’s a visual aid for the viewers to draw all of our attention to something. The thing is Lance isn’t in the centre of the room? As in he’s right at the back and it puts across the idea that he’s in a corner. Doors opening simply means that someone is entering his space. The ending of this scene explains why this is Allura.

It then keeps to close-ups/mid-shots of Lance this keeps us focused on him, so we can see his expressions etc. We see Lance not having much luck in using his Rifle. We also get angered expressions. Okay, I know he’s training and that can just be a default because of focusing etc, but he audible is getting angry as well and it seems to throw him off.

He is missing them. They are fast and they’re small and there’s a multiple of them. Plus, they are incessant, they won’t wait for him to line up a shot and with his Rifle Lance is basically just firing randomly at the air.

It’s annoying, but I couldn’t find a GIF, but you get the gist. Lance rolls out of the way of a shot and I can’t stress this enough, but he changes his bayard from a rifle into a sniper with ease. 

We knew he could change it from 0306 as it opens with him being the sniper in the shadows:

Though it was never acknowledged in the show. 

Slightly relevant, but anyways; I remember seeing a post ages ago about the paladins and their bayards when they form into weapons. Saying how they all still keep the form of the bayard even as the weapon. You see this especially with Pidge’s and Keith’s weapons. But even Lance’s rifle and Hunk’s canon still keep the shape of the bayard as handles. Allura’s whip does too, but the Sniper doesn’t really. It can’t really, It’s too slim. Well the Broadsword even more so doesn’t retain the shape of the bayard. Even when Zarkon and Lotor handled the Black bayard, it retained something reminiscent of the bayard shape. I just thought this was so interesting! Plus, if anyone else knows what post I’m on about, and can find it, please tag it/send it to me!!! 

Anyways, the fact that Lance is able to change his bayard easily like that suggests that it’s a natural thing; he does this often. It’s a shame that we don’t see it more, but anyways. I think this links to his growth though. The fact that he can change the bayard and in the way that he does means something. Also being the only paladin to do so outside of Zarkon and Lotor is... interesting. And Lotor wasn’t even a paladin!

There’s actually a vignette on this shot which is really weird considering nothing needs to be isolated since Lance is in your face, either way, it’s a close up, It’s intruding. You can really see his focus and agitation really.

This is really cool that we get to see through his eyes. The fact that there’s an extreme close-up going into this creates more interaction with the viewers and the character. Also, I have a feeling that because it’s through Lance’s eyes and it slows down, it shows you how concentrated he is.

Things “slow-down” and the sniper locks onto one of the drones and he is successful in taking it down. To slow down this like they did just really embellishes just how fucking awesome this scene is, again, a feature that is meant to draw your attention. It also adds to the emotional intensity that the scene holds. The whole point of slow-motion is that it basically just elongates whatever we are meant think is awesome/cool/key. They use slow motion a lot in this scene in particular. 

To expand upon the idea of Lance being focuse/concentrated, it’s the same thing you take away with this scene:

You see him/hear him take in a deep breath before shooting (where it then goes into slow mo) and it really does let you know that Lance has a lot of patience and focus; he has skill. Though, arguably in 0210 it was a situation that held a lot of weight, it was much more intense. That’s also what held us on edge. They elongated that and brought so much attention to the fact that Lance was successful in making that shot and he goes away like it was nothing. It was great. Lance had only one chance and Slav was someone that was a huge part of the operation. In the Broadsword scene, Lance is only up against drones in the comfort of the castle. That’s nothing in comparison. Both scenes are fucking awesome though and really do show you his skill. Also Lance had his Sniper lock down on a target, whereas in 0210 he had none of that, that was all him, he had no help and he was under so much pressure.

Anyways, sorry.

The thing is, with doing this, Lance is way too slow. He literally watches the drone fall and roll across the floor before almost being hit. He needs to be a lot faster and not wait to see whether it was actually demolished...

Again, no luck. The drones are becoming more demanding. He needs protection and he doesn’t have the time to lock onto a target. Also he needs two hands to hold the Sniper, just like with his Rifle, it’s not like a handgun where you can use one or two hands to be steady and on target. It makes him vulnerable and he needs a shield. 

Honestly, Lance can be really shit in protecting himself. The worst offender has to be in 0304:

You can see how far forward and central he is, he actual goes  a little more to the right (his left) so Keith is central. But look. Allura, Keith and Pidge have their shields up, Hunk is close to an alcove, so is Sven and Slav on the other side. Lance is completely open, not even realising that this is a T junction. 

He was completely exposed and he was stunned in his spot when he was about to be blown to smithereens, probably.

But yeah, I think Lance must forget that he needs a shield. I mean, he could have done something that Hunk and Keith ended up doing:

I mean, they actually replace where he was so it’s noticeable and acts like a “spot the difference”.

Anyway. The point is Lance either needed someone else there to give him protection or just a different weapon.

You can tell Lance is getting angry in this scene though...

He audibly grunts and you can just tell by his face. He can’t shoot back because he needs cover and a proper lock on a target to get one.

We all know what happens next. I’ll show you the GIF’s because I want people to pay close attention to his expressions, then I’ll expand upon it with stills.

I mean, you get the cool extreme close-up again. This is gives us an interaction, It’s kinda uncomfortably close if you will, but you see the bayard start to glow/change and all you see is Lance’s eyes snap open into action as things slow down again *chills*

This one doesn’t really need stills, but upon re-watching and really taking this all in under a critical eye, I got the feeling that this eye snap was like an awakening, he knew what he was doing, the rest of what I’m about to point out will help explain that thesis, even if he wasn’t fully aware.

Right so first look at this:

I know, it’s rather quick and people are probably going to think I’m mental, but trust me! This is art guys, I mean look at his eyes, the bayard is still fucking glowing with the change and he has already cut a drone! It slows down on this still anyway. But man his eyes!!! They sorta get framed by the drone he just cut but damn!! It shows you that this is something that he is not doing tentatively, this is within him; dare I say, natural?

Then it gets to a normal close up where we see his eyes roll around. This is what gets me, he pauses for a brief moment, but it’s like “what the fuck just happened?” but it hasn’t fully sunk in because he was still taking in his surroundings, it’s why we get the roll of the eye as he looks around and changes his position; carrying on and putting away his shield. Also, it’s the only shot we get that’s relatively eye-level, but even then it’s like (if there was a camera there) is below his eye-level.

He cuts a couple more, but look at this. I shit you not, this is his expression whilst he’s shopping up these drones.

He is completely and utterly baffled, yet he is still carrying on. He looks like he’s just ripped his trousers or something 😂😂. It’s like his body was just working on his own; he had no control. Then he continues to be fucking awesome!:

 *This bit here... I saw a post the other day a post about how both Keith and Lance are ambidextrous. I was like “I know Keith is, but Lance isn’t, is he?” Bitch! This scene kinda confirms that*

He blinks and continues to admire it. It doesn’t retract or reform back into the rifle or sniper. Indicating that this wasn’t a one time thing/default or something of that nature, even when he goes slack with it whilst talking to Allura. 

I can’t get over his expressions though. That one with it still changing and the cut drone framing his eyes is so fucking badass. That shit came to him naturally, no two ways about it. That badass slow-mo cut with framing his narrowed eyes coupled with him then being like he just crapped himself though still being badass is not something that he was intently concentrating on like he was with his gun. It’s so weird though. Why would they give the impression that Lance wielding a sword was something he was a natural at? Why did it happen to be the same variation of a weapon that Keith wields? I understand the significance of it, but why play that he is naturally gifted with this sort of thing when it’s Keith’s thing which Keith just seemed to be a natural at too- just like Keith’s piloting?

Anyway. This scene shot here:

It’s a very low shot, the closer he gets to the screen, the more obvious it is, but this bit is framed from below and it’s meant to make you feel intimidated. Also, I’m no expert in this sort of thing, but I don’t think Lance’s stances in all of this scene are far off. He’s not wobbling or anything, he even makes cute little “heee-yas” as well as he swipes his sword.

Yeah, anyways. They made this part of the scene look way too awesome for it not to resonate/be something that will come up later. Also the context.

So why I know the significance of Lance being a natural? Because Lance strives for everything that he does, his facade, for the people he loves, his ambition, piloting etc etc. His insecurities put him in a place where he feels like he doesn’t amount to anything, because he’s always searching for his “thing” yet, he doesn’t realise that he’s the whole package. He is the “jack-of-all-trades”. This makes him even more so. Everything you get from this entire scene is natural. That, I think, is what it was meant to be. The fact that the bayard changes from Rifle to Sniper with ease, then for the Sniper to then change into the Broadsword on it’s own volition, but acting like it had awoken something in Lance and for him to continue and not fail, in comparison to him missing with the gun. I like how after every upgrade, he didn’t fail either, it’s a reference to growth/his growth. 

Wielding a sword is a completely different set of skills to handling a gun. Swords are more about movements. To me, they are also more elegant than a gun which comes across as threatening in any scenario. I looked up the symbolism of swords and it was neatly compacted into this list: Aggression, Protection, Courage, Strength, Action, Unity, Justice, Leadership, Decision, Duplicity. Guns were a much harder thing for me to find and it was a completely different story. It was mostly: Fear, Protection, Anger/Aggression, Power, Control.  Don’t get me wrong, both weapons can both strike fear, it’s just the symbolism's of swords goes wwaaaaayyyyy back, whereas guns are a rather modern invention.

Anyways. I just thought some of those things were interesting to note. Also the fact that under the Christianity section of the symbolism of swords, it was going on about the Archangel Micheal, and how his sword is sometimes depicted to be flaming, it blocked the gates of Eden so only the purest of heart could walk through. symbolising truth, purity and equanimity. He also had that paired with scales, which is a wacky coincidence because Lance keeps a level head about things/tries to keep a balance, you see this play out when he talks to Allura in the very next bit.

Anyway. Now the frame is at eye-level. A comfortable level.

Allura then comes on screen/makes herself known. She steps up next to him, explaining what it is; an Altean Broadsword, one like her father wielded. And then the framing goes to so it is placed above them, at a higher angle. The fact that the sword is the thing that is in the foreground makes it seem a little intimidating, or of importance.

This is where I further put in the notion about Lance actually knowing how he did that.

He says “I have no idea how I did this” and Allura replies with “I think your bayard has shown you what we’ve all been noticing. You have greatness within”- God bless you Allura. 

She turns her head when she said “You have greatness within” with this expression, she really means it. His face doesn’t even look like he’s listening to her, he looks worried. Lance isn’t looking at her and in response he says “I don’t think Shiro has noticed” and his face and head drops. It does the opposite to what that comment was meant to give.

Is it me, or does this frame emphasise how much taller Lance looks as opposed to Allura or is that just me? Anyway, the close-up means that the attention goes fully to their expressions compared to them admiring the Broadsword which we have our attention on at this point also.

Allura agrees that Shiro had been quite difficult of late and she turns away herself.

“Camera” change so we get a full shot of them, at a higher angle again.

She actually closes herself off. We don’t see her fold her arms but she has them folded now and even steps her feet together to gain more distance. Having a full shot of this as well gets through to us their relationship and she steps to the side, making more space.

Lance then puts in his views. “You guys are under a lot of pressure. Having Lotor around doesn’t help.” and she continues about how fighting the Galra may have been easier than working with them. “Camera” change again with Lance leaning into the frame as well showing that he is making himself known to her, basically so he’s in her line of vision as well as ours.

“You both have the coalitions best interest at heart. Don’t forget that. Shiro isn’t the enemy”- oh how wrong you were... But this is also what Lance was trying to tell Shiro when he got yelled at.

“Shiro, we’re all on the same side here-”

For Lance, that was the overall arc for him throughout the entirety of this episode.

“You’re right. I need to stay focused on the big picture” Low-angled shot, looking at Allura. It shows her vulnerability. 

“Thank you Lance” eye-level shot, meaning they’re on common ground; it’s comfortable.

“Talking with you has actually made me feel better” 

“What do you mean actually?

They have a cute little giggle. Thing is about this is that Lance helps Allura out more than Allura helping Lance out. It’s strange because either Lance is so deep in self-loathing that a compliment from Allura of all people won’t make him feel better, or he prefers actions rather than words, or maybe a bit of both.

It is undeniably cute that Allura and Lance are laughing like they are. It’s such a nice, natural sight to see. It just gives you a look in of how much they have grown as friends. But also the “What do you mean “actually”?” Is like, so sweet because it’s something that Lance would probably actually like validation on, that he does give out good advice and it’s nice to see him laugh about it in that way, although it is a little sad in the grand scheme of things. 

Look at that face. It’s so precious. But mid-shot a.k.a social shot. Make sense.

Was it me or was anybody else expecting him to blush in this scene? I mean, to be honest, he doesn’t really smile either, he’s practically turned into a statue.

Then we get Low-angle again, making Allura look intimidating. The shot we have here would also most likely be what Lance would see, so it’s like looking through his eyes. He looks up to Allura still, more than Allura sees Lance as an equal. The dynamic we see from S3 onwards with them. Also, the bayard retracts under Allura’s touch, it brings finality to the scene. Plus what she says “Oh, and Lance, if you are going to try to control a sword this powerful... you’re going to need to work on your stance”. That sentence alone suggests that Lance will use it again/will train with it again. In fact, the theme of control runs through piloting Red and also when Lance provides as Keith’s stability. I think Lance is up for that challenge. 

This interaction with Lance and Allura could have easily have crossed a line into romance. I think the biggest one where it veered off was when Allura told him that he had greatness within. She could have said “I” instead of “we” when talking about what they have all been noticing, also, in response to that, he could have smiled back at her with a fond look himself, but he doesn’t. Then, the fact that Allura continues to close herself off could come across like she was trying something and it didn’t work, but it was evident that she closed herself off because the situation with her and Shiro with Lotor was serious business and she didn’t like being at odds. Then again with her tripping Lance, again it could have come across as her trying something, and the music is the same as with the cute mice stuff, but then changes to the equivalent of the pitiful failure music when Allura trips him. Plus, like I said, Lance could have blushed in response, though the closeness does leave him rigid, but he doesn’t seem to smile either, it’s a weird sort of straight face. It’s probably the “What’s happening? Can’t compute” face. But yeah, you get the gist.

Going back to this:

It symbolises/indicates that Allura is looking at Lance under his facade. She lets herself in. It’s slightly different to what has been used with Keith and Lance though. Allura letting herself in explains a lot actually, because it shows that she’s looked past his facade and really does see him for who he is. She thanks him and takes his words. They leave a mark for her and build her up. She, like Keith (and probably Shiro) know what Lance gives to the team. Then to match that with it ending with this:

and how I explained what that put across about Lance looking up to her. It makes complete and utter sense. Allura has seen Lance as an equal ever since 0302 where he doubted himself and Red called for him, it was one of those moments where she accepted that she won’t be a complete copy of her father (she is still learning this). From then on really she has seen/knows Lance’s mind-set sometimes being a good one (0303) and also valuing/listening to his words of advice and/or encouragement like she does here, in 0406 and in 0606. Lance on the other hand still looks up to her. Whether he really did let he go in that scene in 0606 I don’t exactly know, but Lance is slowly getting there to realising he doesn’t have a chance romantically with her, but he did give her and himself some dignity in 0302 when he let his childish pursuit of her go with the “passing the baton” scene.

To conclude. This scene, especially with the way it ended and the whole scene of him actually using the Broadsword is too powerful to but that aside. You don’t draw that much attention to something like this if it wasn’t coming up later. It was way too cool, and it would be over-emphasised; anti-climactic. Not to mention it’s linked to his growth. His growth with Allura, with Shiro and also just being a paladin/the person he is. Also, it would be an absolute robbery if we didn’t see Keith’s reaction to this😂😂. I assume it to be one of startlement; close to that in 0306 when he made that fucking iconic shocked expression to then go on and lay on a fond smile. 

I do have loads more to say on this scene because it goes everywhere but I will leave it here because it will be way too long. Hey, maybe I’ll do parts or something if people are interested. I’ve just been trying to cut down on how much I write...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and I hope this brings back some hope for some people who wanted to see the Broadsword again :D

Later paladudes ;)

[drohenrique2-blog]

Top Hip Flexor Pain Choices

Grade 1 Hip Flexor Strain occurs just in small number of fibers that's related to mild pain, but this doesn't impact the functional ability. Hip Rotation The hip rotation is a stretch that's supposed to aid in regaining and improving the array of motion in one or either side of the hip.  The Hip Flexor is to blame for providing the force required for each and every portion of this whether it's vertical or horizontal movement.

The Benefits of Hip Flexor Pain

Massage will be beneficial to raise the flow of blood and decrease spasms.  Additionally, there are cases where folks get groin or abdominal hernias that happen really near the Hip Joint. Hip pain in early pregnancy could be because of hormone called relaxin, which is generated in high quantities in the very first trimester.

The Advantages of Hip Flexor Pain The hip isn't at the waist when we discuss anatomy. Pain experienced in the direction of the cap of the thigh is occasionally as a result of tightness in the Rectus Femoris hip flexor. It is sometimes the result of strains occurring when the hip flexor muscles tears. Because it is not difficult to put a whole lot of stress on the hip flexors, hip flexor pain in a standard complaint. Inadequate movement control can also lead to hip flexor pain. Iliopsoas syndrome can be known as Iliopsoas tendonitis, an extremely common hip flexor injury. You're able to use a foam roller like the Rumble Roller or a very simple stick. Ball knee tucks are like ball pikes. Press your chest forward to raise the stretch. The Principles of Hip Flexor Pain You Will be Able to Benefit From Starting Immediately Hip flexors are among those muscles that athletes really like to hate. The simplest place to begin is with active warmup drills which are often underrated and underutilized, Holland states. Not only can you do exercises with it, but what many individuals don't understand is that it's terrific for assisted stretches too. If you're medically able, consider the subsequent exercises. Again, make certain to keep that perfect glute squeezed. Don't neglect to maintain the exercises as a piece of your customary strength routine! The Fundamentals of Hip Flexor Pain You Will be Able to Learn From Beginning Immediately You're able to gently rock side to side if you'd like. Another suggestion is to walk around in your house barefoot little amounts every day. You also enhance their endurance, so they can do so for a lengthier time period. Top Hip Flexor Pain Secrets In reality, most commonly it's due to arthritis and tends to be observed in the later decades of life. There are different ways to lower the effect of joint pain. Regardless of the cause, following some basic measures could help you lower the pain. While there might not be many short term effects of this hip arthritis may be very long term result. Arthritis Prevention There isn't any way to stop hip arthritis for certain, but should you adhere to the ideas in the treatment section of this article you can help minimize your likelihood of developing the status. Hip pain is a common complaint that might be the consequence of a wide variety of issues. What You Need to Do About Hip Flexor Pain Beginning in the Next 6 Minutes All of them work in unison to get the intended movement, which is the reason why it is necessary to do total body workouts instead of isolation. Ultimately though, our intent is to put break down movement patterns as they ought to be functioning, with the correct muscles firing at the most suitable time. Actually, the psoas major muscle is particularly unique, particularly in regards to postural function. The fundamentals of Muscle Balance Therapy address the pain and pinpoint what led to the spine and pelvis to acquire out of position in the very first spot. You will need to permit your muscles and body time to readjust to the degree of stress that's placed upon them or you'll wind up overtraining and receiving hurt again. It is very important to stretch out the human body and continue around every couple of hours. The Hidden Treasure of Hip Flexor Pain So you're likely to get your foot before your knee, the hips square. It is crucial to realize that the place of the pelvis and the place of the spine do not change overnight. You'll truly feel the cross-body shoulder stretch targeting the rear of your shoulder along with your upper back. What Is So Fascinating About Hip Flexor Pain? The second kind does not react well to stretching in addition to whole lots of stretching could develop a variety of issues. If you would like to have a wholesome hip that doesn't annoy you with all kinds of pain, you have to take your time to modify your hip-joint angle. Folks who sit a lot generally have very tight hip flexors since they are in a constant shortened state. Many people don't realize the reason for their problems in there back connected with tight hip flexors. Adhering to a hip replacement, the majority of people will lack strength, while others are going to lack the suitable flexibility and motion around the hip to accomplish a smooth stride. The simple truth is, everything within your body is connected and as a way to alleviate hip pain, you will want to not just work the hip flexors themselves but the surrounding muscles that support them. The New Fuss About Hip Flexor Pain Work to improve running form can be utilised as a method to correct the posture and lessen the pain, especially if poor running technique has generated the indicators. Isometric bodily activities are perfect for everybody who would like to tone muscle groups and benefit electricity in a manner that doesn't require impact or complete assortment of motion. A physical therapist can give a personalized plan or a sport-specific training plan. Ok, I Think I Understand Hip Flexor Pain, Now Tell Me About Hip Flexor Pain! Actually, the stretch that is going to be best for someone with hip pain is nearly always a hip extensorstretch. You should feel a small pull in the back part of your hip. Not just that, having adaptable, solid hip flexors will surely help you receive superior results from lots of stomach exercises. Legs then do the job of running. Your hips are many more important you can think, and they're crucial if you wish to have in an appropriate workout. Tight hip flexors occur for a number of factors. New Step by Step Roadmap for Hip Flexor Pain There are a lot of helpful ways of diagnosing injuries to the hip flexor. In truth, it reduces overall stiffness and enhance a great array of motion. Often a special type of movement or perhaps a deficiency of movement will spur the beginning of hip joint pain. The Argument About Hip Flexor Pain Headache treatment by and large, headaches may be treated through rest or by massage therapy. Conservative surgery is likewise an alternative. If it is unmanageable, visit a healthcare provider. Treatment There are limited alternatives to reverse the repercussions of hip arthritis besides hip replacement surgery. Few hip flexor sprains desire a trip to the doctor. Hip pain is a common complaint that might be the consequence of a wide variety of issues. Choosing Hip Flexor Pain The hip flexors are available connecting the cap of the femur, that's the biggest bone within the body, to the lower back, hips, and groin. Don't forget to stop if you are feeling greater pain in your hip. It is often an injury that is hard to ignore. Let's first examine the fundamentals of hip flexor muscles. Inadequate movement control can also lead to hip flexor pain. Iliotibial band syndrome is distinguished by pain along the face of the thigh and knee. Well, it may be a tiny condition referred to as runner's knee. Pause, then slowly decrease your knee to begin. Pain spreads down through the full leg. The One Thing to Do for Hip Flexor Pain The very best thing concerning this stretch is you may easily adjust where you feel it simply by altering the place of your foot. The back surgery can be hard to either on both sides of the body. Pain in this region may also be attributed to accidents and unequal leg lengths. The New Fuss About Hip Flexor Pain Work to improve running form can be utilised as a method to correct the posture and lessen the pain, especially if poor running technique has generated the indicators. Besides sharpening mental performance, regular physical activity improves time-management abilities, which then improve your capacity to meet deadlines. A physical therapist can give a personalized plan or a sport-specific training plan. Hip Flexor Pain for Dummies Every time a brand-new muscle mass injury happens, the initial and most important objective is definitely to decrease pain and also any swelling which may be present. By doing nothing you're putting yourself in danger of aches, pains, and potentially more severe injury. Much enjoy all injuries, the absence of pain doesn't signify that all is well. A Startling Fact about Hip Flexor Pain Uncovered All of them work in unison to get the intended movement, which is the reason why it is necessary to do total body workouts instead of isolation. Ultimately though, our intent is to put break down movement patterns as they ought to be functioning, with the correct muscles firing at the most suitable time. Actually, the psoas major muscle is particularly unique, particularly in regards to postural function. To find supplementary information on Hip Flexor Strain please go to Hip Flexors Info The fundamentals of Muscle Balance Therapy address the pain and pinpoint what led to the spine and pelvis to acquire out of position in the very first spot. You will need to permit your muscles and body time to readjust to the degree of stress that's placed upon them or you'll wind up overtraining and receiving hurt again. Strength-training exercises for your legs are a vital component of any sort of exercise regimen. Want to Know More About Hip Flexor Pain? Listen to your entire body and the way it responds after a couple weeks of stretching and adjust accordingly. As you practice you'll observe that a number of the stretches will be less painful to perform. Three-dimensional stretches are the very best way to enhance flexibility and joint mobility. A consistent stretching routine is the sole means to reach true sustainable flexibility and protect against injury. Again, make certain to keep that perfect glute squeezed. Practice these exercises 2-3 times each week or as needed to alleviate tight hips. Choosing Hip Flexor Pain Is Simple The day following your surgical operation, you will be helped right into a chair and you are going to be in a position to stroll restrained. You're in the proper place. Then you're in the proper location. The Ideal Approach for Hip Flexor Pain It is difficult to perceive the indications of headache in children since they often cannot articulate their situation. By doing nothing you're putting yourself in danger of aches, pains and potentially more severe injury. Much enjoy all injuries, the absence of pain doesn't signify that all is well. Up in Arms About Hip Flexor Pain? To start the stretch, pick the side you want to stretch and take the following steps with that side. Surely human joints evolved so they don't begin to knit themselves together after a couple of hours in exactly the same position. After a couple of weeks or months, you might discover your flexibility has improved and your routine is starting to stagnate. Details of Hip Flexor Pain All of them work in unison to get the intended movement, which is the reason why it is necessary to do total body workouts instead of isolation. Ultimately though, our intent is to put break down movement patterns as they ought to be functioning, with the correct muscles firing at the most suitable time. Actually, the psoas major muscle is particularly unique, particularly in regards to postural function. When you're mis-aligned, there'll remain undue strain on a single part of the human body. You will need to permit your muscles and body time to readjust to the degree of stress that's placed upon them or you'll wind up overtraining and receiving hurt again. Strength-training exercises for your legs are a vital component of any sort of exercise regimen. The Tried and True Method for Hip Flexor Pain in Step by Step Detail Some folks are somewhat more likely than other people to experience hip flexor strain. A single sort of stretching or movement is most likely not likely to be enough in case you need to check or alleviate hip flexor pain. Since you may see, there are lots of hip flexor muscles that all work with each other to facilitate hip flexion whilst fulfilling different functions too. The bones begin to rub and pinch the tissue within the hip. Hip flexor muscles attach the hip joints to the cover of the femur and the interior of the knee, allowing flexibility of the top leg. Out of all the strongest muscles within the body, the hip flexor is among the most neglected. You're able to use a foam roller like the Rumble Roller or a very simple stick. Pause, then slowly decrease your knee to begin. Press your chest forward to raise the stretch. Hip Flexor Pain for Dummies Hip flexors are among those muscles that athletes really like to hate. Concentrate on the duration of the leg versus how far back it is possible to pull it. Not only can you do exercises with it, but what many individuals don't understand is that it's terrific for assisted stretches too. A consistent stretching routine is the sole means to reach true sustainable flexibility and protect against injury. Performing regular hamstring stretches will surely help you avoid several of the aches linked to running and provide you the best overall return on your fitness and wellness. Don't neglect to maintain the exercises as a piece of your customary strength routine! What You Should Do to Find Out About Hip Flexor Pain Before You're Left Behind Imaging can be helpful in the event the diagnosis is still in question. If you're on the lookout for an easy guide on how to begin running, get rid of weight, and stay injury free, then be sure that you take a look at my Runners Blueprint System! Furthermore, the typical persons' sedentary way of life, encourages one to stay in a seated position with minimal prospect for exercise. The New Fuss About Hip Flexor Pain Typically there's a `snagging' feeling in the hip when you're moving, that's brought on by the tear. To put it differently, it's doing all the things that typically trigger hip pain! In my short audiobook, you are going to learn all you will need to understand about hip flexors. Falling on an outstretched arm is a regular example. Your hips are many more important you can think, and they're crucial if you wish to have in an appropriate workout. Tight hip flexors occur for a number of factors. Top Hip Flexor Pain Choices So you're likely to get your foot before your knee, the hips square. Begin the supine hip flexor stretch the exact same as the glute bridge, but keep the ideal leg relaxed on the ground. You should feel a gentle stretch farther down the back of your leg, do your best not to overdo it. Lies You've Been Told About Hip Flexor Pain There are a lot of helpful ways of diagnosing injuries to the hip flexor. Do not overdo it or you're able to lead to damage to your hip flexors. There are a few precautionary steps individuals can take to reduce the possibility of hip flexor injury.

Get the Scoop on Hip Flexor Pain Before You're Too Late

Headache treatment by and large, headaches may be treated through rest or by massage therapy.  Conservative surgery is likewise an alternative.  Acute or chronic pain in these types of areas can be a symptom of a health concern which ought to be brought to your physician or doctor.

A few of these hip flexor strain treatments can be carried out in the comfort of your own house, while some incorporate medical or surgical therapy.  Arthritis Prevention There isn't any way to stop hip arthritis for certain, but should you adhere to the ideas in the treatment section of this article you can help minimize your likelihood of developing the status. Hip pain is a common complaint that might be the consequence of a wide variety of issues.

[the-caravan-languages]

Lesson 1 + 2: alphabets

Welcome to the first Farsi/Persian lesson! We’re gonna be kicking it off with the script and spending a good bit of time on that. Throughout there’ll be a lot of example words to demonstrate the script: don’t feel obligated to memorize any of these yet, but you can pick some of the important ones and try to learn them as you go. Also, note any pronunciation approximations I give will be according to American English, not British English. Anyways, onto the actual lesson.

While we tend to use the term “alphabet” to refer to any system of writing, it also has a more specific meaning, which is a system in which both consonant and vowel sounds are written with separate individual letters. Persian, however, is an abjad, a writing system vowels are either not written at all or optionally indicated. That would be a pure abjad, one where all vowels truly could be left out. However, all abjads in use today are impure abjads, meaning that there are some vowels that must be indicated. 

There are 2 more things to know about the Persian script: it is written right to left rather than left to right, and letters connect with each other much like English cursive.

To start off, we’re going to learn the first 5 letters. Here are those letters in alphabetical order:

 ا ب پ ت ث

We’re going to begin with the second letter of the alphabet, ب, called “beh” /be/.  It makes the same sound as the English letter “b”. 

And now, the first letter of the alphabet:  ا, called “alef” /ælef/. This generally makes the sound â /ɒ/, much like the “a” in “father”

 Since we have our first consonant and our first vowel, we can combine them together and make a syllable.

 So, ب + ا gives you this:با

Remember how I said Persian works like English cursive? The form that I just taught you for those 2 letters is called isolated form, referring to the letter standing alone. 

There are 3 more forms, however: the initial form (coming at the beginning of a word), the medial form (coming in the middle), and the final form (coming at the end).

 In the word above, we only see the initial and final forms on display: ب has the initial form بـ, and ا has the final form ـا. 

Combine them together, you get با bâ, which means “with”.

Now it’s time for your third letter of the alphabet, پ “peh” /pe/. This is pronounced just like the English “p”, and is very similar to the previous letter except that it has 3 dots at the bottom instead of one. 

This goes for all its forms, too; the only difference between the various forms is that پ has 3 dots. So, this means that combining پ and ا gives you پا pâ “foot”. 

Then there’s the third letter, ت teh /te/, which makes the sound “t”. By now you’ve probably noticed a pattern, and have assumed that this letter has the exact same forms as the previous two besides the number and location of the dots. That’s actually correct by the way, I wasn’t trying to lead up to some sarcastic surprise reveal. So yeah, your example word is تا tâ “until”. 

Then you have ث “seh” /se/, making the “s” sound.* You get the drill by now, and the word ثا doesn’t exist.

Now, what if I told you I could teach you 3 more vowels without showing you another letter? You may think I’m crazy, but let’s go back to what I said about vowels being optional: some vowels, such as alef which I showed you above, are mandatory. 

You can’t just write ت and hope people read it as tâ “until”. The vowels that are optional are indicated by diacritics rather than by separate letters, and I’m going to teach you the 3 main ones.First, there’s the diacritic representing the “a” in the word “bat” (/æ/). It’s written like so, as a horizontal line slanted to the top-right above the letter:بَThis is read as “ba” /æ/, which isn’t a word. But we can actually make a word if we put this together with what we just learned! 

Now that you know this vowel marker, you can read the word for “fever”:تَب

There are 2 more of these vowel diacritics I want to teach, representing the sounds “e” in “bed” and something similar to the sound “o” in “toe” respectively (with the “something similar” part: if you say the word “toe” to yourself, you’ll notice that there are actually 2 vowel sounds. 

In Persian, however, this “o” sound doesn’t glide into another vowel at all).بِ بُ(In case it isn’t clear: the one below the ب is “e”, the weird squiggly one above is “o”) Now that you know these all, there’s one more rule to cover: you know how I said alef generally corresponds to the sound â? Well you see, at the beginning of the word it’s actually silent and essentially a placeholder for these vowel markers. This is because in Arabic, it’s not a pure vowel marker and in fact stands for the glottal stop /ʔ/. 

Anyways, if you want to represent the vowel sounds “a”, “e”, and “o” at the beginning of a word, you write them asاَ اِ اُrespectively. If you want to actually represent the sound â at the beginning of a word, you add a little doo-dad to the top of alef and get آ, this special new alef being called “alef madd”.

Remember that these vowel diacritics are optional: they are mainly used in children’s books and materials for learners, and in actual native text you have to know from context which vowel sound is meant. It’s a pain in the ass, but you get used to it.

But anyways, now that we have our 3 vowel diacritics, alef, and a couple of consonants, I can talk about the medial forms that I forgot to explain. For this, we only really need to look at ب:بببYou can see the ب has the medial form ـبـ. Seeing as we know the other letters are formed simply by substituting the dots, I trust you to figure out the medial forms of them yourself. 

And with that, the first lesson is over! Don’t relax though, make sure to quiz yourself on all this.

READING PRACTICE: transliterate these gibberish words بُث، تات، تِب، بات، ثَت، آثِت پُت، پُبَت، بِاپَتِب*

This is just one letter of multiple that represents the sound “s” and is not in fact that one that’s used when adapting foreign words to Persian; you’ll learn 2 more later. The reason that there are 3 letters for the “s” sound is that 2 of them actually represented different sounds in Arabic that Persians just pronounced as an “s” to make life easier. ث happens to be one of those letters with a different sound in Arabic (that being the “th” in “thick”). ——————————————-

Welcome to lesson 2! This one will probably be a lot shorter than the last lesson, just because there’s less to explain.

So, now we’re gonna move to a new letter shape, and in that letter shape we’re gonna be learning 4 new letters:

ج چ ح خ

Once again, these are presented in alphabetical order. We’re gonna start by learning the third letter here, ح, called “he”. This makes the “h” sound, and like ث is mainly used in Arabic loanwords. It has the following forms:

ح حـ ـحـ ـح

Something important to know is that while in English an “h” at the end of a syllable (“ah”) is silent, this letter is always pronounced.

Now with that, the forms other 3 letters should come very easily to you. In fact, we could just do a speed round and cover them all here! Alright, so the first letter in alphabetical order of the ones I’ve presented to you is ج, called “jim”, and it makes the same sound as the English “j”. Then there’s چ, called “che”, which makes a sound very similar to the “ch” in the word “chips”, with one key difference - aspiration. Aspiration is a puff of air released after pronouncing certain consonants. For example, hold your hand out and say a “t”; you’ll probably feel something. In Persian, like in English, the consonants “p”, “t”, and “k” are followed by aspiration, but unlike English the consonant “ch” is aspirated too. So practice following your “ch” with a puff of air and you’ll be good. Anyways, this letter is one of the 4 that’s present in the Persian alphabet but not in the Arabic one, so you’ll only see it in native Persian words and some Turkic loans that snuck their way in.

And skipping ح we get to the last letter in this lesson, خ, called “khe”. This makes a sound similar to the “ch” in the word “loch” or the German pronunciation of “Bach”. It occurs extensively in both native Persian words and Arabic loanwords, so you’re just gonna have to learn to pronounce this one.

Now, because I’m bored while writing this and need something to lengthen this otherwise uncomfortably short lesson, I’m going to teach you some more diacritics. These aren’t vowels, they just mark additional information that might be useful. First off, we’re gonna learn a w-looking marked called the “tashdid”:

بّ

This marks what’s called “gemination” in linguistics, but can be described pretty simply as holding a consonant for a bit longer than usual. For example, say “bad dad” and notice how that “d” in the middle is held. In Persian, holding consonants like this can actually differentiate between words! For example, there’s mâde “female” and mâdde “material”. The tashdid also does some weird stuff when you combine it with the short vowel diacritics: when you add “a” and “o”, they go above the tashdid as you would expect. When you add “e”, however, it goes below the tashdid but still above the letter rather than just going below the letter itself as it usually does.

اَبَّت، اَبِّت اَبُّت

Because it’s basically impossible to read diacritics on an Arabic computer font, from right to left those read “abbat”, “abbet”, and “abbot”.

Next up, there’s a circle looking thing called the “sokoon”, which marks the absence of a vowel of any kind. You don’t see this too much in Persian, seeing as you can just as well mark the absence of a vowel by… well, just not putting vowel diacritics or not using long vowel letters. Still though, it’s worth at least knowing and it looks like this:

بْ

I’ll put it in at least one word in the reading practice, but still, it definitely takes the back seat to the letters you just learned and the tashdid.

READING PRACTICE: transliterate these mostly gibberish words

حُبّ،  پاچ، ثُچَت، جُخ، آخ، اَخَبْ، تِجَّح

[edisonashley]

Interview About Section 230 and COVID Misinformation

[I did another interview with Mathew Ingram at Galley by CJR]

Ingram: Eric, thanks very much for doing this. I know we’ve discussed Section 230 before on Galley, so I don’t want to go over old ground, but is there anything about the current situation that is different or has changed your view on Section 230 and its benefits or disadvantages? Does the proposed Klobuchar bill have any merit do you think?

Goldman: Thanks for having me again. The Section 230 landscape remains about the same as 2020. Most of the Section 230 reform bills are messaging bills designed to play to the crowd and maybe goose campaign donations. As for their policy “merits,” most of the proposed bills would predictably lead to terrible outcomes that would undermine or eliminate the things that people love most about the Internet.

Unfortunately, the bill from Sens. Klobuchar and Lujan is another example of that. Health misinformation may not create any legal liability because it may be constitutionally protected. If so, removing the liability shield in Section 230 won’t change the volume or visibility of health misinformation (but it would mess up Section 230). Worse, the bill basically designates the HHS Secretary as a one-person censorship board. That’s clearly unconstitutional. Thus, like virtually all of the other Section 230 reform bills, this bill isn’t a serious policy proposal. It’s another PR stunt, and an unfortunate one at that.

As I’ve said many times, when we really drill into the problems that legislators claim they want to fix, invariably Section 230 is the solution to that problem. not the problem itself. Thus, reforming Section 230 would almost certainly remove the “best”/”least worst” option and force us to adopt inferior alternative solutions.

Ingram: Thanks, Eric. I’ve asked others this question, so I’d like to ask you as well: Is there any legal justification, or could there be any, even theoretically, for making Facebook or Google liable for harms caused by health disinformation or hate speech etc. solely because their algorithms amplified that speech or information? Is there any world in which that might work?

Goldman: No. “Publication” and “amplification” are the same thing. Any amplification decisions are publication decisions entitled to equal constitutional protection. I don’t see this as a close question legally.

More importantly, the idea would lead to terrible policy results. What, exactly, is the legislators’ end game here? By creating major legal disincentives to “amplifying” content, they seem to encourage Facebook or Google to passively host web content and provide reduced social features. But web hosting is a commodity; social media users can easily find venues to passively host their content. What makes social media useful and special is, well, the social piece–which necessarily involves prioritizing some content over others. Facebook does purport to allow its users to see their friends’ content chronologically, but that feature is uninteresting to people with hundreds of friends who want to sift for the most interesting items and avoid a massive volume of uninteresting posts.

Perhaps the legislators naively think that Internet services will keep their existing social tools but magically isolate and screen out “health misinformation” and “hate speech” from their massive corpus of content. That’s a delusional fantasy among legislators because no one can scalably make those determinations. Instead, Internet services absolutely will change their behavior in response to changes in the liability scheme, not necessarily the way legislators hope.

Finally, I’ll note an irony in the Klobuchar/Lujan bill. If the bill drives Internet services away from amplification and into becoming passive web hosts, this actually mirrors the proposals that are coming from the hardest-core conservatives who want Internet services to make no distinctions among content. If I were a politically moderate legislator, it would horrify me to think that my proposal is functionally indistinguishable from the burn-down-the-Internet proposals coming from the political cranks.

Ingram: Got it — thanks. So is the kind of disinformation-at-scale that we’ve seen in recent years, whether it’s about COVID or the election, just the way things are now? Is there any legal remedy for the kind of harms that some believe Facebook and Google and Twitter are causing by amplifying — in some cases deliberately — this kind of content? Or is that a fool’s errand?

Goldman: At this point, the dissemination pathway for disinformation is quite clear:

Politicians lie => cable broadcasters like Fox News amplify the lie => social media discusses the lie and extends the amplification.

Focusing on the social media activity without fixing the first two predicate steps won’t solve anything. So long as our politicians keep lying to us and Fox News keeps amplifying it, we’re still screwed no matter what happens on social media.

Worse, if the Constitution protects our politicians’ lies and Fox News’ amplification of them, then we may lack the legal tools necessary to systemically stop the lies. If so, then we need to rethink our policy approaches to the entire information ecosystem.

Indeed, this is a good example of how Section 230 might be the solution, not the problem. If the government can’t ban disinformation, but Internet services can–and do–undertake the socially valuable work of curbing disinformation with the protection of Section 230, we get better results than if Internet services are inhibited from doing this work without any protection from Section 230.

That’s one of many reasons why the various “must-carry” laws, like Florida’s social media censorship law, are so pernicious. They would sideline Internet services in the fight against disinformation, when Internet services may be our most crucial line of defense today.

Ingram: Thanks. I wanted to ask about another side to the anti-Section 230 fight, namely Donald Trump’s lawsuits against the platforms — which are based on the idea that the major social networks shouldn’t take certain things down and are doing so, rather than the idea that they should take things down and aren’t. If I’m reading the suits correctly, part of the argument is that the platforms are acting the way they are because they have been pressured by Democratic legislators, which amounts to a First Amendment violation. Does that hold any water at all do you think?

Goldman: No. There is a big difference between the government asking Internet services to think more about the content they publish–which happens all the time–and the government compelling Internet services to take censorial actions, which I have yet to see the Democrats do. Then again, no U.S. government official in the last 5 years did more to coerce Internet services to change their publication decisions than Trump did as president, so Trump’s legal position is characteristically ironic in a not-funny way.

Ingram: Thanks, Eric. We are just about out of time, but maybe just one last question if you don’t mind. Do you think there is anything wrong with Section 230 that needs to be tweaked or adjusted, or is it still accomplishing what it was designed to do with minimal downside?

Goldman: Content “governance” necessarily involves a series of complex tradeoffs, so it’s rare or impossible for any policy (or change to that policy) to benefit everyone with no downsides. Thus, it’s not fair to ask if Section 230 has “minimal downsides” because every content governance policy has unavoidable major downsides. As I mentioned at the beginning, Section 230 may be the “least worst” policy approach because it strikes a balance between the competing tradeoffs in a way that has unlocked an enormous amount of social good and has helped the Internet services achieve better outcomes than the government might have been able to achieve given its constitutional constraints.

The post Interview About Section 230 and COVID Misinformation appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

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[fuzzhugs]

Progress - Redwall Fanfiction

Lieutenant-Colonel Alastor Farshore gently kneaded the warm sand beneath his pawpads as he stood on the flat, sandy shore that lay alongside Salamandastron. It was supposed to be his day off. He was supposed to be free from supervising drills, inspecting quarters, and chasing lazy cadets from their lunch. Alastor had hoped to spend the day with his wife and leverets (they were growing up so quickly); the afternoon in mid-summer was a perfect time to lounge on one of the many natural porches formed along the slope of their mountain home.  However, at breakfast, a messenger had informed him that Lord Hyrax requested all high-ranking infantry officers to be present for a demonstration, of sorts.

Now Alastor stood on the beach with a mix of other officers, waiting to see what was in store for them. Off to the side, Lord Hyrax sat on a boulder in stoic silence, patient as always. The lord of Salamandastron was far younger than most of the previous rulers of the mountain-fortress, and his persistent silence and frequent self-imposed isolation could have been mistaken for brooding, but those who had come to know the badger knew that, beneath the solemn exterior, a cunning military-minded brain was constantly churning.

In front of the assembled group of hares, a young sergeant was making adjustments to some…contraption. Sergeant Flores had always been mechanically minded. He designed, built, and maintained the ballistae and trebuchets that lined the crater and ledges of Salamandastron.

His latest invention appeared to be something smaller in nature. It was a long metal tube, approximately the same length of a javelin. One end of the tube was fitted into a wooden base shaped in a way comfortable to grip. A metal box containing a mass of gears and springs sat between the metal and wood. A score of paces down the beach, there was a ripe melon perched on top of a barrel.

“Gentlebeasts,” Sergeant Flores greeted his audience, finally getting underway. “Thank you for attending this morning. What I have here is something which I believe will completely revolutionize the way warfare is conducted.”

A few of the officers quietly scoffed at his remarks. Flores had made similar statements before, but nothing had come of them. The multi-shot crossbow had snapped under the pressures of repeated use, the “liquid fire” had proven just as hazardous to those using it as those on its receiving end, and the self-propelled battering-ram, well, it was a mystery how that one had even gotten past the drawing board.

“In this device, I have harnessed both the principals of pressure in conjunction with the incendiary properties of…”

“Get on with it Flores,” a major griped.

Startled at the interruption, Flores took a moment to compose himself. “Very well, observe.” He took up the device and sturdily gripped the wooded base and pulled back a small lever until it clicked. “You may wish to cover your ears.”

Whatever happened next was too fast for even the most keenly-eyed hare to see. In the same instant, a loud bang issued from the contraption in Flores’ arms, a puff of smoke filled the air, partially obscuring Flores from sight, and the melon which Flores’ device had been pointing at exploded into a mess of pulp.

After a few moments of silence, Alastor found the words that everyone on that beach was thinking.

“Sergeant, what…what was that?”

Flores smiled confidently. “As I was explaining before I was interrupted,” he glanced at the loudmouthed major, “a mixture of sulfur, saltpetre, and charcoal is ignited by through a spark created from this hammer here,” he indicated the small lever he had fiddled with prior to his demonstration. “In the confined space of the chamber, the pressure of the ignition is forced outward, propelling a small lead projectile at high speed through the barrel and…”

“We get the picture, Flores,” the same major interrupted, silencing him. “How exactly is this ‘revolutionizing’ warfare? We’ve plenty of ranged weapons. Arrows go farther and can be shot off faster.”

“And how many of those arrows instantly incapacitate or kill their target?” Flores argued. “We’ve a great many talented archers, but rare is the beast who can precisely hit and kill their target every single time. With the amount of damage my new weapon creates, anyone hit by it is bound to be stopped. Besides, this is only my first working prototype. I have dozens of ideas for improvements: the shape of the projectile, modifications to the barrel, prepackaged amounts of powder…”

“That’s enough Flores,” Lord Hyrax stood up. “You’ve given us a lot to think about. Keep working on it.”

The meeting adjourned and the officers departed, some to the training fields, others to the barracks and mess hall.

At Salamandastron’s main gates, Alastor was stopped by Brigadier-General Sibelle. The Brigadier had been Alastor’s sergeant when he was in training. As was typical, there had been some initial animosity from the cadet toward the harsh drill sergeant, but by the time both had started climbing the officer ranks, the two had formed a strong friendship.  

“Are you busy, Al?” Sibelle asked as she leaned against the doorposts.

“I’ve got a day for sabbatical and was hoping to spend some time with the young’uns.”

“I won’t keep you long. Let’s walk.”

The two began a circuit around the training fields, watching young cadets at work, learning the skills necessary to survive in the Long Patrol.

“What did you think of Flores’ demonstration?” the Brigadier asked.

“An intriguing weapon, though hardly ready for battle. It may work as a signaling device or a means of intimidation, but I can’t see a foot soldier marching off into battle with one of those…boomsticks. The Long Patrol has always met its foes with sword and spear; I can’t imagine that changing.”

“I wish I was as optimistic,” Sibelle said, thinking aloud. “Everything we’ve both learned, everything I drilled into you when you were still an idiotic cadet with delusions of grandeur…”

“Now I’m an idiotic lieutenant-colonel with delusions of grandeur.”

Sibelle gave him a playful shove. “Everything we know about the Long Patrol has been based on the traditions of countless seasons. Archery, spears, slings, ambushes, siege-tactics…what if all comes crashing down around us? Where will that leave us, the old, unchangeable officers?”

“The blissful arms of retirement, I suppose,” Alastor remarked cynically, “but it’s better than the alternative.”

“As if either of us would ever retire,” Sibelle said as they returned to the gates. “Give that sister of mine my best. I’ll have to come and visit soon. It feels like ages since I’ve seen my niece and nephew.”

The rest of the day was not as relaxing as Alastor had hoped. His mind was occupied with thoughts of the uncertain future.

***

General Alastor Farshore gently kneaded the warm sand beneath his pawpads as he stood on the flat, sandy shore that lay alongside Salamandastron. He watched as the newly formed rifle companies went through their drills.

It seemed all the new cadets talked about in their downtime: how to get into a rifle company. The traditional units still remained, but their numbers had greatly diminished, and their odds of ever seeing combat were equally abysmal. Twenty hares armed with rifles were doing what had taken a hundred foot-soldiers during Alastor’s days in the infantry.

Some of the new officers had Alastor concerned. They wore swords, but few knew how to use them properly. The sabers they strapped on each morning was little more to them than a badge of office, just another part of their uniform. Most of the members of the rifle companies had little training in melee combat beyond the use of the bayonets fastened to the barrel of their firearms. At least his son could hold his own in a one-on-one battle.

Turning his back on the drills, Alastor surveyed the mountain. Lt. Colonel Flores had removed the last of the war-machines earlier that morning. A few were being preserved for posterity, but the rest were on their way to being fuel for the cooking fires. Hurling boulders and massive bolts were of little use when cannon could fire farther and more accurately.

Taking in all the changes he had seen in his tenure, Alastor sighed.

“What troubles you, friend?” A quiet rumbling voice spoke from behind him. Lord Hyrax, surprisingly stealthy for his size, had a habit of suddenly appearing unexpectedly.

“I am like the ballistae, milord,” Alastor lamented. “I am an antique. The Long Patrol has been my life, but how long will it be before I too am decommissioned?”

Hyrax sat down and faced the sea. “The badger lords and ladies have kept this mountain for countless seasons. In that time, many brave creatures of all sorts have come and gone. Squirrels, otters, hares, mice, all of them different, but brave in heart. Look at the young cadets out on the fields. They may carry a rifle instead of a sword, but are they any less valiant than you or any of the Patrol? They have taken the same oath to defend this shore against invaders and protect all its inhabitants. The tools they use do not matter, for the Long Patrol only looks for the valiant in heart. Look to the mountain. It has stood here longer than any of us, and though countless changes have been made to it over the years, it still stands. Weapons are easily replaced, but valiant hearts? Those will always be needed.”

Alastor smiled. “Of course you are right, milord. I suppose nobeast likes feeling they are being replaced.”

“But it is still inevitable that we are. Some new lord or lady will follow me just as I followed my predecessor, but we all have our role to play for the time being. Anything that helps us fulfill those roles will not undo us. We will not be undone by progress.”

[aion-rsa]

Sean Connery and Michael Caine are Godlike in The Man Who Would Be King

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“I’ll stand one day before the Queen, not kneel, mind you, but stand like an equal, and she’ll say ‘I’d like you to accept the Order of the Garter as a mark of my esteem, cousin,’” Sean Connery’s ex-British soldier Daniel Dravot proclaims in the 1975 period adventure film, The Man Who Would Be King. And with those words, and the epic death scene which followed, Connery completed the saga of a long-germinating work from one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors. John Huston was Hollywood royalty. His father, Walter, was an acting icon, and his offspring have all gone on to distinguish themselves as part of the Huston Dynasty.

Connery was of course no stranger to acting royalty himself. Eventually knighted in 2000, he also got to play King Agamemnon in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits in 1981, King Richard the Lionheart in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and King Arthur in First Knight (1995). James Bond was only a small part of Connery’s cinematic output. The Oscar-winning screen legend wasn’t always a suave, debonair, tuxedoed aficionado of the shaken martini.

He was already distancing himself from the immensely popular 007 role by the time he made Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. He wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty for parts, and he reveled in playing the occasional antihero and other less sympathetic roles.

Thus Connery got the chance to play a not-so-bright, morally flawed but timeless character in the 1975 film The Man Who Would Be King. He also fulfilled a lifelong dream for a Hollywood legend, and turned a myth into reality.

Huston had loved Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” since he was a child, according to the book The Hustons, by Lawrence Grobel. Kipling was 22 in 1888, when he wrote the short story, and had been shot at while exploring the setting. Huston’s adaptation was a dream project which had morphed into the purgatory of lost film masterpieces, like Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, Alejandro Jodorowski’s Dune, or Orson Welles’ Heart of Darkness. Francis Ford Coppola wound up adapting the Joseph Conrad novel with a post-Vietnam War mentality. His Apocalypse Now is about a good man corrupted by absolute power. Huston took the lessons of the unpopular war in the opposite direction. The Man Who Would Be King is about bad men who are held accountable to the indigenous people they conquer.

The Man Who Would Be King is about power, greed and the manifest destiny of entitled Europeans. It lampoons the superiority of British colonialism. In a “Making of” documentary about the film, Huston says he found the “ideal” actors to capture his subversive intent. This movie was the only time Connery played with his lifelong friend Michael Caine, besides A Bridge Too Far, which had too many bridges and a platoon of stars between them. The pair met at a cast party for the first show Connery acted in, a touring company’s production of South Pacific in 1954. On July 9 of that year, Huston told Allied Artists’ Harold Mirish he wanted his next film to be the first and only on-screen pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable.

Huston originally had The Man Who Would Be King slated as his next production after he finished Moby Dick (1956). He planned to begin principal photography in India between November 1955 and January 1956 and was negotiating to film in the Todd-AO process. Huston had worked with Bogart on the very first film he directed, The Maltese Falcon in 1941, and the pair continued a string of successful and innovative films together. Though working fairly steadily, Bogart was battling esophageal cancer and ultimately succumbed to it on Jan. 14, 1957. Huston discussed the film with Gable while filming The Misfits, but the actor known as “The King of Hollywood” then also died in 1960. 

Richard Burton was set to play the role against Peter O’Toole, and Huston kept start dates ready from January 1966 to January 1967, waiting for the opportunity, but the year passed and it never came. The film almost reunited Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting’s Robert Redford and Paul Newman, who told Huston the film deserved English actors, and suggested Connery and Caine specifically.

Caine immediately jumped at the role just because his part had been written for Bogart. He’d chosen his stage name after seeing Bogart fidget with his ball-bearings as Commander Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. As for Connery, the Scottish actor captures the essence of Gable’s screen persona in the film. They both bring an amused cynicism toward their roles. Both actors furrow their brows and project a sensual gravitas.

You can imagine hearing Connery say, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” with a different accent but the same delivery as Gable’s in Gone with the Wind. Granted, it would probably be coming out of the mouth of Saturday Night Live’s Darrel Hammond as a bemused answer to Alex Trebek, but it rings true. Whether he liked it or not, Connery’s turn as Bond made him as recognizable in the public’s mind as Gable.

On screen, Caine and Connery interact easily and naturally, nailing the parts with their distinct charisma. Danny and Peachy laugh at their disasters, because there’s really nothing else to do, and they make it infectious. They really are the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of imperialist Great Britain. Caine’s Peachy Carnahan could have been a great-great-grandparent to his Jack Carter in Get Garter; Connery’s Daniel Dravot could imaginably give sage advice to his third-generation thief grandson Matthew Broderick in Family Business (1989), or even lead a son like Indiana Jones across unexplored ancient treasures.

Together, Connery and Caine are a powerhouse. One of the great cinema pairings. They bring authentic accents, real-life camaraderie, and regional humor to the roles. Caine also bought his wife, Shakira, who plays Roxanne, the Kafiristan wife of Connery’s Daniel Dravot in the film. Christopher Plummer played Rudyard Kipling, a correspondent for “The Northern Star” newspaper, and a Freemason, a central point in the film and its symbolism.

Huston wrote the new screenplay with his long-time secretary Gladys Hill. Shooting on the final version took place in Morocco, which traded rough terrain for rampant corruption as the producers had to bribe their way through much of the filming. The locations and local extras were important to Huston to evoke the British Raj period of the movie.

The director wanted Connery and Caine to brave the “mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers” Kipling described in his story. Huston exposed Bogart to the cruel elements of location filming in The Treasure of Sierra Madre and The African Queen, and had discussed parachuting the two Hollywood icons into the Himalayas during the initial production, according to The Hustons. The two British stars faced equal peril. For the climax of the completed version, Huston let Connery plummet hundreds of feet from a rope bridge suspended over a vast valley. 

In the film, two former British Army sergeants, now clumsy gunrunners and incompetent conmen, traverse the Khyber Pass to find the isolated area of Kafiristan, located in the Hindu Kush mountains northeast of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. This is where the descendants of Alexander the Great live. The Greek emperor had conquered Afghanistan and married a Kafir princess named Roxanne, according to Kipling’s story.

Peachy and Danny plan to become the first Europeans since the ancient Greeks to penetrate the region and “loot it six ways from Sunday.” They admit this to Kipling shortly after robbing him and returning his stolen item back to him.

“In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can always be a king,” Connery’s Danny explains to Plummer’s Kipling. “We shall go to those parts and say to any king we find: ‘Do you want to vanquish your foes?’ And we will show him how to drill men, for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that king and seize his throne and establish a dynasty.”

With this, Connery’s character captures the eternal dilemma of that region. No external power has ever permanently dominated Afghanistan. Britain lost control in 1919, which the country celebrates as the year of its independence. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and continues its costly occupation with no end in sight. Kafiristan, which is now called Nuristan, is home to 15 ethnic groups speaking five different languages. No one man can be king. No single government can rule. Even O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia had to admit that. Connery’s authority, however, has a much deeper voice, and the conviction of a faithful pilgrim.

Peachy and Danny believe they can find a kingdom not yet touched by civilization which they can take over easily with their weapons, knowledge and contemporary expertise. “When we’re done with you, you’ll be able to stand up and slaughter your enemies like civilized men,” they tell their trainees. Huston allows the audience to enjoy the two soldiers of misfortune, in spite of their self-ascribed superiority and blatantly racist attitudes. When their translator asks whether to woo local high priests with claims of their divinity, Peachy says to tell them they are “not gods, [but] Englishmen. The next best thing.”

Read more

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Danny is nonplussed by how easy the locals are exploited. Connery lets him indulge his moral superiority, tossing harsh judgements on native customs like offering daughters and sons up to guests for sex. When he takes an arrow in the chest and keeps on fighting, he readily assumes his mantle as the son of Alexander the Great. Connery sells that assumption realistically and believably. Peachy assumes the huge rubies in the temple are good to go. 

Caine’s Peachy Carnahan remains a Cockney through and through. Connery’s Dravot gives in to temptation almost athletically. When he finds himself worshiped as a deity, he is happy to believe it. The scene where he convinces himself is hysterical, and performed completely organically. Connery is completely surprised by himself, and Caine literally falls over laughing as he does an internal pratfall. It is as much an acting free-for-all as it is a ballet of physical comedy. The gag is the same as C3P0 telling the Ewoks he’s a deity in Return of the Jedi, which happened to be shot on the same Panaflex camera as The Man Who Would Be King.

In a highly competitive Oscar race–which included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon, and Jaws—The Man Who Would Be King was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Writing, Best Costume Design, and Best Editing. Connery was also the lead performance in the Oscar-nominated film The Wind and The Lion that same year.

The Man Who Would Be King is an adventure film, and Connery and Caine make it a wild ride with perilous curves and a harrowing but hollow finish. Like so many of Huston’s movies, their scheme doesn’t turn out the way it’s planned, but the plot finds strength in the weakness of powerful characters. By the end of the movie, all these two characters have is each other, and even that promises to be fleeting. The performances endure though. It’s acting royalty. It’s like they were destined to do it, preordained. 

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[gethealthy18-blog]

343: How to Balance Neurotransmitters Naturally With Dr. Ann-Marie Barter

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343: How to Balance Neurotransmitters Naturally With Dr. Ann-Marie Barter

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Everlywell, at-home lab tests that you can get without a doctor order! I’ve used many of their tests and can recommend a couple that have been especially helpful. They have an at-home allergy test for 40 of the most common allergens using the same CLIA-certified labs used by Allergists/Doctors. The labs are reviewed by an independent physician and this test measures IgE levels of common allergens including pet dander, mold, trees, grasses, and more. But you can do it from your own home with a finger stick. I also really like their food sensitivity tests that test for IgG reactions. This was a big key for me in my health recovery, as there were foods that didn’t show up as an allergy that were causing inflammation for me. I used an elimination diet, but this food sensitivity test also filled in the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Through healing my gut, I’ve been able to remove all sensitivities except for eggs. Finding out I was highly sensitive to eggs made a huge difference for me, as I ate them often as an inexpensive protein source. I feel so much better now that I don’t eat eggs and I would never have known that without this test! I also use their at-home Vitamin D test to keep an eye on those levels and see if I need to supplement. Check out all of their tests at wellnessmama.com/go/everlywell. Use code MAMA10 for 10% off orders.

This podcast is sponsored by BLUblox. That’s B-L-U-B-L-O-X, which is an advanced light-filtering eyewear company. You’ve probably seen pictures of me on social media wearing orange glasses of various types at night. And here’s why. In nature, we aren’t exposed to certain types of light after dark, specifically, blue light, because that type of light signals the body that it’s daytime. That in turn suppresses melatonin and can interfere with sleep. This is the reason that a really dramatic study found that camping for seven days straight with no artificial light at all could actually completely reset and heal circadian rhythm and help a lot of light-related problems, like seasonal affective disorder. This is also the reason that I wear orange glasses after dark to block these types of light and protect my sleep, which I am adamant about protecting. I also wear certain types of yellow glasses and anti-fatigue glasses during the day if I want a computer to reduce eye fatigue. BLUblox has orange glasses and yellow glasses. Their orange glasses for nighttime wear are designed to block 100% of the wavelengths between 400 nanometers and 550 nanometers, which are the ones that are studied to interfere with sleep and melatonin production, and circadian rhythm. My kids also wear these kinds of glasses at night. And I noticed a difference in their sleep as well, which is a huge win for a mom. This is especially important when we’re watching a family movie at night or looking at any kind of screen as the artificial light, there is a source of blue light and can interfere with sleep. You can learn more, they have a ton of educational content and check out all of their innovative protective glasses by going to blublox.com/wellnessmama and using the code wellnessmama to save 15%.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the “Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com. That’s Wellnesse with a “e” on the end, which is our new line of personal care products.

And this episode is all about neurotransmitters, especially what you need to know about dopamine and serotonin and how to optimize them naturally and from the inside out. I’m here with Dr. Ann-Marie Barter who has always had a mind for high-level problem solving. And she now uses functional blood chemistry analysis, nutrition, applied kinesiology, and other natural remedies in a functional medicine approach to help people with thyroid issues, blood sugar issues, gut health, hormone dysfunction and issues that stem from neurotransmitter imbalance. And so, in this episode, we go deep on a couple of those topics and some practical ways that you can start at home to optimize your neurotransmitter levels, to reduce stress, and to feel better in all aspects of life. So, without further ado, let’s join Dr. Barter. Dr. Barter, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Barter: Thank you so much for having me, I’m so excited to be here today.

Katie: I’m so excited to chat with you, and we get to talk about something that I am fascinated by but definitely don’t have a ton of knowledge about, or, at least, in depth knowledge, which is neurotransmitters. And I think, this is actually a really pertinent conversation right now, just with so much of what’s going on in the world, and, of course, neurotransmitters are always very important. But I think that we could have some special conversations around them right now. But to start broad and then, kind of, narrow down from there, first of all, kind of, define what neurotransmitters are and why we should care about them.

Dr. Barter: Well, so neurotransmitters are chemical messengers in our brain, and so they help us with mood, they help us with muscles and communication in our overall system, they even help us with our gut, and they also help us with sleep and memory. So they’re really important, and they’re really broad, and they affect the whole entire system. But the two that I think are most pertinent that I really want to talk about today are going to be the two that are called serotonin and dopamine, and those two are so pertinent in our overall mood, and our happiness, and how we see life. So that’s really where I want to go today, if that’s all right with you.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Does one lead into the other?

Dr. Barter: No, let’s start with dopamine, if that’s all right with you.

Katie: Let’s go for it. So what is dopamine?

Dr. Barter: So dopamine is our pleasure-seeking hedonistic neurotransmitter. It’s why we do things that, maybe, aren’t good. For starters, just as a really broad one, it’s why people do drugs, honestly, because you get a huge dopamine dump, but it’s also why we feel motivated, its why people use sugar, and so, this is our reward pathway. So, for example, you know, you’re feeling low one day or you feel worthless, and you’re like, “You know what, I just don’t feel good about myself. I am going to go into the cabinet and get some sugar,” and then suddenly you feel better. And so, you actually have a huge dopamine dump that pumps during that time period, and then, about two hours later, you feel worse than you did before you actually had the dopamine. So, ultimately, when the sugar is in your system, the dopamine can rise, you know, 150% above normal levels. And so, some things that we see, let me just read a few of the symptoms that we’ll see with lower dopamine, and you don’t have to have all of these but you can have some of these. Well, let me just tell you a few of these so that some people can potentially relate. You have feelings of hopelessness, you have self-destructive thoughts, you have an inability to handle stress, which may be really relevant right now, anger and aggression while under stress, you don’t feel rested even after long hours of sleep, you prefer to isolate yourself from others, you have unexplained lack of concern for family and friends, you’re easily distracted from your tasks, you have an inability to finish tasks, you need to consume caffeine to stay alert, you feel like your libido has decreased, you lose your temper for minor reasons, and you have feelings of worthlessness. And so, all of those are related to dopamine dysfunction.

And, what was really interesting was, I got into this in practice because patients would come in and they would say, you know, we would go over the diet that we needed to do, I do a 30-day elimination diet in practice and they’re all on board, and then, what would happen would be, they would come back in and they would be sheepish, and they’d say, “I really want to do it but I can’t.” And I would ask, “Is this a willpower issue?” And they were like, “I just can’t stay away from sugar or these carbohydrates.” And, really drilling down into that, they were trying to help themselves by eating the sugar and carbohydrates to boost it up. And so, that’s what we are seeing, was the dopamine would boost up for a little while and then it would go lower than it was before baseline. And so, you know, you end up in this vicious cycle trying to help yourself. So that made me start to really investigate how we could increase dopamine and what we could do. So that’s, kind of, the overview on, maybe, why dopamine is a little important.

Katie: Yeah, that definitely sounds like something you’d want to correct if those symptoms were ringing true with anybody listening. Obviously, sugar is not the way to correct it other than a temporary feel-better fix. So from a whole-body perspective, what are some of the ways that we can support the body’s natural dopamine response correctly?

Dr. Barter: Yeah, that’s a great, great question, and there’s not a simple answer to that so I’m just going to go ahead and run through all those. Number one, a lot of dopamine is made in the gut which seems counterintuitive because it is a brain chemical. So really looking at what’s going on in your gut, do you have any sort of infection, do you have a viral infection, do you have a parasitic infection? Do you have SIBO, do you have a yeast overgrowth, do you have leaky gut? Do you have dysbiosis of the gut or improper gut flora? You know, all of those things are really important to correct because, you know, a lot of dopamine is made in the gut. Second thing that is highly critical, and I’ll just tell you, most people do have gut issues. A lot of people don’t come through clean on the testing, I’m always surprised if that happens, but most people really do have gut issues even if they’re not showing gut signs and symptoms, like bloating, or changes in stool, or whatever it would be. It can be like ataxia. A lot of people will have more brain-type symptoms with gut issues, so it can go across the board. It’s really variable.

The second thing that I will see is, blood sugar dysregulation is huge. I see this in probably 90% of folks, and a lot of folks say, “Hey, you know, I don’t have diabetes so I don’t have blood sugar dysregulation.” And that’s not true, most people are hypoglycemic, hyperglycemic, a mix between hyper and hypoglycemic, so low and high blood sugar. And all of those things, ultimately, can deplete your neurotransmitters, especially dopamine. And so, that’s important because when we eat glucose, you know, the dopamine is going to rise and then it falls. So there was an interesting study that was done where they were injecting people with glucose, and they saw a dramatic rise on dopamine. So they know that that is correlated and that when the glucose is in your system, you have higher than normal levels of dopamine. But what we’ve also found, and why this can cause blood sugar dysregulation or also, and I’ll get to why this can cause, also, obesity is, they did a study. There was an experimental group, these poor rats, they were put on a food deprivation diet for 12 hours, so, no food. And then, at the end of that 12 hours, they were given another 12 hours, 10% access to a sugar solution or a sucrose solution, and then, also, rat chow for 21 days, okay? The rats increase their intake of the sugar solution consistently across the board, and then, they ate most of the sugar solution in the first hour they were given that. And then, when they looked at these rats’ dopamine levels, they were increased over 130%, and the control group, it was just given the rat chow, whatever that is, did not see a spike on dopamine on the same days. What they measured was, “Hey, do these rats also feel satisfied after they’ve gotten the sugar solution?” And the ultimate answer was, no, they did not feel satisfied, and so, they had what we call a delayed ACh response which makes us feel satisfied or acetylcholine.

And so, this drives us to, number one, binge eat, and number two, eat more sugar. And so, what we see is, you know, there’s an old Guns and Roses song that is actually about addiction and says, “I used to do a little, a little wouldn’t do, as the little got more and more.” And that’s actually what we saw with the rats, it started off with just a little bit and then they increased daily on how much they were eating. And so, if you’re eating more and more sugar to meet those needs, we’re also seeing a change in your blood sugar as well, and so, ultimately, we’re in a vicious cycle like, “Okay, well, we’re raising it and then we’re lowering it even more.”

And, what they have also found was, there was another study that looked at two controls in a population to figure out, maybe, why we have such an obesity epidemic. You know, I think they believe about 30% of the population is obese at this point, which is a tragedy. And so, they looked at, “Okay, is this about how much people are moving or is this about how much processed sugar is potentially in the foods that we’re eating?” And Nestlé did a study in 1998 to see how many new processed foods were hitting the shelves in the grocery store, and they saw 11,000 processed foods hitting the shelf every single year up until 1998, which means that probably now, it’s substantially more, and so, they’re finding that they’re using more processed sugar. And so, these are not just baked goods, I want to be clear about that. My patients say, “Did you know that salad dressing has sugar in it? Did you know that ketchup has sugar in it?” “Yes, I did. Canned foods can have sugar in it.” Anything processed can have sugar in it. And so, looking at these things, this definitely is causing a huge dysregulation in our dopamine systems. So really cooking at home because also, you know, restaurants are adding sugar, it makes that food more addictive. You want more, you had a pleasurable feeling when you ate that food, and you’re like, “Wow, I like that restaurant. Wow, I like that brand of X, Y, and Z.” And the manufacturers know, or the restaurants know you’re going to buy more, you’re going to eat more, because sugar is so highly addictive and there’s even been some chatter that it’s more addictive than drugs. People that have stopped drugs that use sugar now, they say it’s harder to get off of than the hardcore drugs that they were doing. So really looking at stabilizing those blood sugar levels is incredibly critical.

The next thing that we see with neurotransmitters is, you have to have the right nutrients in your system to make dopamine, okay? So people always ask me, “Okay, well, what can I take to get more dopamine in my system?” And it’s really not that simple because you can make yourself sicker by using some of these things. You can increase brain inflammation that will ultimately create something that we call quinolinic acid in the system, right? And, that can lead to scary, scary conditions like brain degeneration, dementia, ALS, you know, things that you just do not want to bridge the…things that you just, absolutely, do not want. So, I’m not going to give recommendations on how to increase dopamine, but I will say that simple things contribute to the making of dopamine, certain B-vitamins. Our methylation pathway is really important, believe it or not, vitamin C and copper are used in the making of dopamine as well, and also tyrosine. Looking at all these things, you have to make sure they’re in the correct balance. And we run a test called an organic acids test or you can also run a nutrition test just to see where these levels are. And, as a general rule, most people are very, very low in vitamin C. In fact, some of the experts have said that we’re going to see a recurrence of scurvy, ultimately, here pretty soon. And with, you know, the epidemic that’s going on here, you know, vitamin C in a lot of the studies of other countries protect people, especially liposomal or intravenous, you know, doing it with an IV. So, we are incredibly, incredibly low in vitamin C, you know, and in looking at those levels, also B-6 is incredibly low in a huge amount of the population. So, you know, running that testing to figure out where the nutrient imbalances are, and what can be pushed to actually make dopamine?

Another thing that they have shown is trauma is actually linked to having lower than normal dopamine. Again, also, limiting your processed foods, eating organic, eating clean foods, you know, because we know that chemicals and environmental exposure will also deplete these neurotransmitters, any sort of inflammation will also deplete these neurotransmitters, anything systemically that you have going on that could be, you know, creating a stress on your system. So that’s a lot of things, so it’s about fixing the body first, and then all these other things will fall into place.

Katie: That makes sense. And to go a little deeper and tease apart a couple of the things that you said. So I love that you brought up blood sugar, and hypoglycemia, or hyperglycemia, and I’d love to go into a little bit more detail on this and about testing. I think this is something I definitely had when I was younger, especially, as a teenager, and something I don’t have now. Even when I do long fasts, like, my blood sugar is extremely stable. And I’m curious, what approach you take to managing this with your patients. Just, like, myself, for my own data, I often will test my fasting blood glucose with just an at-home glucose meter a few times a month just because I feel like that’s a pretty good baseline and something I want to keep an eye on. And, mine’s usually about like 87 which is the range, kind of, where I want it. And I also test the HbA1c or the hemoglobin A1c every few months just to have that marker as well. But I’m curious, for people at home listening, how can they know if they might be hypoglycemic or hypoglycemic, and how can they pay attention to their blood sugar?

Dr. Barter: First off, those are super great comments. I do what you do. I send people home with a glucometer and I have them check at fasting, and then, I also have them check it about an hour and a half to two hours after they’ve eaten. So, first thing, fasting. I like to see fasting blood glucose around 83 to 87. So that’s when you first wake up in the morning, that is not having coffee, and just seeing where that number is. I will generally run an overview blood test just to get an idea. And on the overview blood test, you know, you’re going to check things like just regular glucose which is a snapshot in time of where your glucose is, and hemoglobin A1c which shows us a measure of, really, where you’ve been for the last three months. So it gives us a little bit longer-term data on where your blood sugar has been. And I have people check it, and then, I, ultimately, will do strategies to potentially lower, elevate, or stabilize that.

For some people, they really need to eat more frequently, for some people, we actually need more time in between the meals, and they just need to do three stable meals per day. Everybody is a little bit different, it depends on what we’re dealing with. So a lot of folks that come into my office actually have more eating disorders. So they don’t eat enough as a general rule, you know, they’re eating, probably, around 1000 calories a day, and so, I need to increase how much they’re eating. But I have them check their glucose and their glucometer multiple times a day, and as we start to do the interventions, you know, stabilizing the blood sugar, we see that level out. But, yes, I completely agree with the glucometer, you know, intervention. And, most people have glucose problems across the board even though they tell me that they don’t, even though they tell me they’re low, but you’ll see people get shaky if they haven’t eaten, hangry if they haven’t eaten, they feel like they need sugar after a meal to feel like they’re made whole or because they’re still continuing to crave foods, they don’t feel satisfied after a meal. You know, all of those things are actually contributed to having hyper, or hypoglycemia, or a mix of both.

So when somebody eats, we really want to see that glucose rise no more than 30 points above baseline. So let’s say, you know, your fasting glucose is 87, you eat breakfast and your glucose is, you know, 200, that’s too much of a spike. You either ate too many carbohydrates at that meal, you ate too much food, so depending on what’s going on, you might need a little more fat to stabilize that. So an example I like to give is, I went out one night, and I like to check my glucose as well. And that night I had protein and vegetables for dinner and ate out, and I don’t generally do that, and I had a glass and a half of alcohol. I had wine, red wine, Malbec, I think. I woke up the next day, checked my blood sugar 12 hours later. My blood sugar, I run at 85, was 198. A hundred and ninety-eight after the alcohol and the food that I ate, again, which was protein and vegetables. That was terrifying. That was about the last time I had alcohol because it was such an extreme spike, and guess what, that’s going to cause a lot of inflammation, aches, and pains, it’s also going to deplete your neurotransmitters. So really looking at the things that you’re doing that you think might be benign, same thing, you know, like with eating cookies, or, you know… I didn’t have any signs and symptoms the next day, I didn’t have a headache, I was getting ready to go for a run, nothing. So absolutely no symptoms of my blood sugar being up, you know, that much higher than its normal baseline which is quite scary, to be honest.

Katie: Yeah, no kidding, that is extremely drastic. And I like that you also mentioned with sugar, just how addictive it can be because I think we don’t call this out enough, and, especially, when we give kids so much sugar without even really thinking about the potentially addictive nature of sugar. I mean, we’re talking about in adults, like, what the cycle looks like and seeing these problems and then having to undo them. But obviously, with kids, we want to, hopefully, avoid the problem to begin with. And I’ve had multiple guests on this podcast that have said the same thing and including someone who actually had addictions to multiple drugs and said that breaking sugar was absolutely harder than heroin or cocaine. So that’s, like, really a staggering thing to think about, and this is a drug that we’re all…or not all of us, most of us, consuming very regularly. Do you have any tips for breaking that sugar addiction? Because I also think it’s really important to speak to, like you talked about at the beginning, this is not just a willpower issue. Like, if you have low dopamine and you have some of these symptoms going on, it’s not just that you don’t have enough willpower, you actually have something physiologically going on that needs to be addressed. So when someone is in that cycle, any tips for starting the process of breaking that?

Dr. Barter: Yeah, that’s a great question. First thing I’d like to say is that, I fell into this and I teach people about, you know, breaking this all the time, and I take people through this diet. But, my hours started increasing at work and I was a little more stressed out, and I found myself stopping at Whole Foods and picking up a cookie, and I felt guilty, and ashamed, and embarrassed about the whole thing, and hoped nobody I knew saw me because, you know, I felt like I was a complete hypocrite. And I just felt way more fatigued and exhausted. And come to find out, I had moved into a house at the time that had high levels of mold, environmental mold, which also depletes dopamine. And so, what I assumed was, “Hey, like, I am just way more stressed out, my hours have increased, you know, I’m working harder.” And I had all these reasons on why this had happened, but I was, actually, heavily being exposed to an environmental chemical that…we know that black mold depletes dopamine in a huge way. So the first tip I’d like to say in breaking that addiction is making sure you’re not being exposed on a daily basis in your home. There is a test that you can do, it’s called RealTime Lab test. You can get it yourself, it’s a dust test. It checks your home levels for mold. Is there going to be mold? You know, we want to make sure that the mold inside the house is not greater than the mold outside. Obviously, we’re exposed to just, you know, mold in our environment, but we just don’t want there to be black mold growing that is creating all kinds of problems.

I think the second thing to get started with is making sure to go on a, I think, an elimination diet, is really helpful in most people breaking the addiction. You know, really limiting processed foods, actually, limiting processed foods altogether for 30 days, and really working on seeing how you do with that. Some people have also said that light therapy increases your neurotransmitters, so using a lightbox in the morning can be very, very helpful at you just feeling good. I’ll never forget, I was actually with a friend one day and she said, “I’ve got to be honest with you, I thought that, you know, you always being in a good mood, and energized, and all that, like, I thought that you were faking that.” And I was like, “Oh, really?” And she goes, “I didn’t realize you really felt like that.” And I was like, “Oh, really? What changed your mind?” And she said, “I actually got a lightbox and I think that I feel like you, I have all this energy.” So, I mean, looking at that. And then, also, I think, in breaking the addiction, it’s really, really important to run the testing and figure out, “Okay, what’s low? How can you optimize your system to help yourself, to figure out, “Hey, do I have a gut infection, what else could be going on here?” And, I think one of the most important things to do, overall, is become an advocate for your health, you have to read labels. You know, food manufacturers are tricky and they’re not going to call out and say, you know, all the time, they’re going to get really creative names like “rice syrup,” or they’re going to say things like “sucrose.” Like, what is sucrose, you know? Ultimately, you know, all of these things, high fructose corn syrup, I think most people are pretty well educated that that’s sugar. But they’re going to be really creative on what they’re calling sugar. So I think, you know, limiting your exposure to all of these things is a really important start to breaking the addiction. You know, in, again, looking at some of these diet fads, you know, keto, paleo, I personally do a mix between the two of those. I’ve been a paleo advocate for a long time with, you know, a little bit of keto in there, as well. And so, I think, you know, some of these things, cooking at home, watching out how much you go to restaurants, all of those things are really important to kicking this addiction.

Katie: Yeah, I think those are all such great tips, and I’ll make sure we link. I know you have some resources about this, and I do as well, on some of these topics. I’ll make sure all of those are linked at wellnessmama.fm for any of you guys listening. And I know the other neurotransmitter you mentioned at the beginning that comes into play here is serotonin. And so, I’d love to understand, like, how did the two of those play together or separately, and then, what kind of approach do we need to address serotonin as well?

Dr. Barter: Yeah, great question. Serotonin is powerful. A lot of people have heard more about serotonin because, you know, if somebody feels, you know, serotonin plays like the traditional depression. Like, “Wow, I can’t get out of bed.” That looks a whole lot more like a serotonin. A lot of people have heard of SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, right? You know, that they’ll go to their doctor and get these “antidepressants.” And so, you know, there has been a higher understanding of serotonin, let me just run through a few of the symptoms. I will tell you on running testing, I have only ever seen one person that actually had full neurotransmitter function on both serotonin and dopamine, but they had severe brain inflammation that made them feel like they didn’t have it, so almost every person I’ve seen has low neurotransmitter function across the board. But here are some of the signs and symptoms, losing pleasure in hobbies and interests, overwhelmed with ideas to manage, feelings of inner rage or anger, feelings of paranoia, feeling sad or down for no reason, you feel like you’re not enjoying life, you feel like you lack artistic expression, you feel depressed in overcast weather, you’re losing your enthusiasm for your favorite activities, you’re losing your enjoyment for your favorite foods, you’re losing enjoyment for friendships and relationships, you have difficulty falling into a deep restful sleep, you have feelings of dependency on others, you feel more susceptible to pain, feelings of unprovoked anger and losing interest in life. And, all of these symptoms were developed, actually, by Datis Kharrazian, and so, I want to make sure I give him credit where credit is due, he did a great job developing these.

So serotonin is really important for us to feel happy, and a lot of times what will happen is people come in and they’ll say, “I have no reason to feel sad but I just do not like my life. I’ve got everything but I’m like ‘Meh,’ when it comes to everything, ‘I just don’t care, I don’t want to do this.’ And I don’t have a reason for feeling this way. And I feel guilty that I feel like this.” That is serotonin deficiency. And serotonin is much more deficient in women than it is in men, especially with our Western diet, that we’re looking at really high fat, high sugar, you know, processed carbohydrates, it affects women so much more than it affects men. Also, the lowering of serotonin is much more affected in the winter months and in dark periods of time. And so, what you see people try to do is, again, sugar plays but also binge eating plays a lot more in serotonin as well as with dopamine. So you’ll see people will, kind of, eat mindlessly to increase it, and as we get into full-blown eating disorders, what we see is, most people don’t feel normal unless they are eating excessive amounts of food. That’s the only time these people with eating disorders or binge eating disorders actually feel normal, is when they’re consuming food. And right after that, it drops off lower than it does on baseline for everybody else. So it’s like you’re feeding, feeding, feeding, you never feel satisfied, and then it drops off much lower. And the only time you can feel normal again is when you’re consuming food. So this creates a culture of, number one, binge eating, excessive eating, and you don’t have that, again, feeling of satisfaction. And both serotonin and dopamine play in, not only sugar consumption, but also binge eating as well or eating, or over-consuming, or eating mindlessly, both of these things are high when you’re eating, and then they drop down so much lower when you’re not eating.

Katie: Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. And I know a lot of people with neurotransmitter issues, especially when that leads into things like depression, often turn to medication. And you’ve mentioned medication a couple of times, you’ve also talked about a lot of strategies for boosting it naturally. Do you think there is a time and a place for medication or, like, over time, can we support the body and remove that need?

Dr. Barter: Yeah, so, gosh, that is such a good question too. Yes, there have been cases where people are very suicidal, they’re on the edge, and it takes some time to boost some of these things back up. So if you’re on the edge or you’re feeling suicidal, I mean, certainly, there are a time and a place to really… You know, if you’re a danger to yourself, absolutely, get on medication for a short period of time, that’s what it’s there for, that’s what it was developed for. I’m personally not a fan of long-term antidepressant strategies. I think that you should be able to make these neurotransmitters yourself and help yourself instead of being on a medication, because, ultimately, with a medication, these are not boosting your serotonin levels. You know, they’re keeping the serotonin circulating in your brain but you’re not elevating it, that’s why when you come off of these medications, you feel like you’re getting brain zapped, you feel much more depressed than you were before you were actually on the medication, and you drop down. So I think it’s dropped down to a lower than normal levels of serotonin. So it’s important to build the serotonin back up and figure out why it’s low. Like, what were you exposed to, what happened, was this a trauma situation that happened? Why this was low? Were you going through something at the time, do you have a gut infection? And whatever it is, the things are the same, the things that depleted are the same as dopamine. But address those things because that’s going to be a really important long-term strategy to get this boosted back up. And so, yes, absolutely, short term, I can certainly see the use, but what I see when patients come in after being on an SSRI or, you know, antidepressant is, they’re like, “You know, I don’t feel any lows but I don’t feel any highs either, I’m just, kind of, flat. And, oh, by the way, I’m gaining weight and I don’t understand why.” And so, a lot of people come to me and they say, you know, “How do I not feel bad coming off of this thing, how can I come off of this because I don’t believe it’s serving me anymore. And, yes, I felt great benefit for the first couple of months but after that, I felt like it went flat.” Or they have to increase their dosage, and then, they just don’t feel any better and gaining weight. So, yes, I believe, short term, if you’re a danger to yourself, that’s absolutely where the medication came into play, but, ultimately, I see people really, really thrive after coming off antidepressants and really boosting their own neurotransmitter levels up, you know, in doing those strategies.

I just feel like when it comes to our lifestyle, there are really no shortcuts. You can do a medication, short term, but, ultimately, you, kind of, you just feel, kind of, flat after a while. So there’s really no shortcuts to health, you have to do the work. You have to go through and be, like, “Is it a gut infection, am I being environmentally exposed, what does my blood sugar look like, what does my diet look like? I need to read labels to see what I’m eating, I need to be outside, I need to have great relationships, I need to figure out what’s causing this stress, or where are my nutrient imbalances?” And all of these things create stress on the overall system. When we think of stress, we think of, “Oh, wow, you know, my marriage isn’t going so well,” or “I got in a fight with this person.” We really have to look at, “Okay, what is causing overall stress in our system? And nutrient imbalances can absolutely cause overall stress in our system, so can, you know, environmental toxins and so can gut issues. So really looking at this with a fine-tooth comb, and running the testing, and try not to do this yourself. People come in, they’ll say, “Oh, well, you know, I found some St. John’s wort for my serotonin levels being low.” Okay. Well, I mean, that’s great, and St. John’s wort can be helpful, but you’re really only looking at a small piece. Like, “Why isn’t your serotonin functioning, is it because you don’t have enough St. John’s wort, is it because some of your B vitamins are lacking? Like, where is there a break in the pathway, is it because you’re exposed to heavy metals?” That causes all kinds of breaks in our pathways that we’re not able to create the things that we actually need to create with neurotransmitters. You know, do you have dysbiosis? So just look at the entire picture to figure out how to boost it up.

Katie: Yeah, makes total sense. And I love that you mentioned, also, light and dealing with trauma because those were actually big keys for me personally. A habit that I started years ago with the advice of my doctor was, just going outside in the morning as soon as possible after waking up and just spending time outside even if it’s not sunny, it doesn’t have to be in the sun but just being in natural light very soon after waking up. And that helped so much my sleep, and my mood, and is now, like, a regular part of my life because of that. And I think a lot of people discount things like just how much light affects us and how much gut healing was a huge thing for me. And then, for me, personally, the last two years were, kind of, a journey of dealing with trauma because I used to have this idea that, like, I was doing all the physical stuff right, and I could just power through. And it wasn’t until I addressed all of that, the mental and emotional side as well, that all of those pieces eventually fully fell into place. And so, I think you’re right, I think this is a very holistic broad approach that’s different for every single person, and I totally understand why it’s tempting to want to just be able to find that single solution in a pill or in, you know, some kind of medication.

But if I’ve learned anything in these last 13 years, it’s just how personalized and individualized each of us is. And it seems like at the end of the day, finding our own answers requires that, working with someone who knows what they’re doing, and getting specific testing, and then, also implementing and trying because each of our own answers is going to be, potentially, very different. I’m sure you probably see that as well in your practice.

Dr. Barter: Yes. And, you know, I think a lot of people will come in, you know, with tons of supplements, and I think why I really warn against this is because they tend to be really sick. They’re like, “I went to the vitamin store and I’m taking this, for this, and this, for this, and that, for this over here. And it’s unwinding that, that it becomes so challenging because, you know, supplements can be very powerful, they’re very powerful medicine, and have to be used in the correct way. And so, some of the sickest patients I’ve seen are actually doing this, for this, and that, for that, with no end in sight. And, what I think is really important to note about supplements or doing these things, these nutraceuticals is, for most people, there should be a beginning and an end with them, right? So let’s say we’re boosting up neurotransmitter levels, okay? So in certain cases, I’ll start with certain nutraceuticals to boost these things up, but if they have a rampant gut infection, I’ll avoid certain things with doing dopamine because it can create such a severe toxic byproduct, and that creates a danger-situation for your brain. So, yes, I very much believe that there should be a beginning and an end you should have. “Okay, we looked at your testing and we see this going on in your gut, let’s address the gut, and then, we’re going to move on to something else because your gut should be healed up, you know, after we do these things, these X, Y, Z things, we can recheck to make sure that’s the case. And then, we move into these other things, Okay, wow, you know, this B-Vitamin is off and, you know, this antioxidant is off. Okay, what else could…” you know? So we have to figure out why boost these up, and then, ultimately, people just start to build and they just feel so much better.

But when we’re looking at trauma, I think that was really an important point that you brought up. When we’re looking at trauma, when you’re really stressed out, you know, not only the foods that you eat blow your blood sugar, but, ultimately, what’s going on in your life blows your blood sugar. If you’re constantly upset, you know, in a trauma-based situation, you’re never going to get someone’s blood sugar stable. If they hate their job and hate everything about their life, you know, ultimately, you have to look at that piece because stress really does blow the blood sugar as well. I’ve had people eat a perfect diet, do all of these things right, but until they heal the trauma, until they are healing what’s going on in their life, their blood sugar isn’t going to be stable. And so, that’s going to create such an inflammatory response in their overall body. These things are just all so critical to address, and I think, looking at these things, there’s just no shortcuts, and I just think it’s so important to heal the body. And I laugh. You know, people are like, “Yeah, I’ve tried to do this myself but I just couldn’t get all the way through it.” And they’re like, you know, “What do you think of that?” And unless you can read and interpret the testing, he who has himself for a doctor has a fool for a doctor, because you see what you want to see instead of being objective to the situation, and then, when the work becomes hard, a lot of people don’t want to go down that path, so we avoid. You know, you said, “Okay, I can do all the health stuff, I can take all the supplements,” but the part that’s hardest for us is probably the part that we need to address the most like the trauma piece, when you spoke about that. That’s a piece that’s particularly really important if you’re avoiding that. Or if that’s not the easiest piece for you to address, and where we have a blind eye is the most important piece.

Katie: Yeah. I think that’s such a great point. And this has been such a great primer into the world of neurotransmitters, and I hope that it’s also given people hope. That this is something that, while it may take time, and, like, any true healing in the body, I think, does take time, I feel like the body does want to move back into a state of health and of balance. And so, it’s finding the ways to support each of our own bodies in doing that.

This episode is sponsored by Everlywell, at-home lab tests that you can get without a doctor order! I’ve used many of their tests and can recommend a couple that have been especially helpful. They have an at-home allergy test for 40 of the most common allergens using the same CLIA-certified labs used by Allergists/Doctors. The labs are reviewed by an independent physician and this test measures IgE levels of common allergens including pet dander, mold, trees, grasses, and more. But you can do it from your own home with a finger stick. I also really like their food sensitivity tests that test for IgG reactions. This was a big key for me in my health recovery, as there were foods that didn’t show up as an allergy that were causing inflammation for me. I used an elimination diet, but this food sensitivity test also filled in the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Through healing my gut, I’ve been able to remove all sensitivities except for eggs. Finding out I was highly sensitive to eggs made a huge difference for me, as I ate them often as an inexpensive protein source. I feel so much better now that I don’t eat eggs and I would never have known that without this test! I also use their at-home Vitamin D test to keep an eye on those levels and see if I need to supplement. Check out all of their tests at wellnessmama.com/go/everlywell. Use code MAMA10 for 10% off orders.

This podcast is sponsored by BLUblox. That’s B-L-U-B-L-O-X, which is an advanced light-filtering eyewear company. You’ve probably seen pictures of me on social media wearing orange glasses of various types at night. And here’s why. In nature, we aren’t exposed to certain types of light after dark, specifically, blue light, because that type of light signals the body that it’s daytime. That in turn suppresses melatonin and can interfere with sleep. This is the reason that a really dramatic study found that camping for seven days straight with no artificial light at all could actually completely reset and heal circadian rhythm and help a lot of light-related problems, like seasonal affective disorder. This is also the reason that I wear orange glasses after dark to block these types of light and protect my sleep, which I am adamant about protecting. I also wear certain types of yellow glasses and anti-fatigue glasses during the day if I want a computer to reduce eye fatigue. BLUblox has orange glasses and yellow glasses. Their orange glasses for nighttime wear are designed to block 100% of the wavelengths between 400 nanometers and 550 nanometers, which are the ones that are studied to interfere with sleep and melatonin production, and circadian rhythm. My kids also wear these kinds of glasses at night. And I noticed a difference in their sleep as well, which is a huge win for a mom. This is especially important when we’re watching a family movie at night or looking at any kind of screen as the artificial light, there is a source of blue light and can interfere with sleep. You can learn more, they have a ton of educational content and check out all of their innovative protective glasses by going to blublox.com/wellnessmama and using the code wellnessmama to save 15%.

As we get close to the end of our interview, are there any resources, and I can make sure they’re linked in the show notes, for people who feel like they’ve heard things that are matching up with their symptoms or that are really resonating so they can keep learning or find out more?

Dr. Barter: On neurotransmitters, specifically, is that what you’re asking?

Katie: Yeah. Or even the blood sugar stuff. Just, kind of, starting points of all of this.

Dr. Barter: We have tons of resources on our website with all of that, it’s on altfammed.com. We have tons of links and resources with that as well as the neurotransmitters, and we also cover a lot of these on our podcast, which is fearlesshealthpodcast.com, just really going through all of the blood sugar and the neurotransmitter stuff. Somebody that has a great book, I think, that really nailed neurotransmitters, I think one of my favorite books in primer of that was Datis Kharrazian, “Why My Brain Isn’t Working.” He did a great overview of a lot of the neurotransmitters as well.

Katie: Awesome. I will make sure those are linked in the show notes so people can find them and keep learning. Another question I love to ask at the end of interviews is, if there’s a book or a number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life, and, if so, what they are and why?

Dr. Barter: Okay. So that’s a great question. One of my favorite books that completely affected my life, you know, as we talk about the trauma piece. I lost my mother to ovarian cancer, and she was on hormone replacement therapy. This was before I got into this. And, you know, I think that that was a big driver for her ovarian cancer. Her hormone levels on the patch hadn’t been rechecked in, I think, 12 years and she continued to use the patch. So she died of ovarian cancer, stage 4 was when it was actually finally caught. And I read the book “Dying to Be Me.” And, that was a very, very powerful book about being who we are and this woman that recovered from stage 4 cancer on her deathbed. And, boy, that book was incredibly powerful and changed my life. You know, it had me sobbing on my floor and just gave me great peace after reading that. So if somebody has lost somebody, that was a very, very special book. Another one that I really loved, a book that changed my life quite a bit was… Oh, I do not deal with Lyme quite a bit. I don’t deal with Lyme in my practice, it’s not really my bag. But Neil Nathan’s book, “Toxic,” taking you through all of the cofactors of Lyme. I thought that that was a book that really opened my eyes and changed my opinion of Lyme, and all its cofactors, and the testing that’s generally done on that. So that was huge, and the book I’m reading now that I also think is very helpful is, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.” And, you know, these books, you know, I’ve really been working into meditation and I’ve started getting really great at meditation and utilizing that, and I think that that has been a powerful, power, power powerful modality in helping treat, you know, anxiety, and overall health, and just becoming recentered. So, that’s been something I’ve been working on in my own life, having that as a daily everyday practice, and I’ve just thought that that has been so powerful.

Katie: I love it. I’ve been taking notes. I’ll put all of those in the show notes as well at wellnessmama.fm. I know many of you listen while exercising or while driving. So if you are doing that, just check out the show notes to find links to everything we’ve talked about. Dr. Barter, I’m so grateful that you were here and shared all this today. I think this is a big topic, especially right now with so much stress going on in the world. And you’ve given so many helpful resources and practical tips today, and I’m just really grateful for you.

Dr. Barter: Thank you so much for doing this and getting your message out. I mean, you’re such a powerful source with all this, and so, thank you for just speaking the truth and continuing to do this. Very, very grateful there’s people like you doing this.

Katie: Aw, thank you. And thanks, as always, to all of you for joining us today, for sharing one of your most valuable resources, your time. We’re both so grateful that you did and that you joined us, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/ann-marie-barter/

[zi-tales]

Interview: Phecda

1) Father

My mother sang praises of him. I had nothing to go off other than this. At the very least, I should have heard of him in my time living in Nashaba. Someone looking for my mother, asking what happened. Yet, I have heard nothing. Years of silence. I am under the impression perhaps he is too afraid to know the truth. A spineless fool like that never deserved my mother, and will not recieve any respect of mine. He could be dead for all I care.

2) Mother

Her name was Najma. In the village, she was an incredibly skilled huntress, and the one designated to travel to places like Nashaba or Alshuba and establish trading relationships. This made her worldview much broader, and thus much more dangerous. The village was always hellbent on maintaining tradition, and keeping things as they were without outside influence. And yet, my mother respectfully continued to push this conviction, always bringing medicine, or magics, or what have you even at risk of trouble. Beyond this, she was a trainer for the village militia, apparently known as a skilled duelist for years. So, yes, my mother was an intrepid woman, and an incredible fighter. I only hope to be as accomplished.

3) Childhood

My childhood was full of isolation and self-restraint to not interact much. My mother's story for me was being an adoptee from the dunes, and to hide the fact that my ears were the only real tell for my abnormal status. Since the risk of someone noticing such a distinct trait was very high, I had to live mostly alone. This did not bother me much, as I accepted it as a norm eventually. My mother insisted we would move away at some point, so I shouldn't bond with anyone strongly. Until I was... I am unsure. 15? 14, perhaps? I believed it would happen easily. At around that time, I was made aware of our village's distinct xenophobic tendencies, after the subject never appearing until then. That was when I realized the implication of my existence, and when I began to question things. This prompted my mother to accelerate what training she could of vocational things like hunting and fighting, although she didn't manage to do it enough before I slipped up. Perhaps I am rambling a bit. Things happened so long ago, and it is a... A haze.

4) Hometown

My mother's actions and presumed death seemed to have caused a large rift between people within the village. She was influential due to her role as the sole link to the outside world, and without her, the connections fostered were severed. While I was expecting a decline from this, I did not expect self-destruction. No one seems to want to talk about what happened to my mother, either, so I cannot even say for certain that she perished the night I fled. I simply assume so, so I do not spend the trances distracted. It was not somewhere I would call home, regardless. Most people kept their distance from one another, and it was a place of quiet reverence and obeying the law. I cannot say I miss it.

5) Time as an Assassin

The Asterius League was truly a band of interesting folk. Individuals like Arista and Eltanin used to be such... Role models, I suppose? To see them fall so far... It continues to disturb me. We trained with a distinct intimacy that bonded us together as contract killers with meaning, with purpose. Constant reminders that we were not murderers, but forces by which to shape the nation, guided by the many sources of influence. I hardly see killing as a sport, but it comes close. It is an art form, in a way. Every combat is a blank canvas waiting to be used, to observe every detail of the opponent. To kill perfectly, with grace and professionalism. These tenants separated us from the shady, unwashed masses within the Ahlbaali. Anyone can kill for money. We could kill with unparalleled expertise. There were elders, instructors, and acolytes as the organizational structure. My mentor and the man who took me in from the dunes was Errai, an expert marksman and venerable warrior. He taught me everything my mother didn't, like the hidden elegance of Common, how to infiltrate, and anything else that assisted being a true killer. Although, he despised the title of killer. It was far too inelegant for what we were doing. Am I rambling again? Please, let me know. I do not often talk of these subjects, and it can get very messy for me.

6) Transitioning to normal life

Frankly, I was hardly an assassin. I hadn’t ascended ranks past acolyte, which usually gave you the authority to actually take assignments independently. I had taken support roles in contracts with veterans like Errai, but I was not truly an assassin. Simply trained in the disciplines of one. Regardless, losing the Derelict as my home and being alone did force me to carve out a name for myself in Nashaba almost immediately, although contacts of Errai’s recognized me and helped as best they could to establish me as a mercenary or courier. From then, it was a matter of self-sufficiency and living day to day in the organized chaos of the Ahlbaali capital. I was used to the culture already, only had to adjust to the lack of companions and the discrimination behind being a half-elf. People don’t trust knife-ears as much, I suppose. At least I’ve rectified that these days.

7) Sircius

Ebmeros is innately a good man, despite some shrewd behavior and hot-headed mannerisms.  Truly, I have never met a man with more insistence on hiding his own nature than Ebmeros. He is clearly a father at heart, and yet, refuses to let this out due to what I can only assume to be fear of attachment. His fixation on what he can lose seems to be almost overwhelming, although I suppose coming from myself, I cannot begin to criticize this. I have lost what I can, and simply seek retribution. He still stands to suffer, but I intend to stand by him to prevent that as long as I can. Other than this, the ferocity by which he commands his offensive magic is incredible, if only ever disappointing when attempts to put individuals to sleep consistently fails.

8) Roc

A warrior from another time that I incidentally discovered in an Ahlbaali ruin. I can say I have thought of many things to find within the dunes, but a companion is not one of them. The apparent pain of her history forces me to be cautious when I feel a need to inquire about it, as I am one who prefers privacy of those matters myself. Nonetheless, as it does not interfere with her ability as a fighter, I do not plan to push the subject. That being said, I am highly curious what possible circumstances could lead to such a state of being, and wonder myself how I will eventually cope with being in my own accursed state upon expiry. I should consider asking Roc about that, ah?

9) Eleniel

Eleniel... I hope she realizes what she is capable of. Her capacity for goodness is matches only by her desire to martyr herself in the name of personal redemption, to the point where it can be easily construed as suicidal tendency. I worry for her. Eleniel is proof to me that there are indeed selfless individuals in this world, and how dangerous such a devotion to those ideals is. While I cannot say I envy any such obligation, nor can I begin to comprehend the mental fortitude necessary to constantly seek charitable action, I respect her unerring faith in her dogma. It is a rarity in these times, truly.

10) Herself

What do I think of myself? What an odd question. I do not reflect on myself often. To do so feels vain, and my time would likely be spent better elsewhere. I suppose I am... Learning to be normal. So long have I been accustomed to being a wolf of sorts. Everything is a potential meal. I have to negotiate, push myself, ignore pleasantries. Efficiency, displays of skill, et cetera. I live every moment to advance as a person, or something of that nature. And now, I do not know. I continue to try and socialize, which is incredibly alien to me. I have much to learn yet still, clearly. The killing arts should not be all that matters in this life.

11) The Future

I am unsure. I seek to hone my skill with a bow to an impeccable fault, at the least. Perhaps even with a blade, if I can balance my practice that well. Perhaps I am to find a worthy successor to the Umbra? Re-establish the Asterius League once I’ve killed the remnants? Or maybe, I go back to Nashaba, and return to my humble life in the sands? Options wax and wane in appeal always. Nothing ever goes to plan anyway. For all I know, I may learn to romance someone, and I settle down and start a family like Belzer and Veii. I merely hope I am not alone in all of it.

12) The Vermilion King

Normally, I would not put him under concerns of mine. His dogma and apparent ambitions seem to fall more in line with something the churches should combat, not someone like me. But, he holds Eltanin in his employ, which speaks to his shrewdness. On that virtue, I seek the Serpent’s head, and so I may as well help topple this Vermilion King’s schemes. As for him as an opponent... I generally don’t fear dying. He is no exception. Whatever bleeds can die, and if he is a being of blood, then the statement remains relevant all the same.

13) The Umbra

The Umbra is, in short, mine. Only mine. I would not hand it off willingly to anyone unless I believe they will wield it responsibly. The latent power in this bow cannot be underestimated in the slightest. It burrows deep into your soul. Like cruel tendrils that drill into your heart, feeding off of you, but pulsing energy back. We are one. A single entity whose bond continues to grow stronger. It is strange, surely, and I am well aware it will devour me in the end, but... It is not evil, necessarily. It feels akin to an animal. Its instinct is to keep its wielder alive, and only devour them when they no longer matter. If this is my fate, so be it. As long as I make it worthwhile, I have no issues with a cursed death.

14) Malerus I only hope we do not have to tamper with such dangerous materials ever again. Resurrection is one thing, sacrifice is another. Rellus should not have had to make that decision.

[thesmallcast]

Catch and Ball

To play catch up since the unfolding of friend and boy drama. Work has been a lot. It’s been full-on with not being able to keep up with the workload, it’s different being in a commercial role because the responsibility sits with you and I have been taking things quite hard lately and upon myself. I’ve been trying to shift the mindset though I can easily get caught up in it; “ What could I have done better”

My schedule has been back on track with training which has been the highlight of the past couple of months. I feel my strength growing and I’m proud of where I’m at and how I’m getting there! The best investment was getting a trainer to help get me there.  

My health has been up and down; I lost my period, I started to become more in tune with my gut instinct when I previously didn’t think I had one at all (I had a gut instinct about gym girl and look how she turned out). I had a gut instinct something was up with my health and I was right. I'm so connected to my body and how I feel these days. I went to the doctors during what would have been my ovulation cycle, because I was spotting which is very unusual for me. Since I removed all contraception I have been super consistent. I get my period every month on time, there are two medium flow days and two light days and then over rover. When I went to the doctor, he suggested a Pelvic scan, I had already done a pregnancy test so we ruled that out pretty fast. I didn’t go immediately to get the scan but when my period was a week late, I got it done. I did another pregnancy test, also negative. I also had a blood test, to confirm I'm not pregnant. Just confirming all ways under the sun that I don’t have a baby. But they did find a 5mm cyst in my uterus wall…. The plot is thickening ( but the blood isn’t). I have had digestive issues, bad bloating and I fainted at work ( due to not eating enough based on the fact I’m full from bloating ) I have been feeling a bit down about this though there are worse things in the world. I lost my period for a couple of months, from June to August but I now have it back though with no real reason or cause to why it disappeared in the first place, everything in my tests came back normal. Doctors aren’t much help either there’s no remedy, solution, answer. Zilch!

I started seeing a kinesiologist ( after a recommendation from my friend), I was a bit of a sceptic but it’s been the most enlightening journey. She was able to pinpoint I have vitamin D deficiency ( which I already knew from my blood test), also low in B. For my gut sake, I need to reduce my dairy and fructose intake. This is all by holding vials to my chest and seeing which makes my arm weak to hold up ( Don’t knock it till you have tried it). She also works on the emotional side and releasing emotional stress and trauma that can stay in our bodies which at the moment has all been led back to family; my parent's divorce, anguish with my brothers, abandonment. The way she explained it is ‘Imagine the door flies open right now and 100 huge hairy spiders start crawling in”. Your body physically responds to that ( well mine especially being arachnophobic) and that’s what kinesiologist is about it’s finding those inner subconscious thoughts that are affecting you or bringing up emotional distress! One thing that came up for me, was the feeling of  'yearning' and it came up for 'bar boy'. I knew I had been suppressing feelings cause I was only wanting casual. She digs deeper to find whIm yearning. She can bring up the emotion from the past, to when I was 8 and my parents divorced and my dad had left, not so much physically abandoned me but its how I had felt at the time because I didn’t see him as much as I wanted. I know there is some deep-rooted family stuff I just didn’t realise I was holding onto it or even had thought about it. Most of my emotional distress is held in my large intestine which is why also experiencing bloating and irregular bowel movements. I'm back there tomorrow so going to try blog the session in more detail. 

I have been isolating myself a bit at home, having lots of Sam time which has been lonely and I have been pondering whether I’m spending my weekends the right way! I think I have avoided some social situations and it’s made me feel like a mixed bag of emotions. The weekends don’t have to be an expected way, they just need to be weekends if I choose to spend them in bed than that’s what I’ll do. I have to accept that. I’m not that bad I have one social day generally on a Saturday then have Sunday for me. My friend EM calls them sacred Sunday’s I would wholeheartedly agree! My only problem lately is I’ve been stuck in my thoughts too much. Its a work in progress. 

I made some pretty big decisions which I am stoked about; I finally am following my New Year goal of putting my plans in place of moving to Europe, huge step! I have applied for my British passport and am waiting for it to come back. I will leave in April/ May of 2020, I’m not stuck on any date but that will give me the chance to save as much as possible. I booked tickets to go home for Christmas for 5 weeks - it’s going to be my longest stint back home in a while and I’m so looking forward to it ( though worried about how I'll feel emotionally with family and time)! The lead up to these decisions was overwhelming that’s for sure, I was overthinking and drilling too much into what each aspect looked like: work, travel, money, training, settling, career, my family, my friends. It was my work Mum who said to me “Samantra, you have been thinking about travel for a long while and nothing has to all be planned, though you have an opportunity to go do it and you will regret it if you don’t”.She is spot on, and yes she calls me Samantra and I love it! I have worked for GF for 9 years, I’ve been in Sydney for 4 which has been such a monumental time in my life of personal growth. I know that moving to Europe is just going to broaden my perspective, the experience in itself will teach me so much. A new culture, a new way of life, new people, new opportunities. I’m scared, to leave the comfort and security of a company I’ve been with for so long but I also know it’s the right thing to do! I will leave behind some friendships in Sydney too which will be life long connections. My mum is here in October, with the new suitcase she bought me. So I can pack up as much as I can to take back to NZ. It’s not to say NZ will be my immediate home after Europe but that’s where my family is and that’s where my heart is and always will be. I haven’t shared my plans with work yet and I don’t plan too til I’ve locked flights and the new year rolls over, I think that’s when it will become real.

We are just past mid-year so have just reflected on the goals I set myself. I had two fitness goals. One was to do city to surf marathon- I didn’t do this but I did walk from city to surf with AJ who came and stayed for the weekend! It was so great having her company. The other was to squat my body weight which I’m close too - I can do 5 reps of 50kg. I weigh around 70kg. My savings goals have been up and down I haven’t been as careful during the year as I would have liked but being strict on my budget now I have a plan to go! My friend LH, who has always been a massive inspiration and our friendship goes back a decade and we are still close as ever. She has been living in Berlin doing a summer course and living the “hustle” life so I’ve been taking some notes and finding the way of living the Sydney “hustle” life. Her example was recycling plastic bottles for money at the supermarket. I sent her mine, which was keeping my receipt from 2018 to exchange my faulty headphones. The Europe moving goal is still on track but pushed out though I’m not sure if I will learn Dutch or try learning basics of Spanish. I want to learn more and educate myself - I have been looking at doing a supply chain course; a CPIM, a world accredited course. It’s $1800 which I see as an investment I’ve enjoyed my supply chain roles the most. I think my CV would look good to any recruiter but even better with more education up my sleeve. I will give another month to ponder and see if that’s where I want my path to go. 

I’m finally up to date on my blog! At one point I had 8 posts half-written in pieces to complete and upload - they weren’t all updates on current life but events and a few other topics of me which I'm excited about cause I had kept a goal to do more blog post this year and had brainstormed things I wanted to write about. I think as always its been a struggle but I feel I’m keeping up to date. I need to set aside the need for it to be perfect and continue writing as I feel! I truly feel lighter after writing everything out - it gives me a sense of satisfaction, but helps me to reflect on my thoughts with them on paper. Can you believe that with this post up I have written 14 posts this year?! With another post shortly to follow …. That is pretty cool! This is me playing catch up and chucking the ball to the next topic…